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, but 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 could 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 Patus Thesea, Helvidius, Priscius, Cornudus, c.
Musonius Rufus, and the poets Perseus and Juvenal, 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 Juvenal 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, but he was there the slave, and afterwards the
freedman of an unworthy master. Epaphroditus by name himself a freeman and a favorite
of Nero. Epictetus may have been a hearer of C. Musonius Ruthless 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 Epirus, and he may have
died there. Like other great teachers, he wrote nothing, and we are
indebted to his grateful pupil Aryan for what we have of Epictitis's discourses. Aryan
wrote eight books of the discourses of Epictisis, of which only four remain,
and some fragments. We also have from Aryan's hand the small Enturidian or Manuel
or the chief Precepts of Epictidis. There is a valuable commentary on the Inturidian
by Simplicis, who lived at the time of the Emperor Justinian. 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 Epictitus,
whom he mentions also in other passages. Indeed, the doctrines of Epectidus
and Antoninus are the same, and Epectidis 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. Epic Titis 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 Zenoosidium, 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 earliest 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 of volume.
My object is to explain only the opinions of Antoninas, so far as they
can be collected from his book. According to the subdivision of Clanthes, physic
and theology go together, or the 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 Antonina's 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 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 and 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 universal 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, and 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 said, 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 into every possible way.
In another passage, he 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 a use of dialectic, which
Antoninas 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 Antoninas, and more expositions than I have read.
Ritter, after explaining the doctrines of Epectidis, treats very briefly and insufficiently those
of Antoninas, 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 end 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 to
and his thoughts in one even course. But such a man has not been
tried all his ethical philosophy and his passive virse, who 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, and has been ready to die quote the death of a
martyr end quote quote. Not in passivity the passive effects, but in activity,
lie 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 or the fear of it, he lived as frugally and
as temperately as the poorest philosopher at Pectidius 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 Antoninas, after his
accession 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 maintained against the 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 reflection show 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, or a man's breath, 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 in 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 physic 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 to 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 and
all, which we name cosmus 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 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 Antoninas speaks of the reason,
which pervades all substance and through all time by fixed periods, parentzes,
revolutions, and prinzes and ministers 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 exaggeras God and matter exist independently, but God governs mattered. 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 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 notion. End 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 endote. Antoninas has some obscure
expressions by 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 it, 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 is possible. End quote. This may be the meaning but
if it is, nothing of 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 the simple meaning,
nor do we. Antoninis says, quote whether the universe is a concourse of
atoms or nature as a system. Let this first be established, that I
am part of the whole which is governed by nature. 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 naturalist stated fixture settled. Since what is natural as much
required and presuppose as an intelligent agent to render it, so i e.
To affect it continually or at stated time, as what is supernatural or miraculous
does to affect it at once end quote. 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. When we look at the motion
of the planets, the action of what we call gravitation, the elemental combination
of unorganized bodies and 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 experience,
presence, and 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 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 true sequence of all actual phenomena, as for
instance, the phenomena of generation, growth, and dissolution, is and 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 terms cause and effect 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 it Greeks call them or
appearances which follow one another in irregular order, as we conceive it, so
that if some one phenomena should 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 an 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 successive 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 and we can conceive a first in the present order of natural
phenomena put in the vulgar sense, the creation of all things at a certain
time, followed by acquiescence of the first cause, in 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 antoniness 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's a meaning in some passage, this 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 an antoniness 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. Antoninis 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 what we call effect or
end. The word cause is the difficult. 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 speculate to 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 supposed intervals between one state of things in another
state of things, so that there is priority in sequence and 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 Antoninus speaks of generation, he speaks of one cause acting, and
then 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, a fine phrase,
indeed, the full import of which I believe that the writer of it
did not see unless 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. And 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 successive causes, or in something else, nobody can tell from other
passages. However, I do collect that 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 to show his 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 or God is
an elevated reretion of devotion and philosophy. It deprives nature of her power and
puts her under the immediate government of the deity ute 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 due
end quote. Antoni's conviction of the existence of a divine power and government was
founded on his perception of the order of the universe. Like Socrates, he
says that though 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 a learned treatise. It is as intelligible and 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 a 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 efflux from the divinity. We have bodies like
animals, but we have reason intelligence as to gods. Als have life and
what we call instincts and natural principles of action. But the rational animal man
alone has rational, intelligent soul. Antoninus insists on this. Continually, God
is in man, and so he must constantly attended 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 quote, 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 an knowledge of the divinity. It is by following the divinity
within, as Anthonys 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 Zus
hath given to every man for his guardian and guide a portion of himself.
And this demon is every man's understanding and reason end quote. There is in
man that is in the reason, the intelligence, a superior faculty, which,
if exercised, rules all the rest. This is the ruling faculty,
which Cicero renders by the Latin word principatus quote to which nothing can or ought
to be superior end quote. Antonias often uses this term in others which are
equivalent. He names it quote the governing intelligence end quote. The governing faculty
is the mass 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 he 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, Antoninus speaks
of a man's condemnation of himself when the diviner part within him has been overpowered
and yields to the less honorable and to the perishable part the body and its
gross pleasures. In a word, the views of antonina Is 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 or 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 of the universe being one animated being, but all that
he says amounts to no more his sultier 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 Antonias
did not view God and the material universe says the same any more than he
viewed the body and soul of man as one. Antoninas has no speculations on
the absolute nature of the deity. It was not his fashion to waste his
time. And 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. Epictetus
says that we can discern the providence which rules the world if we 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 used 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 is
being in the universe of things as a contradiction. For if the whole comes
from and is governed 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 contimputation, 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 changes we call death. If we
call death an evil, then all change is 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's evil in the wrong doer. Antoninus gives many excellent precepts of respect
to wrongs and injuries, and his precepts are practical. He teaches us to
bear what we cannot avoid, and his lessons may be just as useful to
him who denies the being in 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,
a relation of parts to one another, and a fitness of 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, 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, of its
innumerable irregularities and disorders, still subsists. And perhaps we may say that the
history of the past and our present knowledge give us a reasonable hope that its
disorders will diminish, and that order, its governing principle, may be more
firmly established as order. Then a fixed order, we may say, subject
to deviations, real or apparent, 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
an act. Though we know many of the conditions which are necessary for all
these functions, knowing nothing them the unseen power which acts in ourselves except by
what has done. We know nothing in the power which acts through what we
call all time in all space. But seeing that there is a nature or
a 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
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 he 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 God 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 sorrows.
Epictetus, in his Enchiridian, 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 peer obscure enough to those who are not acquainted with
Epictitis, 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 Epictitis assumes, has not order 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 and 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 mean 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 it 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 a king, 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 to 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
his contrary 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 endquote. 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 genteel moralists, 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.
Antonina's often enforces it and gives us aid towards following it. When we are
injured, we feel anger and resentment, and the 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 to talk
of revenging wrongs, be not like him who has done the wrong. Socrates
and the Credos as the same. In other words, in Saint Paul,
quote, when a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what
opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen
this, thou will 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 will 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 happiness. 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
there consistent and see 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. A man should have an object or purpose
in life, that he may direct all his energies to it. Of course
a good object. He who has 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 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 for 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
to their providence. But if they have not determined about me individually, they
have certainly determined about the whole at least, and the things which happened by
a 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 live 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 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 or
to expound it to others in such a way as to bread canvealing virtue as
a whole and no more consistent 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 of the
whole of virtue. That is, as much as man's nature is capable of
the prime principle, and man's constitution is social. The next orders is not
to yield to the persuasions of the body when they are not conformable to the
rational principle which must 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
lects justice as the virtue which is the basis of all the rest. And
this has been said long before his time. It is true that all people
have some notion of what is meant by justice as a 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 and 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 they quote he who acts unjustly acts impiously 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 an indifferent things weakens the understanding,
and lying maliciously is as great a moral offense as man can be guilty of.
Viewed 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 even 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 an 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 of according to nature, and to those who
do not. Quote, life says the emperor is a warfare and a stranger's
show journe 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 Heraclitus 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. Endote. 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. Death is such as
generation is a mystery of nature in another past. It's the exact meaning of
which is perhaps doubtful. He 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. Antononinus'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 Epicharmis 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 it contemplates any possible cases in which a man should die
by his own hand, I cannot tell, and the matter is not worth
a 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 us 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 fourth 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 labor and pain and temperance, which is moderation in all
things. By thus loving come formerly to nature, the Stoic obtained all that
he wished or 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 reward, not from the hands of
others. Virtue herself rewards the toils of virtue. Some of the Stoics indeed
expressed 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 lecturers such as those in all agers who utter fine words, knowing little
of human affairs, and caring only for notoriety. At Bactidus and Antoninus,
both by precept and example, labor to improve themselves and 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 constitution 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 and religion, it is at least
worthwhile to give them good reasons, for as much as they can be persuaded to accept