LXXXIX   
   
   
A money-changer may not reject Cæsar’s coin, nor may the seller of herbs, but must when once the coin is shown, deliver what is sold for it, whether he will or no. So is it also with the Soul. Once the Good appears, it attracts towards itself; evil repels. But a clear and certain impression of the Good the Soul will never reject, any more than men do Cæsar’s coin. On this hangs every impulse alike of Man and God.

XC   
   
   
Asked what Common Sense was, Epictetus replied:—     1   
  As that may be called a Common Ear which distinguishes only sounds, while that which distinguishes musical notes is not common but produced by training; so there are certain things which men not entirely perverted see by the natural principles common to all. Such a constitution of the Mind is called Common Sense.

XCI   
   
   
Canst thou judge men?… then make us imitators of thyself, as Socrates did. Do this, do not do that, else will I cast thee into prison; this is not governing men like reasonable creatures. Say rather, As God hath ordained, so do; else thou wilt suffer chastisement and loss. Askest thou what loss? None other than this: To have left undone what thou shouldst have done: to have lost the faithfulness, the reverence, the modesty that is in thee! Greater loss than this seek not to find!     1   

XCII   
   
   
“His son is dead.”     1   
  What has happened?     2   
  “His son is dead.”     3   
  Nothing more?     4   
  “Nothing.”     5   
  “His ship is lost.”     6   
  What has happened?     7   
  “His ship is lost.”     8   
  “He has been haled to prison.”     9   
  What has happened?     10   
  “He has been haled to prison.”     11   
  But that any of these things are misfortunes to him, is an addition which every one makes of his own. But (you say) God is unjust in this.—Why? For having given thee endurance and greatness of soul? For having made such things to be no evils? For placing happiness within thy reach, even when enduring them? For opening unto thee a door, when things make not for thy good?—Depart, my friend, and find fault no more!     12   

XCIII   
   
   
You are sailing to Rome (you tell me) to obtain the post of Governor of Cnossus. 1 You are not content to stay at home with the honours you had before; you want something on a larger scale, and more conspicuous. But when did you ever undertake a voyage for the purpose of reviewing your own principles and getting rid of any of them that proved unsound? Whom did you ever visit for that object? What time did you ever set yourself for that? What age? Run over the times of your life—by yourself, if you are ashamed before me. Did you examine your principles when a boy? Did you not do everything just as you do now? Or when you were a stripling, attending the school of oratory and practising the art yourself, what did you ever imagine you lacked? And when you were a young man, entered upon public life, and were pleading causes and making a name, who any longer seemed equal to you? And at what moment would you have endured another examining your principles and proving that they were unsound? What then am I to say to you? “Help me in this matter!” you cry. Ah, for that I have no rule! And neither did you, if that was your object, come to me as a philosopher, but as you might have gone to a herb-seller or a cobbler.—“What do philosophers have rules for, then?”—Why, that whatever may betide, our ruling faculty may be as Nature would have it, and so remain. Think you this a small matter? Not so! but the greatest thing there is. Well, does it need but a short time? Can it be grasped by a passer-by?—grasp it, if you can!     1   
  Then you will say, “Yes, I met Epictetus!”     2   
  Ay, just as you might a statue or a monument. You saw me! and that is all. But a man who meets a man is one who learns the other’s mind, and lets him see his in turn. Learn my mind—show me yours; and then go and say that you met me. Let us try each other; if I have any wrong principle, rid me of it; if you have, out with it. That is what meeting a philosopher means. Not so, you think; this is only a flying visit; while we are hiring the ship, we can see Epictetus too! Let us see what he has to say. Then on leaving you cry, “Out on Epictetus for a worthless fellow, provincial and barbarous of speech!” What else indeed did you come to judge of?     3   
   
Note 1. In Crete

XCIV   
   
   
Whether you will or no, you are poorer than I!     1   
  “What then do I lack?”     2   
  What you have not: Constancy of mind, such as Nature would have it to be: Tranquillity. Patron or no patron, what care I? but you do care. I am richer than you: I am not racked with anxiety as to what Cæsar may think of me; I flatter none on that account. This is what I have, instead of vessels of gold and silver! your vessels may be of gold, but your reason, your principles, your accepted views, your inclinations, your desires are of earthenware.     3   

XCV   
   
   
To you, all you have seems small: to me, all I have seems great. Your desire is insatiable, mine is satisfied. See children thrusting their hands into a narrow-necked jar, and striving to pull out the nuts and figs it contains: if they fill the hand, they cannot pull it out again, and then they fall to tears.—“Let go a few of them, and then you can draw out the rest!”—You, too, let your desire go! covet not many things, and you will obtain.     1   

   
XCVI   
   
   
Pittacus, 1 wronged by one whom he had it in his power to punish, let him go free, saying, Forgiveness is better than revenge. The one shows native gentleness, the other savagery.     1   
   
Note 1. One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. He ruled Mytilene in Lesbos in the seventh century B. C.

XCVII   
   
   
“My brother ought not to have treated me thus.”     1   
  True: but he must see to that. However he may treat me, I must deal rightly by him. This is what lies with me, what none can hinder.

XCVIII   
   
   
Nevertheless a man should also be prepared to be sufficient unto himself—to dwell with himself alone, even as God dwells with Himself alone, shares His repose with none, and considers the nature of His own administration, intent upon such thoughts as are meet unto Himself. So should we also be able to converse with ourselves, to need none else beside, to sigh for no distraction, to bend our thoughts upon the Divine Administration, and how we stand related to all else; to observe how human accidents touched us of old, and how they touch us now; what things they are that still have power to hurt us, and how they may be cured or removed; to perfect what needs perfecting as Reason would direct.     1