1. In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be
present,—I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I
dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for
which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to
lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm?—But this is more
pleasant.—Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for
action or exertion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little
birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order
their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the
work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is
according to thy nature?—But it is necessary to take rest also.—It is
necessary. However, Nature has fixed bounds to this too: she has fixed
bounds to eating and drinking, and yet thou goest beyond these bounds,
beyond what is sufficient; yet in thy acts it is not so, but thou
stoppest short of what thou canst do. So thou lovest not thyself, for
if thou didst, thou wouldst love thy nature and her will. But those who
love their several arts exhaust themselves in working at them unwashed
and without food; but thou valuest thy own nature less than the turner
values the turning art, or the dancer the dancing art, or the lover of
money values his money, or the vainglorious man his little glory. And
such men, when they have a violent affection to a thing, choose neither
to eat nor to sleep rather than to perfect the things which they care
for. But are the acts which concern society more vile in thy eyes and
less worthy of thy labor?
2. How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is
troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquillity.
3. Judge every word and deed which are according to nature to be fit
for thee; and be not diverted by the blame which follows from any
people nor by their words, but if a thing is good to be done or said,
do not consider it unworthy of thee. For those persons have their
peculiar leading principle and follow their peculiar movement; which
things do not thou regard, but go straight on, following thy own nature
and the common nature; and the way of both is one.
4. I go through the things which happen according to nature until I
shall fall and rest, breathing out my breath into that element out of
which I daily draw it in, and falling upon that earth out of which my
father collected the seed, and my mother the blood, and my nurse the
milk; out of which during so many years I have been supplied with food
and drink; which bears me when I tread on it and abuse it for so many
purposes.
5. Thou sayest, Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.—Be it so:
but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, I am not
formed for them by nature. Show those qualities then which are
altogether in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor,
aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things,
benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling,
magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art immediately
able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and
unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? or
art thou compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to
murmur, and to be stingy, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy
poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to
be so restless in thy mind? No, by the gods; but thou mightest have
been delivered from these things long ago. Only if in truth thou canst
be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must
exert thyself about this also, not neglecting it nor yet taking
pleasure in thy dulness.
6. One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it
down to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do
this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and
he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what
he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks
for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit. As a
horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when
it has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not
call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as
a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.—Must a man then
be one of these, who in a manner act thus without observing
it?—Yes.—But this very thing is necessary, the observation of what a
man is doing: for, it may be said, it is characteristic of the social
animal to perceive that he is working in a social manner, and indeed to
wish that his social partner also should perceive it.—It is true what
thou sayest, but thou dost not rightly understand what is now said: and
for this reason thou wilt become one of those of whom I spoke before,
for even they are misled by a certain show of reason. But if thou wilt
choose to understand the meaning of what is said, do not fear that for
this reason thou wilt omit any social act.
7. A prayer of the Athenians: Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, down on the
ploughed fields of the Athenians and on the plains.—In truth we ought
not to pray at all, or we ought to pray in this simple and noble
fashion.
8. Just as we must understand when it is said, That Aesculapius
prescribed to this man horse-exercise, or bathing in cold water, or
going without shoes, so we must understand it when it is said, That the
nature of the universe prescribed to this man disease, or mutilation,
or loss, or anything else of the kind. For in the first case Prescribed
means something like this: he prescribed this for this man as a thing
adapted to procure health; and in the second case it means, That which
happens to [or suits] every man is fixed in a manner for him suitably
to his destiny. For this is what we mean when we say that things are
suitable to us, as the workmen say of squared stones in walls or the
pyramids, that they are suitable, when they fit them to one another in
some kind of connection. For there is altogether one fitness [harmony].
And as the universe is made up out of all bodies to be such a body as
it is, so out of all existing causes necessity [destiny] is made up to
be such a cause as it is. And even those who are completely ignorant
understand what I mean; for they say, It [necessity, destiny] brought
this to such a person.—This then was brought and this was prescribed to
him. Let us then receive these things, as well as those which
Aesculapius prescribes. Many as a matter of course even among his
prescriptions are disagreeable, but we, accept them in the hope of
health. Let the perfecting and accomplishment of the things which the
common nature judges to be good, be judged by thee to be of the same
kind as thy health. And so accept everything which happens, even if it
seem disagreeable, because it leads to this, to the health of the
universe and to the prosperity and felicity of Zeus [the universe]. For
he would not have brought on any man what he has brought, if it were
not useful for the whole. Neither does the nature of anything, whatever
it may be, cause anything which is not suitable to that which is
directed by it. For two reasons then it is right to be content with
that which happens to thee, the one, because it was done for thee and
prescribed for thee, and in a manner had reference to thee, originally
from the most ancient causes spun with thy destiny; and the other,
because even that which comes severally to every man is to the power
which administers the universe a cause of felicity and perfection, nay
even of its very continuance. For the integrity of the whole is
mutilated, if thou cuttest off anything whatever from the conjunction
and the continuity either of the parts or of the causes. And thou dost
cut off, as far as it is in thy power, when thou art dissatisfied, and
in a manner triest to put anything out of the way.
9. Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost
not succeed in doing everything according to right principles, but when
thou hast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part
of what thou dost is consistent with man’s nature, and love this to
which thou returnest; and do not return to philosophy as if she were a
master, but act like those who have sore eyes and apply a bit of sponge
and egg, or as another applies a plaster, or drenching with water. For
thus thou wilt not fail to obey reason, and thou wilt repose in it. And
remember that philosophy requires only the things which thy nature
requires; but thou wouldst have something else which is not according
to nature.—It may be objected, Why, what is more agreeable than this
[which I am doing]?—But is not this the very reason why pleasure
deceives us? And consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity,
equanimity, piety, are not more agreeable. For what is more agreeable
than wisdom itself, when thou thinkest of the security and the happy
course of all things which depend on the faculty of understanding and
knowledge?
10. Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to
philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether
unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult
to understand. And all our assent is changeable; for where is the man
who never changes? Carry thy thoughts then to the objects themselves,
and consider how short-lived they are and worthless, and that they may
be in the possession of a filthy wretch or a robber. Then turn to the
morals of those who live with thee, and it is hardly possible to endure
even the most agreeable of them, to say nothing of a man being hardly
able to endure himself. In such darkness then and dirt, and in so
constant a flux both of substance and of time, and of motion and of
things moved, what there is worth being highly prized, or even an
object of serious pursuit, I cannot imagine. But on the contrary it is
a man’s duty to comfort himself, and to wait for the natural
dissolution, and not to be vexed at the delay, but to rest in these
principles only: the one, that nothing will happen to me which is not
conformable to the nature of the universe; and the other, that it is in
my power never to act contrary to my god and daemon: for there is no
man who will compel me to this.
11. About what am I now employing my own soul? On every occasion I must
ask myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of
me which they call the ruling principle? and whose soul have I
now,—that of a child, or of a young man, or of a feeble woman, or of a
tyrant, or of a domestic animal, or of a wild beast?
12. What kind of things those are which appear good to the many, we may
learn even from this. For if any man should conceive certain things as
being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he
would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to
anything which should not be in harmony with what is really good. But
if a man has first conceived as good the things which appear to the
many to be good, he will listen and readily receive as very applicable
that which was said by the comic writer. Thus even the many perceive
the difference. For were it not so, this saying would not offend and
would not be rejected [in the first case], while we receive it when it
is said of wealth, and of the means which further luxury and fame, as
said fitly and wittily. Go on then and ask if we should value and think
those things to be good, to which after their first conception in the
mind the words of the comic writer might be aptly applied,—that he who
has them, through pure abundance has not a place to ease himself in.
13. I am composed of the formal and the material; and neither of them
will perish into non-existence, as neither of them came into existence
out of non-existence. Every part of me then will be reduced by change
into some part of the universe, and that again will change into another
part of the universe, and so on forever. And by consequence of such a
change I too exist, and those who begot me, and so on forever in the
other direction. For nothing hinders us from saying so, even if the
universe is administered according to definite periods [of revolution].
14. Reason and the reasoning art [philosophy] are powers which are
sufficient for themselves and for their own works. They move then from
a first principle which is their own, and they make their way to the
end which is proposed to them; and this is the reason why such acts are
named Catorthoseis or right acts, which word signifies that they
proceed by the right road.
15. None of these things ought to be called a man’s which do not belong
to a man, as man. They are not required of a man, nor does man’s nature
promise them, nor are they the means of man’s nature attaining its end.
Neither then does the end of man lie in these things, nor yet that
which aids to the accomplishment of this end, and that which aids
towards this end is that which is good. Besides, if any of these things
did belong to man, it would not be right for a man to despise them and
to set himself against them; nor would a man be worthy of praise who
showed that he did not want these things, nor would he who stinted
himself in any of them be good, if indeed these things were good. But
now the more of these things a man deprives himself of, or of other
things like them, or even when he is deprived of any of them, the more
patiently he endures the loss, just in the same degree he is a better
man.
16. Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character
of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a
continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a
man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a
palace; well then, he can also live well in a palace. And again,
consider that for whatever purpose each thing has been constituted, for
this it has been constituted, and towards this it is carried; and its
end is in that towards which it is carried; and where the end is, there
also is the advantage and the good of each thing. Now the good for the
reasonable animal is society; for that we are made for society has been
shown above. Is it not plain that the inferior exists for the sake of
the superior? But the things which have life are superior to those
which have not life, and of those which have life the superior are
those which have reason.
17. To seek what is impossible is madness: and it is impossible that
the bad should not do something of this kind.
18. Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to
bear. The same things happen to another, and either because he does not
see that they have happened, or because he would show a great spirit,
he is firm and remains unharmed. It is a shame then that ignorance and
conceit should be stronger than wisdom.
19. Things themselves touch not the soul, not in the least degree; nor
have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul:
but the soul turns and moves itself alone, and whatever judgments it
may think proper to make, such it makes for itself the things which
present themselves to it.
20. In one respect man is the nearest thing to me, so far as I must do
good to men and endure them. But so far as some men make themselves
obstacles to my proper acts, man becomes to me one of the things which
are indifferent, no less than the sun or wind or a wild beast. Now it
is true that these may impede my action, but they are no impediments to
my effects and disposition, which have the power of acting
conditionally and changing: for the mind converts and changes every
hindrance to its activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance
is made a furtherance to an act; and that which is an obstacle on the
road helps us on this road.
21. Reverence that which is best in the universe; and this is that
which makes use of all things and directs all things. And in like
manner also reverence that which is best in thyself; and this is of the
same kind as that. For in thyself also, that which makes use of
everything else is this, and thy life is directed by this.
22. That which does no harm to the state, does no harm to the citizen.
In the case of every appearance of harm apply this rule: if the state
is not harmed by this, neither am I harmed. But if the state is harmed,
thou must not be angry with him who does harm to the state. Show him
where his error is.
23. Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and
disappear, both the things which are and the things which are produced.
For substance is like a river in a continual flow, and the activities
of things are in constant change, and the causes work in infinite
varieties; and there is hardly anything which stands still. And
consider this which is near to thee, this boundless abyss of the past
and of the future in which all things disappear. How then is he not a
fool who is puffed up with such things or plagued about them and makes
himself miserable? for they vex him only for a time, and a short time.
24. Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a very small
portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible
interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by
destiny, and how small a part of it thou art.
25. Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it. He has his own
disposition, his own activity. I now have what the universal nature
wills me to have; and I do what my nature now wills me to do.
26. Let the part of thy soul which leads and governs be undisturbed by
the movements in the flesh, whether of pleasure or of pain; and let it
not unite with them, but let it circumscribe itself and limit those
affects to their parts. But when these affects rise up to the mind by
virtue of that other sympathy that naturally exists in a body which is
all one, then thou must not strive to resist the sensation, for it is
natural: but let not the ruling part of itself add to the sensation the
opinion that it is either good or bad.
27. Live with the gods. And he does live with the gods who constantly
shows to them that his own soul is satisfied with that which is
assigned to him, and that it does all that the daemon wishes, which
Zeus hath given to every man for his guardian and guide, a portion of
himself. And this is every man’s understanding and reason.
28. Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? art thou angry with
him whose mouth smells foul? What good will this anger do thee? He has
such a mouth, he has such armpits: it is necessary that such an
emanation must come from such things; but the man has reason, it will
be said, and he is able, if he takes pains, to discover wherein he
offends; I wish thee well of thy discovery. Well then, and thou hast
reason: by thy rational faculty stir up his rational faculty; show him
his error, admonish him. For if he listens, thou wilt cure him, and
there is no need of anger.
29. As thou intendest to live when thou art gone out, … so it is in thy
power to live here. But if men do not permit thee, then get away out of
life, yet so as if them wert suffering no harm. The house is smoky, and
I quit it. Why dost thou think that this is any trouble? But so long as
nothing of the kind drives me out, I remain, am free, and no man shall
hinder me from doing what I choose; and I choose to do what is
according to the nature of the rational and social animal.
30. The intelligence of the universe is social. Accordingly it has made
the inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the
superior to one another. Thou seest how it has subordinated,
co-ordinated, and assigned to everything its proper portion, and has
brought together into concord with one another the things which are the
best.
31. How hast thou behaved hitherto to the gods, thy parents, brethren,
children, teachers, to those who looked after thy infancy, to thy
friends, kinsfolk, to thy slaves? Consider if thou hast hitherto
behaved to all in such a way that this may be said of thee,—
“Never has wronged a man in deed or word.”
And call to recollection both how many things thou hast passed through,
and how many things thou hast been able to endure and that the history
of thy life is now complete and thy service is ended; and how many
beautiful things thou hast seen; and how many pleasures and pains thou
hast despised; and how many things called honorable thou hast spurned;
and to how many ill-minded folks thou hast shown a kind disposition.
32. Why do unskilled and ignorant souls disturb him who has skill and
knowledge? What soul then has skill and knowledge? That which knows
beginning and end, and knows the reason which pervades all substance,
and through all time by fixed periods [revolutions] administers the
universe.
33. Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a
name or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things
which are much valued in life are empty and rotten and trifling, and
[like] little dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling,
laughing, and then straightway weeping. But fidelity and modesty and
justice and truth are fled
Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.
HESIOD, _Works, etc_. v. 197.
What then is there which still detains thee here, if the objects of
sense are easily changed and never stand still, and the organs of
perception are dull and easily receive false impressions, and the poor
soul itself is an exhalation from blood? But to have good repute amid
such a world as this is an empty thing. Why then dost thou not wait in
tranquillity for thy end, whether it is extinction or removal to
another state? And until that time comes, what is sufficient? Why, what
else than to venerate the gods and bless them, and to do good to men,
and to practice tolerance and self-restraint; but as to everything
which is beyond the limits of the poor flesh and breath, to remember
that this is neither thine nor in thy power.
34. Thou canst pass thy life in an equable flow of happiness, if thou
canst go by the right way, and think and act in the right way. These
two things are common both to the soul of God and to the soul of man,
and to the soul of every rational being: not to be hindered by another;
and to hold good to consist in the disposition to justice and the
practice of it, and in this to let thy desire find its termination.
35. If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness,
and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it, and
what is the harm to the common weal?
36. Do not be carried along inconsiderately by the appearance of
things, but give help [to all] according to thy ability and their
fitness; and if they should have sustained loss in matters which are
indifferent, do not imagine this to be a damage; for it is a bad habit.
But as the old man, when he went away, asked back his foster-child’s
top, remembering that it was a top, so do thou in this case also.
When thou art calling out on the Rostra, hast thou forgotten, man, what
these things are?—Yes; but they are objects of great concern to these
people—wilt thou too then be made a fool for these things? I was once a
fortunate man, but I lost it, I know not how.—But fortunate means that
a man has assigned to himself a good fortune: and a good fortune is
good disposition of the soul, good emotions, good actions.