conclusion (ii. 17): "What then is that which is able to conduct a man?
One thing and only one, Philosophy. But this consists in keeping the
divinity within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains
and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose nor yet falsely and with
hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing
anything; and besides, accepting all that happens and all that is
allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself
came; and finally waiting for death with a cheerful mind as being
nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living
being is compounded. But if there is no harm, to the elements themselves
in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any
apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements
[himself]? for it is according to nature; and nothing is evil that is
according to nature."

The Physic of Antoninus is the knowledge of the Nature of the Universe,
of its government, and of the relation of man's nature to both. He names
the universe ([Greek: hê tôn hylôn ousia], vi. 1),[A] "the universal
substance," and he adds that "reason" ([Greek: logos]) governs the
universe. He also (vi. 9) uses the terms "universal nature" or "nature
of the universe." He (vi. 25) calls the universe "the one and all, which
we name Cosmos or Order" ([Greek: kosmos]). If he ever seems to use
these general terms as significant of the All, of all that man can in
any way conceive to exist, he still on other occasions plainly
distinguishes between Matter, Material things ([Greek: hylê, hylikon]),
and Cause, Origin, Reason ([Greek: aitia, aitiôdes, logos]).[B] This is
conformable to Zeno's doctrine that there are two original principles
([Greek: archai]) of all things, that which acts ([Greek: to poioun])
and that which is acted upon ([Greek: to paschon]). That which is acted
on is the formless matter ([Greek: hylê]): that which acts is the reason