CHAPTER XXIX.
on constancy (or firmness).
The being[1] (nature) of the Good is a certain Will; the being of the Bad is a certain kind of Will. What then are externals? Materials for the Will, about which the will being conversant shall obtain its own good or evil. How shall it obtain the good. If it does not admire[2] (overvalue) the materials; for the opinions about the materials, if the opinions are right, make the will good: but perverse and distorted opinions make the will bad. God has fixed this law, and says, "If you would have any thing good, receive it from yourself." You say, No, but I will have it from another.—Do not so: but receive it from yourself. Therefore when the tyrant threatens and calls me, I say, Whom do you threaten? If he says, I will put you in chains, I say, You threaten my hands and my feet. If he says, I will cut off your head, I reply, You threaten my head. If he says, I will throw you into prison, I say, You threaten the whole of this poor body. If he threatens me with banishment, I say the same. Does he then not threaten you at all? If I feel that all these things do not concern me, he does not threaten me at all; but if I fear any of them, it is I whom he threatens. Whom then do I fear? the master of what? The master of things which are in my own power? There is no such master. Do I fear the
- ↑ The word is οὐσία. The corresponding Latin word which Cicero introduced is "essentia" (Seneca, Epist. 58). The English word "essence" has obtained a somewhat different sense. The proper translation of οὐσία is "being" or "nature."
- ↑ This is the maxim of Horace, Epp. i. 6; and Macleane's note,—on which Upton remarks that this maxim is explained very philosophically and learnedly by Lord Shaftesbury (the author of the Characteristics), vol. iii. p. 202. Compare M. Antoninus, xii. 1. Seneca, De Vita Beata, c. 3, writes, "Aliarum rerum quae vitam instruunt diligens, sine admiratione cujusquam." Antoninus (i. 15) expresses the "sine admiratione" by τὸ ἀθαύμαστον.
"Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici,
Solaque quae possit facere et servare beatum."
