He is free who lives as he wills, who is subject neither to compulsion, nor hindrance, nor force, whose choices are unhampered, whose desires attain their end, whose aversions do not fall into what they would avoid. Who, then, wishes to live in error?—No one.—Who wishes to live deceived, impetuous, unjust, unrestrained, peevish, abject?—No one.—Therefore, there is no bad man who lives as he wills, and accordingly no bad man is free. And who wishes to live in grief, fear, envy, pity, desiring things and failing to get them, avoiding things and falling into them?—No one at all.—Do we find, then, any bad man free from grief or fear, not falling into what he would avoid, nor failing to achieve what he desires?—No one.—Then we find no bad man free, either.

Now if some man who has been consul twice hear this, he will forgive you, if you add, "But you are a wise man; this does not apply to you." Yet if you tell him the truth, to wit: "In point of being a slave you are not a whit better than those who have been thrice sold," what else can you expect but a flogging? "Why, how am I a slave?" says he. "My father was free, my mother free; no one has a deed of sale for me. More than that, I am a member of the senate, and a friend of Caesar, and I have been consul, and I own many slaves." Now in the first place, most worthy senator, it is very likely that your father was the same kind of slave that you are, and your mother, and your grandfather, and all your ancestors from first to last. But even if they were free to the limit, what does that prove in your case? Why, what does it prove if they were noble, and you are mean-spirited? If they were brave, and you a coward? If they were self-controlled, and you unrestrained?

And what, says someone, has this to do with being a slave?—Doesn't it strike you as "having to do with being a slave" for a man to do something against his will, under compulsion?—Granted the point, he replies. But who can put me under compulsion, except Caesar, the lord of all?—There, you have yourself admitted that you have one master. And let it not comfort you that he is, as you say, the common master of all men, but realize that you are a slave in a great house. So also the men of Nicopolis are wont to shout: "Yea, by the fortune of Caesar, we are free men!"

However, let us leave Caesar out of account, if you please, for the present, but answer me this: Were you never in love with anyone, a pretty girl, or pretty boy, a slave, a freedman?—What, then, has that to do with being either slave or free?—Were you never commanded by your sweetheart to do something you didn't wish to do? Did you never cozen your pet slave? Did you never kiss his feet? Yet if someone should compel you to kiss the feet of Caesar, you would regard that as insolence and most extravagant tyranny. What else, then, is slavery? Did you never go out at night where you didn't want to go? Did you never spend more than you wanted to spend? Did you never utter words with groaning and lamentation, endure to be reviled, to have the door shut in your face? Well, if you are ashamed to admit such things about yourself, observe what Thrasonides says and does, a man who had served on so many campaigns—perhaps more even than you have. First, he went out at night when Geta hasn't the courage to go abroad, but, if the latter had been compelled by him to do so, he would have gone out crying aloud and bewailing his bitter slavery. And then what does Thrasonides say? Says he,

A cheap little wench has made of me a perfect slave. Of me, though never a one among all my foemen might.

Sad wretch, to be the slave of a wench, and a cheap one at that! Why, then, do you call yourself free any longer? And why do you talk of your campaigns? Then he calls for a sword, and gets angry at the man who refuses out of good-will to give it to him, and sends presents to the girl who hates him, and begs, and weeps, and again, when he has had a little success, he is elated. And yet even then, so long as he had not learned to give up passionate desire or fear, could this man have been in possession of freedom?

Consider now, in the case of the animals, how we employ the concept of freedom. Men shut up tame lions in a cage, and bring them up, and feed them, and some take them around with them. And yet who will call such a lion free? Is it not true that the more softly the lion lives the more slavishly he lives? And what lion, were he to get sense and reason, would care to be one of these lions? Why, yes, and the birds yonder, when they are caught and brought up in cages, what do they suffer in their efforts to escape? And some of them starve to death rather than endure such a life, while even such as live, barely do so, and suffer and pine away, and if ever they find any opening, make their escape. Such is their desire for physical freedom, and a life of independence and freedom from restraint. And what is wrong with you here in your cage? "What a question! My nature is to fly where I please, to live in the open air, to sing when I please. You rob me of all this, and then ask, 'What is wrong with you?'"

That is why we shall call free only those animals which do not submit to captivity, but escape by dying as soon as they are captured. So also Diogenes says somewhere: "The one sure way to secure freedom is to die cheerfully"; and to the Persian king he writes: "You cannot enslave the Athenian State any more than you can enslave the fish." "How so? Shall I not lay hold of them?" "If you do," he replies, "they will forthwith leave you and escape, like the fish. And that is true, for if you lay hold of one of them, it dies; and if these Athenians die when you lay hold of them, what good will you get from your armament?" That is the word of a free man who has seriously examined the matter, and, as you might expect, had discovered truth about it. But if you look for it where it does not exist, why be surprised if you never find it?

It is the slave's prayer that he be set free immediately. Why? Do you think it is because he is eager to pay his money to the men who collect the five per cent tax? No, it is because he fancies that up till now he is hampered and uncomfortable, because he has not obtained his freedom from slavery. "If I am set free," he says, "immediately it is all happiness, I shall pay no attention to anybody, I talk to everybody as an equal and as one in the same station in life, I go where I please, I come whence I please, and where I please." Then he is emancipated, and forthwith, having no place to which to go and eat, he looks for someone to flatter, for someone at whose house to dine. Next he either earns a living by prostitution, and so endures the most dreadful things, and if he gets a manger at which to eat he has fallen into a slavery much more severe than the first; or even if he grows rich, being a vulgarian he has fallen in love with a chit of a girl, and is miserable, and laments, and yearns for his slavery again. "Why, what was wrong with me? Someone else kept me in clothes, and shoes, and supplied me with food, and nursed me when I was sick; I served him in only a few matters. But now, miserable man that I am, what suffering is mine, who am a slave to several instead of one! However, if I get rings on my fingers," he says, "then indeed I shall live most prosperously and happily." And so, first, in order to get them he submits to—what he deserves! Then when he has got them, you have the same thing over again. Next he says, "If I serve in a campaign, I am rid of all my troubles." He serves in a campaign, he submits to all that a jail-bird suffers, but none the less he demands a second campaign and a third. After that, when he adds the very colophon, and becomes a senator, then he becomes a slave as he enters the senate, then he serves in the handsomest and sleekest slavery.

Come, let him not be a fool, let him learn, as Socrates used to say, "What each several thing means," and not apply his preconceptions at random to the particular cases. For this is the cause to men of all their evils, namely, their inability to apply their general preconceptions to the particular instances. But some of us think one thing and some another. One man fancies he is ill. Not at all; the fact is that he is not applying his preconceptions. Another fancies he is a beggar; another that he has a hard-hearted father or mother; still another that Caesar is not gracious to him. But this means one thing and one thing only—ignorance of how to apply their preconceptions. Why, who does not have a preconception of evil, that it is harmful, that it is to be avoided, that it is something to get rid of in every way? One preconception does not conflict with another, but conflict arises when one proceeds to apply them. What, then, is this evil that is harmful and is to be avoided? One person says it is not to be Caesar's friend; he is off the course, he has missed the proper application, he is in a bad way, he is looking for what is not pertinent to the case in hand; because, when he has succeeded in being Caesar's friend, he has none the less failed to get what he was seeking. For what is it that every man is seeking? To live securely, to be happy, to do everything as he wishes to do, not to be hindered, not to be subject to compulsion. When, therefore, he becomes a friend of Caesar, has he been relieved of hindrance, relieved of compulsion, does he live securely, does he live serenely? From whom shall we inquire? What better witness have we than this very man who has become Caesar's friend? Come into the midst and tell us. When did you sleep more peacefully, now or before you became Caesar's friend? Immediately the answer comes: "Stop, I implore you by the gods, and do not jest at my lot; you don't know what I suffer, miserable man that I am; no sleep visits me, but first one person comes in and then another and reports that Caesar is already awake, and is already coming out; then troubles, then worries!" Come, when did you dine more pleasantly, now or formerly? Listen to him and to what he has to say on this topic. If he is not invited, he is hurt, and if he is invited, he dines like a slave at a master's table, all the time careful not to say or do something foolish. And what do you suppose he is afraid of? That he be scourged like a slave? How can he expect to get off as well as that? But as befits so great a man, a friend of Caesar, he is afraid he will lose his head. When did you take your bath in greater peace? And when did you take your exercise at greater leisure? In a word, which life would you rather live, your present life or the old one? I can take oath that no one is so insensate or so incurable as not to lament his misfortunes the more he is a friend of Caesar.

When, therefore, neither those who are styled kings live as they will, nor the friends of these kings, what free men are left?—Seek and you will find. For nature has given you resources to find the truth. But if you are unable of yourself, by employing these resources alone, to find the next step, listen to those who have already made the search. What do they say? Does freedom seem to you to be a good?—Yes, the greatest.—Is it possible, then, for a man who has this greatest good to be unhappy, or to fare ill?—No.—When, therefore, you see men unhappy, miserable, grieving, declare confidently that they are not free.—I do so declare.—Very well, then, we have now got away from buying and selling and arrangements of that kind in the acquisition of property. For if you are right in agreeing to these propositions, whether it be the Great King who is unhappy, or a little king, whether it be a man of consular rank, or one who has been a consul twice, he could not be free.—Granted.

Answer me, then, this further question: Does freedom seem to you to be a great and noble thing, and precious?—Of course.—Is it possible, then, for a man who achieves a thing so great and precious and noble, to be of abject spirit?—It is not.—When, therefore, you see one man cringing before another, or flattering him contrary to his own opinion, say confidently of this man also that he is not free; and that not merely if he be doing so for the sake of a paltry meal, but even if it be for a governorship or a consulship. Call rather those who do these things for certain small ends slaves on a small scale, and the others, as they deserve, slaves on a grand scale—This also I grant.—And does freedom seem to you to be something independent and self-governing?—Of course.—When, therefore, it is in another's power to put hindrances in a man's way and subject him to compulsion, say confidently that this man is not free. And please don't look at his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, or look for a deed of sale or purchase, but if you hear him say "Master," in the centre of his being and with deep emotion, call him a slave, even if twelve fasces precede him; and if you hear him say, "Alas! What I must suffer!" call him a slave; and, in short, if you see him wailing, complaining, in misery, call him a slave in a toga praetexta. However, if he does none of these things, do not call him free yet, but find out what his judgements are, whether they are in any respect subject to compulsion, to hindrance, to unhappiness; and if you find him to be that kind of a person, call him a slave on holiday at the Saturnalia; say that his master is out of town; later on he will return, and then you will learn what the fellow suffers.—Who will return?—Anyone who has control over the things which some man desires, to get these for him or to take them away.—Have we, then, so many masters?—Yes, so many. For even before these personal masters we have masters in the form of circumstances, and these are many. Hence, it needs must follow that those too who have authority over some one of these circumstances are our masters. Why, look you, no one is afraid of Caesar himself, but he is afraid of death, exile, loss of property, prison, disfranchisement. Nor does anyone love Caesar himself, unless in some way Caesar is a person of great merit; but we love wealth, a tribuneship, a praetorship, a consulship. When we love and hate and fear these things, it needs must be that those who control them are masters over us. That is why we even worship those persons as gods; for we consider that what has power to confer the greatest advantage is divine. And then we lay down the wrong minor premiss: "This man has power to confer the greatest advantage." It needs must be that the conclusion from these premisses is wrong too.

What, then, is it which makes a man free from hindrance and his own master? For wealth does not do it, nor a consulship, nor a province, nor a kingdom, but something else has to be found. What, therefore, is it which makes a man free from hindrance and restraint in writing?—The knowledge of how to write.—And what in playing on the harp?—The knowledge of how to play on the harp.—So also in living, it is the knowledge of how to live. Now you have already heard this, as a general principle, but consider it also in its particular applications. Is it possible for the man who is aiming at some one of these things which are under the control of others to be free from hindrance?—No.—Is it possible for him to be free from restraint?—No.—Therefore, it is not possible for him to be free, either. Consider then: Have we nothing which is under our own exclusive control, or is everything in that state; or are some things under our control and others under the control of others?—How do you mean?—When you want your body to be whole, is the matter under your control, or not?—It is not.—And when you want it to be well?—Nor that, either.—And to live or to die?—Nor that, either.—Therefore, your body is not your own possession, it is subject to everyone who is stronger than you are.—Granted.—And your farm, is it under your control to have it when you want, and as long as you want; and in the condition that you want?—No.—And your paltry slaves?—No.—And your clothes?—No.—And your paltry house?—No.—And your horses?—None of these things.—And if you wish by all means your children to live, or your wife, or your brother, or your friends, is the matter under your control?—No, nor that, either.

Have you, then, nothing subject to your authority, which is under your control and yours only, or do you have something of that sort?—I do not know.—Look, then, at the matter this way, and consider it. No one can make you assent to what is false, can he?—No one.—Well, then, in the region of assent you are free from hindrance and restraint.—Granted.—Come, can anyone force you to choose something that you do not want?—He can; for when he threatens me with death or bonds, he compels me to choose.—If, however, you despise death and bonds, do you pay any further heed to him?—No.—Is it, then, an act of your own to despise death, or is it not your own act?—It is mine.—So it is your own act to choose, or is it not?—Granted that it is mine.—And to refuse something? This also is yours.—Yes, but suppose I choose to go for a walk and the other person hinders me?—What part of you will he hinder? Surely not your assent?—No; but my poor body.—Yes, as he would a stone.—Granted that, but I do not proceed to take my walk.—But who told you, "It is your own act to take a walk unhindered"? As for me, I told you that the only unhindered thing was the desire; but where there is a use of the body and its co-operation, you have heard long ago that nothing is your own.—Granted that also.—Can anyone force you to desire what you do not want?—No one.—Or to purpose or plan, or, in a word, to deal with the impressions that come to you?—No, nor that, either; but he will hinder me, when I set my desire upon something, from achieving what I desire.—If you desire something which is your own and not subject to hindrance, how will he hinder you?—Not at all.—Who, then, tells you that the man who sets his desire upon what is not his own is free from hindrance?

Shall I not, then, set my desire on health?—No, not at all, nor on anything else which is not your own. For that which is not in your power to acquire or to keep is none of yours. Keep far away from it not merely your hands, but above all your desire; otherwise, you have delivered yourself into slavery, you have bowed your neck to the burden, if you admire anything that is not your own, if you conceive a violent passion for anything that is in subjection to another and mortal.—Is not my hand my own?—It is a part of you, but by nature it is clay, subject to hindrance and compulsion, a slave to everything that is stronger than you are. And why do I name you the hand? You ought to treat your whole body like a poor loaded-down donkey, as long as it is possible, as long as it is allowed; and if it be commandeered and a soldier lay hold of it, let it go, do not resist nor grumble. If you do, you will get a beating and lose your little donkey just the same. But when this is the way in which you should act as regards the body, consider what is left for you to do about all the other things that are provided for the sake of the body. Since the body is a little donkey, the other things become little bridles for a little donkey, little pack-saddles, little shoes, and barley, and fodder. Let them go too, get rid of them more quickly and cheerfully than of the little donkey itself.

Once prepared and trained in this fashion to distinguish what is not your own from what is your own possession, the things which are subject to hindrance from those which are free from it, to regard these latter as your concern, and the former as no concern of yours, diligently to keep your desire fixed on the latter, and your aversion directed toward the former, then have you any longer anyone to fear?—No one.—Of course; what is there to be fearful about? About the things that are your own, wherein is the true nature of good and evil for you? And who has authority over these? Who can take them away, who can hinder them, any more than one can hinder God? But shall you be fearful about your body and your property? About the things that are not your own? About the things that are nothing to you? And what else have you been studying, from the very outset, but how to discriminate between what is your own and what is not your own, what is under your control and what is not under your control, what is subject to hindrance and what is free from it? For what purpose did you go to the philosophers? That you might no less than before be unfortunate and miserable? You will not, then, in that case, be free from fear and perturbation. And what has pain to do with you? For fear of things anticipated becomes pain when these things are present. And what will you any longer passionately seek? For you possess a harmonious and regulated desire for the things that are within the sphere of the moral purpose, as being excellent, and as being within your reach; and you desire nothing outside the sphere of the moral purpose, so as to give place to that other element of unreason, which pushes you along and is impetuous beyond all measure.

Now when you face things in this fashion, what man can inspire fear in you any longer? For what has one human being about him that is calculated to inspire fear in another human being, in either his appearance, or conversation, or intercourse in general, any more than one horse, or dog, or bee inspires fear in another horse, or dog, or bee? Nay, it is things that inspire man with fear; and when one person is able to secure them for another, or to take them away, then he becomes capable of inspiring fear.

How, then, is a citadel destroyed? Not by iron, nor by fire, but by judgements. For if we capture the citadel in the city, have we captured the citadel of fever also, have we captured that of pretty wenches also, in a word, the acropolis within us, and have we cast out the tyrants within us, whom we have lording it over each of us every day, sometimes the same tyrants, and sometimes others? But here is where we must begin, and it is from this side that we must seize the acropolis and cast out the tyrants; we must yield up the paltry body, its members, the faculties, property, reputation, offices, honours, children, brothers, friends—count all these things as alien to us. And if the tyrants he thrown out of the spot, why should I any longer raze the fortifications of the citadel, on my own account, at least? For what harm does it do me by standing? Why should I go on and throw out the tyrant's bodyguard? For where do I feel them? Their rods, their spears, and their swords they are directing against others. But I have never been hindered in the exercise of my will, nor have I ever been subjected to compulsion against my will. And how is this possible? I have submitted my freedom of choice unto God. He wills that I shall have fever; it is my will too. He wills that I should choose something; it is my will too. He wills that I should desire something; it is my will too. He wills that I should get something; it is my wish too. He does not will it; I do not wish it. Therefore, it is my will to die; therefore, it is my will to be tortured on the rack. Who can hinder me any longer against my own views, or put compulsion upon me? That is no more possible in my case than it would be with Zeus.

This is the way also with the more cautious among travellers. A man has heard that the road which he is taking is infested with robbers; he does not venture to set forth alone, but he waits for a company, either that of an ambassador, or of a quaestor, or of a proconsul, and when he has attached himself to them he travels along the road in safety. So in this world the wise man acts. Says he to himself: "There are many robber-bands, tyrants, storms, difficulties, losses of what is most dear. Where shall a man flee for refuge? How shall he travel secure against robbery? What company shall he wait for that he may pass through in safety? To whom shall he attach himself? To So-and-so, the rich man, or the proconsul? And what is the good of that? He himself is stripped, groans, sorrows. Yes, and what if my fellow-traveller himself turn upon me and rob me? What shall I do? I will become a friend of Caesar; no one will wrong me if I am a companion of his. But, in the first place, the number of things I must suffer and endure in order to become his friend! and the number of times, and the number of persons by whom I must first be robbed! And then, even if I do become his friend, he too is mortal. And if some circumstance lead him to become my enemy, where indeed had I better retire? To a wilderness? What, does not fever go there? What, then, is to become of me? Is it impossible to find a fellow-traveller who is safe, faithful, strong, free from the suspicion of treachery?" Thus he reflects and comes to the thought that, if he attach himself to God, he will pass through the world in safety.

How do you mean "attach himself"?—Why, so that whatever God wills, he also wills, and whatever God does not will, this he also does not will.—How, then, can this be done?—Why, how else than by observing the choices of God and His governance? What has He given me for my own and subject to my authority, and what has He left for Himself? Everything within the sphere of the moral purpose He has given me, subjected them to my control, unhampered and unhindered. My body that is made of clay, how could He make that unhindered? Accordingly He has made it subject to the revolution of the universe—my property, my furniture, my house, my children, my wife. Why, then, shall I strive against God? Why shall I will what is not in the province of the will, to keep under all circumstances what has not been given me outright? But how should I keep them? In accordance with the terms upon which they have been given, and for as long as they can be given. But He who gave also takes away. Why, then, shall I resist? I do not say that I shall be a fool for trying to use force upon one who is stronger than I am, but before that I shall be wicked. For where did I get these things when I came into the world? My father gave them to me. And who gave them to him? Who has made the sun, who the fruits, who the seasons, who the union and fellowship of men one with another?

And so, when you have received everything, and your very self, from Another, do you yet complain and blame the Giver, if He take something away from you? Who are you, and for what purpose have you come? Did not He bring you into the world? Did not He show you the light? Did not He give you fellow-workers? Did not He give you senses also and reason? And as what did He bring you into the world? Was it not as a mortal being? Was it not as one destined to live upon earth with a little portion of paltry flesh, and for a little while to be a spectator of His governance, and to join with Him in His pageant and holiday? Are you not willing, then, for so long as has been given you, to be a spectator of His pageant and His festival, and then when He leads you forth, to go, after you have made obeisance and returned thanks for what you have heard and seen? "No," you say, "but I wanted to go on with the holiday." Yes, and so do the initiates in the mysteries want to go on with the initiation, and no doubt the spectators at Olympia want to see still other athletes; but the festival has come to an end; leave, depart as a grateful and reverent spectator departs; make room for others; yet others must be born, even as you were born, and once born they must have land, and houses, and provisions. But if the first-comers do not move along, what is left for those who follow after? Why are you insatiate? Why never satisfied? Why do you crowd the world?

Yes, but I want my little children and my wife to be with me.—Are they yours? Do they not belong to Him who gave them? To Him who made your Will you not, therefore, give up what is not your own? Will you not yield to your superior?—Why, then, did He bring me into the world on these conditions?—And if they do not suit you, leave; God has no need of a fault-finding spectator. He needs those who join in the holiday and the dance, that they may applaud rather, and glorify, and sing hymns of praise about the festival. But the peevish and the cowardly He will not be distressed to see left out of the festival; for when they were present they did not act as though they were on a holiday, nor did they fill the proper rôle; but they were distressed, found fault with the Deity, with fate, and with the company; insensible to what had been vouchsafed them, and to their own powers which they had received for the very opposite use—high-mindedness, nobility of character, courage, and the very freedom for which we are now seeking.—For what purpose, then, did I receive these gifts?—To use them.—How long?—For as long as He who lent them to you wills.—But what if they are necessary to me?—Do not set your heart upon them, and they will not be necessary to you. Do not say to yourself that they are necessary, and they will not be.

This is what you ought to practise from morning till evening. Begin with the most trifling things, the ones most exposed to injury, like a pot, or a cup, and then advance to a tunic, a paltry dog, a mere horse, a bit of land; thence to yourself, your body, and its members, your children, wife, brothers. Look about on every side and cast these things away from you. Purify your judgements, for fear lest something of what is not your own may be fastened to them, or grown together with them, and may give you pain when it is torn loose. And every day while you are training yourself, as you do in the gymnasium, do not say that you are "pursuing philosophy" (indeed an arrogant phrase!), but that you are a slave presenting your emancipator in court; for this is the true freedom. This is the way in which Diogenes was set free by Antisthenes, and afterwards said that he could never be enslaved again by any man. How, in consequence, did he behave when he was captured! How he treated the pirates! He called none of them master, did he? And I am not referring to the name! it is not the word that I fear, but the emotion, which produces the word. How he censures them because they gave bad food to their captives! How he behaved when he was sold! Did he look for a master? No, but for a slave. And how he behaved toward his master after he had been sold! He began immediately to argue with him, telling him that he ought not to dress that way, or have his hair cut that way, and about his sons, how they ought to live. And what is there strange about that? Why, if he had bought a gymnastic trainer, would he have employed him as a servant, or as a master, in the exercises of the palaestra? And if he had bought a physician, or a master-builder, the same would have been true. And thus in every subject-matter, it is quite unavoidable that the man of skill should be superior to the man without skill. In general, therefore, whoever possesses the science of how to live, how can he help but be the master? For who is master in a ship?—The helmsman.—Why? Because the man who disobeys him is punished.—But my master is able to give me a sound flogging.—He cannot do so with impunity, can he?—So I thought.—But because he cannot do so with impunity, therefore he has no authority to do it; no man can do wrong with impunity.—And what is the punishment that befalls the man who has put his own slave in chains, when he felt like it?—The putting of him in chains; this is something which you will admit yourself, if you wish to maintain the proposition that man is not a wild beast but a tame animal. For when is a vine faring badly? When it is acting contrary to its own nature. When is a cock faring badly? Under the same conditions. So also man. What, then, is his nature? To bite, and kick, and throw into prison, and behead? No, but to do good, to work together, and to pray for the success of others. Therefore, he is faring badly, whether you will or no, when he acts unfeelingly.

You imply, then, that Socrates did not fare badly?—He did not; it was his judges and accusers who fared badly.—Nor Helvidius at Rome?—No, but the man who put him to death.—How so?—Just as you too do not say that the cock which has won a victory, even though he be severely cut up, has fared badly, but rather the one who has been beaten without suffering a blow. Nor do you call a dog happy when he is neither in pursuit nor toiling hard, but when you see him sweating, suffering, bursting from the chase. What is there paradoxical in the statement, if we say that everything's evil is what is contrary to its own nature? Is that paradoxical? Do you not say it yourself in the case of everything else? Why, then, do you take a different course in the case of man alone? But our statement that the nature of man is gentle, and affectionate, and faithful, is this not paradoxical?—No, that is not paradoxical, either.—How, then, does it come about that he suffers no harm, even though he is soundly flogged, or imprisoned, or beheaded? Is it not thus—if he bears it all in a noble spirit, and comes off with increased profit and advantage, while the other man is the one who suffers harm, the man who is subjected to the most pitiful and disgraceful experience, who becomes a wolf, or a snake, or a wasp, instead of a human being?

Come, now, and let us review the points on which we have reached agreement. The unhampered man, who finds things ready to hand as he wants them, is free. But the man who can be hampered, or subjected to compulsion, or hindered, or thrown into something against his will, is a slave. And who is unhampered? The man who fixes his aim on nothing that is not his own. And what are the things which are not our own? All that are not under our control, either to have, or not to have, or to have of a certain quality, or under certain conditions. Therefore, the body is not our own, its members are not our own, property is not our own. If, then, you conceive a strong passion for some one of these things, as though it were your immediate possession, you will be punished as he should be who fixes his aim upon what is not his own. This is the road which leads to freedom, this is the only surcease of slavery, to be able to say at any time with your whole heart.

Lead thou me on, O Zeus, and Destiny, To that goal long ago to me assigned.

But what say you, philosopher? The tyrant calls upon you to say something that is unworthy of you. Do you say it, or not say it? Tell me.—Let me think about it.—Think about it now? But what were you thinking about when you were attending lectures? Did you not study the questions, what things are good, and what bad, and what are neither good nor bad?—I did.—What conclusions were approved, then, by you and your fellows?—That things righteous and excellent were good, things unrighteous and disgraceful bad.—Life is not a good thing, is it?—No.—Nor death a bad thing? —No.—Nor imprisonment?—No.—But ignoble speech and faithless, and betrayal of a friend, and flattery of a tyrant, what did you and your fellows think of these?—We thought them evil.—What then? You are not thinking about the question now, nor have you thought about it and considered it hitherto. Why, what kind of inquiry is it, to raise the question whether it is fitting, when it is in my power to get for myself the greatest goods, not to get for myself the greatest evils! A fine and necessary question, forsooth, that requires a great deal of deliberation. Why are you making fun of us, man? Such an inquiry is never made. Besides, if you had honestly imagined that disgraceful things were bad, and all else indifferent, you would never have approached this inquiry, no, nor anything near it; but you would have been able to settle the question on the spot, by intuition, just as in a case involving sight. Why, when do you stop to "think about it," if the question is, Are black things white, or, Are heavy things light? Do you not follow the clear evidence of your senses? How comes it, then, that now you say you are thinking it over, whether things indifferent are more to be avoided than things bad? But you do not have these judgements; on the contrary, imprisonment and death do not appear to you to be indifferent, but rather the greatest evils, and dishonourable words and deeds are not bad in your sight, but rather things that do not concern us. For that is the habit which you developed from the start. "Where am I?" you say. "In school. And who are listening to me? I am talking in the company of philosophers. But now I have left the school; away with those sayings of pedants and fools!" That is how a friend is condemned on the testimony of a philosopher, that is how a philosopher turns parasite, that is how he hires himself out for money, that is how at a meeting of the senate a man does not say what he thinks, while within his breast his judgement shouts loudly, no cold and miserable remnant suspended from idle argumentations as by a hair, but a strong and serviceable judgement, and familiar with its business by having been trained in action. Watch yourself, and see how you take the word—I do not say the word that your child is dead; how could you possibly bear that?—but the word that your oil is spilled, or your wine drunk up. Well might someone stand over you, when you are in this excited condition, and say simply, "Philosopher, you talk differently in the school; why are you deceiving us? Why, when you are a worm, do you claim that you are a man?" I should like to stand over one of these philosophers when he is engaged in sexual intercourse, so as to see how he exerts himself, what manner of words he utters, whether he remembers his own name, or the arguments that he hears, or repeats, or reads!

And what has all this to do with freedom?—Nay, nothing but all this has to do with freedom, whether you rich people so wish or not.—And what is your witness to this?—Why, what else but you yourselves who have this mighty master, and live at his nod and gesture, who faint away if he but look at one of you with a scowl on his face, paying court to the old women and the old men, and saying, "I cannot do this; I am not allowed"? Why are you not allowed? Were you not just now arguing with me and claiming that you were free? "But Aprulla has prevented me." Tell the truth, then, slave, and do not run away from your masters, nor make denial, nor dare to present your emancipator, when you have so many proofs to convict you of slavery. And, indeed, when a man out of passionate love is under the compulsion to do something contrary to his opinion, all the time seeing the better thing but lacking the strength to follow, one might be all the more inclined to regard him as deserving pity, because he is in the grip of something violent, and, in a manner of speaking, divine. But who could endure you with your passion for old women and old men, wiping the noses and washing the faces of old women, corrupting them with presents, and all the while you are nursing them, like a slave, in some illness, praying for them to die, and asking the physicians if they are finally on their deathbed? Or again, when for the sake of these mighty and dignified offices and honours you kiss the hands of other men's slaves, so as to be the slave of men who are not even free? And then, God save the mark, you walk around in your dignity as a praetor or a consul! Don't I know how you came to be praetor, how you got your consulship, who gave it to you? As for me, I should not care even to live, if I had to owe my life to Felicio, putting up with his insolence and slavish arrogance; for I know what a slave is, who is prosperous as the world goes, and puffed up with pride.

Are you, then, free, says someone?—By the gods I wish to be, and pray to be, but I am not yet able to look into the face of my masters, I still honour my paltry body, I take great pains to keep it sound, although it is not sound in any case. But I can show you a free man, so that you will never again have to look for an example, Diogenes was free. How did that come? It was not because he was born of free parents, for he was not, but because he himself was free, because he had cast off all the handles of slavery, and there was no way in which a person could get close and lay hold of him to enslave him. Everything he had was easily loosed, everything was merely tied on. If you had laid hold of his property, he would have let it go rather than followed you for its sake; if you had laid hold of his leg, he would have let his leg go; if of his whole paltry body, his whole paltry body; and so also his kindred, friends, and country. He knew the source from which he had received them, and from whom, and upon what conditions. His true ancestors, indeed, the gods, and his real Country he would never have abandoned, nor would he have suffered another to yield them more obedience and submission, nor could any other man have died more cheerfully for his Country. For it was never his wont to seek to appear to do anything in behalf of the Universe, but he bore in mind that everything which has come into being has its source there, and is done on behalf of that Country, and is entrusted to us by Him who governs it. Therefore, see what he himself says and writes: "For this reason," he says, "you are permitted, O Diogenes, to converse as you please with the king of the Persians and with Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians." Was it, indeed, because he was born of free parents? No doubt it was because they were all the children of slaves that the Athenians, and Lacedaemonians, and Corinthians were unable to converse with these monarchs as they pleased, but were afraid of them and paid court to them! Why, then, someone asks, are you permitted? "Because I do not regard my paltry body as my own; because I need nothing; because the law, and nothing else, is everything to me." This it was which allowed him to be a free man.

And that you may not think I am showing you an example of a man who was solitary, and had neither wife, nor children, nor country, nor friends, nor kinsmen, who might have bent him and diverted him from his purpose, take Socrates and observe a man who had a wife and little children, but regarded them as not his own, who had a country, as far as it was his duty, and in the way in which it was his duty, and friends, and kinsmen, one and all subject to the law and to obedience to the law. That is why, when it was his duty to serve as a soldier, he was the first to leave home, and ran the risks of battle most ungrudgingly; and when he was sent by the Tyrants to fetch Leon, because he regarded it as disgraceful, he never deliberated about the matter at all, although he knew that he would have to die, if it so chanced. And what difference did it make to him? For there was something else that he wished to preserve; not his paltry flesh, but the man of honour, the man of reverence, that he was. These are things which are not to be entrusted to another, not to be made subject. Later on, when he had to speak in defence of his life, he did not behave as one who had children, or a wife, did he? Nay, but as one who was alone in the world. Yes, and when he had to drink the poison, how does he act? When he might have saved his life, and when Crito said to him, "Leave the prison for the sake of your children," what is his reply? Did he think it a bit of good luck? Impossible! No, he regards what is fitting, and as for other considerations, he does not so much as look at or consider them. For he did not care, he says, to save his paltry body, but only that which is increased and preserved by right conduct, and is diminished and destroyed by evil conduct. Socrates does not save his life with dishonour, the man who refused to put the vote when the Athenians demanded it of him, the man who despised the Tyrants, the man who held such noble discourse about virtue and moral excellence; this man it is impossible to save by dishonour, but he is saved by death, and not by flight. Yes, and the good actor, too, is saved when he stops at the right time, rather than the one who acts out of season. What, then, will the children do? "If I had gone to Thessaly, you would have looked after them; but when I have gone down to the house of Hades, will there be no one to look after them?" See how he calls death soft names, and jests at it. But if it had been you or I, we should forthwith have fallen into the philosophic vein, and said, "One ought to repay evil-doers in kind," and added, "If I save my life I shall be useful to many persons, but if I die I shall be useful to no one"; yes, indeed, and if we had had to crawl out through a hole to escape, we should have done so! And how should we have been of use to anybody? For where could we have been of use, if the others still remained in Athens? Or if we were useful to men by living, should we not have done much more good to men by dying when we ought, and as we ought? And now that Socrates is dead the memory of him is no less useful to men, nay, is perhaps even more useful, than what he did or said while he still lived.

Study these things, these judgements, these arguments, look at these examples, if you wish to be free, if you desire the thing itself in proportion to its value. And what wonder is there if you buy something so great at the price of things so many and so great? For the sake of what is called freedom some men hang themselves, others leap over precipices, sometimes whole cities perish; for true freedom, which cannot be plotted against and is secure, will you not yield up to God, at His demand, what He has given? Will you not, as Plato says, study not merely to die, but even to be tortured on the rack, and to go into exile, and to be severely flogged, and, in a word, to give up everything that is not your own? If not, you will be a slave among slaves; even if you are consul ten thousand times, even if you go up to the Palace—a slave none the less; and you will perceive that, as Cleanthes used to say, "Possibly the philosophers say what is contrary to opinion, but assuredly not what is contrary to reason." For you will learn by experience that what they say is true, and that none of these things which are admired and sought after are of any good to those who attain them; while those who have not yet attained them get an impression that, if once these things come to them, they will be possessed of all things good, and then, when they do come, the burning heat is just as bad, there is the same tossing about on the sea, the same sense of surfeit, the same desire for what they do not have. For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire. And that you may learn the truth of all this, as you have toiled for those other things, so also transfer your toil to these; keep vigils for the sake of acquiring a judgement which will make you free, devote yourself to a philosopher instead of to a rich old man, be seen about his doors; it will be no disgrace to be so seen, you will not retire thence empty and without profit, if you approach him in the right fashion. Anyway, try it at least; there is no disgrace in making the attempt.

To this topic you ought to devote yourself before every other, how, namely, you may avoid ever being so intimately associated with some one of your acquaintances or friends as to descend to the same level with him; otherwise you will ruin yourself. But if there slips into your mind the thought, "He will think me unmannerly and will not be as friendly as he used to be," remember that nothing is done without paying for it, and that it is impossible for a man to remain the same person that he used to be, if he does not do the same things. Choose, therefore, which you prefer; either to be loved just as much as you used to be by the same persons, remaining like your former self, or else, by being superior to your former self, to lose the same affection. Because if this latter alternative is the better choice, turn forthwith in that direction, and let not the other considerations draw you away; for no man is able to make progress when he is facing both ways. But if you have preferred this course to every other, if you wish to devote yourself to this alone, and labour to perfect it, give up everything else. Otherwise this facing both ways will bring about a double result: You will neither make progress as you ought, nor will you get what you used to get before. For before, when you frankly aimed at nothing worth while, you made a pleasant companion. You cannot achieve distinction along both lines, but you must needs fall short in the one to the degree in which you take part in the other. If you do not drink with those you used to drink with, you cannot in their eyes be as pleasant a companion as you used to be; choose, therefore, whether you wish to be a hard drinker and pleasant to those persons, or a sober man and unpleasant. If you do not sing with those you used to sing with, you cannot be loved by them as you used to be; choose, therefore, here also, which you wish. For if it is better to be a man of respectful and modest behaviour than for someone to say of you, "He is a pleasant fellow," give up all other considerations, renounce them, turn your back upon them, have nothing to do with them. But if that does not please you, turn about, the whole of you, to the opposite; become one of the addicts to unnatural vice, one of the adulterers, and act in the corresponding fashion, and you will get what you wish. Yes, and jump up and shout your applause to the dancer. But different characters do not mix in this fashion; you cannot act the part of Thersites and that of Agamemnon too. If you wish to be a Thersites, you ought to be humpbacked and bald; if an Agamemnon, you ought to be tall and handsome, and to love those who have been made subject to you.

Here is a thought to keep ready at hand whenever you lose some external thing: What are you acquiring in its place? and if this be more valuable than the other, never say, "I have suffered a loss." You have lost nothing if you get a horse for an ass, an ox for a sheep, a noble action for a small piece of money, the proper kind of peace for futile discourse, and self-respect for smutty talk. If you bear this in mind you will everywhere maintain your character as it ought to be. If not, I would have you observe that your time is being spent to no purpose, and all the pains you are now taking with yourself you are sure to spill out utterly and upset. Little is needed to ruin and upset everything, only a slight aberration from reason. For the helmsman to upset his ship he does not need the same amount of preparation that he does to keep it safe; but if he heads it a little too much into the wind, he is lost; yes, even if he does nothing by his own deliberate choice, but merely falls to thinking about something else for a moment, he is lost. In life also it is very much the same; if you doze but for a moment, all that you have amassed hitherto is gone. Pay attention, therefore, to your sense-impressions, and watch over them sleeplessly. For it is no small matter that you are guarding, but self-respect, and fidelity, and constancy, a state of mind undisturbed by passion, pain, fear, or confusion—in a word, freedom. What are the things for which you are about to sell these things? Look, how valuable are they?—But, you say, I shall not get anything of that kind in return for what I am giving up.—Observe also, when you do get something in the exchange, just what it is you are getting for what you give up. "I have a modest behaviour, he has a tribuneship; he has a praetorship, I have self-respect. But I do not shout where it is unseemly; I shall not stand up where I ought not; for I am a free man and a friend of God, so as to obey Him of my own free will. No other thing ought I to claim, not body, or property, or office, or reputation—nothing, in short; nor does He wish me to claim them. Had He so desired He would have made them good for me. But as it is, He has not so made them; therefore I cannot transgress any of His commands." Guard your own good in everything you do; and for the rest be content to take simply what has been given you, in so far as you can make a rational use of it. If you do not, you will have bad luck and no good luck, you will be hampered and hindered. These are the laws that have been sent you from God, these are His ordinances; it is of these you ought to become an interpreter, to these you ought to subject yourself, not the laws of Masurius and Cassius.

Remember that it is not merely desire for office and wealth which makes men abject and subservient to others, but desire also for peace, and leisure, and travel, and scholarship. For it makes no difference what the external object be, the value you set upon it makes you subservient to another. What difference, then, does it make for you to set your heart on the senate, or on not becoming a senator? What difference does it make to desire office or to desire not to hold office? What difference does it make to say, "I am in a bad way, I have nothing to do, but am tied to my books as though I were a corpse," or to say, "I am in a bad way, I have no leisure to read"? For just as salutations and office-holding are among things external and those which lie outside the province of the moral purpose, so also is a book. Or for what purpose do you wish to read? Tell me. If you turn to reading merely for entertainment, or in order to learn something, you are futile and lazy. But if you refer reading to the proper standard, what else is this but a life of serenity? However, if reading does not secure for you a life of serenity, of what good is it?—Nay, it does secure me serenity, one says, and that is why I am discontented because I am deprived of it.—And what kind of serenity is this which any chance comer can impede, not merely Caesar, or a friend of Caesar, but a crow, a flutist, fever, thirty thousand other things? But no feature of serenity is so characteristic as continuity and freedom from hindrance.

At this instant I am being called to do something; at this instant I shall go home with the purpose of observing the due measure which I ought to maintain, acting with self-respect, with security, apart from desire and avoidance of things external; and in the second place I observe men, what they say, how they move, and this in no malignant spirit, nor in order to have something to censure or ridicule, but I look at myself the while, to see if I too am making the same mistakes. "How, then, shall I cease to make mistakes?" There was a time when I too made mistakes, but now no longer, thanks be to God. . . .

Come, if you have acted like this and devoted yourself to these things, have you done anything worse than reading a thousand lines, or writing a thousand? For when you eat, are you annoyed because you are not reading? Are you not satisfied to be eating in accordance with the principles you learned by reading? And when you bathe and take exercise? Why, then, are you not consistent in everything, both when you approach Caesar, and when you approach So-and-so? If you are maintaining the character of a man of tranquillity, of imperturbability, of sedateness, if you are observing what happens rather than being yourself observed, if you are not envying those who are preferred in honour above you, if the mere subject-matter of actions does not dazzle you, what do you lack? Books? How, or for what end? What, is not the reading of books a kind of preparation for the act of living? But the full measure of the act of living is made up of things other than books. It is as though the athlete on entering the stadium were to fall a-wailing because he is not exercising outside. This was what you exercised for, this is the purpose of your jumping-weights, your wrestler's sand, your young training partners. And are you now asking for these things, when the time for action is come? It is as if, when in the sphere of assent we were surrounded with sense-impressions, some of them convincing, and others not convincing, we should not wish to distinguish between them, but to read a treatise On Comprehension!

What, then, is the reason for this? It is because we have never read for this purpose, we have never written for this purpose—in our actions, to treat in accordance with nature the sense-impressions which come to us; but we stop with having learned what is said, and with the ability to explain it to someone else, and with analysing the syllogism, and examining the hypothetical argument. That is why, where our heart is set, there also our impediment lies. Do you wish at any cost to have the things that are not under your control? Very well then, be hindered, be obstructed, fail. If we should read a treatise On Choice, not in order to know about the subject, but in order to make correct choices; a treatise On Desire and Aversion, in order that we may never fail in our desire nor fall into that which we are trying to avoid; a treatise On Duty, in order that we may remember our relations in society and do nothing irrationally or contrary to the principles of duty; we should not be vexed by being hindered in regard to what we have read, but we should find satisfaction in doing the deeds required by our mutual relations, and we should be reckoning, not the things which we have been accustomed hitherto to reckon: "To-day I have read so many lines, I have written so many," but, "To-day I made a choice in the way that the philosophers teach, I did not entertain desire, I avoided only those things that are in the sphere of the moral purpose, I was not overawed by So-and-so, I was not put out of countenance by So-and-so, I exercised my patience, my abstinence, my co-operation," and thus we should be giving thanks to God for those things for which we ought to give Him thanks. But as it is, we do not realize that we ourselves, though in a different fashion, grow like the multitude. Another man is afraid that he will not have an office; you are afraid that you will. Do not so, man! But just as you laugh at the man who is afraid he will not have an office, so also laugh at yourself. For it makes no difference whether a person is thirsty with fever, or is afraid of water like a man with the rabies. Or how can you any longer say with Socrates, "If so it please God, so be it"? Do you suppose that, if Socrates had yearned to spend his leisure in the Lyceum or the Academy, and to converse daily with the young men, he would have gone forth cheerfully on all the military expeditions in which he served? Would he not have wailed and groaned, "Wretched man that I am I here I am now in misery and misfortune, when I might be sunning myself in the Lyceum"? What, was this your function in life, to sun yourself? Was it not rather to be serene, to be unhampered, to be unhindered? And how would he have been Socrates any longer, if he had wailed like this? How would he have gone on to write paeans in prison?

In a word, then, remember this—that if you are going to honour anything at all outside the sphere of the moral purpose, you have destroyed your moral purpose. And outside the sphere of your moral purpose lie not merely office, but also freedom from office; not merely business, but also leisure. "Am I now, therefore, to pass my life in this turmoil?" What do you mean by "turmoil"? Among many people? And what is there hard about that? Imagine that you are in Olympia, regard the turmoil as a festival. There, too, one man shouts this and another that; one man does this and another that; one man jostles another; there is a crowd in the baths. And yet who of us does not take delight in the Olympic festival and leave it with sorrow? Do not become peevish or fastidious towards events. "The vinegar is rotten, for it is sour." "The honey is rotten, for it upsets my digestion." "I don't like vegetables." In the same fashion you say, "I don't like leisure, it is a solitude." "I don't like a crowd, it is turmoil." Say not so, but if circumstances bring you to spend your life alone or in the company of a few, call it peace, and utilize the condition for its proper end; converse with yourself, exercise your sense-impressions, develop your preconceptions. If, however, you fall in with a crowd, call it games, a festival, a holiday, try to keep holiday with the people. For what is pleasanter to a man who loves his fellow-men than the sight of large numbers of them? We are glad to see herds of horses or cattle; when we see many ships we are delighted; is a person annoyed at the sight of many human beings? "Yes, but they deafen me with their shouting." Oh, well, it is your hearing that is interfered with! What, then, is that to you? Your faculty of employing external impressions is not interfered with, is it? And who prevents you from making natural use of desire and aversion, of choice and refusal? What manner of turmoil avails to do that?

Do but keep in remembrance your general principles: "What is mine? What is not mine? What has been given me? What does God will that I do now, what does He not will?" A little while ago it was His will for you to be at leisure, to converse with yourself, to write about these things, to read, to listen, to prepare yourself; you had time sufficient for that. Now, God says to you, "Come at length to the contest, show us what you have learned, how you have trained yourself. How long will you exercise alone? Now the time has come for you to discover whether you are one of the athletes who deserve victory, or belong to the number of those who travel about the world and are everywhere defeated." Why, then, are you discontented? No contest is held without turmoil. There must be many training-partners, many to shout applause, many officials, many spectators.—But I wanted to live a life of peace.—Wail, then, and groan, as you deserve to do. For what greater penalty can befall the man who is uninstructed and disobedient to the divine injunctions than to grieve, to sorrow, to envy, in a word to have no good fortune but only misfortune? Do you not wish to free yourself from all this?

And how shall I free myself?—Have you not heard over and over again that you ought to eradicate desire utterly, direct your aversion towards the things that lie within the sphere of the moral purpose, and these things only, that you ought to give up everything, your body, your property, your reputation, your books, turmoil, office, freedom from office? For if once you swerve aside from this course, you are a slave, you are a subject, you have become liable to hindrance and to compulsion, you are entirely under the control of others. Nay, the word of Cleanthes is ready at hand,

Lead thou me on, O Zeus, and Destiny.

Will ye have me go to Rome? I go to Rome. To Gyara? I go to Gyara. To Athens? I go to Athens. To prison? I go to prison. If but once you say, "Oh, when may a man go to Athens?" you are lost. This wish, if unfulfilled, must necessarily make you unfortunate; if fulfilled, vain and puffed up over the wrong kind of thing; again, if you are hindered, you suffer a misfortune, falling into what you do not wish. Give up, then, all these things. "Athens is beautiful." But happiness is much more beautiful, tranquillity, freedom from turmoil, having your own affairs under no man's control. "There is turmoil in Rome, and salutations." But serenity is worth all the annoyances. If, then, the time for these things has come, why not get rid of your aversion for them: Why must you needs bear burdens like a belaboured donkey? Otherwise, I would have you see that you must be ever the slave of the man who is able to secure your release, to the man who is able to hinder you in everything, and you must serve him as an Evil Genius.

There is but one way to serenity (keep this thought ready for use at dawn, and by day, and at night), and that is to yield up all claim to the things that lie outside the sphere of the moral purpose, to regard nothing as your own possession; to surrender everything to the Deity, to Fortune; to yield everything to the supervision of those persons whom even Zeus has made supervisors; and to devote yourself to one thing only, that which is your own, that which is free from hindrance, and to read referring your reading to this end, and so to write and so to listen. That is why I cannot call a man industrious, if I hear merely that he reads or writes, and even if one adds that he sits up all night, I cannot yet say that the man is industrious, until I know for what end he does so. For neither do you call a man industrious who loses sleep for the sake of a wench; no more do I. But if he acts this way for the sake of reputation, I call him ambitious; if for the sake of money, I call him fond of money, not fond of toil. If, however, the end for which he toils is his own governing principle, to have it be, and live continually, in accordance with nature, then and then only I call him industrious. For I would not have you men ever either praise or blame a man for things that may be either good or bad, but only for judgements. Because these are each man's own possessions, which make his actions either base or noble. Bearing all this in mind, rejoice in what you have and be satisfied with what the moment brings. If you see any of the things that you have learned and studied thoroughly coming to fruition for you in action, rejoice in these things. If you have put away or reduced a malignant disposition, and reviling, or impertinence, or foul language, or recklessness, or negligence; if you are not moved by the things that once moved you, or at least not to the same degree, then you can keep festival day after day; to-day because you behaved well in this action, to-morrow because you behaved well in another. How much greater cause for thanksgiving is this than a consulship or a governorship! these things come to you from your own self and from the gods. Remember who the Giver is, and to whom He gives, and for what end. If you are brought up in reasonings such as these, can you any longer raise the questions where you are going to be happy, and where you will please God? Are not men everywhere equally distant from God? Do they not everywhere have the same view of what comes to pass?

The good and excellent man neither contends with anyone, nor, as far as he has the power, does he allow others to contend. We have an example before us of this also, as well as of everything else, in the life of Socrates, who did not merely himself avoid contention upon every occasion, but tried to prevent others as well from contending. See in Xenophon's Symposium how many contentions he has resolved, and again how patient he was with Thrasymachus, Polus, and Callicles, and habitually so with his wife, and also with his son when the latter tried to confute him with sophistical arguments. For Socrates bore very firmly in mind that no one is master over another's governing principle. He willed, accordingly, nothing but what was his own. And what is that? [Not to try to make other people act] in accordance with nature, for that does not belong to one; but, while they are attending to their own business as they think best, himself none the less to be and to remain in a state of harmony with nature, attending only to his own business, to the end that they also may be in harmony with nature. For this is the object which the good and excellent man has ever before him. To become praetor? No; but if this be given him, to maintain his own governing principle in these circumstances. To marry? No; but if marriage be given him, to maintain himself as one who in these circumstances is in harmony with nature. But if he wills that his son or his wife make no mistake, he wills that what is not his own should cease to be not his own. And to be getting an education means this: To be learning what is your own, and what is not your own.

Where, then, is there any longer room for contention, if a man is in such a state? Why, he is not filled with wonder at anything that happens, is he? Does anything seem strange to him? Does he not expect worse and harsher treatment from the wicked than actually befalls him? Does he not count it as gain whenever they fail to go to the limit? "So-and-so reviled you." I am greatly obliged to him for not striking me. "Yes, but he struck you too." I am greatly obliged to him for not wounding me. "Yes, but he wounded you too," I am greatly obliged to him for not killing me. For when, or from what teacher, did he learn that man is a tame animal, that he manifests mutual affection, that injustice in itself is a great injury to the unjust man? If, therefore, he has never learned this, or become persuaded of this, why shall he not follow what appears to him to be his advantage? "My neighbour has thrown stones." You have not made a mistake, have you? "No, but my crockery is broken." Are you a piece of crockery, then? No, but you are moral purpose. What, then, has been given you with which to meet this attack? If you seek to act like a wolf, you can bite back and throw more stones than your neighbour did; but if you seek to act like a man, examine your store, see what faculties you brought with you into the world. You brought no faculty of brutality, did you? No faculty of bearing grudges, did you? When, then, is a horse miserable? When he is deprived of his natural faculties. Not when he can't sing "cuckoo!" but when he can't run. And a dog? Is it when he can't fly? No, but when he can't keep the scent. Does it not follow, then, that on the same principles a man is wretched, not when he is unable to choke lions, or throw his arms about statues (for no man has brought with him from nature into this world faculties for this), but when he has lost his kindness, and his faithfulness? This is the kind of person for whom "men should come together and mourn, because of all the evils into which he has come"; not, by Zeus, "the one who is born," or "the one who has died," but the man whose misfortune it has been while he still lives to lose what is his own; not his patrimony, his paltry farm, and paltry dwelling, and his tavern, and his poor slaves (for none of these things is a man's own possession, but they all belong to others, are subservient and subject, given by their masters now to one person and now to another); but the qualities which make him a human being, the imprints which he brought with him in his mind, such as we look for also upon coins, and, if we find them, we accept the coins, but if we do not find them, we throw the coins away. "Whose imprint does this sestertius bear? Trajan's? Give it to me. Nero's? Throw it out, it will not pass, it is rotten." So also in the moral life. What imprint do his judgements bear? "He is gentle, generous, patient, affectionate." Give him to me, I accept him, I make this man a citizen, I accept him as a neighbour and a fellow-voyager. Only see that he does not have the imprint of Nero. Is he choleric, furious, querulous? "If he feels like it, he punches the heads of the people he meets." Why, then, did you call him a human being? For surely everything is not judged by its outward appearance only, is it? Why, if that is so, you will have to call the lump of beeswax an apple. No, it must have the smell of an apple and the taste of an apple; its external outline is not enough. Therefore, neither are the nose and the eyes sufficient to prove that one is a human being, but you must see whether one has the judgements that belong to a human being. Here is a man who does not listen to reason, he does not understand when he is confuted; he is an ass. Here is one whose sense of self-respect has grown numb; he is useless, a sheep, anything but a human being. Here is a man who is looking for someone whom he can kick or bite when he meets him; so that he is not even a sheep or an ass, but some wild beast.

What then? Do you want me to be despised?—By whom? By men of understanding? And how will men of understanding despise the gentle and the self-respecting person? No, but by men without understanding? What difference is that to you? Neither you nor any other craftsman cares about those who are not skilled in his art.—Yes, but they will fasten themselves upon me all the more.—What do you mean by the word "me"? Can anyone hurt your moral purpose, or prevent you from employing in a natural way the sense-impressions which come to you?—No.—Why, then, are you any longer disturbed, and why do you want to show that you are a timid person? Why do you not come forth and make the announcement that you are at peace with all men, no matter what they do, and that you are especially amused at those who think that they are hurting you? "These slaves do not know either who I am, or where my good and my evil are; they cannot get at the things that are mine."

In this way also those who inhabit a strong city laugh at the besiegers: "Why are these men taking trouble now to no end? Our wall is safe, we have food for ever so long a time, and all other supplies." These are the things which make a city strong and secure against capture, and nothing but judgements make similarly secure the soul of man. For what manner of wall is so strong, or what manner of body so invincible, or what manner of possession so secure against theft, or what manner of reputation so unassailable? For all things everywhere are perishable, and easy to capture by assault, and the man who in any fashion sets his mind upon any of them must needs be troubled in mind, be discouraged, suffer fear and sorrow, have his desires fail, and his aversions fall into what they would avoid. If this be so, are we not willing to make secure the one means of safety which has been vouchsafed us? And are we not willing to give up these perishable and slavish things, and devote our labours to those which are imperishable and by nature free? And do we not remember that no man either hurts or helps another, but that it is his judgement about each of these things which is the thing that hurts him, that overturns him; this is contention, and civil strife, and war? That which made Eteocles and Polyneices what they were was nothing else but this—their judgement about a throne, and their judgement about exile, namely, that one was the greatest of evils, the other the greatest of goods. And this is the nature of every being, to pursue the good and to flee from the evil; and to consider the man who robs us of the one and invests us with the other as an enemy and an aggressor, even though he be a brother, even though he be a son, even though he be a father; for nothing is closer kin to us than our good. It follows, then, that if these externals are good or evil, neither is a father dear to his sons, nor a brother dear to a brother, but everything on all sides is full of enemies, aggressors, slanderers. But if the right kind of moral purpose and that alone is good, and if the wrong kind of moral purpose and that alone is bad, where is there any longer room for contention, where for reviling? About what? About the things that mean nothing to us? Against whom? Against the ignorant, against the unfortunate, against those who have been deceived in the most important values?

All this is what Socrates bore in mind as he managed his house, putting up with a shrewish wife and an unkindly son. For to what end was she shrewish? To the end that she might pour all the water she pleased over his head, and might trample underfoot the cake. Yet what is that to me, if I regard these things as meaning nothing to me? But this control over the moral purpose is my true business, and in it neither shall a tyrant hinder me against my will, nor the multitude the single individual, nor the stronger man the weaker; for this has been given by God to each man as something that cannot be hindered. These are the judgements which produce love in the household, concord in the State, peace among the nations, make a man thankful toward God, confident at all times, on the ground that he is dealing with things not his own, with worthless things. We, however, although we are capable of writing and reading these things, and praising them when read, are nowhere near capable of being persuaded of them. Wherefore, the proverb about the Lacedaemonians,

Lions at home, but at Ephesus foxes,

will fit us too: Lions in the school-room, foxes outside.

I am annoyed, says one, at being pitied.—Is it, then, some doing of yours that you are pitied, or the doing of those who show the pity? Or again; is it in your power to stop it?—It is, if I can show them that I do not deserve their pity.—And do you now possess the power of not being deserving of pity, or do you not possess it?—It seems to me, indeed, that I possess it. Yet these people do not pity me for what would deserve pity, if anything does, that is, my mistakes; but for poverty, and for not holding office, and for things like disease, and death, and the like.—Are you, then, prepared to convince the multitude that none of these things is bad, but that it is possible for a poor man, and one who holds no office or position of honour, to be happy; or are you prepared to show yourself off to them as a rich man and an official? Of these alternatives the second is the part of a braggart, and a tasteless and worthless person. Besides, observe the means by which you must achieve your pretence: You will have to borrow some paltry slaves; and possess a few pieces of silver plate, and exhibit these same pieces conspicuously and frequently, if you can, and try not to let people know that they are the same; and possess contemptible bright clothes, and all other kinds of finery, and show yourself off as the one who is honoured by the most distinguished persons; and try to dine with them, or at least make people think that you dine with them; and resort to base arts in the treatment of your person, so as to appear more shapely and of gentler birth than you actually are. All these contrivances you must adopt, if you wish to take the way of the second alternative and avoid pity.

But the first way is ineffectual and tedious—to attempt the very thing which Zeus himself has been unable to accomplish, that is, to convince all men of what things are good, and what evil. Why, that has not been vouchsafed to you, has it? Nay, this only has been vouchsafed—to convince yourself. And you have not convinced yourself yet! And despite that, bless me! are you now trying to convince all other men? Yet who has been living with you so long as you have been living with yourself? And who is so gifted with powers of persuasion to convince you, as you are to convince yourself? Who is more kindly disposed and nearer to you than you are to yourself? How comes it, then, that you have not persuaded yourself to learn? Are not things now upside down? Is this what you have been in earnest about? Not to learn how to get rid of pain, and turmoil, and humiliation, and so become free? Have you not heard that there is but a single way which leads to this end, and that is to give up the things which lie outside the sphere of the moral purpose, and to abandon them, and to admit that they are not your own? To what class of things, then, does another's opinion about you belong?—To that which lies outside the sphere of the moral purpose.—And so it is nothing to you?—Nothing.—So long, then, as you are stung and disturbed by the opinions of others, do you still fancy that you have been persuaded as to things good and evil?

Will you not, then, let other men alone, and become your own pupil and your own teacher? "All other men shall see to it, whether it is profitable for them to be in a state out of accord with nature and so to live, but as for me no one is closer to myself than I am. What does it mean, then, that I have heard the words of the philosophers and assent to them, but that in actual fact my burdens have become no lighter? Can it be that I am so dull? And yet, indeed, in everything else that I have wanted I was not found to be unusually dull, but I learned my letters rapidly, and how to wrestle, and do my geometry, and analyse syllogisms. Can it be, then, that reason has not convinced me? Why, indeed, there is nothing to which I have so given my approval from the very first, or so preferred, and now I read about these matters, and hear them, and write about them. Down to this moment we have not found a stronger argument than this. What is it, then, that I yet lack? Can it be that the contrary judgements have not all been put away? Can it be that the thoughts themselves are unexercised and unaccustomed to face the facts, and, like old pieces of armour that have been stowed away, are covered with rust, and can no longer be fitted to me? Yet in wrestling, or in writing, or in reading, I am not satisfied with mere learning, but I turn over and over the arguments presented to me, and fashion new ones, and likewise syllogisms with equivocal premisses. However, the necessary principles, those which enable a man, if he sets forth from them, to get rid of grief, fear, passion, hindrance, and become free, these I do not exercise, nor do I take the practice that is appropriate for them. After all that, am I concerned with what everyone else will say about me, whether I shall appear important or happy in their eyes?"

O miserable man, will you not see what you are saying about yourself? What sort of a person are you in your own eyes? What sort of a person in thinking, in desiring, in avoiding; what sort of a person in choice, preparation, design, and the other activities of men? Yet you are concerned whether the rest of mankind pity you?—Yes, but I do not deserve to be pitied.—And so you are pained at that? And is the man who is pained worthy of pity?—Yes.—How, then, do you fail to deserve pity after all? By the very emotion which you feel concerning pity you make yourself worthy of pity. What, then, says Antisthenes? Have you never heard? "It is the lot of a king, O Cyrus, to do well, but to be ill spoken of." My head is perfectly sound and yet everybody thinks I have a headache. What do I care? I have no fever, and yet everybody sympathizes with me as though I had: "Poor fellow, you have had a fever for ever so long." I draw a long face too, and say, "Yes, it truly is a long time that I have been in a bad way." "What is going to happen, then?" As God will, I reply, and at the same time I smile quietly to myself at those who are pitying me.

What, then, prevents me from doing the same thing in my moral life also? I am poor, but I have a correct judgement about poverty. Why, then, am I concerned, if men pity me for my poverty? I do not hold office, while others do. But I have the right opinion about holding office and not holding it. Let those who pity me look to it, but as for myself, I am neither hungry, nor thirsty, nor cold, but from their own hunger and thirst they think I too am hungry and thirsty. What, then, am I to do for them? Shall I go about and make proclamation, and say, "Men, be not deceived, it is well with me. I take heed neither of poverty, nor lack of office, nor, in a word, anything else, but only correct judgements; these I possess free from hindrance, I have taken thought of nothing further"? And yet, what foolish talk is this? How do I any longer hold correct judgements when I am not satisfied with being the man that I am, but am excited about what other people think of me?

But others will get more than I do, and will be preferred in honour above me.—Well, and what is more reasonable than for those who have devoted themselves to something to have the advantage in that to which they have devoted themselves? They have devoted themselves to office, you to judgements; and they to wealth, you to dealing with your sense-impressions. See whether they have the advantage over you in what you have devoted yourself to, but they neglect; whether their assent is more in accord with natural standards, whether their desire is less likely to achieve its aim than is yours, whether their aversion is less likely to fall into what it would avoid, whether in design, purpose, and choice they hit the mark better, whether they observe what becomes them as men, as sons, as parents, and then, in order, through all the other terms for the social relations. But if they hold office, will you not tell yourself the truth, which is. that you do nothing in order to get office, while they do everything, and that it is most unreasonable for the man who pays attention to something to come off with less than the man who neglects it?

Nay, but because I greatly concern myself with correct judgements, it is more reasonable for me to rule.—Yes, in what you greatly concern yourself with, that is, judgements; but in that with which other men have concerned themselves more greatly than you have, give place to them. It is as though, because you have correct judgements, you insisted that you ought in archery to hit the mark better than the archers, or to surpass the smiths at their trade. Drop, therefore, your earnestness about judgements, and concern yourself with the things which you wish to acquire, and then lament if you do not succeed, for you have a right to do that. But as it is, you claim to be intent upon other things, to care for other things, and there is wisdom in what common people say, "One serious business has no partnership with another." One man gets up at early dawn and looks for someone of the household of Caesar to salute, someone to whom he may make a pleasant speech, to whom he may send a present, how he may please the dancer, how he may gratify one person by maliciously disparaging another. When he prays, he prays for these objects, when he sacrifices, he sacrifices for these objects. The word of Pythagoras,

Also allow not sleep to draw nigh to your languorous eyelids,

he has wrested to apply here. "'Where did I go wrong—' in matters of flattery? 'What did I do?' Can it be that I acted as a free man, or as a man of noble character?" And if he find an instance of the sort, he censures and accuses himself: "Why, what business did you have to say that? For wasn't it possible to lie? Even the philosophers say that there is nothing to hinder one's telling a lie." But if in all truth you have concerned yourself greatly with nothing but the proper use of sense-impressions, then as soon as you get up in the morning bethink you, "What do I yet lack in order to achieve tranquillity? What to achieve calm? What am I? I am not a paltry body, not property, not reputation, am I? None of these. Well, what am I? A rational creature." What, then, are the demands upon you? Rehearse your actions. "'Where did I go wrong?' in matters conducive to serenity? 'What did I do' that was unfriendly, or unsocial, or unfeeling? 'What to be done was left undone' in regard to these matters?"

Since, therefore, there is so great a difference between the things which men desire, their deeds, and their prayers, do you still wish to be on an equal footing with them in matters to which you have not devoted yourself, but they have? And after all that, are you surprised if they pity you, and are you indignant? But they are not indignant if you pity them. And why? Because they are convinced that they are getting good things, while you are not so convinced in your own case. That is why you are not satisfied with what you have, but reach out for what they have. Because, if you had been truly convinced that, in the case of the things which are good, you are the one who is attaining them, while they have gone astray, you would not even have taken account of what they say about you.

What makes the tyrant an object of fear?—His guards, someone says, and their swords, and the chamberlain, and those who exclude persons who would enter.—Why, then, is it that, if you bring a child into the presence of the tyrant while he is with his guards, the child is not afraid? Is it because the child does not really feel the presence of the guards? If, then, a man really feels their presence, and that they have swords, but has come for that very purpose, for the reason that he wishes to die because of some misfortune, and he seeks to do so easily at the hand of another, he does not fear the guards, does he?—No, for what makes them terrible is just what he wants.—If, then, a man who has set his will neither upon dying nor upon living at any cost, but only as it is given him to live, comes into the presence of the tyrant, what is there to prevent such a man from coming into his presence without fear?—Nothing.—If, then, a man feel also about his property just as this other person feels about his body, and so about his children, and his wife, and if, in brief, he be in such a frame of mind, due to some madness or despair, that he cares not one whit about having, or not having, these things; but, as children playing with potsherds strive with one another about the game, but take no thought about the potsherds themselves, so this man also has reckoned the material things of life as nothing, but is glad to play with them and handle them—what kind of tyrant, or guards, or swords in the hands of guards can any more inspire fear in the breast of such a man?

Therefore, if madness can produce this attitude of mind toward the things which have just been mentioned, and also habit, as with the Galilaeans, cannot reason and demonstration teach a man that God has made all things in the universe, and the whole universe itself, to be free from hindrance, and to contain its end in itself, and the parts of it to serve the needs of the whole? Now all other animals have been excluded from the capacity to understand the governance of God, but the rational animal, man, possesses faculties that enable him to consider all these things, both that he is a part of them, and what kind of part of them he is, and that it is well for the parts to yield to the whole. And furthermore, being by nature noble, and high-minded, and free, the rational animal, man, sees that he has some of the things which are about him free from hindrance and under his control, but that others are subject to hindrance and under the control of others. Free from hindrance are those things which lie in the sphere of the moral purpose, and subject to hindrance are those which lie outside the sphere of the moral purpose. And so, if he regards his own good and advantage as residing in these things alone, in those, namely, which are free from hindrance and under his control, he will be free, serene, happy, unharmed, high-minded, reverent, giving thanks for all things to God, under no circumstances finding fault with anything that has happened, nor blaming anything; if, however, he regards his good and advantage as residing in externals and things outside the sphere of his moral purpose, he must needs be hindered and restrained, be a slave to those who have control over these things which he has admired and fears; he must needs be irreverent, forasmuch as he thinks that God is injuring him, and be unfair, always trying to secure for himself more than his share, and must needs be of an abject and mean spirit.

When a man has once grasped all this, what is there to prevent him from living with a light heart and an obedient disposition; with a gentle spirit awaiting anything that may yet befall, and enduring that which has already befallen? "Would you have me bear poverty?" Bring it on and you shall see what poverty is when it finds a good actor to play the part. "Would you have me hold office?" Bring it on. "Would you have me suffer deprivation of office?" Bring it on. "Well, and would you have me bear troubles?" Bring them on too. "Well, and exile?" Wherever I go it will be well with me, for here where I am it was well with me, not because of my location, but because of my judgements, and these I shall carry away with me; nor, indeed, can any man take these away from me, but they are the only things that are mine, and they cannot be taken away, and with the possession of them I am content, wherever I be and whatever I do. "But it is now time to die." Why say "die"? Make no tragic parade of the matter, but speak of it as it is: "It is now time for the material of which you are constituted to be restored to those elements from which it came." And what is there terrible about that? What one of the things that make up the universe will be lost, what novel or unreasonable thing will have taken place? Is it for this that the tyrant inspires fear? Is it because of this that his guards seem to have long and sharp swords? Let others see to that; I have considered all this, no one has authority over me. I have been set free by God, I know His commands, no one has power any longer to make a slave of me, I have the right kind of emancipator, and the right kind of judges. "Am I not master of your body?" Very well, what is that to me? "Am I not master of your paltry property?" Very well, what is that to me? "Am I not master of exile or bonds?" Again I yield up to you all these things and my whole paltry body itself, whenever you will. Do make trial of your power, and you will find out how far it extends.

Who is there, then, that I can any longer be afraid of? Shall I be afraid of the chamberlains? For fear they do what? Lock the door in my face? If they find me wanting to enter, let them lock the door in my face!—Why, then, do you go to the gate of the palace?—Because I think it fitting for me to join in the game while the game lasts.—How, then, is it that you are not locked out?—Because, if anyone will not receive me, I do not care to go in, but always I wish rather the thing which takes place. For I regard God's will as better than my will. I shall attach myself to Him as a servant and follower, my choice is one with His, my desire one with His, in a word, my will is one with His will. No door is locked in my face, but rather in the face of those who would force themselves in. Why, then, do I not force myself in? Why, because I know that within nothing good is distributed among those who have entered. But when I hear someone called blessed, because he is being honoured by Caesar, I say, "What is his portion? Does he, then, get also a judgement such as he ought to have for governing a province? Does he, then, get also the ability to administer a procuratorship? Why should I any longer push my way in? Somebody is scattering dried figs and nuts; the children snatch them up and fight with one another, the men do not, for they count this a small matter. But if somebody throws potsherds around, not even the children snatch them up. Governorships are being passed around. The children shall see to that. Money. The children shall see to that. A praetorship, a consulship. Let the children snatch them up; let the children have the door locked in their faces, take a beating, kiss the hands of the giver, and the hands of his slaves. As for me, it's a mere scattering of dried figs and nuts." But what, then, if, when the man is throwing them about, a dried fig chances to fall into my lap? I take it up and eat it. For I may properly value even a dried fig as much as that. But neither a dried fig, nor any other of the things not good, which the philosophers have persuaded me not to think good, is of sufficient value to warrant my grovelling and upsetting someone else, or being upset by him, or flattering those who have flung the dried figs among us.

Show me the swords of the guards. "See how large and how sharp they are!" What, then, do these large and sharp swords do? "They kill." And what does fever do? "Nothing else." And what does a tile do? "Nothing else." Do you want me, then, to respect and do obeisance to all these things, and to go about as the slave of them all? Far from it! But if once I have learned that what is born must also perish, so that the world may not stand still, nor be hampered, it makes no difference to me whether a fever shall bring that consummation, or a tile, or a soldier; but, if I must make a comparison, I know that the soldier will bring it about with less trouble and more speed. Seeing, therefore, that I neither fear anything of all that the tyrant is able to do with me, nor greatly desire anything of all that he is able to provide, why do I any longer admire him, why any longer stand in awe of him? Why am I afraid of his guards? Why do I rejoice if he speaks kindly to me and welcomes me, and why do I tell others how he spoke to me? He is not Socrates, is he, or Diogenes, so that his praise should be a proof of what I am? I have not been ambitious to imitate his character, have I? Nay, but acting as one who keeps the game going, I come to him and serve him so long as he commands me to do nothing foolish or unseemly. If, however, he says, "Go and bring Leon of Salamis," I reply, "Try to get someone else, for I am not playing any longer." "Take him off to prison," says the tyrant about me. "I follow, because that is part of the game." "But your head will be taken off." And does the tyrant's head always stay in its place, and the heads of you who obey him? "But you will be thrown out unburied." If the corpse is I, then I shall be thrown out; but if I am something different from the corpse, speak with more discrimination, as the fact is, and do not try to terrify me. These things are terrifying to the children and the fools. But if a man who has once entered a philosopher's lecture does not know what he himself is, he deserves to be in a state of fear, and also to flatter those whom he used to flatter before; if he has not yet learned that he is not flesh, nor bones, nor sinews, but that which employs these, that which both governs the impressions of the senses and understands them.

Oh yes, but statements like these make men despise the laws.—Quite the contrary, what statements other than these make the men who follow them more ready to obey the laws? Law is not simply anything that is in the power of a fool. And yet see how these statements make us behave properly even toward these fools, because they teach us to claim against such persons nothing in which they can surpass us. They teach us to give way when it comes to our paltry body, to give way when it comes to our property, to our children, parents, brothers, to retire from everything, let everything go; they except only our judgements, and it was the will of Zeus also that these should be each man's special possession. What do you mean by speaking of lawlessness and stupidity here? Where you are superior and stronger, there I give way to you; and again, where I am superior, you retire in favour of me. For I have made these matters my concern, and you have not. It is your concern how to live in marble halls, and further, how slaves and freedmen are to serve you, how you are to wear conspicuous clothing, how to have many hunting dogs, citharoedes, and tragedians. I do not lay claim to any of these, do I? You, then, have never concerned yourself with judgements, have you? Or with your own reason, have you? You do not know, do you, what are its constituent parts, how it is composed, what its arrangement is, what faculties it has, and what their nature is? Why, then, are you disturbed if someone else, the man, namely, who has concerned himself with these matters, has the advantage of you therein?—But these are the most important things that there are.—And who is there to prevent you from concerning yourself with these matters, and devoting your attention to them? And who is better provided with books, leisure, and persons to help you? Only begin some time to turn your mind to these matters; devote a little time, if no more, to your own governing principle; consider what this thing is which you possess, and where it has come from, the thing which utilizes everything else, submits everything else to the test, selects, and rejects. But so long as you concern yourself with externals, you will possess them in a way that no one else can match, but you will have this governing faculty in the state in which you want to have it, that is, dirty and neglected.

Never bestow either praise or blame upon a man for the things which may be either good or bad, nor credit him with either skill or want of skill; and by so doing you will escape from both rashness and malice. "This man is hasty about bathing." Does he, therefore, do wrong? Not at all. But what is he doing? He is hasty about bathing.—Is all well, then?—That by no means follows; but only the act which proceeds from correct judgements is well done, and that which proceeds from bad judgements is badly done. Yet until you learn the judgement from which a man performs each separate act, neither praise his action nor blame it. But a judgement is not readily determined by externals. "This man is a carpenter." Why? "He uses an adze." What, then, has that to do with the case? "This man is a musician, for he sings." And what has that to do with the case? "This man is a philosopher." Why? "Because he wears a rough cloak and long hair." And what do hedge-priests wear? That is why, when a man sees some one of them misbehaving, he immediately says, "See what the philosopher is doing." But he ought rather to have said, judging from the misbehaviour, that the person in question was not a philosopher. For if the prime conception and profession of the philosopher is to wear a rough cloak and long hair, their statement would be correct; but if it is rather this, to be free from error, why do they not take away from him the designation of philosopher, because he does not fulfil the profession of one? For that is the way men do in the case of the other arts. When someone sees a fellow hewing clumsily with an axe, he does not say, "What's the use of carpentry? See the bad work the carpenters do!" but quite the contrary, he says, "This fellow is no carpenter, for he hews clumsily with the axe." And, similarly, if a man hears somebody singing badly, he does not say, "See how the musicians sing!" but rather, "This fellow is no musician." But it is only in the case of philosophy that men behave like this; when they see somebody acting contrary to the profession of the philosopher, they do not take away from him the designation of philosopher, but, assuming that he is a philosopher, and then taking from what goes on that he is misbehaving, they conclude that there is no good in being a philosopher.

What, then, is the reason for this? It is because we respect the prime conception of the carpenter, and the musician, and so also of all the other artisans and artists, while we do not respect that of the philosopher, but as if it were confused and inarticulate in our minds we judge of it only from externals. And what other art is there that is acquired by guise and hair-dress, and does not have also principles, and subject-matter, and end? What, then, is subject-matter for the philosopher? It is not a rough cloak, is it? No, but reason. what is end for the philosopher? It is not to wear a rough cloak, is it? No, but to keep his reason right. What is the nature of his principles? They do not have to do with the question how to grow a long beard, or a thick head of hair, do they? Nay, rather, as Zeno says, to understand the elements of reason, what the nature of each one is, and how they are fitted one to another, and all the consequences of these facts. Will you not, therefore, observe first of all whether the philosopher fulfils his profession by misbehaving, and then, if that be the case, blame his way of acting? But as it is, when you yourself are behaving decently, you say, on the basis of the evil that he seems to you to be doing, "Look at the philosopher," just as though it were proper to call a man who acts like that a philosopher; and again, "Is that what a philosopher is?" But you do not say, "Look at the carpenter," when you know that a man is an adulterer, or see a man eating greedily, nor do you say, under similar circumstances, "Look at the musician." Thus to a certain degree you too realize what the philosopher's profession is, but you backslide and get confused through carelessness.

But even those who are styled philosophers pursue their calling with means which are sometimes good and sometimes bad. For example, when they have taken a rough cloak and let their beards grow, they say, "I am a philosopher." But nobody will say, "I am a musician," if he buys a plectrum and a cithara; nor, "I am a smith," if he puts on a felt cap and an apron; but the guise is fitted to the art, and they get their name from the art, but not from the guise. That is why Euphrates was right when he used to say: "For a long time I tried not to let people know that I was a philosopher, and this," he says, "was useful to me. For, in the first place, I knew that whatever I did well, I did so, not on account of the spectators, but on my own account; it was for my own sake that I ate well, and kept my countenance and gait composed; it was all for myself and for God. And, secondly, as the contest was mine alone, so also I alone ran the risks; in no respect through me, if I did what was disgraceful or unseemly, did the cause of philosophy come into danger, nor did I do harm to the multitude by going wrong as a philosopher. For that reason those who were ignorant of my purpose wondered how it was that, although I was familiar with all the philosophers and lived with them, I was myself not acting in the role of a philosopher. And what harm was there in having the philosopher that I was, recognized by what I did, rather than by the outward signs?"

See how I eat, how drink, how sleep, how endure, how refrain, how help, how employ desire and how aversion, how I observe my relationships, whether they be natural or acquired, without confusion and without hindrance; judge me on the basis of all this, if you know how. But if you are so deaf and blind as not to regard even Hephaestus as a good smith unless you see the felt cap resting on his head, what harm can come from passing unrecognized by a judge so foolish?

In this way the great majority of men failed to recognize Socrates, and so they used to come to him and ask to be introduced to philosophers! Was he, then, irritated as we are, and would he say, "And don't I look like a philosopher to you?" No, but he used to take them and introduce them, and was satisfied with one thing, that is, being a philosopher, and glad that he was not annoyed at not being taken for one; for he habitually bore in mind his own proper function. What is the function of a good and excellent man? To have many pupils? Not at all. Those who have set their hearts on it shall see to that. Well, is it to set forth difficult principles with great precision? Other men shall see to these things also. In what field was he, then, somebody, and wished so to be? In the field where there was hurt and help. "If," says he, "a man can hurt me, what I am engaged in amounts to nothing; if I wait for somebody else to help me, I am myself nothing. If I want something and it does not happen, it follows that I am miserable." This was the mighty ring to which he challenged every man whomsoever, and therein he would not, I believe, have given way before anyone in—what do you suppose?—in proclaiming and asserting "I am such and such a man"? Far from it! but in being such and such a man. For, again, it is the part of a fool and blowhard to say, "I am tranquil and serene; be not ignorant, O men, that while you are tossed about and are in turmoil over worthless things, I alone am free from every perturbation." So is it not enough for you yourself to feel no pain without proclaiming, "Come together, all you who are suffering from gout, headaches, and fever, the halt, and the blind, and see how sound I am, and free from every disorder"? That is a vain and vulgar thing to say, unless, like Asclepius, you are able at once to show by what treatment those others will also become well again, and for this end are producing your own good health as an example.

Such is the way of the Cynic who is deemed worthy of the sceptre and diadem of Zeus, and says, "That you may see yourselves, O men, to be looking for happiness and serenity, not where it is, but where it is not, behold, God has sent me to you as an example; I have neither property, nor house, nor wife, nor children, no, not even so much as a bed, or a shirt, or a piece of furniture, and yet you see how healthy I am. Make trial of me, and if you see that I am free from turmoil, hear my remedies and the treatment which cured me." For this, at length, is an attitude both humane and noble. But see whose work it is; the work of Zeus, or of him whom Zeus deems worthy of this service, to the end that he shall never lay bare to the multitudes anything whereby he shall himself invalidate the testimony which it is his to give in behalf of virtue, and against externals.

"Never there fell o'er his beauteous features a pallor, nor ever Wiped he the tears from his cheeks."

And not merely that, but he must neither yearn for anything, nor seek after it—be it human being, or place, or manner of life—like children seeking after the season of vintage, or holidays; he must be adorned on every side with self-respect, as all other men are with walls, and doors, and keepers of doors.

But, as it is, being merely moved towards philosophy, like dyspeptics who are moved to some paltry foods, which they are bound in a short while to loathe, immediately these men are off to the sceptre, to the kingdom. One of them lets his hair grow long, he takes up a rough cloak, he shows his bare shoulder, he quarrels with the people he meets, and if he sees somebody in an overcoat he quarrels with him. Man, take a winter's training first; look at your own choice, for fear it is like that of a dyspeptic, or a woman with the strange cravings of pregnancy. Practise first not to let men know who you are; keep your philosophy to yourself a little while. That is the way fruit is produced: the seed has to be buried and hidden for a season, and be grown by slow degrees, in order that it may come to perfection. But if it heads out before it produces the jointed stock, it never matures, it is from a garden of Adonis. That is the kind of plant you are too; you have blossomed prematurely, and the winter will blight you utterly. See what the farmers say about their seeds, when the hot weather comes before its proper time. They are in utmost anxiety lest the seeds should grow insolently lush, and then but a single frost should lay hold of them and expose their weakness. Man, do you also beware; you have grown insolently lush, you have leaped forward to occupy some petty reputation before its due time; you think yourself somebody, fool that you are among fools; you will be bitten by the frost, or rather, you have already been bitten by the frost, down at the root, while your upper part still blooms a little, and for that reason you seem to be still alive and flourishing. Allow us at least to ripen as nature wishes. Why do you expose us to the elements, why force us? We are not yet able to stand the open air. Let the root grow, next let it acquire the first joint, and then the second, and then the third; and so finally the fruit will forcibly put forth its true nature, even against my will.

For who that has conceived and is big with such great judgements is not aware of his own equipment, and does not hasten to act in accordance with them? Why, a bull is not ignorant of his own nature and equipment, when some wild beast appears, nor does he hang back for someone to encourage him; neither does a dog, when he sees some wild animal; and shall I, if I have the equipment of a good man, hang back, so that you may encourage me to do what is my own proper work? But as yet I do not have the equipment, believe me. Why, then, do you wish to have me wither away before my time, as you yourself have withered?

Whenever you see another person holding office, set over against this the fact that you possess the ability to get along without office; whenever you see another person wealthy, see what you have instead. For if you have nothing instead, you are wretched; but if you are capable of feeling no need of wealth, know that you are better off, and have something worth far more than wealth. Another has a comely wife, you the ability not to yearn for a comely wife. Is all this small in your eyes? Yet how much would these men give, who are rich and hold office, and live with beautiful women, to be able to despise wealth and offices, and these very same women whom they passionately love and win? Do you not know what kind of thing the thirst of a man in fever is? It is quite unlike that of a man in health. The latter drinks and his thirst is gone, but the other gets a momentary satisfaction, and then becomes nauseated, turns the water into bile, throws up, has a pain in his bowels, and suffers more violent thirst than before. A similar thing it is to be rich and have strong desire, to hold office and have strong desire, to sleep by the side of a beautiful woman and have strong desire; jealousy is added to one's lot, fear of loss, disgraceful words, disgraceful thoughts, unseemly deeds.

And what do I lose? says somebody.—Man, you used to be modest, and are no longer so; have you lost nothing? Instead of Chrysippus and Zeno you now read Aristeides and Evenus; have you lost nothing? Instead of Socrates and Diogenes you have come to admire the man who is able to corrupt and seduce the largest number of women. You wish to be handsome and make yourself up, though you are not handsome, and you wish to make a show of gay attire, so as to attract the women, and you think yourself blessed if perchance you light upon some trivial perfume. But formerly you used never even to think of any of these things, but only where you might find decent speech, a worthy man, a noble thought. Therefore you used to sleep as a man, to go forth as a man, to wear the clothes of a man, to utter the discourse that was suitable for a good man; and after all that do you still say, "I have lost nothing"? And is it nothing but small change that men lose in this way? Is not self-respect lost, is not decency lost? Or is it impossible that the loss of these things counts for anything? To you, indeed, the loss of none of these things, perhaps, seems any longer serious; but there once was a time when you thought it the only serious loss and harm, when you were in great anxiety lest anyone should dislodge you from these good words and deeds.

Behold, you have been dislodged, though by no one else but yourself. Fight against yourself, vindicate yourself for decency, for respect, for freedom. If anyone ever told you about me that someone was forcing me to commit adultery, to wear clothes like yours, or to perfume myself, would you not have gone and murdered the man who was so maltreating me? And now, therefore, are you not willing to come to your own rescue? Yet how much easier is the work of rescue in the latter case! It is not necessary to kill somebody, put him in bonds, or assault him; you do not have to come out into the market-place, but only to talk to yourself, the man most likely to be persuaded, to whom no one is more persuasive than yourself. And first of all condemn what you are doing; then, when you have passed your condemnation, do not despair of yourself, nor act like the spiritless people who, when once they have given in, surrender themselves completely, and are swept off by the current, as it were, but learn how the gymnastic trainer of boys acts. The boy he is training is thrown; "get up," he says, "and wrestle again, till you get strong." React in some such way yourself, for I would have you know that there is nothing more easily prevailed upon than a human soul. You have but to will a thing and it has happened, the reform has been made; as, on the other hand, you have but to drop into a doze and all is lost. For it is within you that both destruction and deliverance lie.—But what good do I get after all that?—And what greater good than this are you looking for? Instead of shameless, you will be self-respecting; instead of faithless, faithful; instead of dissolute, self-controlled. If you are looking for anything else greater than these things, go ahead and do what you are doing; not even a god can any longer save you.

Men find all their difficulties in externals, their perplexities in externals. "What shall I do? How is it to take place? How is it to turn out? I am afraid that this will befall me, or that." All these are the expressions of men who concern themselves with the things that lie outside the sphere of the moral purpose. For who says, "How am I to avoid giving assent to the false? How am I to refuse to swerve aside from the true?"? If a man is so gifted by nature as to be in great anxiety about these things, I shall remind him, "Why are you in great anxiety? It is under your own control; rest secure. Do not be in a hurry to give your assent before applying the rule of nature."

Again, if a man is in great anxiety about desire, for fear lest it become incomplete and miss its mark, or about aversion, for fear lest it fall into what it would avoid, I shall first give him a kiss of congratulation, because he has got rid of what the rest of mankind are excited about, and their fears, and has turned his serious thought to his own true business in the realm where he himself is. And after that I shall say to him, "If you do not wish to desire without failing to get, or to avoid without falling into the object of your aversion, desire none of those things which are not your own, and avoid none of those things which are not under your control. If not, you are of necessity bound to fail in achieving your desires, and to fall into what you would avoid." Where is there any difficulty in that case? What room is there to ask, "How is it to take place?" and "How is it to turn out?" and to say, "I am afraid that this will befall me, or that"?

Is not the future outside the sphere of the moral purpose now?—Yes.—And is not the true nature of the good and evil inside the sphere of the moral purpose?—Yes.—Are you permitted, then, to make a natural use of every outcome? No one can prevent you, can he?—No one.—Therefore, say no longer to me, "How is it to take place?"' Because, whatever takes place, you will turn it to good purpose, and the outcome will be a blessing for you. Or what would Heracles have been had he said "How am I to prevent a great lion from appearing, or a great boar, or savage men?"? And what do you care for that? If a great boar appears, the struggle in which you are to engage will be greater; if evil men appear, you will clear the world of evil men.— But if I die in so doing?—You will die as a good man, bringing to fulfilment a noble action. Why, since you have to die in any event, you must be found doing something or other—farming, or digging, or engaged in commerce, or holding a consulship, or suffering with dyspepsia or dysentery. What is it, then, you wish to be doing when death finds you? I for my part should wish it to be some work that befits a man, something beneficent, that promotes the common welfare, or is noble. But if I cannot be found doing such great things as these, I should like at least to be engaged upon that which is free from hindrance, that which is given me to to do, and that is, correcting myself, as I strive to perfect the faculty which deals with the external impressions, labouring to achieve calm, while yet giving to each of my human relationships its due; and, if I am so fortunate, striving to attain to the third field of study, that which has to do with security in the formation of judgements.

If death finds me occupied with these matters, it is enough for me if I can lift up my hands unto God, and say, "The faculties which I received from Thee to enable me to understand Thy governance and to follow it, these I have not neglected; I have not dishonoured Thee as far as in me lay. Behold how I have dealt with my senses, behold how I have dealt with my preconceptions. Have I ever blamed Thee? Have I been discontented with any of these things which happen, or wished it to have been otherwise? Have I at all violated my relationships with others? For that Thou didst beget me I am grateful; for what Thou hast given I am grateful also. The length of time for which I have had the use of Thy gifts is enough for me. Take them back again and assign them to what place Thou wilt, for they were all Thine, and Thou gavest them me." Is it not enough for a man to take his departure from the world in this state of mind? And what among all the kinds of life is superior to this, or more seemly than his who is so minded, and what kind of end is more fortunate?

But that this may take place a man must accept no small troubles, and must miss no small things. You cannot wish for a consulship and at the same time wish for this; you cannot have set your heart upon having lands and this too; you cannot at the same time be solicitous for your paltry slaves and yourself too. But if you wish for any one of the things that are not your own, what is your own is lost. This is the nature of the matter: Nothing is done except for a price. And why be surprised? If you wish to be consul you must keep vigils, run around, kiss men's hands, rot away at other men's doors, say and do many slavish things, send presents to many persons, and guest-gifts to some people every day. And what is the outcome of it all? Twelve bundles of rods, and the privilege of sitting three or four times on the tribune, and giving games in the Circus, and lunches in little baskets. Or else let someone show me what there is in it beyond this. For calm, then, for peace of mind, for sleeping when you are asleep, and being awake when you are awake, for fearing nothing, for being in great anxiety about nothing, are you unwilling to spend anything, to make any exertion? But if something that belongs to you be lost while you are engaged in these affairs, or be spent to no purpose, or someone else get what you ought to have got, are you going to be vexed immediately at what has happened? Will you not balance off what you are getting in return for what, how much in return for how much? Nay, do you wish to get such valuable things for nothing? And how can you? "One serious business with another."

You cannot be continually giving attention to both externals and your own governing principle. But if you want the former, let the latter go; otherwise you will have neither the latter nor the former, being drawn in both directions. If you want the latter, you must let the former go. The oil will be spilled, my paltry furniture will perish, but I shall be calm. There will be a fire when I am not at home, and my books will perish, yet I shall deal with my external impressions according to nature. But I shall have nothing to eat. If I am so badly off as all that, death is my harbour. And this is the harbour of all men, even death, and this their refuge. That is why no one of the things that befall us in our life is difficult. Whenever you wish, you walk out of the house, and are no longer bothered by the smoke. Why, then, are you consumed with anxiety? Why do you keep vigils? And why do you not forthwith reckon up where your good and your evil lie, and say, "They are both under my control; no man can either rob me of the one, or plunge me in the other against my will? Why, then, do I not throw myself down and snore? What is mine is safe. What is not mine shall be the concern of whoever gets it, according to the terms upon which it may be given by Him who has authority over it. Who am I to wish that what is not mine should be either thus or so? For it has not been given me to make a choice among these things, has it? For no one has made me an administrator of them, has he? I am satisfied with the things over which I have authority. These I ought to treat so that they may become as beautiful as possible, but everything else as their master may desire."

Does any man who has all this before his eyes keep vigils, and does he "toss hither and thither"? What does he wish, or what does he yearn for? For Patroclus, or Antilochus, or Protesilaus? Why, when did he regard any of his friends as immortal? Yes, and when did he not have before his eyes the fact that on the morrow or the day after either he or his friend must die? "Yes," he says, "but I had thought he was going to survive me, and bring up my son." No doubt, but then you were a fool, and were thinking of things that were uncertainties. Why, then, do you not blame yourself, instead of sitting and crying like little girls? "Nay, but he used to set my food before me." Yes, fool, for then he was alive; and now he cannot. But Automedon will set your food before you, and if Automedon too die, you will find somebody else. If the pot in which your meat used to be boiled gets broken, do you have to die of hunger because you do not have your accustomed pot? Won't you send out and buy a new one to take its place? He says,

Ill no greater than this could befall me.

Why, is this what you call an ill? And then, forbearing to get rid of it, do you blame your mother, because she did not foretell it to you, so that you might continue to lament from that time forth?

What do you men think? Did not Homer compose this in order for us to see that there is nothing to prevent the persons of highest birth, of greatest strength, of most handsome appearance, from being most miserable and wretched, when they do not hold the right kind of judgements?

Some people raise the question whether the social instinct is a necessary element in the nature of man; nevertheless, even these people, as it seems to me, would not question that the instinct of cleanliness is most assuredly a necessary element, and that man is distinguished from the animals by this quality if by anything. When, therefore, we see some other animal cleaning itself, we are in the habit of saying in surprise that it is acting "like a human being." And again, if one finds fault with some beast, we are in the habit of saying immediately, as though in apology, "Well, of course it isn't a human being." So true it is that we consider cleanliness to be a special characteristic of man, deriving it in the first instance from the gods. For since they are by nature pure and undefiled, in so far as men have approached them by virtue of reason, just so far are they attached to purity and cleanliness. But since it is impossible for the nature of men to be altogether pure, seeing that it is composed of such material as it is, the reason which they have received from the gods endeavours to render this material clean as far as is possible.

Therefore, the prime and highest purity is that which appears in the soul, and the same is true of impurity. But you would not find the same impurity in a soul as you would in a body, and as being soul, what else would you find impure about it than that which makes it dirty for the performance of its own functions? And the functions of a soul are the exercise of choice, of refusal, of desire, of aversion, of preparation, of purpose, and of assent. What, then, can that be which makes the soul dirty and unclean in these functions? Nothing but its erroneous decisions. It follows, therefore, that impurity of a soul consists of bad judgements, and purification consists in creating within it the proper kind of judgements; and a pure soul is the one which has the proper kind of judgements, for this is the only soul which is secure against confusion and pollution in its own functions.

Now one ought to be eager to achieve, as far as may be, something similar to this in the case of the body also. It was impossible that there should be no discharge of mucus from the nose, since man's body has been composed as it is; for that reason nature made hands, and the nostrils like tubes to discharge the humours. If, therefore, a man snuffs back these discharges of mucus, I say that he is not acting as a human being should. It was impossible that the feet should not get muddy, nor dirty at all, when they pass through certain such substances; for that reason nature has provided water, for that hands. It was impossible that some impurity from eating should not remain on the teeth; for that reason nature says, "Wash your teeth." Why? In order that you may be a human being, and not a beast or a pig. It was impossible that something dirty and needing to be cleaned off should not be left on the person from our sweat and the pressure of our clothes; for that reason we have water, oil, hands, a towel, a strigil, nitre, and, on occasion, every other kind of equipment to cleanse the body. Not so you. But the smith will remove the rust from his iron tool, and will have implements made for this purpose, and you yourself will wash your plate when you are going to eat, unless you are utterly unclean and dirty; but will you not wash nor make clean your poor body?—Why? says someone.—Again I will tell you: First, so as to do what befits a man; and second, so as not to offend those whom you meet. You are doing something of the sort even here, and do not realize it. You think that you are worthy of the smell. Very well, be worthy of it. Do you think, though, that those who sit by your side, those who recline beside you, those who kiss you, are worthy of it too? Bah, go away into a wilderness somewhere or other, a place worthy of you, and live alone, smelling of yourself! For it is only right that you should enjoy your uncleanliness all by yourself. But since you are living in a city, what kind of character do you fancy you are exhibiting, to behave so thoughtlessly and inconsiderately? If nature had committed to your care a horse, would you have utterly neglected it? And now I would have you think that your body has been entrusted to you like a horse; wash it, rub it down, make it so that nobody will turn his back on you or move aside. But who does not avoid a dirty fellow that smells and has an unsightly skin, even more than a man bespattered with dung? In this latter case the smell is external and acquired, in the other it comes from slovenliness that is internal, and is characteristic of one who has grown rotten through and through.

But Socrates bathed infrequently, says someone.—Why, his body was radiant; why, it was so attractive and sweet that the handsomest and most high-born were in love with him, and yearned to sit by his side rather than beside those who had the prettiest forms and features. He might have neither bathed nor washed, had he so desired; yet even his infrequent bathings were effective.—But Aristophanes says,

The pallid men I mean, who shoeless go.—

Oh, yes, but then he says also that Socrates "trod the air," and stole people's clothes from the wrestling school. And yet all who have written about Socrates unite in bearing testimony to the precise opposite of this; that he was not merely pleasant to hear, but also to see. Again, men write the same thing about Diogenes. For a man ought not to drive away the multitude from philosophy, even by the appearance of his body, but as in everything else, so also on the side of the body, he ought to show himself cheerful and free from perturbation. "See, O men, that I have nothing, and need nothing. See how, although I am without a house, and without a city, and an exile, if it so chance, and without a hearth, I still live a life more tranquil and serene than that of all the noble and the rich. Yes, and you see that even my paltry body is not disfigured by my hard way of living." But if I am told this by a person who has the bearing and face of a condemned man, what one of all the gods shall persuade me to approach philosophy, if she makes people like that? Far be it from me! I shouldn't be willing to do so, not even if it would make me a wise man.

As for me, by the gods, I should rather have the young man who was experiencing the first stirrings towards philosophy come to me with his hair carefully dressed, than with it in a state of desperate neglect and dirty. For the first case shows that there exists in the young man a sort of imaging of beauty, and an aiming at comeliness, and where he fancies it to be, there also he devotes his efforts. With that as a starting-point, all that it is necessary to do is to show him the way, and say, "Young man, you are seeking the beautiful, and you do well. Know, then, that it arises in that part of you where you have your reason; seek it there where you have your choices and your refusals, where you have your desires and your aversions. For this part is something of a special kind which you have within you, but your paltry body is by nature only clay. Why do you toil for it to no purpose? If you learn nothing else, time at least will teach you that it is nothing." But if he comes to me bespattered with dung, dirty, his moustache reaching down to his knees, what have I to say to him, from what point of resemblance can I start so as to prevail upon him? For what is there to which he is devoted, that bears any resemblance to the beautiful, so that I may turn him about and say, "Beauty is not there, but here"? Do you want me to say to him, "Beauty does not consist in being bespattered with dung, but in reason"? For is he aiming at beauty? Has he any manifestation of it? Go and talk to a pig, that he may wallow no more in mud! That is why the words of Xenocrates laid hold even of a Polemo, because he was a young man who loved beauty. For he came to Xenocrates with glimmerings of a zeal for the beautiful, but was looking for it in the wrong place.

Why, look you, nature has not made dirty even the animals which associate with man. A horse doesn't roll around in the mud, does he? or a highly bred dog? No, but the hog, and the miserable rotten geese, and worms, and spiders, the creatures farthest removed from association with human beings. Do you, then, who are a human being, wish to be not even an animal of the kind that associates with men, but rather a worm, or a spider? Will you not take a bath somewhere, some time, in any form you please? Will you not wash yourself? If you don't care to bathe in hot water, then use cold. Will you not come to us clean, that your companions may be glad? What, and do you in such a state go with us even into the temples, where it is forbidden by custom to spit or blow the nose, yourself being nothing but a mass of spit and drivel?

Well, what then? Is anyone demanding that you beautify yourself? Heaven forbid! except you beautify that which is our true nature—the reason, its judgements, its activities; but your body only so far as to keep it cleanly, only so far as to avoid giving offence. But if you hear that one ought not to wear scarlet, go bespatter your rough cloak with dung—or tear it to pieces! Yet where am I to get a rough cloak that looks well?—Man, you have water, wash it! See, here is a lovable young man, here an elderly man worthy to love and to be loved in return, to whom a person will entrust the education of his son, to whom daughters and young men will come, if it so chance—all for the purpose of having him deliver his lectures sitting on a dunghill? Good Lord, no! Every eccentricity arises from some human trait, but this trait comes close to being non-human.

When you relax your attention for a little while, do not imagine that whenever you choose you will recover it, but bear this in mind, that because of the mistake which you have made to-day, your condition must necessarily be worse as regards everything else. For, to begin with—and this is the worst of all—a habit of not paying attention is developed; and after that a habit of deferring attention; and always you grow accustomed to putting off from one time to another tranquil and appropriate living, the life in accordance with nature, and persistence in that life. Now if the postponement of such matters is profitable, it is still more profitable to abandon them altogether; but if it is not profitable, why do you not maintain your attention continuously? "To-day I want to play." What is to prevent your playing, then,—but with attention? "I want to sing." What is to prevent your singing, then,—but with attention? There is no part of the activities of your life excepted, to which attention does not extend, is there? What, will you do it worse by attention, and better by inattention? And yet what other thing, of all that go to make up our life, is done better by those who are inattentive? Does the inattentive carpenter do his work more accurately? The inattentive helmsman steer more safely? And is there any other of the lesser functions of life which is done better by inattention? Do you not realize that when once you let your mind go wandering, it is no longer within your power to recall it, to bring it to bear upon either seemliness, or self-respect, or moderation? But you do anything that comes into your head, you follow your inclinations.

What are the things, then, to which I ought to pay attention?—First, these general principles, and you ought to have them at your command, and without them neither go to sleep, nor rise up, nor drink, nor eat, nor mingle with men; I mean the following: No man is master of another's moral purpose; and: In its sphere alone are to be found one's good and evil. It follows, therefore, that no one has power either to procure me good, or to involve me in evil, but I myself alone have authority over myself in these matters. Accordingly, when these things are secure for me, what excuse have I for being disturbed about things external? What kind of tyrant inspires fear, what kind of disease, or poverty, or obstacle?—But I have not pleased So-and-so.—He is not my function, is he? He is not my judgement, is he?—No.—Why, then, do I care any longer?—But he has the reputation of being somebody.—He and those who think so highly of him will have to see to that, but I have one whom I must please, to whom I must submit, whom I must obey, that is, God, and after Him, myself. God has commended me to myself, and He has subjected to me alone my moral purpose, giving me standards for the correct use of it; and when I follow these standards, I pay heed to none of those who say anything else, I give not a thought to anyone in arguments with equivocal premisses. Why, then, in the more important matters am I annoyed by those who censure me? What is the reason for this perturbation of spirit? Nothing but the fact that in this field I lack training. For, look you, every science is entitled to despise ignorance and ignorant people, and not merely the sciences, but also the arts. Take any cobbler you please, and he laughs the multitude to scorn when it comes to his own work; take any carpenter you please.

First, therefore, we ought to have these principles at command, and to do nothing apart from them, but keep the soul intent upon this mark; we must pursue none of the things external, none of the things which are not our own, but as He that is mighty has ordained; pursuing without any hesitation the things that lie within the sphere of the moral purpose, and all other things as they have been given us. And next we must remember who we are, and what is our designation, and must endeavour to direct our actions, in the performance of our duties, to meet the possibilities of our social relations. We must remember what is the proper time for song, the proper time for play, and in whose presence; also what will be out of place; lest our companions despise us, and we despise ourselves; when to jest, and whom to laugh at, and to what end to engage in social intercourse, and with whom; and, finally, how to maintain one's proper character in such social intercourse. But whenever you deviate from any one of these principles, immediately you suffer loss, and that not from anywhere outside, but from the very nature of the activity.

What then? Is it possible to be free from fault altogether? No, that cannot be achieved, but it is possible ever to be intent upon avoiding faults. For we must be satisfied, if we succeed in escaping at least a few faults by never relaxing our attention. But now, when you say, "To-morrow I will pay attention," I would have you know that this is what you are saying: "To-day I will be shameless, tactless, abject; it will be in the power of other men to grieve me; I will get angry to-day, I will give way to envy." Just see all the evils that you are allowing yourself! But if it is good for you to pay attention to-morrow, how much better is it to-day! If it is to your interest to-morrow, it is much more so to-day, that you may be able to do the same to-morrow also, and not put it off again, this time to the day after to-morrow.

When someone gives us the impression of having talked to us frankly about his personal affairs, somehow or other we are likewise led to tell him our own secrets, and to think that is frankness! The first reason for this is because it seems unfair for a man to have heard his neighbour's affairs, and yet not to let him too have, in his turn, a share in ours. Another reason, after that, is because we feel that we shall not give the impression to these men of being frank, if we keep our own private affairs concealed. Indeed, men are frequently in the habit of saying, "I have told you everything about myself, aren't you willing: to tell me anything about yourself? Where do people act like that?" Furthermore, there is also the thought that we can safely trust the man who has already entrusted knowledge of his own affairs; for the idea occurs to us that this man would never spread abroad knowledge of our affairs, because he would be careful to guard against our too spreading abroad knowledge of his affairs. In this fashion the rash are ensnared by the soldiers in Rome. A soldier, dressed like a civilian, sits down by your side, and begins to speak ill of Caesar, and then you too, just as though you had received from him some guarantee of good faith in the fact that he began the abuse, tell likewise everything you think, and the next thing is—you are led off to prison in chains. We experience something of the same sort also in the general course of our life. For even though this particular man has safely entrusted knowledge of his own affairs to me, I do not myself in like manner tell my affairs to any chance comer; no, I listen and keep still, if, to be sure, I happen to be that kind of a person, but he goes out and tells everybody. And then, when I find out what has happened, if I myself resemble the other person, because I want to get even with him I tell about his affairs, and confound him and am myself confounded. If, however, I remember that one person does not harm another, but that it is a man's own actions which both harm and help him, this much I achieve, namely, that I do not act like the other person, but despite that I get into the state in which I am because of my own foolish talking.

Yes, but it isn't fair to hear your neigbour's secrets and then give him no share of your own in return.—Man, I did not invite your confidences, did I? You did not tell about your affairs on certain conditions, that you were to hear about mine in return, did you? If you are a babbler, and think that every person you meet is a friend, do you also want me to be like yourself? And why, if you did well to entrust your affairs to me, but it is impossible for me to do well in trusting you, do you wish me to be rash? It is just as though I had a jar that was sound, and you one with a hole in it, and you came to me and deposited your wine with me, for me to store it in my jar; and then you complained because I do not entrust to you my wine also; why, your jar has a hole in it! How, then, is equality any longer to be found? You made your deposit with a faithful man, with a respectful man, with a man who regards only his own activities as either harmful or helpful, and nothing that is external. Do you wish me to make a deposit with you—a man who has dishonoured his own moral purpose, and wants to get paltry cash, or some office, or advancement at court, even if you are going to cut the throats of your children, as Medea did? Where is there equality in that? Nay, show yourself to me as a faithful, respectful, dependable man; show that your judgements are those of a friend, show that your vessel has no hole in it, and you shall see how I will not wait for you to entrust the knowledge of your affairs to me, but I will go of myself and ask you to hear about mine. For who does not wish to use a good vessel, who despises a friendly and faithful counsellor, who would not gladly accept the man who is ready to share his difficulties, as he would share a burden with him, and to make them light for him by the very fact of his sharing in them?

Yes, but I trust you, while you do not trust me.—First, you do not trust me, either, but you are a babbler, and that is the reason why you cannot keep anything back. Why, look you, if that statement of yours is true, entrust these matters to me alone; but the fact is that whenever you see anybody at leisure you sit down beside him and say, "Brother, I have no one more kindly disposed or dearer to me than you, I ask you to listen to my affairs"; and you act this way to people whom you have not known for even a short time. And even if you do trust me, it is clear you trust me as a faithful and respectful person, not because I have already told you about my affairs. Allow me also, then, to have the same thought about you. Show me that, if a man unbosoms himself to somebody about his own affairs, he is faithful and respectful. For if that were so, I should have gone about and told my own affairs to all men, that is, if that was going to make me faithful and respectful. But that is not the case; to be faithful and respectful a man needs judgements of no casual sort. If, therefore, you see someone very much in earnest about the things that lie outside the province of his moral purpose, and subordinating his own moral purpose to them, rest assured that this man has tens of thousands of persons who subject him to compulsion and hinder him. He has no need of pitch or the wheel to get him to speak out what he knows, but a little nod from a wench, if it so happen, will upset him, a kindness from one of those who frequent Caesar's court, desire for office, or an inheritance, and thirty thousand other things of the sort. Remember, therefore, in general, that confidences require faithfulness and faithful judgements; and where can one readily find these things nowadays? Or, let someone show me the man who is so minded that he can say, "I care only for what is my own, what is not subject to hindrance, what is by nature free. This, which is the true nature of the good, I have; but let everything else be as God has granted, it makes no difference to me."