The Most-Read Classics
Catalogue  /  Meditations  /  XXXVIII. Either all things by the providence of reason happen
Meditations · Marcus Aurelius

XXXVIII. Either all things by the providence of reason happen

unto every particular, as a part of one general body;

and then it is against reason that a part should complain

of anything that happens for the good of the whole; or if,

according to Epicurus, atoms be the cause of all things and that life

be nothing else but an accidentary confusion of things, and death

nothing else, but a mere dispersion and so of all other things:

what doest thou trouble thyself for?

XXXIX. Sayest thou unto that rational part, Thou art dead;

corruption hath taken hold on thee? Doth it then also void excrements?

Doth it like either oxen, or sheep, graze or feed; that it also should

be mortal, as well as the body?