Book IV

IV.1¶That which holds the mastery¹ within us, when it is in accordance with Nature, is so disposed towards what befalls, that it can always adapt itself with ease to what is possible and granted us. For it is wedded to no definite material, but, though in the pursuit of its high aims it works under reservations,² yet it converts into material for itself any obstacle that it meets with, just as fire³ when it gets the mastery of what is thrown in upon it. A little flame would have been stifled by it, but the blazing fire instantly assimilates what is cast upon it and, consuming it, leaps the higher in consequence.

IV.2¶Take no act in hand aimlessly⁴ or otherwise than in accordance with the true principles perfective of the art.

IV.3¶Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the mountains, and thou too art wont to long intensely for such things.⁵ But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree, when thou canst at a moment’s notice retire into thyself.⁶ For nowhere can a man find a retreat more full of peace or more free from care than his own soul—above all if he have that within him, a steadfast look⁷ at which and he is at once in all good ease, and by good ease I mean nothing other than good order. Make use then of this retirement continually and regenerate thyself. Let thy axioms be short and elemental, such as, when set before thee, will at once rid thee of all trouble, and send thee away with no discontent at those things to which thou art returning.

For with what art thou discontented? The wickedness of men? Take this conclusion to heart, that rational creatures have been made for one another; that forbearance is part of justice; that wrong-doing is involuntary;⁸ and think how many ere now, after passing their lives in implacable enmity, suspicion, hatred, and at daggers drawn with one another, have been laid out and burnt to ashes—think of this, I say, and at last stay thy fretting. But art thou discontented with thy share in the whole? Recall the alternative: Either Providence or Atoms!⁹ and the abundant proofs there are that the Universe is as it were a state.¹⁰ But is it the affections of the body that shall still lay hold on thee? Bethink thee that the Intelligence, when it has once abstracted itself and learnt its own power,¹¹ has nothing to do with the motions smooth or rough of the vital breath. Bethink thee too of all that thou hast heard and subscribed to about pleasure and pain.

But will that paltry thing, Fame, pluck thee aside? Look at the swift approach of complete forgetfulness, and the void of infinite time on this side of us and on that, and the empty echo of acclamation, and the fickleness and uncritical judgment of those who claim to speak well of us, and the narrowness of the arena to which all this is confined. For the whole earth is but a point, and how tiny a corner¹² of it is this the place of our sojourning! and how many therein and of what sort are the men who shall praise thee!

From now therefore bethink thee of the retreat into this little plot that is thyself. Above all distract not thyself, be not too eager, but be thine own master, and look upon life as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal creature. But among the principles readiest to thine hand, upon which thou shalt pore, let there be these two. One, that objective things do not lay hold of the soul, but stand quiescent without; while disturbances are but the outcome of that opinion which is within us. A second, that all this visible world changes in a moment, and will be no more; and continually bethink thee to the changes of how many things thou hast already been a witness. ‘The Universe—mutation: Life—opinion.’¹³

IV.4¶If the intellectual capacity is common to us all, common too is the reason, which makes us rational creatures. If so, that reason also is common which tells us to do or not to do. If so, law¹⁴ also is common. If so, we are citizens. If so, we are fellow-members of an organised community. If so, the Universe is as it were a state¹⁵—for of what other single polity can the whole race of mankind be said to be fellow-members?—and from it, this common State, we get the intellectual, the rational, and the legal instinct, or whence do we get them? For just as the earthy part has been portioned off for me from some earth, and the watery from another element, and the aerial¹⁶ from some source, and the hot and fiery from some source of its own—for nothing comes from the non-existent, any more than it disappears into nothingness—so also the intellect has undoubtedly come from somewhere.

IV.5¶Death like birth is a secret of Nature—a combination of the same elements, a breaking up into the same—and not at all a thing in fact for any to be ashamed of,¹⁷ for it is not out of keeping with an intellectual creature or the reason of his constitution.

IV.6¶Given such men, it was in the nature of the case inevitable that their conduct should be of this kind.¹⁸ To wish it otherwise, is to wish that the fig-tree had no acrid juice.¹⁹ As a general conclusion call this to mind, that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead, and a little later not even your names will be left behind you.

IV.7¶Efface the opinion, I am harmed, and at once the feeling of being harmed disappears; efface the feeling, and the harm disappears at once.²⁰

IV.8¶That which does not make a man himself worse than before cannot make his life worse²¹ either, nor injure it whether from without or within.

IV.9¶The nature of the general good could not but have acted so.

IV.10¶Note that all that befalls befalleth justly. Keep close watch and thou wilt find this true, I do not say, as a matter of sequence merely but as a matter of justice also, and as would be expected from One whose dispensation is based on desert.²² Keep close watch, then, as thou hast begun, and whatsoever thou doest, do it as only a good man should in the strictest sense of that word. In every sphere of activity safeguard this.

IV.11¶Harbour no such opinions as he holds who does thee violence, or as he would have thee hold. See things in all their naked reality.

IV.12¶Thou shouldest have these two readinesses always at hand; the one which prompts thee to do only what thy reason in its royal and law-making capacity shall suggest for the good of mankind; the other to change thy mind,²³ if one be near to set thee right, and convert thee from some vain conceit. But this conversion should be the outcome of a persuasion in every case that the thing is just or to the common interest—and some such cause should be the only one—not because it is seemingly pleasant or popular.

IV.13¶Hast thou reason? I have. Why then not use it? For if this performs its part, what else²⁴ wouldest thou have?

IV.14¶Thou hast subsisted as part of the Whole.²⁵ Thou shalt vanish into that which begat thee, or rather thou shalt be taken again into its Seminal Reason²⁶ by a process of change.

IV.15¶Many little pellets of frankincense fall upon the same altar, some are cast on it sooner, some later: but it makes no difference.

IV.16¶Ere ten days are past, thou shalt rank as a god with them that hold thee now a wild-beast or an ape,²⁷ if thou but turn back to thy axioms and thy reverence of reason.

IV.17¶Behave not as though thou hadst ten thousand years to live. Thy doom hangs over thee. While thou livest, while thou mayest, become good.

IV.18¶What richness of leisure doth he gain who has no eye for his neighbour’s words or deeds or thoughts,²⁸ but only for his own doings, that they be just and righteous! Verily it is not for the good man to peer about into the blackness of another’s heart,²⁹ but to ‘run straight for the goal with never a glance aside.’

IV.19¶He whose heart flutters for after-fame³⁰ does not reflect that very soon every one of those who remember him, and he himself, will be dead, and their successors again after them, until at last the entire recollection of the man will be extinct, handed on as it is by links that flare up and are quenched. But put the case that those who are to remember are even immortal,³¹ and the remembrance immortal, what then is that to thee? To the dead man, I need scarcely say, the praise is nothing, but what is it to the living, except, indeed, in a subsidiary way?³² For thou dost reject the bounty of nature unseasonably in the present, and clingest to what others shall say of thee hereafter.³³

IV.20¶Everything, which has any sort of beauty of its own, is beautiful of itself, and looks no further than itself, not counting praise as part of itself. For indeed that which is praised is made neither better nor worse thereby. This is true also of the things that in common parlance are called beautiful, such as material things and works of art. Does, then, the truly beautiful need anything beyond? Nay, no more than law, than truth, than kindness, than modesty. Which of these owes its beauty to being praised, or loses it by being blamed? What! Does an emerald³⁴ forfeit its excellence by not being praised? Does gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a poniard, a floweret, a shrub?

IV.21¶If souls outlive their bodies, how does the air contain them³⁵ from times everlasting? How does the earth contain the bodies of those who have been buried in it for such endless ages? For just as on earth the change of these bodies, after continuance for a certain indefinite time, followed by dissolution, makes room for other dead bodies, so souls, when transferred into the air, after lasting for a certain time,³⁶ suffer change and are diffused and become fire, being taken again into the Seminal Reason of the Whole, and so allow room for those that subsequently take up their abode there. This would be the answer one would give on the assumption that souls outlive their bodies.

But not only must the multitude of bodies thus constantly being buried be taken into account, but also that of the creatures devoured daily by ourselves and the other animals. How great is the number consumed and thus in a way buried³⁷ in the bodies of those who feed upon them! And yet room is made for them all by their conversion into blood, by their transmutation into air or fire.

Where in this case lies the way of search for the truth? In a separation of the Material from the Causal.³⁸

IV.22¶Be not whirled aside; but in every impulse fulfil the claims of justice, and in every impression safeguard certainty.

IV.23¶All that is in tune with thee, O Universe,³⁹ is in tune with me! Nothing that is in due time for thee is too early or too late for me! All that thy seasons bring, O Nature, is fruit for me! All things come from thee, subsist in thee, go back to thee.⁴⁰ There is one who says Dear City of Cecrops⁴¹! Wilt thou not say O dear City of Zeus?

IV.24¶If thou wouldest be tranquil in heart, says the Sage,⁴² do not many things. Is not this a better maxim: do but what is needful, and what the reason of a living creature born for a civic life demands, and as it demands. For this brings the tranquillity which comes of doing few things no less than of doing them well. For nine tenths of our words and deeds being unnecessary, if a man retrench there, he will have more abundant leisure and fret the less. Wherefore forget not on every occasion to ask thyself, Is this one of the unnecessary things? But we must retrench not only actions but thoughts which are unnecessary, for then neither will distracting actions follow.

IV.25¶Try living the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allotted to him out of the whole, and is satisfied with his own acts as just and his own disposition as kindly: see how that answers.

IV.26¶Hast thou looked on that side of the picture? Look now on this! Fret not thyself; study to be simple.⁴³ Does a man do wrong? The wrong rests with him.⁴⁴ Has something befallen thee? It is well. Everything that befalls was from the beginning destined and spun⁴⁵ for thee as thy share out of the Whole. In a word, life is short.⁴⁶ Make profit of the present by right reasoning and justice. In thy relaxation be sober.

IV.27¶Either there is a well-arranged Order of things or a medley that is confused,⁴⁷ yet still an order. Or can a sort of order subsist in thee, while in the Universe there is no order, and that too when all things, though separated and dispersed, are still in sympathetic connexion?

IV.28¶A black character,⁴⁸ an unmanly character, an obstinate character, inhuman, animal, childish, stupid, counterfeit, shameless, mercenary, tyrannical.⁴⁹

IV.29¶If he is an alien in the Universe who has no cognizance of the things that are in it, no less is he an alien⁵⁰ who has no cognizance of what is happening in it. He is an exile, who exiles himself from civic reason; blind, he who will not see with the eyes of his understanding⁵¹; a beggar, he who is dependent on another, and cannot draw from his own resources all that his life requires; an imposthume⁵² on the Universe, he who renounces, and severs himself from, the reason of our common Nature, because he is ill pleased at what happens—for the same Nature brings this into being, that also brought thee; a limb cut off from the community,⁵³ he who cuts off his own soul from the soul of all rational things, which is but one.

IV.30¶One philosopher goes without a shirt, a second without a book, a third yonder half-naked: says he, I am starving for bread, yet cleave I fast to Reason; and I get no living out of my learning, yet cleave I to her.

IV.31¶Cherish the art, though humble, that thou hast learned, and take thy rest therein; and pass through the remainder of thy days as one that with his whole soul has given all that is his in trust to the Gods, and has made of himself neither a tyrant nor a slave to any man.

IV.32¶Think by way of illustration upon the times of Vespasian, and thou shalt see all these things: mankind marrying, rearing children, sickening, dying, warring, making holiday, trafficking, tilling, flattering others, vaunting themselves, suspecting, scheming, praying for the death of others,⁵⁴ murmuring at their own lot, loving, hoarding, coveting a consulate, coveting a kingdom. Not a vestige of that life of theirs is left anywhere any longer.

Change the scene again to the times of Trajan. Again it is all the same; that life too is dead. In like manner contemplate all the other records of past time and of entire nations, and see how many after all their high-strung efforts sank down so soon in death and were resolved into the elements. But above all must thou dwell in thought upon those whom thou hast thyself known, who, following after vanity, neglected to do the things that accorded with their own constitution and, cleaving steadfastly thereto, to be content with them. And here it is essential to remember that a due sense of value⁵⁵ and proportion should regulate the care bestowed on every action. For thus wilt thou never give over in disgust, if thou busy not thyself beyond what is right with the lesser things.

IV.33¶Expressions once in use are now obsolete. So also the names of those much be-sung⁵⁶ heroes of old are in some sense obsolete, Camillus, Caeso, Volesus,⁵⁷ Dentatus, and a little later Scipio and Cato, then also Augustus, and then Hadrianus and Antoninus. For all things quickly fade away and become legendary, and soon absolute oblivion encairns them. And here I speak of those who made an extraordinary blaze in the world. For the rest, as soon as the breath is out of their bodies, it is, Out of sight, out of mind.⁵⁸ But what, when all is said, is even ever-lasting remembrance⁵⁹? Wholly vanity. What then is it that calls for our devotion? This one thing: justice in thought, in act unselfishness and a tongue that cannot lie and a disposition ready to welcome all that befalls as unavoidable, as familiar,⁶⁰ as issuing from a like origin and fountain-head.

IV.34¶Offer thyself whole-heartedly to Clotho, letting her spin thy thread to serve what purpose soever she will.

IV.35¶Ephemeral all of them, the rememberer as well as the remembered!

IV.36¶Unceasingly contemplate the generation of all things through change, and accustom thyself to the thought that the Nature of the Universe delights above all in changing the things that exist and making new ones of the same pattern. For in a manner everything that exists is the seed of that which shall come out of it. But thou imaginest that only to be seed that is deposited in the earth or the womb, a view beyond measure unphilosophical.

IV.37¶A moment and thou wilt be dead; and not even yet art thou simple, nor unperturbed, nor free from all suspicion that thou canst be injured by externals, nor gracious⁶¹ to all, nor convinced that wisdom and just dealing are but one.

IV.38¶Consider narrowly their ruling Reason, and see what wise men avoid and what they seek after.⁶²

IV.39¶Harm to thee cannot depend on another’s ruling Reason, nor yet on any vagary or phase of thy environment. On what then? On the power that is thine of judging what is evil. Let this, then, pass no judgment, and all is well. Even if its closest associate, the poor body, be cut, be burnt, fester, gangrene, yet let the part which forms a judgment⁶³ about these things hold its peace, that is, let it assume nothing to be either good or bad, which can befall a good man or a bad indifferently.⁶⁴ For that which befalls alike the man who lives by the rule, and the man who lives contrary to the rule, of Nature, is neither in accordance with Nature nor contrary to it.

IV.40¶Cease not to think of the Universe as one living Being,⁶⁵ possessed of a single Substance and a single Soul; and how all things trace back to its single sentience;⁶⁶ and how it does all things by a single impulse; and how all existing things are joint causes of all things that come into existence; and how intertwined in the fabric is the thread and how closely woven the web.⁶⁷

IV.41¶Thou art a little soul bearing up a corpse, as Epictetus said.⁶⁸

IV.42¶Nothing is evil to that which is subject to change, even as there is no good for that which exists as the result of change.

IV.43¶As a river⁶⁹ consisting of all things that come into being, aye, a rushing torrent, is Time. No sooner is a thing sighted than it is carried past, and lo, another is passing, and it too will be carried away.

IV.44¶Everything that happens is as usual and familiar,⁷⁰ as the rose in spring and the fruit in autumn. The same applies to disease and death and slander and treachery and all that gladdens the foolish or saddens them.

IV.45¶That which comes after always has a close relationship to what has gone before. For it is not like some enumeration of items separately taken and following a mere inevitable sequence, but there is a rational connection; and just as existing things have been combined in a harmonious order, so also all that comes into being bears the stamp not of a mere succession but of a wonderful relationship.⁷¹

IV.46¶Always bear in mind what Heraclitus⁷² said: The death of earth is to pass into water, and the death of water to pass into air, and of air to pass into fire, and so back again. Bear in mind too: the wayfarer who forgets the trend of his way, and that men are at variance with the one thing with which they are in the most unbroken communion, the Reason that administers the whole Universe; and that what they encounter every day, this they deem strange; and that we must not act and speak like men asleep,⁷³—for in fact even in sleep we seem to act and speak;—and that there should be nothing of the children from parents style, that is, no mere perfunctory what our Fathers have told us.

IV.47¶Just as, if a God had told thee,⁷⁴ Thou shalt die to-morrow or in any case the day after, thou wouldest no longer count it of any consequence whether it were the day after to-morrow or to-morrow, unless thou art in the last degree mean-spirited,⁷⁵ for how little is the difference!⁷⁶—so also deem it but a trifling thing that thou shouldest die after ever so many years rather than to-morrow.

IV.48¶Cease not to bear in mind how many physicians are dead after puckering up their brows so often over their patients; and how many astrologers after making a great parade of predicting the death of others;⁷⁷ and how many philosophers after endless disquisitions on death and immortality; how many great captains after butchering thousands⁷⁸; how many tyrants after exercising with revolting insolence their power of life and death, as though themselves immortal; and how many entire cities are, if I may use the expression, dead,⁷⁹ Helice and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others without number.

Turn also to all, one after another, that come within thine own knowledge. One closed a friend’s eyes and was then himself laid out, and the friend who closed his,⁸⁰ he too was laid out—and all this in a few short years. In a word, fail not to note how short-lived are all mortal things, and how paltry—yesterday a little mucus,⁸¹ to-morrow a mummy or burnt ash. Pass then through this tiny span of time in accordance with Nature, and come to thy journey’s end with a good grace, just as an olive falls when it is fully ripe, praising the earth that bare it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth.

IV.49¶Be like a headland of rock on which the waves break incessantly; but it stands fast and around it the seething of the waters sinks to rest. *

Ah, unlucky am I, that this has befallen me! Nay, but rather, lucky am I, that though this has befallen me, yet am I still unhurt, neither crushed by the present nor dreading the future. For something of the kind could have befallen everyone, but everyone would not have remained unhurt in spite of it. Why then count that rather a misfortune than this a good fortune? And in any case dost thou reckon that a misfortune for a man which is not an aberration from his nature? And wouldst thou have that to be an aberration from a man’s nature, which does not contravene the will of his nature! What then? This will thou hast learnt to know. Does what has befallen thee hinder thee one whit from being just, high-minded, chaste, sensible, deliberate, straight-forward, modest, free, and from possessing all the other qualities, the presence of which enables a man’s nature to come fully into its own? Forget not in future, when anything would lead thee to feel hurt, to take thy stand upon this axiom: This is no misfortune, but to bear it nobly is good fortune*.

IV.50¶An unphilosophical, but none the less an effective, help to the contemning of death is to tell over the names of those who have clung long and tenaciously to life. How are they better off than those who were cut off before their time? After all, they lie buried somewhere at last, Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, and any others like them, who after carrying many to their graves were at last carried to their own.⁸² Small, in any point of view, is the difference⁸³ in length, and that too lived out to the dregs amid what great cares and with what sort of companions and in what kind of a body! Count it then of no consequence. For look at the yawning gulf of Time behind thee, and before thee at another Infinity to come. In this Eternity the life of a baby of three days and the life of a Nestor of three centuries⁸⁴ are as one.⁸⁵

IV.51¶Run ever the short way; and the short way is the way of Nature, that leads to all that is most sound in speech and act. For a resolve such as this is a release from troubles and strife, from all mental reservation⁸⁶ and affectation.