A threefold filter for every act. A brief rule of self-watching (EXERCISEprosokhē): to every deed (καθ’ ἑκάστην πρᾶξιν), three questions. First: "how does it stand with me?" Second: "shall I repent (μὴ μετανοήσω)?" — a test against future regret, the criterion of conscience. The third folds both into the perspective of the end.

The measure of death. EXERCISEμικρὸν καὶ τέθνηκα — "a little while and I am dead, and all is cleared away" (πάντ’ ἐκ μέσου): not gloom but the pruning of surplus claims. What "more do I seek" (τί πλέον ἐπιζητῶ) if the present deed already meets the three measures of a rational being?

Three predicates of the agent. A worthy act is one that befits a being "rational (νοερόν), TERMsocial (κοινωνικόν), and DOGMAequal in law to God (ἰσόνομον θεῷ)." The last is a strong cosmopolitan formula: man and god are citizens of one logos, under one law (ἰσονομία). The strict term by the word is κοινωνικόν; νοερόν is left unlinked to νοῦς (an adjective of a different lexeme). The governing discipline is action (the measure of the deed), the sustaining one desire (the mortal perspective that cuts away "extra seeking").