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Page 48
5. 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 what-soever 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.
6. 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.
7. 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?
8. 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.
9. 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 co-ordinated, 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,[A] 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 reason.
[A] "One substance," p. 42, note 1.
10. 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.
11. To the rational animal the same act is according to nature and
according to reason.
12. Be thou erect, or be made erect (iii. 5).
13. 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 [Greek: melos] of the system of rational beings. But if [using
the letter _r_] thou sayest that thou art a part [Greek: meros], thou
dost not yet love men from thy heart; beneficence does not yet delight
thee for its own sake;[A] thou still doest it barely as a thing of
propriety, and not yet as doing good to thyself.
[A] I have used Gataker's conjecture [Greek: katal�ktik�s]
instead of the common reading [Greek: katal�ptik�s]: compare
iv. 20; ix. 42.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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 itself into such ways. Let the body itself take care, if it
can, that 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.
17. Eudaemonia [happiness] is a good daemon, 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.
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