BOOK 11 - 5

What is your profession? Being a good man. But this can only come about through philosophic concepts - concepts of the nature of the Whole, and concepts of the specific constitution of man.

BOOK 11 - 4

Have I done something for the common good? Then I too have benefited. Have this thought always ready to hand: And no stopping.

BOOK 11 -3

               Ian Fairweather

What a noble thing is the soul ready for its release from the body, if now must be the time, and prepared for whatever follows - extinction, dispersal, or survival! But this readiness must come from a specific decision: not in a mere revolt, like the Christians, but thoughtful, dignified, and - if others are to believe it - undramatic.

BOOK 11 -2

You will think little of the entertainment of song or dance or all-in wrestling if you deconstruct the melodic line of a song into it individual notes and ask yourself of each of them: 'Is this something that overpowers me?' You will recoil form that admission. So too with a comparable analysis of dance by each movement and each pose, and the same again with wrestling. Generally, then, with the exception of virtue and its workings, remember to go straight to the component parts of anything, and through tag analysis come to despise the thing itself. And the same method should be applied to the whole of life.

BOOK 11 -3-3

Particular qualities too of the rational soul are love of neighbor, truthfulness, integrity, no higher value than itself. This last is a defining quality of law also. There is thus no difference between the true principle of philosophy and the principle of justice.

BOOK 11 -1 -2

Further, the rational soul traverses the whole universe and its surrounding void, explores the shape of it, stretches into the infinity of time, encompasses and comprehends the periodic regeneration of the Whole. It reflects that our successors will see nothing new, just as our predecessors saw nothing more than we do: such is the sameness of things, a man of forty with any understanding whatsoever has in a sense seen all the past and all the future.

BOOK 11 -1

The properties of the rational soul. It looks on itself, it shapes itself, it makes itself however it wishes to be, it gathers for itself the fruit it bears - whereas the fruit of plants and the corresponding produce of animals is gathered by others. It achieves its own end wherever the limit of life is set. Unlike a ballet or a play or suchlike, where any interruption aborts the whole performance, in every scene and whenever it is cut off the rational soul has its own program complete and entirely fulfilled, so it can say: 'I am in possession of my own.'

BOOK 10 -38

Remember that what pulls the strings is that part of us hidden inside: that is the power to act, that is the principle of life, that, one could say, is the man himself. So never give any equal thought to the vessel which contains it or the organs built round it, These are an instrument like an ax, differing only in their attachment to the body. There is no more use in these parts without the weaver, the pen without the writer, the whip without the driver.

BOOK 10 -37

As far as you can, get into the habit of asking yourself in relation to any action taken by another: 'What is his point of reference here?' But begin with yourself: examine yourself first.

BOOK 10 -36 -2

Do not, though, for that reason feel any less warmth for them as you depart this life, but keep true to your own character - friendly, kind, generous. Again, your leaving of them should not be a wrench from life, but rather that easy slipping of the soul from the body's carapace experienced by those dying colleagues, but is now releasing you. My release is like parting from kinsmen, but I do not resist or need to be forced. This too is one of the ways to follow nature.

BOOK 10 -36

No one is so fortunate as not to have standing round his deathbed some people who welcome the fate coming him. Was he the earnest sage? Then maybe there will be someone at his final moment saying to himself: 'We can breathe again now, rid of this schoolmaster. He was not hard on any one of us, but I could feel his silent criticism of us all.' So much for the earnest sage: but in our own case how many other reasons are there for a general wish to be rid of us? You will think of this when you are dying, and your departure will be the easier if you reason to yourself: 'I am leaving the sort of life in which even my colleagues - on whose behalf I have expended so much effort, prayer, and thought - even they want me out of the way, doubtless hoping for some relief from my death.' So why should anyone cling to a longer stay here on earth?

BOOK 10 -35

The healthy eye must look at all there is to be seen, and not say  'I only want pale colors' - this is a symptom of disease. The healthy ear and nose must be ready for all sounds or smells, and the healthy stomach must accept all food in the same way that a mill accepts all it was made to grind. And so the healthy mind too must be ready for all eventualities. The mind which says 'my children must live', or 'there must be popular acclaim for all I do', is the eye demanding pale or the teeth demanding pap.

BOOK 10 -34-2

Your children are no more than 'leaves'. 'Leaves' too these loud voices of loyal praise, these curses from your opponents, this silent blame or mockery: mere 'leaves' likewise those with custody of your future fame. All these 'come round in the season of spring': but then the wind blows them down, and the forest 'puts out others' in their stead. All things are short-lived - this is their common lot - but you pursue likes and dislikes as if all eyes and soon there will be others mourning the man who buries you.

BOOK 10 -34

One bitten by the true doctrines needs only a very short and commonplace reminder to lose all pain and fear - for instance: 

  The wind scatters one year's leaves on the ground..... so it is worth the generations of men.

BOOK 10 -33-4

Otherwise anyone meeting such hindrance would immediately become bad himself. With all other organisms any harm occurring to any of them makes them worse in themselves. But in our case, to put it so, a person actually becomes better and more praiseworthy for the right use of the circumstances he finds meets. Generally, remember that nothing harms the citizen of nature other than what harms the city: and nothing harms the city other than what harms the law. None of our so-called misfortunes harms the law. So what is not harmful to the law does not harm either city or citizen.

BOOK 10 -33-3

Keeping clear in your view this easy facility of reason to carry through all things - like fire rising, a stone falling, a roller on a slope - stop looking for anything more.Any remaining hindrances either come from the corpse which is our body, or - without the judgement and consent of our own reason itself - have no power at all to break or harm.

BOOK 10 -33 -2

Now the roller does not have the gift of following its own movement wherever it will, nor does water or fire, or anything else subject to a nature or life without reason: there are many barriers or impediments in their way. But mind and reason have the power, by their nature and at their will, to move through every obstacle.

BOOK 10 -33

In any given material circumstance what can be done or said to soundest effect? Whatever that is, it is in your power to do it or say it - and make no pretense of 'obstacles in the way' You will never cease moaning until you experience the same pleasure in making appropriately human response to any circumstance you meet or face as the hedonist does in his indulgence - a response, that is, in keeping with man's constitution. Because you should regard as enjoyment any action you can take in accord with your own nature; and you can do that anywhere.

BOOK -32

Let no one have the chance to accuse you, with any truth, of not being sincere or a good man: make sure that anyone taking this view of you is a liar. This is wholly up to you - who is there to prevent you being good and sincere? You must just decide to live no longer if you won't have these qualities. And reason to abandons the man who won't.

BOOK 10 -31-2

And what material situation, what role are you seeking to escape? What is all this other than an exercise for that resin which has looked at all of life with close and scientific inquiry? Stay on, then, until you have assimilated all this too, just as a strong stomach assimilates all food, or a bright fire turns all that you throw on it into flame and light.

BOOK 10 -31

When you see Satyrion or Eutyches or Hymen, picture them in Socrates' circle; when you see Eutychion or Silvanus, picture Euphrates; when you see Tropaeophorus, picture Alciphron; when you see Severus, picture Crito or Xenophon; and when you look at yourself, picture one of the Caesars - for each, then a parallel in the past. Then let this further thought strike you: Where are those men now? Nowhere, or wherever. In this way you will always look on human life as mere smoke and nothing, especially if you remind yourself also that what has changed will be no more for the infinity of time. Why then this stress? Why not be content with an orderly passage through the brief span you have?

BOOK 10 -30

Whenever you take offense at the wrong done another, move on at once to consider what similar wrong you are committing - it could be setting value on money, or pleasure, or reputation, and so on through the categories. This reflection will quickly damp your anger, aided by the further thought that the man is acting under compulsion - what else can he do? Or, if you can, remove the cause of his compulsion.

BOOK 10 -29

Consider each individual thing you do and ask yourself whether to lose it through death makes death itself any cause for fear.

BOOK 10 -28

Picture everyone voicing pain or discontent at anything, as like a pig at a sacrifice, kicking and squealing. Just the same is the man who keeps  it to himself, silently resentful on his bed. Think of all the threads that bind us, and how only rational creatures are given the choice of submitting willingly to events: pure submission is forced on all.

BOOK 10 -27

Constantly reflect that all the things which happen now have happened before: reflect too that they will happen again in the future. Have in your mind's eye whole drama's with similar settings, all that you know of from your own experience or earlier history - for example, the whole court of Hadrian, the whole court of Antoninus, the whole court of Philip, Alexander, Croesus. All the same as now: just different cast.

BOOK 10 -26

A man deposits his sperm in a womb and goes away. Thereafter another cause takes over, does its work, and produces a baby. What a result from a beginning! Then again. The child takes food down its throat, and now another causal sequence takes over, creating sensation and impulse, the whole of life and strength, and all manner of other wonderful things.

Look, then, at what happens in such mystery, and see the power at work, just as we see the force which weighs things down or carries them up - not with our eyes, but no less clearly.

BOOK 10 -25

A slave running from his master is a fugitive. Law is our master; the law-breaker is therefore a fugitive. But also in the same way pain, anger, or fear denote refusal of some past, present, or future order from the governor of all things - and this is law, which legislates his lot for each of us. To feel fear, then, pain or anger is to be a fugitive.

BOOK 10 -24

What is my directing to me? What am I turning it into now, what use am I making of it? Is it drained of intelligence? Is it divorced and broken off from society? It is interfused and welded to the flesh that it sways with tides?

BOOK 10 -23

Always have clear in your mind that 'the grass is not greener' elsewhere, and how everything is the same here as on top of a mountain, or on the seashore, or wherever you will. Plato's words you will find directly apposite: 'walling himself a fold on a mountain, and milking his flock when they bleat'.

BOOK 10 -22

Either you live on here, used to it now; or you retire, your own decision to leave; or you die, your service done. No other  choice. Be cheerful, then.

BOOK 10 -21

'Earth loves rain, the proud sky loves to give it.' The whole world loves to create futurity. I say then to the world, 'I share your love.' Is this not the source of the phrase, 'Thi s loves to happen'?

BOOK 10 -20

What universal nature brings to each is brought to his benefit. The benefit stands at the time of its bringing.

BOOK 10 -19

What sort of people are they when eating, sleeping, coupling, shitting, etc? Then what are they like when given power over men? Haughty, quick to anger, punishing to excess. And yet just now they were slaves to all those needs for all those reasons: and shortly they will be slaves again.

BOOK 10 -18

Consider any existing object and reflect that it is even now in the process of dissolution and change, in a sense regenerating through defy or dispersal: in other words, to what sort of 'death' each thing is born.

BOOK 10 -17

Keep constantly in your mind an impression of the whole of time and the whole of existence - and the thought that each individual thing is, on the scale of existence, a mere fig-seed; on the scale of time, one turn of a drill.

BOOK 10 -16

No more roundabout discussions of what makes a good man. Be one!

BOOK 10 -15

The time is short. Live it as if you were on a mountain. Here or there makes no difference, if wherever you live you take the world as your city. Let men see. let them observe a true man living in accordance with nature. If they cannot bear him, let them kill him - a better fate than a life like theirs.

Book 10 -14

Nature gives all and takes all back. To her the man educated into humility says: 'Give what you will; take back what you will.' And he says this in no spirit of defiance, but simply as her loyal subject.

Book 10 -13

As soon as you wake from sleep ask yourself: 'Will it make any difference to you if other criticize what is in fact just and true?' No, it will not. You have surely not forgotten what these people who whinny in praise or blame of others are like in their bed and at their board, the sort of things they do and avoid or pursue, their cheating and stealing, not with hands and feet but with the most precious part of themselves, the part where - if allowed - there grows trust, decency, truth, law, the spirit of goodness.

BOOK 10 -12

What need of prompt or hint when it is open to yourself to discern what needs to be done - and, if you can see your way, to follow it with kind but undeviating intent. If you cannot see the way, hold back and consult your best advisors. if some other factors obstruct this advice, proceed on your present resources, but with cautious deliberations, keeping always to what seems just. Justice is the best aim, as any failure is in fact a failure of justice.

A man following reason in all things combines relaxation with initiative, spark with composure.

BOOK 10 - 11

Adopt a systematic study of the way all things change into one another: pay constant attention to this aspect of nature and train yourself in it. Nothing is so conductive to greatness of mind. One so trained has divested himself of his body: recognizing that in almost no time he will have to leave all this behind and depart from the world of men, he has devoted his entire self to justice in his own actions and to the nature of the Whole in all things external. He does not even give a thought to what others will say or suppose about him, or do against him, but is content to meet these two conditions - his own integrity in each present action, and glad acceptance of his present lot. He has a banded all other preoccupations and ambitions, and his only desire is to walk the straight path according to law and, in so doing, to follow in the path of god.

BOOK 10 -10

A spider is proud to trap a fly. Men are proud of their own hunting - a hare, a sprat in the net, boars, bears, Sarmatian  prisoners. If you examine their motives, Are they not bandits?

BOOK 10 -9

Farce, war, frenzy, torpor, slavery! Day by day those sacred doctrines of yours will be wiped out, whenever you conceive and admit them untested by natural philosophy. Every perception, every action must both satisfy the circumstantial and exercise the theoretical, so that you preserve the confidence of precise knowledge in every particular - this confidence unobtrusive, but not concealed.

Because when will you take your pleasure in simplicity? When in dignity? When in the knowledge of each individual thing - what is its essential nature, its place in the world, its natural span of existence, what are its components, to whom can it belong, who can give it and take it away?

BOOK 10 -8-4

A great help to keeping these claims to virtue fresh in your mind will be to keep your mind on the gods,  remembering that what they want is not servile flattery but the development of all rational beings into their own image: they want the fig tree to do the proper work of the fig tree, the dog of a dog, the bee of a bee - and the proper work of man.

BOOK 10 -8-3

Launch yourself, then, on these few claims. If you can stay within them, stay there like a man translated to some paradise, the Islands of the Blest. But if you feel yourself falling away and losing control, retire in good heart to some corner where you will regain control - or else make a complete exit from life, not in anger, but simply, freely, with integrity, making this leaving of it at least one achievement in your life.

BOOK 10 -8-2

To continue the same man as you have been up to now, to be torn apart and defiled in this life you live, is just senseless self-preservation like that of half-eaten gladiators who, mauled all over and covered in blood by the wild beasts, still plead to be kept alive for the next day, when in the same state they will again those same claws and teeth.

BOOK 10 -8

Claim your entitlements to these epithets - good, decent, truthful; in mind clear, cooperative, and independent - and take care then not to swap them for other names: and if you do forfeit these titles, return to them quickly. Remember, too, that 'clarity of mind' was meant to signify for you discriminating attention to detail and vigorous thought; 'a cooperative mind'  the willing acceptance of the dispensation of universal nature; 'independence of mind' the elevation of your thinking faculty above the calm or troubled affections of the flesh, above paltry fame or death or other indifferent thing. So if you keep yourself true to these titles, not just grabbing for this aclaimation from others, you will be a new man and enter a new life.

BOOK 10 -7-3

And do not imagine that this solid and this spirit are the same as at original birth. All this was gathered only yesterday or the day before from the influx of food consumed and air breathed in. So what changes is the gathered influx, and not what your mother bore. Suppose now that this influx has close implication in your individual self: that, I think has no bearing on the present argument.

BOOK 10 -7-2

But, if someone abandons the concept of nature and explains these things as 'just the way things are' how absurd it is to combine the assertion that the parts of the Whole are naturally subject to change with surprise or resentment as if this change was something contrary to nature - especially as the dissolution of each thing is into the elements of which it is composed. Dissolution is either a scattering of the component elements or the change of solid to earth and spirit to air, so that these too are submitted into the Reason of the Whole, whether the Whole is periodically turned to fire or renews itself though eternal mutations. 

BOOK 10 -7

The parts of the Whole, all that forms the natural compliment of the universe, must necessarily perish - and 'perish' should be taken in the sense of 'change'. Now if nature made this 'perishing' of the parts detrimental to them as well as necessary, the Whole would be poorly maintained when its parts are always on the way to change and specifically constituted to perish. Did nature deliberately undertake to harm the parts of herself, to render them both exposed to harm and necessarily condemned to fall into harm, or did she not notice these consequences? Hard to believe either.