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034 - III To Those Who Recommend Persons to Philosophers · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty three 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, November twenty seventh, twenty twenty one, Westford, Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter three. To those who recommend persons to philosophers,
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  Speaker 1: Theagenes said, well to one who asked from him letters
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  Speaker 1: of recommendation, that you are a man, he said, he
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  Speaker 1: will know as soon as he sees you, and he
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  Speaker 1: will know whether you are good or bad if he
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  Speaker 1: is by experience skillful to distinguish the good and the bad.
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  Speaker 1: But if he is without experience, he will never know
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  Speaker 1: if I write to him ten thousand times. For it
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  Speaker 1: is just the same as if a drachma, a piece
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  Speaker 1: of silver money asked to be recommended to a person
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  Speaker 1: to be tested. If he is skillful and testing silver,
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  Speaker 1: he will know what you are. For you the drakma
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  Speaker 1: will recommend yourself. We ought then in life also to
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  Speaker 1: have some skill, as in the case of silver coin,
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  Speaker 1: that a man may be able to say, like the
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  Speaker 1: judges of silver, bring me any drakma, and I will
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  Speaker 1: test it. But in the case of syllogisms, I would say,
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  Speaker 1: bring any man that you please, and I will distinguish
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  Speaker 1: for you the man who knows how to resolve syllogisms
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  Speaker 1: and the man who does not. Why because I know
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  Speaker 1: how to resolve syllogisms, I have the power which a
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  Speaker 1: man must have who is able to discover those who
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  Speaker 1: have the power of resolving syllogisms. But in life, how
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  Speaker 1: do I act? At one time I call a thing
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  Speaker 1: good and at another time bad? What is the reason
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  Speaker 1: the contrary to that which is in the case of syllogisms?
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  Speaker 1: Ignorance and inexperience? End a book to chapter three