We ought then to eradicate these bad opinions, and to this end we should direct all our efforts.  For what is weeping and lamenting?  Opinion.  What is bad fortune?  Opinion.  What is civil sedition, what is divided opinion, what is blame, what is accusation, what is impiety, what is trifling?  All these things are opinions, and nothing more, and opinions about things independent of the will, as if they were good and bad.  Let a man transfer these opinions to things dependent on the will, and I engage for him that he will be firm and constant, whatever may be the state of things around him.  Such as is a dish of water, such is the soul.  Such as is the ray of light which falls on the water, such are the appearances.  When the water is moved, the ray also seems to be moved, yet it is not moved.  And when then a man is seized with giddiness, it is not the arts and the virtues which are confounded, but the spirit (the nervous power) on which they are impressed; but if the spirit be restored to its settled state, those things also are restored.

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Miscellaneous.—­When some person asked him how it happened that since reason has been more cultivated by the men of the present age, the progress made in former times was greater.  In what respect, he answered, has it been more cultivated now, and in what respect was the progress greater then?  For in that in which it has now been more cultivated, in that also the progress will now be found.  At present it has been cultivated for the purpose of resolving syllogisms, and progress is made.  But in former times it was cultivated for the purpose of maintaining the governing faculty in a condition conformable to nature, and progress was made.  Do not then mix things which are different, and do not expect, when you are laboring at one thing to make progress in another.  But see if any man among us when he is intent upon this, the keeping himself in a state conformable to nature and living so always, does not make progress.  For you will not find such a man.

It is not easy to exhort weak young men; for neither is it easy to hold (soft) cheese with a hook.  But those who have a good natural disposition, even if you try to turn them aside, cling still more to reason.

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To the administrator of the free cities who was an epicurean.—­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