"Discourses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

disputes, nor am I able to undertake the defense of common consent. If
I had a suit even about a bit of land, I would call in another to
defend my interests. With what evidence then am I satisfied? With that
which belongs to the matter in hand. How indeed perception is
effected, whether through the whole body or any part, perhaps I cannot
explain: for both opinions perplex me. But that you and I are not
the same, I know with perfect certainty. "How do you know it?" When
I intend to swallow anything, I never carry it to your b month, but to
my own. When I intend to take bread, I never lay hold of a broom,
but I always go to the bread as to a mark. And you yourselves who take
away the evidence of the senses, do you act otherwise? Who among
you, when he intended to enter a bath, ever went into a mill?

What then? Ought we not with all our power to hold to this also, the
maintaining of general opinion, and fortifying ourselves against the
arguments which are directed against it? Who denies that we ought to
do this? Well, he should do it who is able, who has leisure for it;
but as to him who trembles and is perturbed and is inwardly broken
in heart, he must employ his time better on something else.

CHAPTER 28

That we ought not to he angry with men; and what are the small and
the great things among men

What is the cause of assenting to anything? The fact that it appears
to be true. It is not possible then to assent to that which appears
not to be true. Why? Because this is the nature of the
understanding, to incline to the true, to be dissatisfied with the
false, and in matters uncertain to withhold assent. What is the
proof of this? "Imagine, if you can, that it is now night." It is
not possible. "Take away your persuasion that it is day." It is not
possible. "Persuade yourself or take away your persuasion that the
stars are even in number." It is impossible. When, then, any man
assents to that which is false, be assured that he did not intend to
assent to it as false, for every soul is unwillingly deprived of the
truth, as Plato says; but the falsity seemed to him to be true.
Well, in acts what have we of the like kind as we have here truth or
falsehood? We have the fit and the not fit, the profitable and the
unprofitable, that which is suitable to a person and that which is
not, and whatever is like these. Can, then, a man think that a thing
is useful to him and not choose it? He cannot. How says Medea?

"'Tis true I know what evil I shall do,

But passion overpowers the better council.'"

She thought that to indulge her passion and take vengeance on her
husband was more profitable than to spare her children. "It was so;
but she was deceived." Show her plainly that she is deceived, and