Book Eleven

The properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, it articulates itself, it makes itself such as it wills, the fruit it bears it gathers itself — whereas the fruits of plants, and what answers to them in animals, others gather; it attains its own end, wherever the close of life may overtake it. For not as in dancing and acting and such things, where the whole performance is left incomplete if anything cuts it short, but at every point, and wherever it may be cut off, the rational soul makes what it set before itself full and lacking nothing, so that it can say, "I have what is mine." Moreover, it ranges over the whole universe and the void around it and its shape, and stretches out into the infinity of time, and embraces and reflects upon the periodic rebirth of the Whole, and considers that those who come after us will see nothing new, and those before us saw nothing more — but that, in a manner, the man of forty, if he has any intelligence at all, has seen all that has been and all that shall be, by reason of their uniformity. And it is proper to the rational soul also to love one's neighbours, and truth, and modesty, and to honour nothing above itself — which is proper to law as well; so that there is, after all, no difference between right reason and the reason of justice.

You will despise the charm of song, and dancing, and the pancratium, if you cut up the tuneful voice into its several notes and ask yourself, of each one, whether you are overcome by it; for you will be ashamed to own it. And in the case of dancing do the like with each movement and posture, and the same with the pancratium. In short, then — except for virtue and what comes of virtue — remember to run to the several parts, and by dividing them to come to despise the thing; and transfer this to the whole of life as well.

What manner of soul is that which is ready, if even now it must be released from the body, whether to be quenched, or scattered, or to abide. But let this readiness come from a judgment of its own, not from sheer obstinacy, as with the Christians, but reasoned, and with dignity, and so as to persuade another too, without theatrical display.

Have I done something for the common good? Then I am benefited. Let this be ever ready to meet you, and never leave off.

What is your art? To be good. And how is this rightly done except by principles — some concerning the Nature of the Whole, others concerning the proper constitution of man?

At first tragedies were brought in as reminders of the things that befall, and that these are by nature bound to come to pass, and that you should not be grieved on the greater stage by the very things with which you are charmed on the lesser; for you see that they must be played out in this way, and that even those who cry "Alas, Cithaeron!" bear them. And certain useful things are said by the writers of the dramas, such as, above all, this: "If I and my two children have been neglected by the gods, even this has its reason"; and again, "Against things, indeed, there is no need to feel anger"; and, "Life is reaped like a ripe ear of corn"; and the like. After tragedy the old comedy was brought in, with its instructive frankness, reminding men, not unprofitably, of freedom from conceit by its very plainness of speech; for some such purpose Diogenes too took up these things. After this consider for what purpose the middle comedy was taken up, and then the new, which little by little slipped away into a mere artful imitation. For that some useful things are said even by these is not unknown; but to what end, after all, did the whole aim of such poetry and dramaturgy look?

How clearly it comes home to you that there is no other condition of life so fitted for philosophizing as this in which you now happen to be.

A branch cut off from the branch next to it cannot but be cut off also from the whole plant. So too a man severed from one man has fallen away from the whole fellowship. Now a branch is cut off by another; but a man cuts himself off from his neighbour by hating him and turning away, and does not know that he has thereby severed himself from the whole commonwealth as well. Yet there is this gift of Zeus, who established the fellowship: it is in our power to grow together again with that to which we are next, and again to become parts that complete the Whole. But if such a severance is repeated often, it makes that which withdraws hard to reunite and hard to restore. And in general the branch which has grown together from the first and shared the common life is not like the one grafted on again after being cut off, whatever the gardeners may say. Grow on the same stem, but not on the same principles.

As those who stand in your way, when you go forward according to right reason, cannot turn you aside from sound action, so let them not strike out of you your kindness toward them; but guard yourself equally on both points — not only in steadfast judgment and action, but also in gentleness toward those who try to hinder you or are otherwise vexatious. For to be angry with them is as much a weakness as to forsake the action and give way in dismay; for both alike are deserters from the ranks — the one through fear, the other through being estranged from his natural kinsman and friend.

"No nature is inferior to art"; for the arts imitate natures. And if this is so, the nature which is most perfect of all and most comprehensive could not fall short of the inventiveness of art. Now all the arts make the lower things for the sake of the higher; therefore the common nature does so too. And hence comes the origin of justice, and from justice the other virtues take their being; for the just will not be preserved if we either set our hearts on things indifferent, or are easily deceived, hasty, and changeable.

If the things whose pursuit and avoidance trouble you do not come to you, but you in a manner go to them, then at least let your judgment about them keep quiet, and they will remain unmoved, and you will be seen neither pursuing nor fleeing.

The soul is a sphere true to its own form, when it neither stretches out toward anything, nor shrinks inward, nor is scattered, nor sinks down, but is lit with the light by which it sees the truth of all things and the truth within itself.

Will someone despise me? He shall see to it. But I will see to it that I be found doing or saying nothing worthy of contempt. Will he hate me? He shall see to it. But I am kindly and well-disposed to all, and ready to show even this very man what he has overlooked — not in reproach, nor in a parade of forbearance, but genuinely and kindly, like that famous Phocion, if indeed he was not feigning. For such things must be within, and a man must be seen by the gods to be one not disposed to indignation at anything, nor making a grievance of it. For what evil is it to you, if you yourself are now doing what is proper to your nature, and accepting what is now timely for the Nature of the Whole — a man bent on the coming-to-pass, by whatever means, of the common good?

Despising one another, they fawn upon one another; and wishing to surpass one another, they bow down before one another.

How rotten and counterfeit is the man who says, "I have resolved to deal frankly with you." What are you doing, man? This need not be announced beforehand; it will appear of itself. It ought to be written on the forehead; the voice should at once ring with it, it should at once flash from the eyes, just as the beloved at once reads everything in the lover's glance. In short, the simple and good man ought to be like one who smells of the goat, so that the bystander, the moment he comes near, whether he will or no, perceives it. But a studied simplicity is a dagger. There is nothing more shameful than the friendship of the wolf; of all things shun this most. The good, the simple, the kindly man has these things in his eyes, and they are not hidden.

The power of living the noblest of lives is in the soul, if a man be indifferent to things indifferent. And he will be indifferent, if he contemplates each of them part by part and as a whole, and remembers that none of them produces in us any opinion about itself, nor comes to us; but they stand unmoved, and it is we who beget the judgments about them and, as it were, write them within ourselves — though it is in our power not to write, and in our power, if perchance it has escaped us, at once to blot them out. And remember that such attention will be needed but a little while, and then life will be over. And what hardship is there, after all, in these things being as they are? For if they are according to nature, rejoice in them, and let them be easy for you; but if contrary to nature, seek what is according to your own nature, and hasten to it, even if it bring no fame; for everyone is to be forgiven who seeks his own proper good.

Whence each thing has come, and out of what materials each is composed, and into what it changes, and what it will be when it has changed, and how it will suffer no evil.

And first, what is my relation to these men, and that we have come into being for one another's sake; and, on another account, that I have come into being to be set over them, as a ram over a flock or a bull over a herd. And go back to the beginning, from this: if not atoms, then a nature governing the Whole; and if this, the lower for the sake of the higher, and these for one another. Second, what manner of men they are at table, in bed, and the rest; and above all, under what necessities of principles they lie, and with what conceit they do these very things. Third, that if they do these things rightly, we ought not to be vexed; and if not rightly, then plainly against their will and through ignorance. For every soul is robbed against its will of the truth, and likewise of dealing with each man according to his desert. At any rate, men are vexed to be called unjust, ungrateful, grasping, and, in a word, wrongdoers against their neighbours. Fourth, that you yourself do many wrong things, and are such another; and even if you abstain from certain wrongs, still you have a disposition prone to them, even if through cowardice, or care for reputation, or some such baseness, you abstain from the like wrongs. Fifth, that you have not even ascertained that they are doing wrong; for many things are done by way of management, and in general one must learn many things before one can pronounce with sureness about another's act. Sixth, that when you are exceedingly vexed or out of patience, man's life is but a moment, and in a little while we have all been laid out. Seventh, that it is not their acts that trouble us — for these are in their own ruling faculties — but our own opinions. Take away, then, and consent to let go, the judgment that this is something dreadful, and your anger is gone. How, then, will you take it away? By reasoning that it is no disgrace; for unless the disgraceful alone is evil, you too must needs do many wrong things, and become a robber and all manner of man. Eighth, how much heavier are the consequences of the anger and grief we feel at such things than the things themselves at which we are angry and grieved. Ninth, that kindness is invincible, if it be genuine and not a grimace or a pretence. For what will the most insolent man do to you, if you continue kindly toward him, and, should occasion serve, gently admonish and teach him better, at the very moment when he attempts to do you harm? "No, my child; we are made for something else. I shall not be harmed, but you are harming yourself, my child." And show him, deftly and as a general truth, that this is so — that not even bees do such a thing, nor any creatures made for the herd. And you must do this without irony, and without reproach, but with affection and with no rankling in the soul, and not as in a lecture-room, nor that another standing by may admire, but as toward one alone, even if others are standing round. Remember these nine heads, as gifts received from the Muses, and begin at last to be a man, while you live. But you must guard against flattering them no less than against being angry with them; for both alike are against the fellowship and lead to harm. And keep this ready in your fits of anger: that it is not anger that is manly, but that gentleness and mildness, as they are more human, so are they more manly; and that it is the gentle man who has a share of strength, sinew, and courage — not he who is indignant and discontented. For the nearer such a man is to freedom from passion, the nearer is he to power. And as grief is the mark of weakness, so is anger; for both alike are wounded and have given way. And, if you will, take a tenth gift from the Leader of the Muses: that to expect the bad not to do wrong is madness, for it is to wish for the impossible. But to allow that they may be such toward others, while expecting that they do no wrong against you, is senseless and tyrannical.

Four turnings, above all, of the ruling faculty you must watch for continually, and, when you detect them, blot them out, saying in each case: this fancy is not necessary; this is destructive of fellowship; this you are about to say not from yourself — and to speak not from oneself you must reckon among the most monstrous of things. And the fourth is that for which you will reproach yourself: that this is the mark of the diviner part in you being overcome and bowing down before the meaner and mortal part, the body and its rough or smooth motions.

Your breath, and all your fiery part, mingled though it is, and by nature upward-tending, yet, in obedience to the ordering of the Whole, is held here upon the compound. And all the earthy and watery part in you, downward-tending though it is, is yet raised up and stands in a posture not its own by nature. So, then, even the elements obey the Whole, when somewhere they are assigned their place by force, and abide there until the signal is given from thence again for their dissolution. Is it not, then, a strange thing that your intelligent part alone should be disobedient and discontented with its place? And yet nothing forcible is laid upon it, but only what is according to its nature; nevertheless it will not endure, but is borne in the contrary direction. For the movement toward wrongdoing and licence, toward anger and grief and fear, is nothing but that of one departing from nature. And whenever the ruling faculty is discontented at anything that befalls, then too it forsakes its own place; for it was framed for holiness and the worship of the gods no less than for justice. For these too are forms of good fellowship — nay, are older than acts of justice.

"He who has not always one and the same aim in life cannot be one and the same throughout his life." But the saying does not suffice, unless you add what manner of thing this aim should be. For just as the opinion is not the same about all the things that, in one way or another, seem good to the many, but only about certain things, that is, the common goods, so too one must set up the aim as a common and social one. For he who directs all his own impulses toward this will make all his actions of one kind, and so will always be one and the same.

The country mouse and the town mouse, and the terror and scurrying of the one.

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many "bogeys," scarecrows for children.

The Lacedaemonians, at their spectacles, set seats in the shade for strangers, but themselves sat down wherever they chanced to be.

Socrates, on why he would not go to Perdiccas: "Lest," he said, "I perish by the most wretched of ends" — that is, lest, having received a good turn, I be unable to return it.

In the writings of the Epicureans there was laid down a precept continually to call to mind one of the men of old who practised virtue.

The Pythagoreans bid us look up to the heavens at dawn, that we may be reminded of those bodies which forever, in the same way and after the same fashion, accomplish their own work; and of their order, their purity, their nakedness — for there is no veil over a star.

What manner of man was Socrates, girt in the sheepskin, when Xanthippe took the cloak and went out; and what Socrates said to his companions, who were ashamed and drew back when they saw him so attired.

In writing and reading you will not lead before you have been led. This is far more true in life.

You were born a slave; you have no share in reason.

"And my own dear heart laughed within me."

"And they will revile virtue, uttering harsh words."

To look for a fig in winter is to be mad; such is he who looks for his child when it is no longer granted.

As one kisses his child, Epictetus used to say, one should whisper within, "Perhaps tomorrow you will die." "These are words of ill omen." "Nothing is of ill omen," he said, "that signifies some work of nature; or else it would be of ill omen to say that the ears of corn are reaped."

The unripe grape, the ripe, the dried — all are changes, not into nothing, but into what is not yet.

"No one robs us of our free choice" — the saying of Epictetus.

"We must," he said, "find an art about assent, and in the field of the impulses keep watchful care, that they be made with reservation, that they serve the fellowship, that they be according to desert; and we must hold off altogether from desire, and use aversion toward none of the things not in our power."

"It is, then, no common matter," he said, "for which the contest is, but whether we shall be mad or not."

Socrates used to say: "What do you wish — to have the souls of rational beings or of irrational?" "Of rational." "Of what rational beings — sound or vicious?" "Sound." "Why, then, do you not seek them?" "Because we have them." "Why, then, do you fight and quarrel?"