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Title: The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Author: Marcus Aurelius
Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6920]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on February 10, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS ***
Produced by Robert Nield, Tom Allen, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: All the footnotes have been moved to the end of the
text. I have also relabeled the book headings; [I., II., ... XI.] has
been changed to [BOOK I., BOOK II., ... BOOK XI.] at the start of each
Section. I have also added a "1. " before the first "thought" in each
BOOK.]
THE THOUGHTS OF THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
LONG'S TRANSLATION EDITED BY EDWIN GINN
CONTENTS:
PREFACE
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
THE THOUGHTS
PHILOSOPHY OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS
GENERAL INDEX
PREFACE.
Perhaps some may question the wisdom of putting out the Thoughts of
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to be used as a Reader by children in the
schools. It may appear to them better suited to the mature mind. The
principle, however, that has governed us in selecting reading for the
young has been to secure the best that we could find in all ages for
grown-up people. The milk and water diet provided for "my dear children"
is not especially complimentary to them. They like to be treated like
little men and women, capable of appreciating a good thing. One finds in
this royal philosopher a rare generosity, sweetness and humility,
qualities alike suited to all ages.
Adopting the philosopher's robe at twelve, he remains a student all his
life. The precepts that he would give for the government of others, he
has practised upon himself. In his time, as in ours, there were good
physicians for the mind and body, who could make wise prescriptions for
the government of their neighbors, but were unable to apply them to
themselves. The faults of our fellows are so numerous and so easy to cure
that one is readily tempted to become the physician, while our own faults
are so few and so unimportant that it is hardly worth while to give any
attention to them. Hence we have a multitude of physicians for humanity
in general, and a scarcity of individual healers.
It was the doctrine of Marcus Aurelius that most of the ills of life come
to us from our own imagination, that it was not in the power of others
seriously to interfere with the calm, temperate life of an individual,
and that when a fellow being did anything to us that seemed unjust he was
acting in ignorance, and that instead of stirring up anger within us it
should stir our pity for him. Oftentimes by careful self-examination we
should find that the fault was more our own than that of our fellow, and
our sufferings were rather from our own opinions than from anything real.
The circle of man's knowledge is very limited, and the largest circles do
not wholly include the smallest. They are intersecting and the segment
common to any two is very small. Whatever lies outside this space does
not exist for both. Hence arise innumerable contests. The man having the
largest intelligence ought to be very generous to the other. Being
thankful that he has been blessed in so many ways, he should do all in
his power to enlighten his less favored fellow, rather than be angry with
him on account of his misfortune. Is he not sufficiently punished in
being denied the light?
Assisting his uncle in the government of the great Roman Empire at
seventeen, it was his aim constantly to restrain the power of the strong
and to assist the weak. He studied the laws of his country, not for
wisdom alone, but that he might make them more beneficial to his people.
All his life he tried to bring his fellows to a higher level, and to
think charitably of each other. Occupying himself a palace he lived
simply, like other men. It was his greatest delight to retire to his
country home and there, dwelling among his books, to meditate upon the
great problems of life. He claimed that a man's life should be valued
according to the value of the things to which he gave his attention. If
his whole thought was given to clothing, feeding and housing himself
comfortably, he should be valued like other well-housed and well-fed
animals. He would, however, derive the greatest pleasure and benefit in
this life by acting in accordance with reason, which demands of every
human being that his highest faculties should govern all the rest, and
that each should see to it that he treated his fellow kindly and
generously and that if he could not assist him to a higher level he
should at least not stand in his way. When he speaks of the shortness of
time and the value of fame, riches and power, for which men strive in
this world, he speaks not from the standpoint of one who would wish to
obtain these things, but as a Roman emperor enjoying the highest honors
that man might expect to attain in this world. He certainly was in a
position to speak intelligently concerning these matters, and his
opinions ought to have weight with the coming generations. Children may
not prefer to read such thoughts; perhaps the majority of children do not
prefer the Bible to other books. Still, we all think it is well for them
to be obliged to read it. Perhaps requiring the use of such literature in
the schools might be as valuable as the adding, subtracting, multiplying
and dividing of interminable numbers, the memorizing of all the capes,
bays and rivers in the world, and the dates of all the battles that have
occurred since the creation of man. We should strive to stimulate the
thinking powers of children, leading them to form wise judgments
concerning the important things of life, without catering too much to
their own wishes at an age when they cannot form an intelligent opinion
of what is best for themselves.
At our first reading of the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, we
marked many sentences that appeared to us specially good; in the second,
twice as many more. Where all is good it is hard to emphasize, but we
will cite just one of his reflections, as illustrating the trend of his
mind: "I have often wondered," he says, "how it is that every man loves
himself more than all the rest of men, and yet sets less value on his own
opinion of himself than on the opinion of others."
We have given Long's translation of the Thoughts complete, as published
by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., but we have omitted some unimportant
portions of the biography and philosophy in the interest of space and
economy. We have also given the philosophy in a supplement, thinking it
better that it should come after the Thoughts themselves. We shall issue
a pocket edition on very thin paper for the convenience of such as wish
to make a special study of the work. We also propose to issue a similar
edition of the writings of Epictetus.
EDWIN GINN.
January 20, 1893.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS.
M. Antoninus, the son of Annius Verus and Domitia Calvilla, was born at
Rome, A.D. 121. The Emperor T. Antoninus Pius married Faustina, the
sister of Annius Verus, and was consequently the uncle of M. Antoninus.
When Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius and declared him his successor in the
empire, Antoninus Pius adopted both L. Ceionius Commodus and M.
Antoninus, generally called M. Aurelius Antoninus.
The youth was most carefully brought up. He thanks the gods (I. 17) that
he had good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers,
good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good. He had
the happy fortune to witness the example of his uncle and adoptive
father, Antoninus Pius, and he has recorded in his work (I. 16; VI. 30)
the virtues of this excellent man and prudent ruler. Like many young
Romans he tried his hand at poetry and studied rhetoric. There are
letters extant showing the great affection of the pupil for the master,
and the master's great hopes of his industrious pupil.
When he was eleven years old he assumed the dress of philosophers,
something plain and coarse, became a hard student, and lived a most
laborious, abstemious life, even so far as to injure his health. He
abandoned poetry and rhetoric for philosophy, and attached himself to the
sect of the Stoics. But he did not neglect the study of law, which was a
useful preparation for the high place which he was designed to fill. We
must suppose that he learned the Roman discipline of arms, which was a
necessary part of the education of a man who afterwards led his troops to
battle against a warlike race.
Antoninus has recorded in his first book the names of his teachers, and
the obligations which he owed to each of them. The way in which he speaks
of what he learned from them might seem to savor of vanity or self-
praise, if we look carelessly at the way in which he has expressed
himself; but if anyone draws this conclusion, he will be mistaken.
Antoninus means to commemorate the merits of his several teachers, what
they taught, and what a pupil might learn from them. Besides, this book,
like the eleven other books, was for his own use; and if we may trust the
note at the end of the first book, it was written during one of M.
Antoninus' campaigns against the Quadi, at a time when the commemoration
of the virtues of his illustrious teachers might remind him of their
lessons and the practical uses which he might derive from them.
Among his teachers of philosophy was Sextus of Chaeroneia, a grandson of
Plutarch. What he learned from this excellent man is told by himself (I.
9). His favorite teacher was Rusticus (I. 7), a philosopher, and also a
man of practical good sense in public affairs. Rusticus was the adviser
of Antoninus after he became emperor. Young men who are destined for high
places are not often fortunate in those who are about them, their
companions and teachers; and I do not know any example of a young prince
having had an education which can be compared with that of M. Antoninus.
Such a body of teachers distinguished by their acquirements and their
character will hardly be collected again; and as to the pupil, we have
not had one like him since.
Hadrian died in July, A.D. 138, and was succeeded by Antoninus Pius. M.
Antoninus married Faustina, his cousin, the daughter of Pius, probably
about A.D. 146, for he had a daughter born in A.D. 147. He received from
his adoptive father the title of Caesar, and was associated with him in
the administration of the state. The father and the adopted son lived
together in perfect friendship and confidence. Antoninus was a dutiful
son, and the emperor Pius loved and esteemed him.
Antoninus Pius died A.D. 161. The Senate, it is said, urged M. Antoninus
to take the sole administration of the empire, but he associated with
himself the other adopted son of Pius, L. Ceionius Commodus, who is
generally called L. Verus. Thus Rome for the first time had two emperors.
Verus was an indolent man of pleasure, and unworthy of his station.
Antoninus however bore with him, and it is said that Verus had sense
enough to pay to his colleague the respect due to his character. A
virtuous emperor and a loose partner lived together in peace, and their
alliance was strengthened by Antoninus giving to Verus for wife his
daughter Lucilla.
The reign of Antoninus was first troubled by a Parthian war, in which
Verus was sent to command; but he did nothing, and the success that was
obtained by the Romans in Armenia and on the Euphrates and Tigris was due
to his generals. This Parthian war ended in A.D. 165. Aurelius and Verus
had a triumph (A.D. 166) for the victories in the East. A pestilence
followed, which carried off great numbers in Rome and Italy, and spread
to the west of Europe.
The north of Italy was also threatened by the rude people beyond the Alps
from the borders of Gallia to the eastern side of the Hadriatic. These
barbarians attempted to break into Italy, as the Germanic nations had
attempted near three hundred years before; and the rest of the life of
Antoninus, with some intervals, was employed in driving back the
invaders. In A.D. 169 Verus suddenly died, and Antoninus administered the
state alone.
During the German wars Antoninus resided for three years on the Danube at
Carnuntum. The Marcomanni were driven out of Pannonia and almost
destroyed in their retreat across the Danube; and in A.D. 174 the emperor
gained a great victory over the Quadi.
In A.D. 175, Avidius Cassius, a brave and skilful Roman commander who was
at the head of the troops in Asia, revolted and declared himself
Augustus. But Cassius was assassinated by some of his officers, and so
the rebellion came to an end. Antoninus showed his humanity by his
treatment of the family and the partisans of Cassius; and his letter to
the Senate, in which he recommends mercy, is extant.
Antoninus set out for the East on hearing of Cassius' revolt. Though he
appears to have returned to Rome in A.D. 174, he went back to prosecute
the war against the Germans, and it is probable that he marched direct to
the East from the German war. His wife Faustina, who accompanied him into
Asia, died suddenly at the foot of the Taurus, to the great grief of her
husband. Capitolinus, who has written the life of Antoninus, and also
Dion Cassius accuse the empress of scandalous infidelity to her husband
and of abominable lewdness. But Capitolinus says that Antoninus either
knew it not or pretended not to know it. Nothing is so common as such
malicious reports in all ages, and the history of imperial Rome is full
of them. Antoninus loved his wife, and he says that she was "obedient,
affectionate, and simple." The same scandal had been spread about
Faustina's mother, the wife of Antoninus Pius, and yet he too was
perfectly satisfied with his wife. Antoninus Pius says after her death in
a letter to Fronto that he would rather have lived in exile with his wife
than in his palace at Rome without her. There are not many men who would
give their wives a better character than these two emperors. Capitolinus
wrote in the time of Diocletian. He may have intended to tell the truth,
but he is a poor, feeble biographer. Dion Cassius, the most malignant of
historians, always reports and perhaps he believed any scandal against
anybody.
Antoninus continued his journey to Syria and Egypt, and on his return to
Italy through Athens he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. It
was the practice of the emperor to conform to the established rites of
the age, and to perform religious ceremonies with due solemnity. We
cannot conclude from this that he was a superstitious man, though we
might perhaps do so if his book did not show that he was not. But this is
only one among many instances that a ruler's public acts do not always
prove his real opinions. A prudent governor will not roughly oppose even
the superstitions of his people; and though he may wish that they were
wiser, he will know that he cannot make them so by offending their
prejudices.
Antoninus and his son Commodus entered Rome in triumph, perhaps for some
German victories, A.D. 176. In the following year Commodus was associated
with his father in the empire, and took the name of Augustus. This year
A.D. 177 is memorable in ecclesiastical history. Attalus and others were
put to death at Lyon for their adherence to the Christian religion. The
evidence of this persecution is a letter preserved by Eusebius. It
contains a very particular description of the tortures inflicted on the
Christians in Gallia, and it states that while the persecution was going
on, Attalus, a Christian and a Roman citizen, was loudly demanded by the
populace and brought into the amphitheatre; but the governor ordered him
to be reserved, with the rest who were in prison, until he had received
instructions from the emperor. Many had been tortured before the governor
thought of applying to Antoninus. The imperial rescript, says the letter,
was that the Christians should be punished, but if they would deny their
faith, they must be released. On this the work began again. The
Christians who were Roman citizens were beheaded; the rest were exposed
to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre.
The war on the northern frontier appears to have been uninterrupted
during the visit of Antoninus to the East, and on his return the emperor
again left Rome to oppose the barbarians. The Germanic people were
defeated in a great battle A.D. 179. During this campaign the emperor was
seized with some contagious malady, of which he died in the camp, A.D.
180, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. His son Commodus was with him.
The body, or the ashes probably, of the emperor were carried to Rome, and
he received the honor of deification. Those who could afford it had his
statue or bust; and when Capitolinus wrote, many people still had statues
of Antoninus among the Dei Penates or household deities. He was in a
manner made a saint. Commodus erected to the memory of his father the
Antonine column which is now in the Piazza Colonna at Rome. The bassi
rilievi which are placed in a spiral line round the shaft commemorate the
victories of Antoninus over the Marcomanni and the Quadi, and the
miraculous shower of rain which refreshed the Roman soldiers and
discomfited their enemies. The statue of Antoninus was placed on the
capital of the column, but it was removed at some time unknown, and a
bronze statue of St. Paul was put in the place by Pope Sixtus the fifth.
In order to form a proper notion of the condition of the Christians under
M. Antoninus we must go back to Trajan's time. When the younger Pliny was
governor of Bithynia, the Christians were numerous in those parts, and
the worshippers of the old religion were falling off. The temples were
deserted, the festivals neglected, and there were no purchasers of
victims for sacrifice. Those who were interested in the maintenance of
the old religion thus found that their profits were in danger. Christians
of both sexes and of all ages were brought before the governor, who did
not know what to do with them. He could come to no other conclusion than
this, that those who confessed to be Christians and persevered in their
religion ought to be punished; if for nothing else, for their invincible
obstinacy. He found no crimes proved against the Christians, and he could
only characterize their religion as a depraved and extravagant
superstition, which might be stopped if the people were allowed the
opportunity of recanting. Pliny wrote this in a letter to Trajan. He
asked for the emperor's directions, because he did not know what to do.
He remarks that he had never been engaged in judicial inquiries about the
Christians, and that accordingly he did not know what to inquire about or
how far to inquire and punish. This proves that it was not a new thing to
examine into a man's profession of Christianity and to punish him for it.
Trajan's rescript is extant. He approved of the governor's judgment in
the matter, but he said that no search must be made after the Christians;
if a man was charged with the new religion and convicted, he must not be
punished if he affirmed that he was not a Christian and confirmed his
denial by showing his reverence to the heathen gods. He added that no
notice must be taken of anonymous informations, for such things were of
bad example. Trajan was a mild and sensible man; and both motives of
mercy and policy probably also induced him to take as little notice of
the Christians as he could, to let them live in quiet if it were
possible. Trajan's rescript is the first legislative act of the head of
the Roman state with reference to Christianity, which is known to us. It
does not appear that the Christians were further disturbed under his
reign.
In the time of Hadrian it was no longer possible for the Roman government
to overlook the great increase of the Christians and the hostility of the
common sort to them. If the governors in the provinces were willing to
let them alone, they could not resist the fanaticism of the heathen
community, who looked on the Christians as atheists. The Jews too, who
were settled all over the Roman Empire, were as hostile to the Christians
as the Gentiles were. With the time of Hadrian begin the Christian
Apologies, which show plainly what the popular feeling towards the
Christians then was. A rescript of Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus, the
Proconsul of Asia, which stands at the end of Justin's first Apology,
instructs the governor that innocent people must not be troubled, and
false accusers must not be allowed to extort money from them; the charges
against the Christians must be made in due form, and no attention must be
paid to popular clamors; when Christians were regularly prosecuted and
convicted of illegal acts, they must be punished according to their
deserts; and false accusers also must be punished. Antoninus Pius is said
to have published rescripts to the same effect. The terms of Hadrian's
rescript seem very favorable to the Christians; but if we understand it
in this sense, that they were only to be punished like other people for
illegal acts, it would have had no meaning, for that could have been done
without asking the emperor's advice. The real purpose of the rescript is
that Christians must be punished if they persisted in their belief, and
would not prove their renunciation of it by acknowledging the heathen
religion.
In the time of M. Antoninus the opposition between the old and the new
belief was still stronger, and the adherents of the heathen religion
urged those in authority to a more regular resistance to the invasions of
the Christian faith. Melito in his Apology to M. Antoninus represents the
Christians of Asia as persecuted under new imperial orders. Shameless
informers, he says, men who were greedy after the property of others,
used these orders as a means of robbing those who were doing no harm. He
doubts if a just emperor could have ordered anything so unjust; and if
the last order was really not from the emperor, the Christians entreat
him not to give them up to their enemies. We conclude from this that
there were at least imperial rescripts or constitutions of M. Antoninus
which were made the foundation of these persecutions. The fact of being a
Christian was now a crime and punished, unless the accused denied their
religion. Then come the persecutions at Smyrna, which some modern critics
place in A.D. 167, ten years before the persecution of Lyon. The
governors of the provinces under M. Antoninus might have found enough
even in Trajan's rescript to warrant them in punishing Christians, and
the fanaticism of the people would drive them to persecution, even if
they were unwilling. But besides the fact of the Christians rejecting all
the heathen ceremonies, we must not forget that they plainly maintained
that all the heathen religions were false. The Christians thus declared
war against the heathen rites, and it is hardly necessary to observe that
this was a declaration of hostility against the Roman government, which
tolerated all the various forms of superstition that existed in the
empire, and could not consistently tolerate another religion, which
declared that all the rest were false and all the splendid ceremonies of
the empire only a worship of devils.
If we had a true ecclesiastical history, we should know how the Roman
emperors attempted to check the new religion; how they enforced their
principle of finally punishing Christians, simply as Christians, which
Justin in his Apology affirms that they did, and I have no doubt that he
tells the truth; how far popular clamor and riots went in this matter,
and how far many fanatical and ignorant Christians--for there were many
such--contributed to excite the fanaticism on the other side and to
imbitter the quarrel between the Roman government and the new religion.
Our extant ecclesiastical histories are manifestly falsified, and what
truth they contain is grossly exaggerated; but the fact is certain that
in the time of M. Antoninus the heathen populations were in open
hostility to the Christians, and that under Antoninus' rule men were put
to death because they were Christians. Eusebius, in the preface to his
fifth book, remarks that in the seventeenth year of Antoninus' reign, in
some parts of the world, the persecution of the Christians became more
violent, and that it proceeded from the populace in the cities; and he
adds, in his usual style of exaggeration, that we may infer from what
took place in a single nation that myriads of martyrs were made in the
habitable earth. The nation which he alludes to is Gallia; and he then
proceeds to give the letter of the churches of Vienna and Lugdunum. It is
probable that he has assigned the true cause of the persecutions, the
fanaticism of the populace, and that both governors and emperor had a
great deal of trouble with these disturbances. How far Marcus was
cognizant of these cruel proceedings we do not know, for the historical
records of his reign are very defective. He did not make the rule against
the Christians, for Trajan did that; and if we admit that he would have
been willing to let the Christians alone, we cannot affirm that it was in
his power, for it would be a great mistake to suppose that Antoninus had
the unlimited authority which some modern sovereigns have had. His power
was limited by certain constitutional forms, by the Senate, and by the
precedents of his predecessors. We cannot admit that such a man was an
active persecutor, for there is no evidence that he was, though it is
certain that he had no good opinion of the Christians, as appears from
his own words. But he knew nothing of them except their hostility to the
Roman religion, and he probably thought that they were dangerous to the
state, notwithstanding the professions false or true of some of the
Apologists. So much I have said, because it would be unfair not to state
all that can be urged against a man whom his contemporaries and
subsequent ages venerated as a model of virtue and benevolence. If I
admitted the genuineness of some documents, he would be altogether clear
from the charge of even allowing any persecutions; but as I seek the
truth and am sure that they are false, I leave him to bear whatever blame
is his due. I add that it is quite certain that Antoninus did not derive
any of his ethical principles from a religion of which he knew nothing.
There is no doubt that the Emperor's Reflections--or his Meditations, as
they are generally named--is a genuine work. In the first book he speaks
of himself, his family, and his teachers; and in other books he mentions
himself.
It is plain that the emperor wrote down his thoughts or reflections as
the occasions arose; and since they were intended for his own use, it is
no improbable conjecture that he left a complete copy behind him written
with his own hand; for it is not likely that so diligent a man would use
the labor of a transcriber for such a purpose, and expose his most secret
thoughts to any other eye. He may have also intended the book for his son
Commodus, who however had no taste for his father's philosophy.
The last reflection of the Stoic philosophy that I have observed is in
Simplicius' Commentary on the Enchiridion of Epictetus. Simplicius was
not a Christian, and such a man was not likely to be converted at a time
when Christianity was grossly corrupted. But he was a really religious
man, and he concludes his commentary with a prayer to the Deity which no
Christian could improve. From the time of Zeno to Simplicius, a period of
about nine hundred years, the Stoic philosophy formed the characters of
some of the best and greatest men. A man's greatness lies not in wealth
and station, as the vulgar believe, nor yet in his intellectual capacity,
which is often associated with the meanest moral character, the most
abject servility to those in high places, and arrogance to the poor and
lowly; but a man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest
purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything
else, on frequent self-examination, and a steady obedience to the rule
which he knows to be right, without troubling himself, as the emperor
says he should not, about what others may think or say, or whether they
do or do not do that which he thinks and says and does.
THE THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS.
BOOK 1.
1. From my grandfather Verus [I learned] good morals and the government
of my temper.
2. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly
character.
3. From my mother, piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from
evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my
way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich.
4. From my great-grandfather, not to have frequented public schools, and
to have had good teachers at home, and to know that on such things a man
should spend liberally.
5. From my governor, to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at
the games in the Circus, nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the
Scutarius at the gladiators' fights; from him too I learned endurance of
labor, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to
meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to
slander.
6. From Diognetus, not to busy myself about trifling things, and not to
give credit to what was said by miracle-workers and jugglers about
incantations and the driving away of daemons and such things; and not to
breed quails [for fighting], nor to give myself up passionately to such
things; and to endure freedom of speech; and to have become intimate with
philosophy; and to have been a hearer, first of Bacchius, then of
Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written dialogues in my youth; and to
have desired a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs
to the Grecian discipline.
7. From Rusticus I received the impression that my character required
improvement and discipline; and from him I learned not to be led astray
to sophistic emulation, nor to writing on speculative matters, nor to
delivering little hortatory orations, nor to showing myself off as a man
who practices much discipline, or does benevolent acts in order to make a
display; and to abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing; and
not to walk about in the house in my outdoor dress, nor to do other
things of the kind; and to write my letters with simplicity, like the
letter which Rusticus wrote from Sinuessa to my mother; and with respect
to those who have offended me by words, or done me wrong, to be easily
disposed to be pacified and reconciled, as soon as they have shown a
readiness to be reconciled; and to read carefully, and not to be
satisfied with a superficial understanding of a book; nor hastily to give
my assent to those who talk overmuch; and I am indebted to him for being
acquainted with the discourses of Epictetus, which he communicated to me
out of his own collection.
8. From Apollonius I learned freedom of will and undeviating steadiness
of purpose; and to look to nothing else, not even for a moment, except to
reason; and to be always the same, in sharp pains, on the occasion of the
loss of a child, and in long illness; and to see clearly in a living
example that the same man can be both most resolute and yielding, and not
peevish in giving his instruction; and to have had before my eyes a man
who clearly considered his experience and his skill in expounding
philosophical principles as the smallest of his merits; and from him I
learned how to receive from friends what are esteemed favors, without
being either humbled by them or letting them pass unnoticed.
9. From Sextus, a benevolent disposition, and the example of a family
governed in a fatherly manner, and the idea of living conformably to
nature; and gravity without affectation, and to look carefully after the
interests of friends, and to tolerate ignorant persons, and those who
form opinions without consideration: he had the power of readily
accommodating himself to all, so that intercourse with him was more
agreeable than any flattery; and at the same time he was most highly
venerated by those who associated with him: and he had the faculty both
of discovering and ordering, in an intelligent and methodical way, the
principles necessary for life; and he never showed anger or any other
passion, but was entirely free from passion, and also most affectionate;
and he could express approbation without noisy display, and he possessed
much knowledge without ostentation.
10. From Alexander the grammarian, to refrain from fault-finding, and not
in a reproachful way to chide those who uttered any barbarous or
solecistic or strange-sounding expression; but dexterously to introduce
the very expression which ought to have been used, and in the way of
answer or giving confirmation, or joining in an inquiry about the thing
itself, not about the word, or by some other fit suggestion.
11. From Fronto I learned to observe what envy and duplicity and
hypocrisy are in a tyrant, and that generally those among us who are
called Patricians are rather deficient in paternal affection.
12. From Alexander the Platonic, not frequently nor without necessity to
say to any one, or to write in a letter, that I have no leisure; nor
continually to excuse the neglect of duties required by our relation to
those with whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations.
13. From Catulus, not to be indifferent when a friend finds fault, even
if he should find fault without reason, but to try to restore him to his
usual disposition; and to be ready to speak well of teachers, as it is
reported of Domitius and Athenodotus; and to love my children truly.
14. From my brother Severus, to love my kin, and to love truth, and to
love justice; and through him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato,
Dion, Brutus; and from him I received the idea of a polity in which there
is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal
rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government
which respects most of all the freedom of the governed; I learned from
him also consistency and undeviating steadiness in my regard for
philosophy; and a disposition to do good, and to give to others readily,
and to cherish good hopes, and to believe that I am loved by my friends;
and in him I observed no concealment of his opinions with respect to
those whom he condemned, and that his friends had no need to conjecture
what he wished or did not wish, but it was quite plain.
15. From Maximus I learned self-government, and not to be led aside by
anything; and cheerfulness in all circumstances, as well as in illness;
and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity, and
to do what was set before me without complaining. I observed that
everybody believed that he thought as he spoke, and that in all that he
did he never had any bad intention; and he never showed amazement and
surprise, and was never in a hurry, and never put off doing a thing, nor
was perplexed nor dejected, nor did he ever laugh to disguise his
vexation, nor, on the other hand, was he ever passionate or suspicious.
He was accustomed to do acts of beneficence, and was ready to forgive,
and was free from all falsehood; and he presented the appearance of a man
who could not be diverted from right, rather than of a man who had been
improved. I observed, too, that no man could ever think that he was
despised by Maximus, or ever venture to think himself a better man. He
had also the art of being humorous in an agreeable way.
16. In my father I observed mildness of temper, and unchangeable
resolution in the things which he had determined after due deliberation;
and no vain-glory in those things which men call honors; and a love of
labor and perseverance; and a readiness to listen to those who had
anything to propose for the common weal; and undeviating firmness in
giving to every man according to his deserts; and a knowledge derived
from experience of the occasions for vigorous action and for remission.
And I observed that he had overcome all passion for boys; and he
considered himself no more than any other citizen; and he released his
friends from all obligation to sup with him or to attend him of necessity
when he went abroad, and those who had failed to accompany him, by reason
of any urgent circumstances, always found him the same. I observed, too,
his habit of careful inquiry in all matters of deliberation, and his
persistency, and that he never stopped his investigation through being
satisfied with appearances which first present themselves; and that his
disposition was to keep his friends, and not to be soon tired of them,
nor yet to be extravagant in his affection; and to be satisfied on all
occasions, and cheerful; and to foresee things a long way off, and to
provide for the smallest without display; and to check immediately
popular applause and all flattery; and to be ever watchful over the
things which were necessary for the administration of the empire, and to
be a good manager of the expenditure, and patiently to endure the blame
which he got for such conduct; and he was neither superstitious with
respect to the gods, nor did he court men by gifts or by trying to please
them, or by flattering the populace; but he showed sobriety in all things
and firmness, and never any mean thoughts or action, nor love of novelty.
And the things which conduce in any way to the commodity of life, and of
which fortune gives an abundant supply, he used without arrogance and
without excusing himself; so that when he had them, he enjoyed them
without affectation, and when he had them not, he did not want them. No
one could ever say of him that he was either a sophist or a [home-bred]
flippant slave or a pedant; but every one acknowledged him to be a man
ripe, perfect, above flattery, able to manage his own and other men's
affairs. Besides this, he honored those who were true philosophers, and
he did not reproach those who pretended to be philosophers, nor yet was
he easily led by them. He was also easy in conversation, and he made
himself agreeable without any offensive affectation. He took a reasonable
care of his body's health, not as one who was greatly attached to life,
nor out of regard to personal appearance, nor yet in a careless way, but
so that through his own attention he very seldom stood in need of the
physician's art or of medicine or external applications. He was most
ready to give without envy to those who possessed any particular faculty,
such as that of eloquence or knowledge of the law or of morals, or of
anything else; and he gave them his help, that each might enjoy
reputation according to his deserts; and he always acted conformably to
the institutions of his country, without showing any affectation of doing
so. Further, he was not fond of change nor unsteady, but he loved to stay
in the same places, and to employ himself about the same things; and
after his paroxysms of headache he came immediately fresh and vigorous to
his usual occupations. His secrets were not many, but very few and very
rare, and these only about public matters; and he showed prudence and
economy in the exhibition of the public spectacles and the construction
of public buildings, his donations to the people, and in such things, for
he was a man who looked to what ought to be done, not to the reputation
which is got by a man's acts. He did not take the bath at unseasonable
hours; he was not fond of building houses, nor curious about what he ate,
nor about the texture and color of his clothes, nor about the beauty of
his slaves. [Footnote: 1] His dress came from Lorium, his villa on the
coast, and from Lanuvium generally. [Footnote: 2] We know how he behaved
to the toll-collector at Tusculum who asked his pardon; and such was all
his behavior. There was in him nothing harsh, nor implacable, nor
violent, nor, as one may say, anything carried to the sweating point; but
he examined all things severally, as if he had abundance of time, and
without confusion, in an orderly way, vigorously and consistently. And
that might be applied to him which is recorded of Socrates, that he was
able both to abstain from, and to enjoy, those things which many are too
weak to abstain from, and cannot enjoy without excess. But to be strong
enough both to bear the one and to be sober in the other is the mark of a
man who has a perfect and invincible soul, such as he showed in the
illness of Maximus.
17. To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents,
a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends,
nearly everything good. Further, I owe it to the gods that I was not
hurried into any offence against any of them, though I had a disposition
which, if opportunity had offered, might have led me to do something of
this kind; but, through their favor, there never was such a concurrence
of circumstances as put me to the trial. Further, I am thankful to the
gods that I was not longer brought up with my grandfather's concubine,
and that I preserved the flower of my youth, and that I did not make
proof of my virility before the proper season, but even deferred the
time; that I was subjected to a ruler and a father who was able to take
away all pride from me, and to bring me to the knowledge that it is
possible for a man to live in a palace without wanting either guards or
embroidered dresses, or torches and statues, and such-like show; but that
it is in such a man's power to bring himself very near to the fashion of
a private person, without being for this reason either meaner in thought,
or more remiss in action, with respect to the things which must be done
for the public interest in a manner that befits a ruler. I thank the gods
for giving me such a brother, who was able by his moral character to
rouse me to vigilance over myself, and who at the same time pleased me by
his respect and affection; that my children have not been stupid nor
deformed in body; that I did not make more proficiency in rhetoric,
poetry, and the other studies, in which I should perhaps have been
completely engaged, if I had seen that I was making progress in them;
that I made haste to place those who brought me up in the station of
honor, which they seemed to desire, without putting them off with hope of
my doing it some other time after, because they were then still young;
that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus; that I received clear and
frequent impressions about living according to nature, and what kind of a
life that is, so that, so far as depended on the gods, and their gifts,
and help, and inspirations, nothing hindered me from forthwith living
according to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own
fault, and through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may
almost say, their direct instructions; that my body has held out so long
in such a kind of life; that I never touched either Benedicta or
Theodotus, and that, after having fallen into amatory passions, I was
cured, and though I was often out of humor with Rusticus, I never did
anything of which I had occasion to repent; that, though it was my
mother's fate to die young, she spent the last years of her life with me;
that, whenever I wished to help any man in his need, or on any other
occasion, I was never told that I had not the means of doing it; and that
to myself the same necessity never happened, to receive anything from
another; that I have such a wife, so obedient, and so affectionate, and
so simple; that I had abundance of good masters for my children; and that
remedies have been shown to me by dreams, both others, and against
bloodspitting and giddiness ...; and that, when I had an inclination to
philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of any sophist, and that I did
not waste my time on writers [of histories], or in the resolution of
syllogisms, or occupy myself about the investigation of appearances in
the heavens; for all these things require the help of the gods and
fortune.
Among the Quadi at the Granua. [Footnote: 3]
BOOK II.
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody,
the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things
happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But
I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the
bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is
akin to me, not [only] of the same blood or seed, but that it
participates in [the same] intelligence and [the same] portion of the
divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on
me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we
are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the
rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another, then, is
contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and
to turn away.
2. Whatever this is that I am, it is a little flesh and breath, and the
ruling part. Throw away thy books; no longer distract thyself: it is not
allowed; but as if thou wast now dying, despise the flesh; it is blood
and bones and a network, a contexture of nerves, veins, and arteries. See
the breath also, what kind of a thing it is; air, and not always the
same, but every moment sent out and again sucked in. The third, then, is
the ruling part, consider thus: Thou art an old man; no longer let this
be a slave, no longer be pulled by the strings like a puppet to unsocial
movements, no longer be either dissatisfied with thy present lot, or
shrink from the future.
3. All that is from the gods is full of providence. That which is from
fortune is not separated from nature or without an interweaving and
involution with the things which are ordered by providence. From thence
all things flow; and there is besides necessity, and that which is for
the advantage of the whole universe, of which thou art a part. But that
is good for every part of nature which the nature of the whole brings,
and what serves to maintain this nature. Now the universe is preserved,
as by the changes of the elements so by the changes of things compounded
of the elements. Let these principles be enough for thee; let them always
be fixed opinions. But cast away the thirst after books, that thou mayest
not die murmuring, but cheerfully, truly, and from thy heart thankful to
the gods.
4. Remember how long thou hast been putting off these things, and how
often thou hast received an opportunity from the gods, and yet dost not
use it. Thou must now at last perceive of what universe thou art now a
part, and of what administrator of the universe thy existence is an
efflux, and that a limit of time is fixed for thee, which if thou dost
not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind, it will go and thou
wilt go, and it will never return.
5. Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast
in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and
freedom, and justice, and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts.
And thou wilt give thyself relief if thou dost every act of thy life as
if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate
aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love,
and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee. Thou seest
how few the things are, the which if a man lays hold of, he is able to
live a life which flows in quiet, and is like the existence of the gods;
for the gods on their part will require nothing more from him who
observes these things.
6. Do wrong to thyself, do wrong to thyself, my soul; but thou wilt no
longer have the opportunity of honoring thyself. Every man's life is
sufficient. But thine is nearly finished, though thy soul reverences not
itself, but places thy felicity in the souls of others.
7. Do the things external which fall upon thee distract thee? Give
thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled
around. But then thou must also avoid being carried about the other way;
for those too are triflers who have wearied themselves in life by their
activity, and yet have no object to which to direct every movement, and,
in a word, all their thoughts.
8. Through not observing what is in the mind of another a man has seldom
been seen to be unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of
their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.
9. This thou must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole,
and what is my nature, and how this is related to that, and what kind of
a part it is of what kind of a whole, and that there is no one who
hinders thee from always doing and saying the things which are according
to the nature of which thou art a part.
10. Theophrastus, in his comparison of bad acts--such a comparison as one
would make in accordance with the common notions of mankind--says, like a
true philosopher, that the offences which are committed through desire
are more blamable than those which are committed through anger. For he
who is excited by anger seems to turn away from reason with a certain
pain and unconscious contraction; but he who offends through desire,
being overpowered by pleasure, seems to be in a manner more intemperate
and more womanish in his offences. Rightly, then, and in a way worthy of
philosophy, he said that the offence which is committed with pleasure is
more blamable than that which is committed with pain; and on the whole
the one is more like a person who has been first wronged and through pain
is compelled to be angry; but the other is moved by his own impulse to do
wrong, being carried towards doing something by desire.
11. Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very
moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly. But to go away from
among men, if there are gods, is 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 or 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. Now
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 evil should 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 men and bad, being things which make
us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.
12. How quickly all things disappear,--in the universe the bodies
themselves, but in time the remembrance of them. What is the nature of
all sensible things, and particularly those which attract with the bait
of pleasure or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad by vapory fame; how
worthless, and contemptible, and sordid, and perishable, and dead they
are,--all this it is the part of the intellectual faculty to observe. To
observe too who these are whose opinions and voices give reputation; what
death is, and the fact that, if a man looks at it in itself, and by the
abstractive power of reflection resolves into their parts all the things
which present themselves to the imagination in it, he will then consider
it to be nothing else than an operation of nature; and if any one is
afraid of an operation of nature, he is a child. This, however, is not
only an operation of nature, but it is also a thing which conduces to the
purposes of nature. To observe too how man comes near to the Deity, and
by what part of him, and when this part of man is so disposed (VI. 28).
13. Nothing is more wretched than a man who traverses everything in a
round, and pries into the things beneath the earth, as the poet says, and
seeks by conjecture what is in the minds of his neighbors, without
perceiving that it is sufficient to attend to the daemon within him, and
to reverence it sincerely. And reverence of the daemon consists in
keeping it pure from passion and thoughtlessness, and dissatisfaction
with what comes from gods and men. For the things from the gods merit
veneration for their excellence; and the things from men should be dear
to us by reason of kinship; and sometimes even, in a manner, they move
our pity by reason of men's ignorance of good and bad; this defect being
not less than that which deprives us of the power of distinguishing
things that are white and black.
14. Though thou shouldest be going to live three thousand years, and as
many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other
life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he
now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought to the same. For the
present is the same to all, though that which perishes is not the same;
and so that which is lost appears to be a mere moment. For a man cannot
lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can any
one take this from him? These two things then thou must bear in mind; the
one, that all things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a
circle, and that it makes no difference whether a man shall see the same
things during a hundred years, or two hundred, or an infinite time; and
the second, that the longest liver and he who will die soonest lose just
the same. For the present is the only thing of which a man can be
deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and
that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.
15. Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus
is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was said, if a man
receives what may be got out of it as far as it is true.
16. The soul of man does violence to itself, first of all, when it
becomes an abscess, and, as it were, a tumor on the universe, so far as
it can. For to be vexed at anything which happens is a separation of
ourselves from nature, in some part of which the natures of all other
things are contained. In the next place, the soul does violence to itself
when it turns away from any man, or even moves towards him with the
intention of injuring, such as are the souls of those who are angry. In
the third place, the soul does violence to itself when it is overpowered
by pleasure or by pain. Fourthly, when it plays a part, and does or says
anything insincerely and untruly. Fifthly, when it allows any act of its
own and any movement to be without an aim, and does anything
thoughtlessly and without considering what it is, it being right that
even the smallest things be done with reference to an end; and the end of
rational animals is to follow the reason and the law of the most ancient
city and polity.
17. Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux,
and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to
putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame
a thing devoid of judgment. And, to say all in a word, everything which
belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream
and vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after--fame
is oblivion. What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing,
and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon 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 in each continually
changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the
change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to
nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.
This in Carnuntum.
BOOK III.
1. We ought to consider not only that our life is daily wasting away and
a smaller part of it is left, but another thing also must be taken into
the account, that if a man should live longer, it is quite uncertain
whether the understanding will still continue sufficient for the
comprehension of things, and retain the power of contemplation which
strives to acquire the knowledge of the divine and the human. For if he
shall begin to fall into dotage, perspiration and nutrition and
imagination and appetite, and whatever else there is of the kind, will
not fail; but the power of making use of ourselves, and filling up the
measure of our duty, and clearly separating all appearances, and
considering whether a man should now depart from life, and whatever else
of the kind absolutely requires a disciplined reason,--all this is
already extinguished. We must make haste, then, not only because we are
daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the
understanding of them cease first.
2. We ought to observe also that even the things which follow after the
things which are produced according to nature contain something pleasing
and attractive. For instance, when bread is baked some parts are split at
the surface, and these parts which thus open, and have a certain fashion
contrary to the purpose of the baker's art, are beautiful in a manner,
and in a peculiar way excite a desire for eating. And again, figs, when
they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the very
circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to
the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows,
and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other
things,--though they are far from being beautiful if a man should examine
them severally,--still, because they are consequent upon the things which
are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they please the mind; so
that if a man should have a feeling and deeper insight with respect to
the things which are produced in the universe, there is hardly one of
those which follow by way of consequence which will not seem to him to be
in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure. And so he will see even the
real gaping jaws of wild beasts with no less pleasure than those which
painters and sculptors show by imitation; and in an old woman and an old
man he will be able to see a certain maturity and comeliness; and the
attractive loveliness of young persons he will be able to look on with
chaste eyes; and many such things will present themselves, not pleasing
to every man, but to him only who has become truly familiar with Nature
and her works.
3. Hippocrates, after curing many diseases, himself fell sick and died.
The Chaldaei foretold the deaths of many, and then fate caught them too.
Alexander and Pompeius and Caius Caesar, after so often completely
destroying whole cities, and in battle cutting to pieces many ten
thousands of cavalry and infantry, themselves too at last departed from
life. Heraclitus, after so many speculations on the conflagration of the
universe, was filled with water internally and died smeared all over with
mud. And lice destroyed Democritus; and other lice killed Socrates. 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 as that which serves it is superior: for the
one is intelligence and deity; the other is earth and corruption.
4. Do not waste the remainder of thy life in thoughts about others, when
thou dost not refer thy thoughts to some object of common utility. For
thou losest the opportunity of doing something else when thou hast such
thoughts as these,--What is such a person doing, and why, and what is he
saying, and what is he thinking of, and what is he contriving, and
whatever else of the kind makes us wander away from the observation of
our own ruling power. We ought then to check in the series of our
thoughts everything that is without a purpose and useless, but most of
all the over-curious feeling and the malignant; and a man should use
himself to think of those things only about which if one should suddenly
ask, What hast thou now in thy thoughts? with perfect openness thou
mightest immediately answer, This or That; so that from thy words it
should be plain that everything in thee is simple and benevolent, and
such as befits a social animal, and one that cares not for thoughts about
pleasure or sensual enjoyments at all, nor has any rivalry or envy and
suspicion, or anything else for which thou wouldst blush if thou shouldst
say that thou hadst it in thy mind. For the man who is such, and no
longer delays being among the number of the best, is like a priest and
minister of the gods, using too the [deity] which is planted within him,
which makes the man uncontaminated by pleasure, unharmed by any pain,
untouched by any insult, feeling no wrong, a fighter in the noblest
fight, one who cannot be overpowered by any passion, dyed deep with
justice, accepting with all his soul everything which happens and is
assigned to him as his portion; and not often, nor yet without great
necessity and for the general interest, imagining what another says, or
does, or thinks. For it is only what belongs to himself that he makes the
matter for his activity; and he constantly thinks of that which is
allotted to himself out of the sum total of things, and he makes his own
acts fair, and he is persuaded that his own portion is good. For the lot
which is assigned to each man is carried along with him and carries him
along with it. And he remembers also that every rational animal is his
kinsman, and that to care for all men is according to man's nature; and a
man should hold on to the opinion not of all, but of those only who
confessedly live according to nature. But as to those who live not so, he
always bears in mind what kind of men they are both at home and from
home, both by night and by day, and what they are, and with what men they
live an impure life. Accordingly, he does not value at all the praise
which comes from such men, since they are not even satisfied with
themselves.
5. Labor not unwillingly, nor without regard to the common interest, nor
without due consideration, nor with distraction; nor let studied ornament
set off thy thoughts, and be not either a man of many words, or busy
about too many things. And further, let the deity which is in thee be the
guardian of a living being, manly and of ripe age, and engaged in matter
political, and a Roman, and a ruler, who has taken his post like a man
waiting for the signal which summons him from life, and ready to go,
having need neither of oath nor of any man's testimony. Be cheerful also,
and seek not external help nor the tranquillity which others give. A man
then must stand erect, not be kept erect by others.
6. If thou findest in human life anything better than justice, truth,
temperance, fortitude, and, in a word, anything better than thy own
mind's self-satisfaction in the things which it enables thee to do
according to right reason, and in the condition that is assigned to thee
without thy own choice; if, I say, thou seest anything better than is,
turn to it with all thy soul, and enjoy that which thou hast found to be
the best. But if nothing appears to be better than the Deity which is
planted in thee, which has subjected to itself all thy appetites, and
carefully examines all the impressions, and, as Socrates said, has
detached itself from the persuasions of sense, and has submitted itself
to the gods, and cares for mankind; if thou findest everything else
smaller and of less value than this, give place to nothing else, for if
thou dost once diverge and incline to it, thou wilt no longer without
distraction be able to give the preference to that good thing which is
thy proper possession and thy own; for it is not right that anything of
any other kind, such as praise from the many, or power, or enjoyment of
pleasure, should come into competition with that which is rationally and
politically [or practically] good. All these things, even though they may
seem to adapt themselves [to the better things] in a small degree, obtain
the superiority all at once, and carry us away. But do thou, I say,
simply and freely choose the better, and hold to it.--But that which is
useful is the better.--Well, then, if it is useful to thee as a rational
being, keep to it; but if it is only useful to thee as an animal, say so,
and maintain thy judgment without arrogance: only take care that thou
makest the inquiry by a sure method.
7. Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee
to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to
suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs
walls and curtains: for he who has preferred to everything else his own
intelligence and daemon and the worship of its excellence, acts no tragic
part, does not groan, will not need either solitude or much company; and,
what is chief of all, he will live without either pursuing or flying from
[death]; but whether for a longer or a shorter time he shall have the
soul enclosed in the body, he cares not at all: for even if he must
depart immediately, he will go as readily as if he were going to do
anything else which can be done with decency and order; taking care of
this only all through life, that his thoughts turn not away from anything
which belongs to an intelligent animal and a member of a civil community.
8. In the mind of one who is chastened and purified thou wilt find no
corrupt matter, nor impurity, nor any sore skinned over. Nor is his life
incomplete when fate overtakes him, as one may say of an actor who leaves
the stage before ending and finishing the play. Besides, there is in him
nothing servile, nor affected, nor too closely bound [to other things],
nor yet detached [from other things], nothing worthy of blame, nothing
which seeks a hiding-place.
9. Reverence the faculty which produces opinion. On this faculty it
entirely depends whether there shall exist in thy ruling part any opinion
inconsistent with nature and the constitution of the rational animal. And
this faculty promises freedom from hasty judgment, and friendship towards
men, and obedience to the gods.
10. Throwing away then all things, hold to these only which are few; and
besides, bear in mind that every man lives only this present time, which
is an indivisible point, and that all the rest of his life is either past
or it is uncertain. Short then is the time which every man lives, and
small the nook of the earth where he lives; and short too the longest
posthumous fame, and even this only continued by a succession of poor
human beings, who will very soon die, and who know not even themselves,
much less him who died long ago.
11. To the aids which have been mentioned let this one still be added:
Make for thyself a definition or description of the thing 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 of which it has been
compounded, and into which it will be resolved. For nothing is so
productive of elevation of mind as to be able to examine methodically and
truly every object which is presented to thee in life, and always to look
at things so as to see at the same time what kind of universe this is,
and what kind of use everything performs in it, and what value everything
has with reference to the whole, and what with reference to man, who is a
citizen of the highest city, of which all other cities are like families;
what each thing is, and of what it is composed, and how long it is the
nature of this thing to endure which now makes an impression on me, and
what virtue I have need of with respect to it, such as gentleness,
manliness, truth, fidelity, simplicity, contentment, and the rest.
Wherefore, on every occasion a man should say: This comes from god; and
this is according to the apportionment and spinning of the thread of
destiny, and such-like coincidence and chance; and this is from one of
the same stock, and a kinsman and partner, one who knows not, however,
what is according to his nature. But I know; for this reason I behave
towards him according to the natural law of fellowship with benevolence
and justice. At the same time, however, in things indifferent I attempt
to ascertain the value of each.
12. If thou workest at that which is before thee, following right reason
seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract
thee, but keeping thy divine part pure, as if thou shouldst be bound to
give it back immediately; if thou holdest to this, expecting nothing,
fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to
nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou
utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to
prevent this.
13. As physicians have always their instruments and knives ready for
cases which suddenly require their skill, so do thou have principles
ready for the understanding of things divine and human, and for doing
everything, even the smallest, with a recollection of the bond which
unites the divine and human to one another. For neither wilt thou do
anything well which pertains to man without at the same time having a
reference to things divine; nor the contrary.
14. No longer wander at hazard; for neither wilt thou read thy own
memoirs, nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the
selections from books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten
then to the end which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle
hopes, come to thy own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it
is in thy power.
15. They know not how many things are signified by the words stealing,
sowing, buying, keeping quiet, seeing what ought to be done; for this is
not effected by the eyes, but by another kind of vision.
16. Body, soul, intelligence: to the body belong sensations, to the soul
appetites, to the intelligence principles. To receive the impressions of
forms by means of appearances belongs even to animals; to be pulled by
the strings of desire belongs both to wild beasts and to men who have
made themselves into women, and to a Phalaris and a Nero: and to have the
intelligence that guides to the things which appear suitable belongs also
to those who do not believe in the gods, and who betray their country,
and do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors. If then
everything else is common to all that I have mentioned, there remains
that which is peculiar to the good man, to be pleased and content with
what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him; and not to
defile the divinity which is planted in his breast, nor disturb it by a
crowd of images, but to preserve it tranquil, following it obediently as
a god, neither saying anything contrary to the truth, nor doing anything
contrary to justice. And if all men refuse to believe that he lives a
simple, modest, and contented life, he is neither angry with any of them,
nor does he deviate from the way which leads to the end of life, to which
a man ought to come pure, tranquil, ready to depart, and without any
compulsion perfectly reconciled to his lot.
BOOK IV.
1. That which rules within, when it is according to nature, is so
affected with respect to the events which happen, that it always easily
adapts itself to that which is possible and is presented to it. For it
requires no definite material, but it moves towards its purpose, under
certain conditions, however; and it makes a material for itself out of
that which opposes it, as fire lays hold of what falls into it, by which
a small light would have been extinguished: but when the fire is strong,
it soon appropriates to itself the matter which is heaped on it, and
consumes it, and rises higher by means of this very material.
2. Let no act be done without a purpose, nor otherwise than according to
the perfect principles of art.
3. Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores,
and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But
this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in
thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere
either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire
than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts
that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and
I affirm that tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the
mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself;
and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou
shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely,
and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which
thou returnest. For with what art thou discontented? With the badness of
men? Recall to thy mind this conclusion, that rational animals exist for
one another, and that to endure is a part of justice, and that men do
wrong involuntarily; and consider how many already, after mutual enmity,
suspicion, hatred, and fighting, have been stretched dead, reduced to
ashes; and be quiet at last.--But perhaps thou art dissatisfied with that
which is assigned to thee out of the universe.--Recall to thy
recollection this alternative; either there is providence or atoms
[fortuitous concurrence of things]; or remember the arguments by which it
has been proved that the world is a kind of political community [and be
quiet at last].--But perhaps corporeal things will still fasten upon
thee.--Consider then further that the mind mingles not with the breath,
whether moving gently or violently, when it has once drawn itself apart
and discovered its own power, and think also of all that thou hast heard
and assented to about pain and pleasure [and be quiet at last].--But
perhaps the desire of the thing called fame will torment thee.
--See how soon everything is forgotten, and look at the chaos
of infinite time on each side of [the present], and the emptiness of
applause, and the changeableness and want of judgment in those who
pretend to give praise, and the narrowness of the space within which it
is circumscribed [and be quiet at last]. For the whole earth is a point,
and how small a nook in it is this thy dwelling, and how few are there in
it, and what kind of people are they who will praise thee.
This then remains: Remember to retire into this little territory of thy
own, and above all do not distract or strain thyself, but be free, and
look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal. But
among the things readiest to thy hand to which thou shalt turn, let there
be these, which are two. One is that things do not touch the soul, for
they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only
from the opinion which is within. The other is that all these things
which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and
constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already
witnessed. The universe is transformation: life is opinion.
4. If our intellectual part is common, the reason also, in respect of
which we are rational beings, is common: if this is so, common also is
the reason which commands us what to do, and what not to do; if this is
so, there is a common law also; if this is so, we are fellow-citizens; if
this is so, we are members of some political community; if this is so,
the world is in a manner a state. For of what other common political
community will any one say that the whole human race are members? And
from thence, from this common political community comes also our very
intellectual faculty and reasoning faculty and our capacity for law; or
whence do they come? For as my earthly part is a portion given to me from
certain earth, and that which is watery from another element, and that
which is hot and fiery from some peculiar source (for nothing comes out
of that which is nothing, as nothing also returns to non-existence), so
also the intellectual part comes from some source.
5. Death is such as generation is, a mystery of nature; composition out
of the same elements, and a decomposition into the same; and altogether
not a thing of which any man should be ashamed, for it is not contrary to
[the nature of] a reasonable animal, and not contrary to the reason of
our constitution.
6. It is natural that these things should be done by such persons, it is
a matter of necessity; and if a man will not have it so, he will not
allow the fig-tree to have juice. But by all means bear this in mind,
that within a very short time both thou and he will be dead; and soon not
even your names will be left behind.
7. Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, "I
have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the
harm is taken away.
8. That which does not make a man worse than he was, also does not make
his life worse, nor does it harm him either from without or from within.
9. The nature of that which is [universally] useful has been compelled to
do this.
10. Consider that everything which happens, happens justly, and if thou
observest carefully, thou wilt find it to be so. I do not say only with
respect to the continuity of the series of things, but with respect to
what is just, and as if it were done by one who assigns to each thing its
value. Observe then as thou hast begun; and whatever thou dost, do it in
conjunction with this, the being good, and in the sense in which a man is
properly understood to be good. Keep to this in every action.
11. Do not have such an opinion of things as he has who does thee wrong,
or such as he wishes thee to have, but look at them as they are in truth.
12. A man should always have these two rules in readiness; the one to do
only whatever the reason of the ruling and legislating faculty may
suggest for the use of men; the other, to change thy opinion, if there is
any one at hand who sets thee right and moves thee from any opinion. But
this change of opinion must proceed only from a certain persuasion, as of
what is just or of common advantage, and the like, not because it appears
pleasant or brings reputation.
13. Hast thou reason? I have.--Why then dost not thou use it? For if this
does its own work, what else dost thou wish?
14. Thou hast existed as a part. Thou shalt disappear in that which
produced thee; but rather thou shalt be received back into its seminal
principle by transmutation.
15. Many grains of frankincense on the same altar: one falls before,
another falls after; but it makes no difference.
16. Within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou art now a
beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the worship
of reason.
17. Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death
hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.
18. How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor
says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be
just and pure; or, as Agathon says, look not round at the depraved morals
of others, but run straight along the line without deviating from it.
19. He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider
that every one of those who remember him will himself also die very soon;
then again also they who have succeeded them, until the whole remembrance
shall have been extinguished as it is transmitted through men who
foolishly admire and perish. But suppose that those who will remember are
even immortal, and that the remembrance will be immortal, what then is
this to thee? And I say not what is it to the dead, but what is it to the
living. What is praise, except indeed so far as it has a certain utility?
For thou now rejectest unseasonably the gift of nature, clinging to
something else....
20. Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and
terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither worse
then nor better is a thing made by being praised. I affirm this also of
the things which are called beautiful by the vulgar, for example,
material things and works of art. That which is really beautiful has no
need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than
benevolence or modesty. Which of these things is beautiful because it is
praised, or spoiled by being blamed? Is such a thing as an emerald made
worse than it was, if it is not praised? or gold, ivory, purple, a lyre,
a little knife, a flower, a shrub?
21. If souls continue to exist, how does the air contain them from
eternity?--But how does the earth contain the bodies of those who have
been buried from time so remote? For as here the mutation of these bodies
after a certain continuance, whatever it may be, and their dissolution
make room for other dead bodies, so the souls which are removed into the
air after subsisting for some time are transmuted and diffused, and
assume a fiery nature by being received into the seminal intelligence of
the universe, and in this way make room for the fresh souls which come to
dwell there. And this is the answer which a man might give on the
hypothesis of souls continuing to exist. But we must not only think of
the number of bodies which are thus buried, but also of the number of
animals which are daily eaten by us and the other animals. For what a
number is consumed, and thus in a manner buried in the bodies of those
who feed on them! And nevertheless this earth receives them by reason of
the changes [of these bodies] into blood, and the transformations into
the aerial or the fiery element.
What is the investigation into the truth in this matter? The division
into that which is material and that which is the cause of form [the
formal].
22. Do not be whirled about, but in every movement have respect to
justice, and on the occasion of every impression maintain the faculty of
comprehension [or understanding].
23. Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O
Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time
for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature:
from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things
return. The poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear
city of Zeus?
24. Occupy thyself with few things, says the philosopher, if thou wouldst
be tranquil.--But consider if it would not be better to say, Do what is
necessary, and whatever the reason of the animal which is naturally
social requires, and as it requires. For this brings not only the
tranquillity which comes from doing well, but also that which comes from
doing few things. For the greatest part of what we say and do being
unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more leisure and less
uneasiness. Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself, Is
this one of the unnecessary things? Now a man should take away not only
unnecessary acts, but also unnecessary thoughts, for thus superfluous
acts will not follow after.
25. Try how the life of the good man suits thee, the life of him who is
satisfied with his portion out of the whole, and satisfied with his own
just acts and benevolent disposition.
26. Hast thou seen those things? Look also at these. Do not disturb
thyself. Make thyself all simplicity. Does any one do wrong? It is to
himself that he does the wrong. Has anything happened to thee? Well: out
of the universe from the beginning everything which happens has been
apportioned and spun out to thee. In a word, thy life is short. Thou must
turn to profit the present by the aid of reason and justice. Be sober in
thy relaxation.
27. Either it is a well-arranged universe [Footnote: 4] or a chaos
huddled together, but still a universe. But can a certain order subsist
in thee, and disorder in the All? And this too when all things are so
separated and diffused and sympathetic.
28. A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character,
bestial, childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent,
tyrannical.
29. If he is a stranger to the universe who does not know what is in it,
no less is he a stranger who does not know what is going on in it. He is
a runaway, who flies from social reason; he is blind, who shuts the eyes
of the understanding; he is poor, who has need of another, and has not
from himself all things which are useful for life. He is an abscess on
the universe who withdraws and separates himself from the reason of our
common nature through being displeased with the things which happen, for
the same nature produces this, and has produced thee too: he is a piece
rent asunder from the state, who tears his own soul from that of
reasonable animals, which is one.
30. The one is a philosopher without a tunic, and the other without a
book: here is another half naked: Bread I have not, he says, and I abide
by reason--and I do not get the means of living out of my learning, and I
abide [by my reason].
31. Love the art, poor as it may be, which thou hast learned, and be
content with it; and pass through the rest of life like one who has
intrusted to the gods with his whole soul all that he has, making thyself
neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man.
32. Consider for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these
things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring,
feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately
arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for some to die, grumbling about
the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring consulship, kingly
power. Well, then, that life of these people no longer exists at all.
Again, remove to the times of Trajan. Again, all is the same. Their life
too is gone. In like manner view also the other epochs of time and of
whole nations, and see how many after great efforts soon fell and were
resolved into the elements. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom
thou hast thyself known distracting themselves about idle things,
neglecting to do what was in accordance with their proper constitution,
and to hold firmly to this and to be content with it. And herein it is
necessary to remember that the attention given to everything has its
proper value and proportion. For thus thou wilt not be dissatisfied, if
thou appliest thyself to smaller matters no further than is fit.
33. The words which were formerly familiar are now antiquated: so also
the names of those who were famed of old, are now in a manner antiquated,
Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Leonnatus, and a little after also Scipio and
Cato, then Augustus, then also Hadrianus and Antoninus. For all things
soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries
them. And I say this of those who have shone in a wondrous way. For the
rest, as soon as they have breathed out their breath, they are gone, and
no man speaks of them. And, to conclude the matter, what is even an
eternal remembrance? A mere nothing. What then is that about which we
ought to employ our serious pains? This one thing, thoughts just, and
acts social, and words which never lie, and a disposition which gladly
accepts all that happens, as necessary, as usual, as flowing from a
principle and source of the same kind.
34. Willingly give thyself up to Clotho [one of the fates], allowing her
to spin thy thread into whatever thing she pleases.
35. Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that
which is remembered.
36. Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom
thyself to consider that the nature of the universe 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 notion.
37. Thou wilt soon die, and thou art not yet simple, nor free from
perturbations, nor without suspicion of being hurt by external things,
nor kindly disposed towards all; nor dost thou yet place wisdom only in
acting justly.
38. Examine men's ruling principles, even those of the wise, what kind of
things they avoid, and what kind they pursue.
39. What is evil to thee does not subsist in the ruling principle of
another; nor yet in any turning and mutation of thy corporeal covering.
Where is it then? It is in that part of thee in which subsists the power
of forming opinions about evils. Let this power then not form [such]
opinions, and all is well. And if that which is nearest to it, the poor
body, is cut, burnt, filled with matter and rottenness, nevertheless let
the part which forms opinions about these things be quiet; that is, let
it judge that nothing is either bad or good which can happen equally to
the bad man and the good. For that which happens equally to him who lives
contrary to nature and to him who lives according to nature, is neither
according to nature nor contrary to nature.
40. Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one
substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one
perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things
act with one movement; and how all things are the co-operating causes of
all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread
and the contexture of the web.
41. Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to
say (I. C. 19).
42. It is no evil for things to undergo change, and no good for things to
subsist in consequence of change.
43. Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a
violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away,
and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.
44. Everything which happens is as familiar and well known as the rose in
spring and the fruit in summer; for such is disease, and death, and
calumny, and treachery, and whatever else delights fools or vexes them.
45. In the series of things, those which follow are always aptly fitted
to those which have gone before: for this series is not like a mere
enumeration of disjointed things, which has only a necessary sequence,
but it is a rational connection: and as all existing things are arranged
together harmoniously, so the things which come into existence exhibit no
mere succession, but a certain wonderful relationship (VI. 38; VII. 9;
VII. 75, note).
46. Always remember the saying of Heraclitus, that the death of earth is
to become water, and the death of water is to become air, and the death
of air is to become fire, and reversely. And think too of him who forgets
whither the way leads, and that men quarrel with that with which they are
most constantly in communion, the reason which governs the universe; and
the things which they daily meet with seem to them strange: and consider
that we ought not to act and speak as if we were asleep, for even in
sleep we seem to act and speak; and that we ought not, like children who
learn from their parents, simply to act and speak as we have been taught.
47. If any god told thee that thou shalt die to-morrow, or certainly on
the day after to-morrow, thou wouldst not care much whether it was on the
third day or on the morrow, unless thou wast in the highest degree mean-
spirited; for how small is the difference. So think it no great thing to
die after as many years as thou canst name rather than to-morrow.
48. Think continually how many physicians are dead after often
contracting their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after
predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others; and how many
philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality; how many
heroes after killing thousands; and how many tyrants who have used their
power over men's lives with terrible insolence, as if they were immortal;
and how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak, Helice and Pompeii
and Herculaneum, and others innumerable. Add to the reckoning all whom
thou hast known, one after another. One man after burying another has
been laid out dead, and another buries him; and all this in a short time.
To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are,
and what was yesterday a little mucus, to-morrow will be a mummy or
ashes. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature,
and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is
ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it
grew.
49. Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but
it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.
Unhappy am I because this has happened to me? Not so, but happy am I,
though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain,
neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future. For such a thing
as this might have happened to every man; but every man would not have
continued free from pain on such an occasion. Why then is that rather a
misfortune than this a good fortune? And dost thou in all cases call that
a man's misfortune which is not a deviation from man's nature? And does a
thing seem to thee to be a deviation from man's nature, when it is not
contrary to the will of man's nature? Well, thou knowest the will of
nature. Will then this which has happened prevent thee from being just,
magnanimous, temperate, prudent, secure against inconsiderate opinions
and falsehood; will it prevent thee from having modesty, freedom, and
everything else, by the presence of which man's nature obtains all that
is its own? Remember too on every occasion which leads thee to vexation
to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear
it nobly is good fortune.
50. It is a vulgar, but still a useful help towards contempt of death, to
pass in review those who have tenaciously stuck to life. What more then
have they gained than those who have died early? Certainly they lie in
their tombs somewhere at last, Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, or
any one else like them, who have carried out many to be buried, and then
were carried out themselves. Altogether the interval is small [between
birth and death]; and consider with how much trouble, and in company with
what sort of people, and in what a feeble body this interval is
laboriously passed. Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For
look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is
before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the
difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three
generations?
51. Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural:
accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason.
For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all
artifice and ostentatious display.
BOOK V.
1. In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be
present,--I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I
dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for
which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie
in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm?--But this is more pleasant.--
Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or
exertion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the
ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their
several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the work of a
human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is according
to thy nature?--But it is necessary to take rest also.--It is necessary.
However, Nature has fixed bounds to this too: she has fixed bounds to
eating and drinking, and yet thou goest beyond these bounds, beyond what
is sufficient; yet in thy acts it is not so, but thou stoppest short of
what thou canst do. So thou lovest not thyself, for if thou didst, thou
wouldst love thy nature and her will. But those who love their several
arts exhaust themselves in working at them unwashed and without food; but
thou valuest thy own nature less than the turner values the turning art,
or the dancer the dancing art, or the lover of money values his money, or
the vainglorious man his little glory. And such men, when they have a
violent affection to a thing, choose neither to eat nor to sleep rather
than to perfect the things which they care for. But are the acts which
concern society more vile in thy eyes and less worthy of thy labor?
2. How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is
troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquillity.
3. Judge every word and deed which are according to nature to be fit for
thee; and be not diverted by the blame which follows from any people nor
by their words, but if a thing is good to be done or said, do not
consider it unworthy of thee. For those persons have their peculiar
leading principle and follow their peculiar movement; which things do not
thou regard, but go straight on, following thy own nature and the common
nature; and the way of both is one.
4. I go through the things which happen according to nature until I shall
fall and rest, breathing out my breath into that element out of which I
daily draw it in, and falling upon that earth out of which my father
collected the seed, and my mother the blood, and my nurse the milk; out
of which during so many years I have been supplied with food and drink;
which bears me when I tread on it and abuse it for so many purposes.
5. Thou sayest, Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.--Be it so:
but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, I am not
formed for them by nature. Show those qualities then which are altogether
in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to
pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence,
frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity.
Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art immediately able to
exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness,
and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? or art thou
compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to murmur, and to
be stingy, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to
try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in
thy mind? No, by the gods; but thou mightest have been delivered from
these things long ago. Only if in truth thou canst be charged with being
rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this
also, not neglecting it nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness.
6. One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it
down to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do
this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and
he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he
has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for
nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit. As a horse when
he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made
the honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for
others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on
to produce again the grapes in season.--Must a man then be one of these,
who in a manner act thus without observing it?--Yes.--But this very thing
is necessary, the observation of what a man is doing: for, it may be
said, it is characteristic of the social animal to perceive that he is
working in a social manner, and indeed to wish that his social partner
also should perceive it.--It is true what thou sayest, but thou dost not
rightly understand what is now said: and for this reason thou wilt become
one of those of whom I spoke before, for even they are misled by a
certain show of reason. But if thou wilt choose to understand the meaning
of what is said, do not fear that for this reason thou wilt omit any
social act.
7. A prayer of the Athenians: Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, down on the
ploughed fields of the Athenians and on the plains.--In truth we ought
not to pray at all, or we ought to pray in this simple and noble fashion.
8. Just as we must understand when it is said, That Aesculapius
prescribed to this man horse-exercise, or bathing in cold water, or going
without shoes, so we must understand it when it is said, That the nature
of the universe prescribed to this man disease, or mutilation, or loss,
or anything else of the kind. For in the first case Prescribed means
something like this: he prescribed this for this man as a thing adapted
to procure health; and in the second case it means, That which happens to
[or suits] every man is fixed in a manner for him suitably to his
destiny. For this is what we mean when we say that things are suitable to
us, as the workmen say of squared stones in walls or the pyramids, that
they are suitable, when they fit them to one another in some kind of
connection. For there is altogether one fitness [harmony]. And as the
universe is made up out of all bodies to be such a body as it is, so out
of all existing causes necessity [destiny] is made up to be such a cause
as it is. And even those who are completely ignorant understand what I
mean; for they say, It [necessity, destiny] brought this to such a
person.--This then was brought and this was prescribed to him. Let us
then receive these things, as well as those which Aesculapius prescribes.
Many as a matter of course even among his prescriptions are disagreeable,
but we, accept them in the hope of health. Let the perfecting and
accomplishment of the things which the common nature judges to be good,
be judged by thee to be of the same kind as thy health. And so accept
everything which happens, even if it seem disagreeable, because it leads
to this, to the health of the universe and to the prosperity and felicity
of Zeus [the universe]. For he would not have brought on any man what he
has brought, if it were not useful for the whole. Neither does the nature
of anything, whatever it may be, cause anything which is not suitable to
that which is directed by it. For two reasons then it is right to be
content with that which happens to thee, the one, because it was done for
thee and prescribed for thee, and in a manner had reference to thee,
originally from the most ancient causes spun with thy destiny; and the
other, because even that which comes severally to every man is to the
power which administers the universe a cause of felicity and perfection,
nay even of its very continuance. For the integrity of the whole is
mutilated, if thou cuttest off anything whatever from the conjunction and
the continuity either of the parts or of the causes. And thou dost cut
off, as far as it is in thy power, when thou art dissatisfied, and in a
manner triest to put anything out of the way.
9. Be not disgusted, nor discouraged, nor dissatisfied, if thou dost not
succeed in doing everything according to right principles, but when thou
hast failed, return back again, and be content if the greater part of
what thou dost is consistent with man's nature, and love this to which
thou returnest; and do not return to philosophy as if she were a master,
but act like those who have sore eyes and apply a bit of sponge and egg,
or as another applies a plaster, or drenching with water. For thus thou
wilt not fail to obey reason, and thou wilt repose in it. And remember
that philosophy requires only the things which thy nature requires; but
thou wouldst have something else which is not according to nature.--It
may be objected, Why, what is more agreeable than this [which I am
doing]?--But is not this the very reason why pleasure deceives us? And
consider if magnanimity, freedom, simplicity, equanimity, piety, are not
more agreeable. For what is more agreeable than wisdom itself, when thou
thinkest of the security and the happy course of all things which depend
on the faculty of understanding and knowledge?
10. Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to
philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether
unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult to
understand. And all our assent is changeable; for where is the man who
never changes? Carry thy thoughts then to the objects themselves, and
consider how short-lived they are and worthless, and that they may be in
the possession of a filthy wretch or a robber. Then turn to the morals of
those who live with thee, and it is hardly possible to endure even the
most agreeable of them, to say nothing of a man being hardly able to
endure himself. In such darkness then and dirt, and in so constant a flux
both of substance and of time, and of motion and of things moved, what
there is worth being highly prized, or even an object of serious pursuit,
I cannot imagine. But on the contrary it is a man's duty to comfort
himself, and to wait for the natural dissolution, and not to be vexed at
the delay, but to rest in these principles only: the one, that nothing
will happen to me which is not conformable to the nature of the universe;
and the other, that it is in my power never to act contrary to my god and
daemon: for there is no man who will compel me to this.
11. About what am I now employing my own soul? On every occasion I must
ask myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me
which they call the ruling principle? and whose soul have I now,--that of
a child, or of a young man, or of a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, or of a
domestic animal, or of a wild beast?
12. What kind of things those are which appear good to the many, we may
learn even from this. For if any man should conceive certain things as
being really good, such as prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, he
would not after having first conceived these endure to listen to anything
which should not be in harmony with what is really good. But if a man has
first conceived as good the things which appear to the many to be good,
he will listen and readily receive as very applicable that which was said
by the comic writer. Thus even the many perceive the difference. For were
it not so, this saying would not offend and would not be rejected [in the
first case], while we receive it when it is said of wealth, and of the
means which further luxury and fame, as said fitly and wittily. Go on
then and ask if we should value and think those things to be good, to
which after their first conception in the mind the words of the comic
writer might be aptly applied,--that he who has them, through pure
abundance has not a place to ease himself in.
13. I am composed of the formal and the material; and neither of them
will perish into non-existence, as neither of them came into existence
out of non-existence. Every part of me then will be reduced by change
into some part of the universe, and that again will change into another
part of the universe, and so on forever. And by consequence of such a
change I too exist, and those who begot me, and so on forever in the
other direction. For nothing hinders us from saying so, even if the
universe is administered according to definite periods [of revolution].
14. Reason and the reasoning art [philosophy] are powers which are
sufficient for themselves and for their own works. They move then from a
first principle which is their own, and they make their way to the end
which is proposed to them; and this is the reason why such acts are named
Catorthoseis or right acts, which word signifies that they proceed by the
right road.
15. None of these things ought to be called a man's which do not belong
to a man, as man. They are not required of a man, nor does man's nature
promise them, nor are they the means of man's nature attaining its end.
Neither then does the end of man lie in these things, nor yet that which
aids to the accomplishment of this end, and that which aids towards this
end is that which is good. Besides, if any of these things did belong to
man, it would not be right for a man to despise them and to set himself
against them; nor would a man be worthy of praise who showed that he did
not want these things, nor would he who stinted himself in any of them be
good, if indeed these things were good. But now the more of these things
a man deprives himself of, or of other things like them, or even when he
is deprived of any of them, the more patiently he endures the loss, just
in the same degree he is a better man.
16. Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of
thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a
continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a
man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a palace;
well then, he can also live well in a palace. And again, consider that
for whatever purpose each thing has been constituted, for this it has
been constituted, and towards this it is carried; and its end is in that
towards which it is carried; and where the end is, there also is the
advantage and the good of each thing. Now the good for the reasonable
animal is society; for that we are made for society has been shown above.
Is it not plain that the inferior exists for the sake of the superior?
But the things which have life are superior to those which have not life,
and of those which have life the superior are those which have reason.
17. To seek what is impossible is madness: and it is impossible that the
bad should not do something of this kind.
18. Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.
The same things happen to another, and either because he does not see
that they have happened, or because he would show a great spirit, he is
firm and remains unharmed. It is a shame then that ignorance and conceit
should be stronger than wisdom.
19. Things themselves touch not the soul, not in the least degree; nor
have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul: but
the soul turns and moves itself alone, and whatever judgments it may
think proper to make, such it makes for itself the things which present
themselves to it.
20. In one respect man is the nearest thing to me, so far as I must do
good to men and endure them. But so far as some men make themselves
obstacles to my proper acts, man becomes to me one of the things which
are indifferent, no less than the sun or wind or a wild beast. Now it is
true that these may impede my action, but they are no impediments to my
effects and disposition, which have the power of acting conditionally and
changing: for the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its
activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance is made a
furtherance to an act; and that which is an obstacle on the road helps us
on this road.
21. Reverence that which is best in the universe; and this is that which
makes use of all things and directs all things. And in like manner also
reverence that which is best in thyself; and this is of the same kind as
that. For in thyself also, that which makes use of everything else is
this, and thy life is directed by this.
22. That which does no harm to the state, does no harm to the citizen. In
the case of every appearance of harm apply this rule: if the state is not
harmed by this, neither am I harmed. But if the state is harmed, thou
must not be angry with him who does harm to the state. Show him where his
error is.
23. Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and disappear,
both the things which are and the things which are produced. For
substance is like a river in a continual flow, and the activities of
things are in constant change, and the causes work in infinite varieties;
and there is hardly anything which stands still. And consider this which
is near to thee, this boundless abyss of the past and of the future in
which all things disappear. How then is he not a fool who is puffed up
with such things or plagued about them and makes himself miserable? for
they vex him only for a time, and a short time.
24. Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a very small
portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval
has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how
small a part of it thou art.
25. Does another do me wrong? Let him look to it. He has his own
disposition, his own activity. I now have what the universal nature wills
me to have; and I do what my nature now wills me to do.
26. Let the part of thy soul which leads and governs be undisturbed by
the movements in the flesh, whether of pleasure or of pain; and let it
not unite with them, but let it circumscribe itself and limit those
affects to their parts. But when these affects rise up to the mind by
virtue of that other sympathy that naturally exists in a body which is
all one, then thou must not strive to resist the sensation, for it is
natural: but let not the ruling part of itself add to the sensation the
opinion that it is either good or bad.
27. Live with the gods. And he does live with the gods who constantly
shows to them that his own soul is satisfied with that which is assigned
to him, and that it does all that the daemon wishes, which Zeus hath
given to every man for his guardian and guide, a portion of himself. And
this is every man's understanding and reason.
28. Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? art thou angry with him
whose mouth smells foul? What good will this anger do thee? He has such a
mouth, he has such armpits: it is necessary that such an emanation must
come from such things; but the man has reason, it will be said, and he is
able, if he takes pains, to discover wherein he offends; I wish thee well
of thy discovery. Well then, and thou hast reason: by thy rational
faculty stir up his rational faculty; show him his error, admonish him.
For if he listens, thou wilt cure him, and there is no need of anger.
29. As thou intendest to live when thou art gone out, ... so it is in thy
power to live here. But if men do not permit thee, then get away out of
life, yet so as if them wert suffering no harm. The house is smoky, and I
quit it. Why dost thou think that this is any trouble? But so long as
nothing of the kind drives me out, I remain, am free, and no man shall
hinder me from doing what I choose; and I choose to do what is according
to the nature of the rational and social animal.
30. The intelligence of the universe is social. Accordingly it has made
the inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the
superior to one another. Thou seest how it has subordinated, co-ordinated,
and assigned to everything its proper portion, and has brought
together into concord with one another the things which are the best.
31. How hast thou behaved hitherto to the gods, thy parents, brethren,
children, teachers, to those who looked after thy infancy, to thy
friends, kinsfolk, to thy slaves? Consider if thou hast hitherto behaved
to all in such a way that this may be said of thee,--
"Never has wronged a man in deed or word."
And call to recollection both how many things thou hast passed through,
and how many things thou hast been able to endure and that the history of
thy life is now complete and thy service is ended; and how many beautiful
things thou hast seen; and how many pleasures and pains thou hast
despised; and how many things called honorable thou hast spurned; and to
how many ill-minded folks thou hast shown a kind disposition.
32. Why do unskilled and ignorant souls disturb him who has skill and
knowledge? What soul then has skill and knowledge? That which knows
beginning and end, and knows the reason which pervades all substance, and
through all time by fixed periods [revolutions] administers the universe.
33. Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name
or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are
much valued in life are empty and rotten and trifling, and [like] little
dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and
then straightway weeping. But fidelity and modesty and justice and truth
are fled
Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.
HESIOD, _Works, etc_. V. 197.
What then is there which still detains thee here, if the objects of sense
are easily changed and never stand still, and the organs of perception
are dull and easily receive false impressions, and the poor soul itself
is an exhalation from blood? But to have good repute amid such a world as
this is an empty thing. Why then dost thou not wait in tranquillity for
thy end, whether it is extinction or removal to another state? And until
that time comes, what is sufficient? Why, what else than to venerate the
gods and bless them, and to do good to men, and to practice tolerance and
self-restraint; but as to everything which is beyond the limits of the
poor flesh and breath, to remember that this is neither thine nor in thy
power.
34. Thou canst pass thy life in an equable flow of happiness, if thou
canst go by the right way, and think and act in the right way. These two
things are common both to the soul of God and to the soul of man, and to
the soul of every rational being: not to be hindered by another; and to
hold good to consist in the disposition to justice and the practice of
it, and in this to let thy desire find its termination.
35. If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness,
and the common weal is not injured, why am I troubled about it, and what
is the harm to the common weal?
36. Do not be carried along inconsiderately by the appearance of things,
but give help [to all] according to thy ability and their fitness; and if
they should have sustained loss in matters which are indifferent, do not
imagine this to be a damage; for it is a bad habit. But as the old man,
when he went away, asked back his foster-child's top, remembering that it
was a top, so do thou in this case also.
When thou art calling out on the Rostra, hast thou forgotten, man, what
these things are?--Yes; but they are objects of great concern to these
people--wilt thou too then be made a fool for these things? I was once a
fortunate man, but I lost it, I know not how.--But fortunate means that a
man has assigned to himself a good fortune: and a good fortune is good
disposition of the soul, good emotions, good actions.
BOOK VI.
1. The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the
reason which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has
no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it.
But all things are made and perfected according to this reason.
2. Let it make no difference to thee whether thou art cold or warm, if
thou art doing thy duty; and whether thou art drowsy or satisfied with
sleep; and whether ill-spoken of or praised; and whether dying or doing
something else. For it is one of the acts of life, this act by which we
die: it is sufficient then in this act also to do well what we have in
hand (vi. 22, 28).
3. Look within. Let neither the peculiar quality of anything nor its
value escape thee.
4. All existing things soon change, and they will either be reduced to
vapor, if indeed all substance is one, or they will be dispersed.
5. The reason which governs knows what its own disposition is, and what
it does, and on what material it works.
6. The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like [the wrong-
doer].
7. Take pleasure in one thing and rest in it, in passing from one social
act to another social act, thinking of God.
8. The ruling principle is that which rouses and turns itself, and while
it makes itself such as it is and such as it wills to be, it also makes
everything which happens appear to itself to be such as it wills.
9. In conformity to the nature of the universe every single thing is
accomplished; for certainly it is not in conformity to any other nature
that each thing is accomplished, either a nature which externally
comprehends this, or a nature which is comprehended within this nature,
or a nature external and independent of this (XL 1; VI. 40; VIII. 50).
10. The universe is either a confusion, and a mutual involution of
things, and a dispersion, or it is unity and order and providence. If
then it is the former, why do I desire to tarry in a fortuitous
combination of things and such a disorder? and why do I care about
anything else than how I shall at last become earth? and why am I
disturbed, for the dispersion of my elements will happen whatever I do?
But if the other supposition is true, I venerate, and I am firm, and I
trust in him who governs (IV. 27).
11. When thou hast been compelled by circumstances to be disturbed in a
manner, quickly return to thyself, and do not continue out of tune longer
than the compulsion lasts; for thou wilt have more mastery over the
harmony by continually recurring to it.
12. If thou hadst a step-mother and a mother at the same time, thou
wouldst be dutiful to thy step-mother, but still thou wouldst constantly
return to thy mother. Let the court and philosophy now be to thee
stepmother and mother: return to philosophy frequently and repose in
her, through whom what thou meetest with in the court appears to thee
tolerable, and thou appearest tolerable in the court.
13. When we have meat before us and such eatables, we receive the
impression that this is the dead body of a fish, and this is the dead
body of a bird or of a pig; and again, that this Falernian is only a
little grape-juice, and this purple robe some sheep's wool dyed with the
blood of a shell-fish: such then are these impressions, and they reach
the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what kind of
things they are. Just in the same way ought we to act all through life,
and where there are things which appear most worthy of our approbation,
we ought to lay them bare and look at their worthlessness and strip them
of all the words by which they are exalted. For outward show is a
wonderful perverter of the reason, and when thou art most sure that thou
art employed about things worth thy pains, it is then that it cheats thee
most. Consider then what Crates says of Xenocrates himself.
14. Most of the things which the multitude admire are referred to objects
of the most general kind, those which are held together by cohesion or
natural organization, such as stones, wood, fig-trees, vines, olives. But
those which are admired by men, who are a little more reasonable, are
referred to the things which are held together by a living principle, as
flocks, herds. Those which are admired by men who are still more
instructed are the things which are held together by a rational soul, not
however a universal soul, but rational so far as it is a soul skilled in
some art, or expert in some other way, or simply rational so far as it
possesses a number of slaves. But he who values a rational soul, a soul
universal and fitted for political life, regards nothing else except
this; and above all things he keeps his soul in a condition and in an
activity comformable to reason and social life, and he co-operates to
this end with those who are of the same kind as himself.
15. Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying out
of it; and of that which is coming into existence part is already
extinguished. Motions and changes are continually renewing the world,
just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite
duration of ages. In this flowing stream then, on which there is no
abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would
set a high price? It would be just as if a man should fall in love with
one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.
Something of this kind is the very life of every man, like the exhalation
of the blood and the respiration of the air. For such as it is to have
once drawn in the air and to have given it back, which we do every
moment, just the same is it with the whole respiratory power, which thou
didst receive at thy birth yesterday and the day before, to give it back
to the element from which thou didst first draw it.
16. Neither is transpiration, as in plants, a thing to be valued, nor
respiration, as in domesticated animals and wild beasts, nor the
receiving of impressions by the appearances of things, nor being moved by
desires as puppets by strings, nor assembling in herds, nor being
nourished by food; for this is just like the act of separating and
parting with the useless part of our food. What then is worth being
valued? To be received with clapping of hands? No. Neither must we value
the clapping of tongues; for the praise which comes from the many is a
clapping of tongues. Suppose then that thou hast given up this worthless
thing called fame, what remains that is worth valuing? This, in my
opinion: to move thyself and to restrain thyself in conformity to thy
proper constitution, to which end both all employments and arts lead. For
every art aims at this, that the thing which has been made should be
adapted to the work for which it has been made; and both the vine planter
who looks after the vine, and the horsebreaker, and he who trains the
dog, seek this end. But the education and the teaching of youth aim at
something. In this then is the value of the education and the teaching.
And if this is well, thou wilt not seek anything else. Wilt thou not
cease to value many other things too? Then thou wilt be neither free, nor
sufficient for thy own happiness, nor without passion. For of necessity
thou must be envious, jealous, and suspicious of those who can take away
those things, and plot against those who have that which is valued by
thee. Of necessity a man must be altogether in a state of perturbation
who wants any of these things; and besides, he must often find fault with
the gods. But to reverence and honor thy own mind will make thee content
with thyself, and in harmony with society, and in agreement with the
gods, that is, praising all that they give and have ordered.
17. Above, below, all around are the movements of the elements. But the
motion of virtue is in none of these: it is something more divine, and
advancing by a way hardly observed, it goes happily on its road.
18. How strangely men act! They will not praise those who are living at
the same time and living with themselves; but to be themselves praised by
posterity, by those whom they have never seen or ever will see, this they
set much value on. But this is very much the same as if thou shouldst be
grieved because those who have lived before thee did not praise thee.
19. If a thing is difficult to be accomplished by thyself, do not think
that it is impossible for man: but if anything is possible for man and
conformable to his nature, think that this can be attained by thyself
too.
20. In the gymnastic exercises suppose that a man has torn thee with his
nails, and by dashing against thy head has inflicted a wound. Well, we
neither show any signs of vexation, nor are we offended, nor do we
suspect him afterwards as a treacherous fellow; and yet we are on our
guard against him, not however as an enemy, nor yet with suspicion, but
we quietly get out of his way. Something like this let thy behavior be in
all the other parts of life; let us overlook many things in those who are
like antagonists in the gymnasium. For it is in our power, as I said, to
get out of the way, and to have no suspicion nor hatred.
21. If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or
act rightly, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth, by which no man
was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and
ignorance.
22. I do my duty: other things trouble me not; for they are either things
without life, or things without reason, or things that have rambled and
know not the way.
23. As to the animals which have no reason, and generally all things and
objects, do thou, since thou hast reason and they have none, make use of
them with a generous and liberal spirit. But towards human beings, as
they have reason, behave in a social spirit. And on all occasions call on
the gods, and do not perplex thyself about the length of time in which
thou shalt do this; for even three hours so spent are sufficient.
24. Alexander the Macedonian and his groom by death were brought to the
same state; for either they were received among the same seminal
principles of the universe, or they were alike dispersed among the atoms.
25. Consider how many things in the same indivisible time take place in
each of us,--things which concern the body and things which concern the
soul: and so thou wilt not wonder if many more things, or rather all
things which come into existence in that which is the one and all, which
we call Cosmos, exist in it at the same time.
26. If any man should propose to thee the question, how the name
Antoninus is written, wouldst thou with a straining of the voice utter
each letter? What then if they grow angry, wilt thou be angry too? Wilt
thou not go on with composure and number every letter? Just so then in
this life also remember that every duty is made up of certain parts.
These it is thy duty to observe, and without being disturbed or showing
anger towards those who are angry with thee to go on thy way and finish
that which is set before thee.
27. How cruel it is not to allow men to strive after the things which
appear to them to be suitable to their nature and profitable! And yet in
a manner thou dost not allow them to do this, when thou art vexed because
they do wrong. For they are certainly moved towards things because they
suppose them to be suitable to their nature and profitable to them.--But
it is not so.--Teach them then, and show them without being angry.
28. Death is 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
(II. 12).
29. It is a shame for the soul to be first to give way in this life, when
thy body does not give way.
30. Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar, that thou art not
dyed with this dye; for such things happen. Keep thyself then simple,
good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend of justice, a
worshipper of the gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts.
Strive to continue to be such as philosophy wished to make thee.
Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life. There is only one fruit
of this terrene life,--a pious disposition and social acts. Do everything
as a disciple of Antoninus. Remember his constancy in every act which was
conformable to reason, and his evenness in all things, and his piety, and
the serenity of his countenance, and his sweetness, and his disregard of
empty fame, and his efforts to understand things; and how he would never
let anything pass without having first most carefully examined it and
clearly understood it; and how he bore with those who blamed him unjustly
without blaming them in return; how he did nothing in a hurry; and how he
listened not to calumnies, and how exact an examiner of manners and
actions he was; and not given to reproach people, nor timid, nor
suspicious, nor a sophist; and with how little he was satisfied, such as
lodging, bed, dress, food, servants; and how laborious and patient; and
how he was able on account of his sparing diet to hold out to the
evening; and his firmness and uniformity in his friendships; and how he
tolerated freedom of speech in those who opposed his opinions; and the
pleasure that he had when any man showed him anything better; and how
religious he was without superstition. Imitate all this, that thou mayest
have as good a conscience, when thy last hour comes, as he had.
31. Return to thy sober senses and call thyself back; and when thou hast
roused thyself from sleep and hast perceived that they were only dreams
which troubled thee, now in thy waking hours look at these [the things
about thee] as thou didst look at those [the dreams].
32. I consist of a little body and a soul. Now to this little body all
things are indifferent, for it is not able to perceive differences. But
to the understanding those things only are indifferent which are not the
works of its own activity. But whatever things are the works of its own
activity, all these are in its power. And of these however only those
which are done with reference to the present; for as to the future and
the past activities of the mind, even these are for the present
indifferent.
33. Neither the labor which the hand does nor that of the foot is
contrary to nature, so long as the foot does the foot's work and the hand
the hand's. So then neither to a man as a man is his labor contrary to
nature, so long as it does the things of a man. But if the labor is not
contrary to his nature, neither is it an evil to him.
34. How many pleasures have been enjoyed by robbers, patricides, tyrants.
35. Dost thou not see how the handicraftsmen accommodate themselves up to
a certain point to those who are not skilled in their craft,--
nevertheless they cling to the reason [the principles] of their art, and
do not endure to depart from it? Is it not strange if the architect and
the physician shall have more respect to the reason [the principles] of
their own arts than man to his own reason, which is common to him and the
gods?
36. Asia, Europe, are corners of the universe; all the sea a drop in the
universe; Athos a little clod of the universe: all the present time is a
point in eternity. All things are little, changeable, perishable. All
things come from thence, from that universal ruling power either directly
preceding or by way of sequence. And accordingly the lion's gaping jaws,
and that which is poisonous, and every harmful thing, as a thorn, as mud,
are after-products of the grand and beautiful. Do not then imagine that
they are of another kind from that which thou dost venerate, but form a
just opinion of the source of all (VII. 75).
37. He who has seen present things has seen all, both everything which
has taken place from all eternity and everything which will be for time
without end; for all things are of one kin and of one form.
38. Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe and
their relation to one another. For in a manner all things are implicated
with one another, and all in this way are friendly to one another; for
one thing comes in order after another, and this is by virtue of the
active movement and mutual conspiration and the unity of the substance
(ix. 1).
39. Adapt thyself to the things with which thy lot has been cast: and the
men among whom thou hast received thy portion, love them, but do it truly
[sincerely].
40. Every instrument, tool, vessel, if it does that for which it has been
made, is well, and yet he who made it is not there. But in the things
which are held together by nature there is within, and there abides in,
them the power which made them; wherefore the more is it fit to reverence
this power, and to think, that, if thou dost live and act according to
its will, everything in thee is in conformity to intelligence. And thus
also in the universe the things which belong to it are in conformity to
intelligence.
41. Whatever of the things which are not within thy power thou shalt
suppose to be good for thee or evil, it must of necessity be that, if
such a bad thing befall thee, or the loss of such a good thing, thou wilt
not blame the gods, and hate men too, those who are the cause of the
misfortune or the loss, or those who are suspected of being likely to be
the cause; and indeed we do much injustice because we make a difference
between these things [because we do not regard these things as
indifferent]. But if we judge only those things which are in our power to
be good or bad, there remains no reason either for finding fault with God
or standing in a hostile attitude to man.
42. We are all working together to one end, some with knowledge and
design, and others without knowing what they do; as men also when they
are asleep, of whom it is Heraclitus, I think, who says that they are
laborers and co-operators in the things which take place in the universe.
But men co-operate after different fashions: and even those co-operate
abundantly, who find fault with what happens and those who try to oppose
it and to hinder it; for the universe had need even of such men as these.
It remains then for thee to understand among what kind of workmen thou
placest thyself; for he who rules all things will certainly make a right
use of thee, and he will receive thee among some part of the co-operators
and of those whose labors conduce to one end. But be not thou such a part
as the mean and ridiculous verse in the play, which Chrysippus speaks of.
43. Does the sun undertake to do the work of the rain, or Aesculapius the
work of the Fruit-bearer [the earth]? And how is it with respect to each
of the stars, are they not different and yet they work together to the
same end?
44. 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 from this or to the whole, which is the special object of 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
gods determine about none of the 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.
45. Whatever happens to every man, this is for the interest of the
universal: this might be sufficient. But further thou wilt observe this
also as a general truth, if thou dost observe, that whatever is
profitable to any man is profitable also to other men. But let the word
profitable be taken here in the common sense as said of things of the
middle kind [neither good nor bad].
46. As it happens to thee in the amphitheatre and such places, that the
continual sight of the same things, and the uniformity make the spectacle
wearisome, so it is in the whole of life; for all things above, below,
are the same and from the same. How long then?
47. Think continually that all kinds of men and men of all kinds of
pursuits and of all nations are dead, so that thy thoughts come down even
to Philistion and Phoebus and Origanion. Now turn thy thoughts to the
other kinds [of men]. To that place then we must remove, where there are
so many great orators, and so many noble philosophers, Heraclitus,
Pythagoras, Socrates; so many heroes of former days, and so many generals
after them, and tyrants; besides these, Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes,
and other men of acute natural talents, great minds, lovers of labor,
versatile, confident, mockers even of the perishable and ephemeral life
of man, as Menippus and such as are like him. As to all these consider
that they have long been in the dust. What harm then is this to them; and
what to those whose names are altogether unknown? One thing here is worth
a great deal, to pass thy life in truth and justice, with a benevolent
disposition even to liars and unjust men.
48. When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those
who live with thee; for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty of
another, and the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a
fourth. For nothing delights so much as the examples of the virtues, when
they are exhibited in the morals of those who live with us and present
themselves in abundance, as far as is possible. Wherefore we must keep
them before us.
49. Thou art not dissatisfied, I suppose, because thou weighest only so
many litrae and not three hundred. Be not dissatisfied then that thou
must live only so many years and not more; for as thou art satisfied with
the amount of substance which has been assigned to thee, so be content
with the time.
50. Let us try to persuade them [men]. But act even against their will,
when the principles of justice lead that way. If however any man by using
force stands in thy way, betake thyself to contentment and tranquillity,
and at the same time employ the hindrance towards the exercise of some
other virtue; and remember that thy attempt was with a reservation
[conditionally], that thou didst not desire to do impossibilities. What
then didst thou desire?--Some such effort as this.--But thou attainest
thy object, if the things to which thou wast moved are [not]
accomplished.
51. He who loves fame considers another man's activity to be his own
good; and he who loves pleasure, his own sensations; but he who has
understanding considers his own acts to be his own good.
52. It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be
disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to
form our judgments.
53. Accustom thyself to attend carefully to what is said by another, and
as much as it is possible, be in the speaker's mind.
54. That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.
55. If sailors abused the helmsman, or the sick the doctor, would they
listen to anybody else; or how could the helmsman secure the safety of
those in the ship, or the doctor the health of those whom he attends?
56. How many together with whom I came into the world are already gone
out of it.
57. To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs
water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why
then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power than
the bile in the jaundiced or the poison in him who is bitten by a mad
dog?
58. No man will hinder thee from living according to the reason of thy
own nature: nothing will happen to thee contrary to the reason of the
universal nature.
59. What kind of people are those whom men wish to please, and for what
objects, and by what kind of acts? How soon will time cover all things,
and how many it has covered already.
BOOK VII.
1. What is badness? It is that which thou hast often seen. And on the
occasion of everything which happens keep this in mind, that it is that
which thou hast often seen. Everywhere up and down thou wilt find the
same things, with which the old histories are filled, those of the middle
ages and those of our own day; with which cities and houses are filled
now. There is nothing new: all things are both familiar and short-lived.
2. How can our principles become dead, unless the impression [thoughts]
which correspond to them are extinguished? But it is in thy power
continuously to fan these thoughts into a flame. I can have that opinion
about anything which I ought to have. If I can, why am I disturbed? The
things which are external to my mind have no relation at all to my mind.
--Let this be the state of thy affects, and thou standest erect. To
recover thy life is in thy power. Look at things again as thou didst use
to look at them; for in this consists the recovery of thy life.
3. The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds,
exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread into
fishponds, laborings of ants and burden-carrying, runnings about of
frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings--[all alike]. It is thy
duty then in the midst of such things to show good humor and not a proud
air; to understand however that every man is worth just so much as the
things are worth about which he busies himself.
4. In discourse thou must attend to what is said, and in every movement
thou must observe what is doing. And in the one thou shouldst see
immediately to what end it refers, but in the other watch carefully what
is the thing signified.
5. Is my understanding sufficient for this or not? If it is sufficient, I
use it for the work as an instrument given by the universal nature. But
if it is not sufficient, then either I retire from the work and give way
to him who is able to do it better, unless there be some reason why I
ought not to do so; or I do it as well as I can, taking to help me the
man who with the aid of my ruling principle can do what is now fit and
useful for the general good. For whatsoever either by myself or with
another I can do, ought to be directed to this only, to that which is
useful and well suited to society.
6. How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to
oblivion; and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long
been dead.
7. Be not ashamed to be helped; for it is thy business to do thy duty
like a soldier in the assault on a town. How then, if being lame thou
canst not mount up on the battlements alone, but with the help of another
it is possible?
8. Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them, if it
shall be necessary, having with thee the same reason which now thou usest
for present things.
9. All things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and
there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing. For things
have been co-ordinated, and they combine to form the same universe
[order]. For there is one universe made up of all things, and one god who
pervades all things, and one substance, and one law, [one] common reason
in all intelligent animals, and one truth; if indeed there is also one
perfection for all animals which are of the same stock and participate in
the same reason.
10. Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole;
and everything formal [causal] is very soon taken back into the universal
reason; and the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.
11. To the rational animal the same act is according to nature and
according to reason.
12. Be thou erect, or be made erect (III. 5).
13. Just as it is with the members in those bodies which are united in
one, so it is with rational beings which exist separate, for they have
been constituted for one co-operation. And the perception of this will be
more apparent to thee if thou often sayest to thyself that I am a member
of the system of rational beings. But if thou sayest that thou art a
part, thou dost not yet love men from thy heart; beneficence does not yet
delight thee for its own sake; thou still dost it barely as a thing of
propriety, and not yet as doing good to thyself.
14. Let there fall externally what will on the parts which can feel the
effects of this fall. For those parts which have felt will complain, if
they choose. But I, unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am
not injured. And it is in my power not to think so.
15. Whatever any one does or says, I must be good; just as if the gold,
or the emerald, or the purple were always saying this, Whatever any one
does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color.
16. The ruling faculty does not disturb itself; I mean, does not frighten
itself or cause itself pain. But if any one else can frighten or pain it,
let him do so. For the faculty itself will not by its own opinion turn
itself into such ways. Let the body itself take care, if it can, that it
suffer nothing, and let it speak, if it suffers. But the soul itself,
that which is subject to fear, to pain, which has completely the power of
forming an opinion about these things, will suffer nothing, for it will
never deviate into such a judgment. The leading principle in itself wants
nothing, unless it makes a want for itself; and therefore it is both free
from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not disturb and impede
itself.
17. Eudaemonia [happiness] is a good daemon, or a good thing. What then
art thou doing here, O imagination? Go away, I entreat thee by the gods,
as thou didst come, for I want thee not. But thou art come according to
thy old fashion. I am not angry with thee: only go away.
18. Is any man afraid of change? Why, what can take place without change?
What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And
canst thou take a bath unless the wood undergoes a change? and canst thou
be nourished, unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else
that is useful be accomplished without change? Dost thou not see then
that for thyself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary
for the universal nature?
19. Through the universal substance as through a furious torrent all
bodies are carried, being by their nature united with and co-operating
with the whole, as the parts of our body with one another. How many a
Chrysippus, how many a Socrates, how many an Epictetus has time already
swallowed up! And let the same thought occur to thee with reference to
every man and thing (V. 23; VI. 15).
20. One thing only troubles me, lest I should do something which the
constitution of man does not allow, or in the way which it does not
allow, or what it does not allow now.
21. Near is thy forgetfulness of all things; and near the forgetfulness
of thee by all.
22. It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this
happens, if when they do wrong it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen,
and that they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally, and that
soon both of you will die; and above all, that the wrong-doer has done
thee no harm, for he has not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was
before.
23. The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were
wax, now moulds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the
material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else; and each of
these things subsists for a very short time. But it is no hardship for
the vessel to be broken up, just as there was none in its being fastened
together (VIII. 50).
24. A scowling look is altogether unnatural; when it is often assumed,
[Footnote: 5] the result is that all comeliness dies away, and at last is
so completely extinguished that it cannot be again lighted up at all. Try
to conclude from this very fact that it is contrary to reason. For if
even the perception of doing wrong shall depart, what reason is there for
living any longer?
25. Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which thou
seest, and out of their substance will make other things, and again other
things from the substance of them, in order that the world may be ever
new (XII. 23).
26. 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 wilt pity him, and wilt neither wonder nor be angry. For
either thou thyself thinkest the same thing to be good that he does or
another thing of the same kind. It is thy duty then to pardon him. But if
thou dost not think such things to be good or evil, thou wilt more
readily be well disposed to him who is in error.
27. Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of
the things which thou hast select the best, and then reflect how eagerly
they would have been sought, if thou hadst them not. At the same time,
however, take care that thou dost not through being so pleased with them
accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou
shouldst not have them.
28. Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this
nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so
secures tranquillity.
29. Wipe out the imagination. Stop the pulling of the strings. Confine
thyself to the present. Understand well what happens either to thee or to
another. Divide and distribute every object into the causal [formal] and
the material. Think of thy last hour. Let the wrong which is done by a
man stay there where the wrong was done (VIII. 29).
30. Direct thy attention to what is said. Let thy understanding enter
into the things that are doing and the things which do them (VII. 4).
31. Adorn thyself with simplicity and modesty, and with indifference
towards the things which lie between virtue and vice. Love mankind.
Follow God. The poet says that law rules all--And it is enough to
remember that law rules all.
32. About death: whether it is a dispersion, or a resolution into atoms,
or annihilation, it is either extinction or change.
33. About pain: the pain which is intolerable carries us off; but that
which lasts a long time is tolerable; and the mind maintains its own
tranquillity by retiring into itself, and the ruling faculty is not made
worse. But the parts which are harmed by pain, let them, if they can,
give their opinion about it.
34. About fame: look at the minds [of those who seek fame], observe what
they are, and what kind of things they avoid, and what kind of things
they pursue. And consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another
hide the former sands, so in life the events which go before are soon
covered by those which come after.
35. From Plato: The man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all
time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think
that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said.--Such a
man then will think that death also is no evil.--Certainly not.
36. From Antisthenes: It is royal to do good and to be abused.
37. It is a base thing for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate
and compose itself as the mind commands, and for the mind not to be
regulated and composed by itself.
38. It is not right to vex ourselves at things, For they care nought
about it.
39. To the immortal gods and us give joy.
40. Life must be reaped like the ripe ears of corn. One man is born;
another dies.
41. If gods care not for me and for my children, There is a reason for
it.
42. For the good is with me, and the just.
43. No joining others in their wailing, no violent emotion.
44. From Plato: But I would make this man a sufficient answer, which is
this: Thou sayest not well, if thou thinkest that a man who is good for
anything at all ought to compute the hazard of life or death, and should
not rather look to this only in all that he does, whether he is doing
what is just or unjust, and the works of a good or bad man.
45. For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed
himself thinking it the best place for him, or has been placed by a
commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard,
taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before
the baseness [of deserting his post].
46. But, my good friend, reflect whether that which is noble and good is
not something different from saving and being saved; for as to a man
living such or such a time, at least one who is really a man, consider if
this is not a thing to be dismissed from the thoughts: and there must be
no love of life: but as to these matters a man must intrust them to the
Deity and believe what the women say, that no man can escape his destiny,
the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.
47. Look around at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along
with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one
another, for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life.
48. This is a fine saying of Plato: That he who is discoursing about men
should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher
place; should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural
labors, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of
justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts,
lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things and an orderly combination
of contraries.
49. Consider the past,--such great changes of political supremacies; thou
mayest foresee also the things which will be. For they will certainly be
of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the
order of the things which take place now; accordingly to have
contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have
contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more wilt thou see?
50.
That which has grown from the earth to the earth,
But that which has sprung from heavenly seed,
Back to the heavenly realms returns.
This is either a dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a
similar dispersion of the unsentient elements.
51.
With food and drinks and cunning magic arts
Turning the channel's course to 'scape from death.
The breeze which heaven has sent
We must endure, and toil without complaining.
52. Another may be more expert in casting his opponent; but he is not
more social, nor more modest, nor better disciplined to meet all that
happens, nor more considerate with respect to the faults of his
neighbors.
53. Where any work can be clone conformably to the reason which is common
to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear; for where we are able to
get profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds
according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.
54. Everywhere and at all times it is in thy power piously to acquiesce
in thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about
thee, and to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that nothing
shall steal into them without being well examined.
55. Do not look around thee to discover other men's ruling principles,
but look straight to this, to what nature leads thee, both the universal
nature through the things which happen to thee, and thy own nature
through the acts which must be done by thee. But every being ought to do
that which is according to its constitution; and all other things have
been constituted for the sake of rational beings, just as among
irrational things the inferior for the sake of the superior, but the
rational for the sake of one another.
The prime principle then in man's constitution is the social. And the
second is not to yield to the persuasions of the body,--for it is the
peculiar office of the rational and intelligent motion to circumscribe
itself, and never to be overpowered either by the motion of the senses or
of the appetites, for both are animal; but the intelligent motion claims
superiority, and does not permit itself to be overpowered by the others.
And with good reason, for it is formed by nature to use all of them. The
third thing in the rational constitution is freedom from error and from
deception. Let then the ruling principle holding fast to these things go
straight on, and it has what is its own.
56. Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the
present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed
thee.
57. Love that only which happens to thee and is spun with the thread of
thy destiny. For what is more suitable?
58. In everything which happens keep before thy eyes those to whom the
same things happened, and how they were vexed, and treated them as
strange things, and found fault with them: and now where are they?
Nowhere. Why then dost thou too choose to act in the same way; and why
dost thou not leave these agitations which are foreign to nature to those
who cause them and those who are moved by them; and why art thou not
altogether intent upon the right way of making use of the things which
happen to thee? For then thou wilt use them well, and they will be a
material for thee [to work on]. Only attend to thyself, and resolve to be
a good man in every act which thou dost: and remember....
59. Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble
up, if thou wilt ever dig.
60. The body ought to be compact, and to show no irregularity either in
motion or attitude. For what the mind shows in the face by maintaining in
it the expression of intelligence and propriety, that ought to be
required also in the whole body. But all these things should be observed
without affectation.
61. The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in
respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which
are sudden and unexpected.
62. Constantly observe who those are whose approbation thou wishest to
have, and what ruling principles they possess. For then thou wilt neither
blame those who offend involuntarily, nor wilt thou want their
approbation, if thou lookest to the sources of their opinions and
appetites.
63. Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth;
consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and
benevolence and everything of the kind. It is most necessary to bear this
constantly in mind, for thus thou wilt be more gentle towards all.
64. In every pain let this thought be present, that there is no dishonor
in it, nor does it make the governing intelligence worse, for it does not
damage the intelligence either so far as the intelligence is rational or
so far as it is social. Indeed in the case of most pains let this remark
of Epicurus aid thee, that pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting,
if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest
nothing to it in imagination: and remember this too, that we do not
perceive that many things which are disagreeable to us are the same as
pain, such as excessive drowsiness, and the being scorched by heat, and
the having no appetite. When then thou art discontented about any of
these things, say to thyself that thou art yielding to pain.
65. Take care not to feel towards the inhuman as they feel towards men.
66. How do we know if Telauges was not superior in character to Socrates?
For it is not enough that Socrates died a more noble death, and disputed
more skilfully with the Sophists, and passed the night in the cold with
more endurance, and that when he was bid to arrest Leon of Salamis, he
considered it more noble to refuse, and that he walked in a swaggering
way in the streets--though as to this fact one may have great doubts if
it was true. But we ought to inquire what kind of a soul it was that
Socrates possessed, and if he was able to be content with being just
towards men and pious towards the gods, neither idly vexed on account of
men's villainy, nor yet making himself a slave to any man's ignorance,
nor receiving as strange anything that fell to his share out of the
universal, nor enduring it as intolerable, nor allowing his understanding
to sympathize with the affects of the miserable flesh.
67. Nature has not so mingled [the intelligence] with the composition of
the body, as not to have allowed thee the power of circumscribing thyself
and of bringing under subjection to thyself all that is thy own; for it
is very possible to be a divine man and to be recognized as such by no
one. Always bear this in mind; and another thing too, that very little
indeed is necessary for living a happy life. And because thou hast
despaired of becoming a dialectician and skilled in the knowledge of
nature, do not for this reason renounce the hope of being both free and
modest, and social and obedient to God.
68. It is in thy power to live free from all compulsion in the greatest
tranquillity of mind, even if all the world cry out against thee as much
as they choose, and even if wild beasts tear in pieces the members of
this kneaded matter which has grown around thee. For what hinders the
mind in the midst of all this from maintaining itself in tranquillity and
in a just judgment of all surrounding things and in a ready use of the
objects which are presented to it, so that the judgment may say to the
thing which falls under its observation: This thou art in substance
[reality], though in men's opinion thou mayest appear to be of a
different kind; and the use shall say to that which falls under the hand:
Thou art the thing that I was seeking; for to me that which presents
itself is always a material for virtue both rational and political, and
in a word, for the exercise of art, which belongs to man or God. For
everything which happens has a relationship either to God or man, and is
neither new nor difficult to handle, but usual and apt matter to work on.
69. The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every
day as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor
playing the hypocrite.
70. The gods who are immortal are not vexed because during so long a time
they must tolerate continually men such as they are and so many of them
bad; and besides this, they also take care of them in all ways. But thou,
who art destined to end so soon, art thou wearied of enduring the bad,
and this too when thou art one of them?
71. It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness,
which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is
impossible.
72. Whatever the rational and political [social] faculty finds to be
neither intelligent nor social, it properly judges to be inferior to
itself.
73. When thou hast done a good act and another has received it, why dost
thou still look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to
have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?
74. No man is tired of receiving what is useful. But it is useful to act
according to nature. Do not then be tired of receiving what is useful by
doing it to others.
75. The nature of the All moved to make the universe. But now either
everything that takes place comes by way of consequence or [continuity];
or even the chief things towards which the ruling power of the universe
directs its own movement are governed by no rational principle. If this
is remembered, it will make thee more tranquil in many things (vi. 44;
ix. 28).
BOOK VIII.
1. This reflection also tends to the removal of the desire of empty fame,
that it is no longer in thy power to have lived the whole of thy life, or
at least thy life from thy youth upwards, like a philosopher; but both to
many others and to thyself it is plain that thou art far from philosophy.
Thou hast fallen into disorder then, so that it is no longer easy for
thee to get the reputation of a philosopher; and thy plan of life also
opposes it. If then thou hast truly seen where the matter lies, throw
away the thought, How thou shalt seem [to others], and be content if thou
shalt live the rest of thy life in such wise as thy nature wills. Observe
then what it wills, and let nothing else distract thee; for thou hast had
experience of many wanderings without having found happiness anywhere,--
not in syllogisms, nor in wealth, nor in reputation, nor in enjoyment,
nor anywhere. Where is it then? In doing what man's nature requires. How
then shall a man do this? If he has principles from which come his
affects and his acts. What principles? Those which relate to good and
bad: the belief that there is nothing good for man which does not make
him just, temperate, manly, free; and that there is nothing bad which
does not do the contrary to what has been mentioned.
2. On the occasion of every act ask thyself, How is this with respect to
me? Shall I repent of it? A little time and I am dead, and all is gone.
What more do I seek, if what I am now doing is the work of an intelligent
living being, and a social being, and one who is under the same law with
God?
3. Alexander and Caius and Pompeius, what are they in comparison with
Diogenes and Heraclitus and Socrates? For they were acquainted with
things, and their causes [forms], and their matter, and the ruling
principles of these men were the same [or conformable to their pursuits].
But as to the others, how many things had they to care for, and to how
many things were they slaves!
4. [Consider] that men will do the same things nevertheless, even though
thou shouldst burst.
5. This is the chief thing: Be not perturbed, for all things are
according to the nature of the universal; and in a little time thou wilt
be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus. In the next place,
having fixed thy eyes steadily on thy business look at it, and at the
same time remembering that it is thy duty to be a good man, and what
man's nature demands, do that without turning aside; and speak as it
seems to thee most just, only let it be with a good disposition and with
modesty and without hypocrisy.
6. The nature of the universal has this work to do,--to remove to that
place the things which are in this, to change them, to take them away
hence, and to carry them there. All things are change, yet we need not
fear anything new. All things are familiar [to us]; but the distribution
of them still remains the same.
7. Every nature is contented with itself when it goes on its way well;
and a rational nature goes on its way well when in its thoughts it
assents to nothing false or uncertain, and when it directs its movements
to social acts only, and when it confines its desires and aversions to
the things which are in its power, and when it is satisfied with
everything that is assigned to it by the common nature. For of this
common nature every particular nature is a part, as the nature of the
leaf is a part of the nature of the plant; except that in the plant the
nature of the leaf is part of a nature which has not perception or
reason, and is subject to be impeded; but the nature of man is part of a
nature which is not subject to impediments, and is intelligent and just,
since it gives to everything in equal portions and according to its
worth, times, substance, cause [form], activity and incident. But
examine, not to discover that any one thing compared with any other
single thing is equal in all respects, but by taking all the parts
together of one thing and comparing them with all the parts together of
another.
8. Thou hast not leisure [or ability] to read. But thou hast leisure [or
ability] to check arrogance: thou hast leisure to be superior to pleasure
and pain: thou hast leisure to be superior to love of fame, and not to be
vexed at stupid and ungrateful people, nay even to care for them.
9. Let no man any longer hear thee finding fault with the court life or
with thy own (V. 16).
10. Repentance is a kind of self-reproof for having neglected something
useful; but that which is good must be something useful, and the perfect
good man should look after it. But no such man would ever repent of
having refused any sensual pleasure. Pleasure then is neither good nor
useful.
11. This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution! What is
its substance and material? And what its causal nature [or form]? And
what is it doing in the world? And how long does it subsist?
12. When thou risest from sleep with reluctance, remember that it is
according to thy constitution and according to human nature to perform
social acts, but sleeping is common also to irrational animals. But that
which is according to each individual's nature is also more peculiarly
its own, and more suitable to its nature, and indeed also more agreeable
(V. 1).
13. Constantly and, if it be possible, on the occasion of every
impression on the soul, apply to it the principles of Physic, of Ethic,
and of Dialectic.
14. Whatever man thou meetest with, immediately say to thyself: What
opinions has this man about good and bad? For if with respect to pleasure
and pain and the causes of each, and with respect to fame and ignominy,
death and life, he has such and such opinions, it will seem nothing
wonderful or strange to me if he does such and such things; and I shall
bear in mind that he is compelled to do so.
15. Remember that as it is a shame to be surprised if the fig-tree
produces figs, so it is to be surprised if the world produces such and
such things of which it is productive; and for the physician and the
helmsman it is a shame to be surprised if a man has a fever, or if the
wind is unfavorable.
16. Remember that to change thy opinion and to follow him who corrects
thy error is as consistent with freedom as it is to persist in thy error.
For it is thy own, the activity which is exerted according to thy own
movement and judgment, and indeed according to thy own understanding too.
17. If a thing is in thy own power, why dost thou do it? but if it is in
the power of another, whom dost thou blame,--the atoms [chance] or the
gods? Both are foolish. Thou must blame nobody. For if thou canst,
correct [that which is the cause]; but if thou canst not do this, correct
at least the thing itself; but if thou canst not do even this, of what
use is it to thee to find fault? for nothing should be done without a
purpose.
18. That which has died falls not out of the universe. If it stays here,
it also changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, which are
elements of the universe and of thyself. And these too change, and they
murmur not.
19. Everything exists for some end,--a horse, a vine. Why dost thou
wonder? Even the sun will say, I am for some purpose, and the rest of the
gods will say the same. For what purpose then art thou,--to enjoy
pleasure? See if common sense allows this.
20. Nature has had regard in everything no less to the end than to the
beginning and the continuance, just like the man who throws up a ball.
What good is it then for the ball to be thrown up, or harm for it to come
down, or even to have fallen? and what good is it to the bubble while it
holds together, or what harm when it is burst? The same may be said of a
light also.
21. Turn it [the body] inside out, and see what kind of thing it is; and
when it has grown old, what kind of thing it becomes, and when it is
diseased.
Short lived are both the praiser and the praised, and the rememberer and
the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not
even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth
too is a point.
22. Attend to the matter which is before thee, whether it is an opinion
or an act or a word. Thou sufferest this justly: for thou choosest rather
to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.
23. Am I doing anything? I do it with reference to the good of mankind.
Does anything happen to me? I receive it and refer it to the gods, and
the source of all things, from which all that happens is derived.
24. Such as bathing appears to thee,--oil, sweat, dirt, filthy water, all
things disgusting,--so is every part of life and everything.
25. Lucilla saw Verus die, and then Lucilla died. Secunda saw Maximus
die, and then Secunda died. Epitynchanus saw Diotimus die, and then
Epitynchanus died. Antoninus saw Faustina die, and then Antoninus died.
Such is everything. Celer saw Hadrianus die, and then Celer died. And
those sharp-witted men, either seers or men inflated with pride, where
are they,--for instance the sharp-witted men, Charax and Demetrius the
Platonist and Eudaemon, and any one else like them? All ephemeral, dead
long ago. Some indeed have not been remembered even for a short time, and
others have become the heroes of fables, and again others have
disappeared even from fables. Remember this then, that this little
compound, thyself, must either be dissolved, or thy poor breath must be
extinguished, or be removed and placed elsewhere.
26. It is satisfaction to a man to do the proper works of a man. Now it
is a proper work of a man to be benevolent to his own kind, to despise
the movements of the senses, to form a just judgment of plausible
appearances, and to take a survey of the nature of the universe and of
the things which happen in it.
27. There are three relations [between thee and other things]: the one to
the body which surrounds thee; the second to the divine cause from which
all things come to all; and the third to those who live with thee.
28. Pain is either an evil to the body--then let the body say what it
thinks of it--or to the soul; but it is in the power of the soul to
maintain its own serenity and tranquillity, and not to think that pain is
an evil. For every judgment and movement and desire and aversion is
within, and no evil ascends so high.
29. Wipe out thy imaginations by often saying to thyself: Now it is in my
power to let no badness be in this soul, nor desire, nor any perturbation
at all; but looking at all things I see what is their nature, and I use
each according to its value.--Remember this power which thou hast from
nature.
30. Speak both in the senate and to every man, whoever he may be,
appropriately, not with any affectation: use plain discourse.
31. Augustus' court, wife, daughter, descendants, ancestors, sister,
Agrippa, kinsmen, intimates, friends, Areius, Maecenas, physicians, and
sacrificing priests,--the whole court is dead. Then turn to the rest, not
considering the death of a single man [but of a whole race], as of the
Pompeii; and that which is inscribed on the tombs,--The last of his race.
Then consider what trouble those before them have had that they might
leave a successor; and then, that of necessity some one must be the last.
Again, here consider the death of a whole race.
32. It is thy duty to order thy life well in every single act; and if
every act does its duty as far as is possible, be content; and no one is
able to hinder thee so that each act shall not do its duty.--But
something external will stand in the way.--Nothing will stand in the way
of thy acting justly and soberly and considerately.--But perhaps some
other active power will be hindered.--Well, but by acquiescing in the
hindrance and by being content to transfer thy efforts to that which is
allowed, another opportunity of action is immediately put before thee in
place of that which was hindered, and one which will adapt itself to this
ordering of which we are speaking.
33. Receive [wealth or prosperity] without arrogance; and be ready to let
it go.
34. If thou didst ever see a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, lying
anywhere apart from the rest of the body, such does a man make himself,
as far as he can, who is not content with what happens, and separates
himself from others, or does anything unsocial. Suppose that thou hast
detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast made by nature a
part, but now thou hast cut thyself off,--yet here there is this
beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. God
has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut
asunder, to come together again. But consider the kindness by which he
has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated
at all from the universal; and when he has been separated, he has allowed
him to return and to be united and to resume his place as a part.
35. As the nature of the universal has given to every rational being all
the other powers that it has, so we have received from it this power
also. For as the universal nature converts and fixes in its predestined
place everything which stands in the way and opposes it, and makes such
things a part of itself, so also the rational animal is able to make
every hindrance its own material, and to use it for such purposes as it
may have designed.
36. Do not disturb thyself by thinking of the whole of thy life. Let not
thy thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles which thou mayest
expect to befall thee: but on every occasion ask thyself, What is there
in this which is intolerable and past bearing? for thou wilt be ashamed
to confess. In the next place remember that neither the future nor the
past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very
little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind if it is
unable to hold out against even this.
37. Does Panthea or Pergamus now sit by the tomb of Verus? Does Chaurias
or Diotimus sit by the tomb of Hadrianus? That would be ridiculous. Well,
suppose they did sit there, would the dead be conscious of it? and if the
dead were conscious would they be pleased? and if they were pleased,
would that make them immortal? Was it not in the order of destiny that
these persons too should first become old women and old men and then die?
What then would those do after these were dead? All this is foul smell
and blood in a bag.
38. If thou canst see sharp, look and judge wisely, says the philosopher.
39. In the constitution of the rational animal I see no virtue which is
opposed to justice; but I see a virtue which is opposed to love of
pleasure, and that is temperance.
40. If thou takest away thy opinion about that which appears to give thee
pain, thou thyself standest in perfect security.--Who is this self?--The
reason.--But I am not reason.--Be it so. Let then the reason itself not
trouble itself. But if any other part of thee suffers, let it have its
own opinion about itself (VII. 16).
41. Hindrance to the perceptions of sense is an evil to the animal
nature. Hindrance to the movements [desires] is equally an evil to the
animal nature. And something else also is equally an impediment and an
evil to the constitution of plants. So then that which is a hindrance to
the intelligence is an evil to the intelligent nature. Apply all these
things then to thyself. Does pain or sensuous pleasure effect thee? The
senses will look to that. Has any obstacle opposed thee in thy efforts
towards an object? If indeed thou wast making this effort absolutely
[unconditionally, or without any reservation], certainly this obstacle is
an evil to thee considered as a rational animal. But if thou takest [into
consideration] the usual course of things, thou hast not yet been injured
nor even impeded. The things however which are proper to the
understanding no other man is used to impede, for neither fire, nor iron,
nor tyrant, nor abuse, touches it in any way. When it has been made a
sphere, it continues a sphere (XI, 12).
42. It is not fit that I should give myself pain, for I have never
intentionally given pain even to another.
43. Different things delight different people; but it is my delight to
keep the ruling faculty sound without turning away either from any man or
from any of the things which happen to men, but looking at and receiving
all with welcome eyes and using everything according to its value.
44. See that thou secure this present time to thyself: for those who
rather pursue posthumous fame do not consider that the men of after time
will be exactly such as these whom they cannot bear now; and both are
mortal. And what is it in any way to thee if these men of after time
utter this or that sound, or have this or that opinion about thee?
45. Take me and cast me where thou wilt; for there I shall keep my divine
part tranquil, that is, content, if it can feel and act conformably to
its proper constitution. Is this [change of place] sufficient reason why
my soul should be unhappy and worse then it was, depressed, expanded,
shrinking, affrighted? and what wilt thou find which is sufficient reason
for this?
46. Nothing can happen to any man which is not a human accident, nor to
an ox which is not according to the nature of an ox, nor to a vine which
is not according to the nature of a vine, nor to a stone which is not
proper to a stone. If then there happens to each thing both what is usual
and natural, why shouldst thou complain? For the common nature brings
nothing which may not be borne by thee.
47. If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that
disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to
wipe out this judgment now. But if anything in thy own disposition gives
thee pain, who hinders thee from correcting thy opinion? And even if thou
art pained because thou art not doing some particular thing which seems
to thee to be right, why dost thou not rather act than complain?--But
some insuperable obstacle is in the way?--Do not be grieved then, for the
cause of its not being done depends not on thee.--But it is not worth
while to live, if this cannot be done.--Take thy departure then from
life contentedly, just as he dies who is in full activity, and well
pleased too with the things which are obstacles.
48. Remember that the ruling faculty is invincible, when self-collected
it is satisfied with itself, if it does nothing which it does not choose
to do, even if it resist from mere obstinacy. What then will it be when
it forms a judgment about anything aided by reason and deliberately?
Therefore the mind which is free from passions is a citadel, for man has
nothing more secure to which he can fly for refuge and for the future be
inexpugnable. He then who has not seen this is an ignorant man; but he
who has seen it and does not fly to this refuge is unhappy.
49. Say nothing more to thyself than what the first appearances report.
Suppose that it has been reported to thee that a certain person speaks
ill of thee. This has been reported; but that thou hast been injured,
that has not been reported. I see that my child is sick. I do see; but
that he is in danger, I do not see. Thus then always abide by the first
appearances, and add nothing thyself from within, and then nothing
happens to thee. Or rather add something like a man who knows everything
that happens in the world.
50. A cucumber is bitter--Throw it away.--There are briers in the road--
Turn aside from them.--This is enough. Do not add, And why were such
things made in the world? For thou wilt be ridiculed by a man who is
acquainted with nature, as thou wouldst be ridiculed by a carpenter and
shoemaker if thou didst find fault because thou seest in their workshop
shavings and cuttings from the things which they make. And yet they have
places into which they can throw these shavings and cuttings, and the
universal nature has no external space; but the wondrous part of her art
is that though she has circumscribed herself, everything within her which
appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless she changes into
herself, and again makes other new things from these very same, so that
she requires neither substance from without nor wants a place into which
she may cast that which decays. She is content then with her own space,
and her own matter, and her own art.
51. Neither in thy actions be sluggish nor in thy conversation without
method, nor wandering in thy thoughts, nor let there be in thy soul
inward contention nor external effusion, nor in life be so busy as to
have no leisure.
Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces, curse thee. What then can
these things do to prevent thy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober,
just? For instance, if a man should stand by a limpid pure spring, and
curse it, the spring never ceases sending up potable water; and if he
should cast clay into it or filth, it will speedily disperse them and
wash them out, and will not be at all polluted. How then shalt thou
possess a perpetual fountain [and not a mere well]? By forming thyself
hourly to freedom conjoined with contentment, simplicity, and modesty.
52. He who does not know what the world is, does not know where he is.
And he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know
who he is, nor what the world is. But he who has failed in any one of
these things could not even say for what purpose he exists himself. What
then dost thou think of him who [avoids or] seeks the praise of those who
applaud, of men who know not either where they are or who they are?
53. Dost thou wish to be praised by a man who curses himself thrice every
hour? Wouldst thou wish to please a man who does not please himself? Does
a man please himself who repents of nearly everything that he does?
54. No longer let thy breathing only act in concert with the air which
surrounds thee, but let thy intelligence also now be in harmony with the
intelligence which embraces all things. For the intelligent power is no
less diffused in all parts and pervades all things for him who is willing
to draw it to him than the aerial power for him who is able to respire
it.
55. 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.
56. To my own free will the free will of my neighbor is just as
indifferent as his poor breath and flesh. For though we are made
especially for the sake of one another, still the ruling power of each of
us has its own office, for otherwise my neighbor's wickedness would be my
harm, which God has not willed in order that my unhappiness may not
depend on another.
57. The sun appears to be poured down, and in all directions indeed it is
diffused, yet it is not effused. For this diffusion is extension:
Accordingly its rays are called Extensions because they are extended. But
one may judge what kind of a thing a ray is, if he looks at the sun's
light passing through a narrow opening into a darkened room, for it is
extended in a right line, and as it were is divided when it meets with
any solid body which stands in the way and intercepts the air beyond; but
there the light remains fixed and does not glide or fall off. Such then
ought to be the outpouring and diffusion of the understanding, and it
should in no way be an effusion, but an extension, and it should make no
violent or impetuous collision with the obstacles which are in its way;
nor yet fall down, but be fixed, and enlighten that which receives it.
For a body will deprive itself of the illumination, if it does not admit
it.
58. He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different
kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou
feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou
wilt be a different kind of living being and thou wilt not cease to live.
59. Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with
them.
60. In one way an arrow moves, in another way the mind. The mind indeed,
both when it exercises caution and when it is employed about inquiry,
moves straight onward not the less, and to its object.
61. Enter into every man's ruling faculty; and also let every other man
enter into thine.
BOOK IX.
1. He who acts unjustly acts impiously. For since the universal nature
has made rational animals for the sake of one another to help one another
according to their deserts, but in no way to injure one another, he who
transgresses her will is clearly guilty of impiety towards the highest
divinity. And he too who lies is guilty of impiety to the same divinity;
for the universal nature is the nature of things that are; and things
that are have a relation to all things that come into existence. And
further, this universal nature is named truth, and is the prime cause of
all things that are true. He then who lies intentionally is guilty of
impiety inasmuch as he acts unjustly by deceiving; and he also who lies
unintentionally, inasmuch as he is at variance with the universal nature,
and inasmuch as he disturbs the order by fighting against the nature of
the world; for he fights against it, who is moved of himself to that
which is contrary to truth, for he had received powers from nature
through the neglect of which he is not able now to distinguish falsehood
from truth. And indeed he who pursues pleasure as good, and avoids pain
as evil, is guilty of impiety. For of necessity such a man must often
find fault with the universal nature, alleging that it assigns things to
the bad and the good contrary to their deserts, because frequently the
bad are in the enjoyment of pleasure and possess the things which procure
pleasure, but the good have pain for their share and the things which
cause pain. And further, he who is afraid of pain will sometimes also be
afraid of some of the things which will happen in the world, and even
this is impiety. And he who pursues pleasure will not abstain from
injustice, and this is plainly impiety. Now with respect to the things
towards which the universal nature is equally affected,--for it would not
have made both, unless it was equally affected towards both,--towards
these they who wish to follow nature should be of the same mind with it,
and equally affected. With respect to pain, then, and pleasure, or death
and life, or honor and dishonor, which the universal nature employs
equally, whoever is not equally affected is manifestly acting impiously.
And I say that the universal nature employs them equally, instead of
saying that they happen alike to those who are produced in continuous
series and to those who come after them by virtue of a certain original
movement of Providence, according to which it moved from a certain
beginning to this ordering of things, having conceived certain principles
of the things which were to be, and having determined powers productive
of beings and of changes and of such like successions (VII. 75).
2. It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having
had any taste of lying and hypocrisy and luxury and pride. However, to
breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of these things is the
next best voyage, as the saying is. Hast thou determined to abide with
vice, and has not experience yet induced thee to fly from this
pestilence? For the destruction of the understanding is a pestilence,
much more indeed than any such corruption and change of this atmosphere
which surrounds us. For this corruption is a pestilence of animals so far
as they are animals; but the other is a pestilence of men so far as they
are men.
3. Do not despise death, but be well content with it, since this too is
one of those things which nature wills. For such as it is to be young and
to grow old, and to increase and to reach maturity, and to have teeth and
beard and gray hairs, and to beget and to be pregnant and to bring forth,
and all the other natural operations which the seasons of thy life bring,
such also is dissolution. This, then, is consistent with the character of
a reflecting man,--to be neither careless nor impatient nor contemptuous
with respect to death, but to wait for it as one of the operations of
nature. As thou now waitest for the time when the child shall come out of
thy wife's womb, so be ready for the time when thy soul shall fall out of
this envelope. But if thou requirest also a vulgar kind of comfort which
shall reach thy heart, thou wilt be made best reconciled to death by
observing the objects from which thou art going to be removed, and the
morals of those with whom thy soul will no longer be mingled. For it is
no way right to be offended with men, but it is thy duty to care for them
and to bear with them gently; and yet to remember that thy departure will
not be from men who have the same principles as thyself. For this is the
only thing, if there be any, which could draw us the contrary way and
attach us to life,--to be permitted to live with those who have the same
principles as ourselves. But now thou seest how great is the trouble
arising from the discordance of those who live together, so that thou
mayest say, Come quick, O death, lest perchance I, too, should forget
myself.
4. He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly
acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad.
5. He often acts unjustly who does not do a certain thing; not only he
who does a certain thing.
6. Thy present opinion founded on understanding, and thy present conduct
directed to social good, and thy present disposition of contentment with
everything which happens--that is enough.
7. Wipe out imagination: check desire: extinguish appetite: keep the
ruling faculty in its own power.
8. Among the animals which have not reason one life is distributed; but
among reasonable animals one intelligent soul is distributed: just as
there is one earth of all things which are of an earthy nature, and we
see by one light, and breathe one air, all of us that have the faculty of
vision and all that have life.
9. All things which participate in anything which is common to them all
move towards that which is of the same kind with themselves. Everything
which is earthy turns towards the earth, everything which is liquid flows
together, and everything which is of an aerial kind does the same, so
that they require something to keep them asunder, and the application of
force. Fire indeed moves upwards on account of the elemental fire, but it
is so ready to be kindled together with all the fire which is here, that
even every substance which is somewhat dry is easily ignited, because
there is less mingled with it of that which is a hindrance to ignition.
Accordingly, then, everything also which participates in the common
intelligent nature moves in like manner towards that which is of the same
kind with itself, or moves even more. For so much as it is superior in
comparison with all other things, in the same degree also is it more
ready to mingle with and to be fused with that which is akin to it.
Accordingly among animals devoid of reason we find swarms of bees, and
herds of cattle, and the nurture of young birds, and in a manner, loves;
for even in animals there are souls, and that power which brings them
together is seen to exert itself in the superior degree, and in such a
way as never has been observed in plants nor in stones nor in trees. But
in rational animals there are political communities and friendships, and
families and meetings of people; and in wars, treaties, and armistices.
But in the things which are still superior, even though they are
separated from one another, unity in a manner exists, as in the stars.
Thus the ascent to the higher degree is able to produce a sympathy even
in things which are separated. See, then, what now takes place; for only
intelligent animals have now forgotten this mutual desire and
inclination, and in them alone the property of flowing together is not
seen. But still, though men strive to avoid [this union], they are caught
and held by it, for their nature is too strong for them; and thou wilt
see what I say, if thou only observest. Sooner, then, will one find
anything earthy which comes in contact with no earthy thing, than a man
altogether separated from other men.
10. Both man and God and the universe produce fruit; at the proper
seasons each produces it. But and if usage has especially fixed these
terms to the vine and like things, this is nothing. Reason produces fruit
both for all and for itself, and there are produced from it other things
of the same kind as reason itself.
11. If thou art able, correct by teaching those who do wrong; but if thou
canst not, remember that indulgence is given to thee for this purpose.
And the gods, too, are indulgent to such persons; and for some purposes
they even help them to get health, wealth, reputation; so kind they are.
And it is in thy power also; or say, who hinders thee?
12. Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied
or admired: but direct thy will to one thing only,--to put thyself in
motion and to check thyself, as the social reason requires.
13. To-day I have got out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all
trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions.
14. All things are the same, familiar in experience, and ephemeral in
time, and worthless in the matter. Everything now is just as it was in
the time of those whom we have buried.
15. Things stand outside of us, themselves by themselves, neither knowing
aught of themselves, nor expressing any judgment. What is it, then, which
does judge about them? The ruling faculty.
16. Not in passivity 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.
17. For the stone which has been thrown up it is no evil to come down,
nor indeed any good to have been carried up (VIII. 20).
18. Penetrate inwards into men's leading principles, and thou wilt see
what judges thou art afraid of, and what kind of judges they are of
themselves.
19. All things are changing: and thou thyself art in continuous mutation
and in a manner in continuous destruction, and the whole universe too.
20. It is thy duty to leave another man's wrongful act there where it is
(VII. 29; IX. 38).
21. Termination of activity, cessation from movement and opinion, and in
a sense their death, is no evil. Turn thy thoughts now to the
consideration of thy life, thy life as a child, as a youth, thy manhood,
thy old age, for in these also every change was a death. Is this anything
to fear? Turn thy thoughts now to thy life under thy grandfather, then to
thy life under thy mother, then to thy life under thy father; and as thou
findest many other differences and changes and terminations, ask thyself,
Is this anything to fear? In like manner, then, neither are the
termination and cessation and change of thy whole life a thing to be
afraid of.
22. Hasten [to examine] thy own ruling faculty and that of the universe
and that of thy neighbor: thy own that thou mayst make it just; and that
of the universe, that thou mayst remember of what thou art a part; and
that of thy neighbor, that thou mayst know whether he has acted
ignorantly or with knowledge, and that thou mayst also consider that his
ruling faculty is akin to thine.
23. As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every
act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine
then has no reference either immediately or remotely to a social end,
this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is
of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man
acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.
24. Quarrels of little children and their sports, and poor spirits
carrying about dead bodies [such is everything]; and so what is exhibited
in the representation of the mansions of the dead strikes our eyes more
clearly.
25. Examine into the quality of the form of an object, and detach it
altogether from its material part, and then contemplate it; then
determine the time, the longest which a thing of this peculiar form is
naturally made to endure.
26. Thou hast endured infinite troubles through not being contented with
thy ruling faculty when it does the things which it is constituted by
nature to do. But enough [of this].
27. When another blames thee or hates thee, or when men say about thee
anything injurious, approach their poor souls, penetrate within, and see
what kind of men they are. Thou wilt discover that there is no reason to
take any trouble that these men may have this or that opinion about thee.
However, thou must be well disposed towards them, for by nature they are
friends. And the gods too aid them in all ways, by dreams, by signs,
towards the attainment of those things on which they set a value.
28. The periodic movements of the universe are the same, up and down from
age to age. And either the universal intelligence puts itself in motion
for every separate effect, and if this is so, be thou content with that
which is the result of its activity: or it puts itself in motion once,
and everything else comes by way of sequence in a manner; or indivisible
elements are the origin of all things.--In a word, if there is a god, all
is well; and if chance rules, do not thou also be governed by it (VI. 44;
VII. 75).
Soon will the earth cover us all: then the earth, too, will change, and
the things also which result from change will continue to change forever,
and these again forever. For if a man reflects on the changes and
transformations which follow one another like wave after wave and their
rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable (XII. 21).
29. The universal cause is like a winter torrent: it carries everything
along with it. But how worthless are all these poor people who are
engaged in matters political, and, as they suppose, are playing the
philosopher! All drivellers. Well then, man: do what nature now requires.
Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee
to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato's Republic: but
be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event
to be no small matter. For who can change men's opinions? and without a
change of opinions what else is there than the slavery of men who groan
while they pretend to obey? Come now and tell me of Alexander and
Philippus and Demetrius of Phalerum. They themselves shall judge whether
they discovered what the common nature required, and trained themselves
accordingly. But if they acted like tragedy heroes, no one has condemned
me to imitate them. Simple and modest is the work of philosophy. Draw me
not aside to insolence and pride.
30. Look down from above on the countless herds of men and their
countless solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and
calms, and the differences among those who are born, who live together,
and die. And consider, too, the life lived by others in olden time, and
the life of those who will live after thee, and the life now lived among
barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy name, and how many will
soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising thee will very
soon blame thee, and that neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor
reputation, nor anything else.
31. 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
movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is
according to thy nature.
32. Thou canst remove out of the way many useless things among those
which disturb thee, for they lie entirely in thy opinion; and thou wilt
then gain for thyself ample space by comprehending the whole universe in
thy mind, and by contemplating the eternity of time, and observing the
rapid change of every several thing, how short is the time from birth to
dissolution, and the illimitable time before birth as well as the equally
boundless time after dissolution!
33. All that thou seest will quickly perish, and those who have been
spectators of its dissolution will very soon perish too. And he who dies
at the extremest old age will be brought into the same condition with him
who died prematurely.
34. What are these men's leading principles, and about what kind of
things are they busy, and for what kind of reasons do they love and
honor? Imagine that thou seest their poor souls laid bare. When they
think that they do harm by their blame or good by their praise, what an
idea!
35. Loss is nothing else than change. But the universal nature delights
in change, and in obedience to her all things are now done well, and from
eternity have been done in like form, and will be such to time without
end. What, then, dost thou say,--that all things have been and all things
always will be bad, and that no power has ever been found in so many gods
to rectify these things, but the world has been condemned to be bound in
never ceasing evil (IV. 45; VII. 88)?
36. The rottenness of the matter which is the foundation of everything:
water, dust, bones, filth: or again, marble rocks, the callosities of the
earth; and gold and silver, the sediments; and garments, only bits of
hair; and purple dye, blood; and everything else is of the same kind. And
that which is of the nature of breath is also another thing of the same
kind, changing from this to that.
37. Enough of this wretched life and murmuring and apish tricks. Why art
thou disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles thee? Is it the
form of the thing? Look at it. Or is it the matter? Look at it. But
besides these there is nothing. Towards the gods then, now become at last
more simple and better. It is the same whether we examine these things
for a hundred years or three.
38. If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own. But perhaps he has
not done wrong.
39. Either all things proceed from one intelligent source and come
together as in one body, and the part ought not to find fault with what
is done for the benefit of the whole; or there are only atoms, and nothing
else than mixture and dispersion. Why, then, art thou disturbed? Say to
the ruling faculty, Art thou dead, art thou corrupted, art thou playing
the hypocrite, art thou become a beast, dost thou herd and feed with
the rest?
40. Either the gods have no power or they have power. If, then, they have
no power, why dost thou pray to them? But if they have power, why dost
thou not pray for them to give thee the faculty of not fearing any of the
things which thou fearest, or of not desiring any of the things which
thou desirest, or not being pained at anything, rather than pray that any
of these things should not happen or happen? for certainly if they can
co-operate with men, they can co-operate for these purposes. But perhaps
thou wilt say the gods have placed them in thy power. Well, then, is it
not better to use what is in thy power like a free man than to desire in
a slavish and abject way what is not in thy power? And who has told thee
that the gods do not aid us even in the things which are in our power?
Begin, then, to pray for such things, and thou wilt see. One man prays
thus: How shall I be able to lie with that woman? Do thou pray thus: How
shall I not desire to lie with her? Another prays thus: How shall I be
released from this? Another prays: How shall I not desire to be released?
Another thus: How shall I not lose my little son? Thou thus: How shall I
not be afraid to lose him? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see
what comes.
41. Epicurus says, In my sickness my conversation was not about my bodily
sufferings, nor, says he, did I talk on such subjects to those who
visited me; but I continued to discourse on the nature of things as
before, keeping to this main point, how the mind, while participating in
such movements as go on in the poor flesh, shall be free from
perturbations and maintain its proper good. Nor did I, he says, give the
physicians an opportunity of putting on solemn looks, as if they were
doing something great, but my life went on well and happily. Do, then,
the same that he did both in sickness, if thou art sick, and in any other
circumstances; for never to desert philosophy in any events that may
befall us, nor to hold trifling talk either with an ignorant man or with
one unacquainted with nature, is a principle of all schools of
philosophy; but to be intent only on that which thou art now doing and on
the instrument by which thou dost it.
42. When thou art offended with any man's shameless conduct, immediately
ask thyself, Is it possible, then, that shameless men should not be in
the world? It is not possible. Do not, then, require what is impossible.
For this man also is one of those shameless men who must of necessity be
in the world. Let the same considerations be present to thy mind in the
case of the knave, and the faithless man, and of every man who does wrong
in any way. For at the same time that thou dost remind thyself that it is
impossible that such kind of men should not exist, thou wilt become more
kindly disposed towards every one individually. It is useful to perceive
this, too, immediately when the occasion arises, what virtue nature has
given to man to oppose to every wrongful act. For she has given to man,
as an antidote against the stupid man, mildness, and against another kind
of man some other power. And in all cases it is possible for thee to
correct by teaching the man who is gone astray; for every man who errs
misses his object and is gone astray. Besides, wherein hast thou been
injured? For thou wilt find that no one among those against whom thou art
irritated has done anything by which thy mind could be made worse; but
that which is evil to thee and harmful has its foundation only in the
mind. And what harm is done or what is there strange, if the man who has
not been instructed does the acts of an uninstructed man? Consider
whether thou shouldst not rather blame thyself, because thou didst not
expect such a man to err in such a way. For thou hadst means given thee
by thy reason to suppose that it was likely that he would commit this
error, and yet thou hast forgotten and art amazed that he has erred. But
most of all when thou blamest a man as faithless or ungrateful, turn to
thyself. For the fault is manifestly thy own, whether thou didst trust
that a man who had such a disposition would keep his promise, or when
conferring thy kindness thou didst not confer it absolutely, nor yet in
such way as to have received from thy very act all the profit. For what
more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? art thou not
content that thou hast done something comformable to thy nature, and dost
thou seek to be paid for it? just as if the eye demanded a recompense for
seeing, or the feet for walking. For as these members are formed for a
particular purpose, and by working according to their several
constitutions obtain what is their own; so also as man is formed by
nature to acts of benevolence, when he has done anything benevolent or in
any other way conducive to the common interest, he has acted conformably
to his constitution, and he gets what is his own.
BOOK X.
1. Wilt thou, then, my soul, never be good and simple and one and naked,
more manifest than the body which surrounds thee? Wilt thou never enjoy
an affectionate and contented disposition? Wilt thou never be full and
without a want of any kind, longing for nothing more, nor desiring
anything, either animate or inanimate, for the enjoyment of pleasures?
nor yet desiring time wherein thou shalt have longer enjoyment, or place,
or pleasant climate, or society of men with whom thou mayest live in
harmony? but wilt thou be satisfied with thy present condition, and
pleased with all that is about thee, and wilt thou convince thyself that
thou hast everything, and that it comes from the gods, that everything is
well for thee, and will be well whatever shall please them, and whatever
they shall give for the conservation of the perfect living being, the
good and just and beautiful, which generates and holds together all
things, and contains and embraces all things which are dissolved for the
production of other like things? Wilt thou never be such that thou shalt
so dwell in community with gods and men as neither to find fault with
them at all, nor to be condemned by them?
2. Observe what thy nature requires, so far as thou art governed by
nature only: then do it and accept it, if thy nature, so far as thou art
a living being, shall not be made worse by it. And next thou must observe
what thy nature requires so far as thou art a living being. And all this
thou mayest allow thyself, if thy nature, so far as thou art a rational
animal, shall not be made worse by it. But the rational animal is
consequently also a political [social] animal. Use these rules, then, and
trouble thyself about nothing else.
3. Everything which happens either happens in such wise as thou art
formed by nature to bear it, or as thou art not formed by nature to bear
it. If, then, it happens to thee in such way as thou art formed by nature
to bear it, do not complain, but bear it as thou art formed by nature to
bear it. But if it happens in such wise as thou art not formed by nature
to bear it, do not complain, for it will perish after it has consumed
thee. Remember, however, that thou art formed by nature to bear
everything, with respect to which it depends on thy own opinion to make
it endurable and tolerable, by thinking that it is either thy interest or
thy duty to do this.
4. If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. But
if thou art not able, blame thyself, or blame not even thyself.
5. Whatever may happen to thee, it was prepared for thee from all
eternity; and the implication of causes was from eternity spinning the
thread of thy being, and of that which is incident to it (III. II; IV.
26).
6. Whether the universe is [a concourse of] atoms, or nature [is a
system], let this first be established, that I am a part of the whole
which is governed by nature; next, I am in a manner intimately related to
the parts which are of the same kind with myself. For remembering this,
inasmuch as I am a part, I shall be discontented with none of the things
which are assigned to me out of the whole; for nothing is injurious to
the part if it is for the advantage of the whole. For the whole contains
nothing which is not for its advantage; and all natures indeed have this
common principle, but the nature of the universe has this principle
besides, that it cannot be compelled even by any external cause to
generate anything harmful to itself. By remembering, then, that I am a
part of such a whole, I shall be content with everything that happens.
And inasmuch as I am in a manner intimately related to the parts which
are of the same kind with myself, I shall do nothing unsocial, but I
shall rather direct myself to the things which are of the same kind with
myself, and I shall turn all my efforts to the common interest, and
divert them from the contrary. Now, if these things are done so, life
must flow on happily, just as thou mayest observe that the life of a
citizen is happy, who continues a course of action which is advantageous
to his fellow citizens, and is content with whatever the state may assign
to him.
7. The parts of the whole, everything, I mean, which is naturally
comprehended in the universe, must of necessity perish; but let this be
understood in this sense, that they must undergo change. But if this is
naturally both an evil and a necessity for the parts, the whole would not
continue to exist in a good condition, the parts being subject to change
and constituted so as to perish in various ways, For whether did Nature
herself design to do evil to the things which are parts of herself, and
to make them subject to evil and of necessity fall into evil, or have
such results happened without her knowing it? Both these suppositions,
indeed, are incredible. But if a man should even drop the term Nature [as
an efficient power], and should speak of these things as natural, even
then it would be ridiculous to affirm at the same time that the parts of
the whole are in their nature subject to change, and at the same time to
be surprised or vexed as if something were happening contrary to nature,
particularly as the dissolution of things is into those things of which
each thing is composed. For there is either a dispersion of the elements
out of which everything has been compounded, or a change from the solid
to the earthy and from the airy to the aerial, so that these parts are
taken back into the universal reason, whether this at certain periods is
consumed by fire or renewed by eternal changes. And do not imagine that
the solid and the airy part belongs to thee from the time of generation.
For all this received its accretion only yesterday and the day before, as
one may say, from the food and the air which is inspired. This, then,
which has received [the accretion], changes, not that which thy mother
brought forth. Hut suppose that this [which thy mother brought forth]
implicates thee very much with that other part, which has the peculiar
quality [of change], this is nothing in fact in the way of objection to
what is said.
8. When thou hast assumed these names, good, modest, true, rational, a
man of equanimity, and magnanimous, take care that thou dost not change
these names; and if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. And
remember that the term Rational was intended to signify a discriminating
attention to every several thing, and freedom from negligence; and that
Equanimity is the voluntary acceptance of the things which are assigned
to thee by the common nature; and that Magnanimity is the elevation of
the intelligent part above the pleasurable or painful sensations of the
flesh, and above that poor thing called fame, and death, and all such
things. If, then, thou maintainest thyself in the possession of these
names, without desiring to be called by these names by others, thou wilt
be another person and wilt enter on another life. For to continue to be
such as thou hast hitherto been, and to be torn in pieces and defiled in
such a life, is the character of a very stupid man and one over-fond of
his life, and like those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts who,
though covered with wounds and gore, still entreat to be kept to the
following day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the same
claws and bites. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these few
names: and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou wast
removed to certain islands of the Happy. But if thou shalt perceive that
thou fallest out of them and dost not maintain thy hold, go courageously
into some nook where thou shalt maintain them, or even depart at once
from life, not in passion, but with simplicity and freedom and modesty,
after doing this one [laudable] thing at least in thy life, to have gone
out of it thus. In order, however, to the remembrance of these names, it
will greatly help thee if thou rememberest the gods, and that they wish
not to be flattered, but wish all reasonable beings to be made like
themselves; and if thou rememberest that what does the work of a fig-tree
is a fig-tree, and that what does the work of a dog is a dog, and that
what does the work of a bee is a bee, and that what does the work of a
man is a man.
9. Mimi, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery, will daily wipe out those
holy principles of thine. How many things without studying nature dost
thou imagine, and how many dost thou neglect? But it is thy duty so to
look on and so to do everything, that at the same time the power of
dealing with circumstances is perfected, and the contemplative faculty is
exercised, and the confidence which comes from the knowledge of each
several thing is maintained without showing it, but yet not concealed.
For when wilt thou enjoy simplicity, when gravity, and when the knowledge
of every several thing, both what it is in substance, and what place it
has in the universe, and how long it is formed to exist, and of what
things it is compounded, and to whom it can belong, and who are able both
to give it and take it away?
10. A spider is proud when it has caught a fly, and another when he has
caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net,
and another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken
bears, and another when he has taken Sarmatians. Are not these robbers,
if thou examinest their opinions?
11. Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into
one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this
part [of philosophy]. For nothing is so much adapted to produce
magnanimity. Such a man has put off the body, and as he sees that he
must, no one knows how soon, go away from among men and leave everything
here, he gives himself up entirely to just doing in all his actions, and
in everything else that happens he resigns himself to the universal
nature. But as to what any man shall say or think about him or do against
him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two
things,--with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with
what is now assigned to him; and he lays aside all distracting and busy
pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course
through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God.
12. What need is there of suspicious fear, since it is in thy power to
inquire what ought to be done? And if thou seest clear, go by this way
content, without turning back: but if thou dost not see clear, stop and
take the best advisers. But if any other things oppose thee, go on
according to thy powers with due consideration, keeping to that which
appears to be just. For it is best to reach this object, and if thou dost
fail, let thy failure be in attempting this. He who follows reason in all
things is both tranquil and active at the same time, and also cheerful
and collected.
13. Inquire of thyself as soon as thou wakest from sleep whether it will
make any difference to thee if another does what is just and right. It
will make no difference (VI. 32; VIII. 55).
Thou hast not forgotten, I suppose, that those who assume arrogant airs
in bestowing their praise or blame on others are such as they are at bed
and at board, and thou hast not forgotten what they do, and what they
avoid, and what they pursue, and how they steal and how they rob, not
with hands and feet, but with their most valuable part, by means of which
there is produced, when a man chooses, fidelity, modesty, truth, law, a
good daemon [happiness] (VII. 17)?
14. To her who gives and takes back all, to nature, the man who is
instructed and modest says, Give what thou wilt; take back what thou
wilt. And he says this not proudly, but obediently, and well pleased with
her.
15. Short is the little which remains to thee of life. Live as on a
mountain. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here,
if he lives everywhere in the world as in a state [political community].
Let men see, let them know a real man who lives according to nature. If
they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to
live thus [as men do].
16. No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to
be, but be such.
17. Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance,
and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a
fig, and as to time the turning of a gimlet.
18. Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in
dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or
that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.
19. Consider what men are when they are eating, sleeping, generating,
easing themselves, and so forth. Then what kind of men they are when they
are imperious and arrogant, or angry and scolding from their elevated
place. But a short time ago to how many they were slaves and for what
things; and after a little time consider in what a condition they will
be.
20. That is for the good of each thing, which the universal nature brings
to each. And it is for its good at the time when nature brings it.
21. "The earth loves the shower"; and "the solemn ether loves"; and the
universe loves to make whatever is about to be. I say then to the
universe, that I love as thou lovest. And is not this too said, that
"this or that loves [is wont] to be produced"?
22. Either thou livest here and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or
thou art going away, and this was thy own will; or thou art dying and
hast discharged thy duty. But besides these things there is nothing. Be
of good cheer, then.
23. Let this always be plain to thee, that this piece of land is like any
other; and that all things here are the same with things on the top of a
mountain, or on the sea-shore, or wherever thou choosest to be. For thou
wilt find just what Plato says, Dwelling within the walls of a city as in
a shepherd's fold on a mountain. [The three last words are omitted in the
translation.]
24. What is my ruling faculty now to me? and of what nature am I now
making it? and for what purpose am I now using it? is it void of
understanding? is it loosed and rent asunder from social life? is it
melted into and mixed with the poor flesh so as to move together with it?
25. He who flies from his master is a runaway; but the law is master, and
he who breaks the law is a runaway. And he also who is grieved or angry
or afraid, is dissatisfied because something has been or is or shall be
of the things which are appointed by him who rules all things, and he is
Law and assigns to every man what is fit. He then who fears or is grieved
or is angry is a runaway.
26. A man deposits seed in a womb and goes away, and then another cause
takes it, and labors on it and makes a child. What a thing from such a
material! Again, the child passes food down through the throat, and then
another cause takes it and makes perception and motion, and in fine, life
and strength and other things; how many and how strange! Observe then the
things which are produced in such a hidden way, and see the power just as
we see the power which carries things downwards and upwards, not with the
eyes, but still no less plainly (VII. 75).
27. Constantly consider how all things such as they now are, in time past
also were; and consider that they will be the same again. And place
before thy eyes entire dramas and stages of the same form, whatever thou
hast learned from thy experience or from older history; for example, the
whole court of Hadrianus, and the whole court of Antoninus, and the whole
court of Philippus, Alexander, Croesus; for all those were such dramas as
we see now, only with different actors.
28. Imagine every man who is grieved at anything or discontented to be
like a pig which is sacrificed and kicks and screams.
Like this pig also is he who on his bed in silence laments the bonds in
which we are held. And consider that only to the rational animal is it
given to follow voluntarily what happens; but simply to follow is a
necessity imposed on all.
29. Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and
ask thyself if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of
this.
30. When thou art offended at any man's fault, forthwith turn to thyself
and reflect in what like manner thou dost err thyself; for example, in
thinking that money is a good thing, or pleasure, or a bit of reputation,
and the like. For by attending to this thou wilt quickly forget thy
anger, if this consideration also is added, that the man is compelled:
for what else could he do? or, if thou art able, take away from him the
compulsion.
31. When thou hast seen Satyron the Socratic, think of either Eutyches or
Hymen, and when thou hast seen Euphrates, think of Eutychion or Silvanus,
and when thou hast seen Alciphron think of Tropaeophorus, and when thou
hast seen Xenophon, think of Crito or Severus, and when thou hast looked
on thyself, think of any other Caesar, and in the case of every one do in
like manner. Then let this thought be in thy mind, Where then are those
men? Nowhere, or nobody knows where. For thus continuously thou wilt look
at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou
reflectest at the same time that what has once changed will never exist
again in the infinite duration of time. But thou, in what a brief space
of time is thy existence? And why art thou not content to pass through
this short time in an orderly way? What matter and opportunity [for thy
activity] art thou avoiding? For what else are all these things, except
exercises for the reason, when it has viewed carefully and by examination
into their nature the things which happen in life? Persevere then until
thou shalt have made these things thy own, as the stomach which is
strengthened makes all things its own, as the blazing fire makes flame
and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.
32. Let it not be in any man's power to say truly of thee that thou art
not simple or that thou art not good; but let him be a liar whoever shall
think anything of this kind about thee; and this is altogether in thy
power. For who is he that shall hinder thee from being good and simple?
Do thou only determine to live no longer unless thou shalt be such. For
neither does reason allow [thee to live], if thou art not such.
33. What is that which as to this material [our life] can be done or said
in the way most conformable to reason? For whatever this may be, it is in
thy power to do it or to say it, and do not make excuses that thou art
hindered. Thou wilt not cease to lament till thy mind is in such a
condition that, what luxury is to those who enjoy pleasure, such shall be
to thee, in the matter which is subjected and presented to thee, the
doing of the things which are conformable to man's constitution; for a
man ought to consider as an enjoyment everything which it is in his power
to do according to his own nature. And it is in his power everywhere.
Now, it is not given to a cylinder to move everywhere by its own motion,
nor yet to water nor to fire, nor to anything else which is governed by
nature or an irrational soul, for the things which check them and stand
in the way are many. But intelligence and reason are able to go through
everything that opposes them, and in such manner as they are formed by
nature and as they choose. Place before thy eyes this facility with which
the reason will be carried through all things, as fire upwards, as a
stone downwards, as a cylinder down an inclined surface, and seek for
nothing further. For all other obstacles either affect the body only,
which is a dead thing; or, except through opinion and the yielding of the
reason itself, they do not crush nor do any harm of any kind; for if they
did, he who felt it would immediately become bad. Now, in the case of all
things which have a certain constitution, whatever harm may happen to any
of them, that which is so affected becomes consequently worse; but in the
like case, a man becomes both better, if one may say so, and more worthy
of praise by making a right use of these accidents. And finally remember
that nothing harms him who is really a citizen, which does not harm the
state; nor yet does anything harm the state, which does not harm law
[order]; and of these things which are called misfortunes not one harms
law. What then does not harm law does not harm either state or citizen.
34. To him who is penetrated by true principles even the briefest precept
is sufficient, and any common precept, to remind him that he should be
free from grief and fear. For example,--
"Leaves, some the wind scatters on the ground--
So is the race of men."
Leaves, also, are thy children; and leaves, too, are they who cry out as
if they were worthy of credit and bestow their praise, or on the contrary
curse, or secretly blame and sneer; and leaves, in like manner, are those
who shall receive and transmit a man's fame to after-times. For all such
things as these "are produced in the season of spring," as the poet says;
then the wind casts them down; then the forest produces other leaves in
their places. But a brief existence is common to all things, and yet thou
avoidest and pursuest all things as if they would be eternal. A little
time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy
grave another will soon lament.
35. The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I
wish for green things; for this is the condition of a diseased eye. And
the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that
can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be with
respect to all food just as the mill with respect to all things which it
is formed to grind. And accordingly the healthy understanding ought to be
prepared for everything which happens; but that which says, Let my dear
children live, and let all men praise whatever I may do, is an eye which
seeks for green things, or teeth which seek for soft things.
36. There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he
is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that
he was a good and wise man, will there not be at last some one to say to
himself, Let us at last breathe freely, being relieved from this
schoolmaster? It is true that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceived
that he tacitly condemns us.--This is what is said of a good man. But in
our own case how many other things are there for which there are many who
wish to get rid of us. Thou wilt consider this, then, when thou art
dying, and thou wilt depart more contentedly by reflecting thus: I am
going away from such a life, in which even my associates in behalf of
whom I have striven so much, prayed, and cared, themselves wish me to
depart, hoping perchance to get some little advantage by it. Why then
should a man cling to a longer stay here? Do not however for this reason
go away less kindly disposed to them, but preserving thy own character,
and friendly and benevolent and mild, and on the other hand not as if
thou wast torn away; but as when a man dies a quiet death, the poor soul
is easily separated from the body, such also ought thy departure from men
to be, for nature united thee to them and associated thee. But does she
now dissolve the union? Well, I am separated as from kinsmen, not however
dragged resisting, but without compulsion; for this, too, is one of the
things according to nature.
37. Accustom thyself as much as possible on the occasion of anything
being done by any person to inquire with thyself, For what object is this
man doing this? But begin with thyself, and examine thyself first.
38. Remember that this which pulls the strings is the thing which is
hidden within: this is the power of persuasion, this is life, this, if
one may so say, is man. In contemplating thyself never include the vessel
which surrounds thee and these instruments which are attached about it.
For they are like to an axe, differing only in this, that they grow to
the body. For indeed there is no more use in these parts without the
cause which moves and checks them than in the weaver's shuttle, and the
writer's pen, and the driver's whip.
BOOK XI.
1. These are the properties of the rational soul: it sees itself,
analyses itself, and makes itself such as it chooses; the fruit which it
bears itself enjoys,--for the fruits of plants and that in animals which
corresponds to fruits others enjoy,--it obtains its own end, wherever the
limit of life may be fixed. Not as in a dance and in a play and in such
like things, where the whole action is incomplete if anything cuts it
short; but in every part, and where-ever it may be stopped, it makes what
has been set before it full and complete, so that it can say, I have what
is my own. And further it traverses the whole universe, and the
surrounding vacuum, and surveys its form, and it extends itself into the
infinity of time, and embraces and comprehends the periodical renovation
of all things, and it comprehends that those who come after us will see
nothing new, nor have those before us seen anything more, but in a manner
he who is forty years old, if he has any understanding at all, has seen
by virtue of the uniformity that prevails all things which have been and
all that will be. This too is a property of the rational soul, love of
one's neighbor, and truth and modesty, and to value nothing more than
itself, which is also the property of Law. Thus then right reason differs
not at all from the reason of justice.
2. Thou wilt set little value on pleasing song and dancing and the
pancratium, if thou wilt distribute the melody of the voice into its
several sounds, and ask thyself as to each, if thou art mastered by this;
for thou wilt be prevented by shame from confessing it: and in the matter
of dancing, if at each movement and attitude thou wilt do the same; and
the like also in the matter of the pancratium. In all things, then,
except virtue and the acts of virtue, remember to apply thyself to their
several parts, and by this division to come to value them little: and
apply this rule also to thy whole life.
3. What a soul that is which is ready, if at any moment it must be
separated from the body, and ready either to be extinguished or dispersed
or continue to exist; but so that this readiness comes from a man's own
judgment, not from mere obstinacy, as with the Christians, but
considerately and with dignity and in a way to persuade another, without
tragic show.
4. Have I done something for the general interest? Well then I have had
my reward. Let this always be present to thy mind, and never stop [doing
such good].
5. What is thy art? To be good. And how is this accomplished well except
by general principles, some about the nature of the universe, and others
about the proper constitution of man?
6. At first tragedies were brought on the stage as means of reminding men
of the things which happen to them, and that it is according to nature
for things to happen so, and that, if you are delighted with what is
shown on the stage, you should not be troubled with that which takes
place on the larger stage. For you see that these things must be
accomplished thus, and that even they bear them who cry out, "O
Cithaeron." And, indeed, some things are said well by the dramatic
writers, of which kind is the following especially:--
"Me and my children if the gods neglect,
This has its reason too."
And again,--
"We must not chafe and fret at that which happens."
And,--
"Life's harvest reap like the wheat's fruitful ear."
And other things of the same kind.
After tragedy the old comedy was introduced, which had a magisterial
freedom of speech, and by its very plainness of speaking was useful in
reminding men to beware of insolence; and for this purpose too Diogenes
used to take from these writers.
But as to the middle comedy, which came next, observe what it was, and
again, for what object the new comedy was introduced, which gradually
sank down into a mere mimic artifice. That some good things are said even
by these writers, everybody knows: but the whole plan of such poetry and
dramaturgy, to what end does it look?
7. How plain does it appear that there is not another condition of life
so well suited for philosophizing as this in which thou now happenest to
be.
8. A branch cut off from the adjacent branch must of necessity be cut off
from the whole tree also. So too a man when he is separated from another
man has fallen off from the whole social community. Now as to a branch,
another cuts it off; but a man by his own act separates himself from his
neighbor when he hates him and turns away from him, and he does not know
that he has at the same time cut himself off from the whole social
system. Yet he has this privilege certainly from Zeus, who framed
society, for it is in our power to grow again to that which is near to
us, and again to become a part which helps to make up the whole. However,
if it often happens, this kind of separation, it makes it difficult for
that which detaches itself to be brought to unity and to be restored to
its former condition. Finally, the branch, which from the first grew
together with the tree, and has continued to have one life with it, is
not like that which after being cut off is then ingrafted, for this is
something like what the gardeners mean when they say that it grows with
the rest of the tree, but that it has not the same mind with it.
9. As those who try to stand in thy way when thou art proceeding
according to right reason will not be able to turn thee aside from thy
proper action, so neither let them drive thee from thy benevolent
feelings towards them, but be on thy guard equally in both matters, not
only in the matter of steady judgment and action, but also in the matter
of gentleness to those who try to hinder or otherwise trouble thee. For
this also is a weakness, to be vexed at them, as well as to be diverted
from thy course of action and to give way through fear; for both are
equally deserters from their post,--the man who does it through fear, and
the man who is alienated from him who is by nature a kinsman and a
friend.
10. There is no nature which is inferior to art, for the arts imitate the
natures of things. But if this is so, that nature which is the most
perfect and the most comprehensive of all natures, cannot fall short of
the skill of art. Now all arts do the inferior things for the sake of the
superior; therefore the universal nature does so too. And, indeed, hence
is the origin of justice, and in justice the other virtues have their
foundation: for justice will not be observed, if we either care for
middle things [things indifferent], or are easily deceived and careless
and changeable (V. 16, 30; VII. 55).
11. If the things do not come to thee, the pursuits and avoidances of
which disturb thee, still in a manner thou goest to them. Let then thy
judgment about them be at rest, and they will remain quiet, and thou wilt
not be seen either pursuing or avoiding.
12. The spherical form of the soul maintains its figure when it is
neither extended towards any object, nor contracted inwards, nor
dispersed nor sinks down, but is illuminated by light, by which it sees
the truth,--the truth of all things and the truth that is in itself
(VIII. 41, 45; XII. 3).
13. Suppose any man shall despise me. Let him look to that himself. But I
will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything
deserving of contempt. Shall any man hate me? Let him look to it. But I
will be mild and benevolent towards every man, and ready to show even him
his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my
endurance, but nobly and honestly, like the great Phocion, unless indeed
he only assumed it. For the interior [parts] ought to be such, and a man
ought to be seen by the gods neither dissatisfied with anything nor
complaining. For what evil is it to thee, if thou art now doing what is
agreeable to thy own nature, and art satisfied with that which at this
moment is suitable to the nature of the universe, since thou art a human
being placed at thy post in order that what is for the common advantage
may be done in some way?
14. Men despise one another and flatter one another; and men wish to
raise themselves above one another, and crouch before one another.
15. How unsound and insincere is he who says, I have determined to deal
with thee in a fair way!--What art thou doing, man? There is no occasion
to give this notice. It will soon show itself by acts. The voice ought to
be plainly written on the forehead. Such as a man's character is, he
immediately shows it in his eyes, just as he who is beloved forthwith
reads everything in the eyes of lovers. The man who is honest and good
ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander
as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not. But the
affectation of simplicity is like a crooked stick. Nothing is more
disgraceful than a wolfish friendship [false friendship]. Avoid this most
of all. The good and simple and benevolent show all these things in the
eyes, and there is no mistaking.
16. As to living in the best way, this power is in the soul, if it be
indifferent to things which are indifferent. And it will be indifferent,
if it looks on each of these things separately and all together, and if
it remembers that not one of them produces in us an opinion about itself,
nor comes to us; but these things remain immovable, and it is we
ourselves who produce the judgments about them, and, as we may say, write
them in ourselves, it being in our power not to write them, and it being
in our power, if perchance these judgments have imperceptibly got
admission to our minds, to wipe them out; and if we remember also that
such attention will only be for a short time, and then life will be at an
end. Besides, what trouble is there at all in doing this? For if these
things are according to nature, rejoice in them and they will be easy to
thee: but if contrary to nature, seek what is conformable to thy own
nature, and strive towards this, even if it bring no reputation; for
every man is allowed to seek his own good.
17. Consider whence each thing is come, and of what it consists, and into
what it changes, and what kind of a thing it will be when it has changed,
and that it will sustain no harm.
18. [If any have offended against thee, consider first]: What is my
relation to men, and that we are made for one another; and in another
respect I was made to be set over them, as a ram over the flock or a bull
over the herd. But examine the matter from first principles, from this:
If all things are not mere atoms, it is nature which orders all things:
if this is so, the inferior things exist for the sake of the superior,
and these for the sake of one another (II. 1; IX. 39; V. 16; III. 4).
Second, consider what kind of men they are at table, in bed, and so
forth: and particularly, under what compulsions in respect of opinions
they are; and as to their acts, consider with what pride they do what
they do (VIII. 14; IX. 34).
Third, that if men do rightly what they do, we ought not to be
displeased: but if they do not right, it is plain that they do so
involuntarily and in ignorance. For as every soul is unwillingly deprived
of the truth, so also is it unwillingly deprived of the power of behaving
to each man according to his deserts. Accordingly men are pained when
they are called unjust, ungrateful, and greedy, and in a word wrong-doers
to their neighbors (VII. 62, 63; II. 1; VII. 26; VIII. 29).
Fourth, consider that thou also dost many things wrong, and that thou art
a man like others; and even if thou dost abstain from certain faults,
still thou hast the disposition to commit them, though either through
cowardice, or concern about reputation, or some such mean motive, thou
dost abstain from such faults (I. 17).
Fifth, consider that thou dost not even understand whether men are doing
wrong or not, for many things are done with a certain reference to
circumstances. And in short, a man must learn a great deal to enable him
to pass a correct judgment on another man's acts (IX. 38; IV. 51).
Sixth, consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man's life is
only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead (VII. 58;
IV. 48).
Seventh, that it is not men's acts which disturb us, for those acts have
their foundation in men's ruling principles, but it is our own opinions
which disturb us. Take away these opinions then, and resolve to dismiss
thy judgment about an act as if it were something grievous, and thy anger
is gone. How then shall I take away these opinions? By reflecting that no
wrongful act of another brings shame on thee: for unless that which is
shameful is alone bad, thou also must of necessity do many things wrong,
and become a robber and everything else (V. 25; VII. 16).
Eighth, consider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and
vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are
angry and vexed (IV. 39, 49; VII. 24).
Ninth, consider that a good disposition is invincible if it be genuine,
and not an affected smile and acting a part. For what will the most
violent man do to thee, if thou continuest to be of a kind disposition
towards him, and if, as opportunity offers, thou gently admonishest him
and calmly correctest his errors at the very time when he is trying to do
thee harm, saying, Not so, my child: we are constituted by nature for
something else: I shall certainly not be injured, but thou art injuring
thyself, my child.--And show him with gentle tact and by general
principles that this is so, and that even bees do not do as he does, nor
any animals which are formed by nature to be gregarious. And thou must do
this neither with any double meaning nor in the way of reproach, but
affectionately and without any rancor in thy soul; and not as if thou
wert lecturing him, nor yet that any bystander may admire, but either
when he is alone, and if others are present.... [Footnote: 6]
Remember these nine rules, as if thou hadst received them as a gift from
the Muses, and begin at last to be a man while thou livest. But thou must
equally avoid flattering men and being vexed at them, for both are
unsocial and lead to harm. And let this truth be present to thee in the
excitement of anger, that to be moved by passion is not manly, but that
mildness and gentleness, as they are more agreeable to human nature, so
also are they more manly; and he who possesses these qualities
possesses strength, nerves, and courage, and not the man who is subject
to fits of passion and discontent. For in the same degree in which a
man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also
is it nearer to strength: and as the sense of pain is a characteristic of
weakness, so also is anger. For he who yields to pain and he who yields
to anger, both are wounded and both submit.
But if thou wilt, receive also a tenth present from the leader of the
[Muses, Apollo], and it is this,--that to expect bad men not to do wrong
is madness, for he who expects this desires an impossibility. But to
allow men to behave so to others, and to expect them not to do thee any
wrong, is irrational and tyrannical.
19. There are four principal aberrations of the superior faculty against
which thou shouldst be constantly on thy guard, and when thou hast
detected them, thou shouldst wipe them out and say on each occasion thus:
This thought is not necessary: this tends to destroy social union: this
which thou art going to say comes not from the real thoughts; for thou
shouldst consider it among the most absurd of things for a man not to
speak from his real thoughts. But the fourth is when thou shalt reproach
thyself for anything, for this is an evidence of the diviner part within
thee being overpowered and yielding to the less honorable and to the
perishable part, the body, and to its gross pleasures (IV. 24; II. 16).
20. Thy aerial part and all the fiery parts which are mingled in thee,
though by nature they have an upward tendency, still in obedience to the
disposition of the universe they are overpowered here in the compound
mass [the body]. And also the whole of the earthy part in thee and the
watery, though their tendency is downward, still are raised up and occupy
a position which is not their natural one. In this manner then the
elemental parts obey the universal; for when they have been fixed in any
place, perforce they remain there until again the universal shall sound
the signal for dissolution. Is it not then strange that thy intelligent
part only should be disobedient and discontented with its own place? And
yet no force is imposed on it, but only those things which are
comformable to its nature: still it does not submit, but is carried in
the opposite direction. For the movement towards injustice and
intemperance and to anger and grief and fear is nothing else than the act
of one who deviates from nature. And also when the ruling faculty is
discontented with anything that happens, then too it deserts its post:
for it is constituted for piety and reverence towards the gods no less
than for justice. For these qualities also are comprehended under the
generic term of contentment with the constitution of things, and indeed
they are prior to acts of justice.
21. He who has not one and always the same object in life, cannot be one
and the same all through his life. But what I have said is not enough,
unless this also is added, what this object ought to be. For as there is
not the same opinion about all the things which in some way or other are
considered by the majority to be good, but only about some certain
things, that is, things which concern the common interest, so also ought
we to propose to ourselves an object which shall be of a common kind
[social] and political. For he who directs all his own efforts to this
object, will make all his acts alike, and thus will always be the same.
22. Think of the country mouse and of the town mouse, and of the alarm
and trepidation of the town mouse. [Footnote: 7]
23. Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of
Lamiae,--bugbears to frighten children.
24. The Lacedaemonians at their public spectacles used to set seats in
the shade for strangers, but themselves sat down anywhere.
25. Socrates excused himself to Perdiccas for not going to him, saying,
It is because I would not perish by the worst of all ends; that is, I
would not receive a favor and then be unable to return it.
26. In the writings of the [Ephesians] there was this precept, constantly
to think of some one of the men of former times who practised virtue.
27. The Pythagoreans bid us in the morning look to the heavens that we
may be reminded of those bodies which continually do the same things and
in the same manner perform their work, and also be reminded of their
purity and nudity. For there is no veil over a star.
28. Consider what a man Socrates was when he dressed himself in a skin,
after Xanthippe had taken his cloak and gone out, and what Socrates said
to his friends who were ashamed of him and drew back from him when they
saw him dressed thus.
29. Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules
for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself.
Much more is this so in life.
30. A slave thou art: free speech is not for thee.
31. And my heart laughed within.
_Odyssey_, IX. 413.
32. And virtue they will curse, speaking harsh words.
HESIOD, _Works and Days_, 184.
33. To look for the fig in winter is a madman's act: such is he who looks
for his child when it is no longer allowed (Epictetus, III. 24, 87).
34. When a man kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to
himself, "To-morrow perchance thou wilt die."--But those are words of bad
omen.--"No word is a word of bad omen," said Epictetus, "which expresses
any work of nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to
speak of the ears of corn being reaped" (Epictetus, III. 24, 88).
35. The unripe grape, the ripe bunch, the dried grape all are changes,
not into nothing, but into something which exists not yet (Epictetus,
III. 24).
36. No man can rob us of our free will (Epictetus III. 22, 105).
37. Epictetus also said, a man must discover an art [or rules] with
respect to giving his assent; and in respect to his movements he must be
careful that they be made with regard to circumstances, that they be
consistent with social interests, that they have regard to the value of
the object; and as to sensual desire, he should altogether keep away from
it; and as to avoidance [aversion], he should not show it with respect to
any of the things which are not in our power.
38. The dispute then, he said, is not about any common matter, but about
being mad or not.
39. Socrates used to say, What do you want, souls of rational men or
irrational?--souls of rational men.--Of what rational men, sound or
unsound?--Sound.--Why then do you not seek for them?--Because we have
them.--Why then do you fight and quarrel?
BOOK XII.
1. All those things at which thou wishest to arrive by a circuitous road
thou canst have now, if thou dost not refuse them to thyself. And this
means, if thou wilt take no notice of all the past, and trust the future
to providence, and direct the present only conformably to piety and
justice. Conformably to piety, that thou mayest be content with the lot
which is assigned to thee, for nature designed it for thee and thee for
it. Conformably to justice, that thou mayest always speak the truth
freely and without disguise, and do the things which are agreeable to law
and according to the worth of each. And let neither another man's
wickedness hinder thee, nor opinion nor voice, nor yet the sensations of
the poor flesh which has grown about thee; for the passive part will look
to this. If, then, whatever the time may be when thou shalt be near to
thy departure, neglecting everything else thou shalt respect only thy
ruling faculty and the divinity within thee, and if thou shalt be afraid
not because thou must some time cease to live, but if thou shalt fear
never to have begun to live according to nature,--then thou wilt be a man
worthy of the universe which hast produced thee, and thou wilt cease to
be a stranger in thy native land, and to wonder at things which happen
daily as if they were something unexpected, and not to be dependent on
this or that.
2. God sees the minds [ruling principles] of all men bared of the
material vesture and rind and impurities. For with his intellectual part
alone he touches the intelligence only which has flowed and been derived
from himself into these bodies. And if thou also usest thyself to do
this, thou wilt rid thyself of thy much trouble. For he who regards not
the poor flesh which envelops him, surely will not trouble himself by
looking after raiment and dwelling and fame and such like externals and
show.
3. The things are three of which thou art composed: a little body, a
little breath [life], intelligence. Of these the first two are thine, so
far as it is thy duty to take care of them; but the third alone is
properly thine. Therefore if thou shalt separate from thyself, that is,
from thy understanding, whatever others do or say, and whatever thou hast
done or said thyself, and whatever future things trouble thee because
they may happen, and whatever in the body which envelops thee or in the
breath [life], which is by nature associated with the body, is attached
to thee independent of thy will, and whatever the external circumfluent
vortex whirls round, so that the intellectual power exempt from the
things of fate can live pure and free by itself, doing what is just and
accepting what happens and saying the truth: if thou wilt separate, I
say, from this ruling faculty the things which are attached to it by the
impressions of sense, and the things of time to come and of time that is
past, and wilt make thyself like Empedocles' sphere,
"All round and in its joyous rest reposing";
and if thou shalt strive to live only what is really thy life, that is,
the present,--then thou wilt be able to pass that portion of life which
remains for thee up to the time of thy death free from perturbations,
nobly, and obedient to thy own daemon [to the god that is within thee]
(II. 13, 17; III. 5, 6; XI. 12).
4. I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than
all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of
himself than on the opinion of others. If then a god or a wise teacher
should present himself to a man and bid him to think of nothing and to
design nothing which he would not express as soon as he conceived it, he
could not endure it even for a single day. So much more respect have we
to what our neighbors shall think of us than to what we shall think of
ourselves.
5. How can it be that the gods, after having arranged all things well and
benevolently for mankind, have overlooked this alone, that some men, and
very good men, and men who, as we may say, have had most communion with
the divinity, and through pious acts and religious observances have been
most intimate with the divinity, when they have once died should never
exist again, but should be completely extinguished?
But if this is so, be assured that if it ought to have been otherwise,
the gods would have done it. For if it were just, it would also be
possible; and if it were according to nature, nature would have had it
so. But because it is not so, if in fact it is not so, be thou convinced
that it ought not to have been so: for thou seest even of thyself that in
this inquiry thou art disputing with the Deity; and we should not thus
dispute with the gods, unless they were most excellent and most just; but
if this is so, they would not have allowed anything in the ordering of
the universe to be neglected unjustly and irrationally.
6. Practise thyself even in the things which thou despairest of
accomplishing. For even the left hand, which is ineffectual for all other
things for want of practice, holds the bridle more vigorously than the
right hand; for it has been practised in this.
7. Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when
he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the
boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.
8. Contemplate the formative principles [forms] of things bare of their
coverings; the purposes of actions; consider what pain is, what pleasure
is, and death, and fame; who is to himself the cause of his uneasiness;
how no man is hindered by another; that everything is opinion.
9. In the application of thy principles thou must be like the
pancratiast, not like the gladiator; for the gladiator lets fall the
sword which he uses and is killed; but the other always has his hand, and
needs to do nothing else than use it.
10. See what things are in themselves, dividing them into matter, form,
and purpose.
11. What a power man has to do nothing except what God will approve, and
to accept all that God may give him.
12. With respect to that which happens conformably to nature, we ought to
blame neither gods, for they do nothing wrong either voluntarily or
involuntarily, nor men, for they do nothing wrong except involuntarily.
Consequently we should blame nobody (II. 11, 12, 13; VII. 62; VIII. 17,
18).
13. How ridiculous and what a stranger he is who is surprised at anything
which happens in life.
14. Either there is a fatal necessity and invincible order, or a kind
providence, or a confusion without a purpose and without a director (IV.
27). If then there is an invincible necessity, why dost thou resist? But
if there is a providence which allows itself to be propitiated, make
thyself worthy of the help of the divinity. But if there is a confusion
without a governor, be content that in such a tempest thou hast in
thyself a certain ruling intelligence. And even if the tempest carry thee
away, let it carry away the poor flesh, the poor breath, everything else;
for the intelligence at least it will not carry away.
15. Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendor until it
is extinguished; and shall the truth which is in thee and justice and
temperance be extinguished [before thy death]?
16. When a man has presented the appearance of having done wrong [say],
How then do I know if this is a wrongful act? And even if he has done
wrong, how do I know that he has not condemned himself? And so this is
like tearing his own face. Consider that he who would not have the bad
man do wrong, is like the man who would not have the fig-tree bear juice
in the figs, and infants cry, and the horse neigh, and whatever else must
of necessity be. For what must a man do who has such a character? If then
thou art irritable, cure this man's disposition.
17. If it is not right, do not do it: if it is not true, do not say it.
[For let thy efforts be--]
18. In everything always observe what the thing is which produces for
thee an appearance, and resolve it by dividing it into the formal, the
material, the purpose, and the time within which it must end.
19. Perceive at last that thou hast in thee something better and more
divine than the things which cause the various effects, and as it were
pull thee by the strings. What is there now in my mind,--is it fear, or
suspicion, or desire, or anything of the kind (V. 11)?
20. First, do nothing inconsiderately, nor without a purpose. Second,
make thy acts refer to nothing else than to a social end.
21. Consider that before long thou wilt be nobody and nowhere, nor will
any of the things exist which thou now seest, nor any of those who are
now living. For all things are formed by nature to change and be turned
and to perish, in order that other things in continuous succession may
exist (IX. 28).
22. Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.
Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner who
has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a
waveless bay.
23. Any one activity, whatever it may be, when it has ceased at its
proper time, suffers no evil because it has ceased; nor he who has done
this act, does he suffer any evil for this reason, that the act has
ceased. In like manner then the whole which consists of all the acts,
which is our life, if it cease at its proper time, suffers no evil for
this reason, that it has ceased; nor he who has terminated this series at
the proper time, has he been ill dealt with. But the proper time and the
limit nature fixes, sometimes as in old age the peculiar nature of man,
but always the universal nature, by the change of whose parts the whole
universe continues ever young and perfect. And everything which is useful
to the universal is always good and in season. Therefore the termination
of life for every man is no evil, because neither is it shameful, since
it is both independent of the will and not opposed to the general
interest, but it is good, since it is seasonable, and profitable to and
congruent with the universal. For thus too he is moved by the Deity who
is moved in the same manner with the Deity, and moved towards the same
things in his mind.
24. These three principles thou must have in readiness: In the things
which thou dost do nothing either inconsiderately or otherwise than as
Justice herself would act; but with respect to what may happen to thee
from without, consider that it happens either by chance or according to
providence, and thou must neither blame chance nor accuse providence.
Second, consider what every being is from the seed to the time of its
receiving a soul, and from the reception of a soul to the giving back of
the same, and of what things every being is compounded, and into what
things it is resolved. Third, if thou shouldst suddenly be raised up
above the earth, and shouldst look down on human things, and observe the
variety of them how great it is, and at the same time also shouldst see
at a glance how great is the number of beings who dwell all around in the
air and the ether, consider that as often as thou shouldst be raised up,
thou wouldst see the same things, sameness of form and shortness of
duration. Are these things to be proud of?
25. Cast away opinion: thou art saved. Who then hinders thee from casting
it away?
26. When thou art troubled about anything, thou hast forgotten this, that
all things happen according to the universal nature; and forgotten this,
that a man's wrongful act is nothing to thee; and further thou hast
forgotten this, that everything which happens, always happened so and
will happen so, and now happens so everywhere; forgotten this too, how
close is the kinship between a man and the whole human race, for it is a
community, not of a little blood or seed, but of intelligence. And thou
hast forgotten this too, that every man's intelligence is a god and is an
efflux of the Deity; and forgotten this, that nothing is a man's own, but
that his child and his body and his very soul came from the Deity;
forgotten this, that everything is opinion; and lastly thou hast
forgotten that every man lives the present time only, and loses only
this.
27. Constantly bring to thy recollection those who have complained
greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicuous by the
greatest fame or misfortunes or enmities or fortunes of any kind: then
think where are they all now? Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a
tale. And let there be present to thy mind also everything of this sort,
how Fabius Catullinus lived in the country, and Lucius Lupus in his
gardens, and Stertinius at Baiae, and Tiberius at Capreae, and Velius
Rufus [or Rufus at Velia]; and in fine think of the eager pursuit of
anything conjoined with pride; and how worthless everything is after
which men violently strain; and how much more philosophical it is for a
man in the opportunities presented to him to show himself just,
temperate, obedient to the gods, and to do this with all simplicity: for
the pride which is proud of its want of pride is the most intolerable of
all.
28. To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou
comprehend that they exist and so worshippest them, I answer, in the
first place, they may be seen even with the eyes; [Footnote: 8] in the
second place, neither have I seen even 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.
29. The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what
it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all thy
soul to do justice and to say the truth. What remains, except to enjoy
life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the
smallest intervals between?
30. There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls,
mountains, and other things infinite. There is one common substance,
though it is distributed among countless bodies which have their several
qualities. There is one soul, though it is distributed among infinite
natures and individual circumscriptions [or individuals]. There is one
intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided. Now in the things which
have been mentioned, all the other parts, such as those which are air and
matter, are without sensation and have no fellowship: and yet even these
parts the intelligent principle holds together and the gravitation
towards the same. But intellect in a peculiar manner tends to that which
is of the same kin, and combines with it, and the feeling for communion
is not interrupted.
31. What dost thou wish,--to continue to exist? Well, dost thou wish to
have sensation, movement, growth, and then again to cease to grow, to use
thy speech, to think? What is there of all these things which seems to
thee worth desiring? But if it is easy to set little value on all these
things, turn to that which remains, which is to follow reason and God.
But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled
because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.
32. How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned
to every man, for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal! And how
small a part of the whole substance; and how small a part of the
universal soul; and on what a small clod of the whole earth thou
creepest! Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except to
act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that which the common nature
brings.
33. How does the ruling faculty make use of itself? for all lies in this.
But everything else, whether it is in the power of thy will or not, is
only lifeless ashes and smoke.
34. This reflection is most adapted to move us to contempt of death, that
even those who think pleasure to be a good and pain an evil still have
despised it.
35. The man to whom that only is good which comes in due season, and to
whom it is the same thing whether he has done more or fewer acts
conformable to right reason, and to whom it makes no difference whether
he contemplates the world for a longer or a shorter time,--for this man
neither is death a terrible thing (II. 7; VI. 23; X. 20; XII. 23).
36. Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world]; what
difference does it make to thee whether for five years [or three]? for
that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is the
hardship then, if no tyrant nor yet an unjust judge sends thee away from
the state, but nature, who brought thee into it? the same as if a praetor
who has employed an actor dismisses him from the stage.--"But I have not
finished the five acts, but only three of them."--Thou sayest well, but
in life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete
drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, and
now of its dissolution: but thou art the cause of neither. Depart then
satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS.
It has been said that the 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 Uticensis, 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 times from the death
of Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there was nothing but the 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 a
good conscience and an elevated idea of the purposes of man's existence.
Such were Paetus Thrasca, Helvidius Priscus, Cornutus, C. Musonius Rufus,
and the poets Persius and Juvenal, whose energetic language and manly
thoughts may be as instructive to us now as they might have been to their
contemporaries. Persius 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 Hadrian. His best precepts are derived from
the Stoic school, and they are enforced in his finest verses by the
unrivalled vigor of the Latin language.
The best two 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 his unworthy master, Epaphroditus. Like other great teachers
he wrote nothing, and we are indebted to his grateful pupil Arrian for
what we have of Epictetus' discourses. Arrian wrote eight books of the
discourses of Epictetus, of which only four remain and some fragments. We
have also from Arrian's hand the small Enchiridion or Manual of the chief
precepts of Epictetus. There is a valuable commentary on the Enchiridion
by Simplicius, who lived in the time of the emperor Justinian.
Antoninus in his first book (I. 7), in which he gratefully commemorates
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 (IV. 41; XI 34, 36). Indeed, the doctrines of Epictetus
and Antoninus are the same, and Epictetus 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. Epictetus addressed himself to his hearers in a continuous
discourse and in a familiar and simple manner. Antoninus wrote down his
reflections for his own use only, in short, unconnected paragraphs, which
are often obscure. [Footnote: 9]
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 doubt sometimes clouded his mind. A man who
leads a life of tranquillity 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 in 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
"life of an apostle," and been ready to die "the death of a martyr." "Not
in passivity (the passive affects) 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" (IX. 16). The emperor Antoninus was a
practical moralist. From his youth he followed a laborious discipline,
and though his high station placed him above all want or the fear of it,
he lived as frugally and temperately as the poorest philosopher.
Epictetus wanted little, and it seems that he always had the little that
he wanted and he was content with it, as he had been with his servile
station. But Antoninus 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 that 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 the 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 St. James in his Epistle is of the same
mind; that the world is full of envious, jealous, malignant people, and a
man might be well 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 evidence of the struggles which
even the noblest of the sons of men had to maintain 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 reflections
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 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 (II. 17): "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 in each continually changing into
another, why should a 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."
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 (VI. 1), "the universal substance," and he adds that
"reason" governs the universe. He also (VI. 9) uses the terms "universal
nature" or "nature of the universe." He (VI. 25) calls the universe "the
one and all, which we name Cosmos or Order." 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
Antoninus (V. 32) speaks of the reason which pervades all substance, and
through all time by fixed periods (revolutions) 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 Anaxagoras, 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.
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 Antoninus' expression (IV. 36), "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 notion." All things then are in a
constant flux and change: some things are dissolved into the elements,
others come in their places; and so the "whole universe continues ever
young and perfect."
When we look at the motions 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, and their dissolution, which we call their death, we
observe a regular sequence of phenomena, which within the limits of
experience present 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 not
discovered, nor 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 what we now call the Order or 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, but 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 phenomena, as the Greeks called them, or appearances
which follow one another in a regular order, as we conceive it, so that
if some one phenomenon 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 phenomenon 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 the sequence of
natural phenomena beyond what I have said; and the real cause, or the
transcendent cause, as some would call it, of each successive phenomenon
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 phenomena; but in the vulgar sense a creation of
all things at a certain time, followed by a quiescence of the first
cause, and an abandonment of all sequences of Phenomena to the laws of
Nature, or to the other words that people may use, is absolutely absurd.
Man being conscious that he is a spiritual power or an intellectual
power, or that he has such a power, in whatever way he conceives that he
has it,--for I wish simply to state a fact,--from this power which he has
in himself, he is led, as Antoninus 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? Antoninus says that
the soul of man is an efflux from the divinity. We have bodies like
animals, but we have reason, intelligence, as the gods. Animals have life
and what we call instincts or natural principles of action: but the
rational animal man alone has a rational, intelligent soul. Antoninus
insists on this continually: God is in man, and so we 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 a
portion of the divinity, and the soul alone has any communication with
the Deity; for as he says (XII. 2): "With his intellectual part alone God
touches the intelligence only which has flowed and 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,
organs, instrument, which the living man, the real man, uses for the
purpose 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 free as the air (VIII. 54). It is by living a divine life that
man approaches to a knowledge of the divinity. It is by following the
divinity within, as Antoninus calls it, that man comes nearest to the
Deity, the supreme good; for man can never attain to perfect agreement
with his internal guide. "Live with the gods. And he does live with the
gods who constantly shows to them that his own soul is satisfied with
that which is assigned to him, and that it does all the daemon wishes,
which Zeus hath given to every man for his guardian and guide, and a
portion of himself. And this daemon is every man's understanding and
reason" (V. 27).
There is in man, that is in the reason, the intelligence, a superior
faculty which if it is exercised rules all the rest. A man must reverence
only his 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 is of like kind with that
which is supreme in the universe (V. 21).
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.
Antoninus did not view God and the material universe as 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 fashion
to waste his time on what 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 Antoninus 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 (IV. 27; VI. 1; IX. 28; XII. 5).
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, "what we call evil,"
we have partly anticipated the emperor's answer. We see and feel and know
imperfectly very few things in the 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 is 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 (VII. 55; X. 6).
Everything is in constant mutation, and yet the whole subsists. We might
imagine the solar system resolved into its elemental parts, and yet the
whole would still subsist "ever young and perfect."
All things, all forms, are dissolved and new forms appear. All living
things undergo the change which 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, (VIII. 55) "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." 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 our 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 (XI. 18) gives many excellent precepts with 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 and the government of 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
(XII. 5). 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 who would conclude from them against the being and
government of God conclude too hastily. We all admit that there is an
order in the material world, a constitution, a system, a relation of
parts to one another and a fitness of the whole for something. So in the
constitution of plants and of 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
animal 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 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 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 and 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 of 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 and
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 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 Priam 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 asks how must we reconcile this doctrine with what we find
in the first book of the Odyssey, where the king of the gods says, "Men
say that evil comes to them from us, but they bring it on themselves
through 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 Enchiridion makes short work of the question of evil. He
says, "As a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing it, so neither
does the nature of evil exist in the universe." This will appear obscure
enough to those who are not acquainted with Epictetus, 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 a 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 Simplicius argues, but evil would be
good.
One passage more will conclude this matter. It contains all that the
emperor could say: "To go from among men, if there are gods, is 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 or 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 it has made so great a mistake,
either through want of power or want of skill, that good and evil should
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."
The Ethical part of Antoninus' 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 philosophers 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, "a manner of speaking
not loose and undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and
true." 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. "To the rational animal
the same act is according to nature and according to reason." That which
is 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 (V. 1).
Man must also live conformably to the universal nature, conformably to
the nature of all things of which he is one; and as a citizen of a
political community he must direct his life and 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 the 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: "For we are made for
co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the
upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to
nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn
away" (II. 1).
Further he says: "Take pleasure in one thing, and rest in it in passing
from one social act to another social act, thinking of God" (VI. 7).
Again: "Love mankind. Follow God" (VI. 31). It is the characteristic of
the rational soul for a man to love his neighbor (XI. 1). Antoninus
teaches in various passages the forgiveness of injuries, and we know that
he also practiced what he taught. Bishop Butler remarks that "this divine
precept to forgive injuries and to love our enemies, though to be met
with in Gentile moralists, yet is in a peculiar sense a precept of
Christianity, as our Saviour has insisted more upon it than on any other
single virtue." The practise of this precept is the most difficult of all
virtues. Antoninus 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 wrong-doers 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. "The best way of avenging thyself," says the emperor, "is
not to become like, the wrongdoer." It is plain by this that he does not
mean that we should in any case practise revenge; but he says to those
who talk of revenging wrongs, "Be not like him who has done the wrong.
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 wilt pity him, and wilt neither wonder nor be angry" (VII.
26). 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
St. 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:
wrong-doers 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, "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The emperor's moral philosophy was not a feeble, narrow system, which
teaches a man to look directly to his own happiness, though a man's
happiness or tranquillity 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 actions 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 action, 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.
A man should have an object or purpose in life, that he may direct all
his energies to it; of course a good object (II. 7). He who has not one
object or purpose of life, cannot be one and the same all through his
life (XI. 21). Bacon has a remark to the same effect, on the best means
of "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."
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 himself to do it when
he can, and not to let 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 the 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 (VI. 54).
One passage may end this matter. "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 from this or to the whole, which is the
special object of 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 gods determine about none of the 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."
It would be tedious, and it is not necessary to state 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, or to expound it to others in such a
way as to prevent cavilling. Virtue is 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 practise in
order to the exercise of 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 order 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. "Let then the ruling principle
holding fast to these things go straight on and it has what is its own"
(VII. 53). The emperor selects justice as the virtue which is the basis
of all the rest (X. 11), and this had 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. "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 movement and action terminating in
this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature" (IX. 31). In
another place (IX. 1) he says that "he who acts unjustly acts impiously,"
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 no doubt it is: for lying even in indifferent things weakens the
understanding; and lying maliciously is as great a moral offence as a 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 in act.
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 (II. 1). All these things, good and evil, are in
our power, absolutely some of the stricter Stoics 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
Antoninus' 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.
"Life," says the emperor, "is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and
after fame is oblivion" (II. 17). 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 was destroyed by lice, and of Socrates
whom other lice (his enemies) destroyed, he says: "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 as that which serves it is superior: for the one is intelligence
and Deity; the other is earth and corruption" (III. 3). It is not death
that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live
according to nature (XII. 1). 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 summons comes. For what is death? "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" (VI. 28). Death is such as
generation is, a mystery of nature (IV. 5). In another passage (IX. 3),
the exact meaning of which is perhaps doubtful, he speaks of the child
which leaves the womb, and so he says the soul at death leaves its
envelope.
Antoninus' 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 the divinity cannot perish. The
opinion is at least as old as the time of Epicharmus and Euripides; what
comes from earth goes back to 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 that soul which occupied his vessel of
clay. He seems 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 practiced,--the anticipating the regular course of nature by
a 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 tranquillity; 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.
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, tranquillity of
mind, and contentment (III. 12; VIII 2). As a means of living conformably
to nature he must study the four chief virtues, each of which 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 living
conformably to nature the Stoic obtained all that he wished or expected.
His reward was in his virtuous life, and he was satisfied with that.
Epictetus and Antoninus both by precept and example labored 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 man's nature and in the 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 in morals and religion, it is at least worth
while to give them good reasons for as much as they can be persuaded to
accept.
FOOTNOTES:
1: This passage is corrupt, and the exact meaning is uncertain.
2: Lorium was a villa on the coast north of Rome, and there Antoninus was
brought up, and he died there. This also is corrupt.
3: This is corrupt.
4: Antoninus here uses the word [Greek: kosmos] both in the sense of the
Universe and of Order; and it is difficult to express his meaning.
5: This is corrupt.
6: It appears that there is a defect in the text here.
7: The story is told by Horace in his Satires and by others since, but
not better.
8: "Seen even with the eyes." It is supposed that this may be explained
by the Stoic doctrine, that the universe is a god or living being (IV.
40), and that the celestial bodies are gods (VIII. 19). But the emperor
may mean that we know that the gods exist, as he afterwards states it,
because we see what they do; as we know that man has intellectual powers,
because we see what he does, and in no other way do we know it.
9: The Stoics made three divisions of philosophy,--Physic, Ethic, and
Logic (VIII. 13). This division, we are told by Diogenes, was made by
Zeno of Citium, 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 narrower sense of that word.
Cleanthes, a Stoic, subdivided the 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: it 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 would 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 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 the principles
of morals and the study of the constitution of civil society; and
undoubtedly he did well in subdividing Ethic into two parts, Ethic in the
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 his doctrines about man's nature, the Universal
Nature, and the relation of every man to everything else. It is therefore
intimately and inseparably connected with Physic, 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
meaning 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 says, "Constantly and, if it be possible, on the
occasion of every Impression on the soul, apply to it the principles of
Physic, of Ethic, and of Dialectic": which is only another way of telling
us to examine the impression in every possible way. In another passage
(III. 11) he says, "To the aids 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 of which it
has been compounded, and into which it will be resolved." Such an
examination implies a use of Dialectic, which Antoninus accordingly
employed as a means towards establishing his Physical, Theological, and
Ethical principles.
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