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has he not given to you manliness? When you have such hands, do you look for one who shall wipe your you st nose? But we neither study these things nor care for them. |
Give me a man who cares how he shall do anything, not for the obtaining of a thing but who cares about his own energy. What man, when he is walking about, cares for his own energy? who, when he is deliberating, cares about his own deliberation, and not about obtaining that about which he deliberates? |
And if he succeeds, he is elated and says, "How well we have deliberated; did I not tell you, brother, that it is impossible, when we have thought about anything, that it should not turn out thus?" But if the thing should turn out otherwise, the wretched man is humbled; he knows not even what to say about what has taken place. Who among us for the sake of this matter has consulted a seer? |
Who among us as to his actions has not slept in indifference? Who? Give to me one that I may see the man whom I have long been looking for, who is truly noble and ingenuous, whether young or old; name him. |
Why then are we still surprised, if we are well practiced in thinking about matters, but in our acts are low, without decency, worthless, cowardly, impatient of labour, altogether bad? For we do not care about things, nor do we study them. But if we had feared not death or banishment, but fear itself, we should have studied not to fall into those things which appear to us evils. |
Now in the school we are irritable and wordy; and if any little question arises about any of these things, we are able to examine them fully. But drag us to practice, and you will find us miserably shipwrecked. Let some disturbing appearance come on us, and you will know what we have been studying and in what we have been exercising ourselves. |
Consequently, through want of discipline, we are always adding something to the appearance and representing things to be greater than what they are. For instance as to myself, when I am on a voyage and look down on the deep sea, or look round on it and see no land, I am out of my mind and imagine that I must drink up all this water if I am wrecked, and it does not occur to me that three pints are enough. What then disturbs me? |
The sea? No, but my opinion. Again, when an earthquake shall happen, I imagine that the city is going to fall on me; is not one little stone enough to knock my brains out? |
What then are the things which are heavy on us and disturb us? What else than opinions? What else than opinions lies heavy upon him who goes away and leaves his companions and friends and places and habits of life? |
Now little children, for instance, when they cry on the nurse leaving them for a short time, forget their sorrow if they receive a small cake. Do you choose then that we should compare you to little children? No, by Zeus, for I do not wish to be pacified by a small cake, but by right opinions. |
And what are these? Such as a man ought to study all day, and not to be affected by anything that is not his own, neither by companion nor place nor gymnasia, and not even by his own body, but to remember the law and to have it before his eyes. And what is the divine law? |
To keep a man's own, not to claim that which belongs to others, but to use what is given, and when it is not given, not to desire it; and when a thing is taken away, to give it up readily and immediately, and to be thankful for the time that a man has had the use of it, if you would not cry for your nurse and mamma. For what matter does it make by what thing a man is subdued, and on what he depends? In what respect are you better than he who cries for a girl, if you grieve for a little gymnasium, and little porticoes and young men and such places of amusement? |
Another comes and laments that he shall no longer drink the water of Dirce. Is the Marcian water worse than that of Dirce? "But I was used to the water of Dirce?" |
And you in turn will be used to the other. Then if you become attached to this also, cry for this too, and try to make a verse like the verse of Euripides, The hot baths of Nero and the Marcian water. See how tragedy is made when common things happen to silly men. |
"When then shall I see Athens again and the Acropolis?" Wretch, are you not content with what you see daily? have you anything better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the sea? |
But if indeed you comprehend him who administers the Whole, and carry him about in yourself, do you still desire small stones, and a beautiful rock? When, then, you are going to leave the sun itself and the moon, what will you do? will you sit and weep like children? |
Well, what have you been doing in the school? what did you hear, what did you learn? why did you write yourself a philosopher, when you might have written the truth; as, "I made certain introductions, and I read Chrysippus, but I did not even approach the door of a philosopher." |
For how should I possess anything of the kind which Socrates possessed, who died as he did, who lived as he did, or anything such as Diogenes possessed? Do you think that any one of such men wept or grieved, because he was not going to see a certain man, or a certain woman, nor to be in Athens or in Corinth, but, if it should so happen, in Susa or in Ecbatana? For if a man can quit the banquet when he chooses, and no longer amuse himself, does he still stay and complain, and does he not stay, as at any amusement, only so long as he is pleased? |
Such a man, I suppose, would endure perpetual exile or to be condemned to death. Will you not be weaned now, like children, and take more solid food, and not cry after mammas and nurses, which are the lamentations of old women? "But if I go away, I shall cause them sorrow." |
You cause them sorrow? By no means; but that will cause them sorrow which also causes you sorrow, opinion. What have you to do then? |
Take away your own opinion, and if these women are wise, they will take away their own: if they do not, they will lament through their own fault. My man, as the proverb says, make a desperate effort on behalf of tranquillity of mind, freedom and magnanimity. Lift up your head at last as released from slavery. |
Dare to look up to God and say, "Deal with me for the future as thou wilt; I am of the same mind as thou art; I am thine: I refuse nothing that pleases thee: lead me where thou wilt: clothe me in any dress thou choosest: is it thy will that I should hold the office of a magistrate, that I should be in the condition of a private man, stay there or be an exile, be poor, be rich? I will make thy defense to men in behalf of all these conditions. I will show the nature of each thing what it is." |
You will not do so; but sit in an ox's belly, and wait for your mamma till she shall feed you. Who would Hercules have been, if he had sat at home? He would have been Eurystheus and not Hercules. |
Well, and in his travels through the world how many intimates and how many friends had he? But nothing more dear to him than God. For this reason it was believed that he was the son of God, and he was. |
In obedience to God, then, he went about purging away injustice and lawlessness. But you are not Hercules and you are not able to purge away the wickedness of others; nor yet are you Theseus, able to pure away the evil things of Attica. Clear away your own. |
From yourself, from your thoughts cast away, instead of Procrustes and Sciron, sadness, fear, desire, envy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intemperance. But it is not possible to eject these things otherwise than by looking to God only, by fixing your affections on him only, by being consecrated to his commands. But if you choose anything else, you will with sighs and groans be compelled to follow what is stronger than yourself, always seeking tranquillity and never able to find it; for you seek tranquillity there where it is not, and you neglect to seek it where it is. |
How we must adapt preconceptions to particular cases What is the first business of him who philosophizes? To throw away self-conceit. For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn that which he thinks that he knows. |
As to things then which ought to be done and ought not to be done, and good and bad, and beautiful and ugly, all of us talking of them at random go to the philosophers; and on these matters we praise, we censure, we accuse, we blame, we judge and determine about principles honourable and dishonourable. But why do we go to the philosophers? Because we wish to learn what we do not think we know. |
And what is this? Theorems. For we wish to learn what philosophers say as being something elegant and acute; and some wish to learn that they may get profit what they learn. |
It is ridiculous then to think that a person wishes to learn one thing, and will learn another; or further, that a man will make proficiency in that which he does not learn. But the many are deceived by this which deceived also the rhetorician Theopompus, when he blames even Plato for wishing everything to be defined. For what does he say? |
"Did none of us before you use the words 'good' or 'just,' or do we utter the sounds in an unmeaning and empty way without understanding what they severally signify?" Now who tells you, Theopompus, that we had not natural notions of each of these things and preconceptions? But it is not possible to adapt preconceptions to their correspondent objects if we have not distinguished them, and inquired what object must be subjected to each preconception. |
You may make the same charge against physicians also. For who among us did not use the words "healthy" and "unhealthy" before Hippocrates lived, or did we utter these words as empty sounds? For we have also a certain preconception of health, but we are not able to adapt it. |
For this reason one says, "Abstain from food"; another says, "Give food"; another says, "Bleed"; and another says, "Use cupping." What is the reason? is it any other than that a man cannot properly adapt the preconception of health to particulars? |
So it is in this matter also, in the things which concern life. Who among us does not speak of good and bad, of useful and not useful; for who among us has not a preconception of each of these things? Is it then a distinct and perfect preconception? |
Show this. How shall I show this? Adapt the preconception properly to the particular things. |
Plato, for instance, subjects definitions to the preconception of the useful, but you to the preconception of the useless. Is it possible then that both of you are right? How is it possible? |
Does not one man adapt the preconception of good to the matter of wealth, and another not to wealth, but to the matter of pleasure and to that of health? For, generally, if all of us who use those words know sufficiently each of them, and need no diligence in resolving, the notions of the preconceptions, why do we differ, why do we quarrel, why do we blame one another? And why do I now allege this contention with one another and speak of it? |
If you yourself properly adapt your preconceptions, why are you unhappy, why are you hindered? Let us omit at present the second topic about the pursuits and the study of the duties which relate to them. Let us omit also the third topic, which relates to the assents: I give up to you these two topics. |
Let us insist upon the first, which presents an almost obvious demonstration that we do not properly adapt the preconceptions. Do you now desire that which is possible and that which is possible to you? Why then are you hindered? |
why are you unhappy? Do you not now try to avoid the unavoidable? Why then do you fall in with anything which you would avoid? |
Why are you unfortunate? Why, when you desire a thing, does it not happen, and, when you do not desire it, does it happen? For this is the greatest proof of unhappiness and misery: "I wish for something, and it does not happen." |
And what is more wretched than I? It was because she could not endure this that Medea came to murder her children: an act of a noble spirit in this view at least, for she had a just opinion what it is for a thing not to succeed which a person wishes. Then she says, "Thus I shall be avenged on him who has wronged and insulted me; and what shall I gain if he is punished thus? |
how then shall it be done? I shall kill my children, but I shall punish myself also: and what do I care?" This is the aberration of soul which possesses great energy. |
For she did not know wherein lies the doing of that which we wish; that you cannot get this from without, nor yet by the alteration and new adaptation of things. Do not desire the man, and nothing which you desire will fall to happen: do not obstinately desire that he shall live with you: do not desire to remain in Corinth; and, in a word, desire nothing than that which God wills. And who shall hinder you? |
who shall compel you? No man shall compel you any more than he shall compel Zeus. When you have such a guide, and your wishes and desires are the same as his, why do you fear disappointment? |
Give up your desire to wealth and your aversion to poverty, and you will be disappointed in the one, you will fall into the other. Well, give them up to health, and you will be unfortunate: give them up to magistracies, honours, country, friends, children, in a word to any of the things which are not in man's power. But give them up to Zeus and to the rest of the gods; surrender them to the gods, let the gods govern, let your desire and aversion be ranged on the side of the gods, and wherein will you be any longer unhappy? |
But if, lazy wretch, you envy, and complain, and are jealous, and fear, and never cease for a single day complaining both of yourself and of the gods, why do you still speak of being educated? What kind of an education, man? Do you mean that you have been employed about sophistical syllogisms? |
Will you not, if it is possible, unlearn all these things and begin from the beginning, and see at the same time that hitherto you have not even touched the matter; and then, commencing from this foundation, will you not build up all that comes after, so that nothing, may happen which you do not choose, and nothing shall fail to happen which you do choose? Give me one young man who has come to the school with this intention, who is become a champion for this matter and says, "I give up everything else, and it is enough for me if "t shall ever be in my power to pass my life free from hindrance and free from trouble, and to stretch out my neck to all things like a free man, and to look up to heaven as a friend of God, and fear nothing that can happen." Let any of you point out such a man that I may "Come, young man, into the possession of that which is your own, it is your destiny to adorn philosophy: yours are these possessions, yours these books, yours these discourses." |
Then when he shall have laboured sufficiently and exercised himself in this of the matter, let him come to me again and say, "I desire to be free from passion and free from perturbation; and I wish as a pious man and a philosopher and a diligent person to know what is my duty to the gods, what to my parents, what to my brothers, what to my country, what to strangers." Come also to the second matter: this also is yours. "But I have now sufficiently studied the second part also, and I would gladly be secure and unshaken, and not only when I am awake, but also when I am asleep, and when I am filled with wine, and when I am melancholy." |
Man, you are a god, you have great designs. "No: but I wish to understand what Chrysippus says in his treatise of the Pseudomenos." Will you not hang yourself, wretch, with such your intention? |
And what good will it do you? You will read the whole with sorrow, and you will speak to others trembling, Thus you also do. "Do you wish me, brother, to read to you, and you to me?" |
"You write excellently, my man; and you also excellently in the style of Xenophon, and you in the style of Plato, and you in the style of Antisthenes." Then, having told your dreams to one another, you return to the same things: your desires are the same, your aversions the same, your pursuits are the same, and your designs and purposes, you wish for the same things and work for the same. In the next place you do not even seek for one to give you advice, but you are vexed if you hear such things. |
Then you say, "An ill-natured old fellow: when I was going away, he did not weep nor did he say, 'Into what danger you are going: if you come off safe, my child, I will burn lights.' This is what a good-natured man would do." It will be a great thing for you if you do return safe, and it will be worth while to burn lights for such a person: for you ought to be immortal and exempt from disease. |
Casting away then, as I say, this conceit of thinking that we know something useful, we I I must come to philosophy as we apply to geometry, and to music: but if we do not, we shall not even approach to proficiency, though we read all the collections and commentaries of Chrysippus and those of Antipater and Archedemus. Chapter 18 How we should struggle against appearances Every habit and faculty is maintained and increased by the corresponding actions: the habit of walking by walking, the habit of running by running. If you would be a good reader, read; if a writer, write. |
But when you shall not have read thirty days in succession, but have done something else, you will know the consequence. In the same way, if you shall have lain down ten days, get up and attempt to make a long walk, and you will see how your legs are weakened. Generally, then, if you would make anything a habit, do it; if you would not make it a habit, do not do it, but accustom yourself to do something else in place of it. |
So it is with respect to the affections of the soul: when you have been angry, you must know that not only has this evil befallen you, but that you have also increased the habit, and in a manner thrown fuel upon fire. When you have been overcome in sexual intercourse with a person, do not reckon this single defeat only, but reckon that you have also nurtured, increased your incontinence. For it is impossible for habits and faculties, some of them not to be produced, when they did not exist before, and others not be increased and strengthened by corresponding acts. |
In this manner certainly, as philosophers say, also diseases of the mind grow up. For when you have once desired money, if reason be applied to lead to a perception of the evil, the desire is stopped, and the ruling faculty of our mind is restored to the original authority. But if you apply no means of cure, it no longer returns to the same state, but, being again excited by the corresponding appearance, it is inflamed to desire quicker than before: and when this takes place continually, it is henceforth hardened, and the disease of the mind confirms the love of money. |
For he who has had a fever, and has been relieved from it, is not in the same state that he was before, unless he has been completely cured. Something of the kind happens also in diseases of the soul. Certain traces and blisters are left in it, and unless a man shall completely efface them, when he is again lashed on the same places, the lash will produce not blisters but sores. |
If then you wish not to be of an angry temper, do not feed the habit; throw nothing on it which will increase it: at first keep quiet, and count the days on which you have not been angry. I used to be in passion every day; now every second day; then every third, then every fourth. But if you have intermitted thirty days, make a sacrifice to God. |
For the habit at first begins to be weakened, and then is completely destroyed. "I have not been vexed to-day, nor the day after, nor yet on any succeeding day during two or three months; but I took care when some exciting things happened." Be assured that you are in a good way. |
To-day when I saw a handsome person, I did not say to myself, "I wish I could lie with her," and "Happy is her husband"; for he who says this says, "Happy is her adulterer also." Nor do I picture the rest to my mind; the woman present, and stripping herself and lying down by my side. I stroke my head and say, "Well done, Epictetus, you have solved a fine little sophism, much finer than that which is called the master sophism." |
And if even the woman is willing, and gives signs, and sends messages, and if she also fondle me and come close to me, and I should abstain and be victorious, that would be a sophism beyond that which is named "The Liar," and "The Quiescent." Over such a victory as this a man may justly be proud; not for proposing, the master sophism. How then shall this be done? |
Be willing at length to be approved by yourself, be willing to appear beautiful to God, desire to he in purity with your own pure self and with God. Then when any such appearance visits you, Plato says, "Have recourse to expiations, go a suppliant to the temples of the averting deities." It is even sufficient if "you resort to the society of noble and just men," and compare yourself with them, whether you find one who is living or dead. |
Go to Socrates and see him lying down with Alcibiades, and mocking his beauty: consider what a victory he at last found that he had gained over himself; what an Olympian victory; in what number he stood from Hercules; so that, by the Gods, one may justly salute him, "Hail, wondrous man, you who have conquered not less these sorry boxers and pancratiasts nor yet those who are like them, the gladiators." By placing these objects on the other side you will conquer the appearance: you will not be drawn away by it. But, in the first place, be not hurried away by the rapidity of the appearance, but say, "Appearances, wait for me a little: let me see who you are, and what you are about: let me put you to the test." |
And then do not allow the appearance to lead you on and draw lively pictures of the things which will follow; for if you do, it will carry you off wherever it pleases. But rather bring in to oppose it some other beautiful and noble appearance and cast out this base appearance. And if you are accustomed to be exercised in this way, you will see what shoulders, what sinews, what strength you have. |
But now it is only trifling words, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. |
Great is the combat, divine is the work; it is for kingship, for freedom, for happiness, for freedom from perturbation. Remember God: call on him as a helper and protector, as men at sea call on the Dioscuri in a storm. For what is a greater storm than that which comes from appearances which are violent and drive away the reason? |
For the storm itself, what else is it but an appearance? For take away the fear of death, and suppose as many thunders and lightnings as you please, and you will know what calm and serenity there is in the ruling faculty. But if you have once been defeated and say that you will conquer hereafter, then say the same again, be assured that you at last be in so wretched a condition and so weak that you will not even know afterward that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to make apologies for your wrongdoing, and then you will confirm the saying of Hesiod to be true, With constant ills the dilatory strives. |
The argument called the "ruling argument" appears to have been proposed from such principles as these: there is in fact a common contradiction between one another in these three positions, each two being in contradiction to the third. The propositions are, that everything past must of necessity be true; that an impossibility does not follow a possibility; and that thing is possible which neither is nor t at a t will be true. Diodorus observing this contradiction employed the probative force of the first two for the demonstration of this proposition, "That nothing is possible which is not true and never will be." |
Now another will hold these two: "That something is possible, which is neither true nor ever will be": and "That an impossibility does not follow a possibility," But he will not allow that everything which is past is necessarily true, as the followers of Cleanthes seem to think, and Antipater copiously defended them. But others maintain the other two propositions, "That a thing is possible which is neither true nor will he true": and "That everything which is past is necessarily true"; but then they will maintain that an impossibility can follow a possibility. But it is impossible to maintain these three propositions, because of their common contradiction. |
If then any man should ask me which of these propositions do I maintain? I will answer him that I do not know; but I have received this story, that Diodorus maintained one opinion, the followers of Panthoides, I think, and Cleanthes maintained another opinion, and those of Chrysippus a third. "What then is your opinion?" |
I was not made for this purpose, to examine the appearances that occur to me and to compare what others say and to form an opinion of my own on the thing. Therefore I differ not at all from the grammarian. "Who was Hector's father?" |
Priam. "Who were his brothers?" Alexander and Deiphobus. |
"Who was their mother?" Hecuba. I have heard this story. |
"From whom?" From Homer. And Hellanicus also, I think, writes about the same things, and perhaps others like him. |
And what further have I about the ruling argument? Nothing. But, if I am a vain man, especially at a banquet, I surprise the guests by enumerating those who have written on these matters. |
Both Chrysippus has written wonderfully in his first book about "Possibilities," and Cleanthes has written specially on the subject, and Archedemus. Antipater also has written not only in his work about "Possibilities," but also separately in his work on the ruling argument. Have you not read the work? |
"I have not read it." Read. And what profit will a man have from it? |
he will be more trifling and impertinent than he is now; for what else have you rained by reading it? What opinion have you formed on this subject? none; but you will tell us of Helen and Priam, and the island of Calypso which never was and never will be. |
And in this matter indeed it is of no great importance if you retain the story, but have formed no opinion of your own. But in matters of morality this happens to us much more than in these things of which we are speaking. "Speak to me about good and evil." |
Listen: The wind from Ilium to Ciconian shores Brought me. "Of things some are good, some are bad, and others are indifferent. The good then are the virtues and the things which partake of the virtues; the bad are the vices, and the things which partake of them; and the indifferent are the things which lie between the virtues and the vices, wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, pain." |
Whence do you know this? "Hellanicus says it in his Egyptian history"; for what difference does it make to say this, or to say that "Diogenes has it in his Ethic," or Chrysippus or Cleanthes? Have you then examined any of these things and formed an opinion of your own? |
Show how you are used to behave in a storm on shipboard? Do you remember this division, when the sail rattles and a man, who knows nothing of times and seasons, stands by you when you are screaming and says, "Tell me, I ask you by the Gods, what you were saying just now. Is it a vice to suffer shipwreck: does it participate in vice?" |
Will you not take up a stick and lay it on his head? What have we to do with you, man? we are perishing and you come to mock us? |
But if Caesar sent for you to answer a charge, do you remember the distinction? If, when you are going in, pale and trembling, a person should come up to you and say, "Why do you tremble, man? what is the matter about which you are engaged? |
Does Caesar who sits within give virtue and vice to those who go in to him?" You reply, "Why do you also mock me and add to my present sorrows?" Still tell me, philosopher, tell me why you tremble? |
Is it not death of which you run the risk, or a prison, or pain of the body, or banishment, or disgrace? What else is there? Is there any vice or anything which partakes of vice? |
What then did you use to say of these things? "What have you to do with me, man? my own evils are enough for me." |
And you say right. Your own evils are enough for you, your baseness, your cowardice, your boasting which you showed when you sat in the school. Why did you decorate yourself with what belonged to others? |
Why did you call yourself a Stoic? Observe yourselves thus in your actions, and you will find to what sect you belong. You will find that most of you are Epicureans, a few Peripatetics, and those feeble. |
For wherein will you show that you really consider virtue equal to everything else or even superior? But show me a Stoic, if you can. Where or how? |
But you can show me an endless number who utter small arguments of the Stoics. For do the same persons repeat the Epicurean opinions any worse? And the Peripatetic, do they not handle them also with equal accuracy? |
who then is a Stoic? As we call a statue Phidiac which is fashioned according to the art of Phidias; so show me a man who is fashioned according to the doctrines which he utters. Show me a man who is sick and happy, in danger and happy, dying and happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy. |
Show him: I desire, by the gods, to see a Stoic. You cannot show me one fashioned so; but show me at least one who is forming, who has shown a tendency to be a Stoic. Do me this favor: do not grudge an old man seeing a sight which I have not seen yet. |
Do you think that you must show me the Zeus of Phidias or the Athena, a work of ivory and gold? Let any of you show me a human soul ready to think as God does, and not to blame either God or man, ready not to be disappointed about anything, not to consider himself damaged by anything, not to be angry, not to be envious, not to be jealous; and why should I not say it direct? desirous from a man to become a god, and in this poor mortal body thinking of his fellowship with Zeus. |
Show me the man. But you cannot. Why then do you delude yourselves and cheat others? |
and why do you put on a guise which does not belong to you, and walk about being thieves and pilferers of these names and things which do not belong to you? And now I am your teacher, and you are instructed in my school. And I have this purpose, to make you free from restraint, compulsion, hindrance, to make you free, prosperous, happy, looking to God in everything small and great. |
And you are here to learn and practice these things. Why, then, do you not finish the work, if you also have such a purpose as you ought to have, and if I, in addition to the purpose, also have such qualification as I ought to have? What is that which is wanting? |
When I see an artificer and material by him, I expect the work. Here, then, is the artificer, here the material; what is it that we want? Is not the thing, one that can be taught? |
It is. Is it not then in our power? The only thing of all that is in our power. |
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