Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/197

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Meditations, &c.
17

Network, wrought up with a Company of Nerves, Veins, and Arteries twisted together. In the next place you are to examine what sort of Thing your Breath is: why only a little Air suck'd into your Lungs, and pump'd out again. The third part of your Composition is your Mind, which was made for Government and Authority: Now here make a Stand; consider you are an Old Man : Don't suffer this Noble Part of you under Servitude any longer: Let it not be overborn with Selfish Passions; Let it not quarrel Fate, be uneasy at the Present, or afraid of the Future.

III. Providence shines clearly through the Administration of the World : Even Chance it self is not without Steadiness and Nature at the bottom; being only an Effect of that Chain of Causes which are under a providential Regulation : Indeed all Things flow from this Fountain. Besides, There is Necessity, and General Convenience that Matters should lie as they do; and to speak out, the Interest of the whole World, of which you are a part, is concern'd in't. Now that which is both the Product, and Support of Universal Nature, must by consequence be serviceable to every Part of it: But the World Subsists upon Alteration, and what it loses one way, it gets an-

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