ENGLISH COMMENTARY
monk and warrior are in perpetual servitude but 'le soldat espère toujours devenir maître et ne le devient jamais, car les capitaines et les princes mêmes sont toujours esclaves et dépendants.'[1]
Chs. 4–5. Though you cannot change men's minds, you can recover inward peace by remembering that all things are disposed by Nature and that your court will soon be like the court of your predecessors, Augustus and Antoninus; then remember in each single event what is the requirement of your true nature (ch. 1); be just in act and true in word.
Chs. 6–7. Change is Nature's law, but her awards are equal. Man, like a leaf, is part of the changing whole; but, unlike the leaf, he is conscious of his destiny. Every part of Nature is content, if it follows its nature. Man's nature is to consent to no false imagination, to shape his conduct to social ends, to welcome his portion. Nature awards to each his due, if only you regard what is assigned not in the particulars, but in the whole. For the analysis of what is allotted into matter, cause, &c., see ch. 11.
Chs. 8–9. Though your life in a palace leaves little leisure for study, you can exercise yourself in virtue. Do not find fault with your station to yourself or to others.
Ch. 10. The subject of repentance or regret takes up a suggestion in ch. 2, 'shall I repent of this?' His argument is the reverse of that where he said that to despise pleasure is to deserve praise. Here he gives a formal proof that pleasure cannot be good, else we should repent a lost opportunity for pleasure.
If we lose a benefit we repent its loss, but we do not repent the loss of a pleasure: therefore in losing a pleasure we have not lost a benefit. Pleasure then is not a benefit. But the good is a benefit, therefore pleasure is not a good.
Chs. 11–13. Chapters 11 and 13 are closely connected. The intervening chapter puts very briefly what was argued at length in v. 1, that man can take a lesson from the dumb creation.
Ch. 11. These are heads of methodical inquiry into the objects of experience, in order to acquire the right judgement which is the foundation of moral conduct. Thus they are, in the first
- ↑ Pensées, No. 539 Br.
