BOOK IV
rule, and the man who lives contrary to the rule, of Nature, is neither in accordance with Nature nor contrary to it.
40. Cease not to think of the Universe as one living Being,[1] possessed of a single Substance and a single Soul; and how all things trace back to its single sentience;[2] and how it does all things by a single impulse; and how all existing things are joint causes of all things that come into existence; and how intertwined in the fabric is the thread and how closely woven the web.[3]
41. Thou art a little soul bearing up a corpse, as Epictetus said.[4]
42. Nothing is evil to that which is subject to change, even as there is no good for that which exists as the result of change.
43. As a river[5] consisting of all things that come into being, aye, a rushing torrent, is Time. No sooner is a thing sighted than it is carried past, and lo, another is passing, and it too will be carried away.
44. Everything that happens is as usual and familiar,[6] as the rose in spring and the fruit in autumn. The same applies to disease and death and slander and treachery and all that gladdens the foolish or saddens them.
45. That which comes after always has a close relationship to what has gone before. For it is not like some enumeration of items separately taken and following a mere inevitable sequence, but there is a rational connection; and just as existing things have been combined in a harmonious order, so also
- ↑ A Stoic doctrine, Diog. Laert. Zeno. 36.
- ↑ For ἀναδίδοσθαι, cp. v. 26.
- ↑ iii. 11.
- ↑ Not now found in his works. Swinburne has "A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man" (Hymn to Proserpine). cp. Ignat. ad Smyrn. 5 νεκροφόρος.
- ↑ ii. 17; v. 23; vi. 15 (Heraclitus).
- ↑ iv. 33.
