are all sound has had opportunity to practically exemplify; and so the total mental state, toothache-borne-with-fortitude, may be positively good. This doctrine that external things never in themselves constitute a mental state; that they are consequently indifferent; that the all-important contribution is made by the mind itself; that this contribution from the mind is what gives the tone and determines the worth of the total mental state; and that this contribution is exclusively our own affair and may be brought entirely under our own control;--this is the first and most fundamental Stoic principle. If we have grasped this principle, we are prepared to read intelligently and sympathetically the otherwise startling and paradoxical deliverances of the Stoic masters. II SELECTIONS FROM THE STOIC SCRIPTURES First let us listen to Epictetus, the slave, the Stoic of the cottage as he has been called:-- "Everything has two handles: one by which it may be borne, another by which it cannot. If your brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold on the affair by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be borne; but rather by the opposite, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you, and thus you will lay hold on it as it is to be borne." Here the handle is a homely but effective figure for the mass of mental association into which the external fact of a brother who acts unjustly is introduced before he actually enters our mental state, and determines how we shall feel and act.