Encheiridion — Epictetus

86 tTbe Discourses of Epictetus death, poverty or wealth ? But whether these things are for my interest or whether they are not, I do not intend to ask you. Why don't you give your opinion on matters of grammar, and why do you give it here about things on which we are all in error and disputing with one another. What then leads us to frequent use of divination ? Cowardice, the dread of what will happen.

This is the reason why we flatter the diviners. Pray, master, shall I succeed to the property of my father? Let us see : let us sacrifice on the occasi6n. Yes, master, as fortune chooses. When he has said, You shall succeed to the inheritance, we thank him as if we received the inheritance from him. The consequence is that they play upon us.

Will you not then seek the nature of good in the rational animal ? for if it is not there, you will not choose to say that it exists in any other thing (plant or animal). What then ? are not plants and animals also the works of God? They are ; but they are not superior things, nor yet parts of the gods. But you are a superior thing ; you are a portion separated from the Deity ; you have in yourself a certain portion of him. Why then are you ignorant of your own noble descent? Why do you not know whence you came ? will you not remember

Zbe Discourses of JEptctetus 6; when you are eating who you are who eat anJ whom you feed ? When you are in social intercourse, when you are exercising yourself, when you are engaged in discussion, know you not that you are nourishing a god, that you are exercising a god? Wretch, you are carrying about a god with you, and you know it not. Do you think that I mean some god of silver or of gold, and external ?

You carry him within yourself, and you perceive not that you are polluting him by impure thoughts and dirty deeds. And if an image of God were present, you would not dare to do any of the things which you are doing ; but when God himself is present within and sees all and hears all, you are not ashamed of thinking such things and doing such things, ignorant as you are of your own nature and subject to the anger of God.

Then why do we fear when we are sending a young man from the school into active life, lest he should do anything improperly, eat improperly, have improper intercourse with women ; and lest the rags in which he is wrapped should debase him, lest fine garments should make him proud ? This youth (if he acts thus) docs not know his own God ; he knows not with whom he sets out (into the world). But can we endure when he says, "I wish I had you (God) with me. Have you not God with you? and

68 Zbe Discourses of Bpictetus do you seek for any other when you have him ? or will God tell yon anything else than this ? If you were a statue of Phidias, either Athena or Zeus, you would think both of yourself and of the artist, and if you had any understanding (power of perception) you would try to do nothing unworthy of him who made you or of yourself, and try not to appear in an unbecoming dress (attitude) to those who look upon you.

But now because Zeus has made you, for this reason do you care not how you shall appear ? And yet is the artist (in the one case) like the artist in the other ? or the work in the one case like the other ? And what work of an artist, for instance, has in itself the faculties, which the artist shows in making it ?

Is it not marble or bronze, or gold or ivory ? and the Athena of Phidias, when she has once extended the hand and received in it the figure of Victory, stands in that attitude for ever. But the works of God have power of motion, they breathe, they have the faculty of using the appearances of things, and the power of examining them. Being the work of such an artist do you dishonor him?

And what shall I say, not only that he made you, but also entrusted you to yourself and made you a deposit to yourself? Will you not think of this too, but do you also dishonor your guardianship? But if God had entrusted an