Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 2.djvu/366

sage in Arrian's "Discourses of Epictetus," B. iii., c. 24, 84-89, is particularly in point here; and especially, as a proof of what I have said in this reference in § 16 of the first volume, the passage: "(Greek characters)," Ibid, iv., I. 42. (Hæc enim causa est hominibus omnium malorum, quod anticipationes generales rebus singularibus accommodare non possunt.) Similarly the passage in "Marcus Aurelius" (iv. 29): "(Greek characters);" that is: "If he is a stranger to the universe who does not know what is in it, no less is he a stranger who does not know how things go on in it." Also Seneca's eleventh chapter, "De Tranguilitate Animi," is a complete proof of this view. The opinion of the Stoics amounts on the whole to this, that if a man has watched for awhile the juggling illusion of happiness and then uses his reason, he must recognise both the rapid changes of the dice and the intrinsic worthlessness of the counters, and therefore must henceforth remain unmoved. Taken generally the Stoical point of view may be thus expressed: our suffering always arises from the want of agreement between our wishes and the course of the world. Therefore one of these two must be changed and adapted to the other. Since now the course of things is not in our power ((Greek characters)), we must direct our volitions and desires according to the course of things: for the will alone is (Greek characters). This adaptation of volition to the course of the external world, thus to the nature of things, is very often understood under the ambiguous (Greek characters). See the "Discourses of Epictetus," ii. 17, 21, 22. Seneca also denotes this point of view (Ep. 119) when he says: "Nihil interest, utrum non desideres, an habeas. Summa rei in utroque est eadem: non torqueberis." Also Cicero (Tusc. iv. 26) by the words: "Solum habere velle, summa dementia est."