MARCUS AURELIUS

MARCUS AURELIUS:

The vulgar confine their admiration chiefly to things of an elementary order, which exist by virtue of mere inorganic cohesion or processes of nature: things of timber and stone, for example, or groves of figs and vines and olives. Minds of a somewhat higher degree of enlightenment are attracted by things that have animation, such as flocks and herds. A further step in refinment leads to admiration of the rational soul: rational, however, not yet in the sense of being part of the universal. Reason, but simply as posssessing certain skills in handicraft or other such talents -- or even merely as owning large numbers of slaves. But the man who values a soul that is rational and universal and social no longer cares for anything else, but aims solely at keeping the temper of his own soul and all its activities rational and social, and works together with his fellows to this end.