ENGLISH COMMENTARY
'the true Cynic must have such endurance as to appear to the vulgar to be as insensible as a stone; his poor body he freely gives to any one who wills to treat as he will . . . no robber, no tyrant prevails over his will, but over his body, yes!'?
For a moment he is led into the mental attitude of Luther's
What if they take our life: goods, honour, children, wife,
Yet is their profit small: these things shall perish all.
or of Sir Walter Raleigh's[1]
Stab at thee, he that will,
No stab the soul can kill.
Chs. 69–74. In contrast with ch. 68, these brief sentences resume the normal tone of peace and serenity, until ch. 75 closes upon the note of confidence in the ordering of the Whole by the master Spirit of the Universe, upon which the comfort and quiet of the individual depend.
BOOK VIII
The Book opens, like Books v and xii, with a reminder that he must meet the requirements of man's true nature in the little time that is left. To do this he must recall the doctrines which guide right thought, right impulse, and right conduct. The chapters which follow are accordingly, almost all of them, concise restatements of positions reached in the earlier Books.
Towards the close are one or two chapters of a more speculative kind; otherwise the content of this Book and the next is peculiarly personal, and there are more references than usual to memories and experiences of his own life.
Ch. 1. The self-criticism and confession of a pursuit of inferior aims in the past are remarkable. One recalls the words of Dr. Johnson: 'I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving; having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been framing schemes of a better life. I have done nothing. The need of doing therefore is pressing, since the time of doing is short.'[2]
The passing reference to the conflict between his calling as a ruler and his desire to be a philosopher differs from what he says elsewhere, both where he speaks of men's longing for retreat, and
