BOOK IV. V. 3-9
ments.[1] For Socrates bore very firmly in mind that no one is master over another's governing principle. He willed, accordingly, nothing but what was his own. 5And what is that? [Not to try to make other people act[2]] in accordance with nature, for that does not belong to one; but, while they are attending to their own business as they think best, himself none the less to be and to remain in a state of harmony with nature, attending only to his own business, to the end that they also may be in harmony with nature. For this is the object which the good and excellent man has ever before him. To become praetor? No; but if this be given him, to maintain his own governing principle in these circumstances. To marry? No; but if marriage be given him, to maintain himself as one who in these circumstances is in harmony with nature. But if he wills that his son or his wife make no mistake, he wills that what is not his own should cease to be not his own. And to be getting an education means this: To be learning what is your own, and what is not your own.
Where, then, is there any longer room for contention, if a man is in such a state? Why, he is not filled with wonder at anything that happens, is he? Does anything seem strange to him? Does he not expect worse and harsher treatment from the wicked than actually befalls him? Does he not count it as gain whenever they fail to go to the limit? "So-and-so reviled you." I am greatly obliged to
- ↑ This may be a reference to Xenophon, Memorabilia, II. 2, as is commonly supposed, but if so, it is a highly inadequate presentation of the case there described, where Socrates is the "confuter," and the son merely makes a few natural and quite conventional attempts to defend himself. I suspect that Epictetus was referring (following Chrysippus, probably) to some other incident recorded in the very large body of Socratic dialogues that once existed.
- ↑ This is probably the general sense of a passage where something has evidently been lost.
