very man the cause of his acting is opinion. For
what is the reason why you desired to be elected governor of the
Cnossians? Your opinion. What is the reason that you are now going up to
Rome? Your opinion. And going in winter, and with danger and expense? I
must go. What tells you this? Your opinion. Then if opinions are the
causes of all actions, and a man has bad opinions, such as the cause may
be, such also is the effect! Have we then all sound opinions, both you
and your adversary? And how do you differ? But have you sounder opinions
than your adversary? Why? You think so. And so does he think that his
opinions are better; and so do madmen. This is a bad criterion. But show
to me that you have made some inquiry into your opinions and have taken
some pains about them. And as now you are sailing to Rome in order to
become governor of the Cnossians, and you are not content to stay at
home with the honors which you had, but you desire something greater and
more conspicuous, so when did you ever make a voyage for the purpose of
examining your own opinions, and casting them out, if you have any that
are bad? Whom have you approached for this purpose? What time have you
fixed for it? What age? Go over the times of your life by yourself, if
you are ashamed of me (knowing the fact) when you were a boy, did you
examine your own opinions? and did you not then, as you do all things
now, do as you did do? and when you were become a youth and attended the
rhetoricians, and yourself practised rhetoric, what did you imagine that
you were deficient in? And when you were a young man and engaged in
public matters, and pleaded causes yourself, and were gaining
reputation, who then seemed your equal? And when would you have
submitted to any man examining and showing that your opinions are bad?
What then do you wish me to say to you? Help me in this matter. I have
no theorem (rule) for this. Nor have you, if you came to me for this
purpose, come to me as a philosopher, but as to a seller of vegetables
or a shoemaker. For what purpose then have philosophers theorems? For
this purpose, that whatever may happen, our ruling faculty may be and
continue to be conformable to nature. Does this seem to you a small
thing? No; but the greatest. What then? does it need only a short time?
and is it possible to seize it as you pass by? If you can, seize it.

Then you will say, I met with Epictetus as I should meet with a stone or
a statue: for you saw