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. . . .