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Page 60
IX.
He who acts unjustly acts impiously. For since the universal nature has
made rational animals for the sake of one another, to help one another
according to their deserts, but in no way to injure one another, he who
transgresses her will is clearly guilty of impiety towards the highest
divinity. And he too who lies is guilty of impiety to the same divinity;
for the universal nature is the nature of things that are; and things
that are have a relation to all things that come into existence.[A] And
further, this universal nature is named truth, and is the prime cause of
all things that are true. He then who lies intentionally is guilty of
impiety, inasmuch as he acts unjustly by deceiving; and he also who lies
unintentionally, inasmuch as he is at variance with the universal
nature, and inasmuch as he disturbs the order by fighting against the
nature of the world; for he fights against it, who is moved of himself
to that which is contrary to truth, for he had received powers from
nature through the neglect of which he is not able now to distinguish
falsehood from truth. And indeed he who pursues pleasure as good, and
avoids pain as evil, is guilty of impiety. For of necessity such a man
must often find fault with the universal nature, alleging that it
assigns things to the bad and the good contrary to their deserts,
because frequently the bad are in the enjoyment of pleasure and possess
the things which procure pleasure, but the good have pain for their
share and the things which cause pain. And further, he who is afraid of
pain will sometimes also be afraid of some of the things which will
happen in the world, and even this is impiety. And he who pursues
pleasure will not abstain from injustice, and this is plainly impiety.
Now with respect to the things towards which the universal nature is
equally affected--for it would not have made both, unless it was equally
affected towards both--towards these they who wish to follow nature
should be of the same mind with it, and equally affected. With respect
to pain, then, and pleasure, or death and life, or honor and dishonor,
which the universal nature employs equally, whoever is not equally
affected is manifestly acting impiously. And I say that the universal
nature employs them equally, instead of saying that they happen alike to
those who are produced in continuous series and to those who come after
them by virtue of a certain original movement of Providence, according
to which it moved from a certain beginning to this ordering of things,
having conceived certain principles of the things which were to be, and
having determined powers productive of beings and of changes and of such
like successions (vii. 75).
[A] "As there is not any action or natural event, which we are
acquainted with, so single and unconnected as not to have a
respect to some other actions and events, so possibly each of
them, when it has not an immediate, may yet have a remote,
natural relation to other actions and events, much beyond the
compass of this present world." Again: "Things seemingly the
most insignificant imaginable are perpetually observed to be
necessary conditions to other things of the greatest
importance, so that any one thing whatever may, for aught we
know to the contrary, be a necessary condition to any
other."--Butler's Analogy, Chap. 7. See all the chapter. Some
critics take [Greek: ta hyparchonta] in this passage of
Antoninus to be the same as [Greek: ta honta]: but if that were
so he might have said [Greek: pros all�la] instead of [Greek:
pros ta hyparchonta]. Perhaps the meaning of [Greek: pros ta
hyparchonta] may be "to all prior things." If so, the
translation is still correct. See vi. 38.
2. It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without
having had any taste of lying and hypocrisy and luxury and pride.
However, to breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of these
things is the next best voyage, as the saying is. Hast thou determined
to abide with vice, and hast not experience yet induced thee to fly from
this pestilence? For the destruction of the understanding is a
pestilence, much more, indeed, than any such corruption and change of
this atmosphere which surrounds us. For this corruption is a pestilence
of animals so far as they are animals; but the other is a pestilence of
men so far as they are men.
3. Do not despise death, but be well content with it, since this too is
one of those things which nature wills. For such as it is to be young
and to grow old, and to increase and to reach maturity, and to have
teeth and beard and gray hairs, and to beget and to be pregnant and to
bring forth, and all the other natural operations which the seasons of
thy life bring, such also is dissolution. This, then, is consistent with
the character of a reflecting man--to be neither careless nor impatient
nor contemptuous with respect to death, but to wait for it as one of the
operations of nature. As thou now waitest for the time when the child
shall come out of thy wife's womb, so be ready for the time when thy
soul shall fall out of this envelope.[A] But if thou requirest also a
vulgar kind of comfort which shall reach thy heart, thou wilt be made
best reconciled to death by observing the objects from which thou art
going to be removed, and the morals of those with whom thy soul will no
longer be mingled. For it is no way right to be offended with men, but
it is thy duty to care for them and to bear with them gently; and yet to
remember that thy departure will not be from men who have the same
principles as thyself. For this is the only thing, if there be any,
which could draw us the contrary way and attach us to life,--to be
permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves.
But now thou seest how great is the trouble arising from the discordance
of those who live together, so that thou mayst say, Come quick, O death,
lest perchance I, too, should forget myself.
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