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Neither wealth is in our power, nor health, nor reputation, nor in a word anything else except the right use of appearances. This is by nature free from restraint, this alone is free from impediment. Why then do you not finish the work? |
Tell me the reason. For it is either through my fault that you do not finish it, or through your own fault, or through the nature of the thing. The thing itself is possible, and the only thing in our power. |
It remains then that the fault is either in me or in you, or, what is nearer the truth, in both. Well then, are you willing that we begin at last to bring such a purpose into this school, and to take no notice of the past? Let us only make a beginning. |
Trust to me, and you will see. The propositions which are true and evident are of necessity used even by those who contradict them: and a man might perhaps consider it to be the greatest proof of a thing being evident that it is found to be necessary even for him who denies it to make use of it at the same time. For instance, if a man should deny that there is anything universally true, it is plain that he must make the contradictory negation, that nothing is universally true. |
What, wretch, do you not admit even this? For what else is this than to affirm that whatever is universally affirmed is false? Again, if a man should come forward and say: "Know that there is nothing that can be known, but all things are incapable of sure evidence"; or if another say, "Believe me and you will be the better for it, that a man ought not to believe anything"; or again, if another should say, "Learn from me, man, that it is not possible to learn anything; I tell you this and will teach you, if you choose." |
Now in what respect do these differ from those? Whom shall I name? Those who call themselves Academics? |
"Men, agree that no man agrees: believe us that no man believes anybody." Thus Epicurus also, when he designs to destroy the natural fellowship of mankind, at the same time makes use of that which he destroys. For what does he say? |
"Be not deceived men, nor be led astray, nor be mistaken: there is no natural fellowship among rational animals; believe me. But those who say otherwise, deceive you and seduce you by false reasons." What is this to you? |
Permit us to be deceived. Will you fare worse, if all the rest of us are persuaded that there is a natural fellowship among us, and that it ought by all means to be preserved? Nay, it will be much better and safer for you. |
Man, why do you trouble yourself about us? Why do you keep awake for us? Why do you light your lamp? |
Why do you rise early? Why do you write so many books, that no one of us may be deceived about the gods and believe that they take care of men; or that no one may suppose the nature of good to be other than pleasure? For if this is so, lie down and sleep, and lead the life of a worm, of which you judged yourself worthy: eat and drink, and enjoy women, and ease yourself, and snore. |
And what is it to you, how the rest shall think about these things, whether right or wrong? For what have we to do with you? You take care of sheep because they supply us with wool, and milk, and, last of all, with their flesh. |
Would it not be a desirable thing if men could be lulled and enchanted by the Stoics, and sleep and present themselves to you and to those like you to be shorn and milked? For this you ought to say to your brother Epicureans: but ought you not to conceal it from others, and particularly before everything to persuade them that we are by nature adapted for fellowship, that temperance is a good thing; in order that all things may be secured for you? Or ought we to maintain this fellowship with some and not with others? |
With whom, then, ought we to maintain it? With such as on their part also maintain it, or with such as violate this fellowship? And who violate it more than you who establish such doctrines? |
What then was it that waked Epicurus from his sleepiness, and compelled him to write what he did write? What else was it than that which is the strongest thing in men, nature, which draws a man to her own will though he be unwilling and complaining? "For since," she says, "you think that there is no community among mankind, write this opinion and leave it for others, and break your sleep to do this, and by your own practice condemn your own opinions." |
Shall we then say that Orestes was agitated by the Erinyes and roused from his deep sleep, and did not more savage Erinyes and Pains rouse Epicurus from his sleep and not allow him to rest, but compelled him to make known his own evils, as madness and wine did the Galli? So strong and invincible is man's nature. For how can a vine be moved not in the mariner of a vine, but in the manner of an olive tree? |
or on the other hand how can an olive tree be moved not in the manner of an olive tree, but in the manner of a vine? It is impossible: it cannot be conceived. Neither then is it possible for a man completely to lose the movements of a man; and even those who are deprived of their genital members are not able to deprive themselves of man's desires. |
Thus Epicurus also mutilated all the offices of a man, and of a father of a family, and of a citizen and of a friend, but he did not mutilate human desires, for he could not; not more than the lazy Academics can cast away or blind their own senses, though they have tried with all their might to do it. What a shame is this? when a man has received from nature measures and rules for the knowing of truth, and does not strive to add to these measures and rules and to improve them, but, just the contrary, endeavors to take away and destroy whatever enables us to discern the truth? |
What say you philosopher? piety and sanctity, what do you think that they are? "If you like, I will demonstrate that they are good things." |
Well, demonstrate it, that our citizens may be turned and honor the deity and may no longer be negligent about things of the highest value. "Have you then the demonstrations?" I have, and I am thankful. |
"Since then you are well pleased with them, hear the contrary: 'That there are no Gods, and, if there are, they take no care of men, nor is there any fellowship between us and them; and that this piety and sanctity which is talked of among most men is the lying of boasters and sophists, or certainly of legislators for the purpose of terrifying and checking wrong-doers.'" Well done, philosopher, you have done something for our citizens, you have brought back all the young men to contempt of things divine. "What then, does not this satisfy you? |
Learn now, that justice is nothing, that modesty is folly, that a father is nothing, a son nothing." Well done, philosopher, persist, persuade the young men, that we may have more with the same opinions as you who say the same as you. From such you an principles as those have grown our well-constituted states; by these was Sparta founded: Lycurgus fixed these opinions in the Spartans by his laws and education, that neither is the servile condition more base than honourable, nor the condition of free men more honorable than base, and that those who died at Thermopylae died from these opinions; and through what other opinions did the Athenians leave their city? |
Then those who talk thus, marry and beget children, and employ themselves in public affairs and make themselves priests and interpreters. Of whom? of gods who do not exist: and they consult the Pythian priestess that they may hear lies, and they repeat the oracles to others. |
Monstrous impudence and imposture. Man what are you doing? are you refuting yourself every day; and will you not give up these frigid attempts? |
When you eat, where do you carry your hand to? to your mouth or to your eye? when you wash yourself, what do you go into? |
do you ever call a pot a dish, or a ladle a spit? If I were a slave of any of these men, even if I must be flayed by him dally, I would rack him. If he said, "Boy, throw some olive-oil into the bath," I would take pickle sauce and pour it down on his head. |
"What is this?" he would say. An appearance was presented to me, I swear by your genius, which could not be distinguished from oil and was exactly like it. |
"Here give me the barley drink," he says. I would fill and carry him a dish of sharp sauce. "Did I not ask for the barley drink?" |
Yes, master; this is the barley drink. "Take it and smell; take it and taste." How do you know then if our senses deceive us? |
If I had three or four fellow-slaves of the same opinion, I should force him to hang himself through passion or to change his mind. But now they mock us by using all the things which nature gives, and in words destroying them. Grateful indeed are men and modest, who, if they do nothing else, are daily eating bread and yet are shameless enough to say, we do not know if there is a Demeter or her daughter Persephone or a Pluto; not to mention that they are enjoying the night and the day, the seasons of the year, and the stars, and the sea, and the land, and the co-operation of mankind, and yet they are not moved in any degree by these things to turn their attention to them; but they only seek to belch out their little problem, and when they have exercised their stomach to go off to the bath. |
But what they shall say, and about what things or to what persons, and what their hearers shall learn from this talk, they care not even in the least degree, nor do they care if any generous youth after hearing such talk should suffer any harm from it, nor after he has suffered harm should lose all the seeds of his generous nature: nor if we should give an adulterer help toward being shameless in his acts; nor if a public peculator should lay hold of some cunning excuse from these doctrines; nor if another who neglects his parents should be confirmed in his audacity by this teaching. What then in your opinion is good or bad? This or that? |
Why then should a man say any more in reply to such persons as these, or give them any reason or listen to any reasons from them, or try to convince them? By Zeus one might much sooner expect to make certainties change their mind than those who are become so deaf and blind to their own evils. Some things men readily confess, and other things they do not. |
No one then will confess that he is a fool or without understanding; but, quite the contrary, you will hear all men saying, "I wish that I had fortune equal to my understanding." But readily confess that they are timid, and they say: "I am rather timid, I confess; but to other respects you will not find me to foolish." A man will not readily confess that he is intemperate; and that he is unjust he will not confess at all. |
He will by no means confess that be is envious or a busybody. Most men will confess that they are compassionate. What then is the reason? |
The chief thing is inconsistency and confusion in the things which relate to good and evil. But different men have different reasons; and generally what they imagine to be base, they do not confess at all. But they suppose timidity to be a characteristic of a good disposition, and compassion also; but silliness to be the absolute characteristic of a slave. |
And they do not at all admit the things which are offenses against society. But in the case of most errors, for this reason chiefly, they are induced to confess them, because they that there is something involuntary in them as in timidity and compassion; and if a man confess that he is in any respect intemperate, he alleges love as an excuse for what is involuntary. But men do not imagine injustice to be at all There is also in jealousy, as they suppose, something involuntary; and for this reason they confess to jealousy also. |
Living among such men, who are so confused so ignorant of what they say, and of evils which they have or have not, and why they have them, or how they shall be relieved of them, I think it is worth the trouble for a man to watch constantly "Whether I also am one of them, what imagination I have about myself, how I conduct myself, whether I conduct myself as a prudent man, whether I conduct myself as a temperate man, whether I ever say this, that I have been taught to be prepared for everything that may happen. Have I the consciousness, which a man who knows nothing ought to have, that I know nothing? Do I go to my teacher as men go to oracles, prepared to obey? |
or do I like a sniveling boy go to my school to learn history and understand the books which I did not understand before, and, if it should happen so, to explain them also to others?" Man, you have had a fight in the house with a poor slave, you have turned the family upside down, you have frightened the neighbours, and you come to me as if you were a wise man, and you take your seat and judge how I have explained some word, and how I have babbled whatever came into my head. You come full of envy, and humbled, because you bring nothing from home; and you sit during, the discussion thinking of nothing else than how your father is disposed toward you and your brother. |
"What are they saying about me there? now they think that I am improving, and are saying, 'He will return with all knowledge.' I wish I could learn everything before I return: but much labour is necessary, and no one sends me anything, and the baths at Nicopolis are dirty; everything is bad at home, and bad here." |
Then they say, "No one gains any profit from the school." Why, who comes to the school, who comes for the purpose of being improved? who comes to present his opinions to he purified? |
who comes to learn what he is in want of? Why do you wonder then if you carry back from the school the very things which you bring into it? For you come not to lay aside or to correct them or to receive other principles in place of them. |
By no means, nor anything like it. You rather look to this, whether you possess already that for which you come. You wish to prattle about theorems? |
What then? Do you not become greater triflers? Do not your little theorems give you some opportunity of display? |
You solve sophistical syllogisms. Do you not examine the assumptions of the syllogism named "The Liar"? Do you not examine hypothetical syllogisms? |
Why, then, are you still vexed if you receive the things for which you come to the school? "Yes; but if my child die or my brother, or if I must die or be racked, what good will these things do me?" Well, did you come for this? |
for this do you sit by my side? did you ever for this light your lamp or keep awake? or, when you went out to the walking-place, did you ever propose any appearance that had been presented to you instead of a syllogism, and did you and your friends discuss it together? |
Where and when? Then you say, "Theorems are useless." To whom? |
To such as make a bad use of them. For eyesalves are not useless to those who use them as they ought and when they ought. Fomentations are not useless. |
Dumb-bells are not useless; but they are useless to some, useful to others. If you ask me now if syllogisms are useful, I will tell you that they are useful, and if you choose, I will prove it. "How then will they in any way be useful to me?" |
Man, did you ask if they are useful to you, or did you ask generally? Let him who is suffering from dysentery ask me if vinegar is useful: I will say that it is useful. "Will it then be useful to me?" |
I will say, "No." Seek first for the discharge to be stopped and the ulcers to be closed. And do you, O men, first cure the ulcers and stop the discharge; be tranquil in your mind, bring it free from distraction into the school, and you will know what power reason has. |
What a man applies himself to earnestly, that he naturally loves. Do men then apply themselves earnestly to the things which are bad? By no means. |
Well, do they apply themselves to things which in no way concern themselves? Not to these either. It remains, then, that they employ themselves earnestly only about things which are good; and if they are earnestly employed about things, they love such things also. |
Whoever, then, understands what is good, can also know how to love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are neither good nor bad from both, can he possess the power of loving? To love, then, is only in the power of the wise. "How is this?" |
a man may say; am foolish, and yet love my child." I am surprised indeed that you have begun by making the admission that you are foolish. For what are you deficient in? |
Can you not make use of your senses? do you not distinguish appearances? do you not use food which is suitable for your body, and clothing and habitation? |
Why then do you admit that you are foolish? It is in truth because you are often disturbed by appearances and perplexed, and their power of persuasion often conquers you; and sometimes you think these things to be good, and then the same things to be bad, and lastly neither good nor bad; and in short you grieve, fear, envy, are disturbed, you are changed. This is the reason why you confess that you are foolish. |
And are you not changeable in love? But wealth, and pleasure and, in a word, things themselves, do you sometimes think them to he good and sometimes bad? and do you not think the same men at one time to be good, at another time bad? |
and have you not at one time a friendly feeling toward them and at another time the feeling of an enemy? and do you not at one time praise them and at another time blame them? "Yes; I have these feelings also." |
Well then, do you think that he who has been deceived about a man is his friend? "Certainly not." And he who has selected a man as his friend and is of a changeable disposition, has he good-will toward him? |
"He has not." And he who now abuses a man, and afterward admires him? "This man also has no good-will to the other." |
Well then, did you never see little dogs caressing and playing with one another, so that you might say there is nothing more friendly? but, that you may know what friendship is, throw a bit of flesh among them, and you will learn. Throw between yourself and your son a little estate, and you will know how soon he will wish to bury you and how soon you wish your son to die. |
Then you will change your tone and say, "What a son I have brought up! He has long been wishing to bury me." Throw a smart girl between you; and do you, the old man, love her, and the young one will love her too, If a little fame intervene, or dangers, it will be just the same. |
You will utter the words of the father of Admetus! Life gives you pleasure: and why not your father. Do you think that Admetus did not love his own child when he was little? |
that he was not in agony when the child had a fever? that he did not often say, "I wish I had the fever instead of the child?" then when the test (the thing) came and was near, see what words they utter. |
Were not Eteocles and Polynices from the same mother and from the same father? Were they not brought up together, had they not lived together, drunk together, slept together, and often kissed one another? So that, if any man, I think, had seen them, he would have ridiculed the philosophers for the paradoxes which they utter about friendship. |
But when a quarrel rose between them about the royal power, as between dogs about a bit of meat, see what they say, Polynices: Where will you take your station before the towers? Eteocles: Why do you ask me this? Polynices: I place myself opposite and try to kill you. |
Eteocles: I also wish to do the same. Such are the wishes that they utter. For universally, be not deceived, every animal is attached to nothing so much as to its own interest. |
Whatever then appears to it an impediment to this interest, whether this be a brother, or a father, or a child, or beloved, or lover, it hates, spurns, curses: for its nature is to love nothing so much as its own interest; this is father, and brother and kinsman, and country, and God. When, then, the gods appear to us to be an impediment to this, we abuse them and throw down their statues and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples of AEsculapius to be burned when his dear friend died. For this reason if a man put in the same place his interest, sanctity, goodness, and country, and parents, and friends, all these are secured: but if he puts in one place his interest, in another his friends, and his country and his kinsmen and justice itself, all these give way being borne down by the weight of interest. |
For where the "I" and the "Mine" are placed, to that place of necessity the animal inclines: if in the flesh, there is the ruling power: if in the will, it is there: and if it is in externals, it is there. If then I am there where my will is, then only shall I be a friend such as I ought to be, and son, and father; for this will he my interest, to maintain the character of fidelity, of modesty, of patience, of abstinence, of active cooperation, of observing my relations. But if I put myself in one place, and honesty in another, then the doctrine of Epicurus becomes strong, which asserts either that there is no honesty or it is that which opinion holds to be honest. |
It was through this ignorance that the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians quarreled, and the Thebans with both; and the great king quarreled with Hellas, and the Macedonians with both; and the Romans with the Getae. And still earlier the Trojan war happened for these reasons. Alexander was the guest of Menelaus; and if any man had seen their friendly disposition, he would not have believed any one who said that they were not friends. |
But there was cast between them a bit of meat, a handsome woman, and about her war arose. And now when you see brothers to be friends appearing to have one mind, do not conclude from this anything about their friendship, not even if they say it and swear that it is impossible for them to be separated from one another. For the ruling principle of a bad man cannot be trusted, it is insecure, has no certain rule by which it is directed, and is overpowered at different times by different appearances. |
But examine, not what other men examine, if they are born of the same parents and brought up together, and under the same pedagogue; but examine this only, wherein they place their interest, whether in externals or in the will. If in externals, do not name them friends, no more than name them trustworthy or constant, or brave or free: do not name them even men, if you have any judgment. For that is not a principle of human nature which makes them bite one another, and abuse one another, and occupy deserted places or public places, as if they were mountains, and in the courts of justice display the acts of robbers; nor yet that which makes them intemperate and adulterers and corrupters, nor that which makes them do whatever else men do against one another through this one opinion only, that of placing themselves and their interests in the things which are not within the power of their will. |
But if you hear that in truth these men think the good to be only there, where will is, and where there is a right use of appearances, no longer trouble yourself whether they are father or son, or brothers, or have associated a long time and are companions, but when you have ascertained this only, confidently declare that they are friends, as you declare that they are faithful, that they are just. For where else is friendship than where there is fidelity, and modesty, where there is a communion of honest things and of nothing else? "But," you may say, "such a one treated me with regard so long; and did he not love me?" |
How do you know, slave, if he did not regard you in the same way as he wipes his shoes with a sponge, or as he takes care of his beast? How do you know, when you have ceased to be useful as a vessel, he will not throw you away like a broken platter? "But this woman is my wife, and we have lived together so long." |
And how long did Eriphyle live with Amphiaraus, and was the mother of children and of many? But a necklace came between them. "And what is a necklace?" |
It is the opinion about such things. That was the bestial principle, that was the thing which broke asunder the friendship between husband and wife, that which did not allow the woman to be a wife nor the mother to be a mother. And let every man among you who has seriously resolved either to be a friend himself or to have another for his friend, cut out these opinions, hate them, drive them from his soul. |
And thus, first of all, he will not reproach himself, he will not be at variance with himself, will not change his mind, he will not torture himself. In the next place, to another also, who is like himself, he will be altogether and completely a friend. But he will bear with the man who is unlike himself, he will be kind to him, gentle, ready to pardon on account of his ignorance, on account of his being mistaken in things of the greatest importance; but he will be harsh to no man, being well convinced of Plato's doctrine that every mind is deprived of truth unwillingly. |
If you cannot do this, yet you can do in all other respects as friends do, drink together, and lodge together, and sail together, and you may be born of the same parents; for snakes also are: but neither will they be friends nor you, so long as you retain these bestial and cursed opinions. Every man will read a book with more pleasure or even with more case, if it is written in fairer characters. Therefore every man will also listen more readily to what is spoken, if it is signified by appropriate and becoming words. |
We must not say, then, that there is no faculty of expression: for this affirmation is the characteristic of an impious and also of a timid man. Of an impious man, because he undervalues the gifts which come from God, just as if he would take away the commodity of the power of vision, or of hearing, or of seeing. Has, then, God given you eyes to no purpose? |
and to no purpose has he infused into them a spirit so strong and of such skillful contrivance as to reach a long way and to fashion the forms of things which are seen? What messenger is so swift and vigilant? And to no purpose has he made the interjacent atmosphere so efficacious and elastic that the vision penetrates through the atmosphere which is in a manner moved? |
And to no purpose has he made light, without the presence of which there would be no use in any other thing? Man, be neither ungrateful for these gifts nor yet forget the things which are superior to them. But indeed for the power of seeing and hearing, and indeed for life itself, and for the things which contribute to support it, for the fruits which are dry, and for wine and oil give thanks to God: but remember that he has given you something else better than all these, I mean the power of using them, proving them and estimating the value of each. |
For what is that which gives information about each of these powers, what each of them is worth? Is it each faculty itself? Did you ever hear the faculty of vision saying anything about itself? |
or the faculty of hearing? or wheat, or barley, or a horse or a dog? No; but they are appointed as ministers and slaves to serve the faculty which has the power of making use of the appearances of things. |
And if you inquire what is the value of each thing, of whom do you inquire? who answers you? How then can any other faculty be more powerful than this, which uses the rest as ministers and itself proves each and pronounces about them? |
for which of them knows what itself is, and what is its own value? which of them knows when it ought to employ itself and when not? what faculty is it which opens and closes the eyes, and turns them away from objects to which it ought not to apply them and does apply them to other objects? |
Is it the faculty of vision? No; but it is the faculty of the will. What is that faculty which closes and opens the ears? |
what is that by which they are curious and inquisitive, or, on the contrary, unmoved by what is said? is it the faculty of hearing? It is no other than the faculty of the will. |
Will this faculty then, seeing that it is amid all the other faculties which are blind and dumb and unable to see anything else except the very acts for which they are appointed in order to minister to this and serve it, but this faculty alone sees sharp and sees what is the value of each of the rest; will this faculty declare to us that anything else is the best, or that itself is? And what else does the do when it is opened than see? But whether we ought to look on the wife of a certain person, and in what manner, who tells us? |
The faculty of the will. And whether we ought to believe what is said or not to believe it, and if we do believe, whether we ought to be moved by it or not, who tells us? Is it not the faculty of the will? |
But this faculty of speaking and of ornamenting words, if there is indeed any such peculiar faculty, what else does it do, when there happens to be discourse about a thing, than to ornament the words and arrange them as hairdressers do the hair? But whether it is better to speak or to be silent, and better to speak in this way or that way, and whether this is becoming or not becoming and the season for each and the and the use, what else tells us than the faculty of the will? Would you have it then to come forward and condemn itself? |
"What then," it says, "if the fact is so, can that which ministers be superior to that to which it ministers, can the horse be superior to the rider, or the do, to the huntsman, or the instrument to the musician, or the servants to the king?" What is that which makes use of the rest? The will. |
What takes care of all? The will. What destroys the whole man, at one time by hunger, at another time by hanging, and at another time by a precipice? |
The will. Then is anything stronger in men than this? and how is it possible that the things which are subject to restraint are stronger than that which is not What things are naturally formed to hinder the faculty of vision? |
Both will and things which do not depend on the faculty of the will. It is the same with the faculty of hearing, with the faculty of speaking in like manner. But what has a natural power of hindering the will? |
Nothing which is independent of the will; but only the will itself, when it is perverted. Therefore this is alone vice or alone virtue. Then being so great a faculty and set over all the rest, let it come forward and tell us that the most excellent of all things is the flesh. |
Not even if the flesh itself declared that it is the most excellent, would any person bear that it should say this. But what is it, Epicurus, which pronounces this, which wrote about "The End of our Being," which wrote on "The Nature of Things," which wrote about the Canon, which led you to wear a beard, which wrote when it was dying that it was spending the last and a happy day? Was this the flesh or the will? |
Then do you admit that you possess anything superior to this? and are you not mad? are you in fact so blind and deaf? |
What then? Does any man despise the other faculties I hope not. Does any man say that there is no use or excellence in the speaking faculty? |
I hope not. That would be foolish, impious, ungrateful toward God. But a man renders to each thing its due value. |
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