Epictetus his Morals, with Simplicius his comment made English from the Greek, by George Stanhope ...

CHAP. XLV.

Decline all Publick Entertainments, and mi∣xed Companies; but if any extraordina∣ry occasion call you to them, keep a strict Guard upon your self, lest you be infected with rude and vulgar Conversation: For know, that though a Man be never so clear himself, yet by frequenting Company that are tainted, he will of necessity con∣tract some Pollution from them.

COMMENT.

THE former Chapter was intended to give us a due and awful regard to God, and to check those Liberties, which light thoughts of his Majesty are apt to encourage in us. His next design is, to chain up that many-headed Monster, Desire; and in order hereunto, he pre∣scribes Rules, and sets Bounds to several instan∣ces of it, beginning with those which are most necessary for the sustenance of Life; and so pro∣ceeding to others, that make Provision for the Body, till at last he instances in those which Na∣ture is most prone to.

And there was good reason here to give a par∣ticular Advertisement concerning Feasts and large Companies, in regard there is so mighty a difference observable between those of Philoso∣phers, and those of common Men. The Eating and Drinking part, and all the Jollity, which is

the End and Business of most Invitations, Men of Sense have always look'd upon as the least part of a Feast: And their Meetings have been designed only for Opportunities to improve one another by mutual Conference, wise Di••courses, assidu∣ous Enquiry into the Truth, and a free Com∣munication of each others Studies and Opinions. This is exceeding plain, to their immortal Ho∣nour, from those admirable Pieces of Plato, and Xenophon, and Plutarch, and others, that go by the Name of their Symposia, and are an account of the Discourses that passed, when Friends met to eat and drink together. But the Entertain∣ments of the greatest part of the World, propose nothing to themselves but Luxury and Excess, and the gratifying Men's Palates and sensual Ap∣petites: They are not the Entertainment of a Man, but the Cramming and Gorging of a Brute, and most justly fall under the Reproach of an old Observation: The Table that gives us Meat with∣out Discourse, is not so properly a Table as a Manger.

A good Man therefore will be careful how he mingles himself in such Meetings, and decline them as much as is possible. But if any extraor∣dinary occasion draw him abroad, such as a So∣lemn Festival, the Invitation of a Parent, a com∣mon Meeting of Friends, or Relations, or Ci∣vility and Complaisance, where the thing cannot in good Manners be refused; then the next care is, That we keep a strict guard upon our selves; That we awaken our Reason, and call up all our Powers, that they watch the Motions of the Mind, and keep her under a severe Confinement, for fear she ramble abroad, and indulge her self in the Diversions of the Company, and by degrees

degenerate into their Follies. For there is a strange Contagion in Vice, and no Disease con∣veys it self more insensibly or more fatally, than sensual and brutish Inclinations do. Who∣ever therefore allows himself in the Conversati∣on of Persons addicted to them, and grows ac∣customed to their Vices, (for that I take to be the meaning of frequenting them) will soon contract their Pollutions; his own Innocence and Purity will not be able to secure him. In these cases, the least touch leaves a Tincture behind it. And this indeed is the proper Notion of Pollution, the soiling a clean thing with an un∣clean, and thereby casting a Blemish and Stain upon it.