if often it succeed not so well with thee punctually and precisely
to do all things according to the right dogmata, but being
once cast off, return unto them again: and as for those many
and more frequent occurrences, either of worldly distractions,
or human infirmities, which as a man thou canst not but in some
measure be subject unto, be not thou discontented with them;
but however, love and affect that only which thou dust return unto:
a philosopher's life, and proper occupation after the most exact manner.
And when thou dust return to thy philosophy, return not unto it
as the manner of some is, after play and liberty as it were,
to their schoolmasters and pedagogues; but as they that have sore
eyes to their sponge and egg: or as another to his cataplasm;
or as others to their fomentations: so shalt not thou make it a matter
of ostentation at all to obey reason but of ease and comfort.
And remember that philosophy requireth nothing of thee, but what
thy nature requireth, and wouldest thou thyself desire anything
that is not according to nature? for which of these sayest thou;
that which is according to nature or against it, is of itself
more kind and pleasing? Is it not for that respect especially,
that pleasure itself is to so many men's hurt and overthrow,
most prevalent, because esteemed commonly most kind, and natural?
But consider well whether magnanimity rather, and true liberty,
and true simplicity, and equanimity, and holiness; whether these be
not most kind and natural? And prudency itself, what more kind
and amiable than it, when thou shalt truly consider with thyself,
what it is through all the proper objects of thy rational
intellectual faculty currently to go on without any fall or stumble?
As for the things of the world, their true nature is in a manner
so involved with obscurity, that unto many philosophers,
and those no mean ones, they seemed altogether incomprehensible.
and the Stoics themselves, though they judge them not
altogether incomprehensible, yet scarce and not without
much difficulty, comprehensible, so that all assent of ours
is fallible, for who is he that is infallible in his conclusions?
>From the nature of things, pass now unto their subjects and matter:
how temporary, how vile are they I such as may be in the power
and possession of some abominable loose liver, of some
common strumpet, of some notorious oppressor and extortioner.
Pass from thence to the dispositions of them that thou doest ordinarily
converse with, how hardly do we bear, even with the most loving
and amiable! that I may not say, how hard it is for us to bear even
with our own selves, in such obscurity, and impurity of things:
in such and so continual a flux both of the substances and time;
both of the motions themselves, and things moved; what it is
that we can fasten upon; either to honour, and respect especially;
or seriously, and studiously to seek after; I cannot so much as conceive
For indeed they are things contrary. X. Thou must comfort thyself
in the expectation of thy natural dissolution, and in the meantime
not grieve at the delay; but rest contented in those two things.
First, that nothing shall happen unto thee, which is not according
to the nature of the universe. Secondly, that it is in thy power,
to do nothing against thine own proper God, and inward spirit.
For it is not in any man's power to constrain thee to transgress
against him. XI. What is the use that now at this present I make
of my soul? Thus from time to time and upon all occasions thou
must put this question to thyself; what is now that part of mine
which they call the rational mistress part, employed about?
Whose soul do I now properly possess? a child's? or a youth's?
a woman's? or a tyrant's? some brute, or some wild beast's soul?