Page:Discourses of Epictetus.djvu/34

xxiv say that it exists, but is inactive and careless, and takes no forethought about anything; a third class say such a being exists and exercises forethought, but only about great things and heavenly things, and about nothing on the earth; a fourth class say that a divine being exercises forethought both about things on the earth and heavenly things, but in a general way only, and not about things severally. There is a fifth class to whom Ulysses and Socrates belong, who say, 'I move not without thy knowledge,'" (Iliad, x. 278). After a few remarks Epictetus concludes: "The wise and good man then after considering all these things, submits his own mind to him who administers the whole, as good citizens do to the law of the state."

The foundation of the Ethic of Epictetus is the doctrine which the Stoic Cleanthes proclaimed in his hymn to Zeus (God), "From thee our race comes." Epictetus speaks of Gods, whom we must venerate and make offerings to; and of God, from whom we all are sprung in an especial manner. "God is the father both of men and of Gods." This great descent ought to teach us to have no ignoble or mean thoughts about ourselves. He says, "Since these two things are mingled in the generation of man, body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence in common with the Gods, many incline to this kinship, which is miserable and mortal; and some few to that which is divine and happy" (i. c. 3). In a chapter of Providence (i. c. 6) he attempts to prove the existence of God and his government of the world by everything which is or happens; but in order to understand these proofs, a man, he says, must have the faculty of seeing what belongs and happens to "all persons and things, and a grateful disposition" (also, i. c. 16). He argues from the very structure of things which have attained their completion, that we are accustomed to show that a work is certainly the act