solve syllogisms more readily, or handle hypothetical arguments? and for this reason did you leave brother, country, friends, your family, that you might return when you had learned these things? So you did not go abroad to obtain constancy of mind, nor freedom from perturbation, nor in order that being secure from harm you may never complain of any person, accuse no person, and no man may wrong you, and thus you may maintain your relative position without impediment? This is a fine traffic that you have gone abroad for in syllogisms and sophistical arguments[1] and hypothetical: if you like, take your place in the agora (market or public place) and proclaim them for sale like dealers in physic.[2] Will you not deny even all that you have learned that you may not bring a bad name on your theorems as useless? What harm has philosophy done you? Wherein has Chrysippus injured. you that you should prove by your acts that his labours are useless? Were the evils that you had there (at home) not enough, those which were the cause of your pain and lamentation, even if you had not gone abroad? Have you added more to the list? And if you again have other acquaintances and friends, you will have more causes for lamentation; and the same also if you take an affection for another country. Why then do you live to surround yourself with other sorrows upon sorrows through which you are unhappy? Then, I ask you, do you call this affection? What affection, man! If it is a good thing, it is the cause of no evil: if it is bad, I have nothing to do with it. I am formed by nature for my own good: I am not formed for my own evil.
What then is the discipline for this purpose? First of all the highest and the principal, and that which stands as it were at the entrance, is this; when you are delighted with anything, be delighted as with a thing which is not
- ↑ Μεταπίπτοντας. See i. 7.
- ↑ This is an old practice, to go about and sell physic to people. Cicero (Pro Cluentio, c. 14) speaks of such a quack (pharmacopola), who would do a poisoning job for a proper sum of money. I have seen a travelling doctor in France who went about in a cart, and rang a bell, at the sound of which people came round him. Some who were deaf had stuff poured into their ears, paid their money, and made way for others who had other complaints.
