The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 55
praise me and go away, one with his shoulder just as
it was when he entered, another with his head still
aching, another with his fistula, and another with his
abscess? Is it for this, then, that young men shall
quit home, and leave their parents and their friends, and
relatives and property, that they may say to you,
*
Wonderful ! as you utter your witty sayings ? Did
Socrates do this, did Zeno, did Cleanthes?
Diss. iii. 23).
(Epictetus,
Lastly, the philosopher
must be careful
not to offend
by careless neglect of his body he must guard against
:
repelling people from philosophy by his own personal
habits and appearance.
1
Fine dress, indeed, is not the desideratum. Once
there came to Epictetus a young
rhetorician with
elaborately dressed hair, and in ornamental attire. 2
Epictetus must needs chaff this fashionable youth on his
dandyism, but with a serious purpose under it.
Through
a process of Socratic cross-questioning, not without a
touch of humour, he tried to get him to understand
that he was expending his exertions in the wrong
direction. Not the body but the will, not the outward
form but the inward being, is the fit
subject
for care
and decoration. But though that was suitable treat
ment of the young rhetorician under the circumstances,
Epictetus saw, with deepest insight, the hopeful sign
even in the love of outward adornment, still more did
he estimate aright the value of personal cleanliness,
and so, on occasion, he could say (Diss. iv.
u): "I,
indeed, had rather, by the gods, that a young man in
1
This against the Cynics.
2
See Diss. iii. i.