Page:Encheiridion of Epictetus - Rolleston 1881.pdf/22

xvi have been and are many unconscious ones) was he who first looked upon the world and his own nature, and observed that the things wherein he was subject to fatality and chance, which he was unable to order at his own will, were just those which either did not affect him, his real self, at all; or affected him only as he desired they should. The question, then, about Stoicism, is this, Is this distinction between the real and phantasmal self a valid one—is it founded upon natural truth? Now, let no friend of the Association philosophy imagine that in this 'real self' of Epictetus he is being confronted with his ancient enemy, the Ego. To say that there is a real self and that there is a phantasmal self need imply no more than this—that among all the things which give pleasure there are some which afford a deeper, fuller, more permanent enjoyment than others; an enjoyment of such a kind that he who has felt it knows it to be more worth having than anything else in the world. The real self, then,