# All the Works of Epictetus, Which Are Now Extant/Book 4/Chapter 3

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CHAPTER III.
What Things are to be exchanged for others.
§. 1.When you have lost any thing external, have this always at hand, what you have got instead of it: and, if that be of more Value, do not by any means say, "I am a Loser:" whether it be a Horse for an Ass; an Ox for a Sheep; a good Action for a Piece of Money; a due composedness of Mind for a dull Jest; or Modesty for indecent Discourse. By continually remembring this, you will preserve your Character such as it ought to be. Otherwise consider, that you are spending your Time in vain; and all that you are now applying your Mind to, you are going to spill and overset. And there needs but little, and a small Deviation from Reason, to destroy and overset all. A Pilot doth not need the same Apparatus to overset a Ship, as to save it; but, if ​he turns it a little to the Wind, it is lost: even if he should not do it by Design, but only for a Moment be thinking of something else, it is lost. Such is the Case here too. If you do but nod a little, all that you have hitherto collected is gone. Take heed then to the Appearances of Things. Keep yourself awake over them. It is no inconsiderable Matter you have to guard; but Modesty, Fidelity, Constancy, Enjoyment, Exemption from Grief, Fear, Perturbation; in short, Freedom. For what will you sell these? Consider what the Purchase is worth.——"But shall I not get such a Thing instead of it?"——Consider, if you do get it, what it is that you obtain for the other. I have Decency; another the Office of a Tribune: I have Modesty; he hath the Prætorship. But I do not make Acclamations where it is unbecoming: I shall not rise up [to do Honour to another] in a Case where I ought not: for I am free, and the Friend of God, so as to obey him willingy: but I must not value any thing else; neither Body, nor Possessions, nor Fame; in short, nothing. For it is not His Will, that I should value them. For, if this had been his Pleasure, he would have made them my Good, which now he hath not done; therefore I cannot transgress his Commands.——"In every thing preserve your own proper Good."——"But what of the rest?"——"Preserve them too according as it is permitted, and so far as to behave agreeably to Reason in relation to them; contented with this alone. Otherwise you will be unfortunate, disappointed, restrained, hindered." These are the Laws, these the Statutes, transmitted from ​thence. Of these one ought to be an Expositor, and to these obedient, not to those of Masurius and Cassius.
* ↑ See p. 277. Note (e).
* ↑ I suspect, that τυγχανων should be ου τυγχανων, and then the Translation will be,—Consider, on the other hand, if you do not get that, what you obtain instead of it.
* ↑ Probably Epictetus here alludes to the jumping up in the Theatre, in favour of some Actor, mentioned in the preceding Chapter, and in the fourth Chapter of the third Book.
* ↑ Two famous Lawyers. This Passage is an Instance of the manner of Speaking, less usual among the Greek and Roman, than the Eastern Writers; where enjoining one Thing, and forbidding another, means only that the first should be preferred in case of Competition.