Book Eleven

1 The properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, it analyzes itself, it makes itself whatever it wants to be, it reaps itself the fruit it bears (whereas the fruits of plants, and what corresponds to them in animals, are reaped by others), it reaches its own end wherever the limit of life comes upon it. It is not as with a dance or a play and the like, where the whole performance is left incomplete if anything cuts it short; but in every part, and wherever it is overtaken, it makes what it set before itself full and complete, so that it can say, “I have what is mine.” Further, it goes round the whole universe and the void that surrounds it, and its shape, and stretches out into the infinity of time, and takes in and understands the periodic rebirth of all things, and sees that those who come after us will see nothing new, and that those before us saw nothing more, but that in a way a man of forty, if he has any mind at all, has seen all that has been and all that will be, since it is all of one kind. Proper to the rational soul too are love of neighbor, truth, modesty, and valuing nothing above itself, which is proper to law as well. So right reason and the reason of justice do not differ at all.

2 You will despise delightful singing and dancing and the all-in fight if you break up the melody into its single notes and ask yourself about each one: Am I overcome by this? You will be ashamed to say yes. Do the same with dancing, for each movement or pose, and the same with the all-in fight. In short, except for virtue and what comes from virtue, remember to go straight to the parts, and by dividing them come to despise them; and apply the same to the whole of life.

3 What a soul that is which is ready, if it must be released from the body now, to be either extinguished or scattered or to survive! But let this readiness come from its own judgment, not from mere obstinacy, like the Christians,¹ but after reflection, and with dignity, and so as to persuade another, without theatrics.

4 I have done something for the common good: then I have been benefited. Let this thought always be ready to meet you, and never stop.

5 What is your craft? To be good. And how is this done well except by doctrines, some about the nature of the whole, others about the proper constitution of man?

6 First, tragedies were brought on to remind us of what happens, and that it is in the nature of things to happen so, and that what delights you on the stage you should not find hard to bear on the greater stage. For you see that these things must be brought to pass in this way, and that even those who cry out “Alas, Cithaeron!”² have to bear them. And some useful things are said by the playwrights, such as this above all: “If I and my two sons are neglected by the gods, this too has its reason”; and again: “We must not be angry with things”; and: “To reap life like a ripe ear of grain”;³ and so on. After tragedy the Old Comedy was brought on, with a schoolmaster’s frankness, usefully reminding us, by its very plain speaking, to be free of vanity; and Diogenes too took over something of this kind for the same end. After this consider what the Middle Comedy was taken up for, and then the New, which little by little sank into the skill of mere imitation. That some useful things are said by these writers too is well known; but the whole aim of this kind of poetry and drama, what end did it look to?

7 How clearly it comes home to you that no other condition of life is so suited for practicing philosophy as this one in which you now find yourself!

8 A branch cut off from the branch next to it cannot help being cut off from the whole tree. So too a man severed from one man has fallen away from the whole community. Now a branch is cut off by someone else; but a man separates himself from his neighbor by hating him and turning away, and does not know that he has at the same time cut himself off from the whole commonwealth. But here is the gift of Zeus, who founded the community: it is possible for us to grow together again with the one next to us, and again to help complete the whole. But if this kind of separation happens often, it makes the part that breaks away hard to unite and restore. In short, the branch that has grown with the tree from the beginning and stayed breathing with it is not like the one grafted on again after being cut off, whatever the gardeners say. Grow on the same stem, but do not hold the same principles.

9 Those who stand in your way as you go forward according to right reason will not be able to turn you from sound action; so do not let them knock you out of your kindness toward them either. Guard yourself equally on both sides: not only in steady judgment and action, but also in gentleness toward those who try to hinder you or are otherwise hard to deal with. For to be angry with them is a weakness too, just as much as to give up the action and give in, cowed. Both are deserters alike: the one who has been frightened, and the one who has made himself a stranger to his natural kinsman and friend.

10 “No nature is inferior to art”; for the arts imitate natures. If so, the most perfect and most comprehensive nature of all would not fall short of the inventiveness of art. And all arts make the lower things for the sake of the higher; so too, then, does the common nature. And here is the origin of justice, and from justice the other virtues come into being. For justice will not be preserved if we care about indifferent things, or are easily deceived, hasty in judgment, and changeable.

11 If the things whose pursuit and avoidance trouble you do not come to you, but in a way you go to them, then let your judgment about them keep still, and they will stay at rest, and you will not be seen either pursuing or avoiding them.

12 The soul is a sphere true to its own form when it neither reaches out toward anything nor shrinks inward, neither spreads out nor sinks down, but shines with a light by which it sees the truth of all things and the truth within itself.

13 Will someone despise me? That is his concern. Mine is that I shall not be found doing or saying anything that deserves contempt. Will he hate me? That is his concern. But I shall be kind and well disposed toward everyone, and ready to show this very man what he has overlooked, not in reproach, nor as making a show of my patience, but sincerely and kindly, like the great Phocion,⁴ unless he was pretending. For the inside should be like this, and the gods should see a man not disposed to be angry at anything or to complain. For what harm is it to you if you are now doing what is proper to your nature, and accepting what is now timely for the nature of the whole, a man intent on bringing about, by whatever means, what is for the common good?

14 Despising one another, they fawn on one another; and wanting to get the better of one another, they bow down to one another.

15 How rotten and false is the man who says, “I have decided to deal with you straightforwardly.” What are you doing, man? There is no need to announce it. It will show itself. It ought to be written on your forehead. It rings out in the voice at once, it shines out in the eyes at once, as the beloved knows everything at once from a lover’s glance. The simple and good man should be altogether like this, like a man who smells of the goat, so that whoever stands near him notices it as soon as he comes close, whether he will or no. But studied simplicity is a knife.⁵ Nothing is more shameful than the friendship of the wolf; avoid that above all. The good and simple and kind man has these qualities in his eyes, and they do not go unnoticed.

16 To live the best of lives: the power for this lies in the soul, if one is indifferent to indifferent things. And one will be indifferent to them if one looks at each of them both in its parts and as a whole, and remembers that none of them produces in us a judgment about itself, or comes to us; they stay still, and it is we who produce judgments about them and, as it were, write them in ourselves, when we need not write them, and when, if they have slipped in unnoticed, we can wipe them out at once. Remember, too, that such attention will be needed for only a short time, and then life will be over. Besides, what is so hard about these things being as they are? If they are according to nature, be glad of them, and let them be easy for you; if against nature, look for what is according to your own nature and hurry toward it, even if it brings no fame. For everyone is forgiven for seeking his own good.

17 Where each thing has come from, and of what elements each is composed, and into what it is changing, and what it will be like when it has changed, and that it will suffer nothing bad.

18 First: what my relation to them is, and that we were born for one another; and, from another point of view, that I was born to stand at their head, as a ram over the flock or a bull over the herd. Go back to first principles: if not atoms, then nature governs the whole; if so, the lower things exist for the sake of the higher, and the higher for one another. Second: what sort of people they are at table, in bed, and so on; above all, what compulsions their principles put on them, and with what vanity they do these very things.

Third: that if they are doing these things rightly, we should not be vexed; and if not rightly, it is plainly against their will and in ignorance. For every soul is deprived unwillingly, as of the truth, so too of the power to treat each man as he deserves. At any rate, they are pained to hear themselves called unjust, ungrateful, grasping, in short, wrongdoers toward their neighbors. Fourth: that you yourself do wrong in many things and are another like them; and even if you refrain from some wrongs, you still have the disposition to commit them, even if it is cowardice or the wish for a good name or some such vice that keeps you from wrongs like theirs.

Fifth: that you do not even know for certain that they are doing wrong; for many things are done for some purpose, and in short one must learn a great deal before one can pronounce with certainty on another’s action. Sixth: when you are very angry, or even exasperated, that human life is but a moment, and in a little while we have all been laid out. Seventh: that it is not their actions that trouble us, for those lie in their own ruling centers, but our own judgments. Take them away, then, and be willing to let go of your judgment that this is something terrible, and your anger is gone. How, then, will you take them away? By reflecting that it is not shameful to you. For unless what is shameful is the only bad thing, you too must do much wrong, and become a robber and everything else.

Eighth: how much more grievous are the angers and sorrows that such things bring on than the very things at which we are angry and sorrowful. Ninth: that kindness is invincible, if it is sincere and not a forced smile or a pretense. For what will the most insolent man do to you if you go on being kind to him, and, if the chance comes, gently advise him and quietly show him a better way at the very moment when he is trying to do you harm? “No, my son; we were born for something else. I shall not be harmed; it is you who are being harmed, my son.” And show him tactfully and in general terms that this is so, that not even bees do this, nor any creatures born to live in herds. But you must do it without irony or reproach, but affectionately and without rancor in your soul; not as in a school, nor so that someone standing by may admire you, but to him alone, even if others are present.

Remember these nine heads as if you had received them as gifts from the Muses, and begin at last to be a man while you live. And you must guard equally against being angry with them and flattering them; for both are unsocial and lead to harm. And when you are angry, have this ready: that to be enraged is not manly, but that gentleness and mildness, as they are more human, so they are more manly; and that strength and sinew and courage belong to the gentle man, not to the one who is indignant and discontented. For the nearer it is to freedom from passion, the nearer it is to strength. As grief is a sign of weakness, so is anger; both have been wounded and have given in.

And if you like, take a tenth gift from the leader of the Muses:⁶ that to expect bad men not to do wrong is madness, for it is to want the impossible. But to allow them to be such toward others, and to expect them not to wrong you, is unfeeling and tyrannical.

19 There are four turnings of the ruling center above all that you must constantly watch for, and wipe out when you detect them, saying in each case: “This impression is not necessary”; “This undoes fellowship”; “What you are about to say does not come from yourself” (and count it among the most absurd things not to speak from yourself). The fourth is when you will reproach yourself because this is the work of the more divine part in you being overcome and bowing down to the less honorable and mortal part, the body and its rough or smooth motions.

20 Your breath and all the fiery part mingled in you, though by nature they tend upward, nevertheless obey the order of the whole and are held here in the compound. And all the earthy and watery part in you, though it tends downward, is nevertheless raised up and stands in a position not natural to it. So even the elements obey the whole when they have been posted somewhere by force, and remain there until the signal for dissolution sounds again from there. Is it not shameful, then, that only your thinking part should be disobedient and resent its post? And yet nothing is laid on it by force, but only what is according to its nature; and still it does not bear it, but is carried the opposite way. For its movement toward wrongdoing, self-indulgence, anger, grief, and fear is nothing but the movement of something breaking away from nature. And when the ruling center resents anything that happens, then too it deserts its post. For it was made for holiness and piety no less than for justice. For these too are forms of good fellowship, and indeed older than just dealings.

21 “He who does not always have one and the same aim in life cannot be one and the same throughout his life.” What has been said is not enough unless you add what that aim must be. For just as the judgment about all the things that seem good in one way or another to the majority is not uniform, but only about certain things, that is, those that concern the common good, so we must set before ourselves the aim that is social and civic. For the man who directs all his own impulses toward this will make all his actions alike, and so will always be the same.

22 The mountain mouse and the house mouse, and the house mouse’s terror and scurrying.⁷

23 Socrates used to call the opinions of the many Lamias, bogeys to frighten children.

24 The Spartans at their festivals set the seats for strangers in the shade, and sat down themselves wherever they happened to be.

25 Socrates to Perdiccas,⁸ on why he would not go to him: “So that I may not perish by the worst of deaths,” that is, that I may not receive kindness and be unable to return it.

26 In the writings of the Epicureans⁹ there was a precept to keep constantly in mind someone of the men of old who had practiced virtue.

27 The Pythagoreans: look at the sky at dawn, to remind ourselves of those beings who always do their own work in the same way and by the same rules, and of their order, their purity, their nakedness. For a star has no veil.

28 What Socrates was like with a sheepskin wrapped around him, when Xanthippe had taken his cloak and gone out; and what Socrates said to his friends, who were embarrassed and drew back when they saw him dressed like that.

29 In writing and reading you will not lead before you have been led. Much more so in life.

30 You were born a slave; reason is not yours to share.

31 And my own heart laughed within me.

32 They will blame virtue, speaking harsh words.¹⁰

33 To look for a fig in winter is madness. So is the man who looks for his child when it is no longer given.

34 When you kiss your child, Epictetus said, you should say under your breath, “Tomorrow perhaps you will die.”—Those are words of ill omen.—Nothing is of ill omen, he said, that signifies a work of nature. Or else it is of ill omen too that the ears of grain are reaped.

35 The unripe grape, the ripe bunch, the raisin: all changes, not into what is not, but into what is not yet.

36 No one can rob us of our will: Epictetus’s saying.

37 We must find an art of assent, he said, and in the field of the impulses keep our attention alert, so that they may be subject to reservation, social, and in proportion to the worth of things; and we must keep wholly away from desire, and have aversion for none of the things that are not in our power.

38 It is no ordinary matter, then, he said, that the contest is about, but whether we are to be mad or not.

39 Socrates used to say: “What do you want? To have the souls of rational beings or of irrational ones?”—“Of rational beings.”—“Of what rational beings? Sound or base?”—“Sound.”—“Then why do you not seek them?”—“Because we have them.”—“Then why do you fight and quarrel?”

Notes

1. 1. The only mention of Christians in the book. Some scholars think “like the Christians” a later note in the margin that crept into the text.

2. 2. Sophocles, Oedipus the King 1391: Oedipus, learning the truth of his fate, cries out to the mountain on which he was exposed as an infant.

3. 3. All from lost tragedies of Euripides: the Antiope, the Bellerophon, and the Hypsipyle. They are also quoted at 7.41, 7.38, and 7.40.

4. 4. Athenian general and statesman of the fourth century BC; condemned to death unjustly, he told his son to bear no grudge against the Athenians.

5. 5. The Greek skalmē is a Thracian knife; some editors read skambē, “a crooked stick.” “The friendship of the wolf,” from the fable of the wolf that made peace with the sheep, means false friendship.

6. 6. Apollo.

7. 7. The fable of the country mouse and the town mouse, told also by Horace, Satires 2.6.

8. 8. Perdiccas II, king of Macedon. Other sources name his son Archelaus as the king who invited Socrates.

9. 9. The manuscripts read “the Ephesians”; Leopold prints the conjecture “the Epicureans.”

10. 10. 11.31 is Homer, Odyssey 9.413, where Odysseus laughs inwardly after tricking the Cyclops; 11.32 adapts Hesiod, Works and Days 186. The source of 11.30 is unknown.