CHAPTER 15
What philosophy promises
When a man was consulting him how he should persuade his brother
to cease being angry with him, Epictetus replied: Philosophy does
not propose to secure for a man any external thing. If it did
philosophy would be allowing something which is not within its
province. For as the carpenter's material is wood, and that of the
statuary is copper, so the matter of the art of living is each man's
life. "What then is my brother's?" That again belongs to his own
art; but with respect to yours, it is one of the external things, like
a piece of land, like health, like reputation. But Philosophy promises
none of these. "In every circumstance I will maintain," she says, "the
governing part conformable to nature." Whose governing part? "His in
whom I am," she says.
"How then shall my brother cease to be angry with me?" Bring him
to me and I will tell him. But I have nothing to say to you about
his anger.
When the man, who was consulting him, said, "I seek to know this-
how, even if my brother is not reconciled to me, shall I maintain
myself in a state conformable to nature?" Nothing great, said
Epictetus, is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig
is. If you say to me now that you want a fig, I will answer to you
that it requires time: let it flower first, then put forth fruit,
and then ripen. Is, then, the fruit of a fig-tree not perfected
suddenly and in one hour, and would you possess the fruit of a man's
mind in so short a time and so easily? Do not expect it, even if I
tell you.
Back to the Discourses Table of Content