THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS
It was in the midst of this active strife that Marcus wrote one of the
most introspective and peaceful of books--his Thoughts About Himself
(τὰ εἰς ἑαυτὸν βιβλία)--the twelve books of his Meditations. Few books
have had such influence over men’s lives, and its influence still
abides; and for all students of humanity it will ever be a priceless
document illustrative of one great phase of human thought, and one
great thinker. Surely Stevenson, testifying to the moulding force of
this little book on his own life, did not exaggerate in saying: “The
dispassionate gravity, the noble forgetfulness of self, the tenderness
of others that are there expressed, and were practised on so large a
scale in the life of its writer, make this book a book quite by itself.
No man can read it and not be moved.... When you have read, you carry
away with you a memory of the man himself; it is as though you had
touched a loyal heart, looked into brave eyes and made a noble friend;
there is another bond on you thenceforward, binding you to life and to
the love of virtue.”
The secret of this charm and influence is in the candour and utter
absence of self-consciousness of the book. It reveals the author as he
wished himself to live, a sincere and open life, “lived on the mountain
top--a naked soul more visible than the body which clothed it,” a soul
whose thoughts may be read “as the beloved one reads all things in the
lover’s eyes.” These jottings were the fruit of his frequent searchings
of the heart, the outward expression of the inner life of one who
seemed to live all within, with now and then some golden gleanings from
his favourite moralists. These thoughts he meant to be his strength
against the beggarly elements in his weaker moments. They, with the
_Discourse of Epictetus_, were to be his mainstay. This latter book--a
noble book too--was his à Kempis, and to it he owed the suggestion of
gathering together his own thoughts. Having these he bore his cloister
always with him.
“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?” he asks himself. The badness of
men? The lot that is assigned to thee out of the universe? The clinging
of corporal things still to thee? The desire of the thing called fame?
Thou hast maxims that will alleviate all these. “This then remains.
Remember to retire into this little territory of thine 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 amongst the
things readiest to thy hand to which thou shalt return, let there be
these, which are two: One is that _things_ do not touch the soul, for
they are external and 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.”
In these last sentences we have the kernel of the Stoic doctrine of
resignation.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
The mind can weave its own Universe; and with it it rests to weave it
a fairyland of ordered goodness and beauty. All things without are
fleeting and unstable, shadows that will pass, mists that disappear
at dawn. “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it
so.” “The aids to nobler life are all within.” Man is but part of the
Universe, and his best wisdom is to live in accord with its beautiful
harmony, which disposes all things sweetly for the good of all. It
would be contrary to the Divine Kosmos, the ordering of the great
world-spirit, if what were for the good of all were not for the good of
each:
“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 any 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 those 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 each man which is conformable to his own constitution
and nature. But my nature is rational and social; 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 that are useful to these cities are alone useful
to me.”
All this is very beautiful; it is admirable; but it is not human.
An abstract idea never ministered to a mind diseased or healed a
broken heart; and when all is said the Stoic Weltanschauung is a sad
one. As Arnold felt many have felt: “It is impossible to rise from
reading Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint and
melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid upon man is well-nigh
greater than he can bear.” But we must add with him: “Honour to the
sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it.” For ourselves we
feel a need of something more personal, something with more love and
sympathy and appeal. How chilling are the maxims of the Porch beside
the glowing verses of the Apostle of Love, which express the essence of
Christianity--an intense personal love for God, an acceptance of all
trials from a motive of love, and a love of our neighbour like unto the
love God bears them.
This was the Christian answer to all the ancient philosophies--the
solution of the world-problem by love; and neither in Marcus Aurelius
nor Plotinus nor any of the great pagans do we find anything at once so
human and divine, anything which so responds to the noblest aspirations
of the human soul without losing sight of its weakness.
But it is not the formal doctrine of the book of the Meditations
which gives it its attraction; it is the spirit of the author it
reveals so intimately. Rarely do we get from philosophers such
familiar self-revelation as this from the beginning of the fifth book:
interesting, even though it suggests a lack of humour and sense of
proportion:
“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 this 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?” Imagine the sight of a spider
rousing a sluggard!
And again in the same book:
“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 labour,
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 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 dullness.”
Stoic optimism can scarcely be said to have solved the mysteries
of evil and the unrest of the soul, or satisfied the craving for
happiness, for guidance and support which is deep down in every heart.
Yet the followers of that school were a good influence on a corrupt
world. We feel in all the book of the Meditations a calm strength, a
forbearance, a perseverance despite failure in good resolutions, which
does all honour to its author living in the most sensual surroundings.
And in Marcus this stern character is relieved by touches of tender
affection and gratitude constantly recurring. They reveal a character
far inferior to that of the Christian Saint; nobody except some of our
neo-pagan paradoxists will look for such perfection in him; the marvel
is that he so often reminds us of them and approaches them even afar.
In none of those pagan heroes do we find that blending of strength
and humility, of austerity and gentlest love, that touch of the Light
Divine and that reflex of Christ, which remove a St. Francis de Sales
or a St. Vincent de Paul a whole heaven’s breadth from them and make it
an irreverence to compare the one to the other.
But we do find wonderful things in them. Take, for instance, the nine
considerations which Marcus proposed for himself as an aid to bearing
with those who had offended him; they are given in the eleventh book,
and the second of them well shows the imperfection inseparable from
pagan virtue, even the highest: (1) All men are born for one another.
(2) Consider the private vices of those that have offended thee. (3)
If they do wrong it is involuntarily and in ignorance. (4) Thou also
doest many things wrong, and 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.
(5) You may be judging them rashly. (6) “Man’s life is only a moment,
and after a short time we are all laid out dead.” (7) Your annoyance is
due not to those acts but to your own impressions. (He says elsewhere:
“How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is
troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquillity.”)
(8) Anger and vexation are a greater evil than the thing which causes
them. (9) One of the most amiable passages in the Meditations:
“Consider that benevolence 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 benevolent 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 way of reproach,
but affectionately and without any rancour in thy soul; and not as
if thou wert lecturing him, nor yet that any by-stander may admire,
but when he is alone.” Again he asks himself what have the evil deeds
of others to do with the intellect’s abiding pure, self-possessed,
temperate, and just. Nothing at all: “Even as if one standing by a
sweet and transparent fountain were to utter abuse against it, and
it ceased not to pour forth its salutary waters. And if one cast mud
or filth therein, it would speedily dissipate and wash it away, and
would in no wise be stained by it. How shalt thou be an ever-flowing
spring, and not a cistern? Grow every hour into freedom, united with
gentleness, simplicity and modesty.”
The view of his fellow-men which Marcus expresses is a curious mixture
of charity, pity, and contempt. He frequently strengthened himself
against human respect by considering that the evil lives of other men
made their opinion contemptible. These passages seem to reveal a nature
tinged with spiritual pride and aloofness. He insists time and again on
the fellowship of men, as fellow-citizens of one great polity: but he
has a profound sense of their folly and baseness too. Yet his lonely
nature craved for friendship with kindred souls, though seemingly
fastidious in its friendship. With his detached attitude towards his
fellow-men it is little wonder that he had but few friends; and he
was conscious of it. In a letter to Fronto he mentions this and also
in a passage from the Meditations: “Solace your departure with the
reflection: I am leaving a life in which my own associates, for whom I
have so strived, prayed, and thought, themselves wish for my removal,
their hope being that they will perchance gain in freedom thereby.”
This note of world-weariness and disillusion as regards everything
men prize recurs again and again in the course of the Meditations: it
runs through his doctrines of resignation, of charity and forbearance,
of self-restraint and peace. Its recurrence in the many--perhaps too
many--quotations in this chapter may have wearied the reader: yet I do
not regret that I have made it prominent, for it was the most intense
idea in the Emperor’s mind, and surely strange enough to be interesting
when found in the ruler of the greatest of Empires at the height of
its civilisation. I hope, too, that these quotations will initiate the
reader into the spirit of the great Stoic. There was no question of
giving an exact account of the system expounded in the Meditations:
for there is no such system; Marcus Aurelius was more interested in
virtue than in learning; he would rather feel compunction than know its
definition.