Encheiridion — Epictetus

Gbe Discourses of jEplctetus 187 only the desire of power and of riches makes us mean and subject to others, but even the desire of tranquillity, and of leisure, and of travelling abroad, and of learning. For, to speak plainly, whatever the external thing may be, the value which we set upon it places us in subjection to others.

What then is the difference between desiring to be a senator or not desiring to be one ; what is the difference between desiring power or being content with a private station ; what is the difference between saying, I am unhappy, I have nothing to do, but I am bound to my books as a corpse ; or saying, I am unhappy, I have no leisure for reading ? For as salutations and power are things external and independent of the will, so is a book.

For what purpose do you choose to read ? Tell me. For if you only direct your purpose to being amused or learning something, you are a silly fellow and incapable of enduring labor. But if you refer reading to the proper end, what else is this than a tranquil and happy life (svdoia) ? But if reading does not secure for you a happy and tranquil life, what is the use of it ?

But it does secure this, the man replies, aud for this reason I am vexed that I am deprived of it. — And what is this tranquil aud happy life, which any man can impede, I do not say Caesar or Caesar's friend, but a crow, a piper, a fever, and thirty thousand other things ? But a tranquil

188 Gbe Discourses of Bpictetus and happy life contains nothing so sure as continuity and freedom from obstacle.

Now I am called to do something : I will go then with the purpose of observing the measures (rules) which I must keep, of acting with modesty, steadiness, without desire and aversion to things external ; and then that I may attend to men, what they say, how they are moved ; and this not with any bad disposition, or that I may have something to blame or to ridicule ; but I turn to myself, and ask if I also commit the same faults.

How then shall I cease to commit them ? Formerly I also acted wrong, but now I do not : thanks to God. What then is the reason of this?

The reason is that we have never read for this purpose, we have never written for this purpose, so that we may in our actions use in a way conformable to nature the appearances presented to us ; but we terminate in this, in learning what is said, and in being able to expound it to another, in resolving a syllogism, and in handling the hypothetical syllogism. For this reason where our study (purpose) is, there alone is the impediment.

Would you have by all means the things which are not in your power ? Be prevented then, be hindered, fail in your purpose. But if we read what is written about action (efforts, upfurj)t uot that we may see what is said about action, but

Gbe Discourses of Bpictctus 189 that we may act well ; if we read what is said about desire and aversion (avoiding things), in order that we may neither fail in our desires, nor fall into that which we try to avoid ; if we read what is said about duty (officium), in order that remembering the relations (of things to one another) we may do nothing irrationally nor contrary to these relations ; we should not be vexed in being hindered as to our readings, but we should be satisfied with doing the acts which are conformable (to the relations), and we should be reckoning not what so far we have been accustomed to reckon : To-day I have read so many verses, I have written so many ; but (we should say), To-day I have employed my action as it is taught by the philosophers ; I have not employed my desire ; I have used avoidance {kKx\i6Ei) only with respect to things which are within the power of my will ; I have not been afraid of such a person, I have not been prevailed upon by the entreaties of another ; I have exercised my patience, my abstinence, my co-operation with others ; and so we should thank God for what we ought to thank him.

There is only one way to happiness, and let this rule be ready both in the morning and during the day and by night : the rule is not to look towards things which are out of the power