ything else which we do as if the gods were present and
lived with us; but if however the gods determine about none of the
things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and I can
inquire about that which is useful: and that is useful to every man
which is conformable to his own constitution ([Greek: kataskeue]) and
nature. But my nature is rational and social; and my city and country,
so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome; but so far as I am a man, it is the
world. The things then which are useful to these cities are alone useful
to me" (vi. 44).

It would be tedious, and it is not necessary, to state the emperor's
opinions on all the ways in which a man may profitably use his
understanding towards perfecting himself in practical virtue. The
passages to this purpose are in all parts of his book, but as they are
in no order or connection, a man must use the book a long time before he
will find out all that is in it. A few words may be added here. If we
analyze all other things, we find how insufficient they are for human
life, and how truly worthless many of them are. Virtue alone is
indivisible, one, and perfectly satisfying. The notion of Virtue cannot
be considered vague or unsettled, because a man may find it difficult to
explain the notion fully to himself, or to expound it to others in such
a way as to prevent cavilling. Virtue is a whole, and no more consists
of parts than man's intelligence does; and yet we speak of various
intellectual faculties as a convenient way of expressing the various
powers which man's intellect shows by his works. In the same way we may
speak of various virtues or parts of virtue, in a practical sense, for
the purpose of showing what particular virtues we ought to practice in
order to the exercise of the whole of virtue, that is, as man's nature
is capable of.

The prime principle in man's constitution is social. The next in order
is not to yield to the persuasions of the body, when they are not
conformable to the rational principle, which must govern. The third is
freedom from error and from deception. "Let then the ruling principle
holding fast to these things go straight on, and it has what is its own"
(vii. 55). The emperor selects justice as the virtue which is the basis
of all the rest (x. 11), and this had been said long before his time.

It is true that all people have some notion of what is meant by justice
as a disposition of the mind, and some notion about acting