Humanitext Reader

Marcus Aurelius · Meditations §9.8.1

The Single Soul and Mind Shared by All Beings

Passage 340 of 486 · Greek

Summary

The author explains that one soul is distributed among irrational animals and one intellectual soul among rational beings, drawing an analogy to how all earthly things share one earth, and all living, seeing beings share one light and one air.

§9.8.1Εἰς μὲν τὰ ἄλογα ζῷα μία ψυχὴ διῄρηται, εἰς δὲ τὰ λογικὰ μία νοερὰ ψυχὴ μεμέρισται, ὥσπερ καὶ μία γῆ ἐστιν ἁπάντων τῶν γεωδῶν καὶ ἑνὶ φωτὶ ὁρῶμεν καὶ ἕνα ἀέρα ἀναπνέομεν, ὅσα ὁρατικὰ καὶ ἔμψυχα.
Among the irrational animals one soul is distributed, and among the rational one intellectual soul is divided; just as there is also one earth for all earthly things, and we see by one light and breathe one air, all of us who have the power of vision and are endowed with life.

Notes

  1. §9.8.1ἁπάντων τῶν γεωδῶν — Genitive case. It functions either as a genitive of possession/belonging or in a dative-like sense of reference ("for all earthly things") in relation to μία γῆ ἐστιν ("there is one earth").
  2. §9.8.1ὅσα ὁρατικὰ καὶ ἔμψυχα — This relative clause (with the verb ἐστί omitted) limits or stands in apposition to the subject of the preceding first-person plural verbs (ὁρῶμεν, ἀναπνέομεν). It expands the subject of seeing and breathing to include all living and seeing creatures, not just human beings.

Cite this passage

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations §9.8.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0562.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:9.8.1

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