Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (top 10 inspirational books .TXT) 📗
- Author: Marcus Aurelius
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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
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