Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

“ The argument before us, however, seems to be directly connected with Aristotle's eloquent defence of the study of the whole animal kingdom. 'If seen through the eyes of science,' he says, 'they are so fashioned by Nature as to give infinite pleasure to one who is enabled to recognize their reasons, the natural philosopher, in fact. A strange paradox, to enjoy the sight of pictures of them because we see at the same time the human art which fashioned those pictures, and yet not to delight even more in the contemplation of Nature's living works, when we are enabled to see the reason why. ”

“ The first is the problem of reconciling moral freedom with the facts of human experience and with the ordered, inevitable process of a Universe governed by law and apparently ignoring the individual. The second is the question of retirement or withdrawal from the world. Actual political and moral life being so manifestly imperfect, and philosophy being a protest against evil and injustice, should not the wise man retire from practical life, like Socrates, and 'shelter' in Plato's words 'behind a wall'? Then, if a man chooses retirement, what is the nature and meaning of that withdrawal? ”

“ So a life well lived is a dedication to God. An earlier Stoic had used this image to illustrate the unity of the world, the sweet savour of the incense transfusing like an essence the material which conveys it. ”

“ He here appears to be giving his own turn to the worldly maxim, familiar from Horace, that happiness lies in being content with saying each day 'I have lived', and counting a new day as gain. He says, in short, each day is sufficient that is lived by Nature's law. If you so live you will embrace your destiny, for nothing is more in agreement with yourself. ”

“ Placed at the summit of all the previous attainments of humanity, with an open, unfettered intellect, and a character which led him of himself to embody in his moral writings the Christian ideal, he yet failed to see that Christianity was to be a good and not an evil to the world. . . . To my mind this is one of the most tragical facts in all history.' The only reference to the Christians in the Meditations illustrates the failure of a good and wise ruler to rise above ignorance and prejudice, and in no sense indicates the temper and purpose of a persecutor. ”

“ His love of old ways, his religious conservatism is opposed to Hadrian's variety and caprice, his public economy and private thrift to Hadrian's extravagance, his simplicity to Hadrian's passion for building, for luxurious dinners and boy favourites. Hadrian too was envious and intolerant of rivals, even of men of genius like the architect Apollodorus, and the fantastic extravagance of his famous villa at Tivoli may have seemed to Marcus in strange contrast to the old-fashioned country residences of Pius. ”

“ This chapter touches upon a moral paradox, which especially embarrassed the Stoics. If Nature made man with impulses to achieve his own good, why does his governing self, in despite of natural law, resist the right? They refused to divide the soul into two powers, reason and desire, as though two rival powers struggled for the mastery of the soul; they said truly that it is the self which errs, the self which identifies itself with its desires. ”

“ To the student of Nature the loose overhanging skin of the lion's forehead, so forbidding to a child's eye, is evidence of purpose. It assists, so Aristotle had surmised, the lion's vision; it exhibits the adaptation of structure to end. The grown man delights in this mark of purpose in the handiwork of the artist Nature as much as he had once enjoyed the evidence of the human artist's skill in the portraiture of these natural features. Thus, very simply, Marcus passes from the recognition of external utility to the principle of immanent purpose. ”

“ With one or two exceptions, the motive for which is not quite certain, the remainder of the Book consists of consolatory reflections based upon a speculative view of the Universe as a living organism determining its changing phenomena according to necessary law. In this great system the individual vanishes almost as soon as he is created; his only good is that he can distinguish real good, that is moral good, and fulfil it. For the rest he can understand the changing whole of Reality at least so far as to see that the human terms good and evil do not apply to the Universe ”

“ Anger, he goes on, hears the voice of reason in a sense, is accompanied by pain, is natural and undisguised. Appetite, on the contrary, follows at once the solicitation of sense, is pleasurable, unnatural in its excess, secret in pursuit of its end. ”

“ Using a favourite Greek image, Marcus speaks of Logos as of an artist modelling a plastic substance. The material so shaped is obedient, so that no room is left for an explanation of evil, as being the consequence of rebellious 'matter'.
Again, the principle of reason has no evil in its own nature, no ground therefore to create evil. Moreover, the divine artificer has not only a good purpose and a perfect material, but he never blunders as a human artist may blunder. ”

“ The description of the Universe seems to be derived from Plato: 'God, when forming the Universe, created mind in soul and soul in body, building them into one that he might be the framer of a work that should be most beautiful and most perfect in its nature.' [4] The saying, too, that the gods preserve this Universe is perhaps a reminiscence of Plato's statement that the Creator retired to his own solitude after accomplishing his work, and left the rest to the 'younger gods'. ”

“ All that is required of a man is to maintain his moral independence, 'to be free and to regard circumstance as a man, a human being, a member of the Eternal City, a mortal.' [1] This moral independence is secured by the assertion of the reason, which is his individual nature, by continual control of his thoughts and imaginations, by right and beneficent conduct to his neighbour, by a joyous acceptance of the portion assigned to him from eternity. ”

“ Nature's scale, which manifests a gradual ascent from lifeless things to plant-life and thence to animals and to reasonable beings, is exhibited also in man both in his development from the embryo to maturity and in the structure of his being, when perfected by this process. The grown man's life is sustained by activities some of which resemble plant-life, his nourishment, growth, and reproduction, some mere animal life, his maintenance by respiration and by means of the senses and impulses, and finally the life of reason, his individual and social existence. ”

“ Evil individually, viz. injury by one person of another, can only be real evil by the will of that other, [25] who has the remedy in his own judgement. Each of us can by an exercise of will obviate moral injury. Thus my neighbour's will is in one point of view important to me, because he belongs with me to one reasonable society, but in another way he is a matter of indifference to me [26] (i.e. he does not affect me) , because his will lies outside my control. His conduct in this aspect is to me like the unconscious external forces of Nature, the wind or the sun. ”

“ The light of the sun rests upon what at first appear to be obstacles to its path. Everyone who has observed a pencil of light shining into a dark room will recall the impression made as the ray falls upon a solid body, almost as if the light were fluid and might stream off the object. Marcus suggests that what appears to be a hindrance is an opportunity for the exercise of the light-bearing quality, as he has often said that impediments rightly used are opportunities for virtue. ”

“ In the white hair and wrinkled face of age he detects a purpose, and therefore a beauty, even a bloom as of autumn; a supervenient charm like the complexion of adolescence, when life is at its spring time. ”

“ Two lines of thought are combined: we lose by death no more than we lose as each moment of the present passes, and secondly, death does not rob us of any new experience, since life has revealed all its secrets to one who has lived even a little while. ”

“ Paul Fournier gives as his opinion that Marcus here gives last and final expression to a pantheism which leaves no room for individual existence beyond the grave. Is it not rather true that the wise Emperor is reminding himself that our concern is with the present and with present dutiful action? Personal survival is not a question which we can or should trouble about, we should be satisfied to resign ourselves to the rule of Nature and the ruler of the Universe. ”

“ We may adopt the view of the Atomists, based on observed uniformity, and recognize that a chance concourse of material particles has resulted, as Epicurus taught, in a natural law by which this world, like a multitude of others, is subject to a constant process of decay and dissolution. We cannot therefore repine at the change and death of any individual, as if that were contrary to nature. ”

“ Action for the sake of others is its own reward; there is a joy to the Self in fulfilling its own law.
Chapter 5 reiterates the truth that the soul makes itself what it will. This it does by the guidance of general principles of two kinds, the one referring to the natural law of the Universe, the other to the true character of man's constitution.
The word art is used, in the manner of Plato and Aristotle, to embrace activity guided by virtuous ends, the arts being in general the adaptation of given material to ideal purposes. ”

“ We are to consider the overruling Reason and to submit our wills to its providence, to think of the Universe as a single whole, where what befalls ourselves is purposeful, and what benefits us also benefits our neighbour. ”

“ Here Marcus returns to a favourite remedy in the prospect of death. Death is natural, as natural as birth and adolescence, and all life's seasons from sowing time to harvest. Death then is to be welcomed. ”

“ From considerations about justice and social unity, the main subject of the Book, Marcus turns back to the self-realization from which he started in ch. 1. If the soul refuses to concern itself about what is indifferent to its moral health, about what lies outside its own choice, it can remain poised like the sphere of the Universe, illuminated by its own light. [31] This light it turns upon objects, to secure truth, and upon itself, to enlighten its judgements and the impulses which depend for their efficacy upon reason. ”

“ The world is good, and therefore the physical hindrances in this present life, evil report or good report, even death itself, are good. They are dispensed from a source which is good and they are the field of moral action. The paradox that to die is a moment of life [3] rests upon the belief that there is no breach in the continuity of Nature's process, and that from a moral point of view 'Death is one of Life's Offices'. ”

“ First Marcus says that every 'nature', i.e. living organism, is superior to human art, because the arts and crafts are, in their processes, imitations of natural products. He means that spinning is suggested by the spider's web; weaving, perhaps, by the nests of birds. The crafts achieve man's purposes by the right use of their materials, and especially by a subordination of the lower to the higher, of means to ends, and of ancillary to architectonic arts. ”

“ The fortunate discovery by Cardinal Mai of large fragments of Fronto's correspondence has given us a lively picture of this stage of Marcus' life. They present a full and happy life, a temper, serious indeed but relieved by delicate tact and humour, a character still immature and self-distrustful and overflowing with affection to his tutor, his mother Lucilla, his wife Faustina, and their children. ”

“ Beauty, like goodness, terminates in itself. Life's handicap is imaged under the simile of a torch race, where the relay runners pass on the torch of life, and themselves in succession fall out from the race. ”

“ Life, too, with its apparent troubles is but for a moment. If circumstance is indeed disposed by Nature, we should welcome it; if it is hurtful, we have the virtue suited to confront it.
He adds, ironically, that the advocates of self-interest must surely permit me to pursue what I hold to be to my own advantage in the law of right conduct. ”

“ Bion [51] puts well and simply what Marcus means: 'the pain of things arises because of man's judgement (the word Monimus used in the sense of "fancy") ; judge of them like Socrates: you will suffer no pain; judge of them amiss: you will be hurt by your own moods, your own false opinion.' So Marcus says: [52] 'Remove the judgement: with it the "I am hurt" is removed; remove the "I am hurt": the hurt itself is gone.'
Ch. 16. Marcus here sums up much of what he has been saying before. There are five ways in which the soul of man does outrage to itself, abandons self-reverence. ”

“ The language chosen seems reminiscent of the famous paradox debated in Plato's Republic, whether justice is the advantage of the superior (or stronger) , in short, whether might is right, and, if so, what kind of might. Marcus says, in effect, that a man must choose for himself what is, in his eyes, superior. If he chooses fame, or power, or wealth, or pleasant indulgence, let him stick to his choice. ”

“ He laboured with all his might to teach Marcus one of the essentials of style, the exact choice of word and phrase. We can trace his influence in the language of the Meditations. His pupil, however, is here concerned with moral lessons; he dwells in retrospect upon his tutor's affectionate nature, and especially upon the natural, impulsive humanity which clearly underlies the exaggerated warmth of expression of the letters. Fronto's influence may well have softened the austerity of the Stoic creed, and helped to give the Meditations their notable accent of human kindness. ”

“ Samuel Johnson once said: [121] 'I fancy mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in narrative, grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.' Is not much of the Meditations an attempt to create a novel form of literature and to find the proper vehicle for its expression? Marcus at times seems to aim at conveying into his Greek sentences something of the lapidary force of the Latin tongue. ”