Discourses 3.7 ¶1 — Epictetus

Epictetus, Discourses 3.7 ¶1

When the administrator came to visit him, and the man was an Epicurean, Epictetus said: It is proper for us who are not philosophers to inquire of you who are philosophers, as those who come to a strange city inquire of the citizens and those who are acquainted with it, what is the best thing in the world, in order that we also after inquiry may go in quest of that which is best and look at it, as strangers do with the things in cities. For that there are three things which relate to man—soul, body, and things external—scarcely any man denies. It remains for you philosophers to answer what is the best. What shall we say to men? Is the flesh the best? and was it for this that Maximus sailed as far as Cassiope in winter (or bad weather) with his son, and accompanied him that he might be gratified in the flesh? When the man said that it was not, and added, “Far be that from him.” Is it not fit then, Epictetus said, to be actively employed about the best? “It is certainly of all things the most fit.” What then do we possess which is better than the flesh? “The soul,” he replied. And the good things of the best, are they better, or the good things of the worse? “The good things of the best.” And are the good things of the best within the power of the will or not within the power of the will? “They are within the power of the will.” Is then the pleasure of the soul a thing within the power of the will? “It is,” he replied. And on what shall this pleasure depend? On itself? But that cannot be conceived: for there must first exist a certain substance or nature (οὐσία) of good, by obtaining which we shall have pleasure in the soul. He assented to this also. On what then shall we depend for this pleasure of the soul? for if it shall depend on things of the soul, the substance (nature) of the good is discovered; for good cannot be one thing, and that at which we are rationally delighted another thing; nor if that which precedes is not good, can that which comes after be good, for in order that the thing which comes after may be good, that which precedes must be good. But you would not affirm this, if you are in your right mind, for you would then say what is inconsistent both with Epicurus and the rest of your doctrines. It remains then that the pleasure of the soul is in the pleasure from things of the body: and again that those bodily things must be the things which precede and the substance (nature) of the good.