“Epictetus,” said Pascal, “is one of the philosophers of the world who have best known the duties of man. Above all things, he would have man regard God as his chief object—to be persuaded that He governs all things with righteousness—to submit to Him cordially, and to follow Him willingly, as having made all things with perfect wisdom. Such a disposition would stay all complaints and murmurs, and prepare the human mind to bear quietly the most troublesome events. ‘Never say,’ he observes (Enchirid. 11), ‘I have lost that; say rather, I have restored it. My son is dead; I have surrendered him. My wife is dead; I have given her up.’ And so of every other good. . . . While its use is permitted, regard it as a good belonging to others, as a traveller does in an inn. You should not wish,’ he adds, ‘that things be as you desire, but you should desire them to be as they are.’ . . . It is your duty to play well the part assigned to you, but to choose the part is the act of Another. Have always death before your eyes, and the evils which are least supportable, and you would never think meanly of anything, nor desire anything in excess. He shows in a thousand ways what is the duty of man. He wishes him to be humble, to conceal his good resolutions, especially in their beginnings, that he may carry them out in secret. Nothing is so ruinous to them as publicity. He never ceases to repeat that the whole duty and desire of man ought to be to acknowledge the will of God, and to follow it.