“The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness.  Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself:  ’Is this one of the unnecessary things?’ Now a man should take away not only unnecessary acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous acts will not follow after."[221]

And again:—­

“We ought to check in the series of our thoughts everything that is without a purpose and useless, but most of all the over curious feeling and the malignant; and a man should use himself to think of those things only about which if one should suddenly ask, ’What hast thou now in thy thoughts?’ with perfect openness thou mightest immediately answer, ’This or That’; so that from thy words it should be plain that everything in thee is simple and benevolent, and such as befits a social animal, and one that cares not for thoughts about sensual enjoyments, or any rivalry or envy and suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if thou shouldst say thou hadst it in thy mind."[222]

So, with a stringent practicalness worthy of Franklin, he discourses on his favorite text, Let nothing be done without a purpose.  But it is when he enters the region where Franklin cannot follow him, when he utters his thoughts on the ground-motives of human action, that he is most interesting; that he becomes the unique, the incomparable Marcus Aurelius.  Christianity uses language very liable to be misunderstood when it seems to tell men to do good, not, certainly, from the vulgar motives of worldly interest, or vanity, or love of human praise, but “that their Father which, seeth in secret may reward them openly.”  The motives of reward and punishment have come, from the misconception of language of this kind, to be strangely overpressed by many Christian moralists, to the deterioration and disfigurement of Christianity.  Marcus Aurelius says, truly and nobly:—­

“One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favor conferred.  Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done.  A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit.  As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has caught the game, a bee when it has made its honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.  Must a man, then, be one of these, who in a manner acts thus without observing it?  Yes."[223]

And again:—­

“What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service?  Art thou not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye demanded a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking?"[224]