Ch. 4
To those who are desirous of passing life in tranquillity.
REMEMBER that not 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 salutations686 and power are things external and independent of
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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 labour.687 But if you
refer reading to the proper end, what else is this than a
tranquil and happy life (εὔσοια)? 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, and for
this reason I am vexed that I am deprived of it.And
what is this tranquil and 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 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,688 of
acting with modesty, steadiness, without desire and
aversion to things external;689 and then that I may attend
to men, what they say, how they are moved;690 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
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cease to commit them? Formerly I also acted wrong,
but now I do not: thanks to God.
Come, when you have done these things and have attended to them, have you done a worse act than when you
have read a thousand verses or written as many? For when
you eat, are you grieved because you are not reading? are
you not satisfied with eating according to what you have
learned by reading, and so with bathing and with exercise? Why then do you not act consistently in all things,
both when you approach Caesar, and when you approach
any person? If you maintain yourself free from perturbation, free from alarm, and steady; if you look rather at
the things which are done and happen than are looked at
yourself; if you do not envy those who are I referred before
you; if surrounding circumstances (ὕλαι) do not strike you
with fear or admiration, what do you want? Books? How
or for what purpose? for is not this (the reading of
books) a preparation for life? and is not life itself
(living) made up of certain other things than this? This
is just as if an athlete should weep when he enters the
stadium, because he is not being exercised outside of it.
It was for this purpose that you used to practise exercise;
for this purpose were used the halteres (weights),691 the dust,
the young men as antagonists; and do you seek for those
things now when it is the time of action? This is just as
if in the topic (matter) of assent when appearances present themselves, some of which can be comprehended, and
some cannot be comprehended, we should not choose to
distinguish them but should choose to read what has been
written about comprehension (κατάληψις).
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 away
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,692 and in handling the hypothetical syllogism. For
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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, ὁρμή),693 not that we
may see what is said about action, but 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 (ἐκκλίσει) 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,694 my abstinence, my co-operation
with others; and so we should thank God for what we
ought to thank him.
But now we do not know that we also in another way
are like the many. Another man is afraid that he shall
not have power: you are afraid that you will. Do not do
so, my man; but as you ridicule him who is afraid that he
shall not have power, so ridicule yourself also. For it
makes no difference whether you are thirsty like a man
who has a fever, or have a dread of water like a man who
is mad. Or how will you still be able to say as Socrates
did, If so it pleases God, so let it be? Do you think that
Socrates if he had been eager to pass his leisure in the
Lyceum or in the Academy and to discourse daily with
the young men, would have readily served in military
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expeditions so often as he did; and would he not have
lamented and groaned, Wretch that I am; I must now
be miserable here, when I might be sunning myself in the
Lyceum? Why, was this your business, to sun yourself?
And is it not your business to be happy, to be free from
hindrance, free from impediment? And could he still have
been Socrates, if he had lamented in this way: how would
he still have been able to write Paeans in his prison?695
In short remember this, that what you shall prize which
is beyond your will, so far you have destroyed your will.
But these things are out of the power of the will, not
only power (authority), but also a private condition: not
only occupation (business), but also leisure.Now then
must I live in this tumult?Why do you say tumult?I
mean among many men.Well what is the hardship?
Suppose that you are at Olympia: imagine it to be a
panegyris (public assembly), where one is calling out one
thing, another is doing another thing, and a third is pushing another person: in the baths there is a crowd: and
who of us is not pleased with this assembly, and leaves it
unwillingly? Be not difficult to please nor fastidious
about what happens.Vinegar is disagreeable, for it is
sharp; honey is disagreeable, for it disturbs my habit of
body. I do not like vegetables. So also I do not like leisure
it is a desert: I do not like a crowd; it is confusion.
But if circumstances make it necessary for you to live
alone or with a few, call it quiet, and use the thing as you
ought: talk with yourself, exercise the appearances (presented to you), work up your preconceptions.696 If you
fall into a crowd, call it a celebration of games, a panegyris,
a festival: try to enjoy the festival with other men. For
what is a more pleasant sight to him who loves mankind
than a number of men? We see with pleasure herds of
horses or oxen: we are delighted when we see many ships:
who is pained when he sees many men?But they deafen
me with their cries.Then your hearing is impeded.
What then is this to you? Is then the power of making
use of appearances hindered? And who prevents you
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from using according to nature inclination to a thing and
aversion from it; and movement towards a thing and movement from it? What tumult (confusion) is able to do
this?
Do you only bear in mind the general rules: what is
mine, what is not mine; what is given (permitted) to me;
what does God will that I should do now? what does he
not will? A little before he willed you to be at leisure,
to talk with yourself, to write about these things, to read,
to hear, to prepare yourself. You had sufficient time for
this. Now he says to you: Come now to the contest,
show us what you have learned, how you have practised
the athletic art. How long will you be exercised alone?
Now is the opportunity for you to learn whether you are
an athlete worthy of victory, or one of those who go about
the world and are defeated. Why then are you vexed?
No contest is without confusion. There must be many
who exercise themselves for the contest, many who call
out to those who exercise themselves, many masters, many
spectators.But my wish is to live quietly.Lament then
and groan as you deserve to do. For what other is a
greater punishment than this to the untaught man and to
him who disobeys the divine commands, to be grieved, to
lament, to envy, in a word to be disappointed and to be
unhappy? Would you not release yourself from these
things?And how shall I release myself?Have you not
often heard, that you ought to remove entirely desire,
apply aversion (turning away) to those things only which
are within your power, that you ought to give up every
thing, body, property, fame, books, tumult, power, private
station? for whatever way you turn, you are a slave, you
are subjected, you are hindered, you are compelled, you
are entirely in the power of others. But keep the words
of Cleanthes in readiness.
Lead me, O Zeus, and thou necessity.697
Is it your will that I should go to Rome? I will go to
Rome. To Gyara? I will go to Gyara. To Athens? I
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will go to Athens. To prison? I will go to prison. If
you should once say, When shall a man go to Athens?
you are undone. It is a necessary consequence that this
desire, if it is not accomplished, must make you unhappy;
and if it is accomplished, it must make you vain, since
you are elated at things at which you ought not to be
elated; and on the other hand, if you are impeded, it
must make you wretched because you fall into that which
you would not fall into. Give up then all these things.
Athens is a good place.But happiness is much better;
and to be free from passions, free from disturbance, for
your affairs not to depend on any man. There is tumult
at Rome and visits of salutation.698 But happiness is an
equivalent for all troublesome things. If then the time
comes for these things, why do you not take away the wish
to avoid them? what necessity is there to carry a burden
like an ass, and to be beaten with a stick? But if you do
not so, consider that you must always be a slave to him
who has it in his power to effect your release, and also to
impede you, and you must serve him as an evil genius.699
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 of our will, to think that nothing is our
own, to give up all things to the Divinity, to Fortune; to
make them the superintendents of these things, whom
Zeus also has made so; for a man to observe that only
which is his own, that which cannot be hindered; and
when we read, to refer our reading to this only, and our
writing and our listening. For this reason I cannot call
the man industrious, if I hear this only, that he reads and
writes; and even if a man adds that he reads all night, I
cannot say so, if he knows not to what he should refer his
reading. For neither do you say that a man is industrious
if he keeps awake for a girl;700 nor do I. But if he does
it (reads and writes) for reputation, I say that he is a
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lover of reputation. And if he does it for money, I say
that he is a lover of money, not a lover of labour; and if
he does it through love of learning, I say that he is a lover
of learning, But if he refers his labour to his own ruling
power (ἡγεμονικόν), that he may keep it in a state con-
formable to nature and pass his life in that state, then only
do I say that he is industrious. For never commend a
man on account of these things which are common to all,
but on account of his opinions (principles); fur these are
the things which belong to each man, which make his
actions bad or good. Remembering these rules, rejoice in
that which is present, and be content with the things
which come in season.701 If you see any thing which you
have learned and inquired about occurring to you in your
course of life (or opportunely applied by you to the acts of
life), be delighted at it. If you have laid aside or have
lessened bad disposition and a habit of reviling; if you
have done so with rash temper, obscene words, hastiness,
sluggishness; if you are not moved by what you formerly
were, and not in the same way as you once were, you can
celebrate a festival daily, to-day because you have behaved
well in one act, and to-morrow because you have behaved
well in another. How much greater is this a reason for
making sacrifices than a consulship or the government of
a province? These things come to you from yourself and
from the gods. Remember this, who gives these things
and to whom, and for what purpose. If you cherish yourself in these thoughts, do you still think that it makes any
difference where you shall be happy, where you shall
please God? Are not the gods equally distant from all
places?702 Do they not see from all places alike that which
is going on?
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