bound to pay for him the tax called the twentieth. "Well then, is
not the man who has gone through this ceremony become free?" No more
than he is become free from perturbations. Have you who are able to
turn round others no master? is not money your master, or a girl or
a boy, or some tyrant, or some friend of the tyrant? why do you
tremble then when you are going off to any trial of this kind? It is
for this reason that I often say: Study and hold in readiness these
principles by which you may determine what those things are with
reference to which you ought to have confidence, and those things with
reference to which you ought to be cautious: courageous in that
which does not depend on your will; cautious in that which does depend
on it.
"Well have I not read to you, and do you not know what I was doing?"
In what? "In my little dissertations." Show me how you are with
respect to desire and aversion; and show if you do not fail in getting
what you wish, me and if you do not fall into the things which you
would avoid: but as to these long and laboured sentences, you will
take them and blot them out.
"What then did not Socrates write?" And who wrote so much? But
how? As he could not always have at hand one to argue against his
principles or to be argued against in turn, he used to argue with
and examine himself, and he was always treating at least some one
subject in a practical way. These are the things which a philosopher
writes. But little dissertations and that method, which I speak of, he
leaves to others, to the stupid, or to those happy men who being
free from perturbations have leisure, or to such as are too foolish to
reckon consequences.
And will you now, when the opportunity invites, go and display those
things which you possess, and recite them, and make an idle show,
and say, "See how I make dialogues?" Do not so, my man: but rather
say: "See how I am not disappointed of that which I desire. See how
I do not fall into that which I would avoid. Set death before me,
and you will see. Set before me pain, prison, disgrace and
condemnation." This is the proper display of a young man who is come
out of the schools. But leave the rest to others, and let no one
ever hear you say a word about these things; and if any man commends
you for them, do not allow it; but think that you are nobody and
know nothing. Only show that you know this, how never to be
disappointed in your desire and how never to fall into that which
you would avoid. Let others labour at forensic causes, problems and
syllogisms: do you labour at thinking about death, chains, the rack,
exile; and do all this with confidence and reliance on him who has
called you to these sufferings, who has judged you worthy of the place
in which, being stationed, you will show what things the rational
governing power can do when it takes its stand against the forces
which are not within the power of our will. And thus this paradox will
no longer appear either impossible or a paradox, that a man ought to
be at the same time cautious and courageous: courageous toward the
things which do not depend on the will, and cautious in things which
are within the power of the will.