Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-19

Can Won bear your own company?
This is the question which "the most
noble stole Epictetus" asks US OF today
from a time distance OF 1000 years
BY putting the question he an
SwerS it; by all means, ne says, a hu-
man being with the faculty of reason
ought to be able to bear being by him
self.
We considered here recently the neces-
Sity on the part of many people to be
alone with themselves for some time
each day.
We instanced a certain prominent
European financier who has a silence
room" into which no one else can enter.
Epictetus shows us that every man
may make his own silence room" IN
his own heart, If he believes firmly
enough in the necessity for 1t, and Is
willing 10 study little.
Will Durant our modern populartzer
of philosophy, has collected the Thoughts
of the worlds great philosophers into
one readabls book.
It is a question, however, whether the
average reader will get as much from
his compilation, drained as those great
thoughts are through another, as he
will from reading the untrammeled
ideas of any one OF the philosophers
themselves.
Consider this question of solitude,
and the need for it. EpictetuS must
have dwelt on 1t many times, as he sat
before his pupils, because there is
something in the mental composition
of the average person which makes him
slightly afraid of being alone by himself
X X **
The great Stole philosopher put his
finger unerringly on the primal phySi-
cal basis of this fear,
People are afraid to be alone, he said
because they know that solitude is the
state of a helpless person.
It must be remembered that men who
lived 1000 years ago were closer to the
primitive facts of life than are we who
live in the great modern cities.
1t Is difficult for any one to convince
us that the Romans, for instance, even
though they knew the Roman peace
which was q real thing, mind you, not
phrase only-really experienced as
much tranquility as the average citizen
in our present civilization.
Solitude with them meant, first OF
all, being physically alone, and in that
state 1t was possible for robbers or
others to assault one. Only secondarily
did 1t mean mental aloofneSS to the
man in the Roman street"
But the essence of the Stole philoso-
ply, which, of all the pagan ways OF
thought, has held up best to our day
was that nothing is either good OF
bad but thinking makes 1t So"
Epictetus would have agreed to that
more modern phrasing, although he
would not have liked the slightly
Mandy pamby tinge which it possesses
mot he who Is alone is therefore
solitary" he once told his pupils, ANY
more than one in crowd; the con-
trary."
In other words, as every one has ex-
perienced, one may be more lonesome
In a theater packed with unknown per-
sons than reading a good book before
going to bed.
when, therefore we lose a son, or q
brother, or a friend, on whom we have
been used to repoSe, we often say, we
are left solitary, even in the midst OF
Rome"
Every one knows this feeling. It was
the warm humanity of Epictetus, despite
his severity of expression, which called
it to his mind. It must ever be remem-
bered that this great man, "a slave, and
manned in body, beggar, and dear to
the inamortals," had never heard Christ's
doctrine of love. The power Of suffer
ing to make men better and nobler had
not been revealed to the world. Prof.