Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

ix TO HIMSELF 141
clown acting the clown ? See that the fault does
not lie rather at your own door, for not expecting
him to go wrong thus. Reason supplied you with
faculties enabling you to expect that he would go
wrong thus ; you forgot, and then are surprised
at his having done so. When you complain of
some breach of faith or gratitude, take heed first
and foremost to yourself. Obviously the fault lies
with yourself, if you had faith that a man of that
disposition would keep faith, or if in doing a kind-
ness you did not do it upon principle, nor upon
the assumption that the kind act was to be its
own reward. What more do you want in return
for a service done ? Is it not enough to have
acted up to nature, without asking wages for it?
Does the eye demand a recompense for seeing, or
the feet for walking ? Just
as this is the end for
which they exist, and just as they find their reward
in realising the law of their being, so too man is
made for kindness, and whenever he does an act
of kindness or otherwise helps forward the common
good, he thereby fulfils the law of his being and
comes by
his own.