BOOK II. I. 11-17
cowardice and abjectness, full of fears and perturbations. For if a man should transfer his caution to the sphere of the moral purpose and the deeds of the moral purpose, then along with the desire to be cautious he will also at once have under his control the will to avoid; whereas, if he should transfer his caution to those matters which are not under our control and lie outside the province of the moral purpose, inasmuch as he is applying his will to avoid towards those things which are under the control of others, he will necessarily be subject to fear, instability, and perturbation. For it is not death or hardship that is a fearful thing, but the fear of hardship or death. That is why we praise the man who said
Not death is dreadful, but a shameful death.[1]
Our confidence ought, therefore, to be turned toward death, and our caution toward the fear of death; whereas we do just the opposite—in the face of death we turn to flight, but about the formation of a judgement on death we show carelessness, disregard, and unconcern. But 15Socrates did well to call all such things "bugbears."[2] For just as masks appear fearful and terrible to children because of inexperience, in some such manner we also are affected by events, and this for the same reason that children are affected by bugbears. For what is a child? Ignorance. What is a child? Want of instruction. For where a child has knowledge, he is no worse than we are. What is death? A bugbear. Turn it about and learn what it is; see,
- ↑ From an unknown tragic poet (Nauck, Fragm. Trag. Adesp., 88); included also among the Monostichs of Menander, 504.
- ↑ Plato, Phaedo 77E; compare Crito 46C. Epictetus seems to use μορμολύκειον and μορμολυκεία in the unusual sense of a terrifying form of mask.
