proud of its want of pride is the most intolerable of
all.

[A] [Greek: met' oieseos. Oiesis kai typhos], Epict. i. 8, 6.

28. To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou
comprehend that they exist and so worshippest them, I answer, in the
first place, they may be seen even with the eyes;[A] in the second
place, neither have I seen even my own soul, and yet I honor it. Thus
then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of
their power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate
them.

[A] "Seen even with the eyes." It is supposed that this may be
explained by the Stoic doctrine, that the universe is a god or
living being (iv. 40), and that the celestial bodies are gods
(viii. 19). But the emperor may mean that we know that the gods
exist, as he afterwards states it, because we see what they do;
as we know that man has intellectual powers, because we see
what he does, and in no other way do we know it. This passage
then will agree with the passage in the Epistle to the Romans
(i. _v_. 20), and with the Epistle to the Colossians (i. _v_.
15), in which Jesus Christ is named "the image of the invisible
god;" and with the passage in the Gospel of St. John (xiv. _v_.
9).

Gataker, whose notes are a wonderful collection of learning,
and all of it sound and good, quotes a passage of Calvin which
is founded on St. Paul's language (Rom. i. _v_. 20): "God by
creating the universe [or world, mundum], being himself
invisible, has presented himself to our eyes conspicuously in a
certain visible form." He also quotes Seneca (De Benef. iv. c.
8): "Quocunque te flexeris, ibi illum videbis occurrentem tibi:
nihil ab illo vacat, opus suum ipse implet." Compare also
Cicero, De Senectute (c. 22), Xenophon's Cyropaedia (viii. 7),
and Mem. iv. 3; also Epictetus, i. 6, de Providentia. I think
that my interpretation of Antoninus is right.

29. The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what
it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all thy
soul to do justice and to say the truth. What remains, except to enjoy
life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the
smallest intervals between?

30. There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls,
mountains, and other things infinite. There is one common substance,[A]
tho