whole matter and put it to a strict examination; but you have
undertaken it at hazard and with a cold desire. Thus some persons
having seen a philosopher and having heard one speak like Euphrates-
yet who can speak like him?- wish to be philosophers themselves.
Man, consider first what the matter is, then your own nature also,
what it is able to bear. If you are a wrestler, look at your
shoulders, your thighs, your loins: for different men are naturally
formed for different things. Do you think that, if you do, you can
be a philosopher? Do you think that you can eat as you do now, drink
as you do now, and in the same way be angry and out of humour? You
must watch, labour, conquer certain desires, you must depart from your
kinsmen, be despised by your slave, laughed at by those who meet
you, in everything you must be in an inferior condition, as to
magisterial office, in honours, in courts of justice. When you have
considered all these things completely, then, if you think proper,
approach to philosophy, if you would gain in exchange for these things
freedom from perturbations, liberty, tranquillity. If you have not
considered these things, do not approach philosophy: do not act like
children, at one time a philosopher, then a tax collector, then a
rhetorician, then a procurator of Caesar These things are not
consistent. You must be one man either good or bad: you must either
labour at your own ruling faculty or at external things: you must
either labour at things within or at external things: that is, you
must either occupy the place of a philosopher or that of one of the
vulgar.
A person said to Rufus when Galba was murdered, "Is the world now
governed by Providence?" But Rufus replied, "Did I ever incidentally
form an argument from Galba that the world is governed by Providence?"

CHAPTER 16

That we ought with caution to enter, into familiar intercourse
with men

If a man has frequent intercourse with others, either for talk, or
drinking together, or generally for social purposes, he must either
become like them, or change them to his own fashion. For if a man
places a piece of quenched charcoal close to a piece that is
burning, either the quenched charcoal will quench the other, or the
burning charcoal will light that which is quenched. Since, then, the
danger is so great, we must cautiously enter into such intimacies with
those of the common sort, and remember that it is impossible that a
man can keep company with one who is covered with soot without being
partaker of the soot himself. For what will you do if a man speaks
about gladiators, about horses, about athletes, or, what is worse,
about men? "Such a person is bad," "Such a person is good": "This
was well done," "This was done badly." Further, if he scoff, or
ridicule, or show an ill-natured disposition? Is any man among us
prepared like a lute-player when he takes a lute, so that as soon as
he has touched the strings, he discovers which are discordant, and