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practice, and desire and avoidance as well. I want to know how you apply and prepare yourself, and how you practise attention, ∗ so that I can decide whether with you these functions operate in harmony with nature. [15] If you are, in fact, acting in accord with nature, then show me, and I will be the first to say that you are making progress. But otherwise, be off, and rather than just comment on books, you might as well go write one yourself. But, in the end, what good will it do you? [16] You know that a whole book costs around five denarii. 4 Is the commentator, then, worth more than that? [17] Don’t put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else.
    [18] Where is progress, then? If there is anyone who renounces externals and attends instead to their character, cultivating and perfecting it so that it agrees with nature, making it honest and trustworthy, elevated, free, unchecked and undeterred; [19] and if they’ve learned that whoever desires or avoids things outside their control cannot be free or faithful, but has to shift and fluctuate right along with them, subject to anyone with the power to furnish or deprive them of these externals; [20] and if from the moment they get up in the morning they adhere to their ideals, eating and bathing like a person of integrity, putting their principles into practice in every situation they face – the way a runner does when he applies the principles of running, or a singer those of musicianship [21] – that is where you will see true progress embodied, and find someone who has not wasted their time making the journey here from home.
    [22] But anyone whose sole passion is reading books, and who does little else besides, having moved here for this – my advice for them is to go back home immediately and attend to business there, [23] because they left home for nothing. A student should practise how to expunge from his life sighs and sorrow, grief and disappointment, exclamations like ‘poor me’ and ‘alas’; [24] he should learn what death is, as well as exile, jail and hemlock, so at the end of the day he can say, like Socrates in prison, ‘Dear Crito, if it pleases the gods, so be it,’ 5 – instead of, ‘Poor me, an old man – is this what old age held in store for me?’ [25] Don’t imagine that I am referring to anyone humble or obscure, either; Priam says it, so does Oedipus. In fact, all the kings of legend can be found saying it. [26] For what else are tragedies but the ordeals of people who have come to value externals, tricked out in tragic verse?
    [27] If I had to be deceived into believing that externals, which lie outside our power, are not man’s proper concern, personally I would consent to such a deception, provided it really could enable me to live an untroubled life, in peace of mind. Which condition you prefer you can determine for yourself.
    [28] What does Chrysippus give us? ‘To make certain,’ hesays, ‘that these doctrines promising freedom from passion and serenity are legitimate, [29] take all my books, ∗ and you will find that the knowledge that makes me impassive is faithful to, and in accord with, nature.’ How lucky we are! A benefactor – and how great a benefactor! – has shown us the way. 6 [30] Men have erected altars to Triptolemus 7 for giving us the art of farming; [31] but the man who found, disclosed and explained the truth to everyone – not the truth that pertains just to living, but to living well – who among you ever raised an altar, built a temple, erected a statue or venerated God for that? [32] We offer the gods sacrifice because they gave us wheat and wine. But they have produced such wonderful fruit in a human mind, as part of their plan to bestow on humanity the true secret of happiness. Are we going to forget to express our gratitude to them on that account?
I 5 Against the Sceptics 8
    [1] If a man objects to truths that are all too evident, it is no easy task finding