[A] This is the Stoic precept [Greek:  anechou kai apechou].  The first part teaches us to be content with men and things as they are.  The second part teaches us the virtue of self-restraint, or the government of our passions.

34.  Thou canst pass thy life in an equable flow of happiness, if thou canst go by the right way, and think and act in the right way.  These two things are common both to the soul of God and to the soul of man, and to the soul of every rational being:  not to be hindered by another; and to hold good to consist in the disposition to justice and the practice of it, and in this to let thy desire find its termination.

35.  If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness, and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it, and what is the harm to the common weal?

36.  Do not be carried along inconsiderately by the appearance of things, but give help [to all] according to thy ability and their fitness; and if they should have sustained loss in matters which are indifferent, do not imagine this to be a damage; for it is a bad habit.  But as the old man, when he went away, asked back his foster-child’s top, remembering that it was a top, so do thou in this case also.

When thou art calling out on the Rostra, hast thou forgotten, man, what these things are?—­Yes; but they are objects of great concern to these people—­wilt thou too then be made a fool for these things?  I was once a fortunate man, but I lost it, I know not how.—­But fortunate means that a man has assigned to himself a good fortune:  and a good fortune is good disposition of the soul, good emotions, good actions.[A]

[A] This section is unintelligible.  Many of the words may be corrupt, and the general purport of the section cannot be discovered.  Perhaps several things have been improperly joined in one section.  I have translated it nearly literally.  Different translators give the section a different turn, and the critics have tried to mend what they cannot understand.

VI.

The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it.  But all things are made and perfected according to this reason.

2.  Let it make no difference to thee whether thou art cold or warm, if thou art doing thy duty; and whether thou art drowsy or satisfied with sleep; and whether ill-spoken of or praised; and whether dying or doing something else.  For it is one of the acts of life, this act by which we die; it is sufficient then in this act also to do well what we have in hand (vi. 22, 28).

3.  Look within.  Let neither the peculiar quality of anything nor its value escape thee.

4.  All existing things soon change, and they will either be reduced to vapor, if indeed all substance is one, or they will be dispersed.