Chapter seven of Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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please visit LibriVox dot org. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,
translated by George Long, Chapter seven. What is badness? It is
that which thou hast often seen, and on the occasion of everything which happens,
Keep this in mind, that it is that which thou hast often seen.
Everywhere, up and down thou wilt find the same things with which the
old histories are filled, those of the Middle Ages, and those of our
own day with which cities and houses are filled. Now there is nothing new.
All things are both familiar and short lived. Two. How can our
principles become dead unless the impressions thoughts which correspond to them are extinguished. But
it is in thy power continuously to fan these thoughts into a flame. I
can have that opinion about anything which I ought to have. If I can,
why am I disturbed? The things which are external to my mind have
no relation at all to my mind. Let this be the state of thy
effects. And thou standest erect to recover thy life is in thy power look
at things again as thou didst use to look at them, For in this
consists the recovery of thy life. Three. The idle business of show plays
on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, exercises with spears, a
bone to cast to little dogs, a bit of bread into fish ponds,
laborings of ants, and burden, carrying, runnings about of frightened little mice,
puppets pulled by strings, all alike. It is thy duty, then,
in the midst of such things, to show good humor, and not
a proud air. To understand, however, that every man is worth just
so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself. Four.
In discourse, thou must attend to what is said, and in every movement
thou must observe what is doing. And in the one thou shouldst see immediately
to what end it refers. But in the other, watch carefully what is
the thing signified? Five? Is my understanding sufficient for this or not?
If it is sufficient, I use it for the work as an instrument given
by the universal nature. But if it is not sufficient, then either I
retire from the work, and give way to him who is able to do
it better, unless there be some reason why I ought not to do so,
or I do it as well as I can, taking to help me
the man who, with the aid of my ruling principle can do what is
now fit and useful for the general good. For whatsoever, either by myself
or with another, I can do, ought to be directed to this only
to that which is useful and well suited to society. Six. How many,
after being celebrated by fame, have been given up to oblivion, And
how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead. Seven.
Be not ashamed to be helped, For it is thy business to do
thy duty, like a soldier in the assault on a town. How then,
if being lame, thou canst not mount up on the battlements alone,
but with the help of another, it is possible. Eight. Let not
future things disturb THEE, for thou wilt come to them, if it shall
be necessary, having with THEE the same reason which now thou usest for present
things. Nine. All things are implicated with one another, and the bond
is holy, and there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing, for
things have been coordinated, and they combine to form the same universe order.
For there is one universe made up of all things, and one God who
pervades all things, and one substance, and one law, one common reason
in all intelligent animals, and one truth. If indeed there is also one
perfection for all animals which are of the same stock and participate in the same
reason. Ten, Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole,
and everything formal causal is very soon taken back into the universal reason, and
the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time. Eleven to the rational
animal, the same act is according to nature and according to reason. Twelve,
be thou erect, or be made erect. Thirteen. Just as it
is with the members in those bodies which are united in one, so it
is with rational beings which exist separate, for they have been constituted for one
co operation. And the perception of this will be more apparent to thee if
thou often sayest to thyself that I am a member of the system of rational
beings. But if thou sayest that thou art a part, thou dost not
yet love men from thy heart. Beneficence does not yet delight thee. For
its own sake, Thou still doest it barely as a thing of propriety,
and not yet as doing good to thyself. Fourteen. Let there fall externally
what will on the parts which can feel the effects of this fall. For
those parts which have felt, will complain if they choose. But I,
unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am not injured.
And it is in my power not to think so. Fifteen. Whatever any
one does or says, I must be good, just as if the gold,
or the emerald or the purple were always saying this. Whatever any one
does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color. Sixteen.
The ruling faculty does not disturb itself, I mean, does not frighten itself
or cause itself pain. But if any one else can frighten or pain it,
let him do so. For the faculty itself will not by its own
opinion and turn into such ways. Let the body itself take care if it
can, let it suffer nothing, and let it speak if it suffers.
But the soul itself, that which is subject to fear, to pain,
which has completely the power of forming in an opinion about these things will suffer
nothing, for it will never deviate into such a judgment. The leading principle
in itself wants nothing unless it makes a want for itself, and therefore it
is both free from perturbation and unimpeded if it does not disturb and impede itself.
Seventeen You dnemonia, happiness is a good demon or a good thing.
What then art thou doing here? O imagination? Go away? I entreat
THEE by the gods as thou didst come, For I want THEE not,
but thou art come according to thee thy old fashion. I am not angry
with thee, only go away? Eighteen is any man afraid of change?
Why? What can take place without change? What then, is more pleasing
or more suitable to the universal nature? And canst thou take a bath unless
the wood undergoes a change? And canst thou be nourished unless the food undergoes
a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change?
Dost thou not see then that for thyself also to change is just the same
and equally necessary for the universal nature. Nineteen Through the universal substance as through
a furious torrent. All bodies are carried, being by their nature united with
and cooperating with the whole, as the parts of our body with one another.
How many a Chrysippus, how many a Socrates? How many an Epictectus?
Has time already swallowed up? And let the same thought occur to THEE
with reference to every man and thing. Twenty one. Thing only troubles me
lest I should do something which the constitution of man does not allow, or
in the way which it does not allow, or what it does not allow.
Now twenty one, near is thy forgetfulness of all things, and near
the forgetfulness of THEE by all twenty two it is peculiar to man to love
even those who do wrong. And this happens if when they do wrong,
it occurs to THEE that they are kinsmen, and that they do wrong through
ignorance and unintentionally, and that soon both of you will die, And above
all that the wrong doer has done THEE no harm, for he has not
made thy ruling faculty worse than it was before. Twenty three. The universal
nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax. Now molds
a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material
for a tree, then for a man, then for something else, And
each of these things subsists for a very short time. But it is no
hardship for the vessel to be broken up, just as there was none in
its being fastened together. Twenty four A scowling look is altogether unnatural when it
is often assumed the result is that all comeliness dies away, and at last
is so completely extinguished that it cannot be again lighted up at all. Try
to conclude from this very fact that it is contrary to reason. For if
even the perception of doing wrong shall depart, what reason is therefore living any
longer? Twenty five Nature, which governs the whole, will soon change all
things which thou seest, and thou, of their substance will make other things,
and again other things from the substance of them, in order that the
world may ever be new. Twenty six. When a man has done thee
any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done
wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou wilt pity him, and
wilt neither wonder nor be angry. For either thou thyself thinkest the same thing
to be good that he does, or another thing of the same kind,
it is thy duty than to pardon him. But if thou dost not think
such things to be good or evil, thou wilt more readily be well disposed
to him who is in error. Twenty seven. Think not so much of
what thou hast, not as of what thou hast, but of the things
which thou hast select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have
been sought if thou hadst them not. At the same time, however,
take care that thou dost not, through being so pleased with them, accustom
thyself to overvalue them so as to be disturbed, if ever, thou shouldst
not have them. Twenty eight. Retire into thyself. The rational principle which
rules has this nature that it is content with itself when it does what is
just, and so secures tranquility. Twenty nine. Wipe out the imagination,
stop the pulling of the strings, confine thyself to the present. Understand well
what happens either to thee or to another. Divide and distribute every object into
the causal, formal and the material. Think of thy last hour. Let
the wrong which is done by a man stay there where the wrong was done.
Thirty Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into
the things that are doing and the things which do them. Thirty one adorn
thyself with simplicity and modesty, and with indifference towards the things which lie between
virtue and vice. Love, mankind, follow God. The poet says that
law rules all, and it is enough to remember that law rules all.
Thirty two about death, whether it is a dispersion or a resolution into atoms
or annihilation, it is I their extinction or change. Thirty three About pain.
The pain which is intolerable carries us off, But that which lasts a
long time is tolerable. And the mind maintains its own tranquility by retiring into
itself, and the ruling faculty is not made worse. But the parts which
are harmed by pain, let them, if they can give their opinion about
it. Thirty four About fame, Look at the minds of those who seek
fame. Observe what they are, and what kind of things they avoid,
and what kind of things they pursue. And consider that as the heaps of
sand piled on one another hide the former sands. So in life, the
events which go before are soon covered by those which come after. Thirty five
from Plato, the man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of
all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to
think that human life is anything great. It is not possible, he said.
Such a man then will think that death also is no evil, certainly
not. Thirty six from Antisthenis, it is royal to do good and to
be abused. Thirty seven. It is a base thing for the countenance to
be obedient and to regulate and compose itself as the mind commands, and for
the mind not to be regulated and composed by itself. Thirty eight. It
is not right to vex ourselves at things, for they care not about it.
Thirty nine. To the immortal gods and us give joy. Forty Life
must be reaped like the ripe ears of corn. One man is born,
another dies forty one. If gods care not for me and for my children,
there is a reason for it. Forty two, for the good is
with me and the just forty three. No joining others in their wailing no
violent emotion forty four from Plato. But I would make this man a sufficient
answer. Which is this, thou sayest not well if thou thinkest that a
man who is good for anything at all ought to compute the hazard of life
or death, and should not rather look to this only in all that he
does, whether he is doing what is just or unjust, and the works
of a good or a bad man forty five. For thus it is men
of Athens in truth. Wherever a man has placed himself thinking it the best
place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there, in
my opinion, he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing
into the reckoning, either death or anything else before the baseness of deserting his
post forty six. But my good friend, reflect whether that which is noble
and good is not something different from saving and being saved for as to a
man living such or such a time, at least one who is really a
man, consider if this is not a thing to be dismissed from the thoughts,
and there must be no love of life. But as to these matters,
a man must entrust them to the deity, and believe that what the
women say that no man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how
he may best live the time that he has to live. Forty seven.
Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along
with them, and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another.
For such thoughts purge away the filth of the trene life. Forty eight.
This is a fine saying of Plato, that he who is discoursing about men
should look also at earthly things, as if he viewed them from some higher
place. Should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural labors,
marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of justice,
desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts, lamentations, markets, a
mixture of all things, and an orderly combination of contraries. Forty nine.
Consider the past, such great changes of political supremacies. Thou mayst foresee also
the things which will be, For they will certainly be of like form,
and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of the things
which take place now. Accordingly, to have contemplated human life forty years is
the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more
wilt thou see fifty that which has grown from the earth to the earth,
but that which has sprung from heavenly seed back to the heavenly realme's returns.
This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a
similar dispersion of the insancient elements. Fifty one. With food and drinks and
cunning magic arts turning the channel's course. To escape from death the breeze which
Heaven has sent, we must endure and toil without complaining. Fifty two.
Another may be more expert in casting his opponent, but he is not more
social, nor more modest, nor better disciplined to meet all that happens,
nor more considerate with respect to the faults of his neighbors. Fifty three.
Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods
and men, there we have nothing to fear. For. Where we are
able to get profits by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according
to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected. Fifty four.
Everywhere and at all times, it is in thy power piously, to acquiesce
in thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about THEE,
and to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that nothing shall steal
into them without being well examined. Fifty five. Do not look around THEE
to discover other men's ruling principles, but look straight to this to what nature
leads THEE, both the universal nature through the things which happen to THEE,
and thy own nature through the acts which must be done by THEE. But
every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution, and all
other things have been constituted for the sake of rational beings, just as among
irrational things, the inferior for the sake of the superior, but the rational
for the sake of one another. The prime principle, then, in man's
constitution is the social and the second is not to yield to the persuasions of
the bobs. For it is the peculiar office of the rational and intelligent motion
to circumscribe itself and never to be overpowered either by the motion of the senses
or of the appetites. For both our animal but the intelligent motion claims superiority
and does not permit itself to be overpowered by the others, and with good
reason, for it is formed by nature to use all of them. The
third thing in the rational constitution is freedom from error and from deception. Let
then, the ruling principle, holding fast to these things, go straight on,
and it has what is its own. Fifty six. Consider thyself to
be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time,
and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed to thee. Fifty seven
Love that only which happens to THEE and is spun with the thread of thy
destiny, For what is more suitable. Fifty eight In everything which happens,
keep before thy eyes those to whom the same things happened, and how they
were vexed and treated them as strange things, and found fault with them.
And now where are they nowhere? Why then dost thou too choose to act
in the same way? And why dost thou not leave these agitations which are
foreign to nature and those who cause them, and those who are moved by
them? And why art thou not altogether intent upon the right way of making
use of the things which happen to THEE. For then thou wilt use them
well, and they will be a material for thee to work on. Only
attend to thyself and resolve to be a good man in every act which thou
doest, and remember fifty nine look within. Within is the fountain of good,
and it will ever bubble up if thou wilt ever dig sixty The body
ought to be compact and to show no irregularity, either in motion or attitude.
For what the mind shows in the face, by maintaining in it the
expression of intelligence and propriety that ought to be required also in the whole body.
But all these things should be observed without affectation. Sixty one. The
art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancers, in respect
of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are
sudden and unexpected. Sixty two. Constantly observe who those are, whose approbation
thou wishest to have, and what ruling princes they possess. For then thou
wilt neither blame those who offend involuntarily, nor wilt thou want their approbation.
If thou lookest to the sources of their opinions and appetites. Sixty three.
Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth. Consequently,
in the same way it is deprived of justice, and temperance, and benevolence,
and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to bear this constantly
in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all sixty four.
In every pain, let this thought be present, that there is no dishonor
in it. Nor does it make the governing intelligence worse, for it does
not damage the intelligence, either so far as the intelligence is rational, or
so far as it is social. Indeed, in the case of most pains,
let this remark of Epicurus aid thee that pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting,
if thou bearest in mind that it has limits, and if thou addest
nothing to it in imagination. And remember this too, that we do not
perceive that many things which are disagreeable to us are the same as pain,
such as excessive drowsiness, and the being scorched by heat, and the having
no appetite. When then thou art discontented about any of these things, say
to thyself that thou art yielding to pain, sixty five, take care not
to feel towards the inhuman as they feel towards man sixty six. How do
we know if Telgus was not superior in character to Socrates? For it is
not enough that Socrates dies a more noble death, and disputed more skillfully with
the Sophists, and passed the night in the cold with more endurance, and
that when he was bid to arrest Leon of Salamis, he considered it more
noble to refuse, and that he walked in a swaggering way in the streets.
Though as to this fact one may have great doubts if it was true.
But we ought to inquire what kind of a soul it was that Socrates
possessed, and if he was able to be content with being just towards men
and pious towards the gods, neither idly vexed on account of men's villainy,
nor yet making himself a slave to any man's ignorance, nor receiving as strange
anything that fell to his share out of the universal, nor enduring it as
intolerable, nor allowing his understanding to sympathize with the effects of the miserable flesh.
Sixty seven, Nature has not so mingled the intelligence with the composition of
the body, has not to have allowed THEE the power of circumscribing thyself and
of bringing under subjection to thyself all that is that is thy own. For
it is very possible to be a divine man and to be recognized as such
by no one. Always bear this in mind. And another thing too,
that very little, indeed is necessary for living a happy life. And because
thou hast despaired of becoming a dialectician and skilled in the knowledge of nature,
do not for this reason renounce the hope of being both free and modest,
and social and obedient to God. Sixty eight. It is in thy power
to live free from all compulsion, in the greatest tranquility of mind, even
if all the world cry out against THEE as much as they choose, and
even if wild beasts tear in pieces the memory of this needed matter which has
grown around THEE. For what hinders the mind in the midst of all this,
from maintaining itself in tranquility and in a just judgment of all surrounding things,
and in a ready use of the objects which are presented to it,
so that the judgment may say to the thing which falls under its observation,
this thou art in substance, though in men's opinion thou mayest appear to be
of a different kind. And the use shall say, to that which falls
under the hand, thou art the thing that I was seeking for to me,
that which presents itself is always a material for virtue, both rational and
political, and in a word, for the exercise of art which belongs to
man or God. For everything which happens has a relationship either to God or
man, and is neither new nor difficult to handle, but usual and apt
matter to work on. Sixty nine. The perfection of moral character consists in
this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently
excited nor torpid, nor playing the hypocrite. Seventy The gods who are immortal
are not vexed, because during so long a time they must tolerate continually men
as such as they are, and so many of them bad. And besides
this, they also take care of them in all ways. But thou,
who art destined to end so soon, art thou wearied of enduring the bad?
And this too, when thou art one of them seventy one. It
is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness,
which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is
impossible. Seventy two. Whatever the rational and political faculty finds to be neither
intelligent nor social, it properly judges to be inferior to itself. Seventy three.
When thou hast done a good act, and another hast received it,
why dost thou still look for a third thing besides these, as fools do,
either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain
a return. Seventy four. No man is tired of receiving what is useful,
but it is useful to act according to nature. Do not then,
be tired of receiving what is useful by doing it to others? Seventy five.
The nature of the all moved to make the universe. But now either
everything that takes place comes by way of consequence or continuity, or even the
chief things towards which the ruling power of the universe directs its own movement are
governed by no rational principle. If this is remembered, it will make thee
more tranquil in many things. Note one, the end of this section is
unintelligible. End of Chapter seven