eat, not to converse (associate) with men; that no man is master of another man's will, but that in the will alone is the good and the bad. No man then has the power either to procure for me any good or to involve me in any evil, but I alone myself over myself have power in these things. When then these things are secured to me, why need I be disturbed about external things? What tyrant is formidable, what disease, what poverty, what offence (from any man)? Well, I have not pleased a certain person. Is he then (the pleasing of him) my work, my judgment? No. Why then should I trouble myself about him?—But he is supposed to be some one (of importance)—He will look to that himself; and those who think so will also. But I have one whom I ought to please, to whom I ought to subject myself, whom I ought to obey, God and those who are next to him.[1] He has placed me with myself, and has put my will in obedience to myself alone, and has given me rules for the right use of it; and when I follow these rules in syllogisms, I do not care for any man who says any thing else (different): in sophistical argument, I care for no man. Why then in greater matters do those annoy me who blame me? What is the cause of this perturbation? Nothing else than because in this matter (topic) I am not disciplined. For all knowledge (science) despises ignorance and the ignorant; and not only the sciences, but even the arts. Produce any shoemaker that you please, and he ridicules the many in respect to his own work[2] (business). Produce any carpenter.
First then we ought to have these (rules) in readiness, and to do nothing without them, and we ought to keep the soul directed to this mark, to pursue nothing external, and nothing which belongs to others (or is in the power of others), but to do as he has appointed who has the
- ↑ Compare iv. 4, 39, i. 14, 12; and Encheirid. c. 32, and the remark of Simplicius. Schweig. explains the words τοῖς μετ' ἐκεῖνον thus: 'qui post Illum (Deum) et sub Illo rebus humanis praesunt; qui proximum ab Illo locum tenent.'
- ↑ Compare ii. 13, 15 and 20; and Antoninus, vi. 35: 'Is it not strange if the architect and the physician shall have more respect to the reason (the principles) of their own arts than man to his own reason, which is common to him and the gods?'
