Ch. 19
What is the condition of a common kind of man and of
a philosopher.
THE first difference between a common person (ἰδιώτης)
and a philosopher is this: the common person says, Woe
to me for my little child, for my brother, for my father.516
The philosopher, if he shall ever be compelled to say, Woe
to me, stops and says, 'but for myself.' For nothing
which is independent of the will can hinder or damage
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the will, and the will can only hinder or damage itself.
If then we ourselves incline in this direction, so as, when
we are unlucky, to blame ourselves and to remember
that nothing else is the cause of perturbation or loss of
tranquillity except our own opinion, I swear to you by
all the gods that we have made progress. But in the
present state of affairs we have gone another way from
the beginning. For example, while we were still children,
the nurse, if we ever stumbled through want of care, did
not chide us, but would beat the stone. But what did the
stone do? Ought the stone to have moved on account of
your child's folly? Again, if we find nothing to eat on
coming out of the bath, the paedagogue never checks our
appetite, but he flogs the cook. Man, did we make you
the paedagogue of the cook and not of the child?517 Correct
the child, improve him. In this way even when we are
grown up we are like children. For he who is unmusical
is a child in music; he who is without letters is a child in
learning: he who is untaught, is a child in life.
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