69.  The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing the hypocrite.

70.  The gods who are immortal are not vexed because during so long a time they must tolerate continually men such as they are and so many of them bad; and besides this, they also take care of them in all ways.  But thou, who art destined to end so soon, art thou wearied of enduring the bad, and this too when thou art one of them?

71.  It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men’s badness, which is impossible.

72.  Whatever the rational and political [social] faculty finds to be neither intelligent nor social, it properly judges to be inferior to itself.

73.  When thou hast done a good act and another has received it, why dost thou still look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?

74.  No man is tired of receiving what is useful.  But it is useful to act according to nature.  Do not then be tired of receiving what is useful by doing it to others.

75.  The nature of the All moved to make the universe.  But now either everything that takes place comes by way of consequence or [continuity]; or even the chief things towards which the ruling power of the universe directs its own movement are governed by no rational principle.  If this is remembered, it will make thee more tranquil in many things (vi. 44; ix. 28).[A]

[A] It is not easy to understand this section.  It has been suggested that there is some error in [Greek:  e alogista] &c.  Some of the translators have made nothing of the passage, and they have somewhat perverted the words.  The first proposition is, that the universe was made by some sufficient power.  A beginning of the universe is assumed, and a power which framed an order.  The next question is, How are things produced now?  Or, in other words, by what power do forms appear in continuous succession?  The answer, according to Antoninus, may be this:  It is by virtue of the original constitution of things that all change and succession have been effected and are effected.  And this is intelligible in a sense, if we admit that the universe is always one and the same, a continuity of identity; as much one and the same as man is one and the same—­which he believes himself to be, though he also believes, and cannot help believing, that both in his body and in his thoughts there is change and succession.  There is no real discontinuity then in the universe; and if we say that there was an order framed in the beginning, and that the things which are now produced are a consequence of a previous arrangement, we speak of things as we are compelled to view them, as forming a series of succession, just as we speak of the changes