Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

72 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK
14 Ordinary
admiration fastens as a rule on
natural objects, whose* unity is due to '
inward
hold ' l or to organic growth, such for instance as
stones, timber, fig-trees,
gence advances,
vines or olives : as intelli-
it takes note of soul-unities as seen
in flocks and herds : the yet more gentle-minded are
appealed to by the indwelling of rational soul, not
as yet universal in range, but manifesting itself in
art, or some form of proficiency, or in the bare
possession of troops of slaves. 2 But he who honours
rational soul, of universal and social aims, no longer
heeds aught else, but strives before everything to
keep his own soul alive and quick
to rational and
social impulses, and joins with all of like kind in
working to this end.
15 Things hasten into being, things
hasten out of
it ; even as a thing comes into being, this or that
part is extinct : phases
of flux and variation con-
tinuously renew the world, just as the unfailing
1 The terminology is technical : for explanation,
see Intro-
duction, p. Ivi.
2 The reference to slaves may seem abrupt and irrelevant. But
at Rome the connoisseur gratified his tastes, or established his repu-
tation, by the employment of slaves : the men of light and leading
kept their 'slave' establishment of painters, gem-cutters, grammarians,
scribes, philosophers, and the like, just as the wealthy of
to-day collect libraries or pictures or blue china.