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 (νοεροῦ), TERMsocial (κοινωνικοῦ), and DOGMAequal in law to God (ἰσονόμου θεῷ)." The last is a strong cosmopolitan formula: man and god are citizens of one logos, under one law (ἰσονομία). The governing discipline is action (the measure of the deed), the sustaining one desire (the mortal perspective that cuts away "extra seeking").