Thoughts Of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (e book free reading TXT) 📖
- Author: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
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The Cold With More Endurance, And That When He Was Bid To Arrest Leon[C]
Of Salamis, He Considered It More Noble To Refuse, And That He Walked In
A Swaggering Way In The Streets[D]--Though As To This Fact One May Have
Great Doubts If It Was True. But We Ought To Inquire What Kind Of A Soul
It Was That Socrates Possessed, And If He Was Able To Be Content With
Being Just Towards Men And Pious Towards The Gods, Neither Idly Vexed On
Account Of Men's Villainy, Nor Yet Making Himself A Slave To Any Man's
Ignorance, Nor Receiving As Strange Anything That Fell To His Share Out
Of The Universal, Nor Enduring It As Intolerable, Nor Allowing His
Understanding To Sympathize With The Affects Of The Miserable Flesh.
[A] The Text Has [Greek: Hylikê], Which It Has Been Proposed To
Alter To [Greek: Logikê], And This Change Is Necessary. We
Shall Then Have In This Section [Greek: Logikê] And [Greek:
Koinônikê] Associated, As We Have In S. 68 [Greek: Logikê] And
[Greek: Politikê], And In S. 72.
[B] I Have Followed Gataker's Conjecture [Greek: Ohi
Apanthrôpoi] Instead Of The Mss. Reading [Greek: Ohi Anthrôpoi]
[C] Leon Of Salamis. See Plato, Epist. 7; Apolog. C. 20;
Epictetus, Iv. I, 160; Iv. 7, 30.
[D] Aristophan. Nub. 362. [Greek: Hoti Brenthuei T' En Taisis
Hodois Kai Tô Ophthalmô Paraballei.]
Story 3 (The Thoughts Of Marcus Aurelius Antonius) Pg 81
67. Nature Has Not So Mingled+ [The Intelligence] With The Composition
Of The Body, As Not To Have Allowed Thee The Power Of Circumscribing
Thyself And Of Bringing Under Subjection To Thyself All That Is Thy Own;
For It Is Very Possible To Be A Divine Man And To Be Recognized As Such
By No One. Always Bear This In Mind; And Another Thing Too, That Very
Little Indeed Is Necessary For Living A Happy Life. And Because Thou
Hast Despaired Of Becoming A Dialectician And Skilled In The Knowledge
Of Nature, Do Not For This Reason Renounce The Hope Of Being Both Free
And Modest, And Social And Obedient To God.
68. It Is In Thy Power To Live Free From All Compulsion In The Greatest
Tranquillity Of Mind, Even If All The World Cry Out Against Thee As
Much As They Choose, And Even If Wild Beasts Tear In Pieces The Members
Of This Kneaded Matter Which Has Grown Around Thee. For What Hinders The
Mind In The Midst Of All This From Maintaining Itself In Tranquillity
And In A Just Judgment Of All Surrounding Things And In A Ready Use Of
The Objects Which Are Presented To It, So That The Judgment May Say To
The Thing Which Falls Under Its Observation: This Thou Art In Substance
[Reality], Though In Men's Opinion Thou Mayest Appear To Be Of A
Different Kind; And The Use Shall Say To That Which Falls Under The
Hand: Thou Art The Thing That I Was Seeking; For To Me That Which
Presents Itself Is Always A Material For Virtue Both Rational And
Political, And In A Word, For The Exercise Of Art, Which Belongs To Man
Or God. For Everything Which Happens Has A Relationship Either To God Or
Man, And Is Neither New Nor Difficult To Handle, But Usual And Apt
Matter To Work On.
69. The Perfection Of Moral Character Consists In This, In Passing Every
Day As The Last, And In Being Neither Violently Excited Nor Torpid Nor
Playing The Hypocrite.
70. The Gods Who Are Immortal Are Not Vexed Because During So Long A
Time They Must Tolerate Continually Men Such As They Are And So Many Of
Them Bad; And Besides This, They Also Take Care Of Them In All Ways.
But Thou, Who Art Destined To End So Soon, Art Thou Wearied Of Enduring
The Bad, And This Too When Thou Art One Of Them?
71. It Is A Ridiculous Thing For A Man Not To Fly From His Own Badness,
Which Is Indeed Possible, But To Fly From Other Men's Badness, Which Is
Impossible.
72. Whatever The Rational And Political [Social] Faculty Finds To Be
Neither Intelligent Nor Social, It Properly Judges To Be Inferior To
Itself.
73. When Thou Hast Done A Good Act And Another Has Received It, Why Dost
Thou Still Look For A Third Thing Besides These, As Fools Do, Either To
Have The Reputation Of Having Done A Good Act Or To Obtain A Return?
74. No Man Is Tired Of Receiving What Is Useful. But It Is Useful To Act
According To Nature. Do Not Then Be Tired Of Receiving What Is Useful By
Doing It To Others.
75. The Nature Of The All Moved To Make The Universe. But Now Either
Everything That Takes Place Comes By Way Of Consequence Or [Continuity];
Or Even The Chief Things Towards Which The Ruling Power Of The Universe
Directs Its Own Movement Are Governed By No Rational Principle. If This
Story 3 (The Thoughts Of Marcus Aurelius Antonius) Pg 82Is Remembered, It Will Make Thee More Tranquil In Many Things (Vi. 44;
Ix. 28).[A]
[A] It Is Not Easy To Understand This Section. It Has Been
Suggested That There Is Some Error In [Greek: Ê Alogista] &C.
Some Of The Translators Have Made Nothing Of The Passage, And
They Have Somewhat Perverted The Words. The First Proposition
Is, That The Universe Was Made By Some Sufficient Power. A
Beginning Of The Universe Is Assumed, And A Power Which Framed
An Order. The Next Question Is, How Are Things Produced Now?
Or, In Other Words, By What Power Do Forms Appear In Continuous
Succession? The Answer, According To Antoninus, May Be This: It
Is By Virtue Of The Original Constitution Of Things That All
Change And Succession Have Been Effected And Are Effected. And
This Is Intelligible In A Sense, If We Admit That The Universe
Is Always One And The Same, A Continuity Of Identity; As Much
One And The Same As Man Is One And The Same--Which He Believes
Himself To Be, Though He Also Believes, And Cannot Help
Believing, That Both In His Body And In His Thoughts There Is
Change And Succession. There Is No Real Discontinuity Then In
The Universe; And If We Say That There Was An Order Framed In
The Beginning, And That The Things Which Are Now Produced Are A
Consequence Of A Previous Arrangement, We Speak Of Things As We
Are Compelled To View Them, As Forming A Series Of Succession,
Just As We Speak Of The Changes In Our Own Bodies And The
Sequence Of Our Own Thoughts. But As There Are No Intervals,
Not Even Intervals Infinitely Small, Between Any Two Supposed
States Of Any One Thing, So There Are No Intervals, Not Even
Infinitely Small, Between What We Call One Thing And Any Other
Thing Which We Speak Of As Immediately Preceding Or Following
It. What We Call Time Is An Idea Derived From Our Notion Of A
Succession Of Things Or Events, An Idea Which Is A Part Of Our
Constitution, But Not An Idea Which We Can Suppose To Belong To
An Infinite Intelligence And Power. The Conclusion Then Is
Certain That The Present And The Past, The Production Of
Present Things And The Supposed Original Order, Out Of Which We
Say That Present Things Now Come, Are One, And The Present
Productive Power And The So-Called Past Arrangement Are Only
Different Names For One Thing. I Suppose Then That Antoninus
Wrote Here As People Sometimes Talk Now, And That His Real
Meaning Is Not Exactly Expressed By His Words. There Are
Certainly Other Passages From Which I Think That We May Collect
That He Had Notions Of Production Something Like What I Have
Expressed. We Now Come To The Alternate: "Or Even The Chief
Things ... Principle." I Do Not Exactly Know What He Means By
[Greek: Ta Kureôtata] "The Chief," Or "The Most Excellent," Or
Whatever It Is. But As He Speaks Elsewhere Of Inferior And
Superior Things, And Of The Inferior Being For The Use Of The
Superior, And Of Rational Beings Being The Highest, He May Here
Mean Rational Beings. He Also In This Alternative Assumes A
Governing Power Of The Universe, And That It Acts By Directing
Its Power Towards These Chief Objects, Or Making Its Special,
Proper Motion Towards Them. And Here He Uses The Noun ([Greek:
Hormê]) "Movement," Which Contains The Same Notion As The Verb
([Greek: Ôrmêse]) "Moved," Which He Used At The Beginning Of
The Paragraph, When He Was Speaking Of The Making Of The
Universe. If We Do Not Accept The First Hypothesis, He Says, We
Must Take The Conclusion Of The Second, That The "Chief Things
Story 3 (The Thoughts Of Marcus Aurelius Antonius) Pg 83Towards Which The Ruling Power Of The Universe Directs Its Own
Movement Are Governed By No Rational Principle." The Meaning
Then Is, If There Is A Meaning In It, That Though There Is A
Governing Power Which Strives To Give Effect To Its Efforts, We
Must Conclude That There Is No Rational Direction Of Anything,
If The Power Which First Made The Universe Does Not In Some Way
Govern It Still. Besides, If We Assume That Anything Is Now
Produced Or Now Exists Without The Action Of The Supreme
Intelligence, And Yet That This Intelligence Makes An Effort To
Act, We Obtain A Conclusion Which Cannot Be Reconciled With The
Nature Of A Supreme Power, Whose Existence Antoninus Always
Assumes. The Tranquillity That A Man May Gain From These
Reflections Must Result From His Rejecting The Second
Hypothesis And Accepting The First--Whatever May Be The Exact
Sense In Which The Emperor Understood The First. Or, As He Says
Elsewhere, If There Is No Providence Which Governs The World,
Man Has At Least The Power Of Governing Himself According To
The Constitution Of His Nature; And So He May Be Tranquil If He
Does The Best That He Can.
If There Is No Error In The Passage, It
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