BOOK II. I. 24-31
is in fear, or sorrow, or turmoil, is free, but whoever is rid of sorrows and fears and turmoils, this man is by the self-same course rid also of slavery. 25How, then, shall we any longer trust you, O dearest lawgivers? Do we allow none but the free to get an education? For the philosophers say, "We do not allow any but the educated to be free"; that is, God does not allow it.—When, therefore, in the presence of the praetor a man turns his own slave about, has he done nothing?[1]—He has done something.—What?—He has turned his slave about in the presence of the praetor,—Nothing more?—Yes, he is bound to pay a tax of five per cent, of the slave's value.—What then? Has not the man to whom this has been done become free?—He has no more become free than he has acquired peace of mind. You, for example, who are able to turn others about, have you no master? Have you not as your master money, or a mistress, or a boy favourite, or the tyrant, or some friend of the tyrant? If not, why do you tremble when you go to face some circumstance involving those things?
That is why I say over and over again, "Practise these things and have them ready at hand, that is, the knowledge of what you ought to face with confidence, and what you ought to face with caution—that you ought to face with confidence that which is outside the province of the moral purpose, with caution that which is within the province of the moral purpose."30—But have I not read to you, and do you not know what I am doing?[2]—What have you been engaged upon? Trifling phrases! Keep your trifling phrases! Show me rather how you stand in regard to desire
- ↑ Part of the ceremony of manumission in Roman law. The tax of "five per cent." mentioned just below is the fee that had to be paid to the State.
- ↑ The words of a pupil who has read and correctly interpreted some passage set him, or has read aloud to Epictetus some essay of his own composition.
