The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Section fourteen. The Philosophy of Antoninus by George
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Read by mL CO and Cleveland, Ohio, June two thousand and seven.
The Philosophy of Antoninus by George long Ma. It has been said that
Stoic philosophy first showed its real value when it passed from Greece to Rome.
The doctrines of Zeno and his successors were well suited to the gravity and practical
good sense of the Romans, and even in the Republican period, we have
an example of a man m. Cato Utensis, who lived the life of
a Stoic and died consistently with the opinions which he professed. He was a
man, says Cicero, who embraced the Stoic philosophy from conviction, not for
the purpose of vain discussion, as most did, in order to make his
life conformable to the Stoic precepts. In the wretched time from the death of
Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there was nothing but Stoic philosophy which can
console and support the followers of the old religion under imperial tyranny and amidst universal
corruption. There were even then noble minds that could dare and endure, sustained
by good conscious and elevated idea of the purposes of man's existence. Such were
paidas Thesia, Helvidius, Pricius, Cornudus, c Musonius, Riefus, and
the poets Perseus and Juvenile, whose energetic language and manly thoughts may be as
instructive to us now as they might have been to their contemporaries. Perseus died
under Nero's bloody reign, but Juvenile had the good fortune to survive the tyrant
Domitian and to see the better times of Nerva, Trajan, and Hatrian.
His best precepts are derived from the Stoic school, and they are enforced in
his finest verses by the unrivaled vigor of the Latin language. The two best
expounders of the later Stoical philosophy were a Greek slave and a Roman emperor.
Epictetus, a Phrygian Greek was brought to Rome. We know not how that
he was there the slave, and afterwards the freedman of an unworthy master.
Epaphroditis by name himself a freeman in a favorite of Nero. Epictetus may have
been a hearer of c. Musonius Roofless while he was still a slave,
but he could hardly have been a teacher before he was made free. He
was one of the philosophers whom Domitian's order banished from Rome. He retired to
Nicopolis and Eperis, and he may have died there. Like other great teachers,
he wrote nothing, and we are indebted to his grateful pupil Arian for
what we have of Epictetus's discourses. Rian wrote eight books of the Discourses of
epictuss of which only four remain, and some fragments. We also have from
Arian's hand the small Encharidian or Manuel or the Chief Precepts of Epictetus. There
is a valuable commentary on the Inchuridian by Simplicius, who lived at the time
of the emperor Justini Antoninus. In his first book, in which he gratefully
commentaries his obligations to his teachers, says that he was made acquainted by Junius
Rusticus with the discourses of Epictetus, whom he mentions also in other passages.
Indeed, the doctrines of Epectidus and Antoninus are the same, and Epectetus is
the best authority for the explanation of the philosophical language of Antoninus and the exposition
of his opinions. But the method of the two philosophers is entirely different.
Epectidus addressed himself to his hearers in a continuous discourse and in a familial and
simple manner. Antoninus wrote down his reflections for his own use only in short,
unconnected paragraphs, which are often obscure. The Stoics made three divisions of
philosophy, physic, ethic, and logic. This division, we are told
by Diogenes, was made by xeno Osidium, the founder of the Stoic sect,
and by Chrysippus, But these philosophers placed the three divisions in the following
order, logic, physic, ethic. It appears, however, that this
division was made before Zeno's time and acknowledged by Plato. As Cicero remarks,
logic is not synonymous with our term logic in the narrow sense of that word.
Cleanthes, a Stoic subdivided into three divisions and made six dialectic and rhetoric,
comprised in logic, ethic and politic, physic and theology. This division
was merely for practical use, for all philosophy is one, even among the
earlier Stoics. Logic or Dialectic does not occupy the same place as in Plato,
is considered only as an instrument which is to be used for the other
divisions of philosophy. An exposition of the earlier Stoic doctrines and of their modifications
with require a volume. My object is to explain only the opinions of Antoninus,
so far as they can be collected from his book. According to the
subdivision of Cleanthes, physic and theology go together, or the st study of
the nature of things and the study of the nature of the deity, so
far as man can understand the deity and of his government of the universe.
This division or subdivision is not formally adopted by Antoninus, for as already observed,
there is no method in his book, but it is virtually contained in
it. Cleanthes also connects ethic and politic, or the study of principles of
morals in the study of the constitution of civil society. And undoubtedly he did
well in subdividing ethic into two parts, ethic in a narrower sense and politic.
For though the two are intimately connected, they are also very distinct,
and many questions can only be properly discussed by carefully observing the distinction. Antoninus
does not treat of politic. His subject is ethic, an ethic in its
practical application to his own conduct in life as a man and as a governor.
His ethic is founded on the doctrines about man's nature, the universe nature,
and the relations of every man to everything else. It is therefore intimately
and inseparately connected with physics, or the nature of things, and with theology,
or the nature of the deity. He advises us to examine well all
the impressions on our minds, and to form a right judgment of them,
to make just conclusions, and to inquire into the meanings of words, in
so far to apply dialectic. But he has no attempt at any exposition of
dialectic, and his philosophy is in substance purely moral and practical. He says,
quote constantly, and if it be possible on the occasion of every impression
on the soul, apply it to the principles of physic, of ethic,
and of dialectic end quote, which is only another way of telling us to
examine the impression in every possible way. In another passage, she says,
quote to the age which have been mentioned, let this one still be added.
Make for thyself a definition or description of the object which is presented to
thee, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is,
in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell
thyself its proper name and the names of the things which it has been compounded
and into which it will be resolved end quote. Such an examination implies the
use of dialectic, which Antoninus accordingly employed as a mean towards establishing his physical,
theological and ethical principles. There are several expositions of the physical, theological
and ethical principles which are contained in the work of Antoninus, and more expositions
than I have read. Ritter, after explaining the doctrines of Epictitis, treats
very briefly and insufficiently those of Antoninus, but he refers to a short essay
in which the work has done better. There is also an essay on the
philosophical principles of m Aurelius Antoninus by J. M. Schultz, placed at
the end of his German translation of Antoninus. With the assistance of these two
useful essays, in his own diligent study, a man may form a sufficient
notion of the principles of Antoninus, but he will find it more difficult to
expound them to others. Besides the want of arrangement in the original and of
connection among the numerous paragraphs, the corruption of the text, the obscurity of
the language and the style, and sometimes perhaps the confusion in the writer's own
ideas. Besides all this, there is occasionally an apparent contradiction in the emperor's
thoughts, as if his principles were sometimes unsettled, as if doubts sometimes clouded
his mind. A man who leads a life of tranquility and reflection, who
is not disturbed at home and meddles not with the affairs of the world,
may keep his mind at ease and his thoughts on one even course. But
such a man has not been tried all his ethical philosophy and his passive virtue
might turn out to be idle words if he were once exposed to the rude
realities of human existence. Fine thoughts and moral dissertations from men who have not
worked and suffered may be read, but they will be forgotten. No religion,
no ethical philosophy, is worth anything if the teacher has not lived the
quote life of an apostle end quote, has been ready to die quote the
death of a martyr. End quote. Quote. Not in passivity the passive
affects, but in activity lied the evil and the good of the rational social
animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity but in
activity. End quote, Section nine, paragraph sixteen. The emperor Antoninus was
a practical moralist. From his youth, he followed the laborious discipline, and
though his high station placed him above all want over the fear of it,
he lived as frugally and as temperately as the poorest philosopher at Pectitius wanted little,
and it seems that he always had the little that he wanted, and
he was content with it, as he has been with his servile station.
But Antoninus, after his succession to the empire, sat on an uneasy seat.
He had the administration of an empire which extended from the Euphrates to the
Atlantic, from the cold mountains of Scotland to the hot sands of Africa.
And we may imagine, though we cannot know it by experience, what must
be the trials, the troubles, the anxiety, and the sorrows of him
who has the world's business on his hands, with the wish to do the
best he can, and the certain knowledge that he can do very little of
the good which he wishes, in the midst of war, pestilence, conspiracy,
general corruption, and with the weight of so unwieldy an empire upon him.
We may easily comprehend that Antoninus often had need of all his fortitude to
support him. The best and bravest men have moments of doubt and of weakness,
But if they are the best and the bravest, they rise again from
their depression by recurring to first principles, as Antoninus does. The Emperor says
that life is smoke a vapor, and Saint James and his epistle is of
the same mind, that the world is full of envious, jealous, malignant
people, and a man might well be content to get out of it he
has doubts, perhaps sometimes even about that to which he holds most firmly.
There are only a few passages of this kind, but they are the evidence
of struggles which even the noblest of the sons of men had to maintain against
the heart hard realities of his daily life. A poor remark, it is,
which I have seen somewhere and made in a disparaging way, that the
emperor's reflections showed that he had need of consolation and comfort in life, and
even to prepare him to meet his death. True that he did need comfort
and support, and we see how he found it. He constantly recurs to
his fundamental principle that the universe is wisely ordered, that every man is a
part of it, and must conform to that order which he cannot change.
That whatever the deity has done is good, That all mankind are a man's
brethren, that he must love and cherish them, and try to make them
better, even those who would do him harm. This is his conclusion.
Quote, what then, is that which is able to conduct a man one
thing, and only one philosophy? But this consists in keeping the divinity within
a man free from violence and unharmed superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing
without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need
of another man's doing or not doing anything, And besides, accepting all that
happens and all that is allotted as coming from thence wherever it is from,
whence he himself came, and finally waiting for death with a cheerful mind,
as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being
is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves, and
each continually changing into another, why should the man have any apprehension about the
change and dissolution of all the elements himself? For it is according to nature,
and nothing is evil, that is according to nature end quote. The
physics of Antoninus is the knowledge of the nature of the universe, of its
government, and of the relation of man's nature to both. He names the
universe quote the universal substance end quote, and he adds that quote reason end
quote covers the universe. He also uses the term quote universal nature end quote,
or quote nature of the Universe end quote. He calls the universe quote
the one in all which we name cosmos or order end quote. If he
ever seems to use these general terms as significant of the all of all that
man can in any way conceive to exist, He's still, on other occasions
plainly distinguishes between matter, material things, and cause origin reason. This is
conformable to Zeno's doctrine that there are two original principles of all things, that
which acts and that which is acted upon. That which is acted on is
the formless matter. That which acts is the reason. God, who is
eternal and operates through all matter and produces all things. So Antoninus speaks of
the reason, which pervades all substance and through all time by fixed periods,
prenzes revolutions, and prenzes administers the universe. God is eternal, and matter
is eternal. It is God who gives form to matter, but he is
not said to have created matter. According to this view, which is as
old as an exagoris, God and matter exist independently, but God governs matter.
This doctrine is simply the expression of the fact of the existence both of
matter and of God. The Stoics did not perplex themselves with the insoluble question
of the origin and nature of matter. Antoninus also assumes a beginning of things
as we now know them. But his language is sometimes very obscure. I
have endeavored to explain the meaning of one difficult passage. Matter consists of elemental
parts of which all material objects are made, but nothing is permanent in form
the nature of the universe. According to Antonina's expression, quote, loves nothing
so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things
like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that
which will be. But thou art thinking only of seeds which are cast into
the earth or into a womb. But this is a very vulgar no quote.
All things, then, are in a constant flux and change. Some
things are dissolved into the elements, others come in their places, and so
quote the whole universe continues, every young and perfect end quote. Antoninus has
some obscure expressions about what he calls quote seminal principles end quote. He opposes
these to the epicurean aboms, and consequently quote his seminal principles end quote are
not material atoms which wander about at hazard and combine. Nobody knows how.
In one passage he speaks of living principles, souls after the dissolution of their
bodies being received into the quote seminal principle of the universe, and Schultz thinks
that by quote seminal principles, Antoninus means the relation of the various elemental principles,
which relations are determined by the Deity, and by which alone the production
of organized beings as possible end quote. This may be the meaning, but
if it is nothing, any value can be derived from it. Antoninus often
uses the word quote nature end quote, and we must attempt to fix its
meaning. The simple etymological sense is quote production end quote, the birth of
what we call things. The Romans use natura, which also means birth originally,
but neither the Greeks nor Romans stuck to this simple meaning, nor do
we. Antonina says, quote whether the universe is a concourse of atoms or
nature is a system, Let this first be established, that I am part
of the whole which is governed by nature end quote. Here it might seem
as if nature were personified and viewed as an active efficient power, as something
which, if not independent of the deity, acts by a power which is
given to it by the deity. Such if I understand the expression right is
the way in which the word nature is often used. Now, though it
is plain that many writers use the word without fixing any exact meaning to it.
It is the same with the expression laws of nature, which some writers
may use in an intelligible sense, but others as clearly used in no definite
sense at all. There is no meaning in this word nature except that which
Bishop Butler assigns to it when he says quote. The only distinct meaning of
that word natural is stated fixture settled. Since what is natural as much require
and presuppose as an intelligent agent to render it, so i e. To
affect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does
to affect it at once. This is Plato's meaning when he says that God
holds the beginning and end and middle of all that exists, and proceeds straight
on his course, making his circuit according to nature, friends, that is,
by fixed order and friends. And he is continually accompanied by justice,
who punishes those who deviate from the divine law, that is, from the
order or course which God observes. We look at the motion of the planets,
the action of what we call gravitation, the elemental combination of unorganized bodies
in their resolution, the production of plants and of living bodies, their generation,
growth in their dissolution, which we call their death. We observe a
regular sequence of phenomena which, within the limits of experienced presence in past,
so far as we know the past, is fixed and invariable. But if
this is not so, if the order and sequence of phenomena as known to
us are subject to change in the course of an infinite progression, and such
change is conceivable, we have nor discovered, not shall we ever discover the
whole of the order and sequence of phenomena, in which sequence there may be
involved according to its very nature, that is, according to its fixed order,
some variation of which we now call order or the nature of things.
It is also conceivable that such changes have taken place, changes in the order
of things, as we are compelled by the imperfection of language to call them,
which are no changes. And further, it is certain that our knowledge
of the truth sequence of all actual phenomenon, as for instance, the phenomena
of generation, growth and dissolution, is an ever, must be imperfect.
We do not fare much better when we speak of causes and effects than when
we speak of nature. For the practical purposes of life, we may use
the term's cause and eff conveniently, and we may fix a distinct meaning to
them, distinct enough at least to prevent all misunderstanding. But the case is
different. When we speak of causes and effects as of things. All that
we know is that phenomenon, as the griefs call them, or appearances which
follow one another in a regular order, as we conceive it, so that
if someone phenomenas fail in the series, we conceive that there must either be
an interruption of the series, or that something else will appear after the phenomena
which has failed to appear, and will occupy the vacant place, And so
the series in its progression may be modified or totally changed. Cause and effect
then mean nothing in a sequence of natural phenomena beyond what I've said, And
the real cause, or the transcendent cause, as some would call it,
of each success as a phenomena, is in that which is the cause of
all things which are, which have been, and which will be forever.
Thus the word creation may have a real sense if we consider it as the
first if we can conceive a first in the present order of natural phenomenon,
but in the vulgar sense, the creation of all things at a certain time,
followed by acquiescence of the first cause and an abandonment of all sequences and
phenomena to the laws of nature, or to the other words that people may
use, is absolutely absurd. Now, though there is great difficulty in understanding
all the passages of Antaninus in which he speaks of nature, of the changes
of things, and of the economy of the universe, I am convinced that
his sense of nature and natural is the same as that which I have stated.
And as he was a man who knew how to use words in a
clear way and with a strict consistency, we ought to assume, even if
it is a meaning in some passages, is doubtful that his view of nature
was in harmony with his fixed belief in the all pervading, ever present,
and ever active energy of God. There is much in Antoninus that is hard
to understand, and it might be said that he did not fully comprehend all
that he wrote, which would, however, be in no way remarkable.
For it happens now that a man may write what neither he nor anybody can
understand. Antoninus tells us to look at things and see what they are,
resolving them into the material, the causal, and the relation or the purpose
by which he seems to mean something in nature of what do we call effect
or end? The word cause is the difficulty. There is the same word
in the Sanskrit, and the subtle philosophers of India and of Greece, and
the less subtle philosophers of modern times have all used this word or an equivalent
word in a vague way. Yet the confusion sometimes may be the inevitable ambiguity
of language, rather than in the mind of the writer. For I cannot
think that some of the wisest of men did not know what they intended to
say. When Antoninus says that quote everything that exists is in a manner of
the seed of that which will be end quote, he might be supposed to
say what some of the Indian philosophers have said, and thus a profound truth
might be converted into a gross absurdity. But he says quote in a manner
end quote, and in a manner he said true, And in another manner,
if you mistake his meaning, he said false. When Plato said,
quote, nothing ever is, but is always becoming end quote, he delivered
a text out of which we may derive something, for he destroys by it
not all practical but all speculative notions of cause and effect. The whole series
of things as they appear to us must be contemplated in time, that is,
in succession. And we conceive or suppose intervals between one state of things
and another state of things, so that there is priority in sequence, an
interval and being and is ceasing to be, and beginning and ending. But
there is nothing of this kind in the nature of things. It is an
everlasting continuity. When Antonina speaks of generation, he speaks of one cause acting,
and then an another cause taking up the work which the former left in
a certain state, and so on. And we might conceive that he has
some notion like what has been called quote, the self evolving power of nature
end quote. A fine phrase, indeed, the full import of which I
believe that the writer of it did not see. And thus he laid himself
open to the imputation of being a follower of one of the Hindu sects,
which makes all things come by evolution out of nature. A matter, or
out of something which takes the place of the deity but is not deity.
I would have all men think as they please, or as they can,
And I only claim the same freedom which I give when a man writes anything.
We may fairly try to find out all that his words must mean,
even if the result is that they mean what he did not mean. And
if we find this contradiction, it is not our fault but his misfortune.
Now Antoninus is perhaps somewhat in a condition in what he says, though he
speaks at the end of the paragraph of the power which acts unseen by the
eyes, but still no less clearly. But whether in this passage he means
the power is conceived to be in different secs, as of causes, or
in something else, nobody can tell from other passages. However, I do
collect it. His notion of the phenomena of the universe is what I have
stated. The deity works unseen, if we may use such language, And
perhaps I may, as Job did, or he wrote the book of Job.
Quote in him we live and move and are end. Quote said Saint
Paul to the Athenians and the show as bearers, that this was no new
doctrine. He quoted the Greek poets. One of these poets was the Stoic
Cleanthes, whose noble hymn to Zeus her God as an elevated expression of devotion
and philosophy. It deprives nature of her power and puts on under the immediate
government of the deity. Quote thee all this heaven, which whirls around the
earth, obeys and willing follows. Where thou leadest. Without thee God,
nothing is done on earth, nor in the ethereal realms, nor in the
sea, save what the wicked, through their folly do end quote. Antony's
conviction of the existence of a divine power in government was founded on his perception
of the order of the universe. Like Socrates, he says that the we
cannot see the form of divine powers, we know that they exist because we
see their works. Quote to those who asked, where hast thou seen the
gods? Or how dost thou comprehend that they exist and so worship with them?
I answer in the first place, that they may be seen even with
the eyes. In the second place, neither have I seen my own soul,
and yet I honor it. Thus, then with respect to the gods,
from what I constantly experience of their power. From this, I comprehend
that they exist, and I venerate them. End quote. This is a
very old argument which has always had great weight with most people, and has
appeared sufficient. It does not acquire the least additional strength by being developed in
the learned treatise. It is as intelligible in its simple enunciation as it can
be made. If it is rejected, there is no arguing with him who
rejects it, and if it has worked out into innumerable particulars, the value
of the evidence runs the risk of being buried under a mass of words.
Man being conscious that he has a spiritual power or intellectual power, or that
he has such a power in whatever way he conceives that he has it,
for which, simply to state of fact, from this power which he has
in himself, he has led, as Antonina says, to believe that there
is a greater power, which, as the old stoics tell us, pervades
the whole universe, as the intellect pervades man. God exists, then,
but what do we know of his nature? Antonina says that the soul of
man is an e flux from the Divinity. We have bodies like animals,
but we have reason. Intelligence is the Gods. Animals have life and what
we call instincts or natural principles of action. But the rational animal man alone
has rational, intelligent soul. Antoninas insists on this continually. God is in
man, and so he must constantly attend to the divinity within us. For
it is only in this way that we can have any knowledge of the nature
of God. The human soul is in a sense of portion of the Divinity,
and the soul alone has any communication with the Deity. For, as
he says, with his intellectual part alone, God touches the intelligence only which
has flowed and has been derived from himself into these bodies. In fact,
he says that which is hidden within a man is life, that is,
the man himself. All the rest is vesture, covering organ's instrument, which
the living man, the real man, uses for purposes of his present existence.
The air is universally diffused for him who is able to respire, and
so for him who is willing to partake of it. The intelligent power which
holds within it all things, is diffused as wide and as free as the
air. It is by living a divine life. That man approaches to a
knowledge of the divinity. It is by following the divinity within, as Antonius
calls it, that man comes nearest to the deity, the supreme good.
For a man can never attain the perfect agreement with his internal guide quote live
with the gods, and he does live with the gods, who constantly shows
them that his own soul is satisfied with that which is assigned to him,
and that it does all the demon wishes which Zeus hath given to every man
for his guardian and guide a portion of himself. And this demon is every
man understanding and reason end quote. There is in man that is in the
reason, the intelligence, a superior faculty, which, if exercise, rules
all the rest. This is the ruling faculty, which Cicero renders by the
Latin word principatis quote, to which nothing can or ought to be superior end
quote. Antoninus often uses this term in others which are equivalent. He names
it quote the governing intelligence end quote. The governing faculty is the master of
the soul. A man must reverence only is ruling faculty and the divinity within
him, as we must reverence that which is supreme in the universe. So
we must reverence that which is supreme in ourselves, and this is that which
of the like kind with that which is the supreme in the universe. So
as Platinus says, the soul of man can only know the divine so far
as it knows itself. In one passage, Antonina speaks of a man's condemnation
of himself when the diviner part within him has been over powered and yields to
the less honorable and to the perishable part, the body and its gross pleasures.
In a word, the views of Antoninas on this matter, however his
expressions may vary, are exactly what Bishop Butler expresses when he speaks of quote,
the natural supremacy of the reflection are conscious end quote of the faculty,
quote which surveys, approves or disapproves, the several affectations of our mind and
actions of our lives end quote. Much matter might be collected from Antoninus on
the notion of the universe being one animated being, but all that he says
amounts to no more is sulture marks than this. The soul of man is
most intimately united to his body, and together they make one animal, which
we call man. So the deity is most intimately united to the world or
the material universe, and together they form one whole. But Antoninus did not
view God in the material universe has the same any more than he viewed the
body and soul of man as one. Antoninus has no speculations on the absolute
nature of the deity. It was not his fashioned to waste his time on
what a man cannot understand. He was satisfied that God exists, that he
governs all things, that man can only have an imperfect knowledge of his nature,
and he must attain this imperfect knowledge by reverencing the divinity which is within
him and keeping it pure. From all that has been said, it follows
that the universe is administered by the providence of God, and that all things
are wisely ordered. There are passages in which Antonius expresses doubts or states different
possible theories of the constitution and government of the universe, but he always recurs
to his fundamental principle that if we admit the existence of a deity, we
must also admit that he orders all things wisely and well. Epictitis says that
we can discern the providence which rules the world if he possess two things,
the power of seeing all that happens with respect to each thing, and a
grateful disposition. But if all things are wisely ordered, how is the world
so full of what we call evil? Physical and moral? If instead of
saying that there is evil in the world, we use the expression which I
have viewed us to quote what we call evil? End quote, we have
partly anticipated the Emperor's answer. We see and feel and know imperfectly very few
things in a few years that we live, And all the knowledge and all
the experience of all the human race is positive ignorance of the whole, which
is infinite. Now, as our reason teaches us that everything is in some
way related to and connected with every other thing, all notion of evil as
being in the universe of things as a contradiction. For if the whole comes
from and is covered by an intelligent being, it is impossible to conceive anything
in it which tends to the evil or destruction of the whole. Everything is
in constumutation, and yet the whole subsists. We might imagine the solar system
resolved into its elemental parts, and yet the whole would still subsist. Quote.
Every young and perfect end quote. All things, all forms are dissolved,
and new forms appear. All living things undergo the change we call death.
If we call death and evil, then all change an evil. Living
beings also suffer pain, and man suffers most of all, for he suffers
both in and by his body, and by his intelligent part. Men suffer
also from one another, and perhaps the largest part of human suffering comes to
man from those whom he calls his brothers. Antoninus says, quote Generally,
wickedness does no harm at all to the universe, and particularly the wickedness of
one man does no harm to another. It is only harmful to him who
has it in his power to be released from it, as soon as he
shall choose end quote. The first part of this is perfectly consistent with the
doctrine that the whole can sustain no evil or harm. The second part must
be explained by the Stoic principle that there is no evil in anything which is
not in ira power. What wrong we suffer from another is his evil,
not ours. But this is an admission that there is evil in a sort,
for he who does wrong does evil, And if others can endure the
wrong, still there is evil in the wrong doer. Antoninus gives many excellent
precepts of respect wrongs and injuries, and as precepts are practical, he teaches
us to bear what we cannot avoid, and as lessons may be just as
useful to him who denies the being and the government as God as to him
who believes in both. There is no direct answer in Antoninus to the objections
which may be made to the existence and providence of God because of the moral
disorder and suffering which are in the world, except this answer, which he
makes in reply to the supposition that even the best men may be extinguished by
death. He says, if it is so, we may be sure that
if it ought to have been otherwise, the Gods would have ordered it otherwise.
His conviction of the wisdom which we may observe in the government of the
world is too strong to be disturbed by any apparent irregularities in the order of
things. That these disorders exist is a fact, and those would conclude from
them against the being in government of God conclude too hastily. We all admit
that there is an order in the material world, a nature in the sense
in which the world has been explained a constitution what we call a system,
relation of parts to one another, and a fitness for the whole for something.
So in the constitution of plants and animals there is an order, a
fitness for some end. Sometimes the order as we conceive it is interrupted,
and the end as we conceive it is not attained. The seed, the
plant, or the animals sometimes perishes before it has passed through all its changes
and done all its uses. It is according to nature that is a fixed
order for some to perish early, and for others to do all their uses
and leave successors to take their place. So man has a corporeal and intellectual
and moral constitution fit for certain uses, and on the whole man performs these
uses, dies and leaves other men in his place. So society exists,
and a social state is manifestly the natural state of man, the state for
which his nature fits him. And society, amidst innumerable irregularities and disorders,
still subsists. And perhaps we may say that the history of the past in
our present knowledge give us a reasonable hope that its disorders will diminish, and
in order, its governing principle may be more firmly established as order. Then
a fixed order, we may say, subject to deviations, real or a
parent must be admitted to exist in the whole of nature of things. That
which we call disorder or evil, as it seems to us, does not
in any way alter the fact of the general constitution of things having a nature
or fixed order. Nobody will conclude from the existence of disorder that order is
not the rule. For the existence of order, both physical and moral,
is proved by daily experience. In all past experience, we cannot conceive how
the order of the universe is maintained. We cannot even conceive how our own
life, from day to day is continued, nor how we perform the simplest
movements of the body, nor how we grow and think and act, though
we know many of the conditions which are necessary for all these functions. Knowing
nothing then the unseen power which acts in ourselves except by what is done,
we know nothing of the power which acts through what we call all time in
all space. But seeing that there is a nature or fixed order in all
things known to us, it is conformable to the nature of our minds to
believe that this universal nature has a cause which operates can continually and that we
are totally unable to speculate on the reason of any of those disorders or evils
which we perceive. This, I believe, is the answer which may be
collected from all that Antoninus has said. The origin of evil is an old
question. Achilles tells Prium that Zeus has two casks, one filled with good
things and the other with bad, and that it gives to men out of
each according to his pleasure. And so we must be content, for we
cannot alter the will of Zeus. One of the Greek commentators asked how we
must reconcile this doctrine with what we find in the first book of the Odyssey,
where the King of the Gods says, men say evil comes to them
from us, but they bring it on themselves to their own folly. The
answer is plain enough even to the Greek commentator. The poets make both Achilles
and Zeus speak appropriately to their several characters. Indeed, Zeus says plainly that
men do attribute their sufferings to the gods, but they do it falsely,
for they are the cause of their own sins. Epictetus, in his Enchardian,
make short work of the question of evil. He says quote as a
mark is not set up for the purpose of missing it, so neither does
the nature of evil exist in the universe end quote. This will appear obscure
enough to those who are not acquainted with that pictetis, but he always knows
what he is talking about. We do not set up a mark in order
to miss it, though we may miss it. God, whose existence Epictetus
assumes, has not ordered all things so that his purpose shall fail. Whatever
there may be of what we call evil, the nature of evil, as
he expresses it does not exist. That is, evil is not part of
the constitution or nature of things. If there were a principle of evil in
the constitution of things, evil would no longer be evil, as Simplicious argues,
but evil would be good. Simplicius has a long and curious discourse on
this text of Epictetus, and it is amusing an instructive one passage more will
conclude this matter. It contains all that the emperor could say quote to go
from among men. If there are gods, it's not a thing to be
afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil. But if
indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs.
What is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods,
a devoid of providence. But in truth they do exist, and they do
care for human things, and they have put all the means in man's power
to enable him not to fall into real evils. And as to the rest,
if there was anything evil, they would have provided for this, also,
that it should be altogether in a man's power not to fall into it.
But that which does not make a man worse, how can it make
a man's life worse? But neither through ignorance nor having the knowledge but not
the power to guard against or correct these things. Is it possible that the
nature of the universe has overlooked them? Nor is it possible that has made
so great a mistake, either through want of power or want of skill,
That good and even shall happen indiscriminately to the good and the bad. But
death, certainly, and life, honor and dishonor pain and pleasure, all
these things equally happen to good and bad men, being things which make us
neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil. End quote.
The ethical part of Antoninus's philosophy follows from his general principles. The end
of all his philosophy is to live conformably to nature, both a man's own
nature and the nature of the universe. Bishop Butler has explained what the Greek
philosopher has meant when they spoke of living according to nature, and he says
that when it is explained as he has explained it, and as they understood
it, it is quote a manner of speaking, not loose and undetermined,
but clear and distinct, strictly just and true. End quote. To live
according to nature is to live according to a man's whole nature, not according
to a part of it, and to reverence the divinity within him as the
governor of all his actions. Quote to the rational animal, the same acts
according to nature and according to reason. End quote. That which has done
contrary to reason is also an act contrary to nature, to the whole nature.
Though it is certainly conformable with some part of man's nature, or it
could not be done. Man is made for action, not for idleness or
pleasure. As plants and animals do the uses of their nature, so man
must do his. Man must also live conformably to the universal nature, conformable
to the nature of all things of which he is won. And as a
citizen of a political community, he must direct his life in actions with reference
to those among whom and for whom, among other purposes he lives. A
man must not retire into solitude and cut himself off from his fellow men.
He must be ever active to do his part in a great whole. All
men are his kin, not only in blood, but still more by participating
in the same intelligence, and by being a portion of the same divinity.
A man cannot really be injured by his brethren, for no act of theirs
can make him bad, and he must not be angry with them nor hate
them. Quote. For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like
hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.
To act against one another than is conscient to nature. And it is acting
against one another to be vexed and to turn away. End quote. Further,
he says, quote, take pleasure in one thing and rest in it,
in passing from one social act to another social act, thinking of God.
End quote again quote love mankind follow God end quote. It is the
characteristic of the rational soul. For man to love his neighbor. Antoninus teaches
in various passages the forgiveness of injuries, and we know that he also practiced
what he taught. Bishop Butler remarks that quote this divine precept to forgive injuries
and to love our enemies, though to be met with gentil moralist yet,
is in a particular sense a precept of Christianity, as our Savior has insisted
more upon it than on any other single virtue end quote. The practice of
this precept is the most difficult of all virtues. Antoninas often enforces it and
gives us aid towards following it. When we are injured, we feel anger
and resentment, and a feeling is natural, just and useful for the conservation
of society. It is useful that wrongdoers should feel the natural consequences of their
actions, among which is the disapprobation of society and the resentment of him who
is wronged. But revenge in the proper sense of that word, must not
be practiced. Quote. The best way of avenging thyself end quote, says
the Emperor quote is not to become like the wrongdoer. End quote. It
is plain by this that he does not mean that we should in any case
practice revenge. But he says to those who talk of revenging wrongs, be
not like him who has done the wrong. Socrates in the Credos says the
same. In other words, in Saint Paul quote, when a man has
done the any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he
has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou wilt pity him,
and wilt neither wonder nor be angry end quote. Antoninus would not deny
that wrong naturally produces the feeling of anger and resentment, for this is implied
in the recommendation to reflect on the nature of the man's mind who has done
the wrong, and then you will have pity instead of resentment. And so
it comes to the same as Saint Paul's advice to be angry and sin not,
which, as Butler well explains, it is not a recommendation to be
angry, which nobody needs, for anger is a natural passion, but it
is a warning against allowing anger to lead us into sin. In short,
the Emperor's doctrine about wrongful acts is this, wrongdoers do not know what good
and bad are. They offend out of ignorance, and in the sense of
the stoics this is true. Though this kind of ignorance will never be admitted
as a legal excuse, and ought not to be admitted as a full excuse
in any way by society. There may be grievous injuries, such as it
is in a man's power to forgive without harm to society. And if he
forgives because he sees that his enemies know not what they do, he is
acting in the spirit of the sublime prayer. Quote Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do end quote. The Emperor's moral philosophy was
not a feeble, narrow system which teaches man to look directly to his own
happinespiness. Though a man's happiness or tranquility is indirectly promoted by living as he
ought to do, a man must live conformably to the universal nature, which
means, as the Emperor explains it in many passages, that a man's action
must be conformable to his true relations to all other human beings, both as
a citizen of a political community and as a member of the whole human family.
This implies, and he often expresses it in the most forcible language that
a man's words and actions, so far as they affect others, must be
measured by a fixed rule, which is their consistency with the conservation and the
interests of the particular society of which he is a member, and of the
whole human race. To live conformably to such a rule, a man must
use his rational faculties in order to discern clearly the consequences and full effect of
all his actions and of the actions of others. He must not live a
life of contemplation and reflection, only, though he must often retire within himself
to calm and purify his soul by thought, but he must mingle in the
work of man and be a fellow laborer. For the general good man should
have an object or purpose in life, then he may direct all his energies
to it. Of course, a good object. He who is not one
object or purpose of life cannot be one and the same all through his life.
Bacon has remarked to the same effect on the best means of quote reducing
of the mind unto virtue and good estate, which is the electing and propounding
unto a man's self, good and virtuous ends of his life, such as
may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain end. Quote.
He is a happy man who has been wise enough to do this when he
was young, and has had the opportunities. But the Emperor, seeing well
that a man cannot always be so wise in his youth, encourages him to
do it when he can, and not to let his life slip away before
he has begun. He who can propose to himself good and virtuous ends of
life and be true to them, cannot fail to live conformably to his own
interest and universal interest. For in the nature of things, they are one.
If a thing is not good for the hive, it is not good
from the bee. One passage may end this matter. Quote. If the
gods have determined about me and about the things which must happen to me,
they have determined well. For it is not easy even to imagine a deity
without forethought, and as to doing me harm, Why should they have any
desire towards that? For what advantage would result to them for this or to
the whole, which is the special object through their providence. But if they
have not determined about me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at
least, and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general arrangement.
I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them. But
if they determine about nothing which it is wicked to believe, or if we
do believe it, let us neither sacrifice, nor pray, nor swear by
them, nor do anything else which we do, as if the gods were
present and lived with us. But if, however, the God's determined about
none of these things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself,
and I can inquire about that which is useful, and that is useful
to every man, which is conformable to his own constitution and nature. But
my nature is rational and social, and my city and country, so far
as I am Antoninus, is Rome. But so far as I am a
man, it is the world. The things, then, which are useful
to these cities, are alone useful to me. It would be tedious,
And it is not necessary to state that the Emperor's opinions on all the ways
in which a man may profitably use his understanding towards perfecting himself in practical virtue.
The passages to this purpose are in all parts of his book. But
as they are in no order or connection, a man must use the book
a long time before he will find out all that is in it. A
few words may be added here. If we analyze all other things, we
find how insufficient they are for human life, and how truly worthless many of
them are. Virtue alone is indivisible, one and perfectly satisfying. The notion
of virtue cannot be considered vague or unsettled, because a man may find it
difficult to explain the notion fully to himself, would expound it to others in
such a way as to prevent covealing. Virtue as a whole, and no
more consists of parts than man's intelligence does. And yet we speak of various
intellectual faculties as a convenient way of expressing the various powers which man's intellect shows
by his works. In the same way, we may speak of various virtues
or parts of virtue in a practical sense, for the purpose of showing what
particular virtues we ought to practice in order to exercise the whole of virtue.
That is, as much as man's nature is capable of, the prime principle
in man's constitution is social The next in orders is not to yield to the
persuasions of the body when they are not conformable to the rational principle which much
govern The third is freedom from error and from deception. Quote. Let then
the ruling principle holding fast, that these things go straight on, and it
has what is its own end quote. The Empress elects justice as the virtue
which is the basis of all the rest. And this had been said long
before his time. It is true that all people have some notion of what
is meant by justice disposition of the mind, and some notion about acting in
conformity to this disposition. But experience shows that men's notions about justice are as
confused as their actions are inconsistent with the true notion of justice. The Emperor's
notion of justice is clear enough, but not practical enough for all mankind.
Quote, let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come
from the external cause, and let there be justice in the things done by
virtue of the internal cause. That is, let there be a movement in
action terminating in this and social acts, for this is according to thy nature.
End quote. In another place, he says that quote he who acts
unjustly, acts impiously end quote, which follows, of course, from all
that he says in various places. He insists on the practice of truth as
a virtue and as a means to virtue, which it no doubt is for
lying even and indifferent things weakens the understanding and lying maliciously is as great a
moral offense as man can be guilty of. Fewed both as showing an habitual
disposition, and viewed with respect to consequences. He couples the notion of justice
with action. A man must not pride himself on having some fine notion of
justice in his head, but he must exhibit his justice and act like Saint
James's notion of faith. But this is enough. The Stoics and Antoninus among
them, call some things beautiful and some ugly. And as they are beautiful,
so they are good. And as they are ugly, so they are
evil or bad. All these things, good and evil are in our power.
Absolutely. Some of the stricter stokes would say in a manner only as
those who would not depart altogether from common sense would say. Practically, they
are to a great degree in the power of some persons, and in some
circumstances, but in a small degree only in other persons and in other circumstances.
The Stoics maintain man's free will as to the things which are in his
power. For as to the things which are out of his power, free
will terminating in action is of course excluded by the very terms of the expression.
I hardly know if we can discover exactly Antonina's notion of the free will
of man, Nor is the question worth the inquiry. What he does mean
and does say is intelligible. All the things which are not in our power
are indifferent. They are neither good nor bad morally. Such are life,
health, wealth, power, disease, poverty, and death. Life and
death are all men's portion. Health, wealth, power, disease, and
poverty happen to men indifferently, to the good and to the bad, to
those who live according to nature, and to those who do not. Quote
Life says the Emperor is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, And after fame
is oblivion. End quote, after speaking of those men who have disturbed the
world and then died, and of the death of philosophers such as Heraclitis and
Democritus, who is destroyed by lice, and of Socrates, whom other life
his enemies destroyed. He says, quote what means all this, thou hast
embarked, thou hast made the voyage. Thou art come to shore, get
out, If indeed to another life, there is no want of gods,
not even there. But if to a state without sensation, thou wilt cease
to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the
vessel which is as much inferior to that which serves it as superior. For
the one is intelligence and deity, the other is earth and corruption. End
quote. It is not death that man should fear, but he should fear
never beginning to live according to his nature. Every man should live in such
a way as to discharge his duty and to trouble himself about nothing else.
He should live such a life that he shall always be ready for death,
and shall depart content when the summon comes. For what is death? Quote
A cessation of the impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the
strings which move the appetites, and of the discursive movements of the thoughts,
and of the service to the flesh end quote. Death is such as generation
is a mystery of nature. In another passage, the exact meaning of which
is perhaps doubtful, speaks of the child which leaves the womb, And so
he says, the soul of death leaves its envelope as the child is born
or comes into life by leaving the womb. So the soul may, on
leaving the body, pass into another existence which is perfect. I'm not sure
if this is the Emperor's meaning. Antonininus's opinion of a future life is nowhere
clearly expressed. His doctrine of the nature of the soul of necessity implies that
it does not perish, absolutely, for a portion of divinity cannot perish.
The opinion is at least as old as the time of Epicharmus and Euripides.
What comes from the earth goes back to the earth, and what comes from
heaven the divinity returns to him who gave it. But I find nothing clear
in Antoninus as to the notion of the man existing after death so as to
be conscious of his sameness with the soul which occupied his vessel of clay.
He seemed to be perplexed on this matter, and finally to have rested in
this that God or the gods, will do whatever is best and consistent with
the university of things. Nor I think does he speak conclusively on another Stoic
doctrine which some Stoics practice, the anticipating the regular course of nature by man's
own act. The reader will find some passages in which this is touched on,
and he may make of them what he can. But there are passages
in which the Emperor encourages himself to wait for the end patiently and with tranquility.
And certainly it is consistent with all his best teaching that a man should
bear all that falls to his lot and do useful acts as long as he
lives. He should not therefore abridge the time of his usefulness by his own
act. Whether he contemplates any possible cases in which a man should die by
his own hand, I cannot tell, and the matter is not worth the
curious inquiry, for I believe it would not lead to any certain result as
to his opinion on this point. I do not think that Antoninus, who
never mentioned Seneca, though he must have known all about him, would have
agreed with Seneca when he gives as a reason for suicide that the eternal law,
whatever he means, has made nothing better for us than this, that
it has given us only one way of entering life, and many ways of
going out of it. The ways of going out, indeed are many,
and that is a good reason for a man taking care of himself. Happiness
was not the direct object of a Stoic's life. There is no rule of
life contained in the precept that a man should pursue his own happiness. Many
men think that they are seeking happiness, when they are only seeking the gratification
of some particular passion. The strongest that they have. The end of a
man is, as already explained, to live conformably to nature, and he
will thus obtain happiness, tranquility of mind, and contentment. As a means
of living conformably to nature, he must study the four chief virtues. Each
of us has its proper sphere wisdom or the knowledge of good and evil,
justice, or the giving to every man his due fortitude, or the enduring
of labour and pain and temperance, which is moderation in all things. By
thus having come formerly to nature, the Stoic obtained all that he wished her
expect it. His reward was in his virtuous life, and he was satisfied
with that. Some Greek poet long ago wrote quote, for virtue only of
all human things, takes a reward not from the hands of others. Virtue
herself rewards the toils of virtue end. Some of the Stoics indeed express themselves
in very arrogant, absurd terms about the wise man's self sufficiency. They elevated
him to the rank of a deity. But these were only talkers and lectures,
such as those in all layers, who utter fine words, knowing little
of human affairs, and caring only for notoriety. Etpectitus and Antoninus, both
by precept and example, labor to improve themselves in others. And if we
discover imperfections in their teaching, we must still honor these great men who attempted
to show that there is in a man's nature and in a constant tution of
things, sufficient reason for living a virtuous life. It is difficult enough to
live as we ought to live, difficult even for any man to live in
such a way as to satisfy himself, if he exercises only in a moderate
degree the power of reflecting upon and reviewing his own conduct, and if all
men cannot be brought to the same opinions and morals in religion. It is
at least worthwhile to give them good reasons for as much as they can be
persuaded to accept. End Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Santaninus, Section fourteen, The
Philosophy of Antonias by George Long. End of Meditations of Marcus Aurelius