Encheiridion — Epictetus

96 Zbe 2>t0coursc8 of Eptctctus who goes away and leaves his companions and friends and places and habits of life? Now little children, for instance, when they cry on the nurse leaving them for a short time, forget their sorrow if they receive a small cake. Do you choose then that we should compare you to little children ? No, by Zeus, for I do not wish to be pacified by a small cake, but by right opinions. And what are these ?

Such as a man ought to study all day, and not to be affected by anything that is not his own, neither by companion nor place nor gymnasia, and not even by his own body, but to remember the law and to have it before his eyes. And what is the divine law ?

To keep a man's own, not to claim that which belongs to others, but to use what is given, and when it is not given, not to desire it ; and when a thing is taken away, to give it up readily and immediately, and to be thankful for the time that a man has had the use of it, if you would not cry for your nurse and mamma. For what matter does it make by what thing a man is subdued, and on what he depends?

In what respect are you better than he who cries for a girl, if you grieve for a little gymnasium, and little porticos, and young men, and such places of amusement? Another comes and laments that he shall no longer drink the water of Dirce. Is the Mar-

Gbe ^Discourses of jEptctetus 97 cian water worse than that of Dirce ? But I was used to the water of Dirce. And you in turn will be used to the other. Then if you become attached to this also, cry for this too, and try to make a verse like the verse of Euripides, The hot baths of Nero and the Marcian water. See how tragedy is made when common things happen to silly men. When then shall I see Athens again and the Acropolis ?

Wretch, are you not content with what you see daily? Have you any thing better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the sea ? But if indeed you comprehend Him who administers the whole, and carry him about in yourself, do you still desire small stones and a beautiful rock? How we must Adapt Preconceptions to Particular Cases. — What is the first business of him who philosophizes ?

To throw away selfconceit (oi'r/6iS). For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn that which he thinks that he knows. As to things then which ought to be done and ought not to be done, and good and bad, and beautiful and ugly, all of us talking of them at random go to the 7

98 Gbe Discourses of Epictetus philosophers ; and on these matters we praise, we censure, we accuse, we blame, we judge and determine about principles honorable and dishonorable. But why do we go to the philosophers ? Because we wish to learn what we do not think that we know. And what is this? Theorems.

For we wish to learn what philosophers say as being something elegant and acute ; and some wish to learn that they may get profit from what they learn. It is ridiculous then to think that a person wishes to learn one thing, and will learn another ; or further, that a man will make proficiency in that which he does not learn.

But the many are deceived by this which deceived also the rhetorician Theopompus, when he blames even Plato for wishing everything to be defined. For what does he say ? Did none of us before you use the words good or just, or do we utter the sounds in an unmeaning and empty way without understanding what they severally signify?

Now who tells you, Theopompus, that we had not natural notions of each of these things and preconceptions (7rpoAr/tbf/?) ? But it is not possible to adapt preconceptions to their correspondent objects if we have not distinguished (analyzed) them, and inquired what object must be subjected to each preconception. You may make the same charge against physicians