All the Works of Epictetus, Which Are Now Extant/Book 2/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII.
How the Appearances of Things are to be combated.
§. 1.EVERY Habit and Faculty is preserved, and increased, by correspondent Actions: as the Habit of Walking, by walking; of Running, by running. If you would be a Reader, read: if a Writer, write. But if you do not read for a Month together, but do somewhat else; you will see what will be the Consequence. So, after sitting still for ten Days, get up and attempt to take a long Walk; and you will find how your Legs are weakened. Upon the whole then, whatever you would make habitual, practise it: and, if you would not make a Thing habitual, do not practise it; but habituate yourself to something else.
§. 2. It is the same with regard to the Operations of the Soul. Whenever you are angry, be assured, that it is not only a present Evil, but that you have increased a Habit, and added Fuel to a Fire. When you are overcome by the Company of Women, do not esteem it as a single Defeat, but that you have fed, that you have increased, your Dissoluteness. For it is impossible, but that Habits and Faculties must either be first produced, or strengthened and increased by correspondent Actions. Hence the Philosophers derive the Growth of all Infirmities. When you once desire Money, for Example, if a Degree of Reasoning sufficient to produce a Sense of the Evil be applied, the Desire ceases, and the governing Faculty of the Mind regains its Authority; whereas if you apply no Remedy, it returns no more to its former State: but, being again excited by a corresponding Appearance, it kindles at the Desire more quickly than before; and by frequent Repetitions, at last becomes callous[1]: and by this Infirmity is the Love of Money fixed. For he who hath had a Fever, even after it had left him, is not in the same State of Health as before, unless he was perfectly cured: and the same thing happens in Distempers of the Soul likewise. There are certain Traces and Blisters left in it; which, unless they are well effaced, whenever a new Hurt is received in the same Part, instead of Blisters, become Sores.
§. 3. If you would not be of an angry Temper then, do not feed the Habit. Give it nothing to help its Increase. Be quiet at first, and reckon the Days in which you have not been angry. I used to be angry every Day; now every other Day; then every third and fourth Day: and if you miss it so long as thirty Days, offer a sacrifice of Thanksgiving to God. For Habit is first weakened, and then intirely destroy'd. "I was not vex'd To-day[2]; nor the next Day; nor for three or four Months after; but took heed to myself, when some provoking Things happened." Be assured, that you are in a fine Way. "To-day, when I saw a handsome Person, I did not say to myself, O that I could possess her! And, how happy is her Husband (for he who says this, says too, how happy is her Gallant): nor do I go on to represent her as present, as undress'd, as lying down beside me." On this I stroak my Head, and say, Well done, Epictetus; thou hast solved a pretty Sophism, a much prettier than one very celebrated in the Schools[3]. But, if even the Lady should happen to be willing, and give me Intimations of it, and send for me, and press my Hand, and place herself next to me; and I should then forbear, and get the Victory; that would be a Sophism beyond all the Subtleties of Logic. This, and not disputing artfully, is the proper Subject for Exultation.
§. 4. How then is this to be effected? Be willing to approve yourself to yourself. Be willing to appear beautiful in the Sight of God: be desirous to converse in Purity with your own pure Mind, and with God: and then, if any such Appearance strikes you, Plato directs you: "Have Recourse to Expiations: Go a Suppliant to the Temples of the averting Deities." It is sufficient, however, if you propose to yourself the Example of wise and good Men, whether alive or dead; and compare your Conduct with theirs. Go to Socrates, and see him lying by Alcibiades, yet slighting his Youth and Beauty. Consider what a Victory he was conscious of obtaining! What an Olympic Prize! In what Number did he stand from Hercules[4]? So that, by Heaven, one might justly salute Him[5]; Hail! incredibly[6] great, universal Victor! not those sorry Boxers and Wrestlers; nor the Gladiators, who resemble them.
§. 5. By placing such an Object over-against you, you will conquer any Appearance, and not be drawn away by it. But, in the first place, be not hurried along with it, by its hasty Vehemence: but say; Appearance, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are, and what you represent. Let me try you. Then, afterwards, do not suffer it to go on drawing gay Pictures of what will follow: if you do, it will lead you where-ever it pleases. But rather oppose to it some good and noble Appearance, and banish this base and sordid one. If you are habituated to this kind of Exercise, you will see what Shoulders, what Nerves, what Sinews, you will have. But now it is mere trifling Talk, and nothing more. He is the true Practitioner, who exercises himself against such Appearances as these. Stay, Wretch, do not be hurried away. The Combat is great, the Atchievement divine; for Empire, for Freedom, for Prosperity, for Tranquillity. Remember God. Invoke Him for your Aid, and Protector; as Sailors do Castor and Pollux, in a Storm. For what Storm is greater than, that which arises from violent Appearances, contending to overset our Reason? Indeed, what is the Storm itself, but Appearance? For, do but take away the Fear of Death, and let there be as many Thunders and Lightnings as you please, you will find, that, in the ruling Faculty, all is Serenity and Calm: but if you are once defeated, and say, you will get the Victory another Time, and then the same thing over again; assure yourself, you will at last be reduced to so weak and wretched a Condition, that you will not so much as know when you do amiss; but you will even begin to make Defences for your Behaviour, and thus verify the Saying of Hesiod:
With constant Ills, the Dilatory strive.
Footnotes
[edit]- ↑ Hardened against proper Reflections.
- ↑ These several Facts are here supposed, to be recollected at different Times.
- ↑ In this Place, and the following Lines, the Original mentions particular Forms of Argument, which are now little understood; and could not be at all instructive to the English Reader.
- ↑ Hercules is said to have been the Author of the Gymnastic Games; and the first Victor. Those who afterwards conquered in Wrestling, and the Pancratium, were numbered from him. Upton.
- ↑ Mr. Upton inserts νικησεις, which he conjectures, should be νικησας, into the Text, from his Manuscript: where, probably, it was written merely by an Accident of the Transcriber's casting his Eye upon that Word in the next Line. The Sense needs not this Addition, and perhaps doth better without it.
- ↑ This pompous Title was given to those, who had been Victors in all the Olympic Games.