Ἡγεμονικόν (τό).—The Ruling Faculty—that in a man which chooses, determines, takes cognizance of good and evil, and sways the inferior faculties (δυνάμεις, powers) to its will. Lotze notes this _hegemonic_ quality in the human soul as that which distinguishes it from the bundle of sensations into which the Association Philosophy would resolve it. θαυμάζειν.—To admire, be dazzled with admiration by, to worship, to be taken up with a thing so as to lose the power of cool judgment. A frequent word in Epictetus, the sense of which is precisely rendered in Hor. _Sat._ I, 4, 28, “Hunc capit argenti splendor, _stupet_ Albius ære.” Ἰδιώτης.—One of the vulgar, an unlettered person; in Epictetus, one uninstructed in philosophy. Originally the word meant one who remained in private life, not filling any public office, or taking part in State affairs. A man might be an ἰδιώτης, or “layman,” with respect to any branch of science or art. Καλὸς καὶ ἀγαθός.—The good and wise man—literally, beautiful and good. A standing phrase to denote the perfection of human character. καλὸς is a word sometimes difficult to render. Curtius connects it etymologically with Sanscrit, _kalyas_; Gothic, _hails_=healthy. Οἴησις.—“Conceit”—defined by Cicero as “Opinatio”—intellectual self-sufficiency, the supposing one’s self to know something when one does not. “The first business of a philosopher,” says Epictetus, “is to cast away οἴησις, for it is impossible that one can begin to learn the things that he thinks he knows” (_Diss._ II. xvii. 1.) He is not, in short, to be “wise in his own conceit.” ὄρεξις, ἔκκλισις, ὁρμή, ἀφορμή.—Pursuit, avoidance, desire, aversion. According to Simplicius (Comment. _Ench._ i.), ὄρεξις and ἔκκλισις were used by the Stoics to express the counterparts in outward action of the mental affections, ὁρμὴ and ἀφορμή, and were regarded as consequent upon the latter. προαίρεσις.—The Will; but as used in Epictetus, this word implies much more than the mere faculty of volition. Literally, it means a choosing of one thing before another; in Epictetus, the power of deliberately resolving or purposing, the exercise of the reflective faculty being implied. It is hardly to be distinguished from τὸ ἡγεμονικόν, _q. v._ προλήψεις.—“Natural Conceptions.” See Preface, xxviii., xxix. The “primary truths” of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Συγκατατίθεσθαι.—To assent to or acquiesce in anything, to ratify by the judgment the emotions produced by external things or events, such as the sense of dread, or pleasure, or reprobation, which they arouse in us. To be on one’s guard against the hasty yielding of this assent is one of Epictetus’s main injunctions to the aspirant in philosophy.