Page:Discourses of Epictetus.djvu/336

 reaped is of bad omen, for it signifies the destruction of the ears, but not of the world. Say that the falling of the leaves also is of bad omen, and for the dried fig to take the place of the green fig, and for raisins to be made from the grapes. For all these things are changes from a former state into other states; not a destruction, but a certain fixed economy and administration. Such is going away from home and a small change: such is death, a greater change, not from the state which now is to that which is not, but to that which is not now. —Shall I then no longer exist?—You will not exist, but you will be something else, of which the world now has need: for you also came into existence not when you chose, but when the world had need of you.