30.  Look down from above on the countless herds of men and their countless solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and die.  And consider, too, the life lived by others in olden time, and the life of those who will live after thee, and the life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising thee will very soon blame thee, and that neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else.

31.  Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.

32.  Thou canst remove out of the way many useless things among those which disturb thee, for they 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.