41.  Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say (i. c. 19).

42.  It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things to subsist in consequence of change.

43.  Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.

44.  Everything which happens is as familiar and well known as the rose in spring and the fruit in summer; for such is disease, and death, and calumny, and treachery, and whatever else delights fools or vexes them.

45.  In the series of things, those which follow are always aptly fitted to those which have gone before:  for this series is not like a mere enumeration of disjointed things, which has only a necessary sequence, but it is a rational connection:  and as all existing things are arranged together harmoniously, so the things which come into existence exhibit no mere succession, but a certain wonderful relationship (vi. 38; vii. 9; vii. 75, note).

46.  Always remember the saying of Heraclitus, that the death of earth is to become water, and the death of water is to become air, and the death of air is to become fire, and reversely.  And think too of him who forgets whither the way leads, and that men quarrel with that with which they are most constantly in communion, the reason which governs the universe; and the things which they daily meet with seem to them strange:  and consider that we ought not to act and speak as if we were asleep, for even in sleep we seem to act and speak; and that + we ought not, like children who learn from their parents, simply to act and speak as we have been taught. +

47.  If any god told thee that thou shalt die to-morrow, or certainly on the day after to-morrow, thou wouldst not care much whether it was on the third day or on the morrow, unless thou wast in the highest degree mean-spirited; for how small is the difference!  So think it no great thing to die after as many years as thou canst name rather than to-morrow.

48.  Think continually how many physicians are dead after often contracting their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others; and how many philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality; how many heroes after killing thousands; and how many tyrants who have used their power over men’s lives with terrible insolence, as if they were immortal; and how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak, Helice[A] and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others innumerable.  Add to the reckoning all whom thou hast known, one after another.  One man after burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him; and all this in a short time.  To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes.  Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.