Loss and change
To decompose is to be recomposed.
That’s what nature does. Nature — through whom all things happen as they should, and have happened forever in just the sane way, and will continue to, one way or another, endlessly.
That things happen for the worst and always will, that the gods have no power regulate them, and that the world is condemned to never ending evil — how can you say that? (Book Nine, #35)
“Ἡ ἀποβολὴ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἐστὶν ἢ μεταβολή. τούτῳ δὲ χαίρει ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις, καθ̓ ἢν πάντα καλῶς γίνεται καὶ ἐξ αἰῶνος ὁμοειδῶς ἐγίνετο καὶ εἰς ἄπειρον τοιαῦθ̓ ἕτερα ἔσται. τί οὖν λέγεις ὅτι ἐγίνετό τε πάντα κακῶς καὶ πάντα ἀεὶ κακῶς ἔσται καὶ οὐδεμία ἄρα δύναμις ἐν τοσούτοις θεοῖς ἐξευρέθη ποτὲ ἡ διορθώσουσα ταῦτα, ἀλλὰ κατακέκριται ὁ κόσμος ἐν ἀδιαλείπτοις κακοῖς συνέχεσθαι;
- “Loss and change, they are but one. Therein doth the Universal Nature take pleasure, through whom are all things done now as they have been in like fashion from time everlasting; and to eternity shall other like things be. Why then dost thou say that all things have been evil and will remain evil to the end, and that no help has after all been found in Gods, so many as they be, to right these things, but that the fiat hath gone forth that the Universe should be bound in an unbroken chain of ill?”
“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight. Ever since the word began, things have been ordered by her decree in the selfsame fashion as they are at this day, and as other similar things will be ordered to the end of time. How then can you say that this is all amiss, and will ever be so; that no power among the gods in heaven can avail to mend it; and that the world lies condemned to a thralldom of ills without end?”
- Loss is nothing else than change. But the universal nature delights in change, and in obedience to her all things are now done well, and from eternity have been in like form, and will be such to time without end. What, then, dost thou say,—that all things have been and all things always will be bad, and that no power has ever been found in so many gods to rectify these things, but the world has been condemned to be bound in never ceasing evil (iv. 45, vii. 18)?
Marcus Aurelius (meditations)
Loss and change
A free copy of Marcus Aurelius Meditationsis available here.
