The Discourses of Epictetus 2/4 - (Audiobook & Notes)

book 2 chapter 1 that trust is not at odds with caution perhaps the following statement by philosophers may seem paradoxical to some but, nevertheless, let us consider, as best we can, whether it is true that we should do everything with caution and confidence at the same time . The time for caution seems to be somewhat contrary to trust, and the opposites are by no means consistent, but what seems to many to be paradoxical in the way we are discussing, seems to me to imply something of this kind if we were to demand that a man should employ both caution and confidence in respect to the same things, then we would be justly accused of uniting qualities which ought not to be united, but in fact, what is strange in the saying, if the statements which have they often been done and often have they been demonstrated? are solid, namely, that the nature of both good and evil lies in the use of sense impressions, but things outside the scope of moral purpose admit of neither the nature of evil nor the nature of good. .

What is paradoxical about the claim of philosophers if they say that when things that are outside the scope of moral purpose are involved, there they show confidence, but when things that are within the scope of moral purpose are involved, there they show caution, for if evil lies in a poor exercise of moral purpose, only with respect to matters of this kind is it right to be cautious, but if things which lie outside the scope of moral purpose and are not under our control are nothing for us we must be confident about them and so we will be at the same time cautious and confident yes and by Zeus confident because of our caution because because we are cautious about the things that are really bad the result will be that we will have confidence in the things that are not They are of that nature, yet we behave as if they are loved when the deer are frightened by the feathers and run away from them, where do they turn and what do they fly towards in search of shelter as a safe haven? why to networks and that is why they perish because they have confused the objects of fear with the objects of trust so it is also with us where we show fear about things that are outside the scope of moral purpose again in which we behave with confidence as if not If there is no danger in things that are within the scope of moral purpose, being deceived or acting impetuously or doing something shameless or desiring something with low passion makes no difference to us if only in matters that are outside the scope of the will. , we achieve our goal, but when we face death, exile, hardship or ignominy, there we show the spirit of flight, there we show violent agitation, therefore, as might be expected of those men who are in matters of the greatest concern we transform our natural confidence into audacity, desperation, recklessness, shamelessness, while our natural caution and our self-respect we transform into cowardice and abjection full of fears and disturbances, because if a man transferred his caution to the sphere of moral purpose and the works of the moral purpose then, along with the desire to be cautious, you will also have under your control the will to avoid, whereas if you transferred your caution to those matters that are not under our control and are outside the scope of moral purpose in No matter how much you apply your will to avoid those things that are under the control of others, you will necessarily be subject to fear, instability and disturbance, because it is not death or hardship that is terrifying, but the fear of difficulties or death.

That is why we praise the man who said that death is not horrible but shameful. Therefore, our trust must be turned towards death and our caution towards the fear of death, while we do the opposite in the face of death. In forming a judgment about death we show carelessness, contempt and unconcern, but Socrates was right to call all such things monsters, because just as masks seem frightening and terrible to children due to inexperience in such matters, so do we. we are affected by events and this for the same reason that children are affected by bugbears why is a child's ignorance what is a child's lack of instruction because when a child has knowledge it is not worse that we what is death a bug turn it over and learn what it is look what it does it does not bite the body of the bird it must be separated from the little piece of spirit either now or later as it existed apart from it before why are you afflicted so if it is separated now because if it is not separated now it will be later why so that the The revolution of the universe can be achieved because it needs the things that are now arising and the things that will be and the things that have been achieved.

What is the difficulty? A bear, turn around and learn what poor meat is. subjected to rough and then gentle treatment again if you do not find this profitable, the door remains open if you find it profitable, keep that in mind, because the door must be open for every emergency and then we will have no problems, what then is the fruit of these doctrines precisely what should be both the most just and the most appropriate for those who are being truly educated tranquility boldness freedom because in these matters we should not trust the crowd who say that only the free can be educated but rather in the philosophers who say that only the free can be educated the educated are free how is it that in this time anything is freedom except the right to live as we want just tell me then Oh men want to live in error we do not do it well no one who Live in error, you are free, right?

If you want to live in fear, in sadness, in confusion, it is in no way good, then no man who is afraid, sad or confused is free, but whoever is freed from sorrows, fears and agitations, this man is also freed. , along the same path, of slavery. So can we continue to trust you? Oh, dear legislators, do you not allow anyone but the free to receive an education? Philosophers say that we do not allow anyone who is educated to be free. That is to say, God does not allow it when, therefore, in the presence of the praetor a man makes his own slave turn if he has not done anything he has done something what he has done to his slave in the presence of the praetor he is only obliged to pay a tax of 5% of the value of the slaves, which the man for whom this was done has not done, become free he has not become freer than you have acquired peace of mind, for example, who are capable to change others, don't you have a master?

Don't you have money or a lover or a favorite boy as your master? the tyrant or some friend of tyrants, if not, why do you tremble when you are going to face any circumstance that involves those things, that is why I say over and over again, practice these things and have them at hand, which is the knowledge of what you must face with confidence and what you should approach with caution that you should approach with confidence what is outside the scope of moral purpose with caution what is within the scope of moral purpose but haven't I read it to you and do I?

You don't know what I'm doing. What have you been busy with insignificant phrases? Keep your sentences insignificant. Rather show me what your position is regarding desire and aversion, if you do not stop getting what you want or do not fall into what you do not want. I wish as for those insignificant periods of yours, if you are wise, you will take them somewhere and erase them, which then Socrates did not write, yes, who wrote as much as him, but how, since he could not always have someone at hand to test his judgments. or to be tested by him in turn, he had the habit of testing and examining himself and was always practically rehearsing some particular primary conception, that is what a philosopher has the right to insignificant phrases and said said I let others The stupid or the blessed do it, those who by virtue of their tranquility live in leisure or those who by virtue of their madness do not take into account logical conclusions and now that the crisis calls you will go to give an exhibition of your compositions and give a reading them and the majority see how I write dialogues, don't be such a man but rather brag about the following, look how in my desires I don't stop getting what I want, look how in my aversions I don't fall into things that would avoid bringing me death and you will know how to bring hardship bring imprisonment bring discredit bring condemnation this is the proper display of a young man coming from school leave other things to other people nor let anyone hear a word from you about them nor if someone praises you for them you tolerate it but let them consider you a gift no one and you know nothing proves that you know this only how you can never fail to get what you want or fall into what you avoid letting others practice the law adapts to other problems other syllogisms do you? practice how to die how to be chained how to be tormented how to be exiled do all these things with confidence in Him who has coal to meet them and deems you worthy of this position in which, once placed, you will exhibit what can be accomplished by a rational governing principle when faced with forces outside the realm of moral purpose, and therefore the paradox we spoke of will no longer seem impossible or paradoxical, namely, that at the same time we should be both. cautious and confident confident with respect to those things that are outside the scope of moral purpose and cautious with respect to those things that are within the scope of moral purpose chapter 2 on tranquility consider you who are going to court what you wish to maintain and in what you wish to succeed, because if you wish to maintain freedom of moral purpose in its natural condition, the old security is yours, all the facilities are yours, you have no problem if you are willing to keep guard over those things that are under your direct authority and by nature it is free and if you are satisfied with them, what else do you care?

Who owns them? Who can take them away from you if you want to be respectful and honorable? Who is the one who won't let you do it if you don't want it? be prevented or forced what man will force you to desire what you do not find desirable avoid what you do not feel should be avoided well what then the judge will do to you some things that are considered terrifying but how can he make you try to avoid what you suffer when therefore desire and aversion are under your control what else matters to you this is your introduction this is the statement of your case this is your proof this your victory this your partner this your approval therefore Socrates, in response to the man who He remembered that he was preparing for his trial, he said, don't you feel then that with all my life I am preparing for this?

What kind of preparation have I maintained? says what is under my control, then I have never done anything wrong either in my private life or in my public life, but if you wish to maintain also what is external, your poultry body, your petty patrimony and your small reputation, I have this to tell you, start. this very moment to make all possible preparations and also study the character of your judge and your antagonist if you must classify men's knees together if you must whale then whale if you must moan then moan for when you subject what is yours to the external then from now on be a slave and stop letting yourself be dragged from one place to another, wishing at one moment to be a slave at another, be nothing more than this or that simply and with all your mind, whether a free man or a slave, whether educated or uneducated. a spirited fighter or a spiritless one endures being beaten to death or surrenders immediately, far from taking many blows and finally giving in, but if that is shameful, he begins at this very moment to decide the question of where.

Is the nature of good and evil found where truth is also where truth is and where nature is there is caution where truth is there is trust where nature is? Why do you think that if Socrates had wanted to keep his external possessions he would have come? He came forward and said: Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me. He was foolish enough not to see that this course does not lead to that goal, but on the other hand, why is it not reasonable then and also a provocation like my friend? Heraclitus, who had a petty dispute over a small piece of land at Rhodes, after having pointed out the justice of his claim, went on to the tirade in which he said, But I will neither plead with you nor care what your decision will be. be and it is you who is being judged instead of me and that is why he ruined his case what is the use of acting like this just don't make supplications but don't add the words yes and I don't make supplications unless the right time has come for you. as Socrates did deliberately to provoke your judges, if you for your part are preparing such an Asian couple, why do you go up to the platform?

Why respond to the call? If you wish to be crucified wait and the cross will come, but if reason decides that you must respond to the summons and do the best you can so that what you say has conviction, you must act accordingly, but always maintaining what is your own. character, seen this way it is absurdsay advise me and what advice I am. To give it not say, rather allow my mind to adapt to whatever comes since the other expression is as if an illiterate person said tell me what to write when some name makes me write because if I say write do and then the teacher comes and he gives him not his name but Theo what will happen what will he write but if you have practiced writing you are capable of preparing yourself for everything that is dictated to you if you have not practiced what advice can I give you now because if the circumstances dictate something different, what will he say or what will he do ?

Keep in mind, therefore, this general principle and you will not be left without suggestions, but if you are left open-mouthed at the external, it must be rejected and down according to the will of your faster and who is your master who has authority over any of the things that you set your heart on or that you want to avoid chapter three to those who recommend people to philosophers that is an excellent response from Diogenes to the man who asked him for a letter of recommendation that you are a man tells him that he will know from at a glance but if you are a good or a bad man he will discover if he has the ability to distinguish between good and evil and if he does not have that ability he will not discover the facts even if he writes to him thousands of times because it is as if a drachma asked to be recommended to someone to be tested if the man in question is a silver assayer.

You will recommend yourself, therefore we should also have in everyday life the kind of things that we have in the case of silver, so that I can say as the silver assayer says, bring me the drachma you want and I will value it. Now in the case of syllogisms I say bring the man you want and I will distinguish the man who knows how to solve syllogisms and the man who does not know because I myself know how to analyze syllogisms I have the faculty that the man must have who is going to evaluate those who handle them properly syllogisms but in everyday life what do I sometimes call a thing good and sometimes bad what is the reason the opposite of what was true in the case of syllogisms, that is, ignorance and inexperience chapter 4 - man that he had once been caught in adultery Epictetus was commenting that man is born for fidelity and that the man who demolishes this is demolishing the characteristic quality of man;

There entered one who had the reputation of being a scholar and who had once been caught in the city in the act of adultery but continues in

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if we abandon this fidelity to which we were born by nature and make designs against our neighbor's wife what are we doing? why what else but ruin and destroy who the man of fidelity of himself respect for piety is that we are not all also tearing down the feeling of neighborliness friendship the state in which position we are placing ourselves like what should I treat you friend like a neighbor as a friend of what type as a citizen in what trust should I place?

You, if you were a container so cracked that it was impossible to use you for anything, you would be thrown into the dung heaps and not even from there anyone would pick you up, but if, although you are a man, you cannot take the place of man, what are we? ? What is going to happen to you for assuming that you can't take a friend's place? Can you take the place of a slave? And who is going to trust you? Are you not willing, therefore, that you too should be thrown into some dunghill as a useless vessel?

Like a piece of dung for everyone, that's what you'll say: no one wants me as a scholar, not because you're an evil and useless man. It's like the wasps complaining that no one cares about them, but they all run away from them, and if anyone can, they hit them and knock them down. you have such a sting that you involve in problems and pain whoever you hit what do you want us to do with you there is no place where they can put you what then you say that they are not women by nature common property I agree and the pig is the common property of the guests but when portions have been allocated, if so, you reach out and grab the guess portion to recline next to you, steal it on the sly, or slip it into your hand and fill yourself up. greed and if you can't tear off a piece of meat, grease your fingers and lick them, now good fellow, you would make him a banquet and dinner guest worthy of Socrates.

Come now, the theater is not the common property of the citizens when, therefore, they are seated, go, if you please, and drive one of them from his seat, just as women also are by nature common property. , but when the legislator, like a host at a banquet, distributes them, do you not want them like the others? seek your own portion instead of leaking and glorifying your greed with what is someone else's, but I am a scholar and I understand Archidamus very well, so I understand that you are Cadmus and being an adulterer and unfaithful and a wolf or an ape instead of a man for What is there that prevents you?

Chapter 5 How our magnanimity and care compatible materials are indifferent but the use we make of them is not a matter of indifference. How, then, should a man maintain firmness and tranquility and at the same time his careful spirit? and he who is not reckless or negligent if he imitates those who play dice the chips are indifferent the dice are indifferent how am I going to know what is going to fall but to make careful and skillful use of what has fallen which is now my task in the same way, therefore, the main task in life is to distinguish things and compare them with each other and tell yourself that the external is not under my control the moral choice is under my control where should I look for the good and the evil inside me?

I want to say what is mine, but in what is another's, never use the words good or evil, benefit or harm or anything else of that nature, so what should you use these external elements carelessly? In no way, because this again is for a moral and evil purpose and that is why they are natural, we must use them with care because their use is not indifferent and at the same time with constancy and tranquility because the material is indifferent because in what we really care about. Concerning there no man can hinder or force me to obtain those things to which I have been prevented or forced is not under my control and is neither good nor bad, but the use I make of them is good or bad and that is under my control is really difficult to achieve.

It unites and combines these two things, the care of the man who dedicates himself to material things and the perseverance of the man who despises them, but it is not impossible, otherwise happiness would be impossible, but we act as if we were on a journey. What is it? Is it possible for me to select the helmsman, the sailors, on the day at the time, then a storm falls on us, very well, what else do I worry about, for my part, the business has been completed, it belongs to someone else, that is the helmsman, but more than that, the ship is going down.

So I have to do what I can. That's the only thing I do. I drown without fear, neither screaming nor crying out against God, but recognizing that what is born must also perish because I am not eternal but a man, a part of the whole as an hour is a part of One day I must come as the hour and as the hour passes, what difference does it make to me then how I die, whether by drowning or fever or something like that I should need to pass? This is what you will see skilled players do and none of them worry about the ball as a good or bad thing, but rather about throwing and catching it accordingly.

Form is about that skill and speed and grace where I can't catch the ball. Even if I spread my cape, the expert catches it, if I still throw, if we catch or throw the ball in a flurry or with fear, what fun is left and how can a man stand his ground or see what is next in the game, except one ? one player will say to throw another not to throw and another not to throw it that in fact would be a conflict and not a game in that sense so Socrates knew how to play ball, so he knew how to play in the court, say I say, Anytus, what What do you mean when you say I don't believe in God?

In your opinion, who are the demons? Are they not descendants of the gods or a hybrid race, descendants of men and gods? had accepted that statement Socrates continued, who then do you think can believe that mules exist but not donkeys in that sense it was like a man playing ball and at that place and time what was the bowl that was playing with imprisonment exile drinking poison? being deprived of his wife and leaving his children orphaned, these were the things he played with, but he still played and handled the ball in good shape, so we must also act showing the players' care with the game , but the same indifference towards the object they were playing with. being a mere ball, a man must endeavor by all means to show his skill with respect to some of the external materials, but without making the material a part of himself, but simply lavishing his skill with respect to it, whatever it may be.

Be it, so also the Weaver does not make wool, but lavishes his skill on any wool he receives. Another gives him sustenance and properties and can also take them away from him, yes, and his bird body does so accordingly, except in matter and works on it, then, if he leaves without having. If you have suffered any harm, others who find you will congratulate you on your escape, but the man who knows how to observe such matters, if he sees that you have shown good form in this matter, will praise you and rejoice with you, but if he sees that you owe your escape to some dishonorable action, he will do the same. contrary because where one man can rightly rejoice there others can rejoice with him.

How then can it be said that some external things are natural and others unnatural? It's as if we were separated from them. because I will affirm from the effort so much that it is natural that it is clean but if you take it as a foot and not as something detached it will be convenient for it to step in the mud and trample on thorns and sometimes be cut off for the good of the whole body, otherwise it will no longer be a foot, we should have a similar opinion about ourselves too, what are you a man now?

If you consider yourself as a separate thing, it is natural that you will live to old age. age to be rich to enjoy health, but if you consider yourself as a man and as part of a whole because of that whole, then it is good for you now to be sick and now to take a trip and take risks and now to be in what you want and sometimes die before time why then are you angry? Don't you know that just as the foot, if it comes off, it will no longer be a foot, so you, if it comes off, you will no longer be a man because what a man is is part of the state first of that state which is composed of gods and men and then of the one that is said to be very close to the other the state that is a small copy of the universal state then I must be judged now well, would you have done it? someone else will get sick with fever now someone else will go on a trip someone else will die someone else will be condemned because it is impossible in a body like ours in this universe that surrounds us among our fellow creatures that such things do not happen one day to a man and to From one to another it is your task, therefore, to step forward and say what you must to settle these matters accordingly, then the judge says I had declared you guilty, I will respond and good luck to you, I have done my part and it is up to you to see if you have done your thing for the judge - take a risk don't forget that chapter six of indifference in things the hypothetical syllogism itself is a matter of indifference but the judgment on it is not indifferent but neither is it knowledge or opinion or deception In the same way, although life is a matter of indifference, the change you make in it is not a matter of indifference, therefore, when someone tells you that these things are also indifferent, do not become careless and when someone tells you that these things are also indifferent, do not become careless. urge to be careful.

Do not let yourself be abjected or overwhelmed by material things; It is also good to know your own training and capacity so that, where you have not had training, you can stay calm and not get angry if other people overshadow you in those matters in turn. you will hope to outshine them in syllogisms and if they are upset about it, you will console them by saying: I have learned this and you have not. Also in a case where some acquired skill is needed, do not look for what only practice can give, but let it. that those who have acquired the neck and are content to stand firm, go and greet so-and-so, I greet him, as without any abject spirit, but the door was closed in their faces, yes, because I have not learned to drag me inside. window but when I find the door closed I must leave or crawl in through the window but go and talk to him I speak it in what way with an abject spirit but you didn't get what you wanted surely that wasn't your business it was his why then he demands it what is and the others if you always keep in mind what is yours and what is and the others you will never be bothered by it fries slurp also says as long as the consequences are I am not clear I always cling to what is best for secure those things that are in accordance with nature because God Himself has created me with the Faculty of choosing things, but if I really knew that it was ordained for me to be sick in this.

At this time you would even look for foot diseases too if you had a mind you would look for covering yourself with mud, for example, why do ears of grain grow? Isn't it that they can also dry out but when they dry out isn't it that they can also be harvested since they don't grow on their own if therefore they had feeling they should pray that they never be harvested but that they never be harvested at all it is acurse for the ears of grain in the same way I would like you to We know that also in the case of men it is a curse to never die, it is like never ripening and not being harvested, but since we ourselves are the ones who must be harvested and also be aware of the very fact that we are being harvested.

We are angry about it because we neither know who we are nor have we studied what becomes of man as horsemen study what becomes of horses, but Christ and the trials when he was about He refrained from hitting the enemy because he heard the clarion call. It seemed to him much more profitable to carry out his general's orders than to follow his own inclination, but none of us is willing, even when necessity demands, to obey it easily, but what we suffer we suffer with fears and groans and we call it circumstances. What do you mean by circumstances?

Man, if you call your environment circumstances, all things are circumstances, but if you use the word difficulties, what difficulties are there when what has arisen is destroyed? The instrument of destruction is a sword or a wheel or the sea or a tile or a tyrant. What do you care which way you go down to the house of Hades, they are all the same, but if you want to hear the truth, the path the tyrant sends you on is En. In short, no tyrant took six months to cut a man's throat, but the fever usually takes more than a year.

All these things are mere noise and a jingle of empty names. I risk my life in Caesar's presence, but don't I? you run a risk living in the cabalists where there are so many earthquakes and what risk you run yourself when you cross the Adriatic you don't risk your life but I also risk my opinion in court your own opinion how is it why who can force you to apply something against your will, but do you mean some other man's opinion and what kind of risk do you run in yourself that others will have false opinions but I run the risk of being banished what is banishment being somewhere other than Rome yes then what you suppose? that I am sent to Kiara, if it is for your good, you will go, if not, you have a place you can go instead of Gera, where he will also go, whether he wants to or not, who sends you to the threshing floor, why then ?

You go up to Rome as if it were a great thing, that is equivalent to less than your preparation for it, so a talented young man can say that it was not worth it to have listened to so many lectures and written so many exercises. and having been sitting for so long next to a little old man who was not worth much, just remember that distinction that is made between what is yours and what is not yours, never claim anything that is not yours, a platform and the prison is each one place, one high and the other low, but your moral purpose can stay the same if you want to keep it the same anywhere and then we will be emulating Socrates when we are able to write pianos in prison. but considering what our state has been so far I wonder if we should have put up with it and someone else said to us in prison would you like me to read pianos to you?

Why bother me? Don't you know the problem I'm in? What is posible? For me in this condition in what condition then I am about to die but will other men be immortal? chapter seven how should one employ divination? because we employ divination when there is no occasion for it. Many of us neglect many of the duties of life so Can the fortune teller see that it is of greater importance than death, danger, illness, or generally things like these? If then it becomes necessary for me to risk my life for my friend and if it becomes my duty even to die for him, where can I do it?

Beyond that, any occasion to use divination I do not have within me the soothsayer who has told me the true nature of good and evil, who has exposed characteristic signs of both, what use then are the guts or the guts? birds but when he says that it is good for you I accept it because he knows what is good he knows what is good how he learned the characteristic signs of good things and bad things how he has the characteristic signs of the entrails so if he knows things characteristic signs of These he also knows about honorable and base things and about good and bad man, it is up to you to tell me what the signs of life or death, poverty or wealth indicate, but if these things are convenient or not, I am going to ask you why you don't speak. of grammar points well then on this matter in which all mortals are lost and in conflict with each other does speak where that is why it was an admirable response given by the woman who wanted to send a ship full of supplies to Gretel er after having been exiled to a man who said that Domitian will confiscate them, she responds that she would rather he confiscate them than that I myself not send them, which then leads us to employ divination so constantly, cowardice, fear of the consequences, so we flatter to the fortune tellers saying master, I will inherit my father's property, let's see, let's offer a sacrifice on that matter, yes, master, as fortune wills, then if the fortune teller says that you will inherit the property, we thanked him as if we had received the inheritance of he.

That is why they in turn continue to mock the opposite, for then we must go towards them without desire or aversion, just as the Wayfarer asks the man who finds which of the two paths leads to his destination without any desire to have the path of the right does not leave him there any more than the left, because he does not care about following a particular path of the two, but simply the one that leads to his destination, so we must also turn to God as a guide using he. In him, when we use our eyes, we do not invoke them to show us this or that thing out of preference, but we accept the impressions of precisely the things that they reveal to us, but as they are, we tremble before the augur bird takes possession of us . him and appealing to him as if he were a god we beg him saying master have mercy grant me to leave safely slave what do you want anything but what is best for you is anything else better for you than what pleases God why do you do it you do everything in you lies to corrupt your judge to deceive your counselor chapter 8 what is the true nature of good God is useful but good is also useful it would seem, therefore, that the true nature of good will be found where we find that what is of God is what then is the true nature of God flesh far from her earth far from her Fame far from her is intelligence knowledge right reason here therefore and only here will you seek the true nature of good surely you will not seek it to You don't know anything in a plant nor in any rational creature do you know if there is a new search in the rational why do you keep looking for it in another place other than in what differentiates the rational from the irrational plants are incapable of dealing even with external impressions for that reason. reason you do not speak of the good when referring to them the good requires therefore the Faculty of using external impressions may be that is all it requires because if that is all then you must affirm that good things and happiness and unhappiness are found both in other animals as in man, but in fact you do not say so and you are right, because even if they have to the highest degree the faculty of using external impressions, they do not have it.

They have the faculty of understanding in any case their use of external impressions and rightly so because they are born to serve others and are not themselves of primary importance the ass for example is not born to be of primary importance is it not so but because we ? He needed a back that could carry something, but by Zeus we needed him to also be able to walk, therefore, he received in addition the fact of using external impressions because otherwise he would not be able to walk and approximately that stage there was an end but if it is as if man In some way he would have received the power to understand the use of his external impressions.

It is also clear that consequently he would no longer be subject to us nor would he be performing these services but would be our equal. and our partner, therefore, will you not seek the true nature of good in that quality whose lack in all creatures other than man prevents you from using the term good for any of them, but then, are not those creatures also works of God? ? They are but they are not of primary importance or portions of divinity but you are a being of primary importance you are a fragment of God you have within you a part of him why then you ignore your own kinship why you do not know the source from which you have emerged, Will you not take into account when you eat who you are who you eat and who you are feeding when you allow yourself to have sexual relations with women who you are who do this when you mix in society when you do physical exercise when you talk?

Don't you know that you are feeding God by exercising God? You carry God with you, poor bastard, and you don't know it. Don't you suppose I'm talking about some external god made of silver or gold? It is within you that you carry it and do not perceive that you are contaminating it with impure thoughts and dirty actions, however, in the presence of even an image of God, you would not dare to do any of the things that you are doing now, but when God Itself is present within you, seeing and hearing, everything is. You are not ashamed to think and do things like this.

Oh, insensible of your own nature and the object of God's wrath again when we send a young man from school to various activities, why are we afraid that he will do something wrong? Eita miss have. sexual relations with women are wrong, they humiliate themselves if they are dressed in rags, they are conceited, if they wear thin clothes, this guy does not know the God within him, this guy does not know the partner he is dating, no, can we allow him to say : Oh, God would it? that I had you here you do not have God where you are and when you have him you look for someone else or he will have other commandments for you besides these no, if you were a statue of Phidias, his Athena or his Zeus, you would have remembered both you and your craftsman and if you had any power of perception you would not have tried to do anything unworthy of him who had formed you or of yourself and you would have tried not to appear in an improper attitude before the eyes of men but as it is because Zeus has forced you to do it , that's why you don't care what kind of person you show yourself to be and, however, what comparison there is between one artist and the other or between one work of art and the other and which work of art. an artificer immediately has within him the faculties revealed by his work, is it not mere stone, bronze, gold or ivory?

And the Athena of Phidias, once she has extended her hand and has received the Nike, remains in this attitude forever to see, but the works of God are capable of moving, they have the breath of life, they can make use of impressions. externals and judge them, you dishonor the work of this craftsman when you yourself are that name of work, or you go so far as to forget it. not only that he formed you, but also that he entrusted you and committed you only to yourself and, furthermore, by forgetting him, you dishonor your trust, but if God had entrusted any orphan to your care, you would neglect him so much that he has given himself away in your care. saying that I have no one more faithful than you, keep this man for me unchanged from the character with which nature endowed him reverence faithful haughty imperturbable imperturbable after that you will not keep him but men will say where do you think our friend?

Here he has his proud look and his solemn countenance, ah, but my bearing is still not what it should be because I still lack confidence in what I have learned and what I accepted. I'm still afraid of my own weakness, just let me gain confidence and then you. I will see the right look in my eyes and the rights that come with it. Then, when the statue is finished and polished, I will show it to you. What do you think of her? A high air, say God forbid before Zeus in Olympia does not show a proud look.

He knows it, but his gaze is firm, as befits someone who is about to say, no word of mine can be revoked or proven false of such a character, I will show myself before you, faithful, reverent, noble, calm, you don't mean, therefore, immortal, eternal or exempt. of the disease no one except one who dies like a god who endures the disease like a god this is what I have this is what I can do but everything else I do not have and cannot do I will show you the sinews of a philosopher What do you mean by that? tendons a desire that does not fail in achievement and a version proof of finding what would prevent a proper choice a thoughtful purpose a well-considered assent this is what you will see chapter 9 that although we are unable to fulfill a man's profession, adopt the It is not a simple task for a philosopher to simply fulfill the profession of a man because what a man is is a rational mortal.

To begin with, we say animals, from which we are distinguished by the rational element of wild beasts and from what other things of sheep and the like c2 is then that you never act like a wild beast if you do it you will have destroyed the man that is in you you have not fulfilled your profession make sure that you never act like a sheep if you do the man that is in you It is destroyed in this way too when we act like sheep when we act for the sake of the belly or for our sexual organs or randomly or in a dirty manner or without due consideration to what level we have degenerated to the level of the Sheep whatWe have destroyed reason when we act bellicosely and insultingly and with anger and rudeness to what level we have degenerated to the level of beasts.

Well, the fact is that some of us are larger beasts while others are small evil and mean animals that give us the opportunity to say let a lion devour me through all these actions, a man's profession is destroyed for when a complex thing is preserved when he fulfills his profession, consequently the salvation of a complex thing is to be composed of parts that are true when they are true. preserves a discreet thing when it fulfills its office when the flutes are preserved a lyre a horse a dog what is to be surprised as then if a man is also preserved in the same way and in the same way now destroyed the acts that correspond to his true nature strengthen and preserve each man in particular, carpentry does the same as for the carpenter, grammatical studies for the grammarian, but if a man acquires the habit of writing ungrammatically, his art must necessarily be destroyed and perish so that modest acts preserve the modest man while immodest acts destroy him and faithful acts preserve the faithful man while acts of the opposite character destroy him and Gainax of the opposite character strength and men of the opposite character shamelessness strengthens the shameless man infidelity the unfaithful abuse abusive anger the angry a disproportion between what he receives and wants eBay comes out of the miser that is why philosophers warn us not to be content with simply learning but also to add it to practice and then train ourselves over the course of years We have acquired the habit of doing the opposite of what we learn and we have in use opinions that are contrary to the correct ones, if therefore we do not also put into practice the correct opinions we will be nothing more than interpreters of the judgments of other men. for who is there among us here and now that he cannot give a philosophical discourse on good and evil?

In this way all things will be executed, some of which are good, others even and others indifferent, now the good things are virtues and everything that participates in the virtues is bad, the opposite, while the indifferent are wealth, health, reputation, then , if in the middle of our speech we are interrupted by an unusually loud noise or if someone in the audience laughs at us, we get angry. Where are you, philosopher, the things you are talking about? From where can I get? what you just said from your lips and that's all why then you contaminate useful principles that are not yours why you play on things are the utmost concern because keeping bread and wine in a pantry is one thing and eating them is another thing. , what is eaten, is digested, distributed, turned into tendons, meat, bones, blood, a good complexion, easy breathing, what is stored, you can easily take and show it whenever you want, but you do not get any benefit from this except to the extent that you are reputed to possess it.

Because how much better is it to expound these principles than those of other schools of thought? Sit down now and give a philosophical discourse on the principles of Epicurus and perhaps discourse more effectively than Epicurus himself, why then do you call yourself a Stoic? Do you fool the crowd? Why do you act like a Jew when you're Greek? Don't you see in what sense men are coldly Jews, Syrians or Egyptians, for example, when we see a man who remains between two religions, we have the habit? By saying that he is not a Jew, he is only playing the part, but when he adopts the mental attitude of the man who has been baptized and has made his choice, then he is a Jew in fact and he is also cold, so we are too.

False Baptists, apparently Jewish, but in reality something else unsympathetic to our own reason, far from applying the principles we profess, and yet we take pride in them as men who know them, although we are not even capable of fulfilling the profession of man we assume. The additional profession of the philosopher is such an enormous burden that it is as if a man who cannot lift ten pounds wanted to lift the stone of I Acts chapter 10. How is it possible to discover the duties of a man from the designations he carries? Consider who you should begin with a man who has no quality more sovereign than moral choice but keeps everything else subordinate to it and this moral choice itself free from bondage and subjection, consider, therefore, what are those things from which you are separated by virtue of the Faculty of reason you are separated from the beasts you are separated from the sheep in addition to this you are a citizen of the world and a part of it not one of the parts destined for service but one of primary importance to you you possess the Faculty of understanding divine administration of the world and to reason about the consequences of it, what then is the profession of a citizen: to treat nothing as a matter of private benefit, to plan nothing as if it were a separate unit, but to act as the foot or the foot? the hand that if they had the faculty of reasoning and understood the constitution of nature they would never exercise choice or desire in any other way than with reference to the whole, hence the Philosopher rightly says that if the good and excellent man knew what that was going to happen would help in the processes of illness and death and mutilation because you would realize that this allocation comes from the orderly arrangement of the whole and the whole is more sovereign than the part and the state more sovereign than the citizen but as you are seeing Since we do not know in advance what is going to happen, it is our duty to hold on to what is naturally most suitable to be chosen since we are born for this purpose, then keep in mind that you are a son, what is the profession of this character to deal with everything that It is yours as well as your father's to be obedient to him in everything, not to speak ill of him to anyone or say or do anything that could harm him, give him the way in everything and give him priority, help him, to the extent that it is within your power, know that you He is also a brother in this character, it is also his responsibility to deference, obedience, kind speech, never to complain against his brother any of the things that are outside the scope of his free moral choice, but with joy. give them up so that in the things that are within the scope of your free moral choice you can have the best of them, foresee what it is for the price of a head of lettuce, if that is the case, or of a seat for yourself. acquire their good will the better you get it there if you sit in the City Council of some city remember that you are a councilor if you are young remember that you are young if you are old that you are old if you are a father that you are a father for each of these designations when he considers himself duly always suggests the actions that correspond to him but if you go away and speak ill of your brother I tell you that you have forgotten who you are and what your designation is why if you were a blacksmith and you misused your hammer, you would have forgotten the blacksmith who you were, but if you forget the brother you are and become an enemy instead of a brother, it will seem to you that you have changed nothing for nothing and if instead of being a man a gentle and social being you have become a wild beast a mischievous and treacherous animal that bites you have lost nothing you must lose a little money to suffer harm and the loss of nothing else harms a man yet if you lost your ability in the use of language or music, you would consider his loss as a harm, but if you are going to lose self-respect, dignity and gentleness, do you think that doesn't matter and yet those previous qualities are lost due to some external cause? beyond the power of our will but the latter are lost through our own fault and it is neither noble to have nor shameful to lose these previous qualities but not having these latter or having had them to lose them is a shame and a reproach and a calamity what is lost for the victim of unnatural lust his virility and for the agent, in addition to the good, many other things also lose his virility no less than the other what loses the adulterer loses the man of self-esteem who was the man of self-control the gentleman the citizen the neighbor what The man who is given to anger loses something else, the one who is given to fear something else, no one is bad without loss or damage.

Furthermore, if he seeks his loss in health, all those who may have I just mentioned that they do not suffer damage or loss and, if That's right, they even make profits and profits when through some of the facts I just mentioned they also acquire pelf, but notice that if you make poultry your standard for everything, not even the man who loses his nose in your eyes he will have suffered a wound oh yes he has someone says before his body is mutilated come now man the man who has lost all his sense of smell loses nothing exists then there is no such thing as a faculty of mind the possession of which means gain For a man and loss hurts, what faculty are you referring to?

Don't we have a natural sense of self-worth? Doesn't the man who destroys this suffer a loss? Is he not deprived of something? He doesn't lose something? We belong to it if we do not have a natural sense of faithfulness a natural sense of affection a natural sense of helpfulness a natural sense of keeping away from each other, therefore the man who allows himself to suffer a loss in such matters will be considered to have suffered Neither harm nor loss, well what am I going to do then to harm the man who has harmed me? First consider what harm is and remember what you have heard the Philosophers say, for if good lies in the moral purpose and evil also in the moral purpose, see if what you are saying does not amount to something like this, then, Since so-and-so has hurt himself by doing something wrong to me, shouldn't I hurt myself by doing something wrong to him?

Why then don't we represent the case in some way? such light as that instead where there is some loss that affects our body or our property there we count the harm but there is no harm where the loss affects our moral purpose for the man who has been deceived or has done some wrong has no pain in neither his head, nor his eye, nor his hip, nor does he lose his land, but these are the things that matter to us and nothing else is the question of whether we are going to have a moral purpose characterized by self-respect and good faith or by shamelessness and bad faith. faith does not even begin to disturb us except only to the extent that we make it a topic of trivial discussion in the classroom, therefore, as far as our trivial discussions are concerned, we make some progress, but apart from them, we do not even the slightest.

Chapter Eleven What is the beginning of philosophy? The beginning of philosophy with those who adopt it as they should and enter as through the door is an awareness of man's own weakness and impotence with reference to the things of true importance in life because we come. born without any innate concept of a right triangle or a musical semitone interval, but through a certain systematic method of instruction, we are taught the meaning of each of these things and for that reason those who do not know them do not feel like doing it either. , but who, on the contrary, has been born without an innate concept of what is good and bad, honorable and base, appropriate and inappropriate, and Happiness, and what is right, and Fall to our lot, and what we should do and what we should do. should not do, that is why we all use these terms and strive to adapt our preconceptions about them to individual cases in which he has done well as a door or as he should not, has been unlucky or fortunate, is an evil man or is a fair.

Who among us refrains from expressions of this type? Who among us waits before using them until he has learned what they mean? As those who have no knowledge of lines or sounds wait before using terms related to them. The reason is that we come into the world with a certain amount of instruction on this subject that has already been given to us, so to speak, by nature and that from this we have added there to our open yes of Zeus for dua, in my case, not even half of my gift of nature, the knowledge of what is noble and base I have no concept of the matter you do it I do not apply it to individual circumstances you have it so I do not apply it properly therein lies the whole question and His opinion comes in four men who begin with these principles on which they agree but then by making an inadequate application of them they enter into disputes because if in addition to having the principles themselves they really also possessed the power to make an adequate application of them which could prevent them from being perfect but now since you think that you can also apply your preconceived ideas properly to individual cases tell me where you get this gift it is because I believe so, but at this very point someone does not believe so and yet he He also imagines that he is applying the principles correctly.

If not, he imagines, then can both of them be making appropriate applications of their preconceptions to matters on which their opinions disagree? We don't, can you then show us something higher than your own opinion that allows us to apply it? our preconceived ideas better and if the madman does something more than what seems good to him, then this criterion is sufficient in his case and it is not necessary to go to something higher than his own opinion and tell us what it is.Here is the beginning of philosophy, a recognition of the conflict between the opinions of men and a search for the origin of that conflict and a condemnation of mere opinion together with skepticism about it and a kind of investigation to determine whether the opinion holds. correctly along with the invention of a type of standard of judgment as we have invented the balance for the determination of weights all carpenters rule for things straight and crooked is this the beginning of philosophy it is all right for every man to think no, how Is it possible that there are contradictory opinions? correct consequently not all opinions are correct but are our opinions correct why ours instead of those of the Syrians why ours instead of those of the Egyptians why ours instead of mine all those of so-and-so of such there is no reason why, therefore, the opinion that each man holds is not a sufficient criterion to determine the truth for all, so in the case of weights and measures we are not satisfied with mere appearance but rather We have invented a certain standard to prove each in the present case, so is there no standard? higher than an opinion, and yet how is it possible that matters of utmost importance among men are indeterminable and undiscoverable?

Therefore, there is some standard, so why don't we look for it and find it, and when we have found it, use it? unwaveringly not even stretch your finger without it because this is something that I believe whose discovery frees from madness those who use only opinion as a measure of all things so that they can vent from certain principles that we know and clearly discriminate. we can use in judging specific cases an organically articulated system of preconceived ideas what issue has arisen that we wish to investigate pleasure subject it to the standard put it in balance whether the good is the kind of thing in which we can have confidence and trust in it should we can we have confidence appropriate then in something that is insecure no pleasure contains any element of security then discards it and throws it out of balance and away from the region of good things, but if they are not down with a good view and a balance it is not enough to bring another, can one feel properly euphoric about dirt, yes, can one feel properly euphoric? then, for the moments of pleasure, see that it does not say that it is appropriate if you do so.

I will no longer consider him a suitable person to even have a scale and that is how things are judged and weighed. if we have the support ready to test them and the task of philosophy is to examine and establish the standards, but to go ahead and use them after they have been known is the task of the good man and excellent chapter 12 on The Art of Argument, which a man must learn before he knows how to conduct an argument, it has been precisely defined by the philosophers of our school, but as to the proper use of what we have learned, we are still completely inexperienced.

If any of us like him, some laymen to argue with, he will find no way to deal with him, but after moving him around a bit in case the latter frustrates him, our man stops trying to handle him and then insults him. or they despise him and tell him that he is a simple layman, it is impossible to do anything with him, but the true guide, whenever he finds a lost person, leads him back to the right path instead of leaving him with a disdainful laugh or a insult. Likewise, show him the truth and you will see that he follows you, but as long as you do not show him the truth, do not laugh at him until you despise him, but rather recognize your own inability.

How did Socrates act to force the man who was there? arguing with him to be his witness and I never needed any other witness so he could say I can do without all the others and I am always satisfied to have my fellow litigator as a witness and I do not take the votes of the rest. but only that of my fellow disputers because they used to make very clear the consequences that derived from the concepts but absolutely everyone realized the contradiction involved and abandoned the battle and the same does the man who feels Envy, he does not rejoice at all but experiences pain instead of joy due to the contradiction in terms, has very well moved the other party to the discussion, do you think that envy is the feeling of pain of Evil and, yet, what is there of Envy in the Evil, consequently, has made his opponents say that Envy is? a feeling of pain for good things, very well, a man would feel envy for matters that do not concern him in the slightest, not at all, so he completed and articulated the concept and after that he went on his way, he did not start by saying define. envy for me and then when the other had to find it he commented that it is a bad definition that you have made before the definition term does not fit the issue of finding those are technical terms and that is why we reason to the layman and it is difficult for him follow and yet we cannot do without them, but as to the terms which the layman could follow for himself and thus, with the help of his own external impressions, be able to accept or reject some proposition, we are absolutely unable to move him through its use.

It is that, recognizing this inability of ours, we naturally refrain from attempting the matter, those of us, I mean, who are somewhat cautious, but the reckless multitude of men, when once carried away by something of this kind, they confuse and confuse others and finally after revealing their opponents and being vilified they themselves leave now this was the first and most characteristic thing about Socrates that he never got irritated during an argument he never used any terms of abuse or insolence but he endured the abuse of others and put an end to If you want to know how great was the fatness that he had in this field, read the Zenith symposium and you will see how many cases of strife his form resolved and rightly among poets he has also been awarded very high praise .

The following sentiment soon cunningly puts an end to a dispute, although a weighty one, since nowadays this activity is not very safe and especially in Rome because the man who gets involved in it will clearly have the obligation not to do it in a corner, but he must approach to some rich person of consular rank if possible and ask him: can you tell who you have entrusted your horses to? nothing about horse care at all and then what can you tell me to whom you have entrusted your gold or your silver or your clothes? I haven't entrusted them to a casual either and have you ever thought about entrusting your body to someone? to take care of him now certainly and of course he is also a man of special skill in the art of physical training or medicine, is he not?

Yes, in fact, are these your most valuable possessions or do you have something else that is better than all of them? What do you mean by Zeus that he uses these things and tests each of them and exercises deliberation? Ah, so you are talking about my soul, do you understand me correctly? Because this is precisely what I'm talking about, Zeus. I consider this to be by far the most valuable of all my possessions. Can you then say in what way you have cared for your soul? For it is not to be supposed that a man as wise as you and so honored in the city would recklessly and at random allow the best of his possessions to be ruined by negligence.

Yes, certainly not, but have you taken care of that possession yourself? Did you learn how to take care of it from someone else or discover how you get to it yourself? danger of first saying what's wrong with you, good sir, now you are my master and after that, if you persist in bothering him, but he will raise his fist and hit you, this was a search that I also liked much once. a while before falling into my current state chapter 13 of anxiety when I see a man with anxiety I tell myself what could this guy want if he didn't want something that was out of his control how could he remain still? in anxiety that is why the cipa rides when he sings alone he does not show anxiety but he does when he enters the theater even though he has a very beautiful voice and plays the sitar admirably because he not only wants to sing well but also win applause. and that is no longer under his control, therefore, when he has skill, there he shows confidence, he introduces him to any layman he pleases and the musician does not pay attention to him, but in a matter of which he has no knowledge and which he has never studied there.

He is eager to know what the meaning of this is, why he simply does not know what a crowd is, all the applause of a crowd, to be sure that he has learned to play the lowest and highest strings of the Sutra, but what they are. The praise of the crowd is and what function it has in life that I do not know nor have studied, therefore it must tremble and pale now, then I cannot say that the man is not a Sith Road when I see someone in a state of fear, but I can say something else about him and in fact not just one thing but several things and first of all I call him strange and say that this man does not know where in the world he is, but although he has been living here for so long time, is ignorant. of the city laws and its statutes what you are allowed to do and what you are not allowed to do name or you have not even called a lawyer to tell you and explain to you what the uses are in accordance with the law and yet He does not write a will without knowing how to write it or call an expert, nor does he simply seal a bond by chance or give a written guarantee, but without the services of a lawyer he exercises desire, aversion and choice and design and purpose, how do I mean without the services of a lawyer?

Why doesn't he know that he is desiring things that have not been granted to him and he wants to avoid the inevitable and he knows neither what is his nor what another did? him, but he knows that he would never feel hindered, never constrained, he would not be anxious, how could a man be afraid of things that are not bad? So what is he afraid of things which are certainly bad but which are not in his own power not to prevent at all if then the indifferent things are neither good nor bad, but all matters of moral purpose are under our control and no Man can take them away from us or bring upon us those we do not want.

What place is left? out of anxiety yet we are anxious about our miserable body because of what insignificant state because of what seasonal thing but we are not anxious about any of the things that are within us we are not anxious not to conceive a false opinion are we not for that which is under my control? or about making a choice contrary to nature, this is not about this either, so when you see a pale man, ask the doctor, judging by his complexion, he says that this man's spleen is affected and this man's liver , then you also say that this man's desire and aversion are affected? affected does not get along well has a fever because there is nothing else that changes a man's complexion or makes him tremble or make his teeth chatter or make him move from knee to knee and rest on either foot that is why Zeno was not anxious when He was about to meet Antigonus because over none of the things that Zeno regarded highly did Antigonus have power and which antagonist had power over Zeno he did not care, but Antigonus was anxious when he was about to meet Zeno and very naturally because he wanted to please . him and that was out of his control, however, Zeno did not care about pleasing him any more than any other artist cares about pleasing someone who has no knowledge of his art.

Do I care to please you? What do I gain from it? 4 Do you know the standards? according to which man is judged by man, have you worried about knowing what a good man is and what a bad man is and how each one becomes what he is? Why then are you not a good man? How do you understand it? He replies that it's me. He is NOT a good man why because no good man grieves or groans no good man laments no good man pales and trembles or asks how he will receive me how he will listen to me your slave will receive you and listen to you as he sees fit why then you you worry about things that are not yours now it's not his fault if he gives a bad reception to what you have to say of course it's possible that one man makes the mistake and another suffers the harm No, then why are you anxious about what He's not yours and that's fine, but I'm anxious about how I'll talk to him?

Don't you have the privilege of speaking to him however you want? Yes, but I'm afraid that I will be taken aback. Aren't you afraid of being taken aback when you are about to write the name? Aren't you, not at all, what's the reason? It's not that you have practiced writing, yes, of course, so, If you're about to read something, wouldn't you? I feel the same about it. Anyway, what is the reason why, because each art has an element of strength and confidence within its own field, then you have not practiced speaking and what else did you practice in your school?

Syllogisms and arguments involving equivocal premises for What was the purpose of not allowing you to carry out a discussion with skill and does not mean with skill, in a timely, safe and intelligent manner and more than that without making mistakes and without shame and in addition to everything this with confidence surely well, then if you are on horseback and haveridden across the plain against a man on foot Are you anxious assuming you are in practice and the other man is not? Yes, that is very good, but Sita has the authority to kill me, so tell the truth and do it.

Do not boast or pretend to be a philosopher or fail to recognize your teachers, but as long as you allow them to have this dominion over you through your body, follow all those who are stronger than you, but Socrates used to practice speaking with some purpose. Socrates, who spoke as he did with tyrants to his judges and in prison Diogenes had practice speaking Diogenes who spoke with Alexander as he did to fill him with the Pirates to the man who had bought him leave such matters to those who are seriously interested in them the brave, but do you turn away from your own concerns and never turn away from them again?

Go to a corner and sit and weave syllogisms and propose them to others in the state has not found any true leader chapter 14 10 a like this once when a certain Roman A citizen accompanied by his son had entered and was listening to one of his readings. Epictetus said that this is the style of my teaching and then remained silent, but when the other asked what came next, he replied that instruction in the technique of any art is boring to the layman who has no experience in this, now the products of The arts immediately show that they are used for the purpose for which they were made and most of them also possess a certain appeal and charm, for example, to stand still and observe the process. by which a shoemaker learns his trade is not really pleasant, but the shoe is useful and not something unpleasant to look at, and the process of education in the case of a carpenter is especially boring to the layman who happens to be observing but the work What the carpenter does shows the use of his art.

You will find the same much more true in the case of music, because if you are waiting while someone is taking a lesson, the process of instruction will seem the most unpleasant of all. The results of music are sweet and pleasant to the layman's ear, so in our case we also imagine the work of the philosopher as something like this: he must harmonize his own will with what happens so that nothing that happens happens. against. our will nor does anything that does not happen stop happening when we wish it to happen, the result of this for those who have thus ordered the work of philosophy is that in desire they are not disappointed and in one version they do not fall into what would prevent each person spend his life for himself free from pain, fear and disturbance, while maintaining with his associates the relations both natural and acquired, viz., of son, father, brother, citizen, wife, neighbor, fellow traveler, ruler and subject, something like that is ours. image of the philosopher's work the next thing after this is that we look for the means to achieve it we see then that the carpenter becomes a carpenter by first learning something the helmsman becomes a helmsman by first learning something is it not then that in our case it is not enough to wish become Noble? and well, but we are under the need to learn something first we look for what this is now the philosophers say that the first thing we must learn is that there is a God and that he provides for the universe and that it is impossible a man must hide from him not only his actions but even their purposes and thoughts.

Next we must learn what the gods are like, whatever their character. The man who is going to please and obey them must try his best to resemble them if the deity is faithful he must also be faithful if free he must also be free if beneficent he must also be beneficent if haughty he must also be haughty and so on. Therefore in everything he says and does he must act as an imitator of God where then or Titus begins if you enter into this task I will tell you that first of all you must understand the meaning of the terms so you imply that I now do not understand the meaning of the terms you don't know what it is like so I use them why you use them like illiterate people you use written speech like cattle use external impressions for their use is one thing and understanding another but if you think you understand the proposed terms any term you like and let us test ourselves to see if we understand it but it is unpleasant to be subjected to an examination when one is already somewhat older in years and if this has been the case, the coincidence has served his three campaigns, I realize that for now I myself have You come to me as a man who was in need of nothing more than what no one could imagine you need.

You are rich, you have children, possibly also a wife and many slaves. Caesar knows you. You have many friends in Rome. You fulfill your duties and when a man has done for you, good or bad, you know how to return to her what you still lack, if for that I show you that what you lack are the most necessary and important things for her, and that until now you have devoted your attention to everything less than what it was. appropriate for you to do so and if I add the colophon by saying that you do not know what God is or what man is or what Good is, you know what evil is if I say that you ignore these other matters you can possibly enjoy that but if I say you don't understand yourself, how can you stand me and put up with my questions?

You cannot do it at all, but immediately go away offended, and yet what harm have I done you? ugly man showing what he looks like unless the doctor insults the patient when he says man, you think there is nothing wrong with you but today you have a fever, you fast and drink only water and no one says what a horrible insolence it is still if you tell a man that your wishes your attempts to avoid things are feverish your attempts to avoid things are humiliating your purposes are inconsistent your choices are not in harmony with your nature your conceptions are unpredictable and false why he immediately comes out and says that he insulted me our position is like that of those who attend a fair, cattle and oxen are taken there to be sold and most of the men are dedicated to buying and selling, while only a few go simply to see the fair, how it is carried out and why and who promotes it.

And for what purpose is it so also in this fair of the world in which we live some people like cattle are interested in nothing but their fodder for all of you who care about property and lands and slaves and a position u another, all this? It is nothing more than fodder and there are few men who attend the fair because they are fans of the spectacle, what is the universe then they ask and who governs it, no one yet, how can it be that although it is impossible for a city or a house to remain even for a very short time without someone to govern and care for it, yet this great and beautiful structure must be kept in such an orderly arrangement by pure accident and chance, therefore, it must be someone who governs it, what kind of being is it? and how he does it. he rules it and what are we who have been created by him and for what purpose were we created then do we really have any contact and relationship with him or none at all this is the way these few are affected and from then on they have time free to This is only to study the fair of life well before abandoning it, with the result that the crowd laughs at them to the point of contempt, just as in the real fair the dealers laugh at the mere spectators, yes , and if the cattle themselves had anything. understanding like ours of what was happening they would also laugh at those who feel awe and admiration for anything other than their fodder chapter 15 those who stubbornly cling to the judgments that some men have once formed when they hear the following precepts that one must be firm and that the moral purpose is naturally free and not subject to compulsion, while everything else is subject to interference and subject to compulsion of others and not our own.

Some men, I say, imagine that whenever they have formed a judgment they must stand firm. is immovable and yet the first requirement is that the judgment formed be solid because I want vigor in the body but it must be the vigor of the body in a state of health and physical exercise while if you show me that you possess the vigor of a madman and boast of I will tell you this, man, look for someone to cure you. This is not vigor but weakness. The following is another way in which the minds of those who listen to these precepts poorly are affected.

For example, a friend of mine decided to starve to death for no reason. I found out when he was already on the third day of his fast and I went and asked him what had happened. I've decided that he responded very well, but still, what did he induce you to do? Make your decision earlier, if your judgment was good, look, we are by your side and ready to help you out of this life, but if your judgment was irrational, change it, I must stick to my decisions, why man, what do you do? You don't want to say everything. your decisions but only the correct ones, for example, if you are convinced at this moment that it is night, do not change your mind if that seems better to you, but stick to it and say that you must abide by your decisions, don't you want to?

Make your beginning and your foundation firm, that is, consider whether your decision is good or bad and only after you have done so proceed to stand there on the structure of your determination and your firm resolution, but if you lay a rotten foundation and that It falls apart you won't be able to. behind him even a small building, but the larger and stronger its superstructure, the faster it will collapse for no reason, it is removing from this life to our detriment a human being who is a familiar friend, a citizen of the same States , both the big and the small state and then, in the act of murder and while participating in the destruction of a human being who has done no wrong, you say that you must comply with your decisions, but if it ever occurred to you the idea of ​​killing me, would I do it?

You have to abide by your decisions, it was hard work to persuade that man, but there are some men today who are impossible to move, so I feel like I now know what I didn't understand before the meaning of the proverb "you are a fool." I cannot persuade or break. God forbid that I should ever have a wise fool for a friend. There is nothing more difficult to handle. I have decided that he is the reason why yes, and so have the madmen, but the firmer his decision about what is false, the more hellebore they need.

Won't he act sick and call a doctor? I am sick, sir, help me consider what I should do, it is my part to obey, so also in the present case, I do not know what I should do, but I have come to find out so we must speak no but this is what you hear spoken to me about anything else but on this point I have made my decision anything else indeed why what is more important or more advantageous to you than to be convinced that it is not enough for a man to simply have made decisions and refuse to change these are the sinews of madness not of health if you force me to do this I would die with pleasure what for man what happened I have decided it was lucky for me that you did not decide to kill me or again another says I do not accept money for my services why is it like that because I have decided, rest assured that there is nothing that will prevent you from one day irrationally resorting to accepting money for your services and that with the same vehemence with which I now refuse to take it and then say again I have decided precisely as in a body sick person who suffers from a flow the flow now leans in this direction ends now in that this is also the case the sick mind is not sure which way it leans but when vehemence also adds to this inclination and drifts then the evil passes from the help and from the cure chapter 16 we do not practice the application of our judgments on good and bad things where the good resides in the moral purpose where the evil resides in the moral purpose where resides what There is neither good nor evil in the things that lie outside the domain of moral purpose.

Well, what do any of us do? Do you remember these statements outside the classroom? Do any of us when by ourselves practice answering facts in the way you answer these questions? It is day? So what is it at night? No, then what is the number of stars? Even I can't tell when they show you money. Have you practiced giving the appropriate response, meaning that no is a good thing? Have you trained in responses of this type? or simply to respond to sophistry, why then are you surprised to discover that in the fields in which you have practiced you surpass yourself but in those in which you have not practiced you remain the same?

Why does the speaker even know that he has done it? He composed a good speech and has memorized what he has written and is bringing a pleasing voice to the task. He is still anxious despite everything because he is not satisfied with the mere practice of oratory, what does he want then? You want to be praised by your audience now you have trained with a view to being able to practice oratory but you have not trained with reference to praise and blame, when have you heard someone say what is praise, what is blame and what is nature of each one? praise should be sought and what types of blame should be avoided and when he went through this training course according to these principles why then are you already surprised because he surpasses everyone else in the field in which he has studied? but in what he has not practiced he is no better than theA crowd is like a city road that knows how to play the harp, it sings well, it has a beautiful flowing dress and it still trembles when it goes on stage because of everything that it has been through before it knows, but what a crowd is, it doesn't even know what screams are and the disdainful laughter of a crowd, what's more, he doesn't even know what this anxiety itself is, if it is something we can control or if it is beyond our powers, if he can.

Whether they stop or not, that's why if they praise him, he leaves the stage all conceited, but if they laugh until they despise that poor charlatan, his vanity punctures and flattens us to experience something similar that we admire externally. What are we serious about with respect to the external? So we don't know how we are subject to fear and anxiety? Because what else can happen when we consider impending events as something bad? We can't help but be afraid. I can't help but be anxious and then we say, No, Lord God, how can I escape anxiety? Fool, don't you have hands?

Didn't God make them for you? Sit now and pray that the mucus in your nose does not run. Rather, wipe your nose and Don't blame God, then hasn't He given you anything to help you in the present case? Hasn't he given you patience? Has he not given you magnanimity? Hasn't it given you courage when you have hands as useful as these? wipe your nose but we don't practice these virtues or worry at all why show me a single man who cares about how he does something who cares not about getting something but about his own action who is there who cares about his own action while he's walking around who when he's planning he cares about the plan itself and not about getting what he's planning and then if he gets it he's all set and says yes, actually, what a good plan we made, don't you guys?

I said that? If there was anything in my opinion, it was impossible for the plan to fail otherwise, but if the plan goes in the opposite direction, he feels humiliated and miserable and can't even find any explanation for what has happened. Who ever called a psychic? such a case that once slept in a temple to clarify our actions that show me just one so that I can see him the man that I have been searching for a long time the truly noble and talented man be he young or old just show him why then, Do we ask ourselves more that, although in material things we have a complete experience, yet in our actions we are dejected, unseemly, useless, cowardly, that we are not willing to endure the tension, absolute failures, one and all, because Have we not worried about these issues in the past nor do we worry about these issues?

Even now, practice them, if we were not afraid of death or exile but of fear itself, then we should practice how not to encounter those things that seem bad to us, but just as they are, we are ardent and fluid in the classroom and if any questions trivial. If one of these points arises, we may pursue the logical consequences, but drag ourselves into practical application and we will be found miserable and shipwrecked. Sailors, let a disturbing thought come to us and you will discover what we have been practicing and for what. We have been training as a result of our lack of practice, we always strive to accumulate terrors and make them bigger than they really are, for example every time I go to the sea to look into the depths or look around me. about the expanse of the waters and not seeing land I am beside myself imagining that if I am shipwrecked I will have to swallow this entire expanse of waters but it does not occur to me that three pints They are enough, so what is it that disturbs me about the extension?

Not from the sea, but my judgment again when there is an earthquake. I imagine the whole city is going to fall on top of me. Isn't one pebble enough to knock out my brains? What then are the things that weigh us down and expel us? our senses, why more than our judgments? When a man leaves there, abandoning his companions, the places and social relationships to which he is accustomed, what else is the burden that weighs on him but a judgment? Children, in fact, when they cry a little because their The nurse has forgotten their problems as soon as they receive a cookie.

Who wants us to look like children? Not by Zeus, because I maintain that in this way we should allow ourselves to be influenced not by a cookie but by true judgments and what are these things that a man should practice all day without dedicating himself to what is not his, whether comrade or place or gym, not even to your own body, but you must remember the law and keep it before your eyes and what is the law of God. keep what is yours, do not claim what is not yours, but make use of what is given to you and do not long for what has not been given when something is taken from you, renounce it promptly and without delay, being grateful for what is yours. the time in which he had use of all this if you do not want to cry for your nanny and your mother, what difference does it make for what object a man has weakness and it depends on what aspect you are superior to the man who cries for a maid if he cries for a trivial gymnasium a colonnade of poultry a group of youngsters and that way of passing the time another one comes and laments because he is no longer going to drink the water of durch a no, why is the water from Marcion's aqueduct inferior to that of durch a no, but I was used to that water and you will get used to this in turn and then if you get addicted to something of this kind, cry about it and try to write a line.

Following the model of Euripides to the baths of Nero and the fountains of Marcion, once again, tell yourself how tragedy arises when everyday events happen to fools, when then will I see Athens once more and the Acropolis, poor man, Are you not satisfied with what you see every day? Do you have anything more beautiful or bigger to look at than the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the whole Earth, the sea and if you really understand who rules the universe and carry it with you, do you still long for pieces of stone and a beautiful rock when , therefore, you are about to leave the sun and the moon what will you do will you sit and cry like little children cry what did you do in school what did you listen to and learn why did you record yourself as a philosopher when you could have recorded the truth in these words I studied some introductions and read a little in cruciferous but I did not even pass the door of a philosopher since what part do I have in that business in which Socrates who died so nobly and lived so nobly had a part? or in the one in which Diogenes participated, can you imagine one of these men crying or worrying because he is not going to see this man or that woman or live in Athens or Corinth, but if that were the case? in Susa or in ekber Tana, what does he who has the freedom to leave the banquet whenever he wants and to play, no longer bother staying?

Doesn't he stay like kids just as long as he's entertained? Would you be likely to endure exile for life all the exile of death if this were your sentence? Are you not willing at this late date to be weaned like children and to eat more solid food and not to cry for mummies and mothers' nurses? old wives? regrets but if I leave I will cause pain to those women you did not cause them pain at all but it will be the same thing that causes pain to yourself bad judgment what you can do then get rid of that judgment and if they do it well they will do it themselves get rid of it their judgment, otherwise they will be in trouble and will only have themselves to thank for it man, do something desperate, as the expression goes, now if ever before to achieve peace, freedom and mentality, finally raise your neck like a man who escaped from bondage be brave to look up to God and say use me from now on for whatever you want I am one mind with you I am yours longing exemption from anything that seems good in your eyes where will you take me means what raymond would you dress me if you had done it I to occupy a position or to remain in private life to remain here or to go into exile to be poor or to be rich I will defend all these actions of yours before men I will show what is the true nature of each thing no, you will not rather sit in the House like girls do and wait for your mom and everything she feeds you.

If Heracles had stayed at home, what would he have gone up to? It would have been Eurystheus and Heracles would not have come. How many acquaintances and friends did he have with him while he was climbing? and in all the world he had no friends dearer than God, so he was believed to be a son of God, and therefore it was in obedience to his will that he dedicated himself to eliminating evil and lawlessness, but you are not Heracles. you say and you cannot eliminate the evil of other men no, you are not even a Theseus to eliminate the evils of Attica just very well start your own and then just listen from your own mind do not procrastinate but sorrow fear desire Envy, joy from others, evils, avarice, effeminacy, incontinence, these things cannot be expelled in any other way than by looking only at God, being especially devoted to him alone and concentrating on his commandments, but if you desire something more with regrets and moans, you will follow him. that which is stronger than you, you always look for peace outside of yourself and you can never be at peace because you look for peace where there is none and you neglect to see the doors where it is.

Chapter 17 how we adjust our preconceived ideas to individual instances what is the The first task of the practitioner of philosophy is to get rid of the idea that he knows, for it is impossible to get a man to begin to learn what he thinks he knows; Yet when we go to philosophers, we all babbling wildly about what he should know. what should be done and what should not be done, good and evil, fair and foul, and on this basis assign praise and blame, censure and rebuke, judge fair and foul practices and discriminate against them, but why do we go to the philosophers to learn what we do not think?

We know what general principles are because some of us want to learn what the Philosophers say thinking that they will be ingenious and cunning others because they want to take advantage of it but it is absurd to think that when a man wants to learn one thing he will actually learn something else or , in short, that a man will progress in something without learning it, but the crowd is under the same misunderstanding as was pompous Thea, the speaker who actually criticizes Plato for wanting to define each term well, what does she say? None of us before your time used the words good or just or without understanding what each of these terms meant individually.

Do we just pronounce them as vague, empty sounds? Why does anyone tell you, Thea pompously, that we didn't have a natural conception of each term? and that is a preconceived idea, but it is impossible to adjust our preconceived ideas to the appropriate facts without having systematized them and having posed precisely this question: what particular fact should be classified under each preconception? Suppose, for example, that the same thing is done. a kind of comment to doctors why who among us didn't use the terms healthy and sick before Hippocrates was born or were we just making empty noise with these sounds because of course we have a certain preconceived idea of ​​the idea of ​​healthy, but we cannot apply it.

That's why one person says to keep abstaining from eating and another to give you food and again one says to cut a vein and another says to use cupping. Which is the reason? Is it really anything except the fact that a person cannot adequately apply the preconceived idea of ​​healthy to specific cases, so it is also here in the affairs of life, who among us does not have the words good and evil on his lips , advantageous and disadvantageous, for those among us who do not have a preconceived idea of ​​each of these terms very Well, is it fitted into a system and do I demonstrate it completely?

How am I going to prove that I apply it appropriately to specific facts? To begin with, Plato classifies definitions under the preconceived idea of ​​what is useful, but do you classify them under that of what is useless? Is it then possible that Both are right, how can that be? One man does not apply his preconceived idea of ​​good to the fact of wealth while another does not do so and another to that of pleasure and yet another to that of health, in fact, to sum it all up. What does it matter if all of us who have these terms in our mouths do not possess a mere empty knowledge of each of them individually and do not need to devote any effort to the systematic arrangement of our preconceived ideas?

Why don't we agree? Why we fight? Why blame each other? It is necessary that I now present ours, which are plagued by others, and mention that you take your own case if you properly apply your preconceived ideas, why are you worried, why are you hindered? Let us now move on to the second field of study, which has to do with our choices and the discussion of what our duty is with respect to them. Let us also move on to the third, which has to do with our meaning. I give you a gift of all this, let's limit our attention. to the first field, one that allows almost palpable proof that you do not adequately apply your preconceptions.

Do you desire right now what is possible in general and what is possible for you in particular? If so, why are you hindered? Because you're worried? Because? Aren't you right now trying to escape what is inevitable? If so, why are you getting into any trouble?Why are you unlucky? Why does it happen when you want something it doesn't happen and when you don't want it it happens? the strongest proof of problems and misfortunes I want something and it doesn't happen and what creature is more miserable than me I don't want something and it happens and what creature is more miserable than me Medea for example because she couldn't bear this she went to the point of killing her children in this sense, at least his was the act of a Great Spirit before he had the proper conception of what it means for someone's wishes not to come true, then he says that in these circumstances I will take revenge on the men who He has wronged and insulted, but of what use is his being to me in such a bad situation?

How can that be achieved? I kill my children, but I will also punish myself, what do I care? This is the bursting of a soul. very strong because she did not know where the power is to do what we want, we cannot get this from outside ourselves or by disturbing and fixing things, stop wanting to stay with your husband and nothing you want stops happening stops of wanting him to live with you at all costs, to stop wanting to stay in Corinth and, in a word, to renounce everything that is not what God wants and who will prevent you, who will force you, no one more than anyone. prevent or force Zeus when you have such The leader is exudes and identifies your desires and your desires with his, why are you still afraid of failing?

Give poverty to wealth. Your aversion and your desires will not get you what you want and you will fall into what you would avoid giving them. to health, you will be ruined, so also if you give them to the honors of the office, to friends in the country, to children, in short, to anything that is outside the domain of moral purpose, but you give them to Zeus and the other gods, entrust them to their care, let them exercise their control. Let your desire and your aversion take their side and how can you continue to trouble yourself?

But if you show envy, wretch, and pity, jealousy and timidness, and never let a day pass without lamenting yourself and the gods, how can you continue? Say you have been educated. What kind of education do you mean? Man, because you have worked on syllogisms and arguments with equivocal premises. Won't you unlearn all this if possible and start at the beginning realizing that here the... you haven't even touched? the matter and for the future starting at this point and to your foundations what comes after so that nothing is that you do not desire and that nothing ceases to be what you desire give me only one young man who has come to school with this purpose in mind who He has become an athlete in this activity saying that for my part, let everything else go.

I am satisfied if I will be free to live unhindered and untroubled to hold my neck in the face of facts as a free man and look up to heaven as a friend of God without fear of what may happen if one of you shows me such a person so that I can tell him, enter your thing young because it is your destiny to adorn the philosophy yours are these possessions these books of his these speeches then, when he has covered this first field of study and has mastered it like an athlete, let him come to me again and tell me say: I want, it is true, to be calm and free from agitation, but I also want as a god-fearing man a philosopher and a diligent student to know what my duty is towards the gods towards parents towards brothers towards my country towards strangers advance now to the second field of study this is also yours yes but I have already studied this second field and what I wanted was to be safe and unwavering and that is not only in my waking hours but also when I am asleep and drunk and melancholy crazy you are a god Great are the designs that you caress, no, that is not the way it works but someone says I want to know what Christopher means in his treatise on the liar, if that is your design, go hang yourself, you wretch, and what good will it do you, knowing that you will sadly read the whole thing? treated and with trembling you will talk about it with others this is how you behave you too my listeners say: I will read aloud to you brother and you to me man?

You write beautifully and again have a great gift for writing style. of Xenophon, of Plato, of Eros, fakes and then, when they have told dreams, they return to the same things, they have exactly the same desires as before, the same aversions, in the same way they make their decisions. your designs and your purposes you pray for the same things and you are interested in the same things secondly you don't even look for anyone to give you advice but it bothers you if they tell you again what I tell you you say he is an old man without the milk of the human kindness in him he did not cry when I left nor say I am afraid you are going through a very difficult situation my son if you pass safely I will light lamps this is what a man with the milk of human kindness in him I would say it will be great luck for a person like you to come out safe and sound something worth lighting lamps to celebrate surely you should be free from death and disease is this fanciful presumption that we know something useful that, as I said, we should put aside before get to philosophy, as we do in the case of geometry and music, otherwise we will never come even close to making progress, even if we go through all the introductions and treatises of Christopher with those of Antep etre and archidamus included in the chapter 18, how should we fight our external impressions?

Each habit and faculty is confirmed and strengthened with the corresponding actions, walk after walk, run after run, if you want to be a good reader read if you want to be a good writer write if you should stop reading for thirty days one after another and dedicate yourself to another So if you stay in bed for 10 days, get up and try to go for a long walk and you'll see how shaky your legs are in general, so if you want to do something, make it a habit. If you don't want to do something, refrain from doing it and get used to something else, instead the same principle applies.

This is also true in matters of the mind, when you are angry, you can be sure not only that this evil has happened to you, but also that you have strength and a habit and, as it were, you add fuel to the flame. when you have given in to someone in your heart. Carnal relations do not only account for this defeat, but also for the fact that they have nourished his incontinence, they have given him additional strength because it is inevitable that, as a consequence of the corresponding actions, some habits and faculties arise that did not exist before. and that others who were already there should be intensified and strengthened in this way, no doubt the weaknesses of our mind and character arise as philosophers say, when you once conceive a desire for money if reason is applied to bring you to a realization. from evil, both the passion calms down and our guiding principle recovers its original authority, but if a remedy is not applied, its guiding principle does not return to its previous condition but, upon being awakened again by the corresponding external impression, bursts into the flame of desire more quickly. than before and if this happens again and again the next stage is that insensitivity results and the disease strengthens greed because the man who has had a fever and then recovered is not the same as he was before. fever, unless it has undergone a complete cure, something similar also happens with affections of the mind, certain traces and wheels are left behind in the mind and, unless a man who lifts them perfectly the next time he is struck by the old scars, it no longer has wheels but wounds if that is why you do not want to have a bad temper do not feed your established habit before it is nothing on which it can grow as a first step keep silent and count the days in which you have not been angry I used to get angry every day, then every two days, then every three and then every four days, if you go up to thirty days without an attack of anger, sacrifice to God because the habit weakens and then is completely destroyed today.

I didn't feel sad and so the next day and then for two or three months but I was on guard when certain things happened that were capable of causing pain. Know that things are going splendidly for you today when I saw a beautiful boy or a beautiful woman I didn't tell you. myself Woods that a man could sleep with her and her husband is a happy man because the man who uses the expression happy as the husband means happy is the adulterer. Furthermore, I can't even imagine the following scene, the woman herself in my presence undressing and sleeping with me.

On my side I pat myself on the head and say well done, Epictetus, you have solved an intelligent problem, one much more intelligent than the so-called master, but when the wench is not only willing, but nods to me with her head and send to call me. and when she even hugs me and snuggles next to me, if I still stay away and conquer, this has become a bigger problem solved than the liar and the quiet one. In this sense, a man has the right to be proud, but not of his proposal. the main problem, how then can this be done?, make your desire to finally satisfy yourself, make your desire to appear beautiful in the eyes of God, set your desire to become pure in the presence of your pure self and of God, then, when such an external impression suddenly comes to you, says Plato, go and offer an atoning sacrifice and make an offering as a supplicant to the centuries of the gods who ward off evil, it is enough for you to withdraw into the society of the good and excellent men and Prepare to compare your conduct with theirs, whether you take as your model one of the living or one of the dead.

Go to Socrates and watch him as he lies next to Alcibiades and mocks his youthful beauty. You can think about how great his victory is. once he won and knew it himself as an Olympian victory and what was his rank counted in order from Heracles, so, by the gods, one could justly hail him, hail, wonderful man, for he was victorious over something more than these rotten boxes and pancreas. and gladiators who look like them, if you confront your external impression with such thoughts, you will overcome it and not get carried away by it, but to begin with, don't get carried away.

I beg you for the vividness of the impression, but say, wait for me. a small impression let me see who you are and what you are an impression of let me test you and then do not allow me to guide you by imagining what will follow, otherwise it will take possession of and go with you wherever it wants, but rather you introduce and put in front give it some just and noble impression and discard this dirty one and if you acquire the habit of doing such exercises you will see what powerful shoulders you develop, what tendons what vigor, but as it is, you only have your philosophical objections and nothing more, the man who who exercises against such external impressions is the true athlete in training, keep the man unhappy, do not let yourself be carried away by your impressions, great is the divine struggle, the task is the prize. a kingdom freedom serenity peace remember God: he is there to help you and be at your side like the travelers in a kolja storm on the Curie days because what storm is greater than the one caused by powerful impressions that overthrow the reason for the storm itself what of the Otherwise, it is nothing more than an external impression to prove this.

He removes the fear of death and then causes as much thunder and lightning as you want and you will realize how great the calm is of him, how the weather in your ruling principle, but if once you are defeated. and you say that little by little you will overcome it and then do the same thing a second time, you know that in the end you will be in such a miserable state and so weak that little by little you will not even realize that you are doing wrong. but you will even begin to offer arguments to justify your conduct and then you will confirm the truth of Hesiod's saying forever with terrible misfortunes must he who idles chapter 19 face those who take up the teachings of the philosophers only to talk about In them, the main argument seems to have been proposed on the basis of some principles like the following, since there is a general contradiction between these three propositions, that is, everything true as an event in the past is necessary and for the impossible it is not.

It does not follow a possible and three which is not true now and never will be, yet it is possible. Theodore, realizing this contradiction, used the plausibility of the first two propositions to establish the principle nothing is possible that is not true now and never will be true, but a man will do it. maintain among the possible combinations of two at a time the following, that is, three something is possible that is not true now and will never be true and two an impossible does not follow a possible but will not grant to a third proposition one all true as a event in the past is necessary, which is what Klee Anthes and his group seemed to think, whom the man Tippeter has strongly supported, but others will maintain the other two propositions, three one thing is possible that is not true now and never will be true and one, everything true as an An event in the past is necessary and then will claim that an impossible follows a possible, but it is not a way to maintain these three propositions because of their mutual contradiction.

If someone asks me, which pair of them do you maintain yourself? I will answer that I do not know but I have received the following story, the Oloroso used to maintain a pair Panthea DS and his group I believe and CLE Anthes another and Cruciferous and his group the third which is then your opinion I do not know and I was not createdfor this purpose to test my own external impression on the subject to compare the statements of others and form my own judgment, for this reason I am no better than the grammarian when asked who Hector's father was. answered Priam, who were his brothers Alexander and his dear Phoebus and who was his mother Hakuba, this is the account I have received of who of Homer said and Helen I kiss, I also believe that he writes about these same matters and possibly others like him and so on.

To the main argument, what more do I have to say about it? But if I am a vain person, I may surprise those present, especially at a banquet, by listing those who have written on the subject. Chris I suppose has also written admirably on this subject in the first book of his treatise on possible things and CLE Anthes has written a special work on the subject and archdamus and tippet are also written not only in his book on possible things but also in a separate monograph in his discussion of the main argument. I did not read the treatise, I have not read it well, so read it and what use will it be?

It will be more trivial and boring than you already are. For example, what have you gained from reading it? What judgment have you formed about the name of the subject? Will you tell us about Helena? and Priam and the Island of Calypso, which never existed and never will exist, and in the field of literary history, in fact, it is of no great importance that you master the received story without having formed any judgment of your own. but in matters of conduct we suffer much more from this lack than in literary matters, tell me about good and evil, listen to the winds that blew me from the coast of Troy, they brought me the sick man, one has health, some are good, others are bad and yet others are indifferent now the virtues and everything that participates in them are good while the vices and everything that participates in vices are bad and what is between these, namely, wealth health life death pleasure pain are indifferent and where do you get that knowledge Hellenic evaluation Oh in the history of Egypt what difference does it make if you say this?

Everything that Diogenes says in his treatise on ethics or cruciferous plants or Klee Anthes. Have you tested any of these claims and formed your own judgment on them? Show me what you are like. Are you in the habit of behaving during a storm on board a ship? Do you keep in mind this logical distinction between good and evil when the sail creaks and you have screamed and some fellow traveler unexpectedly approaches you with humor and says, tell me, I pray to the gods, what were you saying a moment ago? Is it advice to suffer a shipwreck?

Is there any vice in that? Won't you take a piece of wood and hit it? What are we going to do with you, friend? We are perishing and you come and make jokes and if Caesar sends for you to answer an accusation, do you take this distinction into account? Suppose someone approaches you when you are pale and trembling and tells you why you tremble, friend, what is the matter that worries you and how Caesar within the palace grants virtue and vice to those who appear before him, why do you also mock me and add to my other evils but still philosopher tell me why you are trembling it is not the danger death or prison or bodily pain or exile or discredit why what else can it be a council at all nor anything presiding over a council what then was the What did you use to call these things?

What do I have to do with you, friend, my own evils are enough for me and in that you are right for your own evils? you are enough for yourself your baseness your cowardice the boastfulness you indulged in when you were sitting in the conference room why you took pride in things that were not yours why you called yourself a stoic observe yourself in your actions like this and you will find out: why sect of philosophers belong, you will find that most of you are Epicureans, some Peripatetics, but these without any backbone, why do you actually demonstrate that you consider virtue equal to all things or even superior? but as for a Stoic, show me one if you can use it or how not, but show me thousands who recite the petty arguments of the Stoics, yes, do it.

These same men recite the petty arguments of the Epicureans less well, do they not handle with the same precision the petty arguments of the Peripatetic, who then is a Stoic, as we call a statue of Daeun that has been modeled after the art of Phidias? In that sense, show me a man formed according to the judgments he pronounces, show me a man who, even if sick, is happy, even if he is in danger, is happy, even if he is dying, is happy, even if he is condemned to exile, is happy, even if he is discredited, is happy, show him, by the gods, I would love to see a stoic, but you can't show me a man completely like that.

Then show me at least one that is becoming like that, one that has begun to trend in that direction. Do me this favor. Don't hold a grudge against an old man for seeing that spectacle. which to this day I have never seen. Can you imagine that you are going to show me Zeus or Athena of Phidias a creation of ivory and gold that one of you will show me the soul of a man who wishes to be of the same opinion? with God and never again blame either God or man for failing in anything that would lead to falling into anything that would avoid being free from anger envy and jealousy but why circumlocutions a man who has set his heart on changing his a man in a God and although he is still in this body of a death bird, yet he has his purpose set in communion with Zeus, show me, but you cannot, why then do you mock yourselves and deceive everyone else and why do you dress? a disguise that is not theirs and they walk like true thieves and robbers who have stolen these designations and properties that in no sense belong to them and that is why now I am your teacher and you are being taught in my school and my purpose is this bundle of our sight a perfect work, secure against restrictions, compulsion and obstacles, free, prosperous, happy, seeing God in everything, both small and great, and you are here for the purpose of learning and practicing all this, why What then you do not complete the work if it is true that you for your part have the correct purpose and I for my part in addition to the purpose I have the adequate preparation what is missing when I see a craftsman who has the material ready at hand I look for the product finished Here is also the craftsman and here is the material.

What are we still missing? Can't the subject be taught? It is possible, so it is not within our control? No, it's the only thing in the world that is under our control. Wealth is not under our control. control neither health nor fame nor in a word anything but the correct use of external impressions this is the only thing that by nature is safe against restrictions and obstacles why then don't you finish the work? Tell me the reason is in me or in you or in the nature of the thing, the thing itself is possible and it is the only thing that is under our control, therefore the fault lines either in me or in you or it that is closer to the truth in both of us, what would you like us to be?

Finally, let's start introducing a purpose here like the one I've described, let's let bygones be bygones, let's just get started. Believe me, you will see chapter 20 against the Epicureans and academics. Propositions that are true and evident must necessarily be used even. by those who contradict them, and one might consider perhaps the strongest proof that a proposition is self-evident is the fact that even the man who contradicts it is at the same time compelled to employ it, for example if a man contradicts the proposition of that there is a universal statement that is true it is clear that you must affirm the opposite and say no universal statement is true slave this is also not true because what else does this statement amount to then if a statement is universal it becomes false again if a man comes? go ahead and say I want you to know that nothing is knowable but everything is uncertain or if someone else says believe me and it will be an advantage for you when I say that one should not believe a man at all or again someone else learns from me man who is impossible to learn anything it is I who tell you this and I will prove it to you if you wish what difference there is between these people and oh who could say those who call themselves academics Oh men say that academics give your assent to the statement that no man makes sense He believes no statement when we say that no man can believe anyone, so does Epicurus when he wishes to put an end to the natural communion of men with each other while at the same time making use of the same principle that he is eliminating why he says do not let deceive or go astray or make mistakes, there is no natural companionship between rational beings, believe me, those who say otherwise are deceiving and leading them astray with false reasons.

Why do you care then that you allow us to deceive ourselves? Will it be worse for you if the rest of us are persuaded that we have a natural communion with each other and that we must protect it by all means? No, your position will be much more Better and safer man Why do you care about us? Why do you watch over us? Why do you light your lamp? Why get up early? Why write such big books? Is it to prevent one or another of us from supposing that the nature of the good is other than pleasure, because if this is so, go to your sofa and sleep and live the life of a worm that you have considered yourself worthy to eat and drink and copulate and defecate and snore, what do you care how the rest of humanity will think about these matters or whether their ideas are sensible or not?

What do you have to do with us for? Come, are you interested in sheep because they let themselves be sheared? our sands milked and finally slaughtered and cut, wouldn't it be desirable if the Stoics could charm and bewitch men to fall asleep and allow themselves to be sheared and milked by you and your kind? Isn't this something you should have? spoken only to his fellow Epicureans and having hidden his views from outsiders, taking special pains to persuade them of all people that we are born by nature with a sense of companionship and that self-control is a good thing so that everything can be preserved forever. should you or should maintain this communion with some but not with others with whom we should then maintain it with those who correspond by maintaining it with us or with those who are transgressors of it and who are greater transgressors of it than you, Epicureans who have established such doctrines, What was it then that woke Epicurus from his sleep and forced him to write what he did, what else but what is the strongest in man? she says, since you have these antisocial opinions, write them down and legalize them to others and give up sleeping for them and become, in fact, your own advocate to denounce your own doctrines.

Should we talk about Airy's STIs as being pursued by the Furies and they woke him up from his sleep, but no more savage are the Furies of the Avengers who harassed Epicurus: they woke him up from his sleep and did not let him rest, but instead forced him to announce his own miseries, just as madness and wine force such a powerful and invincible man to prison. thing is the nature of man because how can you move a vine to act not like a vine but like an olive tree again and an olive tree to act not like an olive tree but like a vine?

It is impossible, inconceivable, nor is it possible for a man to absolutely lose the affections of a man and those who cut off his bodily organs are incapable of cutting off what is really important to his sexual desires, which is why with Epicurus he cut off everything that characterizes a man's head. of family a citizen and a friend but he did not manage to cut off the desires of human beings, that is why he could not do more than quiet academics are capable of discarding or blinding their own sensory perceptions, although they have made every effort to do so.

What a misfortune a man has! he has received from nature measures and standards for discovering the truth and then he does not take the trouble to add more and elaborate additional principles to make up for the deficiencies, but does exactly the opposite, endeavoring to take away and destroy any faculty he possesses. to discover the truth what you save a lot what is your opinion on piety and holiness if you wish I will prove that it is good by all means prove it so that our citizens become converted and honor the divine and finally stop being indifferent to the things that They are of utmost importance then you have the proofs I thank heaven since then you are quite satisfied with all this here on the contrary the gods do not exist and even if they exist they do not pay attention to men nor do we any communion with them and, therefore, this piety and holiness that the multitude speaks of is a lie told by impostors and sophists or I swear by legislators to frighten and restrain evildoers well done philosopher, you have done a service to our citizens, you have recovered our young people. who were already inclined to despise divine things what then but all this does not satisfy you learn now how justice is nothing how reverence is madness how a father is nothing how a son is nothing well done philosopher continue like this persuading There are more young people who feel and speak as you do.

It is from principles like these that our well-governed states have grown. Great principles like these have made usSparta what it was These are the convictions that Lycurgus instilled in the Spartans through his laws and his system of education, that is, that neither slavery is more vile than noble, nor freedom more noble than vile. Those who died at Thermopylae died because of these judgments about slavery and freedom and for what principles, but the men of Athens gave up their city and then those who speak like that. They must marry and beget children and fulfill the duties of citizens and have themselves appointed priests and prophets priests and prophets of whom gods that do not exist and themselves consult with the Pythian priestess to listen to lies and interpret the oracles so that others know What monstrous shamelessness and imposture man, what are you doing?

You are getting confused every day and are not willing to give up these frigid attempts of yours when eating. Where do you put your hand to your mouth or eye when you take a bath - what are you stepping on? When have you ever called a pot a plate or a ladle a spit? If I were a slave to one of these men, even if I had to be whipped deeply by him every day, I would torment him, boy, throw some oil in the bath I would have poured some fish sauce and when I came out he would I would put it in my head, what does this mean?

I had an outward impression that was indistinguishable from olive oil, in fact it was completely similar, I swear. For your fortune, give me the porridge. He would have filled a side dish with vinegar and fish sauce and brought it to her. Didn't I order the porridge? Yes, master, this is porridge, he is not this vinegar and fish sauce, how is that? porridge, drink it and smell it, drink it and taste it well. How do you know if the senses deceive us? If he had three or four fellow slaves who felt the same way, he would have made him explode with rage and hang himself or change his mind. opinion, but since it is so, men are playing with us, they use all the gifts of nature, while in theory they eliminate them.

Grateful and reverential men, why at least you eat bread every day and yet you have the audacity to say that we do. I don't know if there is a Demeter or a Corre or a Pluto and not to mention that although they enjoy the night and the day the changes of the year and the Stars and the sea and the land and the cooperation of men they are not moved in what least for any of these things but they are simply looking for an opportunity to burp out their trivial problem and after thus exercising their stomach to go to the bathroom, but what are they going to say or what are they going to talk about or with whom and what is their listeners?

They are going to come out of these things that they are saying. All of this has never given them a moment of worry. I greatly fear that a noble-spirited young man may hear these statements and be influenced by them. Having already been influenced, he can lose all the germs. of the nobility he possessed, that we may be giving an adulterer reason to be brazen in his actions, that some embezzler of public funds may resort to a misleading claim based on these theories that someone who neglects his own parents can obtain from them an additional impudence So, in your opinion, what is good or bad?, vile or noble, this or that.

What is the point then of arguing further against any of these people or giving them a reason or listening to one of their own or trying to convert them through Zeus? I would rather convert a filthy degenerate than men who have become so deaf and blind. Chapter twenty-one of inconsistency. Some of his flaws men admit easily but others not so easily. Now no one will admit that he is stupid or unintelligent. He unleashed the complete opposite. Now everyone says I wish I had as much luck as I have common sense, but they readily admit they are shy and say I'm a little shy.

I admit it, but in general I won't be considered a fool. A man won't admit it easily. is incontinent not that he is unfair and will never admit that he is envious or mediocre "some, but most men will admit that they are moved by pity what is the reason for this the main reason is confusion of thought and unwillingness to admit a fault in matters involving good and evil, but apart from that, different people are affected by different reasons and, as a general rule, they will never admit anything that they conceived as shameful, timid, for example, they conceived it as an indication of a prudent disposition and compassion, but they considered stupidity a slave quality and would never plead guilty to offenses against society.

Now, in the case of most errors, the main reason why. The reason why men are inclined to admit them is because they conceive that there is an involuntary element in them, such as shyness and compassion, and if a man ever does so reluctantly, admits that he is incontinent, adds that he is in love, hoping to be excused as if by an involuntary act but the injustice that they do not conceive at all as involuntary in jealousy there is also, as they believe, an element of involuntary and therefore this too is a defect that men reluctantly admit when such are the men among the that we live, so confused, so ignorant both of what they understand by evil and of what evil quality they have or if they have it or, if so, how they come to have it or how they will obtain it.

To get rid of him among such men, I wonder if it is not worth it for us too to see how each one asks himself the questions: Is it possible that I too am one of those people? What conceit do I have about myself? For my part I act like a wise man For my part I act like a man of self-control For my part do I ever say that I have been educated to face whatever comes? I have the self-consciousness of a man who knows nothing of what I do. I don't know anything I go to my teacher like someone going to consult an oracle willing to obey or I act like a crying child I go to school to learn only the history of philosophy and to understand the books that I didn't understand before and if casual offers to explain them to others man at home you have fought a regular price fight with your slave you have thrown your house out into the street you have disturbed the peace of your neighbors and now you come to me with a solemn air like a philosopher and sitting below he pronounced on the explanation that I gave about the reading of the text and about the application of the comments that I made while babbling everything that came to my mind, you have come in a spirit of envy with a spirit of humiliation because nothing is being done.

I sent you from home and you sit there while the conference continues thinking about nothing in the world on your part, but your relationship with your father or your brother reflects what my people at home say about me right now. that I am advancing in my studies and they say that when I return home I will know everything. I did want at one point, I suppose, to learn everything before returning home, but that requires a lot of work and no one sends me anything. and list of Anacapa they have terrible accommodations in the bathrooms and my accommodation is bad and the school here is bad and then people say that no one gets anything good out of going to school because who goes to school who I repeat with the expectation of being cured who with the expectation of subjecting his own judgments to purification, who with the expectation of coming to understand what judgments he needs, why then are you surprised if you bring home from your school precisely the judgments that you brought before not coming with the expectation? of leaving them aside or of correcting them or of getting others in exchange for them or anything or anything like that seems more like this at least if you are getting what you came for you want to be able to speak fluently about philosophical principles well they are don't become more of a idle babbling, don't these petty philosophical principles provide you with material for exposition?

Don't you resolve syllogisms and arguments with equivocal premises? It makes me angry if you're getting what you came for, yes, but if my son or my brother dies or if I have to die or be tortured, what good will those things be to me? But was this really why you came? Is this really what you sit down for? At my side did you ever really light your lamp or work late into the night for this or when you went out on the covered walk did you ever put before yourself instead of a syllogism some external impression and examine it with your fellow students? do that and then you say that the main thing was they are useless for who, for those who do not use them properly, for example, I am not useless for those who rub them when and as they should and poultices are not useless for jumping, weights are not Useless, but they are useless for some people and on the other hand useful for others.

If you ask me now, are our syllogisms useful, I will tell you that they are and if you want, I will show you how they are useful. So have they helped me in something, man? You didn't ask if they are useful for you but if they are useful in general. The man suffering from dysentery asked me if vinegar is useful. I'll tell you it's useful. It is useful? So for me I will say. do not first look for your secretion to stop, the small ulcers to be healed, so you too, men, first heal your ulcers, stop your secretions, have a calm mind, bring him free of distractions to school and then you will know what power the reason.

Chapter 22 of friendship, whatever it is. a man is interested in him naturally loves now two men are interested in bad things nothing good they are interested in things that do not concern them at all not even for these it remains, therefore, that men are interested in good things only and If they are interested in them they love them, whoever then has knowledge of good things would know how to love them too, but when a man is incapable of distinguishing good things from bad and what is neither good nor bad from the rest, how could he give the next step and have the power to love accordingly?

The power to love belongs to the wise man and him alone. How does someone say it? Because I am also a fool, but I love my son of the gods. I'm surprised at you. From the beginning you have admitted that you are a fool because you are missing something, what is it? Don't you use sensory perception? Don't you distinguish between external impressions? a dwelling, how is it possible then that you confess that you are a fool, because Zeus frequently baffles and disturbs you by your external impressions and you are overwhelmed by his persuasive character and at one moment you consider these things to be good and then you consider them the same? bad and then as neither good nor bad and in a word you are subject to pain fear Envy agitation and change so you are foolish as you admit you are and in love you are not changeable but in regards to wealth and pleasure and in a word things materials, don't you consider them at one moment good and at another bad and don't you consider the same people at one moment good and at another bad and don't you feel at one moment friendly with them and at another unfriendly and at one moment praise them while the other? another blames them yes, I am subject to exactly these emotions, what do you think then that the man who has been deceived about someone can be his friend?

No, indeed, and it can be shown by the man whose choice of friend is subject to change. good will for that friend, not him either, and the man who now despises someone and then admires him, not him either. What then have you never seen dogs fawning and playing with each other so that you say that nothing could be friendlier? But to see what their friendship amounts to, throw a piece of meat between them and you will discover it. Throw a little piece of earth between you and your son and you will discover how much your son wants to bury you as soon as possible and how fervently you pray for your son's death. , then you will change your mind again and say what child I have raised all this time, has been ready to take me to the grave, put between you a small girl and the old man, just as the young man falls in love with her or another maybe a little glory and if you have to risk your life you will say what Admeto Val Joyous's father did when he saw the light of day that's how I father Joy is not supposed to do you imagine he didn't love his own son when he was little and that he was not in agony when he had a fever and that he did not say over and over again if only I had a fever and then when the test arrives and he sees what The words he speaks were not a tear Cleese and Polyneices were born of the same mother and the same father if they had not grown up together they lived together they played together they slept together many times they kissed, so I imagine that if anyone had seen them, they would have laughed at the Philosophers for their parents, all the views on friendship, but when the throne was thrown among them like a piece of meat among the dogs, look what they say, Atia Cleese, where before the wall means the pollenes are, why did he ask this of me, Atia?

Cleese, I will face you, pollen, a cessation of mine is also that desire, such also are the prayers they utter, a general rule, do not deceive yourself that every living being is not so dedicated to anything as to his own interest, be it whatever you like. In the path of this interest, be it a brother, a father, a son, a loved one or a lover, the being hates, accuses and curses him because his nature is to love nothing as much as his own interest: he is a father, a brother , relatives and homeland. and God, when, for example, we think that the gods stand in the way of achieving this, we vilify them, even throw them to the ground and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples of Asclepius to be burned when his beloved died for this . reason, if a man weighs his interest and his righteousness and what ishonorable man, his country, his parents and his friends, all are safe, but if he puts his interest on one scale and on the other friends, his country, his relatives and justice itself, all of the latter are lost because they are surpassed by its interest because where one can say I and mine towards that side the creature must necessarily lean if they are in the flesh the ruling power must be if they are in the moral purpose it must be if they are in the external it must be so if therefore I am where my moral purposes then and only then will I be the friend, the son and the father that I should be then this will be my interest to maintain my good faith my self-esteem my patience, my abstinence and my cooperation and maintain my relationships with other men, but if I put what is mine on one scale and what is honorable on the other, then Epicurus' statement in which he declares that Honorable or nothing at all gains strength. everything or at best only what people hold in esteem, it was through ignorance of this that the Athenians and Macadam himself quarreled with Ian and the Thebans with both and the great king with Greece and the Macedonians with both and in our days the Romans. with the get a and yet before any of these, what happened at Ilium was due to this.

Alexander was a guest of Menelaus and if anyone had seen the friendly treatment they gave each other, he would not have believed any man who said that they were not friends, but there a pretty woman took a bite between them and to win her a war arose. so now when you see friends or brothers who seem to agree don't make instant pronouncements about their friendship even if they swear or even if they say they can't be separated from each other the guiding principle of bad men can't be trusted it's unsafe unable to judge is prey now to one external impression and now to another, do not do the same investigation that most men do by asking whether two men have the same parents or were raised together or had the same school attendance but this and this only where they put their interest outside of themselves or in their moral purpose if outside you do not call them friends any more than you would call them faithful, firm, brave or free they do not even call them human beings if they are wise because it is not a judgment of species human nature which makes them bite, that is, insult each other and take them to the deserts, that is, to the market, like wild beasts go to the mountains and in The courts of justice act like bandits nor is it a human judgment that the make them prophets, adulterers and corrupters, or anything like that that makes men guilty of any of the many other crimes that they commit against each other;

It is the fault of a single judgment and this only because they put themselves and what belongs to them in the category of things that are outside the sphere of moral purpose, but if you listen to these men claim that they sincerely believe that The goods we have are our moral purpose. lies and when there is a correct use of external impressions, then you no longer need to worry about whether they are son and father or brothers or whether they have been schoolmates for a long time and are comrades, but although this is the only knowledge you have about them , You can confidently declare them friends, just as you can declare them faithful and upright, for where else can friendship be found than where there is faithfulness?

He respects devotion to honorable things and nothing apart from that, but he's paid attention to me all these years and hasn't he? Don't love me as you know, slave, if she has paid attention to you like she cleans her shoes or tans her horse, how do you know that when you have lost your usefulness like that of some utensil, she will throw you away like a broken plate, but she is my wife and We have lived together all these years, but how long was Arif aliev with them? House of Fear, yes, Sands gave him children and lots of them, but a necklace came between them, so what does a necklace mean? like a necklace that was the brutal element that was what broke the bond of love what would not allow a woman to be a wife a mother to remain a mother so let each one of you who is eager to be a friend like someone yourself or for get someone else as a friend eradicate these judgments hate them banish them from your own soul when this is done firstly you will not be revealing yourself fighting with yourself repenting tormenting yourself and secondly in relation to your comrade you will always be simple with whom He is like himself, while with those who are different he will be tolerant, gentle, kindly forgiving, and with those who are ignorant or wrong in things of the greatest importance, he will not be harsh with anyone because he knows well Plato's saying that every soul is involuntarily deprived. of the truth, but if you don't do this, you can do everything else: friends drink together and share the same tent and sail in the same boat and they can be children of the same parents, yes, and snakes too, but they will never be friends and neither do you. as long as you preserve these brutal and abominable judgments chapter 23 of the Faculty of expression everyone would read with greater pleasure and ease the book that is written in the clearest characters therefore everyone would also listen with greater ease those speeches that are expressed inappropriately and In attractive language, we should not say, therefore, that there is no faculty of expression, for this is speaking as impious and as a coward, because this belittles the gifts received from God, as if the usefulness of the faculty of vision were denied. that of hearing or that of speech itself, God gave you eyes without any purpose; no purpose put them in a spirit so strong and so cunningly contrived that it extends to a great distance and shapes the shapes of the eyes. what is seen and what messenger is as swift and as attentive as the eye and without any purpose also makes the intervening air as active and as intense of vision passes through it as through a tense medium and did so - no purpose creates the light without whose presence everything else would be useless.

Man is not ungrateful for these gifts nor does he forget the best things but for sight and hearing and for Zeus for life itself and for what it has It is favorable for nuts for wine for olive oil Give thanks to God and at the same time remember that he has given you something better than all these things, the power to make use of them, to judge them, to estimate the value of each one What is the case with each of these things? faculties shows what it is worth, is it each faculty in itself? Have you ever heard the Faculty of Sight say anything about itself or the Faculty of Vision?

No, but they have been appointed as servants and slaves to minister to the faculty that makes use of external impressions and If you ask how much each thing is worth, who do you ask? Who should answer you? How then can any other faculty be superior to this one, which uses the others as servants and judges each of the things itself and pronounces on them for what? one of them knows what it is and what it is worth, which of them knows when to use it and when not, which is the faculty that opens and closes the eyes and distances them from the things that should divert them but directs them. towards other things the Faculty of sight no, that is the Faculty of moral purpose which is the faculty by virtue of which men are curious and inquisitive or again indifferent to what is said the Faculty of hearing no, it is none other than the Faculty of moral purpose when then this faculty sees that all the other faculties around it are blind and deaf and incapable of seeing anything but the very acts for which they have been appointed to serve and minister to it, while it alone sees clearly and examines not only everything else that determines one's worth, but also himself, he is likely to pronounce that everything else is supreme except himself and what else can the open eye do but see but whether it must see the wife of someone and how what faculty tells him what the moral purpose is and what faculty tells a man whether he should believe what he has been told or not believe and whether he believes whether he should be provoked by it or not, isn't that the moral purpose and this Faculty of speech and the adornment of language, if it really is a separate Faculty, what else does it do when speeches arise on some topic if not and compose the words as hairdressers do their hair, but if it is better to speak than to remain silent and to do it this way or this way that and whether this is appropriate or not appropriate and the appropriate occasion and usefulness of each action, what else does all this tell us but the Faculty of moral purpose?

Well, that which serves to be superior to what the horse serves to the rider or the dog to the hunter or his instruments to the Harper or his servants to the king, for what faculty is that which uses the services of others in this manner, moral purpose and what is it? what serves every moral purpose what is it that destroys the entire man sometimes by hunger sometimes by a rope sometimes by throwing him off a cliff moral purpose is there then anything stronger than this among men however how can the things that Those subject to obstacles are stronger than those without obstacles.

Those who by their very nature are capable of hindering the faculty of vision, both moral purpose and things outside its sphere, also hinder vision, and the same is also true of speech, but what is its own nature. Nature itself is capable of hindering the moral purpose, nothing that is outside its sphere but only itself when perverted, therefore, since it is so great a faculty and has been placed above all else, let it come before us and say that meat is of all things the most excellent. nay, even if the flesh itself were called most excellent, it would not have tolerated such a statement, but now, what is Epicurus who makes such a statement that he composed the treatise on the end or on physics or on the norm that made you grow a beard? ? grow long that I wrote while I was dying we are spending what is our last and at the same time a happy day was the flesh all the moral purpose come you confess that you have something superior to the flesh and you are not crazy neither are you really so blind and deaf well Why then does a man despise his other faculties, much less does a man say that there is no use or advancement except in the Faculty of moral purpose, much less that is unintelligent, impious, ungrateful towards God, nothing more than assigning its true value to each thing.

Because an ass is useful for something but not as much as an ox, a dog is also useful for something but not as much as a slave is also useful as a slave but not as much as your fellow citizens, there is also use in these but not as much as in magistrates but because some things are superior we should not despise the use that others give there is a certain value also in the Faculty of eloquence, but it is not as great as that of the Faculty of moral purpose. When, therefore, I say this, let no one suppose that I am asking you to neglect your speech, any more than I tell you to neglect your eyes, your ears, your hands, or your hands. feet or dress or shoes but if you ask me which is then the highest of all things, what will I say?

The faculty of eloquence, I cannot but that of moral purpose when it becomes a correct moral purpose, since it is this that uses not only the Faculty of eloquence, but also all the other faculties, small and great, when this is corrected , man becomes good when he fails, man becomes bad, that's why we are unfortunate and lucky, we blame each other and please each other. another in a word is that this change when ignored produces misery but when attended produces happiness but eliminating the faculty of eloquence and saying that in truth it is nothing are acts not simply of a man ungrateful to those who have given but also cowardly for such people seem to me to fear that if a faculty of this kind really exists we cannot despise it, such are also those who affirm that there is no difference between beauty and ugliness that could A man can be affected in the same way by the vision of societies and that of Achilles or by the vision of Helen and that of an ordinary woman, but these are notions of foolish and rude people who do not know the nature of each thing, but fear that if a man notices the superiority of the faculty in question, he will immediately let himself be carried away by it and will be harmed;

What is more, the great thing is to leave each one in possession of his own faculties, thus allowing him to observe the value of the faculty and learn what is the highest of all things and in everything that must be pursued after this, to be zealous in this, treating all other things as of secondary value in comparison with it, but not neglecting them as far as we can. We must also take care of our eyes, but not as the highest, but we must take care of them for the sake of the highest, because it will not have its natural perfection unless it uses its eyes with reason and chooses one thing instead of another. then it generally happens that man acts like a traveler on his way to his own country who stops like an excellent in and as he likes it there he stays there man, you have forgotten your purpose you do not travel to it but through it but this is a fine in and how many other inns are fine and how many meadows are still just passing through, but your purpose is the other: to return to your country to alleviate the fear of your relatives, to fulfill the duties of a citizen, to get married, to raise your children, meet the usual offices because you did not come into the world to selectunusually good places, but to live and go about your business in the place where you were born and registered as a citizen.

Something like this also happens in the matter we are in. Considering that a man must advance to perfection through the spoken word and the instruction he receives here and must purify his own moral purpose and correct the faculty that makes use of external impressions and that the instruction must necessarily be given by means of certain principles and in a particular style and with a certain variety and impressiveness in the form of these principles some people are captivated by all these things and remain where they are some are captivated by the style others by syllogisms and others by arguments with equivocal premises others by man, your purpose was to make yourself competent to use according to nature the external impressions that came to you with the desire not to fail in what you would achieve by avoiding not fall into what you would avoid never suffer misfortune never bad fortune free unhindered unrestricted according to the rule of Zeus obeying this well satisfied with this blaming no one accusing no one able to say with all your heart the verses that begin guide me in a Zeus and destiny and then, even if you have this purpose because some little style trick or certain principles catch your attention, you will stay where you are and you will choose to stay there forgetting about things at home and saying this is fine, well, who says that?

It is not beautiful but only as a passageway like an inn for what prevents a man from having the eloquence of Demosthenes and yet being unhappy and what prevents him from analyzing syllogisms as receivers and yet being unhappy, saddened, envy in a word of being disturbed and miserable absolutely nothing you see then that these were worthless Posadas while your purpose is another when I speak like this some people think that I am belittling the study of rhetoric or that of general principles but I am not belittling this but only the habit of insisting incessantly on these matters and placing our hopes on them if a man does so here is harmful in presenting this point of view, I am considered one of those who do harm, but when I see that a thing is the highest and supreme I cannot say the same about anything else to please you my listeners chapter 24 to one of those who did not consider worthy someone told him many times I have come to you wanting to listen to you and you have never given me an answer and now if it is possible you I beg you to tell me something, he answered.

Do you think that just as there is no art in everything else, there is also an art in speaking and that he who has this art will speak with skill while he who has it? he does not have it he will speak without skill now I do so he who by speaking benefits himself and can benefit others would be speaking with skill while he who causes harm instead of benefit would be without skill in this art of speaking you would find that some are hurt and others benefited and they are all those here who benefited from what they heard or would you find that some of them also benefit but others are injured if this is true for them also he said then in this case two are all those who show skill in listening. benefits, but all those who do not show such ability are harmed, he agreed, therefore, there is also some skill in listening, just as there is in speaking, so it seems, but if you please look at the matter from this angle, Who do you think it's part of?

It is to handle an instrument very well musically, the musicians and who think it is up to the sculptors to make a statue, and how it seemed to them that no arts are needed to look at a statue with skill, this also requires art, if then speaking properly is part of it. from a trained person. Do you see that also here with benefit for himself is also part of a person trained now in terms of perfection and benefit? Yes please, let's stop considering them for the moment. Since we are both very far removed from anything of that kind except this, I think everyone would admit that the man who is going to listen to the Philosopher needs at least some practice in listening.

Isn't that who I should talk to? Tell me what you are able to hear about good and bad things? Good and evil What do you mean by a horse no well then with an ox no what then with a man yes we know then what a man is and what his nature is what the concept of man is and we have ears that are to some degree open about this; No, do you have an idea of ​​what nature is? Can you to some extent follow me when I speak, but I must use a proof to How can I really understand what a proof is or how something is proven or by what means or what things look like a proof but are not a proof?

Do you know, for example, what is true or what is false, what follows, what contradicts or what? does not agree or is not in harmony with what but, should I be interested in philosophy? How am I going to expose to you the contradiction in the ideas of the multitude that leads them to disagree about good and evil, advantageous and disadvantageous when they do not know what the contradiction itself is, then show me what I should do? achieve with a discussion with you awakens in me a longing for it, just as the right grass when shown to the sheep awakens in them a desire to eat where if you put a stone or a loaf of bread in front of them they will not move to eat.

We have certain moments of natural eagerness to speak also when the right listener appears and when he himself stimulates us, but when the would-be hero next to us is like a stone or a grass, how can he awaken desire in the breasts of a man? ? The vine says to the farmers, pay attention to me, no, that is the vine, by its very appearance it shows that it will benefit you to pay attention to it and thus invites you to dedicate your attention to those who do not allow themselves to be tempted by attractive and alert children to join their children. play sports and crawl with them on all fours and talk baby, talk to them about who wants to play with a donkey or join in with their braying, no matter how small he is, he is still nothing more than a little ass why then you have nothing to say to him There is only one thing I can tell you: the man who does not know who he is and what he is born from and what kind of world this is in which he exists and with whom he shares it and does not know what the good things are and the bad things that are noble. and the vile and is incapable of following reason or demonstration or what is true and what is false and cannot distinguish one from the other and will manifest neither desire nor version nor choice nor purpose in accordance with nature will not assent will not descend will not Will a man like that retain his judgment to sum it all up?

He will walk around deaf and blind thinking he is someone when in reality he is nobody. What do you think this is something new? Has it not been true since the beginning of the existence of the human race that every mistake and every misfortune has been due to this kind of ignorance? Why did Agamemnon and Achilles fight? Wasn't it because they didn't know what things are convenient and what things are not? And doesn't one of them say that it is convenient to return the crisis to his father while the other says that it is not convenient?

Doesn't one of them say that he should get the mead of honor from another man while the other says that he should? Isn't it true that this made them forget who they were and what they had come for? Well, man, why have you come to get boyfriends or to fight, to fight with whom the Trojans or the Greeks the Trojans? Well then you are turning your Turn to Hector and draw your sword against your king as for you, the best of men, are you turning your back on your duties as a king who has the charge of the Nations and maintains such powerful cares and for the well as an insignificant damsel you get into a fist fight? with the greatest warrior among your allies, a man whom you must honor and protect in every way and you sink below the level of an elegant high priest who treats noble gladiators with all respect, do you see the kind of things you are ignorant of? of what is convenient leads to but I am also rich you are not then richer than Agamemnon are you but I am also handsome you are not then more handsome than Achilles are you but I also have a beautiful head of hair and Achilles did not have one more fine and golden hair too and didn't he comb it elegantly and dress it but I am also strong so you are not able to lift a stone as big as Hector or I lifted an ax I you but I am also noble by birth your mother is not a goddess? her or your father from the seed of Zeus, so what good is all this to her when she sits crying for the damsel, but I'm an orator and I wasn't?

Don't you notice how he deals with Odysseus and Phoenix, the most skillful of all? the Greeks in eloquence how he stopped their mouths this is all I have to tell you and even for this I have no heart why because you have not stimulated me for what is in you so that I can look and be stimulated like The meat experts horses are stimulated when they see thoroughbred horses in your bird body but you make it ugly with the way you give them your clothes there is something too luxurious about them they also match your hair and your face I have nothing to look at when you want to listen to a philosopher, don't ask him, you have nothing to tell me, just show yourself capable of listening to him and you will see how you stimulate the speaker chapter 25 how logic is necessary when someone in his audience said that he convinced me that logic is necessary, he responded: do you want me to demonstrate this to you?

Yes, then I must use a demonstrative argument and when the interrogator agreed with that, Epictetus asked him how will you know if I impose on you since the man had none. response to give Epictetus said do you see how you yourself admit that all this instruction is necessary if without it you cannot even know if it is necessary or not? chapter 26 what is the distinctive characteristic of error every error implies a contradiction because since he who is in error does not desire it but to be right it is clear that he is not doing what he desires for what the thief desires to achieve his own interest Therefore, if the theft goes against his interest, he is not doing what he wants now.

Every rational soul is by nature offended by contradiction, and as long as a man does not understand that he is involved in a contradiction, nothing will prevent him from doing contradictory things. , but when you have come to understand the contradiction, you must necessarily abandon it and abandon it. avoid it in the same way that a bitter necessity compels a man to renounce the false when he perceives that it is false, but as long as the false does not appear, he accepts it as truth, then he is the one who can show each man the contradiction it causes in him . to her and can clearly show her that she is not doing what she wants and that she is doing what she does not want, she is strong in arguments and at the same time effective in both encouraging and refuting, because as soon as someone shows this to a man, He will abandon what he is doing of his own free will, but as long as you do not tell him, do not be surprised if he persists in his error, since he does it because he has the impression that he is right, that is why Socrates, because he trusted in this Faculty, said that I am not in the habit of calling any other witness to what I say but I am always satisfied with my fellow litigant and I call his vote and call him as a witness and he thought that one person is enough. for me instead of all men because Socrates knew what moves a rational soul and that like the beam of a scale it will tilt, whether you like it or not, point out a contradiction to the rational governing faculty and it will desist, but if you don't point it out, blame it on yourself and not the man who will not be convinced.