CHAPTER I.

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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,

[Greek: syngraphein]] 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, [Greek: hêdonê], 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 [Greek: ataraxia]

and [Greek: aponia]--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

Läertius, 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, [Greek: aitherôdes pyr]. 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 ([Greek: tonos]). 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 [Greek: panta

rhei],[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, [Greek: prolêpseis], 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 [Greek:

prolêpseis], 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 [Greek: prolêpseis],

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, [Greek:

tarassesthai]. 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 [Greek: apatheia], 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 [Greek: apatheia]

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:

[Footnote 1: _The Encheiridion of Epictetus_, Translated into

English by T. W. Rolleston. Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1881.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 3: [Greek: panta rhei], all flows--the cardinal doctrine

of the Heracleitean philosophy.]

[Footnote 4: An English translation of this work has lately

appeared.]

[Footnote 5: Ep. 120. 4. ff.]

[Footnote 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 bracketed numerals 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. 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, Croesus! 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 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.