BOOK III. III. 17-IV. 1
man"; if we see an exile, "Poor fellow"; or a poverty-stricken person, "Wretched man, he has nothing with which to get a bite to eat." These, then, are the vicious judgements which we ought to eradicate; this is the subject upon which we ought to concentrate our efforts. Why, what is weeping and sighing? A judgement. What is misfortune? A judgement. What are strife, disagreement, fault-finding, accusing, impiety, foolishness? They are all judgements, and that, too, judgements about things that lie outside the province of moral purpose, assumed to be good or evil. Let a man but transfer his judgements to matters that lie within the province of the moral purpose, and I guarantee that he will be steadfast, whatever be the state of things about him.
20The soul is something like a bowl of water, and the external impressions something like the ray of light that falls upon the water. Now when the water is disturbed, it looks as though the ray of light is disturbed too, but it is not disturbed. And so, therefore, when a man has an attack of vertigo, it is not the arts and the virtues that are thrown into confusion, but the spirit in which they exist; and when this grows steady again, so do they too.
CHAPTER IV
To the man who look sides, in an undignified manner, while in a theatre
The Procurator of Epirus took the side of a comic actor in a somewhat undignified manner and was reviled by the people for doing so. Thereupon he brought word to Epictetus that he had been reviled,
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