"Discourses" - читать интересную книгу автора (Epictetus)

"for I do not even comprehend when in my sleep I imagine that I am
awake." Does this appearance then not differ from the other? "Not at
all," he replies. Shall I still argue with this man? And what fire
or what iron shall I apply to him to make him feel that he is
deadened? He does perceive, but he pretends that he does not. He's
even worse than a dead man. He does not see the contradiction: he is
in a bad condition. Another does see it, but he is not moved, and
makes no improvement: he is even in a worse condition. His modesty
is extirpated, and his sense of shame; and the rational faculty has
not been cut off from him, but it is brutalized. Shall I name this
strength of mind? Certainly not, unless we also name it such in
catamites, through which they do and say in public whatever comes into
their head.

CHAPTER 6

Of providence

From everything which is or happens in the world, it is easy to
praise Providence, if a man possesses these two qualities, the faculty
of seeing what belongs and happens to all persons and things, and a
grateful disposition. If he does not possess these two qualities,
one man will not see the use of things which are and which happen;
another will not be thankful for them, even if he does know them. If
God had made colours, but had not made the faculty of seeing them,
what would have been their use? None at all. On the other hand, if
He had made the faculty of vision, but had not made objects such as to
fall under the faculty, what in that case also would have been the use
of it? None at all. Well, suppose that He had made both, but had not
made light? In that case, also, they would have been of no use. Who is
it, then, who has fitted this to that and that to this? And who is
it that has fitted the knife to the case and the case to the knife? Is
it no one? And, indeed, from the very structure of things which have
attained their completion, we are accustomed to show that the work
is certainly the act of some artificer, and that it has not been
constructed without a purpose. Does then each of these things
demonstrate the workman, and do not visible things and the faculty
of seeing and light demonstrate Him? And the existence of male and
female, and the desire of each for conjunction, and the power of using
the parts which are constructed, do not even these declare the
workman? If they do not, let us consider the constitution of our
understanding according to which, when we meet with sensible
objects, we simply receive impressions from them, but we also select
something from them, and subtract something, and add, and compound
by means of them these things or those, and, in fact, pass from some
to other things which, in a manner, resemble them: is not even this
sufficient to move some men, and to induce them not to forget the
workman? If not so, let them explain to us what it is that makes
each several thing, or how it is possible that things so wonderful and
like the contrivances of art should exist by chance and from their own