Discourses - Book IV   

some cannot be comprehended, we should not choose to distinguish
them but should choose to read what has been written about
comprehension.
What then is the reason of this? The reason is that we have never
read for this purpose, we have never written for this purpose, so that
we may in our actions use in a way conformable to nature the
appearances presented to us; but we terminate in this, in learning
what is said, and in being able to expound it to another, in resolving
a syllogism, and in handling the hypothetical syllogism. For this
reason where our study is, there alone is the impediment. Would you
have by all means the things which are not in your power? Be prevented
then, be hindered, fail in your purpose. But if we read what is
written about action, not that we may see what is said about action,
but that we may act well: if we read what is said about desire and
aversion, in order that we may neither fall in our desires, nor fall
into that which we try to avoid: if we read what is said about duty,
in order that, remembering the relations, we may do nothing
irrationally nor contrary to these relations; we should not be vexed
in being hindered as to our readings, but we should be satisfied
with doing, the acts which are conformable, and we should be reckoning
not what so far we have been accustomed to reckon; "To-day I have read
so many verses, I have written so many"; but, "To-day I have
employed my action as it is taught by the philosophers; I have not
employed any desire; I have used avoidance only with respect to things
which are within the power of my will; I have not been afraid of
such a person, I have not been prevailed upon by the entreaties of
another; I have exercised my patience, my abstinence my co-operation
with others"; and so we should thank God for what we ought to thank
Him.
But now we do not know that we also in another way are like the
many. Another man is afraid that he shall not have power: you are
afraid that you will. Do not do so, my man; but as you ridicule him
who is afraid that he, shall not have power, so ridicule yourself
also. For it makes no difference whether you are thirsty like a man
who has a fever, or have a dread of water like a man who is mad. Or
how will you still be able to say as Socrates did, "If so it pleases
God, so let it be"? Do you think that Socrates, if he had been eager
to pass his leisure in the Lyceum or in the Academy and to discourse
dally with the young men, would have readily served in military
expeditions so often as he did; and would he not have lamented and
groaned, "Wretch that I am; I must now be miserable here, when I might
be sunning myself in the Lyceum"? Why, was this your business, to
sun yourself? And is it not your business to be happy, to be free from
hindrance, free from impediment? And could he still have been
Socrates, if he had lamented in this way: how would he still have been
able to write Paeans in his prison?
In short, remember this, that what you shall prize which is beyond
your will, so far you have destroyed your will. But these things are
out of the power of the will, not only power, but also a private
condition: not only occupation, but also leisure. "Now, then, must I