carefully, thou wilt find it to be so. I do not say only with
respect to the continuity of the series of things, but with respect to
what is just, and as if it were done by one who assigns to each thing
its value. Observe then as thou hast begun; and whatever thou doest, do
it in conjunction with this, the being good, and in the sense in which a
man is properly understood to be good. Keep to this in every action.

11. Do not have such an opinion of things as he has who does thee wrong,
or such as he wishes thee to have, but look at them as they are in
truth.

12. A man should always have these two rules in readiness; the one to do
only whatever the reason of the ruling and legislating faculty may
suggest for the use of men; the other, to change thy opinion, if there
is any one at hand who sets thee right and moves thee from any opinion.
But this change of opinion must proceed only from a certain persuasion,
as of what is just or of common advantage, and the like, not because it
appears pleasant or brings reputation.

13. Hast thou reason? I have.--Why then dost not thou use it? For if
this does its own work, what else dost thou wish?

14. Thou hast existed as a part. Thou shalt disappear in that which
produced thee; but rather thou shalt be received back into its seminal
principle by transmutation.

15. Many grains of frankincense on the same altar: one falls before,
another falls after; but it makes no difference.

16. Within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou art now a
beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the worship
of reason.

17. Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death
hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.

18. How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his
neighbor says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that
it may be just and pure; or, as Agathon+ says, look not round at the
depraved morals of others, but run straight along the line without
deviating from it.

19. He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider
that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very
soon; then again also they who have succeeded them, until the whole
remembrance shall have been extinguished as it is transmitted through
men who foolishly admire and perish. But suppose that those who will
remember are even immortal, and that the remembrance will be immortal,
w