Discourses

OF all the faculties (except that which I shall soon mention), you will find not one which is capable of contemplating itself, and, consequently, not capable either of approving or disapproving.[*](This moral approving and disapproving faculty is Bp. Butler’s translation of the δοκιμαστική and ἀποδοκιμαστική of Epictetus (i. 1, 1) in his dissertation, Of the Nature of Virtue. See his note.) How far does the grammatic art possess the contemplating power? As far as forming a judgment about what is written and spoken. And how far music? As far as judging about melody. Does either of them then contemplate itself? By no means. But when you must write something to your friend, grammar will tell you what words you should write; but whether you should write or not, grammar will not tell you. And so it is with music as to musical sounds; but whether you should sing at the present time and play on the lute, or do neither, music will not tell you. What faculty then will tell you? That which contemplates both itself and all other things. And what is this faculty? The rational faculty;[*](The rational faculty is the λογικὴ ψυχή of Epictetus and Antoninus, of which Antoninus says (xi. 1): These are the properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, analyses itself, and makes itself such as it chooses; the fruit which it bears, itself enjoys.) for this is the only faculty that we

have received which examines itself, what it is, and what power it has, and what is the value of this gift, and examines all other faculties: for what else is there which tells us that golden things are beautiful, for they do not say so themselves? Evidently it is the faculty which is capable of judging of appearances.[*](This is what he has just named the rational faculty. The Stoics gave the name of appearances (φαντασίαι) to all impressions received by the senses, and to all emotions caused by external things. Chrysippus said: φαντασία ἐστὶ πάθος ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ γινόμενον, ἐνδεικνύμενον ἑαυτό τε καὶ τὸ πεποιηκός (Plutarch, iv. c. 12, De Placit. Philosoph.).) What else judges of music, grammar, and the other faculties, proves their uses, and points out the occasions for using them? Nothing else.

As then it was fit to be so, that which is best of all and supreme over all is the only thing which the gods have placed in our power, the right use of appearances; but all other things they have not placed in our power. Was it because they did not choose? I indeed think that, if they had been able, they would have put these other things also in our power, but they certainly could not.[*](Compare Antoninus, ii. 3. Epictetus does not intend to limit the power of the gods, but he means that the constitution of things being what it is, they cannot do contradictories. They have so constituted things that man is hindered by externals. How then could they give to man a power of not being hindered by externals? Seneca (De Providentia, c. 6) says: But it may be said, many things happen which cause sadness, fear, and are hard to bear. Because (God says) I could not save you from them, I have armed your minds against all. This is the answer to those who imagine that they have disproved the common assertion of the omnipotence of God, when they ask whether He can combine inherent contradictions, whether He can cause two and two to make five. This is indeed a very absurd way of talking.) For as we exist on the earth, and are bound to such a body and to such companions, how was it possible for us not to be hindered as to these things by externals?

But what says Zeus? Epictetus, if it were possible, I would have made both your little body and your little property free and not exposed to hindrance. But now be not ignorant of this: this body is not yours, but it is clay finely tempered. And since I was not able to do for you

what I have mentioned, I have given you a small portion of us,[*](Schweighaeuser observes that these faculties of pursuit and avoidance, and of desire and aversion, and even the faculty of using appearances, belong to animals as well as to man: but animals in using appearances are moved by passion only, and do not understand what they are doing, while in man these passions are under his control. Salmasius proposed to change ἡμέτερον into ὑμέτερον, to remove the difficulty about these animal passions being called a small portion of us (the gods). Schweighaeuser, however, though he sees the difficulty, does not accept the emendation. Perhaps Arrian has here imperfectly represented what his master said, and perhaps he did not.) this faculty of pursuing an object and avoiding it, and the faculty of desire and aversion, and, in a word, the faculty of using the appearances of things; and if you will take care of this faculty and consider it your only possession, you will never be hindered, never meet with impediments; you will not lament, you will not blame, you will not flatter any person.

Well, do these seem to you small matters? I hope not. Be content with them then and pray to the gods. But now when it is in our power to look after one thing, and to attach ourselves to it, we prefer to look after many things, and to be bound to many things, to the body and to property, and to brother and to friend, and to child and to slave. Since then we are bound to many things, we are depressed by them and dragged down. For this reason, when the weather is not fit for sailing, we sit down and torment ourselves, and continually look out to see what wind is blowing. It is north. What is that to us? When will the west wind blow? When it shall choose, my good man, or when it shall please Aeolus; for God has not made you the manager of the winds, but Aeolus.[*](He alludes to the Odyssey, X. 21:κεῖνον γὰρ ταμίην ἀνέμων ποίησε Κρονίων.) What then? We must make the best use that we can of the things which are in our power, and use the rest according to their nature. What is their nature then? As God may please.

Must I then alone have my head cut off? What, would you have all men lose their heads that you may be consoled?

Will you not stretch out your neck as Lateranus[*](Plautius Lateranus, consul-elect, was charged with being engaged in Piso’s conspiracy against Nero. He was hurried to execution without being allowed to see his children; and though the tribune who executed him was privy to the plot, Lateranus said nothing. (Tacit. Ann. xv. 49, 60.)) did at Rome when Nero ordered him to be beheaded? For when he had stretched out his neck, and received a feeble blow, which made him draw it in for a moment, he stretched it out again. And a little before, when he was visited by Epaphroditus,[*](Epaphroditus was a freedman of Nero, and once the master of Epictetus. He was Nero’s secretary. One good act is recorded of him: he helped Nero to kill himself, and for this act he was killed by Domitian (Suetonius, Domitian, c. 14).) Nero’s freedman, who asked him about the cause of offence which he had given, he said, If I choose to tell anything, I will tell your master.

What then should a man have in readiness in such circumstances? What else than this? What is mine, and what is not mine; and what is permitted to me, and what is not permitted to me. I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment? Tell me the secret which you possess. I will not, for this is in my power. But I will put you in chains.[*](This is an imitation of a passage in the Bacchae of Euripides (v. 492, etc.), which is also imitated by Horace (Epp, i, 16).) Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg, but my will[*](ἡ προαίρεσίς. It is sometimes rendered by the Latin propositum or by voluntas, the will.) not even Zeus himself can overpower. I will throw you into prison. My poor body, you mean. I will cut your head off. When then have I told you that my head alone cannot be cut off? These are the things which philosophers should meditate on, which they should write daily, in which they should exercise themselves.

Thrasea[*](Thrasea Paetus, a Stoic philosopher, who was ordered in Nero’s time to put himself to death (Tacit. Ann. xvi. 21–35). He was the husband of Arria, whose mother Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, in the time of the Emperor Claudius, heroically showed her husband the way to die (Plinius, Letters, iii. 16.) Martial has immortalised the elder Arria in a famous epigram (i. 14):— When Arria to her Paetus gave the sword,Which her own hand from her chaste bosom drew,This wound, she said, believe me, gives no pain,But that will pain me which thy hand will do.) used to say, I would rather be killed to-day

than banished to-morrow. What then did Rufus[*](C. Musonius Rufus, a Tuscan by birth, of equestrian rank, a philosopher and Stoic (Tacit. Hist. iii. 81).) say to him? If you choose death as the heavier misfortune, how great is the folly of your choice? But if, as the lighter, who has given you the choice? Will you not study to be content with that which has been given to you?

What then did Agrippinus[*](Paconius Agrippinus was condemned in Nero’s time. The charge against him was that he inherited his father’s hatred of the head of the Roman state (Tacit. Ann. xvi. 28). The father of Agrippinus had been put to death under Tiberius (Suetonius, Tib. c. 61).) say? He said, I am not a hindrance to myself. When it was reported to him that his trial was going on in the Senate, he said, I hope it may turn out well; but it is the fifth hour of the day —this was the time when he was used to exercise himself and then take the cold bath—let us go and take our exercise. After he had taken his exercise, one comes and tells him, You have been condemned. To banishment, he replies, or to death? To banishment. What about my property? It is not taken from you. Let us go to Aricia then,[*](Aricia, about twenty Roman miles from Rome, on the Via Appia (Horace, Sat. i. 5, 1):—Egressum magna me excepit Aricia Roma.) he said, and dine.

This it is to have studied what a man ought to study; to have made desire, aversion, free from hindrance, and free from all that a man would avoid. I must die. If now, I am ready to die. If, after a short time, I now dine because it is the dinner-hour; after this I will then die. How? Like a man who gives up[*](Epictetus, Encheiridion, c. 11: Never say on the occasion of anything, I have lost it but say, I have returned it. ) what belongs to another.

To the rational animal only is the irrational intolerable; but that which is rational is tolerable. Blows are not naturally intolerable. How is that? See how the Lacedaemonians[*](The Spartan boys used to be whipped at the altar of Artemis Orthia till blood flowed abundantly, and sometimes till death; but they never uttered even a groan (Cicero, Tuscul. ii. 14; v. 27).) endure whipping when they have learned that whipping is consistent with reason. To hang yourself is not intolerable. When then you have the opinion that it is rational, you go and hang yourself. In short, if we observe, we shall find that the animal man is pained by nothing so much as by that which is irrational; and, on the contrary, attracted to nothing so much as to that which is rational.

But the rational and the irrational appear such in a different way to different persons, just as the good and the bad, the profitable and the unprofitable. For this reason, particularly, we need discipline, in order to learn how to adapt the preconception[*](The preconception πρόληψις is thus defined by the Stoics: ἐστι δὴ ἡ πρόληψις ἔννοια φυσικὴ τῶν καθʼ ὅλου (Diogenes Laert. vii.). We name Anticipation all knowledge, by which I can à priori know and determine that which belongs to empirical knowledge, and without doubt this is the sense in which Epicurus used his expression πρόληψις (Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 152, 7th ed.). He adds: But since there is something in appearances which never can be known à priori, and which consequently constitutes the difference between empirical knowledge and knowledge à priori, that is, sensation (as the material of observation), it follows that this sensation is specially that which cannot be anticipated (it cannot be a πρόληψις). On the other hand, we could name the pure determinations in space and time, both in respect to form and magnitude, anticipations of the appearances, because these determinations represent à priori whatever may be presented to us à posteriori in experience. see also p. 8, etc.) of the rational and the irrational to the several things conformably to nature. But in order to determine the rational and the irrational, we use not only the estimates of external things, but we consider also

what is appropriate to each person. For to one man it is consistent with reason to hold a chamber pot for another, and to look to this only, that if he does not hold it, he will receive stripes, and he will not receive his food: but if he shall hold the pot, he will not suffer anything hard or disagreeable. But to another man not only does the holding of a chamber pot appear intolerable for himself, but intolerable also for him to allow another to do this office for him. If then you ask me whether you should hold the chamber pot or not, I shall say to you that the receiving of food is worth more than the not receiving of it, and the being scourged is a greater indignity than not being scourged; so that if you measure your interests by these things, go and hold the chamber pot. But this, you say, would not be worthy of me. Well then, it is you who must introduce this consideration into the inquiry, not I; for it is you who know yourself, how much you are worth to yourself, and at what price you sell yourself; for men sell themselves at various prices.

For this reason, when Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero’s[*](Nero was passionately fond of scenic representations, and used to induce the descendants of noble families, whose poverty made them consent, to appear on the stage (Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 14; Suetonius, Nero, c. 21).) spectacles, and also perform in them himself, Agrippinus said to him, Go down: and when Florus asked Agrippinus, Why do not you go down? Agrippinus replied, Because I do not even deliberate about the matter. For he who has once brought himself to deliberate about such matters, and to calculate the value of external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own character. For why do you ask me the question, whether death is preferable or life? I say life. Pain or pleasure? I say pleasure. But if I do not take a part in the tragic acting, I shall have my head struck off. Go then and take a part, but I will not. Why? Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything

superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple,[*](The purple is the broad purple border on the toga named the toga praetexta, worn by certain Roman magistrates and some others, and by senators, it is said, on certain days (Cic. Phil. ii. 43).) that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple?

Priscus Helvidius[*](Helvidius Priscus, a Roman senator and a philosopher, is commended by Tacitus (Hist. iv. 4, 5) as an honest man: He followed the philosophers who considered those things only to be good which are virtuous, those only to be bad which are foul; and he reckoned power, rank, and all other things which are external to the mind as neither good nor bad. Vespasian, probably in a fit of passion, being provoked by Helvidius, ordered him to be put to death, and then revoked the order when it was too late (Suetonius Vespasianus, c. 15).) also saw this, and acted conformably. For when Vespasian sent and commanded him not to go into the senate, he replied, It is in your power not to allow me to be a member of the senate, but so long as I am, I must go in. Well, go in then, says the emperor, but say nothing. Do not ask my opinion, and I will be silent. But I must ask your opinion. And I must say what I think right. But if you do, I shall put you to death. When then did I tell you that I am immortal? You will do your part, and I will do mine: it is your part to kill; it is mine to die, but not in fear: yours to banish me; mine to depart without sorrow.

What good then did Priscus do, who was only a single person? And what good does the purple do for the toga? Why, what else than this, that it is conspicuous in the toga as purple, and is displayed also as a fine example to all other things? But in such circumstances another would have replied to Caesar who forbade him to enter the senate, I thank you for sparing me. But such a man Vespasian would not even have forbidden to enter the senate, for he knew that he would either sit there like an earthen vessel, or, if he spoke, he would say what Caesar wished, and add even more.

In this way an athlete also acted who was in danger of dying unless his private parts were amputated. His brother came to the athlete, who was a philosopher, and said, Come, brother, what are you going to do? Shall we amputate this member and return to the gymnasium? But the athlete persisted in his resolution and died. When some one asked Epictetus, How he did this, as an athlete or a philosopher? As a man, Epictetus replied, and a man who had been proclaimed among the athletes at the Olympic games and had contended in them, a man who had been familiar with such a place, and not merely anointed in Baton’s school.[*](Baton was elected for two years gymnasiarch or superintendent of a gymnasium in or about the time of M. Aurelius Antoninus. See Schweighaeuser’s note.) Another would have allowed even his head to be cut off, if he could have lived without it. Such is that regard to character which is so strong in those who have been accustomed to introduce it of themselves and conjoined with other things into their deliberations.

Come then, Epictetus, shave[*](This is supposed, as Casaubon says, to refer to Domitian’s order to the philosophers to go into exile; and some of them, in order to conceal their profession of philosophy, shaved their beards. Epictetus would not take off his beard.) yourself. If I am a philosopher, I answer, I will not shave myself. But I will take off your head? If that will do you any good, take it off.

Some person asked, how then shall every man among us perceive what is suitable to his character? How, he replied, does the bull alone, when the lion has attacked, discover his own powers and put himself forward in defence of the whole herd? It is plain that with the powers the perception of having them is immediately conjoined: and, therefore, whoever of us has such powers will not be ignorant of them. Now a bull is not made suddenly, nor a brave man; but we must discipline ourselves in the winter for the summer campaign, and not rashly run upon that which does not concern us.

Only consider at what price you sell your own will: if for no other reason, at least for this, that you sell it not for a small sum. But that which is great and superior perhaps

belongs to Socrates and such as are like him. Why then, if we are naturally such, are not a very great number of us like him? Is it true then that all horses become swift, that all dogs are skilled in tracking footprints? What then, since I am naturally dull, shall I, for this reason, take no pains? I hope not. Epictetus is not superior to Socrates; but if he is not inferior,[*](The text is: εἰ δὲ μὴ οὐ χείρων. The sense seems to be: Epictetus is not superior to Socrates, but if he is not worse, that is enough for me. On the different readings of the passage and on the sense, see the notes in Schweig.’s edition. The difficulty, if there is any, is in the negative μή.) this is enough for me; for I shall never be a Milo,[*](Milo of Croton, a great athlete. The conclusion is the same as in Horace, Epp. i. 1, 28, etc.:Est quodam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra.) and yet I do not neglect my body; nor shall I be a Croesus, and yet I do not neglect my property; nor, in a word, do we neglect looking after anything because we despair of reaching the highest degree.

IF a man should be able to assent to this doctrine as he ought, that we are all sprung from God[*](Epictetus speaks of God ὁ θεός and the gods. Also conformably to the practice of the people, he speaks of God under the name of Zeus. The gods of the people were many, but his God was perhaps one. Father of men and gods, says Homer of Zeus; and Virgil says of Jupiter, Father of gods and king of men. Salmasius proposed ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ. See Schweig.’s note.) in an especial manner, and that God is the father both of men and of gods, I suppose that he would never have any ignoble or mean thoughts about himself. But if Caesar (the emperor) should adopt you, no one could endure your arrogance; and if you know that you are the son of Zeus, will you not be elated? Yet we do not so; but since

these two things are mingled in the generation of man, body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence in common with the gods, many incline to this kinship, which is miserable and mortal; and some few to that which is divine and happy. Since then it is of necessity that every man uses everything according to the opinion which he has about it, those, the few, who think that they are formed for fidelity and modesty and a sure use of appearances have no mean or ignoble thoughts about themselves; but with the many it is quite the contrary. For they say, What am I? A poor, miserable man, with my wretched bit of flesh. Wretched, indeed; but you possess something better than your bit of flesh. Why then do you neglect that which is better, and why do you attach yourself to this?

Through this kinship with the flesh, some of us inclining to it become like wolves, faithless and treacherous and mischievous: some become like lions, savage and bestial and untamed; but the greater part of us become foxes, and other worse animals. For what else is a slanderer and a malignant man than a fox, or some other more wretched and meaner animal? See[*](ὁρᾶτε καὶ προσέχετε μή τι τούτων ἀποβῆτε τῶν ἀτυχημάτων. Upton compares Matthew xvi. 6: ὁρᾶτε καὶ προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης, Upton remarks that many expressions in Epictetus are not unlike the style of the Gospels, which were written in the same period in which Epictetus was teaching. Schweighaeuser also refers to Wetstein’s New Testament.) then and take care that you do not become some one of these miserable things.

HE who is making progress, having learned from philosophers that desire means the desire of good things, and aversion means aversion from bad things; having learned

too that happiness[*](τὸ εὔρουν or ἡ εὔροια is translated happiness. The notion is that of flowing easily, as Seneca (Epp. 120) explains it: beata vita, secundo defluens cursu.) and tranquillity are not attainable by man otherwise than by not failing to obtain what he desires, and not falling into that which he would avoid; such a man takes from himself desire altogether and defers it,[*](ὑπερτέθειται. The Latin translation is: in futurum tempus rejicit. Wolf says: Significat id, quod in Enchiridio dictum est: philosophies tironem non nimium tribuere sibi, sed quasi addubitantem expectare dum confirmetur judicium.) but he employs his aversion only on things which are dependent on his will. For if he attempts to avoid anything independent of his will, he knows that sometimes he will fall in with something which he wishes to avoid, and he will be unhappy. Now if virtue promises good fortune and tranquillity and happiness, certainly also the progress towards virtue is progress towards each of these things. For it is always true that to whatever point the perfecting of anything leads us, progress is an approach towards this point.

How then do we admit that virtue is such as I have said, and yet seek progress in other things and make a display of it? What is the product of virtue? Tranquillity. Who then makes improvement? Is it he who has read many books of Chrysippus?[*](Diogenes Laertius (Chrysippus, lib. vii.) states that Chrysippus wrote seven hundred and five books, or treatises, or whatever the word συγγράμματα means. He was born at Soli, in Cilicia, or at Tarsus, in B. C. 280, as it is reckoned, and on going to Athens he became a pupil of the Stoic Cleanthes.) But does virtue consist in having understood Chrysippus? If this is so, progress is clearly nothing else than knowing a great deal of Chrysippus. But now we admit that virtue produces one thing, and we declare that approaching near to it is another thing, namely, progress or improvement. Such a person, says one, is already able to read Chrysippus by himself. Indeed, sir, you are making great progress. What kind of progress? But why do you mock the man? Why do you draw him away from the perception of his own misfortunes? Will you not show him the effect of virtue that he may learn where to look for improvement?

Seek it there, wretch, where your work lies. And where is your work? In desire and in aversion, that you may not be disappointed in your desire, and that you may not fall into that which you would avoid; in your pursuit and avoiding, that you commit no error; in assent and suspension of assent, that you be not deceived. The first things, and the most necessary, are those which I have named.[*](Compare iii. c. 2. The word is τόποι.) But if with trembling and lamentation you seek not to fall into that which you avoid, tell me how you are improving.

Do you then show me your improvement in these things? If I were talking to an athlete, I should say, Show me your shoulders; and then he might say, Here are my Halteres. You and your Halteres[*](Halteres are gymnastic instruments (Galen. i. De Sanitate tuenda; Martial, xiv. 49; Juvenal, vi. 420, and the Scholiast. Upton). Halteres is a Greek word, literally leapers. They are said to have been masses of lead, used for exercise and in making jumps. The effect of such weights in taking a jump is well known to boys who have used them. A couple of bricks will serve the purpose, Martial says (xiv. 49):— Quid pereunt stulto fortes haltere lacerti?Exercet melius vinea fossa viros. Juvenal (vi. 421) writes of a woman who uses dumb-bells till she sweats, and is then rubbed dry by a man, Quum lassata gravi ceciderunt brachia massa.(Macleane’s Juvenal.) As to the expression, Ὄψει σὺ, καὶ οἱ ἁλτῆρες, see Upton’s note. It is also a Latin form: Epicurus hoc viderit, Cicero, Acad. ii. c. 7; haec fortuna viderit, Ad Attic. vi. 4. It occurs in M. Antoninus, viii. 41, v. 25; and in Acta Apostol. xviii. 15.) look to that. I should reply, I wish to see the effect of the Halteres. So, when you say: Take the treatise on the active powers (ὁρμή), and see how I have studied it. I reply, Slave, I am not inquiring about this, but how you exercise pursuit and avoidance, desire and aversion, how you design and purpose and prepare yourself, whether conformably to nature or not. If conformably, give me evidence of it, and I will say that you are making progress: but if not conformably, be gone, and not only expound your books, but write such books yourself; and

what will you gain by it? Do you not know that the whole book costs only five denarii? Does then the expounder seem to be worth more than five denarii? Never then look for the matter itself in one place, and progress towards it in another.

Where then is progress? If any of you, withdrawing himself from externals, turns to his own will (προαίρεσις) to exercise it and to improve it by labour, so as to make it conformable to nature, elevated, free, unrestrained, unimpeded, faithful, modest; and if he has learned that he who desires or avoids the things which are not in his power can neither be faithful nor free, but of necessity he must change with them and be tossed abort with them as in a tempest,[*](μεταρριπίζεσθαι. Compare James, Ep. i. 6: ὁ γὰρ διακρινόμενος ἔοικε κλύδωνι θαλάσσης ἀνεμιζομένῳ καὶ ῥιπιζομένῳ.) and of necessity must subject himself to others who have the power to procure or prevent what he desires or would avoid; finally, when he rises in the morning, if he observes and keeps these rules, bathes as a man of fidelity, eats as a modest man; in like manner, if in every matter that occurs he works out his chief principles τὰ προηγούμενα) as the runner does with reference to running, and the trainer of the voice with reference to the voice—this is the man who truly makes progress, and this is the man who has not travelled in vain. But if he has strained his efforts to the practice of reading books, and labours only at this, and has travelled for this, I tell him to return home immediately, and not to neglect his affairs there; for this for which he has travelled is nothing. But the other thing is something, to study how a man can rid his life of lamentation and groaning, and saying, Woe to me, and wretched that I am, and to rid it also of misfortune and disappointment, and to learn what death is, and exile, and prison, and poison, that he may be able to say when he is in fetters, Dear Crito,[*](This is said in the Criton of Plato, 1; but not in exactly the same way.) if it is the will of the gods that it be so, let it be so; and not to say, Wretched am I, an old man; have I kept my grey hairs for this? Who is it that speaks thus? Do you think that I shall name some man of no repute and of low condition? Does

not Priam say this? Does not Oedipus say this? Nay, all kings say it says of Tragedy.) For what else is tragedy than the perturbations (πάθη) of men who value externals exhibited in this kind of poetry? But if a man must learn by fiction that no external things which are independent of the will concern us, for my part I should like this fiction, by the aid of which I should live happily and undisturbed. But you must consider for yourselves what you wish.

What then does Chrysippus teach us? The reply is, to know that these things are not false, from which happiness comes and tranquillity arises. Take my books, and you will learn how true and conformable to nature are the things which make me free from perturbations. O great good fortune! 0 the great benefactor who points out the way! To Triptolemus all men have erected[*](ἀνεστάκασιν See the note of Schweig. on the use of this form of the verb.)temples and altars, because he gave us food by cultivation; but to him who discovered truth and brought it to light and communicated it to all, not the truth which shows us how to live, but how to live well, who of you for this reason has built an altar, or a temple, or has dedicated a statue, or who worships God for this? Because the gods have given the vine, or wheat, we sacrifice to them: but because they have produced in the human mind that fruit by which they designed to show us the truth which relates to happiness, shall we not thank God for this?

[*](See Lecture V., The New Academy, Levin’s Lectures Introductory to the Phoilsophical Writings of Cicero, Cambridge, 1871.)

IF a man, said Epictetus, opposes evident truths, it is not easy to find arguments by which we shall make him change his opinion. But this does not arise either from the

man’s strength or the teacher’s weakness; for when the man, though he has been confuted,[*](ἀπαχθείς. See the note in Schweig.’s edition.) is hardened like a stone, how shall we then be able to deal with him by argument?

Now there are two kinds of hardening, one of the understanding, the other of the sense of shame, when a man is resolved not to assent to what is manifest nor to desist from contradictions. Most of us are afraid of mortification of the body, and would contrive all means to avoid such a thing, but we care not about the soul’s mortification. And indeed with regard to the soul, if a man be in such a state as not to apprehend anything, or understand at all, we think that he is in a bad condition: but if the sense of shame and modesty are deadened, this we call even power (or strength).

Do you comprehend that you are awake? I do not, the man replies, for I do not even comprehend when in my sleep I imagine that I am awake. Does this appearance then not differ from the other? Not at all, he replies. Shall I still argue with this man?[*](Compare Cicero, Academ. Prior. ii. 6.) And what fire or what iron shall I apply to him to make him feel that he is deadened? He does perceive, but he pretends that he does not. He is even worse than a dead man. He does not see the contradiction: he is in a bad condition. Another does see it, but he is not moved, and makes no improvement: he is even in a worse condition. His modesty is extirpated, and his sense of shame; and the rational faculty has not been cut off from him, but it is brutalised. Shall I name this strength of mind? Certainly not, unless we also name it such in catamites, through which they do and say in public whatever comes into their head.

FROM everything which is or happens in the world, it is easy to praise Providence, if a man possesses these two qualities, the faculty of seeing what belongs and happens to all persons and things, and a grateful disposition. If he does not possess these two qualities, one man will not see the use of things which are and which happen; another will not be thankful for them, even if he does know them. If God had made colours, but had not made the faculty of seeing them, what would have been their use? None at all. On the other hand, if He had made the faculty of vision, but had not made objects such as to fall under the faculty, what in that case also would have been the use of it? None at all. Well, suppose that He had made both, but had not made light? In that case, also, they would have been of no use. Who is it then who has fitted this to that and that to this? And who is it that has fitted the knife to the case and the case to the knife? Is it no one?[*](Goethe has a short poem, entitled Gleich und Gleich (Like and Like): Ein BlumenglöckchenVom Boden hervorWar früh gesprossetIn lieblichem Flor;Da kam ein BienchenUnd naschte fein:—Die miissen wohl beydeFür einander seyn.) And, indeed, from the very structure of things which have attained their completion, we are accustomed to show that the work is certainly the act of some artificer, and that it has not been constructed without a purpose. Does then each of these things demonstrate the workman, and do not visible things and the faculty of seeing and light demonstrate Him? And the existence of male and female, and the desire of each for conjunction, and the power of using the parts which are constructed, do not even these declare the workman? If they do not, let us consider[*](See Schweig.’s note. I have given the sense of the passage, I think.) the constitution of our understanding

according to which, when we meet with sensible objects, we do not simply receive impressions from them, but we also select[*](Cicero, De Off. i. c. 4, on the difference between man and beast.) something from them, and subtract something, and add, and compound by means of them these things or those, and, in fact, pass from some to other things which, in a manner, resemble them: is not even this sufficient to move some men, and to induce them not to forget the workman? If not so, let them explain to us what it is that makes each several thing, or how it is possible that things so wonderful and like the contrivances of art should exist by chance and from their own proper motion?

What, then, are these things done in us only? Many, indeed, in us only, of which the rational animal had peculiarly need; but you will find many common to us with irrational animals. Do they then understand what is done? By no means. For use is one thing, and understanding is another: God had need of irrational animals to make use of appearances, but of us to understand the use of appearances.[*](See Schweig,’s note, tom. ii. p. 84.) It is therefore enough for them to eat and to drink, and to sleep and to copulate, and to do all the other things which they severally do. But for us, to whom He has given also the intellectual faculty, these things are not sufficient; for unless we act in a proper and orderly manner, and conformably to the nature and constitution of each thing, we shall never attain our true end. For where the constitutions of living beings are different, there also the acts and the ends are different. In those animals then whose constitution is adapted only to use, use alone is enough: but in an animal (man), which has also the power of understanding the use, unless there be the due exercise of the understanding, he will never attain his proper end. Well then God constitutes every animal, one to be eaten, another to serve for agriculture, another to supply cheese, and another for some like use; for which purposes what need is there to understand appearances and to be able to distinguish them? But God has introduced man to be a spectator of God[*](The original is αὐτοῦ, which I refer to God; but it may be ambiguous. Schweighaeuser refers it to man, and explains it to mean that man should be a spectator of himself, according to the maxim, Γνῶθι σεαυτόν. It is true that man can in a manner contemplate himself and his faculties as well as external objects; and as every man can be an object to every other man, so a man may be an object to himself when he examines his faculties and reflects on his own acts. Schweighaeuser asks how can a man be a spectator of God, except so far as he is a spectator of God’s works? It is not enough; he says, to reply that God and the universe, whom and which man contemplates, are the same thing to the Stoics; for Epictetus always distinguishes God the maker and governor of the universe from the universe itself. But here lies the difficulty. The universe is an all-comprehensive term: it is all that we can in any way perceive and conceive as existing; and it may therefore comprehend God, not as something distinct from the universe, but as being the universe himself. This form of expression is an acknowledgment of the weakness of the human faculties, and contains the implicit assertion of Locke that the notion of God is beyond man’s understanding (Essay, etc. ii. c. 17).) and of His

works; and not only a spectator of them, but an interpreter. For this reason it is shameful for man to begin and to end where irrational animals do; but rather he ought to begin where they begin, and to end where nature ends in us; and nature ends in contemplation and understanding, and in a way of life conformable to nature. Take care then not to die without having been spectators of these things.

But you take a journey to Olympia to see the work of Phidias,[*](This work was the colossal chryselephantine statue of Zeus (Jupiter) by Phidias, which was at Olympia. This wonderful work is described by Pausanias (Eliaca, A, 11).) and all of you think it a misfortune to die without having seen such things. But when there is no need to take a journey, and where a man is, there he has the works (of God) before him, will you not desire to see and understand them? Will you not perceive either[*](Compare Persius, Sat. iii, 66— Discite, io, miseri et causas cognoscite rerum,Quid sumus aut quidnam victuri gign mur.) what you are, or what you were born for, or what this is for which you have received the faculty of sight? But you may say, there are some things disagreeable and troublesome in life. And are there none at Olympia? Are you not scorched? Are you not pressed by a crowd? Are you not without comfortable means of bathing? Are you not wet when it rains? Have you not abundance of noise, clamour, and other disagreeable things? But I suppose that setting all these things off against the magnificence of the spectacle, you bear and endure. Well then and have

you not received faculties by which you will be able to bear all that happens? Have you not received greatness of soul? Have you not received manliness? Have you not received endurance? And why do I trouble myself about anything that can happen if I possess greatness of soul? What shall distract my mind or disturb me, or appear painful? Shall I not use the power for the purposes for which I received it, and shall I grieve and lament over what happens?

Yes, but my nose runs.[*](Compare Antoninus, viii. 50, and Epictetus, ii. 16, 13.) For what purpose then, slave, have you hands? Is it not that you may wipe your nose?— Is it then consistent with reason that there should be running of noses in the world?—Nay, how much better it is to wipe your nose than to find fault. What do you think that Hercules would have been if there had not been such a lion, and hydra, and stag, and boar, and certain unjust and bestial men, whom Hercules used to drive away and clear out? And what would he have been doing if there had been nothing of the kind? Is it not plain that he would have wrapped himself up and have slept? In the first place then he would not have been a Hercules, when he was dreaming away all his life in such luxury and ease; and even if he had been one, what would have been the use of him? and what the use of his arms, and of the strength of the other parts of his body, and his endurance and noble spirit, if such circumstances and occasions had not roused and exercised him? Well then must a man provide for himself such means of exercise, and seek to introduce a lion from some place into his country, and a boar, and a hydra? This would be folly and madness: but as they did exist, and were found, they were useful for showing what Hercules was and for exercising him. Come then do you also having observed these things look to the faculties which you have, and when you have looked at them, say: Bring now, O Zeus, any difficulty that thou pleasest, for I have means given to me by thee and powers[*](ἀφορμὰς. This word in this passage has a different meaning from that which it has when it is opposed to ὁρμή. See Gataker, Antoninus, ix. 1 (Upton). Epictetus says that the powers which man has were given by God: Antoninus says, from nature. They mean the same thing. See Schweighaeuser’s note.)

for honouring myself through the things which happen. You do not so: but you sit still, trembling for fear that some things will happen, and weeping, and lamenting, and groaning for what does happen: and then you blame the gods. For what is the consequence of such meanness of spirit but impiety?[*](Compare Antoninus, ix. 1.) And yet God has not only given us these faculties; by which we shall be able to bear everything thing happens without being depressed or broken by it; but, like a good king and a true father, He has given us these faculties free from hindrance, subject to no compulsion, unimpeded, and has put them entirely in our own power, without even having reserved to Himself any power of hindering or impeding. You, who have received these powers free and as your own, use them not: you do not even see what you have received, and from whom; some of you being blinded to the giver, and not even acknowledging your benefactor, and others, through meanness of spirit, betaking yourselves to fault-finding and making charges against God. Yet I will show to you that you have powers and means for greatness of soul and manliness: but what powers you have for finding fault and making accusations, do you show me.

[*](The title is περὶ τῆς χρείας τῶν μεταπιπτόντων καὶ ὑποθετικῶν καὶ τῶν ὁμοιων. Schweighaeuser has a big note on μεταπίπτοντες λόγοι, which he has collected from various critics. Mrs. Carter translated the title Of the Use of Convertible and Hypothetical Propositions and the like. But convertible might be understood in the common logical sense, which is not the meaning of Epictetus. Schweighaeuser explains μεταπίπτοντες λόγοι to be sophistical arguments in which the meaning of propositions or of terms, which ought to remain the same, is dexterously changed and perverted to another meaning.)

THE handling of sophistical and hypothetical arguments, and of those which derive their conclusions from questioning, and in a word the handling of all such arguments,

relates to the duties of life, though the many do not know this truth. For in every matter we inquire how the wise and good man shall discover the proper path and the proper method of dealing with the matter. Let then people either say that the grave man will not descend into the contest of question and answer, or, that if he does descend into the contest, he will take no care about not conducting himself rashly or carelessly in questioning and answering. But if they do not allow either the one or the other of these things, they must admit that some inquiry ought to be made into those topics (τόπων) on which particularly questioning and answering are employed. For what is the end proposed in reasoning? To establish true propositions, to remove the false, to withhold assent from those which are not plain. Is it enough then to have learned only this? It is enough, a man may reply. Is it then also enough for a man, who would not make a mistake in the use of coined money, to have heard this precept, that he should receive the genuine drachmae and reject the spurious? It is not enough. What then ought to be added to this precept? What else than the faculty which proves and distinguishes the genuine and the spurious drachmae? Consequently also in reasoning what has been said is not enough; but it is necessary that a man should acquire the faculty of examining and distinguishing the true and the false, and that which is not plain? It is necessary. Besides this, what is proposed in reasoning? That you should accept what follows from that which you have properly granted. Well, is it then enough in this case also to know this? It is not enough; but a man must learn how one thing is a consequence of other things, and when one thing follows from one thing, and when it follows from several collectively. Consider then if it be not necessary that this power should also be acquired by him, who purposes to conduct himself skilfully in reasoning, the power of demonstrating himself the several things which he has proposed,[*](See Schweig.’s note on ἀποδείξειν ἕκαστα ἀποδόντα.) and the power of understanding the demonstrations of others, and of not being deceived by sophists, as if they were demonstrating. Therefore there has arisen among us the practice and exercise of conclusive arguments[*](These are syllogisms and figures, modes (τρόποι) by which the syllogism has its proper conclusion.) and figures, and it has been shown to be necessary.

But in fact in some cases we have properly granted the premises[*](Compare Aristotle, Topic. viii. 1, 22 (ed. J. Pac. 758). Afterwards Epictetus uses τὰ ὡμολογημένα as equivalent to λήμματα (premises or assumptions).) or assumptions, and there results from them something; and though it is not true, yet none the less it does result. What then ought I to do? Ought I to admit the falsehood? And how is that possible? Well, should I say that I did not properly grant that which we agreed upon? But you are not allowed to do even this. Shall I then say that the consequence does not arise through what has been conceded? But neither is this allowed. What then must be done in this case? Consider if it is not this: as to have borrowed is not enough to make a man still a debtor, but to this must be added the fact that he continues to owe the money and that the debt is not paid, so it is not enough to compel you to admit the inference[*](The inference,τὸ ἐπιφερόμενον.Ἐπιφορά est illatio quae assumptionem sequitur (Upton).)that you have granted the premises (τὰ λήμματα), but you must abide by what you have granted. Indeed, if the premises continue to the end such as they were when they were granted, it is absolutely necessary for us to abide by what we have granted, and we must accept their consequences: but if the premises do not remain[*](This, then, is a case of μεταπίπτοντες λόγοι (chap. vii. 1), where there has been a sophistical or dishonest change in the premises or in some term, by virtue of which change there appears to be a just conclusion, which, however, is false; and it is not a conclusion derived from the premises to which we assented. A ridiculous example is given by Seneca, Ep. 48: Mus syllaba est: mus autem caseum rodit: syllaba ergo caseum rodit. Seneca laughs at this absurdity, and says perhaps the following syllogism (collectio) may be a better example of acuteness: Mus syllaba est: syllaba autem caseum non rodit: mus ergo caseum non rodit. One is as good as the other. We know that neither conclusion is true, and we see where the error is. Ménage says that though the Stoics particularly cultivated logic, some of them despised it, and he mentions Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus. Upton, however, observes that Epictetus and Marcus Antoninus did not despise logic (he says nothing about Seneca), but employed it for their own purposes.It has been observed that if a man is asked whether, if every A is B, every B is also A, he might answer that it is. But if you put the conversion in this material form: Every goose is an animal, he immediately perceives that he cannot say, Every animal is a goose. What does this show? It shows that the man’s comprehension of the proposition, every A is B, was not true, and that he took it to mean Something different from what the person intended who put the question. He understood that A and B were coextensive. Whether we call this reasoning or something else, makes no matter. A man whose understanding is sound cannot in the nature of things reason wrong; but his understanding of the matter on which he reasons may be wrong somewhere, and he may not be able to discover where. A man who has been trained in the logical art may show him that his conclusion is just according to his understanding of the terms and the propositions employed, but yet it is not true.) such as they were when they

were granted, it is absolutely necessary for us also to withdraw from what we granted, and from accepting what does not follow from the words in which our concessions were made. For the inference is now not our inference, nor does it result with our assent, since we have withdrawn from the premises which we granted. We ought then both to examine such kinds of premises, and such change and variation of them (from one meaning to another), by which in the course of questioning or answering, or in making the syllogistic conclusion, or in any other such way, the premises undergo variations, and give occasion to the foolish to be confounded, if they do not see what conclusions (consequences) are. For what reason ought we to examine? In order that we may not in this matter be employed in an improper manner nor in a confused way.

And the same in hypotheses and hypothetical arguments; for it is necessary sometimes to demand the granting of some hypothesis as a kind of passage to the argument which follows. Must we then allow every hypothesis that is proposed, or not allow every one? And if not every one, which should we allow? And if a man has allowed an hypothesis, must he in every case abide by allowing it? or must he sometimes withdraw from it, but admit the consequences and not admit contradictions? Yes; but suppose that a man says, If you admit the hypothesis of a possibility, I will draw you to an impossibility. With such a person shall a man of sense refuse to enter into a contest, and avoid discussion and conversation with him? But what other man than the man of sense can use argumentation and is skilful in questioning and answering, and

incapable of being cheated and deceived by false reasoning? And shall he enter into the contest, and yet not take care whether he shall engage in argument not rashly and not carelessly? And if he does not take care, how can he be such a man as we conceive him to be? But without some such exercise and preparation, can he maintain a continuous and consistent argument? Let them show this; and all these speculations (θεωρήματα) become superfluous, and are absurd and inconsistent with our notion of a good and serious man.

Why are we still indolent and negligent and sluggish, and why do we seek pretences for not labouring and not being watchful in cultivating our reason? If then I shall make a mistake in these matters may I not have killed my father? Slave, where was there a father in this matter that you could kill him? What then have you done? The only fault that was possible here is the fault which you have committed. This is the very remark which I made to Rufus[*](Rufus is Musonius Rufus (i. 1). To kill a father and to burn the Roman Capitol are mentioned as instances of the greatest crimes. Comp. Horace, Epode, iii.; Cicero, De Amicit. c. 11; Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus, c. 20.) when he blamed me for not having discovered the one thing omitted in a certain syllogism: I suppose, I said, that I have burnt the Capitol. Slave, he replied, was the thing omitted here the Capitol? Or are these the only crimes, to burn the Capitol and to kill your father? But for a man to use the appearances presented to him rashly and foolishly and carelessly, and not to understand argument, nor demonstration, nor sophism, nor, in a word, to see in questioning and answering what is consistent with that which we have granted or is not consistent; is there no error in this?

IN as many ways as we can change things[*](Things mean propositions and terms. See Aristot. Analyt. Prior. i. 39, δεῖ δὲ καὶ μεταλαμβάνειν, etc. Ἐπιχειρήματα are arguments of any kind with which we attack (ἐπιχειρεῖν) an adversary.) which are equivalent to one another, in just so many ways we can change the forms of arguments (ἐπιχειρήματα) and enthymemes[*](The Enthymeme is defined by Aristotle: ἐνθύμημα μὲν οὖν ἐστι συλλογισμὸς ἐξ εἰκότων ἢ σημείων (Anal. Prior. ii. c. 27). He has explained, in the first part of this chapter, what he means by εἰκός and σημεῖον. See also De Morgan’s Formal Logic, p. 237; and P. C. Organon, p. 6, note.) (ἐνθυμήματα) in argumentation. This is an instance: if you have borrowed and not repaid, you owe me the money: you have not borrowed and you have not repaid; then you do not owe me the money. To do this skilfully is suitable to no man more than to the philosopher; for if the enthymeme is an imperfect syllogism, it is plain that he who has been exercised in the perfect syllogism must be equally expert in the imperfect also.

Why then do we not exercise ourselves and one another in this manner? Because, I reply, at present, though we are not exercised in these things and not distracted from the study of morality, by me at least, still we make no progress in virtue. What then must we expect if we should add this occupation? and particularly as this would not only be an occupation which would withdraw us from more necessary things, but would also be a cause of self-conceit and arrogance, and no small cause. For great is the power of arguing and the faculty of persuasion, and particularly if it should be much exercised, and also receive additional ornament from language: and so universally, every faculty acquired by the uninstructed and weak brings with it the danger of these persons being elated

and inflated by it. For by what means could one persuade a young man who excels in these matters, that he ought not to become an appendage[*](A man, as Wolf explains it, should not make oratory, or the art of speaking, his chief excellence. He should use it to set off something which is superior.) to them, but to make them an appendage to himself? Does he not trample on all such reasons, and strut before us elated and inflated, not enduring that any man should reprove him and remind him of what he has neglected and to what he has turned aside?

What then was not Plato a philosopher?[*](Plato was eloquent, and the adversary asks, if that is a reason for not allowing him to be a philosopher. To which the rejoinder is that Hippocrates was a physician, and eloquent too, but not as a physician.) I reply, and was not Hippocrates a physician? but you see how Hippocrates speaks. Does Hippocrates then speak thus in respect of being a physician? Why do you mingle things which have been accidentally united in the same men? And if Plato was handsome and strong, ought I also to set to work and endeavour to become handsome or strong, as if this was necessary for philosophy, because a certain philosopher was at the same time handsome and a philosopher? Will you not choose to see and to distinguish in respect to what men become philosophers, and what things belong to them in other respects? And if I were a philosopher, ought you also to be made lame?[*](Epictetus was lame.) What then? Do I take away these faculties which you possess? By no means; for neither do I take away the faculty of seeing. But if you ask me what is the good of man, I cannot mention to you anything else than that it is a certain disposition of the will with respect to appearances.[*](In i. 20, 15. Epictetus defines the being (οὐσία) or nature of good to be a proper use of appearances; and he also says, i. 29, 1, that the nature of the good is a kind of will (προαίρεσις ποιά), and the nature of evil is a kind of will. But Schweighaeuser cannot understand how the good of man can be a certain will with regard to appearances; and he suggests that Arrian may have written, a certain will which makes use of appearances.)

IF the things are true which are said by the philosophers about the kinship between God and man, what else remains for men to do than what Socrates did? Never in reply to the question, to what country you belong, say that you are an Athenian or a Corinthian, but that you are a citizen of the world (κόσμιος).[*](Cicero, Tuscul. v. 37, has the same: Socrates cum rogaretur, cujatem se esse diceret, Mundanum, inquit. Totius enim mundi se incolam et civem arbitrabatur. (Upton.)) For why do you say that you are an Athenian, and why do you not say that you belong to the small nook only into which your poor body was cast at birth? Is it not plain that you call yourself an Athenian or Corinthian from the place which has a greater authority and comprises not only that small nook itself and all your family, but even the whole country from which the stock of your progenitors is derived down to you? He then who has observed with intelligence the administration of the world, and has learned that the greatest and supreme and the most comprehensive community is that which is composed of men and God, and that from God have descended the seeds not only to my father and grandfather, but to all beings which are generated on the earth and are produced, and particularly to rational beings—for these only are by their nature formed to have communion with God, being by means of reason conjoined with him[*](It is the possession of reason, he says, by which man has communion with God; it is not by any external means, or religious ceremonial. A modern expositor of Epictetus says, Through reason our souls are as closely connected and mixed up with the deity as though they were part of him (Epictet. i. 14, 6; ii. 8, 11, 17, 33). In the Epistle named from Peter (ii. 1, 4) it is written: Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises that by these (see v. 3) ye might be partakers of the divine nature (γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως), having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Mrs. Carter, Introduction, § 31, has some remarks on this Stoic doctrine, which are not a true explanation of the principles of Epictetus and Antoninus.)—why

should not such a man call himself a citizen of the world, why not a son of God,[*](So Jesus said, Our Father which art in heaven. Cleanthes, in his hymn to Zeus, writes, ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ γένος ἐσμέν. Compare Acts of the Apostles, xvii. 28, where Paul quotes these words. It is not true then that the conception of a parental deity, as it has been asserted, was unknown before the teaching of Jesus, and, after the time of Jesus, unknown to those Greeks who were unacquainted with His teaching.) and why should he be afraid of anything which happens among men? Is kinship with Caesar (the emperor) or with any other of the powerful in Rome sufficient to enable us to live in safety, and above ( contempt and without any fear at all? and to have God for your maker (ποιητήν), and father and guardian, shall not this release us from sorrows and fears?

But a man may say, Whence shall I get bread to eat when I have nothing?

And how do slaves, and runaways, on what do they rely when they leave their masters? Do they rely on their lands or slaves, or their vessels of silver? They rely on nothing but themselves; and food does not fail them.[*](In our present society there are thousands who rise in the morning and know not how they shall find something to eat. Some find their food by fraud and theft, some receive it as a gift from others, and some look out for any work that they can find and get their pittance by honest labour. You may see such men everywhere, if you will keep your eyes open. Such men, who live by daily labour, live an heroic life, which puts to shame the well-fed philosopher and the wealthy Christian. Epictetus has made a great misstatement about irrational animals. Millions die annually for want of sufficient food; and many human beings perish in the same way. We can hardly suppose that he did not know these facts.Compare the passage in Matthew (vi. 25–34). It is said, v. 26: Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? The expositors of this passage may be consulted.) And shall it be necessary for one among us who is a philosopher to travel into foreign parts, and trust to and rely on others, and not to take care of himself, and shall he be inferior to irrational animals and more cowardly, each of which being self-sufficient, neither fails to get its proper food, nor to find a suitable way of living, and one conformable to nature?

I indeed think that the old man[*](The old man is Epictetus.) ought to be sitting here, not to contrive how you may have no mean thoughts nor mean and ignoble talk about yourselves, but to take care that there be not among us any young men of such a mind, that when they have recognised their kinship to God, and that we are fettered by these bonds, the body, I mean, and its possessions, and whatever else on account of them is necessary to us for the economy and commerce of life, they should intend to throw off these things as if they were burdens painful and intolerable, and to depart to their kinsmen. But this is the labour that your teacher and instructor ought to be employed upon, if he really were what he should be. You should come to him and say, Epictetus, we can no longer endure being bound to this poor body, and feeding it and giving it drink, and rest, and cleaning it, and for the sake of the body complying with the wishes of these and of those.[*](He means, as Wolf says, on account of the necessities of the body seeking the favour of the more powerful by disagreeable compliances.) Are not these things indifferent and nothing to us; and is not death no evil? And are we not in a manner kinsmen of God, and did we not come from him? Allow us to depart to the place from which we came; allow us to be released at last from these bonds by which we are bound and weighed down. Here there are robbers and thieves and courts of justice, and those who are named tyrants, and think that they have some power over us by means of the body and its possessions. Permit us to show them that they have no power over any man. And I on my part would say, Friends, wait for God: when He shall give the signal[*](Upton refers to Cicero, Tuscul. i. 30, Cato Major, c. 20; Somnium Scipionis, c. 3 (De Republica, iv. 15); the purport of which passage is that we must not depart from life without the command of God. See Marcus Antoninus, ii. 17; iii. 5; v. 33. But how shall a man know the signal for departure, of which Epictetus speaks?) and release you from this service, then go to Him; but for the present endure to dwell in this place where He has put you: short indeed is this time of your dwelling here, and easy to bear for those who are so disposed: for what tyrant or what thief, or

what courts of justice, are formidable to those who have thus considered as things of no value the body and the possessions of the body? Wait then, do not depart without a reason.

Something like this ought to be said by the teacher to ingenuous youths. But now what happens? The teacher is a lifeless body, and you are lifeless bodies. When you have been well filled to-day, you sit down and lament about the morrow, how you shall get something to eat. Wretch, if you have it, you will have it; if you have it not, you will depart from life. The door is open.[*](Upton has referred to the passages of Epictetus in which this expression is used, i. 24, 20; i. 25, 18; ii. 1, 19, and others; to Seneca, De Provid. c. 6, Ep. 91; to Cicero, De Fin. iii. 18, where there is this conclusion: e quo apparet et sapientis esse aliquando officium excedere e vita, quum beatus sit; et stulti manere in vita quum sit miser. Compare Matthew vi. 31: Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things, etc.) Why do you grieve? where does there remain any room for tears? and where is there occasion for flattery? why shall one man envy another? why should a man admire the rich or the powerful, even if they be both very strong and of violent temper? for what will they do to us? We shall not care for that which they can do; and what we do care for, that they cannot do. How did Socrates behave with respect to these matters? Why, in what other way than a man ought to do who was convinced that he was a kinsman of the gods? If you say to me now, said Socrates to his judges,[*](This passage is founded on and is in substance the same as that in Plato’s Apology, c. 17.) we will acquit you on the condition that you no longer discourse in the way in which you have hitherto discoursed, nor trouble either our young or our old men, I shall answer, you make yourselves ridiculous by thinking that, if one of our commanders has appointed me to a certain post, it is my duty to keep and maintain it, and to resolve to die a thousand times rather than desert it; but if God has put us in any place and way of life, we ought to desert it. Socrates speaks like a

mar who is really a kinsman of the gods. But we think about ourselves, as if we were only stomachs, and intestines, and shameful parts; we fear, we desire; we flatter those who are able to help us in these matters, and we fear them also.

A man asked me to write to Rome about him, a man who, as most people thought, had been unfortunate, for formerly he was a man of rank and rich, but had been stripped of all, and was living here. I wrote on his behalf in a submissive manner; but when he had read the letter, he gave it back to me and said, I wished for your help, not your pity: no evil has happened to me.

Thus also Musonius Rufus, in order to try me, used to say: This and this will befall you from your master; and when I replied that these were things which happen in the ordinary course of human affairs. Why then, said he, should I ask him for anything when I can obtain it from you? For, in fact, what a man has from himself, it is superfluous and foolish to receive from another?[*](Schweighaeuser has a long note on this passage, to receive from another. I think that there is no difficulty about the meaning; and the careful reader will find none. Epictetus was once a slave.)s Shall I then, who am able to receive from myself greatness of soul and a generous spirit, receive from you land and money or a magisterial office? I hope not: I will not be so ignorant about my own possessions. But when a man is cowardly and mean, what else must be done for him than to write letters as you would about a corpse.[*](The meaning is obscure. Schweighaeuser thinks that the allusion is to a defeated enemy asking permission from the conqueror to bury the dead. Epictetus considers a man as a mere carcase who places his happiness in externals and in the favour of others.) Please to grant us the body of a certain person and a sextarius of poor blood. For such a person is, in fact, a carcase and a sextarius (a certain quantity) of blood, and nothing more. But if he were anything more, lie would know that one man is not miserable through the means of another.

IF we applied ourselves as busily to our own work as the old men at Rome do to those matters about which they are employed, perhaps we also might accomplish something. I am acquainted with a man older than myself, who is now superintendent of corn[*](A Præfectus Annonæ, or superintendent of the supply of corn at Rome is first mentioned by Livy (iv. 12) as appointed during a scarcity. At a later time this office was conferred on Cn. Pompeius for five years. Maecenas (Dion. 52, c. 24) advised Augustus to make a Praefectus Annonae or permanent officer over the corn market and all other markets (ἐπὶ τοῦ σίτου τῆς τε ἀγορᾶς τῆς λοιπῆς). He would thus have the office formerly exercised by the aediles.) at Rome, and I remember the time when he came here on his way back from exile, and what he said as he related the events of his former life, and how he declared that with respect to the future after his return he would look after nothing else than passing the rest of his life in quiet and tranquillity. For how little of life, he said, remains for me. I replied, you will not do it, but as soon as you smell Rome, you will forget all that you have said; and if admission is allowed even into the imperial palace, he[*](I cannot explain why the third person is used here instead of the second. See Schweig.’s note.) will gladly thrust himself in and thank God. If you find me, Epictetus, he answered, setting even one foot within the palace, think what you please. Well, what then did he do? Before he entered the city, he was met by letters from Caesar, and as soon as he received them, he forgot all, and ever after has added one piece of business to another. I wish that I were now by his side to remind him of what he said when he was passing this way, and to tell him how much better a seer I am than he is.

Well then do I say that man is an animal made for doing nothing?[*](The Stoics taught that man is adapted by his nature for action. He ought not therefore to withdraw from human affairs, and indulge in a lazy life, not even a life of contemplation and religious observances only. Upton refers to Antoninus, v. 1, viii. 19, and Cicero, De Fin. V. 20.) Certainly not. But why are we not

active?[*](Schweighaeuser proposes a small alteration in the Greek text, but I do not think it necessary. When Epictetus says, Why are we not active? He means, Why do some say that we are not active? And he intends to say that We are active, but not in the way in which some people are active. I have therefore added in ( ) what is necessary to make the text intelligible.)(We are active.) For example, as to myself, as soon as day comes, in a few words I remind myself of what I must read over to my pupils;[*](This passage is rather obscure. The word ἐπαναγνῶναι signifies, it is said, to read over for the purpose of explaining as a teacher may do. The pupil also would read something to the teacher for the purpose of showing if he understood it. So Epictetus also says, But what is it to me, etc.) then forthwith I say to myself, But what is it to me how a certain person shall read? the first thing for me is to sleep. And indeed what resemblance is there between what other persons do and what we do? If you observe what they do, you will understand. And what else do they do all day long than make up accounts, enquire among themselves, give and take advice about some small quantity of grain, a bit of land, and such kind of profits? Is it then the same thing to receive a petition and to read in it: I intreat you to permit me to export[*](A plain allusion to restraints put on the exportation of grain.) a small quantity of cor; and one to this effect: I intreat you to learn from Chrysippus what is the administration of the world, and what place in it the rational animal holds; consider also who you are, and what is the nature of your good and bad. Are these things like the other, do they require equal care, and is it equally base to neglect these and those? Well then are we the only persons who are lazy and love sleep? No; but much rather you young men are. For we old men when we see young men amusing themselves are eager to play with them; and if I saw you active and zealous, much more should I be eager myself to join you in your serious pursuits.