Book Two
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I
shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful,
arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All
these things happen to them by reason of
their ignorance of what is good and evil.
But I who have seen the nature of the good
that it is beautiful, and of the bad that
it is ugly, and the nature of him who does
wrong, that it is akin to me, not only of
the same blood or seed, but that it participates
in the same intelligence and the same portion
of the divinity, I can neither be injured
by any of them, for no one can fix on me
what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my
kinsman, nor hate him, For we are made for
co- operation, like feet, like hands, like
eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower
teeth. To act against one another then is
contrary to nature; and it is acting against
one another to be vexed and to turn away.
Whatever this is that I am, it is a little
flesh and breath, and the ruling part. Throw
away thy books; no longer distract thyself:
it is not allowed; but as if thou wast now
dying, despise the flesh; it is blood and
bones and a network, a contexture of nerves,
veins, and arteries. See the breath also,
what kind of a thing it is, air, and not
always the same, but every moment sent out
and again sucked in. The third then is the
ruling part: consider thus: Thou art an old
man; no longer let this be a slave, no longer
be pulled by the strings like a puppet to
unsocial movements, no longer either be dissatisfied
with thy present lot, or shrink from the
future.
All that is from the gods is full of Providence.
That which is from fortune is not separated
from nature or without an interweaving and
involution with the things which are ordered
by Providence. From thence all things flow;
and there is besides necessity, and that
which is for the advantage of the whole universe,
of which thou art a part. But that is good
for every part of nature which the nature
of the whole brings, and what serves to maintain
this nature. Now the universe is preserved,
as by the changes of the elements so by the
changes of things compounded of the elements.
Let these principles be enough for thee,
let them always be fixed opinions. But cast
away the thirst after books, that thou mayest
not die murmuring, but cheerfully, truly,
and from thy heart thankful to the gods.
Remember how long thou hast been putting
off these things, and how often thou hast
received an opportunity from the gods, and
yet dost not use it. Thou must now at last
perceive of what universe thou art a part,
and of what administrator of the universe
thy existence is an efflux, and that a limit
of time is fixed for thee, which if thou
dost not use for clearing away the clouds
from thy mind, it will go and thou wilt go,
and it will never return.
Every moment think steadily as a Roman and
a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect
and simple dignity, and feeling of affection,
and freedom, and justice; and to give thyself
relief from all other thoughts. And thou
wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every
act of thy life as if it were the last, laying
aside all carelessness and passionate aversion
from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy,
and self-love, and discontent with the portion
which has been given to thee. Thou seest
how few the things are, the which if a man
lays hold of, he is able to live a life which
flows in quiet, and is like the existence
of the gods; for the gods on their part will
require nothing more from him who observes
these things.
Do wrong to thyself, do wrong to thyself,
my soul; but thou wilt no longer have the
opportunity of honouring thyself. Every man's
life is sufficient. But thine is nearly finished,
though thy soul reverences not itself but
places thy felicity in the souls of others.
Do the things external which fall upon thee
distract thee? Give thyself time to learn
something new and good, and cease to be whirled
around. But then thou must also avoid being
carried about the other way. For those too
are triflers who have wearied themselves
in life by their activity, and yet have no
object to which to direct every movement,
and, in a word, all their thoughts.
Through not observing what is in the mind
of another a man has seldom been seen to
be unhappy; but those who do not observe
the movements of their own minds must of
necessity be unhappy.
This thou must always bear in mind, what
is the nature of the whole, and what is my
nature, and how this is related to that,
and what kind of a part it is of what kind
of a whole; and that there is no one who
hinders thee from always doing and saying
the things which are according to the nature
of which thou art a part.
Theophrastus, in his comparison of bad acts-
such a comparison as one would make in accordance
with the common notions of mankind- says,
like a true philosopher, that the offences
which are committed through desire are more
blameable than those which are committed
through anger. For he who is excited by anger
seems to turn away from reason with a certain
pain and unconscious contraction; but he
who offends through desire, being overpowered
by pleasure, seems to be in a manner more
intemperate and more womanish in his offences.
Rightly then, and in a way worthy of philosophy,
he said that the offence which is committed
with pleasure is more blameable than that
which is committed with pain; and on the
whole the one is more like a person who has
been first wronged and through pain is compelled
to be angry; but the other is moved by his
own impulse to do wrong, being carried towards
doing something by desire.
Since it is possible that thou mayest depart
from life this very moment, regulate every
act and thought accordingly. But to go away
from among men, if there are gods, is not
a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will
not involve thee in evil; but if indeed they
do not exist, or if they have no concern
about human affairs, what is it to me to
live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid
of Providence? But in truth they do exist,
and they do care for human things, and they
have put all the means in man's power to
enable him not to fall into real evils. And
as to the rest, if there was anything evil,
they would have provided for this also, that
it should be altogether in a man's power
not to fall into it. Now that which does
not make a man worse, how can it make a man's
life worse? But neither through ignorance,
nor having the knowledge, but not the power
to guard against or correct these things,
is it possible that the nature of the universe
has overlooked them; nor is it possible that
it has made so great a mistake, either through
want of power or want of skill, that good
and evil should happen indiscriminately to
the good and the bad. But death certainly,
and life, honour and dishonour, pain and
pleasure, all these things equally happen
to good men and bad, being things which make
us neither better nor worse. Therefore they
are neither good nor evil.
How quickly all things disappear, in the
universe the bodies themselves, but in time
the remembrance of them; what is the nature
of all sensible things, and particularly
those which attract with the bait of pleasure
or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad
by vapoury fame; how worthless, and contemptible,
and sordid, and perishable, and dead they
are- all this it is the part of the intellectual
faculty to observe. To observe too who these
are whose opinions and voices give reputation;
what death is, and the fact that, if a man
looks at it in itself, and by the abstractive
power of reflection resolves into their parts
all the things which present themselves to
the imagination in it, he will then consider
it to be nothing else than an operation of
nature; and if any one is afraid of an operation
of nature, he is a child. This, however,
is not only an operation of nature, but it
is also a thing which conduces to the purposes
of nature. To observe too how man comes near
to the deity, and by what part of him, and
when this part of man is so disposed.
Nothing is more wretched than a man who traverses
everything in a round, and pries into the
things beneath the earth, as the poet says,
and seeks by conjecture what is in the minds
of his neighbours, without perceiving that
it is sufficient to attend to the daemon
within him, and to reverence it sincerely.
And reverence of the daemon consists in keeping
it pure from passion and thoughtlessness,
and dissatisfaction with what comes from
gods and men. For the things from the gods
merit veneration for their excellence; and
the things from men should be dear to us
by reason of kinship; and sometimes even,
in a manner, they move our pity by reason
of men's ignorance of good and bad; this
defect being not less than that which deprives
us of the power of distinguishing things
that are white and black.
Though thou shouldst be going to live three
thousand years, and as many times ten thousand
years, still remember that no man loses any
other life than this which he now lives,
nor lives any other than this which he now
loses. The longest and shortest are thus
brought to the same. For the present is the
same to all, though that which perishes is
not the same; and so that which is lost appears
to be a mere moment. For a man cannot lose
either the past or the future: for what a
man has not, how can any one take this from
him? These two things then thou must bear
in mind; the one, that all things from eternity
are of like forms and come round in a circle,
and that it makes no difference whether a
man shall see the same things during a hundred
years or two hundred, or an infinite time;
and the second, that the longest liver and
he who will die soonest lose just the same.
For the present is the only thing of which
a man can be deprived, if it is true that
this is the only thing which he has, and
that a man cannot lose a thing if he has
it not.
Remember that all is opinion. For what was
said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest: and
manifest too is the use of what was said,
if a man receives what may be got out of
it as far as it is true.
The soul of man does violence to itself,
first of all, when it becomes an abscess
and, as it were, a tumour on the universe,
so far as it can. For to be vexed at anything
which happens is a separation of ourselves
from nature, in some part of which the natures
of all other things are contained. In the
next place, the soul does violence to itself
when it turns away from any man, or even
moves towards him with the intention of injuring,
such as are the souls of those who are angry.
In the third place, the soul does violence
to itself when it is overpowered by pleasure
or by pain. Fourthly, when it plays a part,
and does or says anything insincerely and
untruly. Fifthly, when it allows any act
of its own and any movement to be without
an aim, and does anything thoughtlessly and
without considering what it is, it being
right that even the smallest things be done
with reference to an end; and the end of
rational animals is to follow the reason
and the law of the most ancient city and
polity.
Of human life the time is a point, and the
substance is in a flux, and the perception
dull, and the composition of the whole body
subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl,
and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing
devoid of judgement. And, to say all in a
word, everything which belongs to the body
is a stream, and what belongs to the soul
is a dream and vapour, and life is a warfare
and a stranger's sojourn, and after-fame
is oblivion. What then is that which is able
to conduct a man? One thing and only one,
philosophy. But this consists in keeping
the daemon within a man free from violence
and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures,
doing nothing without purpose, nor yet falsely
and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need
of another man's doing or not doing anything;
and besides, accepting all that happens,
and all that is allotted, as coming from
thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself
came; and, finally, waiting for death with
a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than
a dissolution of the elements of which every
living being is compounded. But if there
is no harm to the elements themselves in
each continually changing into another, why
should a man have any apprehension about
the change and dissolution of all the elements?
For it is according to nature, and nothing
is evil which is according to nature.
This in Carnuntum.
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