so you are to pay a proportionable Regard to the best Thing in your Self: You'l know it by its Relation to the Deity, The Quality of its Functions will discover it. 'Tis the Reigning Power within you, which disposes of your Actions, and your Fortune.
XXII. That which does not Damnify the City, [1] or Body Politick, cant properly speaking damnify any Person that belongs to it. Therefore when you think you are ill used, let this Reflection be your Remedy, and say thus to your self; If the Community is not the worse for't. neither am I. But if the Community is injured, your Business is to shew the Person concern'd his Fault, but not to grow Passionate about it.
XXIII. Reflect frequently upon the Instability of Things, and how very fast: the Scenes of Nature are shifted. Matter is in a perpetual Flux; Change is always, and every where at work, it strikes through Causes, and Effects, and leaves nothing fixt, and Permanent. And then how very near the two vast Gulphs of Time, the Past, and the Future, stand together! Now upon the Whole, is not that Man a Blockhead that thinks these Momentary Things, big enough either to make him Proud, or Uneasy?
- ↑ By the City the Emperor means the World, to which, as he observes, private disadvantages are a Convenience.
