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 Thrasae, Helvidius Priscus, Cornutus, C. Musonius
Rufus,[A] 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.[B] 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.
[A] I have omitted Seneca, Nero's preceptor. He was in a sense
a Stoic, and he has said many good things in a very fine way.
There is a judgment of Gellius (xii. 2.) on Seneca, or rather a
statement of what some people thought of his philosophy, and it
is not favorable. His writings and his life must be taken
together, and I have nothing more to say of him here. The
reader will find a notice of Seneca and his philosophy in
"Seekers after God," by the Rev. P. W. Farrar. Macmillan and
Co.
[B] Ribbeck has labored to prove that those Satires, which
contain philosophical precepts, are not the work of the real,
but of a false Juvenal, a Declamator. Still the verses exist,
and were written by somebody who was acquainted with the Stoic
doctrines.
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 an unworthy master, Epaphroditus by name, himself a freedman
and a favorite of Nero. Epictetus may have been a hearer of C. Musonius
Rufus, while he was still a slave, but he could hardly have been a
teacher before he was made free. He was one of the philosophers whom
Domitian's order banished from Rome. He retired to Nicopolis in Epirus,
and he may have died there. 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. This is a valuable commentary on the Enchiridion by
Simplicius, who lived in the time of the emperor Justinian.[A]
[A] There is a complete edition of Arrian's Epictetus with the
commentary of Simplicius by J. Schweighaeuser, 6 vols. 8vo.
1799, 1800. There is also an English translation of Epictetus
by Mrs. Carter.
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.
The Stoics made three divisions of philosophy,--Physic ([Greek:
phusikon]), Ethic ([Greek: êthikon]), and Logic ([Greek: logikon])
(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 (Acad. Post.
i. 5). 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
([Greek: phantasiai]) and to form a right judgment of them, to make just
conclusions, and to inquire into the meanings of words, and so far to
apply Dialectic; but he has no attempt at any exposition of Dialectic,
and his philosophy is in substance purely moral and practical. He says
(viii. 13), "Constantly and, if it be possible, on the occasion of every
impression on the soul,[A] 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
([Greek: to phantaston]) 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 toward establishing his
Physical, Theological, and Ethical principles.
[A] The original is [Greek: epi pasês phantasias]. We have no word
which expresses [Greek: phantasia], for it is not only the sensuous
appearance which comes from an external object, which object is
called [Greek: to phantaston], but it is also the thought or feeling
or opinion which is produced even when there is no
corresponding external object before us. Accordingly everything
which moves the soul is [Greek: phantaston], and produces a
[Greek: phantasia].
In this extract Antoninus says [Greek: physiologein, pathologein,
dialektikeuesthai]. I have translated [Greek: pathologein] by using
the word Moral (Ethic), and that is the meaning here.
There are several expositions of the Physical, Theological, and Ethical
principles, which are contained in the work of Antoninus; and more
expositions than I have read. Ritter (Geschichte der Philosophie, iv.
241), after explaining the doctrines of Epictetus, treats very briefly
and insufficiently those of Antoninus. But he refers to a short essay,
in which the work is done better.[A] There is also an essay on the
Philosophical Principles of M. Aurelius Antoninus by J.M. Schultz,
placed at the end of his German translation of Antoninus (Schleswig,
1799). With the assistance of these two useful essays and his own
diligent study, a man may form a sufficient notion of the principles of
Antoninus; but he will find it more difficult to expound them to others.
Besides the want of arrangement in the original and of connection among
the numerous paragraphs, the corruption of the text, the obscurity of
the language and the style, and sometimes perhaps the confusion in the
writer's own ideas--besides all this, there is occasionally an apparent
contradiction in the emperor's thoughts, as if his principles were
sometimes unsettled, as if 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 effects) but in activity lie
the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue
and his vice lie not in passivity, but in activity" (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 philospher. 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.
[A] De Marco Aurelio Antonino ... ex ipsius Commentariis.
Scriptio Philologica. Instituit Nicolaus Bachius, Lipsiae,
1826.
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 ([Greek: hê tôn hylôn ousia], vi. 1),[A] "the universal
substance," and he adds that "reason" ([Greek: logos]) 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" ([Greek: kosmos]). 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 ([Greek: hylê, hylikon]),
and Cause, Origin, Reason ([Greek: aitia, aitiôdes, logos]).[B] This is
conformable to Zeno's doctrine that there are two original principles
([Greek: archai]) of all things, that which acts ([Greek: to poioun])
and that which is acted upon ([Greek: to paschon]). That which is acted
on is the formless matter ([Greek: hylê]): that which acts is the reason
([Greek: logos]), God, who is eternal and operates through all matter,
and produces all things. So Antoninus (v. 32) speaks of the reason
([Greek: logos])which pervades all substance ([Greek: ousia]), and
through all time by fixed periods (revolutions) administers the universe
([Greek: to pan]). 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 in-soluble question of the
origin and nature of matter.[C] Antoninus also assumes a beginning of
things, as we now know them; but his language is sometimes very obscure.
I have endeavored to explain the meaning of one difficult passage (vii.
75, and the note).
[A] As to the word [Greek: ousia], the reader may see the
Index. I add here a few examples of the use of the word;
Antoninus has (v. 24), [Greek: hê sumpasa ousia], "the
universal substance." He says (xii. 30 and iv. 40), "there is
one common substance" ([Greek: ousia]), distributed among
countless bodies. In Stobaeus (tom. 1, lib. 1, tit. 14) there
is this definition, [Greek: ousian de phasin tôn ontôn hapantôn
tên prôtên hylên]. In viii. II, Antoninus speaks of [Greek: to
ousiôdes kai hyulikon], "the substantial and the material;" and
(vii. 10) he says that "everything material" ([Greek: enulon])
disappears in the substance of the whole ([Greek: tê tôn holôn
ousia]). The [Greek: ousia] is the generic name of that existence
which we assume as the highest or ultimate, because we conceive
no existence which can be coordinated with it and none above
it. It is the philosopher's "substance:" it is the ultimate
expression for that which we conceive or suppose to be the
basis, the being of a thing. "From the Divine, which is
substance in itself, or the only and sole substance, all and
everything that is created exists" (Swedenborg, Angelic Wisdom,
198).
[B] I remark, in order to anticipate any misapprehension, that
all these general terms involve a contradiction. The "one and
all," and the like, and "the whole," imply limitation. "One" is
limited; "all" is limited; the "whole" is limited. We cannot
help it. We cannot find words to express that which we cannot
fully conceive. The addition of "absolute" or any other such
word does not mend the matter. Even the word God is used by
most people, often unconsciously, in such a way that limitation
is implied, and yet at the same time words are added which are
intended to deny limitation. A Christian martyr, when he was
asked what God was, is said to have answered that God has no
name like a man; and Justin says the same (Apol. ii. 6), "the
names Father, God, Creator, Lord, and Master are not names, but
appellations derived from benefactions and acts." (Compare
Seneca, De Benef. iv. 8.) We can conceive the existence of a
thing, or rather we may have the idea of an existence, without
an adequate notion of it, "adequate" meaning coextensive and
coequal with the thing. We have a notion of limited space
derived from the dimensions of what we call a material thing,
though of space absolute, if I may use the term, we have no
notion at all; and of infinite space the notion is the same--no
notion at all; and yet we conceive it in a sense, though I know
not how, and we believe that space is infinite, and we cannot
conceive it to be finite.
[C] The notions of matter and of space are inseparable. We
derive the notion of space from matter and form. But we have no
adequate conception either of matter or space. Matter in its
ultimate resolution is as unintelligible as what men call mind,
spirit, or by whatever other name they may express the power
which makes itself known by acts. Anaxagoras laid down the
distinction between intelligence [Greek: nous] and matter, and
he said that intelligence impressed motion on matter, and so
separated the elements of matter and gave them order; but he
probably only assumed a beginning, as Simplicius says, as a
foundation of his philosophical teaching. Empedocles said, "The
universe always existed." He had no idea of what is called
creation. Ocellus Lucanus (i, § 2) maintained that the Universe
([Greek: to pan]) was imperishable and uncreated. Consequently
it is eternal. He admitted the existence of God; but his
theology would require some discussion. On the contrary, the
Brachmans, according to Strabo (p. 713, ed. Cas.), taught that
the universe was created and perishable; and the creator and
administrator of it pervades the whole. The author of the book
of Solomon's Wisdom says (xi. 17): "Thy Almighty hand made the
world of matter without form," which may mean that matter
existed already.
The common Greek word which we translate "matter" is [Greek:
hylê]. It is the stuff that things are made of.
Matter consists of elemental parts ([Greek: stoicheia]) 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" (xii. 23).
Antoninus has some obscure expressions about what he calls "seminal
principles" ([Greek: spermatikoi logoi]). He opposes them to the
Epicurean atoms (vi. 24), and consequently his "seminal principles" are
not material atoms which wander about at hazard, and combine nobody
knows how. In one passage (iv. 21) he speaks of living principles, souls
([Greek: psychahi]) after the dissolution of their bodies being
received into the "seminal principle of the universe." Schultz thinks
that by "seminal principles Antoninus means the relations of the various
elemental principles, which relations are determined by the Deity and by
which alone the production of organized beings is possible." This may be
the meaning; but if it is, nothing of any value can be derived from
it.[A] Antoninus often uses the word "Nature" ([Greek: physis]), and we
must attempt to fix its meaning, The simple etymological sense of
[Greek: physis] is "production," the birth of what we call Things. The
Romans used Natura, which also means "birth" originally. But neither the
Greeks nor the Romans stuck to this simple meaning, nor do we. Antoninus
says (x. 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." Here it might seem as if nature were
personified and viewed as an active, efficient power; as something
which, it not independent of the Deity, acts by a power which is given
to it by the Deity. Such, if I understand the expression right, is the
way in which the word Nature is often used now, though it is plain that
many writers use the word without fixing any exact meaning to it. It is
the same with the expression Laws of Nature, which some writers may use
in an intelligible sense, but others as clearly use in no definite sense
at all. There is no meaning in this word Nature, except that which
Bishop Butler assigns to it, when he says, "The only distinct meaning of
that word Natural is Stated, Fixed, or Settled; since what is natural as
much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so,
_i.e._, to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is
supernatural or miraculous does to effect it at once." This is Plato's
meaning (De Leg., iv. 715) when he says that God holds the beginning and
end and middle of all that exists, and proceeds straight on his course,
making his circuit according to nature (that is by a fixed order); and
he is continually accompanied by justice, who punishes those who deviate
from the divine law, that is, from the order or course which God
observes.
[A] Justin (Apol. ii. 8) has the words [Greek: kata
spermatikou logou meros], where he is speaking of the Stoics;
but he uses this expression in a peculiar sense (note II). The
early Christian writers were familiar with the Stoic terms, and
their writings show that the contest was begun between the
Christian expositors and the Greek philosophy. Even in the
second Epistle of St. Peter (ii. I, v. 4) we find a Stoic
expression, [Greek: Ina dia toutôn genêsthe theias koinônoi
physeôs.]
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.[A]
[A] Time and space are the conditions of our thought; but time
infinite and space infinite cannot be objects of thought,
except in a very imperfect way. Time and space must not in any
way be thought of when we think of the Deity. Swedenborg says,
"The natural man may believe that he would have no thought, if
the ideas of time, of space, and of things material were taken
away; for upon those is founded all the thought that man has.
But let him know that the thoughts are limited and confined in
proportion as they partake of time, of space, and of what is
material; and that they are not limited and are extended, in
proportion as they do not partake of those things; since the
mind is so far elevated above the things corporeal and worldly"
(Concerning Heaven and Hell, 169).
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF PALLAS]
Now, though there is great difficulty in understanding all the
passages of Antoninus, in which he speaks of Nature, of the changes of
things and of the economy of the universe, I am convinced that his sense
of Nature and Natural is the same as that which I have stated; and as he
was a man who knew how to use words in a clear way and with strict
consistency, we ought to assume, even if his meaning in some passages is
doubtful, that his view of Nature was in harmony with his fixed belief
in the all-pervading, ever present, and ever active energy of God. (ii.
4; iv. 40; x. 1; vi. 40; and other passages. Compare Seneca, De Benef.,
iv. 7. Swedenborg, Angelic Wisdom, 349-357.)
There is much in Antoninus that is hard to understand, and it might be
said that he did not fully comprehend all that he wrote; which would
however be in no way remarkable, for it happens now that a man may write
what neither he nor anybody can understand. Antoninus tells us (xii. 10)
to look at things and see what they are, resolving them into the
material [Greek: hylê], the casual [Greek: aition], and the relation
[Greek: anaphora], or the purpose, by which he seems to mean something
in the nature of what we call effect, or end. The word Caus ([Greek:
aitia]) is the difficulty. There is the same word in the Sanscrit
(hétu); and the subtle philosophers of India and of Greece, and
the less subtle philosophers of modern times, have all used this word,
or an equivalent word, in a vague way. Yet the confusion sometimes may
be in the inevitable ambiguity of language rather than in the mind of
the writer, for I cannot think that some of the wisest of men did not
know what they intended to say. When Antoninus says (iv. 36), "that
everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be,"
he might be supposed to say what some of the Indian philosophers have
said, and thus a profound truth might be converted into a gross
absurdity. But he says, "in a manner," and in a manner he said true; and
in another manner, if you mistake his meaning, he said false. When Plato
said, "Nothing ever is, but is always becoming" ([Greek: aei
gignetai]), he delivered a text, out of which we may derive something;
for he destroys by it not all practical, but all speculative notions of
cause and effect. The whole series of things, as they appear to us, must
be contemplated in time, that is in succession, and we conceive or
suppose intervals between one state of things and another state of
things, so that there is priority and sequence, and interval, and Being,
and a ceasing to Be, and beginning and ending. But there is nothing of
the kind in the Nature of Things. It is an everlasting continuity (iv.
45; vii. 75). When Antoninus speaks of generation (x. 26), he speaks of
one cause ([Greek: aitia]) acting, and then another cause taking up the
work, which the former left in a certain state, and so on; and we might
perhaps conceive that he had some notion like what has been called "the
self-evolving power of nature;" a fine phrase indeed, the full import of
which I believe that the writer of it did not see, and thus he laid
himself open to the imputation of being a follower of one of the Hindu
sects, which makes all things come by evolution out of nature or matter,
or out of something which takes the place of Deity, but is not Deity. I
would have all men think as they please, or as they can, and I only
claim the same freedom which I give. When a man writes anything, we may
fairly try to find out all that his words must mean, even if the result
is that they mean what he did not mean; and if we find this
contradiction, it is not our fault, but his misfortune. Now Antoninus is
perhaps somewhat in this condition in what he says (x. 26), though he
speaks at the end of the paragraph of the power which acts, unseen by
the eyes, but still no less clearly. But whether in this passage (x. 26)
lie means that the power is conceived to be in the different successive
causes ([Greek: aitiai]), or in something else, nobody can tell. From
other passages, however, I do collect that his notion of the phenomena
of the universe is what I have stated. The Deity works unseen, if we may
use such language, and perhaps I may, as Job did, or he who wrote the
book of Job. "In him we live and move and are," said St. Paul to the
Athenians; and to show his hearers that this was no new doctrine, he
quoted the Greek poets. One of these poets was the Stoic Cleauthes,
whose noble hymn to Zeus, or God, is an elevated expression of devotion
and philosophy. It deprives Nature of her power, and puts her under the
immediate government of the Deity.
"Thee all this heaven, which whirls around the earth,
Obeys, and willing follows where thou leadest.
Without thee, God, nothing is done on earth,
Nor in the ethereal realms, nor in the sea,
Save what the wicked through their folly do."
Antoninus' conviction of the existence of a divine power and government
was founded on his perception of the order of the universe. Like
Socrates (Xen. Mem., iv. 3, 13, etc.) he says that though we cannot see
the forms of divine powers, we know that they exist because we see their
works.
"To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou
comprehend that they exist and so worshipest them? I answer, in the
first place, that they may be seen even with the eyes; in the second
place, neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I honor it. Thus then
with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of their
power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them."
(xii. 28, and the note. Comp. Aristotle de Mundo, c. 6; Xen. Mem. i. 4,
9; Cicero, Tuscul. i. 28, 29; St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, i. 19,
20; and Montaigne's Apology for Raimond de Sebonde, ii. c. 12.) This is
a very old argument, which has always had great weight with most people,
and has appeared sufficient. It does not acquire the least additional
strength by being developed in a learned treatise. It is as intelligible
in its simple enunciation as it can be made. If it is rejected, there is
no arguing with him who rejects it: and if it is worked out into
innumerable particulars, the value of the evidence runs the risk of
being buried under a mass of words.
Man being conscious that he is a spiritual 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[A]
([Greek: nous]) pervades man. (Compare Epictetus' Discourses, i. 14;
and Voltaire à Mad^e. Necker, vol. lxvii., p. 278, ed. Lequien.)
[A] I have always translated the word [Greek: nous],
"intelligence" or "intellect." It appears to be the word used
by the oldest Greek philosophers to express the notion of
"intelligence" as opposed to the notion of "matter." I have
always translated the word [Greek: logos] by "reason," and
[Greek: logikos] by the word "rational," or perhaps sometimes
"reasonable," as I have translated [Greek: noeros] by the word
"intellectual." Every man who has thought and has read any
philosophical writings knows the difficulty of finding words to
express certain notions, how imperfectly words express these
notions, and how carelessly the words are often used. The
various senses of the word [Greek: logos] are enough to perplex
any man. Our translators of the New Testament (St. John, c. 1.)
have simply translated [Greek: ho logos] by "the word," as the
Germans translated it by "das Wort;" but in their theological
writings they sometimes retain the original term Logos. The
Germans have a term Vernunft, which seems to come nearest to
our word Reason, or the necessary and absolute truths which we
cannot conceive as being other than what they are. Such are
what some people have called the laws of thought, the
conceptions of space and of time, and axioms or first
principles, which need no proof and cannot be proved or denied.
Accordingly the Germans can say, "Gott ist die höchste
Vernunft," the Supreme Reason. The Germans have also a word
Verstand, which seems to represent our word "understanding,"
"intelligence," "intellect," not as a thing absolute which
exists by itself, but as a thing connected with an individual
being, as a man. Accordingly it is the capacity of receiving
impressions (Vorstellungen, [Greek: phantasiai],) and forming
from them distinct ideas (Begriffe), and perceiving
differences. I do not think that these remarks will help the
reader to the understanding of Antoninus, or his use of the
words [Greek: nous] and [Greek: logos]. The emperor's meaning
must be got from his own words, and if it does not agree
altogether with modern notions, it is not our business to force
it into agreement, but simply to find out what his meaning is,
if we can.
Justinus (ad Diognetum, c. vii.) says that the omnipotent,
all-creating, and invisible God has fixed truth and the holy,
incomprehensible Logos in men's hearts; and this Logos is the
architect and creator of the Universe. In the first Apology (c.
xxxii.), he says that the seed ([Greek: sperma]) from God is
the Logos, which dwells in those who believe in God. So it
appears that according to Justinus the Logos is only in such
believers. In the second Apology (c. viii.) he speaks of the
seed of the Logos being implanted in all mankind; but those who
order their lives according to Logos, such as the Stoics, have
only a portion of the Logos ([Greek: kata spermatikou logou
meros]), and have not the knowledge and contemplation of the
entire Logos, which is Christ. Swedenborg's remarks (Angelic
Wisdom, 240) are worth comparing with Justinus. The modern
philosopher in substance agrees with the ancient; but he is
more precise.
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 ([Greek: psychê]) and what we call instincts or natural principles
of action: but the rational animal man alone has a rational, intelligent
soul ([Greek: psychê logikê noera]). Antoninus insists on this
continually: God is in man,[A] 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[B] 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.[C] It is by following the divinity within [Greek: daimôn] or
[Greek: theos], as Antonius calls it, that man comes nearest to the
Deity, the supreme good; for man can never attain to perfect agreement
with his internal guide ([Greek: to hêgemonikon]). "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 ([Greek: daimôn]) wishes, which Zeus hath given to every
man for his guardian and guide, a portion of himself. And this daemon is
every man's understanding and reason" (v. 27).
[A] Comp. Ep. to the Corinthians, i. 3, 17, and James iv. 8,
"Drawnigh to God and he will draw nigh to you."
[B] This is also Swedenborg's doctrine of the soul. "As to what
concerns the soul, of which it is said that it shall live after
death, it is nothing else but the man himself, who lives in the
body, that is, the interior man, who by the body acts in the
world and from whom the body itself lives" (quoted by Clissold,
p. 456 of "The Practical Nature of the Theological Writings of
Emanuel Swedenborg, in a Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin
(Whately)," second edition, 1859; a book which theologians
might read with profit). This is an old doctrine of the soul,
which has been often proclaimed, but never better expressed
than by the "Auctor de Mundo," c. 6, quoted by Gataker in his
"Antoninus," p. 436. "The soul by which we live and have cities
and houses is invisible, but it is seen by its works; for the
whole method of life has been devised by it and ordered, and by
it is held together. In like manner we must think also about
the Deity, who in power is most mighty, in beauty most comely,
in life immortal, and in virtue supreme: wherefore though he is
invisible to human nature, he is seen by his very works." Other
passages to the same purpose are quoted by Gataker (p. 382).
Bishop Butler has the same as to the soul: "Upon the whole,
then, our organs of sense and our limbs are certainly
instruments, which the living persons, ourselves, make use of
to perceive and move with." If this is not plain enough, be
also says: "It follows that our organized bodies are no more
ourselves, or part of ourselves, than any other matter around
us." (Compare Anton, x. 38).
[C] The reader may consult Discourse V., "Of the existence and
nature of God," in John Smith's "Select Discourses." He has
prefixed as a text to this Discourse, the striking passage of
Agapetus, Paraenes. § 3: "He who knows himself will know God;
and he who knows God will be made like to God; and he will be
made like to God, who has become worthy of God; and he becomes
worthy of God, who does nothing unworthy of God, but thinks the
things that are his, and speaks what he thinks, and does what
he speaks." I suppose that the old saying, "Know thyself,"
which is attributed to Socrates and others, had a larger
meaning than the narrow sense which is generally given to it.
(Agapetus, ed. Stephan. Schoning, Franeker, 1608. This volume
contains also the Paraeneses of Nilus.)
There is in man, that is in the reason, the intelligence, a superior
faculty which if it is exercised rules all the rest. This is the ruling
faculty ([Greek: to hêgemonikon]), which Cicero (De Natura Deorum, ii.
11) renders by the Latin word Principatus, "to which nothing can or
ought to be superior." Antoninus often uses this term and others which
are equivalent. He names it (vii. 64) "the governing intelligence." The
governing faculty is the master of the soul (v. 26). 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). So, as
Plotinus says, the soul of man can only know the divine so far as it
knows itself. In one passage (xi. 19) Antoninus speaks of a man's
condemnation of himself when the diviner part within him has been
overpowered and yields to the less honorable and to the perishable part,
the body, and its gross pleasures. In a word, the views of Antoninus on
this matter, however his expressions may vary, are exactly what Bishop
Butler expresses when he speaks of "the natural supremacy of reflection
or conscience," of the faculty "which surveys, approves, or disapproves
the several affections of our mind and actions of our lives."
Much matter might be collected from Antoninus on the notion of the
Universe being one animated Being. But all that he says amounts to no
more, as Schultz remarks, than this: the soul of man is most intimately
united to his body, and together they make one animal, which we call
man; so the Deity is most intimately united to the world, or the
material universe, and together they form one whole. But Antoninus did
not view God and the material universe as the same, any more than he
viewed the body and soul of man as one. Antoninus has 110 speculations
on the absolute nature of the Deity. It was not his fashion to waste his
time on what man cannot understand.[A] 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.
[A] "God, who is infinitely beyond the reach of our narrow
capacities" (Locke, Essay concerning the Human Understanding,
ii. chap. 17).
From all that has been said, it follows that the universe is
administered by the Providence of God ([Greek: pronoia]), 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; and many other passages). Epictetus says (i. 6) that
we can discern the providence which rules the world, if we possess two
things,--the power of seeing all that happens with respect to each
thing, and a grateful disposition.
But if all things are wisely ordered, how is the world so full of what
we call evil, physical and moral? If instead of saying that there is
evil in the world, we use the expression which I have used, "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 (viii. 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 Nature, in the sense in which
that word has been explained, a constitution ([Greek: kataskeuê]), what we
call a system, a relation of parts to one another and a fitness of the
whole for something. So in the constitution of plants and 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.[A]
[A] Cleanthes says in his Hymn:--
"For all things good and bad to One thou formest,
So that One everlasting reason governs all."
See Bishop Butler's Sermons. Sermon XV., "Upon the Ignorance of
Man."
The origin of evil is an old question. Achilles tells Priam (Iliad,
24, 527) 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 their gods, but they
do it falsely, for they are the cause of their own sorrows.
[Illustration: THE APPIAN WAY, ROME]
Epictetus in his Enchiridion (c. 27) 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
([Greek: archê]) in the constitution of things, evil would no longer be
evil, as Simplicius argues, but evil would be good. Simplicius (c. 34,
[27]) has a long and curious discourse on this text of Epictetus, and it
is amusing and instructive.
One passage more will conclude this matter. It contains all that the
emperor could say (ii. 11): "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"[A]
(vii. 11). 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).
[A] This is what Juvenal means when he says (xiv. 321),--
"Nunquam aliud Natura aliud Sapientia dicit."
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, among other purposes, he lives.[A] 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).
[A] See viii. 52; and Persius iii. 66
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" (vii. 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 practised 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 practice 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 practised. "The best way of avenging thyself," says the
emperor, "is not to become like the wrong-doer." 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. Socrates in the Crito (c. 10) says the same in other
words, and St. Paul (Ep. to the Romans, xii. 17). "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 actions, so far as they affect others,
must be measured by a fixed rule, which is their consistency with the
conservation and the interests of the particular society of which he is
a member, and of the whole human race. To live conformably to such a
rule, a man must use his rational faculties in order to discern clearly
the consequences and full effect of all his actions and of the actions
of others: he must not live a life of contemplation and reflection only,
though he must often retire within himself to calm and purify his soul
by thought,[A] but he must mingle in the work of man and be a fellow
laborer for the general good.
[A] Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo.--_Persius_, iv.
21.
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 ([Greek: kataskeuê]) 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" (vi. 44).
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 practice in
order to the exercise of the whole of virtue, that is, 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. 55). 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
offense 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, like St. James' notion of faith. But this is enough.
The Stoics, and Antoninus among them, call some things beautiful
([Greek: kala]) and some ugly ([Greek: aischra]), 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
([Greek: aproaireta]) 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.[A]
"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, the
exact meaning of which is perhaps doubtful (ix. 3), he speaks of the
child which leaves the womb, and so he says the soul at death leaves its
envelope. As the child is born or comes into life by leaving the womb,
so the soul may on leaving the body pass into another existence which is
perfect. I am not sure if this is the emperor's meaning. Butler compares
it with a passage in Strabo (p. 713) about the Brachmans' notion of
death being the birth into real life and a happy life, to those who have
philosophized; and he thinks Antoninus may allude to this opinion.[B]
[A] "All events come alike to all: there is one event to the
righteous and to the wicked: to the good and to the clean and
to the unclean," &c. (Ecclesiastes, ix. v. 2); and (v. 3),
"This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun,
that there is one event unto all." In what sense "evil" is
meant here seems rather doubtful. There is no doubt about the
emperor's meaning. Compare Epictetus, Enchiridion, c. i., &c.;
and the doctrine of the Brachmans (Strabo p. 713, ed. Cas.):
[Greek: agathon de ê kakon mêden einai tôn sumbainontôn
anthrôpois].
[B] Seneca (Ep. 102) has the same, whether an expression of his
own opinion, or merely a fine saying of others employed to
embellish his writings, I know not. After speaking of the child
being prepared in the womb to live this life, he adds, "Sic per
hoc spatium, quod ab infantia patet in senectutem, in alium
naturae sumimur partum. Alia origo nos expectat, alius rerum
status." See Ecclesiastes, xii. 7; and Lucan, i. 457:--
"Longae, canitis si cognita, vitae
Mors media est."
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 practised,--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 he lives. He should not therefore abridge the time of
his usefulness by his own act. Whether he contemplates any possible
cases in which a man should die by his own hand, I cannot tell; and the
matter is not worth a curious inquiry, for I believe it would not lead
to any certain result as to his opinion on this point. I do not think
that Antoninus, who never mentions Seneca, though he must have known all
about him, would have agreed with Seneca when he gives as a reason for
suicide, that the eternal law, whatever he means, has made nothing
better for us than this, that it has given us only one way of entering
into life and many ways of going out of it. The ways of going out indeed
are many, and that is a good reason for a man taking care of himself.[A]
[A] See Plinius H.N. ii., c. 7; Seneca, De Provid. c. 6; and
Ep. 70: "Nihil melius aeterna lex," &c.
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. 1, and other places). 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. Some Greek poet long ago wrote:--
"For virtue only of all human things
Takes her reward not from the hands of others.
Virtue herself rewards the toils of virtue."
Some of the Stoics indeed expressed themselves in very arrogant, absurd
terms, about the wise man's self-sufficiency; they elevated him to the
rank of a deity.[A] But these were only talkers and lecturers, such as
those in all ages who utter fine words, know little of human affairs,
and care only for notoriety. 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.
[A] J. Smith in his Select Discourses on "the Excellency and
Nobleness of True Religion" (c. vi.) has remarked on this
Stoical arrogance. He finds it in Seneca and others. In Seneca
certainly, and perhaps something of it in Epictetus; but it is
not in Antoninus.