Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/382

 202 walk off handsomely, and bid the World adieu without Regret. 'Tis true. Nature has twisted your Interests, and tied you together, but now she loosens the Knot, and makes the sign to Disingage. I'll part then with the World as with my Friends and Relations, but for all my Kindness I won't be dragg'd from them : No, Providence would have me move freely, and therefore I'll do it.

XXXVII. Let it be your constant Method to look into the Design of Peoples Actions, and see what they would be at, as often as 'tis Practicable; And to make this Custom the more significant, practise it first upon your self.

XXXVIII. Remember that which pulls and hales you from one Passion to another, is no External Force, but your Fancy within you. There lies the Rhetorick that perswades you; That's the live Thing, and to speak plainly, that's the Man, after all. But when you talk of a Man, I would not have you tack Flesh and Blood to the Notion ; nor those Limbs neither which are made out on't : These are but Tools for the Soul to work with, and no more a part of a Man, than an Ax or a Plain, is a piece of a Carpenter : 'Tis true, Nature has glewed them together, and they grow as it were to the Soul, and there's Rh