Epictetus, the Discourses as reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments/Book 2/Chapter 18

by Epictetus

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CHAPTER XVIII

How must we struggle against our external impressions?

Every habit and faculty is confirmed and strengthened by the corresponding actions, that of walking by walking, that of running by running. If you wish to be a good reader, read; if you wish to be a good writer, write. If you should give up reading for thirty days one after the other, and be engaged in something else, you will know what happens. So also if you lie in bed for ten days, get up and try to take a rather long walk, and you will see how wobbly your legs are. In general, therefore, if you want to do something, make a habit of it; if you want not to do something, refrain from doing it, and accustom yourself to something else instead. ⁵The same principle holds true in the affairs of the mind also; when you are angry, you may be sure, not merely that this evil has befallen you, but also that you have strengthened the habit, and have, as it were, added fuel to the flame. When you have yielded to someone in carnal intercourse, do not count merely this one defeat, but count also the fact that you have fed your incontinence, you have given it additional strength. For it is inevitable that some habits and faculties should, in consequence of the corresponding actions, spring up, though they did not exist before, and that others which were already there should be intensified and made strong.

In this way, without doubt, the infirmities of our mind and character spring up, as the philosophers say. For when once you conceive a desire for money, if reason be applied to bring you to a realization of the evil, both the passion is stilled and our governing principle is restored to its original authority; but if you do not apply a remedy, your governing principle does not revert to its previous condition, but, on being aroused again by the corresponding external impression, it bursts into the flame of desire more quickly than it did before. And if this happens over and over again, the next stage is that a callousness results and the infirmity strengthens the avarice. ¹⁰For the man who has had a fever, and then recovered, is not the same as he was before the fever, unless he has experienced a complete cure. Something like this happens also with the affections of the mind. Certain imprints and weals are left behind on the mind, and unless a man erases them perfectly, the next time he is scourged upon the old scars, he has weals no longer but wounds. If, therefore, you wish not to be hot-tempered, do not feed your habit, set before it nothing on which it can grow. As the first step, keep quiet and count the days on which you have not been angry. "I used to be angry every day, after that every other day, then every third, and then every fourth day." If you go as much as thirty days without a fit of anger, sacrifice to God. For the habit is first weakened and then utterly destroyed. "To-day I was not grieved" (and so the next day, and thereafter for two or three months); "but I was on my guard when certain things happened that were capable of provoking grief." Know that things are going splendidly with you.

¹⁵To-day when I saw a handsome lad or a handsome woman I did not say to myself, "Would that a man might sleep with her," and "Her husband is a happy man," for the man who uses the expression "happy" of the husband means "Happy is the adulterer" also; I do not even picture to myself the next scene—the woman herself in my presence, disrobing and lying down by my side. I pat myself on the head and say. Well done, Epictetus, you have solved a clever problem, one much more clever than the so-called "Master"^[1]: But when the wench is not only willing, but nods to me and sends for me, yes, and when she even lays hold upon me and snuggles up to me, if I still hold aloof and conquer, this has become a solved problem greater than The Liar, and The Quiescent.^[2] On this score a man has a right to be proud indeed, but not about his proposing "The Master" problem.

How, then, may this be done? Make it your wish finally to satisfy your own self, make it your wish to appear beautiful in the sight of God. Set your desire upon becoming pure in the presence of your pure self and of God. ²⁰"Then when an external impression of that sort comes suddenly upon you," says Plato,^[3] "go and offer an expiatory sacrifice, go and make offering as a suppliant to the sanctuaries of the gods who avert evil"; it is enough if you only withdraw "to the society of the good and excellent men," and set yourself to comparing your conduct with theirs, whether you take as your model one of the living, or one of the dead. Go to Socrates and mark him as he lies down beside Alcibiades^[4] and makes light of his youthful beauty. Bethink yourself how great a victory he once won and knew it himself, like an Olympic victory, and what his rank was, counting in order from Heracles^[5]; so that, by the gods, one might justly greet him with the salutation, "Hail, wondrous man!" for he was victor over something more than these rotten boxers and pancratiasts, and the gladiators who resemble them. If you confront your external impression with such thoughts, you will overcome it, and not be carried away by it. But, to begin with, be not swept off your feet, I beseech you, by the vividness of the impression, but say, "Wait for me a little, O impression; allow me to see who you are, and what you are an impression of; allow me to put you to the test." ²⁵And after that, do not suffer it to lead you on by picturing to you what will follow. Otherwise, it will take possession of you and go off with you wherever it will. But do you rather introduce and set over against it some fair and noble impression, and throw out this filthy one. And if you form the habit of taking such exercises, you will see what mighty shoulders you develop, what sinews, what vigour; but as it is, you have merely your philosophic quibbles, and nothing more.

The man who exercises himself against such external impressions is the true athlete in training. Hold, unhappy man; be not swept along with your impressions! Great is the struggle, divine the task; the prize is a kingdom, freedom, serenity, peace. Remember God; call upon Him to help you and stand by your side, just as voyagers, in a storm, call upon the Dioscuri. For what storm is greater than that stirred up by powerful impressions which unseat the reason? As for the storm itself, what else is it but an external impression? ³⁰To prove this, just take away the fear of death, and then bring on as much thunder and lightning as you please, and you will realize how great is the calm, how fair the weather, in your governing principle.^[6] But if you be once defeated and say that by and by you will overcome, and then a second time do the same thing, know that at last you will be in so wretched a state and so weak that by and by you will not so much as notice that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to offer arguments in justification of your conduct; and then you will confirm the truth of the saying of Hesiod:

Forever with misfortunes dire must he who loiters cope.^[7]

Footnotes

1. See II. 19, especially 1-9.
2. For The Liar see on II. 17, 34. "The Quiescent" was the somewhat desperate solution of Chrysippus for the sorites fallacy. On being asked whether two grains made a heap, then three, and so forth, he would finally stop answering the questions at all! Cicero, Acad. Post. II. 93.
3. Laws, IX. 854B (slightly modified).
4. Plato, Symposium, 218D ff.
5. As traditional founder and first victor at the Olympic games; all others might be enumerated in order beginning with him, although the ordinary count was from Coroebus of Elia, supposed to have been winner of the footrace in 776 B.C.
6. That is, reason.
7. Works and Days, 413.