ctive; and for the physician and the
helmsman it is a shame to be surprised if a man has a fever, or if the
wind is unfavorable.

16. Remember that to change thy opinion and to follow him who corrects
thy error is as consistent with freedom as it is to persist in thy
error. For it is thy own, the activity which is exerted according to thy
own movement and judgment, and indeed according to thy own understanding
too.

17. If a thing is in thy own power, why dost thou do it? but if it is in
the power of another, whom dost thou blame,--the atoms [chance] or the
gods? Both are foolish. Thou must blame nobody. For if thou canst,
correct [that which is the cause]; but if thou canst not do this,
correct at least the thing itself; but if thou canst not do even this,
of what use is it to thee to find fault? for nothing should be done
without a purpose.

18. That which has died falls not out of the universe. If it stays here,
it also changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, which are
elements of the universe and of thyself. And these too change, and they
murmur not.

19. Everything exists for some end,--a horse, a vine. Why dost thou
wonder? Even the sun will say, I am for some purpose, and the rest of
the gods will say the same. For what purpose then art thou,--to enjoy
pleasure? See if common sense allows this.

20. Nature has had regard in everything no less to the end than to the
beginning and the continuance, just like the man who throws up a ball.
What good is it then for the ball to be thrown up, or harm for it to
come down, or even to have fallen? and what good is it to the bubble
while it holds together, or what harm when it is burst? The same may be
said of a light also.

21. Turn it [the body] inside out, and see what kind of thing it is; and
when it has grown old, what kind of thing it becomes, and when it is
diseased.

Short lived are both the praiser and the praised, and the rememberer and
the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and
not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole
earth too is a point.

22. Attend to the matter which is before thee, whether it is an opinion
or an act or a word.

Thou sufferest this justly: for thou choosest rather to become good
to-morrow than to be good to-day.

23. Am I doing anything? I do it with reference to the good of mankind.
Does anything happen to me? I receive it and refer it to the gods, and
the