Delphi Complete Works of Epictetus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 86)

by Epictetus

  Why, then, are they stronger than you are? Because their rotten talk is based on judgements, but your fine talk comes merely from your lips; that’s why what you say is languid and dead, and why a man may well feel nausea when he hears your exhortations and your miserable “virtue,” which you babble to and fro. And thus the laymen get the better of you; for everywhere judgement is strong, judgement is invincible. Therefore, until these fine ideas of yours are firmly fixed within you, and you have acquired some power which will guarantee you security, my advice to you is to be cautious about joining issue with the laymen; otherwise whatever you write down in the lecture-room will melt away by day like wax in the sun. Retire, then, to some spot or other far away from the sun, so long as the ideas which you have are waxen. It is for this reason that the philosophers advise us to leave even our own countries, because old habits distract us and do not allow a beginning to be made of another custom, and we cannot bear to have men meet us and say, “Look, So-and-so is philosophizing, although he is this sort of a person or that.” Thus also physicians send away to a different region and a different climate those who are suffering from chronic disorders, and that is well. Do you also introduce different habits; fix your ideas, exercise yourselves in them. But no, you go from the class-room to a show, a gladiatorial combat, a gymnasium-colonnade, a circus; and then you come back here from these places, and you go back there again from here, and remain the same persons all the time. And so you acquire no fine habit; you pay no regard or attention to your own self; you do not observe: “How do I deal with the external impressions which befall me? In accordance with nature, or contrary to it? How shall I respond to these impressions? As I should, or as I should not? Do I declare to the things which lie outside the sphere of my moral purpose that they mean nothing to me?” Why, if you have not yet acquired this state of mind, flee from your former habits, flee from the laymen, if you would begin to be somebody some time.

  CHAPTER XVII

  Of Providence

  Whenever you find fault with Providence, only consider and you will recognize that what happens is in accordance with reason. “Yes,” you say, “but the wicked man is better off”.” In what respect? In money; for in respect to that he is superior to you, because he flatters, is shameless, lies awake nights. What is surprising in that? But look rather and see if he is better off than you are in being faithful, and considerate. For you will not find that to be the case; but where you are superior, there you will find that you are better off than he is. And so I once asked a man who was complaining about the prosperity of Philostorgus, “Would you have been willing to cohabit with Sura?” “May that day never come!” said he. Why, then, are you indignant if he gets something for what he sells? Or how can you deem him blessed who acquires what he has by means which you abhor? Or what harm does Providence do if it gives the better thing to the better men? Or is it not better to be considerate than to be rich? He agreed that it was. Why, then, are you indignant, man, when you have the better part? I would have the rest of you always remember, then, and be ready to apply the following truth: That this is a law of nature for the superior to have the better of the inferior, in the respect in which he is superior; and then you will never be indignant. “But my wife treats me badly.” Very well; if someone asks you what this amounts to, say, “My wife treats me badly.” “Nothing else, then?” Nothing. “My father doesn’t give me anything” . . . But is it necessary in your own mind to add to the preceding statement, that to receive nothing from your father is an evil, and at that to add a lie too? For this reason we ought not to cast out poverty, but only our judgement about poverty, and so we shall be serene.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  That we ought not to allow any news to disturb us

  Whenever some disturbing news is reported to you, you ought to have ready at hand the following principle: News, on any subject, never falls within the sphere of the moral purpose. Can anyone bring you word that you have been wrong in an assumption or in a desire? — By no means. — But he can bring you word that someone is dead. Very well, what is that to you? That someone is speaking ill of you. Very well, what is that to you? That your father is making certain preparations. Against whom? Surely not against your moral purpose, is it? Why, how can he? But against your paltry body, against your paltry possessions; you are safe, it is not against you. But the judge condemns you on the charge of impiety. And did not the judges similarly condemn Socrates? Surely it is no concern of yours that the judge pronounced you guilty, is it? — No. — Why, then, are you any further concerned? Your father has a certain function, and if he does not perform it, he has destroyed the father in him, the man who loves his offspring, the man of gentleness within him. Do not seek to make him lose anything else on this account. For it never happens that a man goes wrong in one thing, but is injured in another. Again, it is your function to defend yourself firmly, respectfully, without passion. Otherwise, you have destroyed within you the son, the respectful man, the man of honour. What then? Is the judge secure? No; but he too runs just as great a risk. Why, then, are you afraid of what decision he is going to render? What have you to do with another man’s evil? Your own evil is to make a bad defence; only guard against that, but just as being condemned or not being condemned is another’s function, so it is another’s evil. “So-and-so threatens you.” Me? No. “He blames you.” He himself will attend to how he is performing his own proper function. “He is on the point of condemning you unjustly.” Poor devil!

  CHAPTER XIX

  What is the position of the layman, and what that of the philosopher?

  The first difference between a layman and a philosopher: The one says, “Woe is me because of my child, my brother, woe because of my father”; and the other, if he can ever be compelled to say, “Woe is me,” adds, after a pause, “because of myself.” For nothing outside the sphere of the moral purpose can hamper or injure the moral purpose; it alone can hamper or injure itself. If, then, we too tend in this latter direction so that, whenever we go amiss, we blame ourselves, and bear in mind that nothing but judgement is responsible for the disturbance of our peace of mind and our inconstancy, I swear to you by all the gods that we have been making progress. But as it is, we have taken a different course from the start. Even while we were still children, our nurse, if ever we bumped into something, when we were going along with our mouths open, did not scold us, but used to beat the stone. Why, what did the stone do? Ought it to have moved out of the road because of your childish folly? And again, if we when children don’t find something to eat after our bath, our attendant never checks our appetite, but he cudgels the cook. Man, we didn’t make you the cook’s attendant, did we? but our child’s. Correct him, help him. So, even when we have grown up, we look like children. For it is being a child to be unmusical in things musical, to he unlettered in things literary, to be uneducated in life.

  CHAPTER XX

  That it is possible to derive advantage from everything external

  In the case of our intellectual impressions practically all men have agreed that the good and the evil are in ourselves, and not in externals. Nobody calls the statement that it is day, good, or that it is night, bad, and the greatest of evils, the statement that three is four. But what? They call knowledge good, and error evil; so that even in regard to what is false there arises a good, that is, the knowledge that the false is false. So it ought to be, then, also with our life. Is health a good, and illness an evil? No, man. What then? To be well for a good end is good, to be well for an evil end is evil. — So that it is possible to derive advantage even from illness, you mean? — Why, I call God to witness, isn’t it possible to derive advantage from death? Why, isn’t it possible from lameness? Do you think that Menoeceus derived but little good when he died? — May the one who says anything like that derive the same sort of good that he did! — Ho, there, man, did he not maintain the patriot that he was, the high-minded man, the man of fidelity, the man of honour? And had he lived on, would he not ha
ve lost all these? Would he not have won the very opposite? Would he not have acquired the character of the coward, the ignoble man, the disloyal, the lover of his own life? Come now, do you think that Menoeceus derived but little good by his death? Oh, no! But the father of Admetus derived great good from living so ignobly and wretchedly, did he? Why, didn’t he die later? Make an end, I adjure you by the gods, of admiring material things, make an end of turning yourselves into slaves, in the first place, of things, and then, in the second place, on their account, slaves also of the men who are able to secure or to take away these things.

  Is it possible, then, to derive advantage from these things? — Yes, from everything. — Even from the man who reviles me? — And what good does his wrestling-companion do the athlete? The very greatest. So also my reviler becomes one who prepares me for my contest; he exercises my patience, my dispassionateness, my gentleness. You say: No. But the man who lays hold of my neck and gets my loins and my shoulders into proper shape helps me, and the rubber does well when he says, “Lift the pestle with both hands,” and the heavier it is, the more good I get out of doing so; whereas, if a man trains me to be dispassionate, does he do me no good? Your attitude means that you do not know how to derive advantage from men. Is your neighbour bad? Yes, for himself; but for me he is good; he exercises my good disposition, my fair-mindedness. Is your father bad? Yes, for himself; but for me he is good. This is the magic wand of Hermes. “Touch what you will,” the saying goes, “and it will turn into gold.” Nay, but bring whatever you will and I will turn it into a good. Bring disease, bring death, bring poverty, reviling, peril of life in court; all these things will become helpful at a touch from the magic wand of Hermes. “What will you make of death?” Why, what else but make it your glory, or an opportunity for you to show in deed thereby what sort of person a man is who follows the will of nature. “What will you make of disease?” I will show its character, I will shine in it, I will be firm, I will be serene, I will not fawn upon my physician, I will not pray for death. What else do you still seek? Everything that you give I will turn into something blessed, productive of happiness, august, enviable.

  Not so you; but, “Watch out that you don’t get ill; it’s bad.” Just as if someone said, “Watch out that you never get the impression that three are four; it’s bad.” Man, how do you mean “bad”? If I get the right idea of it, how is it going to hurt me any more? Will it not rather even do me good? If, then, I get the right idea about poverty, or disease, or not holding office, am I not satisfied? Will they not be helpful to me? How, then, would you have me seek any longer amongst externals for things evil and things good?

  But what? These things go thus far, but nobody takes them home with him; nay, as soon as we leave here, there is war on with our slave attendant, our neighbours, those that mock, and those that laugh at us. Blessed be Lesbius, because he convicts me every day of knowing nothing!

  CHAPTER XXI

  To those who enter light-heartedly upon the profession of lecturing

  Those who have learned the principles and nothing else are eager to throw them up immediately, just as persons with a weak stomach throw up their food. First digest your principles, and then you will surely not throw them up this way. Otherwise they are mere vomit, foul stuff and unfit to eat. But after you have digested these principles, show us some change in your governing principle that is due to them; as the athletes show their shoulders as the results of their exercising and eating, and as those who have mastered the arts can show the results of their learning. The builder does not come forward and say, “Listen to me deliver a discourse about the art of building”; but he takes a contract for a house, builds it, and thereby proves that he possesses the art. Do something of the same sort yourself too; eat as a man, drink as a man, adorn yourself, marry, get children, be active as a citizen; endure revilings, bear with an unreasonable brother, father, son, neighbour, fellow-traveller. Show us that you can do these things, for us to see that in all truth you have learned something of the philosophers. No, but “Come and listen to me deliver my comments,” you say. Go to! Look for people on whom to throw up! “Yes, but I will set forth to you the doctrines of Chrysippus as no one else can; his language I will analyse so as to make it perfectly clear; possibly I will throw in a bit of the vivacity of Antipater and Archedemus.”

  And then it’s for this, is it, that the young men are to leave their fatherlands and their own parents, — to come and listen to you interpreting trifling phrases? Ought they not to be, when they return home, forbearing, ready to help one another, tranquil, with a mind at peace, possessed of some such provision for the journey of life, that, starting out with it, they will be able to bear well whatever happens, and to derive honour from it? And where did you get the ability to impart to them these things which you do not possess yourself? Why, from the first did you ever do anything but wear yourself out over the question how solutions can be ibund for syllogisms, for the arguments that involve equivocal premisses, and those which derive syllogisms by the process of interrogation? “But So-and-so lectures; why shouldn’t I too?” Slave, these things are not done recklessly, nor at random, but one ought to be of a certain age, and lead a certain kind of life, and have God as his guide. You say: No. But no man sails out of a harbour without first sacrificing to the gods and invoking their aid, nor do men sow hit-or-miss, but only after first calling upon Demeter; and yet will a man, if he has laid his hand to so great a task as this without the help of the gods, be secure in so doing, and will those who come to him be fortunate in so coming? What else are you doing, man, but vulgarizing the Mysteries, and saying, “There is a chapel at Eleusis; see, there is one here too. There is a hierophant there; I too will make a hierophant. There is a herald there; I too will appoint a herald. There is a torch-bearer there; I too will have a torch-bearer. There are torches there; and here too. The words said are the same; and what is the difference between what is done here and what is done there?”? Most impious man, is there no difference? Are the same acts helpful, if they are performed at the wrong place and at the wrong time? Nay, but a man ought to come also with a sacrifice, and with prayers, and after a preliminary purification, and with his mind predisposed to the idea that he will be approaching holy rites, and holy rites of great antiquity. Only thus do the Mysteries become helpful, only thus do we arrive at the impression that all these things were established by men of old time for the purpose of education and for the amendment of our life. But you are publishing the Mysteries abroad and vulgarizing them, out of time, out of place, without sacrifices, without purification; you do not have the dress which the hierophant ought to wear, you do not have the proper head of hair, nor head-band, nor voice, nor age; you have not kept yourself pure as he has, but you have picked up only the words which he utters, and recite them. Have the words a sacred force all by themselves?

  One ought to approach these matters in a different fashion; the affair is momentous, it is full of mystery, not a chance gift, nor given to all comers. Nay, it may be that not even wisdom is all that is needed for the care of the young; one ought also to have a certain readiness and special fitness for this task, by Zeus, and a particular physique, and above all the counsel of God advising him to occupy this office, as God counselled Socrates to take the office of examining and confuting men, Diogenes the office of rebuking men in a kingly manner, and Zeno that of instructing men and laying down doctrines. But you are opening up a doctor’s office although you possess no equipment other than drugs, but when or how these drugs are applied you neither know nor have ever taken the trouble to learn. “See,” you say, “that man has these eye-salves, and so have I.” Have you, then, at all the faculty of using them aright? Do you know at all when and how and for whom they will do good? Why, then, do you play at hazard in matters of the utmost moment, why do you take things lightly, why do you put your hand to a task that is altogether inappropriate for you? Leave it to those who are able to do it, and do it with distinction. Do not yourself by yo
ur own actions join the number of those who bring disgrace upon philosophy, and do not become one of those who disparage the profession. If, however, you find the principles of philosophy entertaining, sit down and turn them over in your mind all by yourself, but don’t ever call yourself a philosopher, and don’t allow anyone else to say it of you, but say, rather, “He is mistaken; for my desire is no different from what it used to be, nor my choice, nor my assent, nor, in a word, have I changed at all, in my use of external impressions, from my former state.” Think this and say this about yourself, if you wish to think aright. If not, keep on playing at hazard and doing what you are doing now; for it becomes you.

  CHAPTER XXII

  On the calling of a Cynic

  When one of his acquaintances, who seemed to have an inclination to take up the calling of a Cynic, asked him what sort of a man the Cynic ought to be, and what was the fundamental conception of his calling, Epictetus said: We will consider it at leisure; but I can tell you this much, that the man who lays his hand to so threat a matter as this without God, is hateful to Him, and his wish means nothing else than disgracing himself in public. For in a well-ordered house no one comes along and says to himself, “I ought to be manager of this house”; or if he does, the lord of the mansion, when he turns around and sees the fellow giving orders in a high and mighty fashion, drags him out and gives him a dressing down. So it goes also in this great city, the world; for here also there is a Lord of the Mansion who assigns each and every thing its place. “You are the sun; you have the power, as you make the circuit of the heavens, to produce the year and the seasons, to give increase and nourishment to the fruits, to stir and to calm the winds, and to give warmth in moderation to the bodies of men; arise, make the circuit of the heavens, and so set in motion all things from the greatest to the least. You are a calf; when a lion appears, do what is expected of you; otherwise you will smart for it. You are a bull; come on and fight, for this is expected of you, it befits you, and you are able to do it. You are able to lead the host against Ilium; be Agamemnon. You are able to fight a duel with Hector; be Achilles.” But if Thersites came along and claimed command, either he would not have got it, or if he had, he would have disgraced himself in the presence of a multitude of witnesses.