The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

vi MARCUS AURELIUS 133
any desire towards that ? for what advantage would result
to them from this or to the whole, which is the special
object of their providence ? But if they have not deter
mined about me individually, they have certainly deter
mined about the whole at least, and the things which
happen by way of sequence in this general arrangement
I
ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with
them. But if
they determine about nothing which it
is wicked to believe, or if we do believe it, let us neither
sacrifice nor pray nor swear by them nor do anything else
which we do as if
the gods were present and lived with
us but if however the gods determine about none of
the things which concern us, I am able to determine about
myself, and I can inquire about that which is useful ;
and
that is useful to every man which is conformable to his own
constitution and nature. But my nature is rational and
social ;
and my city and country, so far as I am Antoninus,
is Rome, but so far as I am a man, it is the world. The
things then which are useful to these cities are alone useful
to me.
45. Whatever happens to every man, this is for the
interest of the universal this :
might be sufficient. But
further thou wilt observe this also as a general truth, if
thou dost observe, that whatever is profitable to any
man is profitable also to other men. But let the word
profitable be taken here in the common sense as said of
things of the middle kind [neither good nor bad].
46. As it
happens to thee in the Amphitheatre and such
places, that the continual sight of the same things and the
uniformity make the spectacle wearisome, so it is in the
whole of life ;
for all things above, below, are the same and
from the same. How long then ?
47. Think continually that all kinds of men and of all
kinds of pursuits and of all nations are dead, so that thy
thoughts come down even to Philistion and Phoebus and
Origanion. Now turn thy thoughts to the other kinds