out this rule,
care must be taken not to neglect what I have said in the preceding
section.

SECTION 15. The things which engage our attention--whether they are
matters of business or ordinary events--are of such diverse kinds,
that, if taken quite separately and in no fixed order or relation,
they present a medley of the most glaring contrasts, with nothing in
common, except that they one and all affect us in particular. There
must be a corresponding abruptness in the thoughts and anxieties which
these various matters arouse in us, if our thoughts are to be in
keeping with their various subjects. Therefore, in setting about
anything, the first step is to withdraw our attention from everything
else: this will enable us to attend to each matter at its own time,
and to enjoy or put up with it, quite apart from any thought of our
remaining interests. Our thoughts must be arranged, as it were, in
little drawers, so that we may open one without disturbing any of the
others.

In this way we can keep the heavy burden of anxiety from weighing upon
us so much as to spoil the little pleasures of the present, or from
robbing us of our rest; otherwise the consideration of one matter will
interfere with every other, and attention to some important business
may lead us to neglect many affairs which happen to be of less moment.
It is most important for everyone who is capable of higher and nobler
thoughts to keep their mind from being so completely engrossed with
private affairs and vulgar troubles as to let them take up all his
attention and crowd out worthier matter; for that is, in a very real
sense, to lose sight of the true end of life--_propter vitam vivendi
perdere causas_.

Of course for this--as for so much else--self-control is necessary;
without it, we cannot manage ourselves in the way I have described.
And self-control may not appear so very difficult, if we consider that
every man has to submit to a great deal of very severe control on the
part of his surroundings, and that without it no form of existence
is possible. Further, a little self-control at the right moment may
prevent much subsequent compulsion at the hands of others; just as a
very small section of a circle close to the centre may correspond to
a part near the circumference a hundred times as large. Nothing
will protect us from external compulsion so much as the control of
ourselves; and, as Seneca says, to submit yourself to reason is
the way to make e