Discourses and Selected Writings

by Epictetus

  [76] ‘Well, should I not desire health, then?’

  No – nor, for that matter, anything else outside the limits of your authority; [77] and whatever you cannot produce or preserve at will lies outside your range. Don’t let your hands go near it, much less your desire. Otherwise you’ve consigned yourself to slavery and submitted your neck to the yoke, as you do whenever you prize something not yours to command, or grow attached to something like health that’s contingent on God’s will and variable, unstable, unpredictable and unreliable by nature.

  [78] ‘So my arm isn’t mine either?’

  It’s a part of you, but by nature it is dirt, subject to restraint and main force, a slave to anything physically stronger. [79] And why single the arm out? For as long as its time lasts the whole body should be treated like a loaded donkey. If a donkey is requisitioned and seized by a soldier, let it go: don’t resist or complain, or you’ll be beaten, and lose the animal all the same. [80] And if this is how you should treat the body, what treatment should be reserved for the things that serve the body? If it’s a donkey, then they are the donkey’s bridle, pack saddle, shoes, barley and feed. Let them go too, give them up with even more speed and good grace than you did the animal.

  [81] When you’re thus practised and prepared to discriminate between what belongs to you and what doesn’t, what is subject to hindrance and what is not, and are ready to regard the latter as important to you and the former as irrelevant, then is there anyone, any more, you need be frightened of?

  ‘No.’

  [82] No; because what would you fear them for? Not the things that are your own, that constitute the essence of what is good and bad, because no one has power over them but you. You can no more be blocked or deprived of them than can God.∗ [83] Perhaps you fear for the body and material possessions – things that lie outside your scope of responsibility and have no meaning for you. But what else have you been doing from the start except distinguishing between what you own and what you don’t, between what is in your power and what is not, between what is subject to hindrance and what isn’t? Why else have you been frequenting philosophers? So that you could be as lost and unhappy as you were before? [84] In that case you will never be free of fear or anxiety – or sorrow, which does you no credit either, seeing as fear for future evils turns to sorrow when they turn up.

  Nor should you feel irrational desire any more. You have a fixed and measured desire for the goods of the soul, since they are within your power and accessible. You disdain external goods, so that no opening exists for that irrational, intemperate and impulsive form of desire. [85] With such an attitude toward things, you can no longer be intimidated by anyone. What can one human being find strange or frightful in a fellow human’s appearance, conversation or companionship generally? Nothing – any more than one horse, or dog, or bee is frightening to another of its kind. People find particular things, however, frightening; and it’s when someone is able to threaten or entice us with those that the man himself becomes frightening.

  [86] How is a fortress demolished?12 Not with weapons or fire – with judgements. We can capture the physical fortress, the one in the city, but our judgements about illness, or about attractive women, remain to be dislodged from the fortress inside us, together with the tyrants whom we host every day, though their identities change over time. [87] It’s here that we need to start attacking the fortress and driving the tyrants out. Surrender the body and its members, physical faculties, property, reputation, office, honours, children, siblings – repudiate them all. [88] And if the tyrants are expelled from it, the fortress itself will not have to be destroyed, not, at least as far as I’m concerned. For it does me no harm while it stands.

  The tyrants’ bodyguards, too, can stay, for how can they affect me? Their sticks, their spears and their knives are meant for other people. [89] I, personally, was never kept from something I wanted, nor had forced upon me something I was opposed to. How did I manage it? I submitted my will to God. He wants me to be sick – well, then, so do I. He wants me to choose something. Then I choose it. He wants me to desire something, I desire it. He wants me to get something, I want the same; or he doesn’t want me to get it, and I concur. [90] Thus I even assent to death and torture. Now no one can make me, or keep me, from acting in line with my inclination, any more than they can similarly manipulate God.

  [91] This is the way circumspect travellers act. Word reaches them that the road is beset with highwaymen. A solitary traveller doesn’t like the odds, he waits in order to attach himself to an ambassador, quaestor13 or provincial governor and only travels securely once he’s part of their entourage. [92] Which is how a prudent person proceeds along life’s road. He thinks, ‘There are countless thieves and bandits, many storms, and many chances to get lost or relieved of one’s belongings. [93] How are we to evade them and come through without being attacked? [94] What party should we wait to join, with whom should we enlist, to ensure safe passage? With this man, perhaps – the person who is rich and influential? No, not much to be gained there; he’s liable to lose his position, break down and prove of no use to me at all. And suppose my travel companion himself betrays and robs me?

  [95] ‘Well, then, I’ll become a friend of Caesar – no one will try to take advantage of me as long as I am Caesar’s friend. But in the first place, what will I need to suffer or sacrifice in order to get close to him? How much money will I have to spend, on how many people? [96] And if I do manage it – well, after all, the emperor is mortal too. Add to which, if by some mischance he becomes my enemy, I suppose I will have no recourse except to flee and take refuge in the wilderness. [97] But what about illness – I can’t escape that in the wilderness. So what remains? Is no travel companion dependable, honest and above suspicion?’

  [98] By a process of logical elimination, the conclusion emerges that we will come through safely only by allying ourselves with God.

  [99] ‘What do you mean, “allying ourselves”?’

  Acting in such a way that, whatever God wants, we want too; and by inversion whatever he does not want, this we do not want either. [100] How can we do this? By paying attention to the pattern of God’s purpose and design. To start with, then, what hashe given me as mine outright, and what has hereserved to himself? He has conferred on me the functions of the will, made them mine and made them proof against resistance or obstruction. But the body, which is made of clay – how could he make that unconstrained? So he assigned it its place in the cosmic cycle – the same as other material things like my furniture, my house, my wife and children.

  [101] So don’t go up against God by hoping for what is unattainable, namely to keep forever what doesn’t really belong to you. Keep them in the spirit they were given, for as long as possible. If he gives he also takes away. So why try and resist him? It would be stupid to oppose one who is stronger than I, but more importantly, it would be wrong. [102] For how did I come by these belongings in the first place? From my father – who got them from his. Who created the sun, though, the fruits of the earth, and the seasons? Who engineered mankind’s mutual attraction, and the social order?

  [103] When everything you have has been given you, including your very existence, you proceed to turn on your benefactor and fault him for taking things back. [104] Who are you, and how did you get here? It was God brought you into the world, who showed you the light, gave you the people who support you, gave you reason and perception. And he brought you into the world as a mortal, to pass your time on earth with a little endowment of flesh, to witness his design and share for a short time in his feast and celebration. [105] So why not enjoy the feast and pageant while it’s given you to do so; then, when he ushers you out, go with thanks and reverence for what you were privileged for a time to see and hear.

  ‘No, I want to keep celebrating.’

  [106] Yes, just as initiates want the mysteries to continue, or crowds at the Olympic Games want to see more contestants. But the festival is over; leave and move
on, grateful for what you’ve seen, with your self-respect intact. Make room for other people, it’s their turn to be born, just as you were born, and once born they need a place to live, along with the other necessities of life. If the first people won’t step aside, what’s going to happen? Don’t be so greedy. Aren’t you ever satisfied? Are you determined to make the world more crowded still?

  [107] ‘All right; but I’d like my wife and children to remain with me.’

  Why? Are they yours? They belong to the one who gave them to you, the same one who created you. Don’t presume to take what isn’t yours, or oppose one who is your better.

  [108] ‘Why did he bring me into the world on these conditions?’

  If the conditions don’t suit you, leave. He doesn’t need a heckler in the audience. He wants people keen to participate in the dance and revels – people, that is, who would sooner applaud and favour the festival with their praise and acclamation. [109] As for those who are grumpy and dour, he won’t be sad to see them excluded. Even when they are invited, they don’t act as if they are on holiday, or play an appropriate part; instead they whine, they curse their fate, their luck and their company. They don’t appreciate what they have, including moral resources given to them for the opposite purpose – generosity of spirit, high-mindedness, courage and that very freedom we are now exploring.

  [110] ‘What did I get externals for, then?’

  To use.

  ‘For how long?’

  For as long as the one who gave them decides.

  ‘And if I can’t live without them?’

  Don’t get attached to them and they won’t be. Don’t tell yourself that they’re indispensable and they aren’t.

  [111] Those are the reflections you should recur to morning and night. Start with things that are least valuable and most liable to be lost – things such as a jug or a glass – and proceed to apply the same ideas to clothes, pets, livestock, property; then to yourself, your body, the body’s parts, your children, your siblings and your wife. [112] Look on every side and mentally discard them. Purify your thoughts, in case of an attachment or devotion to something that doesn’t belong to you and will hurt to have wrenched away. [113] And as you exercise daily, as you do at the gym, do not say that you are philosophizing (admittedly a pretentious claim), but that you are a slave presenting your emancipator;14 because this is genuine freedom that you cultivate.

  [114] This is the kind of freedom Diogenes got from Antisthenes, saying he could never again be enslaved by anyone. [115] Which explains his behaviour toward the pirates when they took him captive.15 Did he call any of them ‘master’? No. And I don’t mean the word; it’s not the word I’m concerned with, but the attitude behind it. [116] He yelled at them for not feeding their captives better. And when he was sold, it was not a master he looked to get, but a slave of his own.

  And how did he act toward his new owner? He at once began to criticize him, saying that he shouldn’t dress this way, shouldn’t cut his hair that way – besides advising him on how his sons should be brought up. [117] And why not? If the owner had bought a personal trainer, he would have acknowledged the trainer to be his superior, not his slave, so far as exercise is concerned. The same goes if he had bought a doctor or architect. In any field you care to name, the person with experience should command the one without. [118] So whoever is possessed of knowledge about how to live should naturally take precedence there. For who else is master of a ship except the captain? Why? Just because whoever disobeys him is punished?

  [119] ‘But so-and-so can have me whipped.’

  Not with impunity, however.

  ‘Well, so I believed too.’

  And because he does not act with impunity, he does not act with authority; no one can get away with injustice.

  [120] ‘And what punishment do you foresee for the master who puts his own slave in chains?’

  The act itself of putting him in chains – an idea even you will accept if you have any wish to honour the principle that human beings are civilized animals, not beasts. [121] A plant or animal fares poorly when it acts contrary to its nature; [122] and a human being is no different. Well, then, biting, kicking, wanton imprisonment and beheading – is that what our nature entails? No; rather, acts of kindness, cooperation and good will. And so, whether you like it or not, a person fares poorly whenever he acts like an insensitive brute.

  [123] ‘So you’re saying that Socrates did not fare poorly?’

  That’s right – the jurors and his accusers did instead.

  ‘Nor Helvidius at Rome?’

  No – but the person who killed him did.

  ‘How do you reckon that?’

  [124] Well, you don’t call a fighting cock that’s bloodied but victorious unfortunate, but rather one who lost without receiving a scratch. And you don’t yell ‘Good dog!’ at one that doesn’t hunt or work; you do it when you see one panting, labouring, exhausted from the chase. [125] What’s odd in asserting that what’s bad for anything is what runs contrary to its nature? You say it for everything else, why make humanity the sole exception?

  [126] Well, but we assert that in their nature human beings are gentle, honest and cooperative – that’s pretty ridiculous, is it not? No, that isn’t either – [127] which is why no one suffers harm even if they are flogged, jailed or beheaded. The victim may be majestic in suffering, you see, and come through a better, more fortunate person; while the one who really comes to harm, who suffers the most and the most pitifully, is the person who is transformed from human being to wolf, snake or hornet.

  [128] All right then, let us go over the points we are agreed on. The unhindered person is free, that is, the person who has ready access to things in the condition he prefers. Whoever can be thwarted, however, or coerced, frustrated or forced into a situation against their will – that person is a slave. [129] The person who renounces externals cannot be hindered, as externals are things that are not within our power either to have or not to have – or to have in the condition we might like. [130] Externals include the body and its members, as well as material goods. If you grow attached to any of them as if they were your own, you will incur the penalties prescribed for a thief.

  [131] This is the road that leads to liberty, the only road that delivers us from slavery: finally to be able to say, with meaning:

  Lead me, Zeus, lead me, Destiny,

  to the goal I was long ago assigned

  [132] What about you, philosopher? The tyrant is going to call on you to bear false witness. Tell us: do you play along or not?

  ‘Let me think it over.’

  Think it over now? What were you thinking over in school? Didn’t you rehearse which things are good, which are bad, and which are neither?

  [133] ‘I did.’

  And what did you decide?

  ‘That justice and fairness are good, vice and injustice bad.’

  Is life a good?

  ‘No.’

  Is dying bad?

  ‘No.’

  Or jail?

  ‘No.’

  And what about slanderous and dishonest talk, betraying a friend, and trying to ingratiate yourself with a tyrant – how exactly did you characterize those?

  [134] ‘As bad.’

  Well, it’s obvious that you aren’t thinking it over, and you never did think it over in the past. I mean, how much thought is really required to decide whether you should exercise your power to get the greatest goods and avoid the greatest evils? A fit subject for thought, no doubt, calling for a great deal of deliberation. Who are you kidding? No such inquiry ever took place. [135] If you really did believe that vice alone is bad and everything else indifferent, you never would have needed time to ‘think it over’ – far from it. You’d be able to make a decision immediately, using your faculty of reason as readily as sight. [136] I mean, when do you have to ‘think over’ whether black things are white, or light things heavy? No, the clear evidence of the senses is enough. So why say now that you h
ave to ‘think over’ whether indifferents are more to be avoided than evils? [137] The fact is, this is not what you really believe: you don’t think that death and jail, etc. are indifferent, you count them among the greatest evils; and you don’t regard false witness, etc. as evil, but matters of indifference.

  [138] You’ve developed this habit from the beginning. ‘Where am I? In school. And who is my audience? I’m conversing with philosophers. But now that I’ve left school, away with those pedantic and naive doctrines.’ And thus a philosopher comes to traduce a friend, [139] thus a philosopher turns informer and prostitutes his principles, thus a member of the Senate comes to betray his beliefs. Inside, his real opinion cries out to be heard – [140] no faint or timid idea, based on casual reasoning and hanging, as it were, by a thread, but a strong and vital conviction rooted in practical experience.

  [141] Be careful how you take the news – I won’t say that your child died, because you couldn’t possibly tolerate that -but that your cruet of oil fell over. Or that someone drank up all your wine. [142] Anyone finding you in despair might well say, simply, ‘Philosopher, you sang a different tune in school. Don’t try to deceive us, or pretend that you are a human being when you’re no more than a worm.’ [143] I’d like to come upon one of them having sex, just to see how much they exert themselves and what kind of sounds they make; whether they remember who they are or recall any of the sentiments which they hear and preach and read.

  [144] What has any of this to do with freedom? On the contrary, nothing except this relates to freedom, whether rich people such as you choose to believe it or not.

  [145] ‘What proof do you have of that?’

  Only you yourselves, with your abject reverence for your great master, the emperor, whose every nod and gesture you live by. You faint if he even squints at you, and toady before the old men and women of the court, saying, ‘I can’t possibly do that, I’m not allowed.’ [146] And why can’t you? Weren’t you just arguing with me that you were free? ‘But Aprulla won’t let me.’ Tell the truth, slave – don’t run away from your masters or refuse to acknowledge them, don’t dare to invoke an emancipator when proofs of your servitude are so manifest.