Cheer under the beasts' teeth. An extreme image of imperturbability: to live "unforced (ἀβιάστως), in the fullest gladness of soul (θυμηδία)" — even if all cry out what they please, even if beasts tear "the members (μελύδρια) of this kneaded dough (φύραμα) grown about [you]." φύραμα — "dough, a mash": the body is named dismissively, as a mess accidentally stuck on, so as to detach the invulnerable "I" from it. The rending of the flesh is left to the flesh; the question is what hinders the mind from holding TERMgalēnē (dead calm)?

Two voices of the mind. The answer is broken into two operations — judgment (κρίσις) and use (χρῆσις), each with its direct speech. Judgment says to what falls upon it (τῷ προσπίπτοντι): "this is what you are in substance (κατ’ οὐσίαν), though by opinion (κατὰ δόξαν) you seem otherwise" — the bare definition that strips off the film of appraisals. Use says to what comes to hand (τῷ ὑποπίπτοντι): "you are the very thing I was seeking (σὲ ἐζήτουν)" — not "why me?" but "just in time!"

The material one seeks. Why seeking? "For the TERMpresent is always to me the MOTIFmaterial (ὕλη) of TERMvirtue, rational and political" — the fire-image of 4.1: an event is no obstacle but fuel; the ruling part does not endure what happens but awaits it as raw stuff for its work. The ground is DOGMAassimilation (ἐξοικειοῦται, the same root as οἰκεῖος): everything that befalls is "made kin" to god or man, and therefore "neither new (καινόν) nor unmanageable (δυσμεταχείριστον), but familiar (γνώριμον) and workable (εὐεργές)." Three negations of fear: no surprise (7.1), no impossibility, no strangeness. The governing discipline is assent (the true judgment); the sustaining one, desire (the gladness, the acceptance).