Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/408

 228 the shortness of Life, the Unmeasurable extent of Time both past and Future ; and how slenderly all things are put together.

VIII. Let it be your Method to contemplate Spirits, apart from their Bodies, for these are no better then the Shell they are shut up in : Mind the Aim, and the End of Peoples Actions: Examine the value of Fame, the Force of Pain, the Ascendant of Pleasure, and see what Death amounts to : Consider upon what account a Man grows troublesome to himself, that no Body can be hindered by Another : And that Opinion is the Main Thing, which does good or harm in the World.

IX. We must manage the Precepts of Philosophy like those that Wrastle, and Box in the Circus, and not like a Gladiator: For your Fencer if he drops his Sword, is Hewn down immediately ; But the other that makes Weapons of his Limbs, has them always about him, and has nothing to do but to keep his Hands and Feet stirring.

X. Be not satisfied with a superficial View, but penetrate the Nature and Quality of Things; And to this purpose you must divide them into Matter and Form, and enquire into the End they were made for.