HKB
TO THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FREE CITIES, WHO WAS AN EPICUREAN.
The Administrator[1] having visited him (and this man was an Epicurean), It is proper, said Epictetus, that ignorant people like us should inquire of you that are philosophers (as men who come into a strange city make inquiry of the citizens and those familiar with the place) what is the chief thing in the world, to the end that, having learned it, we may go in search of it, and behold it, as men do with objects in the cities.
Now, that there are three things with which man is concerned--soul, and body, and the outer world--scarce any one will deny. It remaineth, then, for men like ye to answer which is the chief of these things? What shall we declare to men? Is it the flesh? And was it for this that Maximus sent forth his son, and sailed with him through the tempest as far as Cassiope,[2] for somewhat that he should feel in the flesh?
But the Epicurean denying this, and saying, God forbid, Epictetus said:
Is it not fit, then, that we should be zealous about that, the chief thing?
----"Of all things most fit."
What, then, have we greater than the flesh?
----"The soul," he said.
And the good of the chief thing, is it greater than the good of the lower thing?
----"The good of the chief thing is greater."
And the good things of the soul, are they in the power of the Will, or beyond the Will?
----"They are in the power of the Will."
The pleasure of the soul, then, is within the power of the Will?
He assented.
And this pleasure itself, whence may it arise? From itself? But this is inconceivable; for we must suppose some original substance of the Good, whereof the soul doth make us sensible when we light upon it.
This, too, he admitted.
Wherein, then, are we sensible of this spiritual pleasure? for if it be in spiritual things, the nature of the Good is discovered. For the Good cannot be something different from the thing that justly delights us; nor, if the original thing be not good, can aught be good that proceeds from it; for, in order that the thing proceeding may be good, the original thing must be good also. But this ye would never say, if ye had your wits, for so ye would speak things that agree not with Epicurus and the rest of your opinions. It remains, then, that we are conscious in bodily things of this pleasure of the soul, and again, that these are the original things and the very substance of the Good.[3]