THE TEACHING OF EPICTETUS:
BEING THE ‘ENCHEIRIDION
OF EPICTETUS,’ WITH SELECTIONS
FROM THE ‘DISSERTATIONS’
AND ‘FRAGMENTS.’

The name Epictetus is pronounced ep’’ik-ti’tus—e as in get, first i as in habit, second i as in police, u as in but.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK,
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY

T. W. ROLLESTON.

NEW YORK
HOME BOOK COMPANY,
45 VESEY STREET.

INTRODUCTION.

But for the zeal and ability of one disciple we should not now possess any trustworthy account of the teaching of Epictetus. For, like not a few other sages, he wrote nothing—his teaching was purely oral, delivered, in the form of lectures or discourses, to the students who came to him to receive their education in philosophy. One of these students was Flavius Arrianus, afterwards Senator and Consul of Rome, named by Lucian “one among the first of Roman men,” and known to us chiefly as author of the best history of Alexander the Great which was produced in antiquity. That history is still extant, but posterity owes Arrian still more abundant thanks for the copious notes of the teaching of Epictetus which he took down from his master’s lips in Nicopolis. This record he afterwards published in eight books (whereof only four now remain), entitled the Dissertations of Epictetus; and out of these he drew the materials for compiling the little work, the Encheiridion, or Manual, of Epictetus, by which this philosopher has hitherto been most generally known.[1]

It is clear that the Dissertations were not regarded by Arrian as a satisfactory representation of the teaching of his master; that he published them, indeed, with much reluctance, and only when it appeared that unless he did so, certain imperfect versions of his records would be established as the sole sources of authoritative information about Epictetus. These circumstances are explained in a dedicatory letter to his friend Lucius Gellius, prefixed to the edition of the Dissertations which Arrian finally resolved to issue. I here translate this document in full:—

“Arrian to Lucius Gellius, hail.

“I did not write [in literary form and composition, συγγράφειν] the words of Epictetus in the manner in which a man might write such things. Neither have I put them forth among men, since, as I say, I did not even write them. But whatever I heard him speak, those things I endeavored to set down in his very words, so to preserve to myself for future times a memorial of his thought and unstudied speech. Naturally, therefore, they are such things as one man might say to another on the occasion of the moment, not such as he would put together with the idea of finding readers long afterwards. Such they are, and I know not how without my will or knowledge they fell among men. But to me it is no great matter if I shall appear unequal to composing such a work, and to Epictetus none at all if any one shall despise his discourse; for when he spoke it, it was evident that he had but one aim—to stir the minds of his hearers towards the best things. And if, indeed, the words here written should do the same, then they will do, I think, that which the words of sages ought to do. But if not, yet let those who read them know this, that when he himself spoke them, it was impossible for the hearer to avoid feeling whatever Epictetus desired he should feel. But if his words, when they are merely words, have not this effect, perhaps it is that I am in fault, perhaps it could not have been otherwise. Farewell!”

The style of the Dissertations, as they have reached us, answers very well to the above account of their origin and purpose. They contain much that the world should be as little willing to neglect as anything that Greek philosophy has left us; but they contain also many repetitions, redundancies, incoherencies; and are absolutely devoid of any sort of order or system in their arrangement. Each chapter has generally something of a central theme, but beyond this all is chaos. The same theme will be dwelt on again and again in almost the same phrases; utterances of majestic wisdom are imbedded in pages of tedious argument, and any grouping of the chapters according to a progressive sequence of ideas will be looked for in vain.

Under these conditions it was evident that the teaching of Epictetus could never win half the influence which its essential qualities fitted it to exercise. And accordingly, as another and better vehicle for this influence, Arrian compiled and condensed from the Dissertations the small handbook of the Stoic philosophy known as the Encheiridion of Epictetus. This little work has made Epictetus known to very many whom the Dissertations would never have reached. It had the distinction—unparalleled in the case of any other Pagan writing, if we except the doubtful Sententiæ of Xystus—of being adopted as a religious work in the early Christian Church. Two paraphrases of it—still extant—one of which was specially designed for the use of monastic bodies, were produced about the sixth century a. d., in which very few changes were made in the text, beyond the alteration of Pagan names and allusions to Scriptural ones.

About the same time it was made the subject of an elaborate and lengthy commentary by a Pagan writer, Simplicius, wherein chapter after chapter is dissected, discussed, and explained. It was elegantly rendered into Latin by the well-known scholar of the Renaissance, Angelo Politian, who dedicated his translation to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Down to the present day, as numerous translations testify, it has remained the most usual means of access to the thought of Epictetus.

But inestimable as the Encheiridion is, he who knows it alone has gained nothing like all that Epictetus has to give. It is a compendium; and although much more stirring and forcible than is usual with such works, it cannot give us the wealth of interesting allusion, reflection, humor, the bursts of eloquence, the abrupt and biting style, the vivid revelations of personal feeling, which marked the teaching of Epictetus in the form in which he delivered it. It seems, therefore, that to make him as accessible as he can be to those for whom such things have any value or interest, it were necessary to produce from the Encheiridion and the Dissertations a third work, which should have the advantages of each. This is what I have endeavored to do in the present work. In it the whole of the Encheiridion is given, and the divisions of subject-matter into which the Encheiridion falls have been observed by the division of my translation into five Books, corresponding with the natural divisions of the Encheiridion—Book I., treating of the first principles of the Stoic philosophy; Book II., dealing with the general application of these principles to life; Book III., with man’s relations to his fellow-man; Book IV., with his relations to God; Book V., containing, besides a couple of concluding chapters, chiefly practical counsels of behavior on various particular occasions, and obiter dicta on the use of the faculties. Such is the scheme of arrangement suggested by the Encheiridion; and I have filled it in by setting among the chapters of the Encheiridion chapters or passages from the Dissertations, selected for their relevancy to the matter in hand. In fact, I have reversed the process by which the Encheiridion came into being. It was condensed out of the Dissertations: I have expanded it again by drawing into it a large quantity of material from the original work, and subjecting the new matter thus gained to the system and order of sequence which I found to prevail in the Encheiridion. The passages or chapters taken from the Dissertations are those which seemed to me most characteristic of the philosophy or the personality of Epictetus, and I have made it my aim to omit nothing which is essential to a full and clear understanding of the message he had to deliver to his generation. Of course there is plenty of room for differences of opinion as to the manner in which this conception has been here carried out; but I hope that the present attempt may do something to win a larger audience for his teaching than former editions could, in the nature of the case, obtain. If this hope should prove to be well founded, I shall expect, some day, to give the present English version a counterpart in a Greek text arranged on the same lines.

I may add here that the reader will find an Index at the end of this volume, in which every paragraph is referred to its original source in the Dissertations, Encheiridion, or Fragments—the references applying to Schweighäuser’s standard edition of Epictetus.[2]

As regards the style of my translation, I hope the tinge of archaism I have given it will be felt to suit the matter. I could think of no idiom so varied, so flexible even down to its use of various grammatical forms, so well suited alike to colloquy, or argument, or satire, or impassioned eloquence, as Elizabethan English.

So much to make the plan of the present work understood; and the reader may perhaps wish that I would now leave him to the study of it. But there is much in Epictetus the significance of which will not appear to any one who is unacquainted with the general system of Stoic philosophy which formed the basis of Epictetus’s ethical teaching. And I hope that the reader will prefer to have such information as is necessary given him in the form of a general introduction rather than in that of a multitude of notes.

The founder of the Stoic philosophy was Zeno, a native of Cyprus, who taught in Athens, about 300 b. c., in that frescoed arcade, or Stoa, which gave its name to his school. His birthplace is worth noting, for Zeno lived at the beginning of that epoch, himself one of the first products of it, in which the influence of the East became strongly apparent in Greek thought; the period called Hellenistic in contradistinction to the purely Hellenic period which ended in the conquests of the Macedonians. In many ways the conditions of life in the Hellenistic period formed the most favorable milieu possible for the development of Greek thought upon the only lines which, after Aristotle, it could fruitfully pursue; and this not in spite of, but even because of, the great degradation of political and social life from which all Hellendom then suffered. What the democratic polities were like, on which was laid the problem of confronting Philip of Macedon, we may conjecture from the history of the best known and assuredly not the worst of them, Athens. And the best type of Athenian whose rise to power was favored by the conditions of this time and place was Demosthenes: Demosthenes, the grand historical warning to all peoples against committing their destinies to professional orators; the statesman whose doubtless real veneration for his country and her past served only to make him a more mischievous counselor in her present difficulties; whose splendid power as a wielder of words was scarcely more signal than his incapacity and cowardice when he was called upon to match those words with deeds. Athens, entangling the Thebans in an alliance against Macedon, and then leaving them to face Alexander alone; deifying Demetrius the Besieger for driving out a Macedonian garrison, and allotting him the Parthenon itself to be his lodging and the scene of his unspeakable profligacies; murdering Phocion, the one man who dared to bring sincerity and virtue to her service—Athens was a type of the Greek States of this epoch: too unprincipled for democratic government, too contentious for despotism, too vain to submit to foreign rule, too lacking in valor, purpose, union, to resist it with effect.

Whatever the causes of the change may have been, the conditions of public life in this Hellenistic period were certainly very different from those which prevailed, albeit with decadence, before that vast breaking up of boundaries and destruction of political systems involved in the Macedonian conquests. The successful and inspiring conflict with Persia waged by the Hellenic States had for a time made all Greek hearts to beat with one aspiration, and had brought to the front a race of leaders who were capable of subduing the Greek democracies to their own steadfast and statesmanlike purposes. Public life was then not only a possible but even the most natural career for a man of talent and probity. The small size of the Greek States gave almost every such man an opportunity of action, and so keen and universal was the interest in politics that it threatened to lead Greek philosophy into a region in which philosophy is very apt to lose its vitalizing connection with human consciousness and experience, and to stiffen into barren speculation. In a word, man, as an individual, began to be too much lost sight of in the consideration of man as a citizen; his uses, his duties, the whole worth and significance of his life, came to be estimated too exclusively by his relations to the visible society about him. It was when the great Stoic Chrysippus found himself obliged to stand aloof from all participation in politics—“For if I counsel honorably I shall offend the citizens, and if basely, the Gods”—that such men as he were led to ask themselves: Is there then any sphere of human endeavor out of the reach of the tyranny of circumstance? If I cannot be a citizen, what am I worth then simply as a man? If I can be nothing to my fellows, what can I be to God? To a state of things, then, which, speaking broadly, made public life impossible to honest men, we owe the noblest ethical system of antiquity; to the enforced concentration of thought upon the individual we owe a certain note of universality till then absent from Hellenic thought.

But stoicism was not the only product of the speculation of this period. Side by side with it there started into being two other systems of philosophy, the necessity for combating which was doubtless of immense service to its development. These were Epicureanism and Pyrrhonism; and as the reader will find Epictetus much concerned with each of them, it may be desirable that I should give some brief account of their cardinal doctrines.

Epicurus was an Athenian. After some residence in Lesbos and Lampsacus, he began to teach in his native city about the year 306 B.C. His ethical views, which are all that concern us here, were of a distinctly unelevating nature. Pleasure, ἡδονή, was pronounced to be for each man the end and aim of his being, and the only rational motive of action. This, however, was not the pleasure of the voluptuary—its highest forms, according to Epicurus, were gained in ἀταραξία and ἀπονία—that is, a cheerful and unanxious temperament, with leisure for contemplation, ends not attainable by the criminal who lives in constant fear of detection, or the luxurious liver in whom satiety produces disgust and weariness.

Certain bodily conditions were, however, regarded as objects in themselves, and partaking of the nature of the absolutely good; and all entanglement in human relationships was discountenanced for the disturbance and distress which such relationships were liable to cause. These doctrines were put in practice by their teacher in inuring himself to a hermit-like simplicity and abstemiousness of life; and his life was philosophically consistent with his doctrines, for it is clear that the end of Pleasure will be most surely gained by him who has fewest wants to gratify. But though the lives of Epicurus and his immediate followers were exceptionally sober and strict, the total effect of his doctrine could not but have been evil. They were purely egoistic in this tendency—they centered each man’s activity and interest upon himself alone, they bade him take no thought for any other earthly or heavenly thing, and taught him that this ideal of indifference was realized in its full perfection by the Gods, who dwelt apart in divine repose while blind necessity had its way with human destiny.

Pyrrho of Elis, a rather earlier teacher than Zeno or Epicurus, who is said to have studied philosophy under Indian Gymnosophists and Chaldean Magi, was the originator in European thought of a great and permanent philosophic movement. His school was inspired by the Geist der stets verneint, and the term Skeptic was first devised to describe its attitude. Its strength is in a discovery which inevitably takes place when men begin to reflect upon their own mental operations—the discovery, namely, that, given a perceiving mind and a perceived object, it is always possible for the former, if it has the power of introspection, to doubt whether it has received a really true and faithful impression of the latter. How can we be assured that external objects are as we perceive them? How can we even be assured that there is any principle of constancy in their relations to our consciousness? The senses often delude us; we are convinced, in dreams, of the reality of appearances which, nevertheless, have no reality—-why may not all perception be a delusion? Why may not even our sense of the validity of inference and of the truth of the axioms of geometry be a pure hallucination? With these searching questions the Skeptic cut at the root of all belief, and the problems which they raise have dominated philosophy down to the present day. Nor in two thousand years has any logical answer to them ever been found. Lotze, the last thinker of really first-rate powers that the world has seen, practically abandons all inquiry into theories of perception, and starts with the assumption that we are living in a kosmos, not a chaos; that the order, coherence, reason in things to which consciousness testifies, are realities. In antiquity, I may add, the profound problems raised by Pyrrhonism do not seem to have been very profoundly apprehended either by the Pyrrhonists or their opponents. The latter had nothing better to appeal to than that notoriously feeble resource, the argumentum ad hominem. If the Pyrrhonist distrusted the evidence of his senses, they asked, why did he avoid walking over precipices or into the sea, or eat bread instead of earth, or in any way make choice of means for ends? The Pyrrhonist’s answer was equally superficial. It anticipated the famous formula of Bishop Butler. Probability, argued they, was the guide of life—having observed certain results to follow from certain antecedents, the prudent man will shape his course in life accordingly, although, as a matter of theory and speculation, he may refuse to believe in the constancy of nature. This answer involves a clear inconsistency. It involves even a greater assumption than that which the Pyrrhonist refused to make as to the credibility of his perceptions—the assumption of the credibility of his recollections. To the thorough-going Skeptic there is no such thing as past experience—he is, as it were, new-born at each instant of his life.

Such, in outline, were the systems against which the Stoic philosophy had to make good its position in the ancient world. From the first there seems to have been no doubt of its ability to do so, although, unhappily, the records which have been preserved of the teaching of its earliest days are few and obscure. The writings of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, and of Chrysippus, his immediate successor in the leadership of the school, have utterly perished, while of Cleanthes, the third of the early Stoic teachers, very little remains beyond the profound and majestic Hymn to Zeus, of which I have given a translation in this work. The complete loss of the hundreds of treatises produced by Chrysippus is especially to be regretted, as he appears to have taken the main part in giving shape and system to the Stoic philosophy. “Had Chrysippus not been, the Stoa had not been,” was a proverbial saying which testifies to his fame. However, from the accounts of ancient philosophers in Diogenes Laertius, from Plutarch, Seneca, Cicero, and a few other authorities, we can learn pretty clearly what the framework of the Stoic system had grown to be long before Epictetus began to study it.

In antiquity, a philosophic system was expected to have something to say for itself on three different branches of study—Logic, Physics (which included cosmogony and theology), and Ethics. We think of the Stoics chiefly in connection with the last-named of these subjects, but they were no less eminent in the others, and Chrysippus, in particular, was held to have done so much for the science of logic that a saying was current—“If there were dialectic among the Gods, it must be the dialectic of Chrysippus.” Of the Stoic contributions to this science, scarcely any record remains.

Of their physical system, however, much is known, and the reader of Epictetus needs to be acquainted with its general features. These were borrowed from an earlier thinker, Heracleitus, whose central doctrine was that the universe was an eternal flux and transition; everything was in a state of becoming, ein Werdendes. At the beginning of things, so far as they can be said to have any beginning, is the Deity in his purest manifestation, which, be it observed, is a strictly material one, a sublimated and ethereal fire, αἰθερῶδες πῦρ. In this fire dwelt the divine creative thought and impulse. The first step in that process of differentiation in which development consists is the production of vapor, which condensed into water. Two elementary forces play their part in these operations—a movement towards within, and a movement towards without, the one a densifying, the other an expanding and straining force (τόνος). The former gives us solidity in matter, the other the qualities and energies of matter. Thus, by various degrees of density, we get earth, water, atmospheric air, and from air, the common element of earthly fire; and these elements in their various combinations, with their various attributes and powers, gradually produce the successive stages of organic life. Though all these proceed from the substance of the Divine Being, the Stoics recognized, in the derived substance which make up the universe as we have it now, various degrees of purity, of affinity to their original source. Man’s body, for instance, with its passions and affections, lies comparatively far from the divine; but his soul is a veritable ray of the primitive fire, Deus in corpore humano hospitans. The popular mythology of the day was entirely rejected by the Stoics, although, as Professor Mahaffy points out, they never attempted to “discredit orthodoxy,” but, on the contrary, used its myths and ceremonies with the utmost reverence as vehicles of profound religious truths. But they certainly believed in intelligences above man, yet below the one Supreme Being; thus the stars and the lightning (the reader will observe the allusions in the Hymn of Cleanthes) are in some sense divinities, by virtue of the supposed purity of their fiery essence.

Thus from the one primitive divine element the Kosmos, with all its hierarchy of being, is evolved. But in the Stoic system πάντα ῥεῖ,[3] there is no continuance in any one condition. As in the normal life of all earthly creatures there comes a certain climax or turning point, after which the forces of decay gain slowly but surely on those of growth and resistance, so also runs the history of the universe which includes them all. One by one the steps by which it was formed shall be retraced, and the derived substances which compose it consumed and re-absorbed by that from which they sprang. From matter in its grossest form to its purest, from earth and stone and water to the highest intelligence in men and dæmons and Gods, nothing shall escape this doom of dissolution; everything shall yield up its separate existence, until at last the indestructible element of that primeval fire is again the sole being that remains, and Zeus is “alone in the conflagration,” self-contemplating in the solitudes of thought. But this is not the end. There is no end. The plastic impulse again resumes its sway, and soon another cycle of world-development and world-destruction begins to run its course. In the language of Seneca, “When that fatal day, that necessity of the times, shall have arrived, and it seems good to God to make an end of old things and ordain the better, then shall the ancient order be revoked and every creature be generated anew, and a race ignorant of guilt be given to the earth.”

This was the general physical system on which all Stoics were agreed, although there were differences of opinion upon minor points; such as how far these successive cycles resembled each other? some asserting that they did so in the minutest detail, others only in their larger features. It was a system, for all its superstitions, not without grandeur and truth. At bottom it expressed a sense of that phenomenon of ebb and flow, systole and diastole, the action and counteraction of balanced forces, which is perhaps the profoundest law of life.

Two questions arise in connection with the Stoic cosmogony, which we must briefly discuss before proceeding farther. Are we justified in terming their view of the universe a materialistic one? and what was their doctrine of the destinies of the human soul? Now it is certainly the usual practice among writers on philosophy to reckon the Stoics as materialists, and it is unquestionably true that they denied the possibility of any existence which was not corporeal. Strong as they are on the supremacy of the human soul over the human body, sharp as is the line with which they divide these elements, yet the distinction is a moral, not a metaphysical one—each is an actual material substance. But we shall be seriously mistaken, nevertheless, if we place them in the same class with the scientific materialists of the present day. According to the latter, Thought is no necessary moment in the universe, but merely a product of certain accidental combinations of matter, a product which, when these are dissolved, must disappear from existence, without leaving a trace of its presence behind. Again, according to most modern opponents of the materialistic view, Thought has an independent and immortal being—it existed before matter was, and would continue to exist if all matter were annihilated. The Stoic view differed from each of these modern theories. It held Thought and Matter to be eternal, inseparable, and, indeed, strictly identical. Being in its primitive and purest form was fire, a corporeal substance, but one exhibiting consciousness, purpose, will.

As to the question of the Stoic view of the immortality of the human soul, it does not seem to me to deserve so much discussion as it has received from some commentators. It is obvious that the soul must, in the end, share the lot of all other existences, and be resolved into the Divine Being which was its source. The only question that can arise is whether this resolution takes place at the moment of death, or whether the sense of personal identity persists for a certain period beyond that event; and this question, which Epictetus appears to have been wise enough to leave an open one, is philosophically of very little importance. The soul is immortal, the individual perishes; this is the conclusion of Stoicism, and if we know this, there is little else it can much concern us to know.

The reader who desires to gain a thorough knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy, and of the social and political conditions in which it throve, will find what he seeks in two works to which I have to express my large indebtedness. One is Zeller’s Philosophie der Griechen (Epikureer, Stoiker u. Skeptiker),[4] a monument of German research and erudition, in which vast masses of original material for the study of this most interesting, but neglected, epoch of the development of European intellect have been brought together, and interpreted with more than German lucidity and method. The other is Professor Mahaffy’s recent volume, Greek Life and Thought, a study of the Hellenistic period in various aspects, which the scholar will not read without profit, nor the lay-reader without pleasure.

We turn now to that department of the Stoic philosophy with which the reader of Epictetus is most concerned—its Ethics.

The ethical question resolves itself into a search for the supreme object of human endeavor, the Summum Bonum, the absolute and essential good. This, for the Stoic, embodied itself in the formula, “to live according to Nature.” But what is Nature? The will of God, as revealed in the heart and conscience of those who seek to know it, and interpreted through the observation in a reverent and faithful spirit of the facts of life.

Going into the subject more precisely we find certain criteria of moral truth established, προλήψεις, as they were called, that is, primitive, original conceptions, or, as I have rendered them in my translation, “natural conceptions,” dogmas by which all moral questions can be tried. If we inquire into the source of these προλήψεις, we shall find ourselves mistaken in our disposition to think that the Stoics regarded them as innate ideas. Innate they are not, for the Stoics held the soul at birth to be a tabula rasa, or blank page, which only experience could fill with character and meaning. But as Seneca says in his inquiry, “Quomodo ad nos prima boni honestique notitia pervenerit,”[5] although Nature alone could not teach us these things, could not equip us with the knowledge of them before we entered upon life, yet the “seeds” of this knowledge she does give us; the soul of every man has implanted in it a certain aptness or, indeed, necessity to deduce certain universal truths from such observation and experience as are common to all mankind; and these truths, the προλήψεις, though not strictly innate, have thus an inevitableness and dogmatic force not possessed by those which one man may reach and another miss in the exercise of the ordinary faculties, by argument, study, and so forth. By these natural conceptions the existence and character of God, and the general decrees of the moral law, are considered to be affirmed. If we inquire further how the Stoic explained the fact that some of these so-called inevitable and universal conclusions are denied in all sincerity by men like Epicurus, who were neither bad nor mad, we strike upon the difficulty which confronts all systems that aim at setting up any absolute body of truth, expressible in human language, in place of that partial, progressive, and infinitely varied revelation of God’s mind and purpose to which the uncolored facts of the world’s religious history seem to testify.

The natural conceptions, as I have said, contain the primary doctrines of ethics. None of these are more important for the Stoic than that which declares essential Good to lie in the active, not the passive side of man; in the will, not in the flesh, nor in anything else which the will is unable to control. But a certain relative and conditional goodness may lie in matters which are yet of no moment to the spiritual man, to that part of him which seeks the essential good. And we must note that when Epictetus speaks of certain things as good or bad or indifferent, he is generally speaking of them in their relation to the spiritual man, and in the most absolute and unconditional sense. No evil can happen to the essential part of man, to that side of him which is related to the eternal and divine, without his own will. Hence the death of a beloved friend, or child, or wife, is no evil; and if it be no evil, we are forbidden to grieve for it, or, in the most usual phrase with Epictetus, we are not to be troubled or confounded by it, ταράσσεσθαι. But if this utterance should shock our natural feelings, it will do something which assuredly Epictetus never meant it to do. It is the soul of man which these events cannot injure, and it is the soul which is forbidden to think itself injured by them. Such love of the individual as may be embraced in the larger love of the All, of God—such grief for bereavements and calamities as does not overwhelm the inner man (ii. 19) in a “wave of mortal tumult,” and dull his vital sense of the great moral ends which he was born to pursue, is repeatedly and explicitly admitted by Epictetus. Thus, in iii. 2, we have him arguing against Epicurus that there are certain natural sympathies between man and his kind, and even convicting Epicurus himself of a secret belief in these sympathies. Epicurus had dissuaded his followers from marriage, and the bringing-up of children, on account of the grief and anxiety which such relations necessarily entail. Not so the Stoics—they pressed their disciples to enter into the ordinary earthly relationships of husband, or wife, or citizen, and this without pretending to have found any means of averting the natural consequences which Epicurus dreaded, although they did profess to have discovered something in man which made him equal to the endurance of them. Again, although the condition of ἀπάθεια, of inward peace, of freedom from passions, is again and again represented by Epictetus as the mark of the perfect sage, we are told that this ἀπάθεια is something quite different from “apathy”—a man is not to be emotionless “like a statue.” And a third passage confirming this view is to be found in Book I., ch. xi. (Schweighäuser), where the conduct of a man who was so afflicted by the illness of his little daughter that he ran away from the house, and would hear news of her only through messages, is condemned, not for the affection and anxiety it proved, but for its utter unreasonableness. “Would you,” asks Epictetus, “have her mother and her nurse and her pedagogue, who all love her too, also run away from her, and leave her to die in the hands of persons who neither love nor care for her at all?” There is a grief which is really a self-indulgence, a barren, absorbing, paralyzing grief, which, to the soul possessed by it, makes every other thing in heaven and earth seem strange and cold and trivial. From such grief alone Epictetus would deliver us, and I think he would have accepted Mr. Aubrey de Vere’s noble sonnet on Sorrow as a thoroughly fit poetic statement of Stoic doctrine on this subject:—

“Count each affliction, whether light or grave, God’s messenger sent down to thee; do thou With courtesy receive him; rise and bow; And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave Permission first his heavenly feet to lave; Then lay before him all thou hast, allow No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow, Or mar thy hospitality; no wave Of mortal tumult to obliterate The soul’s marmoreal calmness: Grief should be Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate, Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free, Strong to consume small troubles; to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.”

But the grief that shall do this is a grief that must be felt. And Epictetus assuredly never meant to offer the Stoic philosophy as a mere stupefying anodyne. Make the man a Stoic, and something yet remains to do—to make the Stoic a man. One of these purposes was not more the concern of Epictetus than the other. And he pursued both of them with a strength, sincerity, and sanity of thought, with a power of nourishing the heroic fiber in humanity, which, to my mind, make him the very chief of Pagan moralists.

It is no purpose of mine to fill this preface with information which the reader can gain without doubt or difficulty from the author whom it introduces, and therefore I shall leave him to discover for himself what the positive ethical teaching of Epictetus was like. Nor is it, unhappily, possible to say much upon another subject on which Epictetus gives us little or no information—his own life and circumstances. Arrian wrote a biography of him, but it is now entirely lost, and the biographical details which have been collected from Simplicius, Suidas, Aulus Gellius, and others are very scanty. He was born at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, and became, how is unknown, a slave of Epaphroditus, a freedman and favorite of Nero, who is recorded to have treated him with great cruelty. One day, it is said, Epaphroditus began twisting his leg for amusement. Epictetus said, “If you go on you will break my leg.” Epaphroditus persisted, the leg was broken, and Epictetus, with unruffled serenity, only said, “Did I not tell you that you would break my leg?” This circumstance is adduced by Celsus in his famous controversy with Origen as an instance of Pagan fortitude equal to anything which Christian martyrology had to show;[6] but it is probably a mere myth which grew up to account for the fact mentioned by Simplicius and Suidas that Epictetus was feeble in body and lame from an early age.

Epaphroditus was probably a very bad master, and as a favorite and intimate of Nero’s must have been a bad man; but we have to thank him for the fact that Epictetus, while yet a slave, was sent to attend the philosophic lectures of Musonius Rufus, an eminent Stoic of Rome, whom both Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius mention with great respect. The system of philosophic training had been at this time long organized. There were masters of repute everywhere, who delivered their instruction in regular courses, received a fixed payment for the same, and under whom crowds of young men assembled from far and near to study science and ethics—to receive, in short, what corresponded to a university education in those days. The curious circumstance that a slave like Epictetus could participate in advantages of this kind is generally explained as the result of a fashionable whim which possessed Roman nobles at this time for having philosophers and men of culture among their slaves. Professor Mahaffy, in his Greek Life and Thought (p. 132), commenting on the summons of the two philosophers, Anaxarchus and Callisthenes, to console Alexander after his murder of Cleitus, observes, that it was probably usual to call in philosophers to minister professionally in cases of affliction. From this, to making a philosopher a regular adjunct to a large household, even as the baron of later times kept a fool, the step is not great. But Epaphroditus, one thinks, must have had frequent reason to rue the choice he made in Epictetus, if he expected his domestic philosopher to excuse his misdeeds as Anaxarchus did those of Alexander on the occasion above mentioned.

In the year 94 a. d. the emperor Domitian issued a decree expelling all philosophers from Rome—an easily explainable proceeding on his part if there were any large number of them who, in the words of Epictetus, were able “to look tyrants steadily in the face.” Epictetus must have by this time obtained his freedom and set up for himself as a professor of philosophy, for we find him, in consequence of this decree, betaking himself to Nicopolis, a city of Epirus. Here he lived and taught to a venerable age, and here he delivered the discourses which Arrian has reported for us. He lived with great simplicity, and is said to have had no servant or other inmate of his house until he hired a nurse for an infant which was about to be exposed, according to the practice of those days when it was desired to check the inconvenient growth of a family, and which Epictetus rescued and brought up. The date of his death is unknown.

And now, reader, I will take my leave of you with Arrian’s farewell salutation to Lucius Gellius, which, literally translated, is Be strong. If you need it, I know no teacher better able to make or keep you so than Epictetus. At any rate, to give him a fair chance of doing what it is in him to do for English-speaking men and women is something I have regarded as a sort of duty, a discharge of obligation for his infinite service to myself; which done to the utmost of my powers, the fewest forewords are the best.

T. W. R.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The Encheiridion of Epictetus, Translated into English by T. W. Rolleston. Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1881.

[2] Epicteti Dissertationum ab Arriano Digestarum Libri IV. et ex Deperditis Sermonibus Fragmenta. Post Io. Uptoni aliorumque curas, denuo ad Codicum M Storum fidem recensuit, Latina Versione, Adnotationibus, Indicibus illustravit Johannes Schweighäuser, Lipsiæ. MDCCXCIX.

Epicteti Manuale et Cebetis Tabula Græce et Latine. Schw. MDCCXCVIII.

There are two excellent English translations of the whole extant works of Epictetus—one by Mrs. Carter, published in the last century, the other by the late George Long, M. A. (Bohn Series), to both of which, but especially the latter, I desire to record my great obligations.

[3] πάντα ῥεῖ, all flows—the cardinal doctrine of the Heracleitean philosophy.

[4] An English translation of this work has lately appeared.

[5] Ep. 120. 4. ff.

[6] Gregory Nazianzen, commenting on this narrative, remarks that it only shows how manfully unavoidable sufferings may be borne.

CLEANTHES’ HYMN TO ZEUS.[1]

Most glorious of the Immortals, many named, Almighty forever. Zeus, ruler of nature, that governest all things with law, Hail! for lawful it is that all mortals should address Thee. For we are Thy offspring, taking the image only of Thy voice,[2] as many mortal things as live and move upon the earth. Therefore will I hymn Thee, and sing Thy might forever. For Thee doth all this universe that circles round the earth obey, moving whithersoever Thou leadest, and is gladly swayed by Thee. Such a minister hast Thou in Thine invincible hands;—the two-edged, blazing, imperishable thunderbolt. For under its stroke all Nature shuddereth, and by it Thou guidest aright the Universal Reason, that roams through all things, mingling itself with the greater and the lesser lights, till it have grown so great, and become supreme king over all. Nor is aught done on the earth without Thee, O God, nor in the divine sphere of the heavens, nor in the sea, Save the works that evil men do in their folly— Yea, but Thou knowest even to find a place for superfluous things, and to order that which is disorderly, and things not dear to men are dear to Thee. Thus dost Thou harmonize into One all good and evil things, that there should be one everlasting Reason of them all. And this the evil among mortal men avoid and heed not; wretched, ever desiring to possess the good, yet they nor see nor hear the universal Law of God, which obeying with all their heart, their life would be well. But they rush graceless each to his own aim, Some cherishing lust for fame, the nurse of evil strife, Some bent on monstrous gain, Some turned to folly and the sweet works of the flesh, Hastening, indeed, to bring the very contrary of these things to pass. But Thou, O Zeus, the All-giver, Dweller in the darkness of cloud, Lord of thunder, save Thou men from their unhappy folly, Which do Thou, O Father, scatter from their souls; and give them to discover the wisdom, in whose assurance Thou governest all things with justice; So that being honored, they may pay Thee honor, Hymning Thy works continually, as it beseems a mortal man. Since there can be no greater glory for men or Gods than this, Duly to praise forever the Universal Law.

NOTE: The references in the text refer throughout to the Notes at the end of the volume; each chapter having, where notes are necessary, its own chapter of Notes.

THE TEACHING OF EPICTETUS.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

the beginning of philosophy.

1. Wouldst thou be good, then first believe that thou art evil.

2. The beginning of philosophy, at least with those who lay hold of it as they ought and enter by the door,[1] is the consciousness of their own feebleness and incapacity in respect of necessary things.

3. For we come into the world having by nature no idea of a right-angled triangle, or a quarter-tone, or a semi-tone, but by a certain tradition of art we learn each of these things. And thus those who know them not, do not suppose that they know them. But good and evil, and nobleness and baseness, and the seemly and the unseemly, and happiness and misfortune, and what is our concern and what is not, and what ought to be done and what not—who hath come into the world without an implanted notion of these things? Thus we all use these terms, and endeavor to fit our natural conceptions to every several thing. He did well, rightly, not rightly, he failed, he succeeded, he is unrighteous, he is righteous—which of us spareth to use terms like these? Which of us will defer the use of them till he hath learned them, even as ignorant men do not use terms of geometry or music? But this is the reason of it: we come into the world already, as it were, taught by Nature some things in this kind, and setting out from these things we have added thereto our own conceit.[2] For how, saith one, do I not know what is noble and what is base? Have I not the notion of it? Truly. And do I not apply it to things severally? You do apply it. Do I not, then, apply it rightly? But here lies the whole question, and here conceit entereth in. For setting out from things confessed by all, they go on by a false application to that which is disputed. For if, in addition to those things, they had gained also this power of application, what would then hinder them to be perfect? But now since you think that you apply rightly the natural conceptions to things severally, tell me, whence have you this assurance?

——“Because it seems so to me.”

But to another it seems otherwise—and he, too, doth he think his application right or not?

——“He doth think it.”

Can ye, then, both be rightly applying the conceptions in matters wherein your opinions contradict each other?

——“We cannot.”

Have you, then, aught better to show for your application, or aught above this, that it seemeth so to you? But what else doth a madman do than those things that to him seem right? And doth this rule suffice for him?

——“It doth not suffice.”

Come, then, to that which is above seeming. What is this?

4. Behold, the beginning of philosophy is the observation of how men contradict each other, and the search whence cometh this contradiction, and the censure and mistrust of bare opinion. And it is an inquiry into that which seems, whether it rightly seems; and the discovery of a certain rule, even as we have found a balance for weights, and a plumb line for straight and crooked. This is the beginning of philosophy. Are all things right to all to whom they seem so? But how can contradictory things be right?

——“Nay, then, not all things, but those that seem to us right.”

And why to you more than the Syrians, or to the Egyptians? Why more than to me or to any other man? Not at all more. Seeming, then, doth not for every man answer to Being; for neither in weights or measures doth the bare appearance content us, but for each case we have discovered some rule. And here, then, is there no rule above seeming? And how could it be that there were no evidence or discovery of things the most necessary for men? There is, then, a rule. And wherefore do we not seek it, and find it, and, having found it, henceforth use it without transgression, and not so much as stretch forth a finger without it? For this it is, I think, that when it is discovered cureth of their madness those that mismeasure all things by seeming alone; so that henceforth, setting out from things known and investigated, we may use an organized body of natural conceptions in all our several dealings.

5. What is the subject about which we are inquiring? Pleasure? Submit it to the rule, cast it into the scales. Now the Good must be a thing of such sort that we ought to trust in it? Truly. And we ought to have faith in it? We ought. And ought we to trust in anything which is unstable? Nay. And hath pleasure any stability? It hath not. Take it, then, and fling it out of the scales, and set it far away from the place of the Good. But if you are dim of sight, and one balance doth not suffice, then take another. Is it right to be elated in what is good? Yea. And is it right to be elated then in the presence of a pleasure? See to it that thou say not it is right; or I shall not hold thee worthy even of the balance.[3] Thus are things judged and weighed, when the rules are held in readiness. And the aim of philosophy is this, to examine and establish the rules. And to use them when they are known is the task of a wise and good man.

CHAPTER II.

on the natural conceptions.

1. The natural conceptions are common to all men, and one cannot contradict another. For which of us but affirms that the Good is profitable, and that we should choose it, and in all circumstances follow and pursue it? Which of us but affirms that uprightness is honorable and becoming? Where, then, doth the contradiction arise? Concerning the application of the natural conceptions to things severally. When one saith, He did well, he is a worthy man, and another, Nay, but he did foolishly, then there is a contradiction among men, one with another. And there is the same contradiction among the Jews and the Syrians and the Egyptians and the Romans; not whether that which is righteous should be preferred to all things and in all cases pursued, but whether this be righteous or unrighteous, to eat the flesh of swine. And ye can discover the same contradiction in the matter of Achilles and Agamemnon. For call them before us: What sayest thou, Agamemnon, Should not that which is right and fair come to pass?

——“That should it.”

And what sayest thou, Achilles, Doth it not please thee that what is fair and right should be done?

——“Of all things this doth most please me.”

Then make application of your natural conceptions. Whence arose this dispute? The one saith: I am not bound to deliver up Chryseis to her father. And the other saith: Thou art bound. Assuredly one of them must ill apply the conception of duty. And again the one saith: Therefore if I should deliver up Chryseis, it is meet that I take his prize from one of you. And the other: Wouldst thou, then, take from me my beloved? He saith: Yea, even thine. And shall I alone, and I alone, have nothing? And thus ariseth the contradiction.

2. What is it, then, to be educated? It is to learn to apply the natural conceptions to each thing severally according to nature; and further, to discern that of things that exist some are in our own power[1] and the rest are not in our own power. And things that are in our own power are the will, and all the works of the will. And things that are not in our own power are the body, and the parts of the body, and possessions and parents and brethren and children and country and, in a word, our associates. Where now shall we place the Good? To what objects shall we apply it? To those which are in our own power? Then is health not good, and whole limbs and life? and are not children and parents and country? And who will bear with you if you say this? Let us, then, transfer it to these things. Now, can one be happy who is injured, and has missed gaining what is good? He cannot. And can such a one bear himself towards his fellows as he ought? How is it possible that he should? For I have it of nature that I must seek my own profit. If it profits me to own a piece of land, it profits me to take it from my neighbor. If it profits me to have a garment, it profits me to steal it from the bath. And hence wars, seditions, tyrannies, conspiracies. And how shall I be able to maintain a right mind towards God? for if I suffer injury and misfortune, it cannot be but He neglects me. And what have I to do with Him if He cannot help me? And, again, what have I to do with Him if He is willing to let me continue in the evils in which I am? Henceforth I begin to hate Him. Why, then, do we build temples and set up statues to Zeus as we do to powers of evil, such as Fever?[2] And how is He now the Saviour and the Raingiver and the Fruitgiver? And verily, all this follows, if we place anywhere in external things the nature and being of the Good.

CHAPTER III.

the master-faculty.

1. Of all our faculties ye shall find but one that can contemplate itself, or, therefore, approve or disapprove itself. How far hath grammar the power of contemplation? Only so far as to judge concerning letters. And music? Only so far as to judge concerning melodies. Doth any of them, then, contemplate itself? Not one. But when you have need to write to your friend, grammar will tell you how to write; but whether to write or not, grammar will not tell. And so with the musical art in the case of melodies; but whether it is now meet or not to sing or to play, music will not tell. What, then, will tell it? That faculty which both contemplates itself and all other things. And what is this? It is the faculty of Reason; for we have received none other which can consider itself—what it is, and what it can, and what it is worth—and all the other faculties as well. For what else is it that tells us that a golden thing is beautiful, since itself doth not? Clearly it is the faculty which makes use of appearances. What else is it that judges of music and grammar, and the other faculties, and proves their uses, and shows the fit occasions? None else than this.

2. Thus the Gods, as it was fit they should, place that only in our power which is the mightiest and master thing, the right use of appearances; but other things are not in our power. Was it that they did not wish it? I indeed think that had they been able they had made over to us those things also; but this they could in no way do. For being on the earth, and bound up with this flesh and with these associates, how was it possible that as regards these we should not be hindered by external things? But what saith Zeus? “Epictetus, if it were possible, I would have made both this thy little body and thy little property free and unhampered. But forget not now that this is but finely tempered clay, and nothing of thine own. And since I could not do this, I have given thee a part of ourselves, this power of desiring and disliking, and pursuing, avoiding, and rejecting, and, in brief, the use of appearances. Have a care, then, of this, hold this only for thine own, and thou shalt never be hindered or hampered, thou shalt not lament, thou shalt not blame, thou shalt never flatter any man.” What then? Do these seem trifling matters? God forbid. Are you, then, not content with them? At least I pray the Gods I may be.[1]

3. But now having one thing in our power to care for, and to cleave to, we rather choose to be careful of many things, and to bind ourselves to many things, even to the flesh, and to possessions, and to brother and friend, and child and slave. And being thus bound to many things, they lie heavy on us and drag us down. So, if the weather be not fair for sailing, we sit down distraught and are ever peering forth to see how stands the wind. It is north. And what is that to us? When will the west wind blow? When it shall seem good to it, friend; or to Æolus. For it was not thee, but Æolus whom God made “steward of the winds.”[2] What then? It is right to devise how we may perfect the things that are our own, and to use the others as their nature is. And what, then, is their nature? As it may please God.

CHAPTER IV.

the nature of the good.

1. The subject for the good and wise man is his own master-faculty, as the body is for the physician and the trainer, and the soil is the subject for the husbandman. And the work of the good and wise man is to use appearances according to Nature. For it is the nature of every soul to consent to what is good and to reject what is evil, and to hold back about what is uncertain; and thus to be moved to pursue the good and to avoid the evil, and neither way towards what is neither good nor evil. For as it is not lawful for the money-changer or the seller of herbs to reject Cæsar’s coin, but if one present it, then, whether he will or no, he must give up what is sold for it, so it is also with the soul. When the Good appears, straightway the soul is moved towards it, and from the Evil. And never doth the soul reject any clear appearance of the good, no more than Cæsar’s coin. On this hangeth every movement both of God and man.

2. The nature and essence of the Good is in a certain disposition of the Will; likewise that of the Evil. What, then, are outward things? Matter for the Will, about which being occupied it shall attain its own good or evil. How shall it attain the Good? Through not being dazzled with admiration of what it works on.[1] For our opinions of this, when right, make the will right, and when wrong make it evil. This law hath God established, and saith, “If thou wouldst have aught of good, have it from thyself.”

3. If these things are true (and if we are not fools or hypocrites), that Good, for man, lies in the Will, and likewise Evil, and all other things are nothing to us, why are we still troubled? why do we fear? The things for which we have been zealous are in no other man’s power; and for the things that are in others’ power we are not concerned. What difficulty have we now? But direct me, sayest thou. And why shall I direct thee? hath not God directed thee? hath He not given thee that which is thine own unhindered and unhampered, and hindered and hampered that which is not thine own? And what direction, what word of command didst thou receive from Him when thou camest thence? “Hold fast everything which is thine own—covet not that which is alien to thee. And faithfulness is thine, and reverence is thine: who, then, can rob thee of these things? Who can hinder thee to use them, if not thyself? But thyself can do it, and how? When thou art zealous about things not thine own, and hast cast away the things that are.” With such counsels and commands from Zeus, what wilt thou still from me? Am I greater than he? am I more worthy of thy faith? But if thou hold to these things, of what others hast thou need? But perchance these are none of his commands? Then bring forward the natural conceptions, bring the proofs of the philosophers, bring the things thou hast often heard, bring the things that thyself hast spoken, bring what thou hast read, bring what thou hast pondered.

CHAPTER V.

the promise of philosophy.

1. Of things that exist, some are in our own power, some are not in our own power. Of things that are in our own power are our opinions, impulses, pursuits, avoidances, and, in brief, all that is of our own doing. Of things that are not in our own power are the body, possessions, reputation, authority, and, in brief, all that is not of our own doing. And the things that are in our own power are in their nature free, not liable to hindrance or embarrassment, while the things that are not in our own power are strengthless, servile, subject, alien.

2. Remember, then, if you hold things by their nature subject to be free, and things alien to be your proper concern, you will be hampered, you will lament, you will be troubled, you will blame Gods and men. But if you hold that only to be your own which is so, and the alien for what it is, alien, then none shall ever compel you, none shall hinder you, you will blame no one, accuse no one, you will not do the least thing unwillingly, none shall harm you, you shall have no foe, for you shall suffer no injury.

3. Aiming, then, at things so high, remember that it is no moderate passion wherewith you must attempt them, but some things you must utterly renounce, and put some, for the present, aside. For if, let us say, you aim also at this, to rule and to gather riches, then you are like, through aiming at the chief things also, to miss these lower ends; and shall most assuredly miss those others, through which alone freedom and happiness are won. Straightway, then, practice saying to every harsh appearance—Thou art an Appearance and not at all the thing thou appearest to be. Then examine it, and prove it by the rules you have, but first and above all by this, whether it concern something that is in our own power, or something that is not in our own power. And if the latter, then be the thought at hand: It is nothing to Me.

CHAPTER VI.

the way of philosophy.

1. A certain Roman having entered with his son and listened to one lecture, “This,” said Epictetus, “is the manner of teaching;” and he was silent. But when the other prayed him to continue, he spake as follows:—

Every art is wearisome, in the learning of it, to the untaught and unskilled. Yet things that are made by the arts immediately declare their use, and for what they were made, and in most of them is something attractive and pleasing. And thus when a shoemaker is learning his trade it is no pleasure to stand by and observe him, but the shoe is useful, and moreover not unpleasing to behold. And the learning of a carpenter’s trade is very grievous to an untaught person who happens to be present, but the work done declares the need of the art. But far more is this seen in music, for if you are by where one is learning, it will appear the most painful of all instructions; but that which is produced by the musical art is sweet and delightful to hear, even to those who are untaught in it. And here we conceive the work of one who studies philosophy to be some such thing, that he must fit his desire to all events, so that nothing may come to pass against our will, nor may aught fail to come to pass that we wish for. Whence it results to those who so order it, that they never fail to obtain what they would, nor to avoid what they would not, living, as regards themselves, without pain, fear, or trouble; and as regards their fellows, observing all the relations, natural and acquired; as son or father, or brother or citizen, or husband or wife, or neighbor or fellow-traveler, or prince or subject. Such we conceive to be the work of one who pursues philosophy. And next we must inquire how this may come about.

2. We see, then, that the carpenter becomes a carpenter by learning something, and by learning something the pilot becomes a pilot. And here also is it not on this wise? Is it enough that we merely wish to become good and wise, or must we not also learn something? We inquire, then, what we have to learn?

3. The philosophers say that, before all things, it is needful to learn that God is, and taketh thought for all things; and that nothing can be hid from Him, neither deeds, nor even thoughts or wishes. Thereafter, of what nature the Gods are. For whatever they are found to be, he who would please and serve them must strive, with all his might, to be like unto them. If the Divine is faithful, so must he be faithful; if free, so must he be free; if beneficent, so must he be beneficent; if high-minded, so must he be high-minded; so that thus emulating God, he shall both do and speak the things that follow therefrom.[1]

4. Whence, then, shall we make a beginning? If you will consider this with me, I shall say, first, that you must attend to the sense of words.[2]

——“So I do not now understand them?”

You do not.

——“How, then, do I use them?”

As the unlettered use written words, or as cattle use appearances; for the use is one thing and understanding another. But if you think you understand, then take any word you will,[3] and let us try ourselves, whether we understand it. But it is hateful to be confuted, for a man now old, and one who, perhaps, hath served his three campaigns! And I too know this. For you have come to me now as one who lacketh nothing. And what could you suppose to be lacking to you? Wealth have you, and children, and it may be a wife, and many servants; Cæsar knows you, you have won many friends in Rome, you give every man his due, you reward with good him that doeth good to you, and with evil him that doeth evil. What is still lacking to you? If, now, I shall show you that you lack the greatest and most necessary things for happiness, and that to this day you have cared for everything rather than for what behooved you; and if I crown all and say that you know not what God is nor what man is, nor Good nor Evil;—and what I say of other things is perhaps endurable, but if I say you know not your own self, how can you endure me, and bear the accusation, and abide here? Never—but straightway you will go away in anger. And yet what evil have I done you? Unless the mirror doth evil to the ill-favored man, when it shows him to himself such as he is, and unless the physician is thought to affront the sick man when he may say to him: Man, dost thou think thou ailest nothing? Thou hast a fever: fast to-day and drink water. And none saith, What an affront. But if one shall say to a man: Thy pursuits art inflamed, thine avoidances are mean, thy purposes are lawless, thy impulses accord not with nature, thine opinions are vain and lying—straightway he goeth forth and saith, He affronted me.

5. We follow our business as in a great fair. Cattle and oxen are brought to be sold; and the greater part of the men come some to buy, some to sell; and few are they who come for the spectacle of the fair,—how it comes to pass, and wherefore, and who are they who have established it, and to what end. And so it is here, too, in this assembly of life. Some, indeed, like cattle, concern themselves with nothing but fodder; even such as those that care for possessions and lands and servants and offices, for these are nothing more than fodder. But few are they who come to the fair for love of the spectacle, what the world is and by whom it is governed. By no one? And how is it possible that a state or a house cannot endure, no not for the shortest time, without a governor and overseer, but this so great and fair fabric should be guided thus orderly by chance and accident? There is, then, one who governs. But what is his nature? and how doth he govern? and we, that were made by him, what are we, and for what are we? or have we at least some intercourse and link with him, or have we none? Thus it is that these few are moved, and thenceforth study this alone, to learn about the fair, and to depart. What then? they are mocked by the multitude. And in the fair, too, the observers are mocked by the traders; and had the cattle any reflection they would mock all those who cared for anything else than fodder.

CHAPTER VII.

to the learner.

1. Remember that pursuit declares the aim of attaining the thing pursued, and avoidance that of not falling into the thing shunned; and he who fails in his pursuit is unfortunate, and it is misfortune to fall into what he would avoid. If now you shun only those things in your power which are contrary to Nature, you shall never fall into what you would avoid. But if you shun disease or death or poverty, you shall have misfortune.

2. Turn away, then, your avoidance from things not in our power, and set it upon things contrary to Nature which are in our power. And let pursuit for the present be utterly effaced; for if you are pursuing something that is not in our power, it must needs be that you miscarry, and of things that are, as many as you may rightly aim at, none are yet open to you. But use only desire and aversion, and that indeed lightly, and with reserve, and indifferently.

3. No great thing cometh suddenly into being, for not even a bunch of grapes can, or a fig. If you say to me now: I desire a fig, I answer that there is need of time: let it first of all flower, and then bring forth the fruit, and then ripen. When the fruit of a fig-tree is not perfected at once, and in a single hour, would you win the fruit of a man’s mind thus quickly and easily? Even if I say to you, expect it not.

4. To fulfill the promise of a man’s nature is itself no common thing. For what is a man? A living creature, say you; mortal, and endowed with Reason. And from what are we set apart by Reason? From the wild beasts. And what others? From sheep and the like. Look to it, then, that thou do nothing like a wild beast, for if thou do, the man in thee perisheth, thou hast not fulfilled his promise. Look to it, that thou do nothing like a sheep, or thus too the man hath perished. What, then, can we do as sheep? When we are gluttonous, sensual, reckless, filthy, thoughtless, to what are we then sunken? To sheep. What have we lost? Our faculty of Reason. And when we are contentious, and hurtful, and angry, and violent, to what are we sunken? To wild beasts. And for the rest some of us are great wild beasts, and some of us little and evil ones; whereby we may say, “Let me at least be eaten by a lion.”[1] But through all these things the promise of the man’s nature has been ruined.

5. For when is a complex proposition safe?[2] When it fulfills its promise. So that the validity of a complex proposition is when it is a complex of truths. And when is a disjunctive safe? When it fulfills its promise. And when are flutes, or a lyre, or a horse, or a dog? What marvel is it, then, if a man also is to be saved in the same way, and perish in the same way?

6. But each thing is increased and saved by the corresponding works—the carpenter by the practice of carpentry, the grammarian by the study of grammar; but if he use to write ungrammatically, it must needs be that his art shall be corrupted and destroyed. Thus, too, the works of reverence save the reverent man, and those of shamelessness destroy him. And works of faithfulness save the faithful man, and the contrary destroy him. And men of the contrary character are strengthened therein by contrary deeds; the irreverent by irreverence, the faithless by faithlessness, the reviler by reviling, the angry by anger, the avaricious by unfair giving and taking.

7. Know, that not easily shall a conviction arise in a man unless he every day speak the same things and hear the same things, and at the same time apply them unto life.

8. Every great power is perilous to beginners. Thou must bear such things according to thy strength. But I must live according to Nature? That is not for a sick man.[3] Lead thy life as a sick man for a while, so that thou mayest hereafter live it as a whole man. Fast, drink water, abstain for a while from pursuit of every kind, in order that thou mayest pursue as Reason bids. And if as Reason bids, then when thou shalt have aught of good in thee, thy pursuit shall be well. Nay, but we would live as sages and do good to men. What good? What wilt thou do? Hast thou done good to thyself? But thou wouldst exhort them? And hast thou exhorted thyself?[4] Thou wouldst do them good—then do not chatter to them, but show them in thyself what manner of men philosophy can make. In thy eating do good to those that eat with thee, in thy drinking to those that drink, by yielding and giving place to all, and bearing with them. Thus do them good, and not by spitting thy bile upon them.

CHAPTER VIII.

the cynic.[1]

1. One of his pupils, who seemed to be drawn towards the way of Cynicism, inquired of Epictetus what manner of man the Cynic ought to be, and what was the natural conception of the thing. And Epictetus said: Let us look into it at leisure. But so much I have now to say to you, that whosoever shall without God attempt so great a matter stirreth up the wrath of God against him, and desireth only to behave himself unseemly before the people. For in no well-ordered house doth one come in and say to himself: I should be the steward of the house, else, when the lord of the house shall have observed it, and seeth him insolently giving orders, he will drag him forth and chastise him. So it is also, in this great city of the universe, for here too there is a master of the house who ordereth each and all: Thou art the Sun; thy power is to travel round and to make the year and the seasons, and to increase and nourish fruits, and to stir the winds and still them, and temperately to warm the bodies of men. Go forth, run thy course, and minister thus to the greatest things and to the least. Thou art a calf; when a lion shall appear, do what befits thee, or it shall be worse for thee. Thou art a bull; come forth and fight, for this is thy part and pride, and this thou canst. Thou art able to lead the army against Ilion; be Agamemnon. Thou canst fight in single combat with Hector; be Achilles. But if Thersites came forth and pretended to the authority, then either he would not gain it, or, gaining it, he would have been shamed before many witnesses.

2. And about this affair, do thou take thought upon it earnestly, for it is not such as it seemeth to thee. I wear a rough cloak now, and I shall wear it then;[2] I sleep hard now, and I shall sleep so then. I will take to myself a wallet and staff, and I will begin to go about and beg, and to reprove every one I meet with; and if I shall see one that plucks out his hairs, I will censure him, or one that hath his hair curled, or that goes in purple raiment. If thou conceivest the matter on this wise, far be it from thee—go not near it, it is not for thee. But if thou conceivest of it as it is, and holdest thyself not unworthy of it, then behold to how great an enterprise thou art putting forth thine hand.

3. First, in things that concern thyself, thou must appear in nothing like unto what thou now doest. Thou must not accuse God nor man; thou must utterly give over pursuit, and avoid only those things that are in the power of thy will; anger is not meet for thee, nor resentment, nor envy, nor pity;[3] nor must a girl appear to thee fair, nor must reputation, nor a flat cake.[4] For it must be understood that other men shelter themselves by walls and houses and by darkness when they do such things, and many means of concealment have they. One shutteth the door, placeth some one before the chamber; if any one should come, say, He is out, he is busy. But in place of all these things it behooves the Cynic to shelter himself behind his own piety and reverence; but if he doth not, he shall be put to shame, naked under the sky. This is his house, this his door, this the guards of his chamber, this his darkness. For he must not seek to hide aught that he doeth, else he is gone, the Cynic hath perished, the man who lived under the open sky, the freeman. He hath begun to fear something from without, he hath begun to need concealment; nor can he find it when he would, for where shall he hide himself, and how? And if by chance this tutor, this public teacher, should be found in guilt, what things must he not suffer! And fearing these things, can he yet take heart with his whole soul to guide the rest of mankind? That can he never: it is impossible!

4. First, then, thou must purify thy ruling faculty and this vocation of thine also, saying: Now it is my mind I must shape, as the carpenter shapes wood and the shoemaker leather; and the thing to be formed is a right use of appearances. But nothing to me is the body, and nothing to me the parts of it. Death? Let it come when it will, either death of the whole or of a part. Flee it! And whither? Can any man cast me out of the universe? He cannot; but whithersoever I may go there will be the sun, and the moon, and there the stars, and visions, and omens, and communion with the Gods.[5]

5. And, furthermore, when he hath thus fashioned himself, he will not be content with these things, who is a Cynic indeed. But know that he is an herald from God to men, declaring to them the truth about good and evil things; that they have erred, and are seeking the reality of good and evil where it is not; and where it is, they do not consider; and he is a spy, like Diogenes, when he was led captive to Philip after the battle of Chæronea.[6] For the Cynic is, in truth, a spy of the things that are friendly to men, and that are hostile; and having closely spied out all, he must come back and declare the truth. And he must neither be stricken with terror and report of enemies where none are; nor be in any otherwise confounded or troubled by the appearances.

6. He must then be able, if so it chance, to go up impassioned, as on the tragic stage, and speak that word of Socrates, “O men, whither are ye borne away? What do ye? Miserable as ye are! like blind men ye wander up and down. Ye have left the true road, and are going by a false; ye are seeking peace and happiness where they are not, and if another shall show you where they are, ye believe him not. Wherefore will ye seek it in outward things? In the body? It is not there—and if ye believe me not, lo, Myro! lo, Ophellius.[7] In possessions? It is not there, and if ye believe me not, lo, Crœsus! lo, the wealthy of our own day, how full of mourning is their life! In authority? It is not there, else should those be happy who have been twice or thrice consul; yet they are not. Whom shall we believe in this matter? You, who look but on these men from without, and are dazzled by the appearance, or the men themselves? And what say they? Hearken to them when they lament, when they groan, when by reason of those consulships, and their glory and renown, they hold their state the more full of misery and danger! In royalty? It is not there; else were Nero happy and Sardanapalus; but not Agamemnon himself was happy, more splendid though he was than Nero or Sardanapalus; but while the rest are snoring what is he doing?”

“He tore his rooted hair by handfuls out.”—Il. x.

And what saith himself? “I am distraught,” he saith, “and I am in anguish; my heart leaps forth from my bosom.”—[Il. x.] Miserable man! which of thy concerns hath gone wrong with thee? Thy wealth? Nay. Thy body? Nay; but thou art rich in gold and bronze. What ails thee then? That part, whatever it be, with which we pursue, with which we avoid, with which we desire and dislike, thou hast neglected and corrupted. How hath it been neglected? He hath been ignorant of the true Good for which it was born, and of the Evil; and of what is his own, and what is alien to him. And when it goeth ill with something that is alien to him, he saith, Woe is me, for the Greeks are in peril. O unhappy mind of thee! of all things alone neglected and untended. They will be slain by the Trojans and die! And if the Trojans slay them not, will they not still die? Yea, but not all together. What, then, doth it matter? for if it be an evil to die, it is alike evil to die together or to die one by one. Shall anything else happen to them than the parting of body and soul? Nothing. And when the Greeks have perished, is the door closed to thee? canst thou not also die? I can. Wherefore, then, dost thou lament: Woe is me, a king, and bearing the scepter of Zeus? There is no unfortunate king, as there is no unfortunate God. What, then, art thou? In very truth a shepherd; for thou lamentest even as shepherds do when a wolf hath snatched away one of the sheep; and sheep are they whom thou dost rule. And why art thou come hither? Was thy faculty of pursuit in any peril, or of avoidance, or thy desire or aversion? Nay, he saith, but my brother’s wife was carried away. Was it not a great gain to be rid of an adulterous wife? Shall we be, then, despised of the Trojans? Of the Trojan? Of what manner of men? of wise men or fools? If of wise men, why do ye make war with them? if of fools, why do ye heed them?[8]

7. In what, then, is the good, seeing that in these things it is not? Tell us, thou, my lord missionary and spy! It is there where ye deem it not, and where ye have no desire to seek it. For did ye desire, ye would have found it in yourselves, nor would ye wander to things without, nor pursue things alien, as if they were your own concerns. Turn to your own selves; understand the natural conceptions which ye possess. What kind of thing do ye take the Good to be? Peace? happiness? freedom? Come, then, do ye not naturally conceive it as great, as precious, and that cannot be harmed? What kind of material, then, will ye take to shape peace and freedom withal—that which is enslaved or in that which is free? That which is free. Have ye the flesh enslaved or free? We know not. Know ye not that it is the slave of fever, of gout, of ophthalmia, of dysentery, of tyranny, and fire, and steel, and everything that is mightier than itself? Yea, it is enslaved. How, then, can aught that is of the body be free? and how can that be great or precious which by nature is dead, mere earth or mud?

8. What then? have ye nothing that is free? It may be nothing. And who can compel you to assent to an appearance that is false? No man. And who can compel you not to assent to an appearance that is true? No man. Here, then, ye see that there is in you something that is by nature free. But which of you, except he lay hold of some appearance of the profitable, or of the becoming, can either pursue or avoid, or desire or dislike, or adapt or intend anything? No man. In these things, too, then, ye have something that is unhindered and free. This, miserable men, must ye perfect; this have a care to, in this seek for the Good.

9. And how is it possible that one can live prosperously who hath nothing; a naked, homeless, hearthless, beggarly man, without servants, without a country? Lo, God hath sent you a man to show you in very deed that it is possible. Behold me, that I have neither country, nor house, nor possessions, nor servants; I sleep on the ground; nor is a wife mine, nor children, nor domicile, but only earth and heaven, and a single cloak. And what is lacking to me? do ever I grieve? do I fear? am I not free? When did any of you see me fail of my pursuit, or meet with what I had avoided? When did I blame God or man? When did I accuse any man? When did any of you see me of a sullen countenance? How do I meet those whom ye fear and marvel at? Do I not treat them as my slaves? Who that seeth me, but thinketh he beholdeth his king and his lord?

10. So these are the accents of the Cynic, this his character, this his design. Not so—but it is his bag, and his staff, and his great jaws; and to devour all that is given to him, or store it up, or to reprove out of season every one that he may meet, or to show off his shoulder.[9]

11. Dost thou see how thou art about to take in hand so great a matter? Take first a mirror, look upon thy shoulders, mark well thy loins and thighs. Thou art about to enter thy name for the Olympic games, O man; no cold and paltry contest. Nor canst thou then be merely overcome and then depart; but first thou must be shamed in the sight of all the world; and not alone of the Athenians, or Lacedæmonians, or Nicopolitans. And then if thou hast too rashly entered upon the contest thou must be thrashed, and before being thrashed must suffer thirst and scorching heat, and swallow much dust.

12. Consider more closely, know thyself, question thy genius,[10] attempt nothing without God; who, if He counsel thee, be sure that He wills thee either to be great or to be greatly plagued. For this very agreeable circumstance is linked with the calling of a Cynic; he must be flogged like an ass, and, being flogged, must love those who flog him, as though he were the father or brother of all mankind. Not so, but if one shall flog thee, stand in the midst and shriek out, O Cæsar, what things do I suffer in the Emperor’s peace! Let us take him before the pro-consul. But what is Cæsar to the Cynic? or what is a pro-consul? or what is any other than He that hath sent him hither, and whom he serveth, which is Zeus? Doth he call upon any other than God? Is he not persuaded, whatsoever things he may suffer, that he is being trained and exercised by God? Hercules, when he was exercised by Eurystheus, never deemed himself wretched; but fulfilled courageously all that was laid upon him. But he who shall cry out and bear it hard when he is being trained and exercised by Zeus, is he worthy to bear the scepter of Diogenes? Hear what Diogenes saith, when ill of a fever, to the bystanders: Base souls, will ye not remain? To see the overthrow and combat of athletes, how great a way ye journey to Olympia; and have ye no will to see a combat between a fever and a man? And will such an one presently accuse God who hath sent him, as having used him ill—he who was glorying in his lot, and held himself worthy to be a spectacle to the bystanders? For of what shall he accuse Him: that his life is seemly, that he manifests God’s will, that he showeth forth his virtue more brightly? Come, then; and what saith he about death, about pain? How did he compare his own happiness with that of the Great King? nay, he thought rather that there was no comparison. For where there are confusions, and griefs, and fears, and unattained pursuits, and avoidance in vain, and envy and rivalry, can the way to happiness lie there? But where rotten opinions are there must of necessity be all these things.

13. And the young man having asked whether one that hath fallen ill shall obey, if a friend desire that he will go home with him and be tended: Where, he said, will you show me the friend of a Cynic? For he himself must be even such another, so as to be worthy to be reckoned his friend. A sharer in the scepter and the royalty must he be, and a worthy servant, if he will be worthy of his friendship, as Diogenes was of Antisthenes and Crates of Diogenes. Or seems it so to thee that whosoever shall come to him and bid him hail is his friend? and that he will think him worthy that a Cynic shall go to his house? Thus if it please thee to be a Cynic, bethink thee rather of such a thing as this, and cast about for a dainty dungheap whereon to have thy fever; and see that it look away from the north, so that thou be not chilled. But thou seemest to me to wish to retreat into somebody’s house and spend thy time there, and be fed. What hast thou to do with undertaking so great a matter?

14. But marriage, said he, and the begetting of children,—are these to be received by the Cynic among his chief purposes?

Give me, said Epictetus, a city of wise men, and perhaps no one will easily come to the Cynic way: for whose sake should he embrace it? However, if we do suppose such a thing, there is nothing to hinder his marrying and begetting children; for his wife will be even such another, and his father-in-law such another, and thus will his children be brought up. But things being as they now are, as it were in order of battle, must not the Cynic be given wholly and undistracted to the service of God, being able to go about among men, and not bound to private duties, nor entangled in ties which, if he transgress, he can no longer preserve the aspect of honesty and goodness; and if he obey them, he hath lost that of the missionary, the spy, the herald of the Gods? For see! he must needs observe a certain conduct towards his father-in-law, and he hath somewhat to render also to the rest of his wife’s kin and to his wife herself. And for the rest, he is shut off from Cynicism by the care for sickness, or means of livelihood. For one thing alone, he must have a vessel for warming water for his little child, where he may wash it in the bath; and wool for his wife when she has been delivered, and oil, and a couch, and a drinking cup—already a number of utensils—and other affairs and distractions. Where shall I thenceforth find that king, whose business is the common weal?

“Warden of men, and with so many cares.” Il. ii. 25.

on whom it lies to oversee all men, the married, and parents, and who useth his wife well, and who ill, and who wrangles, and what household is well-ordered, and what not; going about as a physician, and feeling pulses—“thou hast a fever, thou a headache, thou the gout; do thou fast, do thou eat, do thou avoid the bath, thou needest the knife, thou the cautery?” Where is the place for leisure to one who is bound to private duties? Must he not provide raiment for his children? yea, and send them to the schoolmaster with their tablets and writing instruments? and have a bed ready for them, since a man cannot be a Cynic from the womb? Else were it better to cast them away at once than kill them in this way. See, now, to what we have brought our Cynic—how we have taken away his kingship from him! True, but Crates married. Thou speakest of a circumstance that arose from love, and adducest a wife who was another Crates.[11] But our inquiry is concerning common marriages, and how men may be undistracted; and thus inquiring, we do not find it, in this condition of the world, a purpose of chief concern for a Cynic.

15. How, then, said he, shall he still be preserving the community? God help thee! Whether do they best serve mankind who fill their own place by bringing into the world two or three screaming children, or those who, as far they may, oversee all men, what they do, how they live, wherewith they concern themselves, and what duties they neglect? And were the Thebans more benefited by as many as left their little children behind, or by Epaminondas, who died childless? And did Priam, who begat fifty good-for-nothing sons, or Danaus, or Æolus,[12] better serve the community than Homer? Shall, then, the command of an army or the writing of poems withdraw a man from marriage and fatherhood, and he shall not be thought to have gained nothing for his childlessness, but the kingship of a Cynic shall be not worth what it costs? It may be we do not perceive his greatness, nor do we worthily conceive of the character of Diogenes; but we turn away our eyes to the present Cynics, “watch-dogs of the dining-room,”[13] who in nothing resemble those others, save perchance in breaking wind; but in no other thing. For else these things would not have moved us, nor should we have marveled if a Cynic will not marry nor beget children. Man! he hath begotten all mankind, he hath all men for his sons, all women for his daughters; so doth he visit all and care for all. Thinkest thou that he is a mere meddler and busybody in rebuking those whom he meets? As a father he doth it, as a brother, and as servant of the Universal Father, which is God.

16. If it please thee, ask of me also whether he shall have to do with affairs of public polity? Fool! dost thou seek a greater polity than that in whose affairs he is already concerned? Will it be greater if he come forward among the Athenians to say something about ways or means—he, whose part it is to discourse with all men, Athenians, Corinthians, Romans alike, not concerning means or ways, nor concerning peace or war, but about happiness and unhappiness, about good-fortune and ill-fortune, about slavery and freedom? And of a man that hath his part in so great a polity will you ask me if he shall attend to public affairs? Ask me also if he shall be a ruler; and again I shall say, Thou fool, what rule can be greater than his?

17. And to such a man there is need also of a certain kind of body. For if he shall appear consumptive, meager, and pale, his witness hath not the same emphasis. Not only by showing forth the things of the spirit must he convince foolish men that it is possible, without the things that are admired of them, to be good and wise, but also in his body must he show that plain and simple and open-air living are not mischievous even to the body: “Behold, even of this I am a witness, I and my body.” So Diogenes was wont to do, for he went about radiant with health, and with his very body he turned many to good. But a Cynic that men pity seems to be a beggar—all men turn away from him, all stumble at him. For he must not appear squalid; so that neither in this respect shall he scare men away; but his very austerity should be cleanly and pleasing.

18. Much grace of body, then, must belong to the Cynic, and also quickness of mind, else he is a mere clot of slime and nothing else; for he must be ready and apt to meet all that may befall him. Thus when one said to Diogenes: Thou art that Diogenes who thinkest there are no Gods, he replied, And how may that be, seeing I hold thee hateful to the Gods? And again, when Alexander stood beside him, as he was lying asleep, and said:

“Not all night must a man of counsel sleep,”

he answered, ere he was yet awake:

“Warden of men, and with so many cares.”[14]

19. But before all things must his ruling faculty be purer than the sun, else he must needs be a gambler and cheater, who, being himself entangled in some iniquity, will reprove others. For, see how the matter stands: to these kings and tyrants, their spearmen and their arms give the office of reproving men, and the power to punish transgressors, yea, though they themselves be evil; but to the Cynic, instead of arms and spearmen, his conscience giveth this power. When he knows that he has watched and labored for men, and lain down to sleep in purity, and sleep hath left him yet purer; and that his thoughts have been the thoughts of one dear to the Gods, of a servant, and a sharer in the rule of Zeus; and he hath had ever at hand that

“Lead me, O Zeus, and thou Destiny,[15]

and,

“If thus it be pleasing to the Gods, so may it be”—

wherefore, then, shall he not take heart to speak boldly to his brothers, to his children, in a word, to all his kin? For this reason, he that is in this state is no meddler or busybody, for when he overlooks human affairs he meddles not with foreign matters, but with his own affairs. Else, name the general a busybody when he overlooks his soldiers, and reviews them, and watches them, and punishes the disorderly. But if you have a flat cake under your cloak while you reprove others, I say, get hence rather into a corner, and eat what thou hast stolen—what are other men’s concerns to thee? For what art thou—the bull of the herd? or the queen bee? Show me the tokens of thy supremacy, such as nature hath given her. But if thou art a drone claiming sovereignty over the bees, thinkest thou not that thy fellow-citizens will overthrow thee, as bees do the drones?

20. And truly the Cynic must be so long-suffering as that he shall seem to the multitude insensate and a stone. Him doth none revile, nor smite, nor insult; but his body hath he given to any man to use at will. For he remembers that the worse must needs be vanquished by the better, whereinsoever it is the worse; and the body is worse than the multitude—the weaker than the stronger. Never, then, doth he go down to any contest where it is possible for him to be vanquished, but he yields up all that is not his own, and contends for nothing that is subject to others. But where there is question of the will and the use of appearances, then you shall see how many eyes he hath, so that you may say that compared with him Argus was blind. Is his assent ever hasty; or his desire idle; or his pursuit in vain; or his avoidance unsuccessful; or his aim unfulfilled? doth he ever blame, or cringe, or envy? This is his great study and his design; but as regards all other things, he lies on his back and snores, for all is peace. There is no thief of his will, nor tyrant; but of his body? yea; and of his chattels? yea, and also of his authority and his honors. What, then, are these things to him? So when one may seek to make him afraid on account of them—Go hence, he saith to him, and find out little children; it is to these that masks are dreadful, but I know they are made of clay, and that inside them there is nothing.

21. On such a matter art thou now meditating. Therefore, if it please thee, in God’s name delay it yet awhile, and see first what ability thou hast for it. For mark what Hector speaks to Andromache: Go, he saith, rather into the house and weave—

“For war’s the care Of every man, and more than all of me.” —Il. vi. 490.

Thus he knew where lay his own ability and her incapacity.

End of Book I.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

on genuine and borrowed beliefs.

1. The master-argument seems to start from propositions such as these:[1] There being a mutual contradiction among these three propositions—(1) “Every past event is necessarily true,” and (2) “An impossibility cannot follow a possibility,” and (3) “Things are possible which neither are nor will be true,” Diodorus, perceiving this contradiction, made use of the force of the first two in order to prove that nothing is possible which neither is nor will be true. And, again, one will hold these two, (3) that a thing is possible which neither is nor will be true, and (2) that an impossibility cannot follow from a possibility; but by no means that every past thing is necessarily true, and thus those of the school of Cleanthes appear to think, whom Antipater strongly defended. But some hold the other two, (3) that a thing is possible that neither is nor will be true, and (1) that every past event is necessarily true; but maintain that an impossibility may follow from a possibility. But all three it is impossible to hold at once, because of their mutual contradiction.

2. Now, if any one inquire of me, And which of these dost thou hold? I shall answer him that I do not know, but I have received this account, that Diodorus holds certain of them, and I think the followers of Panthoides and Cleanthes certain others, and those of Chrysippus yet others. And thyself? Nay, it is no affair of mine to try my own thoughts, and to compare and estimate statements, and to form some opinion of my own upon the matter.[2] And thus I differ no whit from the grammarians. Who was Hector’s father? Priam. And his brothers? Alexander and Deiphobus. And their mother, who was she? Hecuba. That is the account I have received. From whom? From Homer; and I think Hellanicus has written of them, and maybe others too. And I; what better have I to say about the master-argument? But if I am a vain man, and especially at a banquet, I shall amaze all the company by recounting those who have written on it;—for Chrysippus wrote on it wonderfully in his first book “On Possibilities;” and Cleanthes wrote a separate treatise on it, and so did Archedemus. And Antipater wrote too, not only in his book “On Possibilities,” but also separately in those on the master-argument. Have you not read the work? No! Then read it. And what good will it do him to read it? He will become yet more of a babbler and a nuisance than he is now, for what else hath the reading of it done for you? What opinion have you formed for yourself on the matter? Nay, but you will tell us all about Helen, and Priam, and the island of Calypso, that never existed, nor ever will.

3. And in Homer, indeed, it is no great matter if you have simply mastered the account, and formed no opinion of your own. But in ethics this is even much more often the case than in other matters. Tell me concerning good and evil things! Listen to him, then, with his—

“Me to Ciconia brought the wind from Troy.” —Od. ix, 39.

Of things some are good, some evil, and some indifferent. Now the good things are the virtues, and those that have the nature of virtue, and the evil things the vices, and those that have the nature of vice; and the indifferent things[3] are between these, as wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, affliction. And how do you know this? Because Hellanicus affirms it in his history of the Egyptians; for as well say this as that Diogenes has it in his Ethics, or Chrysippus, or Cleanthes. But have you tested any of their sayings, and formed an opinion for yourself? Show me how you are wont to bear a storm at sea. Do you remember the difference between good and evil when the sail clatters, and some vexatious man comes to you as you are shrieking, and says—

——“Tell me, by the Gods, what you were lately saying, Is it any vice to be shipwrecked? Hath it anything of the nature of vice?”

Would you not lay hold of a stick and shake it in his face: Let us alone, man; we are perishing, and you come to mock us! And do you remember the difference if you are accused of something and Cæsar sends for you? If one should come to you when you enter, pale and trembling, and should say, “Why do you tremble, man? what is your business concerned with? Doth Cæsar there within dispense virtue and vice to those who go in to him? Why, you will say; must you too mock me in my calamities?

——“Nevertheless, tell me, O Philosopher, why you tremble—is it not merely death that you are in danger of, or imprisonment, or bodily suffering, or exile, or disgrace? What else? Is it any vice? or anything of the nature of vice?”

And you will reply somewhat to this effect: Let me alone, man; my own evils are enough for me.

And truly you say well, for your own evils are enough for you; which are meanness, cowardice, and your false pretenses when you sat in the school of philosophy. Why did you deck yourself in others’ glory? Why did you call yourself a Stoic?

4. Watch yourselves thus in the things that ye do, and ye shall see of what school ye are. And the most of you will be found Epicureans, but some few Peripatetics,[4] and those but slack. For where is the proof that ye hold virtue equal to all other things, or indeed superior? Show me a Stoic, if ye have one. Where or how can ye? But persons that repeat the phrases of Stoicism, of these ye can show us any number. And do they repeat those of the Epicureans any worse? and are they not equally accurate in the Peripatetic? Who is, then, a Stoic? As we say that a statue is Pheidian which is wrought according to the art of Pheidias, show me a man that is wrought according to the opinions he utters! Show me one that is sick and yet prosperous, in peril and prosperous, dying and prosperous, in exile and prosperous, in evil repute and prosperous. Show him to me! by the Gods! fain would I see a Stoic! And have ye none that is fully wrought out; then show me at least one that is in hand to be wrought—one that even leaneth towards these things. Do me this favor—grudge not an old man a sight that I have never seen yet. Think ye that I would have you show me the Zeus of Pheidias or the Athene—a work all ivory and gold? Nay; but let one show me a man’s soul that longs to be like-minded with God, and to blame neither Gods nor men, and not to fail in any effort or avoidance, and not to be wrathful nor envious, nor jealous, but—for why should I make rounds to say it?—that desires to become a God from a man, and in this body of ours, this corpse, is mindful of his fellowship with Zeus. Show me that man. But ye cannot! Why, then, will ye mock yourselves and cheat others? Why wrap yourselves in others’ garb, and go about, like thieves that steal clothes from the bath, with names and things that in nowise belong to you?

5. And now I am your teacher and ye are being taught by me. And I have this aim—to perfect you, that ye be unhindered, uncompelled, unembarrassed, free, prosperous, happy, looking unto God alone in all things great and small. And ye are here to learn these things, and to do them. And wherefore do ye not finish the work, if ye have indeed such an aim as behooves you, and if I, besides the aim, have such ability as behooves me? What is here lacking? When I see a carpenter, and the wood lying beside him, I look for some work. And now, here is the carpenter, here is the wood—what is yet lacking? Is the thing such as cannot be taught? It can. Is it, then, not in our power? Yea, this alone of all things is. Wealth is not in our power, nor health, nor repute, nor any other thing, save only the right use of appearances. This alone is by nature unhindered; this alone is unembarrassed. Wherefore, then, will ye not make an end? Tell me the reason. For either the fault lies in me, or in you, or in the nature of the thing. But the thing itself is possible, and indeed the only thing that is in our power. It remains that I am to blame, or else ye are; or, to speak more truly, both of us. What will ye, then? Let us at length begin to entertain such a purpose among us, and let the past be past. Only let us make a beginning: trust in me, and ye shall see.

CHAPTER II.

the game of life.

1. This above all is the task of Nature—to bind and harmonize together the force of the appearances of the Right and of the Useful.

2. Things are indifferent, but the uses of them are not indifferent. How, then, shall one preserve at once both a steadfast and tranquil mind, and also carefulness of things, that he be not heedless or slovenly? If he take the example of dice players. The numbers are indifferent, the dice are indifferent. How can I tell what may be thrown up? But carefully and skillfully to make use of what is thrown, that is where my proper business begins. And this is the great task of life also, to discern things and divide them, and say, “Outward things are not in my power; to will is in my power. Where shall I seek the Good, and where the Evil? Within me—in all that is my own.” But of all that is alien to thee call nothing good nor evil, nor profitable nor hurtful, nor any such term as these.

3. What then? should we be careless of such things? In no wise. For this, again, is a vice in the Will, and thus contrary to Nature. But be at once careful, because the use of things is not indifferent, and steadfast and tranquil because the things themselves are. For where there is aught that concerns me, there none can hinder or compel me; and in those things where I am hindered or compelled the attainment is not in my power, and is neither good nor evil; but my use of the event is either evil or good, and this is in my power. And hard it is, indeed, to mingle and reconcile together the carefulness of one whom outward things affect, with the steadfastness of him who regards them not. But impossible, it is not; and if it is, it is impossible to be happy.

4. Give me one man that cares how he shall do anything—that thinks not of the gaining of the thing, but thinks of his own energy.

5. Chrysippus, therefore, said well—“As long as future things are hidden from me, I hold always by whatever state is the most favorable for gaining the things that are according to Nature; for God Himself gave it to me to make such choice. But if I knew that it were now ordained for me to be sick, I would even move to it of myself. For the foot, too, if it had intelligence, would move of itself to be mired.”

6. For to what end, think you, are ears of corn produced? Is it not that they may become dry and parched? And the reason they are parched, is it not that they may be reaped? for it is not to exist for themselves alone that they come into the world. If, then, they had perception would it be proper for them to pray that they should never be reaped? since never to be reaped is for ears of corn a curse. So understand that for men it is a curse not to die, just as not to be ripened and not to be reaped. But we, since we are both the things to be reaped and are also conscious that we shall be reaped, have indignation thereat. For we know not what we are, nor have we studied what concerns humanity as those that have the care of horses study what concerns them. But Chrysantas, when just about to smite the enemy, forbore on hearing the trumpet sounding his recall; so much better did it seem to him to obey the commander’s order than to do his own will. But of us not one will follow with docility the summons even of necessity, but weeping and groaning the things that we suffer, we suffer, calling them our doom.[1] What doom, man? If by doom you mean that which is doomed to happen to us, then we are doomed in all things. But if only our afflictions are to be called doom, then what affliction is it that that which has come into being should perish? But we perish by the sword, or the wheel, or the sea, or the tile of a roof, or a tyrant. What matters it by what road thou goest down into Hades? they are all equal. But if thou wilt hear the truth, the way the tyrant sends thee is the shortest. Never did a tyrant cut a man’s throat in six months, but a fever will often be a year killing him. All these things are but noise, and a clatter of empty names.

7. But let us do as in setting out on a voyage. What is it possible for me to do? This—to choose the captain, crew, the day, the opportunity. Then a tempest has burst upon us; but what doth it concern me? I have left nothing undone that was mine to do; the problem is now another’s, to wit, the captain’s. But now the ship is sinking! and what have I to do? I do only what I am able—drown without terror and screaming and accusing of God, but knowing that that which has come into being must also perish. For I am no Immortal, but a man, a part of the sum of things as an hour is of the day. Like the hour, I must arrive, and, like the hour, pass away. What, then, can it matter to me how I pass away—whether by drowning or by a fever? for pass I must, even by some such thing. Now, this is what you shall see done by skillful ball-players. None careth for the ball as it were a thing good or bad; but only about throwing it and catching it. In this, then, there is rule, in this art, quickness, judgment: so that I may fail of catching the ball, even if I spread out my lap, and another, if I throw it, may catch it. But if I am anxious and nervous as I catch and throw, what kind of play is this? how shall one be steady? how shall he observe the order of the game? One will call “Throw,” “Do not throw,” and another, “You have thrown once.” But this is strife and not play.

8. Thus Socrates knew how to play ball. How? When he jested in the court of justice. “Tell me, Anytus,” he said, “how say you that I believe there is no God? The Dæmons, who are they, think you? Are they not sons of God, or a mixed nature between Gods and men?” And when this was admitted—“Who, do you think, can hold that mules exist, but not asses?”[2] And thus he played with the ball. And what was the ball that was there thrown about among them? Life, chains, exile, a draught of poison, to be torn from a wife, to leave children orphans. These were the things among them that they played withal; yet none the less did he play, and flung the ball with proper grace and measure. And so should we do also, having the carefulness of the most zealous players, and yet indifference, as were it merely about a ball.

CHAPTER III.

things are what they are.

1. Each thing that allures the mind or offers an advantage or is loved by you, remember to speak of it as it is, from the smallest things upward. If you love an earthen jar, then think, I love an earthen jar, for so shall you not be troubled when it breaks. And when you kiss your little child, or wife, think, I kiss a mortal; and so shall you not be troubled when they die.

2. When you are about to take in hand some action, bethink you what it is that you are about to do. If you go to the bath, represent to yourself all that takes place there—the squirting of water, the slapping, the scolding, the pilfering; and then shall you take the matter in hand more safely, saying straightway: I desire to be bathed, and maintain my purpose according to Nature. And even so with each and every action. For thus, if aught should occur to cross you in your bathing, this thought shall be straightway at hand: But not this alone did I desire; but also to maintain my purpose according to Nature. And I shall not maintain it if I have indignation at what happens here.

3. The first difference between the vulgar man and the philosopher: The one saith, Woe is me for my child, my brother, woe for my father; but the other, if ever he shall be compelled to say, Woe is me, checks himself, and saith, for myself. For nothing that the Will willeth not can hinder or hurt the Will, but itself only can hurt itself. If then, indeed, we too incline to this, that when we are afflicted we accuse ourselves, and recollect that nothing else than Opinion can cause us any trouble or unsettlement, I swear by all the Gods we have advanced! But as it is, we have from the beginning traveled a different road. While we are still children, if haply we stumbled as we were gaping about, the nurse did not chide us, but beat the stone. For what had the stone done? Ought it to have moved out of the way for your child’s folly? Again, if we find nothing to eat after coming from the bath, never doth the tutor check our desire, but he beats the cook. Man, we did not set thee to be a tutor of the cook, but of our child—him shall you train, him improve. And thus, even when full-grown, we appear as children. For a child in music is he who hath not learned music, and in letters, one who hath not learned letters, and in life, one undisciplined in philosophy.

4. It is not things, but the opinions about the things, that trouble mankind. Thus Death is nothing terrible; if it were so, it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the opinion we have about Death, that it is terrible, that it is wherein the terror lieth. When, therefore, we are hindered or troubled or grieved, never let us blame any other than ourselves; that is to say, our opinions. A man undisciplined in philosophy blames others in matters in which he fares ill; one who begins to be disciplined blames himself, one who is disciplined, neither others nor himself.

5. Be not elated in mind at any superiority that is not of yourself. If your horse were elated and should say, I am beautiful, that would be tolerable. But when you are elated and say, I have a beautiful horse, know that it is at an excellence in your horse that you are elated. What, then, is your own? This—to make use of the appearances. So that when you deal according to Nature in the use of appearances, then shall you be elated, for you will then be elated at an excellence that is your own.

CHAPTER IV.

three steps to perfection.

1. There are three divisions of Philosophy wherein a man must exercise himself who would be wise and good.[1]

The first concerns his pursuit and avoidance, so that he may not fail of aught that he would attain, nor fall into aught that he would avoid.

The second concerns his desires and aversions, and, generally, all that it becomes a man to be, so that he bear himself orderly and prudently and not heedlessly.

The third is that which concerns security from delusion and hasty apprehension, and, generally, the assenting to appearances.

Of these the chief and most urgent is that which hath to do with the passions,[2] for the passions arise in no other way than by our failing in endeavor to attain or to avoid something. This it is which brings in troubles and tumults and ill-luck and misfortune, that is the cause of griefs and lamentations and envies, that makes envious and jealous men; by which things we become unable even to hear the doctrines of reason.

The second concerns that which is becoming to a man; for I must not be passionless,[2] like a statue, but maintain all relations natural and acquired, as a religious being, as a son, as a brother, as a father, as a citizen.

The third is that which concerns men as soon as they are making advance in philosophy, which provides for the security of the two others; so that not even in dreams may any appearance that approacheth us pass untested, nor in wine, nor in ill-humors. This, a man may say, is beyond us. But the philosophers of this day, passing by the first and second parts of philosophy, occupy themselves in the third, caviling, and arguing by questions, and constructing hypotheses and fallacies. For, they say, when dealing with these subjects a man must guard himself from delusion. Who must? The wise and good man.

2. And this security is all you lack, then; the rest you have wrought out already? You are not to be imposed upon by money? and if you see a fair girl you can hold out against the appearance? and if your neighbor inherits a legacy you are not envious? there is now, in short, nothing lacking to you except to confirm what you have? Wretch! these very things dost thou hear in fear and anxiety lest some one may despise thee, and inquiring what men say about thee. And if some one come and tell you that when it was discussed who was the best of the philosophers, one present said, Such a one is the greatest philosopher, your little soul will grow up from a finger’s breadth to two cubits. And if another who was present said, Nothing of the kind; it is not worth while to listen to him; for what does he know? he has made a beginning in philosophy and no more, you are amazed, you grow pale, and straightway you cry out, I will show him who I am, that I am a great philosopher.

Out of these very things it is seen what you are; why do you desire to show it by any others?

CHAPTER V.

that a man may be both bold and fearful.

1. To some it may perchance seem a paradox, this axiom of the philosophers; yet let us make the best inquiry we can if it be true that it is possible to do all things at once with fearfulness and with boldness. For fearfulness seemeth in a manner contrary to boldness, and contraries can never co-exist. But that which to many seemeth a paradox in this matter seems to me to stand somehow thus: If we affirmed that both fearfulness and boldness could be used in the very same things, they would justly accuse us that we were reconciling what is irreconcilable. But now, what is there so strange in this saying? For if it is sound, what hath been so often both affirmed and demonstrated, that the essence of the Good is in the use of appearances, and even so of the Evil, and things uncontrollable by the Will have the nature neither of good nor of evil, what paradox do the philosophers affirm if they say that in things uncontrollable by the Will, then be boldness thy part, and in things subject to the Will, fearfulness. For if Evil lie in an evil Will, then in these things alone is it right to use fearfulness. And if things uncontrollable by the Will, and that are not in our power, are nothing to us, then in these things we should use boldness. And thus shall we be at one time both fearful and bold—yea, and bold even through our fearfulness. For through being fearful in things that are veritably evil it comes that we shall be bold in those that are not so.

2. But we, on the contrary, fall victims as deer do. When these are terrified and fly from the scares, whither do they turn and to what do they retreat as a refuge? To the nets: and thus they perish, confusing things to fear and things to be bold about. And thus do we also. Where do we employ fear? In things beyond our Will. And wherein do we act boldly, as were there nothing to dread? In things subject to the Will. To be beguiled, then, or to be rash, or to do some shameless act, or with base greed to pursue some object—these things concern us no whit if we may only hit the mark in things beyond the Will. But where death is, or exile, or suffering, or evil repute, there we run away, there we are scared. Therefore, as it were to be looked for in those who are astray in the things of greatest moment, we work out our natural boldness into swaggering, abandonment, rashness, shamelessness; and our natural fearfulness and shamefastness into cowardice and meanness, full of terror and trouble. For if one should transfer his fearfulness to the realm of the Will, and the works thereof, straightway, together with the intention of fearing to do wrong, he shall have it in his power to avoid doing it; but if he use it in things out of our own power and beyond the Will, then striving to avoid things that are in others’ power, he shall of necessity be terrified and unsettled and troubled. For death is not fearful, nor pain, but the fear of pain or death. And thus we praise him[1] who said:

“Fear not to die, but fear a coward’s death.”

3. It is right, then, that we should turn our boldness against death, and our fearfulness against the fear of death. But now we do the contrary: death we flee from, but as to the state of our opinion about death we are negligent, heedless, indifferent. These things Socrates did well to call bugbears. For as to children, through their inexperience, ugly masks appear terrible and fearful; so we are somewhat in the same way moved towards the affairs of life, for no other cause than as children are affected by these bugbears. For what is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? That which has never learned. For when he knows these things he is nowise inferior to us. What is death? A bugbear. Turn it round; examine it: see, it does not bite. Now or later that which is body must be parted from that which is spirit, as formerly it was parted. Why, then, hast thou indignation if it be now? for if it be not now, it will be later. And wherefore? That the cycle of the world may be fulfilled; for it hath need of a present and of a future and of a past. What is pain? A bugbear. Turn it about and examine it. This poor body is moved harshly, then again softly. If thou hast no advantage thereof, the door is open;[2] if thou hast, then bear it. For in all events it is right that the door should stand open, and so have we no distress.

4. Shall I, then, exist no longer? Nay, thou shalt exist, but as something else, whereof the universe hath now need.[3] For neither didst thou choose thine own time to come into existence, but when the universe had need of thee.

5. What, then, is the fruit of these opinions? That which ought to be the fairest and comeliest to those who have been truly taught,—tranquillity, courage, and freedom. For concerning these things, the multitude are not to be believed which say that those only should be taught who are freemen, but the philosophers rather, which say that those only are free who have been taught. How is this? It is thus—Is freedom anything else than the power to live as we choose? Nothing else. Do ye choose, then, to live in sin? We do not choose it. None, therefore, that fears or grieves or is anxious is free; but whosoever is released from griefs and fears and anxieties is by that very thing released from slavery. How, then, shall we still believe you, most excellent legislators, when ye say, “We permit none to be taught, save freemen?”[4] for the philosophers say, “We permit none to be free save those who have been taught”—that is, God permits it not. So, when a man turns round his slave before the Prætor,[5] has he done nothing? He has done something. And what? He has turned round his slave before the Prætor. Nothing else at all? Yea, this too—he must pay for him the tax of the twentieth. What then? has the man thus treated not gained his freedom? No more than he has gained tranquillity of mind. For thou, who art able to emancipate others, hast thou no master? is money not thy master, or lust, or a tyrant, or some friend of a tyrant? Why, then, dost thou tremble when thou art to meet with some affliction in this kind? And therefore I say oftentimes, be these things your study, be these things ever at your hand, wherein ye should be bold and wherein fearful; bold in things beyond the Will, fearful in things subject to the Will.

CHAPTER VI.[1]

the wise man’s fear and the fool’s.

1. The appearances by which the mind of man is smitten with the first aspect of a thing as it approaches the soul, are not matters of the will, nor can we control them; but by a certain force of their own the objects which we have to comprehend are borne in upon us. But that ratification of them, which we name assent, whereby the appearances are comprehended and judged, these are voluntary, and are done by human choice. Wherefore at a sound from the heavens, or from the downfall of something, or some signal of danger, or anything else of this kind, it must needs be that the soul of the philosopher too shall be somewhat moved, and he shall shrink and grow pale; not through any opinion of evil that he has formed, but through certain rapid and unconsidered motions that forestall the office of the mind and reason. Soon, however, that philosopher doth not approve the appearances to be truly objects of terror to his soul, that is to say, he assents not to them nor ratifies them; but he rejects them, and casts them out; nor doth there seem to be in them anything that he should fear. But in this, say the philosophers, doth the wise man differ from the fool,—that the fool thinks the appearances to be in truth even so harsh and rough as they seemed at their first shock upon the soul; and taking them, as at first, to be rightly dreaded, he thus ratifies and approves them by his assent. The philosopher, however, though for a short time his color and countenance have been changed, doth not then assent, but he retains in its steadfastness and vigor the opinion he ever had of these appearances, that they are in no wise to be feared, but affright only by a false show and empty threat.

2. Such as is a dish of water, such is the soul; such as is the ray of light that falleth on the same, such are the appearances. When the water is moved, then the ray seemeth also to be moved; but it is not moved. And thus when a man’s mind is darkened and dizzy, it is not doctrines and virtues that are confounded, but the spirit on which they are impressed. And if that is restored, so are they.[2]

CHAPTER VII.

appearances false and true.

1. Appearances exist for us in four ways. Either things appear even as they are; or having no existence, neither do they appear to have it; or they exist, and appear not; or they exist not, and yet appear. So, in all these cases, to hit the mark is the work of him who hath been taught in philosophy.

2. But whatever it be that afflicts us, it is to that thing that the remedy is to be applied. If it is the sophisms of the Pyrrhonists and Academics[1] that afflict us, to them let us apply the remedy. If it is the delusiveness of things, whereby that appeareth to be good which is not so, to that let us seek for the remedy. If a habit afflicts us, against that must we endeavor to find some remedy. And what remedy is to be found against a habit? The contrary habit. Thou hearest the ignorant when they say, The wretched man is dead; his father is perishing with grief for him, or his mother; he was cut off, yea, and untimely, and in a strange land. Hearken, then, to the contrary words. Tear thyself away from such utterances. Against habit set the contrary habit. Against the words of the Sophists have the maxims of philosophers and the exercise and constant usage of them; against the delusiveness of things have clear natural conceptions ever burnished and ready.

3. Whenever death may appear to be an evil, have ready the thought that it is right to avoid evils, and that death is unavoidable. For what shall I do? whither shall I flee from it? Let it be granted that I am no Sarpedon, son of Zeus, to speak in that lofty style: I go either to do great deeds myself, or to give another the chance of doing them; though I myself fail I shall not grudge it to another to do nobly.[2] Let it be granted that this is above us; still can we not at least rise to the height of that? And whither shall I flee from death? declare to me the place; declare to me the men among whom I shall go, to whom death comes never near; declare to me the charms against it. If I have none, what would ye have me do? I cannot escape death—shall I not then escape the fear of death? shall I die lamenting and trembling? In this is the source of suffering, to wish for something, and that it should not come to pass; and thence it is that when I am able to alter outward things at my desire, I do so, but when not, I am ready to tear out the eyes of him that hindereth me. For man is so made by nature that he will not bear to be deprived of the Good nor to fall into the Evil. And in the end, when I am neither able to alter outward things nor to tear out the eyes of him that hindereth me, I sit down and groan and rail on whomsoever I can, Zeus and the other Gods;—for if they neglect me, what have I to do with them? Yea, but thou wilt be an impious man. And how shall I be worse off than I am now? Here is the whole matter: Remember that unless religion and profit meet in the same thing, religion cannot be saved in any man. Do not these things mightily convince of their truth?

4. Let the Pyrrhonist and the Academic come and make their attack—I, for my part, have no leisure for such discussions, nor am I able to argue in defense of general consent.[3] For if I had a suit about a little piece of land, would I not call in another to argue for me? Wherewith shall I be satisfied? With that which concerns the matter in hand. How perception takes place, whether by the whole man or by parts, perhaps I know not how to declare: both opinions perplex me. But that thou and I are not the same I know very clearly. Whence know you this? Never, when I wish to eat, do I carry the morsel to another man’s mouth, but to my own. Never, when I wish to take a piece of bread, do I lay hold of a broom, but I always go to the bread, as to a mark. And ye who deny the truth of perception, what do ye other than I? Which of you, desiring to go to the bath, ever went into a mill? What then? Ought we not, according to our abilities, to busy ourselves with the upholding of general consent, and raising defenses against all that opposeth the same? And who denies it? But let him do it that can, that hath leisure; but he that trembleth, and is troubled, and his heart is broken within him, let him spend his time on something different.

CHAPTER VIII.

how we should think as god’s offspring.

1. If those things are true which are said by philosophers concerning the kinship of God and men, what else remains for men to do than after Socrates’ way, who never, when men inquired of him what was his native country, replied Athens or Corinth, but the universe. For why wilt thou say thou art an Athenian, and not rather name thyself from that nook alone into which thy wretched body was cast at birth? Is it not plainly from the lordlier place, and that which contains not only that nook and all thy household, but also the whole land whence the race of thy ancestors has come down even to thee, that thou callest thyself Athenian or Corinthian? Whoso, therefore, hath watched the governance of the universe, and hath learned that the greatest and mightiest and amplest of all societies is that which is composed of mankind and of God; and that from Him have descended the seeds not only to my father alone, nor to my grandfather, but to all creatures that are conceived and born upon the earth (but especially to reasoning beings, since to these alone hath nature given it to have communion and intercourse with God, being linked with Him through Reason),—wherefore should such a one not name himself a citizen of the universe? wherefore not a son of God? wherefore shall he fear anything that may come to pass among men? And shall kinship with Cæsar, or with some other of those that are mighty at Rome, be enough to let us live in safety and undespised and fearing nothing at all; but to have God for our maker and father and guardian, shall this not avail to deliver us from griefs and fears?

But I have no money, saith one; whence shall I have bread to eat?

2. Art thou not ashamed to be more cowardly and spiritless than fugitive slaves are? How do they leave their masters when they run away? in what estates do they put their trust? in what servants? After stealing a little to serve them for the first few days, do they not afterwards journey by land and sea, and make their living by one device after another? And when did ever any fugitive slave die of hunger? But thou tremblest and sleepest not of nights, for fear lest the necessaries of life fail thee. Wretched man! art thou thus blind? and seest not the road whither the want of necessaries leads a man? And whither leads it? To the same place that a fever doth, or a falling rock—to death. Hast thou not often said this to thy friends? and often read aloud these things, and written them? and how often hast thou vaunted thyself that thou wert at peace about death? Yea, but my dear ones shall also suffer hunger. What then? Doth their hunger lead to any other place than thine? Do they not descend where thou descendest? Is there not one underworld for them and thee? Wilt thou not, then, be bold in all poverty and need, looking to that place whither the wealthiest of men, and the mightiest governors, yea, and even kings and tyrants, must go down; thou, it may be, an-hungered, and they bursting with indigestion and drunkenness?

How seldom is it that a beggar is seen that is not an old man, and even of exceeding age? but freezing by night and day, and lying on the ground, and eating only what is barely necessary, they come near to being unable to die. Canst thou not transcribe writings? canst thou not teach children? or be some man’s door-keeper?

But it is shameful to come to such a necessity!

Then first of all learn what things are shameful, and afterwards tell us thou art a philosopher. But at present suffer not even another man to call thee so.

3. Is that shameful to thee which is not thine own doing, whereof thou art not the cause, which cometh to thee without thy will, like a headache or a fever? If thy parents were poor, or made others their heirs, or are alive and give thee nothing, are these things shameful to thee? Is this what thou hast learnt from the philosophers? Hast thou never heard that what is shameful is blamable; and that which is blamable ought to be blamed? But what man wilt thou blame for a work not his own, one that he himself never did! And didst thou make thy father such as he is? or was it in thy power to correct him?—is it given thee to do this? What then? Oughtest thou to desire what is not given to thee? or to be ashamed if thou attain it not? Or hast thou been accustomed, in philosophy, to look to others, and to hope for nothing from thyself? Lament, therefore, and groan, and eat thy bread in fear, lest thou have nothing to eat on the morrow. Tremble for thy slaves, lest they steal, or run away, or die. Do thou live thus, now and ever, who hast approached to the name only of philosophy, and hast brought the precepts of it to shame, so far as in thee lies, showing them to be worthless and useless to those who adopt them; thou, who hast never striven to gain steadfastness, tranquillity, peace; that never waited upon any man for the sake of these things, but upon many for the sake of learning syllogisms; that never tested for thine own self any one of these appearances:—Am I able to bear it, or am I not able? What, then, remains for me to do? But, as though all went fairly and safely with thee, thou abidest in the final part of philosophy,[1] that which confirms beyond all change—and wherein wilt thou be confirmed? in cowardice, meanness, admiration of wealth, in vain pursuit, and vain efforts to avoid? These are the things thou dost meditate how to preserve unharmed.

4. Shouldst thou not first have gained something from Reason, and then fortified this with safety? Whom sawest thou ever building a coping round about, and never a wall on which to place it? And what door-keeper is set on guard where there is no door? But thy study is how to prove propositions—and what proposition? How the billows of false reasonings may sweep thee not away—and away from what? Show me first what thing thou art guarding, or measuring, or weighing; and afterwards the scales or the measuring-rod. Or how long wilt thou still be measuring the dust? Are not these the things it behooves thee to prove:—what it is that makes men happy, what makes things proceed as we would have them, how one should blame no man accuse no man, and fit one’s self to the ordering of the All? Yea, prove me these! But I do so, he saith. See! I resolve you syllogisms. Slave! this is the measuring-rod—it is not the thing measured. Wherefore now you pay the penalty for philosophy neglected; you tremble, you lie awake at nights, you seek counsel on every hand, and if the counsels are not pleasing to all men you think they were ill-counseled.

5. Then you fear hunger, as you suppose. But it is not hunger that you fear—you fear you will have no cook, nor nobody else to buy victuals for you, nor another to take off your boots, nor another to put them on, nor others to rub you down, nor others to follow you about, so that when you have stripped yourself in the bath, and stretched yourself out as if you were crucified, you may be rubbed to and fro, and then the rubber standing by may say, Turn him round, give me his side, take hold of his head, let me have his shoulder; and then when you leave the bath and go home you may shout, Is no one bringing anything to eat? and then, Take away the plates, and wipe them. This is what you fear,—lest you be not able to live like a sick man. But learn how those live that are in health—slaves, and laborers, and true philosophers; how Socrates lived, who moreover had a wife and children; how Diogenes lived; how Cleanthes that studied in the schools and drew his own water.[2] If you would have these things, they are everywhere to be had, and you will live boldly. Bold in what? In that wherein alone it is possible to be bold—in that which is faithful, which cannot be hindered, which cannot be taken away. But why hast thou made thyself so worthless and useless that no one is willing to receive thee into his house or take care of thee? But if any utensil were thrown away, and it was sound and serviceable, every one that found it would pick it up and think it a gain; but thee no man would pick up, nor count anything but damage. So thou canst not so much as serve the purpose of a watch-dog, or a cock? Why, then, wilt thou still live, being such a man as thou art?

6. Doth any good man fear lest the means of gaining food fail him? They fail not the blind, nor the lame; shall they fail a good man? To the good soldier there fails not one who gives him pay, nor to the laborer, nor to the shoemaker; and shall such a one fail to the good man? Is God, then, careless of His instruments, His servants, His witnesses, whom alone He useth to show forth to the untaught what He is, and that He governs all things well, and is not careless of human things? and that to a good man there is no evil, neither in life nor in death? How, then, when He leaves them without food? How else is this than as when a good general gives me the signal for retreat? I obey, I follow, praising my leader and hymning his works. For I came when it pleased him, and when it pleases him I will go. In my lifetime also my work was to sing the praise of God, both alone to myself, and to single persons, and in presence of many. He doth not provide me with many things, nor with great abundance of goods; He will not have me live delicately. For neither did He provide so for Hercules, His own son, but another man reigned over Argos and Mycenæ, while he obeyed and labored and was disciplined. And Eurystheus was what he was—no king of Argos and Mycenæ, who was not king even of himself; and Hercules was lord and leader of all the earth and sea, for he purged them of lawlessness and wrong, and brought in righteousness and holiness; naked and alone did he this. And when Odysseus was shipwrecked and cast away, did his need humble him one whit or break his spirit? But how did he go out to the maidens, to beg for the necessaries of life, which it is held most shameful to seek from another?

“Even as a lion from his mountain home, So went Odysseus trusting in his valor.” —Odyssey, vi. 130.

Trusting in what? Not in fame, nor wealth, but in his own valor—that is, his opinions of the things that are and are not in our power.[3] For these alone it is that make men free and unhindered; that lift up the heads of the abject, and bid them look rich men and tyrants steadily in the face. And this was the gift of the philosopher; but thou wilt never go forth boldly, but trembling for thy fine raiment and silver dishes. Miserable man! hast thou indeed thus wasted all thy time till now?

CHAPTER IX.

the open door.

1. For my part I think the old man should be sitting here, not to devise how ye may have no mean thoughts, nor speak no mean nor ignoble things about yourselves, but to watch that there arise not among us youths of such a mind, that when they have perceived their kinship with the Gods, and how the flesh and its possessions are laid upon us like bonds, and how many necessities for the management of life are by them brought upon us, they may desire to fling these things away for abhorred and intolerable burthens, and depart unto their kin. And this is what your master and teacher—if, in sooth, ye had any such—should have to contend with in you,—that ye should come to him and say, Epictetus, we can endure no longer being bound to this body, giving it food and drink, and resting it and cleansing it, and going about to court one man after another for its sake. Are not such things indifferent and nothing to us? And is not Death no evil? Are we not in some way kinsmen of God, and did we not come from Him? Let us depart to whence we came; let us be delivered at last from these bonds wherewith we are bound and burthened! Here are robbers, and thieves, and law courts, and those that are called tyrants, which through the body and its possessions seem as if they had some power over us. Let us show them that they have no power over any man! And to this it should be my part to say, “My friends, wait upon God. When He Himself shall give the signal and release you from this service, then are ye released unto Him. But for the present, bear to dwell in this place, wherein He has set you. Short, indeed, is this time of your sojourn, and easy to bear for those that are so minded. For what tyrant or what thief is there any longer, or what court of law is terrible to one who thus makes nothing of the body and the possessions of it? Remain, then, and depart not without a reason.” Some such part as this should the teacher have to play towards the well-natured among his disciples.

2. How long, then, are such injunctions to be obeyed? So long as it is profitable—that is to say, so long as I can do what becomes and befits me. Then some men are choleric and fastidious, and say, “I cannot sup with this man, to have to hear him every day telling how he fought in Mysia.” I told you, brother, how I went up the hill—then again I began to be besieged.... But another saith, “I prefer to have my supper, and listen to him prating as long as he likes.” And do thou compare the gain on both sides—only do naught in heaviness or affliction, or as supposing that thou art in evil case. For to this no man can compel thee. Doth it smoke in the chamber? if it is not very much I will stay, if too much, I will go out; for remember this always, and hold fast to it, that the door is open. Thou shalt not live in Nicopolis. I will not. Nor in Athens. I will not live in Athens. Nor in Rome. Neither in Rome. Live in Gyara.[1] I will live in Gyara. But living in Gyara seemeth to me like a great smoke. I will depart, whither no man shall hinder me to dwell—for that dwelling stands ever open to all.

3. Only do it not unreasonably, nor cowardly, nor make every common chance an excuse. For again, it is not God’s will, for He hath need of such an order of things, and of such a race upon the earth. But if He give the signal for retreat, as He did to Socrates, we must obey Him as our commander.

CHAPTER X.

know thyself.

1. If a man have any advantage over others, or thinks himself to have it when he hath it not, it cannot but be that if he is an untaught man he shall be puffed up by it. Thus the tyrant says, I am he that is master of all. And what can you give me? Can you set my pursuit free of all hindrance? How is it in you to do that? For have you the gift of never falling into what you shun? or never missing the mark of your desire? And whence have you it? Come, now, in a ship do you trust to yourself or to the captain? or in a chariot, to any one else than the driver?[1] And how will you do with regard to other acts? Even thus. Where, then, is your power? All men minister to me. And do I not minister to my plate, and I wash it and wipe it, and drive in a peg for my oil-flask? What then, are these things greater than I? Nay, but they supply certain of my needs, and for this reason I take care of them. Yea, and do I not minister to my ass? Do I not wash his feet and groom him? Know you not that every man ministers to himself? And he ministers to you also, even as he doth to the ass. For who treats you as a man? Show me one that doth. Who wisheth to be like unto you? who becomes your imitator, as men did of Socrates? But I can cut off thy head. You say well. I had forgotten that I must pay regard to you as to a fever or the cholera; and set up an altar to you, as there is in Rome an altar to Fever.

2. What is it, then, whereby the multitude is troubled and terrified? The tyrant and his guards? Never—God forbid it! It is not possible that that which is by nature free should be troubled by any other thing, or hindered, save by itself. But it is troubled by opinions of things. For when the tyrant saith to any one, I will bind thy leg, then he who setteth store by his leg saith, Nay, have pity! but he that setteth store by his own Will, If it seem more profitable to you, then bind it.

——“Dost thou not regard me?”

I do not regard you. I will show you that I am master. How can you be that? Me hath God set free; or think you that He would let His own Son be enslaved? You are lord of my dead body—take that.

——“So when thou comest near to me, thou wilt not do me service?”

Nay, but I will do it to myself; and if you will have me say that I do it to you also, I tell you that I do it as to my kitchen pot.

3. This is no selfishness; for every living creature is so made that it doth all things for its own sake. For the sun doth all things for his own sake, and so, moreover, even Zeus himself. But when He will be Raingiver and Fruitgiver and Father of Gods and men, thou seest that He may not do these works and have these titles, but He be serviceable to the common good. And, on the whole, He hath so formed the nature of the reasoning creature that he may never win aught of his own good without he furnish something of service to the common good. Thus it is not to the excluding of the common good that a man do all things for himself. For is it to be expected that a man shall stand aloof from himself and his own interest? And where then would be that same and single principle which we observe in all things, their affection to themselves?

4. So, then, when we act on strange and foolish opinions of things beyond the Will, as though they were good or evil, it is altogether impossible but we shall do service to tyrants. And would it were to the tyrants alone, and not to their lackeys also!

5. But what hinders the man that hath distinguished these things to live easily and docile, looking calmly on all that is to be, and bearing calmly all that is past? Will you have me bear poverty? Come, and see what poverty is when it strikes one that knoweth how to play the part well. Will you have me rule? Give me power, then, and the pains of it. Banishment? Whithersoever I go, it shall be well with me for in this place it was well with me, not because of the place, but because of the opinions which I shall carry away with me. For these no man can deprive me of. Yea, these only are mine own, whereof I cannot be deprived, and they suffice for me as long as I have them, wherever I be, or whatever I do.

6. ——“But now is the time come to die.”

What say you? to die? Nay, make no tragedy of the business, but tell it as it is. Now is it time for my substance to be resolved again into the things wherefrom it came together. And what is dreadful in this? What of the things in the universe is about to perish? What new, or what unaccountable thing is about to come to pass? Is it for these things that a tyrant is feared? through these that the guards seem to bear swords so large and sharp? Tell that to others; but by me all these things have been examined; no man hath power on me. I have been set free by God, I know His commandments, henceforth no man can lead me captive. I have a liberator[2] such as I need, and judges such as I need. Are you not the master of my body? What is that to me? Of my property? What is that to me? Of exile or captivity? Again, I say, from all these things, and the poor body itself, I will depart when you will. Try your power, and you shall know how far it reaches.

7. But the tyrant will bind—what? The leg. He will take away—what? The head. What, then, can he not bind and not take away? The Will. And hence that precept of the ancients—Know Thyself.

8. Whom, then, can I still fear? The lackeys of the bed-chamber? For what that they can do? Shut me out? Let them shut me out, if they find me wishing to go in.

——“Why, then, didst thou go to the doors?”

Because I hold it proper to join the play while the play lasts.

——“How, then, shalt thou not be shut out?”

Because if I am not received, I do not wish to enter; but always that which happens is what I wish. For I hold what God wills above what I will. I cleave to Him as His servant and follower; my impulses are one with His, my pursuit is one with His; in a word, my will is one with His. There is no shutting out for me—nay, but for those who would force their way in. And wherefore do I not force my way? Because I know that no good thing is dealt out within to those that enter. But when I hear some one congratulated on being honored by Cæsar, I say, What hath fortune brought him? A government? Has it also, then, brought him such an opinion as he ought to have? A magistracy? Hath he also gained the power to be a good magistrate? Why will I still push myself forward? A man scatters figs and almonds abroad; children seize them, and fight among themselves; but not so men, for they hold it too trifling a matter. And if a man should scatter about oyster-shells, not even the children would seize them. Offices of government are dealt out—children will look for them; money is given—children will look for it; military commands, consulships—let children scramble for them. Let them be shut out and smitten, let them kiss the hands of the giver, of his slaves—it is figs and almonds to me. What then? If thou miss them when he is flinging them about, let it not vex thee. If a fig fall into thy bosom, take and eat it, for so far even a fig is to be valued. But if I must stoop down for it, and throw down another man, or another throw me down, and I flatter those who enter in, then neither is a fig worth so much, nor is any other of the things that are not good, even those which the philosophers have persuaded me not to think good.

CHAPTER XI.[1]

how we should bear ourselves towards evil men.

1. If that which the philosophers say is true—that there is one principle in all men, as when I assent to something, the feeling that it is so; and when I dissent, the feeling that it is not so; yea, and when I withhold my judgment, the feeling that it is uncertain; and likewise, when I am moved towards anything, the feeling that it is for my profit, but it is impossible to judge one thing to be profitable and to pursue another, to judge one thing right and be moved towards another—why have we indignation with the multitude? They are robbers, one saith, and thieves. And what is it to be robbers and thieves? It is to err concerning things good and evil. Shall we, then, have indignation with them, or shall we pity them? Nay, but show them the error, and you shall see how they will cease from their sins. But if they see it not, they have naught better than the appearance of the thing to them.

2. Should not, then, this robber, or this adulterer, be destroyed? By no means, but take it rather this way: This man who errs and is deceived concerning things of greatest moment, who is blinded, not in the vision which distinguisheth black and white, but in the judgment which distinguisheth Good and Evil—should we not destroy him? And thus speaking, you shall know how inhuman is that which you say, and how like as if you said, Shall we not destroy this blind man, this deaf man? For if it is the greatest injury to be deprived of the greatest things, and the greatest thing in every man is a Will such as he ought to have, and one be deprived of this, why are you still indignant with him? Man, you should not be moved contrary to Nature by the evil deeds of other men. Pity him rather, be not inclined to offense and hatred, abandon the phrases of the multitude, like “these cursed wretches.” How have you suddenly become so wise and hard to please?

3. Wherefore, then, have we indignation? Because we worship the things which they deprive us of. Do not worship fine raiment, and you shall not be wroth with the thief. Do not worship the beauty of a woman, and you shall not be wroth with the adulterer. Know that the thief and the adulterer have no part in that which is thine own, but in that which is foreign to thee, in that which is not in thy power. These things if thou dismiss, and count them for naught, with whom shalt thou still be wroth? But so long as thou dost value these things, be wroth with thyself rather than with others.

4. Look now how it stands: You have fine raiment, your neighbor has not; you have a window, and wish to air your clothes at it. The neighbor knoweth not what is the true good of man, but thinks it is to have fine raiment, the same thing that you also think. Then shall he not come and take them away? Show a cake to greedy persons, and eat it up yourself alone, and will you have them not snatch at it? Nay, but provoke them not. Have no window, and do not air your clothes. I also had lately an iron lamp set beside the images of the Gods; hearing a noise at the door, I ran down, and found the lamp carried off. I reflected that the thief’s impulse was not unnatural. What then? To-morrow, I said, thou wilt find an earthen lamp.[2] For a man loses only what he has. I have lost a garment. For you had a garment. I have a pain in my head. Have you any pain in your horns? Why, then, have you indignation? For there is no loss and no suffering save only in those things which we possess.

CHAPTER XII.

the voyage of life.

Even as in a sea voyage, when the ship is brought to anchor, and you go out to fetch in water, you make a by-work of gathering a few roots and shells by the way, but have need ever to keep your mind fixed on the ship, and constantly to look round, lest at any time the master of the ship call, and you must, if he call, cast away all those things, lest you be treated like the sheep that are bound and thrown into the hold: So it is with human life also. And if there be given wife and children instead of shells and roots, nothing shall hinder us to take them. But if the master call, run to the ship, forsaking all those things, and looking not behind. And if thou be in old age, go not far from the ship at any time, lest the master should call, and thou be not ready.

CHAPTER XIII.

the mark of effort.

1. Seek not to have things happen as you choose them, but rather choose them to happen as they do, and so shall you live prosperously.

2. Disease is a hindrance of the body, not of the Will, unless the Will itself consent. Lameness is a hindrance of the leg, not of the Will. And this you may say on every occasion, for nothing can happen to you but you will find it a hindrance not of yourself but of some other thing.

3. What, then, are the things that oppress us and perturb us? What else than opinions? He that goeth away and leaveth his familiars and companions and wonted places and habits—with what else is he oppressed than his opinions? Now, little children, if they cry because their nurse has left them for a while, straightway forget their sorrow when they are given a small cake. Wilt thou be likened unto a little child?

——“Nay, by Zeus! for I would not be thus affected by a little cake, but by right opinions.”

And what are these?

They are such as a man should study all day long to observe—that he be not subject to the effects of anything that is alien to him, neither of friend, nor place, nor exercises; yea, not even of his own body, but to remember the Law, and have it ever before his eyes. And what is the divine Law? To hold fast that which is his own, and to claim nothing that is another’s; to use what is given him, and not to covet what is not given; to yield up easily and willingly what is taken away, giving thanks for the time that he has had it at his service. This do—or cry for the nurse and mamma; for what doth it matter to what or whom thou art subject, from what thy welfare hangs? Wherein art thou better than one who bewails himself for his mistress, if thou lament thy exercises and porticoes and comrades, and all such pastime? Another cometh, grieving because he shall no more drink of the water of Dirce. And is the Marcian water worse than that of Dirce?

——“But I was used to the other.”

And to this also thou shalt be used; and when thou art so affected towards it, lament for it too, and try to make a verse like that of Euripides—

“The baths of Nero and the Marcian stream”[1]

Behold how tragedies are made, when common chances happen to foolish men!

4.——“But when shall I see Athens and the Acropolis again?”

Wretched man! doth not that satisfy thee which thou seest every day? Hast thou aught better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the common earth, the sea? But if withal thou mark the way of Him that governeth the whole and bear Him about within thee, wilt thou still long for cut stones and a fine rock? And when thou shalt come to leave the sun itself and the moon, what wilt thou do? Sit down and cry, like the children? What, then, wert thou doing in the school? What didst thou hear, what didst thou learn? Why didst thou write thyself down a philosopher, when thou mightest have written the truth, as thus:—I made certain beginnings, and read Chrysippus, but did not so much as enter the door of a philosopher? For how shouldst thou have aught in common with Socrates, who died as he died, who lived as he lived—or with Diogenes? Dost thou think that any of these men lamented or was indignant because he should see such a man or such a woman no more? or because he should not dwell in Athens or in Corinth, but, as it might chance, in Susa or Ecbatana? When a man can leave the banquet or the game when he pleases, shall such a one grieve if he remains? Shall he not, as in a game, stay only so long as he is entertained? A man of this stamp would easily endure such a thing as perpetual exile or sentence of death.

Wilt thou not now be weaned as children are, and take more solid food, nor cry any more after thy mother and nurse, wailing like an old woman?

——“But if I quit them I shall grieve them.”

Thou grieve them? Never; but that shall grieve them which grieveth thee—Opinion. What hast thou then to do? Cast away thy own bad opinion; and they, if they do well, will cast away theirs; if not, they are the causes of their own lamenting.

5. Man, be mad at last, as the saying is, for peace, for freedom, for magnanimity. Lift up thy head as one delivered from slavery. Dare to look up to God and say: Deal with me henceforth as thou wilt; I am of one mind with thee; I am thine. I reject nothing that seems good to thee; lead me whithersoever thou wilt, clothe me in what dress thou wilt. Wilt thou have me govern or live privately, or stay at home, or go into exile, or be a poor man or a rich? For all these conditions I will be thy advocate with men—I show the nature of each of them, what it is.

Nay, but sit in a corner and wait for thy mother to feed thee.[2]

6. Who would Hercules have been if he had sat at home? He would have been Eurystheus, and not Hercules. And how many companions and friends had he in his journeying about the world? But nothing was dearer to him than God; and for this he was believed to be the son of God, yea, and was the son of God. And trusting in God, he went about purging away lawlessness and wrong. But thou art no Hercules, and canst not purge away evils not thine own? nor yet Theseus, who cleared Attica of evil things? Then clear away thine own. From thy breast, from thy mind cast out, instead of Procrustes and Sciron, grief, fear, covetousness, envy, malice, avarice, effeminacy, profligacy. And these things cannot otherwise be cast out than by looking to God only, being affected only by Him, and consecrated to His commands. But choosing anything else than this, thou wilt follow with groaning and lamentation whatever is stronger than thou, ever seeking prosperity in things outside thyself, and never able to attain it. For thou seekest it where it is not, and neglectest to seek it where it is.