Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/265

Rh VI. The best way of Revenge, is not to imitate the Injury.

VII. Be always doing something serviceable to Mankind, and let this constant Generosity be your only Pleasure; not forgetting in the mean time, a due Reference and Regard to the Deity.

VIII. 'Tis the governing part of the Mind, which awakens Thought, and alters the Quality of it; which gives what Air she pleases to her own Likeness, and to all the Accidents and Circumstances without her.

IX. The particular Effects in the World, are all wrought by one Intelligent Nature. This Universal Cause, has no Foreign Assistant, no interloping Principle, either without his Jurisdiction, or within it.

X. For Argument sake let's use a Disjunction; The World then is either nothing but a Rencounter of Atomes, a heap of Confusion, and a hurry of Chance, or else 'tis the effect of Design, and under the Laws of Order, and Providence: If the first, what should I stay for, where Nature is in such a Hotchpotch, and Things are so blindly jumbled together? Why don't I rather make it my Choice to disengage, and return to the Element of Earth as soon as may be? Why should I give my self any trouble? Let me do what I will, my stitution