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Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius

Note 8 — BOOK XII.

George Long translation

“Seen even with the eyes.” It is supposed that this may be explained by the Stoic doctrine, that the universe is a god or living being (IV. 40), and that the celestial bodies are gods (VIII. 19). But the emperor may mean that we know that the gods exist, as he afterwards states it, because we see what they do; as we know that man has intellectual powers, because we see what he does, and in no other way do we know it.

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