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046 - XV To or Against Those Who Obstinately Persist in What They Have Determined · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section forty five 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 eleventh, twenty twenty two, Westford, Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter fifteen two. Or against those who obstinately
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  Speaker 1: persist in what they have determined. When some persons have
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  Speaker 1: heard these words that a man ought to be constant, firm,
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  Speaker 1: and that the will is naturally free and not subject
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  Speaker 1: to compulsion, but that all are things are subject to hindrance,
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  Speaker 1: to slavery, and are in the power of others, they
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  Speaker 1: suppose that they ought, without deviation to abide by everything
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  Speaker 1: which they have determined. But in the first place, that
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  Speaker 1: which has been determined ought to be sound true. I
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  Speaker 1: require tone sinews in the body, but such as exists
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  Speaker 1: in a healthy body and an athletic body. But if
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  Speaker 1: it is plain to me that you have the tone
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  Speaker 1: of a frenzied man, and you boast of it, I
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  Speaker 1: shall say to you man, seek the physician. This is
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  Speaker 1: not tone, but atony, deficiency and right tone. In a
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  Speaker 1: different way, something of the same kind is felt by
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  Speaker 1: those who listened to these discourses in a wrong manner,
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  Speaker 1: which was the case with one of my companions, who
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  Speaker 1: for no reason resolved to starve himself to death. I
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  Speaker 1: heard of it when it was the third day of
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  Speaker 1: his abstinence from food, and I went to inquire what
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  Speaker 1: had happened. I have resolved, he said, But still tell
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  Speaker 1: me what it was which induced you to resolve. For
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  Speaker 1: if you have resolved rightly, we shall sit with you
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  Speaker 1: a sist you to depart. But if you have made
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  Speaker 1: an unreasonable resolution, change your mind. We ought to keep
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  Speaker 1: to our determinations. What are you doing? Man? We ought
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  Speaker 1: to keep not to all our determinations, but to those
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  Speaker 1: which are right. For if you are now persuaded that
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  Speaker 1: it is night, do not change your mind if you
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  Speaker 1: think fit, but persist and say we ought to abide
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  Speaker 1: by our determinations. Will you not make the beginning and
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  Speaker 1: lay the foundation in an inquiry whether the determination is
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  Speaker 1: sound or not sound, and so then build on it
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  Speaker 1: firmness and security. But if you lay a rotten and
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  Speaker 1: ruinous foundation, will not your miserable little building fall down?
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  Speaker 1: The sooner, the more and the stronger are the materials
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  Speaker 1: which you shall lay on it. Without any reason? Would
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  Speaker 1: you withdraw from us out of life, a man who
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  Speaker 1: is a friend and a companion, a citizen of the
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  Speaker 1: same city, both the great and the small city. Then
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  Speaker 1: while you are committing murderer and destroying a man who
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  Speaker 1: has done no wrong, do you say that you ought
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  Speaker 1: to abide by your determinations? And if it ever, in
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  Speaker 1: any way came into your head to kill me, ought
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  Speaker 1: you to abide by your determinations. Now this man was
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  Speaker 1: with difficulty persuaded to change his mind. But it is
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  Speaker 1: impossible to convince some persons at present, So that I
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  Speaker 1: seem now to know what I did not know before,
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  Speaker 1: the meaning of the common saying that you can neither
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  Speaker 1: persuade nor break a fool. May it never be my
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  Speaker 1: lot to have a wise fool for my friend. Nothing
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  Speaker 1: is more untractable. I am determined, the man says. Madmen
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  Speaker 1: are also, But the more firmly they form a judgment
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  Speaker 1: on things which do not exist, the more hellibore they require.
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  Speaker 1: Will you not act like a sick man and call
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  Speaker 1: in the position I am sick, master, Help me consider
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  Speaker 1: what I must do. It is my duty to obey you.
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  Speaker 1: So it is here also I know not what I
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  Speaker 1: ought to do, But I am come to learn. Not so,
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  Speaker 1: but speak to me about other things. Upon this I
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  Speaker 1: have determined what other things? For? What is greater and
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  Speaker 1: more useful than for you to be persuaded that it
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  Speaker 1: is not sufficient to have made your determination and not
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  Speaker 1: to change it. This is the tone energy of madness,
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  Speaker 1: not of health. I will die if you compel me
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  Speaker 1: to this. Why, man, what has happened? I have determined?
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  Speaker 1: I have had a luck escape that you have not
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  Speaker 1: determined to kill me. I take no money? Why I
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  Speaker 1: have determined? Be assured that with the very tone energy
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  Speaker 1: which you now use in refusing to take there is
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  Speaker 1: nothing to hinder you at some time from inclining without
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  Speaker 1: reason to take money, and then saying, I have determined.
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  Speaker 1: As in a distempered body subject to defluctions, the humor
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  Speaker 1: inclines sometimes to these parts, and then to those so too,
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  Speaker 1: a sickly soul knows not which way to incline. But
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  Speaker 1: if to this inclination and movement there is added a
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  Speaker 1: tone obstinate resolution, then the evil becomes past help and cure.
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  Speaker 1: End of Book two, Chapter fifteen,