Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/29

 the habit of speaking to anyone. Come then, let us obey God, that we rest not under His wrath." Nay, but if a raven gives you a sign by his croaking, it is not the raven that gives the sign, but God through the raven; whereas if He gives you a sign through a human voice, will you pretend that it is the man who is saying these things to you, so that you may remain ignorant of the power of the divinity, that He gives signs to some men in this way, and to others in that, but that in the greatest and most sovereign matters He gives His sign through His noblest messenger? What else does the poet mean when he says:

As Hermes descended to tell Aegisthus that, so now the gods tell you the same thing.

not to distort utterly nor to take useless pains about that which is already right, but to leave the man a man, and the woman a woman, the beautiful person beautiful as a human being, the ugly ugly as a human being. Because you are not flesh, nor hair, but moral purpose; if you get that beautiful, then you will be beautiful. So far I do not have the 19