"Discourses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

provide against them

Appearances to us in four ways: for either things appear as they
are; or they are not, and do not even appear to be; or they are, and
do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Further,
in all these cases to form a right judgement is the office of an
educated man. But whatever it is that annoys us, to that we ought to
apply a remedy. If the sophisms of Pyrrho and of the Academics are
what annoys, we must apply the remedy to them. If it is the persuasion
of appearances, by which some things appear to be good, when they
are not good, let us seek a remedy for this. If it is habit which
annoys us, we must try to seek aid against habit. What aid then can we
find against habit, The contrary habit. You hear the ignorant say:
"That unfortunate person is dead: his father and mother are
overpowered with sorrow; he was cut off by an untimely death and in
a foreign land." Here the contrary way of speaking: tear yourself from
these expressions: oppose to one habit the contrary habit; to
sophistry oppose reason, and the exercise and discipline of reason;
against persuasive appearances we ought to have manifest
precognitions, cleared of all impurities and ready to hand.

When death appears an evil, we ought to have this rule in readiness,
that it is fit to avoid evil things, and that death is a necessary
thing. For what shall I do, and where shall I escape it? Suppose
that I am not Sarpedon, the son of Zeus, nor able to speak in this
noble way: "I will go and I am resolved either to behave bravely
myself or to give to another the opportunity of doing so; if I
cannot succeed in doing anything myself, I will not grudge another the
doing of something noble." Suppose that it is above our power to act
thus; is it not in our power to reason thus? Tell me where I can
escape death: discover for me the country, show me the men to whom I
must go, whom death does not visit. Discover to me a charm against
death. If I have not one, what do you wish me to do? I cannot escape
from death. Shall I not escape from the fear of death, but shall I die
lamenting and trembling? For the origin of perturbation is this, to
wish for something, and that this should not happen. Therefore if I am
able to change externals according to my wish, I change them; but if I
cannot, I am ready to tear out the eyes of him who hinders me. For the
nature of man is not to endure to be deprived of the good, and not
to endure the falling into the evil. Then, at last, when I am
neither able to change circumstances nor to tear out the eyes of him
who hinders me, I sit down and groan, and abuse whom I can, Zeus and
the rest of the gods. For if they do not care for me, what are they to
me? "Yes, but you will be an impious man." In what respect then will
it be worse for me than it is now? To sum up, remember this that
unless piety and your interest be in the same thing, piety cannot be
maintained in any man. Do not these things seem necessary?

Let the followers of Pyrrho and the Academics come and make their
objections. For I, as to my part, have no leisure for these