yourselves what you wish.

What then does Chrysippus teach us? The reply is, to know that these
things are not false, from which happiness comes and tranquillity
arises. Take my books, and you will learn how true and conformable to
nature are the things which make me free from perturbations. O great
good fortune! O the great benefactor who points out the way! To
Triptolemus all men have erected temples and altars, because he gave us
food by cultivation; but to him who discovered truth and brought it to
light and communicated it to all, not the truth which shows us how to
live, but how to live well, who of you for this reason has built an
altar, or a temple, or has dedicated a statue, or who worships God for
this? Because the gods have given the vine, or wheat, we sacrifice to
them; but because they have produced in the human mind that fruit by
which they designed to show us the truth which relates to happiness,
shall we not thank God for this?

* * * * *

AGAINST THE ACADEMICS.--If a man, said Epictetus, opposes evident
truths, it is not easy to find arguments by which we shall make him
change his opinion. But this does not arise either from the man's
strength or the teacher's weakness; for when the man, though he has been
confuted, is hardened like a stone, how shall we then be able to deal
with him by argument?

Now there are two kinds of hardening, one of the understanding, the
other of the sense of shame, when a man is resolved not to assent to
what is manifest nor to desist from contradictions. Most of us are
afraid of mortification of the body, and would contrive all means to
avoid such a thing, but we care not about the soul's mortification. And
indeed with regard to the soul, if a man be in such a state as not to
apprehend anything, or understand at all, we think that he is in a bad
condition; but if the sense of shame and modesty are deadened, this we
call even power (or strength).

* * * * *

OF PROVIDENCE.--From everything, which is or happens in the world, it is
easy to praise Providence, if a man possesses these two qualities: the
faculty of seeing what belongs and happens to all persons and things,
and a grateful disposition. If he does not possess these two qualities,
one man will not see the use of things which are and which happen:
another will not be thankful for them, even if he does know them. If God
had made colors, but had not ma