ugh it is distributed among countless bodies which have their several
qualities. There is one soul, though it is distributed among infinite
natures and individual circumscriptions [or individuals]. There is one
intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided. Now in the things which
have been mentioned, all the other parts, such as those which are air
and matter, are without sensation and have no fellowship: and yet even
these parts the intelligent principle holds together and the gravitation
towards the same. But intellect in a peculiar manner tends to that which
is of the same kin, and combines with it, and the feeling for communion
is not interrupted.

[A] iv. 40.

31. What dost thou wish--to continue to exist? Well, dost thou wish to
have sensation, movement, growth, and then again to cease to grow, to
use thy speech, to think? What is there of all these things which seems
to thee worth desiring? But if it is easy to set little value on all
these things, turn to that which remains, which is to follow reason and
God. But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled
because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.

32. How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned
to every man, for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal! And how
small a part of the whole substance; and how small a part of the
universal soul; and on what a small clod of the whole earth thou
creepest! Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except
to act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that which the common
nature brings.

33. How does the ruling faculty make use of itself? for all lies in
this. But everything else, whether it is in the power of thy will or
not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke.

34. This reflection is most adapted to move us to contempt of death,
that even those who think pleasure to be a good and pain an evil still
have despised it.

35. The man to whom that only is good which comes in due season, and to
whom it is the same thing whether he has done more or fewer acts
conformable to right reason, and to whom it makes no difference whether
he contemplates the world for a longer or a shorter time--for this man
neither is death a terrible thing (iii. 7; vi. 23; x. 20; xii. 23).

36. Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world];[A]
what difference does it make to thee whether for five years [or three]?
for that which is conformable