12. Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied or admired; but direct thy will to one thing only--to put thyself in motion and to check thyself, as the social reason requires. 13. To-day I have got out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions. 14. All things are the same, familiar in experience, and ephemeral in time, and worthless in the matter. Everything now is just as it was in the time of those whom we have buried. 15. Things stand outside of us, themselves by themselves, neither knowing aught of themselves, nor expressing any judgment. What is it, then, which does judge about them? The ruling faculty. 16. Not in passivity but in activity lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity but in activity.[A] [A] Virtutis omnis laus in actione consistit.--_Cicero_, De Off., 1. 6. 17. For the stone which has been thrown up it is no evil to come down, nor indeed any good to have been carried up (viii. 20). 18. Penetrate inwards into men's leading principles, and thou wilt see what judges thou art afraid of, and what kind of judges they are of themselves. 19. All things are changing: and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction, and the whole universe too. 20. It is thy duty to leave another man's wrongful act there where it is (vii. 29; ix. 38). 21. Termination of activity, cessation from movement and opinion, and in a sense their death, is no evil. Turn thy thoughts now to the consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood, thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything to fear? Turn thy thoughts now to thy life under thy grandfather, then to thy life under thy mother, then to thy life under thy father; and as thou findest many other differences and changes and terminations, ask thyself, Is this anything to fear? In like manner, then, neither are the termination and cessation and change of thy whole life a thing to be afraid of. [Illustration: THE FORUM] 22. Hasten [to examine] thy own ruling faculty and that of the universe and that of thy neighbor: thy own, that thou mayst make it just: and that of the universe, that thou mayst remember of what thou art a part; and that of thy neighbor, that thou mayst know whether he has acted ignorantly or with knowledge, and thou mayst also consider that his ruling faculty is akin to thine. 23. As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine then has no reference either immediately or remotely to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.