BOOK II. VI. 4-12
and you have not." 5So also in a case where some acquired skill is needed, do not seek that which only practice can give, but leave that to those who have acquired the knack, and be content yourself to remain steadfast.
"Go and salute so-and-so." "I salute him." "How?" "In no abject spirit." "But the door was shut in your face." "Yes, for I have not learned how to crawl in at the window; but when I find the door closed, I must either go away or crawl in at the window." "But go and do speak to him." "I do so speak." "In what manner?" "In no abject spirit." "But you did not get what you wanted." Surely that was not your business, was it? Nay, it was his. Why, then, lay claim to that which is another's? If you always bear in mind what is your own and what is another's, you will never be disturbed. Therefore Chrysippus[1] well says, "As long as the consequences are not clear to me, I cleave ever to what is better adapted to secure those things that are in accordance with nature; for God himself has created me with the faculty of choosing things. 10But if I really knew that it was ordained for me to be ill at this present moment, I would even seek illness: for the foot also, if it had a mind, would seek to be covered with mud."[2]
For example, why do heads of grain grow? Is it not that they may also become dry? But when they become dry, is it not that they may also be harvested? Since they do not grow for themselves alone. If, therefore, they had feeling, ought they
- ↑ Compare Stoic. Vet. Fragm. III. 46, frag. 191. Von Arnim thinks that only the last few words are a literal quotation from Chrysippus.
- ↑ That is, if the owner of it found it necessary to step into the mud; cf. II. 5, 24.
