The spectator of all time and all being. The opening of Book VII's Plato series: a verbatim excerpt from the Republic (Resp. VI 486a) — from the portrait of the philosophic nature. The formula θεωρία παντὸς μὲν χρόνου, πάσης δὲ οὐσίας — "the contemplation of all time and all substance" — is the exact definition of the EXERCISEview from above: to a soul that has taken that scale, "human life cannot seem anything great." Marcus copies out of PERSONPlato the ground of his own constant exercise (cf. 7.3; 04-50; 05-24): the smallness of life is not pessimism but the corollary of an honest calibration of the field of view. The Greek is a direct quotation without the name (the name is supplied by tradition and by the translations: «Слова Платона», "From Plato").

And death not fearful. The Socratic dialogue-form is kept, interlocutor's replies included (ἦ δ’ ὅς — "he said"; ἥκιστά γε — "least of all"): the conclusion is reached by assent, not decree. The logic: to whom life does not seem great, EXERCISEdeath too will not seem terrible (οὐ δεινόν); the fear of death is proportional to the overvaluation of life, and is cured not by meditating on death directly but by rescaling life. Thus 7.35 lays the Platonic foundation under 7.32–7.33: there death and pain are dismantled by disjunctions, here they are dissolved by scale. Cf. also 03-07 (whoever has preferred his own reason makes no tragedy of death). The discipline is desire.