A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
horse, by which it will be known which is superior and inferior? Is
there not modesty ([Greek: aidos]), fidelity, justice? Show yourself
superior in these, that you may be superior as a man. If you tell me
that you can kick violently, I also will say to you, that you are proud
of that which is the act of an ass.
THAT WE OUGHT TO PROCEED WITH CIRCUMSPECTION TO EVERYTHING.[Footnote:
Compare Encheiridion, 29.]—In every act consider what precedes and what
follows, and then proceed to the act. If you do not consider, you will
at first begin with spirit, since you have not thought at all of the
things which follow; but afterwards when some consequences have shown
themselves, you will basely desist (from that which you have begun).—I
wish to conquer at the Olympic games.—(And I too, by the gods; for it
is a fine thing.) But consider here what precedes and what follows; and
then, if it is for your good, undertake the thing. You must act
according to rules, follow strict diet, abstain from delicacies,
exercise yourself by compulsion at fixed times, in heat, in cold; drink
no cold water, nor wine, when there is opportunity of drinking it. In a
word, you must surrender yourself to the trainer, as you do to a
physician. Next in the contest, you must be covered with sand,
sometimes dislocate a hand, sprain an ankle, swallow a quantity of
dust, be scourged with the whip; and after undergoing all this, you
must sometimes be conquered. After reckoning all these things, if you
have still an inclination, go to the athletic practice. If you do not
reckon them, observe you will behave like children who at one time play
as wrestlers, then as gladiators, then blow a trumpet, then act a
tragedy, when they have seen and admired such things. So you also do:
you are at one time a wrestler (athlete), then a gladiator, then a
philosopher, then a rhetorician; but with your whole soul you are
nothing: like the ape you imitate all that you see; and always one
thing after another pleases you, but that which becomes familiar
displeases you. For you have never undertaken anything after
consideration, nor after having explored the whole matter and put it to
a strict examination; but you have undertaken it at hazard and with a
cold desire. Thus some persons having seen a philosopher and having
heard one speak like Euphrates—and yet who can speak like him?—wish to
be philosophers themselves.
Man, consider first what the matter is (which you propose to do), then
your own nature also, what it is able to bear. If you are a wrestler,
look at your shoulders, your thighs, your loins: for different men are
naturally formed for different things. Do you think that, if you do
(what you are doing daily), you can be a philosopher? Do you think that
you can eat as you do now, drink as you do now, and in the same way be
angry and out of humor? You must watch, labor, conquer certain desires,
you must depart from your kinsmen, be despised by your slaves, laughed
at by those who meet you, in everything you must be in an inferior
condition, as to magisterial office, in honors, in courts of justice.
When you have considered all these things completely, then, if you
think proper, approach to philosophy, if you would gain in exchange for
these things freedom from perturbations, liberty, tranquillity. If you
have not considered these things, do not approach philosophy: do not
act like children, at one time a philosopher, then a tax collector,
then a rhetorician, then a procurator (officer) of Cæsar. These things
are not consistent. You must be one man either good or bad; you must
either labor at your own ruling faculty or at external things; you must
either labor at things within or at external things; that is, you must
either occupy the place of a philosopher or that of one of the vulgar.
A person said to Rufus when Galba was murdered: Is the world now
governed by Providence? But Rufus replied: Did I ever incidentally form
an argument from Galba that the world is governed by Providence?
THAT WE OUGHT WITH CAUTION TO ENTER INTO FAMILIAR INTERCOURSE WITH
MEN.—If a man has frequent intercourse with others either for talk, or
drinking together, or generally for social purposes, he must either
become like them, or change them to his own fashion. For if a man
places a piece of quenched charcoal close to a piece that is burning,
either the quenched charcoal will quench the other, or the burning
charcoal will light that which is quenched. Since then the danger is so
great, we must cautiously enter into such intimacies with those of the
common sort, and remember that it is impossible that a man can keep
company with one who is covered with soot without being partaker of the
soot himself. For what will you do if a man speaks about gladiators,
about horses, about athletes, or what is worse about men? Such a person
is bad, such a person is good; this was well done, this was done badly.
Further, if he scoff, or ridicule, or show an ill-natured disposition?
Is any man among us prepared like a lute-player when he takes a lute,
so that as soon as he has touched the strings, he discovers which are
discordant, and tunes the instrument? Such a power as Socrates had who
in all his social intercourse could lead his companions to his own
purpose? How should you have this power? It is therefore a necessary
consequence that you are carried about by the common kind of people.
Why then are they more powerful than you? Because they utter these
useless words from their real opinions; but you utter your elegant
words only from your lips; for this reason they are without strength
and dead, and it is nauseous to listen to your exhortations and your
miserable virtue, which is talked of everywhere (up and down). In this
way the vulgar have the advantage over you; for every opinion ([Greek:
dogma]) is strong and invincible. Until then the good ([Greek:
chompsai]) sentiments ([Greek: hupolaepseis]) are fixed in you, and you
shall have acquired a certain power for your security, I advise you to
be careful in your association with common persons; if you are not,
every day like wax in the sun there will be melted away whatever you
inscribe on your minds in the school. Withdraw then yourselves far from
the sun so long as you have these waxen sentiments. For this reason
also philosophers advise men to leave their native country, because
ancient habits distract them and do not allow a beginning to be made of
a different habit; nor can we tolerate those who meet us and say: See
such a one is now a philosopher, who was once so and so. Thus also
physicians send those who have lingering diseases to a different
country and a different air; and they do right. Do you also introduce
other habits than those which you have; fix you opinions and exercise
yourselves in them. But you do not so; you go hence to a spectacle, to
a show of gladiators, to a place of exercise ([Greek: chuston]), to a
circus; then you come back hither, and again from this place you go to
those places, and still the same persons. And there is no pleasing
(good) habit, nor attention, nor care about self and observation of
this kind. How shall I use the appearances presented to me? according
to nature, or contrary to nature? how do I answer to them? as I ought,
or as I ought not? Do I say to those things which are independent of
the will, that they do not concern me? For if you are not yet in this
state, fly from your former habits, fly from the common sort, if you
intend ever to begin to be something.
ON PROVIDENCE.-When you make any charge against Providence, consider,
and you will learn that the thing has happened according to reason.
Yes, but the unjust man has the advantage. In what? In money. Yes, for
he is superior to you in this, that he flatters, is free from shame,
and is watchful. What is the wonder? But see if he has the advantage
over you in being faithful, in being modest; for you will not find it
to be so; but wherein you are superior, there you will find that you
have the advantage. And I once said to a man who was vexed because
Philostorgus was fortunate: Would you choose to lie with Sura? May it
never happen, he replied, that this day should come? Why then are you
vexed, if he receives something in return for that which he sells; or
how can you consider him happy who acquires those things by such means
as you abominate; or what wrong does Providence, if he gives the better
things to the better men? Is it not better to be modest than to be
rich? He admitted this. Why are you vexed then, man, when you possess
the better thing? Remember then always and have in readiness the truth,
that this is a law of nature, that the superior has an advantage over
the inferior in that in which he is superior; and you will never be
vexed.
But my wife treats me badly. Well, if any man asks you what this is,
say, my wife treats me badly. Is there then nothing more? Nothing. My
father gives me nothing. (What is this? my father gives me nothing. Is
there nothing else then? Nothing); but to say that this is an evil is
something which must be added to it externally, and falsely added. For
this reason we must not get rid of poverty, but of the opinion about
poverty, and then we shall be happy.
ABOUT CYNICISM.—When one of his pupils inquired of Epictetus, and he
was a person who appeared to be inclined to Cynicism, what kind of
person a Cynic ought to be, and what was the notion ([Greek:
prolaepsis]) of the thing, we will inquire, said Epictetus, at leisure;
but I have so much to say to you that he who without God attempts so
great a matter, is hateful to God, and has no other purpose than to act
indecently in public.
In the first place, in the things which relate to yourself, you must
not be in any respect like what you do now; you must not blame God or
man; you must take away desire altogether, you must transfer avoidance
([Greek: echchlisis]) only to the things which are within the power of
the will; you must not feel anger nor resentment or envy nor pity; a
girl must not appear handsome to you, nor must you love a little
reputation, nor be pleased with a boy or a cake. For you ought to know
that the rest of men throw walls around them and houses and darkness
when they do any such things, and they have many means of concealment.
A man shuts the door, he sets somebody before the chamber; if a person
comes, say that he is out, he is not at leisure. But the Cynic instead
of all these things must use modesty as his protection; if he does not,
he will be indecent in his nakedness and under the open sky. This is
his house, his door; this is the slave before his bedchamber; this is
his darkness. For he ought not to wish to hide anything that he does;
and if he does, he is gone, he has lost the character of a Cynic, of a
man who lives under the open sky, of a free man; he has begun to fear
some external thing, he has begun to have need of concealment, nor can
he get concealment when he chooses. For where shall he hide himself and
how? And if by chance this public instructor shall be detected, this
pædagogue, what kind of things will he be compelled to suffer? when
then a man fears these things, is it possible for him to be bold with
his whole soul to superintend men? It cannot be: it is impossible.
In the first place then you must make your ruling faculty pure, and
this mode of life also. Now (you should say), to me the matter to work
on is my understanding, as wood is to the carpenter, as hides to the
shoemaker; and my business is the right use of appearances. But the
body is nothing to me: the parts of it are nothing to me. Death? Let it
come when it chooses, either death of the whole or of a part. Fly, you
say. And whither; can any man eject me out of the world? He cannot. But