Marcus Aurelius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
What is meant when it is said that Asclepius prescribed for this man horseback riding, or cold bathing, or going barefoot, is the same sort of thing as saying that the nature of the whole has prescribed for this man disease, or disability, or loss, or something else of that kind. For there too, "prescribed" signifies something like this: he ordered this for him as fitting toward health; and here too, what happens to each person has been ordered for him in some way as fitting toward his destiny. For this is how we say things happen to us as well — just as craftsmen say that the squared stones in walls or in pyramids "fit together," joining with one another by a certain fitting arrangement. For altogether there is one single harmony, and just as the universe is completed as such a body out of all bodies, so destiny is completed as such a cause out of all causes. Even the thoroughly unlearned understand what I mean, for they say, "this brought it upon him." So then, this was brought upon this man, and this was ordered for this man. So we ought to receive these things in the way we receive what Asclepius orders. Many of his orders are indeed harsh, yet we accept them looking forward to being well.
Let the accomplishment and completion of what seems good to the common nature seem to you to be something of this same sort — as your own health is; and so welcome everything that happens, even if it seems rather harsh, because it leads you there, toward the health of the universe and the good passage and good fortune of Zeus. For he would not have brought this upon anyone if it were not of benefit to the whole; nor does even an ordinary nature bring anything that is not fitting for that which it governs. So then, for two reasons you must be content with what happens to you: for one, because it came to be for you, and was prescribed for you, and stood in some relation to you, spun together from the oldest causes from above; and for the other, because for him who governs the whole, what comes to each individual is a cause of his good passage and completion, and, by Zeus, of his very cohesion. For the whole is maimed if you sever any part whatsoever of the connection and continuity — of the causes, just as of the parts; and you sever it, so far as it depends on you, whenever you are discontented, and in a way you destroy it.