you not to play with attention? "I choose to sing." What, then,
hinders you from doing so with attention? Is there any part of life
excepted, to which attention does not extend? For will you do it worse
by using attention, and better by not attending at all? And what
else of things in life is done better by those who do not use
attention? Does he who works in wood work better by not attending to
it? Does the captain of a ship manage it better by not attending?
and is any of the smaller acts done better by inattention? Do you
not see that, when you have let your mind loose, it is no longer in
your power to recall it, either to propriety, or to modesty, or to
moderation: but you do everything that comes into your mind in
obedience to your inclinations?
To what things then ought I to attend? First to those general
(principles) and to have them in readiness, and without them not to
sleep, not to rise, not to drink, not to eat, not to converse with
men; that no man is master of another man's will, but that in the will
alone is the good and the bad. No man, then, has the power either to
procure for me any good or to involve me in any evil, but I alone
myself over myself have power in these things. When, then, these
things are secured to me, why need I be disturbed about external
things? What tyrant is formidable, what disease, what poverty, what
offense? "Well, I have not pleased a certain person." Is he then my
work, my judgement? "No." Why then should I trouble myself about
him? "But he is supposed to be some one." He will look to that
himself; and those who think so will also. But I have One Whom I ought
to please, to Whom I ought to subject myself, Whom I ought to obey,
God and those who are next to Him. He has placed me with myself, and
has put my will in obedience to myself alone, and has given me rules
for the right use of it; and when I follow these rules in
syllogisms, I do not care for any man who says anything else: in
sophistical argument, I care for no man. Why then in greater matters
do those annoy me who blame me? What is the cause of this
perturbation? Nothing else than because in this matter I am not
disciplined. For all knowledge despises ignorance and the ignorant;
and not only the sciences, but even the arts. Produce any shoemaker
that you please, and he ridicules the many in respect to his own work.
Produce any carpenter.
First, then, we ought to have these in readiness, and to do
nothing without them, and we ought to keep the soul directed to this
mark, to pursue nothing external, and nothing which belongs to others,
but to do as He has appointed Who has the power; we ought to pursue
altogether the things which are in the power of the will, and all
other things as it is permitted. Next to this we ought to remember who
we are, and what is our name, and to endeavour to direct our duties
toward the character of our several relations in this manner: what
is the season for singing, what is the season for play, and in whose
presence; what will be the consequence of the act; whether our
associates will despise us, whether we shall despise them; when to
jeer, and whom to ridicule; and on what occasion to comply and with
whom; and finally, in complying how to maintain our own character. But