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050 - XIX Against Those Who Embrace Philosophical Opinions Only in Words · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section forty nine 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 nineteen, against those who embrace philosophical opinions
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  Speaker 1: only in words, the argument called the ruling argument okidieun
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  Speaker 1: loros appears to have been proposed from such principles as these.
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  Speaker 1: There is in fact a common contradiction between one another
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  Speaker 1: in these three propositions, each two being in contradiction to
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  Speaker 1: the third. The propositions are that everything past must of
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  Speaker 1: necessity be true, that an impossibility does not follow a possibility,
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  Speaker 1: and that a thing is possible which neither is nor
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  Speaker 1: will be true. Diodorus, observing this contradiction, explored the probative
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  Speaker 1: force of the first two for the demonstration of this proposition,
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  Speaker 1: that nothing is possible which is not true and never
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  Speaker 1: will be. Now another will hold these two, that something
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  Speaker 1: is possible which is neither true nor ever will be,
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  Speaker 1: and that an impossibility does not follow a possibility. But
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  Speaker 1: he will not allow that everything which is past is
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  Speaker 1: necessarily true. As the followers of Cleanthes seem to think,
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  Speaker 1: and Antipatter copiously defended them. But others maintain the other
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  Speaker 1: two propositions, that a thing is possible which is neither
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  Speaker 1: true nor will be true, and that everything which is
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  Speaker 1: past is necessarily true. But then they will maintain that
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  Speaker 1: an impossibility can follow a possibility. But it is impossible
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  Speaker 1: to maintain these three propositions because of their common contradiction.
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  Speaker 1: If then any man should ask me, which of these
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  Speaker 1: propositions do you maintain? I will answer him that I
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  Speaker 1: do not know. But I have received this story that
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  Speaker 1: Diodorus maintained one opinion, the followers of Pantheoides, I think,
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  Speaker 1: and Cleanthes maintained another opinion, and those of Chrysippus a third.
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  Speaker 1: What then is your opinion? I was not made for
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  Speaker 1: this purpose to examine the appearances that occur to me,
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  Speaker 1: and to compare what others say, and to form an
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  Speaker 1: opinion of my own on thing. Therefore I differ not
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  Speaker 1: at all from the Grandma Marian, who was Hector's father, Priam,
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  Speaker 1: who were his brothers Alexander and Daephobus, who was their
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  Speaker 1: mother Hecuba. I have heard this story from whom from
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  Speaker 1: Homer and Helenicus also, I think, writes about the same things,
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  Speaker 1: and perhaps others like him. And what further have I
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  Speaker 1: about the ruling are argument? Nothing? But if I am
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  Speaker 1: a vain man, especially at a banquet, I surprise the
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  Speaker 1: guests by enumerting those who have written on these matters.
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  Speaker 1: Both Chrysippus has written wonderfully in his first book about possibilities,
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  Speaker 1: and Cleanthes has written specially on the subject, and Arcademus
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  Speaker 1: anti Patter also has written not only in his work
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  Speaker 1: about possibilities, but also separately in his work on the
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  Speaker 1: ruling argument. Have you not read the work? I have
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  Speaker 1: not read it? Read? And what profit will a man
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  Speaker 1: have from it? He will be more trifling and impertinent
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  Speaker 1: than he is now. For what else have you gained
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  Speaker 1: by reading it? What opinion have you formed on this subject? None?
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  Speaker 1: But you will tell us of helen and Priam and
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  Speaker 1: the island of Calypso, which never was and never will be.
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  Speaker 1: And in this matter, indeed, it is of no great
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  Speaker 1: importance if you retain the story but have formed no
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  Speaker 1: opinion of your own. But in matters of morality ethic
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  Speaker 1: this happens to us much more than these things of
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  Speaker 1: which we are speaking. Speak to me about good and evil. Listen,
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  Speaker 1: the wind from Ilium to Seconian shores brought me Odyssey
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  Speaker 1: nine thirty nine. Of things, some are good, some are bad,
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  Speaker 1: and some are indifferent. The good, then, are the virtues
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  Speaker 1: and the things which partake of the virtues. The bad
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  Speaker 1: are the vices and the things which partake of them.
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  Speaker 1: And the indifferent are the things which lie between the
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  Speaker 1: virtues and the vices. Wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, pain.
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  Speaker 1: Whence do you know this? Helenicus says it in his
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  Speaker 1: Egyptian History? For what difference does it make to say this,
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  Speaker 1: or to say that Diogenes has in his ethic or
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  Speaker 1: Chrysippus or Clianthes. Have you then and examined any of
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  Speaker 1: these things and formed an opinion of your own? Show
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  Speaker 1: how you are used to behave? In a storm on shipboard?
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  Speaker 1: Do you remember this division distinction of things? When the
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  Speaker 1: sale rattles and a man who knows nothing of times
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  Speaker 1: and seasons stands by you when you are screaming, and says,
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  Speaker 1: tell me, I ask you by the gods what you
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  Speaker 1: were saying just now? Is it a vice to suffer shipwreck?
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  Speaker 1: Does it participate in vice? Will you not take up
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  Speaker 1: a stick and lay it on his head? What have
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  Speaker 1: we to do with you? Man? We are perishing, and
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  Speaker 1: you come to mock us. But if Caesar send for
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  Speaker 1: you to answer a charge, do you remember the distinction?
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  Speaker 1: If when you are going in pale and trembling, a
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  Speaker 1: person should come up to you and say, why do
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  Speaker 1: you tremble? Man? What is the matter about which you
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  Speaker 1: are engaged? Does Caesar, who sits within give virtue and
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  Speaker 1: vice to those who go into him? You reply, why
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  Speaker 1: do you also mock me? And add to my present sorrows? Still?
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  Speaker 1: Tell me, philosopher, tell me why you tremble? Is it
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  Speaker 1: not death of which you run the risk, or a
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  Speaker 1: prison or pain of the body, or banishment or disgrace?
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  Speaker 1: What else is there? Is there any vice or anything
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  Speaker 1: which partakes of vice? What then, did you use to say?
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  Speaker 1: Of these things? What have you to do with me? Man?
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  Speaker 1: My own evils are enough for me? And you say, right,
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  Speaker 1: your own evils are enough for you. Your baseness, your cowardice,
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  Speaker 1: your boasting which you showed when you sat in the school.
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  Speaker 1: Why did you decorate yourself with what belonged to others?
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  Speaker 1: Why did you call yourself a stoic. Observe yourselves thus
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  Speaker 1: in your actions, and you will find to what sect
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  Speaker 1: you belong. You will find that most of you are Epicureans,
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  Speaker 1: a few peripatetics, and those feeble. For wherein will you
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  Speaker 1: show that you really consider virtue equal to everything else,
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  Speaker 1: or even superior. But show me a stoic. If you
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  Speaker 1: can't where or how, But you can show me an
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  Speaker 1: endless number who utters small arguments of the stoics. For
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  Speaker 1: do the same persons repeat the epicurean opinions any worse?
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  Speaker 1: And the peripatetic do they not handle them also with
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  Speaker 1: equal accuracy? Who then, is a stoic, as we call
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  Speaker 1: a statue phidiac, which is fashioned according to the art
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  Speaker 1: of phidias. So show me a man who is fashioned
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  Speaker 1: according to the doctrines which he utters. Show me a
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  Speaker 1: man who is sick and happy in danger, and happy dying,
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  Speaker 1: and happy in exile, and happy in disgrace and happy.
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  Speaker 1: Show him I desire by the gods to see a stoic.
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  Speaker 1: You cannot show me one fashion, So but show me
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  Speaker 1: at least one who is forming, who has shown a
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  Speaker 1: tendency to be a stoic. Do me this favor. Do
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  Speaker 1: not grudge an old man seeing a sight which I
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  Speaker 1: have not seen yet? Do you think that you must
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  Speaker 1: show me the Zeus of Phidias or the Athena, a
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  Speaker 1: work of irene and gold? Let any of you show
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  Speaker 1: me a human soul, ready to think as God does,
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  Speaker 1: and not to blame either God or man, ready not
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  Speaker 1: to be disappointed about anything, not to consider himself damaged
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  Speaker 1: by anything, not to be angry, not to be envious,
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  Speaker 1: not to be jealous. And why should I not say it?
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  Speaker 1: Direct desirous from a man to become a God, and
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  Speaker 1: in this poor mortal body, thinking of his fellowship with Zeus,
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  Speaker 1: show me the man? But you cannot. Why then do
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  Speaker 1: you delude yourself and cheat others? And why do you
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  Speaker 1: put on of guys which does not belong to you,
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  Speaker 1: and walk about being thieves and pilferers of these names
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  Speaker 1: and these things which do not belong to you. And
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  Speaker 1: now I am your teacher, and you are instructed in
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  Speaker 1: my school, and I have this purpose to make you
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  Speaker 1: free from restraint, compulsion, hindrance, to make you free, prosperous, happy,
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  Speaker 1: looking to God in everything small and great. And you
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  Speaker 1: are here to learn and practice these things? Why then
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  Speaker 1: do you not finish the work? If you also have
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  Speaker 1: such a purpose as you ought to have, and if I,
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  Speaker 1: in addition to the purpose, also have such qualification as
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  Speaker 1: I ought to have. What is that which is wanting?
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  Speaker 1: When I see an artificer and material lying by him,
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  Speaker 1: I expect the work? Here? Then is the artificer here
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  Speaker 1: the material? What is it that we want? Is not
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  Speaker 1: the thing one that can be taught? It is? Is it
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  Speaker 1: not then in our power? The only thing of all
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  Speaker 1: that is in our power? Neither wealth is in our power,
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  Speaker 1: nor health, nor reputation, nor in a word, anything else
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  Speaker 1: except the right use of appearances. This right use is
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  Speaker 1: by nature free from restraint. This alone is free from impediment.
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  Speaker 1: Why then do you not finish the work? Tell me
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  Speaker 1: the reason for it is either through my fault that
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  Speaker 1: you do not finish it, or through your own fault,
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  Speaker 1: or through the nature of the thing. The thing itself
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  Speaker 1: is possible and the only thing in our power. It
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  Speaker 1: remains then that the fault is either in me or
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  Speaker 1: in you, or what is nearer the truth in both. Well,
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  Speaker 1: then are you willing that we begin at last to
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  Speaker 1: bring such a purpose into the school and to take
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  Speaker 1: no notice of the past. Let us only make a beginning.
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  Speaker 1: Trust to me and you will see. End of Book two,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen