ENGLISH COMMENTARY
Ch. 10. The writer's mind moves from reflection upon the gradual scale of Nature to consider the fruit of that system: in man, the good fellowship which is only made possible by union and subordination to common ends; in Nature herself, the ordered Whole. The simile of fruit reminds one of the words: 'as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in me.'[1]
Chs. 11–16. A sequence of maxims for practice. The first conveys a gentle irony. The goods men ask of the gods the gods bestow; that is, external goods, which to the wise are indifferent. Marcus makes a similar suggestion in ch. 27 in regard to men's prayers.
Ch. 12. A warning against self-pity and self-regard, two weaknesses which are often induced by hard work and devotion to unselfish ends.
The words probably contain a punning reference to the labours of Hercules, a hero who is transformed by Epictetus into a model of Stoic endeavour. We may illustrate this Stoic interpretation from Browning's idealization of Hercules in Balaustion's Adventure.
Chs. 13–15. The favourite themes that man can preserve himself in any conditions of life by integrity of moral judgement (ch. 13), and that 'brute' experience stands silent, powerless in itself without the door of the soul (ch. 15), are evidently connected, the thread being broken by ch. 14, which repeats what has been so often said about the monotony of life.
Ch. 16. 'The whole praise of virtue consists in action', says Cicero in his Offices, and to Marcus the very kernel of his creed is that action and not sentiment is man's duty; he must, in Goethe's phrase, fulfil 'the demands of the day'.[2]
Bishop Butler[3] cites this chapter to illustrate his theme that the object of the practical discerning power within us lies in 'actions, comprehending under that name active or practical principles', and adds that 'we never, in the moral way, applaud or blame either ourselves or others for what we enjoy or suffer, or for the impressions made upon us, which we consider as altogether
