Kitap 1
2
Only consider at what price you sell your own will: if for no other reason, at least for this, that you sell it not for a small sum. But that which is great and superior perhaps belongs to Socrates and such as are like him. Why then, if we are naturally such, are not a very great number of us like him? Is it true then that all horses become swift, that all dogs are skilled in tracking footprints? What then, since I am naturally dull, shall I, for this reason, take no pains? I hope not. Epictetus is not superior to Socrates; but if he is not inferior,The text is: εἰ δὲ μὴ οὐ χείρων. The sense seems to be: Epictetus is not superior to Socrates, but if he is not worse, that is enough for me. On the different readings of the passage and on the sense, see the notes in Schweig.’s edition. The difficulty, if there is any, is in the negative μή. this is enough for me; for I shall never be a Milo,Milo of Croton, a great athlete. The conclusion is the same as in Horace, Epp. i. 1, 28, etc.: Est quodam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra. and yet I do not neglect my body; nor shall I be a Croesus, and yet I do not neglect my property; nor, in a word, do we neglect looking after anything because we despair of reaching the highest degree.
How a man should proceed from the principle of god being the father of all men to the rest.
