Chapter XXIV: How Long?

1. How long wilt thou delay to hold thyself worthy of the best things, and to transgress in nothing the decrees of Reason? Thou hast received the maxims by which it behooves thee to live; and dost thou live by them? What teacher dost thou still look for to whom to hand over the task of thy correction? Thou art no longer a boy, but already a man full grown. If, then, thou art neglectful and sluggish, and ever making resolve after resolve, and fixing one day after another on which thou wilt begin to attend to thyself, thou wilt forget that thou art making no advance, but wilt go on as one of the vulgar sort, both living and dying.

2. Now, at last, therefore hold thyself worthy to live as a man of full age and one who is pressing forward, and let everything that appeareth the best be to thee as an inviolable law. And if any toil or pleasure or reputation or the loss of it be laid upon thee, remember that now is the contest, here already are the Olympian games, and there is no deferring them any longer, and that in a single day and in a single trial ground is to be lost or gained.

3. It was thus that Socrates made himself what he was, in all things that befell him having regard to no other thing than Reason. But thou, albeit thou be yet no Socrates, yet as one that would be Socrates, so it behooveth thee to live.

CHAPTER XXV.

PARTS OF PHILOSOPHY.

1. The first and most necessary point in philosophy is the use of the precepts, for example, not to lie. The second is the proof of these, as, Whence it comes that it is wrong to lie? The third is that which giveth confirmation and coherence to the others, such as, Whence it comes that this is proof? for what is proof? what is consequence? what is contradiction? what is truth? what is falsehood?

2. Thus the third point is necessary through the second, and the second through the first. But the most necessary of all, and that when we should rest, is the first, But we do the contrary. For we linger on the third point, and spend all our zeal on that, while of the first we are utterly neglectful, and thus we are liars; but the explanation of how it is shown to be wrong to lie we have ever ready to hand.

CHAPTER XXVI.

MEMORABILIA.

Hold in readiness for every need, these--

"Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye
have appointed me to go, and may I follow fearlessly. But
if in an evil mind I be unwilling, still must I follow."

"That man is wise among us, and hath understanding of
things divine, who hath nobly agreed with Necessity."

But the third also--

"O Crito, if so it seem good to the Gods so let it be.
Anytus and Meletus are able to kill me indeed, but to
harm me, never."[1]

THE END.

NOTES.

CLEANTHES HYMN TO ZEUS.

[1] Professor Mahaffy, in his _Greek Life and Thought_, quotes
the full text of this noble Hymn, which, he thinks, "would
alone redeem the Hellenistic age, as it stands before us, from
the charge of mere artificiality and pedantry."

[2] [Greek: ies mimema lachontes mounon]. This is Zeller's
reading, but not Professor Mahaffy's, who has [Greek: henos
mimema].

NOTES.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

1. "Enter by the door" (_cf._ S. John, x. 1). The parallelisms in thought and expression between Epictetus and the New Testament have often been noticed, and the reader will discover many others, to which I have not thought it necessary to draw attention.

"Conceit:" [Greek: oiesis], _Einbildung_.

3. "To be elated:" [Greek: epairesthai]. One might translate, "to be puffed up," except that that expression is only used in a bad sense, and one may be "elated" in anything that is truly of the nature of the good. The Stoics distinguished between [Greek: chara], joy, and [Greek: hedone], pleasure; not rejecting or despising the former.

CHAPTER II.

1. [Greek: ta men eisin eph' hemin, ta de ouk eph' hemin]. A fundamental distinction in the Epictetean system, which he sometimes expresses by the phrases, [Greek: ta hemetera] and [Greek: ta ton allon]--things that are our own and things that belong to others; or [Greek: ta idia] and [Greek: ta allotria]--things that are our proper concern, and things that are alien to us.

2. On the Mons Palatinus in Rome there stood a temple to Fever. Upton quotes from Gruter, p. xcvii., an interesting inscription to this divinity: Febri. Divae. Febri. Sanctae. Febri. Magnae. Camilla. Amata. Pro. Filio. Male. Affecto. P.

CHAPTER III.

1. There is excellent MS. authority for this reading of the passage, which, however, is not Schweighaeuser's. The latter reads: "Be content with them, and pray to the Gods."

2. "Steward of the winds." A quotation from Homer, _Od._ x. 21.

CHAPTER IV.

1. "Through not being dazzled," etc. [Greek: An tas hylas me thaumase].

CHAPTER VI.

1. Note that in this passage "God" and "the Gods" and "the Divine" are all synonymous terms.

2. Or "of names."

3. Some texts add "such as Good or Evil."

CHAPTER VII.

1. Apparently a proverb, which maybe paralleled in its present application by Luther's "Pecca fortiter."

2. A complex or conjunctive proposition is one which contains several assertions so united as to form a single statement which will be false if any one of its parts is false--_e.g._, "Brutus was the lover and destroyer both of Caesar and of his country." The disjunctive is when alternative propositions are made, as "Pleasure is either good or bad, or neither good nor bad."

3. I have followed Lord Shaftesbury's explanation of this passage, which the other commentators have given up as corrupt. It seems clear that whether the passage can stand exactly in the form in which we have it, or not, Lord Shaftesbury's rendering represents what Epictetus originally conveyed.

4. According to the usual reading, a scornful exclamation--"_Thou_ exhort them!" I have followed the reading recommended by Schw. in his notes, although he does not adopt it in his text.