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048 - XVII How We Must Adapt Preconceptions to Particular Cases · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section forty seven of Discourses of Epictetus by Epictetus, translated
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  Speaker 1: by George Long. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Christine Rucker, January eighteenth, twenty twenty two, Westford, Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter seventeen. How we must adapt preconceptions to
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  Speaker 1: particular cases. What is the first business of him who
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  Speaker 1: philosophizes to throw away self? Conceit oi cease, For it
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  Speaker 1: is impossible for a man to begin to learn that
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  Speaker 1: which he thinks that he knows. As to things then,
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  Speaker 1: which ought to be done and ought not to be done,
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  Speaker 1: and good and bad, and beautiful and ugly, all of us,
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  Speaker 1: talking of them at random, go to the philosophers. And
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  Speaker 1: on these matters we praise, we censure, we accuse, we blame,
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  Speaker 1: we judge, and determine about principles honorable and dishonorable. But
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  Speaker 1: why do we go to the philosophers? Because we wish
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  Speaker 1: to learn what we do not think that we know.
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  Speaker 1: What is this theorems? For we wish to learn what
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  Speaker 1: philosophers say as being something elegant and acute, and some
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  Speaker 1: wish to learn that they may get profit from what
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  Speaker 1: they learn. It is ridiculous, then, to think that a
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  Speaker 1: person wishes to learn one thing and will learn another,
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  Speaker 1: or further that a man will make proficiency in that
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  Speaker 1: which he does not learn. But the many are deceived
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  Speaker 1: by this which deceived also the rhetorician Theopopus, when he
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  Speaker 1: blames even Plato for wishing everything to be defined, For
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  Speaker 1: what does he say, did none of us before you
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  Speaker 1: use the words good or just? Or do we utter
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  Speaker 1: the sounds in an unmeaning and empty way without understanding
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  Speaker 1: what they severally signify? Now who tells you, Theopopus, that
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  Speaker 1: we had not naturally notions of each of these things
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  Speaker 1: and preconceptions prolifius? But it is not possible to adapt
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  Speaker 1: preconceptions to their correspondent objects if we have not distinguished,
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  Speaker 1: analyzed them, and inquired what object must be subjected to
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  Speaker 1: each preconception. You may make the same charge against physicians also,
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  Speaker 1: for who among us did not use the words healthy
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  Speaker 1: and unhealthy before Hippocrates lived? Or did we utter these
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  Speaker 1: words as empty sounds? For we also have a certain
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  Speaker 1: preconception of health, but we are not able to adapt it.
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  Speaker 1: For this reason, one says abstain from food, another says
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  Speaker 1: give food, another says bleed, and another says use cupping.
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  Speaker 1: What is the reason? Is it any other than that
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  Speaker 1: a man cannot properly adapt the preconception of health to particulars?
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  Speaker 1: So it is in this matter, also in the things
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  Speaker 1: which concern life. Who among us does not speak of
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  Speaker 1: good and bad, of useful and not useful? For who
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  Speaker 1: among us has not a preconception of each of these things?
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  Speaker 1: Is it then a distinct and perfect preconception? Show this?
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  Speaker 1: How shall I show this? Adapt the preconception properly to
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  Speaker 1: the particular things? Plato, for instance, subjects definitions to the
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  Speaker 1: preconception of the useful, but you to the preconception of
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  Speaker 1: the useless. Is it possible then that both of you
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  Speaker 1: are right? How is it possible? Does not one man
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  Speaker 1: adapt the preconception of good to the matter of wealth,
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  Speaker 1: and another not to wealth, but to the matter of
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  Speaker 1: pleasure and to that of health? For generally, if all
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  Speaker 1: of us who use those words know sufficiently each of them,
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  Speaker 1: and need no diligence in resolving making distinct the notions
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  Speaker 1: of the preconceptions, why do we differ? Why do we quarrel?
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  Speaker 1: Why do we blame one another? And why do I
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  Speaker 1: now allege this contention with one another, and speak of it.
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  Speaker 1: If you yourself properly adapt your preconceptions? Why are you unhappy?
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  Speaker 1: Why are you hindered? Let us omit at present the
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  Speaker 1: second topic about the pursuits orm us and the study
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  Speaker 1: of duties which relate to them. Let us omit also
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  Speaker 1: the third topic, which relates to the essents sikatatheses. I
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  Speaker 1: give up to you these two topics. Let us insist
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  Speaker 1: upon the first, which presents an almost obvious demonstration that
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  Speaker 1: we do not properly adapt the preconceptions. Do you now
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  Speaker 1: desire that which is possible and that which is possible
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  Speaker 1: to you? Why then are you hindered? Why are you unhappy?
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  Speaker 1: Do you not now try to avoid the unavoidable? Why
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  Speaker 1: then do you fall in with anything which you would avoid?
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  Speaker 1: Why are you unfortunate? Why when you desire a thing
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  Speaker 1: does it not happen? And when you do not desire
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  Speaker 1: it does it happen? For this is the greatest proof
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  Speaker 1: of unhappiness and misery. I wish for something and it
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  Speaker 1: does not happen. And what is more wretched than I?
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  Speaker 1: It was because she could not endure this that Medea
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  Speaker 1: came to murder her children an act of a noble
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  Speaker 1: spirit in this view at least, for she had a
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  Speaker 1: just opinion what it is for a thing not to
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  Speaker 1: succeed which a person wishes. Then she says, thus, I
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  Speaker 1: shall be avenged on him, my husband, who has wronged
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  Speaker 1: and insulted me. And what shall I gain if he
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  Speaker 1: is punished? Thus, how then shall it be done? I
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  Speaker 1: shall kill my children, but I shall punish myself also,
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  Speaker 1: And what do I care? This is the aberration of
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  Speaker 1: soul which possesses great energy. For she did not know
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  Speaker 1: wherein lies the doing of that which we wish. That
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  Speaker 1: you cannot get this from without, nor yet by the
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  Speaker 1: alteration and new adaptation of things. Do not desire the
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  Speaker 1: man Jason, Medea's husband, And nothing which you desire will
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  Speaker 1: fail to happen. Do not obstinately desire that he shall
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  Speaker 1: live with you, do not desire to remain enjarant and
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  Speaker 1: in a word, desire nothing than that which God wills.
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  Speaker 1: And who shall hinder you, Who shall compel you? No
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  Speaker 1: man shall compel you any more than he shall compel zeus.
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  Speaker 1: When you have such a guide, and your wishes and
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  Speaker 1: desires are the same as his, why do you still fear, disappointment.
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  Speaker 1: Give up your desire to wealth and your aversion to poverty,
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  Speaker 1: and you will be disappointed in the one you will
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  Speaker 1: fall into the other. Will give them up to health,
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  Speaker 1: and you be unfortunate. Give them up to magistracies, honors, country, friends, children,
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  Speaker 1: in a word, to any of the things which are
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  Speaker 1: not in man's power, and you will be unfortunate. But
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  Speaker 1: give them up to Zeus and the rest of the gods.
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  Speaker 1: Surrender them to the gods, Let the gods govern. Let
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  Speaker 1: your desire and aversion be ranged on the side of
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  Speaker 1: the gods and dwherein will you be any longer unhappy?
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  Speaker 1: But if lazy wretch you envy and complain, and are
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  Speaker 1: jealous and fear, and never cease for a single day,
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  Speaker 1: complaining both of yourself and of the gods. Why do
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  Speaker 1: you still speak of being educated? What kind of an education? Man?
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  Speaker 1: Do you mean? That you have been employed? About sophistical syllogisms, silohismus, metapontas.
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  Speaker 1: Will you not, if it is possible unlearn all these things,
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  Speaker 1: and begin from the beginning, and see at the same
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  Speaker 1: time that hitherto you have not even touched the matter,
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  Speaker 1: And then commencing from this foundation, Will you not build
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  Speaker 1: up all that comes after, so that nothing may happen
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  Speaker 1: which you do not choose, and nothing shall fail to
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  Speaker 1: happen which you do choose. Give me one young man
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  Speaker 1: who has come to the school with this intention, who
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  Speaker 1: has become a champion for this matter, and says, I
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  Speaker 1: give up everything else, and it is enough for me,
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  Speaker 1: if it shall ever be in my power to pass
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  Speaker 1: my life free from hindrance and free from trouble, and
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  Speaker 1: to stretch out present my neck to all things like
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  Speaker 1: a free man, and to look up to Heaven as
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  Speaker 1: a friend of God, and fear nothing that can happen.
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  Speaker 1: Let any of you point out such a man, that
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  Speaker 1: I may say, come, young man, into the possession of
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  Speaker 1: that which is your own, For it is your destiny
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  Speaker 1: to adorn philosophy. Yours are these posies, essions, yours, these books, yours,
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  Speaker 1: these discourses. Then when he shall have labored sufficiently and
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  Speaker 1: exercised himself in this part of the matter, tupon let
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  Speaker 1: him come to me again and say, I desire to
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  Speaker 1: be free from passion and free from perturbation. And I wish,
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  Speaker 1: as a pious man and a philosopher and a diligent
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  Speaker 1: person to know what is my duty to the gods,
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  Speaker 1: what to my parents, what to my brothers, what to
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  Speaker 1: my country, what to strangers? I say, come also to
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  Speaker 1: the second matter, tupon this also is yours. But I
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  Speaker 1: have now sufficiently studied the second part toupon also, and
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  Speaker 1: I would gladly be secure and unshaken, And not only
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  Speaker 1: when I am awake, but also when I am asleep,
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  Speaker 1: and when I am filled with wine, and when I
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  Speaker 1: am melancholy. Man, you are a god. You have great designs. No,
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  Speaker 1: but I wish to understand what Chrysippus says in his
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  Speaker 1: treatise of Pseudomenos, the liar, Will you not hang yourself
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  Speaker 1: wretch with such your intention? And what good will it
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  Speaker 1: do you? You will read the whole with sorrow, and
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  Speaker 1: you will speak to others trembling. Thus you also do.
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  Speaker 1: Do you wish me brother to read to you, and
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  Speaker 1: you to me? You write excellently, my man, and you
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  Speaker 1: also excellently in the style of Xenophon, and you in
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  Speaker 1: the style of Plato, and you in the style of Antisthenes. Then,
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  Speaker 1: having told your dreams to one another, you return to
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  Speaker 1: the same things. Your desires are the same, your aversions
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  Speaker 1: the same. Your pursuits are the same, and your designs
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  Speaker 1: and purposes. You wish for the same things and work
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  Speaker 1: for the same. In the next place, you do not
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  Speaker 1: even seek for one to give you advice. But you
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  Speaker 1: are vexed. If you hear so things as I say,
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  Speaker 1: then you say an ill natured old fellow. When I
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  Speaker 1: was going away, he did not weep, nor did he
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  Speaker 1: say into what danger you are going? If you come
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  Speaker 1: off safe, my child, I will burn lights. This is
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  Speaker 1: what a good natured man would do. It will be
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  Speaker 1: a great thing for you if you do return safe,
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  Speaker 1: and it will be worth while to burn lights for
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  Speaker 1: such a person, for you ought to be immortal and
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  Speaker 1: exempt from disease. Casting away, then, as I say this,
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  Speaker 1: conceit of thinking that we know something useful. We must
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  Speaker 1: come to philosophy as we apply to geometry and to music.
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  Speaker 1: But if we do not, we shall not even approach
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  Speaker 1: to proficiency. Though we read all the collections and commentaries
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  Speaker 1: of Chrysippus and those of Antipater and Arcademis, and of
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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter seventeen st