Epictetus, Discourses 1.16.1

Chapter 16: On Providence.

 

Marvel not that the other creatures have their bodily needs supplied—not only meat and drink, but a bed to lie on—and that they want no shoes nor rugs nor clothes, while we want all these things. For it would not have been a good thing that these creatures, born not for themselves but for service, should have been created liable to wants. 

 

Consider what it would be for us to have to take thought not only for ourselves but for sheep and asses, how they were to dress and what shoes they were to put on, and how they should find meat and drink. 

 

But just as soldiers when they appear before their general are ready shod, and clothed and armed, and it would be a strange thing indeed if the tribune had to go round and shoe or clothe his regiment, so also Nature has made the creatures that are born for service ready and prepared and able to dispense with any attention. So one small child can drive sheep with a rod. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.16

 

If I find myself beginning to doubt the rule of Providence, it will not be necessary to seek out proof tangled up in a series of syllogisms, or to meditate on any profound and obscure metaphysical concepts. I need simply take the time to look at the natural world around me, and I will be able to directly discern the clear presence of order, planning, and complementarity. 

 

Not only is there an agency by which things come to be and pass away, but creatures possessing life are granted, to varying degrees, a power within themselves to carry out their specific purposes and fulfill their different ends. They possess the capacity to actively care for themselves, instead of merely being passively pushed about. 

 

It is as if the Grand Design plants, so to speak, small snippets of itself inside their lesser designs, all of them working together for the sake of the whole. 

 

I must resist the selfish urge to focus only on my own narrow interests, while neglecting how I have a place in a harmony with everything else around me. A Stoicism without Providence is like a bicycle with only one pedal. Just as something does not come from nothing, so no event can ever rightly be thought of as random, or as existing without an innate intention. 

 

Now the sheep responds through instinct, while the man also has conscious reflection, and yet both of them are made with a built-in disposition. The sheep may be easily frightened, or the man may stubbornly choose to ignore his calling, but they retain an authority over what is distinctly their own. 

 

We all know the sort of people who insist upon doing everything on their own terms, and who refuse to allow others to take care of themselves. Perhaps we may also find ourselves to be prone to such micromanagement, and the solution is to restore some trust in Providence, to rest assured that Nature provides each creature with its own appropriate tools. 

 

As my wife likes to say, “It isn’t always about you. Let go and let God.”

 

I enjoy the example of the soldiers who can maintain their own kits, and who do not need to rely on their commander to get them geared up in the morning. It reminds me of the curse of the “helicopter parents”, now increasingly upgraded to “gunship parents”, I run across in the world of education. They are so committed to the success of their children that they are unwilling to let them find their own way. 

 

Come to accept how each living thing is endowed with an appropriate mastery of its own tasks. You will here recognize the Divine Mind at work. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001

IMAGE: Joseph Schmiedl, Shepherd Boy with Sheep (1900)