25. He who flies from his master is a runaway; but the law is master, and
he who breaks the law is a runaway. And he also who is grieved or angry
or afraid, is dissatisfied because something has been or is or shall be
of the things which are appointed by him who rules all things, and he is
Law and assigns to every man what is fit. He then who fears or is grieved
or is angry is a runaway.

26. A man deposits seed in a womb and goes away, and then another cause
takes it, and labors on it and makes a child. What a thing from such a
material! Again, the child passes food down through the throat, and then
another cause takes it and makes perception and motion, and in fine, life
and strength and other things; how many and how strange! Observe then the
things which are produced in such a hidden way, and see the power just as
we see the power which carries things downwards and upwards, not with the
eyes, but still no less plainly (VII. 75).

27. Constantly consider how all things such as they now are, in time past
also were; and consider that they will be the same again. And place
before thy eyes entire dramas and stages of the same form, whatever thou
hast learned from thy experience or from older history; for example, the
whole court of Hadrianus, and the whole court of Antoninus, and the whole
court of Philippus, Alexander, Croesus; for all those were such dramas as
we see now, only with different actors.

28. Imagine every man who is grieved at anything or discontented to be
like a pig which is sacrificed and kicks and screams.

Like this pig also is he who on his bed in silence laments the bonds in
which we are held. And consider that only to the rational animal is it
given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a