THE MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS

us the contrary way and attach us to life, to be permitted to live with those who have the same principles as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is the trouble arising from the discordance of those who live together, so that thou mayest say, Come quick, O death, lest perchance I, too, should forget myself. He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad. He often acts unjustly who does not do a certain thing; not only he who does a certain thing. Thy present opinion founded on understanding, and thy present conduct directed to social good, and thy present disposition of contentment with everything which happens- that is enough. Wipe out imagination: check desire: extinguish appetite: keep the ruling faculty in its own power. Among the animals which have not reason one life is distributed; but among reasonable animals one intelligent soul is distributed: just as there is one earth of all things which are of an earthy nature, and we see by one light, and breathe one air, all of us that have the faculty of vision and all that have life. All things which participate in anything which is common to them all move towards that which is of the same kind with themselves. Everything which is earthy turns towards the earth, everything which is liquid flows together, and everything which is of an aerial kind does the same, so that they require something to keep them asunder,