Book IX

1. Injustice is no less than high treason against heaven. For since the nature of the universe has made rational creatures for mutual service and support, but never to do anybody any harm, since the case stands thus: he that crosses upon this design is profane, and outrages the most ancient Deity; so, too, does the liar outrage the same Deity. For the nature of the universe is the cause of all that exists. Thus all things are one family united, and, as it were, of kin to each other. This nature is also styled truth, as being the basis of first principles and certainty. He, therefore, that tells a lie knowingly, is an irreligious wretch, for by deceiving his neighbour he is unjust to him. And he that is guilty of an untruth out of ignorance is liable to the same charge, because he dissents from the nature of the whole, brings disorder into the world, and opposes the nature of the universe. Yes, and he opposes himself too, who is borne to what is at variance with truth. By neglecting the impulses he was born to, he has lost the test of truth, and the distinction of right and wrong. Further, he that reckons prosperity and pleasure among things really good, pain and hardship amongst things really evil, can be no pious person; for such a man will be sure to complain of the administrations of Providence, and charge it with mismatching fortune and merit. He will often see evil people furnished with materials for pleasure, and regaled with the relish of it, and good men harassed and depressed, and meeting with nothing but misfortune. Now, he that is afraid of pain will be afraid of something that will always be in the world; but this is a failure in reverence and respect. On the other hand, he that is violent in the pursuit of pleasure, will not hesitate to turn villain for the purchase. And is not this plainly an ungodly act? To set the matter right, where the allowance of God is equally clear, as it is with regard to prosperity and adversity (for had He not approved both these conditions, He would never have made them both), I say, where the good liking of heaven is equally clear, ours ought to be so too, because we ought to follow the guidance of nature and the sense of the Deity. That man, therefore, that does not comply with Providence in the same indifference with respect to pleasure and pain, life and death, honour and infamy, he that does not this without struggling of passions, without unmanageable preference or aversion, is no friend to the Divine government.

By saying that universal nature or God stands equally affected to these different dispensations, the meaning is that they are both comprehended in the general scheme, and equally consequent to the first establishment. They were decreed by Providence from the beginning, and struck out with the lines of the creation. Then it was that the plan of providence was drawn, and the fate of futurity determined. Then nature was made prolific, and enabled to bring forth in due time. Then the whole stock of beings, the revolutions of fortune, and the successions of time, were all stated and set going.

2. He is better bred and more a gentleman, that takes leave of the world without a blot on his scuteheon, and has nothing of falsehood and dissimulation, of luxury or pride, to tarnish his character. But when a man is once dipt in these vices, the next best thing is for him to quit life. Have you determined to abide with vice, and has not even experience yet taught you to fly from the plague? For the destruction of the understanding is a far worse plague than the corruption and change of the air that surrounds us; for the brute only suffers in the first case, but the man in the other.

3. Do not despise death, but accept it willingly; look upon it as part of the product of nature, and one of those things which providence has been pleased to order. For such as are youth and age, growth and manhood, down and gray hairs, pregnancy and birth, and all natural actions, and incidents of life, so also is dying. A wise man, therefore, must neither run giddily nor impatiently and contemptuously into his grave. He must look upon death as nature's business, and wait her leisure as he does for the progress and maturity of other things; for as you wait for a child to come into the world when it is ready, so you should stay in the other case till things are ripe, and your soul drops out of the husk of her own accord. But if you stand in need of a vulgar remedy to soothe the mind, consider, then, what sort of world and what sort of customs you will be rid of! It is true you are not to fall foul upon mankind, but to treat them with kindness and gentleness. But still you may remember that you will not be leaving men just of your own mind and fancy. Such a unanimity amongst mortals might reasonably recommend life, and make us loth to part with it. But you perceive that vast disturbances are bred by different opinions; insomuch that now we ought rather to petition death to make haste, for fear we too should forget our true selves.

4. He that commits a fault abroad is a trespasser at home; and he that injures his neighbour, hurts himself, for to make himself an evil man is a great mischief.

5. Omissions no less than commissions are oftentimes part of injustice.

6. If your judgment pronounces rightly, if your actions are friendly and well meant, if your mind is resigned to all that proceeds from the external cause at this moment; if you are in possession of these blessings, you are happy enough.

7. Do not be imposed on by appearances; check your impulses, and moderate your desire, and keep your reason always in her own power.

8. The souls of brutes are all of one kind, and so are those of rational beings, though of a rational kind. And thus all living creatures that have occasion for air, and earth, and light, are furnished with the same kind, all that have the faculty of vision and life.

9. Things of the same common quality have a tendency to their kind. Earthy bodies fall to the ground. One drop of moisture runs after another; and thus air, where it is predominant, presses after air, and nothing but force and violence can keep these things asunder. Fire, likewise, mounts upwards on account of its own element, fire, but it has such a disposition to propagate its species and join every other fire here below, that it catches easily upon all fuel a little more dry than ordinary, because in such the qualities opposite to ignition are weak and disabled. Thus all beings which partake of the same common intelligent nature have a natural instinct for correspondence with their own kind; only with this difference, that the higher anything stands in the scale of being, the more it is inclined to communication with its own order. To illustrate the argument, we find the force of nature very active amongst brute animals, as appears by their running together in herds and swarms according to kind; by their providing for their young ones, and by that resemblance of love which is carried on among them. These animals have a soul in them, by consequence their principle of union is more vigorous than in plants, stones, and wood. To go on to reasonable creatures, we may observe them united by public counsels and commonwealths, by particular friendships and families, and in times of war they have truces and treaties. Farther, to instance a higher order, the stars, though not neighbours in situation, move by concert. Thus where things are more noble and nature rises, sympathy rises too, and operates even among distant objects. But now see what happens. The rational creatures are the only beings which have now forgotten this mutual desire and inclination, and here alone this flowing together is not seen. But though they run from their kind, they are brought back again in some measure. For great is the power of nature, and you shall sooner see a piece of earth refuse to lie by its own element, than find any man so perfectly unsociable as not to correspond with somebody or other.

10. God and men and the world all of them bear fruit in their proper seasons. It is true, use has restrained this signification to vines and trees; but this custom apart, reason may properly enough be said to bear fruit for itself and for the common good, especially if we consider that the fruit of the understanding keeps close to its kind and resembles the stock.

11. Give an injurious person good advice, and reform him if you can. If not, remember that your good temper was given you for this trial; that the gods too are so patient as even to pass by the perverseness of such persons, and sometimes to assist them over and above in their health, fame, and fortune; so benign are they. Just thus may you do if you please; if not, where is the impediment?

12. Do not drudge like a galley slave, nor do business in such a laborious manner as if you had a mind to be pitied or wondered at; but desire one thing only, to move or halt as social reason shall direct you.

13. To-day I rushed clear out of all misfortune, or rather I threw misfortune from me; for to speak truth, it was not outside, nor ever any farther off than my own fancy.

14. All things are the same over again, and nothing but what has been known to experience. They are momentary in their lasting, and coarse in their matter, and all things are now as they were in the times of those we have buried.

15. Things stand without doors and keep their distance, and neither know nor report any things about themselves. What is it, then, that pronounces upon them? Nothing but your own ruling principle.

16. As the good and evil of a rational, social animal consist in action and not in feeling, so it is not what they feel but what they do, which makes mankind either happy or miserable.

17. It is all one to a stone whether it is thrown upwards or downwards; it is no harm for it to descend, or good for it to mount.

18. Examine into men's understandings, and you will see what sort of judges even of themselves are those whom you fear.

19. All things are in a perpetual flux and a sort of consumption; you yourself are continually changing, and in a manner destroyed, and the whole world keeps you company.

20. Let everybody's fault lie at his own door.

21. The intermission of action, and a stop in appetite and opinion, and even a kind of death upon the faculties, is no harm. Go on now to the different periods of life, and here you will find infancy, youth, manhood, and old age, and one, as it were, the death of another. And where lies the terror of all this? Proceed to your life in your grandfather's time, and to that in your father's and mother's, and run over as much ground in differences, changes, and decay as you please, and ask yourself what grievance there is in this, and you may conclude that ending and cessation and alteration of your whole life will be no worse.

22. Hasten to examine your own ruling principle, and that of the universe, and that of your neighbour. Your own, that you may keep it honest; that of the universe, that you may know what you are part of; your neighbour's, that you may discover whether he acts through ignorance or with knowledge; and here you should likewise remember that you are of kin to him.

23. As you are a member of society yourself, so every action of yours should tend to the benefit and improvement of it. So that when you do anything which has neither immediate nor remote reference to general advantage, you make a breach in your life, destroy its unity, and are as really guilty of seditious behaviour as a malcontent in an assembly, as far as in him lies, disturbs the general harmony.

24. Children's anger, mere baubles, wretched souls, bearing up dead bodies, so that the picture of the underworld makes a more vivid impression.

25. Penetrate the quality of forms, and take a view of them, abstracted from their matter; and when you have done this, compute the common period of their duration.

26. You have been a great sufferer for not being contented with your guiding principle, when it does what it was made for. But enough!

27. When people treat you ill, blame your conduct, or report anything to your disadvantage, enter into the very soul of them; examine their understandings, and see of what nature they are. You will be fully convinced that the opinion of such mortals is not worth one troublesome thought. However, you must be kind to them, for nature has made them your relations. Besides, the gods give them all sort of countenance, warn them by dreams and prophecy, and help them to those things they have a mind to.

28. The periodic movements of the universe are the same up and down from age to age. This uncertain world is always rolling, and turning things topsy-turvy. Now the soul of the universe either pursues its course towards each particular, in which case accept what it brings with it; or else it only moved to create at first, and all things followed one another by necessary consequence. But if neither of these hypotheses will satisfy, you must set Epicurus's atoms at the helm. In a word, if God governs, all is well; but if things are left to themselves, and set adrift, do not you float at random with them. We shall quickly be all underground; and ere long the earth itself must be changed into something else, and that something into another form, and so on to infinity. Now he that considers these everlasting alterations, this constant tossing and tumbling, and how fast revolutions succeed each other, he will have but a mean opinion of what the world can afford.

29. The universal cause runs rapid like a torrent, and sweeps all things along. What wretched statesmen are those counterfeits in virtue and philosophy! Mere empty froth! Hark you, friend! let honesty be served first. Do what nature requires of you. Fall on, then, as occasion offers, and never look about for commendation. However, I would not have you expect Plato's Republic. As the world goes, a moderate reformation is a great point, and therefore rest contented; for who can change men's opinions! And yet unless you can change their opinions, their subjection will be all force and dissembling. Come now! tell me of Alexander, Philip, and Demetrius of Phalerum. Men shall see whether they had a right notion of the laws of nature, and whether they educated themselves. If they acted like tragedy heroes, no one has condemned me to imitate them. Philosophy is a modest and simple profession, do not entice me to insolence and pride.

30. Fly your fancy into the clouds, and from this imaginary height take a view of mortals here below. What countless herds of men and countless solemnities! What infinite variety of voyages in storm and calm! What differences in the things that become, exist with us, and perish! Go on with the speculation, stretch your thoughts over different aspects of the past and the future, and the present among barbarous nations; how many are there that never heard your name, how many that will quickly forget you, and how many that admire you now will censure you afterwards? In short, memory and fame, and all those things which are commonly so much valued, are of no account at all.

31. Keep a calm spirit towards things that proceed from an external cause, and a just spirit towards those that proceed from a cause within you; that is, let your impulse and action aim at the interest of mankind, for then you know your faculties are in the right posture that nature has set them.

32. The greater part of your trouble lies in your fancy, and therefore you may free yourself from it when you please. I will tell you which way you may move much more freely, and give yourself elbow-room. Take the whole world into your contemplation, and consider its eternal duration, and the swift change of every single thing in it. Consider how near the end of all things lies to their beginning! But then the ages before our birth and after our death are both infinite and immeasurable.

33. Whatever you see now will quickly decay and disappear, and those that gaze upon the ruins of time will be buried under them. And then the longest and the shortest liver will be both in the same condition.

34. If you would look within people, and discover the objects they aim at, and their motives for liking and respect, you must strip them to the soul if you can. When they fancy that by commending or censuring they do you a good or an ill turn, what a strange conceit it is!

35. Loss is nothing else than change. Things are changed this way, it is true, but they do not perish. Providence, by which all things are well contrived, delights in these alterations. It has always been so in the world, and always will be. What then? Will you say that all things were made ill by so many gods, and must they always remain ill and lack order? And is nature indeed condemned to an everlasting misfortune?

36. The materials of bodies, if you examine them, are strangely coarse; those that are animated have little in them but water, and dust, and bones, and something that is offensive. And again, marble is no more than a callous excrescence of the earth, nor gold and silver any better than its dregs and sediment. Fine cloths are nothing but hair twisted together. Purple is but the blood of a little fish. And thus I might proceed farther. And as for spirits, they are somewhat of kin to the rest, and are chased from one figure to another.

37. Come! you have had enough of life, and grumbling, and apishness; what makes you disturbed? What can you be surprised at? What has happened to you worse than you had reason to expect? Does cause or matter make you uneasy? Look into them, and you may probably be relieved. Now for your comfort, besides these two natures, there is no other. It is high time therefore to become simple and behave better towards the gods. Three years' time to peruse these things is as good as a hundred.

38. If such a man has done amiss, the mischief is to himself; and it may be, if you inquire, he has not done it.

39. Either all things proceed from one intelligent source, who makes the world but one whole; and if so, why should a part or single member complain of that which is designed for the benefit of the whole? Or else we are under the misrule of atoms, and confusion, and dispersion. Why then do you trouble yourself. Say to your ruling faculty, "You have passed through death and corruption, and forms of animals; and even now you are playing a part, herding and feeding with the rest."

40. Either the gods have power to assist us, or they have not. If they have not, what does praying to them help you? If they have, why do you not rather pray that they would remove your fears and moderate your desires, and rather keep you from grieving for any of these things, than keep away one thing and grant another? For if the gods can help us, no doubt they can help us to be wiser. But it may be you will say, they have put this in my power. Why, then, do you not make use of your talent, and act like a man of spirit, and not run cringing and creeping after that which is out of your reach? But then who told you that the gods do not assist us in things which we might possibly compass by ourselves? Begin, then, to pray for such things, and you will see. For instance, this man prays that he may gain such a woman, but do you rather pray that you may have no such inclination. Another invokes the gods to set him free from some trouble; but let it be your petition that your mind may never put you upon such a wish. A third is very devout to prevent the loss of his son; but I would have you pray rather against the fear of losing him. Let this be the rule for your devotions, and see if the event does not answer.

41. "When I was sick," says Epicurus, "I did not discourse to my visitors about my diseases, or the torment I was troubled with. No, my system of natural philosophy was part of my subject; and my main concern was, that my mind, although it partakes in these disturbances of the body, should remain calm, and maintain its own good. I gave no handle to the doctors to brag of their profession and what they did for me, but held on with fortitude and indifference." And when you are sick, or under any other disadvantage, cannot you behave yourself as he did? It is practicable to all persuasions in philosophy to stand their ground against all accidents, and not to join in all the foolish talk of the ignorant, who are unacquainted with nature. We must always be prepared, mind the thing at present before us, and the tools, too, with which we are to work.

42. When you are shocked by any man's impudence, put this question to yourself: "Is it possible for such impudent people not to be in the world?" No, indeed. Why, then, do you demand an impossibility? For this ill-behaved fellow is one of those necessary rascals that the world cannot dispense with. This reflection will furnish you with patience for a knave, a faithless person, or any other evil body. For when you consider that there is no living without such men, you will treat them better individually; and to fortify you further, consider what an antidote nature has given you against this disease. For supposing you have to do with a troublesome blockhead, you have meekness and temper given you for your guard, and so with the rest. It is likewise in your power to inform the man better, and set him right; for everyone that does an ill action is really out of his way, and misses his mark, though he may not know it. Besides, what harm have you received? If you examine the case, you will find none of these provoking mortals have done your mind any damage. Now that is the place in which what is evil and harmful to you originates. Pray, where is the wonder if an ignorant fellow acts ignorantly? If you expected other things from him, you are much to blame. Your reason might make you conclude that he would misbehave in this way, and yet, when that which was most likely has happened, you seem surprised at it. But especially if you accuse any man of ingratitude and infidelity, the fault is your own, if you believed that a man of this disposition would keep faith, or else in conferring a favour you did not give absolutely, for otherwise you would have been satisfied with a generous action, and made virtue her own reward. You have obliged a man, it is very well. What would you have more? You have acted according to your own nature, and must you still have a reward over and above? This is just as if an eye or a foot should demand a salary for their service, and not see or move without something for their pains. For as these organs are contrived for particular functions, in performing which they pursue their nature and attain their perfection, so man is made to be kind and oblige. And, therefore, when he does a good office, and proves serviceable to the world, he has fulfilled the end of his being, and attains his own reward.

Notes

29. In his "Republic," Plato sketches an ideal state in which the institutions and government are to attain perfection.