CHAPTER V

AGAINST THOSE WHO ON ACCOUNT OF SICKNESS GO AWAY HOME.

I AM sick here, said one of the pupils, and I wish to return home.-At home, I suppose, you were free from sickness. Do you not consider whether you are doing any thing here. which may be useful to the exercise of your will, that it may be corrected? For if you are doing nothing towards this end, it was to no purpose that you came. Go away. Look after your affairs at home. For if your ruling power cannot be maintained in a state conformable to nature, it is possible that your land can, that you will be able to increase your money, you will take care of your father in his old age, frequent the public place, hold magisterial office: being bad you will do badly any thing else that you have to do. But if you understand yourself, and know that you are casting away certain bad opinions and adopting others in their place, and if you have changed your state of life from things which are not within your will to things which are within your will, and if you ever say, Alas! you are not saying what you say on account of your father, or your brother, but on account of yourself, do you still allege your sickness? Do you not know that both disease and death must surprise us while we are doing something? the husbandman while he is tilling the ground, the sailor while he is on his voyage? what would you be doing when death surprises you, for you must be surprised when you are doing something? If you can be doing anything better than this when you are surprised, do it. For I wish to be surprised by disease or death when I am looking after nothing else than my own will, that I may be free from perturbation, that I may be free from hindrance, free from compulsion, and in a state of liberty. I wish to be found practising these things that I may be able to say to God, Have I in any respect transgressed thy commands? have I in any respect wrongly used the powers which thou gavest me? have I misused my perceptions or my preconceptions

P

(poλneo)? have I ever blamed thee? have I ever found fault with thy administration? I have been sick, because it was thy will, and so have others, but I was content to be sick. I have been poor because it was thy will, but I was content also. I have not filled a magisterial office, because it was not thy pleasure that I should: I have never desired it. Hast thou ever seen me for this reason discontented? have I not always approached thee with a cheerful countenance, ready to do thy commands and to obey thy signals? Is it now thy will that I should depart from the assemblage of men? I depart. I give thee all thanks that thou hast allowed me to join in this thy assemblage of men and to see thy works, and to comprehend this thy administration. May death surprise me while I am thinking of these things, while I am thus writing and reading.

But my mother will not hold my head when I am sick. Go to your mother then; for you are a fit person to have your head held when you are sick.-But at home I used to lie down on a delicious bed.--Go away to your bed: indeed you are fit to lie on such a bed even when you are in health: do not then lose what you can do there (at home).

But what does Socrates say ?2 As one man, he says, is pleased with improving his land, another with improving his horse, so I am daily pleased in observing that I am growing better. Better in what? in using nice little words? Man, do not say that. In little matters of speculation (Oewрnuara)? what are you saying?-And indeed I do not see what else there is on which philosophers employ their time. Does it seem nothing to you to have never found fault with any person, neither with God nor man? to have blamed nobody? to carry the same face always in going out and coming in? This is what Socrates knew, and yet

1 On 'preconceptions,' see i. 2. 2 Xenophon (Memorab. i. 6, 14); but Epictetus does not quote the words, he only gives the meaning. Antoninus (viii. 43) says, 'Different things delight different people. But it is my delight to keep the ruling faculty sound without turning away either from any man or from any of the things which happen to men, but looking at and receiving all with welcome eyes, and using every thing according to its value.'

he never said that he knew any thing or taught any thing.3 But if any man asked for nice little words or little speculations, he would carry him to Protagoras or to Hippias; and if any man came to ask for potherbs, he would carry him to the gardener. Who then among you has this purpose (motive to action)? for if indeed you had it, you would both be content in sickness, and in hunger, and in death. If any among you has been in love with a charming girl, he knows that I say what is true.1

CHAPTER VI.

MISCELLANEOUS.

WHEN some person asked him how it happened that since reason has been more cultivated by the men of the present age, the progress made in former times was greater. In what respect, he answered, has it been more cultivated now, and in what respect was the progress greater then? For in that in which it has now been more cultivated, in that also the progress will now be found. At present it has been cultivated for the purpose of resolving syllogisms, and progress is made. But in former times it was cultivated for the purpose of maintaining the governing faculty in a condition conformable to nature, and progress was made. Do not then mix things which are different, and do not expect, when you are labouring at one thing to make progress in another. But see if any man among us when he is intent upon this, the keeping himself in a state

3 Socrates never professed to teach virtue, but by showing himself to be a virtuous man he expected to make his companions virtuous by imitating his example. (Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2, 3.)

Upton explains this passage thus: He who loves knows what it is to endure all things for love. If any man then being captivated with love for a girl would for her sake endure dangers and even death, what would he not endure if he possessed the love of God, the Uni versal, the chief of beautiful things?'

conformable to nature and living so always, does not make progress. For you will not find such a man.

The good man is invincible, for he does not enter the contest where he is not stronger. If you (his adversary) want to have his land and all that is on it, take the land; take his slaves, take his magisterial office, take his poor body. But you will not make his desire fail in that which it seeks, nor his aversion fall into that which he would avoid. The only contest into which he enters is that about things which are within the power of his will; how then will he not be invincible?

Some person having asked him what is Common sense, Epictetus replied, As that may be called a certain Common hearing which only distinguishes vocal sounds, and that which distinguishes musical sounds is not Common, but artificial; so there are certain things which men, who are not altogether perverted, see by the common notions which all possess. Such a constitution of the mind is named Common sense.1

It is not easy to exhort weak young men; for neither is it easy to hold (soft) cheese with a hook.2 But those who have a good natural disposition, even if you try to turn them aside, cling still more to reason. Wherefore Rufus generally attempted to discourage (his pupils), and he used this method as a test of those who had a good natural disposition and those who had not. For it was his habit to say, as a stone, if you cast it upwards, will be brought down to the earth by its own nature, so the man whose mind is naturally good, the more you repel him, the more he turns towards that to which he is naturally inclined.

1 The Greek is Kolvos vous, the Communis sensus of the Romans, and our Common sense. Horace (Sat. i. 3, 65) speaks of a man who 'communi sensu plane caret,' one who has not the sense or understanding which is the common property of men.

2 This was a proverb used by Bion, as Diogenes Laertius says. The theese was new and soft, as the antients used it.

3 Rufus is mentioned i. 1, note 12.

CHAPTER VII.

TO THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FREE CITIES WHO WAS AN EPICUREAN.

2

WHEN the administrator 1 came to visit him, and the man was an Epicurean, Epictetus said, It is proper for us who are not philosophers to inquire of you who are philosophers, as those who come to a strange city inquire of the citizens and those who are acquainted with it, what is the best thing in the world, in order that we also after inquiry may go in quest of that which is best and look at it, as strangers do with the things in cities. For that there are three things which relate to man, soul, body, and things external, scarcely any man denies. It remains for you philosophers to answer what is the best. What shall we say to men? Is the flesh the best? and was it for this that Maximus 3 sailed as far as Cassiope in winter (or bad weather) with his son, and accompanied him that he might be gratified in the flesh? When the man said that it was not, and added, Far be that from him.-Is it not fit then, Epictetus said, to be actively employed about the best? It is certainly of all things the most fit. What then do we possess which is better than the flesh? The soul, he replied. And the good things of the best, are they better, or the good things of the worse? The good things of the best. And are the good things of the best within the power of the will or not within the power of the will? They are within the power of the will. Is then the pleasure of the soul a thing within the power of the will? It is, he replied.

1 The Greek is dopowrhs. The Latin word is Corrector, which occurs in inscriptions, and elsewhere.

2 The Epicureans are ironically named Philosophers, for most of them were arrogant men. See what is said of them in Cicero's De Natura Deorum, i. 8. Schweig.

3 Maximus was appointed by Trajan to conduct a campaign against the Parthians, in which he lost his life. Dion Cassius, ii. 1108, 1126, Reimarus.

Cassiope or Cassope is a city in Epirus, near the sea, and between Pandosia and Nicopolis, where Epictetus lived.