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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

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ix TO HIMSELF 129<br />

overtakes you from without have these, and it<br />

suffices you.<br />

Efface impression ; stay impulse ; quench in- 7<br />

clination ;<br />

be master <strong>of</strong> your Inner Self.<br />

The soul distributed among<br />

the irrational 8<br />

animals is one, and so <strong>to</strong>o is the soul instinct with<br />

mind, that is portioned out among the rational ;<br />

just as earth is one in all things earthy, and the<br />

light one by which we see, and the air one which<br />

we breathe, even all that have sight and breath<br />

<strong>of</strong> life.<br />

Things<br />

that share a common element feel the 9<br />

impulse <strong>of</strong> kind <strong>to</strong>wards kind. The earthy ever<br />

gravitates <strong>to</strong>wards earth, the aqueous seeks its<br />

own level, and so <strong>to</strong>o the aerial ; nothing short<br />

<strong>of</strong> force can dispart them. Fire ascends attracted<br />

by the elemental fire ; so ready is it always <strong>to</strong><br />

combine for ignition, that every solid, in propor-<br />

tion <strong>to</strong> its dryness, readily ignites, the infusion <strong>of</strong><br />

that which hinders ignition being smaller. So<br />

<strong>to</strong>o everything which participates in the common<br />

mind-nature feels the like impulse <strong>to</strong>wards kind ;<br />

nay more so for the higher the nature, the<br />

readier the impulse <strong>to</strong> combination and fusion<br />

with its counterpart. For observe ; among the<br />

K

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