Chapter II
1. The word in the Greek is περιστάσεις, literally circumstances, but the word is evidently used in a bad sense, as equivalent to afflictions. Doom is likewise etymologically a neutral word, but one which has received an evil meaning.
2. Socrates’s faith in his genius or “Dæmon” was well known. In this passage from his Apologia (which Epictetus gives from a bad text), it is doubtless the manner only that conveyed the idea of mockery. Neither Socrates nor any one else ever had better evidence of God’s existence than His voice in our conscience.