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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

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cxxxiv INTRODUCTION SECT.<br />

The individual is part <strong>of</strong> the whole but how infinitesimally<br />

small a part !^ and how ephemeral ! A<br />

morsel <strong>of</strong> soul, upon a grain <strong>of</strong> earth, man occupies a<br />

(moment<br />

between the two infinities. 1 No compensating<br />

assurance <strong>of</strong> spiritual permanence or <strong>of</strong> larger contingent<br />

issues is permitted <strong>to</strong> relieve the littleness <strong>of</strong> life.<br />

'<br />

Grains <strong>of</strong> frankincense on the same altar, one drops<br />

sooner, another later it makes no difference.' 2 The<br />

quantitative insignificance<br />

<strong>of</strong> man and on a basis <strong>of</strong><br />

strictly monistic materialism the inference is logical<br />

has its counterpart in the qualitative. Material things<br />

and all things are material may be analysed in<strong>to</strong><br />

their constituents <strong>of</strong> cause and substance, 3 and their<br />

content is nothing more than the material analysis dis-<br />

closes.<br />

'<br />

Just as we analyse the food we eat in<strong>to</strong> the<br />

dead carcase <strong>of</strong> bird or beast, the purple robe we wear<br />

in<strong>to</strong> sheep's wool dipped in secretions <strong>of</strong> the shell-fish,<br />

so should we do through the whole range <strong>of</strong> life '<br />

analysis <strong>to</strong> the component parts, and you<br />

:<br />

'<br />

push<br />

are disen-<br />

chanted ; apply the process <strong>to</strong> life <strong>to</strong>o as a whole.' *<br />

So in reiterated diminutives, half ^pitying and half- con-<br />

temptuous, things are one by one reduced <strong>to</strong> the beggarly<br />

elements <strong>of</strong> which they are made up. Man is but '<br />

the<br />

puff<br />

'<br />

'<br />

<strong>of</strong> breath that for a day<br />

carries its corpse.' 5 But<br />

the same argument which forecloses aspiration, also annuls<br />

the power <strong>of</strong> vain desires. Life finds its sole complete-<br />

1 iv. s> 5 ; v - J3 23 ; ix - 3 2 ; xii - 7, 32-<br />

'<br />

2<br />

iv. 15, and cf. ii. 17; iv. 32, 35, 44; vi. 36, 37, 46; vii.<br />

I ; ix. 14 ; xi. I ; xii. 24.<br />

3 ii. 12; iii. II ; v. 13 ; vii. 29; viii. II ; ix. 25 ; xii. IO, 29.<br />

4 vi. 13 ; viii. 21 ; ix. 36 ; xi. 2, 17.<br />

5 ix. 24.

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