All the Works of Epictetus, Which Are Now Extant/Book 2/Chapter 16

by Epictetus

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CHAPTER XVI.

That we do not study to make use of the Principles concerning Good and Evil.

§. 1.Where lies Good? In Choice. Where Evil? In Choice. Where neither Good nor Evil? In Things independent on Choice. What then? Doth any of us remember these Lessons out of the Schools? Doth any of us study how to Answer for himself in Things, as in Questions? "Is it Day?" "Yes." "Is it Night, then?" "No." "Is the Number of Stars even?" "I cannot tell." When^[1] Money is offered you, have you studied to make the proper Answer, That it is not a Good? Have you exercised yourself in such Answers as these; or only in Sophistries? Why do you wonder then, that you improve in Points which you have studied; and in those which you have not studied, there you remain the same? When an Orator knows, that he hath written well; that he hath committed to Memory what he hath written; and that he brings an agreeable Voice with him; why is he still solicitous? Because he is not contented, with what he hath studied. What doth he want, then? To be applauded by the Audience. He hath studied the Power of speaking, then; but he hath not studied Censure and Applause. For when did he hear from any one, what Applause, what Censure, is? What is the Nature of each? What kind of Applause is to be fought, and what kind of Censure to be shunned? And when did he ever apply himself, to study what follows from these Lessons? Why do you wonder then, if, in what he hath learned, he excels others; but, where he hath not studied, he is the same with the rest of the World? Just as a Musician knows how to play, sings well, and hath the proper Dress of his Profession; yet trembles when he comes upon the Stage. For the first he understands: but what the Multitude is, or what the Clamour and Laughter of the Multitude is, he doth not understand. Nor doth he even know, what Solicitude itself is: whether it be our own affair, or that of others; or whether it be possible to suppress it, or not. Hence, if he is applauded, he is puffed up, when he makes his Exit: but, if he is laughed at, the Tumour is pricked, and subsides.

§. 2. Thus are we too affected. What do we admire? Externals. For what do we strive? Externals. And are we then in any Doubt how we come to fear, and be solicitous? What is the Consequence then, when we esteem the Things that are brought upon us, to be Evils? We cannot but fear; we cannot but be solicitous. And then we say, "O Lord God, how shall I avoid Solicitude!" Have you not Hands, Fool?^[2] Hath not God made them for you?^[3] Sit down now, and pray, that your Nose may not run. Wipe it rather; and do not murmur. Well, and hath he given you nothing in the present Case? Hath not he given you Patience? Hath not he given you Magnanimity? Hath not he given you Fortitude? When you have such Hands as these, do you still seek for Somebody to wipe your Nose?^[4] But we neither study nor regard these Things. For give me but one, who cares how he doth any thing, who doth not regard the Success of any thing, but his own Manner of acting. Who, when he is walking, regards his own Action? Who, when he is deliberating, the Deliberation itself, and not the Success that is to follow it? If it happens to succeed, he is elated; and cries, "How prudently have we deliberated! Did not I tell you, my dear Friend, that it was impossible, when we considered about any thing, that it should not happen right?" But, if it miscarries, the poor Wretch is dejected; and knows not what to say about the Matter. Who among us ever, upon this Account, consulted a Diviner? Who of us ever slept in a Temple, to be informed concerning his Manner of acting?^[5] I say, who? Show me one (that I may see what I have long sought) who is truly noble and ingenuous. Show me either a young or an old Man^[6].

§. 3. Why then are we still surprised, if, when we waste all our Attention on the Materials of Action, we are, in the Manner of Action itself, low, sordid, worthless, fearful, wretched, and a mere Heap of Disappointment and Misery? For we do not care about these Things, nor make them our Study. If we had feared, not Death or Exile, but Fear itself, we should have studied not to fall into what appears to us to be evil. But, as the Case now stands, we are eager and loquacious in the Schools; and, when any little Question arises about any of these Things, we are prepared to trace its Consequences: but drag us into Practice, and you will find us miserably shipwrecked. Let some alarming Appearance attack us; and you will perceive what we have been studying, and in what we are exercised. Besides this Negligence, we always accumulate somewhat else, and represent Things greater than the Reality. In a Voyage, for Instance, casting my Eyes down upon the Ocean below, and looking round me, and seeing no Land, I am out of my Wits; and imagine, that, if I should be shipwrecked, I must swallow all that Ocean: nor doth it once enter my Head, that three Pints are enough to do my Business  What is it then, that alarms me? The Ocean? No: but my own Principle. Again: in an Earthquake, I imagine the City is going to fall upon me: but is not one little Stone enough, to knock my Brains out? What is it then, that oppresses, and puts us out of our Wits? Why, what else, but our Principles? For what is it, but mere Principle, that oppresses him, who leaves his Country, and is separated from his Acquaintance, and Friends, and Place, and usual Manner of Life? When Children cry, if their Nurse happens to be absent for a little while, give them a Cake, and they forget their Grief. Shall we compare you to these Children then?

No, indeed. For I do not desire to be pacified by a Cake, but by right Principles. And what are they?

Such as a Man ought to study all Day long, so as not to be attached to what doth not belong to him; neither to a Friend, to a Place, an Academy; nor even to his own Body: but to remember the Law, and to have that constantly before his Eyes. And what is the divine Law? To preserve inviolate what is properly our own: not to claim what belongs to others: to use what is given us; and not desire what is not given us: and, when any thing is taken away, to restore it readily; and to be thankful for the Time you have been permitted the Use of it; and not cry after it, like a Child for its Nurse and its Mamma. For what doth it signify, what gets the better of you, or on what you depend? And in what are you superior to him, who cries for a Puppet, if you lament for a paultry Academy, and a Portico, and an Assembly of young People; and such-like Amusements? Another comes, lamenting, that he must no longer drink the Water of Dircè^[7]. Why, is not the Marcian Water as good? "But I was used to that." And in time you will be used to the other. And, when you are attached to this too, you may cry again, and set yourself in Imitation of Euripides, to celebrate, in Verse,

The Baths of Nero, and the Marcian Water.

Hence see the Origin of Tragedy, when trifling Accidents befal foolish Men. "Ah, when shall I see Athens, and the Citadel, again!" Wretch, are not you contented with what you see every Day? Can you see any thing better than the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the whole Earth, the Sea? But if besides, you comprehend him who administers the Whole, and carry him about in yourself, do you still long after Pebbles, and a fine Rock^[8]? What will you do then, when you are to leave even the Sun and Moon? Will you sit crying, like an Infant? What then have you been doing in the School? What did you hear? What did you learn? Why have you written yourself a Philosopher, instead of writing the real Fact? I have made some^[9] Introductions [you may say]; and read over Chrysippus, but I have not so much as gone near the Door of a Philosopher^[10]. For what Pretensions have I, to any thing of the same kind with Socrates, who died, and who lived, in such a Manner? Or with Diogenes? Do you observe either of these crying, or out of Humour, that he is not to see such a Man, or such a Woman; nor to live any longer at Athens, or at Corinth; but at Susa, for Instance, or Ecbatana? For doth he stay, and repine, who is at his Liberty, whenever he pleases, to quit the Entertainment, and play no longer? Why doth he not stay, as Children do, as long as he is amused? Such a one, no doubt, will bear perpetual Banishment, and a Sentence of Death, wonderful well! Why will you not be weaned, as Children are; and take more solid Food? Will you never cease to cry after your Mammas and Nurses, whom the old Women about you have taught you to bewail? "But if I go away, I shall trouble them."——You trouble them! No: it will not be you: but that which troubles you too, Principle. What have you to do then? Pluck out your [false] Principle; and, if they are wise, they will pluck out theirs too; or, if not, they will groan for themselves.

§. 4. Boldly make a desperate Push, Man, as the Saying is, for Prosperity, for Freedom, for Magnanimity. Lift up your Head, at last, as free from Slavery. Dare to look up to God, and say; "Make use of me for the future as thou wilt. I am of the same Mind: I am equal with Thee. I refuse nothing which seems good to Thee. Lead me whither Thou wilt. Clothe me in whatever Dress Thou wilt. Is it Thy Will, that I should be in a public or a private Condition; dwell here, or be banished; be poor, or rich? Under all these Circumstances I will make Thy Defence to Men^[11]. I will show what the Nature of every Thing is."——No. Rather sit alone, in a warm^[12] Place, and wait till your Mamma comes to feed you. If Hercules had sat loitering at Home, what would he have been? Eurystheus, and not Hercules, Besides, by travelling through the World, how many Acquaintance, and how many Friends, had he? But none more his Friend, than God: for which Reason he was believed to be the Son of God; and was so. In Obedience to him, he went about extirpating Injustice, and lawless Force. But you are not Hercules; nor able to extirpate the Evils of others: nor even Theseus, to extirpate the Evils of Attica. Extirpate your own then. Expel, instead of Procrustes and Sciron^[13], Grief, Fear, Desire, Envy, Malevolence, Avarice, Effeminacy, Intemperance, [from your Mind]. But there can be no otherwise expelled, than looking up to God alone, as your Pattern: by attaching yourself to him alone, and being consecrated to his Commands. If you wish for any thing else, you will, with Sighs and Groans, follow what is stronger than you always seeking Prosperity without, and never able to find it. For you seek it where it is not, and neglect to seek it where it is.

Footnotes

1. As a Bribe for bad Purposes.
2. The Order of this Passage should be—Sit down now, and pray that your Nose may not run. Have you not Hands, Fool? Hath not God made them for you, &c. But Epictetus, probably, might speak extempore in this inverted manner: and Arrian proposes to deliver what he said, with the greatest Exactness.
3. Sitting, probably some particular Sort of it, was anciently (see Judges xx. 26. 1 Chr. xvii. 16.) one Posture of Devotion. Our Ancestors, in Queen Elizabeth's Time, called Kneeling, Sitting on their Knees. A mixed Posture of Sitting and Kneeling is now used, by some Nations in Prayer.
4. See p. 21. Note f.
5. The Heathen had certain Temples, in which it was usual for Persons to sleep, in order to receive Oracles by Dreams. One of the most celebrated Places, appropriated to this Purpose, was the Temple of Amphiaraus. See Philostratus, p. 771.
6. It is observable, that this most practical of all the Philosophers, owns his Endeavours met with little or no Success, among his Scholars. The Apostles speak a very different Language, in their Epistles, to the first Converts to Christianity: and the Acts of the Apostles, and all the Monuments of the primitive Ages, bear Testimony to the Reformation of Manners produced by the Gospel. This Difference of Success might indeed justly be expected, from the Difference of the two Systems.
7. A beautiful clear River in Bœotia, flowing into the Ismenus. The Marcian Water was conveyed by Ancus Martius to Rome. Upton.
8. Mr. Upton conjectures this to be an Allusion to some poetical, or rhetorical Description.
9. Brief Summaries of any Science, for the Use of Beginners, are often so called.
10. Perhaps the true Reading thould be Φιλοσοφιας, Philosophy.
11. There are innumerable Passages in St. Paul, which, in reality, bear that noble Testimony which Epictetus here requires in his imaginary Character. Such are those in which he glories in Tribulation; speaks with an heroic Contempt of Life, when set in Competition with the Performance of his Duty; rejoices in Bonds and Imprisonments, and the View of his approaching Martyrdom: and represents Afflictions as a Proof of God's Love. See Acts xx. 23, 24. Rom. v. 3. viii. 35—39. 2 Tim. iv. 6.
12. The Sense of the original Phrase, an Ox's Belly, is obscure to me. The French Translation hath, in your Cradle.
13. Two famous Robbers, who infested Attica, and were at last killed by Theseus. Upton.