And how do things happen? As the disposer has disposed them? And he has appointed summer and winter, and abundance and scarcity, and virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole;[1] and to each of us he has given a body, and parts of the body, and possessions, and companions.
Remembering then this disposition of things, we ought to go to be instructed, not that we may change the constitution[2] of things,—for we have not the power to do it, nor is it better that we should have the power,—but in order that, as the things around us are what they are and by nature exist, we may maintain our minds in harmony with the things which happen. For can we escape from men? and how is it possible? And if we associate with them, can we change them? Who gives us the power? What then remains, or what method is discovered of holding commerce with them? Is there such a method by which they shall do what seems fit to them, and we not the less shall be in a mood which is conformable to nature? But you are unwilling to endure and are discontented: and if you are alone, you call it solitude; and if you are with men, you call them knaves and robbers; and you find fault with your own parents and children, and brothers and neighbours. But you ought when you are alone to call this condition by the name of tranquillity and freedom,
- ↑ Upton has collected the passages in which this doctrine was mentioned. One passage is in Gellius (vi. 1), from the fourth book of Chrysippus on Providence, who says: "nothing is more foolish than the opinions of those who think that good could have existed without evil." Schweighaeuser wishes that Epictetus had discussed more fully the question on the nature and origin of Evil. He refers to the commentary of Simplicius on the Encheiridion of Epictetus, c. 13 (8), and 34 (27), for his treatment of this subject. Epictetus (Encheiridion, c. 27) says that "as a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing it, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the universe." Simplicius observes (p. 278, ed. Schweig.): "The Good is that which is according to each thing's nature, wherein each thing has its perfection: but the Bad is the disposition contrary to its nature of the thing which contains the bad, by which disposition it is deprived of that which is according to nature, namely, the good. For if the Bad as well as the Good were a disposition and perfection of the form (εἴδους) in which it is, the bad itself would also be good and would not then be called Bad."
- ↑ The word is ὑποθέσεις. It is explained by what follows.
