Epictetus, the Discourses as reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments/Book 2/Chapter 19

by Epictetus

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CHAPTER XIX

To those who take up the teachings of the philosophers only to talk about them

The "Master argument"^[1] appears to have been propounded on the strength of some such principles as the following. Since there is a general contradiction with one another^[2] between these three propositions, to wit: (1) Everything true as an event in the past is necessary, and (2) An impossible does not follow a possible, and (3) What is not true now and never will be, is nevertheless possible. Diodorus, realizing this contradiction, used the plausibility of the first two propositions to establish the principle, Nothing is possible which is neither true now nor ever will be. But one man will maintain, among the possible combinations of two at a time, the following, namely, (3) Something is possible, which is not true now and never will be, and (2) An impossible does not follow a possible; yet he will not grant the third proposition (1), Everything true as an event in the past is necessary, which is what Cleanthes and his group, whom Antipater has stoutly supported, seem to think. But others will maintain the other two propositions, (3) A thing is possible which is not true now and never will be, and (1) Everything true as an event in the past is necessary, and then will assert that, An impossible does follow a possible.^[3] But there is no way by which one can maintain all three of these propositions, because of their mutual contradiction.^[4]

⁵If, then, someone asks me, "But which pair of these do you yourself maintain?" I shall answer him that I do not know; but I have received the following account: Diodorus used to maintain one pair, Panthoides and his group, I believe, and Cleanthes another, and Chrysippus and his group the third. "What, then, is your opinion?" I do not know, and I was not made for this purpose—to test my own external impression upon the subject, to compare the statements of others, and to form a judgement of my own. For this reason I am no better than the grammarian. When asked, "Who was the father of Hector?" he replied, "Priam." "Who were his brothers?" "Alexander and Deïphobus." "And who was their mother?" "Hecuba. This is the account that I have received." "From whom?" "From Homer," he said. "And Hellanicus also, I believe, writes about these same matters, and possibly others like him." And so it is with me about the "Master Argument"; what further have I to say about it? But if I am a vain person, I can astonish the company, especially at a banquet, by enumerating those who have written on the subject. "Chrysippus also has written admirably on this topic in the first book of his treatise On Things Possible. And Cleanthes has written a special work on the subject, and Archedemus. Antipater also has written, not only in his book On Things Possible, but also a separate monograph in his discussion of The Master Argument. ¹⁰Have you not read the treatise?" "I have not read it." "Then read it." And what good will it do him? He will be more trifling and tiresome than he is already. You, for example, what have you gained by the reading of it? What judgement have you formed on the subject? Nay, you will tell us of Helen, and Priam, and the island of Calypso^[5] which never was and never will be!

And in the field of literary history, indeed, it is of no great consequence that you master the received account without having formed any judgement of your own. But in questions of conduct we suffer from this fault much more than we do in literary matters. "Tell me about things good and evil." "Listen:

The wind that blew me from the Trojan shore
Brought me to the Ciconians.^[6]

Of things some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. Now the virtues and everything that shares in them are good, while vices and everything that shares in vice are evil, and what falls in between these, namely, wealth, health, life, death, pleasures, pain, are indifferent." "Where do you get that knowledge?" "Hellanicus says so in his History of Egypt." For what difference does it make whether you say this, or that Diogenes says so in his Treatise on Ethics, or Chrysippus, or Cleanthes? Have you, then, tested any of these statements and have you formed your own judgement upon them? ¹⁵Show me how you are in the habit of conducting yourself in a storm on board ship. Do you bear in mind this logical distinction between good and evil when the sail crackles, and you have screamed and some fellow-passenger, untimely humorous, comes up and says, "Tell me, I beseech you by the gods, just what you were saying a little while ago. Is it a vice to suffer shipwreck? Is there any vice in that?" Will you not pick up a piece of wood and cudgel him? "What have we to do with you, fellow? We are perishing and you come and crack jokes!" And if Caesar sends for you to answer an accusation, do you bear in mind this distinction? Suppose someone approaches you when you are going in pale and trembling, and says, "Why are you trembling, fellow? What is the affair that concerns you? Does Caesar inside the palace bestow virtue and vice upon those who appear before him?" "Why do you also make mock of me and add to my other ills?" "But yet, philosopher, tell me, why are you trembling? Is not the danger death, or prison, or bodily pain, or exile, or disrepute? Why, what else can it be? Is it a vice at all, or anything that shares in vice? What was it, then, that you used to call these things?" "What have I to do with you, fellow? My own evils are enough for me" And in that you are right. For your own evils art enough for you—your baseness, your cowardice, the bragging that you indulged in when you were sitting in the lecture room. Why did you pride yourself upon things that were not your own? Why did you call yourself a Stoic?

²⁰Observe yourselves thus in your actions and you will find out to what sect of the philosophers you belong. You will find that most of you are Epicureans, some few Peripatetics, but these without any backbone; for wherein do you in fact show that you consider virtue equal to all things else, or even superior? But as for a Stoic, show me one if you can! Where, or how? Nay, but you can show me thousands who recite the petty arguments of the Stoics. Yes, but do these same men recite the petty arguments of the Epicureans any less well? Do they not handle with the same precision the petty arguments of the Peripatetics also? Who, then, is a Stoic? As we call a statue "Pheidian" that has been fashioned according to the art of Pheidias, in that sense show me a man fashioned according to the judgements which he utters. Show me a man who though sick is happy, though in danger is happy, though dying is happy, though condemned to exile is happy, though in disrepute is happy. Show him! By the gods, I would fain see a Stoic!^{[7] 25}But you cannot show me a man completely so fashioned; then show me at least one who is becoming so fashioned, one who has begun to tend in that direction; do me this favour; do not begrudge an old man the sight of that spectacle which to this very day I have never seen. Do you fancy that you are going to show me the Zeus or the Athena of Pheidias, a creation of ivory and gold? Let one of you show me the soul of a man who wishes to be of one mind with God, and never again to blame either God or man, to fail in nothing that he would achieve, to fall into nothing that he would avoid, to be free from anger, envy and jealousy—but why use circumlocutions?—a man who has set his heart upon changing from a man into a god, and although he is still in this paltry body of death, does none the less have his purpose set upon fellowship with Zeus. Show him to me! But you cannot. Why, then, do you mock your own selves and cheat everybody else? And why do you put on a guise that is not your own and walk about as veritable thieves and robbers who have stolen these designations and properties that in no sense belong to you?

And so now I am your teacher, and you are being taught in my school. And my purpose is this—to make of you a perfect work, secure against restraint, compulsion, and hindrance, free, prosperous, happy, looking to God in everything both small and great; and you are here with the purpose of learning and practising all this. ³⁰Why, then, do you not complete the work, if it is true that you on your part have the right kind of purpose and I on my part, in addition to the purpose, have the right kind of preparation? What is it that is lacking? When I see a craftsman who has material lying ready at hand, I look for the finished product. Here also, then, is the craftsman, and here is the material; what do we yet lack? Cannot the matter be taught? It can. Is it, then, not under our control? Nay, it is the only thing in the whole world that is under our control. Wealth is not under our control, nor health, nor fame, nor, in a word, anything else except the right use of external impressions. This alone is by nature secure against restraint and hindrance. Why, then, do you not finish the work? Tell me the reason. For it lies either in me, or in you, or in the nature of the thing. The thing itself is possible and is the only thing that is under our control. Consequently, then, the fault lies either in me, or in you, or, what is nearer the truth, in us both. What then? Would you like to have us at last begin to introduce here a purpose such as I have described?^[8] Let us let bygones be bygones. Only let us begin, and, take my word for it, you shall see.

Footnotes

1. So called because thought to be unanswerable; it involved the questions of "the possible" and "the necessary," in other words, chance and fate, freewill and determination. The matter was first set forth in a note contributed to Upton's edition of Epictetus by James Harris, and republished, with additions, by Schweighäuser. Definitive is the discussion by Eduard Zeller, Sitzungsber. der Berliner Akad. 1882, 151-9. See also his Philosophie der Griechen⁴, II. 1, 269-70. For the context in which these problems appear, see also Von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, I. 109; II. 92 f.
2. That is, any two are supposed to contradict the third.
3. That is, deny (2) that "An impossible does not follow a possible."
4. That is, each pair is in conflict with the third.
5. That is, instead of speaking from your own knowledge or belief, you will merely recite the opinions of others.
6. Homer, Od., IX. 39. The inappropriate quotation (as with Hellanicus below) shows the absurdity of such a treatment of ethical questions.
7. An early Christian scholiast remarks at this point "And I would fain see a monk."
8. In § 29.