Discourses - Book III   

for action comes? Now is the time for the fever. Let it be borne well.
Now is the time for thirst, well; now is the time for hunger, bear
it well. Is it not in your power? who shall hinder you? The
physician will hinder you from drinking; but he cannot prevent you
from bearing thirst well: and he will hinder you from eating; but he
cannot prevent you from bearing hunger well.
"But I cannot attend to my philosophical studies." And for what
purpose do you follow them? Slave, is it not that you may be happy,
that you may be constant, is it not that you may be in a state
conformable to nature and live so? What hinders you when you have a
fever from having your ruling faculty conformable to nature? Here is
the proof of the thing, here is the test of the philosopher. For
this also is a part of life, like walking, like sailing, like
journeying by land, so also is fever. Do you read when you are
walking? No. Nor do you when you have a fever. if you walk about well,
you have all that belongs to a man who walks. If you bear fever
well, you have all that belongs to a man in a fever. What is it to
bear a fever well? Not to blame God or man; not to be afflicted it
that which happens, to expect death well and nobly, to do what must be
done: when the physician comes in, not to be frightened at what he
says; nor if he says, "You are doing well," to be overjoyed. For
what good has he told you? and when you were in health, what good
was that to you? And even if he says, "You are in a bad way," do not
despond. For what is it to be ill? is it that you are near the
severance of the soul and the body? what harm is there in this? If you
are not near now, will you not afterward be near? Is the world going
to be turned upside down when you are dead? Why then do you flatter
the physician? Why do you say, "If you please, master, I shall be
well"? Why do you give him an opportunity of raising his eyebrows?
Do you not value a physician, as you do a shoemaker when he is
measuring your foot, or a carpenter when he is building your house,
and so treat the physician as to the body which is not yours, but by
nature dead? He who has a fever has an opportunity of doing this: if
he does these things, he has what belongs to him. For it is not the
business of a philosopher to look after these externals, neither his
wine nor his oil nor his poor body, but his own ruling power. But as
to externals how must he act? so far as not to be careless about them.
Where then is there reason for fear? where is there, then, still
reason for anger, and of fear about what belongs to others, about
things which are of no value? For we ought to have these two
principles in readiness: that except the will nothing is good nor bad;
and that we ought not to lead events, but to follow them. "My
brother ought not to have behaved thus to me." No; but he will see
to that: and, however he may behave, I will conduct myself toward
him as I ought. For this is my own business: that belongs to
another; no man can prevent this, the other thing can be hindered.

CHAPTER 11

Certain miscellaneous matters