takes up so much of our time, what is it? Oil, sweat, filth;
or the sordes of the body: an excre-mentitious viscosity,
the excrements of oil and other ointments used about the body,
and mixed with the sordes of the body: all base and loathsome.
And such almost is every part of our life; and every
worldly object. XXIV. Lucilla buried Verus; then was Lucilla
herself buried by others. So Secunda Maximus, then Secunda herself.
So Epitynchanus, Diotimus; then Epitynchanus himself.
So Antoninus Pius, Faustina his wife; then Antoninus himself.
This is the course of the world. First Celer, Adrianus;
then Adrianus himself. And those austere ones; those that
foretold other men's deaths; those that were so proud
and stately, where are they now? Those austere ones I mean,
such as were Charax, and Demetrius the Platonic, and Eudaemon,
and others like unto those. They were all but for one day;
all dead and gone long since. Some of them no sooner dead,
than forgotten. Others soon turned into fables. Of others,
even that which was fabulous, is now long since forgotten.
This thereafter thou must remember, that whatsoever thou art
compounded of, shall soon be dispersed, and that thy life and breath,
or thy soul, shall either he no more or shall ranslated,
and appointed to some certain place and station. XXV. The true
joy of a man, is to do that which properly belongs unto a man.
That which is most proper unto a man, is, first, to he kindly
affected towards them that are of the same kind and nature as he is
himself to contemn all sensual motions and appetites, to discern
rightly all plausible fancies and imaginations, to contemplate
the nature of the universe; both it, and things that are done in it.
In which kind of con templation three several relations are
to be observed The first, to the apparent secondary cause.