opinions and have taken some pains about them. And as now you are
sailing to Rome in order to become governor of the Cnossians, and
you are not content to stay at home with the honors which you had, but
you desire something greater and more conspicuous, so when did you
ever make a voyage for the purpose of examining your own opinions, and
casting them out, if you have any that are bad? Whom have you
approached for this purpose? What time have you fixed for it? What
age? Go over the times of your life by yourself, if you are ashamed of
me. When you were a boy, did you examine your own opinions? and did
you not then, as you do all things now, do as you did do? and when you
were become a youth and attended the rhetoricians, and yourself
practiced rhetoric, what did you imagine that you were deficient in?
And when you were a young man and engaged in public matters, and
pleaded causes yourself, and were gaining reputation, who then
seemed your equal? And when would you have submitted to any man
examining and show that your opinions are bad? What, then, do you wish
me to say to you? "Help me in this matter." I have no theorem (rule)
for this. Nor have you, if you came to me for this purpose, come to me
as a philosopher, but as to a seller of vegetables or a shoemaker.
"For what purpose then have philosophers theorems?" For this
purpose, that whatever may happen, our ruling faculty may be and
continue to be conformable to nature. Does this seem to you a small
thing? "No; but the greatest." What then? does it need only a short
time? and is it possible to seize it as you pass by? If you can, seize
it.
Then you will say, "I met with Epictetus as I should meet with a
stone or a statue": for you saw me, and nothing more. But he meets
with a man as a man, who learns his opinions, and in his turn shows
his own. Learn my opinions: show me yours; and then say that you
have visited me. Let us examine one another: if I have any bad
opinion, take it away; if you have any, show it. This is the meaning
of meeting with a philosopher. "Not so, but this is only a passing
visit, and while we are hiring the vessel, we can also see
Epictetus. Let us see what he says." Then you go away and say:
"Epictetus was nothing: he used solecisms and spoke in a barbarous
way." For of what else do you come as judges? "Well, but a man may say
to me, "If I attend to such matters, I shall have no land, as you have
none; I shall have no silver cups as you have none, nor fine beasts as
you have none." In answer to this it is perhaps sufficient to say: I
have no need of such things: but if you possess many things you have
need of others: whether you choose or not, you are poorer than I am.
"What then have I need of?" Of that which you have not: of firmness,
of a mind which is conformable to nature, of being free from
perturbation. Whether I have a patron or not, what is that to me?
but it is something to you. I am richer than you: I am not anxious
what Caesar will think of me: for this reason, I flatter no man.
This is what I possess instead of vessels of silver and gold. You have
utensils of gold; but your discourse, your opinions, your assents,
your movements, your desires are of earthen ware. But when I have
these things conformable to nature, why should I not employ my studies