ner. I suppose you understand the Plague too well not to run away from it ? And what's the Plague ? Why if you are a Knave, or a Libertine, you have the Tokens upon you. The Infection of the Mind is ten times worse then that of the Air ; The Malignity is not near so fatal in the Blood, as in the Will; For the Brute only suffers in the first Cafe, but the Man in the other.
III. Don't Contemn Death , but take it handsomly, and willingly ; Look upon it as part of the Product of Nature , and one of those things which Providence has been pleas'd to Order. For as Youth, and Age , Growth, and Declension, Down, and Gray Hairs, Prægnancy, and Birth, &c. are all natural Actions, consequences of Time, and Incidents of Life ; so also is Dying and Dissolution, every jot as much according to Common Course as the rest. A wise Man therefore, must neither run Giddily, nor staulk Haughtily into his Grave; He must look upon Death as Natures Business, and wait her Leisure, as he does for the Progress, and Maturity of other Things : [1] For as you don't overdrive a Fœtus, but let it take its own time, and come into the World when 'tis ready ; So you should stay in the other Case, till opportunity presents,and Things
- ↑ Here the Emperour seems to contradict his Stoical Opinion of the Lawfulness of Self-Murther.
