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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

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130 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK<br />

irrational animals, bees swarm, cattle herd, birds<br />

nest <strong>to</strong>gether, all owning forms <strong>of</strong> love. For at<br />

this stage soul is present, and on this higher<br />

plane <strong>of</strong> being a mutual attraction asserts itself,<br />

which is not present in plants or s<strong>to</strong>nes or sticks.<br />

Again among rational beings there are societies<br />

and friendships, homes and communities, and in<br />

war compacts and armistices. In the still higher<br />

orders <strong>of</strong> being, even among<br />

distant bodies there<br />

exists unity <strong>of</strong> a kind, as among the stars ; so<br />

that ascent in the scale <strong>of</strong> being induces sympathetic<br />

action in spite <strong>of</strong> distance. See what we<br />

come <strong>to</strong> then. None but things possessed <strong>of</strong> mind<br />

ignore the mutual impulse <strong>of</strong> attraction ;<br />

here only<br />

does the natural gravitation disappear. Yes, but<br />

even in the act <strong>of</strong> evasion, men are caught and over-<br />

taken ; nature prevails. Watch, and you will see :<br />

sooner will you find some particle <strong>of</strong> earth detached<br />

from other earth, than man isolated from man.<br />

10 Man bears fruit, so does god, so does the<br />

world, all in their own season. That cus<strong>to</strong>m has<br />

appropriated the term <strong>to</strong> the vine or the like,<br />

matters not. Reason <strong>to</strong>o bears fruit, alike for<br />

the world and for itself ; and from it spring fruits<br />

<strong>of</strong> like kind with reason itself.

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