Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

BOOK I. xii.12-19freedom is a noble and precious thing? But for meto desire at haphazard that those things shouldhappen which have at haphazard seemed best tome,, isdangerously near being, not merely not noble,but even in the highest degree shameful. For howdo we act in writing? Do I desire to write thename " Dio " as I choose? No, but I am taught todesire to write it as itought to be written. Whatdo we do in music? The same. And what ingeneral, where there is any art or science ? Thesame otherwise ;knowledge of anything would beuseless, if it were accommodated to every individual'swhims. Is it, then, only in this matter of freedom,the greatest and indeed the highest of all, that Iam permitted to desire at haphazard ? By no means,but instruction consists precisely in learning to desireeach thing exactly as ithappens. And how do they?happen As he that ordains them has ordained.And he has ordained that there be summer andwinter, and abundance and dearth, and virtue andvice, and all such opposites, for the harmony ofthe whole, and he has given each of us a body,and members of the body, and property andcompanions.Mindful, therefore, of this ordaining we should goto receive instruction, not in order to change the constitutionof things, for this is neither vouchsafedus nor is it better that it should be, but in orderthat, things about us being as they are and as theirnature is, we may, for our own part, keep our willsin harmony with what happens. For, look you, canwe escape from men ? And how is it possible ? Butcan we, if they associate with us, change them ?And who vouchsafes us that power ?What alterna-93