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Greetings.
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he
is young nor weary in the search thereof
when he is grown old. For no age is too early
or too late for the health of the soul. And
to say that the season for studying philosophy
has not yet come, or that it is past and
gone, is like saying that the season for
happiness is not yet or that it is now no
more. Therefore, both old and young ought
to seek wisdom, the former in order that,
as age comes over him, he may be young in
good things because of the grace of what
has been, and the latter in order that, while
he is young, he may at the same time be old,
because he has no fear of the things which
are to come. So we must exercise ourselves
in the things which bring happiness, since,
if that be present, we have everything, and,
if that be absent, all our actions are directed
toward attaining it.
Those things which without ceasing I have
declared to you, those do, and exercise yourself
in those, holding them to be the elements
of right life. First believe that God is
a living being immortal and happy, according
to the notion of a god indicated by the common
sense of humankind; and so of him anything
that is at agrees not with about him whatever
may uphold both his happyness and his immortality.
For truly there are gods, and knowledge of
them is evident; but they are not such as
the multitude believe, seeing that people
do not steadfastly maintain the notions they
form respecting them. Not the person who
denies the gods worshipped by the multitude,
but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude
believes about them is truly impious. For
the utterances of the multitude about the
gods are not true preconceptions but false
assumptions; hence it is that the greatest
evils happen to the wicked and the greatest
blessings happen to the good from the hand
of the gods, seeing that they are always
favorable to their own good qualities and
take pleasure in people like to themselves,
but reject as alien whatever is not of their
kind.
Accustom yourself to believe that death is
nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness,
and death is the privation of all awareness;
therefore a right understanding that death
is nothing to us makes the mortality of life
enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited
time, but by taking away the yearning after
immortality. For life has no terror; for
those who thoroughly apprehend that there
are no terrors for them in ceasing to live.
Foolish, therefore, is the person who says
that he fears death, not because it will
pain when it comes, but because it pains
in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance
when it is present, causes only a groundless
pain in the expectation. Death, therefore,
the most awful of evils, is nothing to us,
seeing that, when we are, death is not come,
and, when death is come, we are not. It is
nothing, then, either to the living or to
the dead, for with the living it is not and
the dead exist no longer. But in the world,
at one time people shun death as the greatest
of all evils, and at another time choose
it as a respite from the evils in life. The
wise person does not deprecate life nor does
he fear the cessation of life. The thought
of life is no offense to him, nor is the
cessation of life regarded as an evil. And
even as people choose of food not merely
and simply the larger portion, but the more
pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time
which is most pleasant and not merely that
which is longest. And he who admonishes the
young to live well and the old to make a
good end speaks foolishly, not merely because
of the desirability of life, but because
the same exercise at once teaches to live
well and to die well. Much worse is he who
says that it were good not to be born, but
when once one is born to pass with all speed
through the gates of Hades. For if he truly
believes this, why does he not depart from
life? It were easy for him to do so, if once
he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only
in mockery, his words are foolishness, for
those who hear believe him not.
We must remember that the future is neither
wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that
neither must we count upon it as quite certain
to come nor despair of it as quite certain
not to come.
We must also reflect that of desires some
are natural, others are groundless; and that
of the natural some are necessary as well
as natural, and some natural only. And of
the necessary desires some are necessary
if we are to be happy, some if the body is
to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even
to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding
of these things will direct every preference
and aversion toward securing health of body
and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this
is the sum and end of a happy life. For the
end of all our actions is to be free from
pain and fear, and, when once we have attained
all this, the tempest of the soul is laid;
seeing that the living creature has no need
to go in search of something that is lacking,
nor to look anything else by which the good
of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled.
When we are pained pleasure, then, and then
only, do we feel the need of pleasure. For
this reason we call pleasure the alpha and
omega of a happy life. Pleasure is our first
and kindred good. It is the starting-point
of every choice and of every aversion, and
to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling
the rule by which to judge of every good
thing. And since pleasure is our first and
native good, for that reason we do not choose
every pleasure whatever, but often pass over
many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues
from them. And often we consider pains superior
to pleasures when submission to the pains
for a long time brings us as a consequence
a greater pleasure. While therefore all pleasure
because it is naturally akin to us is good,
not all pleasure is worthy of choice, just
as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain
is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring
one against another, and by looking at the
conveniences and inconveniences, teat all
these matters must be judged. Sometimes we
treat the good as an evil, and the evil,
on the contrary, as a good. Again, we regard.
independence of outward things as a great
good, not so as in all cases to use little,
but so as to be contented with little if
we have not much, being honestly persuaded
that they have the sweetest enjoyment of
luxury who stand least in need of it, and
that whatever is natural is easily procured
and only the vain and worthless hard to win.
Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly
diet, when one the pain of want has been
removed, while bread an water confer the
highest possible pleasure when they are brought
to hungry lips. To habituate one's se therefore,
to simple and inexpensive diet supplies al
that is needful for health, and enables a
person to meet the necessary requirements
of life without shrinking and it places us
in a better condition when we approach at
intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless
of fortune.
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end
and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of
the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality,
as we are understood to do by some through
ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation.
By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in
the body and of trouble in the soul. It is
not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts
and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not
the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies
of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant
life; it is sober reasoning, searching out
the grounds of every choice and avoidance,
and banishing those beliefs through which
the greatest disturbances take possession
of the soul. Of all this the d is prudence.
For this reason prudence is a more precious
thing even than the other virtues, for ad
a life of pleasure which is not also a life
of prudence, honor, and justice; nor lead
a life of prudence, honor, and justice, which
is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues
have grown into one with a pleasant life,
and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.
Who, then, is superior in your judgment to
such a person? He holds a holy belief concerning
the gods, and is altogether free from the
fear of death. He has diligently considered
the end fixed by nature, and understands
how easily the limit of good things can be
reached and attained, and how either the
duration or the intensity of evils is but
slight. Destiny which some introduce as sovereign
over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming
rather that some things happen of necessity,
others by chance, others through our own
agency. For he sees that necessity destroys
responsibility and that chance or fortune
is inconstant; whereas our own actions are
free, and it is to them that praise and blame
naturally attach. It were better, indeed,
to accept the legends of the gods than to
bow beneath destiny which the natural philosophers
have imposed. The one holds out some faint
hope that we may escape if we honor the gods,
while the necessity of the naturalists is
deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold
chance to be a god, as the world in general
does, for in the acts of a god there is no
disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain
one, for he believes that no good or evil
is dispensed by chance to people so as to
make life happy, though it supplies the starting-point
of great good and great evil. He believes
that the misfortune of the wise is better
than the prosperity of the fool. It is better,
in short, that what is well judged in action
should not owe its successful issue to the
aid of chance.
Exercise yourself in these and kindred precepts
day and night, both by yourself and with
him who is like to you; then never, either
in waking or in dream, will you be disturbed,
but will live as a god among people. For
people lose all appearance of mortality by
living in the midst of immortal blessings.
THE END
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Evans Experientialism 
