Meditations XII.26
In taking umbrage at anything, thou forgettest this, that everything happens in accordance with the Universal Nature45; and this, that the wrong-doing is another’s46; and this furthermore that all that happens, always did happen,47 and will happen so, and is at this moment happening everywhere. And thou forgettest how strong is the kinship between man and mankind, for it is a community not of corpuscles, of seed or blood, but of intelligence.48 And thou forgettest this too, that each man’s intelligence is God49 and has emanated from Him; and this, that nothing is a man’s very own, but that his babe, his body, his very soul came forth from Him50; and this, that everything is but opinion51; and this, that it is only the present moment that a man lives and the present moment only that he loses.52
- 45.See v. 8, 10.
- 46.See ix. 38.
- 47.See vii. 1.
- 48.See ii. 1.
- 49.Compare Euripides, Fragment 1007: ὁ νοῦς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἐστιν ἐν ἑκάστῳ θεός; Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations i. 26, § 65.
The Greek of Euripides, in translation: “for the mind in each of us is a god.” In the passage of the Tusculan Disputations cited, Cicero argues that the mind is divine.
- 50.See ii. 3.
- 51.See xii. 8, 22 etc.
- 52.See ii. 14; xii. 3.