y its own
opinion turn itself into such ways. Let the body itself take care, if it
can, that it suffer nothing, and let it speak, if it suffers. But the
soul itself, that which is subject to fear, to pain, which has
completely the power of forming an opinion about these things, will
suffer nothing, for it will never deviate+ into such a judgment. The
leading principle in itself wants nothing, unless it makes a want for
itself; and therefore it is both free from perturbation and unimpeded,
if it does not disturb and impede itself.

17. Eudaemonia [happiness] is a good daemon, or a good thing. What then
art thou doing here, O imagination? Go away, I entreat thee by the gods,
as thou didst come, for I want thee not. But thou art come according to
thy old fashion. I am not angry with thee: only go away.

18. Is any man afraid of change? Why, what can take place without
change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal
nature? And canst thou take a bath unless the wood undergoes a change?
and canst thou be nourished, unless the food undergoes a change? And can
anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Dost thou
not see then that for thyself also to change is just the same, and
equally necessary for the universal nature?

19. Through the universal substance as through a furious torrent all
bodies are carried, being by their nature united with and co-operating
with the whole, as the parts of our body with one another. How many a
Chrysippus, how many a Socrates, how many an Epictetus has time already
swallowed up! And let the same thought occur to thee with reference to
every man and thing (v. 23; vi. 15).

20. One thing only troubles me, lest I should do something which the
constitution of man does not allow, or in the way which it does not
allow, or what it does not allow now.

21. Near is thy forgetfulness of all things; and near the forgetfulness
of thee by all.

22. It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this
happens, if when they do wrong it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen,
and that they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally, and that
soon both of you will die; and above all, that the wrong-doer has done
thee no harm, for he has not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was
before.

23. The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were
wax, now moulds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the
material for a tree, t