that the whole book costs only five denarii? Does then the expounder
seem to be worth more than five denarii? Never, then, look for the
matter itself in one place, and progress toward it in another."
Where then is progress? If any of you, withdrawing himself from
externals, turns to his own will to exercise it and to improve it by
labour, so as to make it conformable to nature, elevated, free,
unrestrained, unimpeded, faithful, modest; and if he has learned
that he who desires or avoids the things which are not in his power
can neither be faithful nor free, but of necessity he must change with
them and be tossed about with them as in a tempest, and of necessity
must subject himself to others who have the power to procure or
prevent what he desires or would avoid; finally, when he rises in
the morning, if he observes and keeps these rules, bathes as a man
of fidelity, eats as a modest man; in like manner, if in every
matter that occurs he works out his chief principles as the runner
does with reference to running, and the trainer of the voice with
reference to the voice- this is the man who truly makes progress,
and this is the man who has not traveled in vain. But if he has
strained his efforts to the practice of reading books, and labours
only at this, and has traveled for this, I tell him to return home
immediately, and not to neglect his affairs there; for this for
which he has traveled is nothing. But the other thing is something, to
study how a man can rid his life of lamentation and groaning, and
saying, "Woe to me," and "wretched that I am," and to rid it also of
misfortune and disappointment and to learn what death is, and exile,
and prison, and poison, that he may be able to say when he is in
fetters, "Dear Crito, if it is the will of the gods that it be so, let
it be so"; and not to say, "Wretched am I, an old man; have I kept
my gray hairs for this?" Who is it that speaks thus? Do you think that
I shall name some man of no repute and of low condition? Does not
Priam say this? Does not OEdipus say this? Nay, all kings say it!
For what else is tragedy than the perturbations of men who value
externals exhibited in this kind of poetry? But if a man must learn by
fiction that no external things which are independent of the will
concern us, for this? part I should like this fiction, by the aid of
which I should live happily and undisturbed. But you must consider for
yourselves what you wish.
What then does Chrysippus teach us? The reply is, "to know that
these things are not false, from which happiness comes and
tranquillity arises. Take my books, and you will learn how true and
conformable to nature are the things which make me free from
perturbations." O great good fortune! O the great benefactor who
points out the way! To Triptolemus all men have erected temples and
altars, because he gave us food by cultivation; but to him who
discovered truth and brought it to light and communicated it to all,
not the truth which shows us how to live, but how to live well, who of
you for this reason has built an altar, or a temple, or has
dedicated a statue, or who worships God for this? Because the gods
have given the vine, or wheat, we sacrifice to them: but because
they have produced in the human mind that fruit by which they designed