cardinal virtues--for the discovery of one's impulses, for right
endurances and harmonious distributions.

From things good and bad we now turn to things indifferent. Hitherto
the Stoic doctrine has been stern and uncompromising. We have now to
look at it under a different aspect, and to see how it tried to
conciliate common sense.

By things indifferent were meant such as did not necessarily
contribute to virtue, for instance health, wealth, strength, and
honor. It is possible to have all these and not be virtuous, it is
possible also to be virtuous without them. But we have now to learn
that though these things are neither good nor evil, and are therefore
not matter for choice or avoidance, they are far from being
indifferent in the sense of arousing neither impulse nor repulsion.
There are things indeed that are indifferent in the latter sense,
such as whether you put out your finger this way or that, whether you
stoop to pick up a straw or not, whether the number of hairs on your
head be odd or even. But things of this sort are exceptional. The
bulk of things other than virtue and vice do arouse in us either
impulse or repulsion. Let it be understood then that there are two
senses of the word indifferent--
(1) neither good nor bad
(2) neither awaking impulse nor repulsion

Among things indifferent in the former sense, some were in accordance
with nature, some were contrary to nature and some were neither one
nor the other. Health, strengths and soundness of the senses were in
accordance with nature; sickness weakness and mutilation were
contrary to nature, but such things as the fallibility of the soul