Anytus and Melitus can indeed slay me, but harm me they cannot.' (Socrates.) To this last conception of life; quoted from the end of Plato's _Apology_, Epictetus recurs elsewhere: "What resources have we," he asks, "in circumstances of great peril?
What other than the remembrance of what is or what is not in our own power; what is possible to us and what is not?
I must die.

Be it so; but need I die groaning?
I must be bound; but must I be bound bewailing?
I must be driven into exile, well, who prevent me then from going with laughter, and cheerfulness, and calm of mind?
"'Betray secrets.' "'Indeed I will not, for _that_ rests in my own hands.' "'Then I will put you in chains.' "'My good sir, what are you talking about?
Put _me_ in chains?
No, no! you may put my leg in chains, but not even Zeus himself can master my will.' "'I will throw you into prison.' "'My poor little body; yes, no doubt.' "'I will cut off your head.' "'Well did I ever tell you that my head was the only one which could not be cut off ?' "Such are the things of which philosophers should think, and write them daily, and exercise themselves therein." There are many other passages in which Epictetus shows that the free-will of man is his noblest privilege, and that we should not "sell it for a trifle;" or, as Scripture still more sternly expresses it, should not "sell ourselves for nought." He relates, for instance, the complete failure of the Emperor Vespasian to induce Helvidius Priscus not to go to the Senate.

"While I am a Senator," said Helvidius, "I _must_ go." "Well, then, at least be silent there." "Ask me no questions, and I will be silent." "But I _must_ ask your opinion." "And _I_ must say what is right." "But I will put you to death." "Did I ever tell you I was immortal?
Do _your_ part, and _I_ will do _mine_.

It is yours to kill me, mine to die untrembling; yours to banish me, mine to go into banishment without grief." We see from these remarkable extracts that the wisest of the heathen had, by God's grace, attained to the sense that life was subject to a divine guidance.

Yet how dim was their vision of this truth, how insecure their hold upon it, in comparison with that which the meanest Christian may attain! They never definitely grasped the doctrine of immortality.