Greatness indeed, and excellence, perhaps belong to. others, to such as Socrates.

Why then, as we are born with a like nature, do not all, or the greater number, become such as he?

Why, are all horses swift? Are all dogs sagacious? What then, because nature hath not befriended me, shall I neglect all care of myself? Heaven forbid! Epictetus is inferior to Socrates;12 but if superior to—this is enough for me. I shall never be Milo, and yet I do not neglect my body; nor Cræsus, and yet I do not neglect my property: nor, in general, do we omit the care of any thing belonging to us, from a despair of arriving at the highest degree of perfection.

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Chapter III

How, from the Doctrine That God Is the Father of Mankind, We May Proceed to Its Consequences

§ 1. IF a person could be persuaded of this principle as he ought, that we are all originally descended from God, and that he is the Father of gods and men, I conceive he never would think meanly or degenerately concerning himself. Suppose Cæsar were to adopt you, there would be no bearing your haughty looks: and will you not be elated on knowing yourself to be the son of Jupiter? Yet, in fact, we are not elated; but having two things in our composition, intimately united, a body in common with the brutes, and reason and sentiment in common with the gods, many incline to this unhappy and mortal kindred, and only some few to the divine and happy one. And, as of necessity every one must treat each particular thing, according to the notions he forms about it; so those few, who think they are made for fidelity, decency, and a well-grounded use of the appearances of things, never think meanly or degenerately concerning themselves. But with the multitude the case is contrary: "For what am I? A poor contemptible man, with this miserable flesh of mine!" Miserable indeed. But you have likewise something better than this paltry flesh. Why then, overlooking that, do you pine away in attention to this?

§ 2. By means of this [animal] kindred, some of us, deviating towards it, become like wolves, faithless and insidious and mischievous: others, like lions, wild and savage and untamed: but most of us foxes, and wretches even among brutes. For what else is a slanderous and ill-natured man, than a fox, or something yet more wretched and mean? See then, and take heed, that you do not become such wretches.

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Chapter IV

Of Improvement

§ 1. HE who is entering on a state of improvement, having learnt from the philosophers, that the object of desire is good, of aversion, evil; and having learnt too, that prosperity and ease are no otherwise attainable by man, than in not being disappointed of his desire, nor incurring his aversion: such as one removes totally from himself and postpones desire,1 and applies aversion only to things dependent on choice. For if he should be averse to things independent on choice, he knows that he must sometimes incur his aversion, and be unhappy. Now if virtue promises happiness, prosperity, and ease, then an improvement in virtue is certainly an improvement in each of these. For to whatever point of perfection of anything absolutely brings us, improvement is always an approach towards it.

§ 2. How happens it then, that when we confess virtue to be such, yet we seek, and make an ostentatious show of improvement in other things? What is the business of virtue?

A prosperous life.

Who is in a state of improvement then? He who hath read the many treatises of Chrysippus2 Why, doth virtue consist in having read Chrysippus through? If it doth, improvement is confessedly nothing else than understanding a great deal of Chrysippus: otherwise we confess virtue to produce one thing; and declare improvement, which is an approach to it, to be quite another thing.

§ 3. This person, says one, is already able to read Chrysippus, by himself.—"Certainly, sir, you have made a vast improvement!" What improvement? Why do you ridicule him? Why do you withdraw him from a sense of his misfortunes? Why do not you show him the business of virtue, that he may know where to seek improvement?—Seek it there, wretch, where your business lies. And where doth your business lie? In desire and aversion; that you may neither be disappointed of the one, nor incur the other: in exerting the powers of pursuit and avoidance, that you may not be liable to fail; in assent and suspense, that you may not be liable to be deceived. The first and most necessary is the first topic.3 But if you seek to avoid incurring your aversion, trembling and lamenting all the while, at this rate how do you improve?

§ 4. Show me then your improvement in this point. As if I should say to a wrestler, Show me your shoulders; and he should answer me, "See my poisers."—Do you and your poisers look to that: I desire to see the effect of them.

"Take the treatise on the subject of the active powers, and see how thoroughly I have perused it."

I do not inquire into this, wretch: but how you exert those powers; how you manage your desires and aversions, how your intentions and purposes; how you are prepared for events, whether conformably or contrary to nature. If conformably, give me evidence of that, and I will say you improve: if contrary, go your way, and not only comment on these treatises, but write such yourself; and what service will it do you? Do not you know that the whole volume is sold for half-a-crown? Doth he who comments upon it, then, value himself at more than half-a-crown? Never look for your business in one thing, and for improvement in another.

Where is improvement, then?

If any of you, withdrawing himself from externals, turns to his own faculty of choice, to exercise, and finish, and render it conformable to nature; elevated, free, unrestrained, unhindered, faithful, decent: if he hath learnt too, that whoever desires, or is averse to, things out of his own power, can neither be faithful nor free, but must necessarily be changed and tossed up and down with them; must necessarily too be subject to others, to such as can procure or prevent what he desires or is averse to: if, rising in the morning, he observes and keeps to these rules; bathes and eats as a man of fidelity and honour; and thus, on every subject of action, exercises himself in his principal duty; as a racer, in the business of racing; as a public speaker, in the business of exercising his voice: this is he who truly improves; this is he who hath not travelled in vain. But if he is wholly intent on reading books, and hath laboured that point only, and travelled4 for that: I bid him go home immediately, and not neglect his domestic affairs; for what he travelled for is nothing. The only real thing is, studying how to rid his life of lamentation, and complaint, and "Alas!" and "I am undone," and misfortune, and disappointment; and to learn what death, what exile, what prison, what poison is: that he may be able to say in a prison, like Socrates, "My dear Crito, if it thus pleases the gods, thus let it be"; and not—"Wretched old man, have I kept my grey hairs for this!" Who speaks thus? Do you suppose I will name some mean and despicable person? Is it not Priam who says it? Is it not Œdipus? Nay, how many kings say it? For what else is tragedy, but the sufferings of men, struck by an admiration of externals, represented in that kind of poetry? If one was to be taught by fictions, that externals independent upon choice are nothing to us; I, for my part, should wish for such a fiction, as that, by which I might live prosperously and undisturbed. What you wish for, it is your business to consider.

§ 5. Of what service, then, is Chrysippus to us?

To teach you that those things are not false on which prosperity and ease depend. "Take my books, and you will see how true and conformable to nature those things are which render me easy." How great a happiness! And how great the benefactor who shows the way! To Triptolemus all men have raised temples and altars, because he gave us a milder kind of food; but to him who hath discovered, and brought to light, and communicated, the truth to all; the means not of living, but of living well; who among you ever raised an altar or a temple, or dedicated a statue, or who worships God on that account? We offer sacrifices on the account of those who have given us corn and the vine; and shall we not give thanks to God, for those who have produced that fruit in the human understanding, by which they proceed to discover to us the true doctrine of happiness?

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Chapter V

Concerning the Academics1

§ 1. IF any one opposes very evident truths, it is not easy to find a reason which may persuade him to alter his opinion. This arises neither from his own strength, nor from the weakness of his teacher: but when, after being driven upon an absurdity, he becomes petrified, how shall we deal with him any longer by reason?

§ 2. Now there are two sorts of petrifaction: the one, a petrifaction of the understanding; the other, of the sense of shame, when a person hath obstinately set himself not to assent to evident truths, nor to quit the defence of contradictions. We all dread a bodily mortification; and would make use of every contrivance to avoid it: but none of us is troubled about a mortification of the soul. And yet, indeed, even with regard to the soul, when a person is so affected as not to apprehend or understand anything, we think him in a sad condition: but where the sense of shame and modesty is under an absolute mortification, we go so far as even to call this, strength to mind.2

§ 3. Are you certain that you are awake?—"I am not" (replies such a person): "for neither am I certain, when, in dreaming, I appear to myself to be awake."—Is there no difference, then, between these appearances?—"None."—Shall I argue with this man any longer? for what steel or what caustic can I apply to make him sensible of his mortification? He is sensible of it, and pretends not to be so.