BOOK VIII
change, but nothing new-fangled need be feared; all things are of the wonted type,[1] nay, their distributions also are alike.
7. Every nature is content with itself when it speeds well on its way; and a rational nature speeds well on its way, when in its impressions it gives assent to nothing that is false or obscure, and directs its impulses towards none but social acts, and limits its inclinations and its aversions only to things that are in its power, and welcomes all that the Universal Nature allots it. For it is a part of that, as the nature of the leaf is of the plant-nature; with the difference however, that in the case of the plant the nature of the leaf is part of a nature void both of sentience and reason, and liable to be thwarted, while a man's nature is part of a nature unthwartable and intelligent and just, if indeed it divides up equally and in due measure to every one his quotas of time, substance, cause, activity, circumstance. And consider, not whether thou shalt find one thing in every case equal to one thing, but whether, collectively, the whole of this equal to the aggregate of that.
8. Thou canst not be a student. But thou canst refrain from insolence; but thou canst rise superior to pleasures and pains; but thou canst tread under thy feet the love of glory; but thou canst forbear to be angry with the unfeeling and the thankless,[2] aye and even care for them.
9. Let no one hear thee any more grumbling at life in a Court,[3] nay let not thine own ears hear thee.
10. Repentance is a sort of self-reproach at some useful thing passed by; but the good must needs be a useful thing, and ever to be cultivated by the true
