"Discourses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

before all things; and you who have received so many and such great
favours, will you not swear, or when you have sworn, will you not
abide by your oath? And what shall you swear? Never to be disobedient,
never to make any charges, never to find fault with anything that he
has given, and never unwillingly to do or to suffer anything, that
is necessary. Is this oath like the soldier's oath? The soldiers swear
not to prefer any man to Caesar: in this oath men swear to honour
themselves before all.

CHAPTER 15

What philosophy promises

When a man was consulting him how he should persuade his brother
to cease being angry with him, Epictetus replied: Philosophy does
not propose to secure for a man any external thing. If it did
philosophy would be allowing something which is not within its
province. For as the carpenter's material is wood, and that of the
statuary is copper, so the matter of the art of living is each man's
life. "What then is my brother's?" That again belongs to his own
art; but with respect to yours, it is one of the external things, like
a piece of land, like health, like reputation. But Philosophy promises
none of these. "In every circumstance I will maintain," she says, "the
governing part conformable to nature." Whose governing part? "His in
whom I am," she says.

"How then shall my brother cease to be angry with me?" Bring him
to me and I will tell him. But I have nothing to say to you about
his anger.

When the man, who was consulting him, said, "I seek to know this-
how, even if my brother is not reconciled to me, shall I maintain
myself in a state conformable to nature?" Nothing great, said
Epictetus, is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig
is. If you say to me now that you want a fig, I will answer to you
that it requires time: let it flower first, then put forth fruit,
and then ripen. Is, then, the fruit of a fig-tree not perfected
suddenly and in one hour, and would you possess the fruit of a man's
mind in so short a time and so easily? Do not expect it, even if I
tell you.

CHAPTER 16

Of providence

Do not wonder if for other animals than man all things are
provided for the body, not only food and drink, but beds also, and
they have no need of shoes nor bed materials, nor clothing; but we
require all these additional things. For, animals not being made for
themselves, but for service, it was not fit for them to he made so