Genre and place in the book. A brief word of encouragement after the little death-cycle (04-05…04-15): a fall is reversible, and recovery is quick. A gnome on returning to one's principles.

θεός versus θηρίον καὶ πίθηκος. A sharp contrast along a single axis — rationality: the one who has abandoned reason shows himself a beast (θηρίον — blind passion) or an ape (πίθηκος — senseless mimicry, aping without understanding); the one who returns to reason, a god. The same scale in Med. 3.16: impressions belong even to animals, the pull of desire to wild beasts and to a Phalaris and a Nero, and intelligence as a guide to apparent duties even to those who do not believe in the gods and who betray their country; what is peculiar to the good man is "not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast."

ἀνακάμψῃς ἐπὶ τὰ δόγματα — the return to principles. ἀνακάμπτειν is "to bend back," to return: not to acquire something new, but to come back to the EXERCISEprinciples already learned (πρόχειρα). Hence "within ten days" — quickly: it is enough to take up again what you already know (cf. 04-03 — keeping the teachings ready).

σεβασμὸς τοῦ λόγου — the reverence of reason. Not merely to "use" reason (as in 04-13) but to revere it — as the divine in oneself (the god-δαίμων within, Med. 3.5; 03-06; the divine portion). A direct echo of 03-09: τὴν ὑποληπτικὴν δύναμιν σέβε· ἐν ταύτῃ τὸ πᾶν, literally "revere the faculty of judgement — in it is everything." Reason here is not one instrument among others, but a sanctuary.

The disciplines. The principal one is assent: the return to right doctrines and the reverence of reason (the restoration of the ruling part). The secondary is action: the restored character is visible to others — "you will seem a god."

Parallels. Returning to the doctrines one already holds — 04-03; cf. EXERCISEprokheiron. Revering reason as the divine — 03-09; Med. 3.5; 03-06 (the god within). Reason distinguishing the human from the beast — Med. 3.16; 5.11. Recovery is always in your power — Med. 7.2.