It will be seen that Epictetus permits suicide without extolling it, for in another place (ii. 1) he says: "What is pain? A mere ugly mask; turn it, and see that it is so. This little flesh of ours is acted on roughly, and then again smoothly. If it is not for your interest to bear it, the door is open; if it is for your interest--endure. It is right that under all circumstances the door should be open, since so men end all trouble." This power of _endurance_ is completely the keynote of the Stoical view of life, and the method of attaining to it, by practising contempt for all external accidents, is constantly inculcated. I have already told the anecdote about Agrippinus by which Epictetus admiringly shows that no extreme of necessary misfortune could wring from the true Stoic a single expression of indignation or of sorrow. The inevitable, then, in the view of the Stoics, comes from God, and it is our duty not to murmur against it. But this being the guiding conception as regards ourselves, how are we to treat others? Here, too, our duties spring directly from our relation to God. It is that relation which makes us reverence ourselves, it is that which should make us honour others. "Slave! will you not bear with your own brother, who, has God for his father no less than you? But they are wicked, perhaps--thieves and murderers. Be it so, then they deserve all the more pity. You don't exterminate the blind or deaf because of their misfortunes, but you pity them: and how much more to be pitied are wicked men? Don't execrate them. Are you yourself so _very_ wise?" Nor are the precepts of Epictetus all abstract principles; he often pauses to give definite rules of conduct and practice. Nothing, for instance, can exceed the wisdom with which he speaks of habits (ii. 18), and the best means of acquiring good habits and conquering evil ones. He points out that we are the creatures of habit; that every single act is a definite grain in the sand-multitude of influences which make up our daily life; that each time we are angry or evil-inclined we are adding fuel to a fire, and virulence to the seeds of a disease. A fever may be cured, but it leaves the health weaker; and so also is it with the diseases of the soul. They leave their mark behind them. Take the instance of anger. "Do you wish not to be passionate? do not then cherish the habit within you, and do not add any stimulant thereto. Be calm at first, and then number the days in which you have not been in a rage. I used to be angry every day, now it is only every other day, then every third, then every fourth day. But should you have passed even thirty days without a relapse, then offer a sacrifice to God. For the habit is first loosened, then utterly eradicated. 'I did not yield to vexation today, nor the next day, nor so on for two or three months, but I restrained myself under various provocations.' Be sure, if you can say _that_, that it will soon be all right with you."