ENGLISH COMMENTARY
there are three principles, the social bond, the victory over sense affections and bodily impulses,[1] judgement which is deliberate and undeceived.[2]
Chs. 56–7. He here appears to be giving his own turn to the worldly maxim, familiar from Horace, that happiness lies in being content with saying each day 'I have lived', and counting a new day as gain. He says, in short, each day is sufficient that is lived by Nature's law. If you so live you will embrace your destiny, for nothing is more in agreement with yourself.
Ch. 58. If you are disposed to rebel against circumstance, picture others who so rebelled and are dead; turn obstacles into material[3] for goodness.
Ch. 59. The idea of a fountain of living water within is developed in viii. 51.
Ch. 60. The outer self should be controlled like the inward; a thought akin to those in vii. 24 and 37.
Ch. 61. The art of living is contrasted, in another way, with acting and dancing, xi. 2, and compared with boxing and sword play, xii. 9.
Chs. 62–3. A subject to which Marcus often recurs, that evil is due to ignorance, and therefore must be treated leniently;[4] here he adds the reflection that praise or blame by the ignorant can well be ignored.[5]
Ch. 64. Pain is not a moral evil and need not, as Epicurus himself says,[6] affect the governing mind. When you complain of disagreeables, remember that they are a kind of pain, so that you are neglecting the rule not to complain of pain.
Chs. 65–6. The inhuman persons of ch. 65 appear to be the ascetic and cynical teachers who shamed human society. This introduces the remarkable digression upon Telauges and Socrates. Aeschines, the author of Telauges, was a pupil of Socrates and wrote dialogues of which mere scraps survive. In the Telauges, Socrates appears to have been introduced debating with a Pythagorean ascetic, dressed in sordid clothes. Aeschines probably
