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Page 54
If there is no error in the passage, it is worth the labor to
discover the writer's exact meaning--for I think that he had a
meaning, though people may not agree what it was. (Compare ix.
28.) If I have rightly explained the emperor's meaning in this
and other passages, he has touched the solution of a great
question.
VIII.
This reflection also tends to the removal of the desire of empty fame,
that it is no longer in thy power to have lived the whole of thy life,
or at least thy life from thy youth upwards, like a philosopher; but
both to many others and to thyself it is plain that thou art far from
philosophy. Thou hast fallen into disorder then, so that it is no longer
easy for thee to get the reputation of a philosopher; and thy plan of
life also opposes it. If then thou hast truly seen where the matter
lies, throw away the thought, How thou shall seem [to others], and be
content if thou shalt live the rest of thy life in such wise as thy
nature wills. Observe then what it wills, and let nothing else distract
thee; for thou hast had experience of many wanderings without having
found happiness anywhere,--not in syllogisms, nor in wealth, nor in
reputation, nor in enjoyment, nor anywhere. Where is it then? In doing
what man's nature requires. How then shall a man do this? If he has
principles from which come his affects and his acts. What principles?
Those which relate to good and bad: the belief that there is nothing
good for man which does not make him just, temperate, manly, free; and
that there is nothing bad which does not do the contrary to what has
been mentioned.
2. On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to
me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.
What more do I seek, if what I am now doing is the work of an
intelligent living being, and a social being, and one who is under the
same law with God?
3. Alexander and Caius[A] and Pompeius, what are they in comparison with
Diogenes and Heraclitus and Socrates? For they were acquainted with
things, and their causes [forms], and their matter, and the ruling
principles of these men were the same [or conformable to their
pursuits]. But as to the others, how many things had they to care for,
and to how many things were they slaves!
[A] Caius is C. Julius Caesar, the dictator; and Pompeius is
Cn. Pompeius, named Magnus.
4. [Consider] that men will do the same things nevertheless, even though
thou shouldst burst.
5. This is the chief thing: Be not perturbed, for all things are
according to the nature of the universal; and in a little time thou wilt
be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus. In the next place,
having fixed thy eyes steadily on thy business, look at it, and at the
same time remembering that it is thy duty to be a good man, and what
man's nature demands, do that without turning aside; and speak as it
seems to thee most just, only let it be with a good disposition and with
modesty and without hypocrisy.
6. The nature of the universal has this work to do,--to remove to that
place the things which are in this, to change them, to take, them away
hence, and to carry them there. All things are change, yet we need not
fear anything new. All things are familiar [to us]; but the distribution
of them still remains the same.
7. Every nature is contented with itself when it goes on its way well;
and a rational nature goes on its way well when in its thoughts it
assents to nothing false or uncertain, and when it directs its movements
to social acts only, and when it confines its desires and aversions to
the things which are in its power, and when it is satisfied with
everything that is assigned to it by the common nature. For of this
common nature every particular nature is a part, as the nature of the
leaf is a part of the nature of the plant; except that in the plant the
nature of the leaf is part of a nature which has not perception or
reason, and is subject to be impeded; but the nature of man is part of a
nature which is not subject to impediments, and is intelligent and just,
since it gives to everything in equal portions and according to its
worth, times, substance, cause [form], activity, and incident. But
examine, not to discover that any one thing compared with any other
single thing is equal in all respects, but by taking all the parts
together of one thing and comparing them with all the parts together of
another.
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