W

April   8th

THE COST    OF  ACCEPTING   COUNTERFEITS

“When   it  comes   to  money,  where   we  feel    our clear   interest,   we  have    an  entire  art where   the tester

uses    many    means   to  discover    the worth   .   .   .   just    as  we  give    great   attention   to  judging things  that

might   steer   us  badly.  But when    it  comes   to  our own ruling  principle,  we  yawn    and doze    off,

accepting   any appearance  that    flashes by  without counting    the cost.”

—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.20.8;  11

hen coins were much more rudimentary, people had to spend a lot of time testing them to confirm
the currency they’d just received was genuine. The Greek word dokimazein means “to assay” or
check the quality of a mineral ore. Merchants were often skilled enough that they could test coinage by
throwing it against a hard surface and listen to the note it rang. Even today, though, if someone were to
hand you a hundred-dollar bill, you might rub it between your fingers or hold it up to the light, just to
confirm it wasn’t a fake.
All this for an imaginary currency, an invention of society. The point of this metaphor is to highlight
how much effort we put into making sure money is real, whereas we accept potentially life-changing
thoughts or assumptions without so much as a question. One ironic assumption along these lines: that
having a lot of money makes you wealthy. Or that because a lot of people believe something, it must be
true.
Really, we should be testing these notions as vigilantly as a money changer. For, as Epictetus reminds
us, “the first and greatest task of the philosopher is to test and separate appearances, and to act on nothing
that is untested.”