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Page 42
[A] This section is unintelligible. Many of the words may be
corrupt, and the general purport of the section cannot be
discovered. Perhaps several things have been improperly joined
in one section. I have translated it nearly literally.
Different translators give the section a different turn, and
the critics have tried to mend what they cannot understand.
VI.
The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason
which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no
malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it.
But all things are made and perfected according to this reason.
2. Let it make no difference to thee whether thou art cold or warm, if
thou art doing thy duty; and whether thou art drowsy or satisfied with
sleep; and whether ill-spoken of or praised; and whether dying or doing
something else. For it is one of the acts of life, this act by which we
die; it is sufficient then in this act also to do well what we have in
hand (vi. 22, 28).
3. Look within. Let neither the peculiar quality of anything nor its
value escape thee.
4. All existing things soon change, and they will either be reduced to
vapor, if indeed all substance is one, or they will be dispersed.
5. The reason which governs knows what its own disposition is, and what
it does, and on what material it works.
6. The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like [the
wrong-doer].
7. Take pleasure in one thing and rest in it, in passing from one social
act to another social act, thinking of God.
8. The ruling principle is that which rouses and turns itself, and while
it makes itself such as it is and such as it wills to be, it also makes
everything which happens appear to itself to be such as it wills.
9. In conformity to the nature of the universe every single thing is
accomplished; for certainly it is not in conformity to any other nature
that each thing is accomplished, either a nature which externally
comprehends this, or a nature which is comprehended within this nature,
or a nature external and independent of this (xi. 1; vi. 40; viii. 50).
10. The universe is either a confusion, and a mutual involution of
things, and a dispersion, or it is unity and order and providence. If
then it is the former, why do I desire to tarry in a fortuitous
combination of things and such a disorder? and why do I care about
anything else than how I shall at last become earth? and why am I
disturbed, for the dispersion of my elements will happen whatever I do?
But if the other supposition is true, I venerate, and I am firm, and I
trust in him who governs (iv. 27).
11. When thou hast been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a
manner, quickly return to thyself, and do not continue out of tune
longer than the compulsion lasts; for thou wilt have more mastery over
the harmony by continually recurring to it.
12. If thou hadst a step-mother and a mother at the same time, thou
wouldst be dutiful to thy step-mother, but still thou wouldst constantly
return to thy mother. Let the court and philosophy now be to thee
step-mother and mother: return to philosophy frequently and repose in
her, through whom what thou meetest with in the court appears to thee
tolerable, and thou appearest tolerable in the court.
13. When we have meat before us and such eatables, we receive the
impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this the dead body
of a bird or of a pig; and again, that this Falernian is only a little
grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed with the blood
of a shell-fish: such then are these impressions, and they reach the
things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what kind of things
they are. Just in the same way ought we to act all through life, and
where there are things which appear most worthy of our approbation, we
ought to lay them bare and look at their worthlessness and strip them of
all the words by which they are exalted. For outward show is a wonderful
perverter of the reason, and when thou art most sure that thou art
employed about things worth thy pains, it is then that it cheats thee
most. Consider then what Crates says of Xenocrates himself.
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