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049 - XVIII How We Should Struggle Against Appearances · Discourses of Epictetus

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  Speaker 1: Section forty eight 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 Rocker, January eighteenth, twenty twenty two, Westford, Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter eighteen, How we should struggle against appearances.
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  Speaker 1: Every habit and faculty is maintained and increased by the
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  Speaker 1: corresponding actions. The habit of walking by walking, the habit
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  Speaker 1: of running by running. If you would be a good
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  Speaker 1: reader read, If a writer write, but when you shall
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  Speaker 1: not have read for thirty days in succession, but have
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  Speaker 1: done something else, you will know the consequence. In the
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  Speaker 1: same way, if you shall have laid down ten days,
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  Speaker 1: get up an attempt to make a long walk, and
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  Speaker 1: you will see how your legs are weakened. Generally, then,
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  Speaker 1: if you would make any a habit, do it. If
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  Speaker 1: you would not make it a habit, do not do it,
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  Speaker 1: but accustom yourself to do something else in place of it.
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  Speaker 1: So it is with respect to the affections of the soul.
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  Speaker 1: When you have been angry, you must know that not
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  Speaker 1: only has this evil befallen you, but that you have
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  Speaker 1: also increased the habit and in a manner thrown fuel
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  Speaker 1: upon the fire. When you have been overcome in sexual
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  Speaker 1: intercourse with a person, do not reckon this single defeat only,
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  Speaker 1: but reckon that you have also nurtured increased your incontinence.
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  Speaker 1: For it is impossible for habits and faculties, some of
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  Speaker 1: them not to be produced when they did not exist before,
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  Speaker 1: and others not to be increased and strengthened by corresponding acts.
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  Speaker 1: In this manner. Certainly, as philosophers say, also diseases of
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  Speaker 1: the mind grow up. For when you have once desired money,
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  Speaker 1: if reason be applied to lead to a perception of
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  Speaker 1: the evil, the desire is stopped, and the ruling faculty
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  Speaker 1: of our mind is restored to the original authority. But
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  Speaker 1: if you apply no means of cure, it no longer
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  Speaker 1: returns to the same state, but being again excited by
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  Speaker 1: the corresponding appearance, it is inflamed to desire quicker than before.
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  Speaker 1: And when this takes place continually, it is henceforth hardened,
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  Speaker 1: made callous. And the disease of the mind confirms the
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  Speaker 1: love of money. For he who has had a fever
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  Speaker 1: and has been relieved from it is not in the
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  Speaker 1: same state that he was before, unless he has been
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  Speaker 1: completely cured. Something of the kind happens also in diseases
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  Speaker 1: of the soul. Certain traces and blisters are left in it,
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  Speaker 1: and unless a man shall completely efface them, when he
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  Speaker 1: is again lashed on the same places, the lash will
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  Speaker 1: produce not blisters wheels, but sores. If then you wish
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  Speaker 1: not to be of an angry temper, do not feed
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  Speaker 1: the habit. Throw nothing on it which will increase it.
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  Speaker 1: At first, keep quiet and count the days on which
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  Speaker 1: you have not been angry. I used to be in
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  Speaker 1: passion every day, Now every second day, then every third,
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  Speaker 1: then every fourth. But if you have intermitted thirty days,
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  Speaker 1: make a sacrifice to God, for the habit at first
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  Speaker 1: begins to be weakened, and then is completely destroyed. I
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  Speaker 1: have not been vexed to day, nor the day after,
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  Speaker 1: nor yet on any succeeding day during two or three months,
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  Speaker 1: but I took care when some exciting things happened. Be
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  Speaker 1: assured that you are in a good way today. When
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  Speaker 1: I saw a handsome person, I did not say to
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  Speaker 1: myself I wish I could lie with her. And happy
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  Speaker 1: is her husband? For he who says this says happy
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  Speaker 1: is her adulterer. Also so nore do I picture the
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  Speaker 1: rest to my mind, the woman present and stripping herself,
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  Speaker 1: and lying down by my side. I stroke my head
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  Speaker 1: and say, well done, Epictetus, you have solved a fine
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  Speaker 1: little sophism, much finer than that which is called the
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  Speaker 1: master sophism. And if even the woman is willing and
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  Speaker 1: gives signs and sends messages, and if she also fondle
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  Speaker 1: me and come close to me, and I should abstain
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  Speaker 1: and be victorious, that would be a sophism beyond that
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  Speaker 1: which is named the liar and the quiescent. Over such
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  Speaker 1: a victory as this, a man may justly be proud,
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  Speaker 1: not for proposing the master sophism. How then shall this
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  Speaker 1: be done? Be willing at length to be approved by yourself,
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  Speaker 1: be willing to appear beautiful to God, desire to be
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  Speaker 1: impurity with your own pure self and with God. Than
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  Speaker 1: when any such appearance visits you, Plato says, have recourse
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  Speaker 1: to expiations. Go a suppliant to the temples of the
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  Speaker 1: averting deities. It is even sufficient if you resort to
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  Speaker 1: the society of noble and just men, and compare yourself
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  Speaker 1: with them, Whether you find one who is living or dead.
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  Speaker 1: Go to Socrates and see him lying down with Alcibiades
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  Speaker 1: and mocking his beauty. Consider what a victory he at
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  Speaker 1: last found that he had gained over himself, What an
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  Speaker 1: olympian victory? In what number he stood from Hercules? So
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  Speaker 1: that by the gods one may justly salute him. Hail,
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  Speaker 1: wondrous man, you who have conquered, not these sorry boxers
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  Speaker 1: and Pancratius, nor yet those who are like them, the gladiators.
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  Speaker 1: By placing these objects on the other side, you will
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  Speaker 1: conquer the appearance. You will not be drawn away by it.
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  Speaker 1: But in the first place, be not hurried away by
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  Speaker 1: the rapidity of the appearance. But say, appearances, wait for
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  Speaker 1: me a little. Let me see who you are and
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  Speaker 1: what you are about. Let me put you to the test.
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  Speaker 1: And then do not allow the appearance to lead you
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  Speaker 1: on and draw lively pictures of the things which will follow,
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  Speaker 1: For if you do, it will carry you off wherever
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  Speaker 1: it pleases. But rather bring in to oppose it some
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  Speaker 1: other beautiful and noble appearance, and cast out this base appearance.
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  Speaker 1: And if you are accustomed to be exercised in this way,
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  Speaker 1: you will see what shoulders, what sinews. What strength you have,
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  Speaker 1: But now it is only trifling words and nothing more.
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  Speaker 1: This is the true athlete, the man who exercises himself
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  Speaker 1: against such appearances. Stay wretch, do not be carried away.
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  Speaker 1: Great is the combat, Divine is the work. It is
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  Speaker 1: for king ship, for freedom, for happiness, for freedom from perturbation.
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  Speaker 1: Remember God call on him as a helper and protector,
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  Speaker 1: as men at sea call on the dioscuri in a storm.
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  Speaker 1: For what is a greater storm than that which comes
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  Speaker 1: from appearances which are violent and drive away the reason
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  Speaker 1: for the storm itself? What else is it but an appearance?
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  Speaker 1: For take away the fear of death? And suppose as
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  Speaker 1: many thunders and lightnings as you please, and you will
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  Speaker 1: know what calm and serenity there is in the ruling faculty.
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  Speaker 1: But if you have once been defeated and say that
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  Speaker 1: you will conquer hereafter, and then say the same again,
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  Speaker 1: be assured that you will at last be in so
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  Speaker 1: wretched a condition and so weak that you will not
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  Speaker 1: even know afterwards that you are doing wrong. But you
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  Speaker 1: will even begin to make apologies defenses for your wrongdoing,
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  Speaker 1: and then you will conforms firm the saying of Hesiod
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  Speaker 1: to be true with constant ills, the dilatory strives end
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  Speaker 1: a Book two, chapter eighteen