No rival beside the rational good
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ἀντικαθῆσθαι γὰρ τῷ λογικῷ καὶ πολιτικῷ ἀγαθῷ οὐ θέμις οὐδʼ ὁτιοῦν ἑτερογενές, οἷον τὸν παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν ἔπαινον ἢ ἀρχὰς ἢ πλοῦτον ἢ ἀπολαύσεις ἡδονῶν· πάντα ταῦτα, κἂν πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐναρμόζειν δόξῃ, κατεκράτησεν ἄφνω καὶ παρήνεγκεν. σὺ δέ, φημί, ἁπλῶς καὶ ἐλευθέρως ἑλοῦ τὸ κρεῖττον καὶ τούτου ἀντέχου· “ κρεῖττον δὲ τὸ συμφέρον.” εἰ μὲν τὸ ὡς λογικῷ, τοῦτο τήρει· εἰ δὲ τὸ ὡς ζῴῳ, ἀπόφηναι, καὶ ἀτύφως φύλασσε τὴν κρίσιν· μόνον ὅπως ἀσφαλῶς τὴν ἐξέτασιν ποιήσῃ.
It is not right for anything of another kind — praise from the crowd, say, or office, or wealth, or the enjoyment of pleasures — to stand opposed to the rational and civic good. All these things, even if for a moment they seem to fit, will suddenly overpower it and sweep it aside. But you, I say, simply and freely choose the better, and hold fast to it: "the better is the advantageous." If, as a rational being, that is the judgment to keep; but if only as an animal, say so plainly, and guard your verdict without conceit — only see to it that you make the inquiry safely.
Marcus rules out every external "good" — popular praise, office, wealth, pleasure — as incompatible with the rational and civic good, then gives himself a two-part test for judging what is truly advantageous.
The passage opens with a claim about incompatibility rather than degree: it is not that praise, office, wealth, and pleasure are lesser goods that must yield ground to the rational and civic good — they are of a different genus (ἑτερογενές) entirely, and so cannot legitimately share a seat with it at all. Marcus's verb, ἀντικαθῆσθαι, pictures two things claiming the same throne; the false goods may look, for a moment, as if they "fit" (ἐναρμόζειν), but the appearance collapses the instant they are granted real power — they overpower and carry off (κατεκράτησεν... παρήνεγκεν) the very good they seemed to accommodate. The catalogue itself is familiar from elsewhere in the Meditations (compare 2.11's dismissal of fame and 3.4's refusal of others' opinions as a measure of the self): what is new here is the structural argument for why compromise is impossible, not merely undignified.
The second half turns the doctrine into a method. Marcus's own formula — "the better is the advantageous" — sounds almost like a maxim he is quoting back to himself, and he at once supplies the test that makes it usable: ask whether a thing is advantageous to you as a rational being (ὡς λογικῷ) or only as an animal (ὡς ζῴῳ), and let the answer decide whether to keep it or merely name it for what it is. The instruction to do this ἀτύφως — without vanity or self-congratulation — is the passage's real undercurrent: this is not renunciation performed for an audience, even an internal one, but a plain, almost clerical act of sorting, to be carried out safely (ἀσφαλῶς) and without drama. The ἐξέτασις, the scrutiny, is the discipline; the diary form itself is its instrument.
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