Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 1 Oldfather 1925.djvu/373

 than they actually are. For example, whenever I go to sea, on gazing down into the deep or looking around upon the expanse of waters and seeing no land, I am beside myself, fancying that if I am wrecked I shall have to swallow this whole expanse of waters; but it does not occur to me that three pints are enough. What is it, then, that disturbs me? The expanse of sea? No, but my judgement. Again, when there is an earthquake, I fancy that the whole city is going to fall upon me; what, is not a little stone enough to knock my brains out?

What, then, are the things that weigh upon us and drive us out of our senses? Why, what else but our judgements? For when a man goes hence abandoning the comrades, the places, and the social relations to which he is accustomed, what else is the burden that is weighing him down but a judgement? Children, indeed, when they cry a little because their nurse has left, forget their troubles as soon as they get a cookie. Would you, therefore, have us resemble children? No, by Zeus! For I claim that we should be influenced in this way, not by a cookie, but by true judgements. And what are these? The things which a man ought to practise all day long, without being devoted to what is not his own, either comrade, or place, or gymnasia, nay, not even to his own body; but he should remember the law and keep that before his eyes. And what is the law of God? To guard what is his own, not to lay claim to what is not his own, but to make use of what is given him, and not to yearn for what has not been given; when something is taken away, to give it up readily and 329