Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

126 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK
truth is at civil war within ; he has neglected the
faculties provided by Nature, and cannot any
longer distinguish false from true.
Again, to seek pleasures as good, or to shun
pains as evil, is to sin. For it inevitably leads
to complaining against Nature for unfair awards to
the virtuous and to the vile, seeing that the vile
are oftentimes in pleasure and come by things
pleasurable, while the virtuous are overtaken by
pain and things painful. Moreover, he who fears
pain will some time fear that which will form part
of the world-order ; and therein he sins. And he
who seeks after pleasures will not abstain from
unjust doing ; which is palpably an act of sin.
Where Nature makes no difference and were
she not indifferent, she would not bring both to
pass those who would fain walk with Nature
should conform their wills to like indifference.
Not to be indifferent to pain or pleasure, death
or life, evil report or good report, all which
Nature treats indifferently, is plainly to be guilty
of sin. By Nature treating them indifferently, I
mean that they befall indifferently all whose
existence is consequent upon the original impulse
of providence, which gave the origin and first