"Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth: his commonwealth
is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind.
"In person he should be strong, and robust, and hale, and in spite of
his indigence always clean and attractive. Tact and intelligence, and a
power of swift repartee, are necessary to him. His conscience must be
clear as the sun. He must sleep purely, and wake still more purely. To
abuse and insult he must be as insensible as a stone, and he must place
all fears and desires beneath his feet. To be a Cynic is to be this:
before you attempt it deliberate well, and see whether by the help of
God you are capable of achieving it."
I have given a sketch of the doctrines of this lofty chapter, but fully
to enjoy its morality and eloquence the reader should study it entire,
and observe its generous impatience, its noble ardour, its vivid
interrogations, "in which," says M. Martha, "one feels as it were a
frenzy of virtue and of piety, and in which the plenitude of a great
heart tumultuously precipitates a torrent of holy thoughts."
Epictetus was not a Christian. He has only once alluded to the
Christians in his works, and there it is under the opprobrious title of
"Galileans," who practised a kind of insensibility in painful
circumstances and an indifference to worldly interests which Epictetus
unjustly sets down to "mere habit.
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