Written 167 A.C.E.
Translated by George Long
Book Seven
What is badness? It is that which thou hast often seen. And on the
occasion of everything which happens keep this in mind, that it is that
which thou hast often seen. Everywhere up and down thou wilt find the same
things, with which the old histories are filled, those of the middle ages
and those of our own day; with which cities and houses are filled now.
There is nothing new: all things are both familiar and short-lived.
How can our principles become dead, unless the impressions (thoughts)
which correspond to them are extinguished? But it is in thy power
continuously to fan these thoughts into a flame. I can have that opinion
about anything, which I ought to have. If I can, why am I disturbed? The
things which are external to my mind have no relation at all to my mind.-
Let this be the state of thy affects, and thou standest erect. To recover
thy life is in thy power. Look at things again as thou didst use to look
at them; for in this consists the recovery of thy life.
The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds,
exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread into
fish-ponds, labourings of ants and burden-carrying, runnings about of
frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings- all alike. It is thy
duty then in the midst of such things to show good humour and not a proud
air; to understand however that every man is worth just so much as the
things are worth about which he busies himself.
In discourse thou must attend to what is said, and in every movement thou
must observe what is doing. And in the one thou shouldst see immediately
to what end it refers, but in the other watch carefully what is the thing
signified.
Is my understanding sufficient for this or not? If it is sufficient, I use
it for the work as an instrument given by the universal nature. But if it
is not sufficient, then either I retire from the work and give way to him
who is able to do it better, unless there be some reason why I ought not
to do so; or I do it as well as I can, taking to help me the man who with
the aid of my ruling principle can do what is now fit and useful for the
general good. For whatsoever either by myself or with another I can do,
ought to be directed to this only, to that which is useful and well suited
to society.
How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion;
and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead.
Be not ashamed to be helped; for it is thy business to do thy duty like a
soldier in the assault on a town. How then, if being lame thou canst not
mount up on the battlements alone, but with the help of another it is
possible?
Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them, if it
shall be necessary, having with thee the same reason which now thou usest
for present things.
All things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and
there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing. For things have
been co-ordinated, and they combine to form the same universe (order). For
there is one universe made up of all things, and one God who pervades all
things, and one substance, and one law, one common reason in all
intelligent animals, and one truth; if indeed there is also one perfection
for all animals which are of the same stock and participate in the same
reason.
Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole; and
everything formal (causal) is very soon taken back into the universal
reason; and the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.
To the rational animal the same act is according to nature and according
to reason.
Be thou erect, or be made erect.
Just as it is with the members in those bodies which are united in one, so
it is with rational beings which exist separate, for they have been
constituted for one co-operation. And the perception of this will be more
apparent to thee, if thou often sayest to thyself that I am a member (melos)
of the system of rational beings. But if (using the letter r) thou sayest
that thou art a part (meros) thou dost not yet love men from thy heart;
beneficence does not yet delight thee for its own sake; thou still doest
it barely as a thing of propriety, and not yet as doing good to thyself.
Let there fall externally what will on the parts which can feel the
effects of this fall. For those parts which have felt will complain, if
they choose. But I, unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am
not injured. And it is in my power not to think so.
Whatever any one does or says, I must be good, just as if the gold, or the
emerald, or the purple were always saying this, Whatever any one does or
says, I must be emerald and keep my colour.
The ruling faculty does not disturb itself; I mean, does not frighten
itself or cause itself pain. But if any one else can frighten or pain it,
let him do so. For the faculty itself will not by its own opinion turn
itself into such ways. Let the body itself take care, if it can, that is
suffer nothing, and let it speak, if it suffers. But the soul itself, that
which is subject to fear, to pain, which has completely the power of
forming an opinion about these things, will suffer nothing, for it will
never deviate into such a judgement. The leading principle in itself wants
nothing, unless it makes a want for itself; and therefore it is both free
from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not disturb and impede itself.
Eudaemonia (happiness) is a good daemon, or a good thing. What then art
thou doing here, O imagination? Go away, I entreat thee by the gods, as
thou didst come, for I want thee not. But thou art come according to thy
old fashion. I am not angry with thee: only go away.
Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change? What
then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And canst
thou take a bath unless the wood undergoes a change? And canst thou be
nourished, unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that
is useful be accomplished without change? Dost thou not see then that for
thyself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the
universal nature?
Through the universal substance as through a furious torrent all bodies
are carried, being by their nature united with and cooperating with the
whole, as the parts of our body with one another. How many a Chrysippus,
how many a Socrates, how many an Epictetus has time already swallowed up?
And let the same thought occur to thee with reference to every man and
thing.
One thing only troubles me, lest I should do something which the
constitution of man does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow,
or what it does not allow now.
Near is thy forgetfulness of all things; and near the forgetfulness of
thee by all.
It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this happens,
if when they do wrong it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen, and that
they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally, and that soon both of
you will die; and above all, that the wrong-doer has done thee no harm,
for he has not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was before.
The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax,
now moulds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material
for a tree, then for a man, then for something else; and each of these
things subsists for a very short time. But it is no hardship for the
vessel to be broken up, just as there was none in its being fastened
together.
A scowling look is altogether unnatural; when it is often assumed, the
result is that all comeliness dies away, and at last is so completely
extinguished that it cannot be again lighted up at all. Try to conclude
from this very fact that it is contrary to reason. For if even the
perception of doing wrong shall depart, what reason is there for living
any longer?
Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which thou
seest, and out of their substance will make other things, and again other
things from the substance of them, in order that the world may be ever
new.
When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion
about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou
wilt pity him, and wilt neither wonder nor be angry. For either thou
thyself thinkest the same thing to be good that he does or another thing
of the same kind. It is thy duty then to pardon him. But if thou dost not
think such things to be good or evil, thou wilt more readily be well
disposed to him who is in error.
Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the
things which thou hast select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they
would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time however
take care that thou dost not through being so pleased with them accustom
thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not
have them.
Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature,
that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures
tranquility.
Wipe out the imagination. Stop the pulling of the strings. Confine thyself
to the present. Understand well what happens either to thee or to another.
Divide and distribute every object into the causal (formal) and the
material. Think of thy last hour. Let the wrong which is done by a man
stay there where the wrong was done.
Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter into the
things that are doing and the things which do them.
Adorn thyself with simplicity and modesty and with indifference towards
the things which lie between virtue and vice. Love mankind. Follow God.
The poet says that Law rules all.- And it is enough to remember that Law
rules all.
About death: Whether it is a dispersion, or a resolution into atoms, or
annihilation, it is either extinction or change.
About pain: The pain which is intolerable carries us off; but that which
lasts a long time is tolerable; and the mind maintains its own tranquility
by retiring into itself, and the ruling faculty is not made worse. But the
parts which are harmed by pain, let them, if they can, give their opinion
about it.
About fame: Look at the minds of those who seek fame, observe what they
are, and what kind of things they avoid, and what kind of things they
pursue. And consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide
the former sands, so in life the events which go before are soon covered
by those which come after.
From Plato: The man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time
and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that
human life is anything great? it is not possible, he said.- Such a man
then will think that death also is no evil.- Certainly not.
From Antisthenes: It is royal to do good and to be abused.
It is a base thing for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate and
compose itself as the mind commands, and for the mind not to be regulated
and composed by itself.
It is not right to vex ourselves at things,
For they care nought about it.
To the immortal gods and us give joy.
Life must be reaped like the ripe ears of corn:
One man is born; another dies.
If gods care not for me and for my children,
There is a reason for it.
For the good is with me, and the just.
No joining others in their wailing, no violent emotion.
From Plato: But I would make this man a sufficient answer, which is this:
Thou sayest not well, if thou thinkest that a man who is good for anything
at all ought to compute the hazard of life or death, and should not rather
look to this only in all that he does, whether he is doing what is just or
unjust, and the works of a good or a bad man.
For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself
thinking it the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander,
there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking
nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the
baseness of deserting his post.
But, my good friend, reflect whether that which is noble and good is not
something different from saving and being saved; for as to a man living
such or such a time, at least one who is really a man, consider if this is
not a thing to be dismissed from the thoughts: and there must be no love
of life: but as to these matters a man must intrust them to the deity and
believe what the women say, that no man can escape his destiny, the next
inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.
Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with
them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one
another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life.
This is a fine saying of Plato: That he who is discoursing about men
should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher
place; should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural
labours, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of
justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts,
lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things and an orderly combination
of contraries.
Consider the past; such great changes of political supremacies. Thou
mayest foresee also the things which will be. For they will certainly be
of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the
order of the things which take place now: accordingly to have contemplated
human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten
thousand years. For what more wilt thou see?
That which has grown from the earth to the earth,
But that which has sprung from heavenly seed,
Back to the heavenly realms returns. This is either a dissolution of the
mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the unsentient
elements.
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 complaining.
Another may be more expert in casting his opponent; but he is not more
social, nor more modest, nor better disciplined to meet all that happens,
nor more considerate with respect to the faults of his neighbours.
Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to
gods and men, there we have nothing to fear: for where we are able to get
profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according
to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.
Everywhere and at all times it is in thy power piously to acquiesce in thy
present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about thee, and
to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that nothing shall steal
into them without being well examined.
Do not look around thee to discover other men's ruling principles, but
look straight to this, to what nature leads thee, both the universal
nature through the things which happen to thee, and thy own nature through
the acts which must be done by thee. But every being ought to do that
which is according to its constitution; and all other things have been
constituted for the sake of rational beings, just as among irrational
things the inferior for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the
sake of one another.
The prime principle then in man's constitution is the social. And the
second is not to yield to the persuasions of the body, for it is the
peculiar office of the rational and intelligent motion to circumscribe
itself, and never to be overpowered either by the motion of the senses or
of the appetites, for both are animal; but the intelligent motion claims
superiority and does not permit itself to be overpowered by the others.
And with good reason, for it is formed by nature to use all of them. The
third thing in the rational constitution is freedom from error and from
deception. Let then the ruling principle holding fast to these things go
straight on, and it has what is its own.
Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the
present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed
thee.
Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of thy
destiny. For what is more suitable?
In everything which happens keep before thy eyes those to whom the same
things happened, and how they were vexed, and treated them as strange
things, and found fault with them: and now where are they? Nowhere. Why
then dost thou too choose to act in the same way? And why dost thou not
leave these agitations which are foreign to nature, to those who cause
them and those who are moved by them? And why art thou not altogether
intent upon the right way of making use of the things which happen to
thee? For then thou wilt use them well, and they will be a material for
thee to work on. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be a good man in
every act which thou doest: and remember...
Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up,
if thou wilt ever dig.
The body ought to be compact, and to show no irregularity either in motion
or attitude. For what the mind shows in the face by maintaining in it the
expression of intelligence and propriety, that ought to be required also
in the whole body. But all of these things should be observed without
affectation.
The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in
respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which
are sudden and unexpected.
Constantly observe who those are whose approbation thou wishest to have,
and what ruling principles they possess. For then thou wilt neither blame
those who offend involuntarily, nor wilt thou want their approbation, if
thou lookest to the sources of their opinions and appetites.
Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth;
consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and
benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to bear this
constantly in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.
In every pain let this thought be present, that there is no dishonour in
it, nor does it make the governing intelligence worse, for it does not
damage the intelligence either so far as the intelligence is rational or
so far as it is social. Indeed in the case of most pains let this remark
of Epicurus aid thee, that pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if
thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to
it in imagination: and remember this too, that we do not perceive that
many things which are disagreeable to us are the same as pain, such as
excessive drowsiness, and the being scorched by heat, and the having no
appetite. When then thou art discontented about any of these things, say
to thyself, that thou art yielding to pain.
Take care not to feel towards the inhuman, as they feel towards men.
How do we know if Telauges was not superior in character to Socrates? For
it is not enough that Socrates died a more noble death, and disputed more
skilfully with the sophists, and passed the night in the cold with more
endurance, and that when he was bid to arrest Leon of Salamis, he
considered it more noble to refuse, and that he walked in a swaggering way
in the streets- though as to this fact one may have great doubts if it was
true. But we ought to inquire, what kind of a soul it was that Socrates
possessed, and if he was able to be content with being just towards men
and pious towards the gods, neither idly vexed on account of men's
villainy, nor yet making himself a slave to any man's ignorance, nor
receiving as strange anything that fell to his share out of the universal,
nor enduring it as intolerable, nor allowing his understanding to
sympathize with the affects of the miserable flesh.
Nature has not so mingled the intelligence with the composition of the
body, as not to have allowed thee the power of circumscribing thyself and
of bringing under subjection to thyself all that is thy own; for it is
very possible to be a divine man and to be recognised as such by no one.
Always bear this in mind; and another thing too, that very little indeed
is necessary for living a happy life. And because thou hast despaired of
becoming a dialectician and skilled in the knowledge of nature, do not for
this reason renounce the hope of being both free and modest and social and
obedient to God.
It is in thy power to live free from all compulsion in the greatest
tranquility of mind, even if all the world cry out against thee as much as
they choose, and even if wild beasts tear in pieces the members of this
kneaded matter which has grown around thee. For what hinders the mind in
the midst of all this from maintaining itself in tranquility and in a just
judgement of all surrounding things and in a ready use of the objects
which are presented to it, so that the judgement may say to the thing
which falls under its observation: This thou art in substance (reality),
though in men's opinion thou mayest appear to be of a different kind; and
the use shall say to that which falls under the hand: Thou art the thing
that I was seeking; for to me that which presents itself is always a
material for virtue both rational and political, and in a word, for the
exercise of art, which belongs to man or God. For everything which happens
has a relationship either to God or man, and is neither new nor difficult
to handle, but usual and apt matter to work on.
The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day
as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing
the hypocrite.
The gods who are immortal are not vexed because during so long a time they
must tolerate continually men such as they are and so many of them bad;
and besides this, they also take care of them in all ways. But thou, who
art destined to end so soon, art thou wearied of enduring the bad, and
this too when thou art one of them?
It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which
is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is
impossible.
Whatever the rational and political (social) faculty finds to be neither
intelligent nor social, it properly judges to be inferior to itself.
When thou hast done a good act and another has received it, why dost thou
look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the
reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?
No man is tired of receiving what is useful. But it is useful to act
according to nature. Do not then be tired of receiving what is useful by
doing it to others.
The nature of the An moved to make the universe. But now either everything
that takes place comes by way of consequence or continuity; or even the
chief things towards which the ruling power of the universe directs its
own movement are governed by no rational principle. If this is remembered
it will make thee more tranquil in many things.