<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"></SPAN></p>
<h2> I </h2>
<p>Are these the only works of Providence within us? What words suffice to
praise or set them forth? Had we but understanding, should we ever cease
hymning and blessing the Divine Power, both openly and in secret, and
telling of His gracious gifts? Whether digging or ploughing or eating,
should we not sing the hymn to God:—</p>
<p>Great is God, for that He hath given us such instruments to till the
ground withal: Great is God, for that He hath given us hands and the power
of swallowing and digesting; of unconsciously growing and breathing while
we sleep!</p>
<p>Thus should we ever have sung; yea and this, the grandest and divinest
hymn of all:—</p>
<p>Great is God, for that He hath given us a mind to apprehend these things,
and duly to use them!</p>
<p>What then! seeing that most of you are blinded, should there not be some
one to fill this place, and sing the hymn to God on behalf of all men?
What else can I that am old and lame do but sing to God? Were I a
nightingale, I should do after the manner of a nightingale. Were I a swan,
I should do after the manner of a swan. But now, since I am a reasonable
being, I must sing to God: that is my work: I do it, nor will I desert
this my post, as long as it is granted me to hold it; and upon you too I
call to join in this self-same hymn.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></SPAN></p>
<h2> II </h2>
<p>How then do men act? As though one returning to his country who had
sojourned for the night in a fair inn, should be so captivated thereby as
to take up his abode there.</p>
<p>"Friend, thou hast forgotten thine intention! This was not thy
destination, but only lay on the way thither."</p>
<p>"Nay, but it is a proper place."</p>
<p>"And how many more of the sort there may be; only to pass through upon thy
way! Thy purpose was to return to thy country; to relieve thy kinsmen's
fears for thee; thyself to discharge the duties of a citizen; to marry a
wife, to beget offspring, and to fill the appointed round of office. Thou
didst not come to choose out what places are most pleasant; but rather to
return to that wherein thou wast born and where wert appointed to ba a
citizen."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"></SPAN></p>
<h2> III </h2>
<h3> Try to enjoy the great festival of life with other men. </h3>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"></SPAN></p>
<h2> IV </h2>
<p>But I have one whom I must please, to whom I must be subject, whom I must
obey:—God, and those who come next to Him. He hath entrusted me with
myself: He hath made my will subject to myself alone and given me rules
for the right use thereof.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"></SPAN></p>
<h2> V </h2>
<p>Rufus used to say, If you have leisure to praise me, what I say is naught.
In truth he spoke in such wise, that each of us who sat there, though that
some one had accused him to Rufus:—so surely did he lay his finger
on the very deeds we did: so surely display the faults of each before his
very eyes.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"></SPAN></p>
<h2> VI </h2>
<p>But what saith God?—"Had it been possible, Epictetus, I would have
made both that body of thine and thy possessions free and unimpeded, but
as it is, be not deceived:—it is not thine own; it is but finely
tempered clay. Since then this I could not do, I have given thee a portion
of Myself, in the power of desiring and declining and of pursuing and
avoiding, and in a word the power of dealing with the things of sense. And
if thou neglect not this, but place all that thou hast therein, thou shalt
never be let or hindered; thou shalt never lament; thou shalt not blame or
flatter any. What then? Seemth this to thee a little thing?"—God
forbid!—"Be content then therewith!"</p>
<p>And so I pray the Gods.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"></SPAN></p>
<h2> VII </h2>
<p>What saith Antisthenes? Hast thou never heard?— It is a kingly
thing, O Cyrus, to do well and to be evil spoken of.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"></SPAN></p>
<h2> VIII </h2>
<p>"Aye, but to debase myself thus were unworthy of me."</p>
<p>"That," said Epictetus, "is for you to consider, not for me. You know
yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will
sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This was why,
when Florus was deliberating whether he should appear at Nero's shows,
taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, 'But why do
not you appear?' he answered, 'Because I do not even consider the
question.' For the man who has once stooped to consider such questions,
and to reckon up the value of external things, is not far from forgetting
what manner of man he is. Why, what is it that you ask me? Is death
preferable, or life? I reply, Life. Pain or pleasure? I reply, Pleasure."</p>
<p>"Well, but if I do not act, I shall lose my head."</p>
<p>"Then go and act! But for my part I will not act."</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"Because you think yourself but one among the many threads which make up
the texture of the doublet. You should aim at being like men in general—just
as your thread has no ambition either to be anything distinguished
compared with the other threads. But I desire to be the purple—that
small and shining part which makes the rest seem fair and beautiful. Why
then do you bid me become even as the multitude? Then were I no longer the
purple."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"></SPAN></p>
<h2> IX </h2>
<p>If a man could be throughly penetrated, as he ought, with this thought,
that we are all in an especial manner sprung from God, and that God is the
Father of men as well as of Gods, full surely he would never conceive
aught ignoble or base of himself. Whereas if C�sar were to adopt you, your
haughty looks would be intolerable; will you not be elated at knowing that
you are the son of God? Now however it is not so with us: but seeing that
in our birth these two things are commingled—the body which we share
with the animals, and the Reason and Thought which we share with the Gods,
many decline towards this unhappy kinship with the dead, few rise to the
blessed kinship with the Divine. Since then every one must deal with each
thing according to the view which he forms about it, those few who hold
that they are born for fidelity, modesty, and unerring sureness in dealing
with the things of sense, never conceive aught base or ignoble of
themselves: but the multitude the contrary. Why, what am I?—A
wretched human creature; with this miserable flesh of mine. Miserable
indeed! but you have something better than that paltry flesh of yours. Why
then cling to the one, and neglect the other?</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"></SPAN></p>
<h2> X </h2>
<h3> Thou art but a poor soul laden with a lifeless body. </h3>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XI </h2>
<p>The other day I had an iron lamp placed beside my household gods. I heard
a noise at the door and on hastening down found my lamp carried off. I
reflected that the culprit was in no very strange case. "Tomorrow, my
friend," I said, "you will find an earthenware lamp; for a man can only
lose what he has."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XII </h2>
<p>The reason why I lost my lamp was that the thief was superior to me in
vigilance. He paid however this price for the lamp, that in exchange for
it he consented to become a thief: in exchange for it, to become
faithless.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XIII </h2>
<p>But God hath introduced Man to be a spectator of Himself and of His works;
and not a spectator only, but also an interpreter of them. Wherefore it is
a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he
should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that
is at contemplation, and understanding, and a manner of life that is in
harmony with herself.</p>
<p>See then that ye die not without being spectators of these things.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XIV </h2>
<p>You journey to Olympia to see the work of Phidias; and each of you holds
it a misfortune not to have beheld these things before you die. Whereas
when there is no need even to take a journey, but you are on the spot,
with the works before you, have you no care to contemplate and study
these?</p>
<p>Will you not then perceive either who you are or unto what end you were
born: or for what purpose the power of contemplation has been bestowed on
you?</p>
<p>"Well, but in life there are some things disagreeable and hard to bear."</p>
<p>And are there none at Olympia? Are you not scorched by the heat? Are you
not cramped for room? Have you not to bathe with discomfort? Are you not
drenched when it rains? Have you not to endure the clamor and shouting and
such annoyances as these? Well, I suppose you set all this over against
the splendour of the spectacle and bear it patiently. What then? have you
not received greatness of heart, received courage, received fortitude?
What care I, if I am great of heart, for aught that can come to pass? What
shall cast me down or disturb me? What shall seem painful? Shall I not use
the power to the end for which I received it, instead of moaning and
wailing over what comes to pass?</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XV </h2>
<p>If what philosophers say of the kinship of God and Man be true, what
remains for men to do but as Socrates did:—never, when asked one's
country, to answer, "I am an Athenian or a Corinthian," but "I am a
citizen of the world."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XVI </h2>
<p>He that hath grasped the administration of the World, who hath learned
that this Community, which consists of God and men, is the foremost and
mightiest and most comprehensive of all:—that from God have
descended the germs of life, not to my father only and father's father,
but to all things that are born and grow upon the earth, and in an
especial manner to those endowed with Reason (for those only are by their
nature fitted to hold communion with God, being by means of Reason
conjoined with Him)—why should not such an one call himself a
citizen of the world? Why not a son of God? Why should he fear aught that
comes to pass among men? Shall kinship with C�sar, or any other of the
great at Rome, be enough to hedge men around with safety and
consideration, without a thought of apprehension: while to have God for
our Maker, and Father, and Kinsman, shall not this set us free from
sorrows and fears?</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XVII </h2>
<p>I do not think that an old fellow like me need have been sitting here to
try and prevent your entertaining abject notions of yourselves, and
talking of yourselves in an abject and ignoble way: but to prevent there
being by chance among you any such young men as, after recognising their
kindred to the Gods, and their bondage in these chains of the body and its
manifold necessities, should desire to cast them off as burdens too
grievous to be borne, and depart their true kindred. This is the struggle
in which your Master and Teacher, were he worthy of the name, should be
engaged. You would come to me and say: "Epictetus, we can no longer endure
being chained to this wretched body, giving food and drink and rest and
purification: aye, and for its sake forced to be subservient to this man
and that. Are these not things indifferent and nothing to us? Is it not
true that death is no evil? Are we not in a manner kinsmen of the Gods,
and have we not come from them? Let us depart thither, whence we came: let
us be freed from these chains that confine and press us down. Here are
thieves and robbers and tribunals: and they that are called tyrants, who
deem that they have after a fashion power over us, because of the
miserable body and what appertains to it. Let us show them that they have
power over none."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XVIII </h2>
<p>And to this I reply:—</p>
<p>"Friends, wait for God. When He gives the signal, and releases you from
this service, then depart to Him. But for the present, endure to dwell in
the place wherein He hath assigned you your post. Short indeed is the time
of your habitation therein, and easy to those that are minded. What
tyrant, what robber, what tribunals have any terrors for those who thus
esteem the body and all that belong to it as of no account? Stay; depart
not rashly hence!"</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XIX </h2>
<p>Something like that is what should pass between a teacher and ingenuous
youths. As it is, what does pass? The teacher is a lifeless body, and you
are lifeless bodies yourselves. When you have had enough to eat today, you
sit down and weep about tomorrow's food. Slave! if you have it, well and
good; if not, you will depart: the door is open—why lament? What
further room is there for tears? What further occasion for flattery? Why
should one envy another? Why should you stand in awe of them that have
much or are placed in power, especially if they be also strong and
passionate? Why, what should they do to us? What they can do, we will not
regard: what does concern us, that they cannot do. Who then shall rule one
that is thus minded?</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XX </h2>
<p>Seeing this then, and noting well the faculties which you have, you should
say,—"Send now, O God, any trial that Thou wilt; lo, I have means
and powers given me by Thee to acquit myself with honour through whatever
comes to pass!"—No; but there you sit, trembling for fear certain
things should come to pass, and moaning and groaning and lamenting over
what does come to pass. And then you upbraid the Gods. Such meanness of
spirit can have but one result—impiety.</p>
<p>Yet God has not only given us these faculties by means of which we may
bear everything that comes to pass without being crushed or depressed
thereby; but like a good King and Father, He has given us this without let
or hindrance, placed wholly at our own disposition, without reserving to
Himself any power of impediment or restraint. Though possessing all these
things free and all you own, you do not use them! you do not perceive what
it is you have received nor whence it comes, but sit moaning and groaning;
some of you blind to the Giver, making no acknowledgment to your
Benefactor; others basely giving themselves to complaints and accusations
against God.</p>
<p>Yet what faculties and powers you possess for attaining courage and
greatness of heart, I can easily show you; what you have for upbraiding
and accusation, it is for you to show me!</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"></SPAN></p>
<h2> XXI </h2>
<p>How did Socrates bear himself in this regard? How else than as became one
who was fully assured that he was the kinsman of Gods?</p>
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