administers the whole, as good citizens do to the law of the state. He
who is receiving instruction ought to come to be instructed with this
intention, How shall I follow the gods in all things, how shall I be
contented with the divine administration, and how can I become free? For
he is free to whom everything happens according to his will, and whom no
man can hinder. What then, is freedom madness? Certainly not; for
madness and freedom do not consist. But, you say, I would have
everything result just as I like, and in whatever way I like. You are
mad, you are beside yourself. Do you not know that freedom is a noble
and valuable thing? But for me inconsiderately to wish for things to
happen as I inconsiderately like, this appears to be not only not noble,
but even most base. For how do we proceed in the matter of writing? Do I
wish to write the name of Dion as I choose? No, but I am taught to
choose to write it as it ought to be written. And how with respect to
music? In the same manner. And what universally in every art or science?
Just the same. If it were not so, it would be of no value to know
anything, if knowledge were adapted to every man's whim. Is it then in
this alone, in this which is the greatest and the chief thing, I mean
freedom, that I am permitted to will inconsiderately? By no means; but
to be instructed is this, to learn to wish that everything may happen as
it does. And how do things happen? As the disposer has disposed them?
And he has appointed summer and winter, and abundance and scarcity, and
virtue and vice, and all such opposites for the harmony of the whole;
and to each of us he has given a body, and parts of the body, and
possessions, and companions.

What then remains, or what method is discovered of holding commerce with
them? Is there such a method by which they shall do what seems fit to
them, and we not the less shall be in a mood which is conformable to
nature? But you are unwilling to endure, and are discontented; and if