How
quickly all things disappear, in the universe the bodies themselves,
but in time the remembrance of them; what is the nature of all
sensible things, and particularly those which attract with the bait
of pleasure or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad by vapoury fame;
how worthless, and contemptible, and sordid, and perishable, and dead
they are- all this it is the part of the intellectual faculty to
observe. To observe too who these are whose opinions and voices give
reputation; what death is, and the fact that, if a man looks at it in
itself, and by the abstractive power of reflection resolves into
their parts all the things which present themselves to the
imagination in it, he will then consider it to be nothing else than
an operation of nature; and if any one is afraid of an operation of
nature, he is a child. This, however, is not only an operation of
nature, but it is also a thing which conduces to the purposes of
nature. To observe too how man comes near to the deity, and by what
part of him, and when this part of man is so disposed.
(podcast episode) (original Greek)
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