No
one then who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live in fear? Do you
wish to live in sorrow? Do you wish to live in perturbation? By no
means. No one then who is in a state of fear or sorrow or perturbation
is free; but whoever is delivered from sorrows and fears and
perturbations, he is at the same time also delivered from servitude. How
then can we continue to believe you, most dear legislators, when you
say, We only allow free persons to be educated? For philosophers say we
allow none to be free except the educated; that is, God does not allow
it. When then a man has turned round before the praetor his own slave,
has he done nothing? He has done something. What? He has turned round
his own slave before the praetor. Has he done nothing more? Yes: he is
also bound to pay for him the tax called the twentieth. Well then, is
not the man who has gone through this ceremony become free? No more than
he is become free from perturbations. Have you who are able to turn
round (free) others no master? is not money your master, or a girl or a
boy, or some tyrant or some friend of the tyrant? Why do you trouble
then when you are going off to any trial (danger) of this kind? It is
for this reason that I often say, study and hold in readiness these
principles by which you may determine what those things are with
reference to which you ought to be cautious, courageous in that which
does not depend on your will, cautious in that which does depend on it.

* * * * *

OF TRANQUILLITY (FREEDOM FROM PERTURBATION).--Consider, you who are
going into court, what you wish to maintain and what you wish to succeed
in. For if you wish to maintain a will conformable to nature, you have
every security, every facility, you have no troubles. For if you wish to
maintain what is in your own power and is naturally free, and if you are
content with these, what else do you care for? For who is the master of
such things? Who can take them away? If you choose to be modest and
faithful, who shall not allow you to be so? If you choose not to be
restrained or compelled, who shall compel you to desire what you think
that you ought not to desire? who shall compel you to avoid what you do
not think fit to avoid? But what do you say? The judge will determine
against you something that appears formidable; but that you should also
suffer in trying to avoid it, how can he do that? When then the pursuit
of objects and the avoidin