in all intelligent animals, and one truth; if indeed there is also one
perfection for all animals which are of the same stock and participate in
the same reason.

10. Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole;
and everything formal [causal] is very soon taken back into the universal
reason; and the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

11. To the rational animal the same act is according to nature and
according to reason.

12. Be thou erect, or be made erect (III. 5).

13. Just as it is with the members in those bodies which are united in
one, so it is with rational beings which exist separate, for they have
been constituted for one co-operation. And the perception of this will be
more apparent to thee if thou often sayest to thyself that I am a member
of the system of rational beings. But if thou sayest that thou art a
part, thou dost not yet love men from thy heart; beneficence does not yet
delight thee for its own sake; thou still dost it barely as a thing of
propriety, and not yet as doing good to thyself.

14. Let there fall externally what will on the parts which can feel the
effects of this fall. For those parts which have felt will complain, if
they choose. But I, unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am
not injured. And it is in my power not to think so.

15. Whatever any one does or says, I must be good; just as if the gold,
or the emerald, or the purple were always saying this, Whatever any one
does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color.