fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind,
that will unfold its great proportions.

* * * * *

EPICTETUS

DISCOURSES AND ENCHEIRIDION

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus was born about 50 A.D., at
Hierapolis, in Phrygia, at that time a Roman province of Asia
Minor, and was at first a slave in Rome. On being freed he
devoted himself to philosophy, and thereafter lived and taught
at Nicopolis, in Epirus (then a portion of Macedonia,
corresponding to Albania to-day), from about 90 A.D. to 138
A.D. He left no works, but his utterances have been collected
in four books of "Discourses" or "Dissertations" by his pupil
and friend Arrian. In the "Encheiridion Epictete"--a "Handbook
to Epictetus" compiled and condensed from the chaos of the
almost verbatim "Discourses"--Arrian gives the most authentic
account of the philosophy of the Greek and Roman Stoics, the
sect founded by Zeno about 300 years before the Christian era,
which flourished until the decline of Rome. Arrian himself was
born about 90 A.D. at Nicomedia. He wrote in the style of
Xenophon the "Anabasis of Alexander," a book on "Tactics," and
several histories which have been lost. He is chiefly of note,
however, as the Boswell of Epictetus. He died about 180 A.D.

_I.--OF THE WILL, AND OF GOD_

The reasoning faculty alone considers both itself and all other powers,
and judges of the appearance of things. And, as was fit, this most
excellent and superior faculty, the faculty of a right use of the
appearances of things, is that alone which the gods have placed in our
own power, while all the other matters they have placed not in our
power. Was it because they would not? I rather think that if they could,
they had granted us these, too; but they certainly could not. For,
placed upon earth, and confined to such a body and such companions, how
was it possible that we should not be hindered by things without us?

But what says Jupiter? "O Epictetus, if it were possible, I had made
this little body and possession of thine free, and not liable to
hindrance. But now do not mistake; it is not thine own, but only a finer
mixture of clay. Since, then, I could not give thee this, I have given
thee a certain portion of myself--this faculty of exerting the powers of
pursuit and avoidance, of desire and aversion, and, in a word,