Meditations 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.
- 1.iii. 6, § 2, etc. Compare Lucian, The Dream 10: ἡ ψυχή, ὅπερ σου κυριώτατόν ἐστιν.
Marcus’s phrase is to endon kyrieuon, “that which holds the mastery within.” Lucian’s The Dream is his account of choosing a literary education over a trade as a sculptor; the Greek, in translation: “the soul, which is the most sovereign part of you.”
- 2.That is, conditionally or as far as circumstances will allow, vi. 50. Compare St. James, Epistle iv. 15.
Marcus’s word is hypexairesis, “reservation,” the Stoic term for undertaking an action on the condition that nothing prevents it. James 4:15 expresses the same condition: “If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that” (King James).
- 3.v. 20; vi. 50; Seneca’s On Providence 2.
Seneca’s On Providence is an essay on why good men suffer misfortune; in its second chapter he argues that adversity is the exercise by which virtue is tested and strengthened.