"Wealth is not among the number of good things; extravagance is among the number of evils, sober-mindedness of good things. Now sober-mindedness invites us to frugality and the acquisition of real advantages; but wealth to extravagance, and it drags us away from sober-mindedness. It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be sober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich."

The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own words, "How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel passage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God."

But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and Epictetus continues:—

"Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in Greece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in poverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in poverty, and so be happy?"

"As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it is better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires, than in the midst of superfluities to be discontented."

This, too, is a thought which many have expressed. "Gentle sleep," says Horace, "despises not the humble cottages of rustics, nor the shaded banks, nor valleys whose foliage waves with the western wind;" and every reader will recall the magnificent words of our own great Shakespeare—

"Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?"

To the subject of freedom, and to the power which man possesses to make himself entirely independent of all surrounding circumstances, Epictetus incessantly recurs. With the possibility of banishment to an ergastulum perpetually before his eyes, he defines a prison as being any situation in which a man is placed against his will; to Socrates for instance the prison was no prison, for he was there willingly, and no man need be in prison, against his will if he has learnt, as one of his primary duties, a cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable. By the expression of such sentiments Epictetus had anticipated by fifteen hundred years the immortal truth so sweetly expressed by Lovelace:

"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage."

Situated as he was, we can hardly wonder that thoughts like these occupied a large share of the mind of Epictetus, or that he had taught himself to lay hold of them with the firmest possible grasp. When asked, "Who among men is rich?" he replied, "He who suffices for himself;" an expression which contains the germ of the truth so forcibly expressed in the Book of Proverbs, "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways, and a good man shall be satisfied from himself". Similarly, when asked, "Who is free?" he replies, "The man who masters his own self," with much the same tone of expressions as that of Solomon, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Socrates was one of the great models whom Epictetus constantly seats before him, and this is one of the anecdotes which he relates about him with admiration. When Archelaus sent a message to express the intention of making him rich, Socrates bade the messenger inform him that at Athens four quarts of meal might be bought for three halfpence, and the fountains flow with water. "If then my existing possessions are insufficient for me, at any rate I am sufficient for them, and so they too are sufficient for me. Do you not see that Polus acted the part of Oedipus in his royal state with no less beauty of voice than that of Oedipus in Colonos, a wanderer and beggar? Shall then a noble man appear inferior to Polus, so as not to act well every character imposed upon him by Divine Providence; and shall he not imitate Ulysses, who even in rags was no less conspicuous than in the curled nap of his purple cloak?"

Generally speaking, the view which Epictetus took of life is always simple, and always consistent; it is a view which gave him consolation among life's troubles, and strength to display some of its noblest virtues, and it may be summed up in the following passages of his famous Manual:—

"Remember," he says, "that you are an actor of just such a part as is assigned you by the Poet of the play; of a short part, if the part be short; of a long part, if it be long. Should He wish you to act the part of a beggar, take care to act it naturally and nobly; and the same if it be the part of a lame man, or a ruler, or a private man; for this is in your power, to act well the part assigned to you; but to choose that part is the function of another."

"Let not these considerations afflict you: 'I shall live despised, and the merest nobody;' for if dishonour be an evil, you cannot be involved in evil any more than you can be involved in baseness through any one else's means. Is it then at all your business to be a leading man, or to be entertained at a banquet? By no means. How then can it be a dishonor not to be so? And how will you be a mere nobody, since it is your duty to be somebody only in those circumstances which are in your own power, in which you may be a person of the greatest importance?"

"Honour, precedence, confidence," he argues in another passage, "whether they be good things or evil things, are at any rate things for which their own definite price must be paid. Lettuces are sold for a penny, and if you want your lettuce you must pay your penny; and similarly, if you want to be asked out to a person's house, you must pay the price which he demands for asking people, whether the coin he requires be praise or attention; but if you do not give these, do not expect the other. Have you then gained nothing in lieu of your supper? Indeed you have; you have escaped praising a person whom you did not want to praise, and you have escaped the necessity of tolerating the upstart impertinence of his menials."

Some parts of this last thought have been so beautifully expressed by the American poet Lowell that I will conclude this chapter in his words:

"Earth hath her price for what earth gives us; The beggar is tax'd for a corner to die in; The priest hath his fee who comes and shrieves us; We bargain for the graves we lie in: At the devil's mart are all things sold, Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold, For a cap and bells our lives we pay. Bubbles we earn with our whole soul's tasking, 'Tis only God that is given away, 'Tis only heaven may be had for the asking."



CHAPTER II.

LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (continued).

Whether any of these great thoughts would have suggested themselves spontaneously to Epictetus—whether there was an inborn wisdom and nobleness in the mind of this slave which would have enabled him to elaborate such views from his own consciousness, we cannot tell; they do not, however, express his sentiments only, but belong in fact to the moral teaching of the great Stoic school, in the doctrines of which he had received instruction.

It may sound strange to the reader that one situated as Epictetus was should yet have had a regular tutor to train him in Stoic doctrines. That such should have been the case appears at first sight inconsistent with the cruelty with which he was treated, but it is a fact which is capable of easy explanation. In times of universal luxury and display—in times when a sort of surface-refinement is found among all the wealthy—some sort of respect is always paid to intellectual eminence, and intellectual amusements are cultivated as well as those of a coarser character. Hence a rich Roman liked to have people of literary culture among his slaves; he liked to have people at hand who would get him any information which he might desire about books, who could act as his amanuenses, who could even correct and supply information for his original compositions. Such learned slaves formed part of every large establishment, and among them were usually to be found some who bore, if they did not particularly merit, the title of "philosophers." These men—many of whom are described as having been mere impostors, ostentatious pedants, or ignorant hypocrites—acted somewhat like domestic chaplains in the houses of their patrons. They gratified an amateur taste for wisdom, and helped to while away in comparative innocence the hours which their masters might otherwise have spent in lassitude or sleep. It was no more to the credit of Epaphroditus that he wished to have a philosophic slave, than it is to the credit of an illiterate millionaire in modern times that he likes to have works of high art in his drawing-room, and books of reference in his well-furnished library.

Accordingly, since Epictetus must have been singularly useless for all physical purposes, and since his thoughtfulness and intelligence could not fail to command attention, his master determined to make him useful in the only way possible, and sent him to Caius Musonius Rufus to be trained in the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy.

Musonius was the son of a Roman knight. His learning and eloquence, no less than his keen appreciation of Stoic truths, had so deeply kindled the suspicions of Nero, that he banished him to the rocky little island of Gyaros, on the charge of his having been concerned in Piso's conspiracy. He returned to Rome after the suicide of Nero, and lived in great distinction and respect, so that he was allowed to remain in the city when the Emperor Vespasian banished all the other philosophers of any eminence.

The works of Musonius have not come down to us, but a few notices of him, which are scattered in the Discourses of his greater pupil, show us what kind of man he was. The following anecdotes will show that he was a philosopher of the strictest school.

Speaking of the value of logic as a means of training the reason, Epictetus anticipates the objection that, after all, a mere error in reasoning is no very serious fault. He points out that it is a fault, and that is sufficient. "I too," he says, "once made this very remark to Rufus when he rebuked me for not discovering the suppressed premiss in some syllogism. 'What!' said I, 'have I then set the Capitol on fire, that you rebuke me thus?' 'Slave!' he answered, 'what has the Capitol to do with it? Is there no other fault then short of setting the Capitol on fire? Yes! to use one's own mere fancies rashly, at random, anyhow; not to follow an argument, or a demonstration, or a sophism; not, in short, to see what makes for oneself or not, in questioning and answering—is none of these things a fault?'"

Sometimes he used to test the Stoical endurance of his pupil by pointing out the indignities and tortures which his master might at any moment inflict upon him; and when Epictetus answered that, after all, such treatment was what man had borne, and therefore could bear, he would reply approvingly that every man's destiny was in his own hands; that he need lack nothing from any one else; that, since he could derive from himself magnanimity and nobility of soul, he might despise the notion of receiving lands or money or office. "But," he continued, "when any one is cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters about such a person to speak of him as a corpse, and to say, 'Favour us with the corpse and blood of So-and-so,' For? in fact, such a man is a mere corpse, and nothing more; for if he were anything more, he would have perceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by another's means." I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is a student of Epictetus, but he, among others, has forcibly expressed the same truth. "My friends, do you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died? How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered to you, in plain words, as it is offered to you in dire facts, that you should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought yourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; many of us grasp at it in the fulness of horror."

The way in which Musonius treated would-be pupils much resembled the plan adopted by Socrates. "It is not easy," says Epictetus, "to train effeminate youths, any more than it is easy to take up whey with a hook. But those of fine nature, even if you discourage them, desire instruction all the more. For which reason Rufus often discouraged pupils, using this as a criterion of fine and of common natures; for he used to say, that just as a stone, even if you fling it into the air, will fall down to the earth by its own gravitating force, so also a noble nature, in proportion as it is repulsed, in that proportion tends more in its own natural direction." As Emerson says,—

"Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,' The youth replies, 'I CAN.'"

One more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply Epictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him. In his Discourse on Ostentation, Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit of remarking to his pupils, "If you have leisure to praise me, I can have done you no good." "He used indeed so to address us that each one of us, sitting there, thought that some one had been privately telling tales against him in particular, so completely did Rufus seize hold of his characteristics, so vividly did he portray our individual faults."

Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it was evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were somewhat chilling and austere. It formed an epoch in the slave's life; it remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings so inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt. He would probably have admitted that it was better for him to have been sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in freedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis. So that Epictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an additional argument in favour of Divine Providence: an additional proof that God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of conviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least dominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the whole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most honestly and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again and again that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world has to offer, if we are willing to pay the price by which they are obtained. But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should scorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even cast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by that which we deliberately refuse to give. Every good and just man may gain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness. Let no one regard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most distinct and definite meaning. There are certain things which all men desire, and which all men would gladly, if they could lawfully and innocently obtain. These things are health, wealth, ease, comfort, influence, honour, freedom from opposition and from pain; and yet, if you were to place all these blessings on the one side, and on the other side to place poverty, and disease, and anguish, and trouble, and contempt,—yet, if on this side also you were to place truth and justice, and a sense that, however densely the clouds may gather about our life, the light of God will be visible beyond them, all the noblest men who ever lived would choose, as without hesitation they always have chosen, the latter destiny. It is not that they like failure, but they prefer failure to falsity; it is not that they love persecution, but they prefer persecution to meanness; it is not that they relish opposition, but they welcome opposition rather than guilty acquiescence; it is not that they do not shrink from agony, but they would not escape agony by crime. The selfishness of Dives in his purple is to them less enviable than the innocence of Lazarus in rags; they would be chained with John in prison rather than loll with Herod at the feast; they would fight with beasts with Paul in the arena rather than be steeped in the foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is not happiness, but it is something higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is satisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give it, nor take it away,—it is something indescribable—it is the gift of God.

"The fallacy" of being surprised at wickedness in prosperity, and righteousness in misery, "can only lie," says Mr. Froude, in words which would have delighted Epictetus, and which would express the inmost spirit of his philosophy, "in the supposed right to happiness.... Happiness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be true to the best we know, to seek that, and do that; and if by 'virtue is its own reward' be meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring nothing more, then it is a true and a noble saying.... Let us do right, and then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very mighty matter. If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be bitter—bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.... The well-being of our souls depends only on what we are; and nobleness of character is nothing else but steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil.... Only to those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish enjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. Man will have what he desires, and will find what is really best for him, exactly as he honestly seeks for it. Happiness may fly away, pleasure pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove unkind; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is never rejected."



CHAPTER III.

LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (continued.)

Of the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there is unfortunately little more to be told. The life of

"That halting slave, who in Nicopolis Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son Cleared Rome of what most shamed him,"

is not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded it are very circumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest biographies; their real life is in their books.

At some period of his life, but how or when we do not know, Epictetus was manumitted by his master, and was henceforward regarded by the world as free. Probably the change made little or no difference in his life. If it saved him from a certain amount of brutality, if it gave him more uninterrupted leisure, it probably did not in the slightest degree modify the hardships of his existence, and may have caused him some little anxiety as to the means of procuring the necessaries of life. He, of all men, would have attached the least importance to the external conditions under which he lived; he always regarded them as falling under the category of things which lay beyond the sphere of his own influence, and therefore as things with which he had nothing to do. Even in his most oppressed days, he considered himself, by the grace of heaven, to be more free—free in a far truer and higher sense—than thousands of those who owed allegiance to no master's will. Whether he had saved any small sum of money, or whether his needs were supplied by the many who loved and honoured him, we do not know. He was a man who was content with the barest necessaries of life, and we may be sure that he would have refused to be indebted to any one for more than these.

It is probable that he never married. This may have been due to that shade of indifference to the female character of which we detect traces here and there in his writings. In one passage he complains that women seemed to think of nothing but admiration and getting married; and, in another, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman ladies were fond of Plato's Republic because he allowed some very liberal marriage regulations. We can only infer from these passages that he had been very unfortunate in the specimens of women with whom he had been thrown. The Roman ladies of his time were certainly not models of character; he was not likely to fall in with very exalted females among the slaves of Epaphroditus or the ladies of his family, and he had probably never known the love of a sister or a mother's care. He did not, however, go the length of condemning marriage altogether; on the contrary, he blames the philosophers who did so. But it is equally obvious that he approves of celibacy as a "counsel of perfection," and indeed his views on the subject have so close and remarkable a resemblance to those of St. Paul that our readers will be interested in seeing them side by side.

In 1 Cor. vii. St. Paul, after speaking of the nobleness of virginity, proceeds, nevertheless, to sanction matrimony as in itself a hallowed and honourable estate. It was not given to all, he says, to abide even as he was, and therefore marriage should be adopted as a sacred and indissoluble bond. Still, without being sure that he has any divine sanction for what he is about to say, he considers celibacy good "for the present distress," and warns those that marry that they "shall have trouble in the flesh." For marriage involves a direct multiplication of the cares of the flesh: "He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.... And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction."

It is clear, then, that St. Paul regarded virginity as a "counsel of perfection," and Epictetus uses respecting it almost identically the same language. Marriage was perfectly permissible in his view, but it was much better for a Cynic (i.e. for all who carried out most fully their philosophical obligations) to remain single: "Since the condition of things is such as it now is, as though we were on the eve of battle, ought not the Cynio to be entirely without distraction" [the Greek word being the very same as that used by St. Paul] "for the service of God? ought he not to be able to move about among mankind free from the entanglement of private relationships or domestic duties, which if he neglect he will no longer preserve the character of a wise and good man, and which if he observe he will lose the function of a messenger, and sentinel, and herald of the gods?" Epictetus proceeds to point out that if he is married he can no longer look after the spiritual interests of all with whom he is thrown in contact, and no longer maintain the rigid independence of all luxuries which marked the genuine philosopher. He must, for instance, have a bath for his child, provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and money to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a general increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified distractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing manifestation of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a celebrated cynic, was married, but it was to a lady as self-denying as himself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to share hardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetus does not venture to say in so many words that Crates in this matter made a mistake, he takes pains to point out that the circumstances were far too exceptional to be accepted as a precedent for the imitation of others.

"But," inquires the interlocutor, "how then is the world to get on?" The question seems quite to disturb the bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it makes him use language of the strongest and most energetic contempt: and it is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems to lose the nobility and grace, the "sweetness and light," which are the general characteristic of his utterances. In spite of his complete self-mastery he was evidently a man of strong feelings, and with a natural tendency to express them strongly. "Heaven bless us," he exclaims in reply, "are they greater benefactors of mankind who bring into the world two or three evilly-squalling brats,[63] or those who, to the best of their power, keep a beneficent eye on the lives, and habits, and tendencies of all mankind? Were the Thebans who had large families more useful to their country than the childless Epaminondas; or was Homer less useful to mankind than Priam with his fifty good-for-nothing sons?... Why, sir, the true cynic is a father to all men; all men are his sons and all women his daughters; he has a bond of union, a lien of affection with them all." (Dissert. iii. 22.)

[Footnote 63: [Greek: kakorrugcha paidia]. Another reading is [Greek: kokorugcha], which M. Martha renders, "Marmots a vilain petit museau!" It is evident that Epictetus did not like children, which makes his subsequently mentioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more creditable to him.]

The whole character of Epictetus is sufficient to prove that he would only do what he considered most desirable and most exalted; and passages like these, the extreme asperity of which I have necessarily, softened down, are, I think, decisive in favour of the tradition which pronounces him to have been unmarried.

We are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest and even meanest description: it neither needed nor possessed a fastening of any kind, for within it there was no furniture except a lamp and the poor straw pallet on which he slept. About his lamp there was current in antiquity a famous story, to which he himself alludes. As a piece of unwonted luxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which burned in front of the images of his household deities. It was the only possession which he had, and a thief stole it. "He will be finely disappointed when he comes again," quietly observed Epictetus. "for he will only find an earthenware lamp next time." At his death the little earthenware lamp was bought by some genuine hero-worshipper for 3,000 drachmas. "The purchaser hoped," says the satirical Lucian, "that if he read philosophy at night by that lamp, he would at once acquire in dreams the wisdom of the admirable old man who once possessed it."

But, in spite of his deep poverty, it must not be supposed that there was anything eccentric or ostentatious in the life of Epictetus. On the contrary, his writings abound in directions as to the proper bearing of a philosopher in life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule to endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the gamins of Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair game," and think it fine fun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the sneers of much more dignified people. "If," says Epictetus, "you want to know how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who had the highest philosophic reputation among them, once when I was present, happened to get into a great rage with his people, and as though he had received an intolerable injury, exclaimed, 'I cannot endure it; you are killing me; why, you'll make me like him! pointing to me," evidently as if Epictetus were the merest insect in existence. And, again he says in the Manual. "If you wish to be a philosopher, prepare yourself to be thoroughly laughed at since many will certainly sneer and jeer at you, and will say, 'He has come back to us as a philosopher all of a sudden,' and 'Where in the world did he get this superciliousness?' Now do not you be supercilious, but cling to the things which appear best to you in such a manner as though you were conscious of having been appointed by God to this position." Again in the little discourse On the Desire of Admiration, he warns the philosopher "not to walk as if he had swallowed a poker" or to care for the applause of those multitudes whom he holds to be immersed in error. For all display, and pretence, and hypocrisy, and Pharisaism, and boasting, and mere fruitless book-learning he seems to have felt a genuine and profound contempt. Recommendations to simplicity of conduct, courtesy of manner, and moderation of language were among his practical precepts. It is refreshing, too, to know that with the strongest and manliest good sense, he entirely repudiated that dog-like brutality of behaviour, and repulsive eccentricity of self-neglect, which characterised not a few of the Cynic leaders. He expressly argues that the Cynic should be a man of ready tact, and attractive presence; and there is something of almost indignant energy in his words when he urges upon a pupil the plain duty of scrupulous cleanliness. In this respect our friends the Hermits would not quite have satisfied him, although he might possibly have pardoned them on the plea that they abode in desert solitudes, since he bids those who neglect the due care of their bodies to live "either in the wilderness or alone."

Late in life Epictetus increased his establishment by taking in an old woman as a servant. The cause of his doing so shows an almost Christian tenderness of character. According to the hideous custom of infanticide which prevailed in the pagan world, a man with whom Epictetus was acquainted exposed his infant son to perish. Epictetus in pity took the child home to save its life, and the services of a female were necessary to supply its wants. Such kindness and self-denial were all the more admirable because pity, like all other deep emotions, was regarded by the Stoics in the light rather of a vice than of a virtue. In this respect, however, both Seneca and Epictetus, and to a still greater extent Marcus Aurelius, were gloriously false to the rigidity of the school to which they professed to belong. We see with delight that one of the Discourses of Epictetus was On the Tenderness and Forbearance due to Sinners; and he abounds in exhortations to forbearance in judging others. In one of his Fragments he tells the following anecdote:—A person who had seen a poor ship-wrecked and almost dying pirate took pity on him, carried him home, gave him clothes, and furnished him with all the necessaries of life. Somebody reproached him for doing good to the wicked—"I have honoured," he replied, "not the man, but humanity in his person."

But one fact more is known in the life of Epictetus, Domitian, the younger son of Vespasian, succeeded his far nobler brother the Emperor Titus; and in the course of his reign a decree was passed which banished all the philosophers from Italy. Epictetus was not exempted from this unjust and absurd decree. That he bore it with equanimity may be inferred from the approval with which he tells an anecdote about Agrippinus, who while his cause was being tried in the Senate went on with all his usual avocations, and on being informed on his return from bathing that he had been condemned, quietly asked, "To death or banishment?" "To banishment," said the messenger. "Is my property confiscated?" "No," "Very well, then let us go as far as Aricia" (about sixteen miles from Rome), "and dine there."

There was a certain class of philosophers whose external mark and whose sole claim to distinction rested in the length of their beards; and when the decree of Domitian was passed these gentleman contented themselves with shaving. Epictetus alludes to this in his second Discourse, "Come, Epictetus, shave off your beard," he imagines some one to say to him. "If I am a philosopher I will not," he replies. "Then I will take off your head." "By all means, if that will do you any good."

He went to Nicopolis, a town of Epirus, which had been built by Augustus in commemoration of his victory at Actium. Whether he ever revisited Rome is uncertain, but it is probable that he did so, for we know that he enjoyed the friendship of several eminent philosophers and statesmen, and was esteemed and honoured by the Emperor Hadrian himself. He is said to have lived to a good old age, surrounded by affectionate and eager disciples, and to have died with the same noble simplicity which had marked his life. The date of his death is as little known as that of his birth. It only remains to give a sketch of those thoughts which, poor though he was, and despised, and a slave, yet made him "dear to the immortals."



CHAPTER IV.

THE "MANUAL" AND "FRAGMENTS" OF EPICTETUS.

It is nearly certain that Epictetus never committed any of his doctrines to writing. Like his great exemplar. Socrates, he contented himself with oral instruction, and the bulk of what has come down to us in his name consists in the Discourses reproduced for us by his pupil Arrian. It was the ambition of Arrian "to be to Epictetus what Xenophon had been to Socrates," that is, to hand down to posterity a noble and faithful picture of the manner in which his master had lived and taught. With this view, he wrote four books on Epictetus,—a life, which is now unhappily lost; a book of conversation or "table talk," which is also lost; and two books which have come down to us, viz. the Discourses and the Manual. It is from these two invaluable books, and from a good many isolated fragments, that we are enabled to judge what was the practical morality of Stoicism, as expounded by the holy and upright slave.

The Manual is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles, which, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are also explained in the Discourses. Both books were so popular that by their means Arrian first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately attained the highest eminence and rank. The Manual was to antiquity what the Imitatio of Thomas a Kempis was to later times, and what Woodhead's Whole Duty of Man or Wilberforce's Practical View of Christianity have been to large sections of modern Englishmen. It was a clear, succinct, and practical statement of common daily duties, and the principles upon which they rest. Expressed in a manner entirely simple and unornate, its popularity was wholly due to the moral elevation of the thoughts which it expressed. Epictetus did not aim at style; his one aim was to excite his hearers to virtue, and Arrian tells us that in this endeavour he created a deep impression by his manner and voice. It is interesting to know that the Manual was widely accepted among Christians no less than among Pagans, and that, so late as the fifth century, paraphrases were written of it for Christian use. No systematic treatise of morals so simply beautiful was ever composed, and to this day the best Christian may study it, not with interest only, but with real advantage. It is like the voice of the Sybil, which, uttering things simple, and unperfumed, and unadorned, by God's grace reacheth through innumerable years. We proceed to give a short sketch of its contents.

Epictetus began by laying down the broad comprehensive statement that there are some things which are in our power, and depend upon ourselves; other things which are beyond our power, and wholly independent of us. The things which are in our power are our opinions, our aims, our desires, our aversions—in a word, our actions. The things beyond our power are bodily accidents, possessions, fame, rank, and whatever lies beyond the sphere of our actions. To the former of these classes of things our whole attention must be confined. In that region we may be noble, unperturbed, and free; in the other we shall be dependent, frustrated, querulous, miserable. Both classes cannot be successfully attended to; they are antagonistic, antipathetic; we cannot serve God and Mammon.

Now, if we take a right view of all these things which in no way depend on ourselves we shall regard them as mere semblances—as shadows which are to be distinguished from the true substance. We shall not look upon them as fit subjects for aversion or desire. Sin and cruelty, and falsehood we may hate, because we can avoid them if we will; but we must look upon sickness, and poverty, and death as things which are not fit subjects for our avoidance, because they lie wholly beyond our control.

This, then,—endurance of the inevitable, avoidance of the evil—is the keynote of the Epictetean philosophy. It has been summed up in the three words, [Greek: Anechou kai apechou], "sustine et abstine," "Bear and forbear,"—bear whatever God assigns to you, abstain from that which He forbids.

The earlier part of the Manual is devoted to practical advice which may enable men to endure nobly. For instance, "If there be anything," says Epictetus, "which you highly value or tenderly love, estimate at the same time its true nature. Is it some possession? remember that it may be destroyed. Is it wife or child? remember that they may die." "Death," says an epitaph in Chester Cathedral—

"Death, the great monitor, comes oft to prove, 'Tis dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love."

"Desire nothing too much. If you are going to the public baths and are annoyed or hindered by the rudeness, the pushing, the abuse, the thievish propensities of others, do not lose your temper: remind yourself that it is more important that you should keep your will in harmony with nature than that you should bathe. And so with all troubles; men suffer far less from the things themselves than from the opinions they have of them."

"If you cannot frame your circumstances in accordance with your wishes, frame your will into harmony with your circumstances.[64] When you lose the best gifts of life, consider them as not lost but only resigned to Him who gave them. You have a remedy in your own heart against all trials—continence as a bulwark against passion, patience against opposition, fortitude against pain. Begin with trifles: if you are robbed, remind yourself that your peace of mind is of more value and importance than the thing which has been stolen from you. Follow the guidance of nature; that is the great thing; regret nothing, desire nothing, which can disturb that end. Behave as at a banquet—take with gratitude and in moderation what is set before you, and seek for nothing more; a higher and diviner step will be to be ready and able to forego even that which is given you, or which you might easily obtain. Sympathise with others, at least externally, when they are in sorrow and misfortune; but remember in your own heart that to the brave and wise and true there is really no such thing as misfortune; it is but an ugly semblance; the croak of the raven can portend no harm to such a man, he is elevated above its power."

[Footnote 64: "When what thou willest befalls not, thou then must will what befalleth."]

"We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with those parts; our simple duty is confined to playing them well. The slave may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it dwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant, with it all others become needless, without it no others are possible. No one can insult you if you will not regard his words or deeds as insults.[65] Keep your eye steadily fixed on the great reality of death, and all other things will shrink to their true proportions. As in a voyage, when a ship has come to anchor, if you have gone out to find water, you may amuse yourself with picking up a little shell or bulb, but you must keep your attention steadily fixed upon the ship, in case the captain should call, and then you must leave all such things lest you should be flung on board, bound like sheep. So in life; if, instead of a little shell or bulb, some wifeling or childling be granted you, well and good; but, if the captain call, run to the ship and leave such possessions behind you, not looking back. But if you be an old man, take care not to go a long distance from the ship at all, lest you should be called and come too late." The metaphor is a significant one, and perhaps the following lines of Sir Walter Scott, prefixed anonymously to one of the chapters of the Waverley Novels, may help to throw light upon it:

"Death finds us 'midst our playthings; snatches us, As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, From all our toys and baubles—the rough call Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth: And well if they are such as may be answered In yonder world, where all is judged of truly."

[Footnote 65: Compare Cowper's Conversation:— "Am I to set my life upon a throw Because a bear is rude and surly?—No.— A modest, sensible, and well-bred man Will not insult me, and no other can."]

"Preserve your just relations to other men; their misconduct does not affect your duties. Has your father done wrong, or your brother been unjust? Still he is your father, he is your brother; and you must consider your relation to him, not whether he be worthy of it or no.

"Your duty towards the gods is to form just and true opinions respecting them. Believe that they do all things well, and then you need never murmur or complain."

"As rules of practice," says Epictetus, "prescribe to yourself an ideal, and then act up to it. Be mostly silent; or, if you converse, do not let it be about vulgar and insignificant topics, such as dogs, horses, racing, or prize-fighting. Avoid foolish and immoderate laughter, vulgar entertainments, impurity, display, spectacles, recitations, and all egotistical remarks. Set before you the examples of the great and good. Do not be dazzled by mere appearances. Do what is right quite irrespective of what people will say or think. Remember that your body is a very small matter and needs but very little; just as all that the foot needs is a shoe, and not a dazzling ornament of gold, purple, or jewelled embroidery. To spend all one's time on the body, or on bodily exercises, shows a weak intellect. Do not be fond of criticising others, and do not resent their criticisms of you. Everything," he says, and this is one of his most characteristic precepts, "has two handles! one by which it may be borne, the other by which it cannot. If your brother be unjust, do not take up the matter by that handle—the handle of his injustice—for that handle is the one by which it cannot be taken up; but rather by the handle that he is your brother and brought up with you; and then you will be taking it up as it can be borne."

All these precepts have a general application, but Epictetus adds others on the right bearing of a philosopher; that is, of one whose professed ideal is higher than the multitude. He bids him above all things not to be censorious, and not to be ostentatious. "Feed on your own principles; do not throw them up to show how much you have eaten. Be self-denying, but do not boast of it. Be independent and moderate, and regard not the opinion or censure of others, but keep a watch upon yourself as your own most dangerous enemy. Do not plume yourself on an intellectual knowledge of philosophy, which is in itself quite valueless, but on a consistent nobleness of action. Never relax your efforts, but aim at perfection. Let everything which seems best be to you a law not to be transgressed; and whenever anything painful, or pleasurable, or glorious, or inglorious, is set before you, remember that now is the struggle, now is the hour of the Olympian contest, and it may not be put off, and that by a single defeat or yielding your advance in virtue may be either secured or lost. It was thus that Socrates attained perfection, by giving his heart to reason, and to reason only. And thou, even if as yet thou art not a Socrates, yet shouldst live as though it were thy wish to be one." These are noble words, but who that reads them will not be reminded of those sacred and far more deeply-reaching words, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

In this brief sketch we have included all the most important thoughts in the Manual. It ends in these words. "On all occasions we may keep in mind these three sentiments:—"

'Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the same.' (Cleanthes.)

'Whosoever hath nobly yielded to necessity, I hold him wise, and he knoweth the things of God.' (Euripides.)

And this third one also, 'O Crito, be it so, if so be the will of heaven. Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, but harm me they cannot.' (Socrates.)

To this last conception of life; quoted from the end of Plato's Apology, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: "What resources have we," he asks, "in circumstances of great peril? What other than the remembrance of what is or what is not in our own power; what is possible to us and what is not? I must die. Be it so; but need I die groaning? I must be bound; but must I be bound bewailing? I must be driven into exile, well, who prevent me then from going with laughter, and cheerfulness, and calm of mind?

"'Betray secrets.'

"'Indeed I will not, for that rests in my own hands.'

"'Then I will put you in chains.'

"'My good sir, what are you talking about? Put me in chains? No, no! you may put my leg in chains, but not even Zeus himself can master my will.'

"'I will throw you into prison.'

"'My poor little body; yes, no doubt.'

"'I will cut off your head.'

"'Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one which could not be cut off?'

"Such are the things of which philosophers should think, and write them daily, and exercise themselves therein."

There are many other passages in which Epictetus shows that the free-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that we should not "sell it for a trifle;" or, as Scripture still more sternly expresses it, should not "sell ourselves for nought." He relates, for instance, the complete failure of the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus not to go to the Senate. "While I am a Senator," said Helvidius, "I must go." "Well, then, at least be silent there." "Ask me no questions, and I will be silent." "But I must ask your opinion." "And I must say what is right." "But I will put you to death." "Did I ever tell you I was immortal? Do your part, and I will do mine. It is yours to kill me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to go into banishment without grief."

We see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of the heathen had, by God's grace, attained to the sense that life was subject to a divine guidance. Yet how dim was their vision of this truth, how insecure their hold upon it, in comparison with that which the meanest Christian may attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of immortality. They never quite got rid of a haunting dread that perhaps, after all, they might be nothing better than insignificant and unheeded atoms, swept hither and thither in the mighty eddies of an unseen, impersonal, mysterious agency, and destined hereafter "to be sealed amid the iron hills," or

"To be imprisoned in the viewless winds. And blown with reckless violence about The pendent world."

Their belief in a personal deity was confused with their belief in nature, which, in the language of a modern sceptic, "acts with fearful uniformity: stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as death; too vast to praise, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer, no heart for sympathy, no arm to save." How different the soothing and tender certainty of the Christian's hope, for whom Christ has brought life and immortality to light! For "chance" is not only "the daughter of forethought," as the old Greek lyric poet calls her, but the daughter also of love. How different the prayer of David, even in the hours of his worst agony and shame, "Let Thy loving Spirit lead me forth into the land of righteousness." Guidance, and guidance by the hand of love, was—as even in that dark season he recognised—the very law of his life; and his soul, purged by affliction, had but a single wish—the wish to be led, not into prosperity, not into a recovery of his lost glory, not even into the restoration of his lost innocence; but only,—through paths however hard—only into the land of righteousness. And because he knew that God would lead him thitherward, he had no wish, no care for anything beyond. We will end this chapter by translating a few of the isolated fragments of Epictetus which have been preserved for us by other writers. The wisdom and beauty of these fragments will interest the reader, for Epictetus was one of the few "in the very dust of whose thoughts was gold."

* * * * *

"A life entangled with accident is like a wintry torrent, for it is turbulent, and foul with mud, and impassable, and tyrannous, and loud, and brief."

"A soul that dwells with virtue is like a perennial spring; for it is pure, and limpid, and refreshful, and inviting, and serviceable, and rich, and innocent, and uninjurious."

* * * * *

"If you wish to be good? first believe that you are bad."

Compare Matt. ix. 12, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick;" John ix. 41, "Now ye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth;" and 1 John i. 8, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

* * * * *

"It is base for one who sweetens that which he drinks with the gifts of bees, to embitter by vice his reason, which is the gift of God."

* * * * *

"Nothing is meaner than the love of pleasure, the love of gain, and insolence: nothing nobler than high-mindedness, and gentleness, and philanthropy, and doing good."

* * * * *

"The vine bears three clusters: the first of pleasure; the second of drunkenness; the third of insult."

"He is a drunkard who drinks more than three cups; even if he be not drunken, he has exceeded moderation."

Our own George Herbert has laid down the same limit:—

"Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay, Stay at the third cup, or forego the place, Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface."

* * * * *

"Like the beacon-lights in harbours, which, kindling a great blaze by means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels that wander over the sea, so, also, a man of bright character in a storm-tossed city, himself content with little, effects great blessings for his fellow-citizens."

The thought is not unlike that of Shakespeare:

"How far yon little candle throws its beams, So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

But the metaphor which Epictetus more commonly adopts is one no less beautiful. "What good," asked some one, "did Helvidius Priscus do in resisting Vespasian, being but a single person?" "What good," answers Epictetus, "does the purple do on the garment? Why, it is splendid in itself, and splendid also in the example which it affords."

* * * * *

"As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations that he may rise, but shines at once, and is greeted by all; so neither wait thou for applause, and shouts, and eulogies, that thou mayst do well;—but be a spontaneous benefactor, and thou shalt be beloved like the sun."

* * * * *

"Thales, when asked what was the commonest of all possessions, answered, 'Hope; for even those who have nothing else have hope.'"

"Lead, lead me on, my hopes," says Mr. Macdonald; "I know that ye are true and not vain. Vanish from my eyes day after day, but arise in new forms. I will follow your holy deception; follow till ye have brought me to the feet of my Father in heaven, where I shall find you all, with folded wings, spangling the sapphire dusk whereon stands His throne which is our home.

"What ought not to be done do not even think of doing."

Compare

"Guard well your thoughts for thoughts are heard in heaven.'"

* * * * *

Epictetus, when asked how a man could grieve his enemy, replied, "By preparing himself to act in the noblest way."

Compare Rom. xii. 20, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on his head"

* * * * *

"If you always remember that in all you do in soul or body God stands by as a witness, in all your prayers and your actions you will not err; and you shall have God dwelling with you."

Compare Rev. iii. 30, "Behold I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me."

In the discourse written to prove that God keeps watch upon human actions, Epictetus touches again on the same topic, saying that God has placed beside each one of us his own guardian spirit—a spirit that sleeps not and cannot be beguiled—and has handed us each over to that spirit to protect us. "And to what better or more careful guardian could He have entrusted us? So that when you have closed your doors and made darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone. For you are not alone. God, too, is present there, and your guardian spirit; and what need have they of light to see what you are doing."

There is in this passage an almost startling coincidence of thought with those eloquent words in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: "A man that breaketh wedlock, saying thus in his heart, Who seeth me? I am compassed about with darkness, the walls cover me, and nobody seeth me: what need I to fear? the Most Highest will not remember my sins: such a man only feareth the eyes of man, and knoweth not that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, beholding all the ways of men, and considering the most secret parts. He knew all things ere ever they were created: so also after they were perfected He looked upon all. This man shall be punished in the streets of the city, and where he expecteth not he shall be taken." (Ecclus. xxiii. 11-21.)

"When we were children, our parents entrusted us to a tutor who kept a continual watch that we might not suffer harm; but, when we grow to manhood, God hands us over to an inborn conscience to guard us. We must, therefore, by no means despise this guardianship, since in that case we shall both be displeasing to God and enemies to our own conscience."

Beautiful and remarkable as these fragments are we have no space for more, and must conclude by comparing the last with the celebrated lines of George Herbert:—

"Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round; Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws. They send us bound To rules of reason. Holy messengers; Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin; Afflictions sorted; anguish of all sizes; Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in! Bibles laid open; millions of surprises; Blessings beforehand; ties of gratefulness; The sound of glory ringing in our ears; Without one shame; within our consciences; Angels and grace; eternal hopes and fears! Yet all these fences and their whole array, One cunning bosom sin blows quite away."



CHAPTER V.

THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS.

The Discourses of Epictetus, as originally published by Arrian, contained eight books, of which only four have come down to us. They are in many respects the most valuable expression of his views. There is something slightly repellent in the stern concision, the "imperious brevity," of the Manual. In the Manual, says M. Martha,[66] "the reason of the Stoic proclaims its laws with an impassibility which is little human; it imposes silence on all the passions, even the most respectable; it glories in waging against them an internecine war, and seems even to wish to repress the most legitimate impulses of generous sensibility. In reading these rigorous maxims one might be tempted to believe that this legislator of morality is a man without a heart, and, if we were not touched by the original sincerity of the language, one would only see in this lapidary style the conventional precepts of a chimerical system or the aspirations of an impossible perfection." The Discourses are more illustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse, more human. In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human being, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. The style, indeed, is simple, but its "athletic nudity" is well suited to this militant morality; its picturesque and incisive character, its vigorous metaphors, its vulgar expressions, its absence of all conventional elegance, display a certain "plebeian originality" which gives them an almost autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid conviction "he wrestles with the passions, questions them, makes them answer, and confounds them in a few words which are often sublime. This Socrates without grace does not amuse us by making his adversary fall into the long entanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes and often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence of Phocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which is lifted and falls."

[Footnote 66: Moralistes sous l'Empire, p. 200.]

Epictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher; a preacher with less wealth of genius, less eloquence of expression, less width of culture, but with far more bravery, clearness, consistency, and grasp of his subject. His doctrine and his life were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit of brief expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, or chequered with any lights and shades. The Discourses differ from the Manual only in their manner, their frequent anecdotes, their pointed illustrations, and their vivid interlocutory form. The remark of Pascal, that Epictetus knew the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know its weakness, applies to the Manual but can hardly be maintained when we judge him by some of the answers which he gave to those who came to seek for his consolation or advice.

The Discourses are not systematic in their character, and, even if they were, the loss of the last four books would prevent us from working out their system with any completeness. Our sketch of the Manual will already have put the reader in possession of the main principles and ideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He neither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical reality. All that remains for us to do is to choose from the Discourses some of his most characteristic views, and the modes by which he brought them home to his hearers.

It was one of the most essential peculiarities of Stoicism to aim at absolute independence, or self-independence. Now, as the weaknesses and servilities of men arise most frequently from their desire for superfluities, the true man must absolutely get rid of any such desire. He must increase his wealth by moderating his wishes; he must despise all the luxuries for which men long, and he must greatly diminish the number of supposed necessaries. We have already seen some of the arguments which point in this direction, and we may add another from the third book of Discourses.

A certain magnificent orator, who was going to Rome on a lawsuit, had called on Epictetus. The philosopher threw cold water on his visit, because he did not believe in his sincerity. "You will get no more from me," he said, "than you would get from any cobbler or greengrocer, for you have only come because it happened to be convenient, and you will only criticise my style, not really wishing to learn principles" "Well, but," answered the orator, "if I attend to that sort of thing, I shall be a mere pauper like you, with no plate, or equipage, or land." "I don't want such things," replied Epictetus; "and, besides, you are poorer than I am, after all." "Why, how so?" "You have no constancy, no unanimity with nature, no freedom from perturbations. Patron or no patron, what care I? You do care. I am richer than you. I don't care what Caesar thinks of me. I flatter no one. This is what I have instead of your silver and gold plate. You have silver vessels, but earthenware reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom is, and it furnishes me abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you, mine seem great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied." The comparison with which he ends the discussion is very remarkable. I once had the privilege of hearing Sir William Hooker explain to the late Queen Adelaide the contents of the Kew Museum. Among them was a cocoa-nut with a hole in it, and Sir William explained to the Queen that in certain parts of India, when the natives want to catch the monkeys they make holes in cocoa-nuts, and fill them with sugar. The monkeys thrust in their hands and fill them with sugar; the aperture is too small to draw the paws out again when thus increased in size; the monkeys have not the sense to loose their hold of the sugar, and so they are caught. This little anecdote will enable the reader to relish the illustration of Epictetus. "When little boys thrust their hands into narrow-mouthed jars full of figs and almonds, when they have filled their hands they cannot draw them out again, and so begin to howl. Let go a few of the figs and almonds, and you'll get your hand out. And so you, let go your desires. Don't desire many things, and you'll get what you do desire." "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed!"

Another of the constant precepts of Epictetus is that we should aim high; we are not to be common threads in the woof of life, but like the laticlave on the robe of a senator, the broad purple stripe which gave lustre and beauty to the whole. But how are we to know that we are qualified for this high function? How does the bull know, when the lion approaches, that it is his place to expose himself for all the herd? If we have high powers we shall soon be conscious of them, and if we have them not we may gradually acquire them. Nothing great is produced at once,—the vine must blossom, and bear fruit, and ripen, before we have the purple clusters of the grape,—"first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."

But whence are we to derive this high sense of duty and possible eminence? Why, if Caesar had adopted you, would you not show your proud sense of ennoblement in haughty looks; how is it that you are not proud of being sons of God? You have, indeed, a body, by virtue of which many men sink into close kinship with pernicious wolves, and savage lions, and crafty foxes, destroying the rational within them, and so becoming greedy cattle or mischievous vermin; but above and beyond this, "If," says Epictetus, "a man have once been worthily interpenetrated with the belief that we all have been in some special manner born of God, and that God is the Father of gods and men, I think that he will never have any ignoble, any humble thoughts about himself." Our own great Milton has hardly expressed this high truth more nobly when he says, that "He that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of God's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and filial relation with God."

"And how are we to know that we have made progress? We may know it if our own wills are bent to live in conformity with nature; if we be noble, free, faithful, humble; if desiring nothing, and shunning nothing which lies beyond our power, we sit loose to all earthly interests; if our lives are under the distinct governance of immutable and noble laws.

"But shall we not meet with troubles in life? Yes, undoubtedly; and are there none at Olympia? Are you not burnt with heat, and pressed for room, and wetted with showers when it rains? Is there not more than enough clamour, and shouting, and other troubles? Yet I suppose you tolerate and endure all these when you balance them against the magnificence of the spectacle? And, come now, have you not received powers wherewith to bear whatever occurs? Have you not received magnanimity, courage, fortitude? And why, if I am magnanimous, should I care for anything that can possibly happen? what shall alarm or trouble me, or seem painful? Shall I not use the faculty for the ends for which it was granted me, or shall I grieve and groan at all the accidents of life? On the contrary, these troubles and difficulties are strong antagonists pitted against us, and we may conquer them, if we will, in the Olympic game of life.

"But if life and its burdens become absolutely intolerable, may we not go back to God, from whom we came? may we not show thieves and robbers, and tyrants who claim power over us by means of our bodies and possessions, that they have no power? In a word, may we not commit suicide?" We know how Shakespeare treats this question:—

"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns Which patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourne No traveller returns, puzzles the will: And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?"

But Epictetus had no materials for such an answer. I do not remember a single passage in which he refers to immortality or the life to come, and it is therefore probable either that he did not believe in it at all, or that he put it aside as one of those things which are out of our own power. Yet his answer is not that glorification of suicide which we find throughout the tragedies of Seneca, and which was one of the commonplaces of Stoicism. "My friends," he says, "wait God's good time till He gives you the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then dismiss yourself to go to Him. But for the present restrain yourselves, inhabiting the spot which He has at present assigned you. For, after all, this time of your sojourn here is short, and easy for those who are thus disposed; for what tyrant, or thief, or judgment-halls, are objects of dread to those who thus absolutely disesteem the body and its belongings? Stay, then, and do not depart without due cause."

It will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without extolling it, for in another place (ii. 1) he says: "What is pain? A mere ugly mask; turn it, and see that it is so. This little flesh of ours is acted on roughly, and then again smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear it, the door is open; if it is for your interest—endure. It is right that under all circumstances the door should be open, since so men end all trouble."

This power of endurance is completely the keynote of the Stoical view of life, and the method of attaining to it, by practising contempt for all external accidents, is constantly inculcated. I have already told the anecdote about Agrippinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that no extreme of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a single expression of indignation or of sorrow.

The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from God, and it is our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding conception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too, our duties spring directly from our relation to God. It is that relation which makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us honour others. "Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has God for his father no less than you? But they are wicked, perhaps—thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more pity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their misfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are wicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so very wise?"

Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for instance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), and the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones. He points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act is a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which make up our daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever may be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with the diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them.

Take the instance of anger. "Do you wish not to be passionate? do not then cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto. Be calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in a rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day, then every third, then every fourth day. But should you have passed even thirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to God. For the habit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to vexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say that, that it will soon be all right with you."

But how is one to do all this? that is the great question, and Epictetus is quite ready to give you the best answer he can. We have, for instance, already quoted one passage in which (unlike the majority of Pagan moralists) he shows that he has thoroughly mastered the ethical importance of controlling even the thought of wickedness. Another anecdote about Agrippinus will further illustrate the same doctrine. It was the wicked practice of Nero to make noble Romans appear on the stage or in gladiatorial shows, in order that he might thus seem to have their sanction for his own degrading displays. On one occasion Florus, who was doubting whether or not he should obey the mandate, consulted Agrippinus on the subject. "Go by all means," replied Agrippinus. "But why don't you go, then?" asked Florus. "Because", said Agrippinus, "I do not deliberate about it." He implied by this answer that to hesitate is to yield, to deliberate is to be lost; we must act always on principles, we must never pause to calculate consequences. "But if I don't go," objected Florus, "I shall have my head cut off." "Well, then, go, but I won't." "Why won't you go?" "Because I do not care to be of a piece with the common thread of life; I like to be the purple sewn upon it."

And if we want a due motive for such lofty choice Epictetus will supply it. "Wish," he says, "to win the suffrages of your own inward approval, wish to appear beautiful to God. Desire to be pure with your own pure self, and with God. And when any evil fancy assails you, Plato says, 'Go to the rites of expiation, go as a suppliant to the temples of the gods, the averters of evil.' But it will be enough should you even rise and depart to the society of the noble and the good, to live according to their examples, whether you have any such friend among the living or among the dead. Go to Socrates, and gaze on his utter mastery over temptation and passion; consider how glorious was the conscious victory over himself! What an Olympic triumph! How near does it place him to Hercules himself.' So that, by heaven, one might justly salute him, 'Hail, marvellous conqueror, who hast conquered, not these miserable boxers and athletes, nor these gladiators who resemble them.' And should you thus be accustomed to train yourself, you will see what shoulders you will get, what nerves, what sinews, instead of mere babblements, and nothing more. This is the true athlete, the man who trains himself to deal with such semblances as these. Great is the struggle, divine the deed; it is for kingdom, for freedom, for tranquillity, for peace. Think on God; call upon Him as thine aid and champion, as sailors call on the Great Twin Brethren in the storm. And indeed what storm is greater than that which rises from powerful semblances that dash reason out of its course? What indeed but semblance is a storm itself? Since, come now, remove the fear of death, and bring as many thunders and lightnings as thou wilt, and thou shalt know how great is the tranquillity and calm in that reason which is the ruling faculty of the soul. But should you once be worsted, and say that you will conquer hereafter, and then the same again and again, know that thus your condition will be vile and weak, so that at the last you will not even know that you are doing wrong, but you will even begin to provide excuses for your sin; and then you will confirm the truth of that saying of Hesiod,—

"'The man that procrastinates struggles ever with ruin.'"

Even so! So early did a heathen moralist learn the solemn fact that "only this once" ends in "there is no harm in it." Well does Mr. Coventry Patmore sing:—

"How easy to keep free from sin; How hard that freedom to recall; For awful truth it is that men Forget the heaven from which they fall."

In another place Epictetus warns us, however, not to be too easily discouraged in our attempts after good;—and, above all, never to despair. "In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor wretches who after one failure suffer themselves to be swept along as by a torrent. You need but will" he says, "and it is done; but if you relax your efforts, you will be ruined; for ruin and recovery are both from within.—And what will you gain by all this? You will gain modesty for inpudence, purity for vileness, moderation for drunkenness. If you think there are any better ends than these, then by all means go on in sin, for you are beyond the power of any god to save."

But Epictetus is particularly in earnest about warning us that to profess these principles and talk about them is one thing—to act up to them quite another. He draws a humorous picture of an inconsistent and unreal philosopher, who—after eloquently proving that nothing is good but what pertains to virtue, and nothing evil but what pertains to vice, and that all other things are indifferent—goes to sea. A storm comes on, and the masts creak, and the philosopher screams; and an impertinent person stands by and asks in surprise, "Is it then vice to suffer shipwreck? because, if not, it can be no evil;" a question which makes our philosopher so angry that he is inclined to fling a log at his interlocutor's head. But Epictetus sternly tells him that the philosopher never was one at all, except in name; that as he sat in the schools puffed up by homage and adulation, his innate cowardice and conceit were but hidden under borrowed plumes; and that in him the name of Stoic was usurped.

"Why," he asks in another passage, "why do you call yourself a Stoic? Why do you deceive the multitude? Why do you act the Jew when you are a Greek? Don't you see on what terms each person is called a Jew? or a Syrian? or an Egyptian? And when we see some mere trimmer we are in the habit of saying, 'This is no Jew; he is only acting the part of one,' but when a man takes up the entire condition of a proselyte, thoroughly imbued with Jewish doctrines, then he both is in reality and is called a Jew. So we philosophers too, dipped in a false dye, are Jews in name, but in reality are something else.... We call ourselves philosophers when we cannot even play the part of men, as though a man should try to heave the stone of Ajax who cannot lift ten pounds." The passage is interesting not only on its own account, but because of its curious similarity both with the language and with the sentiment of St. Paul—"He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."

The best way to become a philosopher in deed is not by a mere study of books and knowledge of doctrines, but by a steady diligence of actions and adherence to original principles, to which must be added consistency and self control. "These principles," says Epictetus, "produce friendship in a house, unanimity in a city, peace in nations; they make a man grateful to God, bold under all circumstances, as though dealing with things alien and valueless. Now we are capable of writing these things, and reading them, and praising them when they are read, but we are far enough off following them. Hence comes it that the reproach of the Lacedaemonians, that they are 'lions at home, foxes at Ephesus,' will also apply to us; in the school we are lions, out of it foxes."

These passages include, I think, all the most original, important, and characteristic conceptions which are to be found in the Discourses. They are most prominently illustrated in the long and important chapter on the Cynic philosophy. A genuine Cynic—one who was so, not in brutality of manners or ostentation of rabid eccentricity, but a Cynic in life and in his inmost principles—was evidently in the eyes of Epictetus one of the loftiest of human beings. He drew a sketch of his ideal conception to one of his scholars who inquired of him upon the subject.

He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who undertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him the anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the imperial office of an Agamemnon. "If you think," he tells the young student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple, you don't know what you are about—get you gone; but if you know what a Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider how great a thing you are undertaking.

"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of God. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life must be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as the spy and messenger of God among mankind.

"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances. It lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of contentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile, disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped?

"Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair.

"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The friend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry; marriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted to the service of heaven.

"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind.

"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of his indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a power of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be clear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place all fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this: before you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of God you are capable of achieving it."