BOOK XI
12. The soul is 'a sphere truly shaped,'[1] when it neither projects itself towards anything outside nor shrinks together inwardly, neither expands nor contracts,[2] but irradiates a light whereby it sees the reality of all things and the reality that is in itself.
13. What if a man think scorn of me? That will be his affair. But it will be mine not to be found doing or saying anything worthy of scorn. But what if he hate me? That will be his affair.[3] But I will be kindly and goodnatured to everyone, and ready to shew even my enemy where he has seen amiss, not by way of rebuke[4] nor with a parade of forbearance, but genuinely and chivalrously like the famous Phocion,[5] unless indeed he was speaking ironically. For such should be the inner springs of a man's heart[6] that the Gods see him not wrathfully disposed at any thing or counting it a hardship. What evil can happen to thee if thou thyself now doest what is congenial to thy nature, and welcomest what the Universal Nature now deems well-timed, thou who art a man intensely eager that what is for the common interest should by one means or another be brought about?
14. Thinking scorn of one another, they yet fawn on one another, and eager to outdo their rivals they grovel one to another.
15. How rotten at the core is he, how counterfeit, who proclaims aloud: I have elected to deal straightforwardly with thee! Man, what art thou at? There is no need to give this out. The fact will instantly declare itself. It ought to be written on the fore-
- ↑ viii. 41; xii. 3.
- ↑ viii. 51.
- ↑ v. 25; Epict. iii. 18, §9; x. 32.
- ↑ xi. 18, § 9.
- ↑ Marcus is probably thinking of Phocion's last words, see Aelian xii. 49 μηδὲν 'Αθηναίοις μνησικακήσειν ὑπὲρ τῆς παρ' αὐτῶν φιλοτησίας ἧς νῦν πίνω (sc. the cup of hemlock); but Heylbut (Rhein. Mus. 39. p. 310) refers to a story in Musonius Rufus, p. 55, Hense.
- ↑ cp. St. Luke xi. 39: τὸ ἔσωθεν ὑμῶν—"the inward parts."
