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Page 27
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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 offenses which are committed through
desire are more blamable 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 blamable 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.
11. Since it is possible[A] that thou mayest depart from life this very
moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.[B] 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,
honor and dishonor, 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.
[A] Or it may mean, "since it is in thy power to depart;" which
gives a meaning somewhat different.
[B] See Cicero, Tuscul., i. 49.
12. 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 vapory 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+ (vi. 28).
13. Nothing is more wretched than a man who traverses everything in a
round, and pries into the things beneath the earth, as the poet[A] says,
and seeks by conjecture what is in the minds of his neighbors, 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.
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