<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLI </h2>
<p>What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others. You shun
slavery—beware of enslaving others! If you can endure to do that,
one would think you had been once upon a time a slave yourself. For Vice
has nothing in common with virtue, nor Freedom with slavery.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLII </h2>
<p>Has a man been raised to tribuneship? Every one that he meets
congratulates him. One kisses him on the eyes, another on the neck, while
the slaves kiss his hands. He goes home to find torches burning; he
ascends to the Capitol to sacrifice.—Who ever sacrificed for having
had right desires; for having conceived such inclinations as Nature would
have him? In truth we thank the Gods for that wherein we place our
happiness.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLIII </h2>
<p>A man was talking to me to-day about the priesthood of Augustus. I said to
him, "Let the thing go, my good Sir; you will spend a good deal to no
purpose."</p>
<p>"Well, but my name will be inserted in all documents and contracts."</p>
<p>"Will you be standing there to tell those that read them, That is my name
written there? And even if you could now be there in every case, what will
you do when you are dead?"</p>
<p>"At all events my name will remain."</p>
<p>"Inscribe it on a stone and it will remain just as well. And think, beyond
Nicopolis what memory of you will there be?"</p>
<p>"But I shall have a golden wreath to wear."</p>
<p>"If you must have a wreath, get a wreath of roses and put it on; you will
look more elegant!"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLIV </h2>
<p>Above all, remember that the door stands open. Be not more fearful than
children; but as they, when they weary of the game, cry, "I will play no
more," even so, when thou art in the like case, cry, "I will play no more"
and depart. But if thou stayest, make no lamentation.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLV </h2>
<p>Is there smoke in the room? If it be slight, I remain; if grievous, I quit
it. For you must remember this and hold it fast, that the door stands
open.</p>
<p>"You shall not dwell at Nicopolis!"</p>
<p>Well and good.</p>
<p>"Nor at Athens."</p>
<p>Then I will not dwell at Athens either.</p>
<p>"Nor at Rome."</p>
<p>Nor at Rome either.</p>
<p>"You shall dwell in Gyara!"</p>
<p>Well: but to dwell in Gyara seems to me like a grievous smoke; I depart to
a place where none can forbid me to dwell: that habitation is open unto
all! As for the last garment of all, that is the poor body; beyond that,
none can do aught unto me. This why Demetrius said to Nero: "You threaten
me with death; it is Nature who threatens you!"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLVI </h2>
<p>The beginning of philosophy is to know the condition of one's own mind. If
a man recognises that this is in a weakly state, he will not then want to
apply it to questions of the greatest moment. As it is, men who are not
fit to swallow even a morsel, buy whole treatises and try to devour them.
Accordingly they either vomit them up again, or suffer from indigestion,
whence come gripings, fluxions, and fevers. Whereas they should have
stopped to consider their capacity.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLVII </h2>
<p>In theory it is easy to convince an ignorant person: in actual life, men
not only object to offer themselves to be convinced, but hate the man who
has convinced them. Whereas Socrates used to say that we should never lead
a life not subjected to examination.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLVIII </h2>
<p>This is the reason why Socrates, when reminded that he should prepare for
his trial, answered: "Thinkest thou not that I have been preparing for it
all my life?"</p>
<p>"In what way?"</p>
<p>"I have maintained that which in me lay!"</p>
<p>"How so?"</p>
<p>"I have never, secretly or openly, done a wrong unto any."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0049" id="link2H_4_0049"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XLIX </h2>
<p>In what character dost thou now come forward?</p>
<p>As a witness summoned by God. "Come thou," saith God, "and testify for me,
for thou art worthy of being brought forward as a witness by Me. Is aught
that is outside thy will either good or bad? Do I hurt any man? Have I
placed the good of each in the power of any other than himself? What
witness dost thou bear to God?"</p>
<p>"I am in evil state, Master, I am undone! None careth for me, none giveth
me aught: all men blame, all speak evil of me."</p>
<p>Is this the witness thou wilt bear, and do dishonour to the calling
wherewith He hath called thee, because He hath done thee so great honour,
and deemed thee worthy of being summoned to bear witness in so great a
cause?</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0050" id="link2H_4_0050"></SPAN></p>
<h2> L </h2>
<p>Wouldst thou have men speak good of thee? speak good of them. And when
thou hast learned to speak good of them, try to do good unto them, and
thus thou wilt reap in return their speaking good of thee.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0051" id="link2H_4_0051"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LI </h2>
<p>When thou goest in to any of the great, remember that Another from above
sees what is passing, and that thou shouldst please Him rather than man.
He therefore asks thee:—</p>
<p>"In the Schools, what didst thou call exile, imprisonment, bonds, death
and shame?"</p>
<p>"I called them things indifferent."</p>
<p>"What then dost thou call them now? Are they at all changed?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"Is it then thou that art changed?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"Say then, what are things indifferent?"</p>
<p>"Things that are not in our power."</p>
<p>"Say then, what follows?"</p>
<p>"That things which are not in our power are nothing to me."</p>
<p>"Say also what things you hold to be good."</p>
<p>"A will such as it ought to be, and a right use of the things of sense."</p>
<p>"And what is the end?"</p>
<p>"To follow Thee!"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LII </h2>
<p>"That Socrates should ever have been so treated by the Athenians!"</p>
<p>Slave! why say "Socrates"? Speak of the thing as it is: That ever then the
poor body of Socrates should have been dragged away and haled by main
force to prison! That ever hemlock should have been given to the body of
Socrates; that that should have breathed its life away!—Do you
marvel at this? Do you hold this unjust? Is it for this that you accuse
God? Had Socrates no compensation for this? Where then for him was the
ideal Good? Whom shall we hearken to, you or him? And what says he?</p>
<p>"Anytus and Melitus may put me to death: to injure me is beyond their
power."</p>
<p>And again:—</p>
<p>"If such be the will of God, so let it be."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LIII </h2>
<p>Nay, young man, for heaven's sake; but once thou hast heard these words,
go home and say to thyself:—"It is not Epictetus that has told me
these things: how indeed should he? No, it is some gracious God through
him. Else it would never have entered his head to tell me them—he
that is not used to speak to any one thus. Well, then, let us not lie
under the wrath of God, but be obedient unto Him."—-Nay, indeed; but
if a raven by its croaking bears thee any sign, it is not the raven but
God that sends the sign through the raven; and if He signifies anything to
thee through human voice, will He not cause the man to say these words to
thee, that thou mayest know the power of the Divine—how He sends a
sign to some in one way and to others in another, and on the greatest and
highest matters of all signifies His will through the noblest messenger?</p>
<p>What else does the poet mean:—</p>
<p>I spake unto him erst Myself, and sent<br/>
Hermes the shining One, to check and warn him,<br/>
The husband not to slay, nor woo the wife!<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0054" id="link2H_4_0054"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LIV </h2>
<p>In the same way my friend Heraclitus, who had a trifling suit about a
petty farm at Rhodes, first showed the judges that his cause was just, and
then at the finish cried, "I will not entreat you: nor do I care what
sentence you pass. It is you who are on your trial, not I!"—And so
he ended the case.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0055" id="link2H_4_0055"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LV </h2>
<p>As for us, we behave like a herd of deer. When they flee from the
huntsman's feathers in affright, which way do they turn? What haven of
safety do they make for? Why, they rush upon the nets! And thus they
perish by confounding what they should fear with that wherein no danger
lies. . . . Not death or pain is to be feared, but the fear of death or
pain. Well said the poet therefore:—</p>
<p>Death has no terror; only a Death of shame!</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0056" id="link2H_4_0056"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LVI </h2>
<p>How is it then that certain external things are said to be natural, and
other contrary to Nature?</p>
<p>Why, just as it might be said if we stood alone and apart from others. A
foot, for instance, I will allow it is natural should be clean. But if you
take it as a foot, and as a thing which does not stand by itself, it will
beseem it (if need be) to walk in the mud, to tread on thorns, and
sometimes even to be cut off, for the benefit of the whole body; else it
is no longer a foot. In some such way we should conceive of ourselves
also. What art thou?—A man.—Looked at as standing by thyself
and separate, it is natural for thee in health and wealth long to live.
But looked at as a Man, and only as a part of a Whole, it is for that
Whole's sake that thou shouldest at one time fall sick, at another brave
the perils of the sea, again, know the meaning of want and perhaps die an
early death. Why then repine? Knowest thou not that as the foot is no more
a foot if detached from the body, so thou in like case art no longer a
Man? For what is a Man? A part of a City:—first of the City of Gods
and Men; next, of that which ranks nearest it, a miniature of the
universal City. . . . In such a body, in such a world enveloping us, among
lives like these, such things must happen to one or another. Thy part,
then, being here, is to speak of these things as is meet, and to order
them as befits the matter.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0057" id="link2H_4_0057"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LVII </h2>
<p>That was a good reply which Diogenes made to a man who asked him for
letters of recommendation.—"That you are a man, he will know when he
sees you;—whether a good or bad one, he will know if he has any
skill in discerning the good or bad. But if he has none, he will never
know, though I write him a thousand times."—It is as though a piece
of silver money desired to be recommended to some one to be tested. If the
man be a good judge of silver, he will know: the coin will tell its own
tale.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0058" id="link2H_4_0058"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LVIII </h2>
<p>Even as the traveller asks his way of him that he meets, inclined in no
wise to bear to the right rather than to the left (for he desires only the
way leading whither he would go), so should we come unto God as to a
guide; even as we use our eyes without admonishing them to show us some
things rather than others, but content to receive the images of such
things as they present to us. But as it is we stand anxiously watching the
victim, and with the voice of supplication call upon the augur:—"Master,
have mercy on me: vouchsafe unto me a way of escape!" Slave, would you
then have aught else then what is best? is there anything better than what
is God's good pleasure? Why, as far as in you lies, would you corrupt your
Judge, and lead your Counsellor astray?</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0059" id="link2H_4_0059"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LIX </h2>
<p>God is beneficent. But the Good also is beneficent. It should seem then
that where the real nature of God is, there too is to be found the real
nature of the Good. What then is the real nature of God?—Intelligence,
Knowledge, Right Reason. Here then without more ado seek the real nature
of the Good. For surely thou dost not seek it in a plant or in an animal
that reasoneth not.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0060" id="link2H_4_0060"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LX </h2>
<p>Seek then the real nature of the Good in that without whose presence thou
wilt not admit the Good to exist in aught else.—What then? Are not
these other things also works of God?—They are; but not preferred to
honour, nor are they portions of God. But thou art a thing preferred to
honour: thou art thyself a fragment torn from God:—thou hast a
portion of Him within thyself. How is it then that thou dost not know thy
high descent—dost not know whence thou comest? When thou eatest,
wilt thou not remember who thou art that eatest and whom thou feedest? In
intercourse, in exercise, in discussion knowest thou not that it is a God
whom thou feedest, a God whom thou exercisest, a God whom thou bearest
about with thee, O miserable! and thou perceivest it not. Thinkest thou
that I speak of a God of silver or gold, that is without thee? Nay, thou
bearest Him within thee! all unconscious of polluting Him with thoughts
impure and unclean deeds. Were an image of God present, thou wouldest not
dare to act as thou dost, yet, when God Himself is present within thee,
beholding and hearing all, thou dost not blush to think such thoughts and
do such deeds, O thou that art insensible of thine own nature and liest
under the wrath of God!</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0061" id="link2H_4_0061"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LXI </h2>
<p>Why then are we afraid when we send a young man from the Schools into
active life, lest he should indulge his appetites intemperately, lest he
should debase himself by ragged clothing, or be puffed up by fine raiment?
Knows he not the God within him; knows he not with whom he is starting on
his way? Have we patience to hear him say to us, Would I had thee with me!—Hast
thou not God where thou art, and having Him dost thou still seek for any
other! Would He tell thee aught else than these things? Why, wert thou a
statue of Phidias, an Athena or a Zeus, thou wouldst bethink thee both of
thyself and thine artificer; and hadst thou any sense, thou wouldst strive
to do no dishonour to thyself or him that fashioned thee, nor appear to
beholders in unbefitting guise. But now, because God is thy Maker, is that
why thou carest not of what sort thou shalt show thyself to be? Yet how
different the artists and their workmanship! What human artist's work, for
example, has in it the faculties that are displayed in fashioning it? Is
it aught but marble, bronze, gold, or ivory? Nay, when the Athena of
Phidias has put forth her hand and received therein a Victory, in that
attitude she stands for evermore. But God's works move and breathe; they
use and judge the things of sense. The workmanship of such an Artist, wilt
thou dishonor Him? Ay, when he not only fashioned thee, but placed thee,
like a ward, in the care and guardianship of thyself alone, wilt thou not
only forget this, but also do dishonour to what is committed to thy care!
If God had entrusted thee with an orphan, wouldst thou have thus neglected
him? He hath delivered thee to thine own care, saying, I had none more
faithful than myself: keep this man for me such as Nature hath made him—modest,
faithful, high-minded, a stranger to fear, to passion, to perturbation. .
. .</p>
<p>Such will I show myself to you all.—"What, exempt from sickness
also: from age, from death?"—Nay, but accepting sickness, accepting
death as becomes a God!</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0062" id="link2H_4_0062"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LXII </h2>
<p>No labour, according to Diogenes, is good but that which aims at producing
courage and strength of soul rather than of body.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0063" id="link2H_4_0063"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LXIII </h2>
<p>A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the
right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself
off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that
he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not
mock, but rather feel your own incapacity.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0064" id="link2H_4_0064"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LXIV </h2>
<p>It was the first and most striking characteristic of Socrates never to
become heated in discourse, never to utter an injurious or insulting word—on
the contrary, he persistently bore insult from others and thus put an end
to the fray. If you care to know the extent of his power in this
direction, read Xenophon's Banquet, and you will see how many quarrels he
put an end to. This is why the Poets are right in so highly commending
this faculty:—</p>
<p>Quickly and wisely withal even bitter feuds would he settle.</p>
<p>Nevertheless the practice is not very safe at present, especially in Rome.
One who adopts it, I need not say, ought not to carry it out in an obscure
corner, but boldly accost, if occasion serve, some personage of rank or
wealth.</p>
<p>"Can you tell me, sir, to whose care you entrust your horses?"</p>
<p>"I can."</p>
<p>"Is it to the first comer, who knows nothing about them?"</p>
<p>"Certainly not."</p>
<p>"Well, what of the man who takes care of your gold, your silver or your
raiment?"</p>
<p>"He must be experienced also."</p>
<p>"And your body—have you ever considered about entrusting it to any
one's care?"</p>
<p>"Of course I have."</p>
<p>"And no doubt to a person of experience as a trainer, a physician?"</p>
<p>"Surely."</p>
<p>"And these things the best you possess, or have you anything more
precious?"</p>
<p>"What can you mean?"</p>
<p>"I mean that which employs these; which weights all things; which takes
counsel and resolve."</p>
<p>"Oh, you mean the soul."</p>
<p>"You take me rightly; I do mean the soul. By Heaven, I hold that far more
precious than all else I possess. Can you show me then what care you
bestow on a soul? For it can scarcely be thought that a man of your wisdom
and consideration in the city would suffer your most precious possession
to go to ruin through carelessness and neglect."</p>
<p>"Certainly not."</p>
<p>"Well, do you take care of it yourself? Did any one teach you the right
method, or did you discover it yourself?"</p>
<p>Now here comes in the danger: first, that the great man may answer, "Why,
what is that to you, my good fellow? are you my master?" And then, if you
persist in troubling him, may raise his hand to strike you. It is a
practice of which I was myself a warm admirer until such experiences as
these befell me.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0065" id="link2H_4_0065"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LXV </h2>
<p>When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, "I am
wise, for I have conversed with many wise men," Epictetus replied, "I too
have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0066" id="link2H_4_0066"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LXVI </h2>
<p>We see that a carpenter becomes a carpenter by learning certain things:
that a pilot, by learning certain things, becomes a pilot. Possibly also
in the present case the mere desire to be wise and good is not enough. It
is necessary to learn certain things. This is then the object of our
search. The Philosophers would have us first learn that there is a God,
and that His Providence directs the Universe; further, that to hide from
Him not only one's acts but even one's thoughts and intentions is
impossible; secondly, what the nature of God is. Whatever that nature is
discovered to be, the man who would please and obey Him must strive with
all his might to be made like unto him. If the Divine is faithful, he also
must be faithful; if free, he also must be free; if beneficent, he also
must be beneficent; if magnanimous, he also must be magnanimous. Thus as
an imitator of God must he follow Him in every deed and word.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />