"Discourses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

do you rather show me how it is not according to nature and is not
rightly done.

Well, said Epictetus, if we were inquiring about white and black,
what criterion should we employ for distinguishing between them?
"The sight," he said. And if about hot and cold, and hard and soft,
what criterion? "The touch." Well then, since we are inquiring about
things which are according to nature, and those which are done rightly
or not rightly, what kind of criterion do you think that we should
employ? "I do not know," he said. And yet not to know the criterion of
colors and smells, and also of tastes, is perhaps no great harm; but
if a man do not know the criterion of good and bad, and of things
according to nature and contrary to nature, does this seem to you a
small harm? "The greatest harm." Come tell me, do all things which
seem to some persons to be good and becoming rightly appear such;
and at present as to Jews and Syrians and Egyptians and Romans, is
it possible that the opinions of all of them in respect to food are
right? "How is it possible?" he said. Well, I suppose it is absolutely
necessary that, if the opinions of the Egyptians are right, the
opinions of the rest must be wrong: if the opinions of the Jews are
right, those of the rest cannot be right. "Certainly." But where there
is ignorance, there also there is want of learning and training in
things which are necessary. He assented to this. You then, said
Epictetus, since you know this, for the future will employ yourself
seriously about nothing else, and will apply your mind to nothing else
than to learn the criterion of things which are according to nature,
and by using it also to determine each several thing. But in the
present matter I have so much as this to aid you toward what you wish.
Does affection to those of your family appear to you to be according
to nature and to be good? "Certainly." Well, is such affection natural
and good, and is a thing consistent with reason not good? "By no
means." Is then that which is consistent with reason in
contradiction with affection? "I think not." You are right, for if
it is otherwise, it is necessary that one of the contradictions
being according to nature, the other must be contrary to nature. Is it
not so? "It is," he said. Whatever, then, we shall discover to be at
the same time affectionate and also consistent with reason, this we
confidently declare to be right and good. "Agreed." Well then to leave
your sick child and to go away is not reasonable, and I suppose that
you will not say that it is; but it remains for us to inquire if it is
consistent with affection. "Yes, let us consider." Did you, then,
since you had an affectionate disposition to your child, do right when
you ran off and left her; and has the mother no affection for the
child? "Certainly, she has." Ought, then, the mother also to have left
her, or ought she not? "She ought not." And the nurse, does she love
her? "She does." Ought, then, she also to have left her? "By no
means." And the pedagogue, does he not love her? "He does love her."
Ought, then, he also to have deserted her? and so should the child
have been left alone and without help on account of the great
affection of you, the parents, and of those about her, or should she