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Meditations · Marcus Aurelius

XIII. Those things which the common sort of people do admire,

are most of them such things as are very general, and may

be comprehended under things merely natural, or naturally

affected and qualified: as stones, wood, figs, vines, olives.

Those that be admired by them that are more moderate and restrained,

are comprehended under things animated: as flocks and herds.

Those that are yet more gentle and curious, their admiration is

commonly confined to reasonable creatures only; not in general as they

are reasonable, but as they are capable of art, or of some craft

and subtile invention: or perchance barely to reasonable creatures;

as they that delight in the possession of many slaves.

But he that honours a reasonable soul in general, as it is reasonable

and naturally sociable, doth little regard anything else:

and above all things is careful to preserve his own, in the

continual habit and exercise both of reason and sociableness:

and thereby doth co-operate with him, of whose nature he doth

also participate; God.