ritas._[175]

The vices of Zeno[176] himself.

467

_The reason of effects._--Epictetus.[177] Those who say, "You have a
headache;" this is not the same thing. We are assured of health, and not
of justice; and in fact his own was nonsense.

And yet he believed it demonstrable, when he said, "It is either in our
power or it is not." But he did not perceive that it is not in our power
to regulate the heart, and he was wrong to infer this from the fact that
there were some Christians.

468

No other religion has proposed to men to hate themselves. No other
religion then can please those who hate themselves, and who seek a Being
truly lovable. And these, if they had never heard of the religion of a
God humiliated, would embrace it at once.

469

I feel that I might not have been; for the Ego consists in my thoughts.
Therefore I, who think, would not have been, if my mother had been
killed before I had life. I am not then a necessary being. In the same
way I am not eternal or infinite; but I see plainly that there exists in
nature a necessary Being, eternal and infinite.

470

"Had I seen a miracle," say men, "I should become converted." How can
they be sure they would do a thing of the nature of which they are
ignorant? They imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God
which is like commerce, and in a communion such as they picture to
themselves. True religion consists in annihilating self before that
Universal Being, whom we have so often provoked, and who can justly
destroy us at any time; in recognising that we can do nothing without
Him, and have deserved nothing from Him but His displeasure. It consists
in knowing that there is an unconquerable opposition between us and God,
and that without a mediator there can be no communion with Him.

471

It is unjust that men should attach themselves to me, even though they
do it with pleasure and voluntarily. I should deceive those in whom I
had created this desire; for I am not the end of any, and I have not the
wherewithal to satisfy them. Am I not about to die? And thus the object
of their attachment will die. Therefore, as I would be blamable in
causing a falsehood to be believed, though I should employ gentle
persuasion, though it should be believed with pleasure, and though it
should give me pleasure; even so I am blamable in making myself loved,
and if I attract persons to attach themselves to me. I ought to warn
those who are ready