all things
act with one movement; and how all things are the co-operating causes of
all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the
thread and the contexture of the web.

41. Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to
say (i. c. 19).

42. It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things
to subsist in consequence of change.

43. Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a
violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried
away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.

44. Everything which happens is as familiar and well known as the rose
in spring and the fruit in summer; for such is disease, and death, and
calumny, and treachery, and whatever else delights fools or vexes them.

45. In the series of things, those which follow are always aptly fitted
to those which have gone before: for this series is not like a mere
enumeration of disjointed things, which has only a necessary sequence,
but it is a rational connection: and as all existing things are arranged
together harmoniously, so the things which come into existence exhibit
no mere succession, but a certain wonderful relationship (vi. 38; vii.
9; vii. 75, note).

46. Always remember the saying of Heraclitus, that the death of earth is
to become water, and the death of water is to become air, and the death
of air is to become fire, and reversely. And think too of him who
forgets whither the way leads, and that men quarrel with that with which
they are most constantly in communion, the reason which governs the
universe; and the things which they daily meet with seem to them
strange: and consider that we ought not to act and speak as if we were
asleep, for even in sleep we seem to act and speak; and that + we ought
not, like children who learn from their parents, simply to act and speak
as we have been taught. +

47. If any god told thee that thou shalt die to-morrow, or certainly on
the day after to-morrow, thou wouldst not care much whether it was on
the third day or on the morrow, unless thou wast in the highest degree
mean-spirited; for how small is the difference! So think it no great
thing to die after as many years as thou canst name rather than
to-morrow.

48. Think continually how many physicians are dead after often
contracting their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after
predicting with great pretensions the de