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 thought 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 heir 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, end 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 cooperation. 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 their 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, 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 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 eudaemonia, 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 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 can 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
Epicectus? As 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 subsist 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 out 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, a meat, 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 then 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 over value 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
either 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 Antisthenes. 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 base 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 Tureene 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 mayest 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 realm'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 babe may be more expert
in casting his opponent, but he is not more social, nor more modest,
nor better discipline 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 body. 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 intei, eligence, 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 principles 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 us 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
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 men. Sixty six. How do we know if Telogus 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 as 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 peaces the
members 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 already 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 be that 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 it 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.