Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/17

 it would not be unreasonable for one to declare that each of them was beautiful precisely when it achieved supreme excellence in terms of its own nature; and, since each has a different nature, each one of them, I think, is beautiful in a different fashion. Is that not so?—He agreed.—Does it not follow, then, that precisely what makes a dog beautiful, makes a horse ugly, and precisely what makes a horse beautiful, makes a dog ugly, if, that is, their natures are different?—So it appears.—Yes, for, to my way of thinking, what makes a pancratiast beautiful does not make a wrestler good, and, more than that, makes a runner quite absurd: and the same man who is beautiful for the pentathlon is very ugly for wrestling?—That is so, said he.—What, then, makes a man beautiful other than just that which makes a dog or a horse beautiful in its kind?—Just that, said he.—What is it, then, that makes a dog beautiful? The presence of a dog's excellence. What makes a horse beautiful? The presence of a horse's excellence. What, then, makes a man beautiful? Is it not the presence of a man's excellence? Very well, then, young man, do you too, if you wish to be beautiful, labour to achieve this, the excellence that characterizes a man.—And what is that?—Observe who they are whom you yourself praise, when you praise people dispassionately; is it the just, or the unjust?—The just;—is it the temperate, or the dissolute?—The temperate;—and is it the self-controlled, or the uncontrolled?—The self-controlled.—In making yourself that kind of person, therefore, rest assured that you will be making  7