Meditations 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.

• 63.See xi. 16.
• 64.ii. 11, about the middle.