THE WORLDS EPOaijnAKERS. Edited by Qumm Smeaton. am) tk Jakr jJtoi(^ By Vice -Principal F WBUSSELl, D.D. BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF fletirg m. 1891 ;^..z.5..'4.o.;c.n t.^..iAir\.u 1357 B528 .B98 Marcus Aurelius and the later Stoics / b The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http ://www. arch i ve . o rg/detai Is/cu31 924029000979 THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS EDITED BY OLIPHANT SMEATON Marcus Aurelius and the Later Stoics By F. W. Bussell, D.D. Previous Volumes in this Series :— CRANMER AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. By a. D. Innes, M.A. WESLEY AND METHODISM. By F. J. Snell, M.A. LUTHER AND THE GERMAN REFORMATION. By Principal T. M. LlNDSAY, D.D. BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM. By Arthur Lillie. WILLIAM HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK. By James Sime, M.A., F.R.S.E. FRANCIS AND DOMINIC. By Prof. J. Herkless, D.D. SAVONAROLA. By Rev. G. M'Hardy, D.D. ANSELM AND HIS WORK. By Rev. A. C. Welch, M.A., B.D. MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER. By P. De Lacy Johnstone, M.A.(Oxon.). ORIGEN AND GREEK PATRISTIC THEOLOGY. By Rev. WILLIAM Fairvsteather, M.A. THE MEDICI AND THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. By Oliphant Smeaton, M.A. PLATO. By Prof. D. G. Ritchie, M.A., LL.D. PASCAL AND THE PORT ROYALISTS. By William Clark, LL.D., D.C.L. EUCLID : HIS LIFE AND SYSTEM. By Thomas Smith, D.D., LL.D. HEGEL AND HEGELIANISM. By R. Mackintosh, D.D. DAVID HUME and his Influence on Philosophy AND Theology. By Prof. James Orr, M.A., D.D. ROUSSEAU AND Naturalism in Life and Thought. By Prof. W. H. Hudson, M.A. DESCARTES, SPINOZA, and the New Philosophy. By Principal Iverach, D.D. SOCRATES. By Rev. J. H. FoRBES, M.A. WYCLIFFE AND THE LOLLARDS. By Rev. J. C. Carrick, B.D. CARDINAL NEWMAN and his Influence on Reli- gious Life and Thought. By C. Sarolea, Pli.D. Lttt.Doc. THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS Marcus Aurelius and the Later Stoics By F. W. Bussell, D.D. Vice-Principal of "Brasenose College, Oxford Edinburgh. T. & T. Clark 1910 VIRI AMABILIS ET DBSIDBRATISBIMI A. H. J. Gebbnidge UANIBUB, QUI MB AMIGA NI AD HOC OPUS CURANDUM IMPULIT, BT INDUBTRIiB SU^ INBNARRABILIB BXBMPLO EX DBSIDIA BXCITAVIT PRINTED BT M0B.RI80N ABD GIBB LIMITED, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON : eiUFEIN, UAKSHALL, BAUILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIHITKD. NSW TORE : CnARLES SCRIBNSR'S SONS. This little look will betray the length of time it has been under consideration hy several allusions to modern events which are now anachronisms. But I have preferred to leave the text as I wrote it some time ago ; and to make no change in the estimate of the Stoic teachers, although in som^ respects my own standpoint is not the same. On the whole, it agrees fairly well with the valuation of a pure Monism set forth in the ' Bampton Lectures ' of 1905 ; and I am glad of an opportunity of supplementing and supporting the general statements made there hy this detailed inquiry into two or three of the most eminent and sincere expounders of an untenable creed. MuNDHAM House, NOEFOLK, December 1909. GENERAL SYNOPSIS FAOK General Preface ...... v PART I. INTRODUCTION CHAP. I. ," The Roman Emperor " ..... 1 II. "The Stoic Philosoplier" . . , .18 III. Development of Philosophy in Rome . . .35 IV. "The Wise Man" ...... 51 PART II. THE IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE I. Epiotetfs, or the New Cynism ; Devotional Personification of the Cosmic Order . . . . .76 A. The Religious transformation of Philosophic Dogma "TS B. The Gift of Free Will ; the Fatherhood of God ; the Divinity of Souls; the " Cosmopolis '^ ; the Special Function . . . . . .82 C. Providence extending to Particulars ; Discipline of the Sons of God ...... 93 II. The Wise Man in the Two Commonwealths ; Opportunism, or the r61e of Contemplation and Passivity . .97 A. Modem Conception of Stoicism in error ; the essential Expediency of Resignation and Abstention . . 97 B. Close Restriction of the Sphere of Missionary Influence ; Rejection of Civic or Domestic Duties by the true Anchorites ...... 104 C. The Sage Spectator rather than Agent in the Universe 107 X GENERAL SYNOPSIS CHAP. PA8K III. The Ultimate Problems 110 A. Death and Immortality .... 110 B. Some Minor Points; the "Pax Romana"; the World of Conflict ; the Moralistic Standpoint ; the "Koeric" Life of God ; Futility of mere Technical Emancipation, etc, ..... 117 C. Harmony between Epiotetus and Marcus Aurelius . 120 PART III. THE CREED OF MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS I. The Teaching of the Emperor ; the Nature of Man the Agent . . . . . .122 A. Chief Characteristics of his Meditations due to his Office and his Ti/me , , . . .122 B. Influence of the Conception of Afiyos on Greek Thought 132 C. The Constitution and Psychology of the Individual . 136 D. Man's Function and Place in the World ; Special Ec[uipment of each being a Key to its purpose and Happiness , . . . . .147 II. Man and the World . . . . . .152 A. The two Commonwealths and the Citizen, as Agent or Quietist , . . . . .152 B. The Problem of "Conformity to Nature"; varying Definitions of Htns ..... 158 C Inherent Diversity of the Nature of Man and the World 167 III. Absolute Subjectivity ...... 175 A. Complete Isolation of the Individual from Things and from his Fellow-men ..... 175 B. Moral Effort expires in Tolerance of Evil . . 181 C. Soul, without real Contact with Things-in-Themselves, V can assimilate and transmute into Material for its own Nurture ...... 186 IV. Happiness and Destiny of Man's Spirit . . . 194 A. Self-sufficingness of the Soul . . . ,194 GENERAL SYNOPSIS xi CHAP. PASS B. Mystical Tendencies and the Doctrine of " Deity ' within" . . . . . .202 C. The Problem of Monopsychism . . . 204- D. Immortality ...... 20^, E. Belief in Immortality essential to the logical Theory, if not to the Pursuit, of Morality . . . 217 Appendix A, B, C 220 V. The Universe, Eternal and Divine, and Transient and Contemptible. . . . . , . 225 A. The Perpetual Flux and Monotony of the World- process ...... 225 B. Creation and Providence, — how far Intelligible ? . 235 VI. The Alleged Conciliation of the Two Natures . . 241 A. Vanity and Insignificance of Human Life in the Measureless Gulf of Time .... 241 B. The Uses and Methods of Philosophy ; the Sukkendbk of Intellectualism ..... 250 C. ' ' Scientific Study as a Meditation on Death " . .255 D. On Eebellion and Apostasis from the World-order — How far possible ? . . . . . 262 General Conclusion . . . . . .272 APPENDIX Translation of Passages cited from Epictetus . . . 288 MARCUS AUEELIUS AND THE LATER STOICISM PART I. INTRODUCTION CHAPTEE I "the ROMAN EMPEROR" Analysis § I. The Roman Empire an extempore expedient. § 2. The Emperor a Republican official, not a King ; no recognition of the hereditary principle. § 3. The Empire above Nationality. § 4. Vagueness of Imperial ideal allowed oscillation between civil and military conception; the Gmswr represented the Spirit of the Age in his choice. § 5. Dv,al aspect of the Emperor as "Overlord" of the provinces (where his personal caprice modified by continmty of tradition, by policy of non-intervention, amd by local autonomy) ; and as " Prvaceps " and Delegate of the Senaie. § 6. Honest attempts of " Five good Emperors " to rule as Presidents of a Free State (96-180 a.d.); history of its subsequent failure (180-285 a.d.). § 7. This period an exceptional epoch, devoted to the problem of the Reconciliation of the Dya/rehy. § 8. Disappoimting results of M. Av/relvu^ reign amd eha/racter due in part to the sadness of his philosophical speculations. 2 MARCUS AURELIUS No political system that man's ingenuity has invented can ever equal in interest for us the Eoman Empire. Like the British Constitution, it was the slow growth of time. Julius and' Augustus contributed, in large measure and in answer to a tired world's demand, to this unification, this centralizing of authority in a single city and a single ruler; but they could never have dreamt of the full significance of their work. Augustus, indeed, to the very close of his life cloaked his power under a pretence of extempore expediency ; and masterly though this policy was in disarming the old classical prejudice against a " tyranny," yet much of the suspicion and discord, the mutinies and bloodshed, which succeeded, was due to the singular indefiniteness and ambiguity of his new Constitution, which under the old titles and magistracies concealed a complete revolution. He could never have foreseen that this hasty attempt to reconcile the traditions of the past with the needs of the present, would become permanent in his own Empire, and, after it had passed away, would appear at all subsequent times of human history as the visionary Ideal towards which the aspirations of our race are directed. The paradoxes, but imperfectly dis- guised by the Imperial mantle, involved inconsistencies so absuvd and so fundamental, that we wonder how the system survived for ten years the inquiry of reasonable men. Yet a stability seems to have attended it, which from experience we know is denied to the paper constitution and definite formulae of modern theoretic government. § 2. The Eoman Empire was never a monarchy in the strict sense ; to the very end the word " Eespublica " took precedence of the title of the despot, who con- "THE ROMAN EMPEROR" 3 trolled and frequently enslaved it. In spite of the Imperial apotheosis (little understood, and often mis- appreciated), ia spite of the obscure inviolability of the Tribunitian power, no special sanctity surrounded the representative of the people. The " nation," a vague name sometimes embodied in the Senate, sometimes in the tumultuous shouts of frontier legions, was the real and ultimate repositary of all lawful power ; and we marvel that in all the patient and accurate legislation of the Imperial epoch no attempt was made to define with exactness the duties, the prerogatives, the rights of succession, the dynastic claims, the methods of election, of that central point upon which this wheel of government and society revolved. The divinity, which to our modern eyes " doth hedge a king," the peculiar respect in speech and address, the reverence to the person of a monarch, the accumulated titles of honour, — all these were utterly lacking. We have enormously increased the prestige, the sacrosanct character of our modern sovereigns, though it may be at the cost of their prerogative. Their influence is all the greater, because it is indirect. The Caesar, elected by a free choice, and possessing of himself no single claim to sovereignty, was the trusted minister of Democracy, and atoned for failure with his life. " The King can do no wrong " ; " Le roi est mort ! Vive le roi ! " are two principles which lie at the back- ground of the stability of Europe, and are by no means mere sentiments or convenient fictions of the law. Yet they involve ideas which a Roman in the most servile period would have repudiated with scorn. We have raised monarchs above the strife of party, above the bitterness of rival factions, into a serener atmosphere ; 4 MARCUS AURELIUS and when the history of the Nineteenth Century is compiled by dispassionate critics, it will be seen how largely we have augmented the influence while circum- scribing the direct power of the Crown. As late as the reign of Maurice (582-602), Theophylact could proudly boast of the contrast between the "legal and constitutional government " of the Byzantine, and the capricious despotism of the irresponsible Chosroes. And this, after the policy of the rough but astute Diocletian, of Constantino, and still more definitely of Justinian, had set itself to centralize, to seclude, to consecrate the monarchical idea, after the pattern of Oriental courts. Nor did the hereditary principle meet with recognition, throughout this period of fifteen centuries. Nothing is more remarkable than the safe security of the family and relations of a deposed or murdered emperor. They sank unnoticed into private life ; no vengeance associated them in the misdeeds of their kinsman; no discontented faction saw a pretext for sedition in their indisputable claims to Imperial rank. If we examine the " dynasties " of this period from Augustus to Constantino xiv., we shall observe how common was the peaceful succession of son, of brother, or of nephew to the throne ; and the page of history is full of ephemeral families, each one increasing in duration and stability, till at the close, the Comneni and the Palseologi divide between them nearly four hundred years. But it must be continually remembered that this involved no recognition whatever of the heredi- tary principle, as we understand it to-day. The " Holy Eoman Empire " became monopolized by a single family in later times, without ever expressly denying that the highest secular office in Europe was open to any "THE ROMAN EMPEROR" 5 baptized and free-born Christian man. From one brief but pregnant sentence in Tacitus we gather the remark- able difference between the aristocratic modern world of to-day and the democracy of the classical peoples : " reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt " (Germania, vii.). This is the key not only to mediseval, but even to much of modern history. We account in this way for the long survival of effete dynasties, and the real business of affairs concentred in some " Major Domus." A similar respect produced in Japan the singular dualism of Shogun and Mikado ; and in Koman history itself we may see it appearing in the last days of the Western Sovereignty, when powerful barbarians like Eicimer, dividing the honour and the reality of authority, introduced a principle utterly alien to the spirit of the Romans. But it is not too much to say that to the acute observer, who refuses to be deceived by the harm- less and necessary turmoil of democratic legislation and reform, European Society, in its firm loyalty to monarchs who are " born not made," to a governing class that is never a bureaucracy, and to the laws of succession and property, relies for its surest foundations on the .hereditary principle. And this, just because the people are free, and with their instinctive good sense prefer to place power in those whose past traditions are a guarantee of confidence and good faith, and who breathe a purer air of patriotism and disinterestedness, apart from the narrow conservatism of officialdom and the intrigues of professional politicians. § 3. To-day, though humaner views of the " brother- hood of man " prevail, and are destined to triumph over war and the miseries of dissension,, yet there is np sign of the decay of National feeling. For this becomes 6 MARCUS AURELIUS stronger in our hearts, as it is more genuine than a vague cosmopolitan sympathy, which so often amounts merely to the acceptance of certain theoretical pro- positions, indifference to immediate duties. To this feeling, this generous emotion, the Empire, whether mediaeval or ancient, was an absolute stranger. The Empire was the denial of nationality. The " Civis Eomanus" was one who enjoyed a supra-national privilege. He was a Spaniard, a Neapolitan, a Cyrenian, a Syrian ; but he was something more. The gradual extension of what may be termed the "franchise" advanced to its goal of complete comprehensiveness (under an Antonine, in 213 a.d.) along with the decay of the Eoman race. In its narrower significance, the Eoman family became extinct. The legitimate children by birth were succeeded by the adopted family of all " nations under heaven " ; and adoption constituted in the ancient world a tie no less sacred and binding than did physical descent. Thus the Empire is com- pletely ignorant of the modem notions of kingship, of heredity, of nationality. It attempts to conceal the absolute powers which it places in the hands of representatives, and seems ashamed or afraid to define them. The Emperor is merely the first subject of this comprehensive and invisible State. He embodies the people's wishes, aspirations, and authority; but he exercises a sacred trust which has been freely delegated to a chief magistrate. He is a steward, not an owner. In the son of Caesar there exists no inherent pre- supposition or pretension to ofBce. And the political system founded on the very negation of nationalism or separateness, formed a bond of union between tribes and civilizations the most iadverse and distinct, — an "THE ROMAN EMPEROR" 7 intangible network which held together in harmony and peace the last centuries of the decaying peoples of classical antiquity. § 4. Enough has been said to suffice as a general introduction to that "Imperium" of which Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was so bright an ornament. We shall try to portray the work, the character, the influence of this ruler ; and in attempting to estimate his place, either as a thinker or a governor, the remarks which precede will be found by no means superfluous. Among the various attempts made by generals or statesmen on their accession to define this strangely vague dignity, none was more noble or conscientious than the policy of the five good Emperors whose names have brightened that period of repose, and perhaps of lethargy, which seemed to Gibbon the " happiest " age in human records. The reigning Caesar, finding few precedents and generally armed with a " mandate," silent or expressed, to reverse and stigmatize his predecessor's methods, was at liberty to give prominence to whichever of his dual positions he preferred. He might, even in time of peace, incline towards an Absolutism supported by the Sword ; or, rejecting the title Imperator, he might live and govern as " princeps," as " primus inter pares," among his peers, the Senatorial fathers. In this oscillation, greatly though this change was due to the character of the Emperor and his predilections for republican or military ideals, yet there can be no doubt that in whatever capacity, he represented the temper of the Roman world — that public opinion and that plainspokenness of the populace which was tolerated even under the most savage reigns. Probably no government has ever existed unless favoured 8 MARCUS AURELIUS and approved by the larger part of its subjects. The seditious may be clear- voiced and bold, but they always constitute a minority. The approval of the citizens may be due to the sheer inertia of indolence or ignorance, or the profound doubt that any change can be for the better. An iafinitesimal fraction of the Russians have more than once imperilled a system which is set firm on the piety and veneration of the vast bulk of the nation. The Sultan of Turkey, in spite of the protests of a " Young Turkey " faction, is acceptable to his subjects. The government of France, which offers a frivolous nation the comparatively harmless sport of a ministerial crisis in place of regicide and the fall of dynasties, reposes undoubtedly upon the negative and contemptuous consent of the people. The Tudor Sovereigns, perhaps more cruel in their suspicions of our noble houses than any Caesar, had the unfailing support of their subjects, and live in their grateful memory. Similarly, the Roman Emperors seem at each moment to embody the domiaant spirit of the age, and perhaps rather to follow than to lead. Trained for the most part in no princely seclusion, but moving freely as soldiers or citizens among a free-speaking people, acceding to a dignity which rarely dazzled them, they brought to the throne the tastes, the studies, the pre- dilections of a private station ; and gave unconscious expression to the popular voice, and clearer utterance to vague murmurs of discontent. § 5. Great as was the power of Csesar, his personality was perhaps of less account than the character of the Constitutional monarch of to-day. The provinces of Rome, where the real life and progress of the Empire continued, were indififerent to the occupant of the throne. "THE ROMAN EMPEROR" 9 Though the Roman civil service never degenerated into a bureaucracy, yet there was a continuity of tradition, a uniformity of procedure, which never snapt, though the idea of sovereignty was incarnate in a rough Dacian peasant or an effeminate Syrian boy; though on the frontiers the transient phantoms in the purple bafSe the assiduity of Numismatics. The secret of Roman great- ness was her respect for individual rights and local autonomy. The central government was to be strong and vigilant for the public cause, but it was to honour the liberties of the governed, and above all never to interfere in those debatable and uncertain matters which, as indifferent to the public order, are best left to in- dividual taste. The New Testament from Pilate to Festus is full of eloquent testimony to the forbearance and toleration of the Roman official, and his instinctive sense of the limits of government and the restrictions which should be placed upon State interference. Rome, unfairly weighted with the odium of the Ten Persecu- tions of the Christians, is yet the first State that dis- covered and practised religious tolerance. The ear of the Emperor was an infallible and uncorrupt court of final appeal ; but his vigilance did not obtrude itself, nor did his authority mischievously supersede the ancient local systems. Seneca {De Clem.) is addressing his master during the " golden age " of the Quinquennium ; yet these words might well epitomize the general view of Roman administration during its whole supremacy. _ I. 2 : "Multa illos cogunt ad banc confessionem (esse felices), qu§, nulla in homine tardior est ; securitas alta, affluens ; jus supra omnem injuriam positum. . '. . Lsetissima forma RP**, cui ad summam Ubertatem nihil deest nisi 10 MARCUS AURELIUS pereundi lieentia." And of the conception of the Im- perial position ; I. 3 : " quern omnes non tarn s'u^a se esse quam ipro se sciunt " : and the familiar metaphor, " Quemadm. totum corpus animo deservit. . . . Sic hsec immensa multitude unius animse circumdata (envelopiag like the body the soul of a single man) illius spiritu regitur, illius ratione flectitur. ... 4. lUe est enim vinculum per quod EP. cohseret; ille spiritus vitalis, quern hsec tot millia trahunt, nihil ipsa per se futura nisi onus et prseda si mens ilia Imperii subtrahatur. 5. Animus EP** tu es, ilia corpus tuum." The whole temper of the more acquiescent Eoman and the attitude of the provincials towards the new regimen, is probably well contaiaed in the following : — ^Ep. Lxxiii. : " Ille vir sincerus ac purus qui reliquit et curiam et forum et omnem admin"" EP"* vi ad ampliora secederet, diligit eos per quos hoc ei facere tuto licet . . . magnam rem nescientibus debet . . . sub quorum tutela positus exercet artes bonas." If the wisdom of the British is content to leave the anomaly of over six hundred separate and distinct administrations in India, we have learned this lesson from the Eoman. The Eoman world was no loosely-knit congeries of independent satrapies : behind the apparent licence of the urban life of Asia Minor was the strong hand of the central authority, watchful yet seldom obtrusive. The supreme merit of the system was due to this self-control, which for the iBrst time in history curbed and restricted the interference of government, encouraged native traditions and creeds, and avoided that dangerous lethargy which a professional bureaucracy and over-minute supervision tend to produce in some modern States. Thus the Empire clearly had two faces, "THE ROMAN EMPEROR" ii like Janus, the one as the benevolent and impartial warden of the world's peace; the other, in its stricter relation to its immediate environment, the Senate of Rome. The Emperor was the " overlord " of a multi- plicity of States, who found union symbolized and guaranteed in his person ; but he was, besides, the supreme magistrate in a mimicipahty. The individuality of Csesar mattered httle ia the provinces ; but his momentary temper was all-important in Rome. While Tacitus devotes almost exclusive attention to the seditions of terrified Senators, who might thwart but could scarcely help Caesar's Imperial ideas ; while Sue- tonius interests his readers in the petty and malicious gossip of the Court, we must look elsewhere for the real effect of the new system, and explain from other sources the gratitude and the homage which it called forth. § 6. "We have said that the Prince could on his ■accession emphasize at his will the civil or the military side of sovereignty ; and that in making this choice he represented more truly than an heir-apparent to-day the general wish or pubUc sentiment. The advent of Vespasian and the Flavian " dynasty " was in complete harmony with middle-class feeling. "Peace, retrench- ment, and reform " was the watchword of a tired society after the startling extravagance and heroic vices of the Claudian house. Unfortunate misunderstanding drove the last of this family, an able administrator of a gloomy and suspicious temper, into that undying feud with the Senate which Tacitus so eloquently describes in the opening chapters of the "Agricola." The tone of Roman society and aspirations in 96 A.D. became once more overtly and distinctly Republican. The period of nearly 12 MARCUS AURELIUS one hundred years wasinarked by an honest attempt on the part of the adoptive Emperors to govern as Presidents of a free State. Trajan managed to hold in solution the diverse elements of military enterprise and deference to the consultative Body, which still remained in name the " fount of honour," and the source of the delegated authority which he exercised, whether in camp or court. Hadrian, who represents the restless " Wanderjahre " in this epoch's life, had reason to suspect the loyalty of the Senate, but he rarely disregarded their dignity. Antoninus the Pirst, one of those tranquil, artless, and almost saintly characters that raise to the throne the domestic virtues, and influence not by ability, but by pure simplicity of life and aim, continued in his event- less reign the same policy of modesty and deference. Antoninus the Second (or Marcus Aurelius), in whom the period closes not without sad and melancholy foreboding of a lonely old age, was fully persuaded of the ultimate authority of the Senate, though he must have confessed to himself that as an engine of government it was supine and incapable. With his death and the ominous (per- haps apocryphal) threat to Commodus, " The Senate sends you this ! " ended the dream of reconciliation between the two disparate members of the Dyarchy. The African Dynasty of Severus (bearing in the character, annals, and fortunes of its members so strange a resem- blance to the Flavian) broke entirely with this tradition; and the counsel, " Gain the Army and despise all else," became the charter of his successors. The apparent restoration under Severus ii. was formal and ineffective. The senatorial nominees, Pupienus and Balbinus — or Tacitus some forty years later — were scarcely fitted to the requirements of the time. The offer of ^EmiUanus "THE ROMAN EMPEROR " 13 to limit the powers of the Emperor to external policy and the guardianship of the frontier, must have been the " election placard " of an insecure candidate rather than the mature judgment of an unquestioned ruler; and the revolutions of Diocletian and his successors recognised and sanctioned a state of affairs already exist- ing, rather than dealt the blow or decreed the downfall of the Senate. Rome was seen to be what it had long become, a provincial city, governed by a municipal body whose traditions were splendid, but whose influence was contemptible. The capital, in the turbulence and ex- ternal menace of the third century, had ceased to be the centre of interest and activity, or the pivot of government. The powers of the Caesar, or of his sub- ordinate lieutenants, gained in theory as in practice, the greater the interval which separated them from the capital. Rome was rather the seat of the opposition than the centre of administration. The new residences chosen for the members of the Caesarian College seemed to imply a widespread consciousness of danger impending from the North, and an almost prophetic sense of a sacred mission, as sentinel of Europe against Asiatic perils. § 7. Thus it must be readily conceded that the second Antonine belonged to an epoch altogether exceptional in the records of Imperial Rome. The " Dyarchy " (as it is sometimes called) was a deliberate attempt to sever and yet to conciliate the two provinces of civil-legal and military administration. No doubt in the mind of Mmaiaix (253 a.d.) dwelt a vague reminiscence of this fortunate era. Only then was the theoretical truth of the Constitution recognized by the Senatorial represen- tative, namely, that in that body reposed the ultimate 14 MARCUS AURELIUS authority of the Eoman people ;^ and that the Emperors were but the chosen executive or delegates to/carry out their will during their good pleasure. The two Antonines were ideal representatives of this anomalous system, which sought to veil autocracy under republican forms in exact contradiction of the modern scheme, which expresses in despotic formulae the limited or vicarious action of a constitutional monarch. In b^^ there is a deception which deceives no one; but we may well consider whether Bolingbroke is right, who maintains that disguised absolutism veiled under popular > forms is more dangerous than the open exercise of power, without any pretence of concealment. Brought up from early years in the atmosphere of a Court, the second Antonine had avoided many of its temptations and learnt much of its responsibilities. The peculiar danger of one " born in the purple " (Trop^vpoyevwjTOs:), which seems the clear lesson of the career of Commodus, is contradicted (like most historic generalisations) by the example of his father. The filial regard of Aurelius for Antoninus (to call them by their familiar titles) was sincere and unaffected. He succeeded, first among the Emperors, not only to a throne secured by a profound loyalty, but to duties already well defined ; and he was spared, by pious glances at his model, much uncertainty in the conduct of affairs, — ^that uncertainty as to the significance and limits of power which embittered the character of Tiberius, and sowed the seeds of incurable hatred iu so many promising reigns between the assembly and the executive, their chosen but distrusted represen- tative. His reign was distinguished by no great ad- ' As later, in the College of Cardinals, the inherent right of all Chris- tians to choose the Supreme Pontiff. "THE ROMAN EMPEROR" 15 ministrative reform, no eventful campaigns. His wars were confined to the frontiers of the Augustan Empire, which Trajan had vainly attempted to enlarge ; and interest ixs only because they seem to forebode the great Barbarian movements of the coming centuries. The absolute stillness which enfolds the reign of Antoninus is certainly broken under his successor by the din of arms and the alarms of sedition. Avidius Cassius is the already familiar type of ambitious provincial governor who instigates a military " pronunciamento " ; but he may interest us as showing that Aurehus failed to secure the allegiance of the troops, while he failed to rouse new life and energy in the Senate. The desultory and futile campaign in Persia (with which this mutiny was con- nected) merely marks the recrudescence of that eternal . quarrel between East and West which in this form lasted for seven hundred years, and produced in all that time no lasting alteration of frontier. In internal policy I must not forget the beneficial legislation for the weaker part of the community, which, derived from no classical ideal, depended upon a mixture of humanitarian Stoicism and unseen Christian influences ; and to both these the Roman mind was peculiarly susceptible. But we may look in vain for any important contribution to the fabric of the Roman Imperial system ; and, while respecting the principle of heredity, we inust regret that Aurehus could not have foreseen the abuse of power in unworthy hands, and have rendered harmless the imcontrolled caprice of later times. § 8. Marcus Aurelius has thus certainly left no per- manent mark upon the development of the Imperial ideal. His influence upon his successors was slight. *,The tranquil figure of Antoninus exercised a far more 1 6 MARCUS AURELIUS potent fascination ; and a shadowy Dynasty of affec- tionate respect issued from him, ending in disgrace in Heliogabalus, who may be reckoned the eighth who bore, and perhaps the third who sullied, that honourable name. Julian, in his " Osesars," treats him with astonishing irony, and seems to forget that the imperial Stoic is the model for the imperial Cynic.^ Among his own friends, mthin his own family, we must regret the Little weight which his character or his teaching carried.^ ^Something in his nature disqualified the noblest of Eomans, the very pattern of sovereigns, from impressing the age with the permanent stamp of his influence. If we wish to appreciate this failure aright, we must turn from the public duties of the Emperor to the inner soul of the man, which Ues bared before us in his "Meditations." There, self-revealed, as perhaps in the case of no other monarch,^ we have the record of his life and spiritual conflict. It is when we pass to the philosophic opinions of Aurelius that we meet some partial explanation for his failure as a monarch or a reformer. We shall have to review the various stages by which Philosophy, that dangerous and seductive foe of the Common Life, pene- trated the Eoman mind, and attempted to pervade Eoman society. In the Quietism, which the Stoics brought with them from the East, we shall discover ' Sextus Aurelius, it is true, speaks in his customary terms of vapid eulogy, here, perhaps, with greater'genuineness. ' Mr. Pater, who has, if we may hazard a guess, produced with an unerring and inimitable instinct the peculiar "atmosphere" of the Antoninian age, represents the secret doubts and amusement of the Emperor's audience, when he lectured to them on the Stoic philosophy. ' I except the naive and creditable autobiography of the Mogul con- queror Babar ; whose example the present Amir of Afghanistan and the Gaekwar of Baroda would seem to emulate. "THE ROMAN EMPEROR" i; the most satisfsictory clue to the sadness of the Imperial speculator, — to the unwilliag disappointment which his writings and his life must finally arouse in all those who love him for his unselfish devotion, his goodness of heart, his unaffected sincerity. CHAPTEE II " THE SWIG PHILOSOPHER " Analysis § 1. Ctreek Philosophy (in the sphere of conduct) is foreign in its origin, and abstentionist ; aims at discovering a Law or a Unity beyond conventional Sanctions and the Gity-State. § 2. Glassical Gfreek temper delights in variety ; but Greek Thought desires a Unity, which as beyond the Multiple, becomes pure Negation. § 3. Philosophical Quietism in cordrast to vigorous democratic life. § 4. Disappointment of the Sage who in the supposed new domain of Freedom encounters resistance and incalculaile forces. % 5. A Practical " Unity " achieved, in the political world by A lex- ander and by Augustus; Roman aristocrats, condemned to idleness cmd introspection by the new government, join the party of abstention and indifference. § 6. Their "Supreme Unity," atfkstFate or Destiny, and implying futility of endea/vour, becomes a religion of devotional yet despairing Theism. § 7. Roman Philosophy as Syncretist and Eclectic ; with little emphasis on Absolute Truth, and much on casuistry and in- dividual needs; the dogmatic materialist becomes an a^giiostic and a mystic. § 8. Ohieffeatv/res of the eclectic writers in the fksl two centuries, Christian and Pckgan. § 9. Goncentration on the Inner Life as the sole reality. .^ iO. Stoical docbrine transformed according to personal character of its chief Roman exponents, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Awrelius. § 1. Geeek Philosophy cannot be called a native product of Greek soil, or a spontaneous and original 18 "THE STOIC PHILOSOPHER" 19 creation of the Greek mind. It sprang up in those fringes of Hellenic civilization which bordered the barbarian peoples, whether in Thrace, in Italy, in Sicily, or in Asia Minor. Obscure and alien influences com- bined to give it that peculiar complexion which it bore to the end of its history. Vague hints and dark legends connect every prominent sage with a visit to Egypt, and a fabled intercourse with the priests of an esoteric religion. In G-reece proper we meet with the late though splendid names of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle ; but the earliest discoverers and the later successors of the Golden and Athenian age were foreigners. The whole tone and temper of speculation from first to last is sharply contrasted with those features of Greek social and political life which are most famihar to us. From the outset this stream of thought ran counter to the classical instincts, and to the needs and aspirations of Hellenic life and culture. The Athenian period, marked by a bold attempt to unite the two unsociable sides (" principatum ac libertatem "), ended, nevertheless, in the complete disclosure of their final incompatibility. Philosophy in its birth is essentially Eomantic; and subjective impressions take the place of exterior law. True it is that the very aim of Eeflexion is to justify and explain this outer law to the subject, and to accept voluntarily speculations which had been imposed before upon slaves. For by the intrinsic nature of Eeason or Dialectic, separatist yet unifier, all these reach a imity in the world of nature and of thought, by a com- parison of the various organs of intelligence or a more or less patient scrutiny of physical processes; by a sifting away of the nondescript, the particular, until the pure but rarefied form appeared; by overcoming 20 MARCUS AURELIUS the extravagant conceit of individual thinkers or im- pressionists, in a discovery of a fixed norm of all ra1;ional unanimity. § 2. But it is instructive to trace in history the failure of all such attempts to arrive at a unity of conciliation between the universal and the individual reason. Difference (so dear to the Greek spirit, so distasteful to its mature reflexion) obtruded itself in every sphere, where a final harmony was promised; and the unity, if and when attained, proved to be void of content, for the supreme Eeality was indis- tinguishable from negation. This search, which is the necessary function of unifying reason, was pursued with quiet persistency, until we lose sight of Hellenic sobriety and orderliness in the raptures and ecstasies of the bastard Platonism. Eeflexion, in its earliest stirrings due to barbarian influences, suggested unity as the fitting goal for human thought and endeavour; while the Greek temper delighted in variety, whether in art, or poetry, or politics; a variety which was not mere dis- orderly licence or caprice, — which in the end knew no other restraints but those of native good taste and good feeling. In the sage, the two conflicting ten- dencies constantly confront one another no less than in society ; and the peace of mind of the one is sacrificed no less than the harmony of the other. The whole essence of the creative and progressive Hellenic life was liberty and equality. In the commonwealth of Gity- States (I do not speak here of the monastic rigour of the Dorians and a common worship), loosely united by a traditional ancestry, and in the ordinary hfe of any one of the group, whether colony or metropolis, variegation was the chief characteristic. It was signi- "THE STOIC PHILOSOPHER" 21 ficant that they chose to find in an artistic sense of limit the real controlling force behind the multiple of turbulent society ; which other nations are compelled to realize and arm in the full panoply of mail, or incarnate in a final appeal to some despotic monarch. In the free, unimpeded interaction of independent units, the Greek State found a wholesome social life, free alike from the lethargy of servile decay and from subversive anarchy. But it must be observed that this recognition of law depended on no written constitution, but on the unwritten law (aypa^os vofioi) of custom and precedent, and in the last resort could be defended by no per- emptory sanction. Similarly, Greek morals, whether in the unreflecting or self-conscious days, based their appeal upon a sense of personal dignity and freedom, and were controlled in outline and direction by sesthetic propriety (as among the Eomans in later times by a conventional decorum). The ITo\«, in the strictly limited number of free families and individuals, en- couraged a hasty yet regular exchange of authority and obedience ; and could rely upon a willing deference to this law of " give-and-take " which was certainly unable (as republics always are) to enforce itself against a calculating tyrant. The citizens were satisfied with the general stability, and yet felt how little sacrifice of caprice, how brief a delay to legitimate ambition, such a constitution demanded. § 3. Not among such happy and independent minds did the problem of the universe press, urging for solu- tion. Engrossed as they were in the unceasing and multifarious duties of their civic life, they had neither leisure nor opportunity for speculation. The shadow of despotism, whether the inordinate power of the 22 MARCUS AURELIUS "man of the hour" in Greek tyrannies, or the colossal figure of the Persian King, must fall with sombre influence over these blithe and prosperous com- munities, before men can sit apart to muse on the sub- stance of all things, the futility of existence, and the negative ethic of abstention and of quietism. It would be interesting (though here out of plage) to trace the share which this consciousness of an unholy or a lawful unity exercised in the production of the reflecting habit among the Greeks. Certain it is that this thought, no less than the spectacle of factious democracy, largely contributed to the development of philosophy; which from the first set itself to correct, to deride, or to super- sede, by some deeper explanation than unconscious universal consent, the conventional fabric of society and of government. This feud, once started, was never again healed, and the practical .outcome on the cities of the Hellenic world of so much meditation and dispute, may be confined to the aristocratic communities of Pythagoras and the personal influence of Socrates ; whose life as an obedient citizen, whose death as a martyr to truth and to patriotic duty, served only to emphasize the more vividly the discord of the two spheres. The reason for this distrust and suspicion is not far to seek. The desire for a personal and individual apprehension of truth, apart from the sacred ministrations and mediation of the Family-State, seemed as impious to their eyes" as the claim to immediate revelation by Protestant or Mystic, to the devout Catholic to-day. The con- servatism of unreflecting obedience (whether in a tyrant or in an Aristophanes) waged a truceless warfare against the seekers after a higher sanction. The religious, whose belief was limited to poetic tradition, whose "THE STOIC PHILOSOPHER" 23 practice was bounded by the ceremonies and festivals of the State's authorization, saw nothing but impiety in the deeper scrutiny, which refused to acquiesce in the divinity of the obvious, and attempted to bring some concord into the turbulence of Olympus. The practical men of business and affairs viewed with grave dis- approbation the withdrawal of so many hours of a citizen's life into the meditative idleness or querulous disputes of the sage's leisure. Even the popular ridicule or dislike betrayed on numberless petty occasions the uneasy sense of the community that Philosophy was the chief enemy of social life ; that the calm and im- partial discussion of those self-evident axioms on which a State is founded, must in the end prove a sceptical solvent, fatal to all law and principle, whether of love in the family, of devotion to the commonwealth, or respect for the divine beings whose worship the State enjoined. This was not an evanescent prejudice of the Hellenic mind, which disappeared after a proper famiU- arity with true wisdom. It was an age-long temper, which never wavered in its distrust ; until indeed philo- sophy, in the inactively tolerant and pacific period of the Eoman Empire, became a mere synonym for a brilliant ability in extempore harangues, or an anti- quarian and comparative study of the dogmatic tenets of the schools. In the age of the Antonines the four principal sects could exist together on amicable terms, and enjoy the Imperial liberality without disgracing such bounty by their quarrels. For by that time the pretentious claim of Philosophy to guide human life had in effect yielded to the more modest and indirect, but genuine and effectual, direction of Eome. But in its earlier days Philosophy was in continual opposition 24 MARCUS AURELIUS to the Hellenic and classical spirit. Arising in foreign soil and under alien influences, it demanded an exclusive allegiance to a code above the current conceptions of duty; and it tended, under cover of practical maxims, to withdraw the student from effort or endeavour into a life of contemplation and inactivity.^ § 4. Above all, Philosophy, while it taught the self- sufficiency of the wise man and promised him liberty to expatiate in a larger sphere than the State, yet in truth only deprived him of the innocent excitement and useful duties of social routine, and enslaved him to the more comprehensive unity which it professed to dis- cover. In effect he became the sport of natural forces, or the organ of impersonal reason, or the citizen of a supposed kingdom of the universe, a cosmopolitan, with ill-defined and often purely negative duties. Leaving the sole realm where human virtue can be efficient, and can, even in failure, look forward to future progress or reform with unselfish joy, the sage found himself in the presence of forces which he could not control or indeed understand. In seeking freedom in the develop- ^ The irony of the whole Stoic position is admirably but unconsciously displayed by Seneca, Tranq. Animi, § 1 : " Sequor Zenonem Oleanthem Ohrysippum ; quorum tamen nemo ad Eempublicam acoessit, nemo non misit. De Otio vel Secessu. 30. Duse maxime in hac re dissident Sectse, Epic, et Stoicorum ; sed utraque ad otium diversa vid mittit. Epicurus ait : nou accedet ad RP. Sapiens nisi si quid intervenerit. Zeno ait ; Accedet ad E,P. nisi si quid impedierit. Alter otium ex pro- posito petit, alter ex causa. Causa autem ilia lat^ patet ; Si KP. corruptior est . . . si ocoupata est malis ; non nitetur Sapiens in super- vacuum, neo se nihil profuturus impendit. " 32. "Nos oertesumus quidioimus et Zenonem et Ohrysippum majora egisse quam si duxissent exeroitus, gessissent honores, leges tulissent quas non uni civitati sed toti humane generi talere." And throughout the little treatise, in dividing life's possible aims into voluptas, con- templatio, actio, it is clear where his real sympathies are. "THE STOIC PHILOSOPHER" 25 ment of his personality, he only learnt that freedom and personality are alike illusions. Philosophy, although it has often proved a noble ally, is in some sort a protest against the finality of domestic and social life. It charms man with hopes of a higher companionship, which, alas ! in the end are to be reached only by laying down what is distinctively human in the philosopher, by abandoning what is especially his own, in the ecstasy of the Divine " Unio." § 5. Historically, the Union, the. higher world which they sought for, was the achievement of Alexander for one brilliant moment, and of Eome perhaps for all time, whether as a secular or a spiritual monarchy. Eendall (ch. iv., Isxxv.) : " The conquests of Alexander changed the moral as well as the political outlook of Hellenism ; for, ethically as well as socially, it became impossible any longer to regard the irdXts as the supreme unit of morality." The undoubted decline of democratic zest at the entrance of the twentieth century may be attributed, partly, to the dis- covery that social problems and inequalities are independent of the suffrage and representative institutions ; partly, and in great measure, to that Imperialism which expatiates in a larger world, and unconsciously relaxes the tension of mind into civic duties, and consoles the poor and oppressed for present misery by a hallucination of foreign power. I cannot here refrain from the pleasure of quoting this sentence, Ixxxviii. : " As Stoicism sprang historically out of the suppression of Greek City-States by the expansion of Greece into the world-empire of Alexander; so, too, its second birth in Italy heralds the Imperial stage in the destinies of the great republic." Though Eoman Stoicism adopted or simulated an attitude of systebiatic defiance to this system, we may note that in modern times Hegehanism is allied with recognition of Divine right and passive obedience; and to-day the quiescence of anything 26 MARCUS AURELIUS approaching educated republicanism may be attributed to the prevalence of a similar outlook on the world. ' Again, cxxxvii. : " The Stoic philosopher, proclaiming the moral autonomy of the individual, disclaimed the strictly political bond and sanction to found morality upon bases that were universal. The civic obligation in its narrower applica^ tion was annulled, and superseded by the Cosmic; but the name and association of ' citizenship ' were too deeply grafted into moral consciousness to be kUled out. They survived into the idea of a ' world-citizeuship.' " And Eome especially was not disposed to regard the transcendent promises either of sage or Christian, except as violations of the compact which united the governors and the governed. The classical Eoman spirit, averse to individualism, had long and stubbornly opposed the introduction of Philosophy and strange rites. It was almost an irony that drove the EepubUcan senators of the early Imperial age to seek solace in those theories which their ancestors and models had relentlessly ex- pelled. The pursuits of wisdom, in much accountable for the decay of population and the old vigorous urban life, now defied the political system which it had called forth. The Empire was the natural result of individual- ism and of disintegration : it could tolerate diversity, because it transcended and controlled it. It provided these aristocratic sages of the opposition with a con- spicuous theatre for their noble, if ineffectual, defiance ; and they forgot that its removal would leave them without occupation, in the midst of a surfeited demo- cracfj^, who hated and despised them. It is impossible to refuse our admiration to the heroes and martyrs in the cause of the Republic; but the thinness of their ethical equipment, the negative character of their "THE STOIC PHILOSOPHER" 27 maxims, must prevent us from regretting their failure. There is no happiness in the world without endeavour, without practical work. It was the merit of the Eoman to be happy only in working, and he exchanged his spear for the plough after the annual campaign. Idle- ness settled down on Italy after the extinction of the yeoman class and free labour ; and, in spite of Vergil and Columella, the recreations of the aristocratic Eoman in the Imperial era ceased to be rural, as their chief business ceased to be military. An unhappy accident or want of straightforwardness in the new constitution prevented the nobles from accepting office under one who was but a member of their own order, a delegate of their own body ; one who stood in an exalted position indeed, but well within the reach of envy, — a penalty from which the hmited sovereign of modern times is exempt, from the very magnificence and uniqueness of his dignity. Jealousy excluded them from responsible and important posts; and an enforced leisure might vary with the voluptuous or austere, in the pursuit of strange pleasures of sense and ear, or in the defiant, yet negative, courage of a Stoical philosophy. § 6. The peculiar form which the Unity of the common search took in these philosophers was Fate. Quietistic as all Greek schools tended to become (banish- ing "practice" with the Buddhist as disease), none preached more assiduously the futility of human effort than the Stoics. An irresistible current of Destiny (which united all events and effects in an unbroken series) ; the universe as an unceasing process, always in motion, yet never progressing; the vanity of earthly pursuits, and a studied contempt of human ambition ; the sense of Eternity, present here and now, final and 28 MARCUS AURELIUS fixed, with no hope for a brighter dawn ; a resolute indifference to human history, except to point the moral of the emptiness of our wishes, and the final equality of all things and all men, good or bad, of all striving, as well as all inaction ; the conscience, or inner voice, as a single stable point in the flux of sense and matter, yet without practical value, seemingly an aimless penalty of a jealous (or a suffering ?) god, who gives as that cruel gift, a part of himself, the , power to survey and to mourn the misery of life without the power to change ; practical duties of life, slipping one by one from the grasp of the sage, until his moral life can be summed up in a perpetual " non possumus " : such are the chief tenets of the later Stoicism, and such admirably suited the melancholy temper of Eoman abstentionists. The earlier school (though possibly tinged with a latent Phenician gloom) had been indistinguishable from Cynicism, save in the logical completeness of its system of defence, and in a metaphysical dogmatic, to which Antisthenes had wisely remained a stranger. No practical effort marked the earlier founders, whose sole business was to weld into a solid and coherent body, guarded by unassailable argument, a, certain theory of the world. Only when domiciled in Eome did the School mix in actual Mfe, and become not a sect, but a religion. The practical bent of the Eoman mind trans- formed the Stoa from a mere house of dogmatic paradox into a temple of a devout, though despairing. Theism. § 7. Though negation — passivity — is the keynote of Stoical Ethics, yet this takes among the Eomans a kind of positive character ; and their inertness is one of dormant energy. But this entirely depends upon the personal and individual bias of the various exponents ; "THE STOIC PHILOSOPHER" 29 and on the common influence of the Eoman Empire, which appeared to tolerate, nay, to invite, criticism and reflexion, while it seemed to close so many avenues to wholesome effort. Never slaves to a system, always placing practical value above logical symmetry, the Koman philosophers were all eclectic. They followed with no servile adherence to a master's word, but com- posed, as it were, a " rosary " from many Schools, to fit the urgent needs of their existence. To the present moment, orthodoxy is the supreme merit of Eastern Churchmen, as heresy is the most heinous sin. To the Western Catholic everything is subordinate to utihty and the honour of the Church or the welfare of souls : salvation is to be found only in communion with Eome ; and schism, or visible disaffection, is the un- pardonable offence. The Eastern is rather a member of a spiritual realm of truth, the "Western a citizen of a visible kingdom. The rules of the former are ascer- tained by the pure Eeason (or communicated instan- taneously by heavenly Grace). They are definite, imalterable, and unchanging. But an earthly State demands certain concessions to the individual, politic reservation of the whole truth, materializing of dogma, casuistry in the treatment of special events, and oppor- tunism in the attitude of the spiritual to the secular powers. § 8. This distinction prevailed also in the philosophy of Greek and Eoman. Among the latter there are no pure or unmixed schools. Seneca tempers the rigour of the early dogmatism by the maxims of Epicurus and the sentimental dualism of Plato. Epictetus, another Socrates, transforms into a loving Father the ultimate and irresoluble physical force that lies behind the vain 30 MARCUS AURELIUS shadow, Sansara, of existence, and colours with personal piety the Buddhistic atheism of the academic Stoics. Plutarch, who has much in common with this School, is yet, in ultimate metaphysics, a Dualist, and in practical life an admirer and (so far as the times allowed) an emulator of the simple and cheerful virtue of the ancients. Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Stoics, is, at the same time, the first of the Neo-Platonists, and in his doctrine of the "deity within " transforms a mere physical connexion of the soul and the upper air into a mystical creed that was the very bulwark and sup- port of the brighter side, the " southern front," of his Meditations. Clement of Alexandria (it by the in- clusion of this name I may complete the list) adapts the Stoic precision of formula and definition to the growing science of Christian Ethics, which, issuing from the pure passivity of the Millenarian or the patient sufferer for truth's' sake, was destined, with its new interest, in social life, to re-create society in Europe. To resume : the victims of the Imperial regime gladly welcomed a somewhat frigid school as having an implicit power of sustenance and consolation in critical times. Yet within this loose network they borrowed from many sources ; they laid no claim to completeness or consistency. For the mainspring of their studies was not intellectual curiosity, or the desire of applause, or the tranquil discovery and enjoyment of eternal verities. In the decay or syncretism of various popular cults, in the congregation of the most varied nationalities under a single sway, in the blurring of all distinct outHne, once separating the petty gods from the great and single Source of Life, in the gradual closing to the nobles of the arena of practical ambition under a "THE STOIC PHILOSOPHER" 31 socialist monarchy which dispensed with their services, we may see the chief causes of this passionate devo- tion to Stoicism, and this gradual transformation of a commonplace scheme of materialism into one of the noblest, if the most melancholy, of all religions. Where all separateness of feature, all idiosyncrasy, had faded into a world-empire, where all individual effort or significance tended to disappear in a universal law, the sage meditating profoundly on the unity of Being and the nexus of events, the eternity of type and the triviality of the fleeting particular, could only find con- solation in Mysticism, none the less real because it was not explicit. § 9. Stoicism preaches, as we have seen, the ethic^^ of abstention. Centring all attention on the inner life I of the individual, like all the subjective schools of the/ post- Aristotelian age, it speedily despaired of finding a true sphere for his activity, and gradually withdrew its claims to occupy or to direct any portion of human life. The universal order and unity (so strangely contrasted with Epicurean pluralism) could be approached only by " unselfishness " ; that devotion to a purely typical {not a personal) exceUen^^ wMch__charaBtfirizes all -J^ tbought^/m_ t he field of m orals. The single free and perpetually repellent point of consciousness, the will (to which alone any value could be attached), was to be occupied in a meaningless conflict with natural emotion, and in lofty disdain of the outer world of nature or society. While the theoretical creed of the Stoic or the Cynic proudly pronounced its text to be a reasonable following of Nature, an insistence on the unity, harmony, and order in the world, and a belief in a common human brotherhood predominating above petty national or class 32 MARCUS AURELIUS distinctions, the School not only ended in setting the sage in isolation from a world of fate or chance, and from his fellows, but tortured him with a sense of dualism and unceasing conflict within the limits of his own nature. It was impossible to regard the world as a field for moral discipline and trial (for the conception of Stoic immortality compels us to pronounce its asceticism either impious or superfluous), nor, again, as a scene of perpetual advance for the human race towards a distant goal ; which belief, cold comfort though it be, may indeed sustain pilgrims in their own unsteady and failing footsteps. Neither was it a vain show, the uneasy dreams of some sleeping God : a theory which may amuse a pessimist speculator, and reconcile him to the indifference of sensations (or, in- deed, of hopes), which, after all, are not really his. § 1 0. It is difficult to say what the Stoic universe . meant for the wise man. Its motive, its author, its- goal were alike undisooverable ; and the kindly thoughts, the noble sentiment of duty, the compassionate unselfish- ness of so many of the School, were held as a legacy of some primitive religious teaching, some illogical remnant of personal temperament, in spite of the negative dogma of their philosophic creed. Personal distinction, earnest- ness of aim, and devotion to a set purpose, have conse- crated the names of Seneca, Epictetus, and Aurelius. But this influence depends, not on their close adherence to a logical system, but in the original sincerity of their sentiments, in their pure and genuine characters. Under them, the School loses all its distinctive features, its moral harshness, its dogmatism. A gentle melancholy of doubt, and a delicate and refined consideration for others, take the place of the certainty and the austerity "THE STOIC PHILOSOPHER" 33 of the elders. The Eoman character, tempered by that admixture with Spanish influences which marks the first century, both in politics and in letters, becomes mystical and feminine. Only from the older school is maintained that barren article of faith which is the doom of human effort or enterprise in Stoic, in Mahometan, in Brahmin — the divine Unity. Utterly unable to " qualify " or describe this original and comprehensive Being, rejecting the earlier physical interpretation, and straining on the path of negative theology towards a purely spiritual conception, they did, indeed, succeed in establishing a verbal kinship between the soul and its maker, one gleam of consolation in an alien world ; but in so doing, they abandoned the chief tenet of their nominal system, and prepared the way for that final leap into sentiment and emotion in which Greek philosophy was destined to perish. A like fate probably awaits all Schools which start from an assumption of original Unity. Stoicism is but one of many which end in a complete reversal of their most fundamental axioms. Monism has passed into the harshest Dualism ; Pantheism into an impossible transcendence ; sternness, certainty, and effort into doubt, compassion, and resignation. If Aurelius de- mands our sympathy and our praise in his unselfish efforts for the security of the Empire, it is because his practice is better than his creed ; because he has sup- planted the fate of positivism by a distant Providence, to whom he stretches out pure hands, full of mute but unavailing appeal But he is the last of Eoman Stoics ; he founds no School. Eational thought is swept away by a torrent of Oriental mysticism or ceremonial ; and even while we read his private memoirs the empty garments of a formal Stoicism fall away to disclose a 34 MARCUS AURELIUS soul glowing with an emotion midway between com- passion and love, and stirred to an activity (which his creed belied), if not by enthusiasm, at least by a strong sense of loyalty and duty. Our task will lead us to examine in detail the points in which the Emperor deserts the philosophy of the Schools for the truer instiucts of his own heart ; but iirst it. will be wise to inquire into the contributions of his fore- runner?, and thus estimate his debt to Seneca and to Epietetus. CHAPTER III DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHY IN ROME Analysis § 1. Roman "Stoicism" as a fa/miliar phase of human thought j faith - philosophy (in ethics) superindwxd, on natv/ralism a/nd without attempt at consistency. § 2. The Empire not the cause, hut one among many symptoms, of a widespread Quietism. § 3. Rome's contribution to Individualism ; as Nominalist, en- courages the concrete and personal, in default of Hellenic appreciation of abstractions. § 4. Seneca defmes "Sunmmm Bonum" a^ a " Soul" ; and attcichef weight to "prcecepta" rather than to " decreta." § 5. Decay of scientific dogmcUism, and distaMe for physical philology; Seneca seeks a moral Deity; and is unable to reconcile natural order and the moral law, or combine in a single Supreme principle. § 6. His Dualism and Asceticism ; he repudiates utilitariam, motive i/n Science, and dissuades from public life. § 7. The leisure of the true Sage occupied with friendship or introspection. § 8. The " chief good " as Tramqmllity of Mini ; Egoism of all Oreek philosophy. § 9. Absolute Irvwardness of the chief good; as an attitude of mind which places happiness entirely in our own power, and neither fmds nor demands correspondence in the outer world. § 1. It is perhaps a little unfortunate that we talk of " Stoicism " as the predominant philosophy at Eome among those whose energies, debarred from political action, had passed into the fresh channel of speculation 36 MARCUS AURELIUS on human conduct, independent of the civic sanction. If it is Stoicism at all, the tenets are very different from what we can deem certain in the older School. To call it Eclecticism again, or worse still Syncretism, is to give a difficult name to a very familiar phase of the human mind ; and perhaps to stifle the interest of an ordinary reader, who will fancy he has to deal with profound truth or logical subtleties, rather than with a moral attitude which is very likely nearly akin to his own. The Eoman character had indeed much in common with the practical sobriety of the English. It held fast, in the decay of local worships, to the original and honour- able sentiments which social instinct had implanted, and tradition had ennobled and illustrated by heroic example, — duty to self, to parents, to friends, and to country. They were either unable or unwilling to analyze the ultimate motives of conduct. The thought of tearing up the roots of moral behaviour and ex- amining critically the springs of action was abhorrent to them. As Professor Huxley makes no pretence at accommodating his human practice to the laws of the universe, as he completely separates ^ the human func- tion with its postulate of Freedom from the self-centred and predestined automatism of the rest of Creation ; so the Eoman " through evil report and good report " preserved his sense of human dignity, and respected the claims which an exacting State or a capricious Fortune might make on his loyalty, forbearance, or seK- sacrifice. He could not explain or justify ; but he was convinced that somehow it was his duty to act after the old time-honoured fashion. Divine sanctions might be ' As completely as Maurice Maeterlinck in his Kingdom of Matter, or as Andrew Seth in Man's Place in the Cosmos. PHILOSOPHY IN ROME 37 mere fables, and that peculiar tutelage of gods for men which has so often supported in good hopes and joyous- ness the victim of Chance. As the barriers of city- states vanished, as the world became one, so a sense of the unity, of the distance, of God was borne in upon the reflecting mind. A boundless expanse of Nature, a boundless leisure (save as an Imperial servant or of&cial), an almost limitless state coextensive with the human race; the decay, not merely of stirring municipal in- terests and competition, but of all except the vaguest positive beliefs, — ^these were the new facts to which the practical and conscientious spirit of the Eoman had to adapt itself. § 2. It is an error to suppose that the peculiar tendency of Koman thought, from Cicero to Aurelius, was due to the Empire, as creating an atmosphere of restraint and suspicion, of psychological analysis, of brooding over wrongs and the injury of an enforced idleness. The institution of the Empire was clearly but one of the symptoms of an abnormal condition of humanity in that age. No despotism has ever sup- ported itself against the will of the majority. The apotheosis of Csesar was a result, not a cause. The most fanatical worshippers of past liberty in this age never ventured to propose a substitute for the Caesarian regimen, though they were ready at any moment to change the particular representative. The distaste for affairs which is mostly attributed to Imperial jealousy was really the long-seated evil which rendered Csesar indispensable. A democracy (real or imaginary) which has disgusted the honest by its turbulence or venality has but one resort, the strong hand ; and Cicero in spite of his protestations, Seneca, and Aurelius, all 38 MARCUS AURELIUS recognized this, and felt that the high Idealism, sup- porting a republican form of government, had passed away for ever, and that the temper of the times de- manded a personal and embodied Sovereign, dispenser of the material benefits of justice, peace, and plenty.^ Over the Eoman world had spread this sombre veil of Quietism. This spirit had handed over to the con- querors as yet vigorous the independence of a wearied and diffident society, and had at last sought its newest recruits among the conquerors themselves. Speculation was a higher life than action ; indeed, was the highest kind of activity for those who claimed to be free. § 3. To this attitude of reserve arid resignation, the Eoman brought certain qualities of his own. It is the fashion to-day ^ to attribute to the Germano-Christian influence that emphasis on the liberty of the individual and his immortal destiny, which formed the secret impulse of the Mediaeval Empire, in its ideals, consti- tution, and development, which resulted, breaking up the Eealistic fabric inherited from Classical times, in the Eeformation, and the movements of Emancipation within living memory. But it will not be fair to forget the precious contribution of Eome. Greece, while it revelled in the wild and unaccountable caprice of some spoilt favourite of fortune, never rose to a full definition of the Personal. The brief emphasis on the relativity of knowledge in the Sophistic age, only reacted into a deification of the Absolute ; and the so-called Subjective Schools failed, as we have already seen, to justify or to explain individual consciousness. They could only 1 See the undoubtedly sincere language of Seneca as to the Imperial responsibilities and significance, De Clem. i. §§ 1, 3, 4, 5. ' See Gierke's Politieal Ideals in the Middle Ages. PHILOSOPHY IN ROME 39. point to a shadowy type of ideal man, before which all special or peculiar or relative qualities in each must be sacrificed as excrescences. The Eoman, as practical man of affairs even in retirement, knew nothing of these abstractions. He refuses (with Horace) to bow the knee to any master. He subordinates all to practice, he disparages logical symmetry, and believes all time wasted which is spent in those dialectic subtleties, so dear to the Porch, in its early Megarian and Eristic days. Cicero and Seneca mingle impartially, and with- out attempt at uniformity, the teaching of the Schools and the maxims of many rivals. Even that Ideal Virtue or Summum Bonum, which (in default of dis- covering the Sage) must ever remain beyond human attainment, should be sought rather in the concrete, imitable form, which its nearest imitators have set before us, all the more useful because they are im- perfect. Instead of reverence for Zeno and Chrysippus, masters of formula, we have respect for good men, for Socrates, Cato, and Brutus. The pages of Seneca are pleasantly diversified by anecdotes of honest citizens, whose approximations to Virtue are far more edifying than any solitary musing on ideal perfection. Thrice does Seneca startle us by calling the Chief Good a Soul ! No distant sea of impersonal goodness, no realm of pure ideas, no unfaltering moral Law, above and irrespective of all particulars ; but an individual, who had embodied and attained in some measure that human excellence of which all men were speaking,^ and 'Both djoen} and "virtus!' are entirely mistranslated by "virtue." Virtus suggests, I think, an external standard which demands our obedience without question or compromise ; while the other names imply a far closer and implicit connexion between the ideal and per- 40 MARCUS AURELIUS could offer in the concrete circumstances of life illus- trations of its method and value. § 4. In the 113th letter to Lucilius we find: " Justitia quid est ? Animus quodammodo se haiens." In Letter 117, § 12, Sapientia is defined as Mem per- fecta vel ad summum optimumque perdueta. So, too, in the " Blessed Life," § 4, " Summum Bmum est Animus fortuita despiciens" — and in Letter 120, § 8, when he is inquiring how the first rudimentary knowledge of right and wrong came to us, he believes the example of ancient merit and heroism stirred us to realize, by an admiration at first impulsive and involuntary (Fabricius and Horatius Codes, " hcec et hujusmodi facta imaginem Twbis ostendere Virtutis "). In precisely the same spirit, he is averse to empty generalizations, to laws of con- duct so universal that they cover everything and counsel nothing. He recognizes greatest profit, not in these formal " decreta," but in the " prsecepta " of the casuist or the Director. The difficulty in Ethics (whether as a science or for individual guidance) is never the discovery of general principles, but their application. All Seneca's writings are occasional, and are prompted by the distress or spiritual needs of his friends. The mere idle repetition of Stoic common- place, " The good man alone is happy," " Virtue is the sonal interest. This was due to the vague teleology which dominated Greek thought and its derivatives after Socrates. Harmony of inward and outward was eiSaijiovla, (rvn^dvus, 6/toXo7ov/i^i>(iis t^y rfj identical, so Seneca uses Nature and Qod interchange- ably. But we have already seen how the moralizing of the Divine idea in the Eoman Stoics had shaken the hold of the Divine Being on the actual world, " Semper paret, semel jussit." He does not control the physical universe, or the lot of individuals. He is like a parent in the folk-lore tales sending out his children into a world, scantily equipped with a few maxims of prudence and a father's blessing. " Insita sunt nobis omnium setatum omniumque artium semina, magisterque ex occulto JDeus producit ingenia" (Bene/, iv. 6). His collocutor rejoins that it is Nature and not God (as a special providence), " Natura hsec mihi praestat." Seneca will not hear of the antithesis : " Nonne intelligis, te cum hoc dicis, mutare nomen Deo ? " " Quid enim est aliud Natura quam Deus et Divina Eatio toti mundo partibusque ejus inserta." — § 8. "Ergo nihil agis, in- gratissime mortaUum, qui te negas Deo debere, sed Naturae." " Quia nee Natura sine Deo est, nee Deus sine Natur&, sed idem est utrumque nee distat officio." (See also N. Q. ii. 45 ; L i. prolog. : " Quid est Deus ? mens universi. Quid est Deus ? quod vides totum et quod non vides totum " ; with which we may compare Lucan's famous line : " Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris.") Now here, as in most parts of "THE WISE MAN" 59 the Stoical physical ethics (an absurd attempt to unite the irreconcilable), we see two conflicting tendencies. Again and again does Seneca hymn the delights of Science ; for it is an inquiry into God ; it is the truest occupation of the Sage's leisure ; not the mere ctfiera- /ie\j;T09 ^Bov^ of Plato, but a real insight into God's secrets and inmost essence. So much for the con- templative side. Speculatively, the universe is one and the individual a part ; God is Nature. § 6. But the moment the practical or moral side is approached, this postulated harmony at once disappears. The Deity is implicitly in strongest contrast to the work of his hands, just as man, as spirit, as intelligence, is to his body. Universe and body are for practice, dismissed with epithets as contemptuous, as ascetic, as are ever found in the frankly Dualist Schools. The real essence of the Divine creeps into the soul of the wise man, to escape, as it were, from the creature which has passed beyond control. There is even a certain chivalry to a fallen and exiled monarch. God is "quod non vides totum, qiiodcunque moveris " ; the thoughts of the good, the unseen world (such as a Eoman could conceive it) ; and the tendency of all Pantheism is to separate more sharply than before the natural mechanism in which it starts, from the transcendent spirit, in which it invariably ends. Every attempt to unify the world in a gigantic and audacious synthesis issues in this strange Dualism. The unequally mated yoke-fellows spring apart aU the more vehemently for their brief and enforced companionship. So Seneca, when he bids^ us follow Nature, because Nature is God, is not really f giving us a maxim for practical life. (Ot. 5 : " Ergo, J secundum Natura vivo, si totum me illi dedi, 6o MARCUS AURELIUS si illius admirator cultorque sum. Natura autem utrumque facere me voluit et agere et contemplationi vacare. Utrumque facio quoniam ne contemplatio quidem sine actione est.") The wise man found the unity demanded by his reason only in theory ; from the life of action he felt himself debarred. Underlying the word " nature " are two polar conceptions. The one would seem to banish reflexion and immerse in a life of natural wants and pleasures ; but the identification with G-od in the second sense lays stress on the special prerogative of man, his reason ; enshrines the deity in his inmost soul (" quasi Deum in humane corpore hospitantem ") ; and to enable him to maintain in some region the fiction of Unity, condemns him to moral passivity and negation, or as a counsel of perfection, perpetual contemplation of the physical order, — an eternal but unmeaning spectacle. § 7. It is consonant with this attitude that Seneca should depreciate history, the pageant of man on the stage of time. The Eomans could form no estimate of the significance of the Empire. It was reserved for foreigners in a later age, like Eutilius, or Claudian, or Corippus, or even Dante, to see the immense advance which Augustus (rather than Julius) had effected, with such ironical modesty, in political ideals. The Emperor Aurelius is free from the slightest sympathy with the past, as from any hope for the future. Earely does he mention a historic name, except to point the moral of the futility and nothingness of men, and the things about which they toil and struggle in the brief and feverish nightmare of life. And Seneca, though he is not as blind as Tacitus or Suetonius to the meaning of «THE WISE MAN" 6i the. Empire,^ yet has no sort of appreciation for the transient and yet glorious attempt of Alexander. Eome adopted his precedent and gave it life; original in nothing save in the power to clothe an ideal with flesh and blood, and give a frozen statue life. Yet Seneca only talks of the " latrocinia Alexandri," and turns in disgust to scientific studies. § 8. This is not the place to enter fully into Seneca's psychology. It will be enough to observe that, like all the Eomans, he adopts the Platonic imagery of the imprisonment of a pure and divine element in a fleshly tomb of dross or mud. He rivals the mystic in the intensity of his desire to fly from this hateful companion- ship. The precise form of pantheism dominant in the Eoman Empire at this time tended to sever body and soul from any joint action. The Gnostics carried this tendency to its utmost limits. Their practical teaching is a caricature of the Stoic Sage with its carelessness of externals, or of moral action, and its exclusive insistence on the purity of the divine particle within : this could not be defiled by any bodily deeds, and so these were dismissed as superfluous or immaterial : f) rfX&aa' 6/juofioj^ rf Se ^prjv dvm/ioro^. Against this tendency the Christian Church struggled persistently ' Cf. his probably sincere words on the Emperor's position, duties, and responsibilities, Z>e Clem. i. 2, 3, 4 : " Ego ex omnibus mor- talibus plaoui electnsque sum qui in terris Deoriun vice fungerer, ego vitae necisque gentibus arbiter, etc. etc. 8. Quam multa tibi non licent quae nobis beneficio tno licent ! " See also Consol. ad Polyiium with its eulogy of Claudius and conception of Imperial responsibilities ; and the whole of Ep. Ixxiii., especially § 18 : " Oonfitebitur ergo multum se debere ei, cujus administratione et providentia contingit illi pingue otium et arbitrium sni temporis, et imperturbata puhlids occupationibus quies. ' Meliboee (quotes Seneca with approval) Deus nobis haeo otia fecit. ' " 62 MARCUS AURELIUS and not in vain. Epictetus and Aurelius both seek to depreciate the body, and with it external action, by harsh and contemptuous names. These Platonic and G-nostie ideas were widely diffused and accepted in this epoch, to the lasting prejudice of morals. They are certainly clearly visible in Seneca; but the vagueness of his definition must here preclude us from attempting precise treatment. Suffice it to point out in correction of a common error, that this DuaUsm was far more generally predominant in Pagan than in Christian Ethics. § 9. I shall conclude this episode, already overlong, with a rapid summary of Seneca's tenets and character- istics, as they may be collected in the disconnected series of occasional writings. As a practical Eoman seeking guidance for the single life, he objects to the degradation of Philosophy to Philology.^ As a Stoic he adopts loyally the doctrine of the Sufficiency of "Virtue,"' "honestum," as the only End. As a man of experience who has mixed with men and courts, he believes all men are good by nature, but are blinded or warped by convention; and by ignorance which pursues false " goods " ; the simplicity of earlier life was the Golden Age. As a Monist, he holds this Universal Nature as the true guide, which has given us the special dower of Eeason, and calls us (whether we name her God or Providence or Pate) to enjoy her contemplation rather than abuse her bounty. As a Pessimist, he teaches that the true life, the genuine philosophy, is a perpetual meditation on death, exile, pain,^ and poverty ; for the world outside, with all its 1 Epp. 27 (16), 45, 48, 49, 82 (9, 19, 22), 83, 88, 106, 108(23, 35), 109 (17), 111, 113 (17, 25) ; Breo. Vit. 10. ° Ep. 114 : " Nihil tamen seque tibi profuerit ad temperantiam omnium "THE WISE MAN" 63 method and order, has no correspondence to the sage's "good will," and (unlike the theory of Descartes) the Deity cannot or will not bring about occasionalistic conformity. As a Manichee, this world-order is the Eealm of Chance or Fortune, conceived as a malignant spirit, with whom the good can have no dealings. As a Personalist, he prefers example to precept, and has perhaps adopted the Stoic profession because he finds in the worthies of Eoman annals living (if unconscious) patterns of scholastic "Virtue." As a Scientist, he fails to appreciate the value of History as giving signs of advancement and of progress, as ministering comfort to our sense of weakness and failure : the only true leisure from self-improvement is to study the universal laws, not the records of human frailty. As a Prob- abilist, he is apt to follow the popular voice, the " consensus gentium," rather than applaud the " heuretic " power of the speculative reason.^ As an Agnostic, he declines to pronounce on any ultimate problem except the sufficiency of "Virtue," the solidarity of the human brotherhood, the unity of the cosmic order ; he does not flatter himself he has reached truth.* Finally, as a Mystic, his aspirations are often devotional; and the rerum quam cogitatio brevis sevi et hujus inoerti ; quioquid facias, reapioB ad Mortem." (Cf. also Ep. oxx., quoted on p. 65.) ^ The attentiveness of Heaven to our prayers is proved by the manifest concurrence of human opinion and practice, not by a priori qualification of the God's nature. Benef. iv. 4 : " Non surda numina et ineiSoaces Deos." Similarly, personal immortality, on which he is very ambiguous, follows on popular acceptance rather than dogmatic teaching. " Benef. iv. 33 : " Nunquam exspectare nos certlssimam rerum oomprehensionem quoniam in arduo est Veri exploratio ; sed e& ire, qua dncit Veri similitude. Sequimur qua Katio, non qua Veritas ducit^ — thus in the end a chasm yawns between the separate subjective reason and objective Truth, 64 MARCUS AURELIUS Sage is the peer of God, except in eternity, for both have made "il grani rifiuto," the great renunciation.^ Both view the world, saying, " Haec omnia mea sunt " ; but only if neither attempt to control or to enjoy ; and it may be that he felt that the truly Divine in the outer order met and blended with the single point of human consciousness, and found there its highest expression, and its only secure asylum. APPENDIX In order to complete the portrayal of Seneca as a philosopher, and to allow him the same opportunity as we shaU give to Epictetus and Aurelius, I subjoin certain selected passages on the subjects of chief Stoical import: the nature of man and of the world ; the divinity of the soul and its future life ; the scientific or religious interest, and the true function of the wise to contemplate rather than act. We shall detect here, without need of further comment or elucidation, the growing tendency to free the spirittud element (and notion) from the husk or envelope of physical constraint, and elevate a transcendentcd concept of soul and deity, in place of an immanent abstraction. A 1. The soul as Divine j Ep. xxxi. : " Animus rectus . . . Quid aliud voces hunc, quam Deum in humano eorpore hospi- tantem ? " — Ep. xli. : " Non sunt ad coelum elevandae manus, nee exorandus sedituus . . , prope est a te Deus, tecum est, intus est. Ita dico Lucili, sacer intra nos spiritus sedet malorum bonorumque nostr. dbservator et custos. . . i. In ' Ep. xxxi. ad fin. : " Tutum iter est, juouDdum, ad quod Natnra te instruxit. Dedittibi Ilia quse si nou deserueris par Deo surges. Farem autem Deo pecunia non faciet : Deus nihil haiet. Frsetexta non faciet : Deus nvdvs eit. Fama non faciet . . . nemo novit Deum." "THE WISE MAN" 65 unoquoque bonorum (' quis deus inoertum est ') hdbitqi,iJ (The good man,) "majore sui parte illic est, unde desg^dil/. Quemadmod. radii solis contingunt quidem terrain se#r ii cant unde mittuntur ; sic Animus magnus et sacer, et' in hoc de- missus ut propius divina nossemus, conversatu? quidem nobis- cum, sed hseret origini susb." — Ep. Ixxiii. : "Miraris hominem ad deos ire ? Deus ad homines venit, immo quod propius est, in homines venit. Nulla sine Deo mens bona est. Semina in corporibus humanis divina dispersa sunt." — Ep. xcii. : " Hie Deos sequat, illo tendit, originis sua memor . . . Quid est autem cur non existimes in eo divini aliquid existere, qui Dei 'pars est. Totum hoc quo continemur, et unum est et Deus : et socii sumus et membra. Capax est noster animus." — Ep. cxx. : " Perfectum animum . . . supra quern nihil est nisi mens Dei ex qua pars et in hoc pectus mortale defluxit ; quod nunquam magis divinum est quam ubi mortalitatem suam cogitat." Ot. Sapientis, 32 : " An illud verum sit quo maxime probatur, hominem divini spiritus esse partem, ac veluti scintillas quasdam sacrorum in terras desiluisse atque alieno loco hsesisse ? " Cons, ad Helv. 6 : " Mobilis et inquieta mens homini data est : ... Vaga et quietis impatiens et novitate rerum laetissima: quod non miraberis si primam ejus originem aspexeris. Non ex terreno et gravi concreta corpore ; ex illo cselesti spiritu descendit ... ex iisdem quibus divina con- stant compositu(s) seminibus." A 2. The Body is contemptible, a burden to the soaring impulse of spirit. Ep. Ixxviii. : " Vir magnus ac prudens animum deducit a corpore, et multum cum meliore et divina parte versatur ; cum hac qtierula ac fragili quantum necesse est." — Ep. cii. : " Gravi terrenoque detineor. . . . Quicquid circa te jacet rerum, tanquam hospitalis loci sarcinas specta ; transeundum est. . . . Detrahetur tibi hsec circumjecta novissimum velamentum tui cutis ; detrahetur caro . . . ossa 66 MARCUS AURELIUS ,vfe)^vique. . . . Depone onus ! .^kjuo animo membra jam super- Vacu^imitte eti stud corpus inhabitatum diu pone. . . . Quid JRta. ai^AJIicris nnasi tiia. ? istis opertus es." (Ishtar's descent.) Ep. cjcx.* "Nee domum esse hoc corpus sed hospitium et quidem breve .. . . hino atque hinc tentamur et expellimur ; hoc evenire solet in alieno habitantibus. . . . Nos corpus tarn putre sortiti," etc. — Ep. Ixv. : " Ista enim omnia . . . attollunt et levant animum qui gravi sareina pressus explicari cupit et reverti ad ilia quorum fuit. Nam corpus hoc animi pondus ac poena estj premente illo urgetur, in vinculis est nisi acoessit Philosophia." Cons, ad Helv. 11: " hsec circumf usa gravis sareina . . . Corpusculum hoc custodia et vinculum animi." — Ep. xxiv. : "Mortale et fragile corpusculum . . . grave corporis mei pondus." G. Soul thus distinguished from the grosser envelope finds its chief delight in science and contemplation. Ot. Sap. 32 : "Curiosum nobis Natura ingenium dedit; et artis sibi ac pulcritudinis suss conscia, speetatores nos tantis rerum spectaoulis genuit. ... In medifi, nos sui parte constituit, et &iXumspeotum omnium nobis dedit ; nee erexit tantummodo hommem, sed etiam ad oontemplationem . . . sublime fecit illi caput ... ad haec quserenda nato. . . . Natura autem utrumque facere me voluit et agere et contemplationi vacare." Brev. Vit. 19 : " Eecipe te ad hsec tranquilliora, tutiora, majora ! ad hsec sacra et sublimia aocedas, sciturus quae materia sit Diis, quse voluptas? — quis animum tuum casus exspectet, ubi nos a corporibus dimissas Natura componat ? etc. (hence will arise) cupiditatum oblivio, vivendi atque moriendi scientia, alta rerum quies." — Ep. Iviii. : "Imbecilli fluidique per intervalla consistimus ; mittamus animum ad ilia quse seterna sunt; miremur in sublimi volitantes rerum omnium formas (i. e. Ideas Platonicas) ; Deumque inter ilia versantem." — Ep. Ixv. (Philosophy) "ilium respirare Eer. Naturae speetaculo jussit et a terrenis dimisit ad divina. Hsec libertas ejus est, "THE WISE MAN" 6^ hsec evagatioj subducit interim se custodioe in qua tenetur et caelo reficitur." — Ep. Ixxix. (This study begun here in reverent spirit is the delight of heaven hereafter for the released souls) : " Licet oontentus interim sit effugisse tenebras, adhuc non fruitur bono luois. Tunc Animus noster habebit quod gratuletur sibi, quum emissus his tenebris in quibus volutatur . . . totem diem admiserit, et redditus cselo suo fuerit, quum receperit locum quem occupavit sorte nascendi. Sursum vocant iUum initia sua. Erit autem illie etiam antequam hac custodia exsolvatur, quum vitia disjecerit . . . in divinas cogitationes emicuerit." — Ep. Ixxxii. : "(Fortuna) neminem oecupat nisi hserentem sibi. Itaque quantum possumus ab ilia resiliamus ; quod sola prsestabit sui Natures- que cognitio : sciat quo iturus sit, unde ortus," etc. Ep. Ixxxviu. : " Magna et spatiosa res est Sapientia . . . de divinis humanisque discendum est . . . an per se sit aliquid, deinde an aliquid ante tempus sit, si tempus cum mundo CSBperit, an et ante mundum quia fuerit aliquid, fuerit et tempus. Innumerabiles quaestiones sunt de Animo tantum; unde sit, q^ualis sit, quamdiu esse incipiat ... an aliunde alio transeat et domicilium mutet, ad alias animalium formas conjectus ; an non amplius quam semel serviat et emissus, vagetur in toto ; . . . quomodo libertate sua usurus quum ex hac effugerit cavea ; an obliviscatur priorum et illic nosse se incipiat, postquam de corpore abductus in sublime secessit." Ep. xc. (Philosophy) ; " ad beatum statum tendit . . . qusB sint mala quae videantur ostendit . . . totius Natures notitiam et SU8B tradit. Quid sint Dii qualesque . . . quid inferi . . . quid in secundam Numinum formam animsa perpetuse, ubi consistant, quid agant. . . . Hoc ejus initiamenta sunt, per quae non muniaipale sacrum, sed ingens omnium Deorum templum mundus iste, reseratur. . . . Ad initia deinde rerum redit, et jEternam Eationem toti inditam, et vim omnium seminum singula proprie figurantem. Tum de animo csepit inqxdrere unde esset, ubi, quamdiu. . . . Deinde a corporalibus 68 MARCUS AURELIUS se ad incorporalia transtulit, Veritatemque et argumenta ejus excussit. — Nat. Qu. I.prmf." (Here the division betw. " actio " and " contemplatio " is called " quae ad homines, quse ad deoB spectat.") "Altior est haec et animosior: multum permisit sibi : non fuit oculis contenta. Majus esse quiddam suspicata est ac pulcrius quod extra conspectum Natura posuisset. . . . Altera docet quid in terris agendum sit, altera quid agatur in c8b1o. . . . Supra banc caliginem in qua volutamur excedit et tenebris ereptos illo perducit unde lucet. . . . Naturae Rerum gratias ago . . . quum secretiora ejus intravi . . . quse Uni- versi materia sit, quis auctor aut custos : quid sit Deus : totus in se intendat an ad nos aliquando respiciat ; faciat quotidie aliquid, an semel fecerit ; pars Mundi sit, an Mundus ; liceat illi bodieque decernere et ex lege Fatorum aliquid derogare ; an majestatis deminutio sit et confessio erioris, mutanda fecisse . , . Nisi ad hsec admitterer, non fuerat nasci ! " (We may note here that this passage approaches nearer to our modern conceptions of Pure Theology than the subsequent physical phenomena, in which centres the interest of the " Nat. Qucbs- tiones.") " Detrahe hoc insestimabile bonum " ( = theoretical science) "non est vita tanti. quam contempta res est homo nisi supra bumana surrexerit ! . . ." The secondary and cath- artic value of moral purification is clearly put in a later section, and would delight Aristotle and Porphyry i " Virtus . . . magnifica : non quia per se beatum est malo caruisse, sed quia animum laxat ac prseparat ad cognitionem caelestium dignumque elficit qui in consortium Dei veniat." (Morality, as a necessary stage to be transcended, and in itself only needful because of the body, which stands in the way of the yet pure unimpeded energy of the rational soul. In this half-Neoplatonic half- scientific emphasis on intellectualism, Seneca, if he is sincere, has a far more amiable outlook on the world than his two successors. He can almost shelve the question of immortality as unmeaning, so implicit is the notion of continued life in the mastery of eternal truth. For example, do these words refer to "THE WISE MAN" 69 this life or the next ? — " Tunc consummatum habet plenumque bonum sortis humanse, quum calcato omni malo petit altum et in interiorem Naturae finem venit. Tunc juvat inter sidera ipsa viigantem, divitum pavimenta ridere," etc. (In this scientific study of self and Nature, atheism is impossible. As Marcus sees the absurdity of allowing man a reason denied to the outer world, so Seneca.) " Sunt qui putent sibi ipsis animum esse et quidem providum ac dispensantem singula, et sua et aliena: hoc autem Universum, in quo nos quoque sumus, expers esse consilii, et aut ferri temeritate quadam aut Natura nesciente quid faciat. Quam utile existimas iata cognoscerel . . . quantum Deus possit? materiam ipse sibi formet an data utatur ? . . . Deus, quioquid vult, eificiat, an in multis rebus ilium tractanda destituant, et a magno Artifice prave f ormentur multa ] (Non quia cessat ars, sed quia id in quo exercetur ssepe inobsequens arti est.) Hseo inspicere, hsBO discere, his incubare, nonne transilire est mortalitatem suam et in meliorem transcribi sortem? ... si nihil aliud, hoc certe sciam omnia angusta esse, mensus Deum ! " — Cons, ad Helv. 8 : "Animus contemplator admiratorque Mundi, pars ejus magnificentissima, — propria nobis et perpetua, tamdiu nobiscum mansura, quamdiu ipsi manebimus " (where I believe propria, etc., to be neuters, including " mundus hie " before, the two things which, as subject and object, are correlative and ever in our power). 9 : " Dum oculi mei ab illo spectaoulo cujus insatiabiles sunt non abducantur, dum mihi lunam solemque intueri liceat, dum ceteris inhaerere sideribus, dum ortus eorum occasus intervallaque et causas investigare velocius meandi vel tardius. . . . Dum cum his sim et caslestibus, qua homini fas est, immiscear ; dum animum ad eognatarum rerum eonspectum tendentem, in sublimi semper habeam : quantum refert mea, quid calcem? 11 : (Lapides and aurum)non potest amare sincerus Animus ac naturse suse memor, levis ipse et expers curse et quandoque emissus fuerit, ad summa emica- turus. Interim quantum per moras membrorum et hano 70 MARCUS AURELIUS circumfueam gravem sarcinam licet, celeri et vdlucri cogitations divina perlustrat . . . liber et dis cognatus et omni mundo omnique aevo par. . . . Animus ipse sacer et cBternus est, et cui non possunt injici manus." — Cons, ad Helv. 17 (Soul best when) : " animus omnis cogitationis expers operibus suis vacat ; et modo se levioribus studiis oblectat, modo ad considerandam suam Universique naturam, veri avidus insurgit. Teiras primum situmque earum quserit ; deinde conditionem circum- f usi maris, cursusque ejus alternos et recursus ; tunc quicquid inter caelum terrasque plenum formidinis interjacet perspicit, — et hoc tonitrubus f ulminibus ventorum flatibus ac nimborum nivisque et grandiuis tumultuosum spatium : Tum peragratis humilioribus ad summa prorumpit, et pulcerrimo diviaorum spectaculo fruitur, ^ternitatisque suae memor, in omne quod fuit futurumque est omnibus seculis, vadit." — Ot. Sap. 31 : " Huic majori Keipublicss et in otio deservire possumus ; immo vero nescio an in otio melius. . . . — ut qtusramus quid sit virtus ? . . . natura an ars bonos vLros f aciat 1 unum sit hoc quod maria terrasque . . . complectitur, an multa ejusmodi corpora Deus sparserit? Continua sit omnis et plena materia ... an diducta, et solidis inane permixtum sit! Deus sedens opus, suum spectet, an tractet 1 utrumne extrinsecus illi circumf usus sit, an toti inditus? immortalis sit Mundus an inter caduca et ad tempus nata numerandus ? Hseo qui contemplatur, quid Deo prsestat! ne tanta ejus opera sine teste sint. Solemus dicere, Summum Bonum esse secundum Naturam vivere : Natura nos ad utrumque genuit et eontemplationi rerum et actioni." D. On Death and Immortality. In spite of this happy- outlook and vast pretensions, death appearing as but an unimportant episode in the theoretic life which opens the gate of Truth still wider, there are not wanting passages of sceptical alternatives, of much perplexity about the continued existence of consciousness. Death becomes, then, as to the later Stoic leaders, a debt to the universal order, rather than "THE WISE MAN" 71 the Platonic emergence from bodily prison. Cons, ad Polyb. 27 : " Nam si nuUus defunotis sensus supereet, evasit omnia pater mens vitae incommoda ; in eum restitutus locum in quo fuerat antequam nasceretur; expers omnis mali nihil timet nihil oupit nihil potitur. ... Si est aliquis sensus ; — nunc animus fratris mei velut ex diutino carcere emissus tandem sui juris et arbitrii gestit, et Ker. Naturae spectaculo f ruitur et humana omnia ex superiore loco despioit ; divina vero, quorum rationem tamdiu frustra qusesierat propius intuetur. . . ., Aut heatus aut nullus est : beatum deflere iuvidia est, nullum dementia." — Ep. Ixxvi.: " Si modo solutse corporibus animse manent /eZiCTor illis status restat, quam est dum versantur in corpore . . . contra Mem est f eliciores esse liberis et in Universum datis clausas et obsessas." — Gons. ad Marc. 19: " Cogita, nullis def unctum malis affici. . . . Mors omnium dolorum et solutio est et finis . . . nos in illam tranquillitatem in qua antequam nasceremur jacuimus reponit . . . nee potest miser esse qui nullus est. Excessit filius tuus termiaos intra quos servitur. Excepit ilium magna et seterna pax." 26 (Maroia's father consoles her from his place in heaven) : " Nos quoque f elices animse et seterna sortitee quum Deo visum erit iterum ista moliri " ( = destroy the world), " labentibus cunctis, et ipsse parva ruinae ingentis acoessio in antigua elementa vertemur.'' Epist. xxiv. : " Non sum tam ineptus ut Epicuream cantile- nam hoc loco persequar . . . nemo tam puer est ut Cerberum timeat ! . . . Mors nos aut consumit aut exuit. Emissus meliora restant, onere detracto ; consumptis nihil restat." — Ep. Ixiii.: " Nunc cogita omnia mortalia esse. . . . Cito nos eo per- venturos quo ilium pervenisse mseremus. Et fortasse, si modo sapientum verafama est" (of. Tacit. Agric. last §) "recepitque nos locus aliquis, — quern putamus perisse, prsemissus est." — Ep. Ixv. : " Mors quid est ? aut iinis aut transitus " (Marcus' " /xeraffT^j/ai) : in the same strain, Ep. Ixx.: "Vis adversus hoc corpus liber esse ! tanquam migraturus habita ; propone tibi quandoque hoc eontuhernio carendum." Then Ep. Ixxi., with 72 MARCUS AURELIUS a similar vein to Marcus' musings on the need of death for the whole : " Nobis ^olvi perire est . . . fortius finem sui suo- rumque pateretur, si speraret omnia ilia sic in vitam mortemque per vices ire, et composita dissolvi, dissoluta componi : in hoc opere aeternam artem cuncta temperantis Dei verti." — cii. Again with confident eloquence : " Quum venerit dies ille qui mixium hoc divini humanique secernat, corpus hoc ubi inveni relinquam : ipse me Diis reddam. . . . Per has mortalis aavi moras illi meliori vitas longiorique proluditur ... in aUum NatursB maturescimus partum, alia origo nos exspectat; alius rerum status. . . ." Then with almost Christian rapture and ascetic fervour : " Veniet qui te revelet dies, et ex contubernio foedi atque olidi ventris educat. Hinc nunc quoque tu quantum potes, subvola : utique etiam necessariis quae cohserebunt alienus. . . . Dies iste quem tanquam extremum reformidas, ceterni natalis est! . . . Aliquando Naturae tibi arcana retegentur, discutietur ista caligo. Imaginare tecum quantus ille sit fulgor tot sideribus inter se lumen miscentibus ! . . . Quid tibi videbitur divina lux quum illam suo loco videris ? " In the last resort, as we see from a certainly sincere statement, he falls back on popular belief ; and while Philo- sophy may have inspired those magnificent hopes of a home among the Stars, it clearly has not strengthened its proof : " Quum de Animarum JEternitate disserimus, non leve momentum apud nos habet consensus hominum." I conclude with a somewhat lengthy quotation, still rhetorical, yet perhaps the most striking of any, and recalling clearly the fundamental note of pessimism in a reflective antiquity (tov t^vvra Oprp/iiv, etc. : Dio Chrysostom's Charide- mus) : " Si velis credere altius veritatem intuentibus, omnis vita Supplicium est." " In hoc profundum inquietumque projecti mare . . . nun- quam stabili consistimus loco . . . nuUus partus nisi mortis est. Ne itaque invideris fratri tuo ; quiescit, tandem liber, tandem tutus, tandem ceternus est. Fruitur nunc aperto et "THE WISE MAN" 73 libero emlo : ex humili atque depresso in eum emiouit looum, quisquis ille est, qui solutas vineulis animas beato recipit sinu ! Et nunc libere vagatur omniaque Eerum Naturae bona cum summa voluptate perspicit. Erras ! non perdidit lucem frater tuus sed securiorem sortitus est. Omnibus illo nobis commune est iter. Quid fata deflemus ? non reliquit ille nos, sed antecessit." E. The " Cosmopolis " and man's special function ; or the problem of the Two Natures. Cons. ad. Mare. 18 : " Puta, nascenti me tibi venire in consilium : Intratura es urhem dis hominibttsqiie communem omnia complexam certis legibus SBternisque devinctam, iudefatigata coelestium officia volventem" (followed by a list of Nature's wonders written with evident appreciation). — Ot. Sap. 31. (The greater Commonwealth has the more serious claims.) "Duas BespubUcas animo complectimur, alteram magnam et vere publicam qua Dii et homines continentur; in qua non ad hunc angulwn respicimus (yoji'tSiov), sed terminos Civitatis nostrce cum sole metimur.'' Ep. xxviii.: "Non sum uni angulo natus ; patria mea totus hie est Mundus." — Ep. cii. : " Magna et generosa res est Animus ; nuUos sibi poni nisi communes et cv/m Deo terminos patitur. . . . Illi patria est, quodcunque suprema et universa circuitu suo cingit.'' 2. Great emphasis on the peculiarity of endowment, of end, and therefore of perfection ( = happiness). Ep. Ixxvi.: " Omnia suo bono constant ; vitem fertilitas commendat, sapor vinum, velocitas cervum. ... Id in quoque optimum est, cui nascitwr, quo censetur : in homine quid optimum ? Ratio : hac animalia antecedit, Deos sequitur. . . . Homini suum bonum Eatio est; si banc perfecit, laudabilis est, et finem natv/rm suae attigit. Haec Eatio perf ecta. Virtus vocatur eademque honestum est." (So these four words arS inter- changeable, like God, fate, chance, Nature: the "good," the Highest End, Virtue, Eeason; — and as there is nothing in 74 MARCUS AURELIUS tlie objective world but God, so within there is only the " good will " which is to be accounted of. (Ep. xcii. : " Batio vero diis hominibusque communis ; hsec in illis consummata est, in nobis consummabilis.") Ep. cxxi. : "Dicitis, inquit " (Epicurus is objecting) " omne animal primum constitwtioni suae conciliari" (Marcus' KaracrKeui;) ; "homines autem constitu- tionem rationalem esse," etc. — Ep. oxxiv. : " (Bonum) hoc quod secundum naturam eujusque est." — Ep. xli. (fin.) : " Lauda in ipso quod nee eripi potest nee dari ; quod propriwm est hominis. Queeris quid sit ? Animus et Katio in animo perfecta. . . . Consummatur itaque ejus bonum si id adimplevit cui nascitur. Quid est autem quod ab illo Batio heec exigit 1 rem f acillimam secundum naturam mam vivere." (See below. Cons, ad Helv. 8, Propria virtus.) F. Traces found of a " Personalist " conception of Deity : Seneca treats all names for the ultimate forces as synonyms, and convertible (though he might be puzzled to put "Fortuna" in her right place as a mere attribute of the Supreme, as the unaccountable operations of Providence seen from the point of view of accidents). There is no need to multiply evidence of his ample identification. But one or two passages are interesting. Gons. ad Helv. 8 (How little the exile loses !) : " duo qusB pulcerrima sunt, quocunque nos moverimus, sequen- tur : Natwra communis et propria virtus. Id actum est mihi crede ab illo quisquis formator Universi fuit, sive ille Deus est potens omnium sive incorporalis Ratio ingentium operum artifex sive divinus Spiritus, per omnia, maxima, minima, sequali intentione diffusus, sive Fatum et immutabilis cau- sarum inter se cohaerentum series . . . ut in alienum arbitrium, nisi vilissima, non caderent." Ep. xvi. To an objector, who not without cause complains that Reason's only benefit is to assure us of our slavery : " ' Quid mihi prodest Philosophia si Fatum est ? . . . si Deus rector est? ... si casus imperati . . . Mutari certa non possunt : — si aut consilium meum Deue occupavit, deorevitque "THE WISE MAN" 75 quid facerem, aut consilio meo nil Fortuna permittit.' Quic- quid est ex his " (decides Seneca no less than Marcus) " vel si omnia hasc sunt, philosophandum est : Sive nos inexorabili lege ista constringunt, sive arbiter Devs universi cuncta disponit, sive casus res humana sine ordine impellit et jactat, philosophia nos tueri debet. Haec adhortabitur ut Deo libenter pareamus, ut Fortunm contumaciter resistamus." With which curious yet vague division of the realm of objective Nature and human experience, — a complete Manichean dualism, — we will take leave of Seneca. PART II THE IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE EPICTETUS CHAPTEE I EPICTETUS, OB THE NEW CYNISM ; DEVOTIONAL PERSONIFICATION OF THE COSMIC OBDEE (A) The Eeligious Teansfokmation of Philosophic Dogma Analysis New deooutness towards a personal god; Cynic missionary sent to all classes with Gospel tidings; egoistic idealism or indifference of Buddhist; in Epict. two opposite tendencies — (1) sympathy; (2) herrrdt isolation; Individualism (the will alone being free); this is all that God could bestow on His children {omnipotence limited) ; mystic comm/union. In Epictetus, a new phase passes over Stoicism. As St. Paul to Philo of Alexandria, so is Epictetus of Phrygia to Seneca of Eome. By the very urgency of personal needs, of devotional requirements, the con- ception of an all-embracing Force, indifferent to the particular and too abstract to be the object of prayer or 76 THE NEW CYNISM Tj reverence, is transformed into the old traditional Zeus, " father of gods and men." Without doubt it is in this novel religious earnestness and unction that the student detects the most significant feature. The Sage, more of a Cynic than a Stoic in principle, has a wider mission than the Imperial Minister : he is sent to all men with a kind of missionary consecration, to live in their sight the perfect life of happiness and peace. He is there, before their eyes, like some later Stylite of the East, or Western hermit ; set apart, indeed, from men and human pursuits, yet in a very real sense their guide, comforter, and counsellor. How easy and how accessible was salvation ! To him come wandering seekers after truth, with troubled consciences, or restless desires, vague and unsatisfied aspirations after an ideal. When Seneca, with less comprehensive sympathy, speaks only to direct a friend, Epictetus, knowing no caste, no restrictions in the human brotherhood, welcomes all without prejudice ; one instance only being shown where, as Socrates under demonic dissuasion, he found himself unable to converse with an applicant, because there was no sort of common agreement on which to base discussion or appeal. Not that this new interest in men as individuals recognizes as yet the " special endowment " of each as the starting- point. The ideal is still man as the " organ of im- personal Reason " ; no longer the aristocratic reserve of an intellectual confraternity, but the ascetic reserve of quietism, no less narrow. We must not look here for the Christian conception of society, varying according to the ability, equipment, opportunity of each constituent in a hierarchy of function and usefulness, — finding a place for the burning devotee, the cold scholastic, the taciturn recluse, the eloquent friar, the high-born lady. 78 MARCUS AURELIUS the lay brother at his menial task. The outlook of antiquity outside a restricted yet intense patriotism was singularly cramped. Although it was seen quite early that the motive alone counts, that it is the inward temper only which ennobles or degrades the outward act, no use was made of this fruitful thought. As Anaxagoras disappointed Socrates in his use of vov<}, so we find the suggestive maxim irdma vTroXT/yjrt^ lead- ing, not to the illumination of the phenomenal, of the circumstance of hfe, but rather to an egoistic Idealism, which denied or disregarded the concrete, to Sophistic subjectivity, to pure Buddhistic indifference. The busy and conventional activity of an average citizen was abhorrent to reflexion. The philosopher, especially after the death of Socrates, turned away from the " flamboyance " and diversity (woiKiXla) of the Hellenic character to meditate upon the One, and exchange eagerness for a passive role. The old contempt for the handicrafts (natural enough in a slave-holding community engrossed in civic feuds) tended to increase, and to include in the same con- demnation, not merely all artistic endeavour, but even the more formal political duties of active life. The philosophic ideal was a perpetual straining after a more perfect existence; but to the very last it remained empty of all positive content, a " blank luminous disc " rather than a " well-rounded sphere " (KvxXoTep^i a^aipoi), — bearing witness to the despondence and early discouragement, not to the vitality or fortitude, of the Greek mind. It was purely negative, if you like, " feminine " ; and could only issue, in spite of profes- sions of cosmopolitan sympathy, in abstention and resignation. THE NEW CYNISM 79 In Epictetus two opposite tendencies contend for the mastery, and their struggle and his effort at recon- ciliation add to the pathos of his character and teaching. All men to him are brothers, sons of a common parent, God Himself; and it is in this transcendental af&nity that he discovers a sanction for those peculiarly human virtues, kindness, consideration, forbearance, which seem at first sight so incongruous in any creature. For the sympathetic instinct is there, unquestionably ; the most puzzhng problem of philosophy is to rationalize, to justify it ; and, to speak frankly, from the standpoint of Stoic materialism this was impossible. Yet Epictetus, though he be a father confessor, has no special casuistry to apply to the several needs of his applicants. He has but one formula, one prescription for the cure of souls. The formula, too, sounds to us strange in the mouth of an '' apostolic " teacher. It is, " Physician, heal thyself ! " No one can do anything for another. Our sympathy,^ our appeals, good of&ces, kindly services, only play about the surface, and never touch the deep-seated evil of the soul. " No man may deliver his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him." Virtue, like the know- ledge of the Sophist, is incommunicable, although we may reverently repeat the Socratic text BiSaKTov 17 apeTTj. The missionary can only remind his hearer of his absolute and immediate power to be wise, happy, ' Even this sympathy is strictly against nature, which, in spite of the co-ordination of the parts, forms of each creature an impenetrable monad, immersed only in his special but selfish function, and with no legitimate end but self-culture: "You must not be angry with wrong-doers" (Teubner, 61, dvOpoiire, el a-i Set irapa (|>vo-i,v iirl rois oXXorpCois KaKois SiwrWeaBai, IKiei airbv imKKov fj ulaei). Their conduct has nothing to do with you ; and, in a choice of two evils, the less culpable affection of the soul is pity, — for it is less disturbing. 8o MARCUS AURELIUS and free, — his inalienable prerogative of instantaneous conversion, in spite of the long coils of evil habits, never forfeited. He can speak warmly, with fervour, unction, assurance, of the " grace of the Sonship," to be had for the asking. One simple article of faith sufficed ; that the will alone is free and self-sufficing ; that all outward things, our own poor bodily framework included, can never be under our control, and are thus indifferent and immaterial to our happiness. As in Aurelius, there tends to be a division between inexorable Fate and the provident gods, dispensers of benefits, who alone can be in a true sense objects of worship. No scientific inter- pretation of the world can ever calm the individual's anxiety or satisfy his sense of justice. God Himself sinks into a subordinate place, as the Platonic Demiurge ; He is limited in power by a law or destiny anterior to Him. His goodness is saved by limiting His authority ; and we gladly exchange an unintelligible omnipotence for the more human faculty of merciful contrivance, which brings Him nearer our level, within the scope of our comprehension. If this " almighty power " is in theory conceded, as in the Christian system, it is at once circumscribed by a voluntary abdication, which leaves room for the reality and distinct coexistence of persons, and for the useful- ness of moral effort. If these distinctions are allowed to evaporate in the night of the Absolute, it seeins there is no further need of energy in search or action ; nothing but the speculative self-introspection of a Deity at last awake in man, and contemplating the results of his unconscious labours with some amazement and con- siderable pain. Epictetus, with his practical motive and religious sentiment, never hesitates a moment. God has THE NEW CYNISM 8i given us all He possibly can ; He could do no more. He could not " put all things under our feet," " give us dominion " (as the worthy Hebrew said in his gratitude for tangible blessings) " over the works of His hands." The Divine Being is a " God of Sorrows," pathetic in stillness and helplessness : it appeals to us to keep "holy and undefiled," untarnished, and in undimmed lustre, that tiny luminous jewel within us which is part of itself. In reaction against the grossness anS un- spirituality of Stoic teaching, the vague devotionalism which we call the mystical spirit has spread widely since Seneca. Latent there and disguised by rhetoric, these pious aspirations to overcome the world of op- posites and distinctions have now become the sum and centre of the Neo-Cynic creed. The fatherhood of God, — the brotherhood of man, — such is the staple and sub- stance of " the Gospel which " (as Eenan tells us) " will never grow old." And yet, after this plausible common- place, in this reputed commonwealth of the Universe, such atomic isolation and reciprocal repulsion ! Such immure- ment of the individual in the narrow prison-house of his consciousness ! Such disappointing barriers to a larger and more vigorous sympathy ! Such natural evanescence or discouragement of corporate action ! Such oppressive despondency in the thought that, after all, God' is out of place in an alien world, like the wise man who follows in His footsteps : " He came unto His own, and His own received Him not " ! Such wistful adherence against hope to the one sheet-anchor of moral instinct, and to that one dogma which in Marcus will absorb all other articles of faith, that God is in us, " reconciling," not, indeed, " the world to Himself," but the individual soul in a blissful and indissoluble union ! 6 82 MARCUS AURELIUS (B) The Gift of Fkee Will; the Fathekhood of God ; THE Divinity of Souls ; the " Cosmo- poLis"; THE Special Function § 1. With increasing knowledge, with heightened activity of the State, our realm of freedom, of "one's own," shrinks to nothingness. " How much of that we once regarded as essential part of our personal self did we discover to be the resultant of influences that cross, confirm, or resist one another within us ! Within narrower and ever narrower proportions shrank that in us, which we could really call our own. One part the bodily organs claimed as their contribution, another fell beneath the general psychic forces, which, by no merit of their own, work according to identical laws in all individuals. The tiny sphere alone, that which is ruled and shaped by the freedom of our moral action, seemed to afford an asylum to our Eeal Self " (Lotze, Mihrohosmus, i. 1). If I may be allowed to quote from an earlier volume of my own : " The entire aim of post-Aristotelian thought had been to set the personal spirit free of all earthly hindrance and encumbrance — to concentrate thought upon itself. But in proportion as this effort was successful, and the Spirit released itself from all that was not germane to its true life, the realm of alien things loomed larger and larger, because ever more threatening and hostile. Such sacrifice had enriched the power of the enemy, and impoverished the territory of the man, — struggling in a vain pretence of freedom against overwhelming odds " {School of Plato, Bk. iv. ch. iv. § 3). This free wiU, ineffective beyond itself, was God's best gift to man, indeed his very self. It rose like a small point of rock THE NEW CYNISM 83 from the midst of the waters, which submerged every- thing else. It is the centre, not only of individual life, but of an entire scheme of anthropology. It was free, because God its giver and parent was free. It was here, not to act but to contemplate. Within it lay the good and ill of life ; good, if it exercised its soverei^ rights ; ill, if it allowed itself to become perverted, and mistook obstinacy for principle. It was amenable to no power or influence but its own ; and to convert another is only to suggest, and let the lesson work its way in : " for no man may deliver his brother." In this supreme gift, a portion of Himself, God had exhausted His bounty. He could give us nothing more that was not the mere sport of chance and circum- stance. The body, covered with opprobrious epithets, dissolved partnership with this proud yet ineffectual monad : just as the world (in spite of appeal to take everything as sent by God's goodness and mercy) had really slipped from the control of Deity. 5. & k. Koivcavol^ TOlOVT0lov ; e« TawTijs yotp T^? ovfKa(nov avapairo- Sia-Tov, (Of. Eufus in the Eclogues of Stobceus, ii. 8 : TO KoKXi'aTov , . . m hi] K. avTO<; evSai/Mov e.) So 130. Tii ovK riBwrfOrj iroifjaai . . . TravTat avdp. ireiaai Tvva i. ay. k. KaKa. Mtf yhp BeBorai aoi TOVTo ; ixetvo fiovov aoi BiBoTai, cravrov irelaai. 256. Upoaipeaiv yap ovBev BwaTai KuXGcrai ^ ^ci\frai . . . ei 1*7) avTr) eamrjv. (So Encheir. § 48 : f}>i\6(roo^ nraaav ax^xXeMv k. ^\a^7)v ef eavTov irpoaBoKa.') So 92. So 193 : IlpoaCpeaiv ti ifiTroBi^eiv iri^vKev, airpoaiperov ovBev ainrj B eavTvfv BiaaTpaipelaa. 270. ITw? oZv 6Tt di'eiiiroSioToi' eivai ti BwaTat t&v TOV voei. — TaXahrcopoi, tovto i^epyd^eade, tovtov iirifiiXeaOe, ivravda fjjTetre to dya06v. 174. ovre irXovrofs i. i^' fifuv ov9' vyieia . . . irk^u opOi) j(^pfjati (pavTaai&v. Tovt dK(4\uToi' ^vcrei fiovov, TovT dvefiirohi nvi fie Bei dpiaxeiv rivt v7roTeTdj(dai . . . rm 6e&. . . . 'Efie itcelvot a-vvea-Tijcrev ifiavrm k. rijv i/iiji/ irpoaipEcrii' uitiraiev efiol fuSi'u, Sov9 xdvova^ 6(9 y^prjffiv avTi}<{. This alone is in the strictest sense good ; com- pare Kant's famous exordium: (32) *Av fiov TrwOdvy Tt e. ayaaov tov avup. ovk e'^to aoi okKo eiireiv rj on TToid irpoaipea-K, — All else is dWorpia and under alien control,^ but on this, even though the tyrant say, " I will show you who is master," he has no real hold. (65) " iyo) aot Bei^eo on Kvpioi elfit.'' IloOev av ; ifie 6 Zevi EXEuBepoc 6.^x\tLiv. *Ji SoKeK on e/j^Wev tov tSiov ulov idv KaraBovXavaOai ; tov vsKpov he fwv Kvpio'i el, Xdfie aiiTov. Here are all the striking features of later Stoicism: contempt of body, complete abandonment of all externals to the "Temporal power" (for strangely enough the reign of Fortune, so constant a theme for Seneca's eloquence, is here forgotten), and the complete exemption of this one small point from other laws, physical or social. § 2. This last quotation will lead us imperceptibly to the second point in the Epictetan estimate of man, " The Fatherhood of God " ; a vague pietistic doctrine, ' This summaTy dismissal of the foreign and alien in our lives is the leading doctrine of Epictetus, and appears with vinceasing assorance. 86 MARCUS AURELIUS engrafted on the early materialism of the Porch by a natural alliance in Eome with practical endeavour, with primitive instinct, with religious behef. Socrates, who from a formal standpoint is merely the author of definition and generalisation, is, in the history of thought, notable rather for his recall of exiled gods, his unfeigned interest in others, his " superstitious " belief in a special monitor, a special mission. Epictetus, in similar fashion, mitigates the coldness of unchanging law by the warmth of allegoric language ; which, though it bafHes analysis and is wholly inconsistent with the rest of his creed, nevertheless represents a sincere, if vague, conviction, the triumph of Faith over Reason. From a recognition that God is our Father in a special sense, he believes all else will follow. 13. Ei rt? rai Soyfian rovTtp av/j/iraOrjaai, kut a^iav Svvairo on, YEYOfafi.ey uiro tou Oeou Travre? irpotiyovfiivo)'} k. 6 Bcos iranip e. Tmv t' avdp. k. 6eS)v, such an one will entertain no ignoble thought about himself {w^evvevofieva, irpoTiyovnipm^ S' ei? tA XoyiKa, on Koivcoveiv fiovov Ttwra Tre^VKe t^j 6ea tjjs avvavav aiiT&v (TTrep/idrav fi&^ove k. t^? avrrj'; avtaOev Kara^oXrjis; (cf. St. John i. 12, 13, iii. 7), ov /lefivija-T) rl el k. rivmv dp)(ei^ ; on (rvyyev&v, ort dSeVifiwi' ^iaei, ort rov AiSs &Ticy6va>i'. He sweeps aside the next pretext of absolute ownership with magnificent indignation and contempt for the material fabric and social conventions, "But I bought him with my own money." " Do you see where you are looking ? To earth, to this pit of confusion, to these miserable legal fictions of dead men, not to the eternal laws of heavenly ordinance ! " (ets rijv yriv, etv veKpSsv, eU he tov^ rStv 0e&v ov jSXeTrew). Hercules, through his life, spent in perpetual toil and exile, was never anxious about his children. 289 : ov arevrnv ovSk TToOav ov^ a) Be irpo^yovfievov el, av dTr6ffiracr(*a ei 90 MARCUS AURELIUS Tov Seov' ej^ertt? iv (raxn^ (i^pos eKeivov . . . ovk otSa? on 6ebv rpi^eK, deov yv/ivd^eii ; Oebv Trepi^epeK ToKaf K. ayvoelv ! . . . avrov rod deov irapovro^ eaadev K. e^op&vTov irdvra k. k'rTu,itovovTo%, are you not ashamed to think and do what you would not dare to, before his image in the Temple ! w dvaiadjiTe t^s cravrov (f>v(Teoa<}\ (of. 156, 157, where irapaKoXovdeip T^ SioiKovvTi TO, oka is coupled with eKeivov ev aavrar irepiipepeiv). What precise meaning can be attached to the notion is impossible to define ; sometimes the " Deity within " is a sort of burnished silver idol ; sometimes a guardian angel with plenary powers ; some- times an insulted and forgotten sovereign sitting apart in a palace where rebels carouse. — 373. The Soul is the true man ; avovei/Mv kov oXiyov ypSvov tw aavrov 'HyefiovcK^' aicei^ai rl ttot ep^et? toOto k. troOey £\r]Xu6d$, ... if all your time be given to externals (ja eiero^) you will keep this squalid and neglected {pvirapov k. aTrj/jLeX/rjTOv). § 4. This doctrine of the essential kinship of man with God in a highly spiritual sense, leads naturally to the doctrine of the Cosmopolis, and man's duty as a subordinate part of a great whole. — 117. If you are a separate entity, detachable from the rest {diro- XvTov), by all means live your own life ; et Se ws . . . }i,ipo^ °oXoo Tivoel^ 6 Kvpioi K. IBmv avTov ao^apSi<; BiaraaffOfievov, e\Kva-a<; erefiev ("The Lord turned and looked upon him," as he is beating his fellow-servants, and " cut him asunder," appointing him his due portion), — otJro) ryiverai K. ip ry fieyoKr} Tavrri HoXei' e'ffTt <^dp Tt? k. ivOdS' olKoSeo-irorrjs eKaara hiardaawv, giving to each their role (which Plato left to the prenatal choice of mortals, deix; dvairio'i), somewhat unwisely for a professed Theodicy. " You be the sun ; you, again, a heifer, when the lion comes, do your part ; else you shall repent. You be a bull, come forth and fight ; for this is your fitting function. You, again, can lead an army to Troy; so be Agamemnon. You can meet Hector in single combat; be you Achilles!" — 288. 'O Koa-fw^ oiiToii fiia iroXis 6. K. 7] ovala ef i^9 SeBrjijiiovpyrjrai fiia, k. avdryKij vepioSov riva elvai k. -irapa-^fatprftriv aXKxov SXKoK : where we may note Aurelius' favourite apology; — the consubstantiality of the world, the fleetingness of the part, the rearrangement of constituents scattered by the dissolution of an organism, the need of this to keep the whole bright and new by perpetual change. So 371 : aira^ /iaOciv on t6 yevofievov k. 6apfjvai Sei, Xva 6 KoVfios (jJq la-TrjTai fjuriS i/iiroBL^iiTai, — correspond- ing exactly to that meditation on the transience of physical objects, brief compounds soon resolved, which comprises the whole of Aurelius' speculative knowledge; and is all the lesson the Universe has to teach him. THE NEW CYNISM 93 (C) Providence extendikg to Pabticulass; Discipline oe the Sons of God Analysis § 5. Natural Lorn becomes God's mil ; God interested even in persons (Socrates). § 6. The Good must be happy, like Hercules, the Son of God, in all the toils which the tashmaster imposes. § 5. There is in such a Universal Law (. . . com- pounded of a father's tender solicitude, a harsh task- master's arbitrary apportionment to slaves . . .) a continual change of standpoint from Pietism to caUous indifference, which latter is the proper attitude of Cynic and Stoic. " I cannot understand the Universe, nor on what ground I call it a moral sphere, or ruled by Pro- vidence ; but I am not going to let other and meaner men see that I am puzzled." Scientific law is transformed into Heaven's will, unconscious and blind into conscious personal purposive : — 7. " Use all the indifferent ex- ternals, ws irevKev." Hws oZv irifjiVKev ; eo? av 0eos 6e\r). — 45. Epictetus goes far to meet the popular demand for a special providence, a daemonic tutelar, such as Appuleius, for instance, discovers in Isis, the Boman Catholic in a patron saint : He dismisses Epicurean compromise (elal /Mev, firihevoi S etrifieKov- fievoi) . . . irm vyih earai ; he will not be content even with the current Stoic belief that God looks to general laws, but abandons the particular to itself (Svrtov K. eirifieKovfievoiv el firjBefiia SidSoffii! eh av6p. e. e'f air&v KAI NH AIA TE KAI 'EIS 'EME), how can this again be salutary doctrine ? We have reached the Sqcratic conviction that he personally and his doings were interesting to the gods. This 94 MARCUS AURELIUS is religion, and this alone! It is this sense which is lost in the materialism of Aurelius' system, and retained anomalously in the candour of Aurelius' piety. Seeing this, the good man t^v avrov yvaifirjv uiroT^roxei' t^ SioiKovvn ra "0\a aawep o'l ctyadol iroXiToi rm v6fi,(a Tfjs -irdXcus. The analogy here, again, breaks down ; human society is after all a voluntary association ; what escape or asylum is there for the disillusioned citizen of the world ? So, again, on life's trials he uses another simile, which, like all Stoic comparisons, is only half true ! God is sending you labours, chastening "every son whom He receiveth " ; and Hercules is a type of such toils cheerfully borne : 74 : Al TrepurrdaeK i. al toix; avBpa/JLevoav fie ov diXei oiiSe 7A/3 TO 'HpaKket irapel-^ev rw uUl tw iavrov, . . . o S" hre^daaeTO k. eirovei k. iyvfivdlero . . . d7ra &e&. ©eXei /i eKelvo<; Trvpitraetv Kdyii Oika . . . airoOavelv otrv OiXao' ffTpe^XMdrjvai otiv deXta. In 385, comforting death, Epictetus addresses a personal Deity quite after -the Christian fashion: *.4? eXa^ov d(j)opfiel<} irp6v hvvrjrai Tvy}(av€iv ikv iirjTt, el oiKeia)' o diroBeS^/xrjKev ovSev e. aXk ixeivo jieXeTac €|£Xeii> tow jStoi; TT^fGr) K. oifMi>Y^s K. TO oi fiot K. TO TaKa^poi'. — 161: Ala Tb hvaTV)(eiK'qs drapiixus SiE^dYEii'. — 158 : '/2? diriiXXaYji^i'os SouXeias ToKfir)a-ov ava- ^iyfra^ ttjoo? top Qebv, eiiretv on Xp& fioi, Xoiirov et? o av diXrji' ofioyvwfiovS) aoi, us K. eui\viiXr]ia, K. fii) (jiKvdpei, ! ecrO'uov, irivav, eiiciov nraa-iv, dve'xpfievo'i, — owtws avToins m^iXei k. firj Kwreiipo. avT&v TO a-avTov (fyKey/ia ! (S) Close Eestkiction of the Sphere of Missionaey Influence ; Eejection , of Civic ok Domestic Duties by the teue Anchoeites Analysis § 3. The Cynic an eicemplwr rather than active consoler of men. _ § 4. Onostic and Manichean scorn of human ties. § 3. True, he sometimes refers to his religious mission, but it is as a passive example, almost a lay figure, rather than as active teacher and consoler; 266 : ElSivai Set OTi aYY^^os OTTO ToO Aioi dir^o-ToXToi . . . Trepi dyaO&v K. KaKmv, xnroSei^cov avTOio"re voao- Ko/Mjdrjvai) ; he replies : rioO Se ^i\6v fioi Baxretv Kui/ikou ; — 347 : AoiTTov Trpoae'^m tok avdp. Tiva <^aa\&^ i/ii/ivrjTo oti ovhei ^^ ^V KafiTTTeadai, k. irepiairaadai, rjBvvaro, "Ka^e ^wKpari] k. dedaai y. k. iralBia e'^pma, d\\' w? oKXoTpia' — He is much annoyed when on his discountenancing matrimony, the interlocutor inquires : !!&<; oZv en Biaacocrei ttjv Koiveovlav; rov deov v 97 Aval's. KareXtj^ev S" iirl Oewpiav k. irapaKoXovdrjcnv k. avp^mvov Sie^ayoay^v Tjj tftvaei. 'Opdre oJiv, p,r) dd^aroi tovtcov aTroddvTjre. The animals have instinct and impulse, and do their allotted task without reflecting on their mission. Man does so reflect. His "differentia" (i^aiperov, 210) is not bare xp^vif (pavraariAv, but KoyiK}) ^pfjac;. And when Eeason thus awakes to guide and hallow Instinct, what results ? Nothing except the gradual abatement of Instinct, as in Buddha's system, the will-to-live is becalmed and neutralized. Man no more acts ; he only contemplates. And this is his highest pleasure ; and therefore his highest duty. For in the Stoic scheme (hedonist in all but name) there is no real distinction between wise pleasure and the aim of our being. 148, 9 : Toiavr e. rh rfpirepa ta? ev TracKiyiipei' flocks to be sold, and men, some to sell, some to buy ; oXliyoi Be Tivev. So this child of God, this spectator and appraiser of the divine works, is, after all, in no way superior to an animal. Let us hear what Epicurus says after this discovery that the gods take no thought of men, and that at death the soul is extinguished. 179; TL otiv ; ovk dpeaKei aoi Tavra ; Xa/Se vvv, 7r«s i] SiKaiocrvvT) ovSev earl ttoj? jj alSa>^ fiaipla e. ttcos iraTrjp ovSev i. ttiSs o vlo^ ovSey i. — He will not practise this destructive theory ; but logic- ally it is complete and irrefutable. . Epictetus' thin veil of pietism cannot abolish the fundamental inconsistency of the religious and the scientific view of the world. 244. The contrast, though painful, is almost comical : "Orav Se fir) irape'^y rdvayKaia, to dvaKKrjTiKov (TTjfmivei, rrjv Ovpdv rjvoi^ev k. Xeyei croi "Epy^pv. So far so good ; the personal and loving relation so conspicuous in the Cynic's life is not, then, to be cut short at death ? Uov ; els ovBev Seivov aW' 66ev iyevov, et? rd (f>iKd k. avyyevi] — of course, to the gods ? ei? rd aroiyeia \ We are amazed ; is this all he has to tell us ? "Oaov ^v iv aoi irvpot; el\eye6eov dWd irdvra deaiv (leaTa k. Baifioveov. . . . " What if someone should come and slay me ? " M&pe, tre ov dXKa to orfofidTiov. Here the dualism is acknow- ledged, and the invulnerability of the true Ego almost 112 MARCUS AURELIUS dogmatised. Like Acis, " To kindred gods his soul returns." The thought, however, is not further pur- sued in this passage, hut seems taken up somewhat later. 266 : To awfmTiov B' ovSev irpo^ ifie' ra tovtov fiepr) oiiBev irpbi ifii. @dvaro. 6t? TO /M^ OV dXV 645 TO VVV fit] 6v. " OuK^Ti ouv EO-o^al ; " ouk eaei. aW aWo Tt ov vvv 6 K6a-fJL06pids drapdxws, 145, 146). — Epictetus, confident of the answer, puts to his audience the query, 'Hfuv oZv Xoyos eVi aTV^iof, k. KaKoBai/iovla BeSorai, Xv a6\ioi, 'iva •jrevdovvrei; SiareX&fiev ; 288: yet what is the value of reason except, as in Marcus, to impress on us the conviction of decay, and to assure us of the vanity of striving ; 371 : aira^ fiaOmv on to '^evofievov k, ^daprjvai Set. In vain he assures us, " Man is not flesh, nor hair, but Will" (ov K/aea? ov rptj^es aXSA irpoaip^a-Ky^lS), that the very nature of the supreme good is Will (91 : ovaLa Tov ayaObv trpoaipea-K iroia) : its sole duty is to remove us from earthly companions and simple pleasures, and to bestow in recompense the sad privi- lege of contemplating the mechanism of a uni- ii6 MARCUS AURELIUS verse which we can neither justify nor understand. It is in vain that the Cosmic Process is sometimes invested with the stern and inexorable attributes of a just Judge ; 6 i/o/ao? 6eioff\, . . ' Orav deXrji;, €^j]\dev skto^ Tt vepifiroirjaeiv rm dvQpmtrtp. He will not blame or reprove the person accused before others : " Bring him here and I will speak to him," a-ol Se irepl Trjia^ (134) irapd ye tok axs Set . . . dirro- p,evoi ovre rijv 'Hpav e^at oxJTe Trjv Aorjvav ova , . . viov . . . ij oiiyyevrj ! For men judge him only by his beneficent functions, diro TOV (pvffet KoivaviKOv elvai. OvBev '^ttov Bel Tiva K. 7rpo9 TovTo Trapaa-KevTjv ey^eiv, to hvvaadai avTov eavTW &pKelv, eavTW avvecvar va-is and \6yos become interchangeable terms (at least, inseparable correlates). § 3. In progress of Stoicism, \6yos tends to become detached and transcendent; frank adoption of strict Platonic dualism; Manichmam, atmosphere. § 4. For this dualism. Gnostics had some fwncifvX explanation; Stoics none ; Awelius only kept by his busy life and Roman training from complete surrender of the a,ctual. § 1. All philosophy, all science, springs from the desire to accommodate and explain the world to the self. A purely disinterested search for Truth has probably " never entered into the heart of man." The joy of knowledge and discovery, the control of natural forces, or the necessity of satisfying the deeper needs of the heart, — such are the motives which impelled Hellienic speculation. It is in the main purely personal or subjective ; and of no school is this more true than of Aristotle's successors. All Greek thought is an attempt to find the A6yo<} in things, in words, in the State, in man's soul and Hfe. With an almost endless follow in the footsteps of Thought ; and the prayer of the future will be attuned to those higher conceptions which religious thought has already reached. Not less reyerent, though more robust than the prayer of to-day, it will embody the religious aspiration of man, — trained, indeed, to a truer apprehension of Nature and Nature's God, but freed from the trammels of theological dogma and priestly mediation ; and though it may draw man away from the altar, it will lead him nearer to the throne ! " DRIFT TOWARDS MYSTICISM 133 and perplexing variety of meanings, it always conveys the sense of order, method, consistency ; and was free from all personal connotation. It was the universal notion that underlay and bound together the complex of individual phenomena ; the definition which must be ascertained before the discussion of terms can proceed ; the deliberate policy, the " rationale," or " raison d'etre " of a community ; the order and harmony that Heraclitus detected amidst the chaos of the empirical world ; the self-congruous fitness and consistency which appeared clearly in all behaviour and action, when one has learnt to refer all to a single aim, and to subordinate every minor detail of life to a guiding principle. Little by little ^this purely logical and abstract term acquires a kind of objective existence and a mystical significance ; and we cannot wonder that in the Hellenistic writers, whether Pagan, Jewish, or Christian, it is identified with a person, and becomes, in language either literal or symbolical, not the discovered synthesis of things, but the actual Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. Now, in the dogmatic creed of the Stoics, the term .4 070? is employed just before it passes into this final and mystic stage. It is the world-order, the principle of life, and permanence through change; appreciable by man, because he alone partakes in consciousness of the same spiritual force which regulates the world ; as in the well-known saying, " Like is known by like." § 2. The Philosopher, conscious in himself and in his community of certain fixed principles, looked afield in the wider world for a similar " reign of Law." The " fortuitous infinities " of Ionia (with its astoundingly modern guesses at Evolution) pass away before that curious and abiding phase of thought, which I may 134 MARCUS AURELIUS perhaps term the incurable or invincible teleology of the Greeks. So we get to the limited universe of Aristotle ; and to the unshaken conviction that everything created had a ' purpose and a meaning ; and that the secret of its happiness or satisfaction lay in discovering the cause and the object of its being, and in " doing its duty." We may pause a moment to wonder at the admirable simplicity of mind which tolerated this fundamental assumption. Every colloquy with a Sceptic or a Sophist was ended in favour of the Eationalist, — so soon as he had secured the admission that Nature had an end, each thing an epyov, or — in the most popular form of the thought — that 17 (fivai^ ov8ev fidrrjv iroiei. This Nature or this .^0709 were interchangeable terms ; and while the former retained all that notion of spon- taneous energy and beneficent creativeness which Aristotle gave it, the latter, as we have seen, was from a cloudy or logical abstraction gradually assuming the lineaments of a Personal Intelligence.^ § 3. The Stoics, starting from complete materialism, recognised but a single Principle ; but the ineradicable dualism of intelligence sets itself, and that which it feels akin and cognate to itself, in violent contrast to the un- conscious and formless substrate. The A6yo<; of the world tends more and more to detach itself from its works, and from being immanent and implicit in things to become transcendent. It is doubtful if any system that has enjoyed a vogue, has ever been strictly and severely ^ We need feel no surprise, then, if we find this A<570s takes the familiar garb of Olympian Zeus in the Syncretism prevalent throughout the Imperial Age ; is, on the other hand, identified with that rational Principle, after whose original exemplar the World-Soul fashions her material in complete docility. DRIFT TOWARDS MYSTICISM 135 Monistic. The common consciousness assures us, with the early Pythagorean systcechy, or groups of opposites, that things are in pairs; and we may say with con- siderable truth, that "most modern thought, and all modern endeavour, rest on a Dualistic hypothesis." Stoicism, imported into Roman territory, adopted frankly the opposition of matter and spirit, in a word, Platonism ; and the nature of man suffered a like schism, for which the unnatural or theatrical austerities of the earlier heroes have already prepared us. When we read Seneca or Epictetus or Aurelius, we feel we are in a Manichsean atmosphere. The aim of the individual ^10705 is to unite itself (not, indeed, too hastily or with undue impatience) to the universal .40709 : exterior nature, with its blunt carelessness of our wishes or deserts, seems to be too dangerous ground for us to repose on ; we must abandon it, though still murmuring the commonplaces of its divine order and arrangement. For our own physical frame no language of contempt was too exaggerated ; and, like some love- sick mediaeval saint, the Stoic recluse sighed for deliver- ance, while he pronounced this world perfect and unique, with no ulterior object save ceaseless repetition. The query of the Trench dramatist, " Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere ? " arises to our lips, without deliberate irreverence, as applicable, not merely to this incompetent imprisoned ray of Universal Reason, which had somehow fallen into the snares of matter, but also to the Parent of all such imperfect emanations. It retreats further and further from things, and abandons the course of the secular series to itself. § 4. Now the Gnostics, be it remarked in passing, had at least a logical and consistent, though fantastic answer 136 MARCUS AURELIUS to this problem of the intermixture of mind and matter. But the Stoics could admit no such explanations to solve the difficulty. Their instinct (like all humanity, dualistic) was at variance with their reasoned philosophy, which pronounced things good, and descending from a single " Source of Life." Hand in hand the Sage and his Divine Counterpart or Original retreated from an . alien world, without in theory abandoning any of the tenets or axioms of the profoundest optimism and content. Man was made for a purpose ; but precisely what, it was impossible to discover ; and whUe the stout Eoman character of Aurelius and the exigencies of his busy and responsible position keep him still faithful to the social instinct, and prevent the final plunge, yet there are not wanting symptoms of that somewhat morbid mysticism, which elevates as the supreme goal of the rational being the overcoming of its " otherness " in unconscious ecstasy, reunion with Universal Eeason. (C) The Constitution and Psychology of the Individual Ajstalysis § 5. In Stoic world, everythitig necessary and perfect, each in its several place; you may neither complain nor hate nor reform. § 6. Only in Man may service he voluntary as well as compulsory ; ma/n's "freedom" ; he owes this (doubtful) blessing to his share in Xd-yoy ;. yet in no true sense is he critic err agent. § 7. Aurelius has no sympathy with Matter, no account of the relation of Soul and Body; sole interest in Spiritual poA-t. § 8. Problem of Psychology ; how many divisions in soul ? (increas- PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPEROR 137 ing tendenoy in Monism to multiply differences rather than reconcile contrasts). § 9. {Are voCs cmd fiye/toviKov interchangeable ? vovs used in several senses.) § 10. Instantaneous Conversion; Spirit always free if it will: — Solipsism ; no quality, substance, or relation in outer things ; Spirit's thoughts on things alone real. § 11. "As many worlds as spirits" ; how is this im/prisoned ray of Deity our very self? {transition from intellectual to moral differentia). § 12. But Pantheism, intellectually incontestable, is morally incon- ceivable ; Aurelius had no resource in Metempsychosis ; his Spirits the moral personality. § 13. (Some luses of i/fux^ 'i™ higher sense, — The Inner Self. % 14. His psychology has no pretence to consistency {hints even of a fourth element); Aurelius errs in good company. § 5. In this realm of law (without a lawgiver) every- thing has its appointed place. There is no evil, for everything is necessary, and contributes to the welfare of the whole, else it would neither exist nor happen. The special function of each is to be found in its " differentia," that quality or faculty which marks it off from the rest of creatures. On nothing can you pass judgment, because nothing in such a world is super- fluous or disorderly. Even unlovely or terrible things, as the menacing grin of leonine jaws, have their own appropriate use and intrinsic beauty ; and are not to be set aside as bad merely because they do not fit in with our selfish ideas of human convenience. Like all Pantheists, Antoninus is a stranger to that anthropo- centric conception of the world on which European civilization and Christian faith is founded. As to the ultimate equality of things, "good and bad" (as the words are currently employed), their "indifference," — this doctrine recalls the modern school, which explains 138 MARCUS AURELIUS the seeming conflict of ultimate principles as a mere passing phase, which gathers up and embraces the turmoil and contrast of a lower sphere in the peace and silence of the Absolute. If to complain of such a world is impiety, so, too, is it to attempt to alter or reform it. As there is no questioning of the ways and methods of Providence, so the very notion of change, improvement, progress is altogether eliminated. Each thing is in its place; its character and circumstances are all divinely appointed by that Power which may either, once and for all, have settled on the course of events, and written out in anticipation the whole book of destiny, — or with careful and particular solicitude may be even now guiding every trivial detail of the world's course ; — Marcus will not venture to decide which of these views is correct. § 6. But clearly in man's special conformation there is something exceptional and peculiar. The rest of the crea- tures form an orderly but^unconscious retinue in the train of the King. Their service is perfect indeed, but involun- tary and automatic. "With man enters a new factor : that almost invisible point of Freedom, which at once tells of his close affinity to the Universal Intelligence, and also permits him to criticize it. The impulse to philosophic thought is curiously interwoven of the passionate desire to be free and the correlative yearning to discover and obey the Highest Law ; and all searchers after truth are like Saint Christopher. Man has this double power ; first, of valuing and admiring the works of Creation, all the Stoics placing the precarious paradise of immortal heroes in closer contemplation of the mysteries of stars and their orbits ; second, of determining himself freely and without reserve, in the very limited realm of Liberty PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPEROR 139 still left to him in the universal dominion of physical law. This very doubtful privilege he owes to his participation in the ^1070?: indeed, the conscious spectator of the world, the deliberate moral agent, may represent but the waking vision of a Somnambulist Creator. Is Reason, is the will-to-live, startled and amazed when, reaching consciousness in man, it beholds the universe which its blind and undirected efforts have called into being? This is clearly a modern and romantic belief, which we should not try and discover in the system of Aurelius ; but we may mention it here, to show how assailable, how open to logical attack, is his doctrine on human nature. Critic, he is forbidden to speak ; agent, he is restricted by ascetic " taboo " from finding enjoyment even in the innocent diversions of life, and confined in a narrow prison-house of " non- possumus." His nature is conceived as abrupt dualism ; his ethics is limited to passivity and resignation. § 7. An Enghsh bishop and Christian apologist has pronounced our body to be a "mass of matter with which we are for a time associated " ; and most Idealists would relegate it, with all its pleasures and pains, to the dim phantom-region of the external world, neither more nor less cognate to us, nor more nor less approaching true being ; emphatically like it, a Thing. The same sense of " f oreignness " may be found in Marcus, who is far more an idealist than any prede- cessor in the Stoic School ; who, as we have seen, has not yet reached that genial Platonism which reconciles the two opposing factors ; has no knowledge of the Christian faith which somehow can consecrate the lower element while keeping it in proper subordination. He exhausts on this innocent envelope of the striving I40 MARCUS AURELIUS spirit all the vocabulary of sarcasm, innuendo, contempt ; he might well be Saint Thomas k Kempis. We may here repeat what was said under a similar heading in Epictetus, that no Gnostic, no early Christian ascetic, could write more severely ; and we shall substantiate this by a fuller examination. For he never accurately defines matter, or enters into the difficult problem of the interaction of soul and body; we must therefore pass to the unseen or spiritual part of man, if we wish to find his function and his " differentia." § 8. Now here we are met by a considerable difficulty, for Marcus makes not the slightest effort to be con- sistent. Sometimes the invisible and truer portion of man is twofold, as with us, " body and soul " ; at others, it is, like our " body, soul, and spirit," threefold. Now we find soul (■^v^v) violently opposed to the higher principle, as the vital element of mere animal life ; now it includes it, or is even identical. Now it is true that we are perfectly familiar with this looseness ; for it is only on occasion that we find in Scripture the triple definition ; and generally and in common parlance we are quite satisfied with the popular dualism. But in a system avowedly monistic, we are puzzled when we meet with this increasing tendency to multiply difference and accentuate, rather than reconcile, contrasts. But it is not without significance ; our honest and sincere student of human nature cannot really find satisfac- tion himself in the Unitarian tenets he professes. Our modem society and hopes of progress rest upon a sense of " otherness " and conflict, and not upon any fatigued or impatient assumption of oneness. In iii. 16 we find a&fia, '^frv^rj, roOs" crco/iaToi alaOrjaeK, '^V'^fj's opfial, vov Boyfiara, sensations, impulses, principles. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMPEROR 141 To be impressed with phantasies, we have in common with the beasts ; to be at the mercy of the " pulls of impulse " (vevpoaTraaTeladai), with beasts and bad men ; while even the bad use vovfrvxv now being termed nTvevfianov, and closely allied with the lower nature : " Whatever I am, aapKia earl le. irvev/uiTiov, Kal TO 'HyefjLoviKov. ' Despise the first ; — see what the second is ! a breath, a vapour, nor always the same, but each moment exhaling and again inhaled.' Third is the Ruling Principle ; thou art old ; suffer this no longer to be a slave." So in xii. 3 : rpia iariv ef mv abveaOai irav to avfifialvov, olov airo Qikei. It can make of itself what it wishes ; it can construe exactly according to its desire this neutral, or even chaotic and indecipherable, complex of material things. This is the pure sub- jectivity to which Philosophy always aspires ; not to change things, without ; not even, perhaps, to claim full knowledge (the " ding-an-sich " live apart inaccessible, and baffle our search) ; but to make things ours, to arrange the chance alphabet into a language of our own invention. This is true freedom, and it is the substance and sum of Stoic teaching, from its personal side. § 11. Now it wiU be seen at once that, besides * Compare, e.g., Epictetus, i. 11 : Ti S' iari tovto; &pA ye S,Wo 1j &n ^Sofee iifup ; where it is the 86yfi.a we form in fullest freedom, that is, as absolutely representing, even creating, the external fact, which in itself is blind and yoiceless ; so ii. 16 (p. 155, Teubner) : Ti offc fie rapda-iret; ri iriXayos ; oft dXXi rh S6yiM, 144 MARCUS AURELIUS the variation of nomenclature, there are certain grave difficulties ; (a) there must be as many various, yet equally momentous and valid, interpretations of the world as there are Spirits ("quot homines tot sen- tentise"), and we have almost got back in the most dogmatic of ancient schools to the sophistic standpoint that avdp(oirovpiJt,evws av/i^alvri. "Nature could not" (such is his magnificent and amazing faith), either through lack of power or lack of skill, have made such a blunder as to let good and evil indifferently befall the good and bad indiscrimin- ately." An almighty power which can do no wrong, and which abides in our soul, and governs the universe ! Why then this sense of pain and " otherness " ? Why this constant solace and reminder ? THE SPECIAL FUNCTION 149 end for each ; where is the end, there is the useful and the good relatively to him; man is horn for reciprocity and social life ; nothing that is good for the community can be bad for the citizen." viii. 19 : eicacrrov tt/jos Tt yeiyovev iTTTro? a/A7re\o9. Tl Oav/id^ei'} • K. 6. ' UXto? epet tt/jos ti epyov yeyova, K. 01 Xoiirol &eoi, — and man is born for association ; ii. 1 : Feyova/jiev yap irpoi trvvepyiav d)? TroSe? cos j^etjoes ... TO o^v avTurpdo'aetv dWiyXot? irapa (jtiVti/ ; competition, self-seeking at the expense of others is " unnatural." — iv. 3 : to, \oyiKa ^&a dWtjT^Mv eveKa yeyove. — v. 1 6 : Ovirep eveKev eKacrrop KaTeaKevaarai, •77(005 ToSe lpe. — ix. 1. As a fundamental and irrefragable premise, T?;? yhp T&v oXav <^i5o-6ft)9 Karea-KevaKvia^ rh "KoyiKh fwa evsKev aXK^Xtov. — xi. 1 8 in a list of short maxims which he is ever to keep on his tongue's tip to meet any sudden crisis, oTi aW^Xwi; evexev yeyovajxev. Thus we shall find with the label koivcdvikov or ttoKi/tikov, the whole argument for man's social virtue is assumed, and the philosopher saved further trouble of proof. — iii. 4 : f. KoivoiviKov . . . crvyyeve7rov rj 0eov. — ^vii. 72. "Whatever ^ XoyiKr) k. iroXiTiKTi hvvafii,vaei iro\LTr)v oiiSev jSXaTTTet o TToXiv ov ^Xdirrei. — x. 6 : ovBev yap fiXa^epov TOO fiepei o TO) 0X9) a-vfjL(f)ep€i,. — vi. 44 : jj Se b/jlt) (jjva-i's XoyiKrj K. woXinKT)^ TroXt? k. -rrdrpiii w? fiev 'Avrtovivcp fioi, r] 'Pm/J/rj ws Be av&ptoirrp 6 KocrfioiKk 8ia a-vyyiveiap. — iii. 5 : to« 6eoi<; v7roTeraxoTov\ov K. (Tvyy6vov<;. 13. Always remembering in each action ttj? dfi^orepeov irpoi; dXXrjXa avvBecrem'! OvTS yap dvOpminvov ri dvev rij? itrl rh deia avvava- (f>opa<; ev Trpd^eii, ovt eftvaXiv (here we have the close association of the two complementary halves of man's duty). — iv. 3. (On discontent, what is it aimed at ?) ry T&v dvdp. KaKia ; rots e/c tS)v oKwv dirove/iopAvoK ; (where we notice substitution of natural causes, in fate, for the divine (and almost personal) providence hitherto discussed). Nowhere has he stated his position so clearly and tersely as in v. 25: 'Eyw vvv ep^w 6 (le 6e\ei, vvv e^eiv r) koivt) ^vaK, k. irpdcraas o /te vvv Trpdcraeiv 6eXei 17 ifir) (f)v<7i<;. Here the universal Nature, which at this stage in his Meditations sup- MAN AND THE WORLD 155 plants the gods, is the law of destiny, apportioning, severally, joy and sorrow to each : my peculiar nature is the social instinct of man, Koi,va>e\rj';, koivwviko^. (Though it is difficult in such interdependence and implication to insulate any one side, yet it_ will he necessary to speak more fully upon this half-contrast, half -conciliation of the two " Natures'," the world's and ours, because in this consisted the great crux of the whole Stoic philosophy.) § 3. V. 27. Man's duty divided into jjassive and active side of morality : apeffKOfiivrjv uev tok dirove/jLo/jLevotg, TTOiovaav Se Sera ^ovXerai Aaifimv . . . eKaarov vow K. \0709. Here it may not be altogether fanciful to note in anticipation of Marcus' final mysticism, that the personal within seems to compensate for the Tieuter and fatalistic without.) — vi. 16. Eeverence for your Sidvoia makes you apearbv to yourself, k. rots av6p. evdp/jMcrrov k. tok 6eo2' rji iravTa Ta ryivo/jueva avfi/iripveTai, (where, it may be noted, we find a mixture of the personal and placable providence of the gods, identified, or at least set side by side, with the scheme of predestinarian Fatalism). § 4. In viii. 27 he adds another relation to the body (for I feel compelled to adopt Coraes' reading, a-cofiariov for atTiov) : Tpel<; cr'^e&ei<;' r] p,ev Trpo? ro trafiaTiov to irepiKeifiivov' rj Sg irpo's rr)v Oeiav alrLav a^' ^? av/M/Saivei, TTcicn travra' rj he irpo'i Toil's ffu/i/Siowras. — viii. 34. As hand or any other limb cut off from body, so is o fii) diXcov TO cvfi^atvov . . . rj o aKOiviovTjTov ti irpdaamv. — viii. 43. The joyful satisfaction of my nature reached, if my Inner Self turn from none of our fellows and find fault with nothing which happens to men. {p,riT airo- (TTpei^ofievov fxryv dvOpmirav Tiva, fiijTe tl t&v dvdpcoTroii a-vp,^aiv6vT(ov). This is true health, uytes e'xeiv to 'Hye/iopiKov. — ix. 6. What suffices (dpKei) for moral judgment and so for perfect happiness and content: ■f) nrapovaa irpa^i'i KoivmviKr) k. r) irapovaa Biddeaii; evapeaTiKT} irpo's irdv to irapd tjj? exros AiTLaiKeiv to vvv airovefiofievov iavTco. — xi. 13. To such a man, what evil can befall ? el wotew TO TTJ cj)V(Tei aov oiKeiov k. Be'xj) to vvv rrj t&v oXcov vaei evKaipov. § 5. xi. 20. A very noticeable passage; for here, for the first time, he assigns the first place to the passive virtue of acquiescence and resignation. We are here far on our road from the visible commonwealth in the pilgrimage to the soul's true home ; Marcus is, after all, a Quietist, though, like Mme. de Guyon, he shows wonderful aptitude for business, a wonderful readiness for cheerful endeavour. Ujoos oaioTfjra yap K. ffeoae^eiav KareaKevaarat ou'^ rjrrov rj tt/so? BiKaio- <7Vvr)V. Kal yap Tavra iv eiSei icrri t^? evKoiv(ovr)aia<; fidWov Se Trpea^vTepa t&v hiKawirpap/TjpATcav. (Eendall excellently : " (Our Inner Self) is made for holiness and God-fearing no less than for justice. These two are included in the thought of world-communion, nay, are prior even to the dues of justice.") — xii. 1. Thus ocrtoTT;? and hiKaioavvq include all other virtues, the whole Duty of Man : " You can at once have all, compass the whole end of life, iav airevBvvgi; {to irdpov fiovov) 7rp6vat<; ayei TTOielv, Trao-p^eti' Se mv(ri<;) and the more comforting personal sense of gods in the universe, apportioning to each man his lot. It was MAN AND THE WORLD 163 assuredly the urgent need in morals of some reinforce- ment, from tradition and popular sentiment, that led to this new alliance (called Syncretism) between the exiled deities and the new mechanical theory of the universe. It was the personal finite reason protesting against the cold or immoral dictates of the " Pure or Speculative Intelligence." The former can never be satisfied with general laws, or with an assurance of its own nothing- ness. He will seek relief in the most unexpected and unpromising quarters. Boissier in his Roman Religion has well described the revival of Faith in the first two centuries after Christ. The utter lack of corre- spondence in Scientific Fatalism, between the effort and recompense, the labour and the success, in the case of moral action, wUl surely drive average men to careless indifference or pleasure ; and no ceaseless Buddhistic repetitions of formulae will save the sensitive soul from despair. The outer Nature, then, had nothing in common with man's moral and social instinct, and provided no certainty for its exercise or usefulness. § 10. The "differentia" of man, his olxelov epyov, the theoretic contemplation of the laws of being, his sense of sympathy with his kindred, was some- thing utterly distinct and abhorrent from the rest of natural things; it was not in the same plane. This was never, indeed, divulged in so many words by the Stoics ; indeed, the fallacy of the Law of Nature, as prescribing morality, lasts well into our own days ; but they were dimly and uneasily conscious of the gulf. It was Professor Huxley who clearly pro- pounded in his Evolution and Ethics what had been long suspected, that there was no affinity whatever between 1 64 MARCUS AURELIUS the two realms.^ The " onus probandi " rests with those who, like Dr. Drummond, believe there is only one set of laws in the universe. There may be pleasant and frequent analogies, or unlooked-for harmonies ; but these should never obscure the intense initial contrast, on which depends our European fabric and our personal hope. Only such fantastic anarchists in theory as Nietzsche, " Maxim Gorki," M^r^jowsky, can afiPord, or perhaps are bold enough, in innocent speculation to follow logically on the lessons of Nature ; and show that the subservience of a once aristocratic world to demo- cratic Christianity is one long mistake, and must be rectified by a return to the primitive instinct of rapine, plunder, and the pride of strength and cruelty. All this, though happily only a wild theory of a few kindly and gifted individuals, is quite in accordance with Nature's advice to the nascent soul. The axioms of scientific Naturalism have become wearisomely familiar to us in the past thirty years ; " the struggle for exist- ence," " the weakest to the wall," " the survival of the fittest," and (may we add ?) " the Devil take the hind- most." No wonder that a compassionate democratic Socialism, built on the substructure of Christian ethics, feminine, self-forgetting, calls for an end of this cease- less warfare and carnage, at least in the human family ; and others desire to include even the animals in the general truce. The nineteenth century ends in a ' He must cordially have approved of one passage in oiir author, where the discontinuity and essential diversity of natv/ral and moral are recog- nised with unusual force ; vi. 17 : "Acu k&tiji kAkXip ipopal t&v armxelav I " H Si T^i d/jer^s Klvriais iv oiSe/Uf rairav dXX4 9ei.6rrep6p ti k. 6STos K6(r/iou, n. iroAaxi i,ho% fflv t9)% irarptSos. This is no sober advice ' ' Spartam nactus es, hano exorna," in which the river of patriotism, confined in narrow banks, runs deep and strong : but a call to a worship of fTature, the Actual ; to Aurelius, a pure and holy cult ; but, from the same pre- misses, to others a eulogy of brute strength and natural appetite. 1 66 MARCUS AURELIUS of the age-long contest of logic and abstract speculation, with the forces and prejudices of " unregenerate " human nature ; refusing, in a strong sense of personal value, to be made a tool for the furthering of the kingdom of Science, the advance of the Millennium, or the triumph of the " Over-man." § 11. What seems most to have impressed the Greeks in their criticism of the Universe was that you could not know its purpose in the same way you could understand the motive of a friend or fellow-citizen, and that you could not foresee or avoid the certainty of its operations. This humiliating ignorance or impotence is thinly concealed beneath hymns to the majesty of God, as Nature or as Fate ; for it is surely superfluous to remind the reader that the three terms are inter- changeable. Acquiescence is therefore the sole virtue, face to face with the workings of unknowable law and sequence ; and the constant rebuke of discontent (Swo-ajoeffTijo-t?) may be due, partly to a religious sense of impiety, partly to a more practical dislike of the folly of temper and grumbling at what cannot be helped. It was a " counsel of utility " as weU as a " counsel of perfection." As for any anticipation of the Baconian " regnum hominis," or modern scientific improvements, we look in vain. Clearly, Lucilius and Seneca, to name two instances, believed it was sacrilege either to ex- plore practically the secrets of Nature or to adapt such knowledge to human uses. Both struck across that curious religious feeling which identified God and the world, and that sense of self-sufficingness in simplicity which was the starting-point of the Cynic and Stoic system. Seneca might, indeed, enjoy and use as a wealthy nobleman, but he could not justify as a MAN AND THE WORLD 167 philosopher, the multiplication of conveniences and comforts. Therefore, in this changeless world, eternal (at least in relation to us), we hope for no advance, no effort is of avail, and Quietism remains the sole rule of conduct. We may add that we shall find the same depressing consciousness of vanity, of the futility of striving and endeavour, when we come to social rela- tions. As the Universe is in the last resort impenetrable by knowledge and prayer, so each of our kindred is in his soul a " windowless monad," inaccessible to our influence. An independent disaggregated Atomism is the result of this boasted unity and affinity ; and it is only the wholesome instinct of the Eoman and the aristocrat that keeps Marcus not only to the passive tolerance of men he cannot understand, but to active en- deavour in a society which is incurable and unchanging. (G) Inherent Diveesity of the Natuee of Man and the woeld Analysis § 12. (Texts of dveersity hetween man's nature and the world's.) § 13. Each man a law to himself ; he veers round to a complete suhjectioity ; negative attiiude to Nature and men ; positive guidcmce only from within. § 14. "Follow own constitution" ; ca/reful "physiology" necessa/ry for virtue. § 15. Stoic creed no real support for his nature {or instinctive) good- ness; only a ro«?'e appendage; he feels, iut he cam/not communicate or corvoince. § 16. Man-cus errs in believing himself indebted to Stoicism ; Science and System teach him nothing he did not know before. § 12. We may now examine the passages in which man's special nature is contrasted with the Universe. 1 68 MARCUS AURELIUS ii. 9 : Tovrtov del Set fiSfivrjaffai rk fi rmv oXmv $uV(nv TO •TTpd^eK KQivooviKavX.ov . . . eirt0ea)pr]ai7rou). This civic virtue flourishes independent of his philosophic creed, because he is " Antoninus and a Eoman," and still more because he is " permeated with religious faith in a Providence which Stoicism proper did its best to expel." — x. 33. That it was ultimately no School " maxims," but his empiric conviction, which led him to the social life, is clear again (as to ■^BviraBova-iv 172 MARCUS AURELIUS fj Tpv^) ; so it should come natural to you to eVi rij? . . . viroiri.'irrovari'i {}\i;? iroieiv to, olKeia jy tov avBpmirov KaraaKsvy' atroKavcnv y^p Set viroKafjij^aveiv irav o e^ea-Ti xarct ttjv i8iav (j>vaiv evepyeiv. Such action is to him " love, joy, peace " ; his subjective delight (incom- municable to others) sets the stamp of Nature's approval on his choice. It is only by accident or carelessness that he acts otherwise. So the ultimate test is this subjective feeling; and everyone else must be left to follow his own particular bent. For Marcus, though convinced himself of the superiority of the social life, of tolerance and self-denial and concession, canhot con- vince others, and does not attempt to. It may here perhaps be remarked that in a sense all systems, even of the austerest deontology, are in the last resort " hedonistic " ; for the only reason of acceptance is approbation, and approbation of the good is the highest form of pleasure. On this final " hedonistic " standard there is a very beautiful and acute passage in Seneca, Ep. Ixxvi. : "Pro patria moriaris . . . salutem omnium civium tu§, redimas . . . non tantum patienter sed libenter. Si hoc facturus es, nullum aliud bonum est : omnia relinquis ut hoc habeas (' went and sold all that he had ' ; for here is ' the pearl of great price '). Vide, quanta vis honesti sit ? Fro Bepuhlicd morieris . . . interdum ex re pulcerrima magnum gaudium etiam tempore brevi ac exiguo capitur ; et quamvis frtietus operis peracti nullus ad defunctum exemptumque rebus humanis per tineat,' ipsa tamen contemplatio futuri operis juvat : et vir fortis et Justus quum mortis suae pretia ante se posuit, libertatem patrim, salutem omnium pro quibus dependit animam, in summ§, volwptate est et periculo sua fruitur." — x. 36. Man's function is now, by MAN AND THE WORLD 173 oft repetition, beyond all controversy ; to tBiov e6ova-i<; . . . TTOteii', irdox^"' Se . . . 17 KOivij Aval's ^epei.) § 16. The sum of the whole matter seems to be this : Marcus finds in himself an eager and uncon- trollable impulse, born of his temperament, early training, and high station, towards charitable and social endeavour (of a somewhat restricted kind, and neither enthusiastic nor self -forgetting). He suffers much if he, in this daily self-examination, discover opportunities for this exercise overlooked. This sense of failure in the only sphere of his free agency is the sole thing capable of causing him pain. All outward circumstance, even the success of his kindly efforts, is quite immaterial. 174 MARCUS AURELIUS " No one can change his character," says Cardinal Newman ; and Marcus would have been unselfish, in the same curious desponding way, among savages, and in face of the certain dissolution of souls in an accidental world. But his character is a beautiful and divine gift, and shines and burns like the good deed in a naughty world, irrespective of any fuel derived from Stoic tenets. Nay, rather these latter are incapable of obscuring the innate kindliness, the religious unction, of the noblest of Eoman Emperors. His devotion gets no confirmation from an unprejudiced survey of the world ; nor can he make others think like him, that the " Beauty of Holiness " is the aim of the rational creature. CHAPTER III ABSOLUTE SUBJECTIVITY (A) Complete Isolation of the Individual from Things and from his Fellow-men Analysis §1. (I) Personality, a "mndowkss monad," impenetrable (later to te contrasted with his psychic solidarity); (2) Things absolutely still and lifeless. § 2. Duty to others = negative tolerance; mind and motive of other men beyond reach and understanding. § 3. Others cannot help their acts, and it is va/in to be indignamt or eager to reform. § 4. There must be such people in a world of all sorts ; why then blame or despise? (no Standard or Value left except (Hegelian) /act of existence). § 1. After the emphasis on the peculiar " propriety " (iSiov) of man's character, duty, and nature, which has emerged in our last series of passages, we must advance still further towards the isolation of the personality, not merely from the rest of creatures, but also from its especial kindred. " Forget also thine own people and thy father's house." And this doctrine of the impene- trable solitude of each Soul is all the more astounding because it is combined with a genuine belief in the solidarity of all rational beings, and with many phrases >7S 176 MARCUS AURELIUS of the most uncompromising Monopsychism. We may be thankful that Marcus makes no attempt to be con- sistent or symmetrical ; we are content to find in this very confusion of his thought, assurance of his perfect sincerity. We must put side by side (1) those sections where he pronounces the Soul (the real or '' Inner Self ") of other men to be inaccessible to his influence, or, strictly, even to his sympathy. (We shall in the next chapter note those passages in which he theorizes on the ultimate unity and identity of all Soul. In the one case, the distinction, the separateness, is final ; in the second, it has no existence. In the one, personality is the single irrefragable fact of experience ; in the other, it is a pure illusion. Which of these dogmas is the real belief of Marcus, I know not ; I incline to think he felt his solitariness too keenly to give more than " lip service " to the hypothesis of a Single Soul or intelligence common to all men.) We shall add (2) those very striking passages in which he shows the absolute stillness of things, the absurdity of the belief that they have life and movement in themselves, or even sway or control our consciousness. § 2. On a closer survey, the social duty is attenuated into a negative tolerance of other men ; a duty which is rather to oneself than to others, of never feeling annoy- ance, anger, indignation at their faults. What they say about one is indifferent, and the wise man should pay no attention to report or fame. Sometimes the reason is the general Stoic belief that happiness cannot depend on anything external to consciousness (iv raiv a\Xaipaivei, aXKov aXko' ep£ he ihv i/yte? e-)(a) to •^ye/ioviKov. It is natural, then, that he should avow that only certain natures or characters can see the cogency of his arguments ; iii. 3 : ■jToXSA ToiavTa oil "TravTi Tridavcb fiovcp Bk t£ ttjOos ttjv ^vcriv . . . yvr}a-[m<; wiceuofievai. — The only legitimate and (not very effective) instrument of moral reform is persuasion ; but one asks, What if the sinner refuses to recognize the postulates ? El fiev Swdcrai fieTahihaaKe' el Be fJLT), /iifivriao on ir/so? tovto tj eifiheia aoi BiBoTai, ix. 11 ; similarly, ix. 42 : "OXws Be e^ea-Ti a-oi /tero- ABSOLUTE SUBJECTIVITY 179 SiSdffKetv Tov ireirXavrjfiiuov. — ix. 20 : To dWov afidp- Tfj/jLa eKel Set KaTokcTreiv. — In viii. 61 : Ele\e aiiTov TO ^la^ofievov (we have already seen the slight air of mystery attaching to this " compulsion "). Is it force of habit, or ignorance, or result of bad principles ? (Soy /Mara). If we follow another series of passages in which man's inalienable freedom is brought out, we shall decide that it is imaginary, and can be removed at pleasure by the Will. But here it appears to be a real hindrance. In some later Platonist sand some coeval Christians, it would certainly imply daemonic possession, the enslavement of the Will (as in Eom. vii. and the evoiKovc-a afiapria). The real and pathetic remoteness of Marcus, from his own time, the in- terval or bridgeless gulf between the Emperor and his courtiers and family, may be discovered in the sad maxim, xi. 8 : 'O/MoOafiveiv fikv, fir] ofioSoy/iareiv Se, admirably paraphrased or modernized by Eendall's " So, then, — one at core if not in creed." So, ix. 3, he finds consolation for death in the thought, on ovk a/TT avOpdvoav o/ioSoyfiarovvTcav croi r] airaXKayr] earai. TovTO yelp p,6vov . . . avdekkKev etv k. xareixeu ev r^ 182 MARCUS AURELIUS ^^v, el av^rjv e<^etTO T019 ra axnh Soy/iara irepiireTroir)- fiivoi,nros, inasmuch as we must do good to them and bear patiently with them ; Kofl' biror S' tvlirravTai. nt/es els ri oUeia (pya, Ip Ti Twv idia^pav juoi ylverai 6 AvSpawos oi% ^aaov ^ ijXios fi Ave/ws ij Briplov (= " in so far as individuals obstmct my proper action, man falls into the category of things indiffermt." R.). 1 84 MARCUS AURELIUS if not an incapable, was a " philosopher-king " ; yet the success of that unaccountable movement, the French Eevolution, was due to his (unconscious) following Marcus' rules. A point of view so lofty, an outlook so sublime, of that man and his petty passions and struggles are but the turmoil of an ant-heap, — a judgment so tolerant that it finds excuse for every misdoer, — these are not proper qualifications in a statesman or a sovereign. There is surely nothing gained by belittling human life, by depreciating human concerns. Nor does the ascetic advance morality by arousing contempt for the body. The politician or the king who fails is not the one who takes a side and boldly embraces even his proved mistakes ; but the one who loses faith in himself, has no convictions, and sees everything in one dim and dreary atmosphere of grey. § 7. At the end of the section he reaches a climax, and decks his pathetic maxim with a quite Platonic poetical trope : " Tenth, and lastly — a gift, so please you, from Apollo, leader of the choir" {el he ^ovXei, koI BeKarov 'rrapk tow MovarjyeTov B&pov \d0e, oti to fi,ij a^iovv dfiaprdveiv fiaviKov aBvvdrov yap e^LeraC). It is madness to ask that evil should cease, or that the bad should stop sinning. — xii. 12: to e^v ttj ^vaei (for natural consequences), /iifre Oeoi^ fie/iirTeov ovBev yap eKOVTei} ^ aK0VTeav\ov dfiaprdveiv, Ofioioi; T& li-r) 6eXovTb T-qv a-VKrjv ottov . . . <}>epei,v k. TO, ^pe^v KXavd/Mvpb^eaOai, k. tov Xtrirov j(pe/ieri^ei.v ABSOLUTE SUBJECTIVITY 185 K. oaa aXKa avar/Koia. TC yap TraOrj, Trjv e^iv eywv ToiavTTjp; el oiv 70/370? el ravTrjv depdirevaov. ("What else can result, his heart being what it is ? If it aggrieves you, amend it ! ") The " sins or short- comings" of the particular are necessary (dvayKaXa) and indispensable ; " partial evil is universal good." — viii. 50. An angry critic, stung by a bee, or annoyed that a fig is unripe, or a thorn in the track, asks crossly : Ti Be Kal er/ivero Tavra ev tS> Koafitp ; you will be laughed at by any student of Nature, <}>vai6\oyoii, (answers Aurelius) w? &v k. inrb TeKTovoiXei ( = sets its affections on no determinate material) dXK' opfia TT/ao? TO, rfjoviieva fied' vire^aipiaetoi ( = " keeps each impulse and preference conditional and subject to reservation "). To Se avreia-ar/ofievov ijXrjv eavrm nroiei, uxTirep TO irvp OTav iiriKpaTy t&v eirep/iri/irTovTav (y(j>' S>v av iiiKp6 ; Meve oiv p^XP''^ lloiKewioTjs a-avTm k. ravra, d>eva. They have no message ; or I90 MARCUS AURELIUS rather like ghosts, cannot speak unless first interrogated by a mortal. It is only the craven soul who yields to the notion that they can tyrannize. "Lupi Mcerim videre priores." The bold magician confronts the apparition in his own good time, undeterred by the disconcerting yet harmless gibbering of the Spectres. Eather it is he who summons them at pleasure; of themselves, they cannot and dare not burst into his solitude. Tl oZv wiro^alverat nrepl avr&v ; to 'Hye/jLoviKov. — So once more xi. 11 : El fj-ev oiv ouk IpxETai Eirl ak ra UpAyiiara &v at Bico^efi k. (fivyal Oopv^ovai ere, oKKh. Tpoirov Tiva avro^ eV eKeiva epxV- To yovv Kpifia to irepl avr&v rjcrvjfa^ira), Kaiceiva fi^nl drpenoui'Ta (not budging, not stirring a foot inside your magic circle, like docile and well-disposed Ariels). E. : " The things it so perturbs you to seek or shun, do not come to you ; rather you go to them ; only let your judgment of them holds its peace, and their side will remain stationary." § 10. xi. 16. The fairest life {KaXXiara Sia^fjv) comes from " indifference " to all things not under our power : fiefivrjfiivo^ on ovSev avTmv VTroXrjyjriv irepl avTOv fifuv ep/TTOiei ou8' cpxETui «<}>' i^fias. AXKa Ta fiev dnpe]iel r)p.el<; Si icrfiev oi ra? Tre/st avrmv Kpiaeif} yevp&vre^ k. {otov) ypd^ovre'i iv eavTOi<;, i^ov p,6v fir) ypdtfteiv i^ov Se Kav TTov \d9ri ei9ii<; i^aXeitfrai. E. : " Nothing can imbue us with a particular view about itself or enforce an entrance ; things are stationary ; it is we who originate judgments regarding them, and, as it were, inscribe them upon our minds, — when we need inscribe nothing, or can instantaneously efface any inscription written there unawares." The Sophists had claimed for the individual the most perfect freedom in assent and ABSOLUTE SUBJECTIVITY 191 acceptance of convention ; the Sceptics (as Sextus Empiricus shows us throughout his work), while pre- serving this fundamental subjectivity or relativity in theory, had insisted in practice on the wisdom of following the " custom of the country " ; and Lucian the popularizer of this half-agnostic, half-dogmatic reaction in favour of society, rejects with ridicule and indignation the pretensions of mystical egoism. He lays down the rule that happiness is found only in the " Common Life, and in wise submission to common- place " (^iov KOivov diraai ^tovv a^i&v k. o-vfiirokiTevari Tots TToWots, ovSev aXKoKOTOv K. Terv^cofiivov iXtrt^MV. Hermotimus). The Stoic while seeming to canonize the social aim, speaks and writes about it in such a way as to leave a loophole for evading its responsibilities ; partly by preaching the claims of the wider TroXt? of Nature with which they supposed themselves in fuller sympathy, partly also by advancing the policy of abstention, " as God in the world, so the Sage in society." — Again, the early Sophists, the "Aufklarung" of ancient Greece, taught a complete subjective impressionalism ; and as man in his social life had no real guide or criterion but utility, so in his more personal side he was alone in the middle of incommimicable sensations which were valid only for himself. It is perhaps reserved for Marcus Aurelius to declare that the unknowable source of these varying feelings and emotions is itself, like the supposed fabric of the moral and Social Law, pure hallucination. It is true that he does not commit himself to denying the existence of phenomena ; but they exist purely subjectively, in the terms and at the will and pleasure of the mind, which neglects, estimates, or employs. 192 MARCUS AURELIUS Seduced by this motionless, yet inviting mirage in life's wilderness, the imwary soul submits itself to a voluntary slavery; "me rebus subjungere conor," the modem "adaptation to environment " (a phrase which the Emperor must have condemned as abandoning life's central truth). " Te facimus Fortuna deam Coeloque locamus." But the Sage, like Adam amid the lower creatures, gives names and values to things which in themselves have neither meaning nor coherence. § 11. Thus, in spite of theoretical citizenship in natural and social commonwealth, the Sage is driven back into himself. We are now approaching the most significant part of Marcus' Philosophy, — just that notable point of transition in which the influence of Plato supersedes that of Zeno and Chrysippus. Of extant authors in that age, Dio Chrysostomus is the last who preserves the somewhat narrow common-sense, the mental balance, the acquiescence in superficial verities, which we usually associate with Stoicism. Excluding Lucian, who like Voltaire had no originality, and belonged to no recognized school but that of opulent " bourgeois " respectability, — all the rest are tinged with mysticism : the sense of worlds undreamt-of by the vulgar, to which access was found through meditation or orgiastic cult. Aristides unites the beliefs of " Christian Science " with the study of nightly visions, that borderland of the soul in which two consciousnesses may be distinguished (see Von Drel's Philosophy of Mysticism), and the " astral body " be united to its cognate spirit, the Earth-Soul. Appuleius, like some aUegorist of " Cinderella " and " Jack the Giant-killer," cleverly interweaves with a well-known romance certain significant episodes, as " Cupid and ABSOLUTE SUBJECTIVITY 193 Psyche," with a view to a Platonic moral, and finds in the deliverance from carnal snares the work of Isis on behalf of her votary. Numenius, one of the obscure links in the transmission of the Platonic tradition, represents to us rather the general tendency to Trinitarian doctriue; but we need not doubt that his ethical system founded on this was a direct and personal illumination. "Inwardness," or the intrinsic treasures of Soul, was the predominant idea ; and we look confidently in Marcus for further illustration. Nor are we disappointed. 13 CHAPTER IV HAPPINESS AND DESTINY OF MAN'S SPIRIT (A) Self-suffioingness of the Soul Analysis % 1. The impregnable fastness of the Soul. §2. Contentment with Self the supreme End ; a self-centred peace ; "our true amd intri/nsic good cannot depend on a/nother." § 3. Little success in coiwincing others of \6yos indwelling ; amerage man prefers to be left to aest and uncertainty of old life. § 4. " Serenity " the unva/rying aim of the Schools (various synonyms. § 1. We will first examine those passages in which he dwells on the " Self-sufficingness '' of the conscious spirit ; we shall then notice the unquestionably mystical language of certain sections, where we seem to be reading Plotinus a century before his time ; and con- clude the survey of the Doctrine of Man with a collection of those phrases which speak of the " Deity "Within," and from the crude materialism of early Stoic identification of voepov irvp in Man and in God, elevate a system, more or less complete, of mystical Theology. " Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt " ; similarly Marcus reproves himself for desir- ing artificial seclusion, ar^poiKiaf k. ai^iaXoiif k. oprj , . ., when it is at any moment within our power to 194 HAPPINESS OF MAN'S SPIRIT 195 retreat to the undisturbed fastness of our own soul, and there find a peace which passes understanding: €^01' ij? av ctpa^ i6eX'qar]i eis eavThv di'axupEii'' ovSafiov y^p ovff '^a-v^idtrepov ovr airpayp^oveaTepov avdp(oiroei' &pK£V6i) tauTu; The Self-sufficing Soul invinc- ible. — ^ix. 26 : 'Av€r\r](} /ivpia Sia rb fir/ dpKEiirOai rm (T^ 'HyefioviKw, iroiovvn ravra ets a, KareaKevaoTai. — ix. 42 : OvK dpKti rovTw on Kara K ava^aCvei. — ix. 1 3 : i^e^aXov iracrav irepL- tj-Taaiv (he corrects the words i^\6ov, because efw ovK rjv aW' evhov ev Tok uTro\i^\|(eo'i). So 32 : iroXKa irepKrtra nrepieXeiv tSiv ivo'^XowTtov aoi Bwaffai, oTui iirl Trj uiro\iii|(£t aov Ksifiiva. — The same is true of other men's unkind actions ; they have no real objective existence, and exist in and harm only their souls, being no concern of ours; xi. 18 (7): ov^ al irpd^ei'; air&v iv(y)(Kovcnv r/fuv sKetvai ycip i. ev rots iiceivtov r)yefioviKol<;, oW' al rjiierepai uiroXTJvltEis. — xii. 8. Among maxims and definitions, he reminds himself on iravra uin5\tn|(is ; so 22, 26 : ' On iravra uTr6XT)<|/is" k. avrrj iiri aoi. ''Apov oiv ore fleXet? ttjv flir6\rn|rii', k. aaTrep Ka/M'^dvn tt/v aKpav, 200 MARCUS AURELIUS YoXilinrj cTTaOepa iraina k. K^Xiros &,Kif.av (a beautiful passage though the ore 5e\ets is untrue to the experience of most men ; which Eendall thus translates : " The view taken is everything, and that rests with yourself. Disown the view at will ; and behold the headland rounded, there is calm, still water, and a waveless bay "). So 25 : J3a\6 e^a) -rriv mSKxy^iv, k. aeaaaai, ! There's nothing outside corresponding to your fears, hopes, anxieties. The words used to convey this imperturbable serenity, single point of equilibrium and permanence, in an unstable and dissolving world, — are mostly common to other Stoic writers, though Marcus inserts some of his own. Above all, he delights to employ the terms of Hedonism, as religious writers sometimes seem to profane heavenly raptures by the similes of earthly love. As Seneca borrows his texts for the Lucilian sermons from Epicurus, so Marcus takes from the Cyrenaic school of sensationalism the language of voluptuous enjoyment. One term in very general use, arapa^la, he uses once only (just as ainapKeia and evSai/iopia occur but once) : aWpia, yaXijvT}, aXvirla, to airatOpidcrai (" gain unclouded calm," ii. 4), ev^coelv, evGvfiia (a Democritean word), evfidpeia, eiifioipia, evo8ia, and evoBeiv several times, evpov<} and evpoeiv, evpvj((opia (recalling the Psalm : " Thou hast set my feet in a large room "), eva-Tadeiv, eva'x^oXeiv, evtjipoaw'ri, and evpor/i(Teo)S (which, as embodying something of speculative knowledge, he puts after the pure Tnoral virtues) ri irpoff'qviffTepov ; 6Tav r6 ivTaiiTTOv k. eiipovv 4v irouri. ttjs TrapaKo\ov07inK^s k. iwurTrinortKrjs SvvAfieus ivBvii.ijB^i ("Smooth un- halting flow of its intelligence and apprehension." B.). Again, we shall have to notice later, vii. 13 : otfirM aipoiKocro^la) iv Tp rrjpeiv tov evSov AaiiJiofa . . . da-ivrj. — ^iii. 3 : To /mev yap vov^ k. Aaijj.ui', to Se yt] K. \vdpoi. — ui. 4 : 'lepevi rt? . . . «. virovpyoi Be&v, y(pa)fi6vov K. Tw evSov iSpvfievip aiiTov ( = priest and minister of the Gods, using also as some sacred oracular shrine that deity planted in his breast ; Saint Cadog's definition of conscience, " eye of God in the soul of man." — ui. 5 : 6 iv a-ol Oeb^ earw irpoa-raTr)!;. — iii. 6 : TOV iviBpvfievov iv aol Aaifioras. . . . o jap tov eavrov vovv K. Aaifioi'a ( = iii. 3) . . . TrpoeKofievoii . . . oi trrevd^ei. — iii. 12 : Tov eavrov Aaifioca KaOapov ear&ra TTjpeiv. — ^ui. 16 : Tov Se evSov iv t^j arrjdei tSpvfievov Aai)j,oi>a u^ ov eKotTTtp TrpoaTarTjv ( = iii. 5) K. rjr^efiova 6 Zev<; eStOKev, dir(5cnra(r(io eavTOV. — ^ viii, 7 : 'H rov avOpdyrrov vip»)Tos 6 ^epo/ievos Kara ravra 6em. E. : " vessel of God " (cf. viii. 2 : iaovofwi Bern). — -xii. 26 : o eKcurrov coGs 6e6s K. ixeWev ippwjKev. {G) The Problem of Monopsychism Analysis §6. "Solidarity of Soul-nature" ; all from voepbv to which man has " inlet " at will (Emerson), § 7. Averroism and its problems ; " how can the true self be identir fied with this alien portion of God ? " § 6. We have now to consider (1) the strange problem of Monopsychism already hinted at; and (2) the ultimate destiny of the (so-called) individual soul after death. We note the " indifference " of other men's souls clearly set forth in viii. 56 : T^ ep.& irpoaiperiKw ro rov rrkijaiov rrpoaiperiMov irria-ri'i aBid(jiopov iariv, just as his tiny vital force and poor flesh. Ka\ yhp el on fiaXurra uXKriXtov eveKev yeyo- DESTINY OF MAN'S SPIRIT 205 vafiev o/UA>¥ rh ff^efwviKh ^fi&v efcaarov rrjv Ihlav Kvpikv e^ei. Here, as we saw above, the independence of each soul is maintained ; iva fir) eV aW^ ^ to ifie drvy^eiv. Still, 54 : MrjKeTi fiovov avfiirveiv tw vepii'^ovri aepi, dW ^St] k. avfi^poveiv t^ 'ir€pik'}(pvTi irdvra No€pu. Ov yap ^ttov r] voepa BvvafiK iravrq /ce'^vrai K. Biwrre^OiTrjKe rat ffTrdaai Svvafiev(p rjirep rj depdoSrii T^ dvairvevffai. — iv. 29. He is an offshoot separated from the State, o r^v IBiav iftv^ijv t^? t&v \oycK&v aTTOcrj^tfetfj' |xios ovar)';. — ^iv. 4 : El ro voepov fjiuv Koivhv, K. o Xo'fo'; Kaff ov \oyiKol iafiev koii'^s. El . . . rovro, K. vofio^ Koivo^' el TovTo, iroKlrai eafiev . . . el tovto 6 Koa-fjioi} aadvei iroXi^ i. (the intermediate steps of the progressive Syllogism are unimportant). . . . 'EKeldev Be ex Tfj<; xoivfj^ Tavr7j a"fiaTo^ tov Koa/iov onrepfiaTi,Kov' irepov fiiov, ovSev 6e&v Kivov ovSe :/B6t" el Se ev avaia-dtjaia iravarj . . . dv^o/ievo^ k. \MrpeviXavdpanrto<; StOTa^aj/re? ol 0eol TOVTo fiovou Ttapelhov, — to evLov; . . . koI iravii yprjaToiiis K. irXeia-ra 7rpo<} to deiov ma-jrep a-v/i^oXaia Oefiivovi k. iirl "TrXeiaTOV BC epytov ocritov k. iepovpyi&v a-vvrjOei^ t& 6ei^ yevofjjivovi, iweiBhu aira^ dvoddvaai, p,r}KiTt aidi TO fit) Sefjaai ktX). " Do you not see that in hazard- ing such questions you arraign the justice of God (SiKaidXoyy) ? Nay, we could not thus reason with the gods but for their perfectness and justice " (ovk av 8' ovTto BieT^^yofieda toI<; deoK, el fir) dpiaroi k. SiKaioraTol, eiicriv)} El he tovto, ovk av Tt TrepieiSov dBiK&^ K. aXoywi r)fi€\,r)fievov t&v ev Ty SuzKoa-fiijaei : " And from this it follows that they never would have allowed any unjust or unreasonable neglect of parts of the great order." This is perhaps the most striking passage in the whole book, and demands now some consideration. § 1 3. We must not press down Marcus to a dogmatic statement ; he is only concerned to vindicate the Divine goodness at all cost and under any condition or circum- stance. " Whatever my experience or discovery in Hfe may be, it shall not interfere with this belief of mine, whether it be instinctive or a scholastic maxim, learnt by heart at the beginning of my career." How nobly irrational is this prejudice in favour of a School thesis ! There is no foundation for his belief except the formal ' Implying, I suppose, that we are indebted to them (1) for the faculty of criticizing reason, by which we can ungratefully impeach the Cosmic Process ; (2) for their patience and long-suffering, by which they listen without anger to our murmurs. 2i6 MARCUS AURELIUS syllogism of the Porch, by which you could prove any- thing and be none the wiser ; and (here is the really re- deeming feature) an unassailable personal conviction which has come to him in spite of the gloomy issue of his philosophic reflexion, that " God is gracious." Here is religious faith, very vague and very much entangled in a whole mass of pantheistic " credenda," but sincere, authentic, vital. And, with the right instinct of the Christian, he will at once sacrifice God's almightiness to His goodness ; " perhaps the gods could not recall a man from the gates of death." This is implicit in the central part of the section. So J.- S. Mill willingly abandons the more or less meaningless dogma of infinite power, because thereby he arouses the strongest emotion, the most redoubtable propaganda in the world of men, the spirit of chivalrous loyalty to a cause not yet won. Or, again, we may suppose that the gods are but the subordinate ministers and satellites of the Timcetis, and that Nature antecedes their loving providence by a stern fiat separating the possible from the impossible. Whichever it may be, Marcus clearly feels himself " safe " in the hands of the higher powers. His reasoning is absurd to the last degree ; not a single important word in the paragraph could retain its customary sense if he is allowed to argue in that stiff and formal manner ; every definition evaporates into thin air. But who are we, to judge another man's faith, or penetrate into the sacred recesses of the inner temple ? Suffice it that in this last great trial Marcus was tested in the furnace of God's abandonment, and was not foimd wanting ; so imshaken was his belief, so triumphant his heart and character over the coldness, the inadequacy, of his philosophic creed. DESTINY OF MAN'S SPIRIT 217 (E) Belief in Immortality essential to the logical Theory, if not to the Pursuit, of Morality Analysis § 14. He preaches the very reverse of a current beUef to-day, "im- mortality without Religion " ; incalculable effect of a scientific proof of Thanatism. § 15. To-day, for half the human race, there is no God, but un- questionable belief in survival (on this morality can be based, not on a ba/rren Theism). § 14. But there is another and still more interesting question that this section raises. Marcus contemplates with calmness, " Ebligion without Immortality." To- day there is some prospect of the exact reverse, " Immortality without Ebligion." ^ So completely has the standpoint changed ! A belief in the survival of the conscious spirit is, I believe, absolutely essential, if not to the practice, at least to the reasonable pursuit of morality. Morality in the main is instinctive, and depends very little on ethical teaching ; indeed, the ethical teacher feels himself always stepping on the thin ice of the sceptical inquiry, " Why must I do right ? " or the volcanic iires of passionate anarchy. But I readily ' Dr. Rendall has a very interesting sentence, ovii., on Marcus' Thanatism, though, as I have explained, I cannot recognise the parallel ; cvii. : " Just as the devout Christian will in his self-communings face the moral corollaries consequent on a denial of the Resurrection or of a future life ; so, too, Marcus wUl entertain and test the consequences of postulates to which he himself gires no assent." It seems clear that in the second case (though not necessarily in the former) the word " moral " would cease to bear its Kantian sense. It would either imply an arbitrary law of a tyrant who had called us from animalism to tease and tantalize us with illusions and pains ; or the convention of society, which might or might not remain binding in practice, though in theory it would be indefensible, in the complete absence of any standard which could measure human life and its hopes and self-devotion. 2i8 MARCUS AURELIUS allow that morality is independent of 'a belief in a personal Creator and Judge. Moral behaviour, which resists the solvent of atheism,'- could not possibly con- ' How completely independent the moral sanction is in Marcus' eye of any theological presupposition, is seen in vi. 44 : Ei /ih oSc i^ovKei- aavTo Tepl i/iov «. Tap i/Mol avu^Tjvai. 6it>eCKbvT(iiv (particular ProTidence) Ka\us i^ovKeiffavTo. It is not easy, even for a moment, to imagine a god to be 4|3ot/\os, and for what cause should they want to harm me ? . . . But if their providence was not special, but general, all follows in the unbending course of things, and I must be content (do-Trdf eo-Sai k. m-ipyeir 6(pel\] k. puirfi k. rocravTy puo-Ei T7j<; T ovauK} K. Tov '^ovoV K. Tr) xdra tA outA . . . ovSev Kaivov, irdvra k. avvrjOi] K. dAiyoxpovia. — 10 : Trai/To? p-vrifir) Tdyf^iara iyKaraj^covvvTai rm al&vi. — 1 8 : rt yap hvvaTai Vpaplf )ji6TaPo\rjs yeveaOai ; ti Se (fnXrepov rj olxeioTepov ttj T&v oKmv ^vaei; — vii. 25: iravff oa o/sa? oaov ovTTca p,ETaPa\ET ^ T^ o\a hioiKovaa ^vai<;, k. SXKa ix t^? ovaiwi avTwv iroirjaet, etc. iva del veapbi y 6 K.6afio a iroietrai iBiav 6pfi.i\v to tov Koa/jLov 'Hye/ioviKov ; else you must deny reason to the sovereign ends which guide the impulse of the World-Soul. Such is Dr. Kendall's translation ; but it puts a dilemma 236 MARCUS AURELIUS instead of the sceptical alternative which seems to me lurking in this difficult passage. Now ix. 28 gives much the same language, and it is worth while to compare the sense : "Htoi i eicaiTTov opfio tj tov oKov Aidvoia oirep el i. anrohe^ov ro eKeivrjii op/j/rjTov. 'H uTra^ &pfj/r)ae, to, Be \oiira kut iiraKoXovdrja-iv. " Either the World-Mind imparts each individual impulse — in which case, accept the impulse it imparts ; or else it gave the impulse once of all, with all its long entail of consequence " (reading KarevTeivei,, a brilliant and plausible emendation for the text tI iv rivi, and Coraes' koX tI evTeivrj, which is quite in Marcus' manner, X. 31). Now the distinction in both these obscure and perhaps corrupt sections is between a special and a fatal or universal Providence. Marcus is concerned to show in either event, resignation is the fitting attitude of the Sage. Can we allow a " knowledge of particu- lars " to God ? — e.g. vi. 44, he puts the hypothesis of the restriction of Divine interest (or power) to the greater laws ; to the larger issues of life : — El Be fiij i^ovXevcravTO Kar iSiai* irepi ifiov irepi ye tmv Kotv&v Trai/reBS e^ovXevo'avTO, oh Kar etraKoKovOrjffiv k. ravra av/i^aivovra . . . a-T^pyeiv 6 eKaairov, each trivial event, circumstance, casualty is Divine (as according to Christian teaching). In the former, if I may extrude the (to me) incomprehensible word THE UNIVERSE 237 aXo7«7Ta, we see detailed vigilance of Providence is restricted to " great heroes and great haps " (as in Lucan, " Humanum paucis vivit genus " ; and Caesar's tannt to the mutineers who think the gods care for their petty lives). These he calls ra Kvpicorara ; and towards these, not predetermined by course of Fate and unravelled string of destiny, the World-Soul makes a special and impulsive onslaught. (Could aXoyia-ra mean " as yet not predestined, still leaving scope for special settlement " ; or could we read aKoyicrrasi; rj, " requiring no particular exercise of reason," etc. ?) In any case I am clear there is a distinct antithesis between the more religious and the purely scientific conception of the world-order; and that whatever private opinion Marcus may hold, he is not going to commit himself either here or elsewhere. § 6. ix. 1. (Impiety not to regard pleasure and pain as r} KoivT) ^vai<; does : She treats them " indifferently," iiria-7i<;, by which I mean,) rb a-vfi^aiveiv iwiari^ to, TO e^s Tot<; yivofievoa k. iTriyi,vo/j,6voi fiepo<} ei. "From providence (the personal and religious view) flows all; and side by side with it is necessity and the advantage of the Universe" (the scientific and impersonal), " of which you are a part." Here there is a compromise ; both views are stated in a parallel ; they are neither reconciled nor allowed to quarrel, only held in leash. — ii. 11, in a celebrated vindication of Death, ei fiev deal elaiv ovBev Beivov (kukm rydp ae ovk av irepi^aXoiev)' ei Be rjToi, ovk elalv rj ov fieXei awTots Tmv dvOpwTeioav, n' /jloi ^ijv iv Kocrfiip Kevcp 6emv rj ripoKoias Kevm ; 'AXKa koX eialv, k. /liXei avTol<; twv dvOpcoireicov. This is the strongest passage in the book about the gods and their part in human affairs.^ — iv. 3 : 'Avavecoad/ievoi; to Bte^evyp.evov ^ toi ripdraia ir) aTo/ioi K. ef oacov dTreZev)(d7) ort o Koafio^ wardvei 7ro\t9. (" Eeeall to mind the alternative, — either a foreseeing Providence or blind atoms, — and all the abounding proofs that the world is as it were a city.") We see here clearly to which side he is leaning, to the politico- religious conception as opposed to the scientific. — vi. ' We may remember how closely united in Quintilian's age were the two themes for unending discussion : " whether the world was ruled by Providence," and "whether the Wise Man should take office," — a singular instance of the reciprocal influence of metaphysical theory and conduct. THE UNIVERSE 239 10. Again, engaged in the contemplation of death, he almost comforts himself with the thought of atomism as a consolation for leaving the world (ii. 11): "Htoi KVKeatv K. avTejiifKoKr] k. aKeSaafio^' r) 6va}fjMro<; avyapiai';, evhifirro^' r) Se ■^v^rj, pofi^o^' rj he TV'^7], hva-TeK/jLapTOV 17 he ^rifir), axptTOP. ^vveXovn S' elireiv iravra, rd fiev awpjaTOi, iroTa/iO'i' rd he t^? yjrvx>jv koto t^v avvovHav, ivreplov iraparpi^n K, fierd nvos 0 /iv^aplov Ixxpiffis. 244 MARCUS AURELIUS things of the body are but a stream that flows, things of the soul a dream and vapour) ; life, a warfare and a sojourning" [? in an alien land]; "and afterfame, oblivion." Surely it is Leopardi who is talking, and not a professed and sincere vindicator of the ways of God ? " Non tali auxilio non defensoribus istis ! " — Length of time is equally an illusion ; from many passages in which he insists that the present moment alone is ours (without the inevitable Cyrenaic corollary !), I single iii. 7 : irorepov iirl irXeov Sidarrjfia y(^povov Tm (ra)/j,aTi irepie'xp- /ievf) rfj '^Jrvyn ^ iir eXaercrov ■^ijaeTai, oiS' oriovv ainw /leKei. — 1 : fiovov ^y eKaaToiKoa6Aa)^ irpaKTiKh, avBpaymal fiv^&v fuard. ("How cheap, in sooth, are these pygmies of politics, these sage doctrin- aires in statecraft ! Drivellers everyone ! ") — x. 1 7 : Tov oKov aio)vop6n) levai. — xii. 1 and 2. Various uncom- plimentary names for the body to irepiTedpa/ifiivov aot crapxiBtov . . . v\iKa dyyeia k. <|>\oict k. KaOcipfiara . . . tA irepiiKeifieva KpedBia (" fleshly shell . . . material husks and impurities"). — xii. 27: 11 ov vvv iravra eKeiva ; KaiTvb% k. tnroSos K. fivffoi rj ovSe fivdo^. — 31 : El Se exaara evKara^povr)ra irpoa-iOi iirl reXevracov, TO eireadai Tm Aoyai k. t& @em. — 32. How tiny a portion of eternity, of substance, of world-soul has been allotted to you ! iv ttoo-t^ Se ^uKapico t^? oKtii 7^? ' This contemptuous, semi-gnostical language, and this repetition of insulting diminutives, is a fashion of most second century writers ; cf. Maximus Tyrius, xiii., where the body is dvffxpvrriv toOto irepi/SXij^a. . . . x^*"'*'" ^^^/iepa, paxla iffSev^ k. Tpixi-""- • • • Kaxbr k. i,ir\ri reixtov SeiT/iUTriplov. It was certainly not the Christian Church, but the fatigued classical spirit, that introduced ascetic anchoritism and a Manichsean contempt for the body. Even the genial Plotinus, whose entire aim is anti- Dualistic, is led away by this fundamental tenet of the new Platonism (a spirit by no means confined to the School of that name), Mmead, vi. 7. 31 : the fair objects of sense arouse the waking soul, but do not beguile it into supposing they are original ; for they are but counterfeits ; "never would those blessed ideals venture to defile themselves by embarking in this miry clay of bodily vesture, to befoul and destroy themselves {/iii y&p ftx roKfi^irai iKeiva old ianv eis ^ip^opov aiapAnav ifi^rjvai, K, ftviravai eaura /c. dipai'iffat)^ 2 so MARCUS AURELIUS e/37ret?; irdvTa ravra ivBv/jiovfievoii, firjSh/ /leyh ^vrd^ov (contrast Aristotle's e<^' oa-ov evBi'^erai adavarl^eiv). — The sum of the whole book may be found in the next section. Um eavrw '^rjrat to 'HyefioviKov ; ev yap tovt^) to irav. to. Be Xoiira rj nrpoaipera e. rj dirpoaipera, viKpa k. Kairfis. ("How goes it with your Inner Self? that is everything. All else, in your control or out of it, is smoke and dust of the dead." ^) {B) The Uses and Methods of Philosophy; the SUKKENDEE OF InTELLECTUALISM Analysis §6. Settled early in life his few {paradoxic) dogmata; iv/rnt his hooks ; his style and unction all his own ; formal doctrvnes, others?. § 7. Abandons speculative philosoph/y {not tending to edification) ; aims at mere practical goodness amd piety ; his " open mind " on all ultimate problems. § 6. One or two points remain : (1) what is the kind of science or method of philosophy which has taught Marcus this theory of the world and man's place in it ? (2) whether it is possible to stand out in self-will and obstruct the eternal order ? because it is clear that people not born to patience and devoutness, in whose breast rages the sacred fire of discontent, will be glad ' I am not quite comfortable about dismissing irpoalpera into this contemptible category ; it seems too sweeping even for Marcus the pessimist. I would suggest that by this word he conveys a domain proper and subordinate to the exercise of the Inner Self, by willing ; and therefore really indluded in it, and not to be distinguished as having an essential value in itself. For to emphasize the mere inner tranquillity, released from any willing or striving, is surely too Buddhistic for Marcus ? But I only suggest. THE TWO NATURES 251 to hear what measure of completeness, distiuctness, individuality, one can attain, even if it be painful, and in the end a failure. Who is the character in one of Stevenson's apologues, who, when he hears of the Eagnarok, says, " I am going off to fight for Odin " ? It is the dull and meaningless omnipotence which rouses us to challenge, even to despise, the tyrant sovereign of a world so worthless. But if he demands our help and our sympathy, waits for, and will not force our loyalty, the whole horizon is changed ; the meaning of everyday life becomes clearer ; little things fit in to a system, which, sublime, is not " infinite." The very weakness of the power that makes " for righteousness " is the best enlisting sergeant : " Moria- mur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa." But first to the peculiar method of Marcus' inquiry. Now it is clear that early in life he was much inclined to become a student, to read and meditate much over bygone authors, and to spend over the refined subtleties of Hellenic systems a life which was owed to public duties and the common welfare. His temper, too, essentially speculative and sceptic, had its especial dangers, of which he was aware. So, after settling upon a few maxims on which to guide his life, the BoyfMTa irpo^eipa, so frequently summoned and paraded, after deciding on the supreme merits of Stoic Monism, he abandoned further search, quenched his curiosity, and burnt, if not his boats, at least his books. What self-devotion there was in this sacrifice of inclination ! He may have borrowed his technical phrases from others, his doctrine of seH-sufficingness from Seneca, of the " indwelling Deity " from Epictetus, his charity and forbearance from the abundant practical examples 252 MARCUS AURELIUS in his childhood, from his mother, from Antoninus,^ the old man " Cephalus " of the drama, — but in the very antinomies of his system, the bluntness and vagaries of his unpractised style, the fervour of his intense sincerity, the richness of his concrete illustration and metaphor,^ ' Besides the long section in Book I., see vi. 30 : Tldrra, is 'AvTuvtrov ^ Some of his more memorable sayings : "Do each act, live each day, as if it were to be your last." "The good man is high priest and minister of the gods." "Our human states are houses in the supreme commonwealth." " Do even the smallest thing, mindful of the close connexion of things human and Divine." "The bright flame assimilates all to itself, and only burns "the brighter ; so should a wise man take life's pains," "A poet of old said, dear city of Ceorops ; and shall I not say, beloved city of God ! " " Full already is the story of your life ; completed your public service " (reKela ii \ei,TOvpyla). "The finest kind of retaliation is not to become like." "In this flux of things, he who singles out another for his love, is as if a passing swallow caught his fancy ; and, lo ! it is already out of sight." "(Things cannot influence our judgments." " The lover of glory places his good in another's action ; the voluptuary, in his own passivity ; the wise, in his own unfettered activity." "Why be ashamed, if lame, to mount the glittering ramparts of the City of Truth by another's helping hand ? " " Near at hand is thy forgetfulness of all ; near, too, forgetfulness of all for thee." "The fount of the good within will ever give pure water, if you dig about it." " How easy for a man to be divine, and yet be recognized by none ! " "A mind free from every passion is an Acropolis." "A fountain, if you stand blaspheming it and casting in mud, ceases not to send forth clear water." "Come quickly, Death ! lest perchance I forget myself." " Even if the leaving life so be the one right action in life " (cf. " Nothing in life became him as well as the leaving it "). " On the same tree, yes ; not of the same creed." THE TWO NATURES 253 the quickness of his eye for realistic detail, we must lament in the interests both of literature and philo- sophy that he could not enjoy a more ample leisure (eipv^wpia). In spite of his constant repetitions, in spite of the patent fallacy in that philosophic scheme which he fondly supposed was the foundation of his ethical practice, he always compels attention by the dignity, the distinction, the earnest directness of his style. He commands and uses as his servant the crabbed definitions and phrases of Stoic pedantry ; and in a certain atmosphere, and an indescribable unction, he foreshadows Plotinus ; whose genial mysticism, set free now from "physiology," stands in such marked contrast to the pessimism of the Emperor. He might, we can easily conceive, have hewn out a more enduring temple of truth, softened the asperities, and reconciled the inconsistencies of his creed ; which as it lies before us in detached aphorisms, is but a tumbled heap of bricks in disorder, and with no clue to their combina- tion. But from the sohtary meditation, '' alone with the Alone," in which lay his deepest joy,^ public service called him ; and from this, whether in battle or senate-house, he never flinched. Yet he abandoned the delights of speculative philosophy with a sigh. He needs continually to remind himself that he has not time, perhaps not capacity (as he modestly avers), for becoming a " dialectic " or a " physician " ; that others, if he challenge comparison with the great minds of pure thought, may despise and laugh at his pretensions ; Complaint of an actor cut short in his part : " But I have not yet spoken my full allotted part ! " Never mind ; in life your three-fifths is the entire plot." ' iv. 3 : TTJs iworxfiip^ifeiiK TTJi els tovto ri ir/plSiov iavrov. 254 MARCUS AURELIUS but that they cannot do this if, in abandoning all claim to wisdom, he strives to be simply good. § 7. ii. 2: "/4<^es ra ^l^Xia. — 3: ttjv Be t&v fii^uov Siyjrav plyfrov ! His use of philosophy is of a pure moral science, in the sense of Epictetus. — ii. 17: Tl oSv to irapairifi^lrai Svvdfievov ; ^v k. fiovov ^i\o(7oia. Tovro S' iv tw tt] peiv rbv evhov Aaifiova avv^pvTTov, «t\. (" What then can direct our goings ? one thing, and one alone, philosophy ; which is to keep the deity within inviolate and free from scathe.") — vi. 30 : ^Ar^mviaai, iva TOtouro? iK,oao^ia. " Struggle to remain such as Philosophy would have you," = as above, " Simple, good, sincere, grave, unaffected, a friend to justice. God-fearing, considerate, affectionate, and strenuous in duty." — So viii. 1 : TroWot? t dXXoiikoa-o^iai\oa-o(j}ia^ epyov. — Such practical wisdom and guidance to serenity, the sovereign good, will be embodied in short gnomic maxims, pregnant with meaning, held ready for any emergency. He learnt from Eusticus to "renounce sophistic ambitions and essays on philosophy, discourses provocative to virtue, or fancy portraitures of the sage or the phil- anthropist." — i. 7 : fJ/r] eKTpairrjvai et? l^ffKov aoiuo-io\oYeii' "jradoKoyeiv SiaXeKTiKeiieadat, where Eendall very suggestively : " To every impression apply, if possible, the tests of objective character, of subjective effect, and of logical relation." The passage is not easy ; (pvatoXoyeiv (a word of significant frequency in later books) clearly conveys " peculiar and special nature or equipment," — IBla Karaa-Kevr], by no means a detailed inquiry into composition and parts by scientific and impartial induction, but rather a deductive pronounce- ment on its place in the world, viewed in the light of the prescribed teleology ; •jradaiXoyeiv would imply the actual experience of such a creature or thing (for iva-idX(yy&v SiereXovv), " and, more particularly, how the understanding, while participating in such dis- turbances of the flesh, yet remains in unperturbed possession of its proper good" (fi Aidvoia, arvfifieraXa/jL- j3dvovaa tS>v ev (rapKiSi

uaio\6YC[) avfi^Xvapeip). — X. 9. He unites this "scientific knowledge" or " winnowing and discerning faculty " with simplicity, 26o MARCUS AURELIUS dignity : IIoTe ykp aw\oT?jTO? airokavaet'; ; ttotc a'efivoTrjTO's ; troTe Se t^s £' kicdaTOV yvtopKreca^, Tt re i. Kar ovaLav, k. Tiva X'^pav ep^et ev t& Koa-fiip, K. iirl iroaov ire^vKev v(j>i>c^'i^^ "• ^''"o i^wj^coffetB? fjtixpi' ToO rfjv yjrvxvv airoSovvai k. i^ o'Cwv 17 av^Kpi,vo'ioXoYi]cras) ; (j3) in a doubtful passage, x. 9 : "A fight, a scramble, a stupor, or a bondage — such is life ! and each day wiU help to efface the sacred principles which you divest of philosophic regard or allegiance " (ri lepi, iKeiva dSyfmra oTmrh oi (fivvaio\oyla, may have altered.) IlapoTr^/nretK is itself a puzzle ; it is used, i. 8, of absolute " disregard " ; ii. 17, of the supreme guidance and "escort" of true wisdom; viii. 57, of the " transmission " of light. I feel certain it is used here like ^oi/Tilf^ in a depreciatory sense, " carelessly bow out." THE TWO NATURES 263 i 13. {Texts on theme, "pa/rt or member or Umb severed from whole ceases to be ".) § 14. Indwidual aloofness and ward of sympathy can do ha/rm; yet, unlike lopped brcmch, repentcmt sepa/ratist com rev/mte (but he is never the same). § 15. Appeal based on special affinity and Thought for its kindred and courvterpa/rt ; the truly moral one who takes joy in doing right. § 12. Having now seen the universal law of decay, as the foundation and perpetual theme of philosophy, being aware that to Marcus " Science " meant a preju- diced and inaccurate meditation on constant elemental change, we come now to a seemingly different subject, one, nevertheless, closely connected. Is man, doomed with all else to death, able in any degree to vindicate his freedom in self-will ? Is he a mere machine with the painful consciousness that it possesses just so much spontaneity as to understand its • slavery ? ^ — x. 5 : " Whatever befalls was fore-prepared for you from all time ; the woof of causation was from all eternity weaving the realization of your being and that which should befall it." "O ri av aoi a-vfi^alvy tovto aoi 6^ al&vov XoytK&v airoavi^cav, fiiat ov(Tt}'i). — Yet these railers perform a useful function, each has a contributory function to the service of the THE TWO NATURES 265 whole ; none are superfluous. Heraclitus believed sleepers to be epyaral . , . avvepyol t5)v iv r& Koa-/j,ei> yivofievtov. "AWo^ Se Kar aXKo avvepyel' eK irepi- ovacai Se k. 6 /lefiipofievo^, k. 6 dm^aii'Eii' •jreipco/j.evo'i K. di'aipcii' Tci yivo/ieva. Km yap rov TOtovTOV e')(pr)^ev 6 Kotr/ioi ("who finds fault, and who tries to resist and undo what is done ; even of such the world has need"). § 13. viii. 34 : " Have you ever seen a dismembered hand or foot, or decapitated head lying severed from the body to which it belonged ? (diroKeKOfifUn)!' . . . airorerfnjfievqv). Such does a man make himself (so far as he can) when he refuses to accept what befalls, and isolates himself, or when he pursues self-seeking action " (o iiif OeKwv to v<7iv ei/taceeos" e7re<^i/K6t? yap fiepo<;, vvv he aeavrov aireKo^ai). " But here is this beautiful provision, that it is in your power to re-enter the unity ; no other part of the whole doth God privilege, when once severed and dismembered, to reunite '' ('/4\\' 5Se KOfjAJrbv eKeivo on e^eari aoi irdKiv iv&a-ai aeavTov. tovto aWco fjLepei ovSevl 0eo)v . . . Trapa^Tjvaif V. 10 ; iii. 12, oiifieis 6 tovto (ed^taeiv) KoAvffai Svvdfievos. — Even Bartholomew Toyner could scarcely express himself more em- phatically on this inalienable prerogative (though he may be more picturesque) : " I tell you it's a love that's awfal to think of, that will go on giving men strength_to do wrong, until through the ages of Hell they get sick of it, rather than make them into machines that would just go when they're wound up, and that no one could love " {The Zeit Geist, by L. Dougall). THE TWO NATURES 267 beings there are societies and friendship, homes and communities, and in wars, compacts and armistices." EttI Be T&v en- KpeiTTovatv, koI SiearTiKormv rpoirov Tiva evmai<; iirea-Tr] o'ia e-rfi rmv aa-Tpav. " In the still higher orders of being, even among distant bodies, there exists unity of a kind, as among the Stars." Outw? ^ iwl TO KpeiTTov iiravd^aaiii avp/irddeiav Kal iv SteaTwaiv epryda-aa-Oai BvvaTai. " So that ascent in the scale of being induces sympathetic action, in spite of distance. See what we come to then. None but things possessed of mind ignore the mutual impulse of attraction ; here only does the natural gravitation disappear" {fiova rd voepa vvv iinXeXTjaTai t^9 Trpo? aWrjXa (tttouS^s k. avwevaew<;, k. to avppovv &Se fiopov ov /SXeVeTat). " Yes, but even in the act of evasion, men are caught and overtaken ; nature prevails. Watch and you will see ; sooner will you find some particle of earth de- tached from other earth, than man isolated from man " (watTOt (pevyovrei;, irepiKaraXafi^dvovTai' Kparel yap ri ]/iaTodai. ' Ovtw Br/ koI avBpmwo'! evos avOptoirov Airoo-j(ia8€is oK7]<; TJj? Koivmviav diroirevTeoKe (" a branch lopped from its neighbour branch is inevitably lopped also from the main trunk ! So, too, a man isolated from one of his fellow-beings is severed from the general fellowship "). The only difference is that in man's case his is the voluntary wrong and hurt, act of malice prepense. KXdSov fiev alv aWo? airoKOTTTeb' a. Be avTO£is, a^voei he on k. tov oKov 7r6\iTev/jLaT0<; Te ou^ o/ioio^ 6 kTmSo^ o air ap^rji; avfiSXa- aTr)cra<;, k. 9 . . . avToiJ Icefca). For this aim guides the Sun in heaven, and Zeus Himself. But whenever He desires to be, God of Rain or Harvest and Father of gods and men, you will see He cannot attain such functions or such titles unless He be useful for the common interest. Such, then, He made the nature of reasonable beings that they cannot obtain any of their own good things, unless somewhat be brought forward and applied to the general weal. So to do all for self becomes no longer selfish and ungenerous (dKoii/u- vt}Tov . . . rh irdcO' auTou IfEKa Troteiv). For what would you expect 1 that a man should hold aloof from self and from his own advantage ? {am-ovry . . . tov iStois i\o- Oedixoves) what this world is ? who guides its courses ? of what nature is He and what His manner of governing ? and what APPENDIX 299 kind of creatures we are who have issued from Him. as His offering, and to what purpose framed (ttoios ns k. ttSs SioikSv ; . . . TLVti ovTK K. TTpos tC epyov ;). (fpyov) whether we have some attachment and kindred relationship with Him or none at all 1 (imrXoKriv . . . o-xeo-ii'). For the rest, their leisure is in this alone ahsorhed, how to closely survey the fair and inquire and then quietly depart ; and for their pains they are derided by the rabble. CHAPTER III (104) Death, what is it? an ugly mask to frighten chil- dren ; turn it round and see what it really is ; see, it can- not bite ! This poor body must be severed from the little breath, as it was before, now or some time later on. Why be indignant if it be to-day ? . . . that the world's great period may be consummated (TrepioSos avvi^ai) ; for it has need of some to be now, others to wait for birth, and others already spent and done (^vutr/tei/wv). (179) What then ? does this teaching not please you ? See now, how righteousness is nothing, reverence is but folly; father, son but empty, meaningless names. (comical) But when God bestows not on you the barest needful for life, as a general He sounds the recall to His soldiers ; He sets the door open and says to you. Come hence ! (death ?) Whither 1 not to aught that is terrible, but to the place whence you came, to things friendly and kiudred (ets tu ^(A.a K. (Tvyyevfj), (us ?). As much of fire as was in you will depart to join the central flame, of common clay to earth again, etc. There is no Hell nor Acheron nor Cocytus nor Pyriphlegethon, but all things are fulfilled (as Thales said) " of gods and daemons." (me 1) fool, you he cannot slay, only your poor corpse ! 300 MARCUS AURELIUS (266) This poor body of mine is nothing to me ; its parts are nothing to me. Death ? let it come when it will, either of whole or of a limb. Exile 1 and who can banish me from God's universe 1 Wheresoever I go there will His sun shine, there moon and stars ; there too holy dreams and auguiies and sweet converse with the heavenly ones. (301) As is winter to fig, such is every circumstance from the universal order to the things consumed and destroyed in it. . . . It signifies the death of the ears of corn, not of the world. For all such is but passing of things that were into other forms of things to be ; not death at all, but a settled and orderly management aa of thrifty house-steward. (ouK dTTciXua aWii, TETay/xa/i; Tts oiKOfOfiia i<. StotKiyo-is) . . . Death, a change a shifting — more intense than any of these, from what now is to — I will not say — that which is not, but into that which is not yet (etg to vvv firj ov), " shall I then cease to be ? " asks the anxious inquirer. Yes (ouk eTipa.v). Printed by Morrisoh & Gibb Limited, Edinlmrgh In neat Crown 8yo Yolames, THREE SHILLINGS each. THE WORLD'S EPOCH = MAKERS. EDITED BY OLIPHANT 8MEAT0N, M.A. 'An excellent Series of Biographical Studies.' — Athenaeum. ' We aduise our readers to keep a watch on this most able series. It promises to be a distinct success. The volumes before us are the most satisfactory boohs of the sort we have ever read,' — Methodist Times. CRANMER AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. By a. D. 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