BOOK XII
nor hast thou any call to blame Chance or to impeach Providence. Secondly this: to think what each creature is from conception till it receives a living soul, and from its reception of a living soul till its giving back of the same,[1] and out of what it is built up and into what it is dissolved. Thirdly, that if carried suddenly into mid-heaven thou shouldest look down upon human affairs[2] and their infinite diversity, thou wilt indeed despise them,[3] seeing at the same time in one view how great is the host that peoples the air and the aether around thee; and that, however often thou wert lifted up on high, thou wouldst see the same sights, everything identical in kind, everything fleeting. Besides, the vanity of it all!
25. Overboard with opinion[4] and thou art safe ashore. And who is there prevents thee from throwing it overboard?
26. In taking umbrage at anything, thou forgettest this, that everything happens in accordance with the Universal Nature[5]; and this, that the wrong-doing is another's[6]; and this furthermore that all that happens, always did happen,[7] and will happen so, and is at this moment happening everywhere. And thou forgettest how strong is the kinship between man and mankind, for it is a community not of corpuscles, of seed or blood, but of intelligence.[8] And thou forgettest this too, that each man's intelligence is God[9] and has emanated from Him; and this, that nothing is a man's very own, but that his babe, his
- ↑ The living soul was supposed by the Stoics to be received at birth, see Plut. de Placit. Phil. v. 15, and Stoic. Contr. 38; and for a reputed conversation on this subject between Marcus and the rabbi Jehuda, see Talmud, Sanh. 91 b (Jewish Encycl. Funk & Wagnalls, 1902).
- ↑ vii. 48; ix. 30.
- ↑ cp. Lucian, Charon (throughout). What Marcus means by ἐναέριοι and ἐναιθέριοι (or the neuters of these) is not clear. But cp. Apul. de deo Socr., circa med., and his disquisition on δαίμονες; and the interesting parallel 2 Kings vi. 17.
- ↑ iv. 7; vii. 17, 29; viii. 29; ix. 7; xii. 22.
- ↑ v. 8, 10.
- ↑ ix. 38.
- ↑ vii. 1.
- ↑ ii. 1.
- ↑ ср. Eur. Frag. 1007, ὁ νοῦς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἐστιν ἐν ἑκάστῳ θεός: Cic. Tusc. i. 26, § 65.
