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Page 20
One passage may end this matter. "If the gods have determined about me
and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well,
for it is not easy even to imagine a deity without forethought; and as
to doing me harm, why should they have any desire towards that? For what
advantage would result to them from this or to the whole, which is the
special object of their providence? But if they have not determined
about me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at
least; and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general
arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them.
But if they determine about nothing--which it is wicked to believe, or
if we do believe it, let us neither sacrifice nor pray nor swear by
them, nor do anything else which we do as if the gods were present and
lived with us; but if however the gods determine about none of the
things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and I can
inquire about that which is useful: and that is useful to every man
which is conformable to his own constitution ([Greek: kataskeu�]) and
nature. But my nature is rational and social; and my city and country,
so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome; but so far as I am a man, it is the
world. The things then which are useful to these cities are alone useful
to me" (vi. 44).
It would be tedious, and it is not necessary, to state the emperor's
opinions on all the ways in which a man may profitably use his
understanding towards perfecting himself in practical virtue. The
passages to this purpose are in all parts of his book, but as they are
in no order or connection, a man must use the book a long time before he
will find out all that is in it. A few words may be added here. If we
analyze all other things, we find how insufficient they are for human
life, and how truly worthless many of them are. Virtue alone is
indivisible, one, and perfectly satisfying. The notion of Virtue cannot
be considered vague or unsettled, because a man may find it difficult to
explain the notion fully to himself, or to expound it to others in such
a way as to prevent cavilling. Virtue is a whole, and no more consists
of parts than man's intelligence does; and yet we speak of various
intellectual faculties as a convenient way of expressing the various
powers which man's intellect shows by his works. In the same way we may
speak of various virtues or parts of virtue, in a practical sense, for
the purpose of showing what particular virtues we ought to practice in
order to the exercise of the whole of virtue, that is, as man's nature
is capable of.
The prime principle in man's constitution is social. The next in order
is not to yield to the persuasions of the body, when they are not
conformable to the rational principle, which must govern. The third is
freedom from error and from deception. "Let then the ruling principle
holding fast to these things go straight on, and it has what is its own"
(vii. 55). The emperor selects justice as the virtue which is the basis
of all the rest (x. 11), and this had been said long before his time.
It is true that all people have some notion of what is meant by justice
as a disposition of the mind, and some notion about acting in conformity
to this disposition; but experience shows that men's notions about
justice are as confused as their actions are inconsistent with the true
notion of justice. The emperor's notion of justice is clear enough, but
not practical enough for all mankind. "Let there be freedom from
perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external
cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the
internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in
this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature" (ix. 31). In
another place (ix. 1) he says that "he who acts unjustly acts
impiously," which follows of course from all that he says in various
places. He insists on the practice of truth as a virtue and as a means
to virtue, which no doubt it is: for lying even in indifferent things
weakens the understanding; and lying maliciously is as great a moral
offense as a man can be guilty of, viewed both as showing an habitual
disposition, and viewed with respect to consequences. He couples the
notion of justice with action. A man must not pride himself on having
some fine notion of justice in his head, but he must exhibit his justice
in act, like St. James' notion of faith. But this is enough.
The Stoics, and Antoninus among them, call some things beautiful
([Greek: kala]) and some ugly ([Greek: aischra]), and as they are beautiful
so they are good, and as they are ugly so they are evil, or bad (ii. 1).
All these things, good and evil, are in our power, absolutely, some of
the stricter Stoics would say; in a manner only, as those who would not
depart altogether from common sense would say; practically they are to a
great degree in the power of some persons and in some circumstances, but
in a small degree only in other persons and in other circumstances. The
Stoics maintain man's free will as to the things which are in his power;
for as to the things which are out of his power, free will terminating
in action is of course excluded by the very terms of the expression. I
hardly know if we can discover exactly Antoninus' notion of the free
will of man, nor is the question worth the inquiry. What he does mean
and does say is intelligible. All the things which are not in our power
([Greek: aproaireta]) are indifferent: they are neither good nor bad,
morally. Such are life, health, wealth, power, disease, poverty, and
death. Life and death are all men's portion. Health, wealth, power,
disease, and poverty happen to men, indifferently to the good and to the
bad; to those who live according to nature and to those who do not.[A]
"Life," says the emperor, "is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and
after fame is oblivion" (ii. 17). After speaking of those men who have
disturbed the world and then died, and of the death of philosophers such
as Heraclitus and Democritus, who was destroyed by lice, and of Socrates
whom other lice (his enemies) destroyed, he says: "What means all this?
Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore;
get out. If indeed to another life, there is no want of gods, not even
there. But if to a state without sensation, thou wilt cease to be held
by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel which is as much
inferior as that which serves it is superior: for the one is
intelligence and Deity; the other is earth and corruption" (iii. 3). It
is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning
to live according to nature (xii. 1). Every man should live in such a
way as to discharge his duty, and to trouble himself about nothing else.
He should live such a life that he shall always be ready for death, and
shall depart content when the summons comes. For what is death? "A
cessation of the impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of
the strings which move the appetites, and of the discursive movements of
the thoughts, and of the service to the flesh" (vi. 28). Death is such
as generation is, a mystery of nature (iv. 5). In another passage, the
exact meaning of which is perhaps doubtful (ix. 3), he speaks of the
child which leaves the womb, and so he says the soul at death leaves its
envelope. As the child is born or comes into life by leaving the womb,
so the soul may on leaving the body pass into another existence which is
perfect. I am not sure if this is the emperor's meaning. Butler compares
it with a passage in Strabo (p. 713) about the Brachmans' notion of
death being the birth into real life and a happy life, to those who have
philosophized; and he thinks Antoninus may allude to this opinion.[B]
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