Discourses - Book III   

replied: As that may be called a certain Common hearing which only
distinguishes vocal sounds, and that which distinguishes musical
sounds is not Common, but artificial; so there are certain things
which men, who are not altogether perverted, see by the common notions
which all possess. Such a constitution of the mind is named Common
sense.
It is not easy to exhort weak young men; for neither is it easy to
hold cheese with a hook. But those who have a good natural
disposition, even if you try to turn them aside, cling still more to
reason. Wherefore Rufus generally attempted to discourage, and he used
this method as a test of those who had a good natural disposition
and those who had not. "For," it was his habit to say, "as a stone, if
you cast it upward, will be brought down to the earth by its own
nature, so the man whose mind is naturally good, the more you repel
him, the more he turns toward that to which he is naturally inclined."

CHAPTER 7

To the administrator of the free cities who was an Epicurean

When the administrator came to visit him, and the man was an
Epicurean, Epictetus said: It is proper for us who are not
philosophers to inquire of you who are philosophers, as those who come
to a strange city inquire of the citizens and those who are acquainted
with it, what is the best thing in the world, in order that we also,
after inquiry, may go in quest of that which is best and look at it,
as strangers do with the things in cities. For that there are three
things which relate to man, soul, body, and things external,
scarcely any man denies. It remains for you philosophers to answer
what is the best. What shall we say to men? Is the flesh the best? and
was it for this that Maximus sailed as far as Cassiope in winter
with his son, and accompanied him that he might be gratified in the
flesh? Then the man said that it was not, and added, "Far be that from
him." Is it not fit then, Epictetus said, to be actively employed
about the best? "It is certainly of all things the most fit." What,
then, do we possess which is better than the flesh? "The soul," he
replied. And the good things of the best, are they better, or the good
things of the worse? "The good things of the best." And are the good
things of the best within the power of the will or not within the
power of the will? "They are within the power of the will." Is,
then, the pleasure of the soul a thing within the power of the will?
"It is," he replied. And on what shall this pleasure depend? On
itself? But that cannot be conceived: for there must first exist a
certain substance or nature of good, by obtaining which we shall
have pleasure in the soul. He assented to this also. On what, then,
shall we depend for this pleasure of the soul? for if it shall
depend on things of the soul, the substance of the good is discovered;
for good cannot be one thing, and that at which we are rationally
delighted another thing; nor if that which precedes is not good, can
that which comes after be good, for in order that the thing which