{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_55317/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_55317","id":"gutenberg_55317","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55317","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Ethics","Life","Stoics"],"text":"THE MEDITATIONS OF THE\n                            EMPEROR MARCUS\n                          AURELIUS ANTONINUS\n\n                     A NEW RENDERING BASED ON THE\n                      FOULIS TRANSLATION OF 1742\n\n                        BY GEORGE W. CHRYSTAL\n            WARNER EXHIBITIONER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD\n\n                              EDINBURGH\n                        OTTO SCHULZE & COMPANY\n                       20 SOUTH FREDERIC STREET\n                    LONDON: S. C. BROWN & COMPANY\n                    47 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C.\n\n                                 1902\n\n                           MARCUS AURELIUS\n                              ANTONINUS\n\n                               BOOK I.\n\n1. I learned from my grandfather, Verus, to use good manners, and to\nput restraint on anger. 2. In the famous memory of my father I had a\npattern of modesty and manliness. 3. Of my mother I learned to be\npious and generous; to keep myself not only from evil deeds, but even\nfrom evil thoughts; and to live with a simplicity which is far from\ncustomary among the rich. 4. I owe it to my great-grandfather that I\ndid not attend public lectures and discussions, but had good and able\nteachers at home; and I owe him also the knowledge that for things of\nthis nature a man should count no expense too great.\n\n5. My tutor taught me not to favour either green or blue at the\nchariot races, nor, in the contests of gladiators, to be a supporter\neither of light or heavy armed. He taught me also to endure labour;\nnot to need many things; to serve myself without troubling others; not\nto intermeddle in the affairs of others, and not easily to listen to\nslanders against them.\n\n6. Of Diognetus I had the lesson not to busy myself about vain things;\nnot to credit the great professions of such as pretend to work\nwonders, or of sorcerers about their charms, and their expelling of\nDemons and the like; not to keep quails (for fighting or divination),\nnor to run after such things; to suffer freedom of speech in others,\nand to apply myself heartily to philosophy. Him also I must thank for\nmy hearing first Bacchius, then Tandasis and Marcianus; that I wrote\ndialogues in my youth, and took a liking to the philosopher's pallet\nand skins, and to the other things which, by the Grecian discipline,\nbelong to that profession.\n\n7. To Rusticus I owe my first apprehensions that my nature needed\nreform and cure; and that I did not fall into the ambition of the\ncommon Sophists, either by composing speculative writings or by\ndeclaiming harangues of exhortation in public; further, that I never\nstrove to be admired by ostentation of great patience in an ascetic\nlife, or by display of activity and application; that I gave over the\nstudy of rhetoric, poetry, and the graces of language; and that I did\nnot pace my house in my senatorial robes, or practise any similar\naffectation. I observed also the simplicity of style in his letters,\nparticularly in that which he wrote to my mother from Sinuessa. I\nlearned from him to be easily appeased, and to be readily reconciled\nwith those who had displeased me or given cause of offence, so soon as\nthey inclined to make their peace; to read with care; not to rest\nsatisfied with a slight and superficial knowledge; nor quickly to\nassent to great talkers. I have him to thank that I met with the\ndiscourses of Epictetus, which he furnished me from his own library.\n\n8. From Apollonius I learned true liberty, and tenacity of purpose; to\nregard nothing else, even in the smallest degree, but reason always;\nand always to remain unaltered in the agonies of pain, in the losses\nof children, or in long diseases. He afforded me a living example of\nhow the same man can, upon occasion, be most yielding and most\ninflexible. He was patient in exposition; and, as might well be seen,\nesteemed his fine skill and ability in teaching others the principles\nof philosophy as the least of his endowments. It was from him that I\nlearned how to receive from friends what are thought favours without\nseeming humbled by the giver or insensible to the gift.\n\n9. Sextus was my pattern of a benign temper, and his family the model\nof a household governed by true paternal affection, and a steadfast\npurpose of living according to nature. Here I could learn to be grave\nwithout affectation, to observe sagaciously the several dispositions\nand inclinations of my friends, to tolerate the ignorant and those who\nfollow current opinions without examination. His conversation showed\nhow a man may accommodate himself to all men and to all companies; for\nthough companionship with him was sweeter and more pleasing than any\nsort of flattery, yet he was at the same time highly respected and\nreverenced. No man was ever more happy than he in comprehending,\nfinding out, and arranging in exact order the great maxims necessary\nfor the conduct of life. His example taught me to suppress even the\nleast appearance of anger or any other passion; but still, with all\nthis perfect tranquillity, to possess the tenderest and most\naffectionate heart; to be apt to approve others yet without noise; to\nhave much learning and little ostentation.\n\n10. I learned from Alexander the Grammarian to avoid censuring others,\nto refrain from flouting them for a barbarism, solecism, or any false\npronunciation. Rather was I dexterously to pronounce the words rightly\nin my answer, confining approval or objection to the matter itself,\nand avoiding discussion of the expression, or to use some other form\nof courteous suggestion.\n\n11. Fronto made me sensible how much of envy, deceit and hypocrisy\nsurrounds princes; and that generally those whom we account nobly born\nhave somehow less natural affection.\n\n12. I learned from Alexander the Platonist not often nor without great\nnecessity to say, or write to any man in a letter, that I am not at\nleisure; nor thus, under pretext of urgent affairs, to make a practice\nof excusing myself from the duties which, according to our various\nties, we owe to those with whom we live.\n\n13. Of Catulus I learned not to condemn any friend's expostulation\neven though it were unjust, but to try to recall him to his former\ndisposition; to stint no praise in speaking of my masters, as is\nrecounted of Domitius and Athenodorus; and to love my children with\ntrue affection.\n\n14. Of Severus, my brother, I learned to love my kinsmen, to love\ntruth, to love justice. Through him I came to know Thrasea, Helvidius,\nCato, Dion, and Brutus. He gave me my first conception of a\nCommonwealth founded upon equitable laws and administered with\nequality of right; and of a Monarchy whose chief concern is the\nfreedom of its subjects. Of him I learned likewise a constant and\nharmonious devotion to Philosophy; to be ready to do good, to be\ngenerous with all my heart. He taught me to be of good hope and\ntrustful of the affection of my friends. I observed in him candour in\ndeclaring what he condemned in the conduct of others; and so frank and\nopen was his behaviour, that his friends might easily see without the\ntrouble of conjecture what he liked or disliked.\n\n15. The counsels of Maximus taught me to command myself, to judge\nclearly, to be of good courage in sickness and other misfortunes, to\nbe moderate, gentle, yet serious in disposition, and to accomplish my\nappointed task without repining. All men believed that he spoke as he\nthought; and whatever he did, they knew it was done with good intent.\nI never found him surprised or astonished at anything. He was never in\na hurry, never shrank from his purpose, was never at a loss or\ndejected. He was no facile smiler, but neither was he passionate or\nsuspicious. He was ready to do good, to forgive, and to speak the\ntruth, and gave the impression of unperverted rectitude rather than of\na reformed character. No man could ever think himself despised by\nMaximus, and no one ever ventured to think himself his superior. He\nhad also a good gift of humour.\n\n16. I learned from my father gentleness and undeviating constancy in\njudgments formed after due reflection; not to be puffed up with glory\nas men understand it; to be laborious and assiduous. He taught me to\ngive ready hearing to any man who offered anything tending to the\ncommon good; to mete out impartial justice to every one; to apprehend\nrightly when severity and when clemency should be used; to abstain\nfrom all impure lusts; and to use humanity towards all men.  Thus he\nleft his friends at liberty to sup with him or not, to go abroad with\nhim or not, exactly as they inclined; and they found him still the\nsame if some urgent business had prevented them from obeying his\ncommands. I learned of him accuracy and patience in council, for he\nnever quitted an enquiry satisfied with first impressions. I observed\nhis zeal to retain his friends without being fickle or over fond; his\ncontentment in every condition; his cheerfulness; his forethought\nabout very distant events; his unostentatious attention to the\nsmallest details; his restraint of all popular applause and\nflattery. Ever watchful of the needs of the Empire, a careful steward\nof the public revenue, he was tolerant of the censure of others in\naffairs of that kind. He was neither a superstitious worshipper of the\nGods, nor an ambitious pleaser of men, nor studious of popularity, but\nin all things sober and steadfast, well skilled in what was\nhonourable, never affecting novelties. As to the things which make the\nease of life, and which fortune can supply in such abundance, he used\nthem without pride, and yet with all freedom: enjoyed them without\naffectation when they were present, and when absent he found no want\nof them. No man could call him sophist, buffoon, or pedant. He was a\nman of ripe experience, a full man, one who could not be flattered,\nand who could govern himself as well as others. I further observed\nthat he honoured all who were true philosophers, without upbraiding\nthe rest, and without being led astray by any. His manners were easy,\nhis conversation delightful, but not cloying. He took regular but\nmoderate care of his body, neither as one over fond of life or of the\nadornment of his person, nor as one who despised these things. Thus,\nthrough his own care, he seldom needed any medicines, whether salves\nor potions. It was his special merit to yield without envy to any who\nhad acquired any special faculty, as either eloquence, or learning in\nthe Law, in ancient customs, or the like; and he aided such men\nstrenuously, so that every one of them might be regarded and esteemed\nfor his special excellence. He observed carefully the ancient customs\nof his forefathers, and preserved, without appearance of affectation,\nthe ways of his native land. He was not fickle and capricious, and\nloved not change of place or employment. After his violent fits of\nheadache he would return fresh and vigorous to his wonted affairs. Of\nsecrets he had few, and these seldom, and such only as concerned\npublic matters. He displayed discretion and moderation in exhibiting\nshows for the entertainment of the people, in his public works, in\nlargesses and the like; and in all those things he acted like one who\nregarded only what was right and becoming in the things themselves,\nand not the reputation that might follow after. He never bathed at\nunseasonable hours, had no vanity in building, was never solicitous\neither about his food or about the make or colour of his clothes, or\nabout the beauty of his servants. His dress came from Lorium--his\nvilla on the coast--and was of Lanuvian wool for the most part. It\nis remembered how he used the tax-collector at Tusculum who asked his\npardon, and all his behaviour was of a piece with that. He was far\nfrom being inhuman, or implacable, or violent; never doing anything\nwith such keenness that one could say he was sweating about it, in all\nthings he reasoned distinctly, as one at leisure, calmly, regularly,\nresolutely, and consistently. A man might fairly apply that to him\nwhich is recorded of Socrates: that he could both abstain from and\nenjoy these things, in want whereof many show themselves weak, and, in\nthe possession, intemperate. To be strong in abstinence and temperate\nin enjoyment, to be sober in both--these are qualities of a man of\nperfect and invincible soul, as was shown in the sickness of Maximus.\n\n17. To the Gods I owe it that I had good grandfathers and parents, a\ngood sister, good teachers, good servants, good kinsmen, and friends,\ngood almost all of them. I have to thank them that I never through\nhaste and rashness offended any of them; though my temper was such as\nmight have led me to it had occasion offered. But by their goodness no\nsuch concurrence of circumstances happened as could discover my\nweakness. I am further thankful that I was not longer brought up with\nmy grandfather's concubine, that I retained my modesty, and refrained\neven longer than need have been from the pleasures of love. To the\nGods it is due that I lived under the government of such a prince and\nfather as could take from me all vain glory, and convince me that it\nwas not impossible for a prince to live in a court without guards,\ngorgeous robes, torches, statues, or such pieces of state and\nmagnificence; but that he may reduce himself almost to the state of a\nprivate man, and yet not become more mean or remiss in those public\naffairs wherein power and authority are requisite. I thank the Gods\nthat I have had such a brother as by his disposition might stir me to\ntake care of myself, while at the same time he delighted me by his\nrespect and love. I thank them that my children neither wanted good\nnatural dispositions nor were deformed in body. I owe it to their good\nguidance that I made no greater progress in rhetoric and poetry, and\nin other studies which might have engrossed my mind had I found myself\nsuccessful in them. By the Gods' grace I forestalled the wishes of\nthose by whom I was brought up, in promoting them to the dignities\nthey seemed most to desire; and I did not put them off with the hope\nthat, since they were but young, I would do it hereafter. I owe to the\nGods that I ever knew Apollonius, Rusticus and Maximus; that I have\nhad occasion often and effectually to meditate with myself and enquire\nwhat is truly the life according to Nature. And, as far as lies within\nthe dispensation of the Gods to give suggestion, help, or inspiration,\nthere is nothing to prevent my having already realized that life. I\nhave fallen short of it by my own fault, and because I gave no heed to\nthe inward monitions and almost direct instructions of the Gods, to\nwhom be thanks that my body hath so long endured the stress of such a\nlife as I have led. By their goodness I never had to do with either\nBenedicta or Theodotus; and afterwards, when I fell into some foolish\npassions, I was soon cured. I give thanks that, having often been\ndispleased with Rusticus, I never did anything to him which afterwards\nI might have had occasion to repent; that, though my mother was\ndestined to die young, she lived with me all her latter years; that,\nas often as I inclined to succour any who were either poor or had\nfallen into some distress, I was never answered that there was not\nready money enough to do it, and that I myself never had need of the\nlike succour from another. I must be grateful, too, that I have such a\nwife, so obedient, so loving, so ingenuous; that I had choice of fit\nand able men to whom I might commit the education of my children. I\nhave received divine aids in dreams; as in particular, how I might\nstay my spitting of blood and cure my vertigo; which good fortune\nhappily fell to me at Caieta. The Gods watched over me also when I\nfirst applied myself to philosophy. For I fell not into the hands of\nany Sophist, nor sat poring over many volumes, nor devoted myself to\nsolving syllogisms, or star-gazing. That all these things should so\nhappily fall out there was great need both for the help of fortune and\nfor the aid of the Gods.\n\n  IN THE COUNTRY OF THE\n  QUADI, BY THE GRANUA.\n\n                        END OF THE FIRST BOOK.\n\n                               BOOK II.\n\n1. Say this to yourself in the morning: Today I shall have to do with\nmeddlers, with the ungrateful, with the insolent, with the crafty,\nwith the envious and the selfish. All these vices have beset them,\nbecause they know not what is good and what is evil. But I have\nconsidered the nature of the good, and found it beautiful: I have\nbeheld the nature of the bad, and found it ugly. I also understand the\nnature of the evil-doer, and know that he is my brother, not because\nhe shares with me the same blood or the same seed, but because he is a\npartaker of the same mind and of the same portion of immortality. I\ntherefore cannot be hurt by any of these, since none of them can\ninvolve me in any baseness. I cannot be angry with my brother, or\nsever myself from him, for we are made by nature for mutual\nassistance, like the feet, the hands, the eyelids, the upper and lower\nrows of teeth. It is against nature for men to oppose each other; and\nwhat else is anger and aversion?\n\n2. All that I am is either flesh, breath, or the ruling part. Cast\nyour books from you; distract yourself no more; for you have not the\nright to do so. Like one at the point of death despise this flesh,\nthis corruptible bone and blood, this network texture of nerves,\nveins, and arteries. Consider, too, what breath is--mere air, and\nthat always changing, expelled and inhaled again every moment. The\nthird is the ruling part. As to this, take heed, now that you are old,\nthat it remain no longer in servitude; that it be no more dragged\nhither and thither like a puppet by every selfish impulse. Repine no\nmore at what fate now sends, nor dread what may befall you hereafter.\n\n3. Whatever the Gods ordain is full of wise forethought. The workings\nof chance are not apart from nature, and not without connexion and\nintertexture with the designs of Providence. Providence is the source\nof all things; and, besides, there is necessity, and the utility of\nthe Universe, of which you are a part. For, to every part of a being,\nthat is good which springs from the nature of the whole and tends to\nits preservation. Now, the order of Nature is preserved in the changes\nof elements, just as it is in the changes of things that are\ncompound. Let this suffice you, and be your creed unchangeable. Put\nfrom you the thirst of books, that you may not die murmuring, but\nmeekly, and with true and heartfelt gratitude to the Gods.\n\n4. Think of your long procrastination, and of the many opportunities\ngiven you by the Gods, but left unused. Surely it is high time to\nunderstand the Universe of which you are a part, and the Ruler of that\nUniverse, of whom you are an emanation; that a limit is set to your\ndays, which, if you use them not for your enlightenment, will depart,\nas you yourself will, and return no more.\n\n5. Hourly and earnestly strive, as a Roman and a man, to do what falls\nto your hand with perfect unaffected dignity, with kindliness, freedom\nand justice, and free your soul from every other imagination. This you\nwill accomplish if you perform each action as if it were your last,\nwithout wilfulness, or any passionate aversion to what reason\napproves; without hypocrisy or selfishness, or discontent with the\ndecrees of Providence. You see how few things it is necessary to\nmaster in order that a man may live a smooth-flowing, God-fearing\nlife. For of him that holds to these principles the Gods require no\nmore.\n\n6. Go on, go on, O my soul, to affront and dishonour thyself! The time\nthat remains to honour thyself will not be long. Short is the life of\nevery man; and thine is almost spent; spent, not honouring thyself,\nbut seeking thy happiness in the souls of other men.\n\n7. Cares from without distract you: take leisure, then, to add some\ngood thing to your knowledge; have done with vacillation, and avoid\nthe other error. For triflers, too, are they who, by their activities,\nweary themselves in life, and have no settled aim to which they may\ndirect, once and for all, their every desire and project.\n\n8. Seldom are any found unhappy from not observing what is in the\nminds of others. But such as observe not well the stirrings of their\nown souls must of necessity be unhappy.\n\n9. Remember always what the nature of the Universe is, what your own\nnature is, and how these are related--the one to the other. Remember\nwhat part your qualities are of the qualities of the whole, and that\nno man can prevent you from speaking and acting always in accordance\nwith that nature of which you are a part.\n\n10. In comparing crimes together, as, according to the common idea,\nthey may be compared, Theophrastus makes the true philosophical\ndistinction, that those committed from motives of pleasure are more\nheinous than those which are due to passion. For he who is a prey to\npassion is clearly turned away from reason by some spasm and\nconvulsion that takes him unawares. But he who sins from desire is\nconquered by pleasure, and so seems more incontinent and more\neffeminate in his vice. Justly then, and in a truly philosophical\nspirit, he says that sin, for pleasure's sake, is more wicked than sin\nwhich is due to pain. For the latter sinner was sinned against, and so\ndriven to passion by his wrongs, while the former set out to sin of\nhis own motion, and was led into ill-doing by his own lust.\n\n11. Do every deed, speak every word, think every thought in the\nknowledge that you may end your days any moment. To depart from men,\nif there be really Gods, is nothing terrible. The Gods could bring no\nevil thing upon you. And if there be no Gods, or if they have no\nregard to human affairs, why should I desire to live in a world void\nof Gods and without Providence? But Gods there are, and assuredly they\nregard human affairs; and they have put it wholly in man's power that\nhe should not fall into what is truly evil. And of other things, had\nany been bad, they would have made provision also that man should have\nthe power to avoid them altogether. For how can that make a man's life\nworse which does not corrupt the man himself? Presiding Nature could\nnot in ignorance, or in knowledge impotent, have omitted to prevent or\nrectify these things. She could not fail us so completely that, either\nfrom want of power or want of skill, good and evil should happen\npromiscuously to good men and to bad alike. Now death and life, glory\nand reproach, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty--all these\nhappen equally to the good and to the bad. But, as they are neither\nhonourable nor shameful, they are therefore neither good nor evil.\n\n12. It is the office of our rational power to apprehend how swiftly\nall things vanish; how the corporeal forms are swallowed up in the\nmaterial world, and the memory of them in the tide of ages. Such are\nall the things of sense, especially those which ensnare us with\npleasure or terrify us with pain, or those things which vanity\ntrumpets in our ears. How mean, how despicable, how sordid, how\nperishable, how dead are they! What are they whose opinions and whose\nvoices bestow renown? What is it to die? Your mind can tell you that,\ndid a man think of it alone, and, by close consideration, strip it of\nits ghastly trappings, he would no longer deem it anything but a work\nof Nature. To dread a work of Nature is a childish thing, and this is,\nindeed, not only Nature's work, but beneficial to her. Your reason\ntells you how man reaches God, and through what part, and what is the\nstate of that part, when he has attained unto him.\n\n13. Nothing, says the poet, is more miserable than to range over all\nthings, to spy into the depths of the earth, and search, by\nconjecture, into the souls of those around us, yet not to perceive\nthat it is enough for a man to devote himself to that divinity which\nis within him, and to pay it genuine worship. And this worship\nconsists in keeping it pure from every passion and folly, and from\nrepining at anything done by Gods or men. The work of the Gods is to\nbe reverenced for its excellence. The works of men should be dear for\nthe sake of the bond of kinship, or pitied, as we must pity them\nsometimes, for their lack of the knowledge of good and evil. And men\nare not less maimed by this defect than by their want of power to know\nwhite from black.\n\n14. Though you should live three thousand ears or as many myriads, yet\nremember that no man loses any other life than that which now lives,\nnor lives any other than that which he is now losing. The longest and\nthe shortest lives come to one effect. The present moment is the same\nfor all men, and their loss, therefore, is equal, for it is clear that\nwhat they lose in death is but a fleeting instant of time. No man can\nlose either the past or the future, for how can a man be deprived of\nwhat he has not? These two things then are to be remembered: First,\nthat all things recur in cycles, and are the same from everlasting,\nand that, therefore, it matters nothing whether a man shall\ncontemplate these same things for one hundred years, or for two\nhundred, or for an infinite stretch of time: and, secondly, that he\nwho lives longest and he who dies soonest have an equal loss in\ndeath. The present moment is all of which either is deprived, since\nthat is all he has. No man can be robbed of that which he has not.\n\n15. Beyond opinion there is nothing. The objections to this saying of\nMonimus the Cynic are obvious. But obvious also is the utility of what\nhe said, if one accept his pleasantry as far as truth will warrant it.\n\n16. Man's soul dishonours itself, firstly and chiefly when it does all\nit can to become an excrescence, and as it were an abscess on the\nUniverse. To fret against any particular event is to revolt against\nthe general law of Nature, which comprehends the order of all events\nwhatsoever. Again it is dishonour for the soul when it has aversion to\nany man, and opposes him with intention to hurt him, as wrathful men\ndo. Thirdly, it affronts itself when conquered by pleasure or pain;\nfourthly, when it does or says anything hypocritically, feignedly or\nfalsely; fifthly, when it does not direct to some proper end all its\ndesires and actions, but exerts them inconsiderately and without\nunderstanding. For, even the smallest things should be referred to the\nend, and the end of rational beings is to follow the order and law of\nthe venerable state and polity which comprehends them all.\n\n17. The duration of man's life is but an instant; his substance is\nfleeting, his senses dull; the structure of his body corruptible; the\nsoul but a vortex. We cannot reckon with fortune, or lay our account\nwith fame. In fine, the life of the body is but a river, and the life\nof the soul a misty dream. Existence is a warfare, and a journey in a\nstrange land; and the end of fame is to be forgotten. What then avails\nto guide us? One thing, and one alone--Philosophy. And this consists\nin keeping the divinity within inviolate and intact; victorious over\npain and pleasure; free from temerity, free from falsehood, free from\nhypocrisy; independent of what others do or fail to do; submissive to\nhap and lot, which come from the same source as we; and, above all,\nwith equanimity awaiting death, as nothing else than a resolution of\nthe elements of which every being compounded. And, if in their\nsuccessive interchanges no harm befall the elements, why should one\nsuspect any in the change and dissolution of the whole? It is natural,\nand nothing natural can be evil.\n\n  AT CARNUNTUM.\n\n                       END OF THE SECOND BOOK.\n\n\n                              BOOK III.\n\n1. Man must consider, not only that each day part of his life is\nspent, and that less and less remains to him, but also that, even if\nhe live longer, it is very uncertain whether his intelligence will\nsuffice as heretofore for the understanding of his affairs, and for\ngrasping that knowledge which aims at comprehending things human and\ndivine. When dotage begins, breath, nourishment, fancy, impulse, and\nso forth will not fail him. But self-command, accurate appreciation of\nduty, power to scrutinize what strikes his senses, or even to decide\nwhether he should take his departure, all powers, indeed, which demand\na well-trained understanding, must be extinguished in him. Let him be\nup and doing then, not only because death comes nearer every day, but\nbecause understanding and intelligence often leave us before we die.\n\n2. Observe what grace and charm appear even in the accidents that\naccompany Nature's work. Thus some parts of a loaf crack and burst in\nthe baking; and this cracking, though in a manner contrary to the\ndesign of the baker, looks well and invites the appetite. Figs, too,\ngape when at their ripest, and in ripe olives the very approach to\nrotting adds a special beauty to the fruit. The droop of ears of corn,\nthe bent brows of the lion, the foam at a boar's mouth, and many other\nthings, are far from comely in themselves, yet, since they accompany\nthe works of Nature, they make part of her adornment, and rejoice the\nbeholder. Thus, if a man be sensitive to such things, and have a more\nthan common penetration into the constitution of the whole, scarce\nanything connected with Nature will fail to give him pleasure, as he\ncomes to understand it. Such a man will contemplate in the real world\nthe fierce jaws of wild beasts with no less delight than when\nsculptors or painters set forth for him their presentments. With like\npleasure will his chaste eyes behold the maturity and grace of old age\nin man or woman, and the inviting charms of youth. Many such things\nwill strike him, things not credible to the many, but which come to\nhim alone who is truly familiar with the works of Nature and near to\nher own heart.\n\n3. Hippocrates, who had healed many diseases, himself fell sick, and\ndied. The Chaldeans foretold the fatal hours of multitudes, and\nafterwards fate carried themselves away. Alexander, Pompey, and Gaius\nCaesar, who so often razed whole cities, and cut off in battle so many\nmyriads of horse and foot, at last departed from this life\nthemselves. Heraclitus, after his many speculations on the\nconflagration of the world, died, swollen with water and plastered\nwith cow-dung. Vermin destroyed Democritus; Socrates was killed by\nvermin of another sort. What of all this? You have gone aboard, made\nyour voyage, come to harbour. Disembark: if into another life, there\nwill God be also; if into nothingness, at least you will have done\nwith bearing pain and pleasure, and with your slavery to this vessel\nso much meaner than its slave. For the soul is intelligence and deity,\nthe body dust and corruption.\n\n4. Waste not what remains of life in consideration about others, when\nit makes not for the common good. Be sure you are neglecting other\nwork if you busy yourself with what such a one is doing and why, with\nwhat he is saying, thinking, or scheming. All such things do but\ndivert you from the steadfast guardianship of your own soul. It\nbehoves you, then, in every train of thought to shun all that is\naimless or useless, and, above all, everything officious or\nmalignant. Accustom yourself so, and only so, to think, that, if any\none were suddenly to ask you, \"Of what are you thinking-now?\" you\ncould answer frankly and at once, \"Of so and so.\" Then it will plainly\nappear that you are all simplicity and kindliness, as befits a social\nbeing who takes little thought for enjoyment or any phantom pleasure;\nwho spurns contentiousness, envy, or suspicion; or any passion the\nharbouring of which one would blush to own. For such a man, who has\nfinally determined to be henceforth among the best, is, as it were, a\npriest and minister of the Gods, using the spirit within him, which\npreserves a man unspotted from pleasure, unwounded by any pain,\ninaccessible to all insult, innocent of all evil; a champion in the\nnoblest of all contests--the contest for victory over every\npassion. He is penetrated with justice; he welcomes with all his heart\nwhatever befalls, or is appointed by Providence. He troubles not\noften, or ever without pressing public need, to consider what another\nmay say, or do, or design. Solely intent upon his own conduct, ever\nmindful of his own concurrent part in the destiny of the Universe, he\norders his conduct well, persuaded that his part is good. For the lot\nappointed to every man is part of the law of all things as well as a\nlaw for him. He forgets not that all rational beings are akin, and\nthat the love of all mankind is part of the nature of man; also that\nwe must not think as all men think, but only as those who live a life\naccordant with nature. As for those who live otherwise, he remembers\nalways how they act at home and abroad, by night and by day, and how\nand with whom they are found in company. And so he cannot esteem the\npraise of such, for they enjoy not their own approbation.\n\n5. In action be neither grudging, nor selfish, nor ill-advised, nor\nconstrained. Let not your thought be adorned with overmuch nicety. Be\nnot a babbler or a busybody. Let the God within direct you as a manly\nbeing, as an elder, a statesman, a Roman, and a ruler, standing\nprepared like one who awaits the recall from life, in marching order;\nrequiring neither an oath nor the testimony of any man. And withal, be\ncheerful, and independent of the assistance and the peace that comes\nfrom others; for, it is a man's duty to stand upright, self-supporting,\nnot supported.\n\n6. If in the life of man you find anything better than justice, truth,\nsobriety, manliness; and, in sum, anything better than the\nsatisfaction of your soul with itself in that wherein it is given to\nyou to follow right reason; and with fate in that which is determined\nbeyond your control; if, I say, you find aught better than this, then\nturn thereto with all your heart, and enjoy it as the best that is to\nbe found. But if nothing seems to you better than the divinity seated\nwithin you, which has conquered all your impulses, which sifts all\nyour thoughts, which, as Socrates said, has detached itself from the\npromptings of sense, and devoted itself to God and to the love of\nmankind; if you find every other thing small and worthless compared\nwith this, see that you give place to no other which might turn,\ndivert, or distract you from holding in highest esteem the good which\nis especially and properly your own. For it is not permitted to us to\nsubstitute for that which is good in reason or in fact anything not\nagreeable thereto, such as the praise of the many, power, riches, or\nthe pursuit of pleasure. All these things may seem admissible for a\nmoment; but presently they get the upper hand, and lead us astray. But\ndo you, I say, frankly and freely choose the best, and keep to it. The\nbest is what is for your advantage. If now you choose what is for your\nspiritual advantage, hold it fast; if what is for your bodily\nadvantage, admit that it is so chosen, and keep your choice with all\nmodesty. Only see that you make a sure discrimination.\n\n7. Never esteem aught of advantage which will oblige you to break your\nfaith, or to desert your honour; to hate, to suspect, or to execrate\nany man; to play a part; or to set your mind on anything that needs to\nbe hidden by wall or curtain. He who to all things prefers the soul,\nthe divinity within him, and the sacred cult of its virtues, makes no\ntragic groan or gesture. He needs neither solitude nor a crowd of\nspectators; and, best of all, he will live neither seeking nor\nshunning death. Whether the soul shall use its surrounding body for a\nlonger or shorter space is to him indifferent. Were he to depart this\nmoment he would go as readily as he would do any other seemly and\nproper action, holding one thing only in life-long avoidance--to find\nhis soul in any case unbefitting an intelligent social being.\n\n8. In the soul of the chastened and purified man you would find\nnothing putrid, foul, or festering. Fate does not cut off his life\nbefore its proper end; as one would say of an actor who left the stage\nbefore his part was ended, or he had reached his appointed exit. There\nremains nothing servile or affected, nothing too conventional or too\nseclusive, nothing that fears censure or courts concealment.\n\n9. Hold in honour the faculty which forms opinions. It depends on this\nfaculty alone that no opinion your soul entertains be inconsistent\nwith the nature and constitution of the rational being. It ensures\nthat we form no rash judgments, that we are kindly to men, and\nobedient to the Gods.\n\n10. Cast from you then all other things, retaining these few. Remember\nalso that every man lives only this present moment, which is a\nfleeting instant: the rest of time is either spent or quite\nunknown. Short is the time which each of us has to live, and small the\ncorner of the earth he has to live in.  Short is the longest\nposthumous fame, and this preserved through a succession of poor\nmortals, soon themselves to die; men who knew not themselves, far less\nthose who died long ago.\n\n11. To these maxims add this other. Accurately define or describe\nevery thing that strikes your imagination, so that you may see and\ndistinguish what it is in naked essence, and what it is in its\nentirety; that you may tell yourself the proper name of the thing\nitself, and the names of the parts of which it is compounded, and into\nwhich it will be resolved. Nothing makes mind greater than the power\nto enquire into all things that present themselves in life; and, while\nyou examine them, to consider at the same time of what fashion is the\nUniverse, and what is the function in it of these things, of what\nimportance they are to the whole, of what to man who is a citizen of\nthat highest city of which all other cities are but households.\nConsider what is this thing that now makes an impression on you, of\nwhat it is composed, and how long it is destined to endure. Consider\nalso for what virtue it calls; whether it be gentleness, courage,\ntruthfulness, fidelity, simplicity, independence, or any other. Say,\ntherefore, of each event: \"This comes from God:\" or \"This comes from\nthe conjunction and intertexture of the strands of fate, or from some\nchance or hazard of that kind:\" or \"This comes from one of my own\ntribe, from my kinsman, from my friend. He is, indeed, ignorant of\nwhat accords with nature; but I am not, and will therefore use him\nkindly and justly, according to the natural and social law. As to\nthings indifferent, I strive to appraise them at their proper value.\"\n\n12. If you discharge your present duty with firm and zealous, yet\nkindly, observance of the laws of reason; if you regard no by-gains,\nbut keep pure within you your immortal part, as if obliged to restore\nit at once to him who gave it; if you hold to this with no further\ndesires or aversions, and be content with the natural discharge of\nyour present task, and with the heroic sincerity of all you say or\nutter, you will live well. And herein no man can hinder you.\n\n13. As surgeons have ever their knives and instruments at hand for the\nsudden emergencies of their art, so do you keep ready the principles\nrequisite for understanding things divine and human, and for doing all\nthings, even the least important, in the remembrance of the bond\nbetween the two. For in neglecting this, you will scant your duty both\nto Gods and men.\n\n14. Cease your wandering, for you are not like to read again your own\nmemoirs, or the deeds of the ancient Greeks and Romans, or those\ncollections from the writings of others that you laid up for your old\nage. Hasten then to your proper end. Fling away vain hopes, and, if\nyou have any care for yourself, fly to your own succour while yet you\nmay.\n\n15. Men understand not all that is signified by the words--to steal,\nto sow, to buy, to rest, to see what is to be done. For it is not the\nbodily eye but another sort of sight that must discern these things.\n\n16. We have body, soul, and intelligence. To the body belong the\nsenses, to the soul the passions, to the intelligence principles. To\nbe affected by the imagery of sense belongs to the beasts of the field\nno less than to us. To be swayed by gusts of passion is common to us\nwith the wild beasts, with the most effeminate wretches, with Nero and\nwith Phalaris. Moreover, the possession of a mind to guide us to what\nseems fitting is shared by us, with atheists, with traitors to their\ncountry, and with such as shut their doors and sin. If, then, all the\nrest is common as we have seen, there remains to the good man this\nspecial excellence; to welcome with pleasure all that happens or is\nordained, not to defile the divinity enthroned in his breast, not to\nperturb it with a crowd of images, but to preserve it in tranquillity,\nand obey it as a God: to observe truth in all he says, and justice in\nhis every action. And though others may not believe that he lives thus\nin simplicity, modesty, and contentment, he neither takes this\nunbelief amiss from any one, nor quits the road which leads to the\ntrue end of life, at which he ought to arrive pure, calm, ready to\ntake his departure, and accommodated without compulsion to his fate.\n\n                        END OF THE THIRD BOOK.\n\n\n                               BOOK IV.\n\n1. The power which rules within us, when its state is accordant with\nnature, so acts in every occurrence as easily to adapt itself to all\npresent or possible situations. It requires no set material to work\nupon, but, under proper reservation, needs but the incitement to\npursue, and makes matter for its activities out of every\nopposition. Even so a fire masters that which is cast upon it, and\nthough a small flame would have been extinguished, your great blaze\nquickly makes the added fuel its own, consumes it, and grows mightier\ntherefrom.\n\n2. Let no action be done at random, nor otherwise than in complete\naccordance with the principles involved.\n\n3. Men seek retirement in the country, on the sea-coast, in the\nmountains; and you too have frequent longings for such distractions.\nYet surely this is great folly, since you may retire into yourself at\nany hour you please. Nowhere can a man find any retreat more quiet and\nmore full of leisure than in his own soul; especially when there is\nthat within it on which, if he but look, he is straightway quite at\nrest. And rest I hold to be naught else but perfect order in the\nsoul. Constantly, therefore, allow yourself this retirement, and so\nrenew yourself. Have also at hand thoughts brief and fundamental,\nwhich readily may occur; sufficing to shut out the discordant clamour\nof the world, and to send you back without fretting at the task to\nwhich you return. For at what do you fret? At the wickedness of\nmankind. Recollect the maxim that all reasoning beings are created for\none another, that to bear with them is a part of justice, and that\nthey cannot help their sin. Remember how many of those who lived in\nenmity, suspicion, and hatred, at daggers drawn, have been stretched\non their funeral pyres, and turned to ashes. Remember and cease from\nyour complaints. Is it your allotted part in the world's destiny that\nchagrins you? Be calm, and renew your knowledge of the alternative,\nthat \"Either providence directs the world, or there is nothing but\nunguided atoms;\" and recollect the many proofs that the Universe is as\nit were a state. Do the ills of the body still have power to touch\nyou? Reflect that the mind, once withdrawn within itself, once grown\nconscious of its own power, has no concern with the motions, rough or\nsmooth, of the breathing body. Remember, too, all that you have heard\nand assented to concerning pain and pleasure. Are you distracted by\nthe poor thing called fame? Think how swiftly all things are\nforgotten. Behold the chaos of eternity which besets us on either\nside. Think how empty is the noisy echo of acclamation; how fickle and\nhow scant of judgment are they who would seem to praise us, and how\nnarrow the bounds within which their praise is confined. All the earth\nis but a point in the Universe; how small a corner of that little is\ninhabited, and even there how few are they and of how little worth who\nare to praise us!  Remember then that there ever remains for you\nretirement into the little field within. And, above all, be neither\ndistraught nor overstrained. Hold fast your freedom: consider all\nthings as a man of courage, as a human being, as a citizen, as a\nmortal. Readiest among the principles to which you look let there be\nthese two: Firstly, things external do not touch the soul, but remain\npowerless without; and all trouble comes from what we think of them\nwithin. Secondly, all things visible change in a moment, and are gone\nfor ever. Recollect all the changes of which you have yourself been a\nwitness. The world is a succession of changes: life is but thought.\n\n4. If mind be common to us all, the reason in virtue of which we are\nrational is also common; so too is the power which bids us do or not\ndo. Therefore we have all a common law; and if so, we are\nfellow-citizens and members of some common polity. The Universe, then,\nmust in a manner be a state, for of what other common polity can all\nmankind be said to be members? Wherefore it is from this common state\nthat we derive our intellectual power, our reason, and our law; or\nwhence do we derive them? For that which is earthy in me is derived\nfrom earth, my moisture from some other element, my breath and what is\nwarm or fiery from their proper sources. And therefore, as nothing can\narise from nothing or return thereto, my intellectual part has also a\nsource.\n\n5. Death, like birth, is a mystery of nature; the one a compounding of\nelements, the other a resolution into the same. In neither is there\nanything shameful or against the nature of the rational animal, or\ncontrary to the law of its constitution.\n\n6. It is fate that such actions should come from such men. He who\nwould have it otherwise would have figs without juice. This, too, you\nshould remember: that in a very short time both you and he must die;\nand a little after not even the name of either shall remain.\n\n7. Suppress the thought; and the cry \"I am hurt!\" is gone. Suppress \"I\nam hurt!\" and you suppress the injury.\n\n8. What makes not a man worse than he was, makes not his life worse,\nnor hurts him without or within.\n\n9. The law of utility must act so.\n\n10. All that happens, happens right: you will find it so if you\nobserve narrowly. I mean not only according to a natural order, but\naccording to our idea of justice, and, as it were, by the action of\none who distributes according to merit. Go on then observing this as\nyou have begun, and whatever you do, let your aim be goodness,\ngoodness as it is rightly understood. Hold to this in every action.\n\n11. Think not as your insulter judges or wishes you to judge: but see\nthings as they truly are.\n\n12. For two things be ever ready: First, to do that only which reason,\nthe sovereign and legislative faculty, suggests for the good of\nmankind: Secondly, to change your course on meeting any one who can\ncorrect and alter your opinion. But let the change be made because you\nreally believe it to be in the interest of justice or the public good,\nor such like, and not with any view to pleasure or glory for yourself.\n\n13. Have you reason? I have. Why then do you not use it? When it\nperforms its proper office what more do you require?\n\n14. You exist as part of a whole. You will disappear again in that\nwhich produced you; or rather you will change and be resumed again\ninto the productive intelligence.\n\n15. Many grains of frankincense are laid on the same altar. One falls\nsoon, another later. It makes no difference.\n\n16. Within ten days, if you return to the observance of moral\nprinciples and to the cult of reason, you will appear a God to them\nwho now esteem you a wild beast or an ape.\n\n17. Order not your life as though you had ten thousand years to\nlive. Fate hangs over you. While you live, while yet you may, be good.\n\n18. How much he gains in leisure who looks not to what his neighbours\nsay, or do, or intend; but considers only how his own actions may be\njust and holy, looking not, as Agathon says, to the moral example of\nothers, but running a straight course and never turning therefrom.\n\n19. He who is careful and troubled about the fame which is to live\nafter him considers not that each one of those who remember him must\nvery soon die himself, and thereafter also the succeeding generation,\nuntil every memory of him, handed on by excited and ephemeral\nadmirers, dies utterly away. Grant that your memory were immortal, and\nthose immortal who retain it; yet what is that to you? I ask not, what\nis that to the dead? But to the living what is the profit in praise,\nexcept it be in some convenience that it brings? And you now abandon\nwhat nature has put in your power in order to set your hopes upon the\nreport of others.\n\n20. Whatever is beautiful at all is beautiful in itself. Its beauty\nends there, and praise has no part in it. Nothing is the better or the\nworse for being praised; and this holds also of what is beautiful in\nthe common estimation: of material forms and works of art. Thus true\nbeauty needs nothing beyond itself, any more than law, or truth, or\nkindness, or honour. For none of these gets a single grace from praise\nor one blot from censure. Does the emerald lose its virtue if one\npraise it not? Can one by scanting praise depreciate gold, ivory, or\npurple, a lyre or a dagger, a flower or a shrub?\n\n21. If our souls survive us, how, you ask, has the air contained them\nfrom eternity? How, I answer, does the earth contain so many bodies\nburied during so long a time? Just as corpses, after remaining for a\nwhile in the earth, change, and are dissipated to make room for\nothers; so also the souls, liberated into air, remain for a little,\nand then are changed, diffused, rekindled, and resumed into the\nuniversal productive spirit; and so give way to others who come to\ntake their places. This may serve for an answer, on the supposition\nthat the soul survives the body. But we have not merely to consider\nthe number of bodies thus buried in the earth. There are also all the\nliving creatures eaten day by day by ourselves and other animals. How\ngreat a multitude of them is thus consumed, and as it were buried in\nthe bodies of those who feed upon them. Yet there is ever space to\ncontain them, owing to the changes into blood, air, and fire. What,\nthen, is the key to this enquiry? Discrimination of matter and cause.\n\n22. Swerve not from your path. In every impulse render justice its\ndue, and in all thinking be sure that you understand.\n\n23. I am in tune with all that is of thy harmony, O Nature. For me\nnothing is too early and nothing is too late that comes in thy good\ntime. All is fruit to me, O Nature, that thy seasons bring. From thee\nare all things, thou comprehendest all, and all returns to thee. The\npoet says, \"O dear City of Cecrops!\" Shall I not say, \"Dear City of\nGod!\"\n\n24. \"Do few things,\" says the philosopher, \"if you would have quiet.\"\nThis is perhaps a better saying, \"Do what is necessary, do what the\nreason of the being that is social in its nature directs, and do it in\nthe spirit of that direction.\" By this you will attain the calm that\ncomes from virtuous action, and that calm also which comes from having\nfew things to do. Most things you say and do are not necessary. Have\ndone with them, and you will be more at leisure and less perturbed. On\nevery occasion, then, ask yourself the question, Is this thing not\nunnecessary? And put away not only unnecessary deeds but unnecessary\nthoughts, for by so doing you will avoid all superfluous actions.\n\n25. Make trial how the life of a good man succeeds with you, the life\nof one who is content with the lot appointed him by Providence, and\nsatisfied with the justice of his own actions and the benevolence of\nhis disposition.\n\n26. You have seen the other state, make trial also of this. Avoid\nperplexity; seek simplicity. Has a man sinned? He bears his own\nsin. Has aught befallen you? It is well; for all that befalls you is\nan ordained part in the weaving of the destiny of all things from the\nbeginning. In sum, life is short. Make the best of the present in\nreason and in justice. Be sober in your relaxation.\n\n27. The Universe is either an ordered whole or a confusion. But,\nalthough a mixture of phenomena, it is certainly an ordered whole. Or,\ndo you think that there can be order in you and confusion in the\nUniverse, and that too when all things, though diffused and separated,\nare all in sympathy, one with another?\n\n28. Consider the deformity of these characters: the black or\nmalicious, the effeminate, the savage, the beastly, the childish, the\nbrutish, the stupid, the false, the ribald, the knavish, the\ntyrannical.\n\n29. He is a foreigner, and not a citizen of the world, who knows not\nwhat the world contains; and he, too, who knows not what happens in\nit. He is a deserter who flies from the reason that rules this\npolity. He is blind, whose intellectual eye is closed. He is a beggar,\nwho needs the gifts of others, and has not from himself all that is\nnecessary for life. He is an excrescence on the scheme of things, who\nwithdraws and separates himself from the reasoned constitution of the\nnature in which he shares, by discontent with what befalls. That same\nnature which produces this event produced thee. He is the seditious\ncitizen who separates his particular soul from the one soul of all\nreasonable beings.\n\n30. One acts the philosopher without a coat, another without books, a\nthird half-naked. Says one, \"I have not bread, and yet I hold to\nreason.\" Says another, \"I have not even the spiritual food of\ninstruction, and yet I hold to it.\"\n\n31. Love the art which you have learned, humble though it be, and in\nit find your recreation. And spend the remainder of your life as one\nwho with all his heart commits his concerns to the Gods, and neither\nacts the tyrant nor the slave to any of mankind.\n\n32. Recall, for example, the age of Vespasian. It is as the spectacle\nof our own time. You will see men marrying, bringing up children, sick\nand dying, warring and feasting, trading and farming. You will see men\nflattering, obstinate in their own will, suspecting, plotting, wishing\nfor the death of others, repining at fortune, courting mistresses,\nhoarding treasure, pursuing consulships and kingdoms. Yet all that\nlife is spent and gone. Come down to Trajan's days. Again all is the\nsame; and again, that life, too, is dead. Consider, likewise, the\nrecords of other times and nations, and see how, after their fit of\neagerness, all quickly fell, and were resolved into the elements. But\nmost of all, remember those whom you yourself have known, men who were\ndistracted about vain things, men who neglected the course which\nsuited their own nature, neither holding fast to it nor finding their\ncontentment there. And, herein, forget not that care is to be bestowed\non any enterprise only in proportion to its proper worth. For if you\nkeep this in mind you will not be disheartened from over concern with\nthings of less account.\n\n33. The familiar phrases of old days are now strange and obsolete;\nand, likewise, the names of such as were once much celebrated now\nsound strangely in our ears. Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Leonnatus;\nafter them Scipio and Cato; lastly, Augustus, Hadrian, and\nAntonine--all are forgotten. All things hasten to an end, shall\nspeedily seem old fables, and then be buried in oblivion. This I say\nof those who have shone with the brightness of their fame. The rest of\nmen, as soon as they expire, are unknown and forgotten. What, then, is\nit to be remembered for ever? A wholly empty thing. For what should we\nbe zealous? For this alone, that our souls be just, our actions\nunselfish, our speech ever sincere, and our disposition such as may\ncheerfully embrace whatever happens, seeing it to be inevitable,\nfamiliar, and sprung from the same source and origin as we ourselves.\n\n34. Willingly resign yourself to Clotho, permitting her to spin her\nthread of what yarn she may.\n\n35. All things are for a day, both what remembers and what is\nremembered.\n\n36. Observe continually that all things exist in change; and keep this\nthought ever with you, that Nature loves nothing more than changing\nwhat things now are, and making others like them. For what now is, is\nin a manner the seed of what shall be. Therefore, conceive not that\nthat alone is seed which is cast into the earth or the womb, for that\nis the thought of ignorance.\n\n37. You are presently to die, and yet you have not attained to\nsimplicity or calm, or to disbelief that you can be hurt by things\nexternal. You have not learned to be kindly to all men, or to count\njust dealing the whole of wisdom.\n\n38. Scan closely that which governs men; see what are their cares, and\nwhat they pursue or shun.\n\n39. That which is evil for you exists not in the soul of another; nor\nin any change or alteration of the body which surrounds you. Where,\nthen, is it? It lies in that part of you by which you apprehend what\nevil is. Stay the apprehension, and all is well. And though the poor\nbody to which it is so closely bound be cut and burned, though it\nsuppurate or mortify, yet let the apprehension remain inactive: that\nis, let it judge nothing either bad or good which can happen equally\nto the bad man and to the good. For that which befalls equally him who\nlives in accord, and him who lives in discord with Nature, can neither\nbe natural nor unnatural.\n\n40. Ever consider this Universe as one living being, with one material\nsubstance and one spirit. Observe how all things are referred to the\none intelligence of this being; how all things act on one impulse; how\nall things are concurrent causes of all others; and how all things are\nconnected and intertwined.\n\n41. \"Thou art a poor soul, saddled with a corpse,\" said Epictetus.\n\n42. There is no evil for things which subsist in change; and there can\nbe no good for things which subsist without it.\n\n43. Time is a river, a violent torrent of things coming into\nbeing. Each one, as soon as it has appeared, is swept away: it is\nsucceeded by another which is swept away in its turn.\n\n44. All that happens is as natural and familiar as a rose in spring,\nor fruit in summer. Such are disease and death, calumny and treachery,\nand all else which gives fools joy or sorrow.\n\n45. Consequents follow antecedents by virtue of a special and\nnecessary connexion. This relation is not that which exists in a mere\nenumeration of independent things, and depends merely on some\narbitrary convention. It is a rational relationship. And just as\nthings now existing are ranged harmoniously together, so those which\ncome into existence display no bare succession, but a wonderful\nharmony with what preceded.\n\n46. Remember always the sayings of Heraclitus: that the death of earth\nis to become water, the death of water to become air, and the death of\nair to become fire; and so conversely. Remember in what a case he is\nwho forgets whither the way leads: that men are frequently at variance\nwith their close and constant companion, the reason which rules all:\nthat men count strange that which they meet every day: that we should\nneither act nor speak as though in slumber, although even in slumber\nwe seem to act and speak; nor yet like children learning from their\nparents, with a mere acceptance of everything just as we are told it.\n\n47. If some God were to inform you that you must die tomorrow, or the\nnext day at farthest, you would take little concern whether it was to\nbe tomorrow or the next day; that is if you were not the most\nmiserable of cowards. For how small is the difference? Wherefore,\naccount it of no great moment whether you die after many years or\ntomorrow.\n\n48. Constantly consider how many physicians are dead and gone, who\nfrequently knitted their brows over their patients; how many\nastrologers, who foretold the deaths of others with great ostentation\nof their art; how many philosophers, who wrote endlessly on death and\nimmortality; how many warriors, who slew their thousands; and how many\ntyrants, who used their power of life and death with cruel wantonness,\nas though they had been immortal. How many whole cities, if I may so\nspeak, are dead: Helice and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others past\ncounting. Tell over next all those you have known, one after the\nother: think how one buried his fellow, then lay dead himself, to be\nburied by a third. And all this within a little time. In sum, look\nupon human things, and behold how short-lived and how vile they are;\nmucus yesterday, tomorrow ashes or pickled carrion. Spend, then, the\nfleeting remnant of your time in a spirit that accords with Nature,\nand depart contentedly. So the olive falls when it is grown ripe,\nblessing the ground from whence it sprung, and thankful to the tree\nthat bore it.\n\n49. Be like a promontory against which the waves are always\nbreaking. It stands fast, and stills the waters that rage around\nit. \"Wretched am I,\" says one, \"that this has befallen me.\" \"Nay,\" say\nyou, \"happy am I who, though this has befallen me, can still remain\nwithout sorrow, neither broken by the present nor dreading the\nfuture.\" The like might have befallen any one; but every one would not\nhave endured it unpained. Why, then, should we dwell more on the\nmisfortune of the incident than on the felicity of such strength of\nmind? Can you call that a misfortune for a man which is not a\nmiscarriage of his nature?  And can you call anything a miscarriage of\nhis nature which is not contrary to its purpose? You have learned its\npurpose, have you not?  Then does this accident debar you from\njustice, magnanimity, prudence, wisdom, caution, truth, honour,\nfreedom, and all else in the possession of which man's nature finds\nits full estate? Remember, therefore, for the future, upon all\noccasions of sorrow, to use the maxim: this thing is not misfortune,\nbut to bear it bravely is good fortune.\n\n50. It is a vulgar meditation, and yet very effectual for enabling us\nto despise death, to consider the fate of those who have been most\nearnestly tenacious of life, and enjoyed it longest. Wherein is their\ngain greater than that of those who died before their time? They are\nall lying dead somewhere or other. Cadicianus, Fabius, Julian,\nLepidus, and their fellows, saw the corpses of multitudes carried to\nthe grave, and then themselves were carried thither. In sum, how small\nwas the difference of time, spent painfully amid what troubles, among\nwhat worthless men, and in how mean a carcase! Think it not a thing of\nvalue. Rather look back into the eternity that gapes behind, and\nforward into the other abyss of immensity. Compared with such\ninfinity, small is the difference between a life of three days and one\nof three ages like Nestor's.\n\n51. Run ever the short way. The short way is the way according to\nNature. Therefore speak and act according to the soundest rule; for\nthis resolution will free you from much toil and warring, and from all\nartful management and ostentation.\n\n                       END OF THE FOURTH BOOK.\n\n\n                               BOOK V.\n\n1. In the morning, when you find yourself unwilling to rise, have this\nthought at hand: I arise to the proper business of man, and shall I\nrepine at setting about that work for which I was born and brought\ninto the world? Am I equipped for nothing but to lie among the\nbed-clothes and keep warm? \"But,\" you say, \"it is more pleasant so.\"\nIs pleasure, then, the object of your being, and not action, and the\nexercise of your powers? Do you not see the smallest plants, the\nlittle sparrows, the ants, the spiders, the bees, all doing their\npart, and working for order in the Universe, as far as in them lies?\nAnd will you refuse the part in this design which is laid on man? Will\nyou not pursue the course which accords with your own nature? You say,\n\"I must have rest.\" Assuredly; but nature appoints a measure for rest,\njust as for eating and drinking. In rest you go beyond these limits,\nand beyond what is enough; but in action you do not fill the measure,\nand remain well within your powers. You do not love yourself; if you\ndid, you would love your nature and its purpose. Others, who love the\nart that they have made their own, exhaust themselves with labouring\nat it unwashed and unfed. But you honour your own nature less than the\ncarver honours his carving, less than the dancer honours his dancing,\nthe miser his gold, or the vain man his empty fame. These men, when\ndesire takes them, count food and sleep well lost if they can better\nrealize the object of their longings; and shall the pursuit of the\ncommon good seem less precious in your eyes and worthy of a lesser\nzeal?\n\n2. How easy it is to thrust away and blot out each impression that is\ndisturbing and unfit; and forthwith to enjoy perfect tranquillity.\n\n3. Judge no speech or action unworthy of you which is consistent with\nnature. Be not dissuaded by any consequent criticism or censure from\nothers; but, if the speech or action be honourable, judge yourself\nworthy to say or do it. Those who criticize you have their own\nconscience and their own motives. These you are not to regard, but\nfollow a straight course, guided by your own nature and the nature of\nthe Universe, both of which point the same way.\n\n4. I walk the way which is Nature's, until at last I shall fall and be\nat rest; breathing out my breath into the air wherefrom I daily drew\nit, falling on that earth whence my father drew his seed, my mother\nher blood, and my nurse the milk which nourished me; on that earth\nwhich has given me my daily food and drink through all these years,\nwhich sustains my footsteps, and bears with me--her manifold abuser.\n\n5. Men cannot admire you for your shrewdness. Be it so. But there is\nmany another quality of which you cannot say, \"It is not in me.\"\nDisplay these; they are wholly in your power. Be sincere, be\ndignified, be painstaking; scorn pleasure, repine not at fate, need\nlittle; be kind and frank; love not exaggeration and vain talk; strive\nafter greatness. Do you not see how many virtues you might show, of\nwhich you are yet content to fall short, though you have not the\nexcuse that they are absent, or that you are unfit for them? Are you\ndriven by some want in your equipment to be querulous, to be miserly,\nto be a flatterer, to reproach your body with your own faults, to\ncringe to others, to be vainglorious, to have all this restlessness in\nyour soul? No, by the Gods, you might have escaped these vices long\nago. All your fault, then, is that you are somewhat slow and dull of\ncomprehension. This you should strive to correct by exercise; neither\nneglecting your dulness nor taking a mean pleasure in it.\n\n6. Some men, when they have done you a favour, are very ready to\nreckon up the obligation they have conferred. Others, again, are not\nso forward in their claims, but yet in their minds consider you their\ndebtor, and well know the value of what they have done. A third sort\nseem to be unconscious of their service. They are like the vine, which\nproduces its clusters and is satisfied when it has yielded its proper\nfruit. The horse when he has run his course, the hound when he has\nfollowed the track, the bee when it has made its honey, and the man\nwhen he has done good to others, make no noisy boast of it, but set\nout to do the same once more, as the vine in its season produces its\nnew clusters again. \"Should we, then, be among those who in a manner\nknow not what they do?\" Assuredly. \"But this very thing implies\nintelligence; for it is a property of the unselfish man to perceive\nthat he is acting unselfishly, and, surely, to wish his fellow also to\nperceive it.\" True, but if you misapprehend my saying, you will enter\nthe ranks of those of whom I spoke before. They, too, are led astray\nby specious reasonings. But if you have the will to understand what my\nprinciple truly means, fear not that in following it you will neglect\nthe duty of unselfishness.\n\n7. This is a prayer of the Athenians: \"Rain, rain, dear Zeus, on the\nplains and ploughlands of the Athenians.\" Man should either not pray\nat all, or pray after this frank and simple fashion.\n\n8. Just as one says that Aesculapius has prescribed a course of riding\nfor some one, or the cold bath, or walking bare-footed; so it may be\nsaid that the guiding Mind prescribes for a man, disease, or\nmutilation, or losses, or the like. \"Prescribed,\" in the first case,\nmeans that such treatment was enjoined on the patient as might\ncoincide with the needs of his health: in the second case it means\nthat each man's fortune is appointed to coincide with the purposes of\nfate. Now, the very word \"coincidence\" implies something like that\ncorrespondence of squared stones in a wall or pyramid, which workmen\nspeak of when they fit them together in some structure. All things are\nunited in one bond of harmony; and just as all existing bodies go to\nmake the visible world what it is, so destiny, as the general cause,\nis compounded of all particular causes. The most unphilosophical grasp\nmy meaning, for they say, \"Fate gave this to so-and-so: this was\nappointed or prescribed for him.\" Let us, then, receive the decrees of\nFate as we receive the prescriptions of Aesculapius. He prescribes\nmany things for us, and some of them are harsh medicines. Yet we obey\nhim gladly in the hope of health. Conceive therefore that, for Nature,\nthe doing of her work and the fulfilling of her purposes are, as it\nwere, her health; and welcome all that happens, even should it seem\nhard fortune, because it tends to the health of the Universe, and to\nthe prosperity and felicity of Zeus. He would not have brought this or\nthat on any man did it not contribute to the good of the whole, nor\ndoes any part of Nature's system bring aught to pass which suits not\nwith her government. For two reasons, then, you should content\nyourself with what befalls you. The first is, that it was created and\nordained for you, and was in a manner related to you from the\nbeginning, in the weaving of all destinies from the great first\ncauses. The second is, that even what happens severally to each man\ncontributes to the well-being and prosperity of the Mind which governs\nall things, and, indeed, even to its continued existence. For the\nwhole is maimed if you break in the slightest degree this continuous\nconnexion, whether of parts or causes. And this you are doing your\nbest to break and to destroy whenever you repine at fate.\n\n9. Fret not, neither despond nor be disheartened, if it be not always\npossible for you to act according to your principles of perfection. If\nyou are beaten off, return again to the effort, and content yourself\nthat your conduct is generally such as becomes a man. Love the good to\nwhich you return; and come back to Philosophy, not as one who comes to\na master, but as one whose eyes ache recurs to sponge and egg, as\nanother has recourse to plasters, or a third to fomentation. And thus\nyou will make no empty show of obeying reason; but find that it gives\nyou rest. Remember that Philosophy demands no more than what your\nnature requires. But you are wont to desire other things which accord\nnot with your nature. \"For what,\" you say, \"can be more delightful\nthan such things?\" Is not this the very snare which Pleasure sets for\nus? Yet consider if magnanimity, frankness, simplicity, kindness, and\npiety be not even greater delights. And what is sweeter than wisdom\nitself, when you are conscious of security and felicity in your powers\nof apprehension and reason?\n\n10. The natures of things are so covered up from us, that to many\nphilosophers, and these no mean ones, all things seem incomprehensible.\nThe Stoics themselves own that it is difficult to comprehend anything\nwith certainty. All our assent is inconsistent, for where is the\nconsistent man? Consider, too, the objects of our knowledge: how\ntransitory are they, and how mean! How often they are in the\npossession of the debauchee, of the harlot, of the robber!  Review\nagain the morals of your contemporaries: it is scarcely possible to\ntolerate the best-mannered among them; not to say that a man can\nscarcely tolerate himself. Amid such darkness and filth, in this\nperpetual flux of substance, of time, of motion, and of things moved,\nI can perceive nothing worthy of esteem or of desire. On the contrary,\nwe should comfort ourselves as we await our natural dissolution, and\nnot be vexed at the delay, but find rest in these thoughts: first,\nthat nothing can befall us which is not in accord with the nature of\nall things; second, that it is always in our power not to do anything\nagainst the divine spirit within us: to this no force can compel us.\n\n11. To what end am I using my soul? Let me examine myself as to this\non all occasions, and consider what is passing now in that part of me\nwhich men call the ruler of the rest. Let me think, too, whose is the\nsoul that I have. Is it a child's? Is it a youth's, a timorous\nwoman's, or a tyrant's; the soul of a tame beast or of a savage one?\n\n12. Of what value the things are which the many account good you may\njudge from this: If a man has conceived certain things, such as\nprudence, temperance, justice, or courage, to be good in the real\nsense, he cannot, while he is of this mind, readily listen to the\ntraditional gibe about a superabundance of good things. It will not\nfit the case. But when he has in mind things which seem good in the\neyes of the multitude, he is perfectly willing to hear and accept as\nquite appropriate the raillery of the comic poet. Thus even the\nordinary mind perceives the difference. For if this were not so, we\nwould not in the first case repudiate the jest as offensive, nor would\nwe salute it as a happy witticism when applied to wealth or to the\nopulence which produces luxury and ostentation. Proceed then, and put\nthe question whether these things are to be valued and esteemed good\nof which we have such an opinion that we may aptly say of their\npossessor: \"He has so many possessions about him that he has no place\nwherein to ease himself.\"\n\n13. I consist of a formal and a material element. Neither of these two\nshall die and fade into nothingness, since neither came into being out\nof nothing. Every part of me, then, will be transformed and ranged\nagain in some part of the Universe. That part of the Universe will\nitself be transmuted into another part, and so on for all time\ncoming. By some such change as this I came into being, likewise my\nprogenitors, and so back from all time past. There is no objection to\nthis theory, even though the world be governed by determined cycles of\nrevolution.\n\n14. Reason, and the art of thinking, are powers which are complete in\nthemselves, and in their special processes. They start from their own\ninternal principle, and proceed to their appointed end. Such mental\nacts are called right, to indicate that the course of thought is right\nor straight.\n\n15. Nothing should be said to be part of a man which is not part of\nhis human nature. Things that are not part of his essence cannot be\nrequired of him, and have no part in the promise or the fulfilment of\nhis nature. Therefore, in such things lies neither the end of man nor\nthe good which crowns that end. Moreover, if anything were really part\nof a man, it would not be proper for him to despise it or revolt\nagainst it, nor would he be praiseworthy who made himself independent\nthereof. If non-essential things were indeed good, he could be no good\nman who stinted himself in the use of them; but, as we see, the more a\nman goes without them, and the more he endures the want of them, the\nbetter a man he is.\n\n16. The character of your most frequent impressions will be the\ncharacter of your mind. The soul takes colour from its impressions,\ntherefore steep it in such thoughts as these:--Wherever a man can\nlive, he can live well. A man can live in a court, therefore he can\nlive well there. Again everything works towards that for which it was\ncreated, and that to which anything works is its end; and in the end\nof everything is to be found the advantage and the good of it. Now,\nfor reasoning beings, Society is the highest good, for it has long\nsince been proved that we were brought into the world to be\nsocial. Nay, was it not manifest that the inferior kinds were formed\nfor the superior, and the superior for each other? Now, the animate is\nsuperior to the inanimate, and beings that reason to those that only\nlive.\n\n17. To pursue impossibilities is madness; and it is impossible that\nthe wicked should not act in some such way as this.\n\n18. Nothing can befall any man which he is not fitted by nature to\nbear. The like events befall others, and either through ignorance that\nthe event has happened, or from ostentation of magnanimity, they stand\nfirm and unhurt by them. Strange then that ignorance or ostentation\nshould have more strength than wisdom!\n\n19. Material things cannot touch the soul at all, nor have any access\nto it: neither can they bend or move it. The soul is bent or moved by\nitself alone, and remodels all things that present themselves from\nwithout in accordance with whatever judgment it adopts within.\n\n20. In one respect man is nearest and dearest to me; in so far, that\nis, as I must do good to him and bear with him. But in so far as some\nmen obstruct me in my natural activities, man enters the class of\nthings indifferent to me, no less than the sun, the wind, or the wild\nbeast. By these indeed some special action may be impeded, but no\ninterference with my purpose or with my inward disposition can come\nfrom them, thanks to my exceptive and modifying powers. For the mind\ncan convert and change everything that impedes its activity into\nmatter for its action; hindrance in its work becomes its real help,\nand every obstruction makes for its progress.\n\n21. Reverence that which is most excellent in the Universe, and the\nmost excellent is that which employs all things and rules\nall. Likewise reverence that which is most excellent in yourself. It\nis of the same nature as the former, for it is that which employs all\nelse that is in you, and that by which your whole life is ordered.\n\n22. That which harms not the city cannot harm the citizen. Apply this\nrule whenever you have the idea that you are hurt. If the state be not\nhurt by this, neither am I harmed, and if the state be hurt we should\nnot be wrathful with him who hurt it. Consider where lay his\noversight.\n\n23. Consider frequently how swiftly things that exist or are coming\ninto existence are swept by and carried away. Their substance is as a\nriver perpetually flowing; their actions are in continual change, and\ntheir causes subject to ten thousand alterations. Scarcely anything is\nstable, and the vast eternities of past and future in which all things\nare swallowed up are close upon us on both hands. Is he not then a\nfool who is puffed up with success in the things of this world, or is\ndistracted, or worried, as if he were in a time of trouble likely to\nendure for long.\n\n24. Keep in mind the universe of being in which your part is exceeding\nsmall, the universe of time of which a brief and fleeting moment is\nassigned to you; the destiny of things, and how infinitesimal your\nshare therein.\n\n25. Does another wrong me? Let him look to that. His character and his\nactions are his own. So much is in my present possession as is\ndispensed to me by the nature of things, and I act as my own nature\nnow bids me.\n\n26. Let the leading and ruling part of your soul stand unmoved by the\nstirrings of the flesh, whether gentle or rude. Let it not commingle\nwith them, but keep itself apart, and confine these passions to their\nproper bodily parts; and if they rise into the soul by any sympathy\nwith the body to which it is united, then we must not attempt to\nresist the sensation, seeing that it is of our nature; but let not the\nsoul, for its part, add thereto the conception that the sensation is\ngood or bad.\n\n27. Live with the Gods. And he lives with the Gods who continually\ndisplays to them his soul, living in satisfaction with its lot, and\ndoing the will of the inward spirit, a portion of his own divinity\nwhich Zeus has given to every man for a ruler and a guide. This is the\nintelligence, the reason that abides in us all.\n\n28. Are you angry with one whose armpits smell or whose breath is\nfoul?  What is the use? His mouth or his arm-pits are so, and the\nconsequence must follow. But, you say, man is a reasonable being, and\ncould by attention discern in what he offends. Very well, you too have\nreason. Use your reason to move his; instruct, admonish him. If he\nlistens, you will cure him, and there will be no reason for anger. You\nare neither actor nor harlot.\n\n29. As you intend to live at your going, so you can live here. But, if\nmen do not permit you, then depart from life, yet so as if no\nmisfortune had befallen you. If my house be smoky, I go out, and where\nis the great matter? So long as no such trouble drives me out, I\nremain at my will, and no one will prevent me from acting as I\nwill. And my will is the will of a reasonable and social being.\n\n30. The intelligence of the Universe is social. It has therefore made\nthe inferior orders for the sake of the superior; and has suited the\nsuperior beings for one another. You see how it hath subordinated, and\nco-ordinated, and distributed to each according to its merit, and\nengaged the nobler beings to a mutual agreement and unanimity.\n\n31. How have you behaved towards the Gods, towards your parents, your\nbrothers, your wife, your children, your teachers, those who reared\nyou, your friends, your intimates, your slaves? Can it be said that\nyou have ever acted towards all of them in the spirit of the line:--\n\n      He wrought no harshness, spoke no unkind word?\n\nRecollect all you have passed through, all that you have had strength\nto bear. Your life is now a tale that is told, and your service is all\ndischarged. Recall the fair sights you have seen, the pleasures and\nthe pains you have despised, the so-called glory that you have\nforegone, the unkindly men to whom you have shown kindness.\n\n32. How is it that unskilled and ignorant souls disturb the skilful\nand intelligent? What, I ask, is the skilful and intelligent soul? It\nis that which knows the beginning and the end, and the reason which\npervades all being, and by determined cycles rules the Universe for\nall time.\n\n33. In a little space you will be only ashes and dry bones and a name,\nperhaps not even that. A name is but so much empty sound and echo, and\nthe things which are so much prized in life are empty, mean, and\nrotten. We are as puppies that snap at one another, as children that\nquarrel, laugh, and presently weep again. But integrity, modesty,\njustice, and truth,\n\n      Up from the wide-wayed earth have soared to heaven.\n\nWhat then should detain you here? Things sensible are ever changing\nand unstable. The senses are dull and easily deceived. The poor soul\nitself is a mere exhalation from blood. Fame in such a world is a\nthing of naught. What then? You await calmly extinction or\ntransformation, whichever it may be. And till the fulness of the time\nbe come what is to suffice you? What else than a life spent in fearing\nand praising the Gods, and in the practice of benevolence, toleration\nand forbearance towards men? And whatsoever lies beyond the bounds of\nflesh and breath, remember that it is neither yours nor in your power.\n\n34. A prosperous life may be yours if only you can take the right\npath, and keep to it in all you think or do. Two advantages are common\nto Gods, to men, and to every rational soul. In the first place,\nnothing external to themselves has power to hinder them. In the\nsecond, their happiness lies in having mind and conduct disposed to\njustice, and in the power to make that the end of all desire.\n\n35. If the fault be not my sin, nor a consequence of it, if there be\nno damage to the common good, why am I perturbed about it? Wherein is\nthe harm to the common good?\n\n36. Be not incautiously carried away by sentiment, but aid him that\nneeds it according to your power and his desert. If his need be of the\nthings which are indifferent, think not that he is harmed thereby, for\nso to think is an evil habit. But as, in the Comedy, the old man begs\nto have his fosterchild's top for a keepsake, though he knows well\nthat it is a top and nothing more, so should you act also in the\naffairs of life.\n\nYou mount the rostra and cry aloud, \"O man, have you forgotten what is\nthe real value of what you seek?\" \"No, but the many are keen in their\npursuit of it.\" \"Are you then to be a fool because they are?\"\n\nIn whatever case I had been left I could have made my fortune: for\nwhat is it to make a fortune but to confer good things upon one's\nself; and true good things are a worthy frame of mind, worthy\nimpulses, worthy actions.\n\n                        END OF THE FIFTH BOOK.\n\n                               BOOK VI.\n\n1. The substance of the Universe is docile and pliable. The mind which\ngoverns it has in itself no source of evil-doing. It has no malice: it\ndoes no ill, and nothing is hurt by it. By its guidance all things\ncome to be, and fulfil their being.\n\n2. Act the part which is worthy of you, regarding not whether you be\nstiff with cold or comfortably warm; whether you be drowsy or\nrefreshed with sleep; whether you be in good report or bad; whether\nyou be dying or upon some other business. For death also is one piece\nof the business of life, and, here as elsewhere, it is enough to do\nwell what comes to our hand.\n\n3. Look within. Let not the proper quality or value of anything escape\nyou.\n\n4. All that exists will very speedily change; by rarefaction, if all\nsubstance be one; otherwise by dispersion.\n\n5. The guiding mind knows what its own condition is, how, and upon\nwhat matter its work is done.\n\n6. The best revenge is not to copy him that wronged you.\n\n7. Find your sole delight and recreation in proceeding from one\nunselfish action to another, with God ever in mind.\n\n8. The ruling part of you is that which rouses and steers itself,\nmaking itself what it wishes to be, and making all that happens take\nsuch appearance as it will.\n\n9. All things are accomplished according to the will of universal\nnature. There is no other nature to influence them which either\ncomprehends the former from without, or is contained within it, or\nexists externally, and independent of it.\n\n10. The Universe is either a confusion ravelled and unravelled again,\nor else a unity compact of order and forethought. If it be the former,\nwhy should I wish to linger amid this aimless chaos and confusion, or\nhave any further care than \"how to become earth again\"? Nay, why am I\ndisturbed at all? Dissolution will overtake me, do what I please. But,\nif the latter be the case, I adore the Ruler of all things, I stand\nfirm, and put my trust in him.\n\n11. Whenever your situation forces trouble upon you, return quickly to\nyourself, and interrupt the rhythm of life no longer than you are\ncompelled. Your grasp of the harmony will grow surer by continual\nrecurrence to it.\n\n12. Had you at one time both a step-mother and a mother, you would\nrespect the former, yet you would be more constantly in your mother's\ncompany. Your court and your philosophy are step-mother and mother to\nyou. Return then frequently to your true mother, and recreate yourself\nwith her. Her consolation can make the court seem bearable to you, and\nyou to it.\n\n13. Keep these thoughts for meats and eatables: This that is before me\nis the dead carcase of a fish, a fowl, a hog. This Falernian is but a\nlittle grape juice. Think of your purple robes as sheep's wool stained\nin the blood of a shell-fish. Such conceptions, which touch reality so\nnear, and set forth the sum and substance of these objects, are\npowerful indeed to display to us their despicable value. In this\nspirit we should act throughout life; and when things of great\napparent worth present themselves, we should strip them naked, view\ntheir meanness, and cast aside the glowing description which makes\nthem seem so glorious. Vanity is a great sophist, and most imposes on\nus when we believe ourselves to be busy about the noblest\nends. Remember the saying of Crates about Xenocrates himself.\n\n14. Most objects of vulgar admiration may be referred to certain\ngeneral classes. There are, first, those which hold together by\ncohesion or by some organic unity, such as stone, timber, figs, vines\nor olives. The things which men, a shade more reasonable, admire are\nreferred to the class which possesses animal life such as is seen in\nflocks and herds. When man's taste is still more cultured his\nadmiration turns to things which can show a rational intelligence. But\nhe admires this intelligence not as a universal principle, but only so\nfar as he finds it expressed in art or industry, or, indeed, sometimes\nmerely so far as it is exhibited by his retinue of artist slaves. But\nhe who values rational intelligence as a universal thing, and as a\nsocial force, will care nothing for these other objects of\nadmiration. He will, above all things, strive to preserve his own mind\nin all its rational and social instincts and activities; and to this\nend he will co-operate with any of his kind.\n\n15. Some things hasten into being. Some hasten to be no more. Even as\na thing is born some part of it is already dead. Flux and change are\nconstantly renewing the world, just as the unbroken flow of time ever\npresents to us some new portion of eternity. In this vast river, on\nwhose bosom there is no tarrying, what is there among the things that\nsweep by us that is worth the prizing? It is as if a man grew fond of\none among a passing flight of sparrows, when already it had vanished\nfrom his sight. Our life itself is much like a vapour of the blood or\na drawing in of air. Our momentary actions of inhalation and\nexhalation are one in kind with that whole power of breathing which,\nyesterday or the day before, we received at birth, and which we must\nrestore again to the source from whence we drew it.\n\n16. It is a small privilege to transpire like plants, or even to\nbreathe as cattle or wild beasts do. To feel the impressions of sense,\nto be swayed like puppets by passion, to herd together and to live by\nbread; all this is no great thing. There is nothing here superior to\nour power of discharging our superfluous food. What, then, is of\nvalue? To be received with clapping of hands? No. Neither, therefore,\nis the applause of tongues more valuable, for the praises of the\nmultitude are naught but the idle clapping of tongues. Dismiss the\nvanity called fame, and what remains to be prized? This, I think: in\nall things to act, or to restrain yourself from action, as best suits\nthe particular structure of your nature. This is the end of all arts\nand studies, for every art aims at making what it produces well\nadapted to the work for which it was designed. The gardener, the\nvine-dresser, the horse-breaker, the dog-trainer all try for this; and\nwhat else is the aim of all education and teaching? Here, then, is\nwhat you may truly value: this well won, you will seek for nothing\nmore. Will you, then, cease valuing the multitude of other things? If\nyou do not, you will never attain to freedom, self-sufficiency, or\ntranquillity. You cannot escape envying, suspecting, and striving\nagainst those who have the power to deprive you of your cherished\nobjects, nor plotting against men who are in possession of that on\nwhich you set your heart. The man who lacks any of these things must,\nof necessity, be distracted, and be for ever complaining against the\nGods. But reverence and respect for your own intelligence will bring\nyou to agreement with yourself, into concord with mankind, and into\nharmony with the Gods, whom you will praise for all their good gifts\nand guidance.\n\n17. Upward, downward, round and round run the courses of the\nelements. But the course of virtue is like none of these; it follows a\ndiviner path, well-directed in a way that is hard for us to\nunderstand.\n\n18. Strange are the ways of men! They can speak no good word of the\ncontemporaries with whom they live; yet they count it a great thing to\ngain the praises of a posterity whom they never saw nor shall see. As\nwell might we grieve because we cannot hear the praises of our\nancestors.\n\n19. If a thing seems to you very difficult to accomplish, conclude not\nthat it is beyond human power. But, if you see that anything is within\nman's power, and part of his proper work, conclude that you also may\nattain to it.\n\n20. In the gymnasium, if some one scratches us with his nails, or in a\nsudden onset bruises our head, we express no resentment; we are not\noffended; nor do we suspect him for the future as one who is plotting\nagainst us. We are on our guard against him, it is true, but not as\nagainst an enemy or a suspected person. In all good humour we simply\nkeep out of his way. Let us thus behave in other affairs of life, and\noverlook the many injuries which are done to us, as it were, by our\nantagonists in the gymnasium of the world. As I said, we may keep out\nof their way, but without suspicion or hatred.\n\n21. If any one can convince or shew me that I am wrong in thought or\ndeed, I will gladly change. It is truth that I seek; and truth never\nyet hurt any man. What does hurt is persistence in error or in\nignorance.\n\n22. I do my duty, and for the rest am not distracted by anything which\nis inanimate or irrational, or which has lost or ignores the proper\nway.\n\n23. Use the brute creation, and also all material things, in the\nspirit of magnanimity and freedom which becomes him who has reason in\nusing that which has it not. Towards men, who have reason, act in a\nsocial spirit. In every business call the Gods to aid thee, nor\ntrouble how long this business shall endure; three hours spent therein\nmay suffice you.\n\n24. Alexander of Macedon and his muleteer, when they died, were in a\nlike condition. They were either alike resumed into the seminal source\nof all things, or alike dispersed among the atoms.\n\n25. Consider all the many things, both physical and spiritual, that\nare adoing within each of us at the very same instant of time; and you\nwill wonder the less at the far greater multitudes of things, even all\nthat is, which exist together in the one-and-all which we call the\nUniverse.\n\n26. Should some one ask you how the name Antoninus is written, would\nyou not carefully pronounce to him each one of the letters? Should he\nthen begin an angry dispute about it, would you also grow angry, and\nnot rather mildly count over the several letters to him? Thus in life\nremember that each duty is made up of a number of elements. We should\nobserve all these calmly; and, without anger at those who are angry\nwith us, we should set about accomplishing the task which lies before\nus.\n\n27. Is it not cruel to restrain men from pursuing what appears to be\ntheir own advantage? And yet, in a manner, you deny them this liberty\nwhen you shew anger at their errors. Men are assuredly attracted to\nwhat seems to be their own advantage. \"Yes,\" you say, \"but it is not\ntheir advantage.\" Instruct them, then, and make this evident to them,\nbut without anger.\n\n28. Death is the cessation of the sensual impressions, of the impulses\nof the passions, of the questionings of reason, and of the servitude\nto the flesh.\n\n29. It is shame and dishonour that, in any man's life, the soul should\nfaint from its duty while the body still holds out.\n\n30. See to it that you fall not into Caesarism: avoid that stain, for\nit may come to you. Guard your simplicity, your goodness, your\nsincerity, your dignity, your reticence, your love of justice, your\npiety, your kindliness, your affection for your kin, and your\nconstancy to your duty. Endeavour earnestly to continue such as\nphilosophy would make you. Reverence the Gods, and help mankind. Life\nis short, and the one fruit of it in this world is a pure mind and\nunselfish conduct. Be in all things the disciple of Antonine. Imitate\nhis resolute constancy to rational action, his level equability, his\ngodliness, his serenity of countenance, his sweetness of temper, his\ncontempt of vainglory, his keen attempts to comprehend things. Remember\nhow he never quitted any subject till he had thoroughly examined it\nand understood it, and how he bore with those who blamed him unjustly,\nwithout making any angry retort: how he was never in a hurry; how he\ndiscouraged calumny; how closely he scanned the manners and actions of\nmen; how cautious he was in reproaching any man; how free from fear,\nsuspicion, or sophistry; how little contented him in the matter of\nhouse, furniture, dress, food, servants; how patient he was of labour,\nand how slow to anger. So abstemious was his life that he could hold\nout until evening without relieving himself, except at the usual\nhour. What a firm and loyal friend he was; how patient of frank\nopposition to his opinions; how glad if any one could set him right!\nHow religious he was, and yet how free from superstition! Follow in\nhis steps that your last hour may find you with a conscience as easy\nas his.\n\n31. Sober yourself, recall your senses. Shake sleep from you, and know\nthat it was a dream that troubled you; and, now that you are broad\nawake again, regard the waking world as you did the dream.\n\n32. I am made up of a frail body and a soul. To the body all things\nare indifferent, because it cannot distinguish them; and to the mind\nall things are indifferent also which arise not from its own\nactivities. All these are indeed in its own power, but it is concerned\nwith only such of them as are present. Its past and future activities\nare indifferent to it now.\n\n33. No toil for hand or foot is against Nature, so long as it is\nproper for hand or foot to do. No more, then, is toil contrary to the\nnature of man, as man, so long as he is doing work appointed for man\nto do; and if it be not contrary to his nature it cannot be evil for\nhim.\n\n34. How many are the pleasures that have been enjoyed by robbers,\nrakes, parricides, and tyrants!\n\n35. Do you not see how common artificers, though they may humour the\npublic to a certain extent, cling to the rules of their art, and\ncannot endure to depart from them? Is it not grievous, then, that the\narchitect and the physician should shew greater respect for the rules\nof their several professions, than man shews for his own reason, which\nhe possesses in common with the Gods?\n\n36. Asia and Europe are mere corners of the Universe: the whole sea is\nbut a drop, Athos a clod. All the present is but an instant in\neternity. All things are small, changeable, and fleeting. Everything\nproceeds from the universal intelligence, either directly or as a\nconsequence. Thus, the jaws of lions, poisons, all evil things such as\nthorns or mire, are the consequences of the grand and the\nbeautiful. Do not, then, imagine that they are foreign to that which\nyou revere, but consider well the source of all things.\n\n37. He who has seen the present has seen all that either has been from\nall eternity, or will be to all eternity, for all things are alike in\nkind and form.\n\n38. Consider frequently the connexion of all things in the Universe,\nand their relation to each other. All things are in a manner\nintermingled with one another, and are, therefore, mutually\nfriendly. For one thing comes in due order after another, by virtue of\nlocal movements, and of the harmony and unity of the whole.\n\n39. Adapt yourself to the things which your destiny has given you:\nlove those with whom it is your lot to live, and love them with\nsincere affection.\n\n40. A tool, an instrument, a utensil, is in good case when it is fit\nfor its proper work: yet its maker remains not by it. But within the\norganisms of Nature there remains and resides the power which made\nthem. You ought, therefore, to reverence this power the more,\nbelieving that if you act in deference to its will, all will happen to\nyou in reason; for so in reason the Universe ranges all.\n\n41. Whenever we imagine that anything which lies not in our power is\ngood or evil for us, if the evil befall us or if we miss the good, we\ninevitably blame the Gods, and hate the men who are, or whom we\nsuspect to be, the cause of our disaster or our loss. Our solicitude\nabout such things leads to much injustice; but if we judge only the\nthings that are in our power to be good or evil, there is no reason\nleft for accusing the Gods or for hating men.\n\n42. We are all co-operating in one great work, some with knowledge and\nunderstanding, others ignorantly and without design. It is in this\nsense, I think, that Heraclitus says that men are working even while\nthey sleep, working together in all that is being done in the\nUniverse. Each works in a different way; and even those contribute\nabundantly who murmur and try to oppose and to frustrate the course of\nnature. The world has need even of such as these. It remains then for\nyou to make sure which is the class in which you rank yourself. The\npresiding mind will assuredly use you to good purpose one way or\nother; and will enlist you among its labourers and fellow-workers. But\nsee to it that the part that falls to you lie not in the vulgar comic\npassage of the play, of which Chrysippus has spoken.\n\n43. Does the sun pretend to perform the work of the rain, or\nAesculapius that of Ceres? What of the several stars? Are they not\ndifferent, yet all jointly working for the same end?\n\n44. If the Gods took counsel about me and what should befall me,\ndoubtless then-counsel was good. It is difficult to imagine Gods\nwanting in forethought, and what could move them to do me wilful harm?\nWhat advantage would thence accrue, either to themselves or to the\nUniverse which is their special care? If they have not taken counsel\nabout me in particular, they certainly have done so about the common\ninterest of the Universe, and I therefore should accept cheerfully and\ncontentedly the fate which is the outcome of their ordinance. If,\nindeed, they take no counsel about anything (which it were impious to\nbelieve), then let us quit our sacrifices, our prayers, and our oaths,\nand all acts of devotion which we now perform as if they lived and\nmoved amongst us. But, granting that the Gods take no thought for my\naffairs, I may still deliberate about myself. It is my business to\nconsider my own interest. Now, each man's interest is that which\nagrees with the structure of his nature, and my nature is rational and\nsocial. As Antoninus, my city and my country is Rome; as a human being\nit is the world. That alone, then, which profits these two cities can\nprofit me.\n\n45. All that happens to the individual is of profit to the whole. This\nwould suffice. But if you consider closely you will see that it is\nalso a general truth that all that happens to one man is of profit to\nthe rest of mankind. \"Profit\" here should be taken in a somewhat\ngeneral sense, as referring to things indifferent.\n\n46. In the amphitheatre and other such resorts the same or similar\nspectacles, continually presented, cloy at last. It is even so in all\nour experience of life. All things, first and last, are alike, and\nlike derived. When shall the end be?\n\n47. Think continually of all the men that are dead and gone, men of\nevery sort and condition, of all manner of pursuits, and of every\nnation. Return back to Philistion, Phoebus, and Origanion. Pass down\nto other generations of the dead. We must all change our habitation\nand go to that place whither so many great orators, so many venerable\nphilosophers, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates, and so many heroes\nhave gone before, and so many generals and princes have followed. Add\nto these Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes, and other keen, great,\nlaborious, cunning and arrogant spirits; yea, such as have wittily\nderided this fading mortal life which is but for a day, as did\nMenippus and his brethren. Consider that all these are long since in\ntheir graves. And wherein here is the harm for them; or even for men\nwhose names are not remembered? The one precious thing in life is to\nspend it in a steady course of truth and justice, with kindliness even\nfor the false and the unjust.\n\n48. When you would cheer your heart, consider the several excellencies\nof those that live around you. Consider the activity of one, the\nmodesty of another, the generosity of a third, and the other virtues\nof the rest. Nothing rejoices the heart so much as instances, the more\nthe better, of goodness manifested in the characters of those around\nus. Let us, therefore, have such instances ever present for\nreflection.\n\n49. Are you grieved that you weigh only these few pounds, and not\nthree hundred? If not, is there greater reason to sorrow if you live\nonly so many years and no longer? You are satisfied with your allotted\nquantity of matter; content yourself then likewise with the span of\ntime appointed you.\n\n50. Try to persuade men to agree with you; but whether they agree or\nnot, pursue the course you have marked out when the principles of\njustice point that way. Should one oppose you by force, act with\nresignation, and shew not that you are hurt, use the obstruction for\nthe exercise of some other virtue, and remember that your purpose\ninvolved the reservation that you were not to aim at impossibilities.\nWhat, after all, was your aim? To make some good effort such as\nthis. Well, then, you have succeeded, even though your first purpose\nbe not accomplished.\n\n51. The vain-glorious man places his happiness in the action of\nothers. The sensualist finds it in his own sensations. The wise man\nrealizes it in his own work.\n\n52. You have it in your power to form no opinion about this or that,\nand so to have peace of mind. Things material have no power to form\nour opinions for us.\n\n53. Accustom yourself to attend closely to what is said by others, and\nas far as possible to penetrate into the mind of the speaker.\n\n54. What profits not the swarm profits not the bee.\n\n55. If the sailors revile their pilot, or the sick their physician,\nwhom will they follow or obey? And how will the one secure safety to\nthe crew, or the other health to the patients?\n\n56. How many who entered the world with me are already departed!\n\n57. To the jaundiced, honey seems bitter; and water is a thing of\ndread to those bitten by mad dogs. To boys a ball is a glorious\nthing. Why, then, am I angry? Has error in the mind less power than a\nlittle bile in the jaundiced, or a little poison in him who is bitten?\n\n58. No man can prevent you from living according to the plan of your\nnature; and nothing can befall you which is contrary to the plan of\nthe nature of the Universe.\n\n59. Consider what men are; whom they seek to please; what they expect\nto gain, and how they go about to compass their ends. Think how soon\neternity will shroud all things, and how much is already shrouded.\n\n                        END OF THE SIXTH BOOK.\n\n                              BOOK VII.\n\n1. What is vice? It is what you have often seen. In every instance of\nit keep in mind that you have often seen the like before. Search up\nand down; you will find sameness everywhere. Among the events which\nfill the history of ancient, middle, and present ages; among the\nthings of which our cities and our households are full to-day, nothing\nis new, all is familiar and fleeting.\n\n2. How can the great principles of life become dead if the impressions\nwhich correspond to them be not extinguished? These impressions you\nmay still rekindle. I can always form the proper opinion of this or\nthat; and, if so, why am I disturbed? What is external to my mind is\nof no consequence to it. Learn this, and you stand upright; you can\nalways renew your life. See things again as once you saw them, and\nyour life is made new again.\n\n3. Your vain concern for shows, for stage plays, for flocks and herds,\nyour little combats, are as bones cast for the contention of puppies,\nas baits dropped into a fishpond, as the toil of ants and the burdens\nthat they bear, as the scampering of frightened mice, or the antics of\npuppets jerked by wires. It is then your duty amid all this to stand\nfirm, kindly and not proud, yet to understand that a man's worth is\njust the worth of that which he pursues.\n\n4. In conversation we should give good heed to what is said, and in\nevery enterprise we should attend to what is done. In the latter case,\nat once look to the end in view, and, in the former, note the meaning\nintended.\n\n5. Is my understanding sufficient for this business or not? If it be\nsufficient, I use it for the work in hand as an instrument given to me\nby nature. If it be not sufficient, I either give place to one better\nfitted for the achievement, or, if for some reason this be not a\nproper course, I do it as best I can, taking the aid of those who, by\ndirecting my mind, can accomplish something fit and serviceable for\nthe common good. For all that I do, whether by myself or with the help\nof others, should be directed solely towards what is fit and useful\nfor the public service.\n\n6. How many of those who were once so mightily acclaimed are delivered\nup to oblivion! And how many of those who acclaimed them are dead and\ngone this many a day!\n\n7. Be not ashamed of taking assistance. It is laid upon you to do your\npart, as on a soldier when the wall is stormed. What, then, if you are\nlame, and cannot scale the battlements alone, but can with another's\nhelp?\n\n8. Be not troubled about the future. You will come to it, if need be,\nwith the same power to reason, as you use upon your present business.\n\n9. All things are twined together, in one sacred bond. Scarce is there\none thing quite foreign to another. They are all ranged together, and\nleagued to form the same ordered whole. The Universe, compact of all\nthings, is one; through all things runs one divinity; being is one;\nand law, which is the reason common to all intelligent creatures; and\ntruth is one as well, that is if there be but one sort of perfection\npossible to all beings which are of the same nature and partake of the\nsame rational power.\n\n10. Everything material is soon engulfed in the matter of the whole,\nand every active cause is swiftly resumed into the Universal\nreason. The memory of all things is quickly buried in eternity.\n\n11. In the reasoning being to act according to nature is to act\naccording to reason.\n\n12. Be upright either by nature or by correction.\n\n13. In an organic unity bodily members play the same part as reasoning\nbeings among separate existences, since both are fitted for one joint\noperation. This thought will come home to you the more vividly if you\nsay often to yourself: \"I am a member of the mighty organism which is\nmade up of reasoning beings.\" If, instead of a member, you say that\nyou are merely a part, you have not as yet attained to a heartfelt\nlove of mankind. As yet you love not well-doing for its own sake\nalone, and you still perform your bare duty, with no thought that you\nare your own benefactor by the deed.\n\n14. From the world without let what will affect whatever parts are\nsubject to such affection. Let the part which suffers complain, if it\nwill, of the suffering. But I, if I admit not that the hap is evil,\nremain uninjured. Not to admit it is surely in my power.\n\n15. Let any one say or do what he pleases, I must be a good man. It is\njust as gold, or emeralds, or purple might say continually: \"Let men\ndo or say what they please, I must be an emerald, and retain my\nlustre.\"\n\n16. The soul which rules you vexes not itself. It does not, for\nexample, awake its own fears or arouse its own desires. If another can\nraise grief or terror in it, let him do so. By its own impressions it\nwill not be led into such emotions.\n\nLet the body take thought, if it can, for itself, lest it suffer\nanything, and complain when it suffers. The soul, by means of which we\nexperience fear and sorrow, and by means of which, indeed, we receive\nany impression of these, will admit no suffering. You cannot force it\nto any such opinion.\n\nThe ruling part is, in itself, free from all dependence, unless it\nmakes itself dependent. Similarly, it may be free from all disturbance\nand obstruction, if it does not disturb and obstruct itself.\n\n17. To have good fortune is to have a good spirit, or a good\nmind. What do you here, Imagination? Be gone, I say, even as you\ncame. I have no need for you. You came, you say, after your ancient\nfashion: I am not angry with you, only, be gone!\n\n18. Do you dread change? What can come without it? What can be pleasanter\nor more proper to universal nature? Can you heat your bath unless wood\nundergoes a change? Can you be fed unless a change is wrought upon\nyour food? Can any useful thing be done without changes? Do you not\nsee, then, that this change also which is working in you is even such\nas these, and alike necessary to the nature of the Universe?\n\n19. Through the substance of the Universe, as through a torrent, all\nbodies are borne. They are all of the same nature, and fellow-workers\nwith the whole, even as our several members are fellow-workers with\none another. How many a Chrysippus, how many a Socrates, how many an\nEpictetus hath the course of ages swallowed up! Let this thought be\nwith you about every man, and upon all occasions.\n\n20. For this alone I am concerned; that I do nothing that suits not\nthe nature of man, nothing as man's nature would not have it, nothing\nthat it wishes not yet.\n\n21. The time is at hand when you shall forget all things, and when all\nshall forget you.\n\n22. It is man's special business to love even those who err; and to\nthis love you attain, if it is borne in upon you that even these\nsinners are your kin, and that they offend through ignorance and\nagainst their will. Remember also that in a little while both you and\nthey must die: remember before all things that they have not harmed\nyou, for they have not made your soul worse than it was before.\n\n23. Presiding nature from the universal substance, as from wax, now\nforms a horse, now breaks it up again, making of its matter a tree,\nafterwards a man, and again something different. Each of these shapes\nsubsists but for a little. Yet there is nothing dreadful for the chest\nin being taken to pieces, any more than there formerly was in being\nput together.\n\n24. A wrathful look is completely against nature. When the countenance\nis often thus deformed, its beauty dies, in the end is quenched for\never, and cannot be revived again. Seek to comprehend from this very\nfact that it is against reason. And if the sense of moral evil be gone\nas well, why should a man wish to remain alive?\n\n25. In a little space Nature, the supreme and universal ruler, will\nchange all things that you behold; out of their substance she will\nmake other things, and others again out of the substance of these, so\nthat the Universe may be ever new.\n\n26. Whenever someone offends you, consider straightway how he has\nerred in his conceptions of good or evil. When you see where his error\nlies you will pity him, and be neither surprised nor angry. Indeed you\nyourself perhaps still wrongly count good the same things as he does,\nor things just like them. Your duty then is to forgive. And, if you\ncease from these false ideas of good and bad, you will find it the\neasier to grant indulgence to him who is still mistaken.\n\n27. Dwell not on what you lack so much as on what you have\nalready. Select the best of what you have, and consider how\npassionately you would have longed for it had it not been yours. Yet\nbe watchful, lest by this joy in what you have you accustom yourself\nto value it too highly; so that, if it should fail, you would be\ndistressed.\n\n28. Retire within yourself. The reasoning power that rules you\nnaturally finds contentment with itself in just dealing, and in the\ncalm which such dealing brings.\n\n29. Blot out imagination. Check the brutal impulses of the\npassions. Confine your energies to the present time. Observe clearly\nall that happens either to yourself or to another. Divide and analyse\nall objects into cause and matter. Take thought for your last\nhour. Let another's sin remain where the guilt lies.\n\n30. Apply your mind to what is said. Penetrate all happenings and the\ncauses thereof.\n\n31. Rejoice yourself with simplicity, modesty, and indifference to all\nthings that lie between good and bad. Love mankind, and obey God. \"All\nthings,\" says someone, \"go by law and order.\" But what if there be\nnaught beyond the atoms? Even if that be so, suffice it to remember\nthat all things, save very few, are swayed by law.\n\n32. Concerning death: If the Universe be a concourse of atoms, death\nis a scattering of these; if it be an ordered unity, death is an\nextinction or a translation to another state.\n\n33. Concerning pain: Pain which cannot be borne brings us\ndeliverance. Pain that lasts musts needs be bearable. The mind can\nabstract itself from the body, and the soul takes no hurt. As to the\nparts which suffer by pain, let them, if they can, make their own\nprotest.\n\n34. Concerning glory: Consider the understanding of men, what they\nshun, and what they pursue. And reflect that, as heaps of sand are\ndriven one upon another, and the later drifts bury and hide those that\nwent before, so, too, in life the former ages are soon buried by the\nnext.\n\n35. This from Plato: \"'To the man who has true grandeur of mind, and\nwho contemplates all time and all being, can human life appear a great\nmatter?' 'Impossible,' says the other. 'Can then such a one count death\na thing of dread?' 'No, indeed.'\"\n\n36. It is a saying of Antisthenes, that it is the part of a king to do\ngood and reap reproach.\n\n37. It is a shameful thing that the countenance should obey the mind,\nshould compose and order itself as the mind bids it, while the mind\ncannot compose and order itself as it wills.\n\n38. Vain is all anger at external things\n    For they regard it nothing.--\n\n39. Give joy to us and to the immortal Gods.\n\n40. For life is, like the laden ear, cut down;\n    And some must fall and some unreaped remain.\n\n41. Me and my children, if the Gods neglect,\n    It is for some good reason.\n\n42. For I keep right and justice on my side.\n\n43. Weep not with them, and still these throbs of woe.\n\n44. From Plato:--\"I would make him this just answer, 'You are\nmistaken, my friend, to think that a man of any worth should count the\nchances of living and dying. Should he not rather, in all he does,\nconsider simply whether he is acting justly or unjustly, whether he is\nplaying the part of a good man or a bad?'\"\n\n45. He says again:--\"In truth, Athenians, the matter stands thus:\nWheresoever a man has chosen his stand, judging it the fittest for\nhim, or wheresoever he is stationed by his commander, there, I think,\nhe should stay at all hazards, making no account of death, or any\nother evil but dishonour.\"\n\n46. Again:--\"Consider, my friend, whether the truly noble and the\ntruly good be not something quite apart from saving and being\nsaved. The man who is a man indeed should not set his heart on living\nthrough a few more years of life, nor should he make that the end of\nhis desire. Rather he should commit the matter to the will of God;\nassenting to the maxim which even women use, that 'no man can elude\nhis destiny,' and studying in addition how he may spend the life that\nremains to him for the best.\"\n\n47. Contemplate the courses of the stars, as one should do that\nrevolves along with them. Consider also without ceasing the changes of\nelements, one into another. Speculations upon such things cleanse away\nthe filth of this earthly life.\n\n48. It is a good thought of Plato's, that when we discourse of men we\nshould \"look down, as from a high place,\" on all things earthly; on\nherds and armies; on husbandry and marriage; on partings, births, and\ndeaths; on the tumults of the courts of justice; on the desert places\nof the earth; on the varied spectacle of savage nations; on feasting\nand lamentation; on traffic; on the medley of all things, and the\norder which emerges from their contrariety.\n\n49. Consider the past, and the revolutions of so many Empires; and\nthence you may foresee what shall happen hereafter. It will be ever\nthe same in all things; nor can events leave the rhythm in which they\nare now moving. Wherefore it is much the same to view human life for\nforty, as for a myriad of years. What more is there to see?\n\n50. To earth returns whatever sprang from earth,\n    But what's of heavenly seed remounts to heaven.\n\nThis imports either the loosing of a knot of atoms, or a similar\ndispersion of immutable elements.\n\n51. By meats and drinks, and charms and magic arts\n    Death's course they would divert, and thus escape.\n    .  .  .  .  .  .  .\n    The gale that blows from God we must endure,\n    Toiling, but not repining.....\n\n52. He is a better wrestler than you, but not more public-spirited,\nmore modest, or better prepared for the accidents of fate; not more\ngentle toward the short-comings of his neighbours.\n\n53. Wherever we can act conformably to the reason which is common to\nGods and men, there we have nothing to dread. Where we can profit by\nprosperous activity which proceeds in agreement with the constitution\nof our nature, we need suspect no harm.\n\n54. In all places, and at all times you may devoutly accept your\npresent fortune, and deal in justice with your present company. You\nmay take pains to understand all arising imaginations, that none may\nsteal upon you before you comprehend them.\n\n55. Pry not into the souls of others; but rather look straight to the\ngoal whither nature is leading you; whither the nature of the Universe\nby external events, and whither your own nature by the tendency of\nyour own action. Each being must perform the part for which it was\ncreated. Now all other beings are created for the sake of those among\nthem which have reason; as all lower things exist for the sake of\nthings superior to them; and reasoning beings were created for one\nanother. The leading principle in man's nature, then, is the social\nspirit; and the second is victory over the solicitations of the\nbody. For it is proper to the workings of reason to set bounds to\nthemselves, and never to be overpowered by the calls of sense or by\nthe stirrings of passion, both of which are animal in their\nnature. The intellect claims to reign over these, and never to be\nsubjected to them; and rightly, because it is equipped to command and\nuse all the lower powers. The third element in the constitution of a\nreasoning being is caution against rashness and error. Let the soul go\nforth straight upon her way in the possession of these principles, and\nshe stands seized of her full estate.\n\n56. Consider yourself as dead, your life as finished and past. Live\nwhat yet remains according to Nature's laws, as an overplus granted to\nyou beyond your hope.\n\n57. Love that only which is your hap, which comes upon you as your\npart in Fate's great spinning. What, indeed, can fit you better?\n\n58. Upon every accident keep in view those to whom the like has\nhappened. They stormed at the event, wondered and complained. But now\nwhere are they? They are gone for ever. Why should you act the like\npart? Leave these unnatural commotions to fickle men who change and\nare changed. Yourself take thought how you may make good use of such\nevents. Good use for them there is; they will make matter for good\nactions. Let it be your sole effort and desire to gain your own\napproval in every action; and remember that the material objects of\nboth that effort and of that desire are things indifferent.\n\n59. Look inward. Within is the fountain of Good. Dig constantly and it\nwill ever well forth.\n\n60. Keep the body steady, without irregularity, whether in its motions\nor in its postures. For, as the soul shews itself in the countenance\nby a wise and graceful air, it should require the same expressive\npower of the whole body. But all this must be practised without\naffectation.\n\n61. The art of Life is more like that of the wrestler than of the\ndancer; for the wrestler must always be ready on his guard, and stand\nfirm against the sudden, unforeseen efforts of his adversary.\n\n62. Consider constantly what manner of men they are whose approbation\nyou desire, and what may be the character of their souls. Then you\nwill neither accuse such as err unwillingly, nor need their\ncommendation when you look into the springs of their opinions and\ntheir desires.\n\n63. \"Every soul,\" says Plato, \"parts unwillingly with truth.\" You may\nsay the same of justice, temperance, good-nature, and every virtue. It\nis most necessary to keep this ever in mind; for, if you do, you will\nbe more kindly towards all men.\n\n64. In all pain keep in mind that there is no baseness in it, that it\ncannot harm the soul which guides you, nor destroy that soul as a\nreasoning or as a social force. In most pain you may find help in the\nsaying of Epicurus, that \"pain is neither unbearable nor everlasting,\nif you bear in mind its narrow limits, and allow no additions from\nyour imagination.\" Remember also that we are fretted, though we see it\nnot, by many things which are of the same nature as pain, things such\nas drowsiness, excessive heat, want of appetite. When any of these\nthings annoy you, say to yourself that you are giving in to pain.\n\n65. Look to it that you feel not towards the most inhuman of mankind,\nas they feel towards their fellows.\n\n66. Whence do we conclude that Telauges had not a brighter genius than\nSocrates? 'Tis not enough that Socrates died more gloriously or argued\nmore acutely with the sophists; or that he kept watch more patiently\nthrough a frosty night; or because, when ordered to arrest the\ninnocent Salaminian, he judged it more noble to disobey; or because of\nany stately airs and graces he assumed in public, in which we may very\njustly refuse to believe. But, assuming all this true, when we\nconsider Socrates, we must ask what manner of soul he had. Could he\nfind contentment in acting with justice towards men, and with piety\ntowards the Gods, neither vainly provoked by the vices of others, nor\nservilely flattering them in their ignorance; counting nothing strange\nthat the Ruler of the Universe appointed, not sinking under anything\nas intolerable, and never yielding up his soul in surrender to the\npassions of the flesh.\n\n67. Nature has not so blended the soul with the body that it cannot\nfix its own bounds, and execute its own office by itself. It is very\npossible to be a God among men, and yet be recognised by\nnone. Remember that always, and this as well, that the happiness of\nlife lies in very few things. And though you despair of becoming great\nin Logic or in Science, you need not despair of becoming a free man,\nfull of modesty and unselfishness, and of obedience unto God.\n\n68. It is in your power to live superior to all violence, and in the\ngreatest calm of mind, were all men to rail against you as they\npleased; and though wild beasts were to tear asunder the wretched\nmembers of this fleshly mass which has grown with your growth. What is\nto hinder the soul amid all this from preserving itself in all\ntranquillity, in just judgments about surrounding things, and in ready\nuse of whatever is cast in its way? Judgment may say to accident:--\n\"Your real nature is this or that, though you appear otherwise in the\neyes of men.\" Use may say to circumstance:--\"I was looking for\nyou. To me all that is present is ever matter for rational and social\nvirtue, in sum, for that art which is proper both to man and God. All\nthat befalls is fit and familiar for the purposes of God or\nman. Nothing is either new or intractable, but everything is well\nknown and fit to work upon.\"\n\n69. It is the perfection of morals to spend each day as if it were the\nlast of life, without excitement, without sloth, and without\nhypocrisy.\n\n70. The Gods, who are immortal, are not vexed that in a long eternity\nthey must ever bear with the wickedness and the multitude of\nsinners. Nay, they even lavish on them all manner of loving care. But\nyou, who are presently to cease from being, can, forsooth, endure no\nmore, though you are one of the sinners yourself!\n\n71. It is ridiculous that you flee not from the vice that is in\nyourself, as you have it in your power to do; but are still striving\nto flee from the vice in others, which you can never do.\n\n72. Whatever the rational and social faculty finds fit neither for\nrational nor for social ends, it justly ranks as inferior to itself.\n\n73. When you have done a kind action, another has benefited. Why do\nyou, like the fools, require some third thing in addition--a\nreputation for benevolence or a return for it.\n\n74. No man wearies of what brings him gain, and your gain lies in\nacting according to nature. Be not weary, therefore, of gaining by the\nact which gives others gain.\n\n75. Nature set about making an ordered universe; and now, either all\nthat is follows a law of necessary consequence and connexion, or we\nmust admit that there is least rationality in the things which are\nmost excellent, and which appear to be most special objects for the\nimpulses of the universal mind. Remembrance of this will give you\ncalmness on many an occasion.\n\n                       END OF THE SEVENTH BOOK.\n\n                              BOOK VIII.\n\n1. For repressing vain glory, it serves to remember that it is no\nlonger in your power to make your whole life, even from your youth\nonwards, a life worthy of a philosopher. It is known to many, and you\nyourself know also, how far you are from wisdom. Confusion is upon\nyou, and it now can be no easy matter for you to gain the reputation\nof a philosopher. The conditions of your life are against it. Now\ntherefore, as you see how the matter truly lies, put from you all\nthoughts of reputation among men; and let it suffice you to live so\nlong as your nature wills, though that be but the scanty remnant of a\nlife. Study, therefore, the will of your nature, and be solicitous\nabout nothing else. You have made many efforts and wandered much, but\nyou have nowhere found happiness; not in syllogisms, not in riches,\nnot in fame or pleasure, not in anything. Where, then, is it? In\nacting that part which human nature requires. How can you act that\npart? By holding principles as the source of your desires and\nactions. What principles? The principles of good and evil: That\nnothing is good for a man which does not make him just, temperate,\ncourageous, and free; and that nothing can be evil which tends not to\nmake him the contrary of all these.\n\n2. Upon every action ask yourself, what is the effect of this for me?\nShall I never repent of it? I shall presently be dead, and all these\nthings gone. What more should I desire if my present action is\nbecoming to an intelligent and a social being, subject to the same law\nwith Gods?\n\n3. Alexander, Caesar, Pompey, what were they compared with Diogenes,\nHeraclitus, Socrates? These knew the nature of things, their causes\nand their matter, and the minds within them were at one. As to the\nformer, how many things they schemed for, and to how many were they\nenslaved!\n\n4. Men will go their ways none the less, though you burst in protest.\n\n5. Before all things, be not perturbed. Everything comes to pass as\ndirected by universal Nature, and in a little time you will be\ndeparted and gone, like Hadrianus and Augustus. Then, scan closely the\nnature of what has befallen, remembering that it is your duty to be a\ngood man. Do unflinchingly whatever man's nature requires, and speak\nas seems most just, yet in kindliness, modesty, and sincerity.\n\n6. It is Nature's work to transfer what is now here into another\nplace, to change things, to carry them hence, and set them\nelsewhere. All is change, yet is there no need to fear innovation, for\nall obey the laws of custom, and in equal measure all things are\napportioned.\n\n7. For every nature it is sufficient that it goes on its way, and\nprospers. The rational nature prospers while it assents to no false or\nuncertain opinion, while it directs its impulses to unselfish ends\nalone, while it aims its desires and aversions only at the things\nwithin its power, and while it welcomes with contentment all that\nuniversal Nature ordains. The nature of each of us is part of\nuniversal Nature, as the leaf is part of the tree; the leaf, indeed,\nis part of an insensible and unreasoning system which can be\nobstructed in its workings; but human nature is part of that universal\nsystem which cannot be impeded, and which is intelligent and\njust. Hence is meted out, suitably to all, our proper portions of\ntime, of matter, of active principle, of powers, and of events. Yet\nlook not to find that each several thing corresponds exactly with any\nother. Consider rather the whole nature and circumstances of the one,\nand compare them with the whole of the other.\n\n8. You lack leisure for reading; but leisure to repress all insolence\nyou do not lack. You have leisure to keep yourself superior to\npleasure and pain and vain glory, to restrain all anger against the\nungrateful, nay, even to lavish loving care upon them.\n\n9. Let no man any more hear you railing on the life of the court; nay,\nrevile it not to your own hearing.\n\n10. Repentance is a self-reproving, because we have neglected\nsomething useful. Whatever is good must be useful in some sort, and\nworthy of the care of a good and honourable man. Now, such a man could\nnever repent of neglecting some opportunity of pleasure. Pleasure,\nthen, is neither useful nor good.\n\n11. Of each thing ask: What is this in itself and by its constitution?\nWhat is its substance or matter? What is its cause? What is its\nbusiness in the Universe? How long shall it endure?\n\n12. When you are reluctant to be roused from sleep, remember that it\naccords with your constitution and with human nature to perform social\nactions. Sleep is common to us with the brutes. Now, whatever accords\nwith the nature of each species must be most proper, most fitting, and\nmost delightful to it.\n\n13. Constantly, and, if possible, on every occasion, apply to your\nimaginations the methods of Physics, Ethics, and Dialectic.\n\n14. Whomsoever you meet, say straightway to yourself:--What are this\nman's principles of good and evil? For if he holds this or that\ndoctrine concerning pleasure and pain, and the causes thereof,\nconcerning glory and infamy, death and life, it will seem to me\nneither strange nor wondrous that this or that should be his\nconduct. I shall bear in mind that he has no choice but to act so.\n\n15. Remember that, as 'tis folly to be surprised that a fig-tree bears\nfigs, so is it equal folly to be surprised that the Universe produces\nthose things of which it was ever fruitful. It is folly in a physician\nto be surprised that a man has fallen into a fever; or in a pilot that\nthe wind has turned against him.\n\n16. Remember that to change your course, and to follow any man who can\nset you right is no compromise of your freedom. The act is your own,\nperformed on your own impulse and judgment, and according to your own\nunderstanding.\n\n17. If the doing of this be in your own power, why do it thus? If it\nbe in another's, whom do you accuse? The atoms or the Gods? To accuse\neither is a piece of madness. Therefore accuse no one. Set right, if\nyou can, the cause of error; if you cannot, correct the result at\nleast. If even that be impossible, what purpose can your accusations\nserve?  Nothing should be done without a purpose.\n\n18. That which dies falls not out of the Universe. If then it stays\nhere, here too it suffers a change, and is resolved into those\nelements of which the world, and you too, consist. These also are\nchanged, and murmur not.\n\n19. The horse, the vine--all things are formed for some purpose. Where\nis the wonder? Even the sun saith, \"I was formed for a certain work;\"\nand similarly the other Gods. For what end are you formed? For\npleasure?  Look if your soul can endure this thought.\n\n20. Nature has an aim in all things, in the end and surcease of them\nno less than in their beginning and continuance. It is even as a man\ncasting a ball. Where, then, is the good for the ball in its rising;\nwhere the harm in dropping; where even is the harm when it has fallen\ndown? Where is the bubble's good while it holds together, where is the\nevil when it is broken? So it is with the lamp which now burns and\nanon goes out.\n\n21. Turn out the inner side of this body, and view it as it is. What\nshall it become when it grows old, or sickly, or decayed? The praiser\nand the praised, the rememberer and the remembered are of short\ncontinuance, and that in a mere corner of this narrow region, where,\nnarrow though it be, men cannot live in concord, no, not even with\nthemselves. And yet the whole world is but a point.\n\n22. Attend well to what is before you, whether it be a principle, an\nact, or a word. This your suffering is well merited, for you would\nrather become good to-morrow than be good to-day.\n\n23. Am I doing aught? Let me do it in a spirit of service to\nmankind. Does aught befall me? I accept it and refer it to the Gods,\nthe universal source from which come all things in the chain of\nconsequence.\n\n24. The accompaniments of bathing: oil, sweat, filth, foul water--how\nnauseous are they all! Even so is every part of life, and everything\nthat meets us.\n\n25. Lucilla buried Verus, and soon followed him to the grave. Secunda\nsaw the death of Maximus, and soon herself died. Epitynchanus buried\nDiotimus, and then Epitynchanus was buried. Antoninus mourned\nFaustina, and thereafter Antoninus was mourned. Celer buried Hadrian,\nand then Celer was buried. All go the same way. The cunning men who\nforetold the fates of others, or who swelled with pride--where are\nthey now? Where are these keen wits, Charax, and Demetrius the\nPlatonist, and Eudaemon, and their like? All were for a day, and are\nlong dead and gone; some scarce remembered even for a little after\ndeath; some turned to fables; some faded even from the memory of\ntales. Wherefore remember this: either the poor mixture which is you,\nmust be dispersed, or the faint breath of life must be quenched, or\nremoved and brought into another place.\n\n26. The joy of man is to do his proper business. And his proper\nbusiness is to be kindly to his fellows, to rise above the stirrings\nof sense, to be critical of every plausible imagination, and to\ncontemplate universal Nature and all her consequences.\n\n27. We have all of us three relations: the first to the manifold\noccasions of our state; the second to the supreme divine cause from\nwhich proceed all things unto all men; the third to those with whom we\nlive.\n\n28. Pain is either an evil to the body; and then let the body so\ndeclare it; or an evil to the soul. But the soul can maintain her own\nserenity and calm; and refuse to conceive pain as an evil. All\njudgment, intention, desire and aversion are within the soul, to which\nno evil can ascend.\n\n29. Blot out false imaginations, and say often to yourself:--It is\nnow in my power to preserve my soul free from all wickedness, all\nlust, all confusion or disturbance. And then, as I truly discern the\nnature of things, I can use them all in due proportion. Be ever\nmindful of this power which Nature has given you.\n\n30. Speak, whether in the Senate or elsewhere, with dignity rather\nthan elegance; and let your words ever be sound and virtuous.\n\n31. The court of Augustus, his wife, his daughter, his descendants and\nhis ancestors; his sister, and Agrippa; his kinsmen, familiars and\nfriends; Areius and Maecenas; his physicians and his flamens--death\nhas them all. Think next of the death of a whole house, such as\nPompey's, and of what we meet sometimes inscribed on tombs: He was the\nlast of his race. Last of all, consider the solicitude of the\nancestors of such men to leave a succession of their own\nposterity. Yet, at the end, one must come the last, and with him dies\nall that house.\n\n32. Order your life in its single acts, so that if each, as far as may\nbe, attains its end, it will suffice. In this no one can hinder\nyou. But, you say, may not something external withstand me?--Nothing\ncan keep you from justice, temperance, and wisdom.--Yet, perhaps\nsome other activity of mine may be obstructed.--True, but by\nyielding to this impediment, and by turning with calmness to that\nwhich is in your power, you may happen on another course of action\nequally suited to the ordered life of which we are speaking.\n\n33. Receive the gifts of fortune without pride; and part with them\nwithout reluctance.\n\n34. You have seen a hand, a foot, or a head, cut off from the rest of\nthe body, and lying dead at a distance from it. Even such as these\ndoes he make himself, so far as he can, who repines at what befalls,\nwho severs himself from his fellow-men, or who does any selfish\ndeed. Are you cast forth from the natural unity? Nature made you to be\na part of the whole, but you have cut yourself off from it. Yet here\nthere is the glorious provision that you may re-unite yourself if you\nwill. In no other case has God granted the privilege of re-union to a\nseparated or severed part. Yet behold the goodness and bounty with\nwhich God hath honoured mankind. He first puts it in their power not\nto be severed from this unity; and then, even when they are thus\nsevered, he suffers them to return once more, to take their places as\nparts of the whole, and to grow one with it again.\n\n35. Universal Nature, as she has imparted to each rational being\nalmost all its faculties and powers, has given to us this one in\nparticular among them. As Nature converts to her use, ranges in\ndestined order, and makes part of herself all that withstands or\nopposes her; so each rational being can make every impediment in his\nway a proper matter for himself to act upon, and can use it for his\nguiding purpose, whatever it may be.\n\n36. Do not confound yourself by considering the whole of life, and by\ndwelling upon the multitude and greatness of the pains and troubles to\nwhich you may probably be exposed. As each presents itself ask\nyourself: Is there anything intolerable and insufferable in this? You\nwill be ashamed to own it. And then recollect that it is neither the\npast nor the future that can oppress you, but always the present\nonly. And the ills of the present will be much diminished if you\nrestrict it within its own proper bounds, and take your soul to task\nif it cannot bear up even against this one thing.\n\n37. Does Panthea or Pergamus now sit mourning at the tomb of Verus, or\nChabrias or Diotimus at the tomb of Hadrian? Absurd! And if they were\nstill mourning could their masters be sensible of it? Or if they were\nsensible of it, would it give them any pleasure? Or if they were\npleased with it, could the mourners live for ever? Was it not fate\nthat they should grow old men and women, and then die? What, then,\nwould become of the illustrious dead when these faithful souls were\ngone? And all this toil for a vile body, naught but blood and\ncorruption!\n\n38. If you have keen sight, says the philosopher, use it in discretion\nand in wisdom.\n\n39. In the constitution of the rational being I discern no virtue made\nto restrain justice; but I see continence made to restrain sensual\npleasure.\n\n40. Take away your opinion about the things that seem to give you\npain, and you stand yourself upon the surest ground. What is that\nself?--It is reason.--I am not reason, you say.--So be it; then\nlet not reason pain itself, but leave any part of you which suffers to\nits own opinions of the pain.\n\n41. Obstruction of any sense is an evil for the animal nature; so is\nthe obstruction of any of its impulses. There are other kinds of\nobstruction which are evil for the nature of plants. For the rational\nnature in like manner, therefore, obstruction of the understanding is\nevil. Apply all this to yourself. Do pain and pleasure affect you? Let\nthe senses look to it. Does anything hinder your designs? If you have\ndesigned without the proper reservations, that in itself is an evil\nfor you as a reasoning being. If you designed under the general\nreservation, you are neither hurt nor hindered. No man can hinder the\nproper work of the mind. Nor fire, nor sword, nor tyrant, nor calumny\ncan reach it, nor any other thing, when it is become even as a sphere,\ncomplete and perfect within itself.\n\n42. I have no right to vex myself who never yet willingly vexed any\none.\n\n43. Each man has his own pleasure. Mine lies in having my ruling part\nsound; without aversion to any man, or to any hap that may befall\nmankind. Yet let me look on all things with kindly eyes. Let me accept\nand use them all according to their worth.\n\n44. See that you secure the benefit of the present time. They who\npursue a fame which is to live after them reflect not that posterity\nwill be men even as are those who vex them now, and that they too will\nbe mortal. And afterwards, what shall signify to you the clatter of\ntheir voices, or the opinions they shall entertain about you?\n\n45. Take me up and cast me where you will; I shall have my own\ndivinity within me serene, that is, satisfied while its every state\nand action is according to the law of its proper constitution.\n\nIs any event of such account that my soul should suffer for it or be\nthe worse; that my soul should become abject and prostrate as a mean\nsuppliant, or should be affrighted? Shall you find anything that is\nworth all this?\n\n46. Nothing can befall a man which is not human fortune. Nothing can\nhappen to an ox, to a vine, or to a stone which is not the natural\ndestiny of their species. If, then, that alone can befall anything\nwhich is usual and natural, what cause is there for indignation?\nUniversal Nature hath brought nothing upon you which you cannot bear.\n\n47. When you are grieved about anything external it is not the thing\nitself which afflicts you, but your judgment about it. This judgment\nit is in your power to efface. If you are grieved about anything in\nyour own disposition, who can prevent you from correcting your\nprinciples of life? If you are grieved because you do not set about\nsome work which seems to you sound and virtuous, go about it\neffectually rather than grieve that it is undone.--But some superior\nforce withstands.--Then grieve not, for the fault of the omission\nlies not in you.--But life is not worth living with this undone.--\nQuit life then, in the same kindly spirit as though you had done it,\nand with goodwill even to those who withstand you.\n\n48. Remember that the governing part becomes invincible when,\ncollected into itself, it is satisfied in refusing to do what it would\nnot, even when its resistance is unreasonable. What then will it be\nwhen, after due deliberation it has fixed its judgment according to\nreason? The soul, thus free from passions, is a strong fort; nor can a\nman find any stronger to which he can fly and become henceforth\ninvincible. The man who has not discerned this is ignorant. He who has\ndiscerned and flies not thither is miserable.\n\n49. Pronounce no more to yourself than what appearances directly\ndeclare. It is told you that so-and-so has spoken ill of you. This\nalone is told you, and not that you are hurt by it. I see my child is\nsick; this only I see. I do not see that he is in danger. Dwell thus\nupon first appearances; add nothing to them from within, and no harm\nbefalls you: or rather add the recognition that all is part of the\nworld's lot.\n\n50. Is the gourd bitter? Put it from you. Are there thorns in the way?\nWalk aside. That is enough. Do not add, \"Why were such things brought\ninto the world?\" The naturalist would laugh at you, just as would a\ncarpenter or a shoemaker, if you began fault-finding because you saw\nshavings and parings from their work strewn about the workshop. These\ncraftsmen have places where they can throw away this rubbish, but\nuniversal Nature has no such place outside her sphere. Yet the wonder\nof her art is that, having confined herself within certain bounds, she\ntransforms into herself all things within her scope which seem to be\ncorrupting, or waxing old and useless; and out of them she makes other\nnew forms; so that she neither needs matter from without nor a place\nwhere to cast out her refuse. She is satisfied with her own space, her\nown material, and her own art.\n\n51. Be not languid in action, nor confused in conversation, nor vague\nin your opinions. Let there be no sudden contractions or\nforth-sallyings of your soul. In your life be not over-hurried.\n\nMen slay you, cut you to pieces, pursue you with curses. What has this\nto do with your soul remaining pure, prudent, temperate, and just?\nWhat if some one, standing by a clear sweet fountain, should reproach\nit? It would not cease to send forth its refreshing waters. Should he\nthrow into it mud or dung, it will speedily scatter them and wash them\naway, and be in nowise stained thereby. How then shall you get this\nperpetual living fount within you? If you reserve yourself unto\nliberty every hour you live, in a spirit of calmness, simplicity, and\nmodesty.\n\n52. He who knows not what the Universe is knows not what is his place\ntherein. He who knows not for what end it was created, knows not\nhimself and knows not the world. He who is deficient in either of\nthese parts of knowledge cannot even say for what end he himself was\ncreated. What sort of man then does he appear to you who pursues the\napplause or dreads the anger of those who know neither where nor what\nthey are?\n\n53. Do you wish to be praised by a man who curses himself thrice\nwithin an hour? Can you desire to please one who is not pleased with\nhimself?  Can he be pleased with himself who repents of almost\neverything he does?\n\n54. No longer be content to breathe in harmony with the air which\nsurrounds you; but set about feeling in sympathy with the intelligence\nwhich embraces all things. For the power of that intelligence is no\nless diffused, and no less pervasive for all who can draw it in, than\nis the virtue of the air for him who can breathe it.\n\n55. There is no universal wickedness to hurt the world; and the\nparticular wickedness of any individual hurts not another. It hurts\nhimself alone, and even he has this gracious privilege that, as soon\nas he desires it, he may be free from it altogether.\n\n56. To my will the will of another is as indifferent as his poor\nbreath and flesh. And how much soever we were formed for the sake of\neach other, yet the governing part of each of us has its own proper\npower; otherwise the vice of another might become my own misery. God\nthought fit that this should not be; lest it should be in another's\npower to make me unhappy.\n\n57. The sun seems to us diffused everywhere, pervasive of all things,\nyet never exhausted. This diffusion is a sort of extension, and hence\nthe Greek word for rays is thought to be derived. You may observe the\nnature of a ray if you see it entering through some small hole into a\ndarkened chamber. Its direction is straight; and it is reflected\naround when it falls upon any solid body, which shuts it off from the\nair beyond. There it stands and does not slip or fall. Now, such\nshould be the flow and diffusion of the understanding; never\nexhausted, always extending; not violently or furiously dashing\nagainst the obstacles that meet it, nor falling aside, but resting\nthere and illuminating whatever will receive it. That which will not\ntransmit the light does but deprive itself of radiance.\n\n58. He who dreads death dreads either the extinction of all sense or\nthe experience of a new one. If all sense be extinguished, there can\nbe no sense of evil. If a different sort of sense be acquired you\nbecome a different creature, and do not cease to live.\n\n59. Men were created the one for the other. Teach them better then, or\nbear with them.\n\n60. Mind moves in one way, and an arrow in another. The mind, when\ncautiously proceeding, or when casting round in deliberation about\nwhat to pursue, is nevertheless carried onward straight toward its\nproper mark.\n\n61. Penetrate into the governing part of others; and also allow others\nto enter into your own.\n\n                       END OF THE EIGHTH BOOK.\n\n                               BOOK IX.\n\n1. He who does injustice commits impiety. For since universal Nature\nhas formed the rational animals for one another; each to be useful to\nthe other according to his merit, and never hurtful; he who\ntransgresses this her will is clearly guilty of impiety against the\nmost ancient and venerable of the Gods.\n\nHe who lies sins against the same divinity. For the nature of the\nwhole is the nature of all things which exist; and things which exist\nare akin to all that has come to be. Nature, indeed, is called truth,\nand is the first cause of all truths. He, then, that lies willingly is\nguilty of impiety, in so far as by deceiving he works injury: and he\nalso who lies unwillingly, in so far as he is out of tune with\nuniversal Nature, and in so far as he works disorder in the Universe\nby fighting against its design. He is at war with Nature who sets\nhimself against the truth. He has neglected the means with which\nNature furnished him, and cannot now distinguish false from true.\n\nHe, too, who pursues pleasure as good, and shuns pain as evil, is\nguilty of impiety. Such a one must needs frequently blame the common\nnature for unseemly awards of fortune to bad and to good men. For the\nbad often enjoy pleasures and possess the means to attain them, and\nthe good often meet with pain and with what causes pain. Again, he who\ndreads pain must sometimes dread a thing which will make part of the\nworld order, and this is impious. And he who pursues pleasure will not\nabstain from injustice, and this is clear impiety. In those things to\nwhich the common nature is indifferent (for she had not made both,\nwere she not indifferent to either), he who would follow Nature ought,\nin this also, to be of like mind with her, and shew the like\nindifference. And whoever is not indifferent to pain and pleasure,\nlife and death, glory and ignominy, all of which universal Nature uses\nindifferently, is clearly impious. By Nature using them indifferently,\nI mean that they befall indifferently all beings which exist, and\nensue upon others in the great chain of consequence which began in the\nprimal impulse of Providence. Providence, in pursuance of this\nimpulse, and starting from a definite beginning, set about this fair\nstructure of the universe when she had conceived the plan of all that\nwas to be, and appointed the distinct powers which were to produce the\nseveral substances, changes, and successions.\n\n2. It were the more desirable lot to depart from among men,\nunacquainted with falsehood, hypocrisy, luxury, or vanity. The next\nchoice were to expire when cloyed with these vices. Have you then\nchosen rather to abide in evil; or has experience not yet persuaded\nyou to fly from amidst the plague? For a corruption of the mind is far\nmore a plague than any pestilential distemper or change in the\nsurrounding air we breathe. The one is pestilence to animals as\nanimals: but the other to men as men.\n\n3. Despise not death; but receive it well content, as one of the\nthings which Nature wills. For even as it is to be young, to be old,\nto grow up, to be full grown; even as it is to breed teeth, and beard,\nand to grow grey, to beget, to go with child, to be delivered; and to\nundergo all the effects of nature which life's seasons bring; such is\nit also to be dissolved in death. It becomes not therefore a man of\nwisdom to be careless, or impatient, or ostentatiously contemptuous\nabout death; he should rather await its coming as one of the\noperations of nature. Even as now you await the season when the child\nof your wife's body shall issue into the light, await the hour when\nyour soul shall fall out of these its teguments. If you wish for the\ncommon sort of comfort, here is a thought which goes to the heart. You\nwill be completely resigned to death if you consider the things you\nare about to leave, and the morals of that confused crowd from which\nyour soul is to be disengaged. It is far from right to be offended\nwith them. It is even your duty to have a tender care for them, and to\nbear with them mildly. Yet remember that the parting, when it comes,\nwill not be with men who think as you think. For the only thing which,\nif it might be, could hold you back and detain you in life, would be\nto live with those who had reached the same principles of life as\nyou. But, as it is, you, seeing how great is the fatigue and toil\narising from the jarring courses of those who live together, may cry:\n\"Haste, death!  lest I, too, should forget myself.\"\n\n4. The sinner sins against himself. The wrong-doer wrongs himself by\nmaking himself evil.\n\n5. Men are often unjust by omissions as well as by actions.\n\n6. Be satisfied with your present opinion, if certain; with your\npresent course of action, if social; with your present mood, if well\npleased with all that comes upon you from without.\n\n7. Wipe out impression; stay impulse; quench desire; and keep the\ngoverning part master of itself.\n\n8. The soul distributed among the irrational animals is one. Rational\nbeings, on the other hand, partake of one reasoning intelligence. Even\nso, there is one earth to all things earthy; and, for all of us who\nare endowed with sight and breath, there is one light by which to see,\none air to breathe.\n\n9. All things that share a common quality are strongly drawn to that\nwhich is of their own kind. The earthy tends towards the earth; fluids\nflow together, aerial bodies likewise; and naught but force prevents\ntheir confluence. Fire rises upward on account of the elemental fire;\nand it is so ready to join in kindling with all the fire that is here\nthat any matter pretty dry is easily set on fire, because that which\nhinders its kindling is the weaker element in its composition. Thus\nalso, then, whatever partakes of the common intellectual nature\nhastens in like manner, or even more markedly, towards that which is\nakin to it. For the more it excels other natures, the stronger is its\ntendency to mix with and adhere to its kind. Accordingly, among\nirrational creatures we find swarms of bees, herds of cattle, nurture\nof the young, and love, of a sort. For even in animals there is a\nsoul; and in the more noble natures a mutual attraction is found to be\nat work, such as does not exist in plants, or stones, or wood. Among\nthe rational animals, again, there are societies and friendships,\nfamilies and assemblies; and, in war, treaties and truces. Among\nbeings still more excellent, there subsists, though they be placed far\nasunder, a certain kind of union, as among the stars. Thus ascent in\nthe scale can produce a sympathy even in things that are widely\ndistant. But mark what happens among us. It is only intellectual\nbeings who forget the social concern for one another, and the mutual\ntendency to union. Here alone the social confluence is not seen. Yet\nare they environed and held by it, though they strive to escape; and\nnature always prevails. Observe and you will see my meaning: for\nsooner may one find some earthy thing which joins with nothing earthy,\nthan a man severed and separate from all men.\n\n10. Man, God, and the Universe, all bear fruit; and each in their own\nseason. Custom indeed has appropriated the expression to vines and the\nlike; but that is nothing. Reason has its fruit both for all men and\nfor itself, and produces just such other things as reason itself is.\n\n11. If you can, teach men better. If not, remember that the virtue of\ncharity was given you to be used in such a case. Nay, the Gods are\npatient with them, and even aid them in their pursuit of some things\nsuch as health, wealth, and glory, so gracious are they! You may be so\ntoo. Who hinders you?\n\n12. Bear toil and pain, not as if wretched under it, nor as courting\npity or admiration. Wish for one thing only; always to act or to\nrefrain as social wisdom requires.\n\n13. To-day I have escaped from all trouble; or rather I have cast out\nall trouble from me. For it was not without but within, in my own\nopinions.\n\n14. All things are, in our experience, common; in their continuance\nbut for a day; and in their matter sordid. All things now are as they\nwere in the times of those we have buried.\n\n15. Things stand without, by themselves, neither knowing or declaring\naught to us concerning themselves. What is it then that pronounces\nupon them? The ruling part.\n\n16. It is not in passive feeling, but in action, that the good and\nevil of the rational animal formed for society consists. Similarly his\nvirtue or his vice lies not in feeling but in action.\n\n17. To the stone thrown up it is no evil to fall; no good to rise.\n\n18. Penetrate the souls of men, and you will see what judges you fear,\nand how they sit in judgment on themselves.\n\n19. All things are in change. You yourself are under continual\ntransmutation, and, in some sort, corruption. So is the whole\nuniverse.\n\n20. Another's sin you must leave with himself.\n\n21. The ceasing of any action, the extinction of any keen desire, or\nof any opinion, is as it were a death to them. This is no evil. Think\nagain of the ages of your life; childhood, youth, manhood, old\nage. Each change of these was a death. Is there anything to dread\nhere? Think now of your life as it was, first under your grandfather,\nthen under your mother, then under your father; and, as you find there\nmany other alterations, changes, and endings, ask yourself: Is there\nanything to dread here? Thus neither is there anything to dread in the\ncessation, ending, and change of your whole life.\n\n22. Make swift appeal to your own ruling part, to that of the\nUniverse, and to his who has offended you. To your own, that you may\nmake it a mind disposed to justice; to that of the Universe, that you\nmay remember of what you are a part; and to his, that you may know\nwhether he has acted in ignorance or by design, and that you may also\nreflect that he is your kinsman.\n\n23. You yourself are a part of a social system necessary to complete\nthe whole. Accordingly, let your every action be a similar part of the\nsocial life. And if any action has not its reference, either immediate\nor distant, to the common good as its end, this action disorders your\nlife and frustrates its unity. It is sedition like that of the man\nwho, in a commonwealth, does all in his power to sever himself from\nthe general harmony and concord.\n\n24. Children's quarrels! Child's play! Poor spirits carrying about\ndead corpses! Such is our life. The 'Masque of the Dead' is\nintelligible by comparison.\n\n25. Go to the quality of the cause; abstract it from the material, and\ncontemplate it by itself. Determine then the time: how long, at\nfurthest, this thing, of this peculiar quality, can naturally subsist.\n\n26. You have endured innumerable sufferings by not being satisfied\nwith your own ruling part when it does the things which it was formed\nto do. Enough then of that.\n\n27. When another reproaches or hates you, or utters anything to that\npurpose; go to his soul; enter in there; and look what manner of man\nhe is. You will see that you need not trouble yourself to make him\nthink well or ill of you. Yet you should be kindly towards such men,\nfor they are by nature your friends: and the Gods, too, aid them in\nall ways; by dreams, by oracles, and even in the things about which\nthey are most eager.\n\n28. The course of things in the world is ever the same; a continual\nrotation; up and down, from age to age. Either the Universal Mind\nexerts itself in every particular event, in which case you must accept\nwhat comes immediately from it: or it has exerted itself once and for\nall, and, as a result, all things go on for ever, in a necessary chain\nof consequence: or again atoms and indivisible particles are the\norigin of all things. In fine, if there be a God, all is well; and if\nthere be only chance, you at least need not act by chance.\n\nThe earth will presently cover us all; and then this earth will itself\nbe changed into other forms, and these again into others, and so on\nwithout end. And, if any one considers how swiftly those changes and\ntransmutations roll on, like one wave upon another, he will despise\nall things mortal.\n\n29. The universal cause is like a winter torrent. It sweeps all along\nwith it. How very little worth are those poor creatures who pretend to\nunderstand affairs of state, and imagine they unite in themselves the\nstatesman and the philosopher! The frothy fools! Do you, O man! that\nwhich Nature now requires of you. Set about it if you have the means;\nand look not around you to see if any be taking notice, neither hope\nto realize Plato's Republic. Be satisfied if the smallest thing go\nwell. Consider even such an event as no small matter. For who can\nchange the opinions of men? And without change of opinion what is\ntheir state but a slavery, under which they groan, while they pretend\nto obey? Come now; speak of Alexander, Philip, and Demetrius of\nPhalerum. They know best whether they understood what the common\nnature required of them, and whether they trained themselves\naccordingly. But, if they designed only to play the tragic hero, no\none has condemned me to do the like. The work of philosophy is simple\nand modest. Lead me not astray in pursuit of a vainglorious\nstateliness.\n\n30. Look down, as from some eminence, upon the innumerable herds, the\ncountless solemn festivals, the voyaging of every sort, in tempests\nand in calms; the different states of those who come into life, enter\nupon life's associations, and leave it in the end. Consider, too, the\nlife which others have lived formerly, the life they will live after\nyou, and the life that barbarous peoples are now living. How many of\nthese know not even your name; how many will quickly forget it; how\nmany are there who perhaps praise you now, but will shortly blame\nyou. Reflect, then, that neither is surviving fame a thing of value;\nnor present glory; nor anything at all.\n\n31. Let nothing due to a cause outside yourself disturb your calm. In\nthe workings of the active principle within you let there be justice:\nthat is a bent of will and a course of action which have social good\nas their one end, and so are suited to your nature.\n\n32. You can suppress many of the superfluous troubles which beset you,\nfor they lie wholly in your own opinion. By this you will give ample\nroom and ease to your life. You may compass this end by comprehending\nthe whole Universe in your judgment; by contemplating eternity; and by\nreflecting on the swift changes of individual things, thinking how\nshort is the time from their birth to their dissolution, how immense\nthe space of ages before that birth, how equally infinite the eternity\nwhich shall succeed that dissolution.\n\n33. All things that you see will quickly perish; and those who behold\nthem perishing are very soon themselves to die. And he who dies oldest\nwill be in like case with him who dies before his time.\n\n34. What manner of souls have these men? What is the end of their\nstriving; and on what accounts do they love and honour? Imagine their\nsouls naked before you. When they fancy that their censures hurt, or\ntheir praises profit us, how great is their self-conceit!\n\n35. Loss is naught but change; in change is the joy of universal\nNature, and by her all things are ordered well. From the beginning of\nages they have been shaped alike, and to all eternity they will be the\nsame. How then can you say that all things have been, and ever will be\nevil; that among so many Gods there has been found no power to\nrectify; but that the Universe is condemned to endure the burden of\nnever-ending ill?\n\n36. How corrupt is the material substance of every thing, water, dust,\nbones, and foulness! Again; marble is but the concrete humour of the\nearth, gold and silver its heavy dregs. Our garments are but hair, the\npurple dye blood. All else is of a like nature. Breath, too, is just\nthe same, ever changing from this to that.\n\n37. Enough of this wretched life: enough of repining and apish\ntrifling. Why are you disturbed? Are any of these troubles new? What\nexcites you so? Is it the cause?\n\nThen view it well. Is it the matter? View it also well. Besides these\nthere is nothing. Wherefore at last act with more simplicity and\ngoodness towards the Gods. Whether you look on this spectacle for a\nhundred years or for three it is the same.\n\n38. If he has done wrong, the evil is with him: and perhaps, too, he\nhas not done wrong.\n\n39. Either all things proceed from one source of intelligence and come\ntogether in one body, in which case the part must not complain of what\ncomes about for the benefit of the whole; or all is atoms, and there\nis nothing else but confused mixture and dissipation. Why then are you\ndisturbed? Say to your soul: \"Thou art dead: thou art rotten: thou\nhast turned beast, joined the herd, and dost feed along with them.\"\n\n40. Either the Gods have power or they have none. If they have no\npower, why do you pray? If they have power, why do you not choose to\npray to them for power neither to fear, nor to desire, nor to be\ngrieved over any of these external things, rather than for their\npresence or their absence? Surely, if the Gods can aid man at all,\nthey can aid him in this. But perhaps you will say \"the Gods have put\nthis in my own power.\" Then is it not better to use that which is in\nyour own power and preserve your liberty, than to set your heart on\nwhat is beyond your power and become an abject slave? And who has told\nyou that the Gods aid us not in these things also which are in our\npower? Begin to pray about them and you will see. One man prays: \"May\nI possess that woman!\" Do you pray: \"May I have no wish to possess\nher!\" Another prays: \"May I be delivered from so and so!\" Pray you:\n\"May I not need to be delivered from him!\" A third cries: \"May I not\nlose my child!\"  Let your prayer be: \"May I not fear to lose him!\" In\nfine, turn your prayers this way, and observe what comes of it.\n\n41. Epicurus says: \"In my sickness my conversations were not about the\ndiseases of this poor body; nor did I speak of any such things to\nthose who came to me. I continued to discourse as before on the\nprinciples of natural Philosophy, and was chiefly intent on the\nproblem of how the mind, though it partakes in the violent commotions\nof the flesh, might remain undisturbed and keep guard on its own\nproper excellence. I permitted not the physicians,\" he continues, \"to\nmagnify their office, and vaunt themselves as if they were\ndoing-something of great moment, but my life continued pleasant and\nhappy.\" What he did then, in sickness, do you also if ye fall ill, or\nsuffer any other misfortune. Never to depart from your philosophy\nwhatever befalls you, never to join in the folly of the vulgar and the\nignorant, is a maxim common to all the schools. Give your mind only to\nthe business now in hand and to the means whereby it is to be\naccomplished.\n\n42. When you are offended by the shamelessness of any man, straightway\nask yourself: Can the world exist without shameless men? It\ncannot. Therefore do not demand what is impossible. Your enemy also is\none of these shameless people who must needs be in the universe. Have\nthe same question also at hand when you are shocked at craft, or\nperfidy, or any other sin. For while you remember that it is\nimpossible that the class should not exist, you will be more\ncharitable to each particular individual. It is useful also to have\nthis reflection ready: What virtue has nature given to man wherewith\nto combat this fault? Against unreason she has given meekness as an\nantidote; against another weakness another power. You are also at full\nliberty to set right one who has wandered; now every wrong-doer is\nmissing his proper aim and has gone astray. And then, in what are you\ninjured? You will find that none of those at whom you are exasperated\nhave done anything whereby your intellectual part was like to be the\nworse. Now anything which can really harm or hurt you has its\nsubsistence there, and there alone. And wherein is it strange or evil\nthat the man untaught acts after his kind? Look if you ought not\nrather to blame yourself for not having laid your account with his\nbeing guilty of such faults. Your reason gave you the means to\nconclude that it was probable that he would do this wrong; you forgot,\nand yet wonder that he has done it. But above all, when you are\nblaming any one for faithlessness or ingratitude, turn to\nyourself. The fault lies manifestly with you, if you trusted that a\nman of such a disposition could keep faith; or if, when you granted\nthe favour, you did not grant it without ulterior views, and on the\nprinciple that the complete and immediate reward of your action lay in\nthe doing of it. What would you more, when you have done a man a\nkindness? Is it not enough for you that you have acted in this\naccording to your nature? Do you ask a reward for it? It is as if the\neye were to ask a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking. For just\nas these parts are formed for a certain purpose, which when they\nfulfil according to their proper structure, they attain their proper\nend; so man, formed by nature to do kindness to his fellows, whenever\nhe acts kindly, or in any other way works for the common good, has\nfulfilled the purpose of his creation, and has possession of what is\nhis own.\n\n                        END OF THE NINTH BOOK.\n\n                               BOOK X.\n\n1. Wilt thou ever, O my soul, be good and single, and one, and naked,\nmore open to view than the body which surrounds thee? Wilt thou ever\ntaste of the loving and satisfied temper? Wilt thou ever be full and\nwithout wants, setting thy heart on nothing, animate or inanimate, for\nthe enjoyment of pleasure; not desiring time for longer enjoyment; nor\nplace, nor country, nor fine climate, nor congenial company? Wilt thou\nbe satisfied with thy present state, and well pleased with every\npresent circumstance? Wilt thou persuade thyself that all things are\nthine; that all is well with thee; that all comes to thee from the\nGods; and that what is best for thee is what they are pleased to give,\nnow and henceforth, for the preservation of that perfected being,\nwhich is good, just, and beautiful; which generates, combines,\nembraces, and includes all fleeting things that dissolve to bring\nforth others like themselves? Wilt thou never be able to live a fellow\ncitizen with Gods and men, approving them and by them approved?\n\n2. In so far as you are governed by nature only, observe carefully\nwhat nature demands; then do that freely, if thereby your nature as a\nliving being be not made worse. Next you must consider what the nature\nof a living being demands, and allow yourself everything of this kind\nby which your nature as a rational being is not made worse. Now it is\nplain that what is rational is also social. Therefore follow these\nrules and trouble no further.\n\n3. Whatever happens, Nature has either formed you able to bear it or\nunable. If able, then bear it as Nature has made you able, and fret\nnot. If unable, yet do not fret, for when the trial has consumed you\nit too will pass away. Remember, however, that Nature has made you\nable to bear whatever it is in the power of your own opinion to make\nendurable or tolerable, if only you conceive it profitable or fit to\nbe borne.\n\n4. If a man is going wrong, instruct him kindly, and shew him his\nmistake. If you are unable to do this, blame yourself or none.\n\n5. Whatever happens to you was prearranged for you from all eternity;\nand the concatenation of causes had from eternity interwoven your\nexistence with this contingency.\n\n6. Whether all be atoms, or there be a universal Law of Nature, let it\nbe laid down first that I am a part of the whole which is governed by\nNature; secondly, that I am associated with other parts like\nmyself. Mindful of this, since I am a part, I shall not be\ndissatisfied with anything appointed me by the whole. For nothing is\nhurtful to the part which is profitable to the whole, since the whole\ncontains nothing unprofitable to itself. All natural systems have this\nlaw in common, and the system of the Universe has another law besides;\nnamely that it cannot be forced by any external cause to produce\nanything hurtful to itself. If therefore I remember that I am part of\nsuch a whole, I shall be satisfied with all that flows therefrom. And,\ninasmuch as I am associated with parts like myself, I will do nothing\nunsocial; but rather draw to my kind, turn my every endeavour to the\npublic good, and shun the contrary. In such a course my life must\nneeds run well, just as you would hold that the life of a citizen runs\nwell when he passes on from one public-spirited action to another, and\nthrows himself heartily into every task appointed him by the State.\n\n7. The parts of the whole, I mean the parts which are contained in the\nUniverse, must necessarily perish; \"perish,\" let us say, meaning\nchange. Now, if it be a necessary evil for the parts to perish, it\ncould not be well for the whole that its parts should tend to change\nand be constructed to perish in various ways. Did Nature then set out\nto injure her own constituent parts, making them so that they are\nliable to evil and of necessity fall into it; or did it escape her\nnotice that this comes to pass? Both suppositions are incredible. And\nif, dropping the notion of Nature, one were merely to put it that\nthings are constituted so, then how ridiculous at the same time to say\nthat the parts of the Universe are constituted so as to change, and\nalso to wonder and fret at change or dissolution, as if it were\nsomething against the course of Nature; especially as everything is\ndissolved into the elements out of which it arose. For there is either\na scattering of the elements of which a thing was constructed, or a\nconversion of these, of the solid into earth, of the spiritual into\nair. So that these constituents are resumed into the system of the\nUniverse, which either undergoes periodical conflagration, or is\nrenewed by never-ending changes. And do not imagine that you had all\nyour earthy and aerial matter from your birth. For the whole of this\nwas an accession of yesterday or the day before, from your food and\nfrom the air you breathed. It is this accession which changes, and not\nwhat your mother bore. And granting that this recent accession may\nincline you more to what is individual in your constitution; yet, I\nthink, it alters nothing of what has just been said.\n\n8. Having taken to yourself these titles: good, modest, true, prudent,\neven-tempered and magnanimous, look to it that you change them not;\nand, if you should come to lose them, seek them straightway again. And\nremember that prudence means for you reasoned observation of all\nthings, and careful attention; even temper, cheerful acceptance of the\nlot appointed by universal Nature; magnanimity, the exaltation of the\nthinking part above any pleasant or painful commotions of the flesh,\nabove vain-glory, above death and all such things. If you steadfastly\nmaintain yourself in these titles, with no hankering after hearing\nthem given to you by others, you will be a new man, and a new life\nwill open for you. For to continue as you have been till now, in the\nsame life of distraction and defilement, would mark you as a man\ndevoid of sense, who clings to life like the half-eaten\nbeast-fighters, who, though covered with wounds and gore, do yet\nappeal to be reserved until tomorrow, to be cast again in their\nwretchedness to the claws and fangs that lacerated them before. Take\nyour stand then on these few titles; and if you are able to abide in\nthem, abide, as one removed to the Islands of the Blest. But if you\nperceive that you are falling away, and cannot prevail; have the\ncourage to retire into some corner where you may hope to prevail, or\nelse depart from life altogether, not in anger but in all simplicity,\nfreedom, and modesty, having done at least one thing in life well, by\nso leaving it. Now it will greatly help you to be mindful of your\ntitles, if you recollect that the Gods desire not adulation, but that\nreasoning beings should grow in likeness to themselves; and further\nthat a fig tree is set to bear figs, a dog to hunt, a bee to gather\nhoney, and a man to do a man's work.\n\n9. Mimes, war, panic, sloth, servility, will wipe out the sacred\nmaxims which you have gathered by observing Nature and stored in your\nmind. You ought to look and act in every case so that not only shall\nthe task before you be accomplished, but also your theoretic faculty\nexercised, and the self-confidence which springs from special\nknowledge preserved without ostentation or affected concealment. Will\nyou ever attain to simplicity; to dignity; to a perfect discrimination\nin every case as to what a thing really is, what its true place in the\nUniverse, what the time it may endure, what its composition, to whom\nit may belong, and who can give and take it away?\n\n10. The spider exults when he has captured a fly; one man because he\nhas taken a little hare, another because he has netted an anchovy,\nanother because he has hunted down a wild boar or a bear; and another\nbecause he has conquered the Sarmatians. But are they not brigands\nall, if you look to their principles.\n\n11. Acquire a method of perceiving how all things change into one\nanother. Pursue this branch of Philosophy and continually exercise\nyourself therein. There is nothing so proper as this for cultivating\ngreatness of mind. He who does so has already put off the body; and,\nhaving realized how soon he must depart from among men and leave all\nearthly things behind him, he resigns himself entirely to justice in\nall his own actions, and to the law of the Universe in everything else\nwhich happens. As for what any one may say or think of him or do\nagainst him, he gives it not a thought, but contents himself with\nthese two things: to do justly what he has in hand, and to love the\nlot appointed for him. Such a man has thrown off all hurry and bustle;\nand has no other will but this, to keep the straight path according to\nthe law, and to follow God whose path is ever straight.\n\n12. What need for suspicion when it is open for you to consider what\nought to be done? If you see your way, proceed in it calmly,\ninflexibly. If you do not see it, pause and consult the best\nadvisers. If any other obstacle arise, proceed with prudent caution,\naccording to the means you have; keeping always close to what appears\njust. That is the best to which you can attain: and failure in that is\nthe only proper miscarriage. He who in everything follows reason is\nalways at leisure, yet ever ready for action, always cheerful, yet\ncomposed.\n\n13. As soon as you awake ask yourself: Will it be of consequence to\nyou if what is just and good be done by some other man? It will\nnot. Have you forgotten what manner of men in bed and at table are\nthose who make such display in praise and blame of others; what they\ndo, what they shun and what they pursue; how they steal and how they\nrob, not with hands and feet but with their most precious part,\nwhereby, if a man will, he may gain faith, modesty, truth, law, a good\ndirecting spirit?\n\n14. To Nature, which gives and again resumes all things, the\nwell-instructed, modest man will say: \"Give what thou wilt; take again\nwhat thou wilt.\" And this he says, not with ostentation, but out of\npure obedience and good will to Nature.\n\n15. What remains to you of this life is little. Live as on a\nmountain. For it makes no difference whether we live here or there,\nprovided we live like citizens everywhere in the world. Let men see\nand know you as a man indeed, living according to Nature. If they\ncannot endure you, let them slay you. It is better so than to live as\nthey live.\n\n16. Discourse no more of what a good man should be; but be one.\n\n17. Constantly imagine all time and all existence; and think that\nevery individual thing is in substance a fig seed, and in time the\nturn of an auger.\n\n18. Consider each of the things around you as already dissolving, in a\nstate of change, and as it were corrupting and being dissipated, or\nas, one and all, formed by Nature to die.\n\n19. What sort of men are they when they are eating, sleeping,\nprocreating, easing nature, and the like? Then see them lording it\nover their fellows, puffed up with pride, angry, or issuing judgments\nfrom on high! To how many were they slaves but lately, and why! And in\nwhat case will they shortly be?\n\n20. That is for the advantage of every man which is brought by\nuniversal Nature; and for his advantage at the very time at which she\nbrings it.\n\n21. \"Earth loves the rain;\" \"and the majestic Ether loves.\" The\nUniverse loves to bring about whatever is coming to be. I then will\nsay to the Universe: \"What thou lovest I love.\" Is it not a common\nsaying that, \"so-and-so loves to happen?\"\n\n22. Either you are living here your accustomed life; or you are going\nabroad, and that at your own will: or you are dying, and your public\noffice is discharged. Now, besides these there is nothing. Be\ntherefore of good courage.\n\n23. Keep this ever clear before you: that a country retreat is just\nlike any other place. All things here go the same as on a mountain\ntop, or on the sea beach, or where you will. You may always find that\nlife of the wise man who, in Platonic phrase, \"makes the city wall\nserve him for a shepherd's fold on the mountains.\"\n\n24. What is my soul to me? What am I making of it, and to what purpose\nam I now using it? Is it void of understanding? Is it loosened and\nrent from the great community? Is it glued to, and mingled with, the\nflesh so as to follow each fleshly motion?\n\n25. Whoever flies from his master is a runaway. Our master is the law,\nand the law-breaker is a runaway; and so is he also who through grief,\nor anger, or fear will not acquiesce in something that has happened,\nis happening, or will happen, in the course of things predestined by\nthe all-ruling power which is the law, laying down for every man what\nis proper for him. He then who is afraid or grieved or angry, is a\nrunaway.\n\n26. He who has cast seed into the womb departs; another cause takes\nand works upon it and completes the child. How wonderful the result\nfrom such a beginning! The child, again, takes food down its throat;\nanother cause takes and transforms it into sensation, motion, in a\nword into life and strength and other things, how many and surprising!\nConsider then these things happening in such hidden ways, and view the\npower which produces them just as we perceive the gravitation and\nlevitation of bodies; not indeed with our eyes, yet none the less\nclearly.\n\n27. Continually reflect that all that is happening now happened\nexactly in the same way before; and reflect that the like will happen\nagain. Place before your eyes all that you have ever known from your\nown experience or from ancient history; dramas and scenes, all\nsimilar; such as the whole court of Hadrianus, the whole court of\nAntoninus, the whole court of Philip, of Alexander, of Croesus. All\nthese were similar, only the actors different.\n\n28. Imagine every one who is grieved or storms about anything\nwhatever, to be like the pig in a sacrifice, which kicks and screams\nunder the knife. Such, too, is he who, on his couch, deplores in\nsilence, by himself, that we are all tied to our fate. Reflect also\nthat only to a rational being is it given to submit to what happens\nwillingly; the bare submission is a necessity upon all.\n\n29. Look attentively on each particular thing you do, and ask yourself\nif death be a terror because it deprives you of this.\n\n30. When you are offended at any one's fault, turn at once to yourself\nand consider of what similar fault you yourself are guilty; such as\nesteeming for good things, money, pleasure, a little glory, or the\nlike. By fixing your attention on this you will speedily forget your\nanger, especially if it occur to you that he acts under compulsion and\ncannot do otherwise; else, if it be in your power, relieve him from\nthe compulsion.\n\n31. When you have seen Satyrio the Socratic, think of Eutyches or\nHymen; when you have seen Euphrates, think of Eutychio or\nSilvanus. When Alciphron comes before you, think of Tropaeophorus; and\nwhen Xenophon think of Crito or Severus. When you look upon yourself\nthink of any of the Caesars, and with every man likewise. Then let\nthis occur to you: Where, now, are these? Nowhere; or who can tell?\nFor thus you will see all human things to be smoke and nothingness;\nespecially if you call to mind that what has once been changed will\nnever exist again through all the infinity of time. Why then this\nconcern? And why does it not suffice you to live out your short span\nin well ordered wise? What material, what a subject for Philosophy you\nare shunning! For what are all earthly things but exercises for the\nrational power, when it has viewed all things that occur in life\naccurately and in their natural order? Abide then until you have\nassimilated all these things, as a strong stomach assimilates every\nvariety of food, as a bright fire turns whatever you throw upon it\ninto flame and radiance.\n\n32. Let no man have it in his power to say with truth of you that you\nare not a man of simplicity, candour, and goodness. But let him prove\nto be mistaken who holds any such opinion of you. This is quite in\nyour power; for who shall hinder you from being good and\nsingle-hearted?  Only do you determine to live no longer if you cannot\nbe such a man; for neither does reason require, in that case, that you\nshould.\n\n33. In the present matter what is the soundest that can be done or\nsaid?  For, whatever that may be, you are at liberty to do or say\nit. Make no excuses as if hindered. You will never cease from groaning\nuntil your disposition is such that what luxury is to men of pleasure,\nthat to you is doing what is suitable to the constitution of man on\nevery occasion that is thrown or falls in your way. You should regard\nas enjoyment everything which you are at liberty to do in accordance\nwith your own proper nature; and this liberty you have everywhere. Now\nto the cylinder it is not given to move everywhere with its proper\nmotion; nor to water, nor to fire, nor to any other thing that is\ngoverned by a natural law only, or by a soul irrational; for there are\nmany circumstances which constrain and stop them. But intelligent\nreason can pursue through every obstacle the course for which it was\ncreated, and which it wills to follow. Set before your eyes this ease\nwith which reason makes its way through all obstacles, as fire goes\nupwards, a stone downwards, or a cylinder down a slope, and seek for\nnothing further. The rest of man's difficulties are merely of the\nbody, the lifeless part of him; or else they are such as cannot crush,\nor in any way injure him save through opinion, or the surrender of\nreason itself: otherwise he who suffered by them would himself\nstraightway become evil. In the case of all other organisms, when\nmishap befalls, the sufferer is thereby rendered worse. But in this\nrespect it may be said that a man becomes better and more praiseworthy\nby rightly using his circumstances. In fine, remember that nothing\nwhich hurts not the city hurts the man who is by nature a citizen; nor\ndoes that hurt the city which hurts not the law. Now, none of the\nthings called misfortunes can hurt the law. Accordingly, what hurts\nnot the law can hurt neither city nor citizen.\n\n34. To the man who is penetrated with true principles, the shortest, the\nmost common hint is a sufficient memorial to keep him free of sorrow\nand fear. Such as:--\n\n      Some leaves the winds blow down: the fruitful wood\n      Breeds more meanwhile, which in springtide appear.\n      Of men thus ends one race, while one is born.\n\nYour children are leaves; leaves, too, the creatures who confidently\ncry aloud and deal out eulogy, or, it may be, curses; or who carp and\njeer in secret. Leaves, likewise, are they who transmit our fame to\nposterity. All these \"in springtide appear;\" then the wind shakes them\ndown, and the forest grows more to take their places. Shortness of\nlife is common to all things, yet you shun and pursue them, as though\nthey were to have no ending. But a little and you will fall asleep;\nand anon others shall mourn for him who carried your bier.\n\n35. The healthy eye ought to look on everything visible, and not to\nsay, \"I want green,\" like an eye that is diseased. Sound hearing or\nsense of smell ought to be ready for all that can be heard or smelt;\nand the healthy stomach should be equally disposed for all sorts of\nfood, as a mill for all that it was built to grind. So also the\nhealthy mind should be ready for all things that happen. That mind\nwhich says, \"Let my children be spared, and let men applaud my every\naction,\" is as an eye which begs for green, or as teeth which require\nsoft food.\n\n36. There is no man so happily fated but that when he is dying some\nbystander will rejoice at the doom which is coming upon him. Were he a\nvirtuous and wise man; will not some one at the last say within\nhimself: \"At last I shall breathe freely, unoppressed by this\npedagogue. He was not indeed hard on any of us; but I always felt that\nhe tacitly condemned us\"? This they would say of a good man. But, in\nmy own case, how many more reasons are there why a multitude would\nrejoice to be rid of me? You will reflect on this when dying, and\ndepart with the less regret when you consider: \"I am leaving a life\nfrom which my very partners, for whom I toiled, and prayed, and\nplanned, are wishing me to begone; hoping, it may be, to gain some\nadditional advantage from my departure.\" Why then should one strive\nfor a longer sojourn here? Yet let not your parting with them be less\npleasant on this account. Preserve your own character, remain to them\nfriendly, benevolent, gracious. On the other hand, depart from your\nfellow-men, not as if torn away; but let your going be like that of\none who dies an easy death, whose soul is gently released from the\nbody. Nature knit and cemented you to your fellows, but now she parts\nyou from them. I part, then, as from relations, not reluctant, but\nunconstrained. For death, too, is a thing accordant with nature.\n\n37. Accustom yourself as much as possible, when any one takes any\naction, to consider only: To what end is he working? But begin at\nhome; and examine yourself first of all.\n\n38. Remember that the mover of the puppet strings is the hidden\nprinciple within. It is that which is eloquence; that which is life;\nthat, if I may say so, which is the man. Never, in your imagination,\nconfound that principle with the surrounding earthen vessel and the\nlittle organs that are kneaded on to it. Excepting that they grow upon\nus, they are like the carpenter's axe; since, without the moving and\nrestraining principle, none of these parts in itself is of any greater\nservice than the shuttle to the weaver, the pen to the writer, or the\nwhip to the charioteer.\n\n                        END OF THE TENTH BOOK.\n\n                               BOOK XI.\n\n1. These are the characteristics of the rational soul: It beholds\nitself; it regulates itself in every part; it fashions itself as it\nwills; the fruit it bears itself enjoys, whereas the products of\nplants and of the lower animals are enjoyed by others. It reaches its\nindividual end, wheresoever the close of life may overtake it. In a\ndance or an actor's part any interruption spoils the completeness of\nthe whole action. Not so with the rational soul. At whatever point in\nits action, or wheresoever it is overtaken by death, it makes its part\ncomplete and all-sufficient; so that it can say, \"I have received what\nis mine.\" Also it ranges through the whole universe, and the void\naround it, and discerns its plan. It stretches forth into limitless\neternity, and grasps the periodical regeneration of all things, seeing\nand comprehending that those who come after us will see nothing new,\nand that those that went before saw no more than we have seen. Nay, a\nman of forty, of any tolerable understanding, has, because of the\nuniformity of things, seen, in a manner, all that has been or will\nbe. Characteristic of the rational soul also are:--Love to all around\nus, truth, modesty; and respect for itself above all other things,\nwhich is characteristic also of the general law. Thus there is no\ndiscordance between right reason and the reason of justice.\n\n2. You will think little of a pleasing song, a dance, or a gymnastic\ndisplay, if you analyse the melody into its separate notes, and ask\nyourself regarding each, \"Does this impress me?\" You will blush to own\nit; and so also if you analyse the dance into its single motions and\npostures, and if you similarly treat the gymnastic display. In general\nthen, except as regards virtue and virtuous action, remember to recur\nto the constituent parts of things, and by dissecting to despise them;\nand transfer this practice to life as a whole.\n\n3. How happy is the soul that stands ready to part from the body when\nit must, and either to be extinguished or to be scattered, or to\nsurvive!  But let this readiness arise from individual judgment, not\nfrom mere obstinacy, as with the Christians, but deliberately, with\ndignity, and with no affected air of tragedy; so that others may be\nled to a like disposition.\n\n4. Have I done anything for the common good? Is not this itself my\nadvantage? Let this thought be ever with you, and desist not.\n\n5. What is your art? Well doing. And how else can this come than from\nsound general principles regarding Nature as a whole, and the\nconstitution of man in particular?\n\n6. First of all, tragedy was introduced to remind us that certain\nevents happen, and are fated to happen as they do; and to teach us\nthat what entertains us on the stage should not grieve us on the\ngreater stage of the world. You see that such things must be\naccomplished; and that even they bore them who cried aloud, O\nCithaeron! Our dramatic poets have said some excellent things;\nespecially the following:--\n\n    Me and my children, if the Gods neglect,\n    It is for some good reason--\n\nand again,\n\n    Vain is all anger at external things;\n\nand,\n\n    To reap our life like ears of ripened corn--\n\nand the like.\n\nAnd after tragedy came the Old Comedy, using a schoolmaster's freedom\nof speech, and employing plain language with great profit to inculcate\nthe duty of humility. To this end Diogenes used a method much the\nsame. Next consider the nature of the Middle Comedy; and lastly for\nwhat purpose the New was introduced, which gradually degenerated into\nthe mere ingenuity of artificial mimicry. It is well known that some\nuseful things were said by the New Comic Writers; but what useful end\nhad they in view in all their accumulated poetry and playmaking?\n\n7. How manifest it is that no other course of life was more adapted to\nthe practice of philosophy than that which now is yours.\n\n8. A branch cut off from its adjacent branch must necessarily be\nsevered from the whole tree. Even so a man, parted from any\nfellow-man, has fallen away from the whole social community. Now a\nbranch is cut off by some external agency; but a man by his own action\nseparates himself from his neighbour--by hatred and aversion, unaware\nthat he has thus torn himself away from the universal polity. Yet\nthere is always given us the good gift of Zeus, who founded the great\ncommunity, whereby it is in our power to be reingrafted on our kind,\nand to become once more, natural parts completing the whole. Yet the\nfrequent happening of such separations, makes the reunion and\nrestoration of the separated member more and more difficult. And in\ngeneral a branch which has grown from the first upon a tree, and\nremained a living part of it, is not like one which has been cut and\nreingrafted; as the gardeners would say, they are of the same growth\nbut of different persuasion.\n\n9. As those who oppose you in the path of right reason have no power\nto divert you from sane action, so let them not turn you away from\namenity towards themselves. Be watchful alike to persist in stable\njudgment and action, and in meekness towards those who would hinder or\notherwise molest you. It is equally weak to grow angry with them or to\ndesist from action and submit to defeat. Both are equally deserters--\nhe who runs away, and he who refuses to stand by friend and kinsman.\n\n10. Nature cannot be inferior to Art. The Arts are but imitations of\nNature. If this be so, that Nature which is the most perfect and\ncomprehensive of all cannot be inferior to the best artistic\nskill. Now all Arts use inferior material for higher purposes; so also\nthen does universal Nature. Hence the origin of justice, from which\nagain the other virtues spring. Justice cannot be preserved if we are\nsolicitous about things indifferent, if we are easily deceived, rash,\nand changeable.\n\n11. If those things, the pursuit and avoidance of which trouble you,\ncome not to you; but, as it happens, you go to them; then let your\njudgment be at peace concerning them, they will remain motionless, and\nyou will no more be seen pursuing or avoiding them.\n\n12. The sphere of the soul attains to perfect shape when it neither\nexpands to what is without, nor contracts upon what is within; neither\nwrinkles nor collapses, but shines with a radiance whereby it discerns\nthe truth of all things, both without itself and within.\n\n13. Does any man contemn me? Let him look to that. And let me look to\nit that I be found doing or saying nothing worthy of his\ncontempt. Does any one hate me? That is his affair. I shall be kind\nand good-natured to every one, and ready to shew his mistake to him\nthat hates me; not in order to upbraid him, or to make a show of my\npatience, but from genuine goodness, like Phocion, if he indeed was\nsincere. Your inward character should be such that the Gods may see\nyou neither angry nor repining at anything. What evil is it for you\nnow to act according to your nature, and to accept now what is\nseasonable to the nature of the Universe; you, a man appointed to do\nsome service for the common good?\n\n14. Although they despise, yet they flatter one another. Although they\ndesire to overtop, yet they cringe to one another.\n\n15. How rotten and insincere is his profession who says, \"I mean to\ndeal straightforwardly with you.\" What are you doing, man? There is no\nneed for such a preface. It will appear of itself. Such a profession\nshould be written clearly on your forehead. A man's character should\nshine forth clearly from his eyes; as the beloved sees that he is so\nin the glances of those that love him. The straightforward, good man\nshould be like one of rank odour who can be recognised by the passer\nby as soon as he approaches, whether he will or no. The ostentation of\nstraightforwardness is the knife under the cloak. Nothing is baser\nthan wolf-friendship. Shun it above all things. The good,\nstraightforward, kindly man bears all these qualities in his eyes, and\nis not to be mistaken.\n\n16. To live the best life is within the power of the soul, if it be\nindifferent to indifferent things. And it will be indifferent if it\nlooks on all such things, severally and wholly, with discrimination;\nmindful that not one of them can impose upon us an opinion concerning\nitself, or can come of itself to us. Things stand motionless without;\nand it is we that form opinions about them within, and, as it were,\nwrite these opinions upon our hearts. We may avoid so writing them;\nor, if one has crept in unawares, we may instantly blot it out. 'Tis\nbut for a short time that we shall need this vigilance, and then life\nwill cease. For the rest, why should we hold this to be difficult? If\nit be according to Nature, rejoice in it, and it will become easy for\nyou. If it be contrary to Nature, search out what suits your nature,\nand follow it diligently, even though it be attended with no glory;\nfor every man will be forgiven for seeking his own proper good.\n\n17. Consider whence each thing came, of what it was compounded, into\nwhat it will be changed, how it will be with it when changed, and that\nit will suffer no evil.\n\n18. As to those who offend me, let me consider:\n\nFirst, how I am related to mankind; that we are formed, the one for\nthe other; and that, in another respect, I was set over them as the\nram over the flock, and the bull over the herd. Consider yet more\ndeeply, thus:--There is either an empire of atoms, or an intelligent\nNature governing the whole. If the latter, the inferior beings are\ncreated for the superior, and the superior for each other.\n\nSecondly: Consider what manner of men they are at table, in bed, or\nelsewhere; and especially by what principles they hold themselves\nbound, and with what arrogance they entertain them.\n\nThirdly: If they act rightly, we ought not to take it amiss; and, if\nnot rightly, manifestly they do so without intention and in\nignorance. For no soul is willingly deprived of truth, or of the\nfaculty of treating every man as he deserves. Accordingly men are\ngrieved to be called unjust, ungrateful, greedy, and, in short,\nsinners against their neighbours.\n\nFourthly: You yourself do often sin, and are no better than\nanother. And, if you abstain from certain sins, still you have the\ndisposition to commit them, even if through cowardice, fear for your\ncharacter, or other meanness, you hold back.\n\nFifthly: You cannot even be perfectly sure that wrong has been done,\nfor many things admit of justification. And, generally speaking, a man\nmust have learned much before he can pronounce surely upon the conduct\nof others.\n\nSixthly: When you are vexed or worried overmuch, remember that man's\nlife is but for a moment, and that in a little we shall all be laid to\nrest.\n\nSeventhly: It is not the acts of others that disturb us. Their actions\nreside in their own souls. Our own opinions alone disturb us. Away\nwith them then; will that you entertain no thought of calamity\nbefallen you, and the anger is gone. But how remove them?  By\nreasoning that there is no dishonour; for, if you hold not that\ndishonour alone is evil, verily you must fall into many crimes, you\nmay become a robber, or any sort of villain.\n\nEighthly: How much worse evils we suffer from anger and grief about\ncertain things than from the things themselves about which these\npassions arise.\n\nNinthly: Meekness is invincible if it be genuine, without simper or\nhypocrisy. For what can the most insolent of men do to you, if you\npersist in civility towards him; and, if occasion offers, admonish him\ngently and deliberately, shew him the better way at the very moment\nthat he is endeavouring to harm you? \"Nay, my son; we were born for\nsomething better. No hurt can come to me; it is yourself you hurt, my\nson.\" And point out to him delicately, and as a general principle, how\nthe matter stands; that bees and other gregarious animals do not act\nlike him. But this must be done without irony or reproach, rather with\nloving-kindness and no bitterness of spirit; not as though you were\nreading him a lesson, or seeking admiration from any bystander, but as\nif you designed your remarks for him alone, though others may be\npresent.\n\nRemember these nine precepts as gifts received from the Muses; and\nbegin now to be human for the rest of your life. Beware equally of\nbeing angry with men and of flattering them. Both are unsocial and\nlead to mischief. In all anger recollect that wrath is not becoming to\na man; but that meekness and gentleness, as they are more human, are\nalso more manly. Strength and nerves and courage are the portion of\nthe meek and gentle man; and not of the irascible and impatient. For\nthe nearer a man attains to freedom from passion, the nearer he comes\nto strength. A weak man in grief is like a weak man in anger. Both are\nhurt, and both give way.\n\nIf you want a tenth gift, from the Leader of the Muses, take this:--\nTo expect the wicked not to sin is madness. It is to expect an\nimpossibility. But to allow them to injure others, and to forbid them\nto injure you, is foolish and tyrannical.\n\n19. There are four states of the soul against which you must\ncontinually and especially be upon your guard; and which, when\ndetected, should be effaced, by remarking thus of each. \"This thought\nis unnecessary. This tends to social dissolution. You could not say\nthis from your heart; and to speak otherwise than from the heart you\nmust regard as the most absurd conduct.\" And, fourthly, whatever\ncauses self-reproach is an overpowering or subjection of the diviner\npart within you to the less honourable and mortal part, the body, and\nto its grosser tendencies.\n\n20. The serial and igneous parts of which you are compounded, although\nthey naturally tend upwards, nevertheless obey the general law of the\nUniverse, and are retained here in composition. The earthy and humid\nparts of you, though they naturally tend downwards, are nevertheless\nsupported and remain where they are, although not in their natural\nsituation. Thus the elements, wheresoever placed by the superior\npower, obey the whole; waiting till the signal shall sound again for\ntheir dissolution. Is it not grievous that the intellectual part alone\nshould be disobedient, and fret at its function? Yet is no violence\ndone to it, nothing imposed contrary to its nature. Still it is\nimpatient, and tends to opposition. For all its tendencies towards\ninjustice, debauchery, wrath, sorrows, and fears are so many\ndepartures from Nature. And, when the soul frets at any particular\nevent, it is deserting its appointed station. It is formed for\nholiness and piety toward God, no less than for justice. These last\nare branches of social goodness even more venerable than the practice\nof justice.\n\n21. He whose aim in life is not always one and the same cannot himself\nbe one and the same through his whole life. But singleness of aim is\nnot sufficient, unless you consider also what that aim ought to\nbe. For, as there is not agreement of opinion regarding all those\nthings which are reckoned good by the majority, but only as regards\nsome of them such as are of public utility; so your aim should be\nsocial and political. For he alone who directs all his personal aims\nto such an end can reach a uniform course of conduct, and thus be ever\nthe same man.\n\n22. Remember the country mouse and the town mouse; and how the latter\nfeared and trembled.\n\n23. Socrates called the maxims of the vulgar hobgoblins, bogies to\nfrighten children.\n\n24. The Spartans at their public shows set seats for strangers in the\nshade, but sat themselves where they found room.\n\n25. Socrates made this excuse for not going to Perdiccas upon his\ninvitation: \"Lest I should come to the worst of all ends, by receiving\nfavours which I could not return.\"\n\n26. In the writings of the Ephesians there is a precept, frequently to\ncall to remembrance some of those who cultivated virtue of old.\n\n27. The Pythagoreans recommended that we should look at the heavens in\nthe morning, to put us in mind of beings that go on doing their proper\nwork uniformly and continuously; and of their order, purity and naked\nsimplicity; for there is no veil upon a star.\n\n28. Think of Socrates clad in a skin, when Xanthippe had taken his\ncloak and gone out; and what he said to his friends, who were ashamed,\nand would have left him when they saw him dressed in such an\nextraordinary fashion.\n\n29. In writing and reading you must be led before you can lead. Much\nmore is this so in life.\n\n30. Yourself a slave, your speech cannot be free.\n\n31. And my heart laughed within me.\n\n32. Virtue herself they blame with harshest words.\n\n33. To look for figs in winter is madness; and so it is to long for a\nchild that may no longer be yours.\n\n34. Epictetus said that, when you kiss your child, you should whisper\nwithin yourself: \"To-morrow perhaps he may die.\" \"Ill-omened words!\"\nsay you. \"The words have no evil omen,\" says he, \"but simply indicate\nan act of Nature. Is it of evil omen to say the corn is reaped?\"\n\n35. The green grape, the ripe cluster, the dried grape are all\nchanges, not into nothing, but into that which is not at present.\n\n36. No man can rob you of your liberty of action; as has been said by\nEpictetus.\n\n37. He tells us also that we must find out the true art of assenting;\nand in treating of our impulses he says that we must be vigilant in\nrestraining them, that they may act with proper reservation, with\npublic spirit, with due sense of proportion; also that we should\nrefrain utterly from sensual passion; and not be restive in matters\nwhere we have no control.\n\n38. The contention is not about any chance matter, said he, but as to\nwhether we are insane or sane.\n\n39. What do you desire? says Socrates. To have the souls of rational\nbeings or of irrational? Rational. Rational of what kind, virtuous or\nvicious? Virtuous. Why then do you not seek after such souls? Because\nwe have them already. Why then do you fight and stand at variance?\n\n                      END OF THE ELEVENTH BOOK.\n\n                              BOOK XII.\n\n1. All that you desire to compass by devious means is yours already,\nif you will but freely take it. That is to say, if you will leave\nbehind you all that is past, commit the future to Providence, and\nregulate the present in piety and justice. In piety that you may love\nyour appointed lot; for Nature gave it to you and you to it. In\njustice, that you may speak the truth with-out constraint or guile;\nthat you may do what is lawful and proper; that you may not be\nhindered by the wickedness of others, or by their opinion, or their\ntalk, or by any sensation of this poor surrounding body, for the part\nconcerned may look to that. If then, now that you are near your exit,\nsetting behind you all other things, you will hold alone in reverence\nyour ruling part, the spirit divine within you; if you will cease to\ndread the end of life, but rather fear to miss the beginning of life\naccording to Nature, you will be a man, worthy of the ordered Universe\nthat produced you; you will cease to be a stranger in your own\ncountry, gaping in wonder at every daily happening, caught up by this\ntrifle or by that.\n\n2. God beholds all souls bare and stripped of these corporeal vessels,\nhusk, and refuse. By his intelligence alone he touches that only which\nhas been instilled by him and has emanated from himself. If you would\nbut inure yourself to do the like, you would be eased of many a\ntorment. For he who regards not the surrounding flesh will not waste\nhis leisure in thinking about vesture, house, or fame, or other mere\nexternal furniture or accoutrement.\n\n3. Three parts there are of which you are compact; body, soul,\nintelligence. Of these the two first are yours in so far as they must\nhave your care; the third only is properly your own. And if you will\ncast away from yourself, that is from your mind, all that others do or\nsay, all that you yourself have done or said, all your fears for the\nfuture, all the uncontrollable accompaniments of the body that\nenvelops you and of its congenital soul, and all that is whirled in\nthe besieging vortex that races without, so that your intellectual\npower, made pure, and set above the accidents of fate, may live its\nown life in freedom, just, resigned, veracious; if, I repeat, you cast\nout from your soul all comes of excessive attachment either to the\npast or to the future, then you will become in the words of\nEmpedocles,\n\n    A faultless sphere rejoiced in endless rest.\n\nYou will study to live the only life there is to live, to wit the\npresent; and you will be able, till death shall come, to spend what\nremains of life in noble tranquillity, at peace with the spirit\nwithin.\n\n4. I have wondered often how it comes that, while every man loves\nhimself beyond all others, yet he holds his own opinion of himself in\nless esteem than the opinion of others. Yet, if a God or some wise\nteacher came and ordered a man to conceive and design nothing which he\nwould not utter the moment it occurred to him, he would not abide the\nordeal for a single day. Thus we stand in greater awe of our\nneighbours' opinion of us than we do of our own.\n\n5. How can it be that the Gods, who have ordered all things well for\nman's advantage, overlooked one thing only, to wit that some of the\nbest of mankind, who have held the closest relations with things\ndivine, and by pious works and holy ministry become intimate with the\nDivinity, once dead, should arise no more, but be altogether\nextinguished? If this be truly so, be well assured that, if it ought\nto have been otherwise they would have made it otherwise. Had it been\nright it would have been practicable; and had it been according to\nNature, Nature would have effected it. From its not being so, if it\nreally be not so, be persuaded that it ought not to have been. You see\nthat, in debating this matter, you are pleading a point of justice\nwith the Gods. Now we would not thus plead with the Gods were they not\nperfectly good and just. And, if they are so, they have left nothing\nunjustly and unreasonably neglected in their administration.\n\n6. Essay even tasks that you despair of executing. The left hand,\nwhich in other things is of little value for want of use, yet holds\nthe bridle more firmly than the right, for in this it has practice.\n\n7. Consider how death ought to find you, both as to body and as to\nsoul. Think of the shortness of life, of the eternities before and\nafter, and of the infirmity of all material things.\n\n8. Contemplate the fundamental causes stripped of disguises. Think\nwhat pain is, what pleasure is, what death, and what fame. Consider\nhow many are themselves the causes of all the disquiet that they\nsuffer; how no man may be hindered by another; how all is matter of\nopinion.\n\n9. In the use of principles we should be like the pugilist rather than\nthe swordsman. For when the latter drops the sword which he uses he is\nundone. But the former has his hand always by him and needs but to\nwield it.\n\n10. Consider well the nature of things, distinguishing between matter,\ncause, and purpose.\n\n11. What a glorious power is given to man, never to do any action of\nwhich God will not approve, and to welcome whatever God appoints for\nhim!\n\n12. As to what happens in the course of nature, the Gods are not to be\nblamed. They never do wrong, willingly or unwillingly. Neither are men\nto be blamed, for they do no wrong willingly. There is therefore none\nto blame.\n\n13. How ridiculous, and how like a foreigner, is he who is surprised\nat anything which happens in life!\n\n14. There is either a fatal necessity, an unalterable order, or a\nplacable Providence, or a blind confusion without a governor. If there\nbe an unalterable necessity, why strive against it? If there be a\nProvidence admitting of propitiation, make yourself worthy of the\ndivine aid. If there be an ungoverned confusion, be comforted; seeing\nthat in this tempest you have within yourself a guiding\nintelligence. And, if the wave should carry you away, let it carry\naway the carcase and the animal life, for the intellectual part of you\nit will not carry away.\n\n15. If the light of a lamp shine and lose not its radiance until it be\nextinguished, shall truth, justice, and temperance be extinguished in\nyou before your own extinction.\n\n16. When you have the impression that a man has sinned, say to\nyourself: \"How do I know that this is sin?\" And, if he has sinned,\nconsider that he stands self-condemned: and thus, as it were, has torn\nhis own face.\n\nHe that would wish the wicked not to sin is like one who would have\nthe fig tree not have juice in its figs, would have infants not cry,\nhorses not neigh, and other inevitable things not happen. What shall\nthe wicked man do, having a wicked disposition? If you are so keen,\ncure it.\n\n17. If a thing be not becoming, do it not; if not true, say it not.\n\n18. Endeavour always to see in everything what it is that causes your\nimpression; and unfold it by distinguishing the cause, the matter, the\nrelation to other things, and the period within which it must cease to\nexist.\n\n19. Perceive at last that there is within you something better and\nmore divine than the immediate cause of your sensations of pleasure\nand pain; something, in short, beyond the strings which move the\npuppet. What is now my thought? Is it fear? Suspicion? Lust? Or any\nsuch passion?\n\n20. In the first place, let nothing be done at random or without an\nobject. In the second let your object never be other than the common\ngood.\n\n21. Yet a little, and you shall be no more; nor shall any of these\nthings remain which you now behold, nor any of those who are now\nliving. It is the nature of all things to change, to turn, and to\ncorrupt; in order that other things may, in their course, spring out\nof them.\n\n22. Reflect that everything is matter of opinion; and opinion rests\nwith yourself, suppress then your opinion, what time you will, and\nlike one who has doubled the cape and reached the bay, you will have\ncalm and stillness everywhere, never a wave.\n\n23. Any one natural operation, ending at its proper time, suffers no\nill by ceasing, nor does the agent therein suffer any ill by its thus\nceasing. In like manner, as to the whole series of actions which is\nlife, if it ends in its season it suffers no ill by ceasing, nor is he\nwho thus completes his series, in any evil case. The season and the\nterm are assigned by Nature; sometimes even by your own nature, as in\nold age; but always by the nature of the whole, by the interchange of\nwhose parts the Universe still remains fresh and in its bloom. Now,\nthat is always good and seasonable which is advantageous to the nature\nof the whole. Wherefore the ceasing of life cannot be evil to the\nindividual. There is no turpitude in it, since it is beyond our power,\nand contains nothing contrary to the common advantage. Nay, it is\ngood, since it is seasonable and advantageous to the whole, and,\ncongruent with the order of the Universe. Thus, too, he is led by God\nwho goes the same way with God, and that by like inclination.\n\n24. Have these three thoughts always at hand: First, as to your\naction, do nothing inconsiderately, or otherwise than justice herself\nwould have acted. As for external events, they either happen by chance\nor by providence; now, no man should quarrel with chance or censure\nprovidence. Second, examine what each thing is, from its seed to its\nquickening; and from its quickening to its death; of what materials it\nis composed, and into what it will be resolved. Third, reflect that\ncould you be raised on high, and from thence behold all human affairs,\nyou would discern their great variety, conscious at the same time of\nthe crowds of serial and etherial inhabitants around us; but were you\nso raised ever so often, you would always see the same things, all\nuniform and of brief duration. Can we set our pride on such matters?\n\n25. \"Cast away opinion, and you are saved.\" Who then hinders you from\ncasting it away?\n\n26. When you fret at anything, you have forgotten that all happens in\naccordance with the nature of the Universe, and that the wrong done\nwas another's. This, too, that whatever happens has happened, and will\nhappen, and is now happening everywhere. You have also forgotten how\ngreat is the bond between any man and all the human race, a bond not\nof blood and seed, but of common intelligence. You have forgotten that\nthe intelligence of every man is divine, and an efflux from God; also\nthat no man is proprietor of anything: his children, his body, his\nvery life are given of God. You have forgotten, too, that everything is\nmatter of opinion; and that it is the present moment only that one can\nlive or lose.\n\n27. Bring to frequent recollection those who have grieved about\nanything overmuch, those who have been pre-eminent in the extreme of\nglory or misfortune, in feuds or other circumstances of fate. Then\nstop and ask, Where are they all now? Smoke and ashes, and an old\ntale; or perhaps not even a tale. Pass them all in review: Fabius\nCatullinus in the country, Lucius Lupus in his gardens, Stertinius at\nBaiae, Tiberius at Capreae, Velius Rufus, and, in fine, all eminence\nattended with the high regard of men. How cheap is all that is so\neagerly pursued? And how much better does it become a philosopher to\nshow himself, in the part of the material world allotted to him, just,\ntemperate, and obedient to the Gods; and this with simplicity; for\nmost intolerable of all is the pride of false humility.\n\n28. To those who ask, \"Where have you seen the Gods, and how assured\nyourself of their existence, that you worship them?\" make this reply:\nFirst, they are visible, even to the eye. Again, my own soul I cannot\nsee, and yet I reverence it. Thus, too, as regards the Gods, I\ncontinually feel their power; and so I know that they exist, and I\nworship them.\n\n29. The safety of life is to see the whole nature of everything, and\nto discern the matter and the form of its constitution; also to do\njustice with all your heart, and to speak the truth. What remains but\nto enjoy life, adding one good to an another, so as not to lose the\nsmallest interval?\n\n30. There is but one light of the sun, although it be scattered upon\nwalls and hills, and a myriad other objects. There is but one common\nsubstance, although it be divided among ten thousand bodies having as\nmany different qualities.  There is but one soul, though it be\ndistributed among countless different natures and individual\nforms. There is but one intelligent spirit, though it may seem to be\ndivided. The other parts of these individuals of which we have spoken,\nsuch as breath and matter, are void of perception and of mutual\naffection; yet even they are held together by the intelligent spirit\nand gravitate together. But intelligence has a special tendency to its\nkind, and unites therewith, and the community of feeling is not\nbroken.\n\n31. What do you desire? To live on? Or is it to feel or to desire? To\ngrow and to decay again? To speak or think? Which of all these seems\nworthy to be desired? And, if each and all of them is despicable,\nproceed to the last that remains, to follow reason and God. Now, it is\nrepugnant to reverence for reason and for God to grieve at the loss by\ndeath of these other despicable things.\n\n32. How small a part of the boundless immensity of the ages is\nallotted to each of us, and presently that will vanish in eternity!\nHow little is ours of the universal substance; how little of the\nuniversal spirit!  On what a little clod of the whole earth do we\ncreep! Considering all this, reckon nothing great except to act as\nyour nature leads you, and to endure what universal Nature brings to\npass.\n\n33. How is it with your ruling part? On this all depends. All other\nthings, within or without our control, are but corpses, dust, and\nsmoke.\n\n34. This most of all must rouse you to despise death: That even those\nwho held pleasure to be good and pain to be evil nevertheless despised\nit.\n\n35. To him who holds that alone to be good which comes in proper\nseason, who cares not whether he has acted oftener or less often\naccording to right reason; to whom it makes no difference whether he\nbehold the universe for a longer time or a shorter--for this man\ndeath also has no terror.\n\n36. You have lived, O man, as a citizen of this great city; of what\nconsequence to you whether for five years or for three? What comes by\nlaw is fair to all. Where then is the calamity, if you are sent out of\nthe city, by no tyrant or unjust judge, but Nature herself who at\nfirst introduced you, just as the praetor who engaged the actor again\ndismisses him from the stage? \"But,\" say you, \"I have not spoken my\nfive acts, but only three.\" True, but in life three acts make up the\nplay. For he sets the end who was responsible for its composition at\nthe first, and for its present dissolution. You are responsible for\nneither. Depart then graciously; for he who dismisses you is gracious.\n\n                               THE END.","title":"The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus: A new rendering based on the Foulis translation of 1742","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":41411}