movement of Providence, according to which it moved from a certain
beginning to this ordering of things, having conceived certain principles
of the things which were to be, and having determined powers productive
of beings and of changes and of such like successions (VII. 75).

2. It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having
had any taste of lying and hypocrisy and luxury and pride. However, to
breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of these things is the
next best voyage, as the saying is. Hast thou determined to abide with
vice, and has not experience yet induced thee to fly from this
pestilence? For the destruction of the understanding is a pestilence,
much more indeed than any such corruption and change of this atmosphere
which surrounds us. For this corruption is a pestilence of animals so far
as they are animals; but the other is a pestilence of men so far as they
are men.

3. Do not despise death, but be well content with it, since this too is
one of those things which nature wills. For such as it is to be young and
to grow old, and to increase and to reach maturity, and to have teeth and
beard and gray hairs, and to beget and to be pregnant and to bring forth,
and all the other natural operations which the seasons of thy life bring,
such also is dissolution. This, then, is consistent with the character of
a reflecting man,--to be neither careless nor impatient nor contemptuous
with respect to death, but to wait for it as one of the operations of
nature. As thou now waitest for the time when the child shall come out of
thy wife's womb, so be ready for the time when thy soul shall fall out of
this envelope. But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which
shall reach thy heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by
observing the objects from which thou art going to be removed, and the
morals of those with whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is