Marcus Aurelius · 121–180 CE
Meditations 10.26 — Marcus Aurelius
Translation by George Long (1862)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.26
A man deposits seed in a womb and goes away, and then another cause takes it, and labours on it and makes a child. What a thing from such a material! Again, the child passes food down through the throat, and then another cause takes it and makes perception and motion, and in fine life and strength and other things; how many and how strange! Observe then the things which are produced in such a hidden way, and see the power just as we see the power which carries things downwards and upwards, not with the eyes, but still no less plainly.
Cite this passage
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.26, tr. George Long (1862)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/meditations/10.26
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, tr. George Long (1862). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesMarvellous results grow out of hidden causes: seed is planted and left, another cause shapes a child, and swallowed food becomes perception, motion, life and strength. Unseen powers are real, just as gravity is, even though we see them with understanding rather than with the eyes.
Older wording
- “in fine”
- — in short, finally
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
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