they are connected, what powers it has, and of what kind? Why then are you vexed, if another who has made it his study, has the advantage over you in these things? But these things are the greatest. And who hinders you from being employed about these things and looking after them? And who has a better stock of books, of leisure, of persons to aid you? Only turn your mind at last to these things, attend, if it be only a short time, to your own ruling faculty[1] (ἡγεμονικόν): consider what this is that you possess, and whence it came, this which uses all other (faculties), and tries them, and selects and rejects. But so long as you employ yourself about externals you will possess them (externals) as no man else does; but you will have this (the ruling faculty) such as you choose to have it, sordid and neglected.
CHAPTER VIII.
against those who hastily rush into the use of the philosophic dress.
Never praise nor blame a man because of the things which are common (to all, or to most),[2] and do not ascribe to him any skill or want of skill; and thus you will be free from rashness and from malevolence. This man bathes very quickly. Does he then do wrong? Certainly not. But what does he do? He bathes very
- ↑ This term (τὸ ἡγεμονικόν) has been often used by Epictetus (i. 26. 15. etc), and by M. Antoninus. Here Epictetus gives a definition or description of it: it is the faculty by which we reflect and judge and determine, a faculty which no other animal has, a faculty which in many men is neglected, and weak because it is neglected; but still it ought to be what its constitution forms it to be, a faculty which "plainly bears upon it marks of authority over all the rest, and claims the absolute direction of them all, to allow or forbid their gratification" (Bp. Butler, Preface to his Sermons). The words in the text (ἐκλεγόμενον, ἀπεκλεγόμενον, selection and rejection) are expressed by Cicero (De Fin. ix. ii. 11) by 'eligere' and 'rejicere.'
- ↑ See iv. 4. 44.
