BOOK IV
and the other animals. How great is the number consumed and thus in a way buried[1] in the bodies of those who feed upon them! And yet room is made for them all by their conversion into blood, by their transmutation into air or fire.
Where in this case lies the way of search for the truth? In a separation of the Material from the Causal.[2]
22. Be not whirled aside; but in every impulse fulfil the claims of justice, and in every impression safeguard certainty.
23. All that is in tune with thee, O Universe,[3] is in tune with me! Nothing that is in due time for thee is too early or too late for me! All that thy seasons bring, O Nature, is fruit for me! All things come from thee, subsist in thee, go back to thee.[4] There is one who says Dear City of Cecrops[5]! Wilt thou not say O dear City of Zeus?
24. If thou wouldest be tranquil in heart, says the Sage,[6] do not many things. Is not this a better maxim: do but what is needful, and what the reason of a living creature born for a civic life demands, and as it demands. For this brings the tranquillity which comes of doing few things no less than of doing them well. For nine tenths of our words and deeds being unnecessary, if a man retrench there, he will have more abundant leisure and fret the less. Wherefore forget not on every occasion to ask thyself, Is this one of the unnecessary things? But we must retrench not only actions but thoughts which are
- ↑ cp. Fronto, ad Caes. i. 6; Athenag. Apol. 36. Apuleius (Met. iv. ad init.) calls beasts the living tombs of condemned criminals. Longinus (de Subl. iii.) inveighs against the trope, as used by Gorgias of Leontini.
- ↑ vii. 29.
- ↑ Nature, God, and the Universe were identical in the Stoic creed; see Sen. N.Q. ii. 45.
- ↑ St. Paul, Rom. xi. 36, ἐξ αὐτοῦ δι' αὐτοῦ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα.
- ↑ Seemingly a Fragment from Aristophanes.
- ↑ Democritus (Stob. i. 100), τὸν εὐθυμεῖσθαι μέλλοντα χρὴ μὴ πολλὰ πρήσσειν; iii. 5; Sen. de Tran. 12, Hanc stabilem animi sedem Graeci εὐθυμίαν vocant, de qua Democriti volumen egregium est: ego Tranquillitatem voco.
