10. And if anything happens which does not foster ourselves or our affairs with joyous success, it is not to be set down forthwith as an evil, and as a pernicious thing. The world rains or does not rain: for itself it rains or does not rain; and, though you perhaps are ignorant of it, it either diminishes excessive moisture by a burning drought, or by the outpouring of rain moderates the dryness extending over a very long period. It raises pestilences, diseases, famines, and other baneful forms of plagues: how can you tell whether it does not thus remove that which is in excess, and whether, through loss to themselves, it does not fix a limit to things prone to luxuriance?

X. Nec si aliquid accidit, quod nosmetipsos, aut res nostras parum laetis successibus fovit, continuo malum est et in exitiabilis rei opinione ponendum. 0732B Pluit mundus aut non pluit, sibimet pluit aut non pluit: et quod forsitan nescias, aut uliginem nimiam siccitatis ardore decoquit, aut longissimi temporis ariditatem pluviarum effusionibus temperat. Pestilentias, 0733A morbos, fames, atque alias suggerit malorum exitiabiles formas: unde tibi est scire, ne quod exuberat, sic tollat, ut per sua dispendia modum rebus luxuriantibus figat?