rational and political [social] faculty finds to be
neither intelligent nor social, it properly judges to be inferior to
itself.

73. When thou hast done a good act and another has received it, why dost
thou still look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to
have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?

74. No man is tired of receiving what is useful. But it is useful to act
according to nature. Do not then be tired of receiving what is useful by
doing it to others.

75. The nature of the All moved to make the universe. But now either
everything that takes place comes by way of consequence or [continuity];
or even the chief things towards which the ruling power of the universe
directs its own movement are governed by no rational principle. If this
is remembered, it will make thee more tranquil in many things (vi. 44;
ix. 28).[A]

[A] It is not easy to understand this section. It has been
suggested that there is some error in [Greek: e alogista] &c.
Some of the translators have made nothing of the passage, and
they have somewhat perverted the words. The first proposition
is, that the universe was made by some sufficient power. A
beginning of the universe is assumed, and a power which framed
an order. The next question is, How are things produced now?
Or, in other words, by what power do forms appear in continuous
succession? The answer, according to Antoninus, may be this: It
is by virtue of the original constitution of things that all
change and succession have been effected and are effected. And
this is intelligible in a sense, if we admit that the universe
is always one and the same, a continuity of identity; as much
one and the same as man is one and the same--which he believes
himself to be, though he also believes, and cannot help
believing, that both in his body and in his thoughts there is
change and succession. There is no real discontinuity then in
the universe; and if we say that there was an order framed in
the beginning, and that the things which are now produced are a
consequence of a previous arrangement, we speak of things as we
are compelled to view them, as forming a series of succession,
just as we speak of the changes in our own bodies and the
sequence of our own thoughts. But as there are no intervals,
not even intervals infinitely small, between any two suppos