Discourses and Selected Writings

by Epictetus

  [14] But why refer to conflict between different people, and bring up that? Just take yourself – if you are good at applying your preconceptions, why are you internally conflicted and confused? [15] We will ignore for now the second field of study, to do with impulse and the art of applying impulse to appropriate acts.48 Let’s skip the third field too, concerning assent – [16] I’ll give you a pass on both. Let’s stay with the first; it furnishes almost tangible proof that you are not good at applying preconceptions. [17] If your present desires are realistic – realistic for you personally – why are you frustrated and unhappy? If you are not trying to escape the inevitable, then why do you continue to meet with accident and misfortune? Why do you get what you do not want, and don’t get what you do? [18] This is categorical proof of inner confusion and unhappiness. I want something to happen, and it fails to happen, or I don’t want something to happen, and it does – and can any creature be more miserable than I?

  [19] It is just this that Medea could not tolerate, and which book ii drove her to slay her children – a magnificent act from one point of view, it shows she had the right idea of what it means to have one’s desires dashed.49 [20] ‘I’ll have my revenge on the man who hurt and humiliated me. But what good are the usual types of punishment? How should it happen then? I will kill my children. But I will punish myself in the process… [21] Well – what of it?’

  Behold the ruin of a noble soul. She did not know, in effect, that obtaining our desire is not done by looking outside ourselves for help, or by changing or rearranging circumstance. [22] Don’t want your husband, and nothing that you want will fail to come. Don’t want to stay with him at any price, don’t wish to stay in Corinth – in short, don’t want anything except what God wants, and no one will stop or stay you, any more than they can stand in the way of God. [23] When you have him as your leader, and conform your will and desire to his, what fear of failure can you have?

  [24] Attach your desire to wealth and your aversion to poverty: you won’t get the former, but you could well end up with the latter. You will fare no better putting your faith in health, status, exile – any external you care to name. [25] Hand your will over to Zeus and the gods, let them administer it; in their keeping, your happiness is assured.

  [26] But please stop representing yourself as a philosopher, you affected fool! You still experience envy, pity, jealousy and fear, and hardly a day passes that you don’t whine to the gods about your life. [27] Some philosopher! You learned syllogisms and changing arguments. Good, now try unlearning them, if you can, and make a fresh start. Wake up to the fact that so far you have barely touched the subject. [28] Begin to fashion your future in such a way that nothing happens contrary to your desire and nothing that you desire fails to materialize.

  [29] Give me one student with that ambition when he presents himself at school, one committed to that kind of training, one who says, ‘To me those other things are worthless; it’s enough if one day I can live without sorrow and frustration, if I can lift up my head like a free person in the face of circumstance and look to heaven as a friend of God, without fear of anything that might happen.’ [30] Show me such a person, so I can say, ‘Come, child, take what you deserve. You were born to honour philosophy with your patronage – these halls, these books, these lectures, they all belong to you.’ [31] Then, after he’s tackled and mastered this field of study, I will wait until he returns and says, ‘I want to be free from fear and emotion, but at the same time I want to be a concerned citizen and philosopher, and attentive to my other duties, toward God, my parents, my siblings, my country, and my guests.’ [32] Welcome to the second field of study, this is yours as well. [33] ‘But I’ve already mastered the second field of study; I want to be faultless and unshakeable, not just when I’m awake, but even when I’m sleeping, even when I’m drunk or delirious.’50 You are a god, my child, you are headed for the stars.

  [34] But no, what I get instead is, ‘I want to read Chrysippus’ treatise on the Liar.’51 Is that your plan? Then go and jump in the lake and take your ridiculous plan with you. What good could come of it? Your unhappiness will persist the whole time you are reading it, and your anxiety will not abate a bit during a reading of the thing before an audience.

  [35] Here’s how you behave: ‘Shall I read to you, brother, then you to me?’

  ‘Man, it’s marvellous the way you write.’

  ‘Well, it’s uncanny how you capture Xenophon’s style.’

  [36] ‘And you have caught Plato’s manner.’

  ‘And you Antisthenes’!’52

  Then, having indulged each other in your fatuous fancies, you go back to your former habits: your desires and aversions are as they were, your impulses, designs and plans remain unchanged, you pray and care for the same old things. [37] And so far from looking for someone to bring you to your senses, you are distinctly offended by any advice or correction. You say, ‘He’s nothing but a mean old man; when I left him he showed no sign of sorrow. He didn’t say, “My, it’s a dangerous journey you’re going on, child, I’ll light a candle if you come through safely.” [38] That’s what he would say if the man had any compassion.’ And what a blessing it would be for a person like you to come through safely, calling for many candles to book ii be lit! Really, you deserve to be immortal and impervious to misfortune.

  [39] As I said, then, this presumption that you possess knowledge of any use has to be dropped before you approach philosophy – just as if we were enrolling in a school of music or mathematics. [40] Otherwise we won’t come close to making progress – not even if we work our way through the collected works of Chrysippus, with those of Antipater53 and Archedemus thrown in for good measure.

  II 18 How to fight against impressions

  [1] Every habit and faculty is formed or strengthened by the corresponding act – walking makes you walk better, running makes you a better runner. [2] If you want to be literate, read, if you want to be a painter, paint. Go a month without reading, occupied with something else, and you’ll see what the result is. [3] And if you’re laid up a mere ten days, when you get up and try to walk any distance you’ll find your legs barely able to support you. [4] So if you like doing something, do it regularly; if you don’t like doing something, make a habit of doing something different.

  [5] The same goes for moral inclinations. When you get angry, you should know that you aren’t guilty of an isolated lapse, you’ve encouraged a trend and thrown fuel on the fire. [6] When you can’t resist sex with someone, don’t think of it as a temporary setback; you’ve fed your weakness and made it harder to uproot. [7] It is inevitable that continuous behaviour of any one kind is going to instil new habits and tendencies, while steadily confirming old ones.

  [8] And as philosophers point out, this, of course, is how moral infirmities develop also. If you are seized by greed on some occasion, reason can be invoked to alert you to the danger. Then the passion will abate and the mind will be restored to its former balance. [9] But if you don’t bring anything by way of relief, the mind will not return to normal; when it’s inflamed by an impression, it will yield to passion more quickly the next time. Keep it up, and the mind grows inured to vice; eventually the love of money is entrenched. [10] When someone contracts smallpox, if he lives he is not the same as he was before the illness, unless the recovery is complete. [11] It’s the same with the passions of the soul; they leave certain scars and blisters behind. And unless you remove them well, the next time you’re flogged on the same spot those blisters will be open wounds.

  [12] So if you don’t want to be cantankerous, don’t feed your temper, or multiply incidents of anger. Suppress the first impulse to be angry, then begin to count the days on which you don’t get mad. [13] ‘I used to be angry every day, then only every other day, then every third…’ If you resist it a whole month, offer God a sacrifice, because the vice begins to weaken from day one, until it is wiped out altogether. [14] ‘I didn’t lose my temper this day, or the next, and not for
two, then three months in succession.’ If you can say that, you are now in excellent health, believe me.

  [15] Today, when I saw a good-looking girl, I didn’t say to myself, ‘It would be nice to sleep with her,’ or ‘Her husband’s one lucky guy.’ Because that’s tantamount to saying, ‘Anyone would be lucky to sleep with her, even in adultery.’ [16] Nor do I fantasize about what comes next – the woman undressing in front of me, then joining me in bed. [17] I pat myself on the back and say, ‘Well done, Epictetus, you’ve solved a devilishly difficult problem, much harder than the Master Argument itself.’54 [18] But if the woman is willing, if she calls to me or gives me a nod, if she takes me by the arm, and begins to rub up against me – and still I overcome my lust – well, that’s a test far harder than the Liar paradox, it even beats the Quiescent.55 That’s the sort of thing to boast about – not propounding the Master.

  [19] So how does one get there? Start by wanting to please yourself, for a change, and appear worthy in the eyes of God. Desire to become pure, and, once pure, you will be at ease with yourself, and comfortable in the company of God. [20] Then, as Plato said, when a dangerous impression confronts you, go and expiate the gods with sacrifice, go to the temples to supplicate the gods for protection. [21] It will even do to socialize with men of good character, in order to model your life on theirs, whether you choose someone living or someone from the past.56

  [22] Consider Socrates; look how he lay next to Alcibiades and merely teased him about his youthful beauty.57 Think how proud he must have been to have won that victory over himself – an Olympic-sized victory, and one worthy of a successor to Heracles;58 so, really, he’s the one who deserves to be addressed, ‘Greetings, hero’ – not these grimy boxers and pancratiasts59 or gladiators, their current counterparts.

  [23] With these thoughts to defend you, you should triumph over any impression and not be dragged away. [24] Don’t let the force of the impression when first it hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it, ‘Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.’ Next, don’t let it pull you in by picturing to yourself the pleasures that await you. [25] Otherwise it will lead you by the nose wherever it wants. Oppose it with some good and honourable thought, and put the dirty one to rout. [26] Practise this regularly, and you’ll see what shoulders, what muscles, what stamina you acquire. Today people care only for academic discussion, nothing beyond that. [27] But I’m presenting to you the real athlete, namely the one training to face off against the most formidable of impressions.

  Steady now, poor man, don’t let impressions sweep you off your feet. [28] It’s a great battle, and God’s work. It’s a fight for autonomy, freedom, happiness and peace. [29] Remember God, ask him to be your helper and protector, as sailors pray to the Dioscuri60 for help in a storm. Is there any storm greater than the storm of forceful impressions that can put reason to flight? What is a real storm except just another impression? [30] Put away the fear of death, and however much thunder and lightning you have to face, you will find the mind capable of remaining calm and composed regardless.

  [31] If you lose the struggle once, but insist that next time it will be different, then repeat the same routine – be sure that in the end you will be in so sad and weakened a condition that you won’t even realize your mistakes, you’ll begin to rationalize your misbehaviour. [32] You will be living testimony to Hesiod’s verse:

  ‘Make a bad beginning and you’ll contend with troubles ever after.’61

  II 19 To those who tackle philosophy just to be

  able to talk about it

  [1] The Master Argument62 is evidently based on the mutual incompatibility of the following three principles: 1) everything past that is true is necessary; 2) an impossibility cannot follow a possibility; 3) something which is neither true nor ever will be true is possible.

  Diodorus saw the inconsistency; his solution was to concede the truth of the first pair of propositions, but maintain (in defiance of the third) that nothing is possible which neither is nor ever will be true. [2] He was followed by someone who maintained the truth of the other two: 3) that something is possible which neither is true now nor ever will be, and 2) that an impossibility does not follow a possibility – but not 1) that everything past that is true is necessary. Cleanthes’ school, in fact, seems to have upheld the latter view, and Antipater63 mainly agreed with him. [3] And some defend the other set of principles: 3) that something is possible which neither is true nor ever will be, and 1) everything past that is true is necessary – but, in opposition to 2), assert that an impossibility can follow a possibility. [4] To retain all three, though, is impossible because they are mutually incompatible.

  [5] Then, if someone asks me which of these propositions I approve myself, I will answer him, ‘I don’t know, but I can report that Diodorus held this opinion about them, the followers of Panthoides, I believe, and those of Cleanthes, held that one, and the school of Chrysippus advocated the third.’

  [6] ‘Yes, but what about you?’

  ‘Look, I wasn’t born for this – to test my impressions, compare what people say and form my own opinion on the subject.’64

  Which is to say, I’m no different from a student of literature.

  [7] ‘Who was Hector’s father?’

  ‘Priam.’

  ‘Who were his brothers?’

  ‘Alexander and Deiphobus.’

  ‘And who was their mother?’

  ‘Hecuba. Or so I’ve read.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Homer. But I believe Hellanicus,65 too, has written on these very same questions, and there may be one or two others…’

  [8] It’s the same with me and the Master Argument; what can I add to what’s already been said? If I am vain, however, and want to impress people, especially at a party, I can catalogue exactly who said what: [9] ‘… And Chrysippus has written splendidly on the subject in the first chapter of his book On Possibles. Cleanthes devoted a whole treatise to the topic, Archedemus too. And then there are Antipater’s contributions, not only in his book On Possibles, but in his special monograph on the Master Argument. [10] Haven’t you read it?’

  ‘No, I have not.’

  ‘Oh, read it by all means!’

  And what will he gain by reading it? He’ll just be harder to shut up than he is already. I mean, what did you gain by reading it? What opinion did you formulate on the subject? Of course, you will tell us all about Helen and Priam and the island of Calypso – things which neither exist nor ever will.66

  [11] In literature, too, it is no great achievement to memorize what you have read while not formulating an opinion of your own. In ethics, we do the same thing, only it’s much worse.

  [12] ‘Tell me what’s good and bad.’

  ‘Listen: “The wind carrying me from Troy brought me to the Ciconians.”67 [13] Everything can be classified as good, bad or indifferent. The virtues, and the things that share in them, are good. The vices and what shares in them are bad. Everything in between is indifferent, like wealth, health, life, death and poverty.’

  [14] ‘What’s your source for that?’

  ‘Hellanicus says it in his book on Egypt.’

  I mean, how is this any different from saying, ‘Diogenes68 – or Chrysippus, or Cleanthes – says so in their Ethics’? Have you evaluated what they have said, or made up your own mind about it? [15] Let’s see how you handle a storm while on board ship. Do you still maintain these distinctions when the sails are flapping madly and you’re crying out to heaven? Suppose some joker sidles up and says, ‘Please be so kind as to remind me of what you were saying the other day: A shipwreck is nothing bad – that was it, wasn’t it? – and doesn’t have anything bad about it?’ [16] Aren’t you inclined to grab an oar and brain the man with it? ‘Why are you tormenting me, pal? We’re about to die and you come along offering nothing but jokes and ridicule?’

  [17] If the emperor summons you to answer a charge, do you remem
ber these same distinctions when you show up pale and shaking? Suppose someone comes up to you and says, ‘What are you afraid of, friend? What significance does this accusation have for you? After all, it isn’t virtue or vice that Caesar hands out in his chamber.’ [18] ‘Why do you have to add to my troubles with your sarcasm?’ ‘Tell me, anyway, philosopher, what are you scared of? You’re only in danger of death, prison, torture, exile or disgrace – that’s all. Are any of these a vice, or is there anything vicious about them? What did you personally used to call such things?’ [19] ‘Why are you pestering me, pal? My own evils are enough for me.’

  ‘Evils’ is right: you have enough evils in the way of hypocrisy, cowardice and the moral pretension you affected while sitting in the classroom, dressed up in borrowed colours. Why did you used to call yourself a Stoic?

  [20] Just pay attention to the way you behave and you will discover the school of philosophy you really belong to. You’ll discover that the majority of you are Epicureans, a few Peripatetics69 – but these grown soft. [21] After all, where should we look to prove that, in actual fact, you regard virtue as equal to, or even more important than, everything else? Show me a Stoic, if you know of one.

  [22] Where or how? Of course, you can produce thousands who talk the Stoic talk; they are the same ones who are no less conversant in Epicurean principles, and can give you an expert account of Peripatetic doctrine too. [23] Well, who is a Stoic, then? We call a statue Phidian if it is characterized by Phidias’ style. So show me someone characterized by the beliefs that he espouses. [24] Show me someone untroubled with disturbing thoughts about illness, danger, death, exile or loss of reputation. By all the gods, I want to see a Stoic!

  [25] OK, you may not know of one perfectly formed; at least show me someone in the way of becoming one – somebody pointed in the right direction. Do me this one favour; don’t grudge an old man the sight of something he has yet to see. [26] Do you plan to show us the Zeus of Phidias, or his Athena -objects made of ivory and gold? It’s a living soul I want one of you to show me, the soul of a person willing to work with, and never criticize, either God or a fellow human being. One who will never fail, or have experiences he does not want; who will never give in to anger, jealousy or the desire to dominate others.