BOOK III. XXVI. 10-15
what he is? Or is it in your power to reform him? Is that vouchsafed you? What follows? Ought you to wish for what is not given you, or to be ashamed when you fail to get it? And did you really, while studying philosophy, acquire the habit of looking to other persons, and of hoping for nothing yourself from yourself? Very well then, lament and groan, and eat in fear of not having food to-morrow; tremble about your paltry slaves, for fear they will steal something, or run away, or die! Live in this spirit and never cease to live so, you who in name only have approached philosophy, and, as far as in you lay, have discredited its principles by showing them to be useless and good for nothing to those who receive them! But you never desired stability, serenity, peace of mind; you never cultivated anybody's acquaintance for that purpose, but many persons' acquaintance for the sake of syllogisms; you never thoroughly tested for yourself any one of these external impressions, asking the questions: "Am I able to bear it, or am I not? What may I expect next?" but just as though everything about you were in an excellent and safe condition, you have been devoting your attention to the last of all topics, that which deals with immutability, in order that you may have immutable—what? your cowardice, your ignoble character, your admiration of the rich, your ineffectual desire, your aversion that fails of its mark![1] These are the things about whose security you have been anxious!
15Ought you not, first, to have acquired something
- ↑ So the text as it stands in S, but the singular mixture of technical terms in ἀποτευκτικὴ ἔκκλισις is incredible. Elsewhere, and quite properly, it is desire that fails to get what it wills (ἀποτευκτική), and aversion that falls into what it would avoid (see III. 6, 6 and especially IV. 10, 4). Hence there is great plausibility in Schenkl's suggestion (partly after Reiske), ὄρεξιν, τὴν ἀποτευκτικήν, <τὴν περιπτωτικὴν> ἔκκλισιν "desire, that fails to get what it wills, and aversion that falls into what it would avoid."
