why do you contract the world?  Yes, but I would have my little children with me and my wife.  What, are they yours? do they not belong to the giver, and to him who made you? then will you not give up what belongs to others? will you not give way to him who is superior?  Why then did he introduce me into the world on these conditions?  And if the conditions do not suit you, depart.  He has no need of a spectator who is not satisfied.  He wants those who join in the festival, those who take part in the chorus, that they may rather applaud, admire, and celebrate with hymns the solemnity.  But those who can bear no trouble, and the cowardly, he will not unwillingly see absent from the great assembly ([Greek:  panaeguris]) for they did not when they were present behave as they ought to do at a festival nor fill up their place properly, but they lamented, found fault with the deity, fortune, their companions; not seeing both what they had, and their own powers, which they received for contrary purposes, the powers of magnanimity, of a generous mind, manly spirit, and what we are now inquiring about, freedom.  For what purpose then have I received these things?  To use them.  How long?  So long as he who has lent them chooses.  What if they are necessary to me?  Do not attach yourself to them and they will not be necessary; do not say to yourself that they are necessary, and then they are not necessary.

You then, a man may say, are you free?  I wish, by the gods, and pray to be free; but I am not yet able to face my masters, I still value my poor body, I value greatly the preservation of it entire, though I do not possess it entire.  But I can point out to you a free man, that you may no longer seek an example.  Diogenes was free.  How was he free?  Not because he was born of free parents, but because he was himself free, because he had cast off all the handles of slavery, and it was not possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man the means of laying hold of him to enslave him.  He had everything easily loosed, everything only hanging to him.  If you laid hold of his property, he would have rather let it go and be yours, than he would have followed you for it; if you had laid hold of his leg, he would have let go his leg; if of all his body, all his poor body; his intimates, friends, country, just the same.  For he knew from whence he had them, and from whom, and on what conditions.  His true parents indeed, the gods, and his real country he would never have deserted, nor would he have yielded to any man in obedience to them and to their orders, nor would any man have died for his country more readily.  For he was not used to inquire when he should be considered to have done anything on behalf of the whole of things (the universe, or all the world), but he remembered that everything which is done comes from thence and is done on behalf of that country and is commanded by him who administers it.  Therefore see what Diogenes himself says and writes:  “For this