part is done. The business belongs to another, the master. But the ship
is sinking--what then have I to do? I do the only thing that I can, not
to be drowned full of fear, nor screaming nor blaming God, but knowing
that what has been produced must also perish: for I am not an immortal
being, but a man, a part of the whole, as an hour is a part of the day:
I must be present like the hour, and past like the hour. What difference
then does it make to me how I pass away, whether by being suffocated or
by a fever, for I must pass through some such means.

How then is it said that some external things are according to nature
and others contrary to nature? It is said as it might be said if we were
separated from union (or society): for to the foot I shall say that it
is according to nature for it to be clean; but if you take it as a foot
and as a thing not detached (independent), it will befit it both to step
into the mud and tread on thorns, and sometimes to be cut off for the
good of the whole body; otherwise it is no longer a foot. We should
think in some such way about ourselves also. What are you? A man. If you
consider yourself as detached from other men, it is according to nature
to live to old age, to be rich, to be healthy. But if you consider
yourself as a man and a part of a certain whole, it is for the sake of
that whole that at one time you should be sick, at another time take a
voyage and run into danger, and at another time be in want, and in some
cases die prematurely. Why then are you troubled? Do you not know, that
as a foot is no longer a foot if it is detached from the body, so you
are no longer a man if you are separated from other men. For what is a
man? A part of a state, of that first which consists of gods and of men;
then of that which is called next to it, which is a small image of the
universal state. What then must I be brought to trial; must another have
a fever, another sail on the sea, another die, and another be condemned?
Yes, for it is impossible in such a universe of things, among so many