Perhaps the following contention of the philosophers appears paradoxical to some, but nevertheless let us to the best of our ability consider whether it is true that "we ought to do everything both cautiously and confidently at the same time." For caution seems to be in a way contrary to confidence, and contraries are by no means consistent. But that which appears to many to be paradoxical in the matter under discussion seems to me to involve something of this sort: If we demanded that a man should employ both caution and confidence in regard to the same things, then we would be justly charged with uniting qualities that are not to be united. But, as a matter of fact, what is there strange about the saying? For if the statements which have often been made and often proved are sound, namely that "the nature of the good as well as of the evil lies in a use of the impressions of the senses, but the things which lie outside the province of the moral purpose admit neither the nature of the evil, nor the nature of the good"; what is there paradoxical about the contention of the philosophers, if they say, "Where the things that lie outside the province of the moral purpose are involved, there show confidence, but where the things that lie within the province of the moral purpose are involved, there show caution"? For if the evil lies in an evil exercise of the moral purpose, it is only in regard to matters of this kind that it is right to employ caution; but if the things which lie outside the province of the moral purpose and are not under our control are nothing to us, we ought to employ confidence in regard to them. And so we shall be at one and the same time both cautious and confident, yes, and, by Zeus, confident because of our caution. For because we are cautious about the things which are really evil, the result will be that we shall have confidence in regard to the things which are not of that nature.

However, we act like deer: when the hinds are frightened by the feathers and run away from them, where do they turn, and to what do they fly for refuge as a safe retreat? Why, to the nets; and so they perish because they have confused the objects of fear with the objects of confidence. So it is with us also; where do we show fear? About the things which lie outside the province of the moral purpose. Again, in what do we behave with confidence as if there were no danger? In the things which lie within the province of the moral purpose. To be deceived, or to act impetuously, or to do something shameless, or with base passion to desire something, makes no difference to us, if only in the matters which lie outside the province of the will we succeed in our aim. But where death, or exile, or hardship, or ignominy faces us, there we show the spirit of running away, there we show violent agitation. Therefore, as might be expected of those men who err in matters of the greatest concern, we transform our natural confidence into boldness, desperateness, recklessness, shamelessness, while our natural caution and self-respect we transform into cowardice and abjectness, full of fears and perturbations. For if a man should transfer his caution to the sphere of the moral purpose and the deeds of the moral purpose, then along with the desire to be cautious he will also at once have under his control the will to avoid; whereas, if he should transfer his caution to those matters which are not under our control and lie outside the province of the moral purpose, inasmuch as he is applying his will to avoid towards those things which are under the control of others, he will necessarily be subject to fear, instability, and perturbation. For it is not death or hardship that is a fearful thing, but the fear of hardship or death. That is why we praise the man who said

Not death is dreadful, but a shameful death.

Our confidence ought, therefore, to be turned toward death, and our caution toward the fear of death; whereas we do just the opposite—in the face of death we turn to flight, but about the formation of a judgement on death we show carelessness, disregard, and unconcern. But Socrates did well to call all such things "bugbears." For just as masks appear fearful and terrible to children because of inexperience, in some such manner we also are affected by events, and this for the same reason that children are affected by bugbears. For what is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction. For where a child has knowledge, he is no worse than we are. What is death? A bugbear. Turn it about and learn what it is; see, it does not bite. The paltry body must be separated from the bit of spirit, either now or later, just as it existed apart from it before. Why are you grieved, then, if it be separated now? For if it be not separated now, it will be later. Why? So that the revolution of the universe may be accomplished; for it has need of the things that are now coming into being, and the things that shall be, and the things that have been accomplished. What is hardship? A bugbear. Turn it about and learn what it is. The poor flesh is subjected to rough treatment, and then again to smooth. If you do not find this profitable, the door stands open; if you do find it profitable, bear it. For the door must be standing open for every emergency, and then we have no trouble.

What, then, is the fruit of these doctrines? Precisely that which must needs be both the fairest and the most becoming for those who are being truly educated—tranquillity, fearlessness, freedom. For on these matters we should not trust the multitude, who say, "Only the free can be educated," but rather the philosophers, who say, "Only the educated are free."—How is that?—Thus: At this time is freedom anything but the right to live as we wish? "Nothing else." Tell me, then, O men, do you wish to live in error? "We do not." Well, no one who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live in fear, in sorrow, in turmoil? "By no means." Well then, no man who is in fear, or sorrow, or turmoil, is free, but whoever is rid of sorrows and fears and turmoils, this man is by the self-same course rid also of slavery. How, then, shall we any longer trust you, O dearest lawgivers? Do we allow none but the free to get an education? For the philosophers say, "We do not allow any but the educated to be free"; that is, God does not allow it.—When, therefore, in the presence of the praetor a man turns his own slave about, has he done nothing?—He has done something.—What?—He has turned his slave about in the presence of the praetor,—Nothing more?—Yes, he is bound to pay a tax of five per cent, of the slave's value.—What then? Has not the man to whom this has been done become free?—He has no more become free than he has acquired peace of mind. You, for example, who are able to turn others about, have you no master? Have you not as your master money, or a mistress, or a boy favourite, or the tyrant, or some friend of the tyrant? If not, why do you tremble when you go to face some circumstance involving those things?

That is why I say over and over again, "Practise these things and have them ready at hand, that is, the knowledge of what you ought to face with confidence, and what you ought to face with caution—that you ought to face with confidence that which is outside the province of the moral purpose, with caution that which is within the province of the moral purpose."—But have I not read to you, and do you not know what I am doing?—What have you been engaged upon? Trifling phrases! Keep your trifling phrases! Show me rather how you stand in regard to desire and aversion, whether you do not fail to get what you wish, or do not fall into what you do not wish. As for those trifling periods of yours, if you are wise, you will take them away somewhere and blot them out.—What then? Did not Socrates write?—Yes, who wrote as much as he? But how? Since he could not have always at hand someone to test his judgements, or to be tested by him in turn, he was in the habit of testing and examining himself, and was always in a practical way trying out some particular primary conception. That is what a philosopher writes; but trifling phrases, and "said he," "said I" he leaves to others, to the stupid or the blessed, those who by virtue of their tranquillity live at leisure, or those who by virtue of their folly take no account of logical conclusions.

And now, when the crisis calls, will you go off and make an exhibition of your compositions, and give a reading from them, and boast, "See, how I write dialogues"? Do not so, man, but rather boast as follows: "See how in my desire I do not fail to get what I wish. See how in my aversions I do not fall into things that I would avoid. Bring on death and you shall know; bring on hardships, bring on imprisonment, bring on disrepute, bring on condemnation." This is the proper exhibition of a young man come from school. Leave other things to other people; neither let anyone ever hear a word from you about them, nor, if anyone praises you for them, do you tolerate it, but let yourself be accounted a no-body and a know-nothing. Show that you know this only—how you may never either fail to get what you desire or fall into what you avoid. Let others practise lawsuits, others problems, others syllogisms; do you practise how to die, how to be enchained, how to be racked, how to be exiled. Do all these things with confidence, with trust in Him who has called you to face them and deemed you worthy of this position, in which having once been placed you shall exhibit what can be achieved by a rational governing principle when arrayed against the forces that lie outside the province of the moral purpose. And thus the paradox of which we were speaking will no longer appear either impossible or paradoxical, namely, that at the same time we ought to be both cautious and confident, confident in regard to those things that lie outside the province of the moral purpose, and cautious in regard to those things that lie within the province of the moral purpose.

Consider, you who are going to court, what you wish to maintain and wherein you wish to succeed; for if you wish to maintain freedom of moral purpose in its natural condition, all security is yours, every facility yours, you have no trouble. For if you are willing to keep guard over those things which are under your direct authority and by nature free, and if you are satisfied with them, what else do you care about? For who is master of them, who can take them away from you? If you wish to be self-respecting and honourable, who is it that will not allow you? If you wish not to be hindered nor compelled, what man will compel you to desire what does not seem to you to be desirable, to avoid what you do not feel should be avoided? Well, what then? The judge will do some things to you which are thought to be terrifying; but how can he make you try to avoid what you suffer? When, therefore, desire and aversion are under your own control, what more do you care for? This is your introduction, this the setting forth of your case, this your proof, this your victory, this your peroration, this your approbation.

That is why Socrates, in reply to the man who was reminding him to make preparation for his trial, said, "Do you not feel, then, that with my whole life I am making preparation for this?"—"What kind of preparation?"—"I have maintained," says he, "that which is under my control."—"How then?"—"I have never done anything that was wrong either in my private or in my public life." But if you wish to maintain also what is external, your paltry body and your petty estate and your small reputation, I have this to say to you: Begin this very moment to make all possible preparation, and furthermore study the character of your judge and your antagonist. If you must clasp men's knees, clasp them; if you must wail, then wail; if you must groan, then groan. For when you subject what is your own to externals, then from henceforth be a slave, and stop letting yourself be drawn this way and that, at one moment wishing to be a slave, at another not, but be either this or that simply and with all your mind, either a free man or a slave, either educated or uneducated, either a spirited fighting cock or a spiritless one, either endure to be beaten until you die, or give in at once. Far be it from you to receive many blows and yet at the last give in! But if that is disgraceful, begin this very moment to decide the question, "Where is the nature of good and evil to be found? Where truth also is. Where truth and where nature are, there is caution; where truth is, there is confidence, where nature is."

Why, do you think that if Socrates had wished to maintain his external possessions he would have come forward and said, "Anytus and Meletus are able indeed to kill me, but they cannot harm me"? Was he so foolish as not to see that this course does not lead to that goal, but elsewhere? Why is it unreasonable, then, to add also a word of provocation? Just as my friend Heracleitus, who had an unimportant lawsuit about a small piece of land in Rhodes; after he had pointed out the justice of his claim he went on to the peroration in which he said, "But neither will I entreat you, nor do I care what your decision is going to be, and it is you who are on trial rather than I." And so he ruined his case. What is the use of acting like that? Merely make no entreaties, but do not add the words "Yes, and I make no entreaties," unless the right time has come for you, as it did for Socrates, deliberately to provoke your judges. If you, for your part, are preparing a peroration of that sort, why do you mount the platform at all, why answer the summons? For if you wish to be crucified, wait and the cross will come; but if reason decides that you should answer the summons and do your best to have what you say carry conviction, you must act in accordance therewith, but always maintaining what is your own proper character.

Looked at in this way it is also absurd to say, "Advise me." What advice am I to give you? Nay, say rather, "Enable my mind to adapt itself to whatever comes." Since the other expression is just as if an illiterate should say, "Tell me what to write when some name is set me to write." For if I say, "Write Dio," and then his teacher comes along and sets him not the name "Dio," but "Theo," what will happen? What will he write? But if you have practised writing, you are able also to prepare yourself for everything that is dictated to you; if you have not practised, what advice can I now offer you? For if circumstances dictate something different, what will you say or what will you do? Bear in mind, therefore, this general principle and you will not be at a loss for a suggestion. But if you gape open-mouthed at externals, you must needs be tossed up and down according to the will of your master. And who is your master? He who has authority over any of the things upon which you set your heart or which you wish to avoid.

That is an excellent answer of Diogenes to the man who asked for a letter of recommendation from him: "That you are a man," he says, "he will know at a glance; but whether you are a good or a bad man he will discover if he has the skill to distinguish between good and bad, and if he is without that skill he will not discover the facts, even though I write him thousands of times." For it is just as though a drachma asked to be recommended to someone, in order to be tested. If the man in question is an assayer of silver, you will recommend yourself. We ought, therefore, to have also in everyday life the sort of thing that we have in the case of silver, so that I may be able to say, as the assayer of silver says, "Bring me any drachma you please, and I will appraise it." Now in the case of syllogisms I say, "Bring me any you please and I will distinguish for you between the one that is capable of analysis and the one that is not." How so? Because, I know how to analyze syllogisms myself; I have the faculty which the man must have who is going to appraise those who handle syllogisms properly. But in everyday life what do I do? Sometimes I call a thing good, and sometimes bad. What is the reason? The opposite of what was true in the case of syllogisms, namely, ignorance and inexperience.

As Epictetus was remarking that man is born to fidelity, and that the man who overthrows this is overthrowing the characteristic quality of man, there entered one who had the reputation of being a scholar, and who had once been caught in the city in the act of adultery. But, goes on Epictetus, if we abandon this fidelity to which we are by nature born, and make designs against our neighbour's wife, what are we doing? Why, what but ruining and destroying? Whom? The man of fidelity, of self-respect, of piety. Is that all? Are we not overthrowing also neighbourly feeling, friendship, the state? In what position are we placing ourselves? As what am I to treat you, fellow? As a neighbour, as a friend? Of what kind? As a citizen? What confidence am I to place in you? If you were a vessel so cracked that it was impossible to use you for anything, you would be cast forth upon the dunghills and even from there no one would pick you up; but if, although a man, you cannot fill a man's place, what are we going to do with you? For, assuming that you cannot hold the place of a friend, can you hold that of a slave? And who is going to trust you? Are you not willing, therefore, that you too should be cast forth upon some dunghill as a useless vessel, as a piece of dung? For all that will you say, "Nobody cares for me, a scholar!"? No, for you are an evil man, and useless. It is just as if the wasps complained that nobody cares for them, but all run away from them, and, if anyone can, he strikes them and knocks them down. You have such a sting that you involve in trouble and pain whomever you strike. What do you want us to do with you? There is no place where you can be put.

What then, you say; are not women by nature common property? I agree. And the little pig is the common property of the invited guests; but when portions have been assigned, if it so pleases you, approach and snatch up the portion of the guest who reclines at your side, steal it secretly, or slip in your hand and glut your greed, and if you cannot tear off a piece of the meat, get your fingers greasy and lick them. A fine companion you would make at a feast, and a dinner-guest worthy of Socrates! Come now, is not the theatre the common property of the citizens? When, therefore, they are seated there, go, if it so pleases you, and throw someone of them out of his seat. In the same way women also are by nature common property. But when the law-giver, like a host at a banquet, has apportioned them, are you not willing like the rest to look for your own portion instead of filching away and glutting your greed upon that which is another's? "But I am a scholar and understand Archedemus." Very well then, understand Archedemus and be an adulterer and faithless and a wolf or an ape instead of a man; for what is there to prevent you?

Materials are indifferent, but the use which we make of them is not a matter of indifference. How, therefore, shall a man maintain steadfastness and peace of mind, and at the same time the careful spirit and that which is neither reckless nor negligent? If he imitates those who play at dice. The counters are indifferent, the dice are indifferent; how am I to know what is going to fall? But to make a careful and skilful use of what has fallen, that is now my task. In like manner, therefore, the principal task in life is this: distinguish matters and weigh them one against another, and say to yourself, "Externals are not under my control; moral choice is under my control. Where am I to look for the good and the evil? Within me, in that which is my own." But in that which is another's never employ the words "good" or "evil," or "benefit" or "injury," or anything of the sort.

What then? Are these externals to be used carelessly? Not at all. For this again is to the moral purpose an evil and thus unnatural to it. They must be used carefully, because their use is not a matter of indifference, and at the same time with steadfastness and peace of mind, because the material is indifferent. For in whatever really concerns us, there no man can either hinder or compel me. The attainment of those things in which I can be hindered or compelled is not under my control and is neither good nor bad, but the use which I make of them is either good or bad, and that is under my control. It is, indeed, difficult to unite and combine these two things—the carefulness of the man who is devoted to material things and the steadfastness of the man who disregards them, but it is not impossible. Otherwise happiness were impossible. But we act very much as though we were on a voyage. What is possible for me? To select the helmsman, the sailors, the day, the moment. Then a storm comes down upon us. Very well, what further concern have I? For my part has been fulfilled. The business belongs to someone else, that is, the helmsman. But, more than that, the ship goes down. What, then, have I to do? What I can; that is the only thing I do; I drown without fear, neither shrieking nor crying out against God, but recognizing that what is born must also perish. For I am not eternal, but a man; a part of the whole, as an hour is part of a day. I must come on as the hour and like an hour pass away. What difference, then, is it to me how I pass away, whether by drowning or by a fever? For by something of the sort I must needs pass away.

This is what you will see skilful ball players doing also. None of them is concerned about the ball as being something good or bad, but about throwing and catching it. Accordingly, form has to do with that, skill with that, and speed, and grace; where I cannot catch the ball even if I spread out my cloak, the expert catches it if I throw. Yet if we catch or throw the ball in a flurry or in fear, what fun is there left, and how can a man be steady, or see what comes next in the game? But one player will say "Throw!" another, "Don't throw!" and yet another, "Don't throw it up!" That, indeed, would be a strife and not a game.

In that sense, then, Socrates knew how to play ball. How so? He knew how to play in the law-court. "Tell me," says he, "Anytus, what do you mean when you say that I do not believe in God. In your opinion who are the daemones? Are they not either the offspring of the gods or a hybrid race, the offspring of men and gods?" And when Anytus had agreed to that statement Socrates went on, "Who, then, do you think, can believe that mules exist, but not asses?" In so speaking he was like a man playing ball. And at that place and time what was the ball that he was playing with? Imprisonment, exile, drinking poison, being deprived of wife, leaving children orphans. These were the things with which he was playing, but none the less he played and handled the ball in good form. So ought we also to act, exhibiting the ball-player's carefulness about the game, but the same indifference about the object played with, as being a mere ball. For a man ought by all means to strive to show his skill in regard to some of the external materials, yet without making the material a part of himself, but merely lavishing his skill in regard to it, whatever it may be. So also the weaver does not make wool, but he lavishes his skill on whatever wool he receives. Another gives you sustenance and property and can likewise take them away, yes, and your paltry body itself. Do you accordingly accept the material and work it up. Then if you come forth without having suffered any harm, the others who meet you will congratulate you on your escape, but the man who knows how to observe such matters, if he sees that you have exhibited good form in this affair, will praise you and rejoice with you; but if he sees that you owe your escape to some dishonourable action, he will do the opposite. For where a man may rejoice with good reason, there others may rejoice with him.

How, then, can it be said that some externals are natural, and others unnatural? It is just as if we were detached from them. For I will assert of the foot as such that it is natural for it to be clean, but if you take it as a foot, and not as a thing detached, it will be appropriate for it to step into mud and trample on thorns and sometimes to be cut off for the sake of the whole body; otherwise it will no longer be a foot. We ought to hold some such view also about ourselves. What are you? A man. Now if you regard yourself as a thing detached, it is natural for you to live to old age, to be rich, to enjoy health. But if you regard yourself as a man and as a part of some whole, on account of that whole it is fitting for you now to be sick, and now to make a voyage and run risks, and now to be in want, and on occasion to die before your time. Why, then, are you vexed? Do you not know that as the foot, if detached, will no longer be a foot, so you too, if detached, will no longer be a man? For what is a man? A part of a state; first of that state which is made up of gods and men, and then of that which is said to be very close to the other, the state that is a small copy of the universal state. "Must I, then, be put on trial now?" Well, would you have someone else be sick of a fever now, someone else go on a voyage, someone else die, someone else be condemned? For it is impossible in such a body as ours, in this universe that envelops us, among these fellow-creatures of ours, that such things should not happen, some to one man and some to another. It is your task, therefore, to step forward and say what you should, to arrange these matters as is fitting. Then the judge says, "I adjudge you guilty." I reply, "May it be well with you. I have done my part; and it is for you to see whether you have done yours." For the judge too runs a risk, do not forget that.

The hypothetical syllogism in itself is a matter of indifference; yet the judgement about it is not indifferent, but is either knowledge, or opinion, or delusion. In like manner, although life is a matter of indifference, the use which you make of it is not a matter of indifference. Therefore, when someone tells you, "These things also are indifferent," do not become careless, and when someone exhorts you to be careful, do not become abject and overawed by material things. It is good also to know one's own training and capacity, so that where you have had no training you may keep quiet and not be annoyed if some other persons outshine you in those matters. For you in your turn will expect to outshine them in syllogisms, and if they are annoyed at that, you will console them by saying, "I have learned this, and you have not." So also in a case where some acquired skill is needed, do not seek that which only practice can give, but leave that to those who have acquired the knack, and be content yourself to remain steadfast.

"Go and salute so-and-so." "I salute him." "How?" "In no abject spirit." "But the door was shut in your face." "Yes, for I have not learned how to crawl in at the window; but when I find the door closed, I must either go away or crawl in at the window." "But go and do speak to him." "I do so speak." "In what manner?" "In no abject spirit." "But you did not get what you wanted." Surely that was not your business, was it? Nay, it was his. Why, then, lay claim to that which is another's? If you always bear in mind what is your own and what is another's, you will never be disturbed. Therefore Chrysippus well says, "As long as the consequences are not clear to me, I cleave ever to what is better adapted to secure those things that are in accordance with nature; for God himself has created me with the faculty of choosing things. But if I really knew that it was ordained for me to be ill at this present moment, I would even seek illness: for the foot also, if it had a mind, would seek to be covered with mud."

For example, why do heads of grain grow? Is it not that they may also become dry? But when they become dry, is it not that they may also be harvested? Since they do not grow for themselves alone. If, therefore, they had feeling, ought they to pray that they should never at all be harvested? But never to be harvested at all is a curse for heads of grain. In like manner I would have you know that in the case of men as well it is a curse never to die; it is like never growing ripe, never being harvested. But, since we are ourselves those who must both be harvested and also be aware of the very fact that we are being harvested, we are angry on that account. For we neither know who we are, nor have we studied what belongs to man, as horsemen study what belongs to horses. But Chrysantas, when he was on the point of striking the foe, refrained because he heard the bugle sounding the recall; it seemed so much more profitable to him to do the bidding of his general than to follow his own inclination. Yet no one of us is willing, even when necessity calls, to obey her readily, but what we suffer we suffer with fears and groans, and call it "circumstances." What do you mean by "circumstances," man? If you call "circumstances" your surroundings, all things are "circumstances"; but if you use the word of hardships, what hardship is involved when that which has come into being is destroyed? The instrument of destruction is a sword, or a wheel, or the sea, or a tile, or a tyrant. What concern is it to you by what road you descend to the House of Hades? They are all equal. But if you care to hear the truth, the road by which the tyrant sends you is the shorter. No tyrant ever took six months to cut a man's throat, but a fever often takes more than a year. All these things are a mere noise and a vaunting of empty names.

"I run the risk of my life in Caesar's presence." But do I not run a risk by living in Nicopolis, where there are so many earthquakes? And what risk do you yourself take when you cross the Adriatic? Do you not risk your life? "But I also risk my opinion at court." Your own opinion? How so? Why, who can compel you to opine anything against your will? But do you mean some other man's opinion? And what kind of risk is it of yours that others should entertain false opinions? "But I run the risk of banishment." What is banishment? To be somewhere else than in Rome? "Yes." What then? "Suppose I am sent to Gyara." If it is to your good, you will go; if not, you have a place to which you may go instead of Gyara—where he too will go, whether he will or no, who is sending you to Gyara. Then why do you go up to Rome as though it were some great thing? It amounts to less than your preparation for it; so that a young man of parts may say, "It was not worth so much to have listened to so many lectures, and to have written so many exercises, and to have sat so long at the side of a little old man, who was not worth very much himself." Only remember that distinction which is drawn between what is yours and what is not yours. Never lay claim to anything that is not your own. A platform and a prison is each a place, the one high, and the other low; but your moral purpose can be kept the same, if you wish to keep it the same, in either place. And then we shall be emulating Socrates, when we are able to write paeans in prison. But considering what has been our state hitherto, I wonder if we should have endured it, had some one else said to us in prison, "Would you like to have me read you paeans?" "Why bother me? Do you not know the trouble that I am in? What, is it possible for me in this condition——?" In what condition, then? "I am about to die." But will other men be immortal?

Because we employ divination when there is no occasion for it, many of us neglect many of the duties of life. For what can the diviner see that is of greater import than death, or danger, or illness, or in general such things as these? If, then, it becomes necessary for me to risk my life for my friend, and if it becomes my duty even to die for him, where do I find beyond that any occasion to employ divination? Have I not within me the diviner that has told me the true nature of good and of evil, that has set forth the signs characteristic of both of them? What further use have I, then, of entrails, or of birds? But when he says, "It is expedient for you," do I accept it? Why, does he know what is expedient? Does he know what is good? Has he learned the signs characteristic of things good and things evil, as he has the signs characteristic of entrails? For if he knows the signs characteristic of these, he knows also those of things honourable and base, and right and wrong. Man, it is for you to tell me what is indicated by signs—life or death, poverty or wealth; but whether these things are expedient or inexpedient, am I going to ask of you? Why don't you speak on points of grammar? Well then, on this matter, in which we mortals are all astray and in conflict with one another, you do speak? Wherefore, that was an admirable answer which the woman gave who wished to send a boatload of supplies to Gratilla after she had been exiled. To a man who said, "Domitian will confiscate them," she replies, "I should rather have him confiscate them than myself fail to send them."

What, then, induces us to employ divination so constantly? Cowardice, fear of the consequences. This is why we flatter the diviners, saying: "Master, shall I inherit my father's property?" "Let us see; let us offer a sacrifice about that matter." "Yes, master, as fortune wills." Then if the diviner says, "You will inherit the property," we thank him as though we had received the inheritance from him. That is why they in their turn go on making mock of us. Well, what then? We ought to go to them without either desire or aversion, just as the wayfarer asks the man who meets him which of two roads leads to his destination, without any desire to have the right-hand road lead there any more than the left-hand road; for he does not care to travel one particular road of the two, but merely the one that leads to his destination. So also we ought to go to God as a guide, making use of Him as we make use of our eyes; we do not call upon them to show us such-and-such things by preference, but we accept the impressions of precisely such things as they reveal to us. But as it is, we tremble before the bird-augur, lay hold upon him, and appealing to him as if he were a god, we beg of him, saying: "Master, have mercy; grant that I come off safe." You slave! What, do you want anything but what is best for you? Is anything else best for you than what pleases God? Why do you do all that in you lies to corrupt your judge, to mislead your counsellor?

God is helpful; but the good also is helpful. It would seem, therefore, that the true nature of the good will be found to be where we find that of God to be. What, then, is the true nature of God? Flesh? Far from it! Land? Far from it! Fame? Far from it! It is intelligence, knowledge, right reason. Here, therefore, and only here, shall you seek the true nature of the good. Surely you do not seek it at all in a plant, do you? No. Nor in an irrational creature? No. If, then, you seek it in that which is rational, why do you keep on seeking it somewhere else than in that which differentiates the rational from the irrational? Plants are incapable of dealing even with external impressions; for that reason you do not speak of the "good" in referring to them. The good requires, therefore, the faculty of using external impressions. Can that be all that it requires? For, if that be all, then you must assert that things good, and happiness and unhappiness, are to be found in the other animals as well as in man. But, as a matter of fact, you do not so assert, and you are right; for even if they have in the highest degree the faculty of using external impressions, still they do not have the faculty of understanding, at all events, their use of the external impressions. And with good reason; for they are born to serve others, and are not themselves of primary importance. The ass, for example, is not born to be of primary importance, is it? No; but because we had need of a back that was able to carry something. But, by Zeus, we had need that it should be able also to walk around; therefore it has further received the faculty of using external impressions; for otherwise it would not be able to walk around. And at about that stage there was an end. But if it, like man, had somehow received the faculty of understanding the use of its external impressions, it is also clear that consequently it would no longer be subject to us, nor would it be performing these services, but would be our equal and our peer.

Will you not, therefore, seek the true nature of the good in that quality the lack of which in all creatures other than man prevents you from using the term "good" of any of these? "But what then? Are not those creatures also works of God?" They are, but they are not of primary importance, nor portions of Divinity. But you are a being of primary importance; you are a fragment of God; you have within you a part of Him. Why, then, are you ignorant of your own kinship? Why do you not know the source from which you have sprung? Will you not bear in mind, whenever you eat, who you are that eat, and whom you are nourishing? Whenever you indulge in intercourse with women, who you are that do this? Whenever you mix in society, whenever you take physical exercise, whenever you converse, do you not know that you are nourishing God, exercising God? You are bearing God about with you, you poor wretch, and know it not! Do you suppose I am speaking of some external God, made of silver or gold? It is within yourself that you bear Him, and do not perceive that you are defiling Him with impure thoughts and filthy actions. Yet in the presence of even an image of God you would not dare to do anything of the things you are now doing. But when God Himself is present within you, seeing and hearing everything, are you not ashamed to be thinking and doing such things as these, O insensible of your own nature, and object of God's wrath!

Again, when we send a young man forth from the school to sundry activities, why are we afraid that he will do something amiss—eat amiss, have intercourse with women amiss, be abased if dressed in rags or conceited if he has on fine clothes? This fellow does not know the God within him, this fellow does not know the companion with whom he is setting forth. Nay, can we allow him to say, "O God, would that I had Thee here"? Have you not God there, where you are? And when you have Him, do you seek for someone else? Or will He have other commands for you than these? Nay, if you were a statue of Pheidias, his Athena or his Zeus, you would have remembered both yourself and your artificer, and if you had any power of perception you would have tried to do nothing unworthy of him that had fashioned you, nor of yourself, and you would have tried not to appear in an unbecoming attitude before the eyes of men; but as it is, because Zeus has made you, do you on that account not care what manner of person you show yourself to be? And yet what comparison is there between the one artificer and the other, or between the one work of art and the other? And what work of an artificer has forthwith within itself the faculties which its workmanship discloses? Is it not mere stone, or bronze, or gold, or ivory? And the Athena of Pheidias, when once it had stretched out its hand and received the Nike upon it, stands in this attitude for all time to come; but the works of God are capable of movement, have the breath of life, can make use of external impressions, and pass judgement upon them. Do you dishonour the workmanship of this Craftsman, when you are yourself that workmanship? Nay more, do you go so far as to forget, not only that He fashioned you, but also that He entrusted and committed you to yourself alone, and moreover, by forgetting, do you dishonour your trust? Yet if God had committed some orphan to your care, would you so neglect Him? He has delivered your own self into your keeping, saying, "I had no one more faithful than you; keep this man for me unchanged from the character with which nature endowed him—reverent, faithful, high-minded, undismayed, unimpassioned, unperturbed." After that do you fail so to keep him?

"But men will say, 'Where do you suppose our friend here got his proud look and his solemn countenance?'" Ah, but my bearing is not yet what it should be! For I still lack confidence in what I have learned and agreed to; I am still afraid of my own weakness. Just let me gain confidence and then you will see the right look in my eye and the right bearing; then, when the statue is finished and polished, I will show it to you. What do you think of it? A lofty air, say you? Heaven forbid! For the Zeus at Olympia does not show a proud look, does he? No, but his gaze is steady, as befits one who is about to say.

No word of mine can be revoked or prove untrue.

Of such character will I show myself to you—faithful, reverent, noble, unperturbed. You do not mean, therefore, immortal, or ageless, or exempt from disease? No, but one who dies like a god, who bears disease like a god. This is what I have; this is what I can do; but all else I neither have nor can do. I will show you the sinews of a philosopher. What do you mean by sinews? A desire that fails not of achievement, an aversion proof against encountering what it would avoid, an appropriate choice, a thoughtful purpose, a well-considered assent. This is what you shall see.

It is no simple task, this of fulfilling merely the profession of a man. For what is a man? A rational, mortal animal, someone says. To begin with, from what are we distinguished by the rational element? From the wild beasts. And from what else? From sheep and the like. See to it, then, that you never act like a wild beast; if you do, you will have destroyed the man in you, you have not fulfilled your profession. See to it that you never act like a sheep; if you do, the man in you is destroyed in this way also. Well, when do we act like sheep? When we act for the sake of the belly, or of our sex-organs, or at random, or in a filthy fashion, or without due consideration, to what level have we degenerated? To the level of sheep. What have we destroyed? The reason. When we act pugnaciously, and injuriously, and angrily, and rudely, to what level have we degenerated? To the level of the wild beasts. Well, the fact is that some of us are wild beasts of a larger size, while others are little animals, malignant and petty, which give us occasion to say, "Let it be a lion that devours me!" By means of all these actions the profession of a man is destroyed. For when is a complex thing preserved? When it fulfils its profession; consequently, the salvation of a complex thing is to be composed of parts that are true. When is a discrete thing preserved? When it fulfils its profession. When are flutes, a lyre, a horse, a dog preserved? What is there to be surprised at, then, if a man also is preserved in the same way and in the same way destroyed? Now deeds that correspond to his true nature strengthen and preserve each particular man; carpentry does that for the carpenter, grammatical studies for the grammarian. But if a man acquires the habit of writing ungrammatically, his art must necessarily be destroyed and perish. So modest acts preserve the modest man, whereas immodest acts destroy him; and faithful acts preserve the faithful man while acts of the opposite character destroy him. And again, acts of the opposite character strengthen men of the opposite character; shamelessness strengthens the shameless man, faithlessness the faithless, abuse the abusive, wrath the wrathful, a disproportion between what he receives and what he pays out the miserly.

That is why the philosophers admonish us not to be satisfied with merely learning, but to add thereto practice also, and then training. For in the course of years we have acquired the habit of doing the opposite of what we learn and have in use opinions which are the opposite of the correct ones. If, therefore, we do not also put in use the correct opinions, we shall be nothing but the interpreters of other men's judgements. For who is there among us here and now that cannot give a philosophical discourse about good and evil? It will run like this: Of things that be, some are good, others evil, and others indifferent; now good things are virtues and everything that partakes in the virtues; evil are the opposite; while indifferent are wealth, health, reputation. Then, if we are interrupted in the midst of our speech by some unusually loud noise, or if someone in the audience laughs at us, we are upset. Where, you philosopher, are the things you are talking about? Where did you get what you were just saying? From your lips, and that is all. Why, then, do you pollute the helpful principles that are not your own? Why do you gamble about matters of the very utmost concern? For to store away bread and wine in a pantry is one thing, and to eat them is another. What is eaten is digested, distributed, becomes sinews, flesh, bones, blood, a good complexion, easy breathing. What is stored away you can readily take and show whenever you please, but you get no good from it except in so far as you are reputed to possess it. For how much better is it to set forth these principles than those of other schools of thought? Sit down now and give a philosophical discourse upon the principles of Epicurus, and perhaps you will discourse more effectively than Epicurus himself. Why, then, do you call yourself a Stoic, why do you deceive the multitude, why do you act the part of a Jew, when you are a Greek? Do you not see in what sense men are severally called Jew, Syrian, or Egyptian? For example, whenever we see a man halting between two faiths, we are in the habit of saying, "He is not a Jew, he is only acting the part." But when he adopts the attitude of mind of the man who has been baptized and has made his choice, then he both is a Jew in fact and is also called one. So we also are counterfeit "baptists," ostensibly Jews, but in reality something else, not in sympathy with our own reason, far from applying the principles which we profess, yet priding ourselves upon them as being men who know them. So, although we are unable even to fulfil the profession of man, we take on the additional profession of the philosopher—so huge a burden! It is as though a man who was unable to raise ten pounds wanted to lift the stone of Aias.

Consider who you are. To begin with, a Man; that is, one who has no quality more sovereign than moral choice, but keeps everything else subordinate to it, and this moral choice itself free from slavery and subjection. Consider, therefore, what those things are from which you are separated by virtue of the faculty of reason. You are separated from wild beasts, you are separated from sheep. In addition to this you are a citizen of the world, and a part of it, not one of the parts destined for service, but one of primary importance; for you possess the faculty of understanding the divine administration of the world, and of reasoning upon the consequences thereof. What, then, is the profession of a citizen? To treat nothing as a matter of private profit, not to plan about anything as though he were a detached unit, but to act like the foot or the hand, which, if they had the faculty of reason and understood the constitution of nature, would never exercise choice or desire in any other way but by reference to the whole. Hence the philosophers well say that if the good and excellent man knew what was going to happen, he would help on the processes of disease and death and maiming, because he would realize that this allotment comes from the orderly arrangement of the whole, and the whole is more sovereign than the part, and the state more sovereign than the citizen. But as it is, seeing that we do not know beforehand what is going to happen, it is our duty to cleave to that which is naturally more fit to be chosen, since we are born for this purpose.

Next bear in mind that you are a Son. What is the profession of this character? To treat everything that is his own as belonging to his father, to be obedient to him in all things, never to speak ill of him to anyone else, nor to say or do anything that will harm him, to give way to him in everything and yield him precedence, helping him as far as is within his power.

Next know that you are also a Brother. Upon this character also there is incumbent deference, obedience, kindly speech, never to claim as against your brother any of the things that lie outside the realm of your free moral choice, but cheerfully to give them up, so that in the things that do lie within the realm of your free moral choice you may have the best of it. For see what it is, at the price of a head of lettuce, if it so chance, or of a seat, for you to acquire his goodwill—how greatly you get the best of it there!

Next, if you sit in the town council of some city, remember that you are a councillor; if you are young, remember that you are young; if old, that you are an elder; if a father, that you are a father. For each of these designations, when duly considered, always suggests the acts that are appropriate to it. But if you go off and speak ill of your brother, I say to you, "You have forgotten who you are and what your designation is." Why, if you were a smith and used your hammer amiss, you would have forgotten the smith you were; but if you forget the brother you are, and become an enemy instead of a brother, will you seem to yourself to have exchanged nothing for nothing? And if, instead of being a man, a gentle and social being, you have become a wild beast, a mischievous, treacherous, biting animal, have you lost nothing? What, must you lose a bit of pelf so as to suffer damage, and does the loss of nothing else damage a man? Yet, if you lost your skill in the use of language or in music, you would regard the loss of it as damage; but if you are going to lose self-respect and dignity and gentleness, do you think that does not matter? And yet those former qualities are lost from some external cause that is beyond the power of our will, but these latter are lost through our own fault; and it is neither noble to have nor disgraceful to lose these former qualities, but not to have these latter, or having had them to lose them, is a disgrace and a reproach and a calamity. What is lost by the victim of unnatural lust? His manhood. And by the agent? Beside a good many other things he also loses his manhood no less than the other. What does the adulterer lose? He loses the man of self-respect that was, the man of self-control, the gentleman, the citizen, the neighbour. What does the man lose who is given to anger? Something else. Who is given to fear? Something else. No one is evil without loss and damage. Furthermore, if you look for your loss in pelf, all those whom I have just mentioned suffer neither injury nor loss; nay, if it so chance, they even get gain and profit, when, through some of their deeds just mentioned, they also acquire pelf. But observe that if you make paltry pelf your standard for everything, not even the man who loses his nose will in your eyes have suffered an injury.—"Oh yes, he has," someone says, "for his body is mutilated."—Come now, and does the man who has lost his entire sense of smell lose nothing? Is there, then, no such thing as a faculty of the mind, the possession of which means gain to a man, and the loss, injury?—What faculty do you mean? Have we not a natural sense of self-respect?—We have.—Does not the man who destroys this suffer a loss, is he not deprived of something, does he not lose something that belonged to him? Do we not have a natural sense of fidelity, a natural sense of affection, a natural sense of helpfulness, a natural sense of keeping our hands off one another? Shall, therefore, the man who allows himself to suffer loss in such matters, be regarded as having suffered neither injury nor loss?

Well, what then? Am I not to injure the man who has injured me?—First consider what injury is, and call to mind what you have heard the philosophers say. For if the good lies in moral purpose, and the evil likewise in moral purpose, see if what you are saying does not come to something like this, "Well, what then? Since so-and-so has injured himself by doing me some wrong, shall I not injure myself by doing him some wrong?" Why, then, do we not represent the case to ourselves in some such light as that? Instead of that, where there is some loss affecting our body or our property, there we count it injury; but is there no injury where the loss affects our moral purpose? For the man who has been deceived or who has done some wrong has no pain in his head, or his eye, or his hip, neither does he lose his land. But these are the things we care for and nothing else; yet the question whether we are going to have a moral purpose characterized by self-respect and good faith, or by shamelessness and bad faith, does not so much as begin to disturb us, except only in so far as we make it a topic of trivial discussion in the classroom. Therefore, so far as our trivial discussions go, we do make some progress, but, apart from them, not even the very least.

The beginning of philosophy with those who take it up as they should, and enter in, as it were, by the gate, is a consciousness of a man's own weakness and impotence with reference to the things of real consequence in life. For we come into being without any innate concept of a right-angled triangle, or of a half-tone musical interval, but by a certain systematic method of instruction we are taught the meaning of each of these things, and for that reason those who do not know them also do not fancy that they do. But, on the other hand, who has come into being without an innate concept of what is good and evil, honourable and base, appropriate and inappropriate, and happiness, and of what is proper and falls to our lot, and what we ought to do and what we ought not to do? Wherefore, we all use these terms and endeavour to adapt our preconceptions about them to the individual instances. "He has done well, as he ought, or as he ought not; he has been unfortunate, or fortunate; he is a wicked man, or he is a just man"—who of us refrains from expressions of this kind? Who of us waits before he uses them until he has learned what they mean, as those who have no knowledge of lines or sounds wait before they use the terms relating to them? The reason is that we come into the world with a certain amount of instruction upon this matter already given us, as it were, by nature, and that starting with this we have added thereto our opinion.—Yes, by Zeus, for do I in my own case not have by gift of nature knowledge of what is noble and base; do I not have a concept of the matter?—You do.—Do I not apply it to individual instances?—You do.—Do I not, then, apply it properly?—There lies the whole question, and there opinion comes in. For men start with these principles upon which they are agreed, but then, because they make an unsuitable application of them, get into disputes. Since if, in addition to having the principles themselves, they really possessed also the faculty of making suitable application of the same, what could keep them from being perfect? But now, since you think that you can also apply your preconceptions suitably to the individual cases, tell me, whence do you get this gift?—It is because I think so.—But on this precise point someone else does not think so, and yet he too fancies that he is applying the principles properly, does he not?—He does so fancy.—Can both of you, then, be making suitable applications of your preconceptions in the matters upon which your opinions are at variance?—We cannot.—Can you, then, show us anything higher than your own opinion which will make it possible for us to apply our preconceptions better? And does the madman do anything else but that which seems to him to be good? Is this criterion, then, sufficient in his case also?—It is not.—Go, therefore, to something higher than your own opinion, and tell us what that is.

Behold the beginning of philosophy!—a recognition of the conflict between the opinions of men, and a search for the origin of that conflict, and a condemnation of mere opinion, coupled with scepticism regarding it, and a kind of investigation to determine whether the opinion is rightly held, together with the invention of a kind of standard of judgement, as we have invented the balance for the determination of weights, or the carpenter's rule for the determination of things straight and crooked.—Is this the beginning of philosophy? Is everything right that every man thinks? Nay, how is it possible for conflicting opinions to be right? Consequently, not all opinions are right.—But are our opinions right? Why ours, rather than those of the Syrians; why ours, rather than those of the Egyptians; why ours, rather than my own, or those of so-and-so?—There is no reason why.—Therefore, the opinion which each man holds is not a sufficient criterion for determining the truth; for also in the case of weights and measures we are not satisfied with the mere appearance, but we have invented a certain standard to test each. In the present case, then, is there no standard higher than opinion? And yet how can it possibly be that matters of the utmost consequence among men should be undeterminable and undiscoverable.—Therefore, there is some standard.—Then why do we not look for it and find it, and when we have found it thenceforth use it unswervingly, not so much as stretching out our finger without it? For this is something, I think, the discovery of which frees from madness those who use only opinion as the measure of all things, so that thenceforward, starting with certain principles that are known and clearly discriminated, we may use in the judgement of specific cases an organically articulated system of preconceived ideas.

What subject has arisen that we wish to investigate?—Pleasure.—Subject it to the standard, put it into the balance. Should the good be the sort of thing that we can properly have confidence and trust in?—It should.—Can we properly have confidence, then, in something that is insecure?—No.—Pleasure contains no element of security, does it?—No.—Away with it, then, and throw it out of the balance, and drive it far away from the region of things good. But if you are not endowed with keen eyesight and if one balance is not enough for you, bring another. Can one properly feel elated over the good?—Yes.—Can one properly feel elated, then, over the moment's pleasure? See that you do not say that it is proper; if you do, I shall no longer regard you as a proper person even to have a balance!

And so are matters judged and weighed, if we have the standards ready with which to test them; and the task of philosophy is this—to examine and to establish the standards; but to go ahead and use them after they have become known is the task of the good and excellent man.

What a man ought to learn before he will know how to conduct an argument has been precisely defined by the philosophers of our school; but as to the proper use of what we have learned we are still utterly inexperienced. At all events, give to anyone of us you please some layman with whom to carry on an argument; he will find no way of dealing with him, but after moving the man a little, in case the latter thwarts him, our man gives up trying to handle him, and thereafter either reviles him, or laughs him to scorn, and remarks, "He is a mere layman; it is impossible to do anything with him." But the real guide, whenever he finds a person going astray, leads him back to the right road, instead of leaving him with a scornful laugh or an insult. So also do you show him the truth and you will see that he follows. But so long as you do not show him the truth, do not laugh him to scorn, but rather recognize your own incapacity.

How did Socrates act? He used to force the man who was arguing with him to be his witness, and never needed any other witness. That is why he could say, "I can dispense with all the others, and am always satisfied to have my fellow-disputant for a witness; and the votes of the rest I do not take, but only that of my fellow-disputant." For he used to make so clear the consequences which followed from the concepts, that absolutely everyone realized the contradiction involved and gave up the battle. "And so does the man who feels envy rejoice in it?"—"Not at all; but he experiences pain rather than joy." (By the contradiction in terms he has moved the other party to the argument.) "Very well, does envy seem to you to be feeling of pain at evils? And yet what envy is there of evils?" (Consequently, he has made his opponent say that envy is a feeling of pain at good things.) "Very well, would a man feel envy about matters that did not concern him in the least?"—"Not at all." And so he filled out and articulated the concept, and after that went his way; he did not start in by saying, "Define envy for me," and then, when the other had defined it, remark, "That is a bad definition you have made, for the definition term does not fit the subject defined." Those are technical terms, and for that reason wearisome to the layman and hard for him to follow, and yet we are unable to dispense with them. But as to terms which the layman could himself follow, and so, by the assistance of his own external impressions, be able to accept or reject some proposition—we are absolutely unable to move him by their use. The result is that, recognizing this incapacity of ours, we naturally refrain from attempting the matter, those of us, I mean, who are at all cautious. But the rash multitude of men, when once they have let themselves in for something of this sort, get confused themselves and confuse others, and finally, after reviling their opponents and being themselves reviled, they walk away.

Now this was the first and most characteristic thing about Socrates, that he never got wrought up during an argument, never used any term of abuse or insolence, but endured the abuse of others, and put an end to strife. If you wish to know how great was the faculty he had in this field, read the Symposium of Xenophon, and you will see how many cases of strife he settled. Therefore, and with good reason, among the poets also very high praise has been accorded to the following sentiment:

"Soon doth he shrewdly make an end of a quarrel though weighty."

Well, what then? Nowadays this activity is not a very safe one, and especially so in Rome. For the man who engages in it will clearly be under obligation not to do it in a corner, but he must go up to some rich person of consular rank, if it so chance, and ask him, "You there, can you tell to whose care you have entrusted your horses?" "I can, indeed," answers the man. "Is it, then, some chance comer, a man who knows nothing about the care of horses?" "Not at all." "And what then? Can you tell me to whom you have entrusted your gold, or your silver, or your clothing?" "I have not entrusted these, either, to a chance comer," "And have you ever thought about entrusting your body to someone to look after it?" "Why, certainly." "And, of course, he too is a man of special skill in the art of physical training, or medicine, is he not?" "Yes, indeed." "Are these your most valuable possessions, or have you something else that is better than all of them?" "Just what do you mean?" "That, by Zeus, which utilizes these other things, and puts each of them to the test, and exercises deliberation?" "Ah so, you are talking about my soul, are you?" "You have understood me aright, for it is precisely this that I am talking about." "By Zeus, I regard this as far and away the most valuable of all my possessions." "Can you, then, tell in what way you have taken care of your soul? For it is not to be supposed that as wise a man as yourself and one so honoured in the city is recklessly and at random allowing the very best of his possessions to go to ruin through neglect." "Certainly not." "But have you yourself taken care of that possession? Did you learn how to take care of it from somebody else, or did you discover how yourself?" Then comes the danger that first he will say, "What is that to you, good sir? Are you my master?" and after that, if you persist in annoying him, that he will lift his fist and give you a blow. This was a pursuit that I too was very fond of once upon a time, before I fell to my present estate.

When I see a man in anxiety, I say to myself, What can it be that this fellow wants? For if he did not want something that was outside of his control, how could he still remain in anxiety? That is why the citharoede when singing all alone shows no anxiety, but does so when he enters the theatre, even though he has a very beautiful voice and plays the cithara admirably; for he does not wish merely to sing well, but also to win applause, and that is no longer under his control. Accordingly, where he has skill, there he shows confidence. Set before him any layman that you please, and the musician pays no attention to him; but in a matter of which he has no knowledge, and which he has never studied, there he is in anxiety. What is the meaning of this? Why, he simply does not know what a crowd is, or the applause of a crowd; to be sure, he has learned how to strike the lowest and the highest strings on the cithara, but what the praise of the multitude is, and what function it has in life, that he neither knows nor has studied. Hence he must needs tremble and turn pale.

Now then, I cannot say that the man is not a citharoede, when I see anyone in a state of fear, but I can say something else of him, and, indeed, not one thing only, but a number of things. And first of all, I call him a stranger and say: This man does not know where in the world he is, but though he has been living here so long a time, he is ignorant of the laws of the city and its customs, what he is allowed to do and what he is not allowed to do. Nay more, he has never even called in a lawyer to tell him and explain to him what are the usages conformable with law; yet he does not write a will without knowing how he ought to write it or else calling in an expert, nor does he just casually affix his seal to a bond or give a written guarantee; but without the services of a lawyer he exercises desire and aversion and choice and design and purpose. How do I mean "without the services of a lawyer"? Why, he does not know that he is wishing for things that are not vouchsafed him, and wishing to avoid the inevitable, and he does not know either what is his own or what is another's. Did he but know, he would never feel hindered, never constrained, would not be anxious. How could he? Is any man in fear about things that are not evil?—No.—What then? Is he in fear about things that are evil, indeed, but that are in his own power to prevent?—Not at all.—If, then, things indifferent are neither good nor bad, but all matters of moral purpose are under our control, and no man can either take them away from us, or bring upon us such of them as we do not wish, what room is there left for anxiety? Yet we are anxious about our wretched body, about our trifling estate, about what Caesar will think, but are anxious about none of the things that are within us. We are not anxious about not conceiving a false opinion, are we?—No, for that is under my control.—Or about making a choice contrary to nature?—No, not about this, either.—Then, whenever you see a man looking pale, just as the physician judging from the complexion says, "This mans spleen is affected, and this man's liver," so do you also say, "This man's desire and aversion are affected, he is not getting along well, he is feverish." For there is nothing else that changes a man's complexion, or makes him tremble, or his teeth to chatter, or to

"Shift from knee to knee and rest on either foot."

That is why Zeno was not anxious when he was about to meet Antigonus; for over none of the things that Zeno regarded highly did Antigonus have power, and what Antigonus did have power over Zeno cared nothing about. But Antigonus was anxious when he was about to meet Zeno, and very naturally so; for he wanted to please him, and that lay outside of his control; yet Zeno did not care about pleasing him, any more than any other artist cares about pleasing one who has no knowledge of his art.

Do I care to please you? What do I gain thereby? For do you know the standards according to which man is judged by man? Have you been concerned to know what a good man is, and what an evil man, and how each becomes what he is? Why, then, are you not a good man yourself?—How do you make out, he answers, that I am not a good man?—Why, because no good man grieves or groans, no good man laments, no good man turns pale and trembles, or asks, "How will he receive me? How will he listen to me?" You slave! He will receive you and listen to you as seems best to him. Why, then, are you concerned about things that are not your own? Now is it not his own fault if he gives a bad reception to what you have to say?—Of course.—Is it possible for one man to make the mistake and yet another suffer the harm?—No.—Why, then, are you anxious over what is not your own?—That is all very well, but I am anxious over how I shall speak to him.—What, are you not privileged to speak to him as you please?—Yes, but I am afraid that I shall be disconcerted.—You are not afraid of being disconcerted when you are about to write the name Dio, are you?—No, not at all.—What is the reason? Is it not that you have practised writing?—Yes, of course.—What then? If you were about to read something, would you not feel the same way about it?—Quite the same.—What is the reason? Why, because every art has an element of strength and confidence inside its own field. Have you, then, not practised speaking? And what else did you practise in your school?—Syllogisms and arguments involving equivocal premisses.—To what end? Was it not to enable you to conduct an argument skilfully? And does not "skilfully" mean seasonably and securely and intelligently, and, more than that, without making mistakes and without embarrassment, and, in addition to all this, with confidence?—Surely.—Well then, if you are on horseback and have ridden out upon the plain against a man who is on foot, are you in anxiety, assuming that you are in practice and the other is not?—Yes, that is all very well, but Caesar has authority to put me to death.—Then tell the truth, wretch, and do not brag, nor claim to be a philosopher, nor fail to recognize your masters; but as long as you let them have this hold on you through your body, follow everyone that is stronger than you are. But Socrates used to practise speaking to some purpose—Socrates, who discoursed as he did to the Tyrants, to his judges, and in the prison. Diogenes had practised speaking—Diogenes, who talked to Alexander as he did, to Philip, to the pirates, to the man who had bought him . . . [Leave such matters] to those who are seriously interested in them, to the brave; but do you walk away to your own concerns and never depart from them again; go into your corner and sit down, and spin syllogisms and propound them to others:

"In thee the State hath found no leader true."

Once when a certain Roman citizen accompanied by his son had come in and was listening to one of his readings, Epictetus said: This is the style of my teaching, and then lapsed into silence. But when the other requested to know what came next, he replied: Instruction in the technique of any art is boring to the layman who has had no experience in it. Now the products of the arts show immediately their use towards the purpose for which they are made, and most of them possess also a certain attractiveness and charm. For example, to stand by and watch the process by which a shoemaker learns his trade is, indeed, not pleasant, yet the shoe is useful and not an unpleasant thing to look at either. And the process of education in the case of a carpenter is especially tiresome to the layman who happens to be watching, but the work which the carpenter does shows the use of his art. You will find the same much more true in the case of music; for if you are standing by when someone is taking a lesson, the process of instruction will strike you as the most unpleasant of all, yet the results of music are sweet and pleasing to the ear of the layman.

So also in our own case, we picture the work of the philosopher to be something like this: He should bring his own will into harmony with what happens, so that neither anything that happens happens against our will, nor anything that fails to happen fails to happen when we wish it to happen. The result of this for those who have so ordered the work of philosophy is that in desire they are not disappointed, and in aversion they do not fall into what they would avoid; that each person passes his life to himself, free from pain, fear, and perturbation, at the same time maintaining with his associates both the natural and the acquired relationships, those namely of son, father, brother, citizen, wife, neighbour, fellow-traveller, ruler, and subject.

Something like this is our picture of the work of the philosopher. The next thing after this is that we seek the means of achieving it. We see, then, that the carpenter becomes a carpenter by first learning something, the helmsman becomes a helmsman by first learning something. May it not be, then, that in our case also it is not sufficient to wish to become noble and good, but that we are under the necessity of learning something first? We seek, then, what this is. Now the philosophers say that the first thing we must learn is this: That there is a God, and that He provides for the universe, and that it is impossible for a man to conceal from Him, not merely his actions, but even his purposes and his thoughts. Next we must learn what the gods are like; for whatever their character is discovered to be, the man who is going to please and obey them must endeavour as best he can to resemble them. If the deity is faithful, he also must be faithful; if free, he also must be free; if beneficent, he also must be beneficent; if high-minded, he also must be high-minded, and so forth; therefore, in everything he says and does, he must act as an imitator of God.

Where, then, ought I to start?—If you enter upon this task, I will say that in the first place you ought to understand the meaning of terms.—So you imply that I do not now understand the meaning of terms?—You do not.—How comes it, then, that I use them?—Why, you use them as the illiterate use written speech, as the cattle use external impressions; for use is one thing, and understanding another. But if you think you understand terms, propose any term you please, and let us put ourselves to the test, to see whether we understand it.—But it is unpleasant to be subjected to an examination when one is already somewhat advanced in years, and, if it so chance, has served his three campaigns.—I realize that myself. For now you have come to me like a man who stood in need of nothing. But what could anyone even imagine you to be in need of? You are rich, you have children, possibly also a wife, and many slaves; Caesar knows you, you have many friends in Rome, you perform the duties incumbent upon you, and when a man has done you either good or harm you know how to pay him back in kind. What do you still lack? If, therefore, I show you that what you lack are things most necessary and important for happiness, and that hitherto you have devoted your attention to everything but what was appropriate for you to do, and if I add the colophon, saying: You know neither what God is, nor what man is, nor what good, nor what evil is—if I say that you are ignorant of these other matters you may possibly endure that; but if I say that you do not understand your own self, how can you possibly bear with me, and endure and abide my questioning? You cannot do so at all, but immediately you go away offended. And yet what harm have I done you? None at all, unless the mirror also does harm to the ugly man by showing him what he looks like; unless the physician insults the patient, when he says to him, "Man, you think there is nothing the matter with you; but you have a fever; fast to-day and drink only water"; and no one says, "What dreadful insolence!" Yet if you tell a man, "Your desires are feverish, your attempts to avoid things are humiliating, your purposes are inconsistent, your choices are out of harmony with your nature, your conceptions are hit-or-miss and false," why, immediately he walks out and says, "He insulted me."

Our position is like that of those who attend a fair. Cattle and oxen are brought there to be sold, and most men engage in buying and selling, while there are only a few who go merely to see the fair, how it is conducted, and why, and who are promoting it, and for what purpose. So it is also in this "fair" of the world in which we live; some persons, like cattle, are interested in nothing but their fodder; for to all of you that concern yourselves with property and lands and slaves and one office or another, all this is nothing but fodder! And few in number are the men who attend the fair because they are fond of the spectacle. "What, then, is the universe," they ask, "and who governs it? No one? Yet how can it be that, while it is impossible for a city or a household to remain even a very short time without someone to govern and care for it, nevertheless this great and beautiful structure should be kept in such orderly arrangement by sheer accident and chance? There must be, therefore, One who governs it. What kind of a being is He, and how does He govern it? And what are we, who have been created by Him, and for what purpose were we created? Do we, then, really have some contact and relation with Him or none at all?" That is the way these few are affected; and thenceforward they have leisure for this one thing only—to study well the "fair" of life before they leave it. With what result, then? They are laughed to scorn by the crowd, quite as in the real fair the mere spectators are laughed at by the traffickers; yes, and if the cattle themselves had any comprehension like ours of what was going on, they too would laugh at those who had wonder and admiration for anything but their fodder!

Some men, when they hear the following precepts: That one ought to be steadfast, and that the moral purpose is naturally free and not subject to compulsion, while everything else is liable to interference and compulsion, subject to others and not our own—some men, I say, fancy that whenever they have formed a judgement they ought to stand by it immovably. And yet the first requirement is that the judgement formed be a sound one. For I want vigour in the body, but it must be the vigour of the body in a state of health and physical exercise; whereas, if you show me that you possess the vigour of a madman, and boast about it, I will say to you, "Man, look, for someone to cure you. This is not vigour, but feebleness."

The following is another way in which the minds of those are affected who hear these precepts amiss. For example, a friend of mine for no reason at all made up his mind to starve himself to death. I learned about it when he was already in the third day of his fasting, and went and asked what had happened.—I have decided, he answered.—Very well, but still what was it that induced you to make up your mind? For if your judgement was good, see, we are at your side and ready to help you to make your exit from this life; but if your judgement was irrational, change it.—I must abide by my decisions.—Why, man, what are you about? You mean not all your decisions, but only the right ones. For example, if you are convinced at this moment that it is night, do not change your opinion, if that seems best to you, but abide by it and say that you ought to abide by your decisions! Do you not wish to make your beginning and your foundation firm, that is, to consider whether your decision is sound or unsound, and only after you have done that proceed to rear thereon the structure of your determination and your firm resolve? But if you lay a rotten and crumbling foundation, you cannot rear thereon even a small building, but the bigger and the stronger your superstructure is the more quickly it will fall down. Without any reason you are taking out of this life, to our detriment, a human being who is a familiar friend, a citizen of the same state, both the large state and the small; and then, though in the act of murder, and while engaged in the destruction of a human being that has done no wrong, you say that you "must abide by your decisions"! But if the idea ever entered your head to kill me, would you have to abide by your decisions?

Well, it was hard work to persuade that man; but there are some men of to-day whom it is impossible to move. So that I feel that I now know what I formerly did not understand—the meaning of the proverb, "A fool you can neither persuade nor break." God forbid that I should ever have for a friend a wise fool! There is nothing harder to handle. "I have decided," he says! Why yes, and so have madmen; but the more firm their decision is about what is false, the more hellebore they need. Will you not act like a sick man, and summon a physician? "I am sick, sir; help me. Consider what I ought to do; it is my part to obey you." So also in the present instance. "I know not what I ought to be doing, but I have come to find out." Thus one should speak. No, but this is what one hears, "Talk to me about anything else, but on this point I have made my decision." "Anything else" indeed! Why, what is more important or more to your advantage than to be convinced that it is not sufficient for a man merely to have reached decisions, and to refuse to change? These are the sinews of madness, not health. "If you force me to this, I would gladly die." What for, man? What has happened? "I have decided!" It was fortunate for me that you did not decide to kill me! Or again, another says, "I take no money for my services." Why so? "Because I have decided." Rest assured that there is nothing to prevent you from some day turning irrationally to taking money for your services, and that with the same vehemence with which you now refuse to take it, and then saying again, "I have decided"; precisely as in a diseased body, suffering from a flux, the flux inclines now in this direction and now in that. Such is also the sick mind; it is uncertain which way it is inclined, but when vehemence also is added to this inclination and drift, then the evil gets past help and past cure.

Wherein lies the good?—In moral purpose.—Wherein lies evil?—In moral purpose.—Wherein lies that which is neither good nor evil?—In the things that lie outside the domain of moral purpose.—Well, what of it? Does any one of us remember these statements outside the classroom? Does any one of us when by himself practise answering facts in the way he answers these questions? "So it is day, is it?" "Yes." "What then? Is it night?" "No." "What then? Is the number of the stars even?" "I cannot say." When you are shown money, have you practised giving the proper answer, namely, that it is not a good thing? Have you trained yourself in answers of this kind, or merely to answer sophisms? Why, then, are you surprised to find that in the fields in which you have practised you surpass yourself, but in that in which you have not practised you remain the same? For why is it that the orator, although he knows that he has composed a good speech, has memorized what he has written and is bringing a pleasing voice to his task, is still anxious despite all that? Because he is not satisfied with the mere practice of oratory. What, then, does he want? He wants to be praised by his audience. Now he has trained himself with a view to being able to practise oratory, but he has not trained himself with reference to praise and blame. For when did he ever hear any one say what praise is, what blame is, and what is the nature of each? What kinds of praise are to be sought, and what kinds of blame are to be avoided? And when did he ever go through this course of training in accordance with these principles? Why, then, are you any longer surprised because he surpasses all others in the field in which he has studied, but in that in which he has not practised he is no better than the multitude? He is like a citharoede who knows how to play to the harp, sings well, has a beautiful flowing gown, and still trembles when he comes upon the stage; for all that has gone before he knows, but what a crowd is he does not know, nor what the shouting and the scornful laughter of a crowd are. Nay, he does not even know what this anxiety itself is, whether it is something that we can control, or beyond our powers, whether he can stop it or not. That is why, if he is praised, he goes off the stage all puffed up; but if he is laughed to scorn, that poor windbag of his conceit is pricked and flattens out.

We too experience something of the same kind. What do we admire? Externals. What are we in earnest about? About externals. Are we, then, at a loss to know how it comes about that we are subject to fear and anxiety? Why, what else can possibly happen, when we regard impending events as things evil? We cannot help but be in fear, we cannot help but be in anxiety. And then we say, "O Lord God, how may I escape anxiety?" Fool, have you not hands? Did not God make them for you? Sit down now and pray forsooth that the mucus in your nose may not run! Nay, rather wipe your nose and do not blame God! What then? Has he given you nothing that helps in the present case? Has he not given you endurance, has he not given you magnanimity, has he not given you courage? When you have such serviceable hands as these do you still look for someone to wipe your nose? But these virtues we neither practise nor concern ourselves withal. Why, show me one single man who cares how he does something, who is concerned, not with getting something, but with his own action. Who is there that is concerned with his own action while he is walking around? Who, when he is planning, is concerned with the plan itself, and not with getting what he is planning about? And then if he gets it, he is all set up and says, "Yes, indeed, what a fine plan we made! Did I not tell you, brother, that, if there was anything at all in my views, it was impossible for the plan to fall out otherwise?" But if the plan goes the other way, he is humble and wretched, and cannot even find any explanation of what has happened. Who of us ever called in a seer for a case of this kind? Who of us ever slept in a temple for enlightenment about our action? Who? Show me but one, that I may see him, the man that I have long been looking for, the truly noble and gifted man; be he young or old, only show him!

Why, then, do we wonder any longer that, although in material things we are thoroughly experienced, nevertheless in our actions we are dejected, unseemly, worthless, cowardly, unwilling to stand the strain, utter failures one and all? For we have not troubled ourselves about these matters in time past, nor do we even now practise them. Yet if we were afraid, not of death or exile, but of fear itself, then we should practise how not to encounter those things that appear evil to us. But as it is, we are fiery and fluent in the schoolroom, and if some trivial question about one of these points comes up, we are able to pursue the logical consequences; yet drag us into practical application, and you will find us miserable shipwrecked mariners. Let a disturbing thought come to us and you will find out what we have been practising and for what we have been training! As a result, because of our lack of practice, we are ever going out of our way to heap up terrors and to make them out greater than they actually are. For example, whenever I go to sea, on gazing down into the deep or looking around upon the expanse of waters and seeing no land, I am beside myself, fancying that if I am wrecked I shall have to swallow this whole expanse of waters; but it does not occur to me that three pints are enough. What is it, then, that disturbs me? The expanse of sea? No, but my judgement. Again, when there is an earthquake, I fancy that the whole city is going to fall upon me; what, is not a little stone enough to knock my brains out?

What, then, are the things that weigh upon us and drive us out of our senses? Why, what else but our judgements? For when a man goes hence abandoning the comrades, the places, and the social relations to which he is accustomed, what else is the burden that is weighing him down but a judgement? Children, indeed, when they cry a little because their nurse has left, forget their troubles as soon as they get a cookie. Would you, therefore, have us resemble children? No, by Zeus! For I claim that we should be influenced in this way, not by a cookie, but by true judgements. And what are these? The things which a man ought to practise all day long, without being devoted to what is not his own, either comrade, or place, or gymnasia, nay, not even to his own body; but he should remember the law and keep that before his eyes. And what is the law of God? To guard what is his own, not to lay claim to what is not his own, but to make use of what is given him, and not to yearn for what has not been given; when something is taken away, to give it up readily and without delay, being grateful for the time in which he had the use of it—all this if you do not wish to be crying for your nurse and your mammy! For what difference does it make what object a man has a weakness for and depends upon? In what respect are you superior to the man who weeps for a maid, if you grieve for a trivial gymnasium, a paltry colonnade, a group of youngsters, and that way of spending your time? Someone else comes and grieves because he is no longer going to drink the water of Dirce. What, is the water of the Marcian aqueduct inferior to that of Dirce? "Nay, but I was accustomed to that water." And you will get accustomed to this in turn. And then, if you become addicted to something of this kind, weep for this too in turn, and try to write a line after the pattern of that of Euripides:

To Nero's baths and Marcian founts once more.

Behold how tragedy arises, when everyday events befall fools!

"When, then, shall I see Athens once more and the Acropolis?" Poor man, are you not satisfied with what you are seeing every day? Have you anything finer or greater to look at than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the sea? And if you really understand Him that governs the universe, and bear Him about within you, do you yet yearn for bits of stone and a pretty rock? When, therefore, you are about to leave the sun and the moon, what will you do? Will you sit and cry as little children cry? What was it you did at school? What was it you heard and learned? Why did you record yourself as a philosopher when you might have recorded the truth in these words: "I studied a few introductions, and did some reading in Chrysippus, but I did not even get past the door of a philosopher? Since what part have I in that business in which Socrates, who died so nobly, and so nobly lived, had a part? Or in that in which Diogenes had a part?" Can you imagine one of these men crying or fretting because he is not going to see such-and-such a man, or such-and-such a woman, or to live in Athens or in Corinth, but, if it so happen, in Susa or in Ecbatana? What, does he who is at liberty to leave the banquet when he will, and to play the game no longer, keep on annoying himself by staying? Does he not stay, like children, only as long as he is entertained? Such a man would be likely, forsooth, to endure going into exile for life or the exile of death, if this were his sentence.

Are you not willing, at this late date, like children, to be weaned and to partake of more solid food, and not to cry for mammies and nurses—old wives' lamentations? "But if I leave, I shall cause those women sorrow?" You cause them sorrow? Not at all, but it will be the same thing that causes sorrow to you yourself—bad judgement. What, then, can you do? Get rid of that judgement, and, if they do well, they will themselves get rid of their judgement; otherwise, they will come to grief and have only themselves to thank for it. Man, do something desperate, as the expression goes, now if never before, to achieve peace, freedom, and mindedness. Lift up your neck at last like a man escaped from bondage, be bold to look towards God and say, "Use me henceforward for whatever Thou wilt; I am of one mind with Thee; I am Thine; I crave exemption from nothing that seems good in Thy sight; where Thou wilt, lead me; in what raiment Thou wilt, clothe me. Wouldst Thou have me to hold office, or remain in private life; to remain here or go into exile; to be poor or be rich? I will defend all these Thy acts before men; I will show what the true nature of each thing is." Nay, you will not; sit rather in the house as girls do and wait for your mammy until she feeds you! If Heracles had sat about at home, what would he have amounted to? He would have been Eurystheus and no Heracles. Come, how many acquaintances and friends did he have with him as he went up and down through the whole world? Nay, he had no dearer friend than God. That is why he was believed to be a son of God, and was. It was therefore in obedience to His will that he went about clearing away wickedness and lawlessness. But you are no Heracles, you say, and you cannot clear away the wickedness of other men, nay, nor are you even a Theseus, to clear away the ills of Attica merely. Very well, clear away your own then. From just here, from out your own mind, cast not Procrustes and Sciron, but grief, fear, desire, envy, joy at others' ills; cast out greed, effeminacy, incontinency. These things you cannot cast out in any other way than by looking to God alone, being specially devoted to Him only, and consecrated to His commands. But if you wish anything else, with lamentation and groaning you will follow that which is stronger than you are, ever seeking outside yourself for peace, and never able to be at peace. For you seek peace where it is not, and neglect to seek it where it is.

What is the first business of one who practises philosophy? To get rid of thinking that one knows; for it is impossible to get a man to begin to learn that which he thinks he knows. However, as we go to the philosophers we all babble hurly-burly about what ought to be done and what ought not, good and evil, fair and foul, and on these grounds assign praise and blame, censure and reprehension, passing judgement on fair and foul practices, and discriminating between them. But what do we go to the philosophers for? To learn what we do not think we know. And what is that? General principles. For some of us want to learn what the philosophers are saying, thinking it will be witty and shrewd, others, because they wish to profit thereby. But it is absurd to think that when a man wishes to learn one thing he will actually learn something else, or, in short, that a man will make progress in anything without learning it. But the multitude are under the same misapprehension as was Theopompus, the orator, who actually censures Plato for wishing to define every term. Well, what does he say? "Did none of us before your time ever use the words 'good' or 'just'? Or, without understanding what each of these terms severally mean, did we merely utter them as vague and empty sounds?" Why, who tells you, Theopompus, that we did not have a natural conception of each term, that is, a preconceived idea of it? But it is impossible to adjust our preconceived ideas to the appropriate facts without having first systematized them and having raised precisely this question—what particular fact is to be classified under each preconception. Suppose, for example, that you make the same sort of remark to the physicians: "Why, who among us did not use terms 'healthy' and 'diseased' before Hippocrates was born? Or were we merely making an empty noise with these sounds?" For, of course, we have a certain preconception of the idea "healthy." But we are unable to apply it. That is why one person says, "Keep abstaining from food," and another, "Give nourishment"; again, one says, "Cut a vein," and another says, "Use the cupping-glass." What is the reason? Is it really anything but the fact that a person is unable properly to apply the preconceived idea of "healthy" to the specific instances?

So it stands here also, in the affairs of life. Who among us has not upon his lips the words "good" and "evil," "advantageous" and "disadvantageous"? For who among us does not have a preconceived idea of each of these terms? Very well, is it fitted into a system and complete? Prove that it is. "How shall I prove it?" Apply it properly to specific facts. To start with, Plato classifies definitions under the preconception "the useful," but you classify them under that of "the useless." Is it, then, possible for both of you to be right? How can that be? Does not one man apply his preconceived idea of "the good" to the fact of wealth, while another does not? And another to that of pleasure, and yet another to that of health? Indeed, to sum up the whole matter, if all of us who have these terms upon our lips possess no mere empty knowledge of each one severally, and do not need to devote any pains to the systematic arrangement of our preconceived ideas, why do we disagree, why fight, why blame one another?

And yet what need is there for me to bring forward now our strife with one another and make mention of that? Take your own case; if you apply properly your preconceived ideas, why are you troubled, why are you hampered? Let us pass by for the moment the second field of study—that which has to do with our choices and the discussion of what is our duty in regard to them. Let us pass by also the third—that which has to do with our assents. I make you a present of all this. Let us confine our attention to the first field, one which allows an almost palpable proof that you do not properly apply your preconceived ideas. Do you at this moment desire what is possible in general and what is possible for you in particular? If so, why are you hampered? Why are you troubled? Are you not at this moment trying to escape what is inevitable? If so, why do you fall into any trouble, why are you unfortunate? Why is it that when you want something it does not happen, and when you do not want it, it does happen? For this is the strongest proof of trouble and misfortune. I want something, and it does not happen; and what creature is more wretched than I? I do not want something, and it does happen; and what creature is more wretched than I?

Medea, for example, because she could not endure this, came to the point of killing her children. In this respect at least hers was the act of a great spirit. For she had the proper conception of what it means for anyone's wishes not to come true. "Very well, then," says she, "in these circumstances I shall take vengeance upon the man who has wronged and insulted me. Yet what good do I get out of his being in such an evil plight? How can that be accomplished? I kill my children. But I shall be punishing myself also. Yet what do I care?" This is the outbursting of a soul of great force. For she did not know where the power lies to do what we wish—that we cannot get this from outside ourselves, nor by disturbing and deranging things. Give up wanting to keep your husband, and nothing of what you want fails to happen. Give up wanting him to live with you at any cost. Give up wanting to remain in Corinth, and, in a word, give up wanting anything but what God wants. And who will prevent you, who will compel you? No one, any more than anyone prevents or compels Zeus.

When you have such a leader as Zeus and identify your wishes and your desires with His, why are you still afraid that you will fail? Give to poverty and to wealth your aversion and your desire: you will fail to get what you wish, and you will fall into what you would avoid. Give them to health; you will come to grief; so also if you give them to offices, honours, country, friends, children, in short to anything that lies outside the domain of moral purpose. But give them to Zeus and the other gods; entrust them to their keeping, let them exercise the control; let your desire and your aversion be ranged on their side—and how can you be troubled any longer? But if you show envy, wretched man, and pity, and jealousy, and timidity, and never let a day pass without bewailing yourself and the gods, how can you continue to say that you have been educated? What kind of education, man, do you mean? Because you have worked on syllogisms, and arguments with equivocal premisses? Will you not unlearn all this, if that be possible, and begin at the beginning, realizing that hitherto you have not even touched the matter; and for the future, beginning at this point, add to your foundations that which comes next in order—provision that nothing shall be that you do not wish, and that nothing shall fail to be that you do wish?

Give me but one young man who has come to school with this purpose in view, who has become an athlete in this activity, saying, "As for me, let everything else go; I am satisfied if I shall be free to live untrammelled and untroubled, to hold up my neck in the face of facts like a free man, and to look up to heaven as a friend of God, without fear of what may possibly happen." Let one of you show me such a person, so that I can say to him: Enter, young man, into your own, for it is your destiny to adorn philosophy, yours are these possessions, yours these books, yours these discourses. Then, when he has worked his way through this first field of study and mastered it like an athlete, let him come to me again and say, "I want, it is true, to be tranquil and free from turmoil, but I want also, as a god-fearing man, a philosopher and a diligent student, to know what is my duty towards the gods, towards parents, towards brothers, towards my country, towards strangers." Advance now to the second field of study; this also is yours. "Yes, but I have already studied this second field. What I wanted was to be secure and unshaken, and that not merely in my waking hours, but also when asleep, and drunk, and melancholy-mad." Man, you are a god, great are the designs you cherish!

No, that is not the way it goes, but someone says, "I wish to know what Chrysippus means in his treatise on The Liar." If that is your design, go hang, you wretch! And what good will knowing that do you? With sorrow you will read the whole treatise, and with trembling you will talk about it to others. This is the way you also, my hearers, behave. You say: "Shall I read aloud to you, brother, and you to me?" "Man, you write wonderfully." And again, "You have a great gift for writing in the style of Xenophon," "You for that of Plato," "You for that of Antisthenes." And then, when you have told dreams to one another, you go back to the same things again; you have exactly the same desires as before, the same aversions, in the same way you make your choices, your designs, and your purposes, you pray for the same things and are interested in the same things. In the second place, you do not even look for anybody to give you advice, but you are annoyed if you are told what I am telling you. Again, you say: "He is an old man without the milk of human kindness in him; he did not weep when I left, nor say, 'I fear you are going into a very difficult situation, my son; if you come through safely, I will light lamps.'" Is this what a man with the milk of human kindness in him would say? It will be a great piece of good luck for a person like you to come through safely, a thing worth lighting lamps to celebrate! Surely you ought to be free from death and free from disease!

It is this conceit of fancying that we know something useful, that, as I have said, we ought to cast aside before we come to philosophy, as we do in the case of geometry and music. Otherwise we shall never even come near to making progress, even if we go through all the Introductions and the Treatises of Chrysippus, with those of Antipater and Archedemus thrown in!

Every habit and faculty is confirmed and strengthened by the corresponding actions, that of walking by walking, that of running by running. If you wish to be a good reader, read; if you wish to be a good writer, write. If you should give up reading for thirty days one after the other, and be engaged in something else, you will know what happens. So also if you lie in bed for ten days, get up and try to take a rather long walk, and you will see how wobbly your legs are. In general, therefore, if you want to do something, make a habit of it; if you want not to do something, refrain from doing it, and accustom yourself to something else instead. The same principle holds true in the affairs of the mind also; when you are angry, you may be sure, not merely that this evil has befallen you, but also that you have strengthened the habit, and have, as it were, added fuel to the flame. When you have yielded to someone in carnal intercourse, do not count merely this one defeat, but count also the fact that you have fed your incontinence, you have given it additional strength. For it is inevitable that some habits and faculties should, in consequence of the corresponding actions, spring up, though they did not exist before, and that others which were already there should be intensified and made strong.

In this way, without doubt, the infirmities of our mind and character spring up, as the philosophers say. For when once you conceive a desire for money, if reason be applied to bring you to a realization of the evil, both the passion is stilled and our governing principle is restored to its original authority; but if you do not apply a remedy, your governing principle does not revert to its previous condition, but, on being aroused again by the corresponding external impression, it bursts into the flame of desire more quickly than it did before. And if this happens over and over again, the next stage is that a callousness results and the infirmity strengthens the avarice. For the man who has had a fever, and then recovered, is not the same as he was before the fever, unless he has experienced a complete cure. Something like this happens also with the affections of the mind. Certain imprints and weals are left behind on the mind, and unless a man erases them perfectly, the next time he is scourged upon the old scars, he has weals no longer but wounds. If, therefore, you wish not to be hot-tempered, do not feed your habit, set before it nothing on which it can grow. As the first step, keep quiet and count the days on which you have not been angry. "I used to be angry every day, after that every other day, then every third, and then every fourth day." If you go as much as thirty days without a fit of anger, sacrifice to God. For the habit is first weakened and then utterly destroyed. "To-day I was not grieved" (and so the next day, and thereafter for two or three months); "but I was on my guard when certain things happened that were capable of provoking grief." Know that things are going splendidly with you.

To-day when I saw a handsome lad or a handsome woman I did not say to myself, "Would that a man might sleep with her," and "Her husband is a happy man," for the man who uses the expression "happy" of the husband means "Happy is the adulterer" also; I do not even picture to myself the next scene—the woman herself in my presence, disrobing and lying down by my side. I pat myself on the head and say. Well done, Epictetus, you have solved a clever problem, one much more clever than the so-called "Master": But when the wench is not only willing, but nods to me and sends for me, yes, and when she even lays hold upon me and snuggles up to me, if I still hold aloof and conquer, this has become a solved problem greater than The Liar, and The Quiescent. On this score a man has a right to be proud indeed, but not about his proposing "The Master" problem.

How, then, may this be done? Make it your wish finally to satisfy your own self, make it your wish to appear beautiful in the sight of God. Set your desire upon becoming pure in the presence of your pure self and of God. "Then when an external impression of that sort comes suddenly upon you," says Plato, "go and offer an expiatory sacrifice, go and make offering as a suppliant to the sanctuaries of the gods who avert evil"; it is enough if you only withdraw "to the society of the good and excellent men," and set yourself to comparing your conduct with theirs, whether you take as your model one of the living, or one of the dead. Go to Socrates and mark him as he lies down beside Alcibiades and makes light of his youthful beauty. Bethink yourself how great a victory he once won and knew it himself, like an Olympic victory, and what his rank was, counting in order from Heracles; so that, by the gods, one might justly greet him with the salutation, "Hail, wondrous man!" for he was victor over something more than these rotten boxers and pancratiasts, and the gladiators who resemble them. If you confront your external impression with such thoughts, you will overcome it, and not be carried away by it. But, to begin with, be not swept off your feet, I beseech you, by the vividness of the impression, but say, "Wait for me a little, O impression; allow me to see who you are, and what you are an impression of; allow me to put you to the test." And after that, do not suffer it to lead you on by picturing to you what will follow. Otherwise, it will take possession of you and go off with you wherever it will. But do you rather introduce and set over against it some fair and noble impression, and throw out this filthy one. And if you form the habit of taking such exercises, you will see what mighty shoulders you develop, what sinews, what vigour; but as it is, you have merely your philosophic quibbles, and nothing more.

The man who exercises himself against such external impressions is the true athlete in training. Hold, unhappy man; be not swept along with your impressions! Great is the struggle, divine the task; the prize is a kingdom, freedom, serenity, peace. Remember God; call upon Him to help you and stand by your side, just as voyagers, in a storm, call upon the Dioscuri. For what storm is greater than that stirred up by powerful impressions which unseat the reason? As for the storm itself, what else is it but an external impression? To prove this, just take away the fear of death, and then bring on as much thunder and lightning as you please, and you will realize how great is the calm, how fair the weather, in your governing principle. But if you be once defeated and say that by and by you will overcome, and then a second time do the same thing, know that at last you will be in so wretched a state and so weak that by and by you will not so much as notice that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to offer arguments in justification of your conduct; and then you will confirm the truth of the saying of Hesiod:

Forever with misfortunes dire must he who loiters cope.

The "Master argument" appears to have been propounded on the strength of some such principles as the following. Since there is a general contradiction with one another between these three propositions, to wit: (1) Everything true as an event in the past is necessary, and (2) An impossible does not follow a possible, and (3) What is not true now and never will be, is nevertheless possible. Diodorus, realizing this contradiction, used the plausibility of the first two propositions to establish the principle, Nothing is possible which is neither true now nor ever will be. But one man will maintain, among the possible combinations of two at a time, the following, namely, (3) Something is possible, which is not true now and never will be, and (2) An impossible does not follow a possible; yet he will not grant the third proposition (1), Everything true as an event in the past is necessary, which is what Cleanthes and his group, whom Antipater has stoutly supported, seem to think. But others will maintain the other two propositions, (3) A thing is possible which is not true now and never will be, and (1) Everything true as an event in the past is necessary, and then will assert that, An impossible does follow a possible. But there is no way by which one can maintain all three of these propositions, because of their mutual contradiction.

If, then, someone asks me, "But which pair of these do you yourself maintain?" I shall answer him that I do not know; but I have received the following account: Diodorus used to maintain one pair, Panthoides and his group, I believe, and Cleanthes another, and Chrysippus and his group the third. "What, then, is your opinion?" I do not know, and I was not made for this purpose—to test my own external impression upon the subject, to compare the statements of others, and to form a judgement of my own. For this reason I am no better than the grammarian. When asked, "Who was the father of Hector?" he replied, "Priam." "Who were his brothers?" "Alexander and Deïphobus." "And who was their mother?" "Hecuba. This is the account that I have received." "From whom?" "From Homer," he said. "And Hellanicus also, I believe, writes about these same matters, and possibly others like him." And so it is with me about the "Master Argument"; what further have I to say about it? But if I am a vain person, I can astonish the company, especially at a banquet, by enumerating those who have written on the subject. "Chrysippus also has written admirably on this topic in the first book of his treatise On Things Possible. And Cleanthes has written a special work on the subject, and Archedemus. Antipater also has written, not only in his book On Things Possible, but also a separate monograph in his discussion of The Master Argument. Have you not read the treatise?" "I have not read it." "Then read it." And what good will it do him? He will be more trifling and tiresome than he is already. You, for example, what have you gained by the reading of it? What judgement have you formed on the subject? Nay, you will tell us of Helen, and Priam, and the island of Calypso which never was and never will be!

And in the field of literary history, indeed, it is of no great consequence that you master the received account without having formed any judgement of your own. But in questions of conduct we suffer from this fault much more than we do in literary matters. "Tell me about things good and evil." "Listen:

The wind that blew me from the Trojan shore Brought me to the Ciconians.

Of things some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. Now the virtues and everything that shares in them are good, while vices and everything that shares in vice are evil, and what falls in between these, namely, wealth, health, life, death, pleasures, pain, are indifferent." "Where do you get that knowledge?" "Hellanicus says so in his History of Egypt." For what difference does it make whether you say this, or that Diogenes says so in his Treatise on Ethics, or Chrysippus, or Cleanthes? Have you, then, tested any of these statements and have you formed your own judgement upon them? Show me how you are in the habit of conducting yourself in a storm on board ship. Do you bear in mind this logical distinction between good and evil when the sail crackles, and you have screamed and some fellow-passenger, untimely humorous, comes up and says, "Tell me, I beseech you by the gods, just what you were saying a little while ago. Is it a vice to suffer shipwreck? Is there any vice in that?" Will you not pick up a piece of wood and cudgel him? "What have we to do with you, fellow? We are perishing and you come and crack jokes!" And if Caesar sends for you to answer an accusation, do you bear in mind this distinction? Suppose someone approaches you when you are going in pale and trembling, and says, "Why are you trembling, fellow? What is the affair that concerns you? Does Caesar inside the palace bestow virtue and vice upon those who appear before him?" "Why do you also make mock of me and add to my other ills?" "But yet, philosopher, tell me, why are you trembling? Is not the danger death, or prison, or bodily pain, or exile, or disrepute? Why, what else can it be? Is it a vice at all, or anything that shares in vice? What was it, then, that you used to call these things?" "What have I to do with you, fellow? My own evils are enough for me" And in that you are right. For your own evils art enough for you—your baseness, your cowardice, the bragging that you indulged in when you were sitting in the lecture room. Why did you pride yourself upon things that were not your own? Why did you call yourself a Stoic?

Observe yourselves thus in your actions and you will find out to what sect of the philosophers you belong. You will find that most of you are Epicureans, some few Peripatetics, but these without any backbone; for wherein do you in fact show that you consider virtue equal to all things else, or even superior? But as for a Stoic, show me one if you can! Where, or how? Nay, but you can show me thousands who recite the petty arguments of the Stoics. Yes, but do these same men recite the petty arguments of the Epicureans any less well? Do they not handle with the same precision the petty arguments of the Peripatetics also? Who, then, is a Stoic? As we call a statue "Pheidian" that has been fashioned according to the art of Pheidias, in that sense show me a man fashioned according to the judgements which he utters. Show me a man who though sick is happy, though in danger is happy, though dying is happy, though condemned to exile is happy, though in disrepute is happy. Show him! By the gods, I would fain see a Stoic! But you cannot show me a man completely so fashioned; then show me at least one who is becoming so fashioned, one who has begun to tend in that direction; do me this favour; do not begrudge an old man the sight of that spectacle which to this very day I have never seen. Do you fancy that you are going to show me the Zeus or the Athena of Pheidias, a creation of ivory and gold? Let one of you show me the soul of a man who wishes to be of one mind with God, and never again to blame either God or man, to fail in nothing that he would achieve, to fall into nothing that he would avoid, to be free from anger, envy and jealousy—but why use circumlocutions?—a man who has set his heart upon changing from a man into a god, and although he is still in this paltry body of death, does none the less have his purpose set upon fellowship with Zeus. Show him to me! But you cannot. Why, then, do you mock your own selves and cheat everybody else? And why do you put on a guise that is not your own and walk about as veritable thieves and robbers who have stolen these designations and properties that in no sense belong to you?

And so now I am your teacher, and you are being taught in my school. And my purpose is this—to make of you a perfect work, secure against restraint, compulsion, and hindrance, free, prosperous, happy, looking to God in everything both small and great; and you are here with the purpose of learning and practising all this. Why, then, do you not complete the work, if it is true that you on your part have the right kind of purpose and I on my part, in addition to the purpose, have the right kind of preparation? What is it that is lacking? When I see a craftsman who has material lying ready at hand, I look for the finished product. Here also, then, is the craftsman, and here is the material; what do we yet lack? Cannot the matter be taught? It can. Is it, then, not under our control? Nay, it is the only thing in the whole world that is under our control. Wealth is not under our control, nor health, nor fame, nor, in a word, anything else except the right use of external impressions. This alone is by nature secure against restraint and hindrance. Why, then, do you not finish the work? Tell me the reason. For it lies either in me, or in you, or in the nature of the thing. The thing itself is possible and is the only thing that is under our control. Consequently, then, the fault lies either in me, or in you, or, what is nearer the truth, in us both. What then? Would you like to have us at last begin to introduce here a purpose such as I have described? Let us let bygones be bygones. Only let us begin, and, take my word for it, you shall see.

The propositions which are true and evident must of necessity be employed even by those who contradict them; and one might consider as perhaps the strongest proof of a proposition being evident the fact that even the man who contradicts it finds himself obliged at the same time to employ it. For example, if a man should contradict the proposition that there is a universal statement which is true, it is clear that he must assert the contrary, and say: No universal statement is true. Slave, this is not true, either. For what else does this assertion amount to than: If a statement is universal, it is false? Again, if a man comes forward and says, "I would have you know that nothing is knowable, but that everything is uncertain"; or if someone else says, "Believe me, and it will be to your advantage, when I say: One ought not to believe a man at all"; or again, someone else, "Learn from me, man, that it is impossible to learn anything; it is I who tell you this and I will prove it to you, if you wish," what difference is there between these persons and—whom shall I say?—those who call themselves Academics? "O men," say the Academics, "give your assent to the statement that no man assents to any statement; believe us when we say that no man can believe anybody."

So also Epicurus, when he wishes to do away with the natural fellowship of men with one another, at the same time makes use of the very principle that he is doing away with. For what does he say? "Be not deceived, men, nor led astray, nor mistaken; there is no natural fellowship with one another among rational beings; believe me. Those who say the contrary are deceiving you and leading you astray with false reasons." Why do you care, then? Allow us to be deceived. Will you fare any the worse, if all the rest of us are persuaded that we do have a natural fellowship with one another, and that we ought by all means to guard it? Nay, your position will be much better and safer. Man, why do you worry about us, why keep vigil on our account, why light your lamp, why rise betimes, why write such big books? Is it to keep one or another of us from being deceived into the belief that the gods care for men, or is it to keep one or another of us from supposing that the nature of the good is other than pleasure? For if this is so, off to your couch and sleep, and lead the life of a worm, of which you have judged yourself worthy; eat and drink and copulate and defecate and snore. What do you care how the rest of mankind will think about these matters, or whether their ideas be sound or not? For what have you to do with us? Come, do you interest yourself in sheep because they allow themselves to be shorn by us, and milked, and finally to be butchered and cut up? Would it not be desirable if men could be charmed and bewitched into slumber by the Stoics and allow themselves to be shorn and milked by you and your kind? Is not this something that you ought to have said to your fellow Epicureans only and to have concealed your views from outsiders, taking special pains to persuade them, of all people, that we are by nature born with a sense of fellowship, and that self-control is a good thing, so that everything may be kept for you? Or ought we to maintain this fellowship with some, but not with others? With whom, then, ought we to maintain it? With those who reciprocate by maintaining it with us, or with those who are transgressors of it? And who are greater transgressors of it than you Epicureans who have set up such doctrines?

What, then, was it that roused Epicurus from his slumbers and compelled him to write what he did? What else but that which is the strongest thing in men—nature, which draws a man to do her will though he groans and is reluctant? "For," says she, "since you hold these anti-social opinions, write them down and bequeathe them to others and give up your sleep because of them and become in fact yourself the advocate to denounce your own doctrines." Shall we speak of Orestes as being pursued by the Furies and roused from his slumbers? But are not the Furies and the Avengers that beset Epicurus more savage? They roused him from sleep and would not let him rest, but compelled him to herald his own miseries, just as madness and wine compel the Galli. Such a powerful and invincible thing is the nature of man. For how can a vine be moved to act, not like a vine, but like an olive, or again an olive to act, not like an olive, but like a vine? It is impossible, inconceivable. Neither, then, is it possible for a man absolutely to lose the affections of a man, and those who cut off their bodily organs are unable to cut off the really important thing—their sexual desires. So with Epicurus: he cut off everything that characterizes a man, the head of a household, a citizen, and a friend, but he did not succeed in cutting off the desires of human beings; for that he could not do, any more than the easy-going Academics are able to cast away or blind their own sense-perceptions, although they have made every effort to do so.

Ah, what a misfortune! A man has received from nature measures and standards for discovering the truth, and then does not go on and take the pains to add to these and to work out additional principles to supply the deficiencies, but does exactly the opposite, endeavouring to take away and destroy whatever faculty he does possess for discovering the truth. What do you say, philosopher? What is your opinion of piety and sanctity? "If you wish, I shall prove that it is good." By all means, prove it, that our citizens may be converted and may honour the Divine and at last cease to be indifferent about the things that are of supreme importance. "Do you, then, possess the proofs?" I do, thank heaven. "Since, then, you are quite satisfied with all this, hear the contrary: The gods do not exist, and even if they do, they pay no attention to men, nor have we any fellowship with them, and hence this piety and sanctity which the multitude talk about is a lie told by impostors and sophists, or, I swear, by legislators to frighten and restrain evildoers." Well done, philosopher! You have conferred a service upon our citizens, you have recovered our young men who were already inclining to despise things divine. "What then? Does not all this satisfy you? Learn now how righteousness is nothing, how reverence is folly, how a father is nothing, how a son is nothing." Well done, philosopher! Keep at it; persuade the young men, that we may have more who feel and speak as you do. It is from principles like these that our well-governed states have grown great! Principles like these have made Sparta what it was! These are the convictions which Lycurgus wrought into the Spartans by his laws and his system of education, namely that neither is slavery base rather than noble, nor freedom noble rather than base! Those who died at Thermopylae died because of these judgements regarding slavery and freedom! And for what principles but these did the men of Athens give up their city? And then those who talk thus marry and beget children and fulfil the duties of citizens and get themselves appointed priests and prophets! Priests and prophets of whom? Of gods that do not exist! And they themselves consult the Pythian priestess—in order to hear lies and to interpret the oracles to others! Oh what monstrous shamelessness and imposture!

Man, what are you doing? You are confuting your own self every day, and are you unwilling to give up these frigid attempts of yours? When you eat, where do you bring your hand? To your mouth, or to your eye? When you take a bath, into what do you step? When did you ever call the pot a plate, or the ladle a spit? If I were slave to one of these men, even if I had to be soundly flogged by him every day, I would torment him. "Boy, throw a little oil into the bath." I would have thrown a little fish sauce in, and as I left would pour it down on his head. "What does this mean?" "I had an external impression that could not be distinguished from olive oil; indeed, it was altogether like it. I swear by your fortune." "Here, give me the gruel." I would have filled a side dish with vinegar and fish sauce and brought it to him. "Did I not ask for the gruel?" "Yes, master; this is gruel." "Is not this vinegar and fish sauce?" "How so, any more than gruel." "Take and smell it, take and taste it." "Well, how do you know, if the senses deceive us?" If I had had three or four fellow-slaves who felt as I did, I would have made him burst with rage and hang himself, or else change his opinion. But as it is, such men are toying with us; they use all the gifts of nature, while in theory doing away with them.

Grateful men indeed and reverential: Why, if nothing else, at least they eat bread every day, and yet have the audacity to say, "We do not know if there is a Demeter, or a Kore, or a Pluto"; not to mention that, although they enjoy night and day, the changes of the year and the stars and the sea and the earth and the co-operation of men, they are not moved in the least by any one of these things, but look merely for a chance to belch out their trivial "problem," and after thus exercising their stomach to go off to the bath. But what they are going to say, or what they are going to talk about, or to whom, and what their hearers are going to get out of these things that they are saying, all this has never given them a moment's concern. I greatly fear that a noble-spirited young man may hear these statements and be influenced by them, or, having been influenced already, may lose all the germs of the nobility which he possessed; that we may be giving an adulterer grounds for brazening out his acts; that some embezzler of public funds may lay hold of a specious plea based upon these theories; that someone who neglects his own parents may gain additional affrontery from them.

What, then, in your opinion is good or bad, base or noble? This or that? What then? Is there any use in arguing further against any of these persons, or giving them a reason, or listening to one of theirs, or trying to convert them? By Zeus, one might much rather hope to convert a filthy degenerate than men who have become so deaf and blind!

Some of their faults men readily admit, but others not so readily. Now no one will admit that he is foolish or unintelligent, but, quite the contrary, you hear everyone say, "I wish I had as much luck as I have sense." But they readily admit that they are timid, and say, "I am a bit timid, I admit; but in general you will not find me to be a fool" A man will not readily admit that he is incontinent, not at all that he is unjust, and will never admit that he is envious or meddlesome; but most men will admit that they are moved by pity. What is the reason for this? The principal reason is confusion of thought and an unwilligness to admit a fault in matters which involve good and evil; but, apart from that, different people are affected by different motives, and, as a rule, they will never admit anything that they conceive to be disgraceful; timidity, for example, they conceive to be an indication of a prudent disposition, and the same is true of pity, but stupidity they conceive to be a slave's quality altogether; also they will never plead guilty to offences against society. Now in the case of most errors, the principal reason why men are inclined to admit them is because they conceive that there is an involuntary element in them, as, for instance, in timidity and pity. And if a man ever does, grudgingly, admit that he is incontinent, he adds that he is in love, expecting to be excused as for an involuntary act. But injustice they do not at all conceive of as involuntary. In jealousy there is also, as they fancy, an element of the involuntary, and therefore this too is a fault which men grudgingly admit.

When such are the men we live among—so confused, so ignorant both of what they mean by "evil" and what evil quality they have, or whether they have one, or, if so, how they come to have it, or how they will get rid of it—among such men I wonder whether it is not worth while for us also to watch ourselves, each one asking himself the questions: "Is it possible that I too am one of these people? What conceit am I cherishing regarding myself? How do I conduct myself? Do I for my part act like a wise man? Do I for my part act like a man of self-control? Do I for my part ever say that I have been educated to meet whatever comes? Have I the consciousness, proper to a man who knows nothing, that I do know nothing? Do I go to my teacher, like one who goes to consult an oracle, prepared to obey? Or do I, too, like a sniffling child, go to school to learn only the history of philosophy and to understand the books which I did not understand before, and, if chance offers, to explain them to others?" Man, at home you have fought a regular prize-fight with your slave, you have driven your household into the street, you have disturbed your neighbours' peace; and now do you come to me with a solemn air, like a philosopher, and sitting down pass judgement on the explanation I gave of the reading of the text and on the application, forsooth, of the comments I made as I babbled out whatever came into my head? You have come in a spirit of envy, in a spirit of humiliation because nothing is being sent you from home, and you sit there while the lecture is going on, thinking, on your part, of nothing in the world but how you stand with your father or your brother! You reflect: "What are my people at home saying about me? At this moment they are thinking that I am making progress in my studies, and they are saying 'He will know everything when he comes back home!' I did want, at one time, I suppose, to learn everything before going back home, but that requires a great deal of hard work, and nobody sends me anything, and at Nicopolis they have rotten accommodations at the baths, and my lodgings are bad, and the school here is bad."

And then people say: "Nobody gets any good from going to school." Well, who goes to school—who, I repeat—with the expectation of being cured? Who with the expectation of submitting his own judgements for purification? Who with the expectation of coming to a realization of what judgements he needs? Why, then, are you surprised, if you carry back home from your school precisely the judgements you bring to it? For you do not come with the expectation of laying them aside, or of correcting them, or of getting others in exchange for them. Not at all, nor anything like it. Look rather to this at least—whether you are getting what you came for. You want to be able to speak fluently about philosophic principles. Well, are you not becoming more of an idle babbler? Do not these petty philosophic principles supply you with material for making exhibitions? Do you not resolve syllogisms, and arguments with equivocal premisses? Do you not examine the assumptions in The Liar syllogism, and in hypothetical syllogisms? Why, then, are you still vexed, if you are getting what you came for? "Yes, but if my child or my brother dies, or if I must die, or be tortured, what good will such things do me?" But was it really for this that you came? Is it really for this that you sit by my side? Did you ever really light your lamp, or work late at night, for this? Or when you went out into the covered walk did you ever set before yourself, instead of a syllogism, some external impression and examine this with your fellow-students? When did you ever do that? And then you say, "The principles are useless." To whom? To those who do not use them properly. For instance, eye-salves are not useless to those who rub them on when and as they ought, and poultices are not useless, jumping-weights are not useless; but they are useless to some people, and, on the other hand, useful to others. If you ask me now, "Are our syllogisms useful?" I will tell you that they are, and, if you wish, I will show how they are useful "Have they, then, helped me at all?" Man, you did not ask, did you? whether they are useful to you, but whether they are useful in general? Let the man who is suffering from dysentery ask me whether vinegar is useful; I will tell him that it is useful. "Is it useful, then, to me?" I will say, "No. Seek first to have your discharge stopped, the little ulcers healed." So do you also, men, first cure your ulcers, stop your discharges, be tranquil in mind, bring it free from distraction into the school; and then you will know what power reason has.

Whatever a man is interested in he naturally loves. Now do men take an interest in things evil? Not at all. Well, and do they take an interest in things which in no respect concern them? No, not in these, either. It remains, therefore, that men take an interest in good things only; and if they take an interest in them, they love them. Whoever, then, has knowledge of good things, would know how to love them too; but when a man is unable to distinguish things good from things evil, and what is neither good nor evil from both the others, how could he take the next step and have the power to love? Accordingly, the power to love belongs to the wise man and to him alone.

How so? says someone; for I am foolish myself, but yet I love my child.—By the gods, I am surprised at you; at the very outset you have admitted that you are foolish. For something is lacking in you; what is it? Do you not use sense perception, do you not distinguish between external impressions, do you not supply the nourishment for your body that is suitable to it, and shelter, and a dwelling? How comes it, then, that you admit you are foolish? Because, by Zeus, you are frequently bewildered and disturbed by your external impressions, and overcome by their persuasive character; and at one moment you consider these things good, and then again you consider them, though the very same, evil, and later on as neither good nor evil; and, in a word, you are subject to pain, fear, envy, turmoil, and change; that is why you are foolish, as you admit you are. And in loving are you not changeable? But as for wealth, and pleasure, and, in a word, material things, do you not consider them at one moment good, at another bad? And do you not consider the same persons at one moment good, and at another bad, and do you not at one moment feel friendly towards them, and at another unfriendly, and at one moment praise them, while at another you blame them?—Yes, I am subject to exactly these emotions.—What then? Do you think that the man who has been deceived about someone can be his friend?—No, indeed.—And can the man whose choice of a friend is subject to change show good will to that friend?—No, neither can he.—And the man who now reviles someone, and later on admires him?—No, neither can he.—What then? Did you never see dogs fawning on one another and playing with one another, so that you say, "Nothing could be more friendly"? But to see what their friendship amounts to, throw a piece of meat between them and you will find out. Throw likewise between yourself and your son a small piece of land, and you will find out how much your son wants to bury you, the sooner the better, and how earnestly you pray for your son's death. Then you will change your mind again and say, "What a child I have brought up! All this time he has been ready to carry me to my grave." Throw between you a pretty wench, and the old man as well as the young one falls in love with her; or, again, a bit of glory. And if you have to risk your life you will say what the father of Admetus did:

"Thou joyest seeing daylight: dost suppose Thy father joys not too?"

Do you imagine that he did not love his own child when it was small, and that he was not in agony when it had the fever, and that he did not say over and over again, "If only I had the fever instead"? And then, when the test comes and is upon him, just see what words he utters! Were not Eteocles and Polyneices born of the same mother and the same father? Had they not been brought up together, lived together, played together, slept together, many a time kissed one another? So that I fancy if anyone had seen them, he would have laughed at the philosophers for their paradoxical views on friendship. But when the throne was cast between them, like a piece of meat between the dogs, see what they say:

Eteo. Where before the wall dost mean to stand? Poly. Why asked thou this of me? Eteo. I shall range myself against thee. Poly. Mine is also that desire!

Such also are the prayers they utter.

It is a general rule—be not deceived—that every living thing is to nothing so devoted as to its own interest. Whatever, then, appears to it to stand in the way of this interest, be it a brother, or father, or child, or loved one, or lover, the being hates, accuses, and curses it. For its nature is to love nothing so much as its own interest; this to it is father and brother and kinsmen and country and God. When, for instance, we think that the gods stand in the way of our attainment of this, we revile even them, cast their statues to the ground, and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples of Asclepius to be burned when his loved one died. For this reason, if a man puts together in one scale his interest and righteousness and what is honourable and country and parents and friends, they are all safe; but if he puts his interest in one scale, and in the other friends and country and kinsmen and justice itself, all these latter are lost because they are outweighed by his interest. For where one can say "I" and "mine," to that side must the creature perforce incline; if they are in the flesh, there must the ruling power be; if they are in the moral purpose, there must it be; if they are in externals, there must it be. If, therefore, I am where my moral purpose is, then, and then only, will I be the friend and son and the father that I should be. For then this will be my interest—to keep my good faith, my self-respect, my forbearance, my abstinence, and my co-operation, and to maintain my relations with other men. But if I put what is mine in one scale, and what is honourable in the other, then the statement of Epicurus assumes strength, in which he declares that "the honourable is either nothing at all, or at best only what people hold in esteem."

It was through ignorance of this that the Athenians and Lacedaemonians quarrelled, and the Thebans with both of them, and the Great King with Greece, and the Macedonians with both of them, and in our days the Romans with the Getae, and yet earlier than any of these, what happened at Ilium was due to this. Alexander was a guest of Menelaus, and if anyone had seen their friendly treatment of one another, he would have disbelieved any man who said they were not friends. But there was thrown in between them a morsel, a pretty woman, and to win her war arose. So now, when you see friends, or brothers, who seem to be of one mind, do not instantly make pronouncement about their friendship, not even if they swear to it, nor even if they say that they cannot be separated from one another. The ruling principle of the bad man is not to be trusted; it is insecure, incapable of judgement, a prey now to one external impression and now to another. Nay, do not make the same enquiry that most men do, asking whether two men are of the same parents, or were brought up together, or had the same school attendant, but this, and this only: Where do they put their interest—outside themselves, or in their moral purpose? If outside, call them not friends, any more than you would call them faithful, steadfast, courageous, or free; nay, call them not even human beings, if you are wise. For it is no judgement of human sort which makes them bite (that is revile) one another, and take to the desert (that is, to the market-place) as wild beasts take to the mountains, and in courts of law act the part of brigands; nor is it a judgement of human sort which makes them profligates and adulterers and corrupters; nor is it any such thing which makes men guilty of any of the many other crimes which they commit against one another; it is because of one single judgement, and this alone—because they put themselves and what belongs to themselves in the category of things which lie outside the sphere of moral purpose. But if you hear these men assert that in all sincerity they believe the good to be where moral purpose lies, and where there is the right use of external impressions, then you need no longer trouble yourself as to whether they are son and father, or brothers, or have been schoolmates a long time and are comrades; but though this is the only knowledge you have concerning them, you may confidently declare them "friends," just as you may declare them "faithful" and "upright." For where else is friendship to be found than where there is fidelity, respect, a devotion to things honourable and to naught beside?

"But he has paid attention to me all these years; and did he not love me?" How do you know, slave, whether he has paid attention to you just as he sponges his shoes, or curries his horse? How do you know but that, when you have lost your utility, as that of some utensil, he will throw you away like a broken plate? "But she is my wife and we have lived together all these years." But how long did Eriphyle live with Amphiaraus, yes, and bore him children, and many of them? But a necklace came in between them. And what does a necklace signify? One's judgement about things like a necklace. That was the brutish element, that was what sundered the bond of love, what would not allow a woman to be a wife, a mother to remain a mother. So let every one of you who is eager to be a friend to somebody himself, or to get somebody else for a friend, eradicate these judgements, hate them, banish them from his own soul. When this is done, first of all, he will not be reviling himself, fighting with himself, repenting, tormenting himself: and, in the second place, in relation to his comrade, he will be always straightforward to one who is like him himself, while to one who is unlike he will be tolerant, gentle, kindly, forgiving, as to one who is ignorant or is making a mistake in things of the greatest importance; he will not be harsh with anybody, because he knows well the saying of Plato, that "every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth." But if you fail to do this, you may do everything else that friends do—drink together, and share the same tent, and sail on the same ship—and you may be sons of the same parents; yes, and so may snakes! But they will never be friends and no more will you, as long as you retain these brutish and abominable judgements.

Everyone would read with greater pleasure and ease the book that is written in the clearer characters. Therefore everyone would also listen with greater ease to those discourses that are expressed in appropriate and attractive language. We must not, therefore, say that there is no faculty of expression, for this is to speak both as an impious man and as a coward. As an impious man, because one is thereby disparaging the gifts received from God, as though one were denying the usefulness of the faculty of vision, or that of hearing, or that of speech itself. Did God give you eyes to no purpose, did He to no purpose put in them a spirit so strong and so cunningly devised that it reaches out to a great distance and fashions the forms of whatever is seen? And what messenger is so swift and so attentive as the eye? And did He to no purpose make also the intervening air so active and so intent that the vision passes through it as through some tense medium? And did He to no purpose create light, without the presence of which all else were useless?

Man, be neither ungrateful for these gifts, nor yet forgetful of the better things, but for sight and hearing, yes and, by Zeus, for life itself and for what is conducive to it, for dry fruits, for wine, for olive oil, give thanks unto God; and at the same time remember that He has given you something better than all these things—the faculty which can make use of them, pass judgement upon them, estimate the value of each. For what is that which, in the case of each of these faculties, shows what it is worth? Is it each faculty itself? Did you ever hear the faculty of sight say anything about itself? Or the faculty of vision? No, but they have been appointed as servants and slaves to minister to the faculty which makes use of external impressions. And if you ask, what each thing is worth, of whom do you ask? Who is to answer you? How, then, can any other faculty be superior to this which both uses the rest as its servants, and itself passes judgement upon each several thing and pronounces upon it? For which one of them knows what it is and what it is worth? Which one of them knows when one ought to use it, and when not? What is the faculty that opens and closes the eyes, and turns them away from the things from which it should turn them, but directs them toward other things? The faculty of sight? No, but the faculty of moral purpose. What is the faculty that closes and opens the ears? What is that faculty by virtue of which men are curious and inquisitive, or again, unmoved by what is said? The faculty of hearing? No, it is none other than the faculty of moral purpose. When, then, this faculty sees that all the other faculties which surround it are blind and deaf, and unable to see anything but the very acts for which they have been appointed to serve and minister unto it, while it alone sees clearly and surveys, not only all the rest, determining what each is worth, but itself also, is it likely to pronounce that anything else is supreme but itself? And what else can the open eye do but see? But whether it ought to see someone's wife and how, what faculty tells it? That of moral purpose. And what faculty tells a man whether he ought to believe what he has been told, or disbelieve, and, if he believes, whether he ought to be provoked by it or not? Is it not that of moral purpose? And this faculty of speech and of the adornment of language, if it really is a separate faculty, what else does it do, when discourse arises about some topic, but ornament and compose the words, as hairdressers do the hair? But whether it is better to speak than to keep silence, and to do so in this way, or in that, and whether this is appropriate or not appropriate, and the proper occasion and utility of each action—what else tells us all this but the faculty of moral purpose? Would you, then, have it come forward and condemn itself?

"What then," says an objector, "if the matter stands like this, and it is possible for that which serves to be superior to what it serves—the horse to the rider, or the dog to the hunter, or his instrument to the harper, or his servants to the king?" Well, what faculty is it that uses the services of the rest in this way? Moral purpose. What is it that attends to everything? Moral purpose. What is it that destroys the whole man, sometimes by hunger, sometimes by a noose, sometimes by hurling him over a cliff? Moral purpose. Is there, then, anything stronger than this among men? Yet how can the things that are subject to hindrance be stronger than that which is unhindered? What are by their very nature capable of hindering the faculty of vision? Both moral purpose and things that lie outside its sphere. The same hinder vision; and so it is also with speech. But what is by its very nature capable of hindering moral purpose? Nothing that lies outside its sphere, but only itself when perverted. For this reason moral purpose becomes the only vice, or the only virtue.

Therefore, since it is so great a faculty and has been set over everything else, let it come before us and say that the flesh is of all things the most excellent. Nay, even if the flesh itself called itself most excellent, one would not have tolerated such a statement. But now what is it, Epicurus, that makes such a declaration? that composed the treatise On the End, or The Physics, or On the Standard? that caused you to let your beard grow long? that wrote as it was dying: "We are spending what is our last and at the same time a happy day?" Was it the flesh or the moral purpose? Come, do you confess that you have something superior to the flesh, and you are not insane, either? Are you, in all truth, so blind and deaf?

Well, what then? Does a man despise his other faculties? Far from it! Does a man say there is no use or advancement save in the faculty of moral purpose? Far from it! That is unintelligent, impious, ungrateful towards God. Nay, he is but assigning its true value to each thing. For there is some use in an ass, but not as much as there is in an ox; there is use also in a dog, but not as much as there is in a slave; there is use also in a slave, but not as much as there is in your fellow-citizens; there is use also in these, but not as much as there is in the magistrates. Yet because some things are superior we ought not to despise the use which the others give. There is a certain value also in the faculty of eloquence, but it is not as great as that of the faculty of moral purpose. When, therefore, I say this, let no one suppose that I am bidding you neglect speech, any more than I bid you neglect eyes, or ears, or hands, or feet, or dress, or shoes. But if you ask me, "What, then, is the highest of all things?" what shall I say? The faculty of eloquence? I cannot; but rather that of moral purpose, when it becomes a right moral purpose. For it is this which uses not only that faculty of eloquence but also all the other faculties both small and great; when this has been set right a man becomes good, when it has failed a man becomes bad; it is through this that we are unfortunate, and are fortunate, blame one another, and are pleased with one another; in a word, it is this which, when ignored, produces wretchedness, but when attended to produces happiness.

But to do away with the faculty of eloquence and to say that in all truth it is nothing is the act not merely of a man ungrateful to those who have given it, but also cowardly. For such a person seems to me to be afraid that, if there really is a faculty of this kind, we may not be able to despise it. Such also are those who assert that there is no difference between beauty and ugliness. What! could a man be affected in the same way by the sight of Thersites and that of Achilles? Or by the sight of Helen and that of some ordinary woman? But these are the notions of foolish and boorish persons who do not know the nature of each several thing, but are afraid that if a man notices the superiority of the faculty in question he will immediately be carried away by it and come off worsted. Nay, the great thing is this: to leave each in the possession of his own proper faculty, and, so leaving him, to observe the value of the faculty, and to learn what is the highest of all things, and in everything to pursue after this, to be zealous about this, treating all other things as of secondary value in comparison with it, though without neglecting these, as far as this is possible. For we must take care of our eyes too, yet not as the highest thing, but we must take care of them for the sake of the highest; because this latter will not have its natural perfection unless it uses the eyes with reason and chooses one thing instead of another.

What, then, generally takes place? Men act like a traveller on the way to his own country who stops at an excellent inn, and, since the inn pleases him, stays there. Man, you have forgotten your purpose; you were not travelling to this but through it. "But this is a fine inn." And how many other inns are fine, and how many meadows—yet simply for passing through. But your purpose is the other thing, to return to your country, to relieve the fear of your kinsmen, to do the duties of a citizen yourself, to marry, bring up children, hold the customary offices. For you did not come into the world to select unusually fine places, I ween, but to live and go about your business in the place where you were born and were enrolled as a citizen. Something like this takes place also in the matter which we are considering. Since a man must advance to perfection through the spoken word and such instruction as you receive here, and must purify his own moral purpose and correct the faculty which makes use of external impressions, and since the instruction must necessarily be given by means of certain principles, and in a particular style, and with a certain variety and impressiveness in the form of these principles, some persons are captivated by all these things and stay where they are; one is captivated by style, another by syllogisms, another by arguments with equivocal premisses, another by some other "inn" of that sort, and staying there they moulder away as though they were among the Sirens.

Man, your purpose was to make yourself competent to use conformably with nature the external impressions that came to you, in desire not to fail in what you would attain, and in avoidance not to fall into what you would avoid, never suffering misfortune, never ill fortune, free, unhindered, unconstrained, conforming to the governance of Zeus, obeying this, well satisfied with this, blaming no one, charging no one, able to say with your whole heart the verses, beginning:

"Lead thou me on, O Zeus, and Destiny."

And then, although you have this purpose, because some petty trick of style, or certain principles, catch your fancy, are you going to stay just where you are and choose to dwell there, forgetful of the things at home and saying "This is fine"? Well, who says that it is not fine? But only like a passageway, like an "inn." For what is to prevent a man having the eloquence of Demosthenes and yet being unhappy, and what is to prevent him from analyzing syllogisms like Chrysippus, and yet being wretched, from sorrowing, envying, in a word, from being disturbed and miserable? Absolutely nothing. You see, then, that these were "inns" of no value, while your purpose was something else. When I speak thus to some people they think that I am disparaging the study of rhetoric or that of general principles. Yet I am not disparaging this, but only the habit of dwelling unceasingly on these matters and setting one's hopes in them. If a man does his hearers harm by presenting this view, set me down too as one of those who work harm. But when I see that one thing is highest and supreme, I cannot say the same of something else, in order to gratify you, my hearers.

Someone said to him: I have often come to you, wishing to hear you and you have never given me an answer; and now, if it be possible, I beg you to say something to me. He answered: Do you think that, just as in anything else there is an art, so there is also an art in speaking, and that he who has this art will speak with skill, while he who does not have it will speak without skill?—I do.—Then he who by speaking benefits himself and is able to benefit others would be speaking with skill, while he who confers injury rather than benefit would be without skill in this art of speaking? You would find that some are injured and others benefited. And are all those who hear benefited by what they hear, or would you find that of them too some are benefited but others injured?—Yes, that is true of them also, he said.—Then in this case too are all those that show skill in listening benefited, but all those that do not show such skill are injured?—He agreed.—Is there, therefore, also a certain skill in listening, just as there is in speaking?—So it seems.—But, if you please, look at the matter from this angle also: whose part do you think it is to handle an instrument musically?—The musician's.—Very well, and whose part does it appear to you to be to make a statue properly?—The sculptor's.—Does it appear to you to require no art to look at a statue with skill?—This also requires art.—If, then, to speak as one ought is the part of a skilled person, do you see that to hear with benefit to himself is also the part of the skilled person? Now as for perfection and benefit, if you please, let us drop the consideration of them for the present, since both of us are far removed from anything of that sort; but this I think everyone would admit, that the man who is going to listen to the philosophers needs at least a certain amount of practice in listening. Is it not so?

What, then, shall I talk to you about? Tell me. What are you capable of hearing about? About things good and evil? Good and evil for what? Do you mean for a horse?—No.—Well then, for an ox?—No.—What then? For a man?—Yes.—Do we know, then, what a man is, what his nature is, what the concept of man is? And have we ears that are to any degree open with regard to this? Nay, have you a conception of what nature is, or can you in any measure follow me when I speak? But shall I use a demonstration for you? How can I? For do you really understand what a proof is, or how anything is demonstrated, or by what means? Or what things resemble demonstration, but are not demonstration? Do you know, for instance, what is true, or what is false; what follows what, what contradicts, or is out of agreement, or out of harmony with what? But am I to interest you in philosophy? How shall I set before you the contradiction in the ideas of the multitude, which leads them to disagree about things good and evil, advantageous and disadvantageous, when you do not know what contradiction itself is? Show me, then, what I shall accomplish by a discussion with you. Arouse in me an eagerness for it. Just as suitable grass when shown to the sheep arouses in it an eagerness to eat, whereas if you set before it a stone or a loaf of bread, it will not be moved to eat, so we have certain moments of natural eagerness for speech also, when the suitable hearer appears, and when he himself stimulates us. But when the would-be hearer by our side is like a stone, or grass, how can he arouse desire in the breast of a man? Does the vine say to the husbandman, "Pay attention to me"? Nay, but the vine by its very appearance shows that it will profit him to pay attention to it, and so invites him to devote his attention. Who is not tempted by attractive and wide-awake children to join their sports, and crawl on all fours with them, and talk baby talk with them? But who is eager to play with an ass, or to join its braying? For however small it may be, it is still nothing but a little ass.

Why, then, have you nothing to say to me?—There is only one thing I can say to you—that the man who does not know who he is, and what he is born for, and what sort of a world this is that he exists in, and whom he shares it with; and does not know what the good things are and what are the evil, what the noble and what the base; and is unable to follow either reason or demonstration, or what is true and what is false, and cannot distinguish one from the other; and will manifest neither desire, nor aversion, nor choice, nor purpose in accordance with nature; will not assent, will not dissent, will not withhold judgement—such a man, to sum it all up, will go about deaf and blind, thinking that he is somebody, when he really is nobody. What I do you think that this is something new? Has it not been true from the time when the human race began to be, that every mistake and every misfortune has been due to this kind of ignorance? Why did Agamemnon and Achilles quarrel? Was it not because they did not know what things are expedient and what are inexpedient? Does not one of them say that it is expedient to give Chryseīs back to her father, while the other says that it is not expedient? Does not one of them say that he ought to get some other man's meed of honour, while the other says that he ought not? Is it not true that this made them forget who they were and what they had come for? Ho, there, man, what have you come for? To get sweethearts or to fight? "To fight" With whom? The Trojans or the Greeks? "The Trojans." Well, then, are you turning your back on Hector and drawing your sword against your own king? As for you, O best of men, are you turning your back on your duties as king,

Who has the charge of nations and sustains Such mighty cares,

and for the sake of a paltry damsel engage in a fist-fight with the greatest warrior among your allies, a man whom you ought to honour and protect in every way? And do you sink below the level of an elegant high priest who treats the noble gladiators with all respect? Do you see the sort of thing that ignorance of what is expedient leads to?

"But I too am rich." You are not, then, richer than Agamemnon, are you? "But I am also handsome." You are not, then, handsomer than Achilles, are you? "But I have also a fine head of hair." And did not Achilles have a finer, and golden hair, too? And did he not comb it elegantly and dress it up? "But I am also strong." You are not, then, able to lift as large a stone as Hector or Aias lifted, are you? "But I am also noble born." Your mother is not a goddess, is she, or your father of the seed of Zeus? What good, then, does all this do him when he sits in tears about the damsel? "But I am an orator." And was not he? Do you not observe how he has dealt with Odysseus and Phoenix, the most skilful of the Greeks in eloquence, how he stopped their mouths?

This is all I have to say to you, and even for this I have no heart.—Why so?—Because you have not stimulated me. For what is there in you that I may look at and be stimulated, as experts in horseflesh are stimulated when they see thoroughbred horses? At your paltry body? But you make it ugly by the shape which you give to it. At your clothes? There is something too luxurious about them, also. At your air, at your countenance? I have nothing to look at. When you wish to hear a philosopher, do not ask him, "Have you nothing to say to me?" but only show yourself capable of hearing him, and you will see how you will stimulate the speaker.

When someone in his audience said, Convince me that logic is necessary, he answered: Do you wish me to demonstrate this to you?—Yes.—Well, then, must I use a demonstrative argument?—And when the questioner had agreed to that, Epictetus asked him. How, then, will you know if I impose upon you?—As the man had no answer to give, Epictetus said: Do you see how you yourself admit that all this instruction is necessary, if, without it, you cannot so much as know whether it is necessary or not?

Every error involves a contradiction. For since he who is in error does not wish to err, but to be right, it is clear that he is not doing what he wishes. For what does the thief wish to achieve? His own interest. Therefore, if thievery is against his interest, he is not doing what he wishes. Now every rational soul is by nature offended by contradiction; and so, as long as a man does not understand that he is involved in contradiction, there is nothing to prevent him from doing contradictory things, but when he has come to understand the contradiction, he must of necessity abandon and avoid it, just as a bitter necessity compels a man to renounce the false when he perceives that it is false; but as long as the falsehood does not appear, he assents to it as the truth.

He, then, who can show to each man the contradiction which causes him to err, and can clearly bring home to him how he is not doing what he wishes, and is doing what he does not wish, is strong in argument, and at the same time effective both in encouragement and refutation. For as soon as anyone shows a man this, he will of his own accord abandon what he is doing. But so long as you do not point this out, be not surprised if he persists in his error; for he does it because he has an impression that he is right. That is why Socrates, because he trusted in this faculty, used to say: "I am not in the habit of calling any other witness to what I say, but I am always satisfied with my fellow-disputant, and I call for his vote and summon him as a witness, and he, though but a single person, is sufficient for me in place of all men." For Socrates knew what moves a rational soul, and that like the beam of a balance it will incline, whether you wish or no. Point out to the rational governing faculty a contradiction and it will desist; but if you do not point it out, blame yourself rather than the man who will not be persuaded.