I.18. On Not Being Angry at People Who Do Wrong
A hard lecture for most of us to hear. Epictetus says that the thief is not a villain but a person who has lost sight of what is really valuable. Chapter 42 of the Enchiridion stated this rule briefly. Here he walks it all the way in.
If what the wise say is true, that in everyone action starts from one source, feeling, then agreement is the feeling that a thing is so. Denial is the feeling that it is not so, yes, by Zeus. The withholding of judgment is the feeling that it is uncertain.
In the same way, the impulse toward a thing starts from the feeling that it is fitting, and the will to get a thing starts from the feeling that it is useful for us.
We cannot judge one thing useful and will to get another, or judge one thing fitting and be moved toward another.
If all this is true, why are we angry at the crowd?
"They are thieves and robbers," someone says.
What do you mean by thieves and robbers?
"They have gone astray and do not know what is good and what is evil."
Ought we, then, to be angry with them or to pity them? Show them their error, and you will see how quickly they stop their wrongdoing.
If their eyes are not opened, they treat nothing as higher than their own judgment.
"What then? Ought not this robber and this adulterer be put to death?"
Rather than say so, say this: "Shouldn't I destroy this man who is in error and delusion about the greatest matters, a man blinded not just in the sight that tells white from black, but in the judgment that tells good from evil?"
If you put it this way, you will see how inhuman your words are. It is like saying, "Shouldn't I kill this blind man, or this deaf one?"
If the greatest harm that can happen to a person is to lose what is greatest, and a right will is the greatest thing in every person, isn't it enough for him to lose this, without your anger on top of it?
Friend, if you have to hold some harsh feeling at another's misfortune, pity him rather than hate him.
Give up this spirit of offense and hatred. Do not use these phrases that the backbiting crowd uses, "these cursed and pestilent fools."
Very well. How did you suddenly turn into a wise man? What an angry temper you have.
Why, then, are we angry? Because we admire the material things that they rob us of.
Only cease to admire your clothes, and you are not angry with the one who steals them.
Cease to admire your wife's beauty, and you cease to be angry with the adulterer.
Know that the thief and the adulterer have no place among the things that are your own, only among things that belong to another and are beyond your power.
If you let them alone and count them as nothing, you have no one to be angry with anymore.
As long as you admire these things, you must be angry with yourself rather than with them.
Look, you have fine clothes, your neighbor has none. You have a window, and you want to air them. He does not know what the true good of a human being is, but thinks, like you, that the good is to have fine clothes. Isn't he, then, going to come and carry them off?
If you show a cake to greedy people, and gobble it down all by yourself, do you expect them not to snatch at it?
Do not provoke them. Do not have a window. Do not air your clothes.
Yesterday I had an iron lamp beside my household gods.
I heard a noise and rushed to the window.
I found the lamp had been carried off.
I reasoned with myself that the man who took it yielded to some plausible feeling.
What do I conclude? Tomorrow, I say, you will find one of earthenware.
The truth is, a person loses only what he has.
"I have lost my cloak." Yes, because you had one. "I have a headache." Do you have a horn-ache too?
Why, then, are you upset? Your losses and your pains have to do only with what you possess.
"The tyrant will chain me."
Yes, your leg.
"He will cut off."
What? Your neck.
What will he fail to bind or cut off? Your will.
That is why the men of old said, "Know yourself."
What follows? You ought to practice in small things, and go on from them to greater things.
"I have a headache." Then do not say, "Ah me." "I have an earache." Do not say, "Ah me."
I do not mean you cannot groan. I mean, do not groan in spirit.
If the boy brings you your leg-bands slowly, do not cry out and pull a long face and say, "Everyone hates me." Who wouldn't hate such a person?
Have confidence in these thoughts for the future, and walk upright and free, not leaning on bulk of body like an athlete. You do not need to be undefeated by brute force, like a donkey.
Who, then, is the person who cannot be conquered? The one whom nothing beyond his will can dismay.
So I go on watching him in each set of circumstances, as if he were an athlete. He has won the first round. What will he do in the second? What if there is a hot sun, and the struggle is at Olympia?
So it is in life.
If you offer a man a bit of silver, he will scorn it. What will happen if you offer him a young woman? What if you do it in the dark?
What happens if you press him with reputation, or abuse, or praise, or death? All these he can conquer.
What will he do if he is wrestling in the hot sun, I mean, if he has drunk too much? What if he is in a frenzy, or in sleep?
The person who can overcome in all these circumstances is what I mean by the athlete who cannot be beaten.