An organism of separated bodies. An unfolding of the image of 2.1: as MOTIFthe members of one body (μέλη σώματος) — hands, eyelids, the rows of teeth — work together not by agreement but by constitution, so rational beings, though bodily "separate in space" (ἐν διεστῶσι), TERMhave been framed for one joint work (πρὸς μίαν συνεργίαν κατεσκευασμένα). The unity of the rational is not physical contiguity but functional assembly: the DOGMAσύστημα τῶν λογικῶν, "the system of rational beings" — that very Whole whose citizen Marcus declares himself at 4.4 and 06-44.

A single letter rho. Then the famous authenticity test: say to yourself "I am a μέλος (member) of the system of rational beings." But if — "by the letter rho" (διὰ τοῦ ῥῶ στοιχείου) — you say μέρος (part), DOGMAyou do not yet love human beings from the heart (ἀπὸ καρδίας). A part is attached from outside and can be removed without pain; a member lives the life of the whole, and its service to the whole is its own life. The difference shows in the texture of beneficence: for a "part," εὐεργετεῖν is "bare propriety" (πρέπον ψιλόν), duty as corvée; for a "member" it εὐφραίνει — gladdens of itself, "conclusively" (καταληκτικῶς), like the nourishing of one's own body: in doing good to another you do good to yourself. This is the summit of DOGMAοἰκείωσις — the appropriation of another's good as one's own.

The negative twin. The image's reverse side is the severed member: 8.34 (a hand or head lying apart from the body — the image of the person fallen away from the whole) and 11.8 (the branch cut from the branch falls away from the whole tree). The verb ἀποκόπτειν keeps the same anatomy: to cease to be a μέλος is to become a dead μέρος. Cf. MOTIFcooperation as a natural law (2.1; 06-42; 9.23) and TERMσυνέργια. The discipline is action: the passage rebuilds the motivation of the social act from within — from obligation into one's own good.