Evening star., 1929-11-15
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES 3. TRACEWELL.

social phases of modern life. The 'in-
struction" referred to is just such in
Struction as q man picks up for him.
| self as he goes along. Most OF us today
| have no kindly Epictetus to reprove us
| IL we do wrong. either to ourselves OF
others. Perhaps at no time in the his
! tory Of the world has man been Sc
alone with himself as in the twentieth
| century. The age-old tnterferences
with human beings have been miti-
gated in a great many ways, with the
result that 1t is up to every one to
get along as best he may.
The person who has not succeeded in
instructing himself in the everyday
psychology of this everyday sort OF
living is found on all sides blaming
others for his own misfortunes.
Talk with him takes the place of &C
tion. It Is. indeed, his action. AS Epic
tetus declares. 1T is the action of an
uninstruCted person to Teproach others
| for his own misfortune"
The next step in this chain of ever
increasing reasonableness comes when
a man has enough sense to reproach
himself when things go wrong. There
has been a great how-de- do made In
certain quarters against this, on the
ground that worry is useless, or even
worse than useless, since If a thing
feared happens, the worry was wasted
and II 1t does not happen, 1t was worse
than wasted, even.
The truth of the matter is that when
sensible man perceives that an evil
which has come to him has arrived
largely through his own fault, he rushes
forward to accept the blame out of ex-
cess of fairness In his nature.
Such worry as comes Is portion OF
his honesty with himself, and he will
never reproach himself for it, because
1t is part of thingsvas-they-are.
4 * x
The man who is perfectly instructed
that is. who has worked out for him
self philosophy of living-will try his
best to reproach neither others nor
himself for his own misfortunes.
This Is as close as we can get to the
theoretical ideal of Epictetus. 1t must
be remembered that StoiciSm was re-
volt. mental revolution against things
as-they-were in the world more than
1000 years ago.
The preacher Of this philosophy
doubtless was more versed in the han
ding of 1t, in the application OF 1t to
his own life, than any reader OF later
ages can possibly be.
All that we can say today, therefore
seems to be tnaC man WHO Hds
learned a bit of how to conduct him.
self in the modern world-which is an
entirely different sort of world from
that known by Epictetus-will know in
stinetively how far he can go in re-
preaching either others or himself.
He will come increasingly nearer, as
he grows older, to blaming no one-nct
even himself Long ago he gave up
trying to put the blame on others
Even when he knows that they deserve
1t, he realizes that the placement is
useless.
Putting the blame elsewhere, except
under certain we'll known conditions
simply gets no results, and so the wise
man refrains from speaking at all
leaving the whole matter up to Tins
and chance.
Always the temptation win come te
reproach himself. Yet the same gentle
ness which he applies to others may be
used in his own case, with similarly
good results.
He will come in the end to an ap-
Proclamation, at the least, of the wis
dom of the wise man Epictetus, the
perfectly instructed one, who reproacheo
neither others nor himself.