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028 - XXVII In How Many Ways Appearances Exist and What Aids We Should Provide Against Them · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty seven of Discourses of Epictetis 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, August twenty sixth, twenty twenty one,
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  Speaker 1: Western Massachusetts, Book one, section twenty seven, in how many
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  Speaker 1: ways appearances exist and what aids we should provide against them?
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  Speaker 1: Appearances are to us in four ways, for either things
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  Speaker 1: appear as they are, or they are not and do
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  Speaker 1: not even appear to be, or they are and do
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  Speaker 1: not appear to be, or they are not and yet
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  Speaker 1: appear to be. Further, in all these cases to form
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  Speaker 1: a right judgment, to hit the mark is the office
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  Speaker 1: of an educated man. But whatever it is that a
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  Speaker 1: noise troubles us, to that we ought to apply a remedy.
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  Speaker 1: If the sophism of Pyerro and the academics are what
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  Speaker 1: annoys troubles, we must apply the remedy to them. If
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  Speaker 1: it is the persuasion of appearances by which some things
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  Speaker 1: appear to be good when they are not good, let
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  Speaker 1: us seek a remedy for this. If it is habit
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  Speaker 1: which annoys us, we must try to seek aid against habit.
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  Speaker 1: What aid, then, can we find against habit a contrary habit.
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  Speaker 1: You hear the ignorant say that unfortunate person is dead,
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  Speaker 1: his father and mother are overpowered with sorrow, he was
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  Speaker 1: cut off by an untimely death. And in a foreign
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  Speaker 1: land hear the contrary way of speaking. Tear yourself from
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  Speaker 1: these expressions. Oppose to one habit, the contrary habit to sophistry.
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  Speaker 1: Oppose reason and the exercise and discipline of reason against persuasive,
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  Speaker 1: deceitful appearance. We ought to have manifest precognitions, prolepses, cleared
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  Speaker 1: of all impurities, and ready to hand when death appears
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  Speaker 1: an evil. We ought to have this rule and readiness,
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  Speaker 1: that it is fit to avoid evil things, and that
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  Speaker 1: death is a necessary thing. For What shall I do
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  Speaker 1: and where shall I escape? It Suppose that I am
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  Speaker 1: not sarpedon the son of Zeus, nor able to speak
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  Speaker 1: in this noble way. I will go, And I am
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  Speaker 1: resolved either to behave bravely myself, or to give another
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  Speaker 1: the opportunity of doing so. If I cannot succeed in
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  Speaker 1: doing anything myself, I will not grudge another the doing
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  Speaker 1: of something noble. Suppose that it is above our power
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  Speaker 1: to act Thus, is it not in our power to
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  Speaker 1: reason us? Tell me where I can escape death. Discover
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  Speaker 1: for me the country, show me the men to whom
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  Speaker 1: I must go, whom death does not visit. Discover to
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  Speaker 1: me a charm against death. If I have not one,
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  Speaker 1: what do you wish me to do? I cannot escape
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  Speaker 1: from death. Shall I not escape from the fear of death?
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  Speaker 1: But shall I die lamenting and trembling? For the origin
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  Speaker 1: of perturbation is this to wish for something, and that
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  Speaker 1: this should not happen. Therefore, if I am able to
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  Speaker 1: change externals according to my wish, I change them. But
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  Speaker 1: if I cannot, I am ready to tear out the
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  Speaker 1: eyes of him who hinders me. For the nature of
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  Speaker 1: man is not to endure to be deprived of the good,
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  Speaker 1: and not to endure the falling into the evil. Then,
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  Speaker 1: at last, when I am neither able to change circumstances
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  Speaker 1: nor to tear out the eyes of him who hinders me,
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  Speaker 1: I sit down and grown and abuse whom I can,
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  Speaker 1: Zeus and the rest of the gods. For if they
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  Speaker 1: do not care for me, what are they to me? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: but you will be an impious man in what respect?
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  Speaker 1: Then will it be worse for me than it is
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  Speaker 1: now to sum up. Remember this that unless piety and
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  Speaker 1: your interests be in the same thing, piety cannot be
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  Speaker 1: maintained in any man. Do not these things seem necessary? True?
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  Speaker 1: Let the followers of Peyero and academics come and make
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  Speaker 1: their objections. For I, as to my part, have no
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  Speaker 1: leisure for these disputes, Nor am I able to undertake
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  Speaker 1: the defense of common consent opinion. If I had a suit,
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  Speaker 1: even about a bit of land, I would call in
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  Speaker 1: another to defend my interests with what evidence, then? Am
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  Speaker 1: I satisfied with that which belongs to the matter in hand?
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  Speaker 1: How indeed, perception is affected, whether through the whole body
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  Speaker 1: or any part. Perhaps I cannot explain for both opinions
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  Speaker 1: perflex me, but that you and I are not the same.
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  Speaker 1: I know with perfect certainty. How do you know it?
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  Speaker 1: When I intend to swallow anything, I never carry it
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  Speaker 1: to your mouth, but to my own. When I intend
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  Speaker 1: to take bread, I never lay hold of a broom,
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  Speaker 1: but I always go to the bread as to a mark.
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  Speaker 1: And you yourself, the pynus, who take away the evidence
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  Speaker 1: of the senses? Do you act otherwise? Who among you
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  Speaker 1: when he intended to enter a bath, ever went into
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  Speaker 1: a mill, What then, ought we not with all our
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  Speaker 1: power to hold to this, also the maintaining of general opinion,
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  Speaker 1: and fortifying ourselves against the arguments which are directed against it.
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  Speaker 1: Who denies that we ought to do this, well, he
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  Speaker 1: should do it, who is able, who has leisure for it.
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  Speaker 1: But as to him who trembles and is perturbed, and
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  Speaker 1: is inwardly broken in heart spirit, he must employ his
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  Speaker 1: time better on something else. End of Book one, section
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven.