<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXII </h2>
<p>If God had made that part of His own nature which He severed from Himself
and gave to us, liable to be hindered or constrained either by Himself or
any other, He would not have been God, nor would He have been taking care
of us as He ought . . . . If you choose, you are free; if you choose, you
need blame no man—accuse no man. All things will be at once
according to your mind and according to the Mind of God.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXIII </h2>
<p>Petrifaction is of two sorts. There is petrifaction of the understanding;
and also of the sense of shame. This happens when a man obstinately
refuses to acknowledge plain truths, and persists in maintaining what is
self-contradictory. Most of us dread mortification of the body, and would
spare no pains to escape anything of that kind. But of mortification of
the soul we are utterly heedless. With regard, indeed, to the soul, if a
man is in such a state as to be incapable of following or understanding
anything, I grant you we do think him in a bad way. But mortification of
the sense of shame and modesty we go so far as to dub strength of mind!</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXIV </h2>
<p>If we were as intent upon our business as the old fellows at Rome are upon
what interests them, we too might perhaps accomplish something. I know a
man older than I am, now Superintendent of the Corn-market at Rome, and I
remember when he passed through this place on his way back from exile,
what an account he gave me of his former life, declaring that for the
future, once home again, his only care should be to pass his remaining
years in quiet and tranquility. "For how few years have I left!" he cried.
"That," I said, "you will not do; but the moment the scent of Rome is in
your nostrils, you will forget it all; and if you can but gain admission
to Court, you will be glad enough to elbow your way in, and thank God for
it." "Epictetus," he replied, "if ever you find me setting as much as one
foot within the Court, think what you will of me."</p>
<p>Well, as it was, what did he do? Ere ever he entered the city, he was met
by a despatch from the Emperor. He took it, and forgot the whole of his
resolutions. From that moment, he has been piling one thing upon another.
I should like to be beside him to remind him of what he said when passing
this way, and to add, How much better a prophet I am than you!</p>
<p>What then? do I say man is not made for an active life? Far from it! . . .
But there is a great difference between other men's occupations and ours.
. . . A glance at theirs will make it clear to you. All day long they do
nothing but calculate, contrive, consult how to wring their profit out of
food-stuffs, farm-plots and the like. . . . Whereas, I entreat you to
learn what the administration of the World is, and what place a Being
endowed with reason holds therein: to consider what you are yourself, and
wherein your Good and Evil consists.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXV </h2>
<p>A man asked me to write to Rome on his behalf who, as most people thought,
had met with misfortune; for having been before wealthy and distinguished,
he had afterwards lost all and was living here. So I wrote about him in a
humble style. He however on reading the letter returned it to me, with the
words: "I asked for your help, not for your pity. No evil has happened
unto me."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXVI </h2>
<p>True instruction is this:—to learn to wish that each thing should
come to pass as it does. And how does it come to pass? As the Disposer has
disposed it. Now He has disposed that there should be summer and winter,
and plenty and dearth, and vice and virtue, and all such opposites, for
the harmony of the whole.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXVII </h2>
<p>Have this thought ever present with thee, when thou losest any outward
thing, what thou gainest in its stead; and if this be the more precious,
say not, I have suffered loss.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXVIII </h2>
<p>Concerning the Gods, there are who deny the very existence of the Godhead;
others say that it exists, but neither bestirs nor concerns itself nor has
forethought for anything. A third party attribute to it existence and
forethought, but only for great and heavenly matters, not for anything
that is on earth. A fourth party admit things on earth as well as in
heaven, but only in general, and not with respect to each individual. A
fifth, of whom were Ulysses and Socrates are those that cry:—</p>
<p>I move not without Thy knowledge!</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXIX </h2>
<p>Considering all these things, the good and true man submits his judgement
to Him that administers the Universe, even as good citizens to the law of
the State. And he that is being instructed should come thus minded:—How
may I in all things follow the Gods; and, How may I rest satisfied with
the Divine Administration; and, How may I become free? For he is free for
whom all things come to pass according to his will, and whom none can
hinder. What then, is freedom madness? God forbid. For madness and freedom
exist not together.</p>
<p>"But I wish all that I desire to come to pass and in the manner that I
desire."</p>
<p>—You are mad, you are beside yourself. Know you not that Freedom is
a glorious thing and of great worth? But that what I desired at random I
should wish at random to come to pass, so far from being noble, may well
be exceeding base.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXX </h2>
<p>You must know that it is no easy thing for a principle to become a man's
own, unless each day he maintain it and hear it maintained, as well as
work it out in life.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXI </h2>
<p>You must know that it is no easy thing for a principle to become a man's
own, unless each day he maintain it and hear it maintained, as well as
work it out in life.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXII </h2>
<p>What then is the chastisement of those who accept it not? To be as they
are. Is any discontented with being alone? let him be in solitude. Is any
discontented with his parents? let him be a bad son, and lament. Is any
discontented with his children? let him be a bad father.—"Throw him
into prison!"—What prison?—Where he is already: for he is
there against his will; and wherever a man is against his will, that to
him is a prison. Thus Socrates was not in prison, since he was there with
his own consent.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXIII </h2>
<p>Knowest thou what a speck thou art in comparison with the Universe?—-That
is, with respect to the body; since with respect to Reason, thou art not
inferior to the Gods, nor less than they. For the greatness of Reason is
not measured by length or height, but by the resolves of the mind. Place
then thy happiness in that wherein thou art equal to the Gods.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXIV </h2>
<p>Asked how a man might eat acceptably to the Gods, Epictetus replied:—If
when he eats, he can be just, cheerful, equable, temperate, and orderly,
can he not thus eat acceptably to the Gods? But when you call for warm
water, and your slave does not answer, or when he answers brings it
lukewarm, or is not even found to be in the house at all, then not to be
vexed nor burst with anger, is not that acceptable to the Gods?</p>
<p>"But how can one endure such people?"</p>
<p>Slave, will you not endure your own brother, that has God to his
forefather, even as a son sprung from the same stock, and of the same high
descent as yourself? And if you are stationed in a high position, are you
therefor forthwith set up for a tyrant? Remember who you are, and whom you
rule, that they are by nature your kinsmen, your brothers, the offspring
of God.</p>
<p>"But I paid a price for them, not they for me."</p>
<p>Do you see whither you are looking—down to the earth, to the pit, to
those despicable laws of the dead? But to the laws of the Gods you do not
look.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXV </h2>
<p>When we are invited to a banquet, we take what is set before us; and were
one to call upon his host to set fish upon the table or sweet things, he
would be deemed absurd. Yet in a word, we ask the Gods for what they do
not give; and that, although they have given us so many things!</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXVI </h2>
<p>Asked how a man might convince himself that every single act of his was
under the eye of God, Epictetus answered:—</p>
<p>"Do you not hold that things on earth and things in heaven are continuous
and in unison with each other?"</p>
<p>"I do," was the reply.</p>
<p>"Else how should the trees so regularly, as though by God's command, at
His bidding flower; at His bidding send forth shoots, bear fruit and ripen
it; at His bidding let it fall and shed their leaves, and folded up upon
themselves lie in quietness and rest? How else, as the Moon waxes and
wanes, as the Sun approaches and recedes, can it be that such vicissitude
and alternation is seen in earthly things?</p>
<p>"If then all things that grow, nay, our own bodies, are thus bound up with
the whole, is not this still truer of our souls? And if our souls are
bound up and in contact with God, as being very parts and fragments
plucked from Himself, shall He not feel every movement of theirs as though
it were His own, and belonging to His own nature?"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXVII </h2>
<p>"But," you say, "I cannot comprehend all this at once."</p>
<p>"Why, who told you that your powers were equal to God's?"</p>
<p>Yet God hath placed by the side of each a man's own Guardian Spirit, who
is charged to watch over him—a Guardian who sleeps not nor is
deceived. For to what better or more watchful Guardian could He have
committed which of us? So when you have shut the doors and made a darkness
within, remember never to say that you are alone; for you are not alone,
but God is within, and your Guardian Spirit, and what light do they need
to behold what you do? To this God you also should have sworn allegiance,
even as soldiers unto C�sar. They, when their service is hired, swear to
hold the life of C�sar dearer than all else: and will you not swear your
oath, that are deemed worthy of so many and great gifts? And will you not
keep your oath when you have sworn it? And what oath will you swear? Never
to disobey, never to arraign or murmur at aught that comes to you from His
hand: never unwillingly to do or suffer aught that necessity lays upon
you.</p>
<p>"Is this oath like theirs?"</p>
<p>They swear to hold no other dearer than C�sar: you, to hold our true
selves dearer than all else beside.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXVIII </h2>
<p>"How shall my brother cease to be wroth with me?"</p>
<p>Bring him to me, and I will tell him. But to thee I have nothing to say
about his anger.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXXIX </h2>
<p>When one took counsel of Epictetus, saying, "What I seek is this, how even
though my brother be not reconciled to me, I may still remain as Nature
would have me to be," he replied: "All great things are slow of growth;
nay, this is true even of a grape or of a fig. If then you say to me now,
I desire a fig, I shall answer, It needs time: wait till it first flower,
then cast its blossom, then ripen. Whereas then the fruit of the fig-tree
reaches not maturity suddenly nor yet in a single hour, do you
nevertheless desire so quickly, and easily to reap the fruit of the mind
of man?—Nay, expect it not, even though I bade you!"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XL </h2>
<p>Epaphroditus had a shoemaker whom he sold as being good-for-nothing. This
fellow, by some accident, was afterwards purchased by one of C�sar's men,
and became a shoemaker to C�sar. You should have seen what respect
Epaphroditus paid him then. "How does the good Felicion? Kindly let me
know!" And if any of us inquired, "What is Epaphroditus doing?" the answer
was, "He is consulting about so and so with Felicion."—Had he not
sold him as good-for-nothing? Who had in a trice converted him into a
wiseacre?</p>
<p>This is what comes of holding of importance anything but the things that
depend on the Will.</p>
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