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that which is useful; and that is useful to every man which is
conformable to his own constitution 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.”
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 practise in
order to the exercise of the whole of virtue, that is, as much 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. 53). 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 offence 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.
The Stoics, and Antoninus among them, call some things beautiful and some
ugly, 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 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.
“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 (IX. 3),
the exact meaning of which is perhaps doubtful, he speaks of the child
which leaves the womb, and so he says the soul at death leaves its
envelope.
Antoninus’ opinion of a future life is nowhere clearly expressed. His
doctrine of the nature of the soul of necessity implies that it does not
perish absolutely, for a portion of the divinity cannot perish. The
opinion is at least as old as the time of Epicharmus and Euripides; what
comes from earth goes back to earth, and what comes from heaven, the
divinity, returns to him who gave it. But I find nothing clear in
Antoninus as to the notion of the man existing after death so as to be
conscious of his sameness with that soul which occupied his vessel of
clay. He seems to be perplexed on this matter, and finally to have rested
in this, that God or the gods will do whatever is best, and consistent
with the university of things.
Nor, I think, does he speak conclusively on another Stoic doctrine, which
some Stoics practiced,—the anticipating the regular course of nature by
a man’s own act. The reader will find some passages in which this is
touched on, and he may make of them what he can. But there are passages
in which the emperor encourages himself to wait for the end patiently and
with tranquillity; and certainly it is consistent with all his best
teaching that a man should bear all that falls to his lot and do useful
acts as long as he lives. He should not therefore abridge the time of his
usefulness by his own act.
Happiness was not the direct object of a Stoic’s life. There is no rule
of life contained in the precept that a man should pursue his own
happiness. Many men think that they are seeking happiness when they are
only seeking the gratification of some particular passion, the strongest
that they have. The end of a man is, as already explained, to live
conformably to nature, and he will thus obtain happiness, tranquillity of
mind, and contentment (III. 12; VIII 2). As a means of living conformably
to nature he must study the four chief virtues, each of which has its
proper sphere: wisdom, or the knowledge of good and evil; justice, or the
giving to every man his due; fortitude, or the enduring of labor and
pain; and temperance, which is moderation in all things. By thus living
conformably to nature the Stoic obtained all that he wished or expected.
His reward was in his virtuous life, and he was satisfied with that.
Epictetus and Antoninus both by precept and example labored to improve
themselves and others; and if we discover imperfections in their
teaching, we must still honor these great men who attempted to show that
there is in man’s nature and in the constitution of things sufficient
reason for living a virtuous life. It is difficult enough to live as we
ought to live, difficult even for any man to live in such a way as to
satisfy himself, if he exercises only in a moderate degree the power of
reflecting upon and reviewing his own conduct; and if all men cannot be
brought to the same opinions in morals and religion, it is at least worth
while to give them good reasons for as much as they can be persuaded to
accept.
FOOTNOTES:
1: This passage is corrupt, and the exact meaning is uncertain.
2: Lorium was a villa on the coast north of Rome, and there Antoninus was
brought up, and he died there. This also is corrupt.
3: This is corrupt.
4: Antoninus here uses the word [Greek: kosmos] both in the sense of the
Universe and of Order; and it is difficult to express his meaning.
5: This is corrupt.
6: It appears that there is a defect in the text here.
7: The story is told by Horace in his Satires and by others since, but
not better.
8: “Seen even with the eyes.” It is supposed that this may be explained
by the Stoic doctrine, that the universe is a god or living being (IV.
40), and that the celestial bodies are gods (VIII. 19). But the emperor
may mean that we know that the gods exist, as he afterwards states it,
because we see what they do; as we know that man has intellectual powers,
because we see what he does, and in no other way do we know it.
9: The Stoics made three divisions of philosophy,—Physic, Ethic, and
Logic (VIII. 13). This division, we are told by Diogenes, was made by
Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic sect, and by Chrysippus; but
these philosophers placed the three divisions in the following order,—
Logic, Physic, Ethic. It appears, however, that this division was made
before Zeno’s time, and acknowledged by Plato, as Cicero remarks. Logic
is not synonymous with our term Logic in the narrower sense of that word.
Cleanthes, a Stoic, subdivided the three divisions, and made six,—
Dialectic and Rhetoric, comprised in Logic; Ethic and Politic;
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