Discourses: Book 3 10 : 3

But am I not a scholar?—And for what purpose do you devote yourself to scholarship? Slave, is it not that you may be happy? Is it not that you may be secure? Is it not that you may conform to nature and live your life in that way. What prevents you, when you have a fever, from having your governing principle conform with nature? Here is the proof of the matter, the test of the philosopher. For this too is a part of life; like a stroll, a voyage, a journey, such is also a fever. I presume you do not read while taking a stroll, do you?—No.—No more than when you have a fever. But if you stroll in the right way, you perform what is expected of a stroller; if you have fever in the right way, you perform the things expected of the man who has a fever. What does it mean to have fever in the right way? Not to blame God, or man, not to be overwhelmed by what happens to you, to await death bravely and in the right way, to do what is enjoined upon you; when your physician comes to see you, not to be afraid of what he will say, and at the same time not to be carried away with joy, if he says, "You are doing splendidly"; for what good to you lay in that remark? Why, when you were well, what good was it to you? It means not to be downhearted, too, if he says, "You are in a bad way." For what does it mean to be in a bad way? That you are close to a separation of the soul from the body. What, then, is terrifying about that? If you do not draw near now, will you not draw near later? And is the universe going to be upset when you die? Why, then, do you wheedle your physician? Why do you say, "If you wish, Master, I shall get well"? Why do you give him occasion to put on airs? Why not give him just what is his due? As I give the shoemaker his due about my foot, the builder his due about my house, so also the physician his due about my paltry body, something that is not mine, something that is by nature dead. These are the things that the moment demands for a man who is in a fever; if he meets these demands, he has what properly belongs to him. For it is not the business of the philosopher to guard these external matters—neither his paltry wine, nor his paltry oil, nor his paltry body—but what? His own governing principle. And how treat externals? Only so far as not to act thoughtlessly about them. What proper occasion is there, then, any longer for fear? What proper occasion, then, any longer for anger? Or for fear about things that are not his own concern, worthless things? For here are the two principles that you ought to have ready at hand: Outside the sphere of the moral purpose there is nothing either good or bad; and, We ought not to lead events, but to follow them. "My brother ought not to have treated me so." No; but it is for him to look to that. As for me, no matter how he behaves, I shall observe all my relations to him as I ought. For this is my part, the other does not belong to me; in this nobody can hinder me, the other is subject to hindrance.