‘Death put Alexander of Macedon and his stable boy on a par. Either they were received into the seminal principles of the universe, or were alike dispersed into atoms[141].’ [Sidenote: Preparation for death.] =141.= The saddened outlook of Marcus Aurelius upon life harmonizes well with the resignation with which he contemplates a death, which for himself individually will be the end. Hence it is that his reflections so often make the thought of death a guiding principle of ethics; he who has learnt to look forward calmly to his last act has learnt thereby to abide patiently all the troubles which postpone it. Thus the last message of the princely philosopher, as of his predecessor, is that men should ‘bear and forbear’: ‘Contemn not death, but give it welcome; is not death too a part of nature’s will? As youth and age, as growth and prime, as the coming of teeth and beard and grey hairs, as begetting and pregnancy and the bearing of children, as all other operations of nature, even such is dissolution. Therefore the rational man should not treat death with impatience or repugnance or disdain, but wait for it as one of nature’s operations[142].’ ‘O for the soul ready, when the hour of dissolution comes, for extinction or dispersion or survival! But such readiness must proceed from inward conviction[143].’ ‘Serenely you await the end, be it extinction or transmutation. While the hour yet tarries, what help is there? what, but to reverence and bless the gods, to do good to men, “to endure and to refrain”? and of all that lies outside the bounds of flesh and breath, to remember that it is not yours, nor in your power[144].’ [Sidenote: His yearnings.]