Latest / Discourses of Epictetus / 052 - XXI Of Inconsistency

Transcript

052 - XXI Of Inconsistency · Discourses of Epictetus

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section fifty one of Discourses of Epictetus by Epictetus, translated
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: by George Long. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Read by Christine Rocker, January twenty eighth, twenty twenty two, Westford, Massachusetts,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter twenty one of inconsistency. Some things men
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: readily confess, and other things they do not. No one
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: then will confess that he is a fool or without understanding.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: But quite the contrary, you will hear all men saying
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I wish I had fortune equal to my understanding. But
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: men readily confess that they are timid, and they say
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I am rather timid. I confess, but as to other respects,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you will not find me to be foolish. A man
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: will not readily confess that he is intemperate and that
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: he is unjust. He will not confess at all, will,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: by no means, confess that he is envious or a
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: busy body. Most men will confess that they are compassionate. What, then,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: is the reason? The chief thing, the ruling thing, is
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: inconsistency and confusion in the things which relate to good
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and evil. But different men have different reasons, and generally
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: what they imagine to be base. They do not confess
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: at all, but they suppose timidity to be a characteristic
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: of a good disposition, and compassion also, but silliness to
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: be the absolute characteristic of a slave. And they do
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: not at all admit confess the things which are offenses
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: against society. But in the case of most errors, for
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: this reason chiefly they are induced to confess them because
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: they imagine that there is something involuntary in them, as
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: intimidity and compassion. And if a man confess that he is,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: in any respect in temperate, he alleges love or passion
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: as an excuse for what is involuntary. But men do
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: not imagine injustice to be at all involuntary. There is
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: also in jealousy, as they suppose something involuntary, and for
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: this reason they confess to jealousy also. Living then, among
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: such men who are so confused, so ignorant of what
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: they say, and of the evils which they have or
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: have not, and why they have them, or how they
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: shall be relieved of them, I think it is worth
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the trouble for a man to watch constantly and to
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: ask whether I am also one of them? What imagination
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I have about myself? How I conduct myself, whether I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: conduct myself as a prudent man, whether I conduct myself
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: as a temperate man, whether I ever say this that
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I have been taught to be prepared for everything that
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: may happen, by the consciousness which a man who knows
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: nothing ought to have. That I know nothing, Do I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: go to my teacher as men go to oracles, prepared
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to obey, Or do I, like a sniveling boy, go
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to my school to learn history and understand the books
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: which I did not understand before, and if it should happen,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: so to explain them also to others. Me and you
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: have had a fight in the house with a poor slave.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: You have turned the family upside down, you have frightened
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the neighbors. And you come to me as if you
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: are a wise man, and you take your seat and
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: judge how I have explained some word, and how I
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: have babbled whatever came into my head. You come full
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: of envy and humbled because you bring nothing from home,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and you sit during the discussion thinking of nothing else
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: than how your father is disposed towards you and your brother.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: What are they saying about me there? Now? I think
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: that I am and they are saying he will return
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: with all knowledge. I wish I could learn everything before
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I return, But much labor is necessary, and no one
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: sends me anything. And the baths at Nicopolis are dirty.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Everything is bad at home and bad here. Then they say,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: no one gains any profit from the school. Why who
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: comes to the school, Who comes for the purpose of
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: being improved? Who comes to present his opinions to be purified?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Who comes to learn what he is and want of?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Why do you wonder, then, if you carry back from
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the school the very things which you bring to it,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: For you come not to lay aside your principles, or
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to correct them, or to receive other principles in place
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of them, by no means nor anything like it. You
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: rather look to this, whether you possess already that for
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: which you come. You wish to prattle about theorems, What then,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: do you not be greater triflers? Do not your little
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: theorems give you some opportunity of display you solve sophistical syllogisms.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Do you not examine the assumptions of the syllogism named
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the liar? Do you not examine hypothetical syllogisms? Why then,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: are you still vexed if you receive the things for
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: which you come to the school, Yes, but if my
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: child die, or my brother, or if I must die
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: or be racked, what good will these things do me? Well?
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Did you come for this for this? Did you sit
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: by my side? Did you ever for this light your
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: lamp or keep awake? Or when you went out to
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the walking place, did you ever propose any appearance that
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: had been presented to you instead of a syllogism? And
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: did you say and your friends discuss it together? Where
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and when? Then you say theorems are useless to whom
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to such as make bad use of them. For I
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: selves are not useless to those who use them as
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: they ought and when they ought. Fomentations are not useless.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Dumbbells are not useless, but they are useless to some
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: useful to others. If you ask me now if syllogisms
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: are useful, I will tell you that they are useful,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: And if you choose, I will prove it. How then
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: will they in any way be useful to me? Miha?
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Did you ask if they are useful to you? Or
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: did you ask? Generally? Let him who is suffering from
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: dysentery ask me if vinegar is useful, I will say
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: that it is useful. Will it then be useful to me?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I will say no. Seek first for the discharge to
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: be stopped and the ulcers to be closed. And do you,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: oh men, first to cure the ulcers and stop the discharge.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Be tranquil in your mind, bring it free from distraction
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: into the school, and you will know what power reason has.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And of Book two, chapter twenty one,