Page:Discourses of Epictetus.djvu/50

xl that of the body: but as to the soul, what else could you find in it than that which makes it filthy in respect to the acts which are her own? Now the acts of the soul are movement towards an object or movement from it, desire, aversion, preparation, design (purpose), assent. What then is it which in these acts makes the soul filthy and impure? Nothing else than her own bad judgments. Consequently the impurity of the soul is the soul's bad opinions; and the purification of the soul is the planting in it of proper opinions; and the soul is pure which has proper opinions, for the soul alone in her own acts is free from perturbation and pollution."

Epictetus says (iv. c. 7) that man is not "flesh nor bones nor sinews, but he is that which makes use of these parts of the body and governs them and follows (understands) the appearances of things." This opinion seems to be the same or nearly the same as Bp. Butler's (iv. c. 7, note 10). If then Epictetus had any distinct notion of the soul, and he is a man whose notions are generally distinct, I think that his opinion of man's body and of man's soul are, that a man's body is not the man, but the body is that "finely tempered clay" in which the man dwells, and without the body he could not live this earthly life and his notion of the soul is that which is stated above (iv. c. 11 and c. 7). As to the mode and nature of this connexion between the body and the soul, I can only suppose that he would have disclaimed all knowledge of it, as he does of the nature of perception (p. 82); and I do not suppose that any philosopher or theologian would venture to say what this connexion of soul and body is. In the life then which man lives on the earth I think that the opinions of Epictetus are the same or nearly the same as those of Swedenborg; but after the event, which comes to all men, and which we name Death, the opinions are very different.