Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

vin TO HIMSELF 123
To my moral will my neighbour's
will is as 56
completely unrelated, as his breath is or his flesh.
Be we ever so much made for one another, our
Inner Selves have each their own sovereign rights :
otherwise my neighbour's evil might become my
evil, which is not god's good pleasure, lest another
have power to undo me.
We see the sun everywhere diffused and all- 57
pervading, yet unexhausted. For its diffusion is
by extension, and its rays (aktines) are so called
from ekteinesthai to extend. The nature of a ray
you may see, if you watch sunlight admitted
through
a chink into a darkened room : for it
extends straight on, and supports itself on any solid
object which encounters it and disparts it from the
air beyond ; there it remains, and does not slip or
fall. Such too should be the effusion and diffusion
of the understanding, never exhausting but ever
extending itself, not impinging furiously and
violently upon the hindrances which it encounters ;
yet never failing or falling, but resting
illuminating
there and
that which receives it. That which
refuses to transmit it, will but deprive itself of
light.
He who fears death,
fears either loss of sensa- 58