B 580.C69 1887 
 Meditations of Marcus Aurellus / 
 
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 Edited bv Ei^sEsx Rhys. 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
~=^=^ -' THE 
 
 MEDITATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS 
 
 Tr ansl ded from the Gj-eek 
 
 By JEREMY COLLIER 
 
 Revised, with an Introduction ana i\otes 
 By ALICE ZIMMERN. 
 
 LONDON 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LA^^E 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW 
 1887 
 
B 
 
 c 6 •/ 
 mi 
 
c 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 BOOK I. . 
 
 BOOK II. . 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 BOOK IV. . 
 
 BOOK V. . 
 ^ BOOK VI. . 
 ^ BOOK VII. 
 ^ BOOK VIII. 
 
 BOOK IX. . 
 
 BOOK X. . 
 
 BOOK XL . 
 
 -3 
 
 BOOK XII. 
 Notes 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 7 
 
 21 
 
 33 
 
 45 
 
 65 
 
 83 
 
 103 
 
 121 
 
 141 
 
 159 
 179 
 195 
 
 209 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 NTIL philosophers are kings, and the princes 
 of this world have the spirit and power 
 of philosophy, and political greatness and 
 wisdom meet in one, cities will never cease 
 from ill — no, nor the human race, as I 
 believe — and then only will our state have a possibility 
 of life, and see the light of day." "The truth is, that the 
 state in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is 
 best and most quietly governed, and the state in which 
 they are most willing is the worst." 
 
 Thus writes Plato in his Republic, laying down the 
 conditions, which even to him appear impossible, under 
 which a state may be wisely governed. The ruler must be 
 a philosopher as well as a king ; and he must govern 
 unwillingly, because he loves philosophy better than 
 dominion. Once in the history of the world these con- 
 ditions were fulfilled : in Marcus Aurelius we find the 
 philosopher king, the ruler who preferred the solitude of 
 the student to th^ splendour of the palace, the soldier who 
 loved the arts of peace better than the glory of war. It is 
 with no small interest that we turn to the records of 
 history to see what was the outward life led by this king ; 
 but even more willingly do we open the precious record of 
 
viii MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 his own thoughts, which reveal to us the inner life of the 
 philosopher. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the adopted, son of the 
 Emperor Antoninus Pius, who died in 161 a.d. He had 
 been brought up with the utmost care by his adoptive 
 father, and received the best instruction in poetry and 
 rhetoric, at that time the staples of a liberal education. 
 But his favourite study was philosophy, and when only 
 eleven years old he assumed the philosophers' simple dress, 
 adopted their mode of life ; and finding that his inclination 
 was chiefly towards Stoicism, he attached himself to this — 
 the strictest of the philosophic schools. A discipline of 
 jOQua^tic severity, that bade its followers disregard all 
 bodily comfort, all that is commonly called pleasure, and 
 care for nought but virtue, was indeed a strange training 
 Eor one destined for the imperial purple, and it hardly 
 appeared to be a fitting preparation for the cares of what 
 was then the one great Empire of the world. True, the Stoics 
 loved to call themselves citizens of the world, and to 
 inculcate that cosmopolitanism that is broader and nobler 
 than mere patriotism ; but while they maintained in theory 
 that the wise man should take part in politics, in practice 
 there was always something in the existing state of things 
 which made his doing so unadvisable. But Marcus 
 Aurelius could not choose his own lot. Destined for the 
 throne already by the Emperor Hadrian, associated in the 
 empire even in his adoptive father's lifetime, he could but 
 accept his lot, and in striving to practise the noble 
 principles he had learnt, pay to his Stoic teachers the truest 
 tribute. 
 
 ^is was a troubled reign. The Homan Empire, which 
 in the vigorous days of the Republic had been gradually 
 but surely extending its boundaries, had been consolidated, 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS. ix 
 
 and newly administered by Julius Cjesar and Augustus. 
 On the death of the latter it extended from the Atlantic on 
 the west to the Armenian mountains and Arabian deserts 
 on the east. On the south the African deserts had alone 
 stopped the conquering arms, while on the north a line of 
 natural boundaries was traced by the English Channel, 
 Rhine, Danube, Black Sea, and Mount Caucasus. Warned 
 by the ill-success that attended the later campaigns of his 
 generals on the Lower Rhine, Augustus had cautioned his 
 successors to aim at preserving rather than increasing their 
 dominions. Thus it came about, that between the years 
 14 and 161 a.d., when Marcus Aurelius succeeded to the 
 throne, only two fresh conquests had been made ; Britain, 
 a source of more trouble than profit to the empire, and 
 Dacia, conquered by Trajan in 106 A.D. 
 
 Natural boundaries and Roman legions kept peace and 
 security for many years within the circle of Roman 
 dominion. But there were two weak points on these 
 borders. On the north the hardy German tribes on the 
 Danube and Upper Rhine, themselves hard pressed by 
 Slavonian intruders from Russia, threatened to invade the 
 Roman dominion ; on the east the " insolent Parthian," 
 long the terror of the Roman arms^ was a constant source 
 of trouble and danger. ..Xlxft pRane-lnvi^g^jIarcus Aurelius 
 was obliged to cope with both these enemies. The arms, 
 or rather the army, of the insolent and profligate Lucius 
 Yerus for a time subdued the Parthians, but no lasting 
 peace was destined Marcus Aurelius. He himself con- 
 ducted the campaigns on the Danube, and again and again 
 beat back the northern enemy in wars, of which the chief 
 interest to us now consists in the scant notes in the 
 Meditation s — " This among the Quadi," " this at Carmun- 
 tum," showing how these precious records of a pure and 
 
X MARCUS A URELIUS. 
 
 serene soul were composed amid the storms of battle and 
 the elation of victory. Nor were his troubles confined to 
 foreign wars. The plague, imported from the East, ravaged 
 Italy, though it did the state good service in carrying off 
 Lucius Yerus, Marcus's adoptive brother, whom, in obedi- 
 ence to the wishes of Antoninus, he had associated with 
 himself in the empire. There were famines too in the 
 land, with which the Emperor tried to cope by schemes of 
 carefully-organised charity. And, lastly, Avidius Cassius, 
 one of his most trusted and ablest generals, revolted in 
 Syria, and tried to obtain for himself the empire, deeming 
 it an easy matter to overcome a master who was so full of 
 generosity and compassion that he could only inspire con- 
 tempt in the mind of the unphilosophic soldier. The 
 revolt was soon put down, but the leader was killed by one 
 of his own officers. The Emperor expressed only his 
 regret that he should have been thus deprived of the 
 luxury of forgiveness, and he carefully destroyed all docu- 
 ments that could implicate any others in the revolt. 
 Thus in all the trials of his life his philosophy inspired 
 noble action, and he might worthily be added to the short 
 list of those whom the Stoics acknowledged as really good 
 and great. 
 
 Amid these records of gentleness and forbearance it 
 seems strange to read that Marcus Aurelius permitted a 
 cruel persecution of the Christians. Among the victims 
 of this reign were Justin Martyr and Polycarp, and 
 numbers suffered in a general persecution of the churches 
 at Lyons and Vienne. It must not, however, be for- 
 gotten that the persecution was political rather than 
 religious. Of the true teaching of Christianity Marcus 
 Aurelius knew little and cared less; but its followers, in 
 refusing to acknowledge a religion which included the 
 
MAR C US A URELIUS. xi 
 
 Emperors among its deities, became rebels against the existing 
 order of things, and therein culpable. Of the old sincere 
 belief in the gods of Rome but little could survive in a 
 state where the vote of the Senate had the power to add a 
 new divinity to the already bewildering list. So much the 
 more important were the outward forms, now that the actual 
 belief was gone, and the bond between Church and State 
 grew even closer, now that the Church could no longer 
 stand alone. Of the various systems of philosophy at that 
 time fashionable at Rome, all but the Epicurean could 
 readily embody the creed of the old religion, and by 
 treating the names of gods and heroes as mere symbols, 
 they contrived to combine outward conformity with inner 
 enlightenment. Not so the Christians. In their eyes the 
 whole system of idolatry was accursed. A silent protest 
 was insufficient. It was not enough to refrain from sacrifice 
 themselves ; in public and in private, in season and out of 
 season, they exhorted others to do the like ; not content 
 with leaving the statues of the gods unhonoured, they would 
 throw them from their pedestals, or insult them in the 
 presence of the faithful. What wonder that the Romans 
 looked on them with suspicion and hatred, and added to 
 their real ofiences the pretended ones of eating human flesh 
 and indulging in all manner of immorality. In our own 
 more enlightened day we know what strange reports gather 
 round any sect or school that happens to be unfashionable 
 or unpopular. What wonder, then, that the secret meet- 
 ings of the Christians should have given rise to strange 
 rumours, and that the persecutions " were the expression 
 of a feeling with which a modern state might regard a 
 set of men who were at once Mormons and Nihilists. ""'^ 
 Add to this that the Christians often actually provoked 
 * F. Myer's Classical Essays. 
 
xii MARC US A URELIUS. 
 
 persecution, and we cease to wonder, though we cannot 
 but regret, that Marcus Aurelius, in simply allowing 
 the law to take its course, should have failed to give an 
 example of that perfect toleration to which Christianity 
 itself has never yet attained. Let us be content to call hira, 
 with Earrar, "the noblest of Pagan Emperors," and sorrow- 
 fully acknowledge that we must seek in vain for a Christian 
 monarch to place beside him. Wars and troubles attended 
 Marcus Aurelius to the very end of his days. In 177 a.d. 
 fresh wars called him to the north. A presentiment seemed 
 to tell his friends at Kome that they should not see him 
 again, and they begged him to address them his farewell 
 admonitions. There is nothing more striking in the whole 
 of Aurelius' career than this picture of the great general 
 discoursing for three days before his departure for the wars 
 on the deep questions of philosophy. This was indeed the 
 last time he was seen at Kome. Worn out by anxiety and 
 fatigue, after once more winning victory for the Roman 
 arms, he died, in Pannonia, on March 17th, 180 A.D., 
 mourned with a note of such true sorrow as never before or 
 again was raised at the death of an Emperor. 
 
 It is time to inquire into the nature of that philosophy 
 which was capable of exercising an influence so distinctly 
 practical ; yet, when we consider its teaching as laid down 
 by its founders, its distinct materialism and impracticable 
 ethics afford little sugsrestion of such fruits as it was destined 
 to bear in the Roman world. 
 
 The Stoic school was founded by Zeno at Athens about 
 290 B.C. At this time Greek philosophy, which, under 
 Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, had lived through a short 
 period of idealism, was returning to its naturally material- 
 istic groove, and the founders of new systems looked back 
 to the pre-Socratic physicists for some theory of the 
 
MARC US A URELIUS. xiii 
 
 universe on which they might base their own. Metaphysical 
 speculation had ceased to charm ; it was practical ethics, a 
 rule of life and conduct, that philosophy now desired to 
 supply ; and though these later schools based ethics on 
 natural science, they were content to go back to the 
 investigators of old for a system, instead of devoting 
 themselves on their own account to scientific research. 
 The two most important schools at this epoch were the 
 Stoic and Epicurean ; and while the latter sought in the 
 atomic theory of Democritus an explanation of the 
 universe, the former reverted to the " perpetual flux," the 
 eternal, ever-changing fire of Heraclitus. 
 
 Before there was a heaven or earth there was a primi- 
 tive fiery ether. This changes into all the other elements, 
 and yet in its nature ever retains the fiery substratum. 
 First this fiery ether transforms itself into a mass of vapour, 
 then into a watery fluid. Out of this are developed the 
 four elements as we know them : water, and solid earth, 
 and atmospheric air, and lastly consuming, destructive fire, 
 which is distinct from the everlasting ether. Fire and air 
 are active elements ; water and earth, passive. The creation 
 begins to assume its present form with earth ; dry earth, by 
 reason of its weight, takes up a position at the centre of the 
 universe, around it gather the waters, above both is the 
 expanse of air, while fire and ether complete the whole, 
 ever circling round the other elements which are at rest. 
 The stars are fiery masses firmly embedded in ether, and 
 nourished by the exhalations of terrestrial vapours. But 
 they are also living beings, since they are formed out of 
 living, animating fire, and they may thus be regarded as 
 inferior or visible gods. " The sun and the celestial 
 •deities, too, have their business assigned," says Marcus 
 Aurelius. 
 
xiv MARCUS AURELIUS, 
 
 The world is faultless, say the Stoics, and must therefore 
 have been produced by an intelligent artificer. Hence the 
 highest reason is immanent in the world, and must be 
 regarded as self-conscious and personal. For has it not 
 created man, who is self-conscious and personal, and can the 
 created be greater than the creator ? And yet, paradoxical 
 as it may seem, the Stoic god is not a person, but is the 
 fiery ether that pervades all things. This fiery substratum 
 of all matter is its soul; the soul of the universe, which 
 holds together all things in one fixed law, is God himself. 
 In one aspect the Deity is but a fiery air-current ; in 
 another he is Zeus, the intelligent, almost personal lord of 
 the universe. Both these aspects may be found in Marcus 
 Aurelius ; but in him the simpler ethical teaching, the gentle 
 exhortation to a virtuous life, predominate over subtle 
 speculation on the origin of things, and be speaks of God in 
 language that suggests vividly to us the omnipotent, 
 omniscient. Deity of Monotheism. 
 
 The Stoics traced back all things to formless matter and 
 the informing, animating ether. Matter was in its nature 
 eternal, since the underlying fire was imperishable ; but all 
 things were being gradually consumed, and at the end of a 
 fixed period there would be a general conflagration, when 
 all things should be reabsorbed into the Deity. Then once 
 more they would be developed afresh, and another cycle 
 
 begin. 
 
 *• The world's great age begins anew, 
 The golden days return, 
 The earth doth like a snake renew 
 Her winter weeds outworn," 
 
 sings Shelley, but the Stoics expected no " brighter Hellas," 
 or " fairer Tempes." The new things should be but as the 
 old ; in the new cycle there should be another Socrates, 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS. xv 
 
 de^i/iufcu; to marry another Xanthippe, and meet with the 
 same rough treatmeLt at her hands, and finally to be 
 accused by Anytus and Meletus, and once more utter his 
 glorious defence, and drain the cup of hemlock among his 
 sorrowing disciples. 
 
 Some such scheme of the universe was certainly accepted 
 by all the Stoics, but the later teachers, at any rate, attached 
 little importance to it, except in as far as it demonstrated 
 man's intimate connection with the Deity and his fellow- 
 men. They believed that the soul was material, and 
 extended in space. It is the fiery current that is difiused 
 through the body, and holds it together. They regarded it 
 as the guiding or dominant principle, the indestructible 
 divine spark It is this, the reasoning element, which 
 establishes the relationship between God, the universal 
 reason, and man, to whose lot has fallen a minute share 
 of it \ while the brotherhood of Man is maintained in 
 virtue of a kinship, not of flesh and blood, but of mind 
 and reason. ^Though we are not just of the same flesh 
 and blood, yet our minds are nearly related." (Marcus 
 Aurelius, Med. ii. 1.) 
 
 JUd—the Stoies believe in a life after deatK? It is not 
 easy to decide. They did not, like the Epicureans, fiercely 
 deny it, maintaining that annihilation alone could remove 
 the terrors of death. Undoubtedly the individual soul 
 must at last be absorbed into the universal soul ; but 
 whether this happened at once, or not until the next con- 
 flagration, was a point on which authorities were not 
 agreed. In any case, the soul must return to the Deity 
 whence it sprang. This relation to the Deity was the 
 fundamental point of Stoic ethics. It follows from the 
 kinship that man's true good must lie in conformity with 
 the Deity. But God and reason are identical. Therefore^ 
 
xvi MARCUS A URELIUS. 
 
 life in accordance with reason must be best suiLeJ tw che 
 constitution of the soul. And such a life must be in 
 accordance with virtue. Hence this is the highest eood, 
 and happiness consists in virtue. 
 
 Thus the Stoics arrive at their main thesis. Virtue alone 
 is admirable, virtue is absolutely self-sufficient ; the good 
 man needs no help from circumstances , neither sickness 
 nor adversity can harm him ; he is a king, a god among 
 men. All so-called good, if it be not moral good, is included 
 in the class of " things intermediate," neither good nor 
 bad. Such absolute claims for virtue had never before 
 been made by any school. Aristotle had stipulated for 
 sufficient external advantages to enable a man to devote 
 himself without further care to the life of thought and 
 virtue. The Stoics would permit of no such compromise. 
 Virtue, and virtue only, was what they demanded. The 
 virtuous man might be a slave, a victim to disease, to 
 poverty, might be deprived of all he loved, yet he would 
 remain solely and absolutely happy. Virtue was one and 
 indivisible. Whoever was not virtuous was vicious ; there 
 was no middle course. Here was a point in their doctrine 
 which could hardly be made to square with fact. We 
 know too well that men are not divided into virtuous and 
 vicious, but all possess some share of good and evil, 
 and that most men desire what is right, and fail, when 
 they do, from weakness rather than viciousness. The 
 Stoics, who demanded absolute virtue and disregard of 
 externals, had to confess that the wise men were few and 
 the foolish legion ; nay, when hard pressed to name their 
 wise men, they would give a remarkable list — Hercules, 
 Odysseus, Socrates, the Cynics Antisthenes and Diogenes; 
 and in the later days of the school, Cato the younger, the 
 only Stoic among the number. 
 
 1 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS. xvii 
 
 Such a list alone appears to us sufficient condemnation 
 of Stoicism in its earlier forms. Had no further advance 
 been made, Stoicism would be of small interest to us now, 
 but happily it was destined, as Capes remarks in his little 
 handbook on Stoicism, to be "tempered by concessions to 
 common sense." The paradoxes about the wise man had 
 been borrowed from Cynicism, which was regarded by the 
 Stoics as " a counsel of perfection." Diogenes in his tub, 
 bidding Alexander stand out of his sunshine, might excite 
 surprise and wonder ; but a movement that should lead a 
 whole community to abandon civilisation and resort to life 
 in tubs would be distinctly retrogressive. In later times 
 Christian hermits have at best saved their own souls, and 
 the exhortations delivered by St. Simeon Stylites from the 
 top of his pillar cannot have influenced the gaping multi- 
 tude as much as a noble life led in their midst. Without 
 the practical element there would have been no life in 
 Christianity, and Stoicism similarly had to descend from its 
 pedestal, and walk among men. 
 
 First of all, the theory of absolute good and evil had to 
 be modified. Virtue was still the only real good, and vice 
 the only real evil ; but besides these they now admitted a 
 class of " things to be preferred," and another of " things to 
 be avoided." Among the former might be included health, 
 good repute, and other advantages which had formerly been 
 summarily disposed of as "indifferent." Again, while the 
 impossible wise man still remained the ideal of Stoicism, it 
 was admitted that there might be good meD with lofty aims 
 and blameless lives who should yet dwell among men as 
 their fellows. In short, the wide gap between the sage 
 and the fool was now filled up, and as a result the Stoic 
 system was able to find a place for real, existing human 
 beings. 
 
 258 
 
xviii MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 These more practical developments were coincident with 
 its introduction into the Roman world. The Romans were 
 nothing if not practical. A nation of soldiers and lawyers, 
 they had borrowed from Greece her culture, and adapted 
 it to their own needs. So too they borrowed their 
 philosophy. When " conquered Greece led her barbarous 
 conqueror captive," a few of the nobler minds at Rome 
 discovered that there was something at Athens worth 
 carrying off besides the statues. Some would spend a year 
 or two at Athens studying philosophy ; others induced the 
 greatest teachers themselves to bring their doctrines to 
 Rome ; and in the first century B.C. all the Greek systems 
 were represented in the capital of the world. Among 
 them all Stoicism found most adherents. Its teachings of 
 simplicity, resignation, and calm in the midst of disturbance, 
 found willing listeners among the earnest Republicans, who 
 saw their hopes of liberty gradually fading before the 
 approaching monarchy. Its doctrine that suicide was 
 admissible, even admirable, when circumstances made it no 
 longer possible " to take ar as against a sea of troubles," 
 pointed to a mode of escape from the tyranny they could 
 not avert. Thus Cato sought death at his own hands when 
 the Republic perished, and it was Stoic teaching that forbade 
 Brutus and Cassius, though not Stoics themselves, to survive 
 the battle of Philippi. 
 
 In the early days of the empire, when corruption and 
 license were at their height, the court evinced deep hatred 
 against the philosophers, more especially the Stoics. The 
 outspoken manner in which they chastised the wickedness 
 of the time may have led to their unpopularity ; in any 
 case, there were several decrees of banishment against them, 
 and among the victims at one time was — 
 
MARCUS A URELIUS, xix 
 
 ** That halting slave, who in Nicopolis 
 Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son 
 Cleared Rome of what most shamed him." 
 
 "Well might the name of Epictetus be counted among 
 those who cheer the soul in evil days, for where can sweeter 
 resignation or truer piety be found than in such words as 
 these — " Dare to look up to God and say, Deal with me for 
 the future as thou wilt, I am of the same mind as thou art ; 
 I am thine : I refuse nothing that pleases thee : lead me 
 where thou wilt : clothe me in any dress thou choosest : is 
 it thy will that I should hold the office of a magistrate, 
 that I should be in the condition of a private man, stay 
 here or be an exile, be poor, be rich % I will make thy 
 defence to men in behalf of all these conditions." These 
 were not empty words, for they found their illustration in 
 the life of the speaker. 
 
 In the lame slave Stoic ethics rose to its noblest heights • 
 but it was left to the imperial philosopher, by broadening 
 and humanising its teaching, to give to the world in his 
 Meditations " the gospel of those who do not believe in 
 the supernatural." 
 
 These Meditations were not written as a whole — probably 
 they were never intended for publication ; they are simply 
 the Emperor's commonplace book, where he entered his 
 reflections, often quite unconnected, on the things of time 
 and eternity. By this means he seems to have adopted his 
 own counsel of withdrawing into his own mind, there to 
 seek calm and quiet. It is noteworthy that in Marcus 
 Aurelius the claims of natural affection are never dis- 
 regarded. Book I. is entirely devoted to recording his 
 obligation to his parents, friends, and teachers for the 
 benefit of good training or example. For all those helps 
 and advantages which can be traced to none of these, he 
 
XX MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 simply thanks " the gods," without further discussion or 
 inquiry into their nature. The same loving disposition 
 gives life to the Stoic doctrine of the citizenship of the 
 world. ^Marcus Aurelius truly finds himself akin to all 
 mankind. ^ "Ma^iad-ara^under one common law ; and if 
 so, they must be fellow-citizens, and belong to the same 
 body politic. From whence it will follow that the whole 
 world is but one commonwealth " {Med. iv. 4). " Now a 
 social temper is that which man was principally designed 
 for " (vii. 55). This brotherhood of man will lead us to 
 strive for the common good, and reckon nothing else our 
 own advantage. " That which is not for the interest of the 
 •whole swarm is not for the interest of a single bee " (vi. 54). 
 It will lead us also to pity and forgive our enemies. " And 
 since it has fallen to my share to understand the natural 
 beauty of a good action and the deformity of an ill one ; 
 since I am satisfied the person disobliging is of kin to me, 
 and though we are not just of the same flesh and blood, yet 
 our minds are nearly related, being both extracted from the 
 Deity, I am convinced that no man can do a real injury, 
 because no man can force me to misbehave myself ; nor can 
 I find it in my heart to hate or be angry with one of my 
 own nature and family. For we are all made for mutual 
 assistance, as the feet, the hands, and the eyelids ; as 
 the rows of the upper and under teeth " (ii. 1). Marcus 
 Aurelius loves to dw ell on the instability and insignificance 
 of al l things. " The vast continents of Europe and Asia 
 are but corners of the creation ; the ocean is but a drop, 
 and Mount Athos but a grain in respect of the universe, 
 and the present instant of time but a point to the extent of 
 eternity. These things have all of them little, changeable, 
 and transitory beings " (vi. 36). We sh ouhL-Accustom 
 ourselves to watch the eternal course of destruction, and 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS. xxi 
 
 realise that the universe itself sustains no harm. The 
 death of one thing is the birth of another. " The universal 
 nature works the universal matter like wax. Now, for the 
 purpose, it is a horse; soon after you will have it melted down 
 and run it into the figure of a tree; then a man, then some- 
 thing else. And it is but a little while that it is fixed in one 
 species. Now a tr'ink feels no more pain by being knocked 
 in pieces than when it was first put together " (vii. 23). 
 "Death a^id generation are both mysteries of nature, and 
 somewhrxt resemble each other ; for the first does but 
 dissolvfj those elements the latter had combined" (iv. 5). 
 Amid all this change the only true good is philosophy, 
 which teaches us to keep our guiding principles pure and 
 untainted by bodily impressions. "Toss me into what 
 cliniate or state you please. For all that, I will keep my 
 divine part content if it but exi^t and act in accordance 
 with its nature " (viii. 45). Nothing external can influence 
 u?i, unless we pronounce it good or evil. This is in accord- 
 Stnce with the Stoic doctrine, that all sensations make a 
 material impression on the soul ; but it is left to the reason- 
 ing or guiding principle to decide whether they are true or 
 false, good or evil. "Hold in honour your opinionative 
 faculty, for this alone is able to prevent any opinion from 
 originating in your guiding principle that is contrary to 
 nature or the proper constitution of a rational creature " 
 (iii. 9.) " Do not suppose you are hurt, and your complaint 
 ceases ; cease your complaint, and you are not hurt" (iv. 7), 
 writes the Emperor, using, as he so often does, an obscure 
 dogma to point a practical moral. 
 
 Such practical teaching abounds in Marcus Aurelius ; but 
 he rises to higher flights. How gladly he quotes Antis- 
 thenes's comment on the kingly prerogative. " It is a royal 
 thing to be iL spoken of for good deeds" (vii. 36). How 
 
xxii MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 well he satirises the craving for gratitude, so aptly defined 
 by a French writer as the ' usury ' we exact for our good 
 deeds. "Some men, when they do you a kindness, at once 
 demand the payment of gratitude from you ; others are 
 more modest than this. However, they remember the 
 favour, and look upon you as their d.'^btor in a manner. A 
 third sort shall scarce know what they have done. These 
 are much like a vine, which is satisfied by being fruitful in 
 its kind, and bears a bunch of grapes without expecting any 
 thanks for it. A fleet horse or greyhound do noi make a 
 noise when they have done well, nor a bee neither when 
 she has made a little honey. And thus a man th>at has 
 done a kindness never proclaims it, but does another as 
 soon as he can, just like a vine that bears again the next 
 season. Now we should imitate those who are so obliging. 
 as hardly to reflect on their beneficence " (v. 6). And how 
 scathing is this criticism of the aflfectation of virtue ! " How 
 fulsome and hollow does that man look that cries — 'I am 
 resolved to deal straightforwardly with you.' Hark you, 
 friend, what need of all this flourish'? Let your actions 
 speak ; your face ought to vouch for your speech. I would 
 have virtue look out of the eye, no less apparently than 
 love does in the sight of the beloved. I would have 
 honesty and sincerity so incorporated with the constitution 
 that it should be discoverable by the senses" (xi. 15). 
 
 Here is another gem that sparkles with especial bright- 
 ness — "The best way of revenge is not to imitate the 
 injury" (vi. 6). 
 
 Very noble is this conception of the true function of 
 prayer — " This man . . . invokes the gods to set him free 
 from some trouble ; let it be your petition that youi' mind 
 may never put you upon such a wish. A third is very 
 devout to prevent the loss of his son. But I would have 
 
MARCUS A URELIUS. xxiii 
 
 you pray rather against the fear of losing him. Let this 
 be the rule for your devotions " (ix. 40). To quote from 
 the Meditations is a tempting task, but they lie before the 
 reader, and he can make his own choice. We must how- 
 ever briefly inquire how Marcus Aurelius treats those great 
 questions to which each system must find some answer, or 
 else abandon its claims to be a guide through life. The 
 origin of evil is a difficulty that every system has had to 
 meet. It is the first and most obvious ars^ument asrainst 
 the existence of an All-wise Providence. The Stoics boldly 
 faced the difficulty, and denied the facts. The world is 
 perfect, they said ; all that seems evil is required for the 
 general good. Oni)ii,s,,point'^farcus Aurelius is perfectly 
 orthodox, but he condemns too curious inquiry. i.__" Does 
 your cucumber taste bitter? — let it alone. Are there 
 brambles in your way? — avoid them then. /'Thus far you 
 are well. But, then, do not ask, ' What does the world with 
 such things as this % ' for a natural philosopher would laugh 
 at you. This expostulation is just as wise as it would be 
 to find fault with a carpenter for having sawdust, or a 
 tailor shreds, in his shop." Epictetus had said : " As a 
 mark is not set up for the purpose of missing it, so neither 
 does the nature of evil exist in the universe ; " that is, 
 there is no absolute evil, it is all subordinated to good. 
 So too Marcus Aurelius : " Wickedness generally does no 
 harm to the universe ; so too in particular subjects it does 
 fio~jiarffi to anyone " (viii. 55). At times he points not to 
 tlie universal law, which he regards as the providence of 
 the universe, but to the existence of gods, who must direct 
 all things for the best. But he never asserts this with any 
 certainty. The alternative is between gods and atoms, 
 between providence and chance ; and though Marcus 
 Aurelius pronounces for the former, he desires to show 
 
r' 
 u 
 
 xxiv MARCUS AURELIUS. 
 
 that even under the latter a man may be content. As to 
 the future life, he never speaks with any certainty. The 
 guiding principle of the soul can never perish, since it is a 
 part of the Deity ; but whether there is a future self- 
 conscious existence is a question he scarcely touches on. 
 Jliis-lifeis all that concerns us. " Though you were des-, 
 tined _tQ liv^ three thousand, or, if you please, thirty 
 thousand years, yet remember that no man can. lose any 
 (Jther life than that which he lives now, neither is he 
 possessed of any other than that which he loses" (ii. 14). 
 The Stoic Emperor cannot say with our modern poet — 
 
 *' "What is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 
 
 For the fulness of the days ? Have we withered or agonised ? 
 Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue 
 
 thence ? 
 Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony might be prized \ " — 
 
 but he draws a noble moral from the transitoriness of our 
 being. Not " Let us eat and drink,^ for to-morrow we die," 
 is the teachings of the Meditations^ but rather, *' Let us use 
 this life well, since we have no other." The consolation for 
 death must be sought in the consciousness of duty done. 
 Jf we have lived_wellj we should be content to die, no 
 matter whether our years be many or few. ' Epicurus bade 
 his followers depart from life as a guest from a banquet 
 satisfied with his entertainment; the Stoics, in sterner 
 language, bid us leave the stage as an actor who has 
 performed his part. " Hark ye, friend ; you have been a 
 burgher of this great city. What matter whether you have 
 lived in it but five years or three ? If you have observed 
 the laws of the corporation, the length or shortness of the 
 time makes no difference. Where is the hardship, then, if 
 Nature, that planted you here, orders yo;ir removal ? You 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS. xxv 
 
 cannot say you are sent off by a tyrant or an unjust judge. 
 No ; you quit the stage as fairly as a player does that has 
 his discharge from the master of the revels. But I have 
 only gone through three acts, and not held out till the end of 
 the fifth, you say. Well, but in life three acts make the 
 play entire. He that ordered the first scene now gives the 
 sign for shutting up the last. You are neither accountable 
 for one nor the other. Therefore, retire well-satisfied, for he 
 by whom you are dismissed is satisfied also " (xii. 36). 
 
 The lovers of Marcus Aurelius have been many, and of 
 every shade of opinion. Long quotes from the preface to 
 Pierron's translation — " A man illustrious in the church, 
 the Cardinal Francis Barberini the elder, nephew of Pope 
 Urban YITL, occupied the last years of his life in trans- 
 lating into his native language the thoughts of the Roman 
 Emperor, in order to difi'use among the faithful the 
 fertilising and vivifying seeds. He dedicated this trans- 
 Jation to his soul, in order to make it, as he says, redder 
 than his purple at the sight of the virtues of this Gentile." 
 Montesquieu says of Marcus Aurelius : "On sent en soi- 
 meme un plaisir secret lorsqu' on parle de cet empereur; 
 on ne pent lire sa vie sans une espece d' attendrissement. 
 . . . Tel est r efiet qu'il produit qu' on a meilleure opinion 
 de soi-meme parce qu' on a meilleure opinion des hommes." 
 
 Matthew Arnold, in his Essays in Criticism^ points out 
 with his usual clearness the reason of this popularity — " It 
 is remarkable how little of a merely local or temporary 
 character, how little of those scorice which a reader has to 
 clear away before he gets to the precious ore, how little that 
 even admits of doubt and question, the morality of Marcus 
 Aurelius exhibits." " In general the action Marcus Aurelius 
 prescribes is action which every sound nature must recognise 
 as right, and the motives he assigns are motives which every 
 
xxvi MARCUS A URELTUS. 
 
 clear reason must recognise as valid. And so he remains 
 the special friend and comforter of all clear-headed and 
 scrupulous, yet pure and upward-striving souls, in those ages 
 most especially which walk by sight and not by faith, and 
 yet have no open vision. He cannot give such souls, per- 
 haps, all they yearn for, but he gives them much, and what 
 he gives them they can receive." 
 
 Perhaps there never was an age that more needed such 
 teaching than our own. On one hand, sectarian hatred and 
 dogmatism almost obscure the great truths common to all 
 mankind ; on the other, merciless and destructive criticism, 
 in undermining much that used to be generally accepted, 
 seems at times to threaten even the foundations of truth. 
 Here we may turn, as Renan bids us, to the * absolute 
 religion ' of the Meditations — " La religion de Marc Aurele 
 est la religion absolue, celle qui resulte du simple fait 
 d'une haute conscience morale plac^e en face de I'univers. 
 Elle n' est d' aucune race ni d' aucun pays. Aucune 
 revolution, aucune changement, aucune d^couverte, ne 
 pourront la changer." 
 
 The Meditations are chiefly known to English readers in 
 Long's translation, a most scholarly work, and remarkable 
 for its perfect fidelity to the original. Its one defect is a 
 certain lack of vigour, though it must be confessed that 
 the original too is defective in point of style and finish. 
 Before this appeared, the best-known translation was 
 Jeremy Collier's, a book with a charm all its own, in fact, a 
 version far more spirited than the original. Greek scholars 
 must always delight in Long's perfect accuracy, but 
 Collier's work has a value of its own. " Jeremy Collier, 
 too," observes Matthew Arnold, " like Mr. Long, regarded 
 in Marcus Aurelius the living moralist, and not the dead 
 classic ; and his warmth of feeling gave to his style an 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS. xxvii 
 
 impetuosity and rhythm, which, from Mr. Long's style (I 
 do not blame him on that account) are absent." Long had 
 found fault with Collier's translation as "coarse and 
 vulgar." Mr. Arnold objects; — "Jeremy Collier's real 
 defect as a translator is not his coarseness and vulgarity, 
 but his imperfect acquaintance with Greek." 
 
 An attempt is here made to offer to the reader a 
 corrected, though I dare not say a correct, version of 
 Collier's translation. The general scheme of his work has 
 been left unaltered, but gross errors have been corrected, 
 and modern expressions substituted for others that have 
 grown obsolete. In a few cases, where the translator 
 seemed to have entirely misapprehended the meaning, 
 short passages have been re-written. In this work Long's 
 translation and a German version by Cless have afforded 
 me invaluable help, and in some cases I have made use of a 
 very charming, though antiquated, seventeenth century 
 translation by Meric Casaubon. In revising Book lY., I 
 have used Crossley's most helpful Notes. My warm thanks 
 are due to Mr. R. D. Hicks and Mr. E. Y. Arnold of 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, and to Mr. R. Garnett of the 
 British Museum, for valuable help in this work and in the 
 correction of proofs. 
 
 ALICE ZIx\IMERN. 
 
I 
 
BOOK I. 
 
THE EMPEROR MARCUS AUREUUS ANTONINUS: 
 
 HIS MEDITATIONS 
 
 OR, DISCOURSES WITH HIMSELF. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 I. ii^^^»^HE example of my grandfather Verus 
 gave me a good disposition, not prone 
 to anger. " 
 
 2. By the recollection of my father's 
 character, I learned to be both modest 
 
 and manly. 
 
 3, As for my mother, she taught me to have re- 
 gard for religion, to be generous and open-handed, and 
 not only to forbear from doing anybody an ill turn, 
 but not so much as to endure the thought of it. By her . 
 likewise I was bred to a plain, inexpensive way of 
 living, very different from l;he common luxury of the 
 rich. 
 
 4. I have to thank my great-grandfather that I did 
 not go to a public school, but had good masters at 
 home, and learnt to know that one ought to spend 
 liberally on such things. 
 
lo MEDITATIONS. 
 
 5. From my governor I learned not to join either 
 the green or the blue faction on the race-ground, nor to 
 support the Parmularius or Scutarius at the gladi- 
 ators' shows. He taught me also to put my own 
 hand to business upon occasion, to endure hardship and 
 fatigues, and to throw the necessities of nature into 
 a little compass ; that I ought not to meddle with 
 other people's business, nor be easy in giving credit to 
 informers. 
 
 6. From Diognetus, to shun vain pursuits, not to be 
 led away with the impostures of wizards and sooth- 
 sayers, who pretend they can discharge evil spirits, 
 and do strange feats by the strength of a charm ; not 
 to keep quails for the pit, nor to be eager after any 
 such thinor. This Dioo:netus taup^ht me to bear 
 freedom and plain-dealing in others, and apply myself 
 to philosophy. He also procured me the instruction 
 of Bacchius, Tandasis, and Marcianus. He likewise 
 put me upon improving myself by writing dialogues 
 when I was a boy; prevailed with me to prefer a 
 couch covered with hides to a bed of state ; and 
 reconciled me to other like rio;ours of the Grecian 
 discipline. 
 
 7. It was Rusticus that first made me desire to live 
 rightly, and come to a better state ; who prevented 
 me from running into the vanity of the sophists, either 
 by writing speculative treatises, haranguing upon 
 moral subjects, or making a fantastical appearance or 
 display of generosity or discipline. This philosopher 
 kept me from yielding to the charms of rhetoric and 
 poetry, from affecting the character of a man of 
 
MEDITATIONS. ii 
 
 pleasantry, from wearing my senator's robe in the 
 house, or anything of this kind which looks like con- 
 ceit and affectation. He taus^ht me to write letters in 
 a plain, unornamental style, like that dated by him 
 from Siniiessa to my mother. By his instructions I 
 was persuaded to be easily reconciled to those who had 
 misbehaved themselves and disobliged me, as soon as 
 they desired reconciliation. And of the same master I 
 learned to read an author carefully. Not to take up 
 with a superficial view, or assent quickly to idle 
 talkers. And, to conclude with him, he gave me his 
 own copy of Epictetus's memoirs. 
 
 8. Apollonius taught me to give my mind its due 
 freedom, and disengage it from dependence upon 
 chance, and not to regard, though ever so little, 
 anything uncountenanced by reason. To maintain an 
 equality of temper, even in acute pains, and loss of 
 children, or tedious sickness. His practice was an 
 excellent instance, that a man may be forcible and yet 
 unbend his humour as occasion requires. The heavi- 
 ness and impertinence of his scholars could seldom 
 rouse his ill-temper. As for his learning, and the 
 peculiar happiness of his manner in teaching, he was 
 so far from being proud of himself upon this score, 
 that one might easily perceive, he thought it one of 
 the least things which belonged to him. This great 
 man let me into the true secret of receiving an 
 obligation, without either lessening myself, or seeming 
 ungrateful to my friend. 
 
 9. The philosopher Sextus recommended good^ 
 humour to me, and showed me the pattern of a house- 
 
 259 
 
12 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 hold governed in a fatherly manner. He also bade 
 me make nature and reason my rule to live by. By 
 his precedent I was instructed to appear with an 
 unaffected gravity, to study the temper and circum- 
 stances of my friends in order to oblige them. I saw 
 him bearing with the ignorant and undiscerning, 
 complaisant and obliging to all people, so that his con- 
 versation was more charming than flattery ; and yet 
 at the same time he was held in the highest reverence 
 by others. Conversing with this philosopher helped 
 me to draw up a true, intelligible, and methodical 
 scheme for life and manners, and never so much as 
 to show the least sign of anger, or any other disturb- 
 ing thought, but to be perfectly calm and indifferent^ 
 yet tender-hearted. However, he let me see in him- 
 self that a man might show his good-will significantly 
 enough, without noise and display, and likewise possess 
 great knowledge without vanity and ostentation. 
 
 10. Alexander the Grammarian taught me not to be 
 ruggedly critical about words, nor find fault with 
 people for improprieties of phrase or pronunciation, 
 but to set them right by speaking the thing properly 
 myself, and that either by way of answer, assent, or 
 inquiry, or by some such other indirect and suitable 
 correction. 
 
 11. Fronto taught me that envy, tricking, and 
 dissimulation are the character and consequences of 
 tyranny ; and that those we call patricians have 
 commonly not much fatherly feeling in them. 
 
 12. Alexander the Platonist advised me, that with- 
 out necessity I should never say to anyone, nor write 
 
MEDITATIONS. 13 
 
 in a letter, that I am not at leisure, nor make business 
 an excuse to decline frequently the offices of humanity 
 to those we dwell with. 
 
 13. I learned of Catulus not to slight a friend for 
 making a remonstrance, though it should happen to 
 be unreasonable, but rather to endeavour to restore 
 him to his natural humour. That, like Domitius and 
 Athenodotus, I should always speak well of those 
 who had the care of my education, and that I 
 should always preserve an hearty affection for my 
 children. 
 
 14. I am indebted to Severus for the love I bear to 
 my relations, and towards justice and trath. He like- 
 wise made me acquainted with the character and senti- 
 ments of Cato, Brutus, Thrasea, Helvidius, and Dio ; 
 and gave me the idea of an equal commonwealth, with 
 equal rights and equal speech, and also of a monarchy, 
 where the liberty of the subject was principally re- 
 garded. To mention some more of my obligations to 
 him : — It was of him I learned not to grow wise by 
 starts and sudden fancies, but to be a constant admirer 
 of philosophy and improvement ; that a man ought to 
 be generous and obliging, hope the best of matters, 
 and never question the affection of his friends ; to be 
 free in showing a reasonable dislike of another, and 
 no less clear in his own expectations and desires ; and 
 not to put his friends to the trouble of divining what 
 he would be at. 
 
 15. I learned from Maximus to command myself, 
 and not to be too much drawn towards anything; to 
 be full of spirits under sickness and misfortune ; to 
 
14 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 appear with modesty, obligingness, and dignity of 
 behaviour ; to turn off business smoothly as it arises, 
 without drudging and complaint. Whatever he did, 
 all men believed him, that as he spoke, so he thought, 
 and whatever he did, that he did with a good intent. 
 He attained that greatness of mind, not to wonder or 
 start at anything ; neither to hurry an enterprise, 
 nor sleep over it; never to be puzzled or dejected, nor 
 to put on an appearance of friendliness ; not to be 
 angry or suspicious, but ever ready to do good, and to 
 forgive and speak truth ; and all this as one who 
 seemed rather of himself to be straight and right, than 
 ever to have been rectified. Nobody ever could 
 fancy they were slighted hy him, or dared to think 
 themselves his betters. Besides all this, he had an 
 agreeable wit. 
 
 16. In my adoptive father I observed a smooth 
 and inoffensive temper, with great steadiness in keep- 
 ing close to measures judiciously taken ; a greatness 
 proof against vanity and the impressions of pomp 
 and power. From him a prince might learn to love 
 business and action, and be constantly at it; to be 
 willing to hear out any proposal relating to public 
 advantage, and undeviatingly give every man his due ; 
 to understand the critical seasons and circumstances 
 for rigour or remissness. To have no boy-favourites. 
 Not to stand upon points of state and prerogative, 
 but to leave his nobility at perfect liberty in their 
 visits and attendance; and when he was upon his 
 progress, no man lost his favour for not being at 
 leisure to follow the court. To debate matters nicely 
 
MEDITATIONS. 15 
 
 and thoroughly at the council-board, and then to 
 stand by what was resolved on, yet not hastily to give 
 up the inquiry, as one easily satisfied with sudden 
 notions and apprehensions. To be constant to a 
 friend, without tiring or fondness. To be always 
 satisfied and cheerful. To reach forward into the 
 future, and manage accordingly. Not to neglect the 
 least concerns, but all without hurry, or being embar- 
 rassed. Farther, by observing his methods and ad- 
 ministration, I had the opportunity of learning how 
 much it was the part of a prince to check the excesses 
 of panegyric and flattery. To have his magazines 
 and exchequer well furnished. To be frugal in his 
 expenses, without minding being lampooned for his 
 pains. Not to worship the gods to superstition ; not 
 to court the populace, either by prodigality or compli- 
 ment; but rather to be sober and firm upon all 
 occasions, keeping things in a steady decorum, with- 
 out chopping and changing of measures. To enjoy 
 the plenty and magnificence of a sovereign fortune 
 without bragging, and yet without making excuse ; so 
 as freely to enjoy them when present, but when 
 wanting, not to be mortified at the loss of them. And 
 to behave himself so that no man could charge him 
 with sophistry, or buff'ooning, or being a pedant. No ; 
 he was a person mature and perfect, scorning flattery, 
 and thoroughly qualified to govern himself and others. 
 As for those that were philosophers in earnest, he had 
 a great regard for them, but without reproaching those 
 who were otherwise, nor yet being led away by these. 
 He was condescending and familiar in conversation^ 
 
i6 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 and pleasant too, but not to tiresomeness and excess. 
 As for his health, he was not anxious about it, like 
 one fond of living, or over-studious of bodily ap- 
 pearance, and yet managed his constitution with 
 that care as seldom to stand in need of the assist- 
 ance of phj^sic or outward applications. Farther, he 
 never envied and browbeat those that were eminent 
 in any faculty or science, as eloquence, or knowledge 
 of the laws or morals ; but, on the contrary, encouraged 
 them in their ways, and promoted their reputation. 
 He observed fitness and custom in all his actions, and 
 yet did not seem to regard them. He was not fickle 
 and fluttering in his humour, but constant both to 
 place and undertaking; and I have seen him, after 
 violent fits of the headache, return fresh and vigorous 
 to his usual business. He kept but few things to 
 himself, and those were secrets of government. He 
 was very moderate and frugal in shows, public 
 buildings, liberalities, and such like, being one that 
 did not so much regard the popularity as the right- 
 ness of an action. It was none of his custom to bathe 
 at unusual hours, or to be overcome with the fancy of 
 building, to study eating and luxury, to value the 
 curiosity of his clothes, or the shape and person of his 
 servants. His cloak came from Lorium, his villa on 
 the coast; at Lanuvium, he wore for the most part 
 only a tunic; and at Tusculum he would scarcely 
 so much as put on a cloak without making an excuse 
 for it. To take him altogether, there was nothing of 
 ruggedness, immodesty, or eagerness in his temper. 
 Neither did he ever seem to drudge and sweat at the 
 
MED IT A TIONS. 1 7 
 
 helm. Things were dispatched at leisure, and without 
 being felt ; and j^et the administration was carried on 
 without confusion, with great order, force, and uni- 
 formity. Upon the whole, what was told of Socrates 
 is applicable to him ; for he was so much master of 
 himself, that he could either take or leave those con- 
 veniences of life with respect to which most people 
 are either uneasy without them, or intemperate with 
 them. Now, to hold on with fortitude in one con- 
 dition and sobriety in the other is a proof of a great 
 soul and an impregnable virtue, such as he showed in 
 the sickness of Maximus. 
 
 17. I have to thank the gods that my grandfathers, 
 parents, sister, preceptors, relations, friends, and 
 domestics were almost all of them persons of probity, 
 and that I never happened to disoblige or misbehave 
 myself towards any of them, notwithstanding that my 
 disposition was such, that, had occasion offered, I 
 might have acted thus ; but by the goodness of the 
 gods, I met with no provocations to reveal my infirmi- 
 ties. It is likewise by their providence that my child- 
 hood was no longer managed by my grandfather's 
 mistress ; that I preserved the flower of my youth ; 
 that I was subject to the emperor my father, and bred 
 under him, who was the most proper person living to 
 put me out of conceit with pride, and to convince me 
 that it is possible to live in a palace without the cere- 
 mony of guards, without richness and distinction of 
 habit,' without torches, statues, or such other marks of 
 royalty and state ; and that a prince may shrink him- 
 self almost into the figure of a private gentleman, and 
 
1 8 MED IT A TIONS. 
 
 yet act, nevertheless, with all the force and majesty 
 of his character when the common weal requires it. 
 It is the favour of the gods that I happened to meet 
 with a brother, whose behaviour and affection is such 
 as to contribute both to my pleasure and improve- 
 ment. It is also their blessing that my children were 
 neither stupid nor misshapen ; that I made no far- 
 ther advances in rhetoric, poetry, and such other- 
 amusements, which possibly might have engaged my 
 fancy too far, had I found myself a considerable pro- 
 ficient; that, without asking, I gave my governors 
 that share of honour which they seemed to desire, 
 and did not put them off from time to time with pro- 
 mises and excuses, because they were yet but young ; 
 that I had the happiness of being acquainted with 
 Apollonius, Rusticus, and Maximus ; that I have a 
 clear idea of the life in accordance with nature, and 
 the impression frequently refreshed : so that, con- 
 sidering the extraordinary assistance and directions 
 of the gods, it is impossible for me to miss the road of 
 nature unless by refusing to be guided by the dictates 
 and almost sensible inspirations of heaven. It is by 
 their favour that my constitution has held out so well, 
 under a life of fatigue and business ; that I never had 
 to do with Benedicta or Theodotus ; and, when I fell 
 into some fits of love, I was soon cured ; that when I 
 fell out with Rusticus, as it frequently happened, I 
 was not transported into any act of violence ; that I 
 had the satisfaction of my mother's life and company 
 a considerable while, though she was destined to die 
 young ; that when I was willing to relieve the 
 
MEDITATIONS. 19 
 
 necessities of others, I was never told that the 
 exchequer was empty ; and, again, it is they that kept 
 me from standing in need of any man's fortune. 
 Farther, it is from them that my wife is so very 
 obedient and affectionate, and so remote from luxury ; 
 that I had choice of good governors for my children ; 
 that remedies were prescribed me in a dream against 
 giddiness and spitting of blood, as at Cajeta, by 
 an ointment ; that when I had a mind to look 
 into philosophy, I did not meet with a sophist to 
 instruct me ; that I did not spend too much time in 
 reading history, chopping logic, or considering the 
 heavens. Now all these points could never have been 
 compassed without a protection from above and the 
 gods presiding over fate. 
 
 This %vaB luritten in the country of the Quadi, at 
 the Granua. 
 

 BOOK II. 
 
 
BOOK IT, 
 
 EMEMBER to put yourself in mind 
 every morning, that before night it 
 will be your luck to meet with some 
 busy-body, with some ungrateful, 
 abusive fellow, with some knavish, 
 envious, or unsociable churl or other. Now all this 
 perverseness in them proceeds from their ignorance of 
 good and evil ; and since it has fallen to my share to 
 understand the natural beauty of a good action, and 
 the deformity of an ill one — since I am satisfied the 
 person disobliging is of kin to me, and though we are 
 not just of the same flesh and blood, yet our minds 
 are nearly related, being both extracted from the 
 Deity — I am likewise convinced that no man can do 
 me a real injury, because no man can force me to 
 misbehave myself, nor can I find it in my heart to hate 
 or to be angry with one of my own nature and family. 
 For we are all made for mutual assistance, as the feet, 
 the hands, and the eyelids, as the rows of the upper 
 and under teeth, from whence it follows that clashing 
 and opposition is perfectly unnatural. Now such an 
 unfriendly disposition is implied in resentment and 
 aversion. 
 
24 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 2. This being of mine, all there is of it, consists of 
 flesh, breath, and the ruling part. Away with your 
 books then. Suffer not your mind any more to 
 be distracted. It is not permitted. As for your 
 body, value it no more than if you were just 
 expiring. For what is it ? Nothing but a little 
 blood and bones ; a piece of network, wrought 
 out of nerves, veins, and arteries twisted together. 
 In the next place, consider what sort of thing 
 your br 3ath is ; why, only a little air, and that 
 not constant, but every moment let out of your lungs, 
 and sucked in again. The third part of your composi- 
 tion is the ruling part. Now consider thus : you are 
 an old man : do not suffer this noble part of you under 
 servitude any longer. Let it not be moved by the 
 springs of selfish passions ; let it not quarrel with fate, 
 be uneasy at the present, or afraid of the future. 
 
 8. Providence shines clearly through the works of 
 the gods; even the works of chance are^not without 
 dependence on Nature, being only an effect of that 
 chain of causes which are under a providential regula- 
 tion. Indeed, all things flow from this fountain; 
 besides, there is necessity, and the interest of the 
 whole universe, of which you are a part. Now, that 
 which is both the product and support of universal 
 Nature, must by consequence be serviceable to every 
 part of it ; but the world subsists upon change, and is 
 preserved by the mutation of the simple elements, and 
 also of things mixed and compounded, and what it 
 loses one way it gets another. Let these reflections 
 satisfy you, and make them your rule to live by. As 
 
MEDITATIONS. 25 
 
 for books, cast away your thirst after them, that you 
 may not die complaining, but go off in good-humour, 
 and heartily thank the gods for what you have had. 
 
 4. Remember how often you have postponed mind- 
 ing your interest, and let slip those opportunities 
 the gods have given you. It is now high time to 
 consider what sort of world you are part of, and 
 from what kind of governor of it you are descended ; 
 that you have a set period assigned you to act in, 
 and unless you improve it to brighten and compose 
 your thoughts, it will quickly run off with you, and be 
 lost beyond recovery. 
 
 5. Take care always to remember that you are a 
 man and a E-oman ; and let every action be done with 
 perfect and unaffected gravity, humanity, freedom, 
 and justice. And be sure you entertain no fancies, 
 which may give check to these qualities. This is 
 possible, if you will but perform every action as 
 though it were your last ; if your appetites and 
 passions do not cross upon your reason ; if you keep 
 clear of rashness, and have nothing of insincerity 
 and self-love to infect you, and do not complain of your 
 destiny. You see what a few points a man has to 
 gain in order to attain to a godlike way of living ; 
 for he that comes thus far, performs all which the 
 immortal powers will require of him. 
 
 6. Continue to dishonour yourself, my soul ! Neither 
 will you have much time left to do yourself honour. 
 For the life of each man is almost up already ; and 
 yet, instead of paying a due regard to yourself, you 
 place your happiness in the souls of other men. 
 
26 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 7. Do not let accidents disturb, or outward objects 
 engross your thoughts, but keep your mind quiet and 
 disengaged, that you may be at leisure to learn some- 
 thing good, and cease rambling from one thing to 
 another. There is likewise another sort of roving to 
 be avoided ; for some people are busy and yet do 
 nothing ; they fatigue and wear themselves out, and 
 yet aim at no goal, nor propose any general end of 
 action or design. 
 
 8. A man can rarely be unhappy by being ignorant 
 of another's thoughts ; but he that does not attend to 
 the motions of his own is certainly unhappy. 
 
 9. These reflections ought always to be at hand : — 
 To consider well the nature of the universe and my 
 own nature, together with the relation betwixt them, 
 and what kind of part it is, of what kind of whole ; 
 and that no mortal can hinder me from acting and 
 speaking conformably to the being of which I am a pari;. 
 
 10. Theophrastus, in comparing the degrees of faults 
 (as men would commonly distinguish them), talks like 
 a philosopher when he affirms that those instances of 
 misbehaviour which proceed from desire are greater 
 than those of which anger is the occasion. Por a 
 man that is angry seems to quit his hold of reason 
 unwillingly and with pain, and start out of rule before 
 he is aware. But he that runs riot out of desire, 
 being overcome by pleasure, loses all hold on himself, 
 and all manly restraint. Well, then, and like a philo- 
 sopher, he said that he of the two is the more to 
 be condemned that sins with pleasure than he that 
 sins with grief. For the first looks like an injured 
 
MED IT A TIONS. 2 7 
 
 person, and is vexed, and, as it were, forced into a 
 
 passion ; whereas the other begins with inclination, 
 
 and commits the fault through desire. 
 
 11. Manage all your actions, words, and thoughts 
 
 accordingly, since you may at any moment quit life. 
 
 And what great matter is the business of dying ? If 
 
 the gods are in being, you can suffer nothing, for 
 
 they will do you no harm. And if they are not, or take 
 
 no care of us mortals — why, then, a world without 
 
 either gods or Providence is not worth a man's while 
 
 to live in. But, in truth, the being of the gods, and 
 
 their concern in human affairs, is beyond dispute. 
 
 And they have put it entirely in a man's power not to 
 
 fall into any calamity properly so-called. And if 
 
 other misfortunes had been really evils, they would 
 
 have provided against them too, and furnished man 
 
 with capacity to avoid them. But how can that 
 
 which cannot make the man worse make his life so ? 
 
 I can never be persuaded that the universal Nature 
 
 neglected these matters through want of knowledge, 
 
 or, having that, yet lacked the power to prevent or 
 
 correct the error ; or that Nature should commit such 
 
 a fault, through want of power or skill, as to suffer 
 
 things, really good and evil, to happen promiscuously 
 
 to good and bad men. Now, living and dying, honour 
 
 and infamy, pleasure and^ pain, riches and poverty — 
 
 all these things are the common allotment of the 
 
 virtuous and vicious, because they have nothing 
 
 intrinsically noble or base in their nature ; and, 
 
 therefore, to speak properly, are neither good nor 
 
 bad. 
 260 
 
28 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 12. Consider how quickly all things are dissolved 
 and resolved ; the bodies and substances themselves 
 into the matter and substance of the world, and their 
 memories into its general age and time. Consider, too, 
 the objects of sense, particularly those which charm 
 us with pleasure, frighten us with pain, or are most ad- 
 mired for empty reputation. The power of thought will 
 show a man how insignificant, despicable, and paltry 
 these things are, and how soon they wither and die. It 
 will show him what those people are upon whose 
 fancy and good word the being of fame depends : 
 also the nature of death, which, if once abstracted 
 from the pomp and terror of the idea, will be found 
 nothing more than a pure natural action. Now he 
 that dreads the course of nature is a very child ; 
 
 X but this is not only a work of nature, but is also pro- 
 fitable to her. Lastly, we should consider how we are 
 related to the Deity, and in what part of our being, 
 and in what condition of that part. 
 
 13. Nothing can be more unhappy than the 
 curiosity of that man that ranges everywhere, and 
 digs into the earth, as the poet says, for discovery ; 
 that is wonderfully busy to force by conjecture a 
 passage into other people's thoughts, but does not 
 consider that it is sufficient to reverence and serve the 
 divinity within himself. And this service consists in 
 this, that a man keep himself pure from all violent 
 passion, and evil affection, from all rashness and 
 vanity, and from all manner of discontent towards 
 gods or men. For as for the gods, their administration 
 ought to be revered upon the score of excellency ; 
 
MEDITATIONS. 29 
 
 and as for men, their actions should be well taken for 
 the sake of common kindred. Besides, they are often 
 to be pitied for their ignorance of good and evil; 
 which incapacity of discerning between moral qualities 
 is no less a defect than that of a blind man, who 
 cannot distinguish between white and black. 
 
 14. Though you were to live three thousand, or, if 
 you please, thirty thousand of years, yet remember 
 that no man can lose any other life than that w^hich 
 he now lives, neither is he possessed of any other than 
 that which he loses. Whence it follows that the 
 longest life, as we commonly speak, and the shortest, 
 come all to the same reckoning. For the present is 
 of the same duration everywhere. Everybody's loss, 
 therefore, is of the same bigness, and reaches no 
 further than to a point of time, for no man is capable 
 of losing either the past or the future ; for how can 
 one be deprived of what he has not ? So that under 
 this consideration there are two notions worth re- 
 memJbering. One is, that Nature treads in a circle, and 
 has much the same face through the whole course 
 of eternity. And therefore it signifies not at all 
 whether a man stands gazing here an hundred, or two 
 hundred, or an infinity of years ; for all that he gets 
 by it is only to see the same sights so much the 
 cftener. The other hint is, that when the longest 
 and shortest-lived persons come to die, their loss is 
 equal ; they can but lose the present as being the only 
 thing they have ; for that which he has not, no man 
 can be truly said to lose. 
 
 15. Monimus, the Cynic philosopher, used to say 
 
3o MEDITATIONS. 
 
 that all things were but opinion. Now this saying 
 may undoubtedly prove serviceable, provided one 
 accepts it only as far as it is true. 
 
 16. There are several different ways by which a 
 man's soul may do violence to itself ; first of all, when 
 it becomes an abscess, and, as it were, an excrescence 
 on the universe, as far as in it lies. For to be vexed 
 at anything that happens is a separation of ourselves 
 from nature, in some part of which the natures of all 
 other things are contained. Secondly, it falls under 
 the same misfortune when it hates any person, or goes 
 against him, with an intention of mischief, which is 
 the case of the angry and revengeful. Thirdly, it 
 wrongs itself when it is overcome by pleasure or pain. 
 Fourthly, when it makes use of art, tricking, and 
 falsehood, in word or action. Fifthly, when it does 
 not know what it would be at in a business, but runs 
 on without thought or design, whereas even the least 
 undertaking ought to be aimed at some end. 
 Now the end of rational beings is to be governed 
 by the law and reason of the most venerable city and 
 constitution. 
 
 17. The extent of human life is but a point ; its 
 substance is in perpetual flux, its perceptions dim, 
 and the whole composition of the body tending to 
 corruption. The soul is but a whirl, fortune not to be 
 guessed at, and fame undiscerning — in a word, that 
 which belongs to the body is a flowing river, and what 
 the soul has is but dream and bubble. Life is but a 
 campaign, or course of travels, and after-fame is 
 oblivion. What is it, then, that will stick by a man ? 
 
MEDITATIONS. 31 
 
 Why, nothing but philosophy. Now, this consists 
 in keeping the divinity within us from injury and 
 disgrace, superior to pleasure and pain, doing nothing 
 at random, without any dissembling and pretence, and 
 independent of the motions of another. Farther, 
 philosophy brings the mind to take things as they 
 fall, and acquiesce in their distribution, inasmuch as all 
 events proceed from the same cause with itself ; and, 
 above all, to have an easy prospect of death, as being 
 nothing more than a dissolving of the elements of which 
 each thing is composed. Now, if the elements them- 
 selves are never the worse for runnino' off one into 
 another, what if they should all change and be dis- 
 solved ? Why should any man be concerned at the 
 consequence ? All this is but Nature's method ; now, 
 Nature never does any mischief. 
 Wriiian at Carnuntum. 
 
BOOK JII. 
 
BOOK IIL 
 
 !• B'^"')^'J^-^ ou^ht not only to remember that life 
 is wearing off, and a smaller part of it 
 is left daily, but also to consider that if 
 a man's life should happen to be longer 
 than ordinary, yet it is uncertain 
 whether his mind will keep pace with his years, and 
 afford him sense enough for business, and power to 
 contemplate things human and divine. For if the man 
 begins to dote, it is true the mere animal life goes on ; 
 he may breathe, and be nourished, and be furnished 
 with imagination and appetite; but to make any proper 
 use of himself, to fill up the measure of his duty, to 
 distinguish appearances, and to know whether it is 
 time for him to walk out of the world or not — as to 
 all such noble functions of reason and judgment, the 
 man is perfectly dead already. It concerns us, there- 
 fore, to push forward, and make the most of our 
 matters, for death is continually advancing ; and 
 besides that, our understanding sometimes dies before 
 us. 
 
 2. It is worth while to observe that the least 
 thing that happens naturally to things natural has 
 something in itself that is pleasing and delightful 
 
36 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 Thus, for example, there are cracks and little breaks 
 on the surface of a loaf, which, though never intended 
 by the baker, have a sort of agreeableness in them, 
 which invites the appetite. Thus figs, when they are 
 most ripe, open and gape ; and olives, when they fall 
 of themselves and are near decaying, are particularly 
 pretty to look at. The bending of an ear of corn, the 
 brow of a lion, the foam of a boar, and many other things, 
 if you take them singly, are far enough from being 
 beautiful ; but when they are looked on as effects of 
 the products of Nature, help to adorn and attract. 
 Thus, if a man has but inclination and thought enough 
 to examine the product of the universe, he will find 
 the most unpromising appearances in the results of 
 Nature not without charm, and that the more remote 
 appendages have somewhat to recommend them. One 
 thus prepared will be no less pleased to see the gaping 
 jaws of living beasts than the imitations of painters 
 and sculptors, and with chastened eyes he will find 
 beauty in the ripeness of age as well as in the blossom 
 of youth. I grant many of these things will not 
 charm everyone, but only those who are truly in 
 harmony with Nature and her works. 
 
 3. Hippocrates, who cured so many diseases, himself 
 fell ill and died. The Chaldeans, who foretold other 
 people's death, at last met with their own fate. 
 Alexander, Pompey, and Julius Csesar, who had 
 destroyed so many towns, and cut off so many 
 thousands of horse and foot in the field, were forced 
 at last to march off themselves. Heraclitus, who 
 argued so much about the universal conflagration, died 
 
MEDITATIONS. 37 
 
 through water by a dropsy. Democritus was eaten 
 up with vermin ; another sort of vermin destroyed 
 Socrates. What are these instances for ? Look you : 
 you have embarked, you have made your voyage and 
 your port; debark then without more ado. If you 
 happen to land upon another world, there will be 
 gods enough to take care of you ; but if it be your 
 fortune to drop into nothing, why, then you will be no 
 more solicited with pleasure and pain. Then you will 
 have done drudging for your outer covering, which is 
 the more unworthy in proportion as that which serves 
 it is worthy ; for the one is all soul, intelligence, and 
 divinity, whereas the other is but dirt and corruption. 
 4. For the future, do not spend your thoughts 
 upon other people, unless you are led to it by common 
 interest. For the prying into foreign business — that 
 is, musing upon the talk, fancies, and contrivances of 
 another, and guessing at the what and why of his 
 actions — does but make a man forget himself, and 
 ramble from his own guiding principle. He ought, 
 therefore, not to work his mind to no purpose, nor 
 throw a superfluous link into the chain of thought; 
 and more especially, to avoid curiosit}^ and malice in 
 his inquiry. Accustom yourself, therefore, to think 
 upon nothing but what you could freely reveal, if the 
 question were put to you ; so that if your soul were 
 thus laid open, there would nothing appear but what 
 was sincere, good-natured, and public-spirited — not 
 so much as one voluptuous or luxurious fancy, nothing 
 of hatred, envy, or unreasonable suspicion, nor aught 
 else which you could not bring to the light without 
 
38 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 blushing. A man thus qualified, who does not delay- 
 to assume the first rank among mortals, is a sort of 
 priest and minister of the gods, and makes a right use 
 of the Deity within him. By the assistance thereof, 
 he is preserved, uninfected with pleasure, invulnerable 
 against pain — out of the reach of injury, and above 
 the malice of evil people. Thus he wrestles in the 
 noblest fight, to hold his own against all his passions ; 
 and penetrated with the spirit of justice, welcomes with 
 his whole heart all that happens and is allotted to 
 him. He never minds other people's speech, thoughts, 
 or actions, unless public necessity and general good 
 require it. No; he keeps himself to his own busi- 
 ness, and contemplates that portion of the whole 
 allotted him by the fates, and endeavours to do the 
 first as it should be, and believes that his lot is good. 
 For every man's fate is suitable, since it is suited to 
 him. He considers that the rational principle is akin 
 in all men, and that general kindness and concern for 
 the whole world is no more than a piece of human 
 nature — that not every one's good opinion is not worth 
 the gaining, but only that of those who seek to live 
 in accordance with Nature. As for others, he knows 
 their way of living, both at home and abroad, by day 
 and by night, and their companions in their evil way 
 of life, and he bears it in mind. And, why, indeed, 
 should he value the commendation of such people, 
 who are not able even to please themselves ? 
 
 5. Be not unwilling, selfish, unadvised, or pas- 
 sionate in anything you do. Do not affect quaint- 
 ness and points of wit : neither talk nor meddle more 
 
MEDITATIONS. 39 
 
 than is necessary. Take care that the divinity within 
 you has a creditable charge to preside over; that you 
 appear in the character of your sex and age. Act like 
 a Roman Emperor that loves his country, and be 
 always in a readiness to quit the field at the first 
 summons ; and ere you claim your discharge, manage 
 your credit so, that you need neither swear yourself 
 nor want a voucher. Let your air be cheerful ; depend 
 not upon external supports, nor beg your tranquillity 
 of another. And, in a word, never throw away your 
 legs, to stand upon crutches. 
 
 6. If, in the whole compass of human life, you find 
 anything preferable to justice and truth ; to temperance 
 and fortitude ; to a mind self-satisfied with its ow^n 
 rational conduct, and entirely resigned to fate — if, I 
 say, you know anything better than this, turn to it 
 with your whole soul, and enjoy it, accounting it the 
 best. But if there is nothing more valuable than the 
 divinity implanted within you, and this is master of 
 its appetites, examines all impressions, and has 
 detached itself from the senses, as Socrates used to 
 say, and shows itself submissive to the government of 
 the gods, and helpful and benevolent to mankind — if 
 all things are trifles compared with this, give way to 
 nothing else. For if you are once inclined to any 
 such thing, it will no longer be in your power to give 
 your undivided preference to what is your own 
 peculiar good, for it is not lawful that anything of 
 another kind or nature, as either popular applause, or 
 power, or riches, or pleasures, should be sufifered to 
 contest with what is rationally and politically good. 
 
4d MEDITATIONS. 
 
 All these things, if but for a while they begin to 
 please, presently prevail, and pervert a man's mind. 
 Let your choice therefore run all one way, and be bold 
 and resolute for that which is best. Now what is 
 profitable is best. If that means profitable to man as 
 he is a rational being, stand to it ; but if it means 
 profitable to him as a mere animal, reject it, and keep 
 your judgment without arrogance. Only take care to 
 make inquiry secure. 
 
 7. Think nothing for your interest which makes 
 you break your word, quit your modesty, hate, suspect, 
 or curse any person, or inclines you to any practice 
 which will not bear the light and look the world in 
 the face. For he that values his mind and the worship 
 of his divinity before all other things, need act no 
 tragic part, laments under no misfortune, and wants 
 neither solitude nor company ; and, which is still more, 
 he will neither fly from life nor pursue it, but is 
 perfectly indifferent about the length or shortness of 
 the time in which his soul shall be encompassed by 
 his body. And if he were to expire this moment, he 
 is as ready for it as for any other action that may 
 be performed with modesty and decency. For all his 
 life long, this is his only care — that his mind may 
 always be occupied as befits a rational and social 
 creature. 
 
 8. If you examine a man that has been well- 
 disciplined and purified by philosophy, you will find 
 nothing that is unsound, foul, or false in him. Death 
 can never surprise his life as imperfect, so that 
 nobody can say he goes oflT the stage before his part is 
 
MEDITATIONS. 41 
 
 quite played. Besides, there is in him nothing servile 
 or affected ; he neither attaches himself too closely 
 to others, nor keeps aloof from them ; he is neither 
 responsible to them, nor does he avoid them. 
 
 9. Hold in honour your opinionative faculty, for this 
 alone is able to prevent any opinion from originating 
 in your guiding principle that is contrary to Nature 
 or the proper constitution of a rational creature. Now, 
 a rational constitution eojoins us to do nothing rashly, 
 and to be kindly disposed towards men, and to submit 
 willingly to the gods. 
 
 10. As for other speculations, throw them all out 
 of your head, excepting those few precepts above 
 mentioned — remembering withal, that every man's 
 life lies all within the present, which is but a point of 
 time ; for the past is spent, and the future is 
 uncertain. Life moves in a very narrow compass; 
 yes, and men live in a small corner of the world 
 too. And the most lasting fame will stretch but 
 to a sorry extent ; for, alas ! poor transitory mortals 
 who hand it down know little even of themselves, 
 much less of those who died long before their time. 
 
 11. To the foregoing hints you may add this which 
 follows : — make for yourself a particular description 
 and definition of every object that presents itself 
 to your mind, that you may thoroughly contem- 
 plate it in its own nature, bare and naked, wholly 
 and separately. And in your own mind call itself 
 and the parts of which it is composed, and into 
 which it will be resolved, by its own and proper 
 name ; for nothing is so likely to raise the mind 
 
42 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 to a pitch of greatness as the power truly and 
 methodically to examine and consider all things that 
 happen in this life, and so to penetrate into their 
 natures as to apprehend at once what sort of purpose 
 each thing serves, and what sort of universe makes use 
 of it — what value it bears to the whole, and what to 
 man, who is a citizen of that great capital, in respect 
 of which all other towns are no more than single 
 families — what is this object which makes an im- 
 pression on me ; how long can it last ; what virtue 
 does it require of me; is it good-nature, fortitude, 
 truth, simplicity, self-sufficiency, or any of the rest ? 
 On each occasion a man should be ready to pronounce, 
 " This was sent me by heaven, this by destiny, or the 
 combinations of fate, or by one of the same clan, 
 or family, or company as myself, who knows not 
 what is natural for him. But I do know; therefore I 
 am just and friendly to him, and treat him according 
 to the natural laws of our communion. However, in 
 things indifferent I take care to rate them according 
 to their respective value." 
 
 12. If you will be governed by reason, and manage 
 what lies before you with industry, vigour, and 
 temper ; if you will not run out after new distraction, 
 but keep your divinity pure, even as though you must 
 at once render it up again, your mind staunch and 
 well disciplined, as if this trial of behaviour were your 
 last ; and, if you will but cleave to this, and be 
 true to the best of yourself, fearing and desiring 
 nothing, but living up to your nature, standing boldly 
 by the truth of your word, and satisfied therewith. 
 
MEDITA TIONS. 43 
 
 then you will be a happy man. But the whole world 
 cannot hinder j^ou from so doing. 
 
 13. As surgeons always have their instruments and 
 knives ready for sudden occasions, so be you always 
 furnished with rules and principles to let you into 
 the knowledge of things human and divine, remem- 
 bering even in your slightest action the connection 
 these two have with each other. For without a 
 regard for things divine, you will fail in your 
 behaviour towards men ; and again, the reasoning 
 holds for the other side of the argument. 
 
 14. Wander at random no longer. Alas ! you have 
 no time left to peruse your diary, to read over the 
 Greek and Roman history, or so much as your own 
 commonplace book, which you collected to serve you 
 when vou were old. Hasten then towards the ojoal. Do 
 not flatter and deceive yourself. Come to your own 
 aid while yet you may, if you have a kindness for 
 yourself. 
 
 15. Men do not know in how many senses they 
 can take the words to steal, to buy, to soiu, to be quiet, 
 to see what should be done ; for this is not effected by 
 eyes, but by another kind of vision. 
 
 16. There are three things which belong to a man — 
 body, soul, and mind. Sensation belongs to the body, 
 impulse to the soul, and reason to the mind. To have 
 the senses stamped with the impression of an object 
 is common to brutes and cattle ; to be hurried and 
 convulsed with passion is the quality of beasts of 
 prey and men of pleasure — such as Phalaris and Nero 
 — of atheists and traitors, too, and of those who do 
 
 261 
 
44 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 not care what they do when no man sees them. Now, 
 since these qualities are common, let us find out the 
 mark of a man of probity. His distinction, then, lies 
 in letting reason guide his practice, in contentment 
 with all that is allotted him, keeping pure the divinity 
 within him, untroubled by a crowd of appearances, 
 preserving it tranquil, and obeying it as a god. He is 
 all truth in his words and justice in his actions ; and 
 if the whole world should disbelieve his integrity, 
 dispute his character, and question his happiness, he 
 would neither take it ill in the least, nor turn aside 
 from that path that leads to the aim of life, towards 
 which he must move pure, calm, well -prepared, and 
 with perfect resignation in his fate, 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
BOOK IV, 
 
 ''HEN the mind acts up to Nature, she is 
 rightly disposed, and takes things as 
 
 they come, and tacks about with her 
 circumstances; as for fixing the con- 
 dition of her activity, she is not at all solicitous about 
 that. It is true, she is not perfectly indifferent ; she 
 moves forward with a preference in her choice ; but if 
 anything comes cross, she falls to work upon it, and 
 like fire converts it into fuel ; for like this element, 
 when it is weak, it is easily put out, but when once 
 well kindled it seizes upon what is heaped upon it, 
 subdues it into its own nature, and increases by 
 resistance . 
 
 2. Let every action tend to some point, and be 
 perfect in its kind. 
 
 3. It is the custom of people to go to unfrequented 
 places and country places and the sea-shore and the 
 mountains for retirement; and this you often earnestly 
 desired. But, after all, this is but a vulgar fancy, 
 for it is in your power to withdraw into yourself 
 whenever you desire. Now one's own mind is a place 
 the most free from crowd and noise in the world, if 
 a man's thoughts are such as to ensure him perfect 
 
4^ ' Meditations. 
 
 tranquillity within, and this tranquillity consists in the 
 good ordering of the mind. Your way is, therefore, 
 to make frequent use of this retirement, and refresh 
 your virtue in it. And to this end, be always pro- 
 vided with a few short, uncontested notions, to keep 
 your understanding true, and send you back content 
 with the business to which you return. For instance : 
 What is it that troubles you ? It is the wickedness of 
 the world. If this be your case, out with your anti- 
 dote, and consider that rational beino-s were made for 
 mutual aivantage, that^forbearance is one part of 
 justice, and that people misbehave themselves against 
 their will. Consider, likewise, how many men have 
 embroiled themselves, and spent their days in dis- 
 putes, suspicion, and animosities ; and now they are 
 dead, and burnt to ashes. Be quiet, then, and disturb 
 yourself no more. But, it may be, the distribution of 
 the world does not please you. Recall the alternative, 
 and argue thus : either Providence or atoms rule the 
 universe. Besides, you may recall the proofs that the 
 world is, as it were, one great city and corporation. 
 But possibly the ill state of your health afflicts you. 
 Pray reflect, your intellect is not affected by the 
 roughness or smoothness of the currents of sensation, 
 if she will retire and take a view of her own privi- 
 lege and power. And when she has done this, 
 recollect the philosophy about pleasure and pain, to 
 which you have even now listened and assented. 
 Well ! it may be the concern of fame sits hard upon 
 you. If you are pinched here, consider how quickly 
 all things vanish, and are forgotten — what an immense 
 
MEDITATIONS. 49 
 
 chaos there stands on either side of eteruity. Ap- 
 plause ! consider the emptiness of the sound, the 
 precarious tenure, the little judgment of those that 
 give it us, and the narrow compass it is confined to ; 
 for the whole globe is but a point; and of this little, 
 how small is your habitation, and how insignificant 
 the number and quality of your admirers. Upon the 
 whole, do not forget to retire into the little realm of 
 your own. And, above all things, let there be no 
 straining nor struggling in the case, but move freely, 
 and contemplate matters like a human being, a citizen, 
 and a mortal. And among the rest of your stock, let 
 these two maxims be always ready : first, that things 
 cannot disturb the soul, but remain motionless with- 
 out, while disturbance springs from the opinion within 
 the soul. The second is, to consider that the scene is 
 just shifting and sliding off into nothing ; and that 
 you yourself have seen abundance of great alterations. 
 In a word, the world is all transformation, and life is 
 opinion. 
 
 4. If the faculty of understanding lies in common 
 amongst us all, then reason, the cause of it, must be 
 common too ; and that other reason too which governs 
 practice by commands and prohibitions. From 
 whence we may conclude, that mankind are under one 
 common law ; and if so, they must be fellow-citizens, 
 and belong to some body politic. From whence it 
 Avill follow, that the whole world is but one common- 
 wealth ; for certainly there is no other society in 
 which mankind can be incorporated. Now this 
 common fund of understanding, reason, and law is a 
 
50 • MEDITATIONS. 
 
 commodity of this same country, or wliicli way do 
 mortals light on it ? For as the four distinctions in 
 my body belong to some general head and species of 
 matter; for instance, the earthy part in me comes 
 from the division of earth ; the watery belongs to 
 another element ; the airy particles flow from a third 
 spring, and those of fire from one distinct from all 
 the former (for nothing can no more produce some- 
 thing, than something can sink into nothing) ; thus 
 it is evident that our understanding must proceed 
 from some source or other. 
 
 5. Death and generation are both mysteries of 
 nature, and somewhat resemble each other ; for the 
 first does but dissolve those elements the latter had 
 combined. Now there is nothing that a man need be 
 ashamed of in all this ; nothing that is opposed to 
 his nature as a rational being, and to the design of 
 his constitution. 
 
 6. Practices and dispositions are generally of a 
 piece ; such usage from such sort of men is in a 
 manner necessary. To be surprised at it, is in 
 effect to wonder that the fig-tree yields juice. Pray 
 consider that both you and your enemy are dropping 
 off, and that ere long your very memories will be 
 extinguished. 
 
 7. Do not suppose you are hurt, and your complaint 
 ceases. Cease your complaint, and you are not 
 hurt. 
 
 8. That which does not make a man worse, does 
 not make his life worse ; and by consequence he has 
 no harm either within or without. 
 
MEDITA TIONS. S 1 
 
 9. The nature of the geaeral good was obliged to 
 act in this manner. 
 
 1 U. Take notice that all events turn out justly, and 
 that if you observe nicely, you will not only perceive a 
 connection between causes and effects, but a sovereign 
 distribution of justice, which presides in the adminis- 
 tration, and gives everything its due. Observe, then, 
 as you have begun, and let all your actions answer 
 the character of a good man — I mean a good man in 
 the strictness and notion of philosophy. 
 
 11. If a man affronts you, do not accept his opinion 
 or think just as he w^ould have you do. No, look 
 upon things as reality presents them. 
 
 12. Be always provided with principles for these 
 two purposes : — First, To engage in nothing but what 
 reason dictates, what the sovereign and legislative 
 part of you shall suggest, for the interest of mankind. 
 Secondly, To be disposed to quit your opinion, and 
 alter your measures, when a friend shall give you 
 good grounds for so doing. But then the reasons of 
 changing your mind ought to be drawn from some 
 consideration regarding justice and public good, or 
 some such generous motive, and not because it pleases 
 your fancy, or promotes your reputation. 
 
 13. Have you any sense in your head? Yes. 
 Why do you not make use of it then ? For if this 
 faculty does bat do its part, I cannot see what more 
 you need wish for. 
 
 14. At present your nature is distinct ; but ere 
 long you will vanish into the whole. Or, rather, you 
 will be returned into that universal reason which gave 
 you your being. 
 
S2 MEDITAT/ONS. 
 
 15. When frankincense is thrown upon the altar, 
 one grain usually falls before another ; but it makes 
 no difference. 
 
 16. Do but return to the principles of wisdom, and 
 those who take you now for a monkey or a wild beast, 
 will make a god of you in a week's time. 
 
 17. Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to 
 throw away. Death stands at 3^our elbow. Be good 
 for something, while you live and it is in your power. 
 
 18. What a great deal of time and ease that man 
 gains who lets his neighbour's words, thoughts, and 
 behaviour alone, confines his inspections to himself, 
 and takes care that his own actions are -honest and 
 righteous. " Truly," as Agathon observes, " we should 
 not wander thus, but run straight to the goal with- 
 out rambling and impertinence." 
 
 19. He that is so very solicitous about being 
 talked of when he is dead, and makes his memory his 
 inclination, does not consider that all who knew^ him 
 will quickly be gone. That his fame will grow 
 less in the next generation, and flag upon the 
 course ; and handed from one to another by men 
 who eagerly desire it themselves, and are quenched 
 themselves, it will be quenched at last ; but granting 
 your memory and your men immortal, what is their 
 panegyric to you ? I do not sa}^, when you are dead, 
 but if you were living, what would commendation 
 signify, unless for some reason of utility ? To con- 
 clude ; if 3^ou depend thus servilely upon the good 
 word of other people, you will be unworthy of your 
 nature. 
 
MEDITATION'S. %% 
 
 20. Whatever is good has that quality from itself; 
 it is finished by its own nature, and commendation is 
 no part of it. Why, then, a thing is neither better 
 nor worse for being praised. This holds concerning 
 things which are called good in the common way of 
 speaking, as the products of nature and art ; what do 
 you think, then, of that which deserves this character 
 in the strictest propriety ? It wants nothing foreign 
 to complete the idea any more than law, truth, good 
 nature, and sobriety. Do any of these virtues stand 
 in need of a good word, or are they the worse for a 
 bad one? I hope an emerald will shine nevertheless 
 for a man's being silent about the worth of it. 
 Neither is there any necessity of praising gold, ivory, 
 purple, a lyre, a dagger, a little flower, or a shrub. 
 
 21. If human souls have a being after death, which 
 way has the air made room for them from all eternity ? 
 Pray, how has the earth been capacious enough to re- 
 ceive all the bodies buried in it ? The resolution of 
 this latter question will satisfy the former. For as a 
 corpse after some continuance by change and dissolu- 
 tion makes way for another, so when a man dies, 
 and the spirit is let loose into the air, it holds out for 
 some time, after which it is changed, diifused, and 
 kindled in flame, or else absorbed into the generative 
 principle of the universe. And thus they make room 
 for succession. And this may serve for an answer 
 upon the supposition of the soul's surviving the body. 
 Besides, we are not only to consider the vast number 
 of bodies disposed of in the manner above mentioned ; 
 but what an infinite number are every day devoured 
 
54 Meditations. 
 
 by mankind, and other living creatures, and as it were 
 buried in their bodies. And yet by the transmutation 
 of the food into blood, or into fire and air, there is 
 space enough. And now which way can a man in- 
 vestigate the truth ? Why, in order to this, he must 
 divide the thing in question into the causal and 
 material elements. 
 
 22. Do not run riot ; keep your intentions honest, 
 and your convictions sure. 
 
 23. Whatever is agreeable to you, Universe, is so 
 to me too. Nothing is early or late for me that is 
 seasonable for you. Everything is fruit for me which 
 your seasons bring, oh Nature. From you all things 
 proceed, subsist in you, and return to you. And if 
 the poet said, '' Dear City of Cecrops," may we not 
 also say, " Dear City of God " ? 
 
 24. *' If you would live at your ease," says Demo- 
 critus, "manage but a few things." I think it had 
 been better if he had said, *' Do nothing but what is 
 necessary ; and what becomes the reason of a social 
 being, and in the order too it prescribes it." For by 
 this rule a man has the double pleasure of making his 
 actions good and few into the bargain. For the 
 greater part of what we say and do, being unnecessary, 
 if this were but once retrenched, we should have both 
 more leisure and less disturbance. And therefore 
 before a man sets forward he should ask himself this 
 question, *' Am I not upon the verge of something 
 unnecessary ?" Farther, we should apply this hint to 
 what we think, as well as to what we do. For imper- 
 tinence of thought draws unnecessary action after it. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 55 
 
 25. Make an experiment upon yourself, and 
 examine your proficiency in a life of virtue. Try how 
 you can acquiesce in your fate, and whether your own 
 honesty and good nature will content you. 
 
 26. Have you seen this side? Pray view the 
 other too. Never be disturbed, but let your purpose 
 be single. Is any man guilty of a fault ? It is to 
 himself then. Has any advantage happened to you ? 
 It is the bounty of fate. It was all of it preordained 
 you by the universal cause, and woven in your destiny 
 from the beginning. On the whole, life is but short, 
 therefore be just and prudent, and make the most of 
 it. And when you divert yourself, be always upon 
 3'our guard. 
 
 27. The world is either the effect of contrivance or 
 chance ; if the latter, it is a world for all that, that is 
 to say, it is a regular and beautiful structure. Now 
 can any man discover symmetry in his own shape, and 
 yet take the universe for a heap of disorder ? I say 
 the universe, in which the very discord and confusion 
 of the elements settles into harmony and order. 
 
 28. A black character, an effeminate character, an 
 obstinate character, brutish, savage, childish, silly, 
 false, scurrilous, mercenary, tyrannical. 
 
 29. Not to know what is in the world, and not to 
 know what is done in the world, comes much to the 
 same thing, and a man is one way no less a stranger 
 than the other. He is no better than a deserter that 
 flies from public law. He. is a blind man that shuts 
 the eyes of his understanding ; and he is a beggar 
 that is not furnished at home, but wants the assistance 
 
56 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 of another. He that frets himself because things 
 do not happen just as he would have them, and secedes 
 and separates himself from the law of universal 
 nature, is but a sort of an ulcer of the world, never 
 considering that the same cause which produced the 
 displeasing accident made him too. And lastly, he 
 that is selfish, and cuts off his own soul from the 
 universal soul of all rational beings, is a kind of 
 voluntary outlaw. 
 
 30. This philosopher has never a tunic to his coat, 
 the other never a book to read, and a third is half 
 naked, and yet they are none of them discouraged. 
 One learned man says, '' I have no bread, yet I abide 
 by reason." Another, '' I have no profit of my learn- 
 ing, yet I too abide by reason." 
 
 31. Be satisfied with your business, and learn to 
 love what you were bred to ; and as to the remainder 
 of your life, be entirely resigned, and let the gods do 
 their pleasure with your body and your soul. And 
 when this is done, be neither slave nor tyrant to 
 anybody. 
 
 32. To begin somewhere, consider how the world 
 went in Vespasian's time ; consider this, I say, and 
 you will find mankind just at the same pass they are 
 now : some marrying and some concerned in educa- 
 tion, some sick and some dying, some fighting and 
 some feasting, some drudging at the plough and some 
 upon the exchange ; some too affable and some 
 overgrown with conceit ; one full of jealousy and 
 the other of knavery. Here you might find a group 
 wishing for the leath of their friends, and there a 
 
AfEDITATIO^rS. 57 
 
 seditious club complaining of the times. Some were 
 lovers and some misers, some grasped at the consul- 
 ship and some at the sceptre. Well ! all is over 
 with that generation long since. Come forward then 
 to the reign of Trajan. Now here you will find 
 the same thing, but they are all gone too. Go on 
 with the contemplation, and carry it to other times 
 and countries, and here you will see abundance of 
 people very busy with their projects, who are quickly 
 resolved into their elements. More particularly re- 
 collect those within your own memory, who have been 
 hurried on in these vain pursuits ; how they have 
 overlooked the dignity of their nature, and neglected 
 to hold fast to that, and be satisfied with it. And 
 here you must remember to proportion your concern 
 to the weight and importance of each action. Thus, 
 if you refrain from trifling, you may part with amuse- 
 ments without regret. 
 
 33. Those words which were formerly current are 
 now become obsolete. Alas ! this is not all ; fame 
 tarnishes in time too, and men grow out of fashion 
 as well as language. Those celebrated names of 
 Camillus, Cseso, Yolesus, and Leonnatus are antiquated. 
 Those of Scipio, Cato, and Augustas will soon have the 
 same fortune, and those of Hadrian and Antoninus must 
 follow. All these things are transitory, and quickly 
 become as a tale that is told, and are swallowed uj) 
 in oblivion. I speak this of those who have been the 
 wonder of their age and who shone with unusual lustre. 
 But as for the r^st, they are no sooner dead than for- 
 gotten. Aud after all, what does fame everlasting 
 
SS MEDITATIONS. 
 
 mean ? Mere vanity. What then is it that is worth 
 one's while to be concerned for ? Why nothing but 
 this : to bear an honest mind, to act for the good of 
 society, to deceive nobody, to welcome everything 
 that happens as necessary and familiar, and flowing 
 from a like source. 
 
 34. Put yourself frankly into the hands of fate, 
 and let her spin you out what fortune she pleases. 
 
 35. He that does a memorable action, and those 
 that report it, are all but short-lived things. 
 
 36. Accustom yourself to consider that whatever 
 is produced, is produced by alteration ; that nature 
 loves nothing so much as changing existing things, 
 and producing new ones like them. For that which 
 exists at present is, as it were, the seed of what shall 
 spring from it. But if you take seed in the common 
 notion, and confine it to the field or the womb, you 
 have a dull fancy. 
 
 37. You are just taking leave of the world, and 
 yet you have not done with unnecessary desires. Are 
 you not yet above disturbance and suspicion, and fully 
 convinced that nothing without can hurt you ? You 
 have not yet learned to be friends with everybody, 
 and that to be an honest man is the only way to be a 
 wise one. 
 
 38. To understand th« true quality of people, you 
 must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits 
 and aversions. 
 
 39. Your pain cannot originate in another man's 
 mind, nor in any change or transformation of your 
 corporeal covering. Where then does it lie ? Why, 
 
Me£>ITATIONS. 59 
 
 ID that part of you that forms j adgments about things 
 evil. Do not imagine you are hurt, and you are 
 impregnable. Suppose then your flesh was hacked, 
 burnt, putrified, or mortified, yet let that part that 
 judges keep quiet ; that is, do not conclude that what 
 is common to good or ill men can be good or evil in 
 itself. For that which may be everybody's lot, must 
 in its own nature be indifferent. 
 
 40. You ought frequently to consider that the 
 world is an animal, consisting of one soul and body, 
 that an universal sense runs through the whole mass 
 of matter. You should likewise reflect how nature 
 acts by a joint effort, and how everything contributes 
 to the being of everything : and lastly, what con- 
 nection and subordination there is between causes and 
 effects. 
 
 41. Epictetus will tell you that you are a living 
 soul, that drags a corpse about with her. 
 
 42. Things that subsist upon change, and owe their 
 being to instability, can neither be considerably good 
 nor bad. 
 
 43. Time is like a rapid river, and a rushing tor- 
 rent of all that comes and passes. A thing is no 
 sooner well come, but it is past; and then another is 
 borne after it, and this too will be carried away. 
 
 44. Whatever happens is as common and well 
 known as a rose in the spring, or an apple in autumn. 
 Of this kind are diseases and death, calumny and 
 trickery, and every other thing which raises and de- 
 presses the spirits of unthinking people. 
 
 45. Antecedents and consequents are dexterously 
 
 . 262 
 
6o MEDITATIONS. 
 
 tied together in the world. Things are not carelessly 
 thrown on a heap, and joined more by number than 
 nature, but, as it were, rationally connected with each 
 other. And as the things that exist are harmoniously 
 connected, so those that become exhibit no mere suc- 
 cession, but an harmonious relationship. 
 
 40. Do not forget the saying of Heraclitus, "That 
 the earth dies into water, water into air, air into fire, 
 and so backward." Eemeraber likewise the story of 
 the man that travelled on without knowing to what 
 place the way would bring him ; and that many 
 people quarrel with that reason that governs the world, 
 and with which they are daily conversant, and seem 
 perfectly unacquainted with those things which occur 
 daily. Farther, we must not nod over business — for 
 even in sleep we seem to act, — neither are we to be 
 wholly governed by tradition ; for that is like 
 children, who believe anything their parents tell them. 
 
 47. Put the case, some god should acquaint you 
 you were to die to-morrow, or next day at farthest. 
 Under this warning, you would be a very poor wretch 
 if you should strongly solicit for the longest time. 
 For, alas ! how inconsiderable is the difference ? In 
 like manner, if you would reason right, you would 
 not be much concerned whether your life was to end 
 to-morrow or a thousand years hence. 
 
 48. Consider how many physicians are dead that 
 used to knit their brows over their patients ; how 
 many astrologers who thought themselves great men 
 by foretelling the death of others ; how many philo- 
 sophers have gone the way of all flesh, after all their 
 
MEDITATIONS. 61 
 
 learned disputes about dying and immortality ; how 
 many warriors, who had knocked so many men's 
 brains out ; how many tyrants, who managed the 
 power of life and death with as much insolence, as 
 if themselves had been immortal ; how many cities, 
 i I may say so, have given up the ghost : for in- 
 stance, Helice in Greece, Pompeii and Herculaneum 
 m Italy ; not to mention many besides. Do but recol- 
 lect your acquaintance, and here you will find one 
 man closing another's eyes, then he himself is laid out, 
 and this one by another. And all within a small 
 compass of time. In short, mankind are poor trans- 
 itory things ! They are one day in the rudiments 
 of life, and almost the next turned to mummy or 
 ashes. Your way is therefore to manage this minute 
 in harmony with nature, and part with it cheerfully ; 
 and like a ripe olive when you drop, be sure to speak 
 well of the mother that bare you, and make your 
 acknowledgments to the tree that produced you. 
 
 49. Stand firm like a rock, against which though 
 the waves batter, yet it stands unmoved, and they fall 
 to rest at last. How unfortunate has this accident 
 made me, cries such an one ! Not at all ! He should 
 rather say. What a happy mortal am I for being un- 
 concerned upon this occasion ! for being neither 
 crushed by the present, nor afraid of what is to come. 
 The thing might have happened to any other man as 
 well as myself; but for all that, everybody Avould 
 not have been so easy under it. Why then is not 
 the good fortune of the bearing more considerable 
 than the ill fortune of the happening ? Or, to speak 
 
62 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 properly, how can that be a misfortune to a mail 
 which does not frustrate his nature ? And how can 
 that cross upon a man's nature which is not opposed 
 to the intention and design of it ? Now what that 
 intention is, you know. To apply this reasoning : 
 does the present accident hinder your being just, 
 magnanimous, temperate and modest, judicious, truth- 
 ful, reverent, and unservile ? Now, when a man is 
 furnished with these good qualities, his nature has 
 what she would have. Farther, when anything grows 
 troublesome, recollect this maxim : This accident is 
 not a misfortune, but bearing it well turns it to an 
 advantage. 
 
 50. To consider those old people that resigned life 
 so unwillingly, is a common yet not unserviceable 
 aid in facing death. For Avhat are these long- 
 lived mortals more than those that went off in their 
 infancy ? What has become of Cadicianus, Fabius, 
 Julianus. and Lepidus, and others like them ? They 
 buried a great many, but came at last to it themselves. 
 Upon the whole, the difference between long and short 
 life is insignificant, especially if you consider the acci- 
 dents, the company, and the body you must go through 
 with. Therefore do not let a thought of this kind 
 affect you. Do but look upon the astonishing notion 
 of time and eternity ; what an immense deal has run 
 out already, and how infinite it is still in the future. 
 Do but consider this, and you will find three days 
 and three ages of life come much to the same 
 thing. 
 
 5 ] . Always go the shortest way to work. Now, 
 
MEDITATIONS. d^ 
 
 tlie nearest road to your business is the road of nature. 
 Let it be your constant method, then, to be sound in 
 word and in deed, and by this means you need not 
 grow fatigued, you need not quarrel, flourish, and dis- 
 semble like other people. 
 

 BOOK V. 
 
 w%^%\"wwwwww^ww^i^^'/fwwwwww^w 
 

 BOOK V. 
 
 1. I IB'jjx !B^"j §l HEN you find an unwillingness to rise 
 early in the morning, make this short 
 speech to yourself: I am getting up 
 now to do the business of a man; and 
 am I out of humour for sfoinor about 
 that I was made for, and for the sake of which I was 
 sent into the world ? Was T then designed for nothing 
 but to doze and keep warm beneath the counterpane ? 
 Well ! but this is a comfortable way of living. Grant- 
 ing that ; were you born only for pleasure ? were you 
 never to do anything ? Is not action the end of your 
 being ? Pray look upon the plants and birds, the 
 ants, spiders, and bees, and you will see them all ex- 
 erting their nature, and busy in their station. Pray, 
 shall not a man act like a man ? Why do you not 
 rouse your faculties, and hasten to act according to 
 vour nature ? For all that, there is no living without 
 rest. True ; but nature has fixed a limit to eating 
 and drinking, and here, too, you generally exceed 
 bounds, and go beyond what is sufficient. Whereas 
 in business you are apt to do less than lies in your 
 power. In earnest, you have no true love for your- 
 self. If you had, you would love your nature a»4 
 
68 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 honour her wishes. Now, when a man loves his trade, 
 how he will sweat and drudge to perform to perfection. 
 But you honour your nature less than a turner does 
 the art of turning, a dancing-master the art of danc- 
 ing. And as for wealth and popularity, how eagerly 
 are they pursued by the vain and the covetous ? All 
 these people when they greatly desire anything, seek 
 to attain it, might and main, and will scarcely allow 
 themselves necessary refreshment. And now, can you 
 think the exercise of social duties less valuable than 
 these petty amusements, and worth less exertion ? 
 
 2. What an easy matter it is to stem the current 
 of your imagination, to discharge a troublesome or 
 improper thought, and at once return to a state of 
 calm. 
 
 3. Do not think any word or action beneath you 
 which is in accordance with nature ; and never be 
 misled by the apprehension of censure or reproach. 
 Where honesty prompts you to say or do anything, 
 never hold it beneath you. Other people have their 
 own guiding principles and impulses ; mind them not. 
 Go on in the straight road, pursue your own and the 
 common interest. For to speak strictly, these two are 
 approached by one and the same road. 
 
 4. I will march on in the path of nature till my 
 legs sink under me, and then I shall be at rest, and 
 expire into that air which has given me my daily 
 breath ; fall upon that earth which has maintained 
 my parents, helped my nurse to her milk, and supplied 
 me with meat and drink for so many years ; and 
 though its favours have been often abused, still suffers 
 fpe to tread upon it. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 69 
 
 5. Wit and smartness are not your talent. 
 What then ? There are a great many other good 
 qualities in which you cannot pretend nature has 
 failed you ; improve them as far as you can, and let 
 us have that which is perfectly in your power. You 
 may if you please bthave yourself like a man of 
 gravity and good faith, endure hardship, and despise 
 pleasure ; want but a few things, and complain of 
 nothing ; you may be gentle and magnanimous if you 
 please, and have nothing of luxury or trifling in your 
 disposition. Do not you sec how much you may do 
 if you have a mind to it, where the plea of incapacity 
 is out of place ? And yet you do not push forward 
 as you should do. What then ! Does any natural 
 defect force you to grumble, to lay your faults upon 
 your constitution, to be stingy or a flatterer, to seek 
 after popularity, boast, and be disturbed ia mind ? 
 Can you say you are so weakly made as to be driven 
 to these practices ? The immortal gods know the 
 contrary. No, you might have stood clear of all this 
 long since ; and after all, if your parts were some- 
 what slow, and your understanding heavy, your way 
 had been to have taken the more pains with yourself, 
 and not to have lain fallow and remained content 
 with your own dulness. 
 
 6. Some men, when they do you a kindness, at 
 once demand the payment of gratitude from you ; 
 others are more modest than this. However, they 
 remember the favour, and look upon you in a manner 
 as their debtor. A third sort shall scarce know what 
 they have dooe. These are much like a vifte, 
 
70 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 which is satisfied by being fruitful in its kind, and 
 bears a bunch of grapes without expecting any thanks 
 for it. A fleet horse or greyhound does not make a 
 noise when they have done well, nor a bee neither 
 when she has made a little honey. And thus a man 
 that has done a kindness never proclaims it, but does 
 another as soon as he can, just like a vine that bears 
 again the next season. Now we should imitate those 
 who are so obliging, as hardly to reflect on their 
 beneficence. But you will say, a man ought not to 
 act without reflection. It is surely natural for one 
 that is generous to be conscious of his generosity; yes, 
 truly, and to desire the person obliged should be 
 sensible of it too. What you say is in a great measure 
 true. But if you mistake my meaning, you will 
 become one of those untoward benefactors I first 
 mentioned; indeed, they too are misled by the plausi- 
 bility of their reasoning. But if you will view the 
 matter in its true colours, never fear that you will 
 neglect any social act. 
 
 7. A prayer of the Athenians, " Send down, oh ! 
 send down rain, dear Zeus, on the ploughed fields and 
 plains of the Athenians." Of a truth, we should not 
 pray at all, or else in this simple and noble fashion. 
 
 8. ^sculapius, as we commonly say, has pre- 
 scribed such an one riding out, walking in his slip- 
 pers, or a cold bath. Now, with much the same 
 meaning we may aflirm that the nature of the uni- 
 verse has ordered this or that person a disease, loss of 
 limbs or estate, or some such other calamity. For as 
 in the first case, the word ''prescribed" signifies a direc- 
 
tioii for the health of the patient, so in the hitter it 
 means an application fit for his constitution and fate. 
 And thus these harsher events may be counted fit for us, 
 as stone properly joined together in a wall or pyramid 
 is said by the workmen to fit in. Indeed, the whole of 
 nature consists of harmony. For as the world has its 
 form and entireness from that universal matter of 
 which it consists, so the character of fate results from 
 the quality and concurrence of all other causes con- 
 tained in it. The common people understand this 
 notion very well. Their way of speaking is : '' This 
 happened to this man, therefore it was sent him and 
 appointed for him." Let us then comply with our 
 doom, as w^e do with the prescriptions of ^sculapius. 
 These doses are often unpalatable and rugged, and 
 yet the desire of health makes them go merrily down. 
 Now that which nature esteems profit and convenience, 
 should seem to you like your own health. And, 
 therefore, when anything adverse happens, take it 
 quietly to you ; it is for the health of the universe, and 
 the prosperity of Zeus himself Depend upon it, 
 this had never been sent you, if the universe had not 
 found its advantage in it. Neither does nature act 
 at random, or order anything which is not suitable to 
 those beings under her government. You have two 
 reasons, therefore, to be contented with your condition. 
 FiTHt, because it has befallen you, and was appointed 
 you from the beginning by the highest and most 
 ancient causes. Secondly, The lot even of individuals 
 is in a manner destined for the interest of him that 
 governs the -world. It perfects his nature in some 
 
72 MED/TATWm. 
 
 measure, an(] causes and continues bis happiness; for 
 it holds in causes, no less than in parts of a whole 
 that if you lop off any part of the continuity and con- 
 nection, you maim the whole. Now, if you are dis- 
 pleased with your circumstances, you dismember 
 nature, and pull the world in pieces, as much as lies 
 in your power. 
 
 9. Be not uneasy, discouraged, or out of humour, 
 because practice falls short of precept in some parti- 
 culars. If you happen to be beaten, come on again, 
 and be glad if most of your acts are worthy of human 
 nature. Love that to which you return, and do not go 
 like a schoolboy to his master, with an ill will. No, 
 you must apply to philosophy with inclination, as 
 those who have sore eyes make use of a good receipt. 
 And when yo\x are thus disposed, you will easily 
 acquiesce in reason, and make your abode with her. 
 And here you are to remember that philosophy will 
 put you upon nothing but what your nature wishes 
 and calls for. But you are crossing the inclinations of 
 your nature. Is not this the most agreeable ? And 
 does not pleasure often deceive us under this pretence ? 
 Now think a little, and tell me what is there more 
 delightful than greatness of mind, and generosity, 
 simplicity, equanimity, and piety ? And once more, 
 what can be more delightful than prudence ? than to 
 be furnished with that faculty of knowledge and un- 
 derstanding which keeps a man from making a false 
 step, and helps him to good fortune in all his 
 business ? 
 
 10. Things are so much perplexed and in the dark 
 
MEDITA TiONS. 73 
 
 that several great philosophers looked upon them 
 as altogether unintelligible, and that there was no 
 certain test for the discovery of truth. Even the 
 Stoics agree that certainty is very hard to come at ; 
 that our assent is worth little, for where is infallibility 
 to be found ? However, our ignorance is not so great 
 bat that we may discover how transitory and insig- 
 nificant all things are, and that they may fall into the 
 worst hands. Farther, consider the temper of those 
 you converse Avith, and you will find the best will 
 hardly do ; not to mention that a man has work 
 enough to make himself tolerable to himself And 
 since we have nothing but darkness and dirt to grasp 
 at, since time and matter, motion and mortals are in 
 perpetual flux ; for these reasons, I say, I cannot 
 imaoine w-hat there is here worth the mindinoj or bein^f 
 eager about. On the other hand, a man ousfht to 
 keep up his spirits, for it will not be long before his 
 discharge comes. In the meantime, he must not fret 
 at the delay, but satisfy himself with these two con- 
 siderations : the one is, that nothing will befall me 
 but what is in accordance with the nature of the 
 universe ; the other, that I need do nothiug contrary 
 to my mind and divinity, since no one can force me to. 
 act thus, or force me to act against my own judgment. 
 11. What use do I put my soul to? It is a 
 serviceable question this, and should frequently be put 
 to oneself. How does my ruling part stand affected? 
 And whose soul have I now ? That of a child, or a 
 young man, or a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, of 
 cattle or wild beasts. 
 
74 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 12. What sort of good things those are, which are 
 commoDly so reckoned, you may learn from hence. 
 For the purpose, if you reflect upon those qualities 
 which are intrinsically valuable, such as prudence, 
 temperance, justice, and fortitude, you will not find 
 it possible afterwards to give ear to those, for this is 
 not suitable to a good man. But if you have once 
 conceived as good what appears so to the many, you 
 will hear and gladly accept as suitable the saying of 
 the comic writer. Thus we see the generality are 
 struck with the distinction, otherwise they would not 
 dislike the liberty in one case, and allow it in the 
 other, holding it a suitable and witty jest when it is 
 directed against wealth, and the means that further 
 luxury and ambition. Now, what significancy and 
 excellence can there be in these things, to which may 
 be applied the poet's jest, that excess of luxury leaves 
 no room for comfort ? 
 
 13. My being consists of matter and form, that is, 
 of soul and body ; annihilation v/ill reach neither of 
 them, for they w^ere never produced out of nothing. 
 The consequence is, that every part of me will serve 
 to make something in the world ; and this again will 
 change into another part through an infinite succession 
 of change. This constant method of alteration gave 
 me my being, and my father before me, and so on to 
 eternity backward : for I think I may speak thus, 
 even thous^h the world be confined within certain 
 determinate periods. 
 
 1 4. Reason and the reasoning faculty need no 
 foreign assistance, but are sufficient for their own par- 
 
MEDITATIONS, 75 
 
 poses. They move within themselves, and make 
 directly for the point in view. Wherefore, acts in 
 accordance with them are called right acts, for they 
 lead along the right road. 
 
 15. Those things do not belong to a man which 
 do not belong to him as a man. For they are not 
 included in the idea ; they are not required of us as 
 men ; human nature does not promise them, neither 
 is it perfected by them. From whence it follows 
 that they can neither constitute the chief end of man, 
 nor strictly contribute towards it. Farther, if these 
 things Avere any real additions, how comes the con- 
 tempt of them, and the being easy without them, to 
 be so great a commendation ? To balk an advantage 
 would be folly if these things were truly good. But 
 the case stands otherwise ; for we know that self- 
 denial and indifference about these things, and patience 
 when they are taken away, is the character of a good 
 man. 
 
 16. Your manners will depend very much upon 
 the quality of what you frequently think on ; for the 
 soul is as it were tinged with the colour and com- 
 plexion of thought. Be sure therefore to work in such 
 maxims as these. Wherever a man lives, he may live 
 well ; by consequence, a life of virtue and that of a 
 courtier are not inconsistent. Again, that which a 
 thing' is made for, is that towards which it is carried, 
 and in that which it is naturally carried to, lies the end 
 of the act. Now where the end of a thing is, there the 
 advantage and improvement of it is certainly lodged. 
 Now the happiness of mankind lies in society, since 
 
 263 
 
76 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 that we were made for this purpose, I have proved 
 already. For is it not plain that the lower order of 
 beings are made for the higher, and the higher for the 
 service of each other ? Now as those with souls are 
 superior to the soulless, so amongst all creatures with 
 souls the rational are the best. 
 
 17. To expect an impossibility is madness. Now 
 it is impossible for ill men not to do ill. 
 
 18. There is nothing happens to any person but 
 what was in his power to go through with. Some 
 people have had very severe trials, and yet either by 
 having less understanding, or more pride than ordinary, 
 have charged bravely through the misfortune, and 
 come off without a scratch. Now it is a disgrace to 
 let ignorance and vanity do more with us than 
 prudence and principle. 
 
 19. Outward objects cannot take hold of the soul, 
 nor force their passage into her, nor set any of her 
 wheels going. No, the impression comes from her- 
 self, and it is her own motions which affect her. As 
 for the contingencies of fortune, they are either great 
 or little, according to the opinion she has of her own 
 strength. 
 
 20. When we consider we are bound to be service- 
 able to mankind, and bear with their faults, we shall 
 perceive there is a common tie of nature and relation 
 between us. But when we see people grow trouble- 
 some and disturb us in our business, here we are to 
 look upon men as indifferent sort of things, no less 
 than sun or wind, or a wild beast. It is true they 
 may hinder me in the executing part, but all this is of 
 
MEDITATIONS. 77 
 
 no moment while my inclinations and good intent 
 stand firm, for these can act according to the condi- 
 tion and chano^e. For the mind converts and chano-es 
 every hindrance into help. And thus it is probable I 
 may gain by the opposition, and let the obstacle help 
 me on my road. 
 
 21. Among all things in the universe, direct your 
 worship to the greatest. And which is that ? It is 
 that being which manages and governs all the rest. 
 And as you worship the best thing in nature, so you 
 are to pay a proportionate regard to the best thing 
 in yourself, and this is akin to the Deity. The quality 
 of its functions will discover it. It is the reigning 
 power within you, which disposes of your actions and 
 your fortune. 
 
 22. That which does not hurt the city or body 
 politic cannot hurt the citizen. Therefore when you 
 think you are ill-used, let this reflection be your 
 remedy : If the community is not the worse for it, 
 neither am I. But if the community is injured, your 
 business is to show the person concerned his fault, 
 but not to grow passionate about it. 
 
 23. Reflect frequently upon the instability of 
 things, and how very fast the scenes of nature are 
 shifted. Matter is in a perpetual flux. Change is 
 always and everywhere at work ; it strikes through 
 causes and effects, and leaves nothing fixed and 
 permanent. And then how very near us stand the 
 two vast gulfs of time, the past and the future, in 
 which all things disappear. Now is not that man a 
 blockhead that lets these momentary thiugs make him 
 
78 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 proud, or uneasy, or sorrowful, as though they could 
 trouble him for long ? 
 
 24. Remember what an atom your person is in 
 respect of the universe, what a minute of immeasurable 
 time falls to your share, and what a small concern you 
 are in the empire of fate ! 
 
 25. A man misbehaves himself towards me ; what is 
 that to me ? The action is his, and the disposition 
 that led him to it is his, and therefore let him look 
 to it. As for me, I am in the condition the universal 
 nature assigns me, and am doing what my own nature 
 assigns me. 
 
 26. Whether the motions of your body are rugged 
 or agreeable, do not let your ruling and governing 
 principle be concerned with them ; confine the im- 
 pressions to their respective quarters, and let your 
 mind keep her distance, and not mingle with them. 
 It is true, that which results from the laws of the 
 union through the force of sympathy or constitution, 
 must be felt, for nature will have its course. But 
 though the sensation cannot be stopped, it must not 
 be overrated, nor strained to the quality of good or 
 evil. 
 
 27. We ought to live with the gods. This is done 
 by him who always exhibits a soul contented with the 
 appointments of Providence, and obeys the orders of 
 that divinity which is his deputy and ruler, and the 
 offspring of God. Now this divine authority is neither 
 more nor less than that soul and reason which every 
 man possesses. 
 
 28. Are you angry at a rank smell or an ill-scented 
 
MEDITATIONS, 79 
 
 breath ? What good will this anger do you ? But 
 you will say, the man has reason, and can, if he takes 
 pains, discover wherein he offends. I wish you joy of 
 your discovery. Well, if you think mankind so full 
 of reason, pray make use of your own. Argue the 
 case with the faulty person, and show him his error. 
 If your advice prevails, he is what you w^ould have 
 him ; and then there is no need of being angry. 
 
 29. You may live now if you please, as you would 
 choose to do if you were near dying. But suppose 
 people will not let you, why then, give life the slip, 
 but by no means make a misfortune of it. If the 
 room smokes I leave it, and there is an end, for why 
 should one be concerned at the matter ? However, 
 as long as nothing of this kind drives me out, I stay, 
 behave as a free man, and do what I have a mind to ; 
 but then I have a mind to nothing but what I am led 
 to by reason and public interest. 
 
 3 0. The soul of the universe is of a social disposi- 
 tion. For this reason it has made the lower part of the 
 creation for the sake of the higher. And as for those 
 beings of the higher rank, it has bound them to each 
 other. You see how admirably things are ranged and 
 subordinated according to the dignity of their kind, 
 and cemented together in mutual harmony. 
 
 31. Recollect how you have behaved yourself all 
 along towards the gods, your parents, brothers, wife, 
 and children ; towards your instructors, governors, 
 friends, acquaintance, and servants. Whether men can 
 say of you, *' He never wronged a man in word or 
 deed." Recollect how much business you have been 
 
8o MEDITATIONS. 
 
 engaged in, and what you have had strength to 
 endure; that now your task is done, and the his- 
 tory of your life finished. Remember likewise, 
 how many fair sights you have seen, how much of 
 pleasure and pain you have despised, how much 
 glory disregarded, and how often you have done good 
 against evil. 
 
 32. Why should skill and knowledge be disturbed at 
 the censures of ignorance ? But who are these knowing 
 and skilful people ? Why, those who are acquainted 
 with the original cause and end of all things, with 
 that reason that pervades the mass of matter, renews 
 the world at certain periods, and governs it through all 
 the lengths of time. 
 
 33. You will quickly be reduced to ashes and 
 skeleton. And it may be you will have a name left 
 you, and it may be not. And what is a name ? 
 Nothing but sound and echo. And then for those 
 things which are so much valued in the world, they 
 are miserably empty and rotten, and insignificant. 
 It is like puppies snarling for a bone ; and the con- 
 tests of little children sometimes transported, and then 
 again all in tears about a plaything. And as for 
 modesty and good faith, truth and justice, they have 
 fled " up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth." 
 And now, what is it that can keep you here ? For if 
 the objects of sense are floating and changeable, and 
 the organs misty, and apt to be imposed on ; if the 
 soul is but a vapour drawn off the blood, and the 
 applause of little mortals insignificant ; if the case 
 stands thus, why not have patience till you are either 
 
MEDITA T20NS. 8 1 
 
 extinguislied or removed ? And till that time comes, 
 what is to be done ? The answer is easy : to worship 
 the gods, and speak honourably of them ; to be bene- 
 ficial to mankind ; to bear with them or avoid them ; 
 and lastly, to remember that whatever lies without 
 the compass of your own flesh and breath is nothing 
 of yours, nor in your power. 
 
 34. You may be always successful if you do but 
 set out well, and let your thoughts and practice pro- 
 ceed upon right method. There are two properties 
 and privileges common to the soul of God and man 
 and all rational beings. The one is, not to be hindered 
 by anything external ; the other, to make virtuous in- 
 tention and action their supreme satisfaction, and not 
 so much as to desire anything farther. 
 
 35. If this accident is no fault of mine, nor a con- 
 sequence of it ; and besides, if the community is 
 never the worse for it, why am I concerned ? Now, 
 how is the community injured ? 
 
 36. Do not suffer a sudden impression to overbear 
 your judgment. Let those that want your assistance 
 have it, as far as the case requires. But if they are in- 
 jured in matters indifferent, do not consider it any real 
 damage, for that 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 in this case also. 
 When you are haranguing in the rostra, a little of this 
 to yourself would not be amiss : — Ha.rk you, friend, 
 have you forgotten what this glitter of honour really is ? 
 I grant it is but tinsel, but for all that it is extremely 
 valued. And because other people are fools, must 
 
82 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 you be so too ? I can at once become bappy any- 
 wbere, for he is bappy who has found for bimself 
 a bappy lot. In a word, happiness lies all in the 
 functions of reason, in warrantable desires and vii'tuous 
 practice. 
 
BOOK VI. 
 
 %^ "iV -3v -iV -A ^i -A -A -iV -A ^^ ^ '/? V^ 'A-vV^^c 'A-'A^ w-?? -i <."% » -/i^A^-A A /^ 
 
BOOK VI, 
 
 S the substance of the universe is pliable 
 and obedient, so that sovereign reason 
 which gives laws to it has neither 
 motive nor inclination to bring an evil 
 upon anything. It has no evil in its 
 
 nature, nor does evil, but forms and governs all things, 
 
 and hurts nothing. 
 
 2. Do but your duty, and do not trouble yourself, 
 whether it is in the cold, or by a good fire, whether 
 you are overwatched, or satisfied with sleep, whether 
 you have a good word or a bad one, whether you are 
 dying, or doing anything else, for this last must be 
 done at one time or other. It is part of the business 
 of life to leave it, and here too it suffices to manage 
 the present well. 
 
 3. Look thoroughly into matters, and let not the 
 peculiar quality or intrinsic value of anything escape 
 you. 
 
 4. The present appearance of things will quickly 
 undergo a change, and be either exhaled into common 
 matter or dispersed. 
 
 5. That intelligent Being that governs the universe 
 has perfect views of His o^vn nature and acts, and of 
 the matter on which He acts. 
 
86 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 6. The best way of revenge is not to imitate the 
 injury. 
 
 7. Be always doing something serviceable to man- 
 kind, and let this constant generosity be your only 
 pleasure, not forgetting in the meantime a due regard 
 to the Deity. 
 
 8. The governing part of the mind arouses and 
 alters itself ; gives what air it pleases to its own like- 
 ness, and to all the accidents and circumstances 
 without. 
 
 9. The particular effects in the world are all 
 wrought by one intelligent nature. This universal 
 cause has no foreign assistant, no interloping principle, 
 either without or within it. 
 
 10. The w^orld is either a medley of atoms that 
 now intermingle and now are scattered apart, or else 
 it is a unity under the laws of order and providence. 
 If the first, what should T stay for, where nature is in 
 such a chaos, and things are so blindly jumbled to- 
 gether? Why do I care for anything else than to 
 return to the element of earth as soon as may be ? 
 Why should I give myself any trouble? Let me do 
 w^hat I will, my elements will be scattered. But if 
 there is a Providence, then I adore the great Governor 
 of the world, and am easy and of good cheer in the 
 prospect of protection. 
 
 11. When you happen to be ruffled a little by any 
 untoward accident, retire immediately into your rea- 
 son, and do not move out of tune any further than 
 needs must ; for the sooner you return to harmony, 
 the more you will get it in your own power. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 87 
 
 12. Put the case, 3^ou had a step-mother and a 
 mother at the same time ; though you would pay a 
 regard to the first, your converse, I conceive, would be 
 mostly with the latter. Let the court and philosophy 
 represent these two relations to you ; apply frequently 
 to this last, and seek your refreshment with her. 
 For it is a life of virtue and philosophy which makes 
 life at court tolerable to you, and you yourself toler- 
 able. 
 
 13. When we have meat before us, or other dishes, 
 we receive the impression that this is but the carcass 
 of a fish, this of a fowl, and the other of a pig. And 
 then for this bottle of Falernian, what is it but a little 
 moisture squeezed out of the berry of a grape ? And 
 your purple is nothing but sheep's hair twisted to- 
 gether, and stained in the gore of a little shell-fish. 
 And if we were to proceed to some other satisfactions 
 of sense, we should find them but coarse in their 
 causes and constitution ; and as these notions strike 
 through the surface, press into the heart of things, and 
 shew them in their natural colours, so we should carry 
 them on, and apply them to all the pageantry of life. 
 And where things appear most plausible, be sure to 
 bring them to the test, and look at their worth] ess- 
 ness, and strip them of all the words by which they 
 were exalted. Without this care, figure and appear- 
 ance are great cheats ; and when you think your 
 fancy is best employed, you will be most fooled. 
 Remember what Crates said even of Xenocrates. 
 
 14. The inclination of the generality may be re 
 duced to these heads : Some people are little enough 
 
88 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 to be attracted by things in the state of bare exist- 
 ence or vegetation, as with stones, wood, figs, grapes, 
 olives, and such like. Others, Avho are somewhat 
 more reasonable in their fancy, must have life to charm 
 them ; and these, it may be, are in love with their 
 flocks and herds. A third sort, better furnished than 
 the former, admire nothing beneath a rational soul, 
 and this not as a whole, but as it were they pride 
 themselves in slaves, possessed of some skill, parts, 
 or industry. But he that values a rational creature 
 that is social and universal runs into none of the follies 
 above mentioned, but makes it his chief business to 
 look to his own soul, and keep it in rational and 
 social movements, and to assist all mankind in the 
 public interest. 
 
 15. Some things are pressing into being, and others 
 are hastening out of it, and that which was entire just 
 now, is part of it spent already. The world is renewed 
 by this change and flux, no less than the infinite 
 series of ages by the perpetual succession of time. 
 Now, who would set a value upon things hurried thus 
 fast down the stream, on which it is impossible to 
 stop ? Such a passion is much like falling in love with 
 a sparrow flying over your head. You have, as it were, 
 but one glimpse of her, and she is out of sight. Life is 
 but a sort of exhalation of the blood, and a little breath- 
 ing in of air. Now, to inhale and exhale your breath 
 for the support of life, which you do every moment, and 
 expire your last, when you lose the whole power of 
 breathing which you received at your birth yesterday 
 or the day before, is much the same action. 
 
MEDITATIONS, 89 
 
 16. Neither the perspiration of plants, nor the 
 breath of animals, nor the impressions of sensation, 
 nor the puppet- motions of passions are privileges of 
 any great value. To which we may add the instinct 
 of crowdinsT into herds, too^ether with the functions of 
 nutrition, this latter being not unlike a separating 
 of our food. What then is it that you count worth 
 your esteem ? Applause % Not at all. Why, then, 
 you must not value the applause of tongues, for 
 the commendation of the multitude is nothing else. 
 Well, I find fame and glory will not tempt you ; what, 
 then, is there behind worth the having % To govern 
 your motions, and make use of your being according 
 to the intentions of nature. This is the design of 
 arts and improvement in other cases, every artificer 
 and profession endeavouring to make the thing tit to 
 answer the end for which it was intended. This, for 
 instance, is the design of vine-dressers and those that 
 manage horses and dogs. And learning and education 
 have all one object in view. It is agreed then, the 
 main point lies here. Compass but this, and let all 
 things else alone. Must your inclinations always run 
 riot, and will you never become free, self-contained, 
 and passionless ? This temper will let loose abun- 
 dance of uneasy passions upon you. It will make you 
 grow envious, full of jealousy and suspicion, and apt 
 to overreach those who are possessed of somethiug you 
 have a mind to. And when strong desires are un- 
 satisfied, you will find yourself mightily disturbed. 
 And this will make you murmur and gi'ow mutinous 
 against the gods. But if you come once to pay a due 
 
90 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 regard and reverence to your own reason, you will be 
 pleased with yourself, serviceable to society, and com- 
 pliant with the gods. That is, you will be entirely 
 satisfied with their rule and administration. 
 
 17. The elements either press upwards, or fall 
 downwards, or else run round in a circle. But virtue 
 has none of these motions ; she is of a nobler kind. 
 Her progress in regular thoughts is somewhat unintel- 
 ligible, but always prosperous. 
 
 18. What a strange humour there is amongst some 
 people. They do not care to afford a good word to 
 their contemporaries, and yet are very desirous of 
 being praised by posterity, that is, by those they 
 never saw, nor ever will have the least acquaintance 
 with. Now this is almost as absurd as it would be 
 to be disturbed because you were not commended by 
 the generations that lived before you. 
 
 19. Because you find a thing very difficult, do not 
 at once conclude that no man can master it. But 
 whatever you observe proper and practicable by an- 
 other, believe likewise within your own power. 
 
 20. If an antagonist in the circus tears our flesh 
 with his nails, or tilts against us with his head, and 
 wounds us, we do not cry out foul play, nor are we 
 offended at the rough usage, nor suspect him after- 
 wards as a dangerous person in conversation. It is 
 true, when we are at the exercise we guard and parry, 
 but all this is done without raising ill blood, or look- 
 ing upon the man as an enemy. Let us act in this 
 way in the other instances of life. When we receive 
 a blow, let us disregard it, thinking we are bub at a 
 
MEDITATIONS. 
 
 91 
 
 trial of skill, for, as I said before, it is in our power 
 to retire without feeling malice and ill-will. 
 
 21. If any one can convince me of an error, I shall 
 be very glad to change my opinion, for truth is my 
 business, and nobody was ever yet hurt by it. No ; 
 he that continues in ignorance and mistake, it is he 
 that receives the mischief. 
 
 22. I do my duty, that is enough. As for other 
 things, I shall never be disturbed about tliem. For 
 they are either without life or without reason, or they 
 have lost their way and cannot find it. 
 
 23. As for brute animals, and things undignified 
 with reason, use them generously and nobly, as beings 
 that have reason should treat those that have none. 
 But treat men, since they have reason, as members of 
 the same society. And in all your affairs invoke the 
 gods for their assistance. As for the time you are to 
 continue this, never trouble yourself whether it is long 
 or short. For three hours of life thus well spent are 
 sufficient. 
 
 24. Alexander the Great and his groom, when 
 dead, were both upon the same level, and ran the 
 same chance of being scattered into atoms or absorbed 
 in the soul of the universe. 
 
 25. What abundance of motions there are in the 
 body, what abundance of thoughts in the mind at the 
 same time ! He that considers this will not wonder 
 so much that infinitely more productions, nay rather, 
 all that are, should exist together in that gi-eat whole 
 we call the universe. 
 
 26. Suppose you were asked to spell Antoninus's 
 
 264 
 
92 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 name, would you sound every letter with emphasis in 
 the company's ears ? Or would you return their 
 passion if they were angry ? I conceive you would 
 rather go mildly to work, and give them the letters 
 and syllables as they stand, without noise. Apply 
 this to greater instances, and remember that all duties 
 in morality have a determinate number of parts 
 to render them complete. These must be observed, 
 and performed in order; but it must be done smoothly, 
 without gTowing provoked upon meeting with pro- 
 vocation. 
 
 27. You hold it cruel to balk people's fancies, 
 and not give them leave to pursue what they reckon 
 their interest. Yet with this you are chargeable in 
 some measure yourself when you are angry with those 
 that do amiss ; for they are carried towards what they 
 esteem their own interest and convenience. But that 
 you will say is their mistake. Then it is your part 
 to lead them out of it, and to show them their error 
 without resentment. 
 
 28. What is death ? It is a resting from the 
 vibrations of sensation, and the swayings of desire, a 
 stop upon the rambling of thought, and a release from 
 the drudgery about your body. 
 
 29. It would be a shame if your mind should 
 falter and give in before your body. 
 
 30. Have a care you have not too much of a Caesar 
 in you, and that you are not dyed with that dye. 
 This is easily learned, therefore guard against the 
 infection. Be candid, virtuous, sincere, and modestly 
 grave. Let justice and piety have their share in your 
 
MEDITATIONS. 93 
 
 character; let your temper be remarkable for mild- 
 ness and affection, and be always enterprising and 
 vigorous in your business. And, in short, strive to be 
 just such a man as virtue and philosophy meant j^ou 
 to be. Worship the gods and protect mankind. This 
 life is short, and all the advantage you can get by it 
 is a pious disposition and unselfish acts. Do every- 
 thing as a disciple of Antoninus ; imitate him m the 
 vigour and constancy of his good conduct, in the 
 equality, sweetness, and piety of his temper, the 
 serenity of his aspect, his contempt of fame, and the 
 generous ambition he had to be perfectly master of 
 his business. Further, it was his way to dismiss 
 nothing till he had looked through it, and viewed it 
 on all sides ; to bear unreasonable remonstrances 
 without making a return ; never to be in a hurry ; 
 to be backward in giving encouragement to informers. 
 He was a great judge of men and manners, but 
 of no reprimanding humour ; not at all apt to be 
 frighted ; not too suspicious, nor like a sophist. 
 Satisfied with a little, as one might easily perceive by 
 his palace, his furniture, his habit, his eating, and his 
 attendance. His disposition was patient, and fatigueing 
 his delight. He was temperate in his diet. He was 
 firm in his friendship, and steady and agreeable in the 
 manner of showing it. He gave his courtiers all the 
 freedom imaginable to contradict him, and was pleased 
 with the proposal of a better expedient than his own. 
 To conclude, he was a religious prince, but without 
 superstition. Pray imitate these good qualities of his, 
 that you may have the satisfaction of them at your 
 last hour as he had. 
 
94 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 81. Rouse and recollect yourself, and you will 
 perceive your trouble lay only in a scene of imagina- 
 tion. And when you are well awake, look upon 
 these realities as you did upon those visions. 
 
 82. My person consists of soul and a little body. 
 To this latter all things are morally indifferent, the 
 body being in no condition to make a distinction of 
 this kind. And as to my mind, there is nothing can 
 affect her, her OAvn actions excepted ; now these are 
 all within her power, and of all her actions she is only 
 concerned with the present, for what is past or to 
 come, signifies as much as nothing, and is at present 
 indifferent. 
 
 83. As long as the hands and feet do the work 
 they were made for, they move naturally, and with 
 ease. Thus while a man performs the functions of a 
 man, and keeps true to his condition, he feels no more 
 weight than what nature lays upon him. Now that 
 which is not beside the intentions of nature can never 
 be a real misfortune. 
 
 84. What abundance of sensual satisfaction have 
 thieves, parricides, and usurpers been possessed of? 
 
 35. Do not you observe among your artificers, 
 though they bear the contradiction and impertinence 
 of the unskilful, yet they will not comjDly so far as to 
 be talked out of their knowledge, or work against 
 the rules of their trade ? And is it not a scandalous 
 business, that an architect or a physician should have 
 more regard for his profession than a man has for 
 his ? For his, I say, in which he has the honour of 
 the gods for his partners. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 95 
 
 n6. The vast continents of Europe and Asia are 
 but corners of the creation. The ocean is but a drop, 
 and Mount Athos but a grain in respect of the 
 universe, and the present time but a point to the 
 extent of eternity. These things have all of them 
 petty, changeable, and transitory beings. Remember 
 likewise that all things proceed from the soul of the 
 universe, either by direct or indirect causality. 
 Thus the growling deformity of a lion, the poison of 
 serpents, and whatever seems offensive in nature, as 
 thorns or dirt, are the outcome of something noble and 
 beautiful. Do not therefore suppose them insignifi- 
 cant and unworthy the being you worship, but 
 consider the fountain whence all things spring. 
 
 37. He that has taken a view of the present age, 
 lias seen as much as if he had begun with the world, 
 and gone to the end of it ; for all things are of one 
 kind and of one form. 
 
 38. The mutual dependence all things have, and 
 the relation they stand in to each other, is worth your 
 frequent observation. For all the parts of matter are 
 in some measure linked together and interwoven, and 
 for this reason have a natural sympathy for each 
 other. For one thing comes in order after another, 
 and this comes about through their active movement 
 and harmony, and the unity of their substance. 
 
 39. Bring your will to your fate, and suit your 
 mind to your circumstances, and love those people 
 heartily that it is your fortune to be engaged with. 
 
 40. Those tools, vessels, and utensils are said to be 
 right, which serve for the uses they were made, though 
 
96 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 in this case the artificer that made them is commonly 
 absent. But in the works of nature, the forming 
 power is always present with the effect, and abides 
 there, wherefore this deserves a particular regard. 
 From hence you are to conclude that as long as you 
 behave yourself as this sovereign power directs you, 
 you will live in accordance with intelligence. In 
 this way too all things in the universe are directed by 
 intelligence. 
 
 41. If you suppose anything which lies out of your 
 command to be good or evil, your missing the one 
 or falling into the other will unavoidably make you a 
 malcontent against the gods, and cause you to hate 
 those people whom you either know or suspect to be 
 instrumental in your misfortune. To be plain, our 
 being concerned for these objects often makes us very 
 unreasonable and unjust. But if we confine the 
 notion of good and evil to things in our power, then 
 all the motives to complaint will drop off; then we 
 shall neither remonstrate against Heaven, nor quarrel 
 with any mortal living. 
 
 42. All people work in some measure towards the 
 ends of Providence, some with knowledge and design, 
 though others are not sensible of it. And thus, as I 
 remember, Heraclitus observes, that those who are 
 asleep may be said to help the world forvv^ard. In 
 short, the grand design is carried on by different hands 
 and different means. For even he that complaining 
 makes head against his fate, and strives to pull the 
 administration in pieces, even such a testy mortal as 
 this contributes his share abundantly, for the universe 
 
MEDITA riONS. 97 
 
 had need even of such an one. Consider, then, how 
 you are ranging yourself, and what workers you are 
 joining. For He that governs the world will certainly 
 make you good for something, and prove serviceable 
 to his scheme, one way or other. Have a care you do 
 not make such a ridiculous figure in nature, as that 
 mean and ridiculous verse did in the play Chrysippus 
 mentions. 
 
 43. Tlie sun never covets the properties of a 
 shower, nor does ^sculapius interfere with the fruit- 
 bearing god. Are not the stars different from each 
 other ? And yet their influences work towards the 
 same end. 
 
 44. If the gods have decreed anything concerning 
 me or my business, they have decreed my advantage. 
 For it is absurd to suppose that they are mistaken in 
 their measures, or not benevolent in their design. For 
 to what purpose should they intend me any harm ? 
 What would themselves, or the universe, the special 
 object of their providence, gain by it ? But granting 
 they have made no particular provision for me, yet since 
 their government of the w^orld is not disputed, the 
 consequence will be much the same. And why, then, 
 should I not be contented with whatever hapj)ens as a 
 consequence of the universal whole ? To put the case 
 further. Suppose the gods take care of nothing (which, 
 by the way, we must reckon a scandalous opinion), 
 then it will be high time to leave off the common 
 solemnities of sacrificing, prayers and religious swear- 
 ing, and all those observances which we keep as though 
 the gods were present and dwelling with us. If the 
 
98 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 o-ods, therefore, will take care of none of us, it is cer- 
 tainly lawful for me to take care of myself. Now, it 
 is my right to consider my own convenience, and what 
 is that ? Why, that is convenient for every one, which 
 suits his nature and his constitution. Now reason and 
 social principles are suited to my nature. Take me, 
 then, under the particular distinction of Antoninus, 
 and Rome is my town and country ; but consider me 
 as a man in general, and I belong to the corporation 
 of the world. That, therefore, and only that which 
 is serviceable to both these societies, is an advantage 
 to me. 
 
 45. Whatever happens to particulars, is serviceable 
 to the universe, that thought might satisfy. But we 
 can carry the reasons for acquiescence farther, for 
 upon observation you will perceive that what is profit- 
 able to one man, is in some measure for the interest of 
 the rest. And here I take the word profit in the 
 common meaning of things neither good nor bad. 
 
 46. You may remember that at a play, or such 
 like diversion, the same thing coming over and over 
 ao-ain tires the sense, and extinguishes the pleasure. 
 Remove this contemplation into life ; for here all things 
 come round, and bring the same causes and appear- 
 ances along with them. How long, then, will this 
 last ? 
 
 47. Consider with yourself that people of all con- 
 ditions, professions, and countries are dead, if you 
 cast your eyes back as far as Philistion, Phoebus, or 
 Oriaanion. Now turn towards the other classes of 
 men. And we must take our curn, too, with the rest. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 99 
 
 and remove to the same place whither so many famous 
 orators and great philosophers, such as Heraclitus, 
 Pythagoras, and Socrates have si 1 own us the way. So 
 many heroes and generals and princes, and besides 
 Eudoxus, Hipparchus, and Archimedes, not to men- 
 tion a great many other extraordinary geniuses, per- 
 sons of industry, wit, spirit, and versatility and con- 
 fidence ; they are all gone ; even those buffoons, 
 who, like Menippus, mocked at this perishable and 
 transitory existence. Remember they are all in their 
 graves. And where is the harm of all this ? nay, 
 what are those the worse for it, that have not so much 
 as left their own names behind them ? In a word, 
 there is only one thing here worth the minding, and 
 that is, to be true and just, and to show benevolence, 
 even to the untrue and unjust. 
 
 48. When you have a mind to divert your fancy, 
 consider the good qualities of your acquaintance ; as 
 the enterprising vigour of this man, the modesty of an- 
 other, the liberality of a third, and so on. For there 
 is nothing so entertaining as a lively image of the 
 virtues exhibited in the character of those we converse 
 with, occurring as numerously as possible. Let this, 
 therefore, be always at hand. 
 
 49. You are not angry because you weigh so light 
 in the scale, and do not ride forty stone. Why, then, 
 should you be dissatisfied because your life is not 
 drawn out to an unusual and extraordinary period ? 
 You ought to be no more covetous of time than you are 
 of bulk, but be contented with your own allowance. 
 
 50. It is good to try to bring people to a riglit 
 
1 oo MEDITA TIONS. 
 
 understanding of the case ; but if they are unwilling, 
 be governed by the law of justice. If there comes a 
 force upon you and stops your progress, abandon it 
 and be easy, and make a virtue of necessity. Re- 
 member that you undertook the business upon the 
 condition of its being feasible, and never pretended to 
 grasp at impossibilities. What was it, then, you 
 aimed at ? Why, to do your best in your effort. 
 Right ! And this may be effectually done, though 
 the enterprise should happen to miscarry. 
 
 51. The ambitious person lodges his happiness in 
 the activity of another, the voluptuary in his own 
 affections, but a man of understanding places his good 
 in his own action. 
 
 52. We are at liberty not to misinterpret any 
 accident, and by consequence may be free from dis- 
 turbance. Things have no natural power over 
 thoughts to influence our judgment. 
 
 53. Accustom yourself to attend to what is dis- 
 coursed, and as far as you can get into the soul of him 
 that speaks. 
 
 54. That which is not for the interest of the whole 
 swarm is not for the interest of a single bee. 
 
 55. If the patient rails at the doctor, or the crew 
 at the master of the vessel, w4iom will they mind, or 
 how can the doctor secure their health, or the master 
 of the vessel a good voyage ? 
 
 h^. How many people that came into the world 
 with me are gone out of it already ? 
 
 57. Honey tastes bitter to the jaundiced, and 
 people bitten by a mad dog are frightened at the sight 
 
MEDITATIONS. loi 
 
 of water. And on the other hand, a little ball is a 
 beautiful thing to a child. This considered, why 
 should you be angry with any one ? Can you imagine 
 that error has less force upon the mind than a little 
 bile or poison upon the body ? 
 
 58. As nobody can rob you of the privileges of 
 your nature, or force you to live counter to your rea- 
 son, so nothing can happen to you but what is con- 
 sistent with the interest of the universe. 
 
 59. Consider with yourself what sort of people 
 men must court, and for what base objects and by 
 wliat scandalous actions. And then how time will 
 cover all things, and how many it has covered already. 
 
V* 
 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 
BOOK VIL 
 
 1. ll g''5g!^a fl CS ^ HAT is wickedness ? What you "have 
 often seen. When you are in clanger 
 of being shocked, consider that the 
 sight is nothing but what you have 
 frequently seen already. Everywhere 
 up and down, ages and histories, towns and families, 
 are full of the same stories. There is nothing new 
 to be met with ; but all things are common, and 
 quickly over. 
 
 2. Opinions, whether right or wrong, can never be 
 pulled out of your head, unless the impressions on 
 which they rest are first removed. It is in your power 
 to kindle tliem afresh, or to form a right judgment 
 upon the present emergency. And why, then, should 
 I be disturbed at it ? For nothing that does not 
 enter my mind, and get within me, can hurt me. 
 Hold to this, and you are safe. Come, I will tell you 
 a way how you may live your time over again. Do 
 but recollect, and review what you have seen already, 
 and the work is done. 
 
 3. Gazing after shows, the diversions of the stage, 
 farms well stocked with flocks and herds, contests for 
 victory in the field are all much the same. So, too, a 
 
io6 MEDnATIONS. 
 
 bone thrown to puppies, fishes scrambling for a bait, 
 ants laboriously carrying a grain of wheat, mice 
 frighted out of their wits and running away, puppets 
 danced upon a wire. And in the midst of them a 
 wise man must be good-humoured, and not grow 
 haughty in the contemplation. Remembering, not- 
 withstanding, that the true w^orth of a man is to be 
 measured by the objects he pursues. 
 
 4. Do not let either discourse or action pass unob- 
 served; attend to the sense and signification of the one, 
 and to the tendency and design of the other. 
 
 5. Is my intellect sufficient for this business or 
 not ? If it is, I will make use of my talent as given 
 me by heaven for that purpose. If not, I will either 
 let it alone, and resign it to a better capacity, unless 
 that be contrary to my duty, or else I will do what I 
 can. I will give my advice, and put the executing 
 part into an abler hand, and thus the right moment 
 and the general interest may be secured. For what- 
 soever I act, either by myself, or in conjunction wath 
 another, I am always to aim at the advantage of the 
 community. 
 
 6. How many famous men are dropped out of 
 history and forgotten ? And how many, that pro- 
 mised to keep up other people's names, have lost their 
 own ? 
 
 7. Never be ashamed of assistance. Like a soldier 
 at the storming of a town, your business is to maintain 
 your post, and execute your orders. Now suppose 
 you happen to be lame at an assault, and cannot mount 
 the breach upon your own feet, will you not suffer your 
 comrade to help you ? 
 
MEDITATIONS. 107 
 
 8. Be not disturbed about the future, for if ever 
 jT^ou come to it, you will have the same reason for 
 your guide, which preserves j^ou at present. 
 
 9. All parts of the universe are interwoven and 
 tied together with a sacred bond. And no one thing 
 is foreign or unrelated to another. This general con- 
 nection gives unity and ornament to the world. For 
 the world, take it altogether, is but one. There is 
 but one sort of matter to make it of; one God that 
 pervades it ; and one law to guide it, the common 
 reason of all rational beings ; and one truth ; if, indeed, 
 beings of the same kind, and endued with the same 
 reason, have one and the same perfection. 
 
 10. Everything material quickly disappears into 
 the universal matter. And everything causal is 
 quickly absorbed into the universal reason. Aud 
 the memory of everything is quickly overwhelmed 
 by time. 
 
 11. With rational beings action in accordance with 
 nature and reason is the same thing. 
 
 12. Either stand upright upon your own legs, or 
 upon your crutches. 
 
 1 3. Just as connection creates sympathy in the mem- 
 bers of the body, so relation of nature does the same 
 thing among rational beings. For though separate in 
 space, they seem all made to co-operate with each other. 
 This thought will be more intelligible and affecting, if 
 you frequently consider yourself as a member of the 
 rational system. But if you reckon yourself only a 
 part, you do not yet love mankind with all your heart. 
 
 A generous action does not yet delight you from con- 
 
 265 
 
To8 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 viction ; you do a good office merely for fashion and 
 decency, but not as if it were really a kindness to 
 yourself 
 
 14. Let accidents happen to such as are liable to 
 the impression, and those that feel misfortune may 
 complain of it, if they please. As for me, let what 
 will come, I can receive no damage by it, unless I 
 think it a calamity ; and it is in my power to think it 
 none, if I have a mind to it. 
 
 15. Let people's tongues and actions be what they 
 will, my business is to be good. And make the same 
 speech to myself, that a piece of gold, or an emerald, 
 or purple should. Let people talk and act as they 
 please ; I must be an emerald, and I must keep my 
 colour. 
 
 1 6. Does the mind ever cause herself disturbance ? 
 Does she bring fears and passions upon herself? 
 Let any other body try to frighten or trouble her if 
 they can, for of her own conviction she will not turn to 
 such impressions. And as for this small carcass, let it 
 take care not to feel, and if it does, say so. But the 
 soul, the seat of passion and pain, which forms an opinion 
 on these things, need suffer nothing, unless she throws 
 herself into these fancies and fears. For the mind is 
 in her own nature self-sufficient, and must create her 
 wants before she can feel them. This privilege makes 
 her undisturbed and above restraint, unless she teazes 
 and puts fetters upon herself 
 
 17. Happiness is the possession of a good genius 
 or goodness. Why then does fancy break in and 
 disturb the scene % Begone ! by the gods, as you 
 
MEDITATIONS. 109 
 
 came ; I do not want you ! However, since you have 
 custom to plead in your excuse, withdraw, and I will 
 forgive you. 
 
 18. Is anyone afraid of change ? I would gladly 
 know what can be done without it ? and what is dearer 
 and more suitable to the universal nature ? Pray, 
 must not your wood be transformed before your bath 
 can be ready for you ? Must not your meat be 
 changed to make it fit to nourish you ? Indeed, what 
 part of life or convenience can go forward without 
 alteration ? Now, in all likelihood a change in your 
 condition may be as serviceable to the world in general, 
 as those alterations above mentioned are to you. 
 
 19. All particular bodies are hurried as through a 
 swift torrent through the universal mass of which 
 they are incorporate, like a sort of serviceable limbs 
 to the world. How many a Chrysippus, Socrates, and 
 Epictetus have sunk in the gulf of time ? And the 
 same reflection will hold good concerning any other 
 person or thing whatsoever. 
 
 20. I am only solicitous about one thing, and that 
 is, lest I should do something that the constitution of 
 man does not permit, or in the way or time it does 
 not permit. 
 
 21. It will not be long before you will have for- 
 gotten all the world, and in a little time all the world 
 will forget you too. 
 
 22. It is the privilege of human nature to love 
 those that disoblige us. To practise this, you must 
 consider that the offending party is of kin to you, that 
 iornorance is the cause of the misbehaviour, and the 
 
no MEDITATIONS. 
 
 fault is involuntary, that you will both of you quickly 
 be in your graves ; but especially consider that you 
 have received no harm by the injury, for your mind is 
 never the worse for it. 
 
 23. The universal nature works the universal 
 matter like wax. Now for the purpose, it is a horse ; 
 soon after you will have it melted down, and run into 
 the figure of a tree, then a man, then something 
 else. And it is but a little while that it is fixed in 
 one species. Now a trunk feels no more pain by being 
 knocked in pieces than when it was first put together. 
 
 24. A sour gruff look is very unnatural, and to put 
 it on often will make it settle, and destroy the beauty 
 and pleasantness of the aspect to that degree that it 
 is never to be recovered : from whence you may conclude 
 it is a foolish custom. It is high time for those people 
 to die that have outlived the sense of their own mis- 
 demeanours. 
 
 25. That being which governs nature will quickly 
 change the present face of it. One thing will be 
 made out of another by frequent revolutions. And 
 thus the world will be always new. 
 
 26. When anyone misbehaves himself towards 3^ou, 
 immediately bethink yourself what notions he has con- 
 cerning advantage and disadvantage. When you have 
 found out this, you will pity him, and neither be 
 angry nor surprised at the matter. It may be upon 
 enquiry you may find your opinions upon these points 
 much the same, and then you ought to pardon him. 
 But if your notions of good and evil are different, then 
 you will more easily bear with his ignorance. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 27. Do not let your head run upon that which is 
 none of your own, but pick out some of the best of 
 your circumstances, and consider how eagerly you 
 would wish for them, were they not in your possession ; 
 but then you must take care to keep your satisfaction 
 within compass, for fear it should carry yoa too far, 
 make you over-value the object, and be disturbed at 
 the loss of it. 
 
 28. Rely upon yourself, for it is the nature of the 
 principle that rules within us, to be satisfied with 
 honesty, and the inward quiet consequent to it. 
 
 29. Rub out the colours of imagination. Do not 
 suffer your passions to make a puppet of you. Confine 
 your care to the present. Look through that which 
 happens either to yourself or another. Distinguish 
 the parts of your subject, and divide them into the 
 causal and material element. Think upon your last hour, 
 and do not trouble yourself about other people's faults, 
 but leave them with those that must answer for them. 
 
 30. When you hear a discourse, make your under- 
 standing keep pace with it, and reach as far as you 
 can into events and their causes. 
 
 31. Would you set off your person, and recommend 
 yourself? Let it be done by simplicity, by modesty 
 of behaviour, and by indifference to things neither 
 good nor bad. Love mankind and resign to provi- 
 dence. For as the poet observes, "All things are 
 under law," not the elements only, but it suffices to 
 remember that there are at the most but very few 
 things in the world that are not under law. 
 
 82. Concerning death : It is a dispersion if there 
 
112 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 are atoms ; but if the universe is a unity, it is either 
 extinction or change. 
 
 33. As for pain, if it is intolerable it will quickly 
 dispatch you. If it stays long it is bearable. Your 
 mind in the meantime preserves herself calm by the 
 strength of the opining faculty, and suffers nothing. 
 And for your limbs that are hurt by the pain, if they 
 can complain, let them do it. 
 
 34. As for fame, consider the intellect of the 
 people that are to commend, how insignificant they 
 are, and how little in their pursuits and aversions. 
 Consider also that as'^ one heap of sand thrown upon 
 another covers the first, so it happens in life, a new 
 glory soon eclipses an old one. 
 
 35. A saying of Plato, '' He that has raised his 
 mind to a due pitch of greatness, that has carried his 
 view through the whole extent of matter and time, 
 do you imagine such an one will think much of human 
 life ? Not at all (says the other man in the dialogue). 
 What then ? Will the fear of death afflict him ? Far 
 from it." 
 
 36. Antisthenes said, "It is a royal thing to be 
 ill spoken of for good deeds." 
 
 37. It is a shame that a man should be master of 
 his countenance, and compose or control it as the mind 
 directs, while that mind is not controlled by itself 
 
 38. "Ne'er fret at accidents, for things are sullen. 
 
 And don't regard your anger." 
 
 39. "To the immortal gods and us give joy." 
 
 40. " Fate mows down life like corn, this mortal falls; 
 
 The other stands awhile." 
 
MED IT A TIONS. 1 1 3 
 
 41. " If I and mine are by the gods neglected, 
 
 There's reason for their rigour." 
 
 42. '' For the good is with me and the just." 
 
 43. "No joining others in their wailing, no violent 
 emotion." 
 
 44. More of Plato's sentences: — "To such a one I 
 should return this very reasonable answer, Hark ye, 
 friend, you are mightily out if you think a man that 
 is good for anything is either afraid of living or dying. 
 No; his concern is only whether in doing anything he 
 is doing right or wrong — acting the part of a good 
 man or a bad." 
 
 45. Plato again: — "In my opinion, when a man 
 holds a post with his own choice, or has been put into 
 it by his superior, his business is to remain there in 
 the hour of danger, and fear nothing but disgrace and 
 cowardice." 
 
 46. Plato once more : — " With your favour, sir, it 
 is not always the part of virtue and bravery to pre- 
 serve either your own life or your neighbour's. He 
 that is a man in good earnest must not be so mean as 
 to whine for life, and grasp intemperately at old age : 
 let him leave this point to Providence. The women 
 can tell him that we must go when our time is come. 
 His duty is to consider how he may make the most of 
 his life, and spend what there is to the best advantage." 
 
 47. Consider the course of the stars as if you were 
 driving through the sky with them. Let the trans- 
 mutation of the elements be frequently the subject of 
 your meditation. Such contemplations as these scour 
 off the rust contracted by dwelling here below. 
 
1 1 4 MED IT A TIOJSjS. 
 
 48. It is a fiae sa3dr]g that of Plato's : — " That 
 when we consider the state and condition of man- 
 kind, we should place our imagination upon some lofty 
 pyramid, and from thence take a prospect of the world, 
 and look it over as it were at one view. Here we 
 may see flocks, armies, husbandry, marriages and 
 separations, births and deaths, clamours of the law 
 courts, desert places, variety of barbarous people, feasts, 
 lamentations, and markets. Take it altogether, it is a 
 strange medley. And yet you will find the diversity 
 of the parts contributes to the harmony of the whole." 
 
 49. By looking back into history, and considering 
 the fate and revolutions of government, you will be 
 able to draw a guess, and almost prophesy upon the 
 future ; for they will certainly be of the same nature, 
 and cannot but be cast in the same mould. So that 
 forty years of human life may serve for a sample of 
 ten thousand. For what more will you see ? 
 
 50. " What's sprung from earth dissolves to earth 
 
 again. 
 And heaven-born things fly to their native 
 
 seat." 
 That is, there is a loosing of the entanglements of the 
 atoms, and a scattering abroad of the insensible elements. 
 
 51. '^ With food, and drinks, and cunning magic arts, 
 
 Turning the channel's course to 'scape from 
 death." 
 " The breeze which heaven has sent 
 We must endure, and toil without complaint.'* 
 
 52. Can another man ride or fence better than 
 you ? It may be so. Let nobody outdo you in social 
 
MED IT A TIONS. 1 1 5 
 
 and modest behaviour. Let nobody be more resigned 
 to fate and forgiving to his neighbours. 
 
 53. As long as a man can make use of that reason 
 which he shares with the gods and man, he need 
 not question the event. There can be no grounds 
 to suspect misfortune, provided you stick closG to 
 nature and act in accordance with your condition. 
 
 54. It is always and everywhere in your power to 
 resign to the gods, to be just to mankind, and to 
 examine every impression with such care that nothing 
 may enter that is not well examined. 
 
 55. Never make any rambling enquiries affcer other 
 people's thoughts, but look directly at the mark which 
 nature has set you. Nature, I say, either that of the 
 universe or your own ; the first leads you to submis- 
 sion to Providence, the latter to act as becomes you. 
 Now that which is suitable to the frame and constitu- 
 tion of things is what becomes them. To be more 
 particular, the rest of the world is designed for the 
 service of rational beings in consequence of this general 
 appointment, by which the lower order of things are 
 made for the use of the more noble. And rational 
 creatures are designed for the advantasfe of each other. 
 Now a social temper is that which human nature was 
 principally intended for ; the next thing designed in 
 our being is to be proof against corporeal impressions, 
 it being the peculiar privilege of reason to move within 
 herself, and not suffer sensation or passion to break in 
 upon her ; for these are both of animal and inferior 
 quality. But the understanding part claims a right 
 to govern, and will not bend to matter and appetite ; 
 
ii6 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 and good reason for it, since she was born to command 
 and make use of them. The third main requisite in 
 a rational being is to secure the assent from rashness 
 and mistake. Let your mind but compass these 
 points, and stick to them, and then she is mistress of 
 everything which belongs to her. 
 
 56. We ought to spend the remainder of our life 
 according to nature, as if we were already dead, and 
 had come to the end of our term. 
 
 57. Let your fate be your only inclination, for 
 there is nothing more reasonable. 
 
 58. When any accident happens, call to mind those 
 who have formerly been under the same circum- 
 stances, how full of surprise, complaint, and trouble 
 they were about the matter. And where are they 
 now ? They are gone, their murmuring could not 
 make them immortal. To what purpose should you 
 imitate their behaviour ? Cannot you leave these 
 foreign emotions to those who cause them, and those 
 who are moved by them ? Your business is only to 
 consider how you may give a turn of advantage to the 
 emergency. Now you can make good use of them, 
 and they will supply excellent material, if you will 
 but take care, and do nothing but what is warrantable. 
 Always remembering, that whether you use it ill or 
 well, the thing wherewith action is concerned, is in 
 both cases indifferent. 
 
 59. Look inwards, for you have a lasting fountain 
 of happiness at home that will always bubble up if 
 you will but dig for it. 
 
 60. Take care that your motions and gestures may 
 
MEDITA TIONS. 1 1 7 
 
 be grave and composed, for the same air of sense and 
 decency which the mind can put into the face ought 
 to be visible through the whole body, but then all 
 this must be done without the least affectation. 
 
 61. The art of living resembles wrestling more than 
 dancing, for here a man does not know his movement 
 and his measures beforehand. No, he is obliged to 
 stand strong against chance, and secure himself as 
 occasion shall offer. 
 
 62. Consider what sort of people are they that 
 must commend you, and how are their understandings 
 furnished. Truly, if you do but consider the source 
 of their opinions and passions, you will pity their 
 ignorant misbehaviour, and not care a rush for their 
 approbation. 
 
 63. It is a saying of Plato's, that no soul misses 
 truth of her own good-will. The same may be said 
 with reference to justice, sobriety, good-nature, and 
 the like. Be particularly careful to remember this, for 
 it will help to sweeten your temper towards all men. 
 
 64. When you lie under any corporeal affliction, let 
 this thought be at hand to relieve you : that there is 
 no disgrace in pain, that the sovereign part of your 
 mind is never the worse for it. For how can she 
 suffer unless her material or her social nature be 
 impaired ? Besides, Epicurus's maxim will help to 
 support you under most pains ; for as he observes, 
 they will neither be intolerable nor everlasting. But 
 then you must keep in mind the limits set to them, and 
 not run into the common opinion about them. And 
 here you must remember that there are many more 
 
ii8 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 sensations than we are aware of, whicli belong to the 
 nature of pain, such as drowsiness, excessive heat, 
 want of appetite. Now, when you find yourself fret 
 and grow disturbed at these things, take notice that 
 pain has got the better of you. 
 
 ^o. Do not return the temper of ill-natured people 
 upon themselves, nor treat them as they do the rest of 
 mankind. 
 
 ^^. Which way are we to conclude that Socrates 
 was a better man in virtue and temper than Telauges ? 
 To make out this, it is not enough to say that he dis- 
 puted better with the sophists, and died more bravely ; 
 that he passed the night in the cold with more endur- 
 ance, and that when he was bidden to arrest Leon of 
 Salamis, he held it nobler to refuse ; that he walked 
 with a swaggering air in the streets, though the truth 
 of this last particular may be questioned. To prove 
 the point, we must examine what sort of soul Socrates 
 carried about with him. Could he be contented with 
 the conscience of an honest and a pious man ? Did 
 he abstain from fretting and fuming to no purpose at 
 the knavery and wickedness of the age ? Was he 
 governed by nobody's ignorance ? Did he never 
 question the equity of Providence, grow surprised at 
 his hard fortune, and sink under the weight of it, and 
 not dip his soul too deep in his senses ? 
 
 67. Nature has not wrought your composition so 
 close that you cannot withdraw within your own 
 limits, and do your own business yourself ; for a man 
 may be first-rate in virtue and true value, and yet be 
 very obscure at the same time. You may likewise 
 
MED IT A TIONS. 1 1 9 
 
 observe that happiness has very few wants. Granting 
 your talent will not reach very far into logic, this cannot 
 hinder the freedom of your mind, nor deprive you of 
 the blessings of sobriety, beneficence, and resignation. 
 
 68. You may live with all the freedom and satis- 
 faction imaginable, though the whole world should 
 cry you down ; nay, though wild beasts should tear this 
 flesh with which you are enveloped. For pray, how 
 can anything of this reach up to your mind and ruflfle 
 her sereuit}^ ? How can it prevent your passing a 
 right judgment upon your circumstances, and making 
 the best use of them ? And thus your reason may 
 address the object of terror : " Look you ! nature has 
 made you one tiling, and common mistake another." 
 And use may address what befalls, "'It is you I was 
 seeking." For it is my way to make everything serve 
 as an opportunity for rational or social virtue in a 
 performance of some duty either to God or man. For 
 since all that happens is related to God or man, there is 
 nothing new in it or difficult to deal with, but all is 
 familiar and easy. 
 
 69. He that is come to the top of wisdom and 
 practice, spends every day as if it were his last, and 
 is never guilty of over- excitement, sluggishness, or 
 insincerity. 
 
 70. Though the gods are immortal, and have their 
 patience tried through so many ages, yet they are not 
 angry, because for so long a time they will have to 
 put up with such base and wretched mortals, but even 
 provide liberally for them. And are you, that are 
 just going off the stage, sick of the company ? are 
 
120 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 you tired with evil men already, and yet one of those 
 unhappy mortals yourself? 
 
 71. It is great folly not to part with your own 
 faults which is possible, but to try instead to escape 
 from other people's faults, which is impossible. 
 
 72. Whatever business tends neither to the im- 
 provement of your reason, nor the benefit of society, 
 the rational and social faculty thinks beneath it. 
 
 73. When you have done a kindness, and your 
 neighbour is the better for it, why need you be so 
 foolish as to look any farther, and gape for reputation 
 and requital ? 
 
 74. Nobody is ever tired of advantages. Now to 
 act in conformity to the laws of nature is certainly an 
 advantage. Do not you therefore grow weary of doing 
 good ofiices, whereby you receive the advantage. 
 
 75. There was a time when the universal nature 
 moved towards making the world. So that now all 
 events must either be consequences of the first crea- 
 tion, or else even the chief things at which the 
 universal ruling principle aims are without design. 
 Now this thought will go a great way towards making 
 a man easy. 
 
BOOK VIII. 
 
1 
 
 u 
 
 BOOK VI IL 
 
 ^' IK^" Jtf |Q keep you modest and free from vain 
 glory, remember that it is no longer 
 in your power to spend your life 
 wholly, from youth upwards, in the 
 pursuit of wisdom. Your friends and 
 yourself, too, are sufficiently acquainted how much 
 you fall short of philosophy ; you have been liable to 
 disturbance, so that the bare report of being a philo- 
 sopher is no longer an easy matter for you to compass ; 
 you are unqualified by your station. However, since 
 you know how to come at the thing, never be con- 
 cerned about missing the credit. Be satisfied, there- 
 fore, and for the rest of your life let your own rational 
 Qature direct you. Mind, then, what she desires, and 
 et nothmg foreign disturb you. You are very sensible 
 low much you have rambled after happiness, and 
 kiled. Neither learning, nor wealth, nor fame, nor 
 Dleasure could ever help you to it. Which way is it 
 to be had then ? By acting up to the height of 
 luiman nature. And how shall a man do this ? Why, 
 by getting a right set of principles for impulses and 
 Ructions. And what principles are those ? Such 
 
 is state and distinguish good and evil. Such as 
 
 266 
 
124 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 give us to understand that there is nothing properly 
 good for a man but what promotes the virtues of 
 justice, temperance, fortitude, and independence, nor 
 anything bad for him, but that which carries him off 
 to the contrary vices. 
 
 2. At every action ask yourself this question. What 
 will the consequence of this be to me ? Am I not 
 likely to repent of it ? I shall be dead in a little 
 time, and then all is over with me. If the present 
 undertaking is but suitable to an intelligent and 
 sociable being, and one that has the honour to live by 
 the same rule and reason with God himself ; if the 
 case stands thus, all is well, and to what purpose 
 should you look any farther ? 
 
 3. Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Pompey, what 
 were they in comparison of Diogenes, Heraclitus, and 
 Socrates ? These philosophers looked through things 
 and their causes, and their ruling principles were in 
 accordance. But as for those great princes, what a 
 load of cares were they pestered with, and to how 
 many things were they slaves ! 
 
 4. People will play the same pranks over and over 
 again, though you should burst. 
 
 5. In the first place, keep yourself easy, for all 
 things are governed by the universal nature. Besides, 
 you will quickly go the way of all flesh, as Augustus 
 and Hadrian have done before you. Farther, examine 
 the matter to the bottom, and remember that your 
 business is to be a good man. Therefore, whatever 
 the dignity of human nature requires of you, set about 
 
MEDITATIONS. 125 
 
 it at once, without "ifs" or ''ands" ; and speak always 
 according to your conscience, but let it be done in the 
 terms of good nature and modesty and sincerity. 
 
 6. It is the work of Providence to change the face 
 of things, and remove them from one place to another. 
 All conditions are subject to revolution, so that you 
 need not be afraid of anything new, for all things are 
 usual, and equally distributed. 
 
 7. Every being is at ease when its powers move 
 regularly and without interruption. Now a rational 
 being is in this prosperous condition when its judgment 
 is gained by nothing but truth and evidence, when its 
 designs are all meant for the advantage of society, 
 when its desires and aversions are confined to objects 
 within its power, when it rests satisfied with the 
 distributions of the universal nature of which it is a 
 part, just as much as a leaf belongs to the nature of 
 the tree that bears it. Only with this difference, that 
 a leaf is part of a nature without sense or reason, and 
 liable to be checked in its operations, whereas a 
 man is a limb as it were of an intelligent, righteous, 
 and irresistible being, that is all wisdom, and assigns 
 matter and form, time, force, and fortune, to everything 
 in one measure and proportion. And this you will 
 easily perceive if you do not compare one thing with 
 another in every detail, but compare the whole of one 
 thing with the whole of another. 
 
 8. You have no leisure to read books, what then ? 
 You have leisure to check your insolence. It is in 
 your power to be superior to pleasure and pain, to be 
 deaf to the charms of ambition. It is in your power 
 
126 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 not odI}^ to forbear being angry with people for their 
 folly and ingratitude, but over and above, to cherish 
 their interest, and take care of them. 
 
 9. Never again let any man hear you censure a 
 court life, nor seem dissatisfied with your own. 
 
 10. Repentance is a reproof of a man's conscience 
 for the neglect of some advantages. Now, whatever is 
 morally good is profitable, and ought to be the 
 concern of a man of probity. But no good man 
 would ever be inwardly troubled for the omission of 
 any pleasure, whence it follows that pleasure is 
 neither profitable nor good. 
 
 11. What is this thing considered in itself? Of 
 what sort of substance, of what material and causal 
 parts does it consist ? What share of action has it in 
 the world ? and how long is it likely to stay there ? 
 
 12. When you find yourself sleepy in a morning, 
 remember that business and doing service to the 
 world is to act up to nature and live like a man. 
 Whereas sleep you have in common with the 
 beasts. Now those actions which fall in with a man's 
 nature are more suitable and serviceable, yes, and 
 more pleasant than others. 
 
 13. Upon every new impression let it be your 
 constant custom to examine the object in the light of 
 physics, ethics, and dialectics. 
 
 14. When you are about to converse with any 
 person, make this short speech to yourself: What 
 notions has this man about good and evil ? Then if 
 he has such opinions concerning pleasure and pain, 
 and the causes of them, reputation or ignominy, life 
 
MEDITATIONS. 127 
 
 or death ; if the case stands thus with him, I shall 
 not wonder at his practice, and I shall remember 
 that it is next to impossible he should do otherwise. 
 
 15. Would it not be an odd instance of surprise to 
 stare at a fig-tree for bearing figs ? Why then should 
 it seem strange to us for the world to act like itself, 
 and produce things pursuant to quality and kind ? 
 This is just as foolish as it would be for a physician 
 to wonder at a fever, or a master of a vessel at a cross 
 blast of wind. 
 
 16. To retract or mend a fault at the admonition 
 of a friend in no way hurts your liberty, for it is still 
 your own activity which by means of your own 
 impulse and judgment, and by your own mind, makes 
 you see your mistake. 
 
 17. Why do you do this, if it is in your power to 
 let it alone ? But if you cannot help it, whom do you 
 blame ? The atoms or the gods ? Either is folly, and 
 therefore we must murmur against nothing. If you 
 can mend the cause, set about it. Tf not, mend the 
 thing itself. If you cannot do even that, what are 
 you the better for grumbling? Now a man should 
 never do anything to no purpose. 
 
 18. Whatever drops out of life is somewhere, for 
 the world loses nothing. If it stays here, it also 
 changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, 
 which are elements of the universe and of yourself. 
 And these two change and do not complain. 
 
 19. Everything is made for some end. The sun 
 even will say, I have my business assigned, and so 
 
128 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 too the celestial deities. But pray, what were you 
 made for ? For your pleasure ? Common sense will 
 not bear such an answer. 
 
 20. Nature pre-ordains the end of everything, no 
 less than its beginning and continuance, as does he that 
 strikes a ball, and what is the ball the better all this 
 while for mounting, or the worse for flying lower, and 
 coming to the ground ? What does a bubble get in 
 the swelling or lose in the breaking ? The same may 
 be said of a candle. 
 
 21. Turn your body the wrong side outwards, and 
 see it as it is, and consider what age and disease will 
 make of you, and consider that both the orator and the 
 hero, the praiser and the praised, will quickly be out 
 of sight, and that we live but in a corner of this little 
 dimension, that men differ in their notions of honour 
 and esteem, and that even the same person is not of 
 the same opinion long together, and, moreover, that 
 the earth is but a point. 
 
 22. Mind that which lies before you, whether it 
 be thought, word, or action. You are well enough 
 served for choosing rather to become good to-morrow 
 than be good to-day. 
 
 23. Am I about anything ? I will do it with regard 
 to the interest of mankind. Does anything happen 
 to me? I receive it, referring it to the gods, and the 
 fountain of all things whence springs all that happens. 
 
 24. Think a little, and tell me what you meet 
 with in the business of bathing? There is oil and 
 sweat, and dirtiness and water, but an offensive mix- 
 
MEDITATIONS. 129 
 
 tare, take it altogether. Why, life and everything in 
 it is made up of such indifferent stuff. 
 
 25. Lucilla buried Verus, and followed him soon 
 after. Secanda did the same office for Maximus, and 
 survived but a little while. And thus it fared with 
 Epitynchanus and Diotimus, with Antoninus and 
 Faustina, with Celer and the Emperor Hadrianus ; 
 they assisted at one funeral, and quickly made an- 
 other themselves. Where are those men of wit, force, 
 and knowledge, and the others puffed up with pride ? 
 They made a great noise and figure formerly, but 
 what is become of them now ? Where are those 
 sharp-witted philosophers, Charax, Eudsemon, Deme- 
 trius the Platonist, and others of their learning ? 
 Alas ! they took but a turn in the world, and are 
 gone long since. Some of them have sunk at once, 
 and left no memory behind them. The history of 
 others is overcast, and dwindled into fables, and a 
 third sort have dropped even out of fables. Your 
 business is therefore to remember, that after death 
 this compound of yours will fall to pieces ; or else 
 your soul will either be extinguished or removed 
 into another station. 
 
 26. Satisfaction consists in doing the things we 
 were made for. And how is this to be compassed ? 
 By the practice of general kindness, by neglecting the 
 movements of our senses, by distinguishing appear- 
 ance from truth, and by contemplating the nature of 
 the universe and its works. 
 
 27. Every man has three relations to acquit him- 
 self in : his body that encompasses him makes one, 
 
,3o MEDITATIONS. 
 
 the Divine cause that gives to all men all things an- 
 other, and his neighbours a third. 
 
 28. If pain is an affliction, it must affect either the 
 body or the mind ; if the body is hurt, let it say so ; 
 as for the soul, it is in her power to preserve her 
 serenity and calm by supposing the accident no evil; 
 for judgment and impulse, aversion and desire, are 
 lodged within, and there no mischief can come at 
 them. 
 
 29. Kub out the impressions of fancy on the mind 
 by continually saying to yourself. It is in my power 
 to make my soul free from desire or disturbance. I 
 am likewise able to distinguish the quality of things, 
 and make use of them accordingly. These are all 
 privileges of nature, and ought to be remembered as 
 such. 
 
 30. When you speak in the senate or elsewhere, 
 speak suitably and without affectation, and let your 
 discourse be always clear. 
 
 31. Augustus' court is buried long since; his 
 empress and daughter, his grand-children and ances- 
 tors, his sister and Agrippa, his relations and domes- 
 tics, physicians and sacrificers, his favourites, such as 
 Arius the philosopher, and M^cenas, they are all gone. 
 Gfo on from single persons to families, that of the 
 Pompeyg, for instance, and you will find the whole line 
 extinct. " This man was the last of his house," is not 
 uncommon upon a monume.^t. How solicitous were 
 the ancestors of such people about an heir; and yet 
 some one must of necessity be the last. Here, too, 
 consider the death of a whole race. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 131 
 
 S2. Guide your life towards a single course of actiou 
 and if every action goes its due length, as far as may 
 be, rest contented. Now, no mortal can hinder you 
 from putting your affairs in this condition. But may 
 not some obstacle from without interpose ? No ; not 
 so far as to prevent your acting like a man of probity, 
 moderation, and prudence. But perhaps my activity 
 may be checked in some other way. It is no matter 
 for that. As long as you are easy under the obstruc- 
 
 Ition, and pass on smoothly to whatever offers, you 
 have at once another opportunity for action, in accord- 
 ance with this aforesaid government. 
 
 33. As to the case of good fortune, take it without 
 pride, and resign it without reluctance. 
 
 34. If you have observed a hand or a foot cut 
 off, and removed from the body, just such a thing is 
 that man, as far as lies in his power, who is discon- 
 tented with fate, and breaks off from the interest of 
 mankind, or who by a selfish act has cut himself off 
 from the union of nature, for by nature he is a part of 
 the whole. But here lies the good luck of the case. 
 It is in your power to set the limb on again. This 
 favour is allowed by God to no other part of the 
 creation that what is separated and cut off should 
 be joined on again. Consider, then, the particular 
 bounty of God to man in this privilege. He has set 
 him above the necessity of breaking off from nature 
 and Providence at all ; but supposing he has broken 
 away, it is in his power to rejoin the body, and grow 
 together again, and recover the advantage of being the 
 same member he was at first. 
 
132 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 35. Whence come all the powers and prerogatives 
 of rational beings ? From the soul of the universe. 
 Amongst other faculties, they have this which I am 
 going to mention. For as the universal nature over- 
 rules all mutinous accidents, brings them under the 
 laws of fate, and makes them part of itself, so it is 
 the power of man to make something out of every 
 hindrance, and turn it to his own advantage. 
 
 36. Do not take your whole life into your head at 
 a time, nor burden yourself with the weight of the 
 future, nor form an image of all probable misfortunes. 
 This method will but confound you. On the contrary, 
 your way is upon every emergency to put this ques- 
 tion to yourself, "' What intolerable circumstance is 
 there in all this ? " For you will be ashamed to 
 assign particulars, and confess yourself conquered. 
 Besides, you are to remember, that neither what is 
 past nor what is to come need afflict you, for you have 
 only to deal with the present. Now, this is strangely 
 lessened, if you take it singly and by itself Chide 
 your fancy, therefore, if it offers to shrink for a 
 moment and grow faint under so slender a trial. 
 
 37. Do Panthea and Pergamus still wait at the 
 tomb of Verus, or Chabrias and Diotimus at that of 
 Hadrian ? That would be absurd indeed ! And what 
 if they were there, would those princes be sensible of 
 the service ? Granting they were, what satisfaction 
 would it be to them ? And suppose they were pleased, 
 would these w^aiters be immortal ? Are they not 
 doomed to age and death with the rest of mankind ? 
 And when they are dead, what would the royal ghosts 
 
MEDITATIONS, 133 
 
 lo for want of their attendance ? Alas ! all this cere- 
 nony must end at last in stench and dust. 
 
 38. If you are so quick at discerning, says one, 
 iiscern and judge wisely. 
 
 39. I find no mortal virtue^ which contradicts and 
 3ombats justice ; this cannot be affirmed of pleasure, 
 ibr here temperance comes in with a restraint. 
 
 40. It is opinion which gives being to misfortune, 
 io not fancy yourself hurt, and nothing can touch j^ou. 
 But ^vhat is this ''you V It is your reason. But I 
 am not all reason. Very well, but do not let reason 
 grow uneasy. And if any other part of you is in 
 trouble, let it keep its concerns to itself. 
 
 41. To be checked in the functions of sense, and 
 motion, and desire is an evil to the animal life ; that 
 which hinders the growth or flourishing of a vegetable 
 may be said to be an evil there, so likewise to be 
 cramped in the faculties of the mind is an evil to an 
 intelligent nature. Apply all this to yourself Does 
 pleasure or pain attack you ? Turn them over to 
 your senses, and let them answer for it. Does any- 
 thing cross your undertaking ? Why, if you are 
 positive and peremptory about it, the disappointment 
 is really an evil to your rational nature. But if you 
 consider the usual course of things, then no manner of 
 hindrance or harm has happened to you ; indeed, no 
 mortal can put a restraint upon the soul ; and neither 
 fire nor sword, slander, tongue, nor tyrant can touch 
 her ; just as a sphere when it has once come into 
 being remains a sphere. 
 
134 MEDITA TIONS. 
 
 42. Why sliould I vex myself that never willingly 
 vexed anybody ? 
 
 43. Every man has his particular inclination, but 
 my pleasure lies in a sound understanding, a temper 
 that never falls out either with men or accidents, 
 that sees and takes all things with good humour, and 
 puts them to the uses they are fit for. 
 
 44. Make the best of your time while you have it. 
 Those who are so solicitous about fame never consider 
 that future generations will be much the same as the 
 present whom they are vexed with, and they, too, 
 are mortal, what then can the noise or opinions of such 
 little mortals ;:^ignify to you ? 
 
 45. Toss me into what climate or state you please, 
 for all that, I will keep my divine part content, if it 
 can but exist, and act in accordance with its nature. 
 What ! is this misadventure big enough to ruffle my 
 mind and make it deteriorate ? To make it mean, 
 craving, and servile, and frightened ; what is there 
 that can justify such disorders ? 
 
 46. No accident can happen to any man but what 
 is consequent to his nature. And the same thing may 
 be affirmed of a beast, a vine, or a stone. Now if 
 things fare no otherwise than according to kind and 
 constitution, why should you complain ? --You may be 
 assured the universal nature has never laid upon you 
 an intolerable evil. 
 
 47. If anything external vexes you, ta ke noti ce 
 that it is not the thing which disturbs you, but your 
 notion about it, which notion you may dismiss at 
 once if you please. But if the condition of your mind 
 
 your 
 ycii: 
 
 diffi' 
 [or 
 
 will 
 
 joi 
 tb 
 
 sel 
 
MEDITATIONS. i35 
 
 displease yon, who should hinder you from rectifying 
 pur opinion ? Farther, if you are disturbed because 
 \ y^ou are not active in the discharge of your duty, your 
 fWay is rather to do something than to grieve at your 
 own omission. But you are under some insuperable 
 difficulty ; then never vex yourself about the matter, 
 for you have nothing to answer for. It may be you 
 will say : It is not worth my while to live unless this 
 business can be effected. Why then, even die ; but 
 take your leave contentedly, go off as smoothly as if 
 you were in full activity, and be not angry with those 
 that disappointed you. 
 
 48. The mind is invincible when she turns to her- 
 self, and relies upon her own courage ; in this case 
 there is no forcing her will, though she has nothing 
 but obstinacy for her defence. What then must her 
 strength be when she is fortified with reason, and 
 engages upon thought and deliberation ? A soul 
 unembarrassed with passion is a very citadel, the most 
 impregnable security for man in future ; hither we 
 may retire and defy our enemies. He that has not 
 seen this advantage must be ignorant, and he that 
 neglects to use it unhappy. 
 
 49. Do not make more of things than your senses 
 report. For instance, you are told that such an one 
 has spoken ill of you. Right ; but that you are really 
 the worse for it is no part of the news. Again, I see 
 my child lie sick. True ; but that he is in danger is 
 more than I see. Thus always stop at the first 
 representation, and add nothing yourself from within, 
 and you are safe. Or rather, reason upon it like a 
 
136 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 man that has looked through the world, and is no 
 stranger to anything that can happen. 
 
 60. Does your cucumber taste bitter ? Let it 
 alone. Are there brambles in your way ? Avoid 
 them then. Thus far you are well. But, then, do 
 not ask what does the world with such things as this, 
 for a natural philosopher would laugh at you. This 
 expostulation is just as wise as it would be to find 
 fault with a carpenter for having saw-dust, or a tailor 
 shreds in his shop. Yet they have places where to 
 bestow these. But universal nature has no place for 
 refuse out of herself, but the wondrous part of her art 
 is that though she is circumscribed, yet everything 
 within her that seems to grow old and moulder and 
 be good for nothing, she melts down into herself 
 and recoins in another figure, and thus she neither 
 wants any foreign substance or by-place to throw 
 the dross in, but is always abundantly furnished 
 with room, and matter, and art within herself 
 
 51. Be not heavy in business, nor disturbed in 
 conversation, nor rambling in your thoughts. Keep 
 your mind from running adrift, from sudden surprise 
 and transports, and do not overset yourself with too 
 much employment. Do men curse you ? Do they 
 threaten to kill and quarter you ? How can this 
 prevent you from keeping your mind pure, wise, 
 temperate, and just ? It is much as if a man that 
 stands by a pure and lovely spring should fall a-railing 
 at it, the water never ceases bubbling up for all that ; 
 and if you should throw in dirt or clay, it would 
 quickly disappear and disperse, and the fountain will 
 
MEDITATIONS. 137 
 
 Dot be polluted. Which way now are you to go to 
 work, to keep your springs always running, that they 
 may never stagnate into a pool ? I will tell you : 
 you must always preserve in yourself the virtues of 
 freedom, of sincerity, sobriety, and good nature. 
 
 52. He that is unacquainted with the nature of the 
 world, must be at a loss to know where he is. And 
 he that cannot tell the ends he was made for, is 
 ignorant both of himself and the world too. And he 
 that is uninstructed in either of these two points, will 
 never be able to know the design of his being. 
 What do you think then of his discretion, that is 
 anxious about what is said of him, and values either 
 the praise or the censure of those folks that know 
 neither where they are, nor who ? 
 
 53. What ! Are you so ambitious of a man's good 
 word, that curses himself thrice every hour ? Are 
 you so fond of being in their favour, that cannot keep 
 in their own 1 And how can they be said to please 
 themselves, who repent of almost everything they do ? 
 
 54. Let your soul work in harmony with the 
 universal intelligence, as your breath does with the 
 air. This correspondence is very practicable, for 
 the intelligent power lies as open and pervious to 
 your mind, as the air you breathe does to your lungs, 
 if you can but draw it in. 
 
 55. Wickedness generally does no harm to the 
 universe, so too in particular subjects, it does no harm 
 to any one. It is only a plague to him in whose 
 power it lies to be rid of it whenever he pleases. 
 
 h^. My will is as much my own as my constitu- 
 
138 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 tioD ; and no more concerned in the will of another 
 man, than my breath and body is in another man's. 
 For though we are born for the service of each other, 
 yet our liberty is independent. Otherwise my neigh- 
 bour's fault might be my misfortune. But God has 
 prevented this consequence, lest it should be in 
 another's power to make me unhappy. 
 
 57. The sun is diffused, and bestows itself every- 
 where, but this seeming expense never exhausts it. 
 The reason is, because it is stretched like a thread, 
 and thus its beams have their name from extension. 
 As for the properties and philosophy of a ray, you 
 may observe them, if you like to let it into a dark 
 room through a narrow passage. Here you will see 
 it move in a straight line, till it is broken, and, as it 
 were, divided, by having its progress stopped by a 
 solid body ; and here the light makes a stand, with- 
 out dropping or sliding off. Thus you should let 
 your sense shine out and diffuse, extended but not 
 exhausted ; and when you meet with opposition, never 
 strike violently against it, nor yet drop your talent in 
 despair. But let your beams be fixed, and enlighten 
 where they find a capacity. And as for that body 
 that will not transmit the light, it will but darken 
 itself by its resistance. 
 
 58. He that dreads death is either afraid that his 
 senses will be extinguished or altered. Now, if you 
 have no faculties, you will have no feeling. But if you 
 have new perceptions, you will be another creature, 
 and will not cease to live. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 139 
 
 59. Men are born to be serviceable to one another, 
 therefore either reform the world or bear with it. 
 
 60. Understanding does not always drive onward 
 like an arrow. The mind sometimes by making a 
 halt, and going round for advice, moves straight on 
 none the less, and hits the mark. 
 
 71. Look nicely into the thoughts of every one, 
 and give them the same freedom as your own. 
 
 267 
 

 Mf'^4^^^^ji/..a,4£.4».AM2»^^^Jl^^J^^^ 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 
1. 1 
 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 N JUSTICE is no less than higli treason 
 against heaven. For since the nature 
 of the universe has made rational crea- 
 tures for mutual service and support, 
 but never to do anybody any harm, 
 since the case stands thus : he that crosses upon this 
 design is profane, and outrages the most ancient Deity ; 
 so, too, does the liar outrage the same Deity. For the 
 nature of the universe is the cause of all that exists. 
 Thus all things are one family united, and, as it were, 
 of kin to each other. This nature is also styled truth, 
 as being the basis of first principles and certainty. 
 He, therefore, that tells a lie knowingly, is an irre- 
 ligious wretch, for by deceiving his neighbour he is 
 unjust to him. And he that is guilty of an untruth 
 out of ignorance is liable to the same charge, because 
 he dissents from the nature of the whole, brings dis- 
 order into the world, and opposes the nature of the 
 universe. Yes, and he 023poses himself too, who is 
 borne to what is at variance with truth. By neglecting 
 the impulses he was born to, he has lost the test of truth, 
 and the distinction of right and wrong. Further, 
 he that reckons prosperity and pleasure among things 
 
144 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 really good, pain and hardsliip amongst things really 
 evil, can be no pious person ; for such a man will be 
 sure to complain of the administrations of Providence, 
 and charge it with mismatching fortune and merit. 
 He will often see evil people furnished with materials 
 for pleasure, and regaled with the relish of it, and good 
 men harassed and depressed, and meeting with nothing 
 but misfortune. Now, he that is afraid of pain 
 will be afraid of something that will always be in the 
 world ; but this is a failure in reverence and respect. 
 On the other hand, he that is violent in the pursuit of 
 pleasure, will not hesitate to turn villain for the pur- 
 chase. And is not this plainly an ungodly act % To 
 set the matter right, where the allowance of God is 
 equally clear, as it is with regard to prosperity and 
 adversity (for had He not approved both these con- 
 ditions. He would never have made them both), I 
 say, where the good liking of heaven is equally clear, 
 ours ought to be so too, because we ought to follow the 
 guidance of nature and the sense of the Deity. That 
 man, therefore, that does not comply with Providence 
 in the same indifference with respect to pleasure and 
 pain, life and death, honour and infamy, he that does 
 not this without struggling of passions, without un- 
 manageable preference or aversion, is no friend to the 
 Divine government. 
 
 By saying that universal nature or God stands 
 equally affected to these different dispensations, the 
 meaning is that they are both comprehended in the 
 general scheme, and equally consequent to the first 
 establishment. They were decreed by Providence 
 
MEDITATIONS. 145 
 
 from the begiDning, and struck out with the lines of 
 the creation. Then it was that the plan of providence 
 was drawn, and the fate of futurity determined. Then 
 nature was made prolific, and enabled to bring forth 
 in due time. Then the whole stock of beings, the 
 revolutions of fortune, and the successions of time, were 
 all stated and set going. 
 
 2. He is better bred and more a gentleman, that 
 takes leave of the world without a blot on his 
 scutcheon, and has nothing of falsehood and dissimu- 
 lation, of luxury or pride, to tarnish his character. 
 But when a man is once dipt in these vices, the next 
 best thing is for him to quit life. Have you deter- 
 mined to abide with vice, and has not even experience 
 yet taught you to fly from the plague ? For the destruc- 
 tion of the understanding is a far worse plague than the 
 corruption and change of the air that surrounds us ; 
 for the brute only suffers in the first case, but the man 
 in the other. 
 
 3. Do not despise death, but accept it willingly ; 
 look upon it as part of the product of nature, and one 
 of those things which providence has been pleased to 
 order. For such as are youth and age, growth and 
 manhood, down and gray hairs, pregnancy and 
 birth, and all natural actions, and incidents of life, 
 so also is dying. A wise man, therefore, must 
 neither run giddily nor impatiently and contemptu- 
 ously into his grave. He must look upon death as 
 nature's business, and wait her leisure as he does for 
 the progress and maturity of other things ; for as you 
 wait for a child to come into the world when it is 
 
146 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 ready, so you should stay in the other case till things 
 are ripe, and your soul drops out of the husk of her 
 own accord. But if you stand in need of a vulgar 
 remedy to soothe the mind, consider, then, what sort 
 of world and what sort of customs you will be rid of ! 
 It is true you are not to fall foul upon mankind, but to 
 treat them with kindness and gentleness. But still 
 you may remember that you will not be leaving men 
 just of your own mind and fanpy. Such a unanimity 
 amongst mortals might reasonably recommend life, 
 and make us loth to part with it. But you perceive 
 that vast disturbances are bred by different opinions ; 
 insomuch that now we ought rather to petition death 
 to make haste, for fear we too should forget our true 
 selves. 
 
 4. He that commits a fault abroad is a trespasser 
 at home ; and he that injures his neighbour, hurts 
 himself, for to make himself an evil man is a great 
 mischief. 
 
 5. Omissions no less than commissions are often- 
 times part of injustice. 
 
 6. If your judgment pronounces rightly, if your 
 actions are friendly and well meant, if your mind is 
 resigned to all that proceeds from the external cause 
 at this moment ; if you are in possession of these 
 blessings, you are happy enough. 
 
 7. Do not be imposed on by appearances ; check 
 your impulses, and moderate your desire, and keep 
 your reason always in her own power. 
 
 8. The souls of brutes are all of one kind, and so 
 are those of rational beings, though of a rational kind 
 
MEDITATIONS. 147 
 
 And thus all living creatures that have occasion for 
 air, and earth, and light, are furnished with the same 
 kind, all that have the faculty of vision and life. 
 
 9. Things of the same common quality have a 
 tendency to their kind. Earthy bodies fall to the 
 ground. One drop of moisture runs after another ; 
 and thus air, where it is predominant, presses after 
 air, and nothing but force and violence can keep these 
 things asunder. Fire, likewise, mounts upwards on 
 account of its own element, fire, but it has such a 
 disposition to propagate its species and join every 
 other fire here below, that it catches easily upon all 
 fuel a little more dry than ordinary, because in 
 such the qualities opposite to ignition are weak and 
 disabled. Thus all beings which partake of the same 
 common intelligent nature have a natural instinct for 
 correspondence with their own kind ; only with this 
 difference, that the higher anything stands in the 
 scale of being, the more it is inclined to communi- 
 cation with its own order. To illustrate the argument, 
 we find the force of nature very active amongst brute 
 animals, as appears by their running together in 
 herds and swarms according to kind ; by their pro- 
 viding for their young ones, and by that resem- 
 blance of love which is carried on among them. 
 These animals have a soul in them, by consequence 
 their principle of union is more vigorous than in 
 plants, stones, and wood. To go on to reasonable 
 creatures, we may observe them united by public 
 counsels and commonwealths, by particular friendships 
 and families, and in times of war they have truces 
 
14^ MEDITATIONS. 
 
 and treaties. Farther, to instance a higher order, 
 the stars, though not neighbours in situation, move by 
 concert. Thus where things are more noble and 
 nature rises, sympathy rises too, and operates even 
 among distant objects. But now see what happens. 
 The rational creatures are the only beings which have 
 now forgotten this mutual desire and inclination, and 
 here alone this flowing together is not seen. But 
 though they run from their kind, they are brought 
 back again in some measure. For great is the power 
 of nature, and you shall sooner see a piece of earth re- 
 fuse to lie by its own element, than find any man so 
 perfectly unsociable as not to correspond with some- 
 body or other. 
 
 10. God and men and the world all of them bear 
 fruit in their proper seasons. It is true, use has re- 
 strained this signification to vines and trees ; but this 
 custom apart, reason may properly enough be said to 
 bear fruit for itself and for the common good, espe- 
 cially if we consider that the fruit of the understanding 
 keeps close to its kind and resembles the stock. 
 
 11. Give an injurious person good advice, and re- 
 form him if you can. If not, remember that your good 
 temper was given you for this trial ; that the gods too 
 are so patient as even to pass by the perverseness of 
 such persons, and sometimes to assist them over and 
 above in their health, fame, and fortune ; so benign 
 are they. Just thus may you do if you please ; if 
 not, where is the impediment ? 
 
 12. Do not drudge like a galley slave, nor do busi- 
 ness in such a laborious manner as if you had a mind 
 
MEDITATIONS. 149 
 
 to be pitied or wondered at ; but desire one thing 
 only, to move or halt as social reason shall direct you. 
 
 13. To-day I rushed clear out of all misfortune, or 
 rather I threw misfortune from me ; for to speak truth, 
 it was not outside, nor ever any farther off than my 
 own fancy. 
 
 14. All things are the same over again, and nothing 
 but what has been known to experience. They are 
 momentary in their lasting, and coarse in their 
 matter, and all things are now as they were in the 
 times of those we have buried. 
 
 15. Things stand without doors and keep their dis- 
 tance, and neither know nor report any things about 
 themselves. What is it, then, that pronounces upon 
 them ? Nothing but your own ruling principle. 
 
 16. As the good and evil of a rational, social 
 animal consist in action and not in feeling, so it is not 
 what they feel but what they do, which makes man- 
 kind either happy or miserable. 
 
 IT. It is all one to a stone whether it is thrown 
 upwards or downwards ; it is no harm for it to descend, 
 or good for it to mount. 
 
 18. Examine into men's understandings, and you 
 will see what sort of judges even of themselves are 
 those whom you fear. 
 
 19. All things are in a perpetual flux and a sort 
 of consumption ; you yourself are continually chang- 
 ing, and in a manner destroyed, and the whole world 
 keeps you company. 
 
 20. Let everybody's fault lie at his own door. 
 
 21. The intermission of action, and a stop in appe- 
 
150 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 tite and opinion, and even a kind of death upon the 
 faculties, is no harm. Go on now to the different 
 periods of life, and here you will find infancy, youth, 
 manhood, and old age, and one, as it were, the death 
 of another. And where lies the terror of all this ? 
 Proceed to your life in your grandfather's time, and to 
 that in your father's and mother's, and run over as 
 much ground in differences, changes, and decay as you 
 please, and ask yourself what grievance there is in 
 this, and you may conclude that ending and cessation 
 and alteration of your whole life will be no worse. 
 
 22. Hasten to examine your own ruling principle, 
 and that of the universe, and that of 3^our neighbour. 
 Your own, that you may keep it honest ; that of the 
 universe, that you may know what you are part of; your 
 neighbour's, that you may discover whether he acts 
 through ignorance or with knowledge ; and here you 
 should likewise remember that you are of kin to 
 him. 
 
 23. As you are a member of society yourself, so 
 every action of yours should tend to the benefit and 
 improvement of it. So that when you do anything 
 which has neither immediate nor remote reference to 
 general advantage, you make a breach in your life, 
 destroy its unity, and are as really guilty of seditious 
 behaviour as a malcontent in an assembly, as far as 
 in him lies, disturbs the general harmony. 
 
 24. Children's anger, mere baubles, wretched souls, 
 bearing up dead bodies, so that the picture of the 
 underworld makes a more vivid impression. 
 
 25. Penetrate the quality of forms, and take a 
 
MEDITATIONS. 151 
 
 view of them, abstracted from their matter ; and 
 when you have done this, compute the common 
 period of their duration. 
 
 26. You have been a great sufferer for not being 
 contented with your guiding principle, when it does 
 what it was made for. But enough ! 
 
 27. When people treat you ill, blame your conduct, 
 or report anything to your disadvantage, enter into 
 the very soul of them ; examine their understandings, 
 and see of what nature they are. You will be fully 
 convinced that the opinion of such mortals is not 
 worth one troublesome thought. However, you must 
 be kind to them, for nature has made them your 
 relations. Besides, the gods give them all sort of 
 countenance, warn them by dreams and prophecy, 
 and help them to those things they have a mind 
 to. 
 
 28. The periodic movements of the universe are 
 the same up and down from age to age. This un- 
 certain world is always rolling, and turning things 
 topsy-turvy. Now the soul of the universe either 
 pursues its course towards each particular, in which 
 case accept what it brings with it ; or else it only 
 moved to create at first, and all things followed one 
 another by necessary consequence. But if neither of 
 these hypotheses will satisfy, you must set Epicurus's 
 atoms at the helm. In a word, if God governs, all 
 is well ; but if things are left to themselves, and set 
 adrift, do not you float at random with them. We 
 shall quickly be all underground ; and ere long the 
 earth itself must be changed into something else, 
 
152 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 and that something into another form, and so on to 
 infinity. Now he that considers these everlasting 
 alterations, this constant tossing and tumbling, and 
 how fast revolutions succeed each other, he will have 
 but a mean opinion of what the world can afford. 
 
 29. The universal cause runs rapid like a torrent, 
 and sweeps all things along. What wretched states- 
 men are those counterfeits in virtue and philosophy ! 
 Mere empty froth ! Hark you, friend ! let honesty 
 be served first. Do what nature requires of you. 
 Fall on, then, as occasion offers, and never look about 
 for commendation. However, I w^ould not have you 
 expect Plato's Republic. As the world goes, a 
 moderate reformation is a great point, and therefore 
 rest contented; for who can change men's opinions ! 
 And yet unless you can change their opinions, their 
 subjection will be all force and dissembling. Come 
 now ! tell me of Alexander, Philip, and Demetrius of 
 Phalerum. Men shall see whether they had a right 
 notion of the laws of nature, and whether they 
 educated themselves. If they acted like tragedy 
 heroes, no one has condemned me to imitate them. 
 Philosophy is a modest and simple profession, do not 
 entice me to insolence and pride. 
 
 30. Fly your fancy into the clouds, and from this 
 imaginary height take a view of mortals here below. 
 What countless herds of men and countless solemnities ! 
 What infinite variety of voyages in storm and calm ! 
 What differences in the things that become, exist with 
 us, and perish ! Go on with the speculation, stretch 
 your thoughts over different aspects of the past and 
 
MEDITATIONS. 153 
 
 the future, and the present among barbarous nations ; 
 how many are there that never heard your name, 
 how many that will quickly forget you, and how 
 many that admire you now will censure you after- 
 wards ? In short, memory and fame, and all those 
 things which are commonly so much valued, are of no 
 account at all. 
 
 31. Keep a calm spirit towards things that proceed 
 from an external cause, and a just spirit towards those 
 that proceed from a cause within you ; that is, let 
 your impulse and action aim at the interest of man- 
 kind, for then you know your faculties are in the right 
 posture that nature has set them. 
 
 32. The greater part of your trouble lies in your 
 fancy, and therefore you may free yourself from it 
 when you please. I will tell you which way you may 
 move much more freely, and give yourself elbow-room. 
 Take the whole world into your contemplation, and 
 consider its eternal duration, and the swift change of 
 every single thing in it. Consider how near the end 
 of all things lies to their beginning ! But then the 
 ages before our birth and after our death are both 
 infinite and immeasurable. 
 
 33. Whatever you see now will quickly decay and 
 disappear, and those that gaze upon the ruins of time 
 will be buried under them. And then the lonofest 
 and the shortest liver will be both in the same 
 condition. 
 
 34. If you would look within people, and discover 
 the objects they aim at, and their motives for liking 
 and respect, you must strip them to the soul if you 
 
154 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 can. When they fancy that by commending or censur- 
 ing they do you a good or an ill turn, what a strange 
 conceit it is ! 
 
 35. Loss is nothing else than change. Things are 
 changed this way, it is true, but they do not perish. 
 Providence, by which all things are well contrived, 
 delights in these alterations. It has always been so 
 in the world, and always will be. What then? Will 
 you say that all things were made ill by so many gods, 
 and must they always remain ill and lack order ? 
 And is nature indeed condemned to an everlasting 
 misfortune ? 
 
 36. The materials of bodies, if you examine them, 
 are strangely coarse ; those that are animated have 
 little in them but water, and dust, and bones, and 
 something that is offensive. And again, marble is no 
 more than a callous excrescence of the earth, nor gold 
 and silver any better than its dregs and sediment. 
 Fine cloths are nothing but hair twisted together. 
 Purple is but the blood of a little fish. And thus I 
 might proceed farther. And as for spirits, they are 
 somewhat of kin to the rest, and are chased from one 
 figure to another. 
 
 37. Come ! you have had enough of life, and 
 grumbling, and apishness ; what makes you disturbed ? 
 What can you be surprised at % What has happened 
 to you worse than you had reason to expect ? Does 
 cause or matter make you uneasy ? Look into 
 them, and you may probably be relieved. Now for 
 your comfort, besides these two natures, there is 
 no other. It is high time therefore to become 
 
MEDITATIONS. 155 
 
 simple and behave better towards the gods. Three 
 years' time to peruse these things is as good as a 
 hundred. 
 
 38. If such a man has done amiss, the mischief 
 is to himself; and it may be, if you inquire, he has 
 not done it. 
 
 89. Either all things proceed from one intelligent 
 source, who makes the world but one whole ; and if so, 
 why should a part or single member complain of that 
 which is designed for the benefit of the whole ? Or 
 else we are under the misrule of atoms, and confu- 
 sion, and dispersion. Why then do you trouble 
 yourself Say to your ruling faculty, " You have 
 passed through death and corruption, and forms of 
 animals ; and even now you are playing a part, herd- 
 ing and feeding with the rest." 
 
 40. Either the gods have power to assist us, or they 
 have not. If they have not, what does praying to them 
 help you ? If tliey have, why do you not rather pray 
 that they would remove your fears and moderate your 
 desires, and rather keep you from grieving for any of 
 these things, than keep away one thing and grant an- 
 other ? For if the gods can help us, no doubt they 
 can help us to be wiser. But it may be you will say, 
 they have put this in my power. Why, then, do you 
 not make use of your talent, and act like a man of 
 spirit, and not run cringing and creeping after that 
 which is out of your reach ? But then who told you 
 that the gods do not assist us in things w^hich we 
 might possibly compass by ourselves ? Begin, then, 
 
 to pray for such things, and you will see. For instance, 
 
 268 
 
156 MEDllATIONS. 
 
 this man prays that he may gain such a woman, but 
 do you rather pray that you may have no such inclina- 
 tion. Another invokes the gods to set him free from 
 some trouble ; but let it be your petition that your 
 mind may never put you upon such a wish. A third 
 is very devout to prevent the loss of his son ; but I 
 would have you pray rather against the fear of losing 
 him. Let this be the rule for your devotions, and see 
 if the event does not answer. 
 
 41. " When I was sick/' sa3^s Epicurus, " I did not 
 discourse to my visitors about my diseases, or the 
 torment I was troubled with. No, my system of 
 natural philosophy was part of my subject ; and my 
 main concern was, that my mind, although it partakes 
 in these disturbances of the body, should remain calm, 
 and maintain its own good. I gave no handle to the 
 doctors to brag of their profession and what they did 
 for me, but held on with fortitude and indifference." 
 And when you are sick, or under any other disadvan- 
 tage, cannot you behave yourself as he did ? It is 
 practicable to all persuasions in philosophy to stand 
 their ground against all accidents, and not to join in 
 all the foolish talk of the ignorant, who are unac- 
 quainted with nature. We must always be prepared, 
 mind the thing at present before us, and the tools, too, 
 with which we are to work. 
 
 42. When you are shocked by any man's impu- 
 dence, put this question to yourself : ^' Is it possible 
 for such impudent people not to be in the world ? " 
 No, indeed. Why, then, do you demand an impossi- 
 bility 1 For this ill-behaved fellow is one of those 
 
MEDITATIONS. 157 
 
 necessary rascals that the world cannot dispense 
 with. This reflection will furnish you with patience 
 for a knave, a faithless person, or any other evil body. 
 For when you consider that there is no living without 
 such men, you will treat them better individually ; 
 and to fortify you further, consider what an antidote 
 nature has given you agaiust this disease. For sup- 
 posing yoa have to do with a troublesome blockhead, 
 you have meekness and temper given you for your 
 guard, and so with the rest. It is likewise in your 
 power to inform the man better, and set him right; 
 for everyone that does an ill action is really out of his 
 way, and misses his mark, though he may not 
 know it. Besides, what harm have you received ? 
 If you examine the case, you will find none of 
 these provoking mortals have done your mind any 
 damage. Now that is the place in which what is 
 evil and harmful to you originates. Pray, where is the 
 wonder if an ignorant fellow acts ignorantly ? If you 
 expected other things from him, you are much to 
 blame. Your reason might make you conclude that 
 he would misbehave in this way, and yet, when that 
 which was most likely has happened, you seem sur- 
 prised at it. But especially if you accuse any man of 
 ingratitude and infidelity, the fault is your own, if 
 you believed that a man of this disposition would keep 
 faith, or else in conferring a favour you did not give 
 absolutely, for otherwise you would have been satisfied 
 with a generous action, and made virtue her own 
 reward. You have obliged a man, it is very well. 
 What would you have more ? You have acted accord- 
 
158 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 ing to your own nature, and must you still have a 
 reward over and above ? This is just as if an eye or 
 a foot should demand a salary for their service, and 
 not see or move without something for their pains. 
 For as these organs are contrived for particular 
 functions, in performing which they pursue their 
 nature and attain their perfection, so man is made to 
 be kind and oblige. And, therefore, when he does a 
 good office, and proves serviceable to the world, he 
 has fulfilled the end of his being, and attains his own 
 reward. 
 
^*^4^-^^*=^::^^##^***^^=^####^K^^^##^ 
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 ^'#^*^^ ##^*^^*^^^##^#^^#:J^^:^^}^ 
 
BOOK X. 
 
 MY soul, are you ever to be rightlj'^ 
 good, simple, and uniform, unmasked, 
 and made more visible to yourself 
 than the body that hangs about you ? 
 Are you ever likely to relish good 
 nature and general kindness as you ought ? Will you 
 ever be fully satisfied, get above want and wishing, 
 and never desire to seek your pleasure in anything 
 foreign, either living or inanimate ? Not desiring, I 
 say, either time for longer enjoyment nor place for 
 elbow-room, nor climate for good air, nor the music of 
 good company ? Can you be contented with your 
 present condition, and be pleased with all that is 
 about you, and be persuaded that you are fully fur- 
 nished, that all things are well with you ; for the gods 
 are at the head of the administration, and they will 
 approve of nothing but what is for the best, and tends 
 to the security and advantage of that good, righteous, 
 beautiful, and perfect being which generates and sup- 
 ports and surrounds all things, and embraces those 
 things which decay, that other resembling beings may 
 be made out of them ? In a word, are you ever Ukely 
 to be so happily qualified as to converse with the gods 
 
i62 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 and men in such a manner as neither to complain of 
 them nor be condemned by tliem ? 
 
 2. Examine what your nature requires, so far -as 
 you have no other law to govern you. And when 
 you hav6 looked into her inclinations never balk them, 
 unless your animal nature is likely to be worse for it. 
 Then you ai^e to examine what your animal nature 
 demands ; and here you may indulge your appetite as 
 far as you please, provided your rational nature does not 
 suffer by the liberty. Now, your rational nature 
 admits of nothing but what is serviceable to the rest 
 of mankind. Keep to these rules, and you will regard 
 nothing else. 
 
 3. Whatever happens, either you have strength to 
 bear it, or you have not. If you have, exert your 
 nature, and never murmur at the matter. But if the 
 weight is too heavy for you, do not complain ; it will 
 crush you, and then destroy itself. And here you are 
 to remember that to think a thing tolerable and 
 endurable is the way to make it so if you do but 
 press it strongly on the grounds of interest or 
 duty. 
 
 4. Is anyone mistaken? Undeceive him civilly, 
 and show him his oversight. But if you cannot con- 
 vince him, blame yourself, or not even yourself. 
 
 6. Whatever happens to you was pre-ordained 
 your lot from the first ; and that chain of causes which 
 constitutes fate, tied your person and the event to- 
 gether from all eternity. 
 
 6. Whether atoms or nature rule the world I lay 
 it down in the first place, that I am part of that 
 
MEDITATIONS, 163 
 
 wliole which is all under nature's government. 
 Secondly, I am in some measure related to those 
 beings which are of my own order and species. These 
 points being agreed, I shall apply them. Insomuch 
 then as I am a part of the universe, I shall never be 
 displeased with the general appointment ; for that can 
 never be prejudicial to the part which is service- 
 able to the whole, since the universe contains no- 
 thing but what is serviceable to it. For the nature 
 of no being is an enemy to itself. But the world has 
 this advantage above other particular beings, that 
 there is no foreign power to force it to produce anything 
 hurtful to itself. Since, therefore, I am a member of 
 so magnificent a body, I shall freely acquiesce in 
 whatever happens to me. Farther, inasmuch as I 
 have a particular relation to my own species, I will 
 never do anything against the common interest. On 
 the other hand, I shall make it my business to oblige 
 mankind, direct my whole life for the advantage of 
 the public, and avoid the contrary. And by holding 
 to this conduct, I must be happy, as that citizen 
 must needs be who is always working for the benefit 
 of his fellow-citizens, and perfectly satisfied with that 
 interest and station the government assigns him. 
 
 7. All the parts of the whole that lie within the 
 compass of the universe must of necessity corrupt and 
 decay ; by corruption I mean only alteration. Now 
 if this be an evil and a necessary one, by consequence 
 the whole of nature must be in a bad condition, by 
 having the parts so slenderly put together, and so very 
 liable to destruction. And if the case stands thus. 
 
i64 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 nature must either design unkindness to the paits of 
 her own body, by making them subject to unavoidable 
 evil in doing or receiving, or else have these things 
 come about without her knowledge. But both these 
 suppositions are highly improbable. Now if any man 
 has a mind to drop the term Nature, and affirm that 
 these things are naturally produced, he that affirms this 
 does but expose himself, by granting in the first place 
 that the parts of the universe are made for alteration, 
 and then wondering and complaining, as if such 
 accidents were unnatural and extraordinary, especially 
 since things do but return whence they came, and are 
 dissolved into their first principles. For either the 
 elements are scattered at large, or else that which is solid 
 turns to earth, and the particles of air join their own 
 element ; and thus they are received into the rational 
 substance of the universe, which will either be destroyed 
 by fire after a certain period, or else be renewed by 
 perpetual vicissitudes. Now I would not have you 
 think that those particles of earth or air which you 
 have now in your constitution are the same with 
 those you brought into the world with you. The 
 matter which now belongs to you is as it were but of 
 yesterday's growth or of the day before, and you have 
 taken it all in by food, or the air you breathe, and 
 therefore the alterations in your body do not rob you 
 of the flesh and blood you had from your mother, but 
 only of some later additions. But suppose the same 
 body you were born with is so closely connected with 
 that other, this is no objection to the former state- 
 ment. 
 
MEDITATIONS, 165 
 
 8. When you have given yourself the titles of a 
 man of goodness and modesty, of truth and prudence, 
 of resignation and magnanimity, take care that your 
 practice answers to your character, and if any of these 
 glorious names are lost in your mismanagement, 
 recover them as soon as you can : remembering 
 withal, that prudence implies consideration, care, and 
 discriminating enquiry ; that to be resigned signifies a 
 cheerful compliance with the allotments of universal 
 nature ; that magnanimity imports a superiority of 
 the reasoning part to the pleasure and pain of the 
 body to glory and death, and all those things which 
 people are either fond or afraid of. Now if you can 
 deserve the honour of these names, do not desire 
 them from other folks ; you will be quite another man, 
 and will enter into a new life, and indeed it is high 
 time to begin ; for to desire to go on at this rate, to 
 be polluted with appetite, and harassed with passion 
 any longer, is a senseless and a scandalous wish. It 
 resembles the meanness of those poor wretches in the 
 amphitheatre, who when they are half devoured, and 
 have nothing but wounds left them, beg notwithstand- 
 ing to be respited till the morrow ; though they know 
 they will only be thrown again to the same claws 
 and teeth that tore them before. Work into the 
 soul of you these few names of credit, and if you 
 find you can abide by them, stand your ground, and 
 think yourself transported to the fortunate islands. 
 But if you perceive that you are overmatched, and 
 begin to give way, retire cheerfully into some quiet 
 nook, where you may manage better. And if this 
 
1 66 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 will not do, you may give life the slip, but do this 
 without anger. Walk simply, gravely, and freely 
 into the other world, and thus the last action of your 
 life will be the only one worth the owning. And to 
 remember those good qualities above mentioned the 
 more effectually, you should remember the gods, and 
 that they had much rather that all rational natures 
 should resemble than flatter them, that trees are 
 distinguished by their fruit, dogs and bees by the 
 qualities proper to their kind, and men too by the 
 appellation of mankind. 
 
 9. Plays, warfare, terror, torpor, servility, will daily 
 wear away these holy principles of yours, which in 
 your study of nature you hastily conceive and let go 
 again. Upon all occasions you should look and act 
 in such a manner as to omit neither the perfect 
 performance of business nor the activity of thinking, 
 to be modest in the consciousness of your improve- 
 ment, but not so far as to undervalue your knowledge, 
 and keep it out of sight. When will you relish 
 simplicity ? when gravity ? When will you be able 
 to understand everything, to pronounce upon its 
 nature and its place in the universe ; to calculate 
 its continuance, and the ingredients it is made up 
 of, who are likely to be affected by it, and what 
 powers they are which can both give and take it 
 away ? 
 
 10. A spider when it has caught a fly thinks it 
 has done some great deed, and so does a sportsman 
 when he has run down a hare, and a fisherman too 
 when he has caught a sprat in a net. Some others 
 
MEDITATIONS. 167 
 
 must kill boars or bears before they can grow con- 
 ceited ; and a fourth sort value themselves upon 
 hunting Sarmatians ; though it may be in this last 
 case, if you go to the definition of robbing, the 
 one are as much thieves as the other. 
 
 11. Observe the steps, and continually study the 
 history of nature, and trace the progress of bodies 
 from one form and species to another ; contemplate 
 often upon this subject, for there is nothing contributes 
 so much to greatness of mind. He that" is rightly 
 affected with this speculation has in a manner laid his 
 body aside. He considers that this world will quickly 
 be over with him, that he must take his leave of man- 
 kind and everything here. In consequence of these 
 thoughts, he is all justice in his acts, and resignation 
 in all else. And as for what people will say or think 
 of him, or practise against him, he never minds it. 
 He has but two points to secure — that is, to be honest 
 in what he now does, and contented with what he now 
 receives. As for other projects and fancies, he has 
 done with them. His business is only to follow that 
 straight path which law has chalked out for him, for in 
 so doing he has the Deity for his guide. 
 
 12. Why need you be anxious about the event 
 when you may examine the enterprise, and debate the 
 reasonableness of it ? K you find it practicable, go on 
 contented, and let nothing divert you. But if you 
 cannot see your way, make a halt, and take the best 
 advice upon the case. And if you happen to be 
 stopped by some new emergency, make the most of 
 what is in your power with due consideration, and 
 
i68 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 always stick to what appears just; for after all, that 
 is the best thing to get. For though the grand 
 design may not succeed, yet your failure arose from 
 attempting this. The man who follows reason in all 
 things is calm, and yet easily moved, cheerful, and 
 yet grave. 
 
 13. When you are first awake you may put this 
 question ; whether another man's virtue will signify any- 
 thing to you in doing your business ? No, it will signify 
 nothing. And do not forget what sort of men those are 
 which value themselves so much upon the good or ill 
 character they give their neighbours. How scandal- 
 ously do they live ? How are they overgrown with 
 luxury and vice ? How foolish are their fancies, and 
 how unreasonable their fears ? See how they steal 
 and rob, not with hands and feet, but with their most 
 valuable pa,rt, which, if a man pleases, can produce 
 fidelity, modesty, truth, law, happiness. 
 
 14. He that is truly disciplined and reverent will 
 address nature in this language : " Give me what you 
 please, and take what you please away." And there 
 is not the least tincture of vanity in this, but it pro- 
 ceeds wholly from obedience and satisfaction with her. 
 
 15. Your time is almost over, therefore live as if 
 you were on a mountain. Place signifies nothing, if 
 you live everywhere in the world as in a social com- 
 munity. Never run into a hole, and shun company. 
 No. Let the Avorld see and recognise in you an 
 honest man who lives according to nature ; and if they 
 do not like him, let them kill him, for it is much 
 better he were served so, than to live as they do. 
 
MEDITATIONS. 169 
 
 16. Spend no more time in stating the quali- 
 fications of a man of virtue, but endeavour to get 
 them. 
 
 17. Take the whole bulk of matter and all the 
 extent of time frequently into your thoughts. And 
 then consider that all particular bodies are but a grain 
 in the proportion of substance, and but the turning a 
 gimlet in respect of time. 
 
 18. Examine all things closely, and you will find 
 them already decaying and changing, and, as it were, 
 rotting or dispersing, or else things are made as it were 
 to be unmade again. 
 
 19. Consider what an humble figure people make 
 w^hen they are eating or sleeping. But then when 
 they put on lordly airs, and strut about, or grow angry, 
 and abuse their inferiors from an altitude ! And yet 
 how many little masters did they lately cringe to, 
 how mean was their salary, and what a sorry con- 
 dition will they come to in a short time ? 
 
 20. That is best for every man which universal 
 nature sends him ; and the time of sending too is 
 also a circumstance of advantage. 
 
 21. The earth, as the poet has it, loves the re- 
 freshment of a shower, and the lofty ether loves the 
 earth. And the world loves to execute the decrees of 
 fate ; and therefore, say I to the universe, your in- 
 clinations and mine shall always be the same. And 
 do we not often say : This loves to be produced ? 
 
 22. Either you will take the benefit of custom, and 
 continue to live, or you cut yourself off from the world ; 
 and this, too, was your wish ; or you cease to live, then 
 
170 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 death will give you your discharge. One of these cases 
 must happen, therefore be not discouraged. 
 
 23. Take it for a rule that this piece of land is 
 like any other, and that all things here are the same 
 as on the top of a mountain, or by the sea-shore, or 
 where you will. In this case, as Plato observes, the 
 walls of a town and the inclosure of a sheepfold may 
 be much the same thing. 
 
 24. How does my guiding principle stand affected ? 
 To what condition am I now bringing it, and to what 
 uses do I put it ? Does thought run low with me ? 
 Am I grown selfish, and broken loose from the general 
 interest ? Is my soul as it were melted and mingled 
 with the body, and perfectly governed by it ? 
 
 25. He that runs away from his master is a 
 fugitive ; now the law is every man's master, and 
 therefore he that transgresses it is a deserter. And 
 all those that are dissatisfied, angry, and uneasy, desire 
 that something past, present, or future should not be, 
 of that which was appointed by the ruler of all, which 
 is justice, and which gives every one his due, and 
 break through the orders of Providence. Thus he 
 who is dissatisfied, or angry, or uneasy, is a deserter. 
 
 26. A man deposits seed in a womb, and then 
 another cause takes it and works on it, and makes a 
 child. What a thing from such a material ! Again 
 the child passes food down its throat, and again 
 another cause takes it, and makes perception and 
 motion, life and strength, and other things, both many 
 and strange ! Observe then the things that are thus 
 produced in darkness, and recognise the power just as 
 
MEDITATIONS, 171 
 
 ve perceive the power which carries thiugs upwards 
 ind downwards, not with the eyes, but no less 
 plainly. 
 
 27. You will do well to remember that the world 
 s just as it was formerly, and will go on at the same 
 
 bate. If you either dip into history, or recollect your 
 )wn experience, you will perceive the scenes of life 
 strangely uniform, and nothing but the old plays 
 revived. Take a view of the courts of Hadrian, 
 Antoninus Pius^ of Philip, of Alexander, or Croesus, 
 and you will find the entertainment the same, only 
 the actors are different. 
 
 28. He that struggles with his fortune, and makes 
 an affliction of it, is much like a pig that kicks and 
 cries out when his throat is cutting ; and he that, 
 when he is sick, mourns to himself over the bonds in 
 which we are held, is not much better. "We should 
 consider that none but rational creatures have the 
 privilege of making necessity a choice ; merely to 
 submit is what all are compelled to do. 
 
 29. Consider the satisfactions of life singly, and 
 examine them as they come up, and then ask yourself 
 if death is so terrible in taking them from you. 
 
 80. When anybody's misbehaviour disturbs you, 
 
 immediately turn to yourself and bethink you whether 
 
 you have not been guilty of the same fault ; for 
 
 instance, whether you have not over- valued money, 
 
 or pleasure, or fame, or the like. Such reflections 
 
 will quickly make you forget your anger, especially if 
 
 you consider that the offender was not altogether his 
 
 own man, but under some untoward compulsion. For 
 
 269 
 
172 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 what else could he do ? Therefore, if you can, step 
 in to the rescue and free him from the compulsion. 
 
 31. When you consider Satyrion the Socratic, 
 think upon Eutyches or Hymen ; and when you 
 remember Euphrates, think upon Eutychion or Syl- 
 vanus; and when Alciphron comes into your head, 
 carry your thoughts to Tropseophorus ; and when you 
 are musing upon Xenophon, let Crito or Severus come 
 into the contemplation ; and when you make yourself 
 the subject of your meditations, bring some of the 
 emperors, your predecessors, into your company ; and 
 thus set the dead and the living of the same character 
 and profession always one against another ; then ask 
 the question : Where are those men ? The answer will 
 be : They are nowhere, or at least nowhere that I 
 know of. Thus you will be strongly convinced that 
 men are but smoke and bubbles ; and this impression 
 will go the deeper if you consider that what is once 
 perished and sunk will never come up again through- 
 out the ages. As for your share of time, it is 
 but a moment in comparison. Why then cannot you 
 manage that little well and be satisfied ? What a 
 noble opportunity of improvement do you run away 
 from ? For what are all the revolutions of nature, 
 and the accidents of life, but trials of skill and 
 eKorcises of reason that has looked through the 
 causes of things carefully and philosophically. Go on 
 then till you have digested all this and conquered the 
 difficulty, for I would have you be like a strong 
 stomach, that masters all sort of diet, and makes 
 nourishment of it ; or if you please, like a fire well 
 
 kli 
 
MEDITATIONS. 173 
 
 kindled, whicli catches at everything you throw in, 
 and turns it into flame and brightness. 
 
 82. Put it out of the power of any one truly to 
 report you not to be a sincere or a good man ; let your 
 practice give him the lie ; this is all very feasible, 
 for pray who can hinder you from being just and 
 sincere ? To make all sure, you should resolve to live 
 no longer than you can live honestly ; for, in earnest, 
 reason would rather you were nothing than a knave. 
 
 33. What is it that is most proper to be said or 
 done upon the present occasion ? Let it be what it 
 will, I am sure it is in your power to perform it, and 
 therefore never pretend it impracticable. You will 
 never leave grumbling till you can practise virtue with 
 a relish, and make it your pleasure to perform those 
 acts that are suited to the constitution of a human 
 being ; for a man ought to hold it a pleasure to do 
 everything that is suitable to his nature, and that is 
 in his power. Now this is in his power everywhere. 
 The motion of a cylinder may be stopped, fire and 
 water may be checked in their tendency, and so may 
 any part of the vegetable and animal world. In this 
 case a great many obstructions may interpose, but 
 there is nothing can block up a soul, stop the course 
 of reason, or hinder a thought from running in its 
 natural channel as it pleases. He that considers the 
 irresistible liberty of the mind, that she moves as easily 
 as fire does upwards, as a stone downwards, as a 
 cylinder on a smooth descent, seeks nothing farther; 
 for all other impediments proceed either from the 
 body, which is really a corpse, or else they are founded 
 
174 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 in opinion, and unless we betray ourselves, and desert 
 our reason, can do us no manner of mischief; other- 
 wise, ill fortune, as it is commonly called, would 
 make a man ill, for all other productions of nature 
 or art, when any harm happens to them, are certainly 
 the worse for it, but here a man is, so to speak, 
 the better for what he suffers ; he improves his 
 value and raises his character by making a right use 
 of a rugged accident. In short, I would have you 
 remember, that no citizen can receive any damage by 
 that which does not affect the community, neither 
 can the community suffer unless the laws suffer too ; 
 but these misfortunes, as they are called, do not violate 
 the laws, therefore they do not hurt the community, 
 nor by consequence the citizen. 
 
 34. He that is well tinctured with philosophy 
 needs but a short receipt, a common cordial will keep 
 up such a man's spirits and expel fear from his heart. 
 For instance — 
 
 " As leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
 Now green in youth, now withering on the ground." 
 
 So your children are but leaves. Leaves, too, are the 
 echoes of praise, and censure, and silent blame, and 
 reproach. Leaves, too, are the continuance of fame. All 
 these matters, like leaves, have their spring for growing, 
 then a puff of wind sends them packing, and quickly 
 after the wood is new furnished again. Things are 
 strangely short-lived, and yet you fear and pursue 
 them as if all were everlasting, but for all that, you 
 will soon close your eyes, and then he that is your 
 chief mourner will quickly want another for himself. 
 
MEDITATIONS, 175 
 
 35. An eye that is strong and rightly disposed is 
 indifferent to all colours, therefore if it calls for green, 
 it is a sign it is weak and out of order. Thus when 
 the hearing and smelling are in good condition, they 
 do not pick and choose their objects, but take in all 
 manner of scents and sounds. Thus a strong stomach 
 despatches all that comes into it, like a mill that 
 grinds all sorts of grain. And thus a mind that is 
 sound and healthy is prepared to digest all sorts of 
 accidents, and therefore when it is clamorous in such 
 wishes as these : ** that my children may live and 
 flourish, that I may be commended for everything I 
 do ! " when the mind, I say, is thus sickly, it is just 
 like an eye that is all for green colours, and like a set 
 of teeth that would touch nothing by their good will 
 but soft things. 
 
 36. There is nobody so happy in his family and 
 friends, but that some of them when they see him 
 going will rejoice at his death. Let him be a person 
 of probity and prudence, somebody or other will drop 
 some of these sentences over his grave. '* Well ! our 
 man of order and gravity is gone, we shall now be no 
 more troubled with his discipline ! I cannot say he 
 was ill-natured to any of us, but for all that, I am 
 sensible he condemned us in his heart." This is the 
 best treatment a good man must expect. But alas ! 
 as for our conduct, how many reasons will people 
 muster up to be rid of us ! If you consider this when 
 you are dying, you will quit life with the less reluct- 
 ance. Say then to yourself, " I am leaving an odd 
 sort of world, where the sharers in my fortune, and the 
 
176 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 objects of my care and kindness, those people for whom 
 I have drudged and contrived, and wished so heartily, 
 count my life no better than a grievance, and would 
 fain be rid of me ; now who would be fond of staying 
 in such company any longer ?" However, this 
 thought must not go so deep as to sour your humour. 
 You must keep your temper, and part friendly with 
 every body, but then your good nature must not make 
 you hang back. For as when a man has an easy 
 death, the soul slides gently out of the body, so you 
 must walk off handsomely, and bid the world adieu 
 without regret. It is true, nature has twisted your 
 interests, and tied you together, but now she loosens 
 the knot, and makes the sign to disengage. I will 
 part then with the world as with my friends and 
 relations, but for all my kindness I will not be dragged 
 from them but go of my free will. For this too is 
 ordained by nature. 
 
 37. Let it be your constant method to look into 
 the design of people's actions, and see what they 
 would be at, as often as it is practicable ; and to 
 make this custom the more significant, practise it 
 first upon yourself. 
 
 38. Eemember that what pulls and hales you from 
 one passion to another, is but your fancy within you. 
 There lies the rhetoric that persuades you. That is 
 the live thing, and to speak plainly, that is the man, 
 after all. But when you talk of a man, I would not 
 have you tack flesh and blood to the notion, nor those 
 limbs neither which are made out of it. These are 
 but tools for the soul to work with. Now the only 
 
MEDITATION^. 1^7 
 
 ifFerence is that nature lias glued them as it were to 
 he soul, but the use of them depends solely upon the 
 mnd. It is the will that either checks or sets them 
 ^oing. They have but the force of instruments, and 
 dgnify no more without foreign direction, than a 
 shuttle, a pen, or a whip, which will neither weave, 
 nor write, nor lash the horses, without somebody to 
 manage them. 
 
' 
 
 BOOK XI. 
 
BOOK XL 
 
 1. I^^^^^HE properties of a rational soul are 
 these. She has the privilege to look 
 into her own nature, to cut out her 
 qualities and form herself to what 
 character she pleases. She enjoys 
 her product (whereas trees and cattle bring plenty for 
 other folks). Whether life proves long or short, she 
 gains the ends of living. Her business is never spoilt 
 by interruption, as it happens in a dance or a play. 
 In every part and in spite of every interruption, her 
 acts are always finished and entire ; so that she may say: 
 I carry off all that belongs to me. Farther, she ranges 
 through the whole world, views its figure, looks into 
 the vacuum on the outside of it, and strains her sight on 
 to an immeasurable length of time. She contemplates 
 the grand revolutions of nature, and the destruction 
 and renewal of the universe at certain periods. She 
 considers that there will be nothing new for posterity 
 to gaze at ; and that our ancestors stood upon the 
 same level for observation ; in so much that in forty 
 years' time a tolerable genius for sense and enquiry 
 may acquaint himself with all that is past and all that 
 is to come by reason of the uniformity of all things. 
 
iS2 MEDITATIONS, i 
 
 I 
 
 Lastly, it is the property of a rational soul to love her 
 neighbours, to be remarkable for truth and sobriety, 
 to prefer nothing to her own dignity and authority, 
 which has likewise the custom and prerogative of a 
 law ; and thus far right reason and rational justice are 
 the same. 
 
 2. The way to despise the pleasure of a fine song, 
 a well-performed dance, or the athletic exercises, is as 
 follows : as for the song, take the music in pieces 
 and examine the notes by themselves, and ask as you 
 go along, " Is it this or this single sound, that has 
 subdued me ? " You will be ashamed to confess the 
 conquest. Thus, to lessen the diversion of dancing, 
 consider every movement and gesture apart; and this 
 method will hold with respect to athletic contests. 
 In short, all things but virtue and virtuous acts abate 
 by taking them asunder, and, therefore, apply the 
 expedient to all other parts of your life. 
 
 3. What a brave soul is that that is always pre- 
 pare'd to leave the body and unconcerned about her 
 being either extinguished, scattered, or removed — pre- 
 pared, I say, upon judgment, and not out of mere 
 obstinacy like the Christians — but with a solemn air of 
 gravity and consideration, and in a way to persuade 
 another and without tragic show. 
 
 4. Have I obliged anybody, or done the world any 
 service ? If so, the action has rewarded me. This 
 answer will encourage good nature, therefore let it 
 always be at hand. 
 
 0. What may your trade or profession be ? It is 
 to live like a man of virtue and probity. And how 
 
MEDITATIONS. 183 
 
 can this end be compassed, but by the contemplation 
 of the nature of the world and of mankind in par- 
 ticular. 
 
 6. As to dramatic performances, tragedy appeared 
 1 first. The design of them was to show that the mis- 
 * fortunes of life were customary and common, and that 
 what attracted them upon the stage, might surprise 
 them the less when they met with it on the larger 
 stage of the world. Thus people see that these 
 events must happen, and that even those who cry out, 
 " Cithaeron,'' cannot stand clear of them. And to 
 give the stage-poets their due, they have some service- 
 able passages, as, for instance, 
 
 " if L and mine are by the gods neglected, 
 There's reason for their rigour." 
 
 Again — 
 
 " Ne'er fret at accidents, for things are sullen. 
 And don't regard your anger ; " 
 
 Once more — 
 
 " J^'ate mows down life like corn, this mortal falls, 
 Another stands a while." 
 
 And others like them. Next to tragedy, old comedy 
 took a turn upon the stage ; and here pride and am- 
 bition were lashed and pointed at with great freedom 
 and authority, and not without some success ; and for 
 this reason, Diogenes sometimes borrowed from them. 
 You are now to observe that middle comedy succeeded 
 to the old, and the new to the middle, this last kind 
 sinking by degrees to the buffoonery of the mimi. It 
 
i84 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 is true, there are some useful expressions to be met 
 with even here ; but then you are to consider the 
 tendency of the whole poetic art, and whether these 
 dramatic diversions drive at any aim. 
 
 7. Nothing is clearer to me than that the present 
 state of your life is as good for philosophy and im- 
 provement as any other whatsoever. 
 
 8. A bough by being lopped off from another, must 
 of necessity be lopped from the whole tree ; thus a 
 man that breaks with another loses the benefit of the 
 whole community. It is true a bough is lopped off 
 by a foreign hand, but the man pulls himself asunder 
 by his untoward aversion and hatred to his neighbour. 
 He little thinks how he disincorporates himself by this 
 unhappy division from the body of mankind ! And 
 here the goodness of God who founded this society is 
 extraordinary. He has put it in our power to grow to 
 the limb we left, and come again into the advantage 
 of the main bod3\ But if this misfortune is often 
 repeated, it will be a hard matter to restore the part 
 and close the division. For, as gardeners observe, a 
 bough cut off and grafted in again is not in the same 
 good condition with another which always flourished 
 upon the trunk. We should be one in growth, though 
 not in sympathy. 
 
 9. People's malice or impertinence cannot beat you 
 off your reason, or stop your progress in virtue. Be 
 not then disconcerted, nor check your good nature to- 
 wards them. If you meet with opposition and ill- 
 will, you must neither be diverted nor disturbed, but 
 keep your right judgment and action and your temper 
 
MEDITATIONS. - 185 
 
 too towards people who try to hinder you or otherwise 
 annoy you. For as it is a weakness to give in from 
 fear and be diverted from your conduct, so it is 
 likewise to be angry with impertinent people. They 
 are both a sort of deserters from Providence, who are 
 either frightened from their duty, or fall out with 
 those of their own nature and family. 
 
 10. Nature falls short of art in no instance, art 
 being but an imitation of nature ; and if so, the most 
 perfect and all-embracing nature cannot be supposed to 
 work with less skill than a common artificer. Now, 
 in all arts the less in value are contrived for the sake 
 of the greater. This, therefore, is the method of 
 universal nature, and upon this ground justice is 
 founded. The other virtues are but acts of justice 
 differently applied. But just we can never be if we 
 are eager and anxious about external advantages, if we 
 are apt to be led astray and grow over-hasty, and in- 
 constant in our motion. 
 
 11. Aversions and desires are the general occasions 
 of disturbance. Now since the objects of these pas- 
 sions do not press upon you, but it is you that make 
 up to them in some measure, you should let your 
 opinion about them lie still, and they too will keep 
 still, and then you will neither be seen pursuing nor 
 avoiding them any longer. 
 
 12. The figure of the soul is then round and uni- 
 form, when she neither reaches after anything foreign, 
 nor shrinks into herself, nor is dispersed or sunk in, 
 but shines in the light by which she surveys the truth 
 of all things and of herself too. 
 
1 86 MEDITATIONS, 
 
 18. Does anyone despise me? It is his look-out. 
 I will take care not to give him any reason for his con- 
 tempt by my words and acts. Does anyone hate me ? 
 It is his look-out. I will continue kind and good- 
 humoured to all the world, even to the injurious per- 
 son himself. I am always ready to show him his error 
 without abuse, or making a display of my own 
 patience, but frankly, and with cordial sincerity, as 
 Phocion did, unless indeed this was put on. Indeed 
 your mind should always be so disposed, that the gods 
 may examine you, and perceive that you are neither 
 angry nor uneasy at anything. Now, if you follow 
 the current of your nature of your own free will, and 
 accept that which is now suitable to the universal 
 nature, where is the harm in it, when you know you 
 were made on purpose to comply with the interest of 
 the universe ? 
 
 14. People generally despise where they Hatter, 
 and cringe to those they would gladly overtop. 
 
 15. How fulsome and hollow does that man look that 
 cries, "I'm resolved to deal straightforwardly with you." 
 Hark you, friend, what need of all this flourish ? Let 
 your actions speak ; your face ought to vouch for your 
 speech. I would have virtue look out of the eye, no 
 less apparently than love does in the sight of the 
 beloved. I would have honesty and sincerity so incor- 
 porated with the constitution, that it should be dis- 
 coverable by the senses, and as easily distinguished as 
 a strone: breath, so that a man must be forced to find it 
 out whether he would or no. But on the other side 
 an affectation of sincerity is a very dagger. Nothing 
 
MEDITATIONS. 187 
 
 is more scandalous than false friendship, and, there- 
 fore, of all things avoid it. In short, a man of in- 
 tegrity, sincerity, and good-nature can never be 
 concealed, for his character is wrought into his 
 countenance. 
 
 16. To bestow no more upon objects than they 
 deserve ; and where things are indifferent, to let our 
 thoughts be so too, is a noble expedient for happiness, 
 and this faculty we have in our souls. The way to 
 attain to this indifference is to look through matters, 
 and take them quite asunder, remembering always 
 that things cannot enter into the soul, nor force upon 
 us any opinions about them ; they are quiet. It is 
 our fancy that makes opinions about them ; it is we 
 that write within ourselves, though it is in our power 
 not to write. And if any false colours are laid on by 
 surprise, we may rub them out if we please. We are 
 likewise to consider that this trouble will not last, 
 that death will relieve us soon. Where, then, is the 
 difficulty of standing upon our guard a little while ? 
 If these things are in accordance with nature, bid 
 them heartily welcome, and then your inclination will 
 make you easy ; but if they prove contrary to nature, 
 look out for something that is more serviceable to your 
 nature, and pursue that, even if it bring you no glory. 
 For certainly every man may make himself happy if 
 he can. 
 
 17. Consider the original of all things, the matter 
 
 they are made of, the alterations they must run 
 
 through, and the result of the change. And that all 
 
 this does no manner of harm. 
 
 270 
 
i88 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 18. Concerning those that offend, consider in the 
 first place, the relation you stand in towards men, 
 and that we are all made for each other. And for my 
 own part I am particularly set at the head of the world, 
 like a ram over a flock, or a bull over a herd. You 
 may go higher in your reasoning, if you please, and 
 consider that either atoms or nature governs the 
 universe. If the latter, then the coarser parts of the 
 creation were made for the service of their betters ; 
 and these last for the sake of each other. 
 
 Secondly. Consider what men are at bed and board, 
 and at other times ; especially you should remember 
 what strong compulsion of opinion they lie under, and 
 with what pride they perform their acts. 
 
 Thirdly. Consider that if those men are in the 
 right, you have no reason to be angry ; but if they 
 are in the wrong, it is because they know no better. 
 They are under the necessity of their own ignorance. 
 For as no soul is voluntarily deprived of truth, so 
 nobody would offend against good manners, if they 
 were rightly aware of it. And thus we see people 
 will not endure the charge of injustice, ingratitude, 
 selfishness, or knavery of any description, without 
 being stung at the imputation. 
 
 Fourthly. Do not forget you are like the rest of 
 the world, and faulty yourself in a great many in- 
 stances : that though you may forbear from some errors, 
 it is not for want of inclination, and that nothing 
 but cowardice, vanity, or some such base principle 
 hinders you from sinning. 
 
 Fifthly. That it is sometimes a hard matter to be 
 
MEDITATIONS, 189 
 
 certain whether men do wrong, for their actions often 
 are done with a reference to circumstances ; and one 
 must be thoroughly informed of a great many things 
 before he can be rightly qualified to give judgment in 
 the case. 
 
 Sixthly, When you are most angry and vexed 
 remember that human life lasts but a moment, and 
 that we shall all of us very quickly be laid in our 
 graves. 
 
 Seventhly, Consider that it is not other people's 
 actions (for they are lodged in their ruling principles), 
 which disturb us, but only our own opinions about them. 
 Do but then dismiss these notions, and do not fancy 
 the thing a grievance, and your passion will have 
 ceased immediately. But how can this fancy be dis- 
 charged ? By considering that bare suffering has no 
 infamy in it. Now unless you restrain the notion of 
 evil to what is disgraceful, you will be under a 
 necessity of doing a great many unwarrantable things, 
 and become a robber and a villain generally. 
 
 Eighthly, Consider that our anger and impatience 
 often prove much more mischievous than the things 
 about which we are angry or impatient. 
 
 Ninthly, That gentleness is invincible, provided it 
 is of the right stamp, without anything of hypocrisy 
 or malice. This is the way to disarm the most 
 insolent, if you continue kind and unmoved under 
 ill usage, if you strike in with the right opportunity 
 for advice. If when he is going to do you an ill turn 
 you endeavour to recover his understanding, and re- 
 trieve his temper by such language as this : I pray 
 
190 MEDtTATiOm, 
 
 you, child, be quiet, men were never made to worry 
 one another. I shall not be injured, but you are 
 injuring yourself, child. Then proceed to illustrate 
 the point by general and inoffensive arguments. 
 Show him that it is not the custom of bees to spend 
 their stings upon their own kind, nor of cattle whose 
 nature it is to dwell in herds. And let all this be 
 done out of mere love and kindness, without any 
 irony or scorn. Do not seem to lecture him or 
 court the audience for commendation, but discourse 
 him either alone, and if others are present, as if there 
 was nobody but himself. 
 
 Lay up these nine heads in your memory with as 
 much care as if they were a present from the nine 
 muses, for now it is high time to begin to be a man 
 for your lifetime. And here you must guard against 
 flattery, as well as anger, for these are both unsocial 
 qualities, and do a great deal of mischief Remember 
 always, when you are angry, that rage is the mark of 
 an unmanly disposition. Mildness and temper are 
 not only more human, but more masculine too. One 
 thus affected appears much more brave, and firm, and 
 manly than one that is vexed and angry. For he 
 that has the least passion in these cases has always 
 the most strength. On the other hand, as grief is a 
 sign of weakness, so is anger too. A man is wounded 
 in both these passions, and the smart is too big for him. 
 
 As you have received these nine precepts from the 
 Muses, take this tenth if you please, from their leader, 
 Apollo: That to wish that ill people may not do ill 
 things is to wish an impossibility, and no better than 
 
MEDITATIONS. 191 
 
 madness. But then to give them leave to plague 
 other folks, and desire to be privileged yourself, is a 
 foolish and insolent expectation. 
 
 19. There are four evil qualities we must be particu- 
 larly careful to avoid, and pull them up as fast as we 
 find them, and address them as they rise in this 
 fashion. " This fancy," say, " is unnecessary ; this 
 rough behaviour destroys society ; this phrase I cannot 
 say from my heart. Now this is most absurd, not 
 to speak from your heart." These are three of them ; 
 and when you shall reproach yourself for anything, 
 since this degrades the diviner part of you, makes 
 your mind truckle to your body, and your reason to 
 your pleasures, look upon that as the fourth. 
 
 20. Those particles of fire and air which are lodged 
 in your body, notwithstanding their tendency to mount, 
 submit to the laws of the universe, and keep the rest 
 of the elements company. Again, the earthy and 
 watery parts in you, though they naturally press down- 
 wards, are raised above their level, and stand poised 
 in an unnatural position ; thus the elements serve the 
 interest of the world. For when they have been fixed 
 anywhere they keep their post till the signal is 
 given to separate. And is it not then a scandalous 
 thing that your mind should be the only deserter, 
 and grow mutinous about her station, especially when 
 her orders agree with her constitution, and nothing 
 that is unnatural is enjoined ? And yet she will not 
 bear the conduct of her own faculties, but runs perfectly 
 counter to humanity. For when a man turns knave 
 or libertinOj when he gives way to fears and anger 
 
192 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 and fits of the spleen, lie does as it were run away from 
 himself and desert his own nature ; and further, when 
 his mind complains of his fortune it quits the station 
 in which Providence has placed it ; for acquiescence 
 and piety are no less its duty than honesty ; for these 
 virtues tend to the common interest, and are rather of 
 greater antiquity and value than justice. 
 
 21. He that does not always drive at the same end 
 in his life will never be uniform and of a piece in his 
 conduct. But this hint is too short, unless you 
 describe the quality that we ought principally to aim 
 at. Now as people do not agree in the preferences of 
 the things that in some way seem good to the many, 
 unless in what relates to the common good, so a man 
 ought to propose the benefit of society and the general 
 interest of the world as his main aim. For he that 
 levels at this mark will keep an even hand, and thus 
 be always consistent with himself 
 
 22. Remember the story of the country and the 
 town mouse, and how pitifully the former was 
 frightened and surprised. 
 
 28. Socrates used to say the common objects of 
 terror were nothing but bogies, fit only to scare 
 children. 
 
 24. The Lacedaemonians, at their public shows, 
 seated strangers under a canopy in the shade, but 
 made their own people take their convenience as they 
 found it. 
 
 25. Socrates, being invited to Perdiccas's court, 
 made his excuse : — I dare not come, says he, for fear 
 of being put under an incapacity of returning an 
 
MEDITATIONS. 193 
 
 obligation, which I take to be the worst way of 
 destroying a man imaginable. 
 
 26. It is a precept of the Ephesian philosophers, 
 that we should always furnish our memory with some 
 eminent example of ancient virtue. 
 
 Ii7. The Pythagoreans would have us look up into 
 the sky every morning, to put us in mind of the order 
 and constancy of the heavenly bodies, of the equality 
 and purity of their matter, and how frankly they lie 
 open to observation : for a star never wears a veil. 
 
 28. Remember how unconcernedly Socrates wore a 
 sheepskin, when Xanthippe had got his coat on, 
 and ran out with it. And how well he laughed off 
 the matter to his friends, who were strangely out of 
 Countenance by seeing him in such a disguise. 
 
 29. People do not pretend to teach others to write 
 and read till they have been taught themselves; this 
 rule holds much more of life. 
 
 oO. Be dumb; slaves have not the privilege of 
 speaking. 
 
 81. "And my heart laughed within." 
 
 r>2. "And virtue they will curse, speaking hard 
 words." 
 
 JiS. He is a madman that expects figs on the trees 
 in winter ; and he is little better that calls for his 
 children again when they are dead and buried. 
 
 o4. Epictetus would have a man when he is kiss- 
 ing and caressing his child, say to himself at the same 
 time : To-morrow perhaps you may die and leave me. 
 These are words of ill omen, you will say. That is 
 your mistake; the conseq^uences of mortality and the 
 
194 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 course of nature are no ominous things to tliiuk on, 
 otherwise it would be an ominous business to cut 
 down a little grass or corn. 
 
 85. Grapes are first sour, then ripe, then raisins, 
 these are all no more than bare alterations ; not into 
 nothing, but into something which does not appear at 
 present. 
 
 36. As Epictetus observes, nobody can rob another 
 of his free will. 
 
 37. The same philosopher has taught us the art of 
 managing our assent and movements ; that we should 
 have a regard to circumstances ; that our inclinations 
 should be generous and benevolent, and proportioned 
 to the merit and dignity of things ; that we must 
 keep our desires from being headstrong, and never 
 have an aversion for anything which it is out of our 
 power to hinder. 
 
 38. Therefore, as Epictetus observes, the contest is 
 no trifle, but whether we are to live in our wits or out 
 of them. 
 
 89. It is a saying of Socrates to some untoward 
 people : " What would you be at ? Would you have 
 the soul of a man or of a beast in you ? Of a 
 man. Of what sort of men, of those that use their 
 reason, or those that abuse it ? Of the first. Why 
 then, continues the philosopher, do not you look out for 
 this privilege ? Because we have it already. What 
 makes you then disagree, and fall foul upon each 
 other ? " 
 
 k 
 
#45#**#^#**###*#^^^t***?:?:#M#* 
 
 BOOK XII. 
 
 tPww^S* W W W^k^ WW WW w w w 
 
BOOK XIL 
 
 LL those things you drudge, and range so 
 much ground for, you may have at your 
 ease, unless you are afraid of making 
 yourself too happy. Your method to do 
 your business is not to concern yourself 
 about the time past, for that is never to be recovered ; 
 to rest the future with Providence, and only stick to 
 the present, and improve that to all the noble pur- 
 poses of piety and justice. The pious part will be 
 discharged by being contented with your fate ; and 
 why should you not, since nature made you for each 
 other? And as to the obligations of justice, you will 
 acquit yourself here, provided you speak truth boldly 
 and above board, and make law and the dignity of 
 things your rule to act by. Wherein you are not to 
 be checked in your progress by the misbehaviour, the 
 ignorance, and impertinent reports of other people, 
 nor yet by the sensations of the body that surrounds 
 you, for the part that suffers must look to that. To 
 go on : If, since your life is almost up, you lay aside 
 all other matters, and only cultivate your mind, and 
 pay a regard to the governing and diviner part of 
 yourself; if you are not at all afraid of losing your 
 
198 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 life, but only of never begiDning to live in accordance 
 with nature, then you will act suitably to your ex- 
 traction, and deserve to be the offspring of the uni- 
 verse ; then you will be no longer a stranger in your 
 own country, nor be surprised at common accidents ; 
 you will never be dependent on this or that. 
 
 2. God sees through the soul of every man as 
 clearly as if it was not wrapped up in matter, nor had 
 anything of the shroud and coarseness of body about 
 it. And God, with his intellectual part alone, touches 
 those beings only that have flowed and proceeded from 
 him. Now, if you would learn to do thus, a great 
 deal of trouble would be saved ; for he that can over- 
 look his body will hardly disturb himself about the 
 clothes he wears, the house he dwells in, about his 
 reputation, or any part of this pomp and magnificence. 
 
 3. You consist of three parts — your body, your 
 breath, and your mind. The first two are yours to 
 take care of, but the latter is properly your person. 
 Therefore, if you abstract from the notion of yourself, 
 that is, of your mind, whatever other people either 
 say or do, or whatever you may have said or done 
 yourself formerly, together with all that disturbs 
 you under the consideration of its coming to pass 
 hereafter ; if you throw the necessary motions of your 
 carcass out of the definition, and those of the vortex 
 that whirls about you, and by this means preserve 
 your rational faculties in an independent state of inno- 
 cence, free from the allotments of -fate, holding close 
 and steady to the virtues of justice, truth, and acqui- 
 escence ; if I say, you keep your mind separate and 
 
MEDITATIONS, 199 
 
 distinguished from the objects of appetite and the 
 events of time, both past and future, and make your- 
 self like Empedocles's world, 
 
 " Eound as a ball in joyous rest reposing," 
 
 and concern yourself to live no longer than your 
 real life, that is the present moment ; if you do all 
 this, you may move on till death stops you, with 
 credit and in harmony with the deity within you. 
 
 4. I have often wondered how it comes to pass 
 that everybody should love themselves best, and yet 
 value their neighbour's opinion about themselves more 
 than their own. Therefore, if any god or eminent 
 instructor should stand at a man's elbow and order 
 him to turn his inside outwards, and publish every 
 thought and fancy as fast as they came into his head, 
 lie would not submit so much as to a day's discipline ; 
 thus we stand more in awe of our neighbour's judg- 
 ments than our own. 
 
 5. How comes it that since the gods have con- 
 trived all things so well, and so much to the 
 benefit of mankind, they should overlook this parti- 
 cular, and suffer men of great virtue and merit, who, 
 by their piety and devotion, were, as it were, in com- 
 munion with the powers above, and kept always a 
 correspondence with heaven, that they should suffer 
 such men, I say, to be finally extinguished by death, 
 and not give them their being again ? Now, if the 
 case stands thus, you may be assured had it been 
 proper, the gods would have ordered it otherwise ; for 
 had it been right it would have been possible, and 
 
20d MEDITATIONS, 
 
 nature would certainly have brought it forth if it had 
 been natural ; therefore from its not being matter of fact, 
 if indeed it is not, you may undoubtedly conclude it 
 ought not to be so. For do not you perceive that in 
 reasoning this point you dispute the administration of 
 providence ? Now, if the justice and goodness of the 
 gods were not extraordinary, this liberty would not be 
 allowed, neither would you presume so far if you 
 thought otherwise ; but, if they have these perfections, 
 they will never neglect their affairs, nor blemish their 
 world with anything that is unreasonable or unjust. 
 
 6. Accustom yourself to master things which you 
 seem to despair of, for, if you observe, the left hand, 
 though, for want of practice, it is insignificant in other 
 business, yet it holds the bridle better than the right 
 because it has been used to it. 
 
 7. Consider what death will make of you, both as 
 to body and mind, recollect the shortness of life, the 
 immeasurable extent of time, both past and future, 
 and how slenderly all things are put together. 
 
 8. Let it be your method to contemplate spirits 
 apart from the shell they are shut up in, mind the 
 aim of people's actions, examine the value of fame, the 
 force of pain and pleasure, and see what death amounts 
 to, and what reputation, consider upon what account a 
 man grows troublesome to himself, that nobody can be 
 hindered by another, and that everything is opinion. 
 
 9. We must manage the precepts of philosophy like 
 those that wrestle and box in the circus, and not like 
 a gladiator ; for your fencer if he drops his sword 
 is hewn down immediately, but the other that makes 
 
MEDITATIONS. 201 
 
 weapons of his limbs has nothing to do but to keep 
 his hands stirring. 
 
 1 0. Be not satisfied with a superficial view of things, 
 but penetrate into their matter and form, and the end 
 they were made for. 
 
 11.. What a mighty privilege is a man born to, 
 since it is in his power not to do anything but what God 
 Almighty approves, and to be satisfied with all the 
 distributions of Providence. 
 
 12. When things follow from the course of nature, 
 we ought not to blame the gods, for they do no 
 wrong either willingly or against their will, nor yet 
 men, for their misbehaviour is all involuntary. There- 
 fore we must complain of nobody. 
 
 13. How unacquainted is that man with the world, 
 and how ridiculous does he appear, that makes a 
 wonder of anything he meets with in this life ! 
 
 14. Either the order of things is fixed by irrevoc- 
 able fate, or providence may be worked into com- 
 passion, or else the world floats at random without 
 any steerage. Now if nature lies under an immovable 
 necessity, to what purpose should you struggle against 
 it ? If the favour of providence is to be gained, 
 qualify yourself for the divine assistance ; but if chance 
 and confusion prevail, be you contented that in such a 
 storm you have a governing intelligence within you, 
 and if the waves run too high, let them carry away 
 your body, your breath, and all things else, but there 
 is no necessity your mind should be driven with them. 
 
 15. A lamp till it is extinguished holds its light, 
 w^^d shines without interruption, and can you find in 
 
202 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 your heart to see your truth, honesty, and sobriety 
 extinguished before you ? 
 
 16. When you fancy anyone has transgressed, say 
 this to yourself : How do I know it is a fault ? And 
 granting it is, it may be his conscience has corrected 
 him, and if so, he has torn his own face. Besides, 
 you are to remember, that to wish an evil man should 
 not do amiss, is just as wise as it would be to desire 
 that a fig-tree should not bear juice in the figs, that 
 children should not squall, nor horses neigh, nor a 
 great many other things act according to the necessity 
 of their condition. Pray, how would you have a man 
 of such an unfortunate disposition behave himself? 
 If you are angry, try to cure him. 
 
 17. If it is not seemly never do it, if it is not true, 
 never speak it, for your impulse should always be 
 under your control. 
 
 18. Look always nicely into whatever makes an 
 impression upon your mind, distinguishing it into 
 cause and matter ; and consider its purpose and design 
 and the period of time, beyond which it is unlikely to 
 continue. 
 
 19. Consider, for it is high time, that you have 
 something more divine in you than the mechanism of 
 passion, than the wires of a puppet. What is there 
 now in my soul ? Is it fear, or suspicion, or desire ? 
 Or anything of this coarse nature ? 
 
 20. Take care never to do anything without 
 thought, and design, nor for any other end but what 
 may be serviceable to the interest of society. 
 
 21. Consider that in a little time you will neither 
 
MEDITATIONS. 203 
 
 have place, nor being, that your contemporaries will 
 have the same fate, and the present scene of nature 
 be shut up. For all things are formed by nature to 
 change and turn and drop in pieces, that new ones 
 may be continually made ont of them. 
 
 22. Remember that all things are opinion, and 
 that it is in your own power to think as you please. 
 Therefore remove the opinion, and then as if you had 
 doubled some dangerous cape, you will have nothing 
 but a steady course, a smooth sea, and a waveless bay 
 to receive you. 
 
 23. Every activity that ceases in due time, suffers 
 nothing by breaking off: Neither does the agent 
 receive any harm from this. Thus life, Avhich is 
 nothing but a series and continuation of action, comes 
 to no harm by having a seasonable period put to it : 
 Neither does he who has ended this series in due time 
 sustain any loss. Now nature assigns the term of 
 life ; sometimes this period is fixed by particular 
 nature, as it happens when a man dies of old age ; 
 but let it con late or early, common nature has 
 certainly a hand in it. And thus the parts of nature 
 changing from one form to another preserve the whole 
 world in perpetual youth and vigour. Now that is 
 always good and reasonable which makes for the 
 service of the universe. From hence it follows that 
 bare dying can be no real evil, seeing there is nothing 
 disgraceful in it, for it is both involuntary with respect 
 to ourselves, and serviceable to the general interest. 
 Therefore, it is certainly a good thing, since it is 
 suitable, and seasonable, and profitable to the universe, 
 
 271 
 
204 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 for he that follows the Deity with his motions, and is led 
 by his will to the same ends, is led by God himself. 
 
 24. Let these three hints lie ready for service. 
 First, As to your own actions let nothing be done 
 rashly nor to no purpose, nor indeed in any other 
 manner than justice itself would have ordered it. 
 And as for external fortune, consider that it is the 
 blind distribution of chance or else the appointment 
 of providence. Now either to murmur against chance 
 or impeach providence is extremely absurd. Secondly, 
 Consider what a slight thing man is from his conception 
 till he receives his soul ; and from its reception till 
 its loss ; consider too the parts of his composition and 
 the state of his dissolution. Thirdly, Consider that if 
 you could shoot yourself at pleasure into the sky and 
 thence take a view of human affairs, you would per- 
 ceive a strange medley of condition, and discover at 
 the same time the air, and ether too, plentifully stocked 
 with inhabitants. And that if you mounted never so 
 often, you would have the old prospect. Alas ! things 
 are generally of the same complexion and of the same 
 short continuance too, and yet how strangely we are 
 conceited of them. 
 
 25. Discharge opinion and you are safe ; and pray 
 who can hinder you from doing it ? 
 
 26. When you are uneasy upon any account, you 
 have forgotten that all things fall out according to the 
 nature of the universe, and that another man's fault 
 is no concern of yours, that what you reckon griev- 
 ances is nothing but the old way of the world and will 
 come over again, and is now to be met with m a 
 
MEDITATIONS. 205 
 
 thousand places. Yon have forgotten that all mankind 
 are of kin, for though they may be unallied in flesh 
 and blood, their understandings are all of the same 
 family. Tou do not remember that every man's soul 
 is a portion of the Deity, and derived from thence, 
 that we have nothing properly our own, but that our 
 children, our bodies, and our breath, are all borrowed 
 from heaven, that opinion governs all, and that it is 
 not possible for any body to live, or lose any more 
 than the present moment. All this you seem to have 
 forgotten. 
 
 27. Reflect frequently upon those that have formerly 
 been mightily disturbed with accidents of any kind, 
 that have carried their animosities and feuds to the 
 most flaming excess, that have made the most glorious 
 figure or met with the greatest misfortune, and then 
 ask yourself, Where are they all now ? They are 
 vanished like a little smoke, they are nothing but 
 ashes, and a tale, or not even a tale. Recollect like- 
 wise everything of this sort, what Fabius Catullinus 
 did at his country seat ; Lucius Lupus, in his garden ; 
 Stertinius, at Raise ; Tiberius, at Capreae ; Rufus, at 
 Velia, in short, the overweening importance attached 
 to anything whatsoever ; and know that the prize is 
 insignificant, and the play not worth the candle. It is 
 much more becoming a philosopher to stand clear of 
 affectation, to be honest and temperate upon all occa- 
 sions, and to follow cheerfully wherever the gods lead 
 on, for nothing is more scandalous than a man that is 
 proud of his humility. 
 
 28. To those that ask me the reason of my being 
 
2o6 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 so earnest in religious worship, and whether I ever saw 
 any of the gods, or which way 1 am convinced of the 
 certainty of their existence ; in the first place, I answer, 
 that the gods are not invisible. But granting they 
 were, the objection would signify nothing, for I never 
 had a sight of my own soul, and yet I have a great 
 value for it. And thus by my constant experience of 
 the power of the gods I have a proof of their being, 
 and a reason for my veneration. 
 
 29. The best provision for a happy life is to dissect 
 everything, view its own nature, and divide it into 
 matter and form. To practise honesty in good earnest, 
 and speak truth from the very .soul of you. What 
 remains but to live easy and cheerful, and crowd 
 one good action so close to another that there may 
 not be the least empty space between them. 
 
 30. The light of the sun is but one and the same, 
 though it is divided by the interposition of walls and 
 mountains, and abundance of other opaque bodies. 
 There is but one common matter, though it is par- 
 celled out among bodies of different qualities. There 
 is but one sensitive soul too, notwithstanding it is 
 divided among innumerable natures and individual 
 limitations. And lastly, the rational soul, though it 
 seems to be split into distinction, is but one and the 
 same. Now, excepting this last, the other parts 
 above-mentioned, such as breath and matter, though 
 without apprehension, or any common affection to tie 
 them to each other, are yet upheld by an intelligent 
 being, and by that faculty which pushes things of the 
 same nature to the same place ; but human under- 
 
MEDITATIONS. 207 
 
 standings have a peculiar disposition to union ; they 
 stick together by inclination, and nothing can extin- 
 guish such sociable thoughts in them. 
 
 31. What is it you hanker after? Is it bare 
 existence ? or sensation ? or motion ? or strength, 
 that you may lose it again in decay ? What ? Is it 
 the privilege of speech, or the power of thinking in 
 general ? Is any of this worth desiring ? If all these 
 things are trifles, proceed to something that is worth 
 your while, and that is to be governed by reason and 
 the Deity. And yet you cannot be said to value these 
 last-mentioned privileges rightly, if you are disturbed 
 because death must take them from you. 
 
 82. What a small part of immeasurable and in- 
 finite time falls to the share of a single mortal, and 
 how soon is every one swallowed up in eternity ! 
 What a handful of the universal matter goes to the 
 making of a human body, and what a very little of the 
 universal soul too ! And on what a narrow clod with 
 respect to the whole earth do you crawl upon ! Con- 
 sider all this, and reckon nothing great, unless it be 
 to act in conformity to your own reason, and to suffer 
 as the universal nature shall appoint you. 
 
 33. The great business of a man is to improve his 
 mind, therefore consider how he does this. As for all 
 other things, whether in our power to compass or not, 
 they are no better than lifeless ashes and smoke. 
 
 34. We cannot have a more promising notion to 
 set us above the fear of death, than to consider that it 
 has been despised even by that sect who made plea- 
 sure and pain the standard of good and evil. 
 
2o8 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 35. He that likes no time so well as the fitting 
 season, he that is indifferent whether he has room for 
 a long progress in reason or not, or whether he has a 
 few or a great many years to view the world in, a 
 person thus qualified will never be afraid of dying. 
 
 36. Hark ye friend ; you have been a burgher 
 of this great city, what matter though you have 
 lived in it five years or three ; if you have observed 
 the laws of the corporation, the length or shortness of 
 the time make no difference. Where is the hardship 
 then if nature, that planted you here, orders your 
 removal ? You cannot say you are sent off by a 
 tyrant or unjust judge. No ; you quit the stage as 
 fairly as a player does that has his discharge from the 
 master of the revels. But I have only gone through 
 three acts, and not held out to the end of the fifth. 
 You say well ; but in life three acts make the play 
 entire. He that ordered the opening of the first 
 scene now gives the sign for shutting up the last; you 
 are neither accountable for one nor the other ; there- 
 fore retire well satisfied, for He, by whom you are 
 dismissed, is satisfied too. 
 
 THE END OF THE TWELVE BOOKS OF THE 
 EMPEROR MARCUS A.URELTUS ANTONINUS. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 1. Anniiis Verus was his grandfather's name. 
 
 2, 3. Annius Verus was also his father's name ; his mother's 
 was Domitia Cal villa. The Emperor T. Antoninus Pius married 
 the sister of Annius Verus, and was thus by marriage the uncle 
 of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whom he adopted. 
 
 7, 8. Q. Junius Rusticus and ApoUonius of Chalcis were Stoic 
 philosophers. 
 
 11. M. Cornelius Fronto was a rhetorician, who had been the 
 Emperor's tutor. Part of Marcus Aurelius' correspondence with 
 Fronto is still extant. 
 
 13. Cinna Catulus was a Stoic philosopher. 
 
 14. The allusion may be to Claudius Severus, a Stoic philo- 
 sopher. 
 
 15. Claudius Maximus was a Stoic Philosopher. 
 
 17. " It is the favour of the gods that I happened to meet 
 with a brother." The Emperor had no brother. If this refers 
 to Lucius Verus, his adopted brother, he certainly does not 
 deserve the praise here bestowed. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 13, " As the poet says." — Pindar, quoted in the " Theaetetus " 
 of Plato. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 27. The Greek word for Universe and Order is the same, 
 Koa/xos. Thus the " universe," or " universal order," is con- 
 trasted with chaos or disorder. 
 
2IO NOTES. 
 
 34. Clotho was one of the Fates. They were three sisters — 
 Clotho, the spinning fate ; Lachesis, the one who assigns to man 
 his fate ; and Atropos, the sister who cut the thread when a 
 man's destiny was accomplished. 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 35. From Plato's " Eepnblic," Book vi. p. 486. 
 
 38. From Euripides' " Bellerophon." 
 
 40. From Euripides' " Hypsiple." 
 
 42. Aristophanes, "Acharniaus," 1. 661. 
 
 44-45. From Plato's " Apology," p. 28. 
 
 46. From Plato's "Gorgias," p. 512. 
 
 48. This does not appear to be in any of Plato's extant 
 writings. It has been suggested that it should rather be 
 referred to Pythagoras. 
 
 50. From Euripides' " Chrysippus." 
 
 51. The first two lines are from Euripides' " Supplices," 1110 
 1111. 
 
 66. "Leon of Salamis." In the year 404 B.C., during the terrible 
 tyranny of " the Thirty " at Athens, Socrates was ordered to 
 assist in unjustly arresting a rich citizen of Salamis, and bring- 
 ing him to Athens for a trial that was only a mockery of justice. 
 Socrates refused to do this ; and he alludes to this in the 
 " Apology." " But when the oligarchy of ' the Thirty ' was in 
 power, they sent for me and four others into the rotunda, and 
 bade us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as they wanted 
 to execute him. That was a specimen of the sort of commands 
 they were always giving with a view to implicating as many as 
 possible in their crimes ; and then I showed, not in word only, 
 but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an expression, 
 I aired not a straw for death, and that my sole fear was the fear 
 of doing an unrighteous or unholy thing. For the strong arm of 
 the oppressive power did not frighten me into doing wrong, and 
 when we came out of the rotunda, the other four went to Salamis 
 and fetched Leon, but I went quietly home." (Plato, "Apology," 
 p. 32, trs. by Jowett.) 
 
NOTES. 211 
 
 " That he walked in a swaggering way." This is asserted by 
 Aristophanes in his comedy, the " Clouds," where he ridicules 
 Socrates. 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 3. Caius is Caius Julius Caesar. 
 
 57. Marcus Aurelius is trying to derive the Greek word for 
 rays d/crii/es from the verb eKrebeadai — to be extended. The 
 explanation is obviously impossible. Such bad etymology was 
 common at a time when no real science of words existed. 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 29. In his " Republic," Plato sketches an ideal state in which 
 the institutions and government are to attain perfection. 
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 6. "The islands of the blest." Homer (Od. iv.) speaks of the 
 Elysian plain at the extremity of the world, " where life is easiest 
 for men. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain, 
 but alway ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill west to 
 blow cool on men." (Trs. by Butcher and Lang.) Plutarch iden- 
 tifies the Canaries with this description. After describing their 
 delightful climate, he says, " So that it is generally believed even 
 among the barbarians, that these are the Elysian fields and 
 the seats of the blessed " (Plutarch, " Sertorius "). 
 
 21. There is a sort of play here on the word 0iXe?, which means 
 both " loves," and " is wont." The Stoics delighted in these 
 plays on words, and even used the names of the gods in a pun- 
 ning sense. 
 
 23. The quotation is from Plato's " Theaetetus," p. 174, 
 but it is curiously applied. In the original the words are used 
 disparagingly. Plato is describing the philosopher, and showing 
 with what contempt he would look on the greatness of a tyrant or 
 king. " Then again he observes that the great man is of necessity 
 as ill-mannered and uneducated as any shepherd, for he has no 
 
212 NOTES. 
 
 leisure, and he is surrounded by a wall which is his mountain- 
 pen." (Jowett's translation.) 
 
 31. Crito was a friend of Socrates, and gave his name to one 
 of Plato's dialogues. 
 
 34. The quotation is from Homer, " Iliad," vi. 146 
 
 BOOK XI. 
 
 6. " O Cithaeron." The words occur in one of the choruses in 
 Sophocles' " (Edipus Tyrannus," 1. 1089. (Edipus had been 
 exposed as an infant on Mount Cithaeron, in order to avoid 
 the terrible doom prophesied him. 
 
 22. The first extant version of the story of the town and the 
 country mouse occurs in Horace's " Satires," ii. 6. 
 
 26. The Ephesians are probably the followers of Heraclitus, 
 
 BOOK XII. 
 
 3. Empedocles of Agrigentum was a philosopher who 
 flourished about 444 e.g. He was the first to establish the 
 number of four elements. These were, he thought, acted on by 
 two moving causes — love (combination), and strife (separation). 
 Originally the four elements were combined in a sphere where 
 love reigned supreme, and all was peace and harmony. Strife^ 
 which was originally outside the sphere, gradually forced its 
 way in, and so began the period of change in which we are 
 living. Empedocles wrote an epic describing the origin of the 
 world, and from this the line in the text is a quotation. 
 
 34. This section refers to the Epicureans. Their doctrine 
 made the chief good consist in pleasure, but as they believed that 
 only virtue would afiford true pleasure, their teaching was really 
 capable of producing noble men. Our modern term " Epicurean " 
 in no way does justice to the teaching of Epicurus and his 
 immediate followers. 
 
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 COLERIDGE. 
 
 Edited by Joseph Skipsey. 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Edited by Eva Hope. 
 CAMPBELL. Edited by J. Hogben. 
 SHELLEY. Edited by J. Skipsey. 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Edited by A. J. Symington. 
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 MARLOWE. 
 
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 HERBERT. 
 
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 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 Translated by Dean Carrington. 
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 SHAKESPEARE: 
 
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 Edited by William Sharp. 
 
 EMERSON. Edited by W. Lewn. 
 
 SONNETS of this CENTURY. 
 
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 WHITMAN. Edited by E. Rhys. 
 
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 PHAED. Edited by Fred. Cooper. 
 HOGG. 
 
 By his Daughter, Mrs. Garden. 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Edited by William Tirebuck. 
 LOVE LETTERS OF A 
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 SPENSER. Edited by Hon. R.Noel. 
 CHILDREN OF THE POETS. 
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 BEN JONSON. 
 
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 ALLAN RAMSAY. 
 
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 SYDNEY DOBELL. 
 
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 DEPOE'S CAPTAIN SINGLETON. 
 
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a pozm on the Ccoftec jgv>iction3* 
 
 THE HEATHER ON FIRE 
 
 By MATHILDE BLIND. Price is. 
 
 "A subject of our own time fertile in what is pathetic and awe-inspirlnpf, and free 
 from any taint of the vulgar and conventional. . . . Positive subject-natter, the 
 emotion which inheres in actual life, the very smile and the very tear anu heart-pang, 
 are, after all, precious to poetry, and we have them here. ' The Heather on Fire ' may 
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 fluous. . . , Even apart from the fascination of its subject-matter, the poem is developed 
 ^th spirit and energy, with a feeling for homely truth of character and treatment, 
 and vrith a generally pervasive sense of beauty." — Athenceum. 
 
 " Miss Blind has chosen for her new poem one of those terrible Highland clearances 
 which stain the history of Scotch landlordism. Though her tale is a fiction, it is too 
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 to think that its greatest and most surprising success is the picture of the poor old 
 soldier, Rory, driven mad by the burning of his wife." — Academy. 
 
 " A subject which has painfully pre-occupied public opinion is, in the poem entitled 
 'The Heather on Fire,' treated with characteristic power by Miss Blind. . . . Both as 
 a narrative and descriptive poem, 'The Heather on Fire' is equally remarkable." — 
 Morning Post. 
 
 " A poem remarkable for beauty of expression and pathos of incidents will be found 
 in "The Heather on Fire." Exquisitely tfelicato are the touches with which the progress 
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 the neighbourhood ; and the flight of years of married life and daily toil, as numerous 
 as those of their courtship, is told in stanzas full of music and soul. . . This tale 
 is one which, unless we are mistaken, may so affect public feeling as to be an effectual 
 bar to similar human clearings in future." — Leeds Mercury. 
 
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 This little book abounds in vivid delineation of character, and is redolent with the 
 noblest human sympathy." — Newcastle Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "The Heather on Fire" is a poem that is rich not only in power and beauty but 
 in that " enthusiasm of humanity" which stirs and moves us, and of which so much 
 contemporary verse is almost painfully deficient. . . . Miss Blind is not a mere poetic 
 trifler who considers that the best poetry is that written by the man who has nothing 
 to say but can say that nothing gracefully. . , . We can best describe the kind of her 
 success by noting the fact that while engaged in the perusal of her book we do not 
 say, " What a fine poem ! " but " What a terrible story 1 " or more probably still say 
 nothing at all but read on and on under the spell of a great horror and an overpowering 
 pity. Poetry of which this can be said needs no other recommendation." — The 
 Manchester Examiner and Times. 
 
 " A poem recently published in London (' The Heather on Fire ; a Tale of the High- 
 land Clearances ') is declared, in one of the articles which have appeared in the German 
 Eress on the Scottish Land Question, ' to be based on terrible truth and undoubted real 
 orrors ; giving, in noblest poetical language and thrilling words, a description which 
 ought to be a spur of action to thinking statesmen.' " — North British Daily Mail. 
 
 London ; WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
Ube Cantevbutis {poets. 
 
 THE 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE POETS: 
 
 AN ANTHOLOGY, 
 
 From English and American Writers of 
 Three Centuries. 
 
 EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, 
 
 By eric ROBERTSON, M.A. 
 
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Uniform in size loith " The Ca7iierbury Poets ^^ 365 pages^ 
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 DAYS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 A POETIC CALENDAR 
 
 or PASSAGES FROM THE WORKS OF 
 
 ALFRED AUSTIN. 
 
 SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY A. S. 
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