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that is not a small feat. Stick only to the work in hand and to the 
tools you have for doing it.” And when relatives, or courtiers, or 
officials have tried to throw obstacles in his way, he writes :— 
“To lose your temper with them is no less weakness than to 
abstain from action or to be coerced into giving in.” 
The Stoic attitude was not mere passive acquiescence even when 
‘* Nature’ imposed suffering. Hear Epictetus again : ‘‘ Other men 
have been sick, but I willingly, because it was ‘ Nature's’ will ; 
others have worn fetters and been in prison, but I cheerfully ; 
many have been poor, but I with pleasure, because ‘ Nature ’ 
willed it.’” We know how gallantly he bore his extreme poverty ; he 
put the best possible face on it, lest the aspect of the philosopher 
should frighten people from his doctrine. ‘‘ A philosopher,”’ 
says he, ‘‘ should not preach philosophy with the aspect of a 
condemned criminal.”’ 
Once more hear the brave old man urge certain who were 
overwhelmed by misfortune: ‘‘ Cease to wish for those things 
that the vulgar call happy or fortunate. Remember that you are 
like the athletes in training. If when the athlete has trained, his 
contest does not come off, he is disappointed. So when sickness, 
poverty, torture, exile or death come to you, say to yourselves: 
* Nature’ says, ‘ Come now to the combat.’ Here is the contest 
for which I have been training.’ Strive to show that your 
training has not been in vain. 
To their honour be it said that the Stoics rarely failed to show 
that their training had not been in vain. 
Though perhaps no rule of life has been so misunderstood in 
modern times as the great Stoic formula ‘‘ Live according to 
‘Nature,’” the Stoic teaching and the Stoic ideals have 
influenced deeply thought and conduct in Western Europe. 
About the year 500, in the last degenerate days of Roman 
power, lived Boethius, a noble Roman who filled great offices 
of state, and who spent his life in doing justice himself 
and in preventing others from doing injustice. After a 
public life which was one long protest against rampant 
public corruption and the misdeeds which flowed from it, his 
enemies were powerful enough to procure him ruin, and he was 
thrown into prison, where, as he himself wrote of Socrates ‘ he 
achieved the crowning victory of an unjust death.” While 
waiting death he wrote the charming ‘‘ Consolation of Philosophy,” 
which was for ages one of the most valued books in Western 
Christendom. Even the Englishman, who knew no Latin, could 
read it in Alfred’s translation. The ‘‘ Consolation” was for some 
hundreds of years the only book which was widely known through- 
out Western Europe, and before the invention of printing, the 
** Meditations ” of Thomas 4 Kempis was the only book which 
