Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (good books to read .txt) 📕

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