BOOK III
for the performing of every act, even the pettiest, with the fullest consciousness of the mutual ties between these two.[1] For thou shalt never carry out well any human duty unless thou correlate it to the divine, nor the reverse.
14. Go astray no more; for thou art not likely to read thy little Memoranda,[2] or the Acts of the Romans and the Greeks of Old Time,[3] and the extracts[4] from their writings which thou wast laying up against thine old age. Haste then to the consummation and, casting away all empty hopes, if thou carest aught for thy welfare, come to thine own rescue, while it is allowed thee.
15. They know not how full of meaning are—to thieve,[5] to sow, to buy, to be at peace, to see what needs doing, and this is not a matter for the eye but for another sort of sight.
16. Body, Soul, Intelligence: for the body sensations, for the soul desires, for the intelligence axioms. To receive impressions by way of the senses is not denied even to cattle; to be as puppets[6] pulled by the strings of desire is common to wild beasts and to pathics and to a Phalaris and a Nero. Yet to have the intelligence a guide to what they deem their duty is an attribute of those also who do not believe in Gods and those who fail their country in its need and those who do their deeds behind closed doors.[7]
If then all else is the common property of the
- ↑ i.e. the human and the divine.
- ↑ It is not clear whether Marcus refers to the present book. He uses a similar word for the discourses of Epictetus (i. 7).
- ↑ ii. 2. Some have seen here a reference to a history written by Marcus himself.
- ↑ See Fronto, ad Caes. ii. 10, excerpta ex libris sexaginta n quinque tomis.
- ↑ xi. 3.
- ↑ ii. 2.
- ↑ Must undoubtedly refer to the Christians, who were accused precisely of these three things—atheism, want of patriotism, and secret orgies. cp. also, i. 6; vii. 68; viii. 48, 51; and see note pp. 381 ff.
