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036 - V How Magnanimity Is Consistent with Care · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty five of Discourses of Epictetis by Epictetis, 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 Rocker, December first, twenty twenty one, Westford, Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter five. How magnanimity is consistent with care
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  Speaker 1: things themselves. Materials are indifferent, but the use of them
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  Speaker 1: is not indifferent. How then shall man preserve firmness and
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  Speaker 1: tranquility and at the same time be careful in neither
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  Speaker 1: rash nor negligent? If he imitates those who play at dice,
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  Speaker 1: The counters are indifferent, the dice are indifferent. How do
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  Speaker 1: I know what the cast will be? But to use
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  Speaker 1: carefully and dexterously the cast of the dice? This is
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  Speaker 1: my business. Thus, then in life also the chief business
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  Speaker 1: is this. Distinguis wish and separate things, and say externals
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  Speaker 1: are not in my power? Will is in my power.
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  Speaker 1: Where shall I seek the good and the bad within
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  Speaker 1: in the things which are my own? But in what
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  Speaker 1: does not belong to you? Call nothing either good or bad,
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  Speaker 1: or profit or damage, or anything of the kind. What
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  Speaker 1: then should we use such things carelessly? In no way?
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  Speaker 1: For this on the other hand, is bad for the
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  Speaker 1: faculty of the will, and consequently against nature. But we
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  Speaker 1: should act carefully because the use is not indifferent, and
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  Speaker 1: we should act with firmness and freedom from perturbations, because
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  Speaker 1: the material is indifferent. For where the material is not indifferent,
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  Speaker 1: there no man can hinder me nor compel me. Where
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  Speaker 1: I can be hindered and compelled. The obtaining of those
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  Speaker 1: things is not in my power, nor is it good
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  Speaker 1: or bad. But the use is either bad or good,
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  Speaker 1: and the use is in my power. But it is
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  Speaker 1: difficult to mingle and to bring together these two things,
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  Speaker 1: the carefulness of him who is affected by the matter
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  Speaker 1: or things about him, and the firmness of him who
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  Speaker 1: has no regard for it. But it is not impossible,
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  Speaker 1: and if it is, happiness is impossible. But we should
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  Speaker 1: act as we do. In the case of a voyage,
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  Speaker 1: what can I do? I can choose the master of
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  Speaker 1: the ship, the sailors. The day the opportunity then comes
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  Speaker 1: a storm. What more do I have to care for?
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  Speaker 1: For my part is done. The business belongs to another,
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  Speaker 1: the master, But the ship is sinking. What then have
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  Speaker 1: I to do? I do the only thing I can,
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  Speaker 1: not to be drowned, full of fear, nor screaming nor
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  Speaker 1: blaming God, but knowing that what has been produced must
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  Speaker 1: also perish. For I am not an immortal being, but
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  Speaker 1: a man, a part of the hole, as an hour
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  Speaker 1: is a part of the day. I must be present
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  Speaker 1: like the hour, and past like the hour. What difference,
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  Speaker 1: then does it make to me how I pass away,
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  Speaker 1: whether being suffocated or by a fever, For I must
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  Speaker 1: pass through some such means. This is just what you
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  Speaker 1: will see those doing who play at ball skillfully. No
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  Speaker 1: one cares about the ball as being good or bad,
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  Speaker 1: but about throwing and catching it. In this therefore is
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  Speaker 1: a skill in this, the art, the quickness, the judgment,
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  Speaker 1: so that even if I spread out my lap, I
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  Speaker 1: may not be able to catch it. And another, if
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  Speaker 1: I throw, may catch the ball. But if with perturbation
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  Speaker 1: and fear we receive or throw the ball, what kind
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  Speaker 1: of play is it then? And wherein shall a man
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  Speaker 1: be steady? And how shall a man see see the
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  Speaker 1: order in the game. But one will say throw or
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  Speaker 1: do not throw, and another will say you have thrown once.
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  Speaker 1: This is quarreling, not play. Socrates then knew how to
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  Speaker 1: play at ball, how by using pleasantry in the court
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  Speaker 1: where he was tried. Tell me, he says, Henetus, how
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  Speaker 1: do you say that I do not believe in God
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  Speaker 1: the daemon's daemoness? Who are they think you? Are they
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  Speaker 1: not sons of gods or compounded of gods and men.
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  Speaker 1: When Anetus admitted this, Socrates said, who then think you
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  Speaker 1: can believe that there are mules half asses, but not asses?
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  Speaker 1: And this he said, as if you were playing at ball?
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  Speaker 1: And what was the ball in that case? Life? Chains, banishment,
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  Speaker 1: a draft of poison, separation from wife, and leaving children orphans.
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  Speaker 1: These were the thing with which he was playing. But
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  Speaker 1: still he did play and threw the ball skillfully. So
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  Speaker 1: we should do. We must employ all the care of
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  Speaker 1: the players, but show the same indifference about the ball,
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  Speaker 1: For we ought by all means to apply our art
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  Speaker 1: to some external material, not as valuing the material, but
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  Speaker 1: whatever it may be, showing our art in it. Thus, too,
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  Speaker 1: the weaver does not make wool, but exercises his art
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  Speaker 1: upon such as he receives another, gives you food and property,
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  Speaker 1: and is able to take them away, and your poor body. Also,
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  Speaker 1: when then you have received the material, work on it.
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  Speaker 1: If then you come out of the trial without having
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  Speaker 1: suffered anything. All who meet you will congratulate you on
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  Speaker 1: your escape. But he who knows how to look at
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  Speaker 1: such things, if he shall see that you have behaved
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  Speaker 1: properly in the matter, will commend you and be pleased
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  Speaker 1: with you. And if he shall find that you owe
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  Speaker 1: your escape to any want of proper behavior, he will
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  Speaker 1: do the contrary. For where rejoicing is reasonable, there also
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  Speaker 1: is congratulation reasonable. How then, is it said that some
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  Speaker 1: external things are according to nature and others contrary to nature?
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  Speaker 1: It is said as it might be said if we
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  Speaker 1: were separated from union or society. For to the foot,
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  Speaker 1: I shall say that it is according to nature for
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  Speaker 1: it to be clean. But if you take it as
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  Speaker 1: a foot, and as a thing not detached, independent, it
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  Speaker 1: will befit it both to step into the mud and
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  Speaker 1: tread on thorns, and sometimes to be cut off for
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  Speaker 1: the good of the whole body. Otherwise it is no
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  Speaker 1: longer foot. We should think in some such way about ourselves. Also,
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  Speaker 1: what are you a man? If you consider yourself as
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  Speaker 1: attached from other men? It is according to nature to
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  Speaker 1: live to old age, to be rich, to be healthy.
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  Speaker 1: But if you consider yourself as a man and a
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  Speaker 1: part of a certain hole. It is for the sake
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  Speaker 1: of that hole, that at one time you should be sick,
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  Speaker 1: at another time take a voyage and run into danger,
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  Speaker 1: and at another time being wont and in some cases
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  Speaker 1: die prematurely. Why then, are you troubled? Do you not
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  Speaker 1: know that as a foot is no longer a foot
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  Speaker 1: if it is detached from the body, so you are
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  Speaker 1: no longer a man if you are separated from other men?
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  Speaker 1: For what is a man a part of a state?
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  Speaker 1: Of that first which consists of gods and men, then
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  Speaker 1: of that which is called next to it, which is
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  Speaker 1: a small image of the universal state. What then, must
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  Speaker 1: I be brought to trial? Must another have a fever,
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  Speaker 1: another sale on the sea, another die, another be condemned? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: for it is impossible in such a body, in such
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  Speaker 1: a universe of things, among so many living together, that
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  Speaker 1: such things should not happen, some to one and others
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  Speaker 1: to others. Is your duty, then, since you are come
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  Speaker 1: here to say what you ought, to arrange these things
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  Speaker 1: as it is fit. Then someone says, I shall charge
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  Speaker 1: you with doing me wrong? Much good may it do you?
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  Speaker 1: I have done my part, But whether you also have
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  Speaker 1: done yours. You must look to that, for there is
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  Speaker 1: some danger of this too, that it may escape your notice.
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  Speaker 1: End of Book two, Chapter five,