Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/293

 vouchsafed them, and to their own powers which they had received for the very opposite use—high-mindedness, nobility of character, courage, and the very freedom for which we are now seeking.—For what purpose, then, did I receive these gifts?—To use them.—How long?—For as long as He who lent them to you wills.—But what if they are necessary to me?—Do not set your heart upon them, and they will not be necessary to you. Do not say to yourself that they are necessary, and they will not be.

This is what you ought to practise from morning till evening. Begin with the most trifling things, the ones most exposed to injury, like a pot, or a cup, and then advance to a tunic, a paltry dog, a mere horse, a bit of land; thence to yourself, your body, and its members, your children, wife, brothers. Look about on every side and cast these things away from you. Purify your judgements, for fear lest something of what is not your own may be fastened to them, or grown together with them, and may give you pain when it is torn loose. And every day while you are training yourself, as you do in the gymnasium, do not say that you are "pursuing philosophy" (indeed an arrogant phrase!), but that you are a slave presenting your emancipator in court; for this is the true freedom. This is the way in which Diogenes was set free by Antisthenes, and afterwards said that he could never be enslaved again by any man. How, in consequence, did he behave when he was captured! How he treated the pirates! 283 VOL. II.