A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

512 Period of the Five Good Emperors
Do right on
principle.
Meditations,
viii. 43.
lb. X. 5.
lb. X. 10.
lb. X. 21.
lb. xi. 2g.
76., xi. 36.
Future life.
Meditations,
xxi. 5.
they combine to form the same universe.
For there is one
universe made up of all things, and one God who pervades
all things, and one substance and one law, one common
reason in all intelligent animals, and one truth.
Different things delight different people. But it is my
delight to keep the ruling faculty sound, without turning
away either from any man or from any of the things
which happen to men, but looking at and receiving all
with welcome eyes and using everything according to
its
value.
Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared for thee
from all eternity; and the implication of causes was from
eternity spinning the thread of thy being.
A spider is proud when he has caught a fly, and another
being when he has caught a poor hare, and another when
he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has
taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears,
and another when he has taken Sarmatians. Are not
these robbers, if thou examinest their opinions?
"The earth loves the shower;" and the "solemn ether
loves;" and the universe loves to
about to be.
lovest."
reproduce whatever is
I say then to the universe, "I love as thou
Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay
down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned
to obey rules thyself. Much more is this so in life.
No man can rob us of our free will.
How can it be that the gods, after having arranged all
things well and benevolently for mankind, have overlooked
this alone, that some men and very good men, and
men who, as we may say, have had most communion
with the divinity, and through pious acts and religious
observances have been most intimate with the divinity,