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Page 19
[A] See viii. 52; and Persius iii. 66
Further he says: "Take pleasure in one thing and rest in it in passing
from one social act to another social act, thinking of God" (vi. 7).
Again: "Love mankind. Follow God" (vii. 31). It is the characteristic of
the rational soul for a man to love his neighbor (xi. 1). Antoninus
teaches in various passages the forgiveness of injuries, and we know
that he also practised what he taught. Bishop Butler remarks that "this
divine precept to forgive injuries and to love our enemies, though to be
met with in Gentile moralists, yet is in a peculiar sense a precept of
Christianity, as our Saviour has insisted more upon it than on any other
single virtue." The practice of this precept is the most difficult of
all virtues. Antoninus often enforces it and gives us aid towards
following it. When we are injured, we feel anger and resentment, and the
feeling is natural, just, and useful for the conservation of society. It
is useful that wrong-doers should feel the natural consequences of their
actions, among which is the disapprobation of society and the resentment
of him who is wronged. But revenge, in the proper sense of that word,
must not be practised. "The best way of avenging thyself," says the
emperor, "is not to become like the wrong-doer." It is plain by this
that he does not mean that we should in any case practise revenge; but
he says to those who talk of revenging wrongs, Be not like him who has
done the wrong. Socrates in the Crito (c. 10) says the same in other
words, and St. Paul (Ep. to the Romans, xii. 17). "When a man has done
thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or
evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou wilt pity him
and wilt neither wonder nor be angry" (vii. 26). Antoninus would not
deny that wrong naturally produces the feeling of anger and resentment,
for this is implied in the recommendation to reflect on the nature of
the man's mind who has done the wrong, and then you will have pity
instead of resentment; and so it comes to the same as St. Paul's advice
to be angry and sin not; which, as Butler well explains it, is not a
recommendation to be angry, which nobody needs, for anger is a natural
passion, but it is a warning against allowing anger to lead us into sin.
In short the emperor's doctrine about wrongful acts is this: wrong-doers
do not know what good and bad are: they offend out of ignorance, and in
the sense of the Stoics this is true. Though this kind of ignorance will
never be admitted as a legal excuse, and ought not to be admitted as a
full excuse in any way by society, there may be grievous injuries, such
as it is in a man's power to forgive without harm to society; and if he
forgives because he sees that his enemies know not what they do, he is
acting in the spirit of the sublime prayer, "Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do."
The emperor's moral philosophy was not a feeble, narrow system, which
teaches a man to look directly to his own happiness, though a man's
happiness or tranquillity is indirectly promoted by living as he ought
to do. A man must live conformably to the universal nature, which means,
as the emperor explains it in many passages, that a man's actions must
be conformable to his true relations to all other human beings, both as
a citizen of a political community and as a member of the whole human
family. This implies, and he often expresses it in the most forcible
language, that a man's words and actions, so far as they affect others,
must be measured by a fixed rule, which is their consistency with the
conservation and the interests of the particular society of which he is
a member, and of the whole human race. To live conformably to such a
rule, a man must use his rational faculties in order to discern clearly
the consequences and full effect of all his actions and of the actions
of others: he must not live a life of contemplation and reflection only,
though he must often retire within himself to calm and purify his soul
by thought,[A] but he must mingle in the work of man and be a fellow
laborer for the general good.
[A] Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo.--_Persius_, iv.
21.
A man should have an object or purpose in life, that he may direct all
his energies to it; of course a good object (ii. 7). He who has not one
object or purpose of life, cannot be one and the same all through his
life (xi. 21). Bacon has a remark to the same effect, on the best means
of "reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate; which is, the
electing and propounding unto a man's self good and virtuous ends of his
life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain."
He is a happy man who has been wise enough to do this when he was young
and has had the opportunities; but the emperor seeing well that a man
cannot always be so wise in his youth, encourages himself to do it when
he can, and not to let life slip away before he has begun. He who can
propose to himself good and virtuous ends of life, and be true to them,
cannot fail to live conformably to his own interest and the universal
interest, for in the nature of things they are one. If a thing is not
good for the hive, it is not good for the bee (vi. 54).
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