Kitap 4
4
Remember that it is not only the desire of riches and power that debases us and subjects us to others, but even that of quiet, leisure, learning, or travelling. For, in general, reverence for any external thing whatever makes us subject to others. Where is the difference, then, whether you desire to be a senator or not to be a senator? Where is the difference, whether you desire power or to be out of power? Where is the difference, whether you say, am in a wretched way, I have nothing to do; but am tied down to books, as inactive as if I were dead; or am in a wretched way, I have no leisure to read? For as levees and power are among things external and uncontrollable by will, so likewise is a book. For what purpose would you read? Tell me. For if you rest merely in being amused and learning something, you are insignificant and miserable. But if you refer it to the proper end, what is that end but a life truly prosperous? And if reading does not procure you a prosperous life, of what use is it? But it does procure a prosperous life (say you); and therefore I am .uneasy at being deprived of it. And what sort of prosperity is that which everything can hinder,—I do not say Caesar alone, or Caesar’s friend, but a crow, a man practising the flute, a fever, or ten thousand other things? Nothing is so essential to prosperity as that it should be permanent and unhindered. Suppose I am now called to do something. I go, therefore, and will be attentive to the bounds and measures which ought to be observed; that I may act modestly, steadily, and without desire or aversion as to externals. In the next place, I am attentive to other men, what they say, and how they are moved; and that not from ill-nature, nor that I may have an opportunity for censure or ridicule; but I turn to myself. Am I also guilty of the same faults; and how then shall I leave them off? or, once thus erred, but, God be thanked, not now. Well, when you have done thus, and been employed on such things, have you not done as good a work as if you had read a thousand lines or written as many? For are you uneasy at not reading while you are eating? When you eat, or bathe, or exercise, are you not satisfied with doing it in a manner corresponding to what you have read? Why, then, do you not reason in like manner about everything? When you approach Caesar or any other person, if you preserve yourself dispassionate, fearless, sedate; if you are rather an observer of what is done than the subject of observation; if you do not envy those who are preferred to you; if you are not overcome by the occasion, what need you more? Books? How, or to what end? For these are not the real preparation for living, but living is made up of things very different. Just as if a champion, when he enters the lists, should begin crying because he is not still exercising in advance. It was for this that you were exercised. For this were the dumb-bells, the dust, and your young antagonists. And do you now seek for these when it is the time for actual business? This is just as if, in forming our opinions, when perplexed between true and false semblances, we should, instead of practically distinguishing between them, merely peruse dissertations on evidence.
