Kitap 1
20
When then you would know how careless you are with respect to good and evil, and how active with respect to things which are indifferentWe reckon death among the things which are indifferent (indifferentia), which the Greeks name ἀδιάφορα. But I name indifferent the things which are neither good nor bad, as disease, pain, poverty, exile, death.—Seneca, Ep. 82. (neither good nor evil), observe how you feel with respect to being deprived of the sight of the eyes, and how with respect to being deceived, and you will discover that you are far from feeling as you ought to do in relation to good and evil. But this is a matter which requires much preparation, and much labour and study. Well then do you expect to acquire the greatest of arts with small labour? And yet the chief doctrine of philosophers is very brief. If you would know, read Zeno’sZeno, a native of Citium, in the island of Cyprus, is said to have come when he was young to Athens, where he spent the rest of a long life in the study and teaching of Philosophy. He was the founder of the Stoic sect, and a man respected for his ability and high character. He wrote many philosophical works. Zeno was succeeded in his school by Cleanthes. writings and you will see For how few words it requires to say that man’s end (or object) is to followFollow. See i. 12, 5. the gods, and that the nature of good is a proper use of appearances. But if you say What is God, what is appearance, and what is particular and what is universalI now have what the universal nature wills me to have, and I do what my nature now wills me to do. M. Antoninus, v. 25, and xi. 5. Epictetus never attempts to say what God is. He was too wise to attempt to do what man cannot do. But man does attempt to do it, and only shows the folly of his attempts, and, I think, his presumption also. nature? then indeed many words are necessary. If then Epicurus should come and say, that the good must be in the body; in this case also many words become necessary, and we must be taught what is the leading principle in us, and the fundamental and the substantial; and as it is not probable that the good of a snail is in the shell, is it probable that the good of a man is in the body? But you yourself, Epicurus, possess something better than this. What is that in you which deliberates, what is that which examines every thing, what is that which forms a judgment about the body itself, that it is the principal part? and why do you light your lamp and labour for us, and write so manyEpicurus is said to have written more than any other person, as many as three hundred volumes (κύλινδροι, rolls). Chrysippus was his rival in this respect. For if Epicurus wrote anything, Chrysippus vied with him in writing as much; and for this reason he often repeated himself, because he did not read over what he had written, and he left his writings uncorrected in consequence of his hurry. Diogenes Laertius, x.—Upton. See i. 4. books? is it that we may not be ignorant of the truth, who we are, and what we are with respect to you? Thus the discussion requires many words.
