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PREFACE. whether that character be one of enjoyment or of hardship, seems to me most contradictory to the spirit and tendency of the Encheiridion, as expressed, for instance, in chapter xli. There is no such thing as true self-mastery in one who is afraid of pleasure. There is a good deal of evidence, too, in the Discourses, that Epictetus cared for the outward seemliness of life; on one occasion he even said (of a pupil who came to him in foul and disordered garments) that when a man had no feeling for external beauty there was little chance of his being able to rouse him to a sense of the spiritually beautiful. Briefly, then, I incline to think that the doctrine which I put forward as that opposed to the ascetic doctrine is the one which Epictetus' works imply, and are likely, on the whole, to foster; and that contradictions to that doctrine which may appear in them are to be explained in three ways, by supposing: 1. That Arrian did not fully grasp or accurately report his master's views on