Has it no governor? And how is it possible that a city or a family cannot continue to exist, not even the shortest time without an administrator and guardian, and that so great and beautiful a system should be administered with such order and yet without a purpose and by chance? 8 There is then an administrator. What kind of administrator and how does he govern? And who are we, who were produced by him, and for what purpose? Have we some connexion with him and some relation towards him, or none? This is the way in which these few are affected, and then they apply themselves only to this one thing, to examine the meeting and then to go away. What then? They are ridiculed by the many, as the spectators at the fair are by the traders; and if the beasts had any understanding, they would ridicule those who admired anything else than fodder.

CHAPTER XV.

TO OR AGAINST THOSE WHO OBSTINATELY PERSIST IN WHAT THEY HAVE DETERMINED.

WHEN some persons have heard these words, that a man ought to be constant (firm), and that the will is naturally free and not subject to compulsion, but that all other things are subject to hindrance, to slavery, and are in the power of others, they suppose that they ought without deviation to abide by every thing which they have determined. But in the first place that which has been determined ought to be sound (true). I require tone (sinews) in the body, but such as exists in a healthy body, in an athletic body; but if it is plain to me that you have the

7 Sunt in Fortunae qui casibus omnia ponunt,

Et mundum credunt nullo rectore moveri.

Juvenal, xiii. 86.

From the fact that man has some intelligence Voltaire concludes that we must admit that there is a greater intelligence. (Letter to Mde. Necker. Vol. 67, ed. Kehl. p. 278.)

tone of a phrensied man and you boast of it, I shall say to you, man, seek the physician: this is not tone, but atony (deficiency in right tone). In a different way something of the same kind is felt by those who listen to these dis courses in a wrong manner; which was the case with one of my companions who for no reason resolved to starve himself to death. I heard of it when it was the third day of his abstinence from food and I went to inquire what had happened. I have resolved, he said.-But still tell me what it was which induced you to resolve; for if you have resolved rightly, we shall sit with you and assist you to depart; but if you have made an unreasonable resolution, change your mind. We ought to keep to our determinations. -What are you doing, man? We ought to keep not to all our determinations, but to those which are right; for if you are now persuaded that it is night, do not change your mind, if you think fit, but persist and say, we ought to abide by our determinations. Will you not make the beginning and lay the foundation in an inquiry whether the determination is sound or not sound, and so then build on it firmness and security? But if you lay a rotten and ruinous foundation, will not your miserable little building fall down the sooner, the more and the stronger are the materials which you shall lay on it? Without any reason would you withdraw from us out of life a man who is a friend, and a companion, a citizen of the same city, both the great and the small city? Then while you are committing murder and destroying a man who has done no wrong, do you say that you ought to abide by your determinations? And if it ever in any way came into your head to kill me, ought you to abide by your determinations?

Now this man was with difficulty persuaded to change his mind. But it is impossible to convince some persons at present; so that I seem now to know, what I did not know before, the meaning of the common saying, That

The word is aокαртереiv, which Cicero (Tusc. i. 34) renders' per inediam vita discedere.' The words 'I have resolved' are in Epic. tetus, kéкрiкα. Pliny (Epp. i. 12) says that Corellius Rufus, when he determined to end his great sufferings by starvation made the same answer, kéкpika, to the physician who offered lim food.

2 The great city is the world.

you can neither persuade nor break a fool.3 May it never be my lot to have a wise fool for my friend: nothing is more untractable. I am determined,' the man says. Madmen are also; but the more firmly they form a judgment on things which do not exist, the more ellebore1 they require. Will you not act like a sick man and call in the physician?-I am sick, master, help me; consider what I must do: it is my duty to obey you. So it is here also I know not what I ought to do, but I am come to learn.-Not so; but speak to me about other things: upon this I have determined. What other things? for what is greater and more useful than for you to be persuaded that it is not sufficient to have made your determination and not to change it. This is the tone (energy) of madness, not of health. I will die, if you compel me to this.-Why, man? What has happened?-I have determined-I have had a lucky escape that you have not determined to kill me-I take no money.5 Why?—I have determined-Be assured that with the very tone (energy) which you now use in refusing to take, there is nothing to hinder you at some time from inclining without reason to take money and then saying, I have determined. As in a distempered body, subject to defluxions, the humour inclines sometimes to these parts, and then to those, so too a sickly soul knows not which way to incline: but if to this inclination and movement there is added a tone (obstinate resolution), then the evil becomes past help and cure.

3 The meaning is that you cannot lead a fool from his purpose either by words or force. A wise fool' must mean a fool who thinks himself wise; and such we sometimes see. Though thou shouldst bray a fool in the mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.' Proverbs, xxvii. 22.

Ellebore was a medicine used in madness. Horace says, Sat. ii.

3.82

Danda est ellebori multo pars maxima avaris.

5 Epictetus seems in this discussion to be referring to some professor, who had declared that he would not take money from his hearers, and then, indirectly at least, had blamed our philosopher fr receiving some fee from his hearers.' Schweig.

CHAPTER XVI.

THAT WE DO NOT STRIVE TO USE OUR OPINIONS ABOUT GOOD AND EVIL.

WHERE is the good? In the will. Where is the evil? In the will. Where is neither of them? In those things which are independent of the will. Well then? Does any one among us think of these lessons out of the schools? Does any one meditate (strive) by himself to give an answer to things 2 as in the case of questions? Is it day?--Yes. Is it night?-No.-Well, is the number of stars even? 3-I cannot say.-When money is shown (offered) to you, have you studied to make the proper answer, that money is not a good thing? Have you practised yourself in these answers, or only against sophisms? Why do you wonder then if in the cases which you have studied, in those you have improved; but in those which you have not studied, in those you remain the same? When the rhetorician knows that he has written well, that he has committed to memory what he has written, and brings an agreeable voice, why is he still anxious? Because he is not satisfied with having studied. What then does he want? To be praised by the audience? For the purpose then of being able to practise declamation he has been disciplined; but with respect to praise and blame he has not been disciplined. For when did he hear from any one what praise is, what blame is, what the nature of each is, what kind of praise should be sought, or what kind of blame should be shunned? And when did he practise this discipline which follows these words (things) ?4 Why then do you still wonder, if in the matters which a man has learned, there he surpasses others, and in those in 1 See ii. 10. 25.

2 To answer to things' means to act in a way suitable to circumstances, to be a match for them. So Horace says (Sat. ii. 7. 85)Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores Fortis.

Perhaps this was a common puzzle. The man answers right; he cannot say.

That is which follows praise or blame. He seems to mean making the proper use of praise or of blame.

which he has not been disciplined, there he is the sanie with the many. So the lute player knows how to play, sings well, and has a fine dress, and yet he trembles wher he enters on the stage; for these matters he understands, but he does not know what a crowd is, nor the shouts of a crowd, nor what ridicule is. Neither does he know what anxiety is, whether it is our work or the work of another, whether it is possible to stop it or not. For this reason if he has been praised, he leaves the theatre puffed up, but if he has been ridiculed, the swollen bladder has been punctured and subsides.

This is the case also with ourselves. What do we admire? Externals. About what things are we busy? Externals. And have we any doubt then why we fear or why we are anxious? What then happens when we think the things, which are coming on us, to be evils? It is not in our power not to be afraid, it is not in our power not to be anxious. Then we say, Lord God, how shall I not be anxious? Fool, have you not hands, did not God make them for you? Sit down now and pray that your nose may not run.5 Wipe yourself rather and do not blame him. Well then, has he given to you nothing in the present case? Has he not given to you endurance? has he not given to you magnanimity? has he not given to you manliness? When you have such hands, do you still look for one who shall wipe your nose? But we neither study these things nor care for them. Give me a man who cares how he shall do any thing, not for the obtaining of a thing, but who cares about his own energy. What man, when he is walking about, cares for his own energy? who, when he is deliberating, cares about his own deliberation, and not about obtaining that about which he deliberates? And if he succeeds, he is elated and says, How well we have deliberated; did I not tell you, brother, that it is impossible, when we have thought about any thing, that it should not turn out thus? But if the thing should turn out otherwise, the wretched man is humbled; he knows not even what to say about what has taken place. Who

By the words 'Sit down' Epictetus indicates the man's baseness and indolence, who wishes God to do for him that which he can do himself and ought to do. Schweig.