Page:Encheiridion of Epictetus - Rolleston 1881.pdf/25

PREFACE. power to close the sources of true happiness, the happiness which satisfies the real self, against me.

And, again, in Ench. xliv., one man is said to be superior to another, not for his possessions or for his talents, but (since you are not wealth, you are not language) for the predominance in him of his real self, for his hold of such things as truth, soberness, justice, love of God and man.

Such ideas as these seem, when their bearing on practice is first realized, so profoundly discrepant with human life as it is, that most people are inclined to regard them, though not without admiration, as being merely unpractical and fantastic. But, apart from the fact that this discrepancy is probably far less great than is generally supposed (many persons, especially in great crises, showing themselves true Stoics who might be incapable of reading a chapter of Epictetus with sympathy), it must be remembered that what I have