The Most-Read Classics
Catalogue  /  Meditations  /  XXVI. Up and down, from one age to another, go the ordinary things
Meditations · Marcus Aurelius

XXVI. Up and down, from one age to another, go the ordinary things

of the world; being still the same. And either of everything

in particular before it come to pass, the mind of the universe

doth consider with itself and deliberate: and if so, then submit

for shame unto the determination of such an excellent understanding:

or once for all it did resolve upon all things in general;

and since that whatsoever happens, happens by a necessary consequence,

and all things indivisibly in a manner and inseparably hold one

of another. In sum, either there is a God, and then all is well;

or if all things go by chance and fortune, yet mayest thou use

thine own providence in those things that concern thee properly;

and then art thou well.