Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/215

 that it is weak, he will no longer wish to employ it upon great matters. But as it is, some who are unable to swallow the morsel buy a whole treatise and set to work to eat that. Consequently they throw up, or have indigestion; after that come colics and fluxes and fevers. But they ought first to have considered whether they have the requisite capacity. However, in a matter of theory it is easy enough to confute the man who does not know, but in the affairs of life a man does not submit himself to confutation, and we hate the person who has confuted us. But Socrates used to tell us not to live a life unsubjected to examination. 



external impressions come to us in four ways; for either things are, and seem so to be; or they are not, and do not seem to be, either; or they are, and do not seem to be; or they are not, and yet seem to be. Consequently, in all these cases it is the business of the educated man to hit the mark. But whatever be the thing that distresses us, against that we ought to bring up our reinforcements. If the things that distress us are sophisms of Pyrrho and the Academy, let us bring up our reinforcements against them; if they are the plausibilities of things, whereby we are led to think that certain things are good when they are not, let us seek reinforcements at that point; if the thing that distresses us is a habit, 171