The Teaching of Epictetus / Being the 'Encheiridion of Epictetus,' with Selections from the 'Dissertations' and 'Fragments'

by Epictetus

CHAPTER II.

against epicurus.

1. Even Epicurus is conscious that we are by nature social, but having once placed the Good in the husk,[1] he cannot thereafter speak anything but what agrees with this; for again he affirms, and rightly affirms, that nothing is to be admired or received that is separated from the nature of the Good. How, then, Epicurus, do you suspect that we are social, if Nature had given us no affection for our offspring?[2] Wherefore do you counsel the sage against bringing up children? Why do you fear lest he fall into sorrow by so doing? Doth he fall into sorrow for the mouse that lives in his house? What careth he if a little mouse complain to him at home. But he knows well that if a little child be born, it is no longer in our power not to love it and be anxious for it.

2. Thus, too, he saith that no man of sense will take part in affairs of the state, for he knows what he who takes part in them must do; but what should hinder one to take part, if he may behave among men as in a swarm of flies? But Epicurus, knowing these things, dares to say that we should not rear up our children. But even a sheep will not desert its young, nor a wolf; and shall a man? What! will you have us to be silly creatures, like the sheep? Yet they desert not their young. Or savage, like wolves? Yet even they desert them not. Come, then, who would obey you if he saw his little child fall on the ground and cry? For my part, I suppose that had it been prophesied to your mother and your father that you would say these things, not even so would they have cast you out.

3. But how can it be said of these outward things[3] that they are according to Nature, or contrary to Nature? That is to speak as if we were solitary and disunited from others. For to the foot I shall say it is according to Nature that it be clean; but if you take it as a foot, and not as a solitary thing, it shall beseem it to go into the mud, and to tread on thorns, and perchance to be cut off, for the sake of the whole; otherwise it is no longer a foot.

4. And some such thing we should suppose about ourselves also. What art thou? A man. Look at thyself as a solitary creature, and it is according to Nature to live to old age, to grow rich, to keep good health. But if thou look at thyself as a man, and as a part of a certain Whole, for the sake of that Whole it may become thee now to have sickness, now to sail the seas and run into peril, now to suffer need, and perchance to die before thy time.

5. Why, then, dost thou bear it hard? Knowest thou not, that as the foot alone is not a foot, so thou alone art not a man? For what is a man? A part of a polity, first of that which is made up of Gods and men; then of that which is said to be next to the other, which is a small copy of the Universal Polity.

6. Then must I now be brought to trial, and now must another have a fever, and another sail the seas, another die, another be sentenced? Yea, for with such a body, in the bounds of such a universe, in such a throng of inhabitants, it cannot be but that different things of this nature should fall on different persons. This is thy task, then, having come into the world, to speak what thou shouldst, and to order these things as it is fitting.

7. Then some one saith, I charge you with wrong-doing. Much good may it do thee! I have done my part—look to it thyself if thou have done thine, for of this too there is some danger, lest it escape thee.