Now the more they neglected practice, the more they refined the theory. I shall here add a few proofs and supplementary details to the exposition of it given at the close of our first book. If we search in the writings of the Stoics which remain to us, all of which are unsystematically composed, for the ultimate ground of that irrefragible equanimity which is unceasingly demanded of us, we find no other than the knowledge that the course of the world is entirely independent of our will, and consequently, that the evil which befalls us is inevitable. If we have regulated our claims by a correct insight into this, then mourning, rejoicing, fearing, and hoping are follies of which we are no longer capable. Further, especially in the commentaries of Arrian, it is surreptitiously assumed that all that is ουκ εφ᾽ ἡμιν (_i.e._, does not depend upon us) is at once also ου προς ἡμας (_i.e._, does not concern us). Yet it remains true that all the good things of life are in the power of chance, and therefore whenever it makes use of this power to deprive us of them, we are unhappy if we have placed our happiness in them. From this unworthy fate we are, in the opinion of the Stoics, delivered by the right use of reason, by virtue of which we regard all these things, never as ours, but only as lent to us for an indefinite time; only thus can we never really lose them. Therefore Seneca says (Ep. 98): “_Si, quid humanarum rerum varietas possit, cogitaverit, ante quam senserit_,” and Diogenes Laertius (vii. 1. 87): “Ισον δε εστι το κατ᾽ αρετην ζῃν τῳ κατ᾽ εμπειριαν των φυσει συμβαινοντων ζῃν.” (_Secundum virtutem vivere idem est, quod secundum experientiam eorum, quæ secundum naturam accidunt, vivere._) The passage in Arrian’s “Discourses of Epictetus,” B. iii., c. 24, 84-89, is particularly in point here; and especially, as a proof of what I have said in this reference in § 16 of the first volume, the passage: “Τουτο γαρ εστι το αιτιον τοις ανθροποις παντων των κακων το τας προληψεις τας κοινας μη δυνασθαι εφαρμοζειν τοις επι μερους,” Ibid. iv., 1. 42. (_Hæc enim causa est hominibus omnium malorum, quod anticipationes generales rebus singularibus accommodare non possunt._) Similarly the passage in “Marcus Aurelius” (iv. 29): “Ει ξενος κοσμου ὁ μη γνωριζων τα εν αυτῳ οντα, ουχ ἡττον ξενος και ο μη γνωριζων τα γιγνομενα;” that is: “If he is a stranger to the universe who does not know what is in it, no less is he a stranger who does not know how things go on in it.” Also Seneca’s eleventh chapter, “_De Tranquilitate Animi_,” is a complete proof of this view. The opinion of the Stoics amounts on the whole to this, that if a man has watched for a while the juggling illusion of happiness and then uses his reason, he must recognise both the rapid changes of the dice and the intrinsic worthlessness of the counters, and therefore must henceforth remain unmoved. Taken generally the Stoical point of view may be thus expressed: our suffering always arises from the