BOOK II
renown; what it is to die, and that if a man look at death in itself, and with the analysis of reason strip it of its phantom terrors, no longer will he conceive it to be aught but a function of Nature,—but if a man be frightened by a function of Nature, he is childish; and this is not only Nature's function but her welfare;—and how man is in touch with God and with what part of himself, and in what disposition of this portion of the man.
13. Nothing can be more miserable than the man who goes through the whole round of things, and, as the poet[1] says, pries into the secrets of the earth, and would fain guess the thoughts in his neighbour's heart, while having no conception that he needs but to associate himself with the divine 'genius' in his bosom,[2] and to serve it truly. And service of it is to keep it pure from passion and aimlessness and discontent with anything that proceeds from Gods or men. For that which proceeds from the Gods is worthy of reverence in that it is excellent; and that which proceeds from men, of love, in that they are akin, and, at times and in a manner,[3] of compassion, in that they are ignorant of good and evil—a defect this no less than the loss of power to distinguish between white and black.
14. Even if thy life is to last three thousand years or for the matter of that thirty thousand, yet bear in mind that no one ever parts with any other life than
- ↑ Pindar, Frag. (see Plato, Theaet. 173 E).
- ↑ § 17; iii. 6, 16. cp. Shaks, Temp. ii. 1. 275: "Conscience, this deity in my bosom." The δαιμόνιον of Socrates is well known.
- ↑ Marcus qualifies his departure from the strict Stoic view, for which see Seneca de Clem. ii. 4–6, where he calls pity pusillanimity, and says sapiens non miserebitur sed succurret. Marcus was far from a Stoic in this, see Herodian i. 4, § 2. See above, p. xiii.
