Book Twelve

All those things which you pray to attain by a roundabout course you can have even now, if you do not grudge them to yourself. That is, if you let go all the past, and entrust the future to providence, and direct the present alone toward holiness and justice. Holiness, that you may love what is allotted to you; for nature brought it to you, and you to it. Justice, that you may speak the truth freely and without disguise, and do the things that are according to law and according to desert. And let nothing hinder you — neither the vice of another, nor any opinion, nor a voice, nor even the sensations of the poor flesh that has grown about you; for that which suffers will see to that. If, then, whenever you come near to your departure, leaving all else behind, you honour your ruling faculty alone and the divine within you, and fear not that you must one day cease to live, but rather that you have never yet begun to live according to nature, then you will be a man worthy of the universe that begot you, and you will cease to be a stranger in your own country, and to wonder, as at unexpected things, at what happens day by day, and to hang upon this thing and that.

God beholds all the ruling faculties stripped of their material vessels and husks and dross; for with his own intelligence alone he touches only those things that have flowed and been drawn off from himself into them. And if you too accustom yourself to do this, you will rid yourself of much that distracts you; for he who does not look at the flesh that wraps him will surely not, by gazing at clothes and house and fame and such trappings and stage-show, busy himself in vain.

Three things there are of which you are composed: a little body, a little breath, and mind. Of these, the first two are yours only in so far as you must take care of them; the third alone is properly your own. If, then, you separate from yourself — that is, from your mind — all that others do or say, and all that you yourself have done or said, and all that troubles you as things to come, and all that belongs without your choice to the poor body that wraps you and the breath bound up with it, and all that the whirl eddying about you whirls along — so that the intelligent power, lifted free of the chain of destiny and kept pure, lives detached upon itself, doing what is just and willing what befalls and speaking the truth; if, I say, you separate from this ruling faculty the things attached to it through the passions, and the things of time beyond or behind it, and make yourself such as Empedocles' "sphere, rounded, rejoicing in its circling rest," and practise to live only that which you live, that is, the present — then you will be able to pass the remainder of your time until death untroubled, kindly, and at peace with your own guardian spirit.

Often I have wondered how it is that, while each man loves himself above all, he yet sets less store by his own opinion of himself than by the opinions of others. At any rate, if a god or a wise teacher stood by and bade a man think and devise nothing within himself which he would not, at the very moment of conceiving it, speak aloud, he could not endure it for a single day. So much more do we stand in awe of what our neighbours will think of us than of ourselves.

How is it that the gods, who have ordered all things well and in love of man, have overlooked this one thing only: that some men, even the truly good, who have made, as it were, the most covenants with the divine, and through holy works and rites have become most familiar with the godhead, should yet, once they are dead, never come to be again, but be utterly extinguished? But if indeed this is so, be assured that, had it needed to be otherwise, the gods would have made it so; for had it been just, it would also have been possible, and had it been according to nature, nature would have brought it to pass. From its not being so, then — if indeed it is not so — let it be confirmed for you that it needed not to be so. For you yourself see that, in seeking after this, you are pleading a case of justice with God; and we should not so reason with the gods, were they not most good and most just. And if this is so, they would not have suffered anything in the ordering of the world to be unjustly and unreasonably neglected.

Train yourself even in those things which you despair of doing. For the left hand too, idle in other things through want of practice, holds the bridle more strongly than the right; for in this it has been trained.

What manner of man one ought to be when overtaken by death, in body and in soul; the shortness of life; the vast gulf of time behind and before; the frailty of all matter.

To behold the causal principles stripped of their husks; the references of actions; what pain is; what pleasure; what death; what fame; who it is that makes himself the cause of his own unrest; how no one is hindered by another; that all is opinion.

In the use of your principles you should be like the pancratiast, not the gladiator; for the gladiator lays down the sword he uses and takes it up again, but the other always has his hand, and need do nothing but clench it.

See things as they are, dividing them into the material, the causal, and the reference.

How great a power a man has to do nothing but what God will approve, and to accept all that God apportions to him! Whatever follows from nature.

Neither must the gods be blamed — for they do no wrong, willingly or unwillingly — nor men, for they do nothing save unwillingly. Therefore no one is to be blamed.

How laughable and what a stranger to the world is he who wonders at anything that comes to pass in life!

Either the necessity of destiny and an order not to be transgressed, or a providence that may be appeased, or a confusion of mere chance, without a governor. If, then, it is a necessity not to be transgressed, why do you struggle against it? But if it is a providence that admits of being appeased, make yourself worthy of the help of the divine. But if it is a confusion without a guide, be content that, in such a surge, you yourself have within you a certain governing mind; and though the surge carry you away, let it carry away the poor flesh, the poor breath, and the rest; for it will not carry away the mind.

Or shall the light of the lamp, until it is quenched, shine and not lose its brightness, while the truth and justice and self-control in you are quenched before the end?

Concerning him who has given you the impression that he has done wrong: "But how do I know that this is a wrong?" And even if he has done wrong, that he has condemned himself, and so this is like tearing his own face. Reflect, too, that he who would have the bad man do no wrong is like one who would have the fig-tree yield no juice in its figs, and babes not cry, and the horse not neigh, and all the other things that must be. For what is he to do, having such a disposition? If, then, you are keen-witted, cure this.

If it is not fitting, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it. For let your impulse be always to see, in everything, what that very thing is which produces the impression in you, and to unfold it, dividing it into the cause, the material, the reference, and the time within which it must come to an end.

Perceive at last that you have within you something better and more divine than the things that produce the passions and, in a word, than the things that jerk you like a puppet. What is my mind now? Is it fear? Is it suspicion? Is it desire? Is it any other such thing?

First, do nothing at random, nor without reference to an end. Second, refer your action to no other end than the good of the fellowship.

That in a little while you will be no one and nowhere, nor will any of these things you now see, nor any of those now living. For all things are by nature fitted to change and turn and perish, that others may come to be in their turn.

That all is opinion, and that opinion is in your power. Take away the opinion, then, when you will, and, as for one who has rounded the headland, there is calm, all things steady, and a bay without a wave.

Any single activity whatever, ceasing in its due season, suffers no evil in so far as it has ceased; nor has he who did the deed suffered any evil in this very thing, that it has ceased. In like manner, then, the system made up of all activities, which is life, if it cease in its due season, suffers no evil in this very thing, that it has ceased; nor has he who has brought this series to a close in due season been ill disposed. And the season and the limit are given by nature — sometimes by one's own nature, as in old age, but always by the Nature of the Whole, by the changing of whose parts the whole universe remains forever young and in its prime. And all that is of benefit to the Whole is always fair and in season. The ending of life, then, is for each man no evil, since neither is it shameful — being not within our choice and not against the fellowship — but a good, since for the Whole it is timely and of benefit and borne along with it. For so is he borne of God who is borne in the same course as God, and borne by his judgment toward the same things.

These three things you must have ready to hand. First, as to what you do, that you do nothing at random, nor otherwise than as Justice herself would have done it; and as to what befalls from without, that it comes either by chance or by providence; and you are neither to blame chance nor to arraign providence. Second, what each thing is from the seed to the ensouling, and from the ensouling to the giving back of the soul, and out of what it is compounded and into what it is dissolved. Third, that if you were suddenly lifted on high and looked down upon human affairs and their manifold variety, you would despise them, seeing at the same time how great a throng of beings of the air and the upper air dwell round about; and that, however often you were lifted up, you would see the same things, all of one kind, all short-lived. And in these things is our conceit!

Cast out the opinion, and you are saved. Who, then, is hindering you from casting it out?

When you are out of patience at anything, you have forgotten that all things come to pass according to the Nature of the Whole; and that the wrong done is another's; and besides this, that all that comes to pass came to pass thus always, and will come to pass, and now comes to pass everywhere; and how great is the kinship of a man with the whole race of men — for it is a fellowship not of a little blood or seed, but of mind. And you have forgotten too that each man's mind is God and has flowed from thence; and that nothing is the private property of any man, but that his child, his body, his very soul have come from thence; and that all is opinion; and that each man lives only the present, and it is this that he loses.

Continually call to mind those who have been exceedingly vexed at something, those who reached the height of great fame, or calamities, or enmities, or fortunes of whatever kind; then stop and ask: where is all that now? Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a tale. And let every such thing come home to you: Fabius Catullinus in his country house, Lusius Lupus in his gardens, Stertinius at Baiae, Tiberius at Capri, and Velius Rufus, and, in a word, every difference made about anything with conceit; and how cheap is everything men strain after, and how much more philosophic it is, upon the material given, to show oneself just, temperate, following the gods, in all simplicity. For the conceit that is conceited about its very freedom from conceit is the most grievous of all.

To those who ask, "Where, then, have you seen the gods, or whence have you grasped that they exist, that you so revere them?" — first, they are visible even to the eyes; and again, neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I honour it. So too with the gods: from the experience of their power, in every instance, I grasp that they exist, and I stand in awe of them.

The safety of life is to see each thing wholly, what it is in itself — what is its material, what its cause; with the whole soul to do what is just and to speak the truth. What then is left but to enjoy life, joining good to good so as to leave not even the smallest interval between?

There is one light of the sun, though it be parted by walls, by mountains, by countless other things. There is one common substance, though it be parted into countless bodies of particular qualities. There is one soul, though it be parted among countless natures and individual bounds. There is one intelligent soul, though it seem to be divided. Now the other parts of the things named — such as breaths and material things — are without sensation and without kinship to one another; yet even these the unifying principle holds together, and their tendency toward the same place. But the mind, in a peculiar way, stretches toward what is of its own kind and joins with it, and the affection for fellowship is not cut off.

What do you seek? To go on breathing? But to perceive? To have impulse? To grow? To leave off growing again? To use your voice? To think? Which of these seems to you worth your longing? But if each is contemptible, go on to the last thing: to follow reason and God. Yet it fights against this to honour these things, to be grieved if by death a man shall be deprived of them.

How small a part of the boundless and gaping gulf of time has been apportioned to each man! For very swiftly it vanishes into the everlasting. And how small a part of the whole substance, how small a part of the whole soul! And on how small a clod of the whole earth do you creep! Reflecting on all these things, picture nothing as great except this: to do as your own nature leads you, and to bear what the common nature brings.

How does the ruling faculty use itself? For in this lies the whole. All else, whether within your choice or without it, is dead and smoke.

Most rousing toward the contempt of death is that even those who judge pleasure a good and pain an evil have nonetheless despised it.

To him for whom only the timely is good; for whom it is all one to render more right actions according to reason or fewer; for whom it makes no difference whether he has gazed upon the universe a longer time or a shorter — to him not even death is a thing to fear.

Man, you have been a citizen in this great city; what does it matter to you whether for five years or for three? For what is according to the laws is equal for each. What is dreadful, then, if it is no tyrant nor unjust judge that sends you out of the city, but the nature that brought you in — just as a praetor who engaged a player dismisses him from the stage? "But I have not played the five acts, only three." You say well; but in life the three acts are the whole drama. For he determines the completion who was once the cause of your composition and now of your dissolution; but you are the cause of neither. Depart, then, content; for he who releases you is content also.