previous next

What philosophy promises.

When one consulted him, how he might persuade his brother to forbear treating him ill, Philosophy, answered Epictetus, does not promise to procure any outward good for man; otherwise it would include something beyond its proper theme. For as the material of a carpenter is wood; of a statuary, brass; so of the art of living, the material is each man's own life.

"What, then, is my brother's life? "

That, again, is matter for his own art, but is external to you; like property, health, or reputation. Philosophy undertakes none of these. In every circumstance I will keep my will in harmony with nature. To whom belongs that will? To Him in whom I exist.

"But how, then, is my brother's unkindness to be cured?"

Bring him to me, and I will tell him; but I have nothing to say to you about his unkindness.

But the inquirer still further asking for a rule for self-government, if he should not be reconciled, Epictetus answered thus, -

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than [p. 1056] a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you, that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen. Since, then, the fruit of a fig-tree is not brought to perfection suddenly, or in one hour, do you think to possess instantaneously and easily the fruit of the human mind? I warn you, expect it not.


The Works of Epictetus: His Discourses, in Four Books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. Epictetus. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. translator. New York. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 1890.

This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus English (George Long, 1890)
load focus Greek (1916)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: