BOOK IX
26. By not being content with thy ruling Reason doing the work for which it was constituted, thou hast borne unnumbered ills. Nay, 'tis enough!
27. When men blame or hate thee or give utterance to some such feelings against thee, turn to their souls, enter into them, and see what sort of men they are. Thou wilt perceive that thou needest not be concerned as to what they think of thee. Yet must thou feel kindly towards them, for Nature made them dear to thee. The Gods too lend them aid in divers ways by dreams[1] and oracles, to win those very things on which their hearts are set.[2]
28. The same, upwards, downwards,[3] from cycle to cycle are the revolutions of the Universe. And either the Universal Mind feels an impulse to act in each separate case—and if this be so, accept its impulsion—or it felt this impulse[4] once for all, and all subsequent things follow by way of consequence; and what matters which it be, for if you like to put it so the world is all atoms [or indivisible].[5] But as to the Whole, if God—all is well; if haphazard—be not thou also haphazard.[6]
Presently the earth will cover us all. It too will anon be changed, and the resulting product will go on from change to change, and so for ever and ever. When a man thinks of these successive waves of change and transformation, and their rapidity, he will hold every mortal thing in scorn.[7]
29. The World-Cause is as a torrent, it sweeps everything along. How negligible these manikins
- ↑ i. 17 ad fin.
- ↑ ix. 11, 40.
- ↑ The Heraclitan round of change between the elements; see iv. 46.
- ↑ ix. 1, § 4.
- ↑ Possibly ἀμερῆ is a gloss, or ὁμοιομερή should be read. (cp. Epict. Frag. 175.)
- ↑ ii. 5; iv. 2, etc. τὸ ὅλον may also be taken to mean in fine.
- ↑ ix. 19; xii. 21. cp. Capit. xxviii. 4 of Marcus on his death-bed, ridens res humanas.
