Dio Chrysostom, On Servants 4

"But how about you? Have you no fear, lest, when the god says one thing, you may understand another? 

"As, for instance, the story of the famous Laïus,⁠ the man who became the lover of Chrysippus;⁠ when he had gone to Delphi, he asked the god how he might have issue. The god bade him 'not to beget, or, having begotten, to expose.' And Laïus was so foolish as to misunderstand both commands of the god,⁠ for he begot a son and did not rear him. 

"Afterwards both he and all his house were destroyed, all because he had undertaken to 'make use of' Apollo when he lacked the ability. For if he had not received that oracle, he would not have exposed Oedipus, and the latter, having been reared at home, would not have slain Laïus, for he would have known that he was his son. 

"Then you have heard the story about Croesus,⁠ the Lydian, who, imagining that he was most faithfully carrying out the behests of the god, crossed the river Halys,⁠ lost his empire, was bound in chains himself, and barely escaped being burned alive. 

"Or do you, pray, think that you are wiser than Croesus, a man of such wealth, who ruled over so many people and had met Solon and a great many other wise men? 

"As for Orestes,⁠ I presume you see him also in tragic performances inveighing against the god in his fits of madness, and accusing him as though he had counseled him to slay his mother. But do not imagine that Apollo ever ordered those that consult him to commit any dreadful or disgraceful act. 

"It is as I said: although men are incapable of 'using' the god, they go ahead, try, and then blame him and not themselves. 

"You, then, if you follow my advice, will take heed and aim first to know yourself; afterwards, having found wisdom, you will then, if it be your pleasure, consult the Oracle.  For I am persuaded that you will have no need of consulting oracles if you have intelligence. 

"Why just consider! If the god bids you to read and write correctly when you have no knowledge of letters, you will not be able to do so; but if you know your letters, you will read and write well enough, even without any command from the god. 

"In the same way, if he advises you to do anything else when you do not know how, you will not be in a condition to obey. You will not be able to live properly, either, if you do not know how, even though you importune Apollo day after day and he gives you all his time. But if possessed of intelligence, you will know of yourself what you ought to do and how to go about it.

"There is one thing, however, that I forgot to say about Oedipus: he did not go to Delphi to consult the Oracle, but fell in with Teiresias⁠ and suffered great calamities from that seer's divination on account of his own ignorance. 

"For he knew that he had consorted with his own mother and that he had children by her; and subsequently, when perhaps he should have concealed this or made it legal in Thebes, in the first place he let everybody know the fact and then became greatly wrought up, lifted up his voice and complained that he was father and brother at once of the same children, and husband and son of the same woman. 

"But domestic fowls do not object to such relation­ships, nor dogs, nor any ass, nor do the Persians, although they pass for the aristocracy of Asia. And in addition to all this, Oedipus blinded himself and then wandered about blind, as though he could not wander while still keeping his sight."

The other on hearing this replied, "You, Diogenes, make Oedipus out to be the greatest dullard in the world; but the Greeks believe that, though he was not a fortunate man, he was the most sagacious of all men. At any rate they say that he alone solved the Sphinx's⁠ riddle." 

At this Diogenes broke into a laugh and said, "He solve the Sphinx's riddle! Have you not heard that the Sphinx prompted him to give the answer 'man'? As to the meaning of 'man,' however, he neither expressed himself nor knew, but when he said the word 'man' he thought he was answering the question. 

"It was just as if one were asked, 'What is Socrates?' and should give no other answer than the word 'Socrates.' 

"I have heard someone say that the Sphinx stands for stupidity; that this, accordingly, proved the ruin of the Boeotians in the past just as it does now,⁠ their stupidity preventing their knowing anything, such utter dullards they are; and that while the others had an inkling of their ignorance, Oedipus, who thought that he was very wise and had escaped the Sphinx, and who had made the other Thebans believe all this, perished most miserably. 

"For any man who in spite of his ignorance deludes himself with the belief that he is wise is in a much sorrier plight than anyone else. And such is the tribe of sophists." 

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus 6-7.4

. . . Once more, Epictetus advises his scholars to move leisurely and gradually to objects of both kinds; but now, if so much caution and coldness be necessary, why does he allow our aversions, any more than our desires? For he bids us take off our aversions from those prejudicial things that are not in our power, and bend them against those that are; and yet at the same time he prohibits all manner of desire, and, for some time, will not permit us to indulge that at all. 

One probable account of this may be taken from the nature and condition of men, who are beginning to reform. The first step towards a good life is to throw off all the venom and corruption of a bad one; and until the breast has discharged itself of this, no nourishment can be had from any principles of virtue infused into it. 

What the great Hippocrates has most excellently observed concerning our bodies, is much more truly applicable to our souls: that so long as a man continues full of gross and noxious humors, the nourishment he receives, does not feed him, so much as his distemper. For the vicious principles, which had taken possession, corrupt all the good ones that are put to them. 

Sometimes they make us disrelish them, as unpleasant; sometime dread and avoid them, as hurtful and injurious to us; sometimes condemn them as evil, and reject them as impossible to be complied with. And all this while, the disease gathers more strength, and grows upon us, by bringing us to a contempt of better principles, after a pretense of having tried, and found them defective. 

Thus at last it becomes incurable, and will not so much as suffer us to admit of any arguments or actions, that might advance us in virtue, but produces in us a loathing of all those remedies, that contribute to our recovery. 

Just as in the jaundice, when the vitiated palate thinks honey bitter, a man nauseates it presently, and will never endure to taste honey after, in order to the removing that prejudice. Thus the aversions are allowed in young beginners, because the method of their cure requires it; and the first step towards a reformation, is, by growing into a dislike of vice, to put themselves into a condition of receiving virtuous principles and good instructions.

This discourse is also excellently well suited to such persons, in regard it shows them the right way to liberty, and security, and an easy mind, that so their lives may be pleasant and sweet to them, which indeed is the very thing all creatures aim at. 

Now, though an absolute freedom from passion, and a conversation in all points agreeable to the rules of decency, and nature, be the proper excellency, which we ought to desire and pursue, yet beginners must satisfy themselves with less; and think they do very well, when they can abate of their passions, and reduce them within some reasonable bounds, though they cannot gain an absolute mastery over them. 

They must expect to relapse sometimes, and are not so much to be condemned for falling, as encouraged and commended, when they rise again. Such as these therefore are not yet arrived to the perfection of those things which should be the object of their desires: and this I take to be the meaning of that expression, "this is not come to your turn yet"; i.e. the imperfect state you are in, has not qualified you for such desires: for when we aim at something that exceeds our capacity, and find we cannot reach it, then troubles and disappointments, and a sinking of our spirits, and sometimes a desponding mind, follow upon it. 

Men violently bent upon things above their strength, slight such as are proportionable to it, and think them vile and despicable; because they judge of them by way of comparison with greater. And yet it is by small beginnings only, that we can ever arrive at great perfection’s; and before we can cope with things above us, we must practice upon less, and make ourselves masters of such as we are a match for. 

Dio Chrysostom, On Servants 3

"Enough of that! But why do you object to my making use of the god?" 

"What! I object to your making use of the god if you can! That is not what I was saying, but that it is difficult, nay rather impossible, to make use of god or man or one's own self if one does not know how. To make the attempt without knowing how is an extremely harmful thing. Or do you think that the man who is untrained in the use of horses could make use of them?" 

"I do not." 

"And that, if, on the other hand, he should use force, he would get some harm from it rather than good?" 

"True." 

"Now then, will the man ignorant of the use of dogs be able to use them? Or does not the using of anything imply deriving benefit from it?" 

"I think so." 

"No one, therefore, of those injured by a thing really uses the thing by which he is injured, does he?" 

"Certainly not." 

"If, therefore, a man attempts to use dogs without knowing how, will he not receive damage from them?" 

"Very likely." 

"He, therefore, will not be using them either, since use does not properly exist where damage results. And this is true not only in the case of dogs and horses but of oxen and mules also, and — what might surprise you more — not even the using of an ass or a sheep is a matter for inexperienced persons. Or do you not know that from the keeping of sheep and the driving of asses some derive benefit and others injury?" 

"I do." 

"Is it not simply because the inexperienced necessarily receive damage and those who know benefit, whether it be a question of asses or swine or geese or any other creature?" 

"It appears so." 

"Furthermore, can it be that, as regards the use of things, the same reasoning does not hold good, but that one who has no knowledge of music could use a lyre, or would he not be ridiculous for trying, not to speak of his accomplishing nothing and ruining the lyre and breaking the strings? 

"Then again, if one who is not a flautist should wish to use the flute and appear in the theaters and play upon it, would he not be pelted as a punishment and be likely to smash his flute into the bargain? 

"And if a man undertakes to handle a rudder without knowing how to steer, will he not assuredly capsize the boat in short order and cause the death of both himself and his fellow passengers? 

"Still further, does the use of spear or shield do any good when wielded by timid and inexperienced persons, or rather, would they not by such an attempt at use lose not only their weapons but their own lives as well?"

"I grant it, Diogenes," he replied; "but you are letting the sun down with your interminable questions." 

"And is it not better," said he, "to let the sun go down if one is listening to useful words than to go on an idle journey? 

"And likewise in almost all cases where practical experience in 'using' is lacking, it is difficult to be zealous, and the damage is likely to be greater where the things concerned are greater. Do you, then, think that the 'use' of an ass is like the 'use' of a horse?" 

"Of course not." 

"Well, then, is the 'use' of a man like the 'use' of a god?" 

"But that question does not deserve an answer, Diogenes," said he. "Is there anyone, then, who can make use of himself who does not know himself?" 

"How could he?" replied the other. 

"Because the one who does not understand man is unable to 'use' man?" 

"Yes, because he cannot." 

"So he who does not understand himself would not be able to make use of himself, would he?" 

"I believe not." 

"Have you ever heard of the inscription at Delphi: 'Know thyself'?"⁠ 

"I have." 

"Is it not plain that the god gives this command to all, in the belief that they do not know themselves?' 

"It would seem so." 

"You, therefore, would be included in the 'all'?" 

"Certainly." 

"So then you also do not know yourself?" 

"I believe not." 

"And not knowing yourself, you do not know man; and not knowing man, you are unable to 'use' man; and yet, although you are unable to 'use' a man, you are attempting to 'use' a god, an attempt which we agree is altogether the greater and more difficult of the two. 

"Tell me, do you think Apollo speaks Attic or Doric? Or that men and gods have the same language? Yet the difference is so great that the Scamander river in Troy is called Xanthus⁠ by the gods, and that the bird kymindis is called chalkis,⁠ and that a certain spot outside the city which the Trojans called Batieia was called the Sema Myrines⁠ by the gods. 

"From this it naturally follows that the oracles are obscure and have already deceived many men. Now for Homer perhaps it was safe to go to Apollo at Delphi, as being bilingual and understanding the dialects—if he really did understand them all and not just a few things, like persons who know two or three Persian, Median, or Assyrian words and thus fool the ignorant." 

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus 6-7.3

. . . In answer to these objections, it may be replied, that Epictetus here addresses himself to young beginners in philosophy; for whom it cannot be safe to indulge any desires at all, until they be first competently informed, what are the objects which they ought to fix upon. And so that these affections and propensions of the soul are to be understood, only of those first motions to or from its objects, which, the Stoics contend, are always antecedent to desire and aversions. 

Or if he directs his discourse to men already instructed, then we must not interpret the words as they seem to sound; nor may we suppose, that he intends to cut off all desire of the good things in our power, absolutely speaking; but only to restrain the vehemence and eagerness of that aversion and desire, which in a moderate degree he is content to allow. 

For you see, that he advises in the very same place, to make use of our propensions and affections of the soul gently, gradually, and cautiously. For we must necessarily move, towards the object of our desires, and from that which is our aversion; but our desires and aversions are antecedent to such motions to and from the object, and do produce them, as causes do their proper effects. 

Again, when he advised before, that men would not content themselves with a cold and moderate pursuit of such valuable advantages, it was no part of his intention, to recommend an eager and violent desire; but rather, that we should be fixed and resolved in this prosecution, as to satisfy ourselves in doing what he adds himself immediately after, the abandoning some enjoyments for all together, and the suspending of others for some convenient time. 

Now a vehement degree in any of these things, either the propensities of the mind, or the desires and aversions of it, is with great reason condemned, because of the ill consequences it is apt to have, when men shoot beyond the mark through an excess of desire, and attempt things above their strength. For this usually tends to the weakening of the soul, as much as overstraining injures the body. And this is an inconvenience, which many have found experimentally from the immoderate violence and heat of action, which men fond of exercise, and eager in it, are most unseasonably guilty of. 

For there are but very few persons of such a constitution, either in body or mind, as to be able, all on the sudden, to change from a bad state to a sound and good one. Diogenes indeed, and Crates, and Zeno, and such eminent lights as these, might be so happy, but for the generality of people, their alterations are gradual and slow; they fall by little and little, and they recover themselves so too; and this is such a condition, as nature has appointed for us, with regard to the soul, as well as the body. 

For gentle methods are commonly more likely to hold, and a more safe way of proceeding. These keep the soul from spending its strength too fast, and put some checks upon its forwardness; which is the true way, both of preserving, and by degrees, though but slow ones, of confirming and increasing, the vigor of it. 

This is the true reason, why we are advised to put a restraint upon the affections of the soul, to move leisurely and gradually, and with much coolness and caution. That is, to slacken the reins by little and little, and not to let loose our desires and our aversions, nor give them their full range immediately. 

For the man, who from a dissolute and headstrong course of life, would bring himself to the contrary habits of sobriety and strict discipline, must not presently leap to the distant extreme, from luxury and excess, to abstemiousness and fasting; but he must advance by steps, and be satisfied, at first, with abating somewhat of his former extravagance. 

For what the author of the Golden Verses has observed, is very considerable upon these occasions: 

The rash use force, and with soft pleasures fight;
The wise retreat, and save themselves by flight.

Thus it is in matters of learning and knowledge; young students must admit the idea’s of things warily, and not take every appearance of truth for an uncontestable axiom; that so, if upon a second view, there be occasion to alter their judgments, it may be done with greater readiness and ease, when their minds are not too strongly possessed with their first notions. . . .  

Dio Chrysostom, On Servants 2

"You now provide food for one person," Diogenes continued, "but then it was for two; and now, if any illness attacks you, you will have only yourself to treat, but then you had to take care of him, too, when he was ill. 

"Now, when you are in the house all by yourself, you do not worry for fear that you may steal something yourself, nor, when you retire, lest your slave be awake and doing some mischief. 

"All these things you should surely think about. And further, if you have a wife, she would then not have considered it her duty to look after you when she saw a domestic kept in the family, and she would have been likely to annoy you, sometimes by quarreling with him, at other times by being hard to suit herself; but now she will be less discontented herself and will take better care of you. 

"Then too, wherever there is a servant, the children as they come on are at once spoiled and become lazier and more overbearing as long as there is someone to dance attendance upon them, and as they have somebody whom they look down upon. On the other hand, wherever the children are by themselves, they are much more manly and vigorous and learn to care for their parents from the very start." 

"But, Diogenes, I am a poor man, and if it should not be to my advantage to keep the servant, I shall dispose of him." 

"In that case," Dioegenes rejoined, "are you not ashamed, in the first place, to deceive the purchaser by selling him a bad slave? For either you will conceal the truth or be unable to sell him. 

"Further, if a man sells a cloak or a utensil that is not what it purports to be, or an animal that is diseased and useless, he must take it back; so, by selling you will be none the better off. And even if you shall be able to deceive somebody and he shall not be aware of the slave's depravity, are you not afraid of the money? 

"For perhaps you will buy another still worse slave if you chance upon a seller who is too shrewd for you. Or perhaps you will use the money received for something that will harm you. For by no means in every case does money help those who have gotten it; but men have suffered many more injuries and many more evils from money than from poverty, particularly when they lacked sense. 

"Are you going to try to secure first, not that other thing, which will enable you to derive profit from everything and to order all your affairs well, but in preference to wisdom are you going to seek riches or lands or teams of horses or ships or houses? 

"You will become their slave and will suffer through them and perform a great deal of useless labor, and will spend all your life worrying over them without getting any benefit whatsoever from them. 

"Consider the beasts yonder and the birds, how much freer from trouble they live than men, and how much more happily also, how much healthier and stronger they are, and how each of them lives the longest life possible, although they have neither hands nor human intelligence. 

"And yet, to counter-balance these and their other limitations, they have one very great blessing—they own no property." 

"Well, Diogenes, I believe I shall let my servant go, that is, unless he happens to come my way." 

"Well, I declare," exclaimed Diogenes, "that would  be like your saying that you would not look for a horse that bites or kicks, but that if you came across him, you would go up to him for the fun of being bitten or kicked!" 

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus 6-7.2

. . . But it is worth our notice, how Epictetus imitates Socrates’ way of arguing upon this occasion, and accommodates himself to his hearers, so as, by descending to their notions, to raise them up higher to something better and more perfect. 

For, that happiness consists in obtaining men’s wishes and desires, and in escaping the mischiefs and dangers they fear, is the general notion men have of it; and thus far men of all persuasions, and the most distant tempers and conversations, agree. 

But then herein they differ, that they do not employ their desires and aversions alike. For the wise and virtuous pursue such objects only as are really profitable and good, and avoid only the truly mischievous and substantial evils; and this they do, by the free guidance of their reason, and the due government of their passions; for the brutish appetites in them are so subdued, so disciplined by acts of obedience to the judgment, that they do not so much as think anything pleasant but what reason hath approved, and found to be so. 

But the generality of mankind, partly for want of duly improving their judgments, and partly from their brutish affections being kept in perpetual commotion and disorder, distinguish the objects of their desire, by no other mark than pleasure; without examining, whether this pleasure be such as makes for their true advantage, or not: and these men often hit upon very impure and insincere pleasures, such as carry a mixture and allay of pain along with them. For, in truth, they are not really and properly pleasures, but only the empty shadows and false resemblances of pleasure. 

Yet still, as was said before, all mankind are agreed in general, that prosperity and success consist in obtaining the good things we wish, and keeping off the evils we fear. So that even the sensual and most vicious men may convince themselves from this discourse, that the true way never to be disappointed in their desires, or overtaken by their fears, is, to agree, that those things which are within our power, are the only good and proper objects of desire, and that the evils in our own power are the only noxious and destructive, and proper objects of fear and hatred. 

So it is plain, that they, who fix upon things without their power, must needs fall short very frequently of their hopes, and lose what they desire, and endure what they fear: and this is what even vicious persons acknowledge to be a great misfortune.

Let then, says he, your aversions be taken off from all things out of your own power, and transferred to such things as are contrary to nature, within your power. For if you place them upon sickness, or poverty, or the like, you must unavoidably be unfortunate, because these are things not in your power to escape. 

For, though we can contribute considerably towards the avoiding of them, yet the thing is not wholly and absolutely in ourselves; but it will depend upon various other circumstances and accidents, whether our endeavors shall succeed, or not. 

But, if we would follow his advice, take off our fears from these things, and put them upon those within our own choice, which are prejudicial and against nature: if, for instance, we would make it our care to avoid erroneous opinions, and false apprehensions of things, and whatever else can be any obstruction to a good conversation, and such a life, as reason and nature have made suitable to our character, we should never be oppressed with any of the calamities we fear, because it is in our own power absolutely to avoid these things. For nothing more than our own aversions and resolutions is requisite to the doing this effectually.

All here is sufficiently plain, and needs no enlargement; but that which follows has something of difficulty in it. For what can be his meaning in that advice, that all desire should for the present be wholly laid aside? 

There is a manifest reason, why we should discharge all those desires, that concern things without our power; because this evidently makes for our advantage, both in regard of the disappointments and perpetual uneasinesses, which this course delivers us from; and also in consideration of the things themselves, which, though we should suppose no such troubles and disappointments attending them, are yet not capable of bringing us any real advantage, nor that, which is the proper happiness of a man. 

But what shall we say to his forbidding the desire, even of those good things, which come within the disposal of our own wills? 

The reason he gives is this, because you are not yet come to this. But if you were come to it, there would then be no farther occasion for desire; for this is no other than a motion of the mind desiring, by which it reaches forward to what it is not yet come to. And this seems to cut off all desire in general: for how is it possible to obtain any good, without first desiring it? 

Especially, if, as has been formerly shown, the good and happiness of a man consist, not so much in actions, and the effecting what he would, as in the entertaining such desires and aversions, as are agreeable to nature and reason, what ground can there be for suspending all our desires, and utterly forbidding us for a while to entertain any at all? 

Or how can we imagine it possible, for a man to live void of all desire? I add, that this looks like a direct contradiction to what went before, when in the fourth chapter he gave this advice, since therefore the advantages you propose to yourself are so exceeding valuable, remember, that you ought not to content yourself with a cold and moderate pursuit of them. 

For by that pursuit he did not understand any bodily motion, but the eagerness of the soul, by which, in the act of desiring, she moves towards, and makes after the object. And again, how can we suppose any affections and propensions without desire? For the order of things infers a necessity, before there can be any such affections and propensions of the soul. . . . 

Dio Chrysostom, On Servants 1

Once when Diogenes was leaving Corinth for Athens, he met an acquaintance on the road and asked whither he was going; not, however, as most persons ask such questions and thereby make a show of interest in their friends' affairs, yet have no sooner heard than off they go; no, but just as physicians ask the sick what they are planning to do, with the idea of giving them counsel and recommending what they should do and what they should avoid, so for the same purpose Diogenes asked the man what he was doing. 

And the latter replied, "I am on my way to Delphi, Diogenes, to make use of⁠ the Oracle, but when I was about to pass through Boeotia, my slave, who was with me, ran away, and so I am now bound for Corinth, for perhaps I may find the boy there." 

At this Diogenes replied with that characteristic earnestness of his, "And so, you ridiculous fellow, are you attempting to make use of the god when you are incapable of using a slave? Or does not the latter strike you as less difficult and dangerous than the former for those who are incapable of using things⁠ properly? Besides, what is your object in hunting for the boy? Was he not a bad slave?" 

"Yes, he certainly was," replied the latter, "for although I had done him no wrong and, what is more, had made him my body-servant, he ran away." 

"Perhaps he thought you were a bad master, for if he had thought you were a good one, he would never have left you." 

"Perhaps, Diogenes, it was because he was bad himself." 

"And so," continued Diogenes, "because he thought you were bad, he ran off to avoid injury by you, while you are searching for him although you say he is bad, evidently with the desire to be injured by him! 

"Is it not true that bad men are injurious to those who own them or to those who use them, whether they be Phrygians or Athenians, bond or free? And yet no one hunts for a runaway dog that he thinks is no good; nay, some even kick such a dog if he comes back; but when people are rid of a bad man they are not satisfied, but go to a lot of trouble by sending word to their friends, making trips themselves, and spending money to get the fellow back again. 

"Now do you believe that more have been hurt by bad dogs than by bad men? To be sure we hear that one man, Actaeon, was slain by worthless dogs, and mad ones at that; but it is not even possible to say how many private individuals, kings, and whole cities have been destroyed by bad men, some by servants, some by soldiers and bodyguards, others by so‑called friends, and yet others by sons and brothers and wives. 

"Is it not, therefore, a great gain when one happens to be rid of a bad man? p423 Should one hunt and chase after him? That would be like hunting after a disease one had got rid of and trying to get it back into one's system again."

The man replied, "What you say is right enough, Diogenes, but it is hard for a man who has been wronged not to seek redress. That renegade suffered no wrong at my hands, as you see, and yet he dared to desert me. At my house he did none of the work that slaves perform, but was kept inside in idleness with nothing else to do but to accompany me." 

"Then were you doing him no wrong," Diogenes answered, "by keeping him in idleness and ignorance and making him as bad as could be? For idleness and lack of occupation are the best things in the world to ruin the foolish. 

"Therefore he was right in deciding that you were his undoing, and he was justified in running off, evidently so as to get work and not become worse and worse all the time by loafing, sleeping, and eating. But you, perhaps, think that it is a trifling wrong when anyone makes another man worse. And yet is it not right to keep away from such a man above all as the deadliest and most treacherous of enemies?"

"What shall I do then?" he asked, "for I have no other domestic."

"Well, what will you do," said Diogenes , "when you have no other shoes and those you have hurt and lacerate your feet? Will you not take them off as soon as you can and go barefoot? If, however, they fall off themselves, do you tie them on again and pinch your feet? Why, sometimes barefooted persons get about more easily than those who are badly shod; and similarly, many live more comfortably and with less annoyance without domestics than those who have many. 

"See what worries the rich have. Some are taking care of their sick slaves and wanting doctors and nurses—for it is usually the way of slaves to neglect themselves and not be careful when sick, partly through lack of self-control, partly because they think that if anything befalls them, it will be their master's loss and not their own—other rich men inflict corporal punishment daily, others put fetters on them, while yet others are pursuing runaways. 

"And so it goes; they can neither get away from home easily whenever they like nor have leisure if they stay at home. And the most absurd thing of all is that they are often worse off for help than are the poor who keep no servants. 

"Their situation reminds one of the centipede—I think you know it—which has innumerable feet and yet it is the slowest of creeping things. Do you not know that nature has made each man's body to be sufficient to serve him?—feet so as to move about, hands to work with and to care for the rest of the body, eyes to see, and ears to hear. 

"Besides, she has made his stomach of a size in keeping, so that man does not require more nourishment than he is able to provide for himself, but this amount represents what is quite adequate for each man and best and most wholesome. 

"Just as a hand is all the weaker for having more fingers than belong there naturally, and such a man is called a sort of cripple when he has an extra finger on the outside and cannot use the other fingers properly; so when a man gets equipped with many additional feet, hands, and stomachs, by heavens, he becomes not a whit more efficient for any task whatever, nor does he obtain what he must obtain any better, but rather, much less well and with greater difficulty." 

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus 6-7.1

VI. 

Remember, that the thing, which recommends any desire, is a promise and prospect of obtaining the object you are in pursuit of; as on the contrary, the thing, which your aversion aims at, and proposes to you, is the escaping the evil you fear. 

And in these cases, he, that is balked of his desires, is an unfortunate man; and he, that is overtaken by the mischief he declines, is a miserable man. 

But now, if you confine your aversions to those evils only, which are at the disposal of your own will,  you can be never overtaken by any calamity you would decline; but if you extend them to such things, as sickness, or poverty, or death, you will of necessity be miserable. 

VII. 

Let your aversions then be taken off from all things out of your own power, and transferred to such things as are contrary to nature, within your own power. 

And as for desires, lay them for the present, wholly aside: for if you fix them upon things out of your power, you are sure to be unsuccessful; and if you would restrain them to fit and proper objects, such as come within it, know this is not come to your turn yet. 

Let your mind therefore go no farther than the mere tendencies and propensions, to moderate and use these gently, gradually, and cautiously. 

Comment: 

This now follows in a direct method, from what went before, and is, as it were, a demonstration of the truth of the last chapter: where we were told, that our apprehensions and ideas of things desirable must be regulated by that necessary distinction of what is, and what is not within our own power. The observation of this rule would be sure to make us successful and happy, and the neglect of it unfortunate and wretched. 

To this purpose, his first business is to explain what sort of persons we use to esteem lucky or unlucky; and he tells us, that the end our aversions propose to themselves is not to fall into the mischief we endeavor to decline; so that in this case, the missing our object is fortunate; as on the contrary, it is unfortunate, in cases of desire, when we do not get our object. 

And the misfortune opposite to good success is when the thing we would avoid does happen to us; for here we get our object indeed, but then this getting is to our prejudice, and what we might much better have been without. 

When he has set these matters in a true light, then he proceeds thus. If you take care to make those things only the objects of your aversions, which are contrary to nature and within the compass of your own choice, as intemperance for example, and injustice, and the like, you can never be overtaken by anything you fear, because in these matters you may be sure to escape if you please; and consequently, you are sure never to be unfortunate. 

But if, instead of these you pitch upon sickness, or poverty, or any of those things that are out of your own disposal, you must needs fall into calamitous circumstances sometimes, because it cannot depend upon yourself, whether you shall be delivered from these or not. 

So again for desire, that man cannot secure himself against frequent disappointments, who fixes upon objects out of his own power. 

But if our desires and our aversions be confined to matters within our own power and choice, then it will not be possible for us to be balked in our hopes, or overtaken by our fears, but happiness and success will attend us continually. 

The substance and connection of all which, in short, lies here. He that extends his desires and his aversions, to things out of the disposal of his own will, very frequently misses his aim, falls short in his hopes, and is overtaken by his fears; and he must needs do so, because these things depend not on himself, upon others. 

Now such a one is confessed to be an unsuccessful and unfortunate person, and therefore wretched and miserable. . . . 

Reverence

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 190

When Fortune is on our side, popular favor bears her company. 

IMAGE: Anonymous Venetian, Fortune Distributes Her Gifts (c. 1650) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 84.4

Even if there shall appear in you a likeness to him who, by reason of your admiration, has left a deep impress upon you, I would have you resemble him as a child resembles his father, and not as a picture resembles its original; for a picture is a lifeless thing. 
 
“What,” you say, “will it not be seen whose style you are imitating, whose method of reasoning, whose pungent sayings?” 
 
I think that sometimes it is impossible for it to be seen who is being imitated, if the copy is a true one; for a true copy stamps its own form upon all the features which it has drawn from what we may call the original, in such a way that they are combined into a unity.
 
Do you not see how many voices there are in a chorus? Yet out of the many only one voice results. In that chorus one voice takes the tenor, another the bass, another the baritone. There are women, too, as well as men, and the flute is mingled with them. In that chorus the voices of the individual singers are hidden; what we hear is the voices of all together.
 
To be sure, I am referring to the chorus which the old-time philosophers knew; in our present-day exhibitions we have a larger number of singers than there used to be spectators in the theaters of old. All the aisles are filled with rows of singers; brass instruments surround the auditorium; the stage resounds with flutes and instruments of every description; and yet from the discordant sounds a harmony is produced. 
 
I would have my mind of such a quality as this; it should be equipped with many arts, many precepts, and patterns of conduct taken from many epochs of history; but all should blend harmoniously into one. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 84 
 
We are under the illusion that anything worthy must also be innovative, all the while forgetting why there is ultimately nothing new under the sun. It may appear brand new to me, and yet it is forever old. Looking behind the fads and the fancies of progress, those tiny snippets of time are subsumed under eternity. 
 
So you will please forgive me if I smile when they say that it is the best thing ever, because it is oh so radical, edgy, and original. This may seem true from our narrow perspectives, but I fear that any sort of creation we claim for ourselves is only a likeness of the Absolute, every being as a further expression of Being. Infinite forms in infinite combinations are already included within the perfection of Providence. 
 
This need not, however, be grounds for despair, since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That it has all been said and done before does not negate the unique value of making it my own at this very moment, of discovering my own specific variation. What makes it special is that I am participating in the whole, adding an individual interpretation, one which consciously binds together many separate influences. 
 
In academia, we foolishly reward research if it can be labeled as groundbreaking, or in music, we falsely praise a performance if it can be marketed as avant-garde, when we would do ourselves far more good by honoring any act of insight, however humble, for the simple reason that a fellow has achieved it by his deliberate efforts, and struggled toward it with sincerity and integrity. 
 
We should, for example, celebrate each child who arrives at the conclusion of the Golden Rule through his independent reasoning, regardless of how many others have gotten there before him. It matters far more for it be true than for it be innovative.
 
It is only a bland duplication when it is mindless, for the path is made fresh each time it is intentionally traveled. A wide range of the influences will certainly show themselves, though what will be most important is why these scattered elements have once again been combined through the power of a personal judgment. 
 
I especially enjoy Seneca’s examples of how the resemblance should be like that of a child to a parent, and how a chorus blends the diverse voices into a single voice. I think of how my own children are learning to make themselves out of the conditions that were made for them, and how my high school chorus actually sounded rather nice, even though very few of us could carry a tune on our own. 
 
Whatever sort of materials I happen to collect, I can inform them with my peculiar identity by uniting them into a single purpose. The universal constantly reveals itself in the particulars. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

Playing the Field

The Fringe Benefit

Jacob's Ladder 8

Adam Elsheimer, Jacob's Dream (c. 1598) 

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel 19

Odilon Redon, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (c. 1905) 

A Handsome Couple

Warmth

Netherlandish Proverbs 12

"The herring does not fry here." 

It's not going according to plan. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 84.3

But I must not be led astray into another subject than that which we are discussing. We also, I say, ought to copy these bees, and sift whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading, for such things are better preserved if they are kept separate; then, by applying the supervising care with which our nature has endowed us—in other words, our natural gifts—we should so blend those several flavors into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it came. 
 
This is what we see nature doing in our own bodies without any labor on our part; the food we have eaten, as long as it retains its original quality and floats in our stomachs as an undiluted mass, is a burden; but it passes into tissue and blood only when it has been changed from its original form. 
 
So it is with the food which nourishes our higher nature—we should see to it that whatever we have absorbed should not be allowed to remain unchanged, or it will be no part of us. We must digest it; otherwise it will merely enter the memory and not the reasoning power. 
 
Let us loyally welcome such foods and make them our own, so that something that is one may be formed out of many elements, just as one number is formed of several elements whenever, by our reckoning, lesser sums, each different from the others, are brought together. This is what our mind should do: it should hide away all the materials by which it has been aided, and bring to light only what it has made of them. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 84 
 
Break it down, and then build it back up. This process takes place whenever a bee makes its honey, or a stomach digests its food, or a mind arrives at understanding. The first step is to distinguish the parts. The second step is to incorporate them into the whole. In the contemporary lingo, it is the interplay between analysis and synthesis. 
 
Left to itself, the flower does not produce honey. Left to itself, my supper does not give me strength. Left to itself, a fact does not become knowledge. It is the power of the bee, and of my organs, and of my intellect that transforms the old into something new. 
 
This letter is already full of analogies to help us describe the activity of learning, but the wife would surely add that preparing a delicious recipe is far more than a pile of ingredients, and my father would remind me to carefully sort through the pieces before I attempt to assemble the appliance. The Aristotelian might say that a change requires an efficient cause to modify a material cause; as the old Scholastic phrase goes, “every agent forms matter for the sake of an end.” 
 
The dull mechanics of our industrial society can so easily overlook the creative force that animates Nature, the way that a vital understanding will bind together the disparate circumstances into a shared meaning and purpose. 
 
Do not believe the technicians when they tell you that a house is just a framework of lumber or stone, for a man knows why it is a place to live. Do not believe the bureaucrats when they tell you that prosperity is about arranging the ideal socio-economic conditions, for a man knows why happiness is within the judgements of each individual.
 
Whatever is touched by awareness is thereby also charged with estimation and intention, so that we can never treat learning as if it were only receptive. A state of affairs has been given—now how will I discern it, and what will I make of it? However mundane the elements, the composite is now distinctly mine, because I have provided for myself an account of the reasons why. 
 
“Don’t be so silly! Someone else has already added up all the separate numbers before!” 
 
Perhaps, but by doing so in my own mind I have explained the causes by my own power, which makes that critical difference between blindly repeating and independently comprehending. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: Gerrit Dou, Woman at Prayer Before Her Meal (c. 1650) 

Abandoned Places 66