his purpose, we have never written for this purpose, so that we may
in our actions use in a way conformable to nature the appearances
presented to us; but we terminate in this, in learning what is said, and
in being able to expound it to another, in resolving a syllogism, and in
handling the hypothetical syllogism. For this reason where our study
(purpose) is, there alone is the impediment. Would you have by all means
the things which are not in your power? Be prevented then, be hindered,
fail in your purpose. But if we read what is written about action
(efforts, [Greek: hormae]), not that we may see what is said about
action, but that we may act well; if we read what is said about desire
and aversion (avoiding things), in order that we may neither fail in our
desires, nor fall into that which we try to avoid; if we read what is
said about duty (officium), in order that remembering the relations (of
things to one another) we may do nothing irrationally nor contrary to
these relations; we should not be vexed, in being hindered as to our
readings, but we should be satisfied with doing the acts which are
conformable (to the relations), and we should be reckoning not what so
far we have been accustomed to reckon: To-day I have read so many
verses, I have written so many; but (we should say), To-day I have
employed my action as it is taught by the philosophers; I have not
employed my desire; I have used avoidance ([Greek: echchlisei]) only
with respect to things which are within the power of my will; I have not
been afraid of such a person, I have not been prevailed upon by the
entreaties of another; I have exercised my patience, my abstinence, my
co-operation with others; and so we should thank God for what we ought
to thank him.

There is only one way to happiness, and let this rule be ready both in
the morning and during the day and by night: the rule is not to look
towards things which are out of the power of our will, to think that
nothing is our own, to give up all things to the Divinity, to Fortune;
to make them the superintendents of these things, whom Zeus also has
made so; for a man to observe that only which is his own, that which
cannot be hindered; and when we read, to refer our reading to this only,
and our writing and our listening. For this reason I cannot call the man
industrious, if I hear this only, that he reads and writes; and even if
a man adds that he reads all night, I cannot say so, if he knows not to