taches himself to God, he will make throw you into prison, I answer,

You threaten the whole of this poor body. If he threatens me with banishment, I say the same. Does he, then, not threaten me at all? If I feel that all these things do not concern me, he does not threaten me at all; but if I fear any of them, it is I whom he threatens.

5 Whom, then, do I fear? the master of what? The master of things which are in my own power? There is no such master.

6 I must say what I think is right. But if you do, says the tyrant, I shall put you to death. When, then, I reply, did I tell you that I am not mortal? You may do your part, but I shall do mine: it is your part to kill; it is mine to die, but not in fear: yours to banish me; mine to depart, but without sorrow.

2 How, then, do you now appear on the stage of life? As a witness summoned by God. Come forward, he says, and bear testimony for me, 7 Why should a man fear the rich for you are worthy to be brought or the powerful, even if they be both forward as a witness by me: is any very strong and of violent temper? thing external to the will good or for what will they do to us? We bad? do I hurt any man? have I shall not care for that which they made every man's interest depend- can do; and what we do care for, ent on any man except himself? that they cannot do. What testimony do you give for God?

3 God has fixed this law, and says, If you would have any thing good, receive it from yourself. You say, No, but I will have it from another. -Do not so: but receive it from yourself.

8 How did Socrates behave with respect to these matters? Why in what other way than a man ought to do who is convinced that he is a kinsman of God? If you say to me now, said Socrates to his judges, We will acquit you on the condition that you no longer discourse in the 4 When the tyrant threatens and way in which you have hitherto discalls me, I say, Whom do you coursed, nor trouble either our young threaten? If he says, I will put you or our old men, I shall answer, You in chains, I reply, You threaten my make yourselves ridiculous by thinkhands and my feet. If he says, I ing that, if one of our commanders will cut off your head, I reply, You has appointed me to a certain post, threaten my head. If he says, I will it is my duty to keep and maintain

it, and to resolve to die a thousand Do not, then, say to that which extimes rather than desert it; but if cels, Who, then, are you? If you

God has put me in any place and way of life, I ought to desert it.

do, it will find a voice in some way and say, I am such a thing as the purple in a garment: do not ex

blame my nature that it has made me different from the rest of men.

9 But, you ask, did Socrates persuade all his hearers to become virt-pect me to be like the others, or uous? Not the thousandth part. However, after he had been placed in this position by the Deity, as he 12 A man must keep this in mind; himself says, he never left it. But and when he is called to any such what does he say even to his judges? difficulty, he should know that the If you acquit me on these conditions time is come for showing if he has that I no longer do that which I do For he who is now, I will not consent and I will come into a difficulty is like a young not desist; but I will go up both to man from a school who has practised young and to old, and, indeed, to the resolution of syllogisms; and if every man whom I meet, and I will any person proposes to him an easy ask the questions which I ask now; syllogism, he says, Rather propose and most particularly will I do this to me a syllogism which is skilfully to you my fellow-citizens, because complicated, so that I may exercise you are more nearly related to me. myself on it.

been instructed.

13 If these things are true, and if we are not silly, and are not acting

10 Are you so obstinate, Socrates, and such a busybody? and how does it concern you in what hypocritically when we say that the manner we act? what is it that you good of man is in the will, and the say to us? To which Socrates re- evil too, and that every thing else plied: Being of the same com- does not concern us, why are we munity and of the same kin, you still disturbed, why are

we still The things about which have been busied are in no man's power: and the things which are in the power of others, we care not for. What reason for anxiety have we then?

II But who are you to reprove us for these things? Here it is a great thing to reply, I am he whose duty 14 But, you reply, give me direcit is to take care of men; for it is tions. Why should I give you not every little creature which dares directions? has not God given you to resist a lion; and if the strong directions? Has he not given to one comes up and resists him, say, you what is your own free from if you choose, Who are you, and hindrance and free from impediment, what business have you here? and what is not your own subject to Man, in every kind there is pro- hindrance and impediment? What duced something which excels; in directions, then, what kind of orders oxen, in dogs, in bees, in horses. did you bring when you came from

him? These,-Keep by every means are here, to say what you ought, to what is your own; do not desire arrange these things as it is fit. what belongs to others. Integrity Then some one says, I shall charge is your own, virtuous shame is your you with doing me wrong. Much own; who, then, can take these good may it do you; I have done things from you? who else than my part; but whether you also have yourself will hinder you from using done yours, you must look to that: them? for there is some danger of this too, that it may escape your notice.

15 What, then, should we do? We ought, in our prayers for guid ance, to come without desire or aversion; even as the wayfarer asks of the man whom he meets which of two roads leads to his journey's end without any desire for that which leads to the right rather than to the

SELECTION IX.

Daily duties toward ourselves and toward those about us, in order to the proper and, so far as possible, perfect conduct of life.

WHEN some one asks, How may

a man eat acceptably to God? it may be answered: If he can eat justly

left, for he has no wish to go by any road except the road which leads to his end. In the same way ought we and contentedly, and with equanimto come to God also as a guide; even as we use our eyes, not asking them to show us such things as we wish, but rather receiving the appearances of things exactly as the eyes present them to us.

16 What, then, you exclaim, must I be willing to be brought to trial, to have a fever, to sail on the sea, to die, or to be condemned? Yes, for it is impossible in such a body, in such a universe of things, among so many living together, that such things should not happen, some to one and others to others.

ity, and temperately, and in an orderly manner, will it not also be acceptably to God.

2 But when you have asked for warm water and the servant has not heard, or if he did hear has brought only tepid water, or he is not even found to be in the house, then not to be vexed or to burst with passion, is not this acceptable to God?

3 Will you not bear with your own brother, who has God for his progenitor, and is like a son from the same origin and of the same descent from above? Because you have been put in a higher place, will you immediately make yourself a

17 Did you hear this when you were with the wise men? did you learn this? do you not know that tyrant? Will you not remember human life is a warfare? that one man must keep watch, another must go out as a spy, and a third must fight? and it is not possible that all should be in one place, nor is it better that it should be so.

who you are, and whom you rule? that they are kinsmen, that they are brethren by nature, that they are the offspring of God? But, you say, I have purchased them: they have not purchased me. Thinking thus,

18 It is your duty, then, since you do you see in what direction you are

looking, that it is toward the earth, have you been useful to yourself? toward the pit, that it is toward Show to them in your own example

these wretched laws of dead men? but toward the laws of God you are not looking.

4 How, then, shall I become of an affectionate temper? By being of a noble disposition, and happy. For it is not reasonable to be meanspirited, nor to lament yourself, nor to depend on another, nor ever to blame either God or man. I entreat you, become an affectionate person in this way, by observing these rules. But if through this affection, as you name it, you are going to be a slave and wretched, there is no profit in being affectionate.

what kind of men the love of wisdom makes, and don't trifle. When you are eating, do good to those who eat with you; when you are drinking, do good to those who are drinking with you; by yielding to all, giving way, bearing with them, thus do them good, and do not throw out upon them your bad humors.

8 For we ought to have these two principles in readiness: that, except the will, nothing is good or bad; and that we ought not to lead events, but to follow them. My brother ought not to have behaved thus to me, you say.-No; but let him see to that: and, however he may behave, do you say, I will conduct myself toward him as I ought: for this is my own

5 And what prevents you from loving another as a person subject to mortality, that is, as one who may go away from you. Did not Socrates business; that belongs to another: love his own children? He did; but it was as a free man, as one who remembered that he must first be a friend to God.

6 Every great faculty is dangerous to beginners. You, must, then, bear such things as you are able, but conformably to nature. Practise sometimes a way of living like a person out of health, that you may at some time live like a man in health. Abstain from food, drink water, abstain sometimes altogether from desire, in order that you may some time desire consistently with reason; and if consistently with reason, when you have any thing good in you, you will desire well.

no man can prevent this; the other can be prevented.

9 And what is the divine law? To keep a man's own, not to claim that which belongs to others, but to use what is given, and when it is not given, not to desire it; and when a thing is taken away, to give it up readily and immediately, and to be thankful for the time that a man has had the use of it.

10 For this reason, if a man put in the same place his interest, sanctity, goodness, and country, and parents, and friends, all these are secured; but if he puts in one place his interest, in another his friends. and his country and his kinsmen and 7 But instead of doing thus, you justice itself, all these give way, bewish to live like wise men im- ing borne down by the weight of inmediately and to be useful to men. terest. For where the I and the Mine -Useful how? what are you doing? are placed, to that place, of necessity,

the animal inclines: if in the flesh, beasts; you have been separated there is the ruling power; if in the from domestic animals. Further, will, it is there; and if it is in exter- you are a citizen of the world, and a nals, it is there.

part of it; not one of the serving merely, but also one of the ruling parts; for you are capable of com

II If, then, I am where my will is, then only shall I be a friend such as I ought to be, and son, and father; prehending the divine administrafor this will be my interest, to main- tion, and of considering the connec tain the character of fidelity, of mod- tion of things. esty, of patience, of abstinence, of 14 What, then, does the character active co-operation, of observing my of a citizen promise? To hold relations toward all. But if I put nothing as profitable to himself; to myself in one place, and honesty deliberate about nothing as if he in another, then the doctrine of were detached from the community, Epicurus becomes strong: which but to act as the hand or foot would asserts either that there is no virtue at all, or it is nothing but that which opinion holds to be virtuous.

do, if they had reason and understood the constitution of nature; for they would never put themselves in motion nor desire any thing otherwise than with reference to

12 And this is not a perverse selfregard; for the animal is constituted so as to do all things for itself. Even the whole.

tached from other men, it is possible to live to old age, to be rich, to be healthy. But if you consider yourself as a man and a part of a certain whole, it is for the sake of that whole that at one time you should be sick, at another time take a voyage and run into danger, and at another time

the sun does all things for itself. 15 If you consider yourself as deNay, even God himself; but when he chooses to be the Giver of rain and the Giver of fruits, and the Father of Immortals and of men, you see that he cannot obtain these functions and these names, if he is not useful to man; and, universally, he has made the nature of the rational animal such that it cannot obtain be in want, and in some cases die any one of its own proper interests, prematurely. if it does not contribute something to the common interest.

16 Why, then, are you troubled? Do you not know, that as a foot is no longer a foot if it is detached from the body? so you are no longer a man if you are separated from other men.

13 Consider, then, who you are. In the first place, you are a man; and this is one who has nothing superior to the faculty of the will, but all other things subjected to it; and the faculty itself he possesses unenslaved and free from subjection Consider, also, from what things you have been separated by reason. You have been separated from wild them, or to pity them? But show

17 But they are thieves and robbers, you say. What do you mean by thieves and robbers? They are mistaken about good and evil, Ought we, then, to be angry with