Epictetus, Discourses 1.17.6

So I come to this interpreter and priest and say, “Examine the victim's flesh to see what sign is given me.” 

 

He takes and opens the flesh and interprets, “Man, you have a will unhindered and unconstrained by nature. This is written here in the flesh of the sacrifice. 

 

“I will show you the truth of it first in the sphere of assent. Can anyone prevent you from agreeing to what is true? No one. Can anyone compel you to accept the false? No one. Do you see that in this sphere your faculty is free from let and hindrance and constraint and compulsion? 

 

“Is it any different in the sphere of will and impulse? What, I ask, can overcome impulse except another impulse? And what can overcome the will to get or will to avoid except another will to get or to avoid?" 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.17

 

What a lovely parallel Epictetus presents here, between the priest’s divination in reading entrails and the philosopher’s interpretation of human nature. The modern mind will be dismissive, as it has no use for what it calls superstition. The classical mind understands completely, as it is open to the complementarity of reason and faith. 

 

As much as I disliked it at the time, I learned quite a bit from dissecting a frog and a pig at school. A bit later, I learned even more from being shown how to skin and butcher rabbit, trout, and deer. The “disgusting” factor can be overcome with a burst of willpower, and then there remains a curiosity about how all those bones, muscles, and organs are made to work together. 

 

How incredible a design, how beautiful a creation! Once I can treat any catch with due respect, I can also develop a deference to any beast that might make me his supper. In the end, we all end up as food for something else. 

 

I don’t know if there are secret signs in the innards of an animal, just as I don’t know if there are veiled messages in the patterns of the stars. I do know, however, that a dissection of my own soul, through the process of self-reflection, reveals the inner structure of who I am. 

 

At first it may be shocking to stare within oneself, and perhaps I am afraid of what may lie buried beneath, but the interpreter calmly helps me to identify the various aspects of my humanity, and I begin to discern the hidden order. 

 

It may sound like some mysterious prophecy, and it yet it comes from a careful examination of the parts. There are the various desires that pull this way, and then the diverse aversions that push back that way, surrounded by layers of habits, and then I find the brain and the heart, so to speak, the reason and the will, which have the power to rule themselves absolutely, unhindered by any appetites, if only they so think and decide for themselves. 

 

What can form a judgement except the act of judgment itself? What can determine a choice except the act of choice itself? 

 

The interpreter has assisted me in divining that I am a creature made to know and to love, and that from my nature I possess the freedom to control my own character, whatever else fate may throw my way. 

 

If I think about it, isn’t that really the core message in so many of the ancient myths and legends? Seeking to dominate fortune brings only misery, while seeking to govern myself is the path of liberty. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001