Book 4
12
Why, in the first place, to those universal maxims which you must always have at hand; and not sleep, or arise, or drink, or eat, or converse without them : that no one is the master of another’s will; and that it is in the will alone that good and evil lie. No one, therefore, is my master, either to procure me any good, or to involve me in any evil; but 1 alone have the disposal of myself with regard to these things. Since these, then, are secured to me, what need have I to be troubled about externals? What tyrant is formidable? What disease? What poverty? What offence? I have not pleased such a one. Is he my concern then? Is he my conscience? No. Why, then, do I trouble myself any further about him? But he is thought to be of some consequence. Let him look to that; and they who think him so. But I have One whom I must please, to whom I must submit, whom I must obey,—God, and those who surround him. He has intrusted me with myself, and made my will subject to myself alone, having given me rules for the right use of it. If I follow the proper rules in syllogisms, in convertible propositions, I do not heed or regard any one who says anything contrary to them. Why, then, am I vexed at being censured in matters of greater consequence? What is the reason of this perturbation? Nothing else, but that in this instance I want practice. For every science despises ignorance and the ignorant; and not only the sciences, but even the arts. Take any shoemaker, take any smith you will, and he may laugh at the rest of the world, so far as his own business is concerned.
