BOOK IV
all that comes into being bears the stamp not of a mere succession but of a wonderful relationship.[1]
46. Always bear in mind what Heraclitus[2] said: The death of earth is to pass into water, and the death of water to pass into air, and of air to pass into fire, and so back again. Bear in mind too: the wayfarer who forgets the trend of his way, and that men are at variance with the one thing with which they are in the most unbroken communion, the Reason that administers the whole Universe; and that what they encounter every day, this they deem strange; and that we must not act and speak like men asleep,[3]—for in fact even in sleep we seem to act and speak;—and that there should be nothing of the children from parents style, that is, no mere perfunctory what our Fathers have told us.
47. Just as, if a God had told thee,[4] Thou shalt die to-morrow or in any case the day after, thou wouldest no longer count it of any consequence whether it were the day after to-morrow or to-morrow, unless thou art in the last degree mean-spirited,[5] for how little is the difference![6]—so also deem it but a trifling thing that thou shouldest die after ever so many years rather than to-morrow.
48. Cease not to bear in mind how many physicians are dead after puckering up their brows so often over their patients; and how many astrologers after making a great parade of predicting the death of others;[7] and how many philosophers after endless disquisitions on death and immortality; how many great captains after butchering thousands[8]; how many tyrants after exercising with revolting insolence
