lie entirely in thy opinion; and thou wilt
then gain for thyself ample space by comprehending the whole universe in
thy mind, and by contemplating the eternity of time, and observing the
rapid change of every several thing, how short is the time from birth to
dissolution, and the illimitable time before birth as well as the
equally boundless time after dissolution!

33. All that thou seest will quickly perish, and those who have been
spectators of its dissolution will very soon perish too. And he who dies
at the extremest old age will be brought into the same condition with
him who died prematurely.

34. What are these men's leading principles, and about what kind of
things are they busy, and for what kind of reasons do they love and
honor? Imagine that thou seest their pool souls laid bare. When they
think that they do harm by their blame or good by their praise, what an
idea!

35. Loss is nothing else than change. But the universal nature delights
in change, and in obedience to her all things are now done well, and
from eternity have been in like form, and will be such to time without
end. What, then, dost thou say,--that all things have been and all
things always will be bad, and that no power has ever been found in so
many gods to rectify these things, but the world has been condemned to
be bound in never ceasing evil (iv. 45, vii. 18)?

36. The rottenness of the matter which is the foundation of everything!
water, dust, bones, filth: or again, marble rocks, the callosities of
the earth; and gold and silver, the sediments; and garments, only bits
of hair; and purple dye, blood; and everything else is of the same kind.
And that which is of the nature of breath is also another thing of the
same kind, changing from this to that.

37. Enough of this wretched life and murmuring and apish tricks. Why art
thou disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles thee? Is it
the form of the thing? Look at it. Or is it the matter? Look at it. But
besides these there is nothing. Towards the gods then, now become at
last more simple and better. It is the same whether we examine these
things for a hundred years or three.

38. If a man has done wrong the harm is his own. But perhaps he has not
done wrong.

39. Either all things proceed from one intelligent source and come
together as in one body, and the part ought not to find fault with what
is done for the benefit of the whole; or there are only atoms, and
nothing els