Meditations X.7
The parts of the Whole—all that Nature has comprised in the Universe—must inevitably perish, taking “perish” to mean “be changed.” But if this process is by nature for them both evil and inevitable, the Whole could never do its work satisfactorily, its parts ever going as they do from change to change and being constituted to perish in diverse ways. Did Nature herself set her hand to bringing evil upon parts of herself and rendering them not only liable to fall into evil but of necessity fallen into it,10 or was she not aware that such was the case? Both alternatives are incredible.
But supposing that we even put Nature as an agent out of the question and explain that these things are “naturally” so, even then it would be absurd to assert that the parts of the whole are naturally subject to change, and at the same time to be astonished at a thing or take it amiss as though it befell contrary to nature, and that though things dissolve into the very constituents out of which they are composed. For either there is a scattering of the elements11 out of which I have been built up, or a transmutation of the solid into the earthy and of the spiritual12 into the aerial; so that these too are taken back into the Reason of the Universe, whether cycle by cycle it be consumed with fire13 or renew itself by everlasting permutations.
Aye and so then do not be under the impression that the solid and the spiritual date from the moment of birth. For it was but yesterday or the day before that all this took in its increment from the food eaten and the air breathed. It is then this, that it took in, which changes, not the product of thy mother’s womb. But granted that thou art ever so closely bound up14 with that by thy individuality, this, I take it, has no bearing upon the present argument.
- 10.These words can also be translated: parts of herself that were both liable to fall into such evil and by necessity fell into doing evil.
- 11.See vii. 32.
- 12.iv. 4. Literally the pneumatic or breath element. See Index III.
- 13.iii. 3. Justin Martyr, Apology i. 20; ii. 7, contrasts the Christian theory of the destruction of the world by fire with the Stoic.
- 14.προσπλέκει has no subject. ἐκείνῳ must be taken separately from τῷ ἰδίως ποιῷ and refer to τοῦτο ὃ ἔλαβεν.