The creed of Epictetus Author:Epictetus Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI DIVINATION, FALSE AND TRUE an unreasonable regard to di- vination many of us omit many duties. For if I must expose myself to danger for a frien... more »d, and if it is my duty even to die for him, what need have I then for divination? Have I not within me a Diviner, who has told me the nature of good and evil, and has explained to me the signs of both? What need have I, then, to consult the viscera of victims or the flight of birds.1 Wherefore, when we ought to share a friend's danger or that of our country, we must not consult the diviner whether we ought to share it. For even if the diviner shall tell you that the signs of the victims are unlucky, yet reason prevails that even with these risks we should share the dangers of our friend and of our country. Therefore attend to the greater diviner, the Pythian God, who ejected from the temple him who did not assist his friend when he was being murdered.2 The woman therefore, who intended to send by a vessel a month's provisions to a friend in banishment, made a good answer to him who said that Domitian would seize what she sent. For she replied, I would rather that Domitian should seize all than that I should fail to send it. Thus we should come to God as to a guide : as a traveller inquires the road of the person hemeets, without any desire for that which turns to the right hand more than for that which turns to the left; for he wishes for neither of these, but for that only which leads him properly. So we make use of our eyes, not persuading them to show us one object rather than another, but receiving such as they present to us. For would you have anything other than what is best? Is there anything better than what pleases God ? 1 1 D. II. vii. Long. 2M. XXXII. Long. CHAPTER VII THE KINSHIP OF GOD AND MAN ...« less