TA EIC EAYTON 
 
 MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 
 TO HIMSELF 
 
d 'Ep/v\fic Ae BAeV<*c eic rdN MA'PKON Sol Ae, eTneN, 
 & Bfipe, T( KAAAICTON e'Ao'Kei TOY Bfoy TeAoc e?NM ; KA! 
 oc HPCMA K<NI CCOC^PO'NWC To Mi/v\eTc0<M, ecJ)H, TOYC eeoyc. 
 
 JULIANUS, Caesares. 
 
M 
 
 ARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 
 TO HIMSELF : AN ENGLISH 
 TRANSLATION WITH INTRO- 
 DUCTORY STUDY ON STOICISM 
 AND THE LAST OF THE STOICS 
 
 GERALD H. RENDALL, M.A., Lrrr.D. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 HEAD MASTER OF CHARTERHOUSE 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 I 898 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 -F*y,s Edition, February 1898. 
 Second Edition, October 1898. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ENGLISH translations of Marcus Aurelius abound 
 from that of Meric Casaubon in 1634, to that of 
 George Long first published in 1862. The 
 choicest, alike in form and contents, is the 
 Foulis Press edition executed by James Moor 
 and Francis Hutcheson ; and it better deserved 
 reproduction than the looser version by Jeremy 
 Collier. But none, in point of scholarship, 
 reaches the level of modern requirement. In 
 this last quarter of the century, the poets, 
 historians, and philosophers of Greece have, one 
 after another, been given to English readers with 
 scholarly precision and in becoming dress. And 
 it seemed worth while to do the same for Marcus 
 Aurelius. For purposes of education, the classical 
 writers justly enjoy more vogue, and are better 
 suited to train taste, intellect, and imagination ; 
 
iv MARCUS ANTONINUS 
 
 but by direct and permanent appeal to heart and 
 conscience, without support from prescription or 
 conventions, Marcus holds his own and lives. 
 Translations, essays, and the records of biographies 
 all testify how simple and learned alike fall under 
 his spell, and find in his Thoughts material that 
 gives support to duty, courage under disappoint- 
 ment, consolation in sorrow, and calm amid the 
 bustle of life. To Renan, they are 'the most 
 human of all books ' ; ' the gospel that will never 
 grow old.' To Myers 'the life of Marcus '- 
 and the Thoughts, they only, are the life ' will 
 remain for ever the normal high -water mark 
 of the unassisted virtue of man.' To Matthew 
 Arnold * the acquaintance of a man like Marcus 
 Aurelius is an imperishable benefit ' ; as ' the 
 especial friend and comforter of clear-headed and 
 scrupulous, yet pure-hearted and upward-striving 
 men, in those ages most especially that walk by 
 sight not by faith, but yet have no open vision.' 
 
 In dealing with a writer such as this, in 
 whom matter and mood are the things of prime 
 importance, a translator's first duty is to make his 
 English natural, clear, and readable ; and, subject 
 always to this demand, to reproduce, as far as 
 
PREFACE v 
 
 may be, the manner, tone, and accent of the 
 original. These are a part of idiosyncrasy ; they 
 give reality and life to this self-revelation of a 
 soul. And in spite of certain obvious defects and 
 obscurities of style, the task is not impossible. 
 That the style is crabbed * is in large measure 
 true ; but by no means, that * it lacks physio- 
 gnomy.' l Marcus wrote in Greek, because 
 Greek in the second century, as Latin in the 
 Middle Ages, was the natural medium of philo- 
 sophy and the language of his teachers. He 
 acquired it as a foreign tongue, after his entrance 
 upon manhood, and moves in it with some con- 
 straint and difficulty. Latinisms of syntax as 
 well as of vocabulary are not infrequent ; and 
 even the habit of Greek composition strikes one 
 as newly acquired and practised. As the work 
 progresses, and as the same trains of thought 
 recur, utterance becomes readier, and he wields 
 his instrument with more precision and dexterity. 
 The heavy cramped vocabulary, the deadness 
 of expression, the formless monotony of clause, 
 that characterise the first book, give way to 
 more natural and simple movements ; language, 
 
 1 So M. Arnold. 
 
vi MARCUS ANTONINUS 
 
 structure, and thought gain ease and freedom, 
 almost with each successive book. The first four 
 books abound in awkward and difficult Greek ; in 
 the last four stumbling - blocks are few. Yet 
 throughout the style is essentially the same. Its 
 ' physiognomy ' is unmistakable ; it wins insensibly 
 upon the reader, and becomes part of a familiar 
 personality ; the deliberateness, the restraint, the 
 struggle between natural sentiment and Stoic 
 ' apathy,' are rich in suggestion and appeal ; the 
 words, as was said truly of St. Paul's, * have hands 
 and feet.' The very sense of effort produces a 
 certain uncommonness of phrase, such as gives 
 interest and even distinction to an intelligent 
 foreigner using a tongue and idiom not wholly 
 familiar. Marcus hits off phrases and combina- 
 tions, which, if not quite felicitous, strike the 
 mind and stick ; he never becomes rhetorical like 
 Seneca, or prolix like Epictetus, or glib like 
 Lucian ; and a certain choiceness of expression 
 lends impressiveness and charm. Throughout, 
 too, it may be said that the poetry of sentiment 
 is in advance of the poetry of actual phrase. And 
 thus upon the whole the Thoughts may be num- 
 bered among the books, in which a translator 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 may gain as much or more than he is forced to 
 lose in the process of reproduction. One cannot, 
 without pedantry, reproduce details of mannerism, 
 yet their general effect may remain recognisable. 
 
 Harmless anacolutha changes of person, tense, 
 or syntax I have purposely retained, as proper 
 to a private diary of thoughts. In reproduction 
 of vocabulary, I have been as strict as my 
 command of English allowed, and have been, 
 perhaps, over - scrupulous in careful concord- 
 ancing of words. Yet this is of no small im- 
 portance : to the student, as correlating passages 
 of kindred thought or phrase, to the general reader, 
 as preserving a real and often telling trait of mind 
 and manner. Though strict consistency is un- 
 attainable in the change from one language to 
 another, at least the most characteristic repetitions 
 are retained. Stoic terminology in this matter 
 presents some special difficulties ; it reached 
 Marcus in a late scholastic phase, and English 
 does not always possess or admit a scholastic 
 counterpart ; of this the theory of Pneuma and 
 pneumatic currents may serve as an example. 
 Sometimes the scholastic term has passed through 
 and gradually outgrown scholastic precision and 
 
viii MARCUS ANTONINUS 
 
 severity. In such cases I have selected some 
 term (or terms) of general, rather than technical 
 significance, rendering 770X77^9, for instance, 
 throughout, by ' view ' or ' assumption ' ; ^avraaia 
 by ' impression ' or ' regard.' For the character- 
 istic TO riyefjuovi/cov, after repeated trials, I could 
 find no standing equivalent, and in place of 
 translation have reluctantly fallen back on the 
 imperfect paraphrase ' Inner Self As a mere 
 convention, and to save tedious iteration of phrase, 
 I have written Nature with a capital, where it 
 represents 97 Averts rwv o\cov (or rou 0X01;) in the 
 original. 
 
 The Introduction, the scope and intention of 
 which is explained at the outset, is strictly supple- 
 mentary to the Translation ; full references are 
 supplied to the work itself, but I have abstained 
 from adding references to other writers, ancient or 
 modern. Where much is matter of controversy, 
 the statement of conclusions must necessarily 
 seem at times dogmatic and unguarded, but any 
 student of Stoicism will perceive how much I owe 
 to specialists like Stein, Hirzel, and Bonhoffer, 
 and to historians of philosophy such as Zeller, 
 Windelband, and many others. 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 In choice of readings I have not followed any 
 single text, but adopted that which most com- 
 mended itself to my judgment. Stich's Teubner 
 edition gives all important MSS. variants, and 
 the emendations of previous editors and critics. 
 Others come from various sources, and most of 
 those due to myself are discussed in The Journal 
 of Philology r , vol. xxiii. 1 1 6 pp. ; those which 
 materially affect translation are printed in an 
 Appendix at the end. 
 
 I tender grateful thanks to Mr. R. D. Hicks, 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for minute 
 and friendly pains expended upon the Translation, 
 and to Professor A. C. Bradley for valuable hints 
 and suggestions for the improvement of the 
 Introduction. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 
 
 SECTION PAGE 
 
 I. ORIGINS OF STOICISM xiv 
 
 II. BIRTH OF STOICISM 
 
 I. Debt to Socrates, Cynics, and Megarians . xxx 
 2. From Cynism to Stoicism . . xxxviii 
 
 III. STOIC DOGMA 
 
 I. Physics and Doctrine of Being ... 1 
 
 2. Cosmic Pantheism ..... lix 
 
 3. The Soul of Man. Psychology . . . Ixviii 
 
 4. KnoT.vledge and Perception . . . Ixxv 
 
 IV. STOICISM IN HISTORY . . . . Ixxxv 
 
 Synopsis of Events ...... c 
 
 Genealogical Table cii 
 
 V. MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS . . . ciii 
 TRANSLATION .... . . 1-188 
 
 SELECTED EMENDATIONS 189-193 
 
 
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 
 
 ON 
 
 STOICISM AND THE LAST OF THE STOICS 
 
 THE aim of this Introduction is not to give a complete 
 or balanced exposition of Stoicism as a whole, but to 
 consider so much of it as remains implicit or explicit in 
 the words of Marcus Antoninus, so that the reader of 
 the Thoughts, in approaching the ' dogmas ' and the 
 formulas which they contain, may have in mind their 
 origin, their meaning, their development, and their 
 eventual content for Marcus and his contemporaries. 
 For this end portions of Stoic doctrine may be ignored, 
 or touched but lightly : Stoic developments of logic 
 and of grammar may pass unheeded ; physics and 
 physiology will concern us only in their ethical con- 
 nexions j and some sides of epistemology may be dis- 
 regarded. Upon the other hand special factors, which 
 asserted or reasserted themselves in the Roman phase 
 of Stoicism, will receive consideration in excess of their 
 real importance to philosophy at large, or even to 
 Stoicism as a system. In physics the revival of Hera- 
 clitean formulas, in ethics of Socratic aphorisms is 
 
 b 
 
x'v INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 marked; in psychology a new, or at least modified, 
 physiological basis was furnished by the medico-phy- 
 sical speculations of the Pneumatists ; in epistemology, 
 Epictetus becomes of no less importance than Cleanthes. 
 Thus the treatment of Stoicism will be selective, intended 
 to supply so much of history and exposition as a careful 
 reader may desire for comprehension of his author. 
 The treatment of the subject is neither strictly chrono- 
 logical, nor strictly systematic. As each topic comes 
 under consideration, I have felt free to follow it to its 
 particular destination in the pages of Marcus, or merely 
 to allot its place in the general corpus of doctrine, which 
 he received as Stoic dogma. 
 
 I. ORIGINS OF STOICISM 
 
 Of all ancient philosophies Stoicism is the most his- 
 torical. The person of the founder is but a term in a 
 continuous series of thought. The system of Plato or of 
 Aristotle bears the sharp impress of a single mind, appre- 
 hending and affirming a new synthesis of truth ; the office 
 of disciples was to preserve and transmit thoughts, which 
 in their fulness they grasped imperfectly. Emphatically, 
 the disciple was less than the master. But Stoicism was 
 the product of many minds, not one : the function of Zeno 
 was to combine far more than to originate ; his individual 
 contribution to philosophic thought was small, and to 
 some extent tentative. The unification of the system 
 and its logical completion was largely the work of 
 successors, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, so that the proverb 
 said truly, ' Had there been no Chrysippus, there would 
 
i ORIGINS OF STOICISM xv 
 
 have been no Porch.' And this power of development 
 and adaptation was inherent in the system. Founded 
 in the fourth century B.C., it was a quick and growing creed 
 in the second century A.D. ; living, it survived transplanta- 
 tion from the Greek world to the Roman, from the school 
 and the cloister to the Senate and the throne ; dying, it 
 bequeathed no small part of its disciplines, its dogmas, 
 and its phraseology to the Christianity by which it was 
 ingathered. 1 In these respects its history resembles 
 that of a religion rather than a speculative system ; while 
 its range, from Socrates to M. Antoninus, covers almost 
 all that was permanent in the ancient culture, and even 
 survived the wreck of European Paganism. 
 
 From the first its hold upon the past was deep 
 and conscious : its evolution is a striking instance how 
 human thought, convinced by slow experience, secures 
 gradual advance, by combining seeming opposites into 
 a solid platform for new effort. Supervening at the 
 moment when the original forces of Greek thought fell 
 back exhausted, Stoicism constructed an impressive 
 and, to some extent, a permanent unity out of factors 
 derived from opposite types and schools of thought, 
 and so evolved moral and social conceptions that have 
 become an heirloom of Western civilisation, and are 
 embedded in the inmost structure of the Christian state. 
 In this sense it is the most * historical ' of ancient philo- 
 sophies in cast and in expression ; and M. Aurelius is 
 only partially intelligible without some knowledge of 
 
 1 ' The basis of Christian society is not Christian, but Roman 
 and Stoical ' (Hatch, Hibbert Lectures on ' The Influence of Greek 
 Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church,' p. 170). 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 the various deposits of Greek thought which find a 
 place in his philosophy, and which form a combination 
 of dexterous and surprising intricacy. 
 
 Early in the sixth century B.C., when Greek thought 
 thrilled into sudden interest in the causes and origin of 
 things, the first question to rouse and baffle intellectual 
 curiosity was, naturally enough, the make and nature of 
 the external world. What was it made of? How did 
 it come into being ? and continue to exist ? What was 
 its ' nature ' ? These were the questions which first 
 troubled the waters of Western thought, and aroused 
 the speculative curiosity and imagination of the Ionian 
 philosophers. Behind the countless variety of things lay 
 an irresistible suggestion of order and of unity, which, 
 amid the infinite diversity of phenomena, seemed to 
 connect the phases of matter, and to shape the round of 
 being, in alternations of succession and recurrence, within 
 the limits of some fixed mould, or subject to the opera- 
 tions of some unifying power such as inhabits and directs 
 the individual organism. What was the fixed something 
 that underlay the phases of transformation ? The 
 earliest guess attributed the unity to oneness of material, 
 and looked for some elemental stuff that might be 
 regarded as the common cause and basis of existent 
 things. The study of phenomena showed everywhere 
 the passage from form to form, the processes of birth, 
 change, decay, and reconstruction, nothing anywhere 
 coming out of nothing, or passing from being back into 
 nothingness. What was the fixed One among the 
 moving Many? The great visible unities, earth, sea, 
 and sky the solid, the fluid, and the gaseous were 
 
i ORIGINS OF STOICISM xvii 
 
 tried in turn by the Ionian physicists. Thales selected 
 Water, the most versatile of substances, and the most 
 variable in form, as the prime unit of * nature,' that is of 
 material being. Anaximenes gave the preference to Air, 
 which thought and language had so long associated with 
 the spirit and breath of life, and which alone met the 
 demand for quantitative infinity. Others turned to Fire, 
 and contemplating its generative heat, its ductile energies, 
 its incomparable mobility, found in it the truest source 
 and representative of nature's one inherent life. Theory 
 directed and quickened observation, and foundations of 
 science were laid in the observation of the celestial 
 bodies, and in the study of rarefaction, condensation, 
 liquefaction, congelation, and other natural processes; 
 but for the understanding of Stoicism the main outcome 
 is the fixed determination to derive the world of matter, 
 in spite of superficial appearances, from a single source 
 of being. And the Stoics, in their more mature en- 
 deavour to explain the Universe on a monistic basis, 
 pay tribute to these early cosmologists in freely em- 
 ploying such terms as Air, Breath, Fire, to denote that 
 elemental substance or spirit which pervades and under- 
 lies all things that are. 
 
 Nature defied these efforts to reduce its contents to 
 a single physical term, and the death-blow to such 
 endeavours was given by the genius of Heraclitus. He 
 propounded a more intelligible reconciliation between 
 the Many of sense and the One of thought. To him the 
 shifting panorama did not suggest kaleidoscopic states 
 of rest, succeeding one another as a series of abrupt 
 and stationary rearrangements. Being seemed rather 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 the expression of a moving power, not of separable 
 substance or identity, but manifested only in the passage 
 of continuous phenomena. The many are the moving 
 realisation of the eternal One. ' Being ' was always 
 * becoming ' not a state but a process, not rest but 
 motion and its true image was the flame which in 
 kindling extinguishes, and in extinguishing kindles that 
 which is its fuel. 'All things are in flow' 1 was the 
 central and lasting summary of his teaching, which 
 eventually supplied the basis of Stoic physics, and 
 became the key to ethics, history, and life. ' Being is 
 a river in continual flow, its action for ever changing, 
 its causes infinite in variation ' 2 ; and in the pages of 
 Marcus no figures are more recurrent than the Hera- 
 clitean metaphors of the ' river,' 3 the * flame,' 4 and the 
 ' upward and downward path ' 5 of the elements of being. 
 To Heraclitus himself, except in so far as he was 
 content to let figure usurp the place of fact, ' the ever- 
 living fire' remained material, akin (though more in 
 virtue than in kind) to the visible fire ' that burns and 
 crackles,' that uses all substances for fuel, but in con- 
 suming re-endows with new forms, and properties, and 
 use the effective instrument or medium by whose 
 operative power 'the death of earth is the birth of 
 water, the death of water the birth of air, the death of 
 
 pet, quoted or illustrated, ii. 3, 17 ; iv. 3, 36 ; v. 10, 13 ; 
 vi. 4, 15, 17 ; vii. 25 ; ix. 19, 28 ; x. 7, and many more. For the 
 ethical place accorded to Heraclitus, cf. iv. 46 ; vi. 42, 47 ; viii. 3. 
 
 j- 
 
 3 ii. 17 ; iv. 43 ; v. 23 ; vi. 15, 37 ; vii. 19 ; ix. 28, 29 ; xii. 3, etc. 
 
 4 iv. i, 19 ; viii. 20; x. 31. 5 iv. 46; vi. 17, 46; vii. I ; ix. 28. 
 
i ORIGINS OF STOICISM xix 
 
 air fire, and so conversely ' 1 by return along * the down- 
 ward path.' This 'plastic fire' operates in man as a 
 kindling movement of inherent life, an inhaling and 
 exhaling heat or breath or spirit, which at once conducts 
 and reveals the processes of life ; and on the larger scale 
 of the universe it is the quickening cosmic flow which 
 constitutes a world-order out of the consumption and 
 replenishment of interchanging opposites moist and 
 dry, soft and hard, dark and light, hot and cold. As 
 an inner life or reason of phenomena, as supplying the 
 power and determining the mode of their expression, as 
 the instrument of rectification or balance between con- 
 tending opposites, as the unseen operative and directive 
 power, it may be spoken of as Reason or Justice or 
 Destiny or God. Thus in their inmost being 'gods 
 and men are one.' 
 
 In language of this kind scientific intuition outran the 
 power and even the desire of exact analysis. Grappling 
 with a new and complex order of truths, as fascinating 
 as they were baffling to scientific apprehension, Hera- 
 clitus found in metaphor and figure the fittest expres- 
 sion for ideas which eluded experimental or observational 
 proof. His genius for analogy and aphorism, and in 
 particular his predilection for moralising physical pro- 
 cesses so natural to early speculation, extricating itself 
 from mythological modes of thought anticipated later 
 conceptions of philosophy, and oracular ambiguity of 
 form gave to his dicta a compass and a pregnancy 
 which captivated and inspired the imagination of suc- 
 cessors ; his forecasts seemed a divination, and ' the 
 1 iv. 46. 
 
xx INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 dark ' philosopher was ranked first among the prophets 
 of science. As interpretation of phenomena advanced 
 along the lines which he first opened up, the figures he 
 had used seemed at each step more pregnant with 
 suggestion, and the master's authority is claimed for 
 applications and affirmations which lay far beyond his 
 own materialistic horizon. His two cardinal contribu- 
 tions to physics were, his resolution of mechanical 
 change into continuous dynamical progress, and, as its 
 consequent, the idea of an unbroken sequence of succes- 
 sions, constituting an invariable cosmic march or rhythm 
 of events, which might be personified as an unalter- 
 able cosmic will or destiny (St/c^,, Aoyos, eipappevrj), or 
 generalised into an abstract uniformity of natural law. 
 He himself persistently interpreted it as the expression 
 of an ethical order; and his followers, the school of 
 Ephesus, continued to be the avowed and scornful 
 antagonists of all who remained content with bare 
 materialistic Sensationism. 
 
 The Stoics, largely for this reason, based their physics 
 upon Heraclitean formulas, and constantly assume his 
 authority for their own developed conceptions of the 
 anima mundt, of Pantheistic immanence, of cosmic cycles 
 of being, 1 and of the periodic conflagration 2 of the world. 
 Marcus Aurelius himself, perhaps more than any Stoic 
 writer, exemplifies the tendency to fasten almost super- 
 stitiously on allegorical intentions in the master's words. 
 Heraclitus, with bold materialism, had ascribed the totter- 
 ing gait and reason of the drunkard to the damping effect 
 of liquor on the inner fire of consciousness, and this is 
 v. 13, 32 ; vi. 37 ; ix. 28 ; xi. I. 2 iii. 3 ; x. 7. 
 
i ORIGINS OF STOICISM xxi 
 
 moralised to signify the aberrations of the mind callous 
 to the promptings of the Universal Reason. The human 
 speech or thought which Heraclitus pronounced common 
 to all is magnified into the directive Reason immanent 
 in all things, and the material oppositions on which 
 Heraclitus loved to dwell become a figure of the ultimate 
 opposition, which subordinates sense, impulse, and all 
 other powers of man to the prevailing mastery of 
 Reason. The charge of 'misunderstanding familiar 
 things ' which Heraclitus levels against his contempor- 
 aries is moralised into man's estrangement from the 
 compelling dictates of Nature, and his persistent variance 
 with the besetting Reason that directs the universe. 
 In the same spirit Heraclitus' treatment of sleep as 
 the abeyance of all active consciousness is turned l 
 into a declaration and example of man's unconscious 
 co-operation with the Order of the world, even when 
 he least designs or actively promotes it. 
 
 In studying the early stages of Greek philosophy, the 
 violent oscillations of opinion remind us vividly how free 
 the field was for fearless speculation, how unhampered 
 by settled presuppositions, and how small as yet the 
 body of ascertained fact, which acted as pendulum to 
 steady the eccentricities of thought. While at Miletus 
 and then at Ephesus philosophy, following the clues of 
 physical hypothesis, was passing from a mechanical to a 
 dynamical conception of the world, and gradually shaping 
 the conviction that the force behind phenomena was 
 single in kind and uniform in action, in the West the 
 problem of Being was assailed from a very different side 
 1 iv. 46 ; vi. 42. 
 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 by thinkers of the Eleatic School. Xenophanes, Par- 
 menides, and Zeno, of Elea, with growing insistence 
 upon dialectic, attacked the problem from the side of 
 thought and logical predication, and sought to deter- 
 mine the nature of the physical universe from the 
 implications contained in the simple predicates 'It is ' 
 and * It is not.' The idea of empty space a some- 
 thing which is nothing appeared to involve a contra- 
 diction in terms, an attempt to think what is unthink- 
 able, an assertion that ' What is, is not ' ; and the denial 
 of void led logically on to the denial of motion and of 
 any possible plurality of being. It is needless here to 
 criticise the method of procedure ; for Stoicism does 
 not stake its case on pure dialectic, in adopting the 
 Eleatic inference, and affirming the universe, physical 
 as well as conceptual, to be a single Being, without 
 beginning and without end, self-existent and self-limited, 
 homogeneous and unchangeable in quality 
 
 A rounded sphere, poised in rotating rest. 1 
 
 In terms of physics the resultant universe must be 
 a One, a plenum, finite, continuous, indivisible, equally 
 extended and evenly poised in all directions a perfect 
 sphere. 
 
 For its logic of Being Stoicism reverted to the 
 Eleatics, as for its physics to Heraclitus ; but the two 
 demanded reconciliation. On the showing of Heraclitus 
 true Being realised itself in the world of Becoming, in 
 the ordered succession of phenomena ; but though the 
 doctrine of Becoming might interpret the transience of 
 
 1 viii. 41 ; xii. 3. Cf. xi. 12. 
 
i ORIGINS OF STOICISM xxiii 
 
 phenomena, it could not satisfy that ultimate idea of 
 Being, which thought required as the antecedent and 
 necessary presupposition of phenomenal appearances ; 
 true Being, on the showing of the Eleatics, must be one, 
 eternal, homogeneous. How was it possible to combine 
 the idea of this unchangeable and self-existent One 
 with the plurality, the transience, and the qualitative 
 variety of phenomenal existences? If both views ex- 
 pressed a truth, there must be some unchangeable sub- 
 stratum manifesting itself in and through the diversities 
 of individual things. 
 
 The Atomists attempted to supply an answer, approach- 
 ing the question from the purely material side. First, 
 Empedocles broached the doctrine of the four elements 
 earth, water, air, and fire, somewhat arbitrarily singling 
 out these four substances, subject to modifications of 
 density and intermixture for which mere motion might 
 sufficiently account, as the indestructible homogeneous 
 elements of all phenomenal things. This doctrine of 
 four elements, in so far as it expresses four states of 
 matter, solid, liquid, gaseous, and igneous, merited 
 the acceptance which it found from all the schools, 
 and is freely adopted for purposes of classification by 
 the Stoics. 1 But the system of Empedocles, though 
 containing popular and plausible elements, lacked philo- 
 sophical consistency. The selection of four elements 
 was arbitrary and superficial, and as an enumeration of 
 primary forms was as provisional as the seventy odd 
 elements of modern Chemistry ; it gave no account of 
 the ultimate constitution and significance of matter, and 
 1 E.g. iv. 4 ; ix. 9 ; x. 7. 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 in assuming a plurality of primary elements failed to 
 meet the pressure of Eleatic logic. Moreover, in its 
 account of motion it fell back on psychical terms, love 
 and hate, that assumed the indwelling operation of some 
 life-power resident in matter. Thus it was only fitted 
 to be a stepping-stone to the Atomistic doctrine of 
 Leucippus, which received scientific form and com- 
 pleteness from the genius of Democritus. 
 
 Empedocles, rationally convinced that nothing could 
 either come into being or pass out of being, constructed 
 his finite universe from a few limited groups of material 
 elements. Democritus pushed the conclusions of his 
 trenchant and rigorous materialism much further, and 
 cut away the remnants of mythological prepossession and 
 phraseology which clung about the system of Empedocles. 
 Repudiating as unreasonable the idea that the same 
 elements can assume different forms, he found his unit 
 of being in the indivisible atom. To the atoms, infinite 
 in number and infinitesimal in size, he attributed none 
 but the primary qualities of solid matter, those which 
 result from its property of filling space, viz., position, 
 shape, arrangement. Only in respect of these is varia- 
 tion possible ; and the variety of things represents only 
 that variety of form and combination in the molecules, 
 behind which it is impossible for thought to pass. 
 Democritus did not shrink from the conclusions to which 
 this absolute pluralism committed him. Unlimited void 
 was necessary as the field of action for the innumerable 
 molecules ; the free motion of atoms in space was the 
 single (or twofold) presupposition which formed the 
 ultimate demand on reason. All qualitative differences 
 
i ORIGINS OF STOICISM xxv 
 
 are resolved into forms of quantitative relation or juxta- 
 position. From the uniform action and reaction of 
 moving molecules, without conscious aim or teleological 
 direction, as the purely mechanical result of fixed 
 ' necessities ' or laws (inherent in the nature of body 
 and void), worlds make and unmake themselves, and 
 among them our own world came into being, exists, and 
 acts. Movement is a property of molecular matter, 
 which analysis has no warrant for attributing either to 
 inner will or outer impulse ; it is impossible to get 
 behind the experiential fact, that atoms move, except 
 when obstructed and brought to rest. Thus Demo- 
 critus, speaking the last word of the Physicist philo- 
 sophers, and anticipating the main positions of modern 
 materialism, assumes (in spite of metaphysical ob- 
 jectors) the existence of void, asserts the sovereignty 
 and uniformity of mechanical law, limits action to cor- 
 poreal substance, discards the assumption of a Cosmos, 
 and denies the exercise of autonomous and intelligent 
 will, immanent or directive, in the conduct of the 
 universe. 
 
 Such speculations ran counter to the spirit of the 
 age, and received no serious attention except in the 
 domain of physics. In this province the attitude of 
 Stoics and Epicureans is characteristic. The Epicureans 
 accepted the concourse of atoms and the exclusion 
 of divine action, as relieving life from settled plan or 
 teleological obligation; but at a crucial point, and 
 expressly to secure so-called freedom of will, they inter-_j^ 
 polated the theory of spontaneous swerving of the atoms, 
 and set aside the universality of law. The Stoics, on 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 the other hand, accepted from Democritus just that 
 which the Epicureans rejected, the conception of 
 binding inviolable law ''All things by Law, saith 
 the Sage,' * stretching in a chain of causation (physical 
 and moral), from the beginning of things ; but they 
 deny the blind clash of atoms, as the contradiction of 
 reason and of providence, and irreconcilable with the 
 facts of cosmic unity. 2 Dilemmas of logic, the argument 
 from design, and the occurrence of special providences, 
 were all brought to bear upon the materialist position ; 
 but among the later Stoics, as in Marcus, the entire 
 stress is laid upon the moral argument and the attesta- 
 tion of man's own consciousness. ' Either an ordered 
 universe, or else a welter of confusion. Assuredly then 
 a world-order. Or think you that order subsisting within 
 yourself is compatible with disorder in the All ? ' 3 * The 
 world is either a welter of alternate combination and 
 dispersion, or a unity of order and providence. If the 
 former, why crave to linger on in such a random medley 
 and confusion? why take thought for anything except 
 the eventual "dust to dust"? . . . But on the other 
 alternative, I reverence, I stand stedfast, I find heart in 
 the power that disposes all.' 4 Belief in Cosmos, not in 
 Chaos, is an intellectual and still more a moral necessity, 
 out of which reason can only argue itself on pain of self- 
 
 1 vii. 31, with an explicit allusion to the Atomists. Cf. also 
 x. 25, 33 ; xi. I. In xii. 14 it is avaytcrj d^ap^lvrj, and similarly 
 viii. 35 ; ix. 28. Elsewhere moralised as the allotment of destiny. 
 
 2 iv. 3 ; ix. 28, 39; xi. 18 (i). 
 
 3 iv. 27. Cf. ix. 39 ; x. i. 
 
 4 vi. 10, and cf. iv. 3 ; vii. 75 ; ix. 28 ; xii. 14. 
 
i ORIGINS OF STOICISM xxvii 
 
 confusion ; without it, motive and justification, or rather 
 excuse, for continued existence fails. 
 
 Such were the chief phases of pre-Socratic thought, 
 which eventually found co-ordination in the Stoic scheme ; 
 but before passing to the Socratic period, two minor 
 contributions deserve brief recognition. 
 
 Anaxagoras holds a remarkable position in philo- 
 sophy. He enjoyed extraordinary reputation upon both 
 sides of 'the Aegean : at Athens the battle for free 
 thought raged round his person, and Lampsacus, the 
 home of his exile, honoured his memory with an altar 
 dedicated to Mind and Truth. He gave impulse to the 
 speculations of Plato, and Aristotle accounted him the 
 first to speak 'soberness among the babblers.' Great 
 rather in promise than achievement, he neither created 
 a school nor made permanent contributions to philo- 
 sophic method or result. As in person he transported 
 philosophy from the Schools of Ionia to its new home at 
 Athens, so intellectually he represents the transition 
 from physical to metaphysical modes of speculation. 
 Turning his back upon the old Ionian physicists, using 
 at once and superseding the Empedoclean doctrine of 
 elements, he devised a new theory of the constitution of 
 matter and the origination of the world. Matter in 
 origin homogeneous, and containing in every part, how- 
 ever minute, the same constituents or qualities (though 
 not always in the same proportion), was differentiated 
 into kinds by the action of Nous (Mind, meaning prob- 
 ably mind-stuff). Nous takes the place of the semi- 
 mythological Love and Hate, which figured in the 
 system of Empedocles, and stands outside of matter, 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 conscious and even supra-sensual, rather than amalga- 
 mated and infused. ' All things were jumbled together,' 
 was the summary of his teaching, ' till Nous gave order 
 to the whole.' His doctrine marks a stage of untenable 
 transition, but is feeling its way to a new and higher 
 metaphysic, and was potent in fixing and determining 
 the place of Nous in philosophic terminology. There 
 is no proof that Anaxagoras invented or approached the 
 thought of incorporeal existence ; on the contrary, the 
 terms he uses are explicitly material ; Nous is ' thinnest 
 of all things ' ; it is ' unmixed ' ; its action on matter is 
 still conceived and expressed materially ; for the time 
 had not yet come to broach the question of immaterial 
 being. Neither was his Nous the mind of a divine 
 creator or upholder of the world, an idea quite foreign 
 to his point of view ; the agency of Nous was invoked 
 only to initiate, not to maintain or to direct motion. 
 Nor yet again was it a world-soul pantheistically con- 
 ceived as immanent in all things. Nevertheless, in 
 isolating Nous from all other forms of matter, in making 
 its activity the originative motor of the Cosmos, in 
 associating with its essential properties the terrestrial 
 and, still more impressively, the celestial order, in choos- 
 ing and emphasising the name that suggested personal 
 intelligence, he helped to give currency to a term, and 
 even to conceptions, which from different sides Plato, 
 Aristotle, and the Stoics adopted and filled with a 
 new content. 
 
 There is one more debt to record, a debt rather of 
 temper and aim than of direct intellectual obligation. 
 Pythagoras, it was said, surveying the order of the 
 
 I 
 
i ORIGINS OF STOICISM xxix 
 
 universe, first gave the name of Cosmos to the world, 
 and ascribing the cosmic order to some constraining 
 power, declared that at the heart of things the quickening 
 soul and seminal origin of all being was God, the one, 
 eternal and unchanging. His doctrine of the music of 
 the spheres and his conception of the soul as a harmony, 
 seem to foreshadow that * smooth and even flow ' of 
 soul in which the Stoics found the realisation of man's 
 Inner Self. And behind the coincidences of mood and 
 language, they revered in him 'the holy or august 
 philosopher,' l who first taught philosophy as an authori- 
 tative 'way of life,' who studying to possess his soul in 
 peace began each day with litanies and chanting of 
 ancient hymns, and night and morning prescribed upon 
 himself and his disciples the rule and exercise of self- 
 examination, 2 to tune the soul into accord with life. 
 The revived Pythagorean brotherhood of post-Christian 
 centuries, adepts bound not so much by tenets of a 
 common creed as by disciplines of philosophic life, 
 cherished the true spirit of the master, his rule of silence 
 and of worship, when they ' bid us every morning lift 
 our eyes to heaven, to meditate upon the heavenly 
 bodies pursuing their everlasting round their order, 
 their purity, their nakedness. For no star wears a veil.' 3 
 
 1 vi. 47. 2 Cf. ii. i. 3 xi. 27. 
 
II. BIRTH OF STOICISM 
 i. Debt to Socrates, Cynics, and Megarians 
 
 So far, though the centres of philosophic culture are as 
 widely separate as Sicily and Asia Minor, the develop- 
 ment of thought was in the main lineal and simple. 
 With the concentration of philosophic interest at Athens, 
 schools arise, divide, and multiply, and in the clash of 
 opposing creeds unity of direction disappears. Socrates, 
 the foremost pioneer of the new movements of thought 
 in the fifth century, stands at the head of the great 
 Delta, through which, by diverging and often interlacing 
 streams, Greek thought expanded into Oriental and 
 European Hellenism. Though Stoicism incorporates 
 large fragments from Plato and from Aristotle, the direct 
 line of affiliation is through the Megarians and Cynics, 
 and the divergence of view is fundamental. 
 
 In the Socratic and post-Socratic Schools Ethics and 
 Metaphysics become the main determinants. While in 
 Ethics, Plato and the Stoics both start from Socratic 
 premises, and by different routes reach kindred though 
 not identical results, in Metaphysics their solutions stand 
 fundamentally opposed. To those who argued that all 
 known forms of Being were phenomenal and all know- 
 ledge of it perceptional, and that such Being and 
 
SECT, ii i BIRTH OF STOICISM xxxi 
 
 knowledge could carry no stamp of permanent validity, 
 Plato replied with the new and daring metaphysic, that 
 not merely might there be Being without body, but that 
 for such Being man has appropriate organs of cognition. 
 Just as Being exists without body, and by its very nature 
 transcends phenomenal existence, so the knowledge 
 which apprehends it stands above perception and inde- 
 pendent of its subjective disabilities. Created being is 
 the product and the correspondent, not the embodiment 
 of the central ' idea of the good,' which itself immaterial, 
 uncreate, self-conscious, is eternally engaged in realising, 
 projecting, sustaining, and surveying the innumerable 
 utterances of its own activity. Thus Plato evolved his 
 transcendental Idealism, and in severer metaphysical 
 form Aristotle upheld a similar distinction between the 
 idea and its embodiment, between Being abstract and 
 potential, and Being realised in actual and concrete 
 form. Stoicism took a less adventurous course ; adher- 
 ing to the traditional axiom that body alone can act 
 or be acted upon, it was driven to the opposite alterna- 
 tive of monistic Materialism. It must not then, either 
 historically or philosophically, be regarded as a reaction 
 from Platonic metaphysics; the representatives of re- 
 lapse must be sought rather in the Academic and Peripa- 
 tetic schools. Historically, Stoic descent derives from 
 Socrates, through Cynic ethics and Megarian logic; 
 intellectually, the system never passed through Idealism 
 to Materialism, or through Dualism to Monism. It ignored 
 certain contradictions which disconcerted the metaphysical 
 genius of Plato and of Aristotle, but its interpretation 
 of the world could claim continuity and independence. 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 The Sophistic Age, signifying as it does the attain- 
 ment and realisation of self-consciousness in the Greek 
 mind, involved a necessary change in the direction of 
 philosophic interest. For the old problem, What is the 
 make and nature of the world? the less obvious and 
 deeper problem is substituted, What is the make and 
 nature of man ? When once questions of the analysis 
 of consciousness were broached, the prime interest 
 inevitably shifted from the object to the subject, and it 
 became imperative to understand the nature, processes, 
 and relations of thought, perception, and emotion, before 
 attempting to deal with their subject-matters and contents. 
 Until the forms of consciousness were to some extent 
 understood and their worth determined, it was useless 
 to discuss its reports or compare its testimonies. All 
 knowledge might (as Protagoras taught) resolve itself 
 into successive acts of individual perception ; inner 
 criteria of truth, reality, and permanence must be estab- 
 lished before philosophy could carry conviction, or even 
 claim a hearing. Physics must wait till psychology 
 could formulate and justify its own validity. To frivolous 
 and irresponsible rhetoricians, ethics, logic, or physics 
 might furnish equally good sport for argument and 
 opportunity for self-display ; but to serious thinkers, 
 bent on establishing a stable harmony between thought 
 and life, the moral and psychological issues were supreme. 
 The philosopher claimed distinction from the Sophist. 
 
 For this reason Socrates, more resolutely than any 
 of his contemporaries, turned from hypotheses of physics 
 or metaphysics to study the nature of man. Just as the 
 older physicists, convinced of the reality of a cosmic 
 
ii i BIRTH OF STOICISM xxxiii 
 
 order in the world of things, set themselves to discover 
 the underlying source of unity in nature, so Socrates, 
 convinced of the presence and necessity of moral order 
 in the domain of human relationships, set himself to 
 discover the basis upon which it rested, and in seeking 
 to ' know himself tapped the sources of moral philosophy. 
 Assuming that some real discoverable unity must under- 
 lie the general conception denoted by 'goodness, 3 and 
 seeking for its definition and basis, Socrates eventually 
 found in knowledge the only firm foundation for virtue. 
 Moods, impulses, and passions, by reason of their 
 individual and subjective quality, could never furnish a 
 standard of right action. Knowledge, on the other 
 hand, resting on solid foundations of correspondence 
 with objective facts, could give consistency to action 
 and prescribe laws of moral conduct. Right insight 
 into the conditions and results of action would carry 
 with it right conduct, for no man perceiving the right 
 course would deliberately choose and pursue the wrong. 
 Knowledge of what was good would thus ensure the 
 exercise of goodness, and just analysis of the contents 
 of goodness would place them within the reach of all. 
 Wrong-doing is failure of insight, springing from ignorance 
 and want of education, a mistake that will correct itself 
 as soon as the right way is discerned. Supply the 
 needed insight, and the right course of action will follow, 
 for what is good is also what is beneficial, and nature 
 ensures that man will follow what is beneficial to himself. 
 By the same reasoning the way of goodness is likewise 
 the way of well-being, in which man finds his happiness. 
 The teaching of Socrates may be summed up in the 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 injunction, Know thyself, and in the formulas, Virtue is 
 knowledge Virtue may be taught 1 No one wilfully goes 
 wrong 11 Virtue results in happiness; and all these 
 maxims are first principles of Stoic dogma. In respect 
 of all, Stoicism at least in its later exponents adheres 
 more closely to the Socratic tradition than any other 
 school ; and, alike in temper and interest, Epictetus re- 
 produces the teaching of the master more faithfully than 
 any of his disciples or more immediate successors. 
 
 The power of the Socratic conclusions lay in affirm- 
 ing the ultimate harmony of morality with reason, and 
 in vindicating for the results of reason real and authori- 
 tative validity. Man's moral sense, the existence of 
 which is irrefragable, demands and certifies the reality 
 of knowledge. The weakness of the affirmations, 
 regarded as a system of ethics, apart from the con- 
 fusion of will with knowledge, lay in defective and 
 confused analysis of the contents of 'goodness.' To 
 give positive meaning and efficacy to the dictum, * Virtue 
 is knowledge,' it was indispensable to define with some 
 precision the subject-matter of the knowledge meant. 
 To explain it as ' knowledge of the good ' reduced it to 
 mere tautology, until the contents of * goodness ' were 
 enumerated or defined. According as the idea of 
 pleasure or advantage or prosperity was permitted to 
 preponderate, the maxim could be turned to Hedonistic, 
 Utilitarian, or Eudsemonistic inferences, so that by 
 variety of emphasis broadly contrasted types of ethical 
 
 1 Cf. vi. 27 ; viii. 59 ; ix. 11 ; x. 4 ; xi. 18 (9). 
 
 2 ii. I ; iv. 3 ; vii. 22, 62, 63 ; viii. 14 ; x. 30 ; xi. 18 (3) ; 
 xii. 12. 
 
ii i BIRTH OF STOICISM xxxv 
 
 theory could found themselves upon the language and 
 authority of Socrates. 
 
 In affirming that Virtue was Knowledge, Socrates 
 proceeded to enlarge the scope of Virtue or Excellence 
 (aperr/) to the full range of general conceptions, and in 
 the hands of his greatest disciple it rapidly expanded 
 into a well-proportioned harmony of intellect, emotion, 
 and will. But the Cynics, accepting the formula, pro- 
 ceeded in an opposite direction, and instead of enlargiag 
 their idea of Virtue to co-extension with the range of 
 thought, they contracted the sphere of Knowledge to the 
 area of individual activities. Associating knowledge 
 exclusively with practical action and decision, Antis- 
 thenes tried to exclude from consideration everything 
 except the problem of personal will effectuating itself 
 in action. Openly scouting Platonic Idealism, and 
 denying moral or logical value to general conceptions, 
 he tried to satisfy the intellectual demand with the 
 barest Nominalism, and even to restrict logic to mere 
 identity of predication. In Physics the harshest ma- 
 terialism, in Ethics the narrowest individualism, were 
 the natural consequents (or perhaps antecedents) of his 
 position. The sole concern of the philosopher became 
 correct adjustment of the individual reason in the 
 practical conduct of life ; and even this reduced morality 
 confined itself within a narrow range of self-regarding 
 virtues. Inasmuch as virtue was an act of will, within 
 the individual control, all wants or desires, whether from 
 within or from without, that lay outside the realisation 
 of the will, were contradictions of virtue which the wise 
 man would not tolerate. Here too an act of will was 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 sufficient for the realisation of virtue and happiness. 
 Outer relationships and inner dissatisfactions were 
 within the province of the will ; and all that threatened 
 to contravene or abridge its independence must, in 
 behoof of virtue and happiness, be willed away. Wants 
 must be reduced to the dimensions of will. Thus, 
 curtailment of obligations, needs, desires, and affections 
 became the keynote of Cynic morality : ignoring first 
 the claims and then the decencies of social obligation, 
 it promoted insensibility, often of the coarsest kind, to 
 a premier place among the virtues. The demands thus 
 laid on individuality might seem excessive and forbid- 
 ding ; but the strong and racy personality of Diogenes 
 gave vogue to the experiment, and the eccentricities and 
 anti-social bravado of his imitators, by the very violence 
 of the contrast which they offered to the traditions 
 and usages of Greek life, secured notoriety, and even 
 enforced attention and respect. For, in spite of its 
 intellectual and ethical shortcomings, Cynism pro- 
 claimed two needed truths in accents of the most 
 arresting and uncompromising kind (i) the uncon- 
 ditional supremacy of the moral will in the determina- 
 tion of life ; (2) a truth as yet unfamiliar to Greece, the 
 independence and responsibility of the individual as the 
 unit of morality. 
 
 All that was vital in Cynism was taken up into 
 Stoicism, and co-ordinated into a more comprehensive 
 scheme of morality and thought; and the Stoic en- 
 largement of its doctrines will be the most instructive 
 commentary upon the principles of the system itself. 
 But before passing to this wider theme, it will be 
 
ii i BIRTH OF STOICISM xxxvii 
 
 well to anticipate the future of the parent name and 
 sect. 
 
 The Cynic tradition, remaining true to its emphasis 
 on practice rather than on theory, survived in more 
 or less close association with the Stoic, and shared 
 its revival under the Roman Empire. There the Cynic 
 profession resumed its protest against worldliness and 
 self-indulgence with so much conviction and success, 
 that charlatans and schemers found it worth while 
 to disguise themselves in its livery, and from Plutarch 
 to Lucian, from Antoninus to Julian, the Cynic figures 
 now as the butt of the satirist, and now as the cynosure 
 of the moralist. To Juvenal the Stoic differs from the 
 Cynic only by the cut of his cloak. In Marcus Aurelius, 
 as habitually in Epictetus, 1 Diogenes is coupled with 
 Socrates as the pre-eminent and authoritative type of moral 
 courage, rectitude, and tranquillity. Even the sincere 
 Cynic, with his crude and often rampant individualism, 
 was constantly in danger of ignoring social claims, and 
 straining moral independence into mere nonconformist 
 bluff; but in the true Cynic, purged of insincerity and 
 ostentation and intolerance, inured to hard ways and 
 to harsh words, Epictetus 2 recognises still the ideal 
 'athlete of righteousness,' ready and clean and strong, 
 who, having disciplined all passion and desire, and 
 attained the perfect freedom of the will in harmony with 
 the divine, is able to renounce the allurements of am- 
 bition, the distractions of wealth, and the preoccupations 
 
 1 viii. 3; cf. Arr. Epict. i, 24, 6; 2, 16, 35; 3, 21, 19; 3, 
 22, 24; 4, 7, 29; 4, 9, 6 ; 4, n, 21 ; and Ench. 15. 
 ' 2 Arrian, Epict. iii. 22, On Cynism. 
 
 
xxxviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 of married or domestic life, and so to move among his 
 fellows in fearless isolation, as God's commissioned 
 messenger for the service and conversion of men, 
 privileged, through blameless transparency of life, to 
 become father and brother and friend to the whole 
 family of human kind. 
 
 Thus, though Stoicism widened the basis and the 
 intellectual outlook of Cynism, it stood faithful to the 
 tie of descent and the inalienable claim of moral 
 affinity; and the main dogmas of the Cynic school 
 the identification of virtue with knowledge, the auto- 
 cracy and indivisibility of virtue, and the moral inde- 
 pendence of the individual remained firmly embedded 
 in the Stoic creed, the central core of its teaching, and 
 the raison d'etre of its promulgation. 
 
 2. From Cynism to Stoicism 
 
 The founder of Cynism was Antisthenes, pupil of 
 Gorgias and Socrates; his disciple Diogenes was its 
 most effective missionary, and from him the leadership 
 passed on to Crates. At Athens the two teachers who 
 most influenced Zeno, the author of Stoicism, were 
 Crates the Cynic and Stilpo the Megarian. The latter 
 brought a new and unexpected element to bear on 
 Cynism, by grafting upon Cynic morals the system of 
 pure dialectic associated with the name of Euclides of 
 Megara. 
 
 Just as Antisthenes had narrowed philosophy into 
 a problem of personal ethics, and dissociated it from 
 general dialectic, so Euclides, sensitive only to another 
 side of the Socratic impulse, divorced dialectic from 
 
ii 2 BIRTH OF STOICISM xxxix 
 
 the corrections of experience and consciousness, and 
 by processes of pure logic was led to deny the reality 
 of matter, of motion, of becoming, indeed of everything 
 except the content of the equation, 'That which is, is.' 
 Methods closely resembling those of the Eleatics, though 
 somewhat less material in scope, led him to similar 
 results, and he imputed to the one abiding reality, 
 which he called ' the Good,' those attributes which 
 Parmenides had assigned to real being. Aided by a 
 brilliant and magnetic personality, Stilpo at Megara 
 succeeded in fusing this logical conception of the 
 abiding One with the naturalist morality of the Cynic 
 school. Such a fusion gave small promise of fertile 
 result, for the two combined not so much by natural 
 and organic coherence, as by a rigorous severance of 
 sphere, which rather excluded contradictions than assured 
 agreement. Logic was detached from life, and trans- 
 cendental being was put out of touch with phenomenal 
 existence ; no reconciliation or communication was 
 provided between the One or the Good, the finite reason 
 of man, and the infinite multiplicity of phenomenal 
 change. Such was the position when Zeno appeared 
 upon the scene. 
 
 Hitherto we have referred only, or chiefly, to ethical 
 modifications of the extreme Cynic position. But other 
 elements, not less important, went to the making of 
 Stoicism as a coherent body of thought Born at 
 Citium, and of Phoenician lineage, it seems probable that 
 Zeno had early imbibed the theistic or monotheistic 
 conceptions of the East; the Oriental strain, which re- 
 appears in almost every representative of the School, can 
 
xl INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 hardly be accidental, and goes far to prove that Eastern 
 predispositions were latent in the Stoic creed. Early 
 in life he came under the influence of the Heraclitean 
 School of physics, whose traditions kept their hold upon 
 Asiatic Greeks, assimilated as an integral part of his 
 thought the doctrine of physical Flux, and found in it 
 a potential harmony between the materialist individualism 
 of the Cynics and the Megarian doctrine of the One. 
 
 The passage from Cynism to Stoicism, the change 
 of conception or of stress which it involved in the 
 treatment of common terms, best shows the gradual 
 and half-conscious way in which the scheme of Stoicism 
 was evolved. We have seen how, in its definition and 
 pursuit of virtue and of happiness, the Cynics gave 
 unconditional authority to the criteria of individual 
 experience and will. These were direct, imperious, and 
 valid, and this conviction lies at the base of their 
 philosophic creed. 'Life in agreement with Nature' 
 was the summary of their aim, and was a formula well 
 calculated at once to attract and to mislead disciples. 
 For centuries philosophy had been engaged upon the 
 study and explanation of ' nature ' ; and now that it 
 was looking for some general formula corresponding 
 to the idea of virtue, such as might provide a canon 
 of right living simple, consistent, and authoritative, no 
 prescription could have seemed more apposite or satisfy- 
 ing than that of ' agreement with nature.' It presented, 
 at first sight, such straightforward and self-commending 
 credentials, that practice might well precede discus- 
 sion, and dispense with scruples of dialectic and 
 analysis. For man, ' nature ' meant clearly the functions 
 
 
ii 2 BIRTH OF STOICISM xli 
 
 and processes and sensations which constitute man's 
 life. With these he must put himself in agreement. 
 The intimations of sense and instinct were the sure 
 utterance of nature, convincing and unimpeachable ; in 
 agreement with them, virtue and will would find their 
 natural exercise, and attain full and undivided self- 
 realisation. The one sufficient way to happiness lay 
 in obedience to the primary mandates of Nature, as 
 expressed in impulses of appetite, of function, and 
 of natural propensity, and satisfied by inner self-satis- 
 faction of the will. Centring on these, the wise man 
 would refuse to implicate himself in disturbing sensi- 
 bilities, or in any gratuitous distractions of thought or 
 affection or exterior deference or obligation. Praise, 
 blame, and the whole array of social sanctions were 
 extraneous to the man's own nature, and must not be 
 suffered to impair that unconditional self-assertion and 
 self-mastery which were indispensable to moral inde- 
 pendence. Still less could any weight attach to purely 
 external appendages, such as wealth, rank, costume, 
 reputation, or environment. These things are not to 
 be decried as in themselves baneful or undesirable j or 
 to be regarded as temptations, which the wise man must 
 by virtue of his profession eschew ; they fall strictly into 
 the same category as their opposites, poverty or squalor 
 or obloquy. The inner satisfaction is found in ignoring, 
 not in mortifying the desires. So far as the Cynic or 
 the Stoic is an ascetic, it is by compromise rather 
 than upon principle, a precaution and in some sense a 
 confession of weakness, rather than a counsel of per- 
 fection j asceticism is not inculcated as a form of moral 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 culture, though it may have its uses as a prophylactic. 
 'The plank-bed and the skin' 1 were parts of 'boyish 
 aspiration ' ; the tub of Diogenes was adopted on its 
 merits positive and negative, not its discomforts, as a 
 domicile. Towards all externals the philosopher's strict 
 attitude is nonchalance, the charter of his self-sufficiency. 
 He does not count pains or privations of any kind as 
 salutary; he only defies and derides, when he cannot 
 affect to ignore : if once they presume to influence or 
 modify the will, they must be annulled. Apart from 
 that they remain, in the strictest sense, indifferent. 
 
 Now with much of all this with the identification 
 of virtue and happiness, with the supremacy and self- 
 sufficiency of the moral will, with the oneness and in- 
 divisibility of virtue, with the valuation of external 
 goods, with the cultivation of 'indifference,' and the 
 contingent claims of self-renunciation the Stoic was 
 in complete agreement, and the points of divergence did 
 not, at first sight, seem practical or of much significance. 
 They chiefly concerned that 'agreement with nature' 
 on which the Cynics took their stand. 
 
 Zeno, so far as express record goes, seems to have 
 shrunk from the full formula, regarding it, perhaps, as 
 perilously wide, and to have phrased his aim as ' life in 
 agreement,' that is to say, a realised self-consistency of 
 conduct and aim, attained by settled self-conformity of 
 the inner will. Now in this there might seem nothing 
 alien to the scope of Cynism ; the assertion of the 
 cardinal principle is rendered, if possible, more uncondi- 
 tional than before. But, as a matter of fact, the insertion 
 1 i. 6. 
 
ii 2 BIRTH OF STOICISM xliii 
 
 of the term nature had (perhaps undesignedly) tended to 
 narrow the main principle and throw the stress upon a 
 single side, instead of upon the whole, of individuality. 
 The antecedents and associations of the term were (it 
 must be remembered) inalienably material ; they con- 
 cerned the growth and make and substance of the 
 material world, and, as applied to man, tended to con- 
 fine reference to the like processes, material and animal, 
 observed in him. Will ' in agreement with nature ' tended 
 to mean will exercised upon the animal activities ; and 
 in suppressing the limitation, Zeno removed a misleading 
 emphasis. He, in effect, recalled attention to those 
 elements in man which stood in less direct relation with 
 the material world. Agreement with one sort and side of 
 man's natural activities could not satisfy the demand for 
 inward self-conformity, which was set up as the moral 
 ideal. For unity of act and disposition, it was essential 
 to co-ordinate understanding and reflection with sense 
 and impulse and perception, and to integrate rightly- 
 ordered and operative reason with each exercise of 
 virtuous will. This did not involve a reconstruction 
 of the main system. The ' agreement with nature,' the 
 validity of sense-perception, the authority of sensuous 
 impulse, the supremacy of will, the identification of 
 happiness with virtue and its corollary doctrines of 
 imperturbability and things indifferent, all remain un- 
 touched; but notwithstanding this, the reinclusion of 
 reason, and of some, at least, of the reactions between 
 man and man, as well as those between man and the 
 material world, in the expression of individuality, 
 enlarged to that extent the area and contents of self- 
 
xliv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 regard, and in so doing produced a corresponding 
 modification in each determination of the will. The 
 characterisation of the Wise Man, and even the valuation 
 of things indifferent, felt the effects of the change. 
 
 As apostles of individualism in the sphere of morals, 
 the Cynics had led the way in personifying the moral 
 ideal in the figure of the Wise Man ; and it was not 
 unnatural that, in emphasising the salient features, they 
 fell into extravagances that verged on caricature. His 
 end was to be self-sufficing, to assert and to secure for 
 'nature' its undisturbed prerogatives of independence. 
 By force of will he will put down all foreign disturbers 
 of the peace; as champion of the independence of 
 the primary impulses and instincts, he will resist the 
 intrusions of thought, the distractions of fancy, the 
 clamour and agitation of the affections ; deaf to praise 
 or blame or provocations from without, he will remain 
 inflexibly true to self-regard, and give no quarter to 
 competing interests or solicitudes. He will claim full 
 satisfaction for each demand of nature, though he may 
 elect to keep one or another in abeyance rather than 
 involve himself in extraneous and entangling obligations. 
 He will imperturbably coerce feeling and behaviour by 
 restraints of will, and regard everything outside the inner 
 authorisations of his personality as matter of unqualified 
 indifference. 
 
 Apart from excess of emphasis and something of 
 wilful paradox, the deformities and eccentricities of the 
 Cynic ' Wise Man ' spring chiefly from that narrow and 
 one-sided intolerance which must result from satisfaction 
 of the self-assertive instincts, when reason is not per- 
 
n 2 BIRTH OF STOICISM xlv 
 
 raitted to insist on considerations of decency and 
 consequence. Deaf to the voices of tradition and 
 culture, determined to isolate the individual from the 
 society, and to flaunt the superiority of will to outer 
 circumstance, the Cynics fell rapidly into the quagmires 
 of ascetic bravado. Positive value and professional 
 eclat were attached to abstinences and mortifications, 
 whose sole moral justification lay in the reduction of 
 external needs ; the virtues of simplicity and temperance 
 were caricatured in exhibitions of mendicancy, dirt, and 
 foul diet; all forms of regard for social convenance 
 delicacy or decency or civility were ranked as weak 
 subservience, as apostasies from idiosyncrasy; to be 
 ' naked and unashamed ' became a chief part of vocation 
 and the test of moral independence. From this the 
 Stoics were saved. If in fear of moral enervation they 
 approved some gratuitous austerities, and if at some 
 points they confounded independence of will with 
 suppression of sensibility, at least they never interpreted 
 ' accord with nature ' in terms of relapse to animalism, 
 and it was rather from want of humour and good taste 
 that they indulged in academic discussions upon 
 cannibalism, irreverence to the remains of the dead, 
 community of wives, and such like Cynic banalities, 
 than with any serious thought of giving them practical 
 sanction or application. 
 
 The course of Stoic ethics is, in fact, the progressive 
 enlargement and clarification of the Cynic ideal of 
 conduct, under the stress of that larger conception of 
 ' nature ' which was inherent in Stoic monism. The full 
 content and interpretation of the formula was only 
 
 d 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 gradually realised. Its deeper implications such, for 
 instance, as the religious significance of pantheistic 
 immanence, the introduction of moral emotion and 
 moral sesthesis into the sphere of natural religion, the 
 ascription of evidential value and meaning to its intui- 
 tions, the full recognition of 'the social moment/ and 
 the conception of world-citizenship unfolded themselves 
 through life even more than through thought, and find 
 their fullest exposition in the pages of the Roman Stoics. 
 ' Return to nature,' so far from implying reversion to 
 animalism, and the reduction of man's needs to the level 
 of the beasts, was found to involve fundamental differ- 
 entiation of reasoning man from the unreason of the 
 brute or the inertia of matter, to place man on a unique 
 spiritual plane, and eventually to summon him from 
 individual isolation to conscious brotherhood with kind 
 and harmony of will with God. These are the elements 
 of Stoicism which have proved most permanent and 
 universal. 
 
 One of the first effects of the reinstatement of reason 
 in its ' natural ' place was to reintroduce the whole order 
 of 'things indifferent' to the purview of morals. So 
 long as virtue was solely right condition and exercise of 
 will, acting upon the intimations of instinct and sense, 
 no alternative was possible but absolute acceptance or 
 rejection; no intermediate course, no parleying or 
 suspension of decision, could be allowed without ad- 
 mitting the fallibility, and surrendering the independent 
 autocracy of the moral organ. But with the appearance 
 of reason on the scene, with its power of discrimination, 
 of valuation, and, above all, of ' suspense,' the position 
 
ii 2 BIRTH OF STOICISM xlvii 
 
 changed. Technically, indeed, the supremacy and inde- 
 pendence of the will was left untouched, and its dis- 
 regard of things indifferent was as unqualified and 
 uncompromising as its rejection of things undesirable ; 
 but reason, notwithstanding, made allowances which 
 the virtuous will could not admit; it established from 
 its own point of view classifications and degrees of 
 merit, it attached conditional values and preferential 
 claims to recognition, according as things tended to 
 advance or to retard the life according to nature, and 
 so reduced the number of things strictly indifferent 
 to a remnant which stood out of all determining rela- 
 tion with the will, and to which reason itself could not 
 ascribe such secondary value, positive or negative. In this 
 way a body of scientific casuistry was elaborated, which 
 classified things indifferent whether mental qualities 
 or emotions, bodily or social conditions, external or 
 imputed goods, proprieties or defaults of behaviour or 
 demeanour in categories of relative esteem, that went 
 further in minuteness and subtlety of discrimination 
 than in any other school of ancient psychology. These 
 could not indeed affect the crowning act, the realisa- 
 tion of virtue in the will, without thereby losing their 
 character of 'indifference' and passing into another 
 category of things, but they could so pave the way to 
 virtue, and make the approaches easy and insensible, 
 that the tiro might by their aid be conducted to the 
 threshold of the sanctuary, and, passing by a step 
 from the region of folly to the fruition of wisdom, be 
 numbered among the elect and indefectible. 
 
 By these steps Stoicism entirely altered the physiog- 
 
xlviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 nomy of the 'Wise Man.' Reason, when once its place 
 in Nature was vindicated and re-established, tended to 
 become the dominant partner in each exercise of will. 
 It alone could supply criteria of self-conformity, and 
 interpret and direct the impulses of sense ; it alone 
 could justly pit reduction of needs against surrender 
 of independence. Thus on all sides it was necessary 
 to right action, and held, as it were, the casting vote in 
 the adjustments ,of nature to life. Control came to be 
 regarded as more important than first momentum, and 
 thus the very essence of personality and ' nature ' was 
 found to lie in the dominion of reason. Gradually it 
 usurped more than mere directive power, and claimed 
 to decide the prior question of use. It might refuse 
 assent to any line of movement, and pass sentence of 
 inertia on any impulse or emotion. At this point the 
 reversal of original position has become complete. For 
 the * nature ' in which reason at first had no admitted 
 place is now placed wholly at its mercy, and may be set 
 aside as unauthorised, and in conflict with the mandates 
 of the premier authority. Nature has become contrary 
 to nature, and must therefore cease to be. Suppression 
 of the emotions (a7ra#eia) a self-determination distinct 
 from the imperturbability secured by disallowance of 
 needs takes a cardinal place in the Stoic scheme of 
 life. And thus, as we shall see, the idea of personality 
 of the ultimate unity of the individual will and con- 
 science, of an Ego distinct from physical organism and 
 environment eventually dawns upon Greek thought, 
 and unexpectedly reveals a deeper dualism new to 
 philosophy that antithesis, namely, of spirit and flesh, 
 
ii 2 BIRTH OF STOICISM xlix 
 
 of man and his material embodiment, of moral aim 
 and realised experience, which conducts to the baffling 
 problems of determinism and free-will. 
 
 It was the work of centuries to unfold the implica- 
 tions thus latent in the formula, ' life in agreement with 
 nature,' so different from those which it first seemed 
 to convey. But even at an early stage, and from the 
 purely psychological side, Cleanthes was amply justified 
 in replacing the term 'nature' in the symbol of the 
 School, and adopting the full formula as his definition 
 of conduct and ideal. Nor, from the Stoic standpoint, 
 did the adoption involve an ambiguity which has been 
 sometimes charged against it. It was a cardinal assump- 
 tion of Stoicism, that nature in man is identical with 
 the nature of the universe at large, and on that assump- 
 tion it is meaningless to ask whether Cleanthes meant 
 to prescribe ' accordance with his own individual nature ' 
 or 'accordance with nature at large.' He would have 
 repudiated the distinction; and whatever ethical im- 
 plications might result, at least they would not depend 
 on initial ambiguity of term. 
 
III. STOIC DOGMA 
 i. Physics and Doctrine of Being 
 
 THE ' main novelties or extensions of thought by 
 which Zeno effected his new synthesis were (i) the 
 identification of Reason in Man on the one hand with 
 the Reason of the Eternal One, on the other with the 
 principle of existence in all phenomenal things; and (2) 
 the idea of immanence. 
 
 Previous philosophers had from various sides ap- 
 proached the first affirmation, but none had 'given it 
 the breadth and actuality of meaning which it assumes 
 in the Stoic system. The doctrine of Anaxagoras, alike 
 in the name and conception of Nous, supplies a striking 
 anticipation and coincidence. But in the actual exposi- 
 tion of his system Nous became little more than a 
 hypothesis to account for the first beginning and exist- 
 ence of the Cosmos. It was assumed as a prime motor, 
 not realised as an efficient cause of being or of action. 
 All intermediate steps, including the origination of life, 
 animal or vegetable, were attributed to mechanical media. 
 Others among the physical philosophers, from Thales to 
 Democritus, had assigned to Mind (in one phase or 
 another) a place among the elements ; and at times the 
 
SECT, in i STOIC DOGMA li 
 
 thought of a world-soul, of Nous on a large scale im- 
 posing unity of motion on the celestial spheres, was 
 entertained. But the conception of its action did not 
 differ from that of other elements ; it was regarded as 
 a sort of spiritual Phlogiston, possessed of superior 
 mobility, lightness, dryness, heat, or other qualities 
 of the kind. Neither did it inhere in all matter ; 
 whenever it was present, or present in sufficient 
 amount to make its sensible mark, it exhibited its own 
 characteristic qualities, and produced appropriate forms 
 and degrees of intelligence. 
 
 In the Stoic system Nous is no longer one of the 
 elements, primus inter pares ; it is sui generis^ ante- 
 cedent to matter and the material elements, no longer 
 juxtaposed but omnipresent, the condition and motive 
 cause of every form of being ; and by a new dynamical 
 conception it is regarded as immanent throughout crea- 
 tion, equally permeating and determining every kind of 
 substance. The most general and comprehensive names 
 accorded to it are from the physical side, Pneuma ; from 
 the psychical, Reason or Logos ; but, corresponding to 
 the phase which it assumes, it is recognised in relation 
 to the Universe as Nature, World-Soul, Destiny, Fate, 
 Necessity, Providence, God, Zeus ; in relation to Man as 
 Soul, Mind, Pneumatic Current, Breath, or Vital Heat ; 
 in relation to Matter as Force, Air, Fire, or other 
 modes of motion. Thus, from one point of view, the 
 single element into which the Ionian physicists sought 
 to resolve the material world is found upon a higher 
 plane ; from another, it is comparable, and even at 
 times loosely identified, with that plastic Fire 
 
INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 of Heraclitus, which represented the least material 
 form of being, and in ' the upward and downward flow ' 
 mediated the passage of elements from phase to phase. 
 The modus operandi was mainly conceived and stated 
 in terms of Heraclitean physics. At the same time, 
 while in respect of material nature and dynamical virtue 
 the Stoic Pneuma borrowed largely from the Heraclitean 
 Fire, there yet remains, behind many striking resem- 
 blances of function, attribute, and nomenclature, the 
 broad distinction that, while the fire of Heraclitus is 
 itself a phase or mode in the mutations of being, the 
 Fire or Spirit of the Stoics is the indefectible and all- 
 pervasive unit and cause of all Being. 
 
 Its nature was material. To the Stoic every form of 
 causation, just as much as every imparted motion, implies 
 bodily action, and cannot be conceived in any other 
 way ; so that not only sensation and emotion as the 
 physical effects of shame, anger, or the like sufficiently 
 demonstrate but also thoughts and qualities, memories 
 and imaginations, nay, even intellectual abstractions, 
 such as time or parts of time, possess corporeal existence. 
 And thus, in whatever category conceived corporeal, 
 psychical, or cosmic, whether as Air, Fire, Soul, Destiny, 
 or God the life-giving ' reason ' of things remains always 
 equally and unchangeably material ; while, conversely, 
 matter is only and always a mode of spirit, and the 
 material world is not merely comprehended and sus- 
 tained, but at every moment existent only through the 
 present immanence and virtue of life-giving spirit. 
 Thus the whole conception of being becomes in its 
 essence dynamical, and while the Stoic vies with the 
 
in i STOIC DOGMA liii 
 
 Epicurean in resolute materialism, his view opposes the 
 sharpest contrast to the atomic theory of being espoused 
 by the Epicureans. To the Epicureans life is mere 
 juxtaposition of atoms, which accident has combined, 
 and some other gust of accident will part ; to the Stoics 
 every form of being is an expression of the cosmic 
 power, an energy correlated to all the other manifesta- 
 tions of energy, among which it takes its place. The 
 total Universe is God; and a real and logical, not 
 merely sentimental, pantheism is attained. The con- 
 ception, as will be clear when approached from the 
 ethical side, at once gives guarantee and consciousness 
 of power, and also limits the exercise of that power 
 within the terms of cosmic solidarity. Will, the ex- 
 pression and the evidence of life, is not, as with 
 Epicurus, a caprice of swerving atoms, but a part of the 
 motions of a life larger than itself. 
 
 Stoicism was in the first instance content with its 
 monistic affirmation, and the method or process of 
 actualisation was not conceived very distinctly. It was 
 attributed to certain seminal principles (o-Tre/o/zariKot 
 Aoyot), centres or spores, as it were, of procreative activity, 
 at which an inner irresistible impulse of the generative 
 Reason erupted into spontaneous activity and realised 
 itself in appropriate forms of phenomenal being. These 
 1 seminal reasons ' do not differ in substance from the 
 central Soul-force, but, as it were, exhibit and centralise 
 portions of its energy in time and place, and confer 
 upon the resultant form of being the specific character- 
 isation which constitutes its individuality. The term 
 ) covering the ideas of Reason, definition, principle, 
 
liv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 and the like, was of convenient breadth, and just as the 
 central Reason at large formed the basis and principle 
 of all phenomenal life, and was literally the reason that 
 accounted for and defined its being, so these seminal 
 principles and outputs of Reason were the basis of 
 individual forms of life, and determined the quality and 
 mode of their existence. Marcus Aurelius describes 
 them in the clearest language at his command as ' germs 
 of future existences, through which nature operated the 
 visible cosmic order, assigning to them productive 
 capacities of realisation, change, and phenomenal 
 succession.' l In man ' the seminal reason ' is not 
 exactly the Ego, but that which determines the quality 
 and character of the Ego, and which at death is re- 
 assumed into the central Reason, a portion of whose 
 energy it expressed for a season in the form of an 
 individual man. 2 
 
 In clearness of conception a marked advance was 
 secured by the doctrine of strain or Tension (roVos), 
 which Cleanthes and his successors applied to almost 
 every domain of psychical or physical activity. As the 
 source of phenomenal being, the name usually ascribed 
 to the originative power is Pneuma? This Pneuma, 
 under certain conditions of spontaneous activity, was 
 supposed to experience a Tension, as the result of which 
 
 1 ix. I. 
 
 2 iv. 4 and vi. 24, with which compare the precisely parallel 
 vii. 10 and x. 7. 
 
 3 In the translation, I have retained pneuma or pneumatic in iv. 3, 
 ix. 36, and x. 7 ; but in ii. 2, xii. 30, and uniformly for 
 
 render 'breath.' In ix. 2 I have preferred 'atmosphere.' 
 
in i STOIC DOGMA Iv 
 
 it * sparked,' as it were, into a new form of activity. 1 To 
 this continuous and automatic thrill 2 or tension the self- 
 realisation of the Pneuma is due ; and the phenomenal 
 self- manifestations of the Pneuma correspond to the 
 various degrees of tension, under which the Pneuma 
 precipitates itself as material existence. They may 
 be either of the psychical order, such as reason or 
 instinct, or of the physical, ranging from the rarest 
 ether to the densest forms of solid matter. 
 
 The whole process was conceived in the most rigidly 
 physical terms, and quantitative as well as qualitative 
 differences were admitted, and held to affect the resultant 
 life. The leading phenomenal variations were differ- 
 entiated, as corresponding to the various degrees of 
 tension ; the indwelling Mind of man attesting by its 
 extreme mobility a high grade of inner tension, and 
 materialisation becoming grosser with each successive 
 relaxation or loss of tension. At the highest grade of 
 tension the Pneuma acts as the World -Soul, super- 
 sensuous and ethereal, occupying the same relation to 
 the universe as the individual soul to the human organism; 
 at another grade the Pneuma becomes the indwelling 
 Mind or Reason, the ' governing element ' in man, by 
 which he enters into conscious relation with cosmic 
 life, and upon which hangs the whole of personality ; 3 a 
 lower grade takes us from the rational or logical faculty 
 of man to the lower psychical life of animals possessed of 
 instinct, impulse, and gregarious affections, which Marcus 
 
 irvpbs 6 rbvos eVri Cleanthes 76. 
 
 - vi. 38. 
 3 For its functions and psychological relations, see 3 and 4. 
 
Ivi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 dignifies with the name of Soul (t/^x 7 ?)' though devoid 
 of man's distinguishing characteristic of Mind or Reason. 
 A yet lower grade manifests itself as that Nature (^o-ts) 
 or power of growth which is the characteristic of vegetable 
 life, while a yet lower drops from the organic to the 
 inorganic quality, and effectuates that simple power of 
 ' hold ' or cohesion (eis), that physical state^ which consti- 
 tutes the unity of stones or other inorganic compounds. 
 Thus the doctrine accounted for the existence of as 
 many kinds of being as there might be kinds or degrees 
 of tension, and enabled the Stoics to retain a reasonable 
 belief in the doctrine of four elements, while it elucidated 
 the true significance of the Heraclitean theory of 
 physical mutation of the elements. 
 
 At every grade the permeation of the Pneuma is 
 conceived to be co-extensive with the existence it sup- 
 plies ; it has a way and motion of its own, 1 whose effect 
 is felt dynamically wherever it is present ; it does not 
 act by mere mechanical juxtaposition of parts, nor even 
 by chemical combination or fusion, but rather by an 
 all-pervading flow that permeates the whole being, tech- 
 nically described as universal commixture or interpene- 
 tration of parts. 2 The condition of right tension 3 in 
 the organism, and right admixture 4 in the compound, 
 
 1 Hence the language of v. 9, 14 ; vi. 17 ; viii. 60 ; x. 33. 
 
 2 The Kpciffis Si $\uv doctrine, not mechanically tenable, and 
 at bottom violating the axiom that two bodies cannot occupy the 
 same space. But it is important for the right understanding of 
 Stoic pantheism, and was quite as intelligible as subsequent doctrines 
 of void, phlogiston, ether, etc. 
 
 3 euTovia, cf. vi. 30 rb etirovov KG! TO 6/xaX^s. 
 
 4 x. I, eikpa<ria, and cf. 8v<rKpa<rla ix. 2. 
 
in i STOIC DOGMA Ivii 
 
 gives that balanced adjustment of being which constitutes 
 the state of health, be it moral, physical, climatic, or of 
 any other kind. The Tension doctrine was a philosophic 
 speculation of considerable acuteness and imaginative 
 power, derived from the phenomena of expansion and 
 contraction, especially in their observed connexion with 
 heat and cold, and is a striking forecast of modes and 
 activities of being, which in the phenomena of Electricity 
 and Magnetism and in the properties of Ether have 
 found scientific realisation, such as at once serves to 
 confute and to elucidate the postulates of Stoic physics. 
 In the hands of medical philosophers, investigating the 
 relation of breath and of vital warmth to life, the theory 
 became the accepted basis of physiology and scientific 
 hygiene, and was used to explain the facts of respiration 
 and circulation, the pathology of fever chills and in- 
 flammation, the action of blisters and poultices and 
 cautery, and the every-day phenomena of blushing, 
 pallor, faintness, and sleep. Inhalations of Pneuma 
 from the surrounding atmosphere supplied Nous to the 
 new-born infant, 1 and raised it from merely vegetable to 
 human potentialities ; the processes of sense and thought 
 arose through conduction of Pneuma to brain or heart ; 
 painful and pleasurable sensation represented movements 
 of the pneumatic currents running smoothly or roughly 2 
 in their appointed conduits ; the ' smooth flow ' 3 of 
 virtue and contentment had its physical counterpart ; 
 and the function of the arteries, as distinguished from the 
 
 1 Cf. vi. 15, 16 ; x. 7. 
 
 2 Cf. iv. 3 ; v. 26 ; vii. 55 ; x. 8. 
 
 3 Cf. ii. 5 ; iii. 12 ; v. 9, 34; x. 6. 
 
Iviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 veins, was interpreted to be conveyance of the Pneuma. 
 Thus, in one phase at any rate, the Pneuma of the Stoics 
 is the oxygen of modern Chemistry ; and the Stoic 
 doctrine of being on the one hand expands into cosmic 
 pantheism, on the other narrows into processes of human 
 physiology. 
 
 It is not clear to what exact point Zeno himself 
 carried the mechanical expression of these ideas, or 
 how far he extricated his own thought from the apparently 
 insurmountable dualism implied by matter and force 
 (whether conceived as spiritual or material). But it is 
 indeed needless, even in so important an addition as 
 the theory of 'tension,' to discriminate the precise 
 contributions of successive masters Zeno, Cleanthes, 
 Chrysippus, or even the later school of medical philos- 
 ophers for- Stoic teaching crystallised into a body 
 of doctrine, representing the final revision of Zeno's 
 system as supplemented and in details rectified by the 
 severer method of his two great commentators. This 
 body of doctrine formed a permanent deposit of orthodox 
 belief, which pious Stoics accepted with a homage almost 
 as implicit and unquestioning as that which Epicureans 
 rendered to the dogmas of the master and apart from 
 casual aberrations of individual idiosyncrasy, or from 
 unconscious relaxation of thought or expression, there 
 was no deliberate reconstruction or abandonment of 
 dogma, from the days of the founders to the last 
 deliverances of Marcus Aurelius. For Epictetus 'what 
 Zeno says' is still held to sum up the lore of the 
 philosopher. 
 
in 2 STOIC DOGMA lix 
 
 2. Cosmic Pantheism 
 
 The thought of the world as a living organism had 
 early found a place in philosophy, and was indeed the 
 philosophical restatement of that animism, which seems 
 almost the instinctive assumption in man's first guesses 
 at an explanation of phenomena. It was as natural to 
 attribute personal life to the Universe at large as to 
 Sun and Star, Ocean and River, tree and spring. But 
 the progress of Greek thought tended to discredit this 
 theory of the universe, and to exclude it from the 
 Schools by substituting either the purely mechanical 
 explanations of the Ionian School, which culminated 
 in the atomic theory of Democritus, or by inferring the 
 existence of a creative power exterior to the action of 
 phenomena. The reversion of Zeno to an explanation, 
 which had virtually fallen out of Greek consideration, 
 suggests importation from without, to which the after- 
 thought of combination with Heraclitean physics is 
 by no means adverse. Whatever be the truth of this, 
 it seems clear that Zeno did not argue up to monistic 
 or pantheistic belief from Hellenic premises of thought, 
 but that his main affirmation was rather a sudden and 
 daring postulate, assumed as a theory of things, and then 
 gradually substantiated or corroborated, partly by himself 
 and partly by his successors, as the one intelligible reading 
 of phenomena regarded as a whole. 
 
 Stoicism was assimilative rather than derivative ; the 
 strength of the system lies in coherence rather than in 
 a priori proof, and rests less on central stability than 
 
Ix INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 on skilful combination of auxiliary supports and out- 
 works. The monistic core is in constant danger of 
 falling apart, and needs ingenious buttressing. The 
 unity of the world was only explicable as the expression 
 of a single power, and Zeno ventured to assume that 
 power to be identical with that which declares itself as 
 consciousness in man. No rival theory could be said to 
 hold the field, or to give satisfaction to the intellect ; and 
 the general position of the school might be stated thus. 
 Platonic theory, and still more the rarer metaphysic of 
 Aristotle, exacted a belief in some immaterial dpx*j or 
 beginning, as the first cause of all material existence. 
 To one disciplined in Cynic or Megarian modes of 
 thought, the demand was intolerable and even meaning- 
 less. There could be neither cause .nor being without 
 body, which alone supplied the capacity for acting or 
 being acted upon. Whatever the first cause might be, 
 it certainly could not be incorporeal, transcendent in 
 other words non-existent. So far, assuredly, Democritus 
 was right. Upon the other hand, the first cause was 
 assuredly one, not many. The Democritean theory of 
 identical mechanical action in an infinite number of 
 isolated atoms 1 met the problem of existence and of 
 fixity in things. It had the advantage of the Academic 
 or the Peripatetic supposition in being compatible with 
 thought, but it was incompatible with the observed 
 behaviour and course of things. 2 It involved a con- 
 tradiction, though not an absolute denial of reason. It 
 did not attempt to give account of the order and un- 
 
 1 Cf. iv. 45- 
 2 ix. 39 ; x. 6 ; xi. 18. 
 
in 2 STOIC DOGMA Ixi 
 
 deniable purpose which the course of physical phenomena 
 everywhere exhibited, 1 and which the ethical needs of 
 man demanded and implied. Though morality, from 
 man to man, might seem individualist, that is to say, 
 atomic, its very existence does in fact presuppose a 
 larger sanction, which alone makes it identical and 
 authoritative a moral order binding upon individuals, 
 and integrating them into a society. The old sanction 
 of civic obligation had withered in practice and been 
 expunged from theory, but the survival of morality itself 
 confirmed the existence of a basis at once individual 
 and universal. This lay in a common source of energy, 
 not in mere parity of individual impulses. Alike then 
 from the physical and the moral side, it appeared that 
 the cause of being was material and unitary, and common 
 characteristics suggested, if they did not prove, identity 
 of nature. Converging lines of evidence from many 
 sides corroborated and justified acceptance of this 
 supposition. The play of subject upon object, through 
 the various organs of mind and sense ; the abounding 
 evidences of mutual adaptation ; the vital and emotional 
 rapport 2 that exists between ourselves and nature ; the 
 subtle ' sympathy of parts ' 3 that links together the 
 remotest members of the universe in heaven, earth, and 
 air ; the unwearying courses of the sun ; the fateful 
 concurrences and influences of the stars ; 4 the evidences 
 of augury and divination ; the availing prayers and 
 
 1 iv. 3, 27 ; vi. 10 ; vii. 75 ; x. 28 ; xii. 14. 
 
 2 Cf. iii. 2; vi. 14, 36; x. 21. 
 
 3 iv. 27 ; ix. 9 ; cf. vi. 38 ; vii. 9. 
 
 4 Cf. vii. 47 ; xi. 27. 
 
 e 
 
Ixii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 observances of countless tribes of men these all con- 
 firmed and ratified the instinctive intuition that all 
 world-life was one. Even man's organic frame repro- 
 duced on the small scale the giant organism of the 
 Universe. Man's soul, located at the heart, fed with 
 inner warmth, receiving, emitting, and directing thence 
 the multifarious currents of vital energy and conscious- 
 ness, was but the microcosmic counterpart of the 
 central Sun, 1 whose life and light-giving beams irradiated 
 and interpenetrated every part and pore of the cosmic 
 whole. The soul of man was consubstantial with the 
 soul of all things, and in human consciousness realised 
 itself as no blind, atomic, isolated force, but as a 
 conscious immanent directive energy of life. 
 
 Such then was the main synthesis that took 
 possession of the Stoic mind the World a complete 
 and living whole, 2 informed and controlled by one all- 
 pervasive energy, which 'knew itself' 3 in the conscious- 
 ness of man the microcosm, and declared all nature 
 one, coherent, rational. The processes by which this one 
 immanent world-soul attained phenomenal differentiation, 
 the law of its cosmic evolution, the goal of its endeavour, 
 the meaning and the relations of part to part and part 
 to whole, were only gradually discerned; and before 
 
 1 Hence the fanciful seriousness, with which both Epictetus and 
 M. Aurelius draw moral lessons from the sun. Cf. vi. 43 ; viii. 
 57 ; ix. 8 ; xii. 30. The world-soul receives explicit mention, vi. 
 36 and vii. 75 ; for comparison with man's soul see v. 21 ; 
 ix. 22. 
 
 2 iv. 40 ; v. 8 ; vi. 9, 38 ; vii. 9 ; ix. i, 9 ; x. I. 
 
 3 xi. i. 
 
in 2 STOIC DOGMA Ixiii 
 
 entering on these problems it will be well to note the 
 corollaries for thought and life that followed from the 
 main position. 
 
 The principle of life impregnated all being, every- 
 where; the consequence implied the presence of the 
 cause, and could not exist except as alive by virtue 
 of the inherent quickening energy. Dead matter that 
 is, matter uninformed with spirit involved a contradic- 
 tion of thought ; the negation of spirit is nothing less 
 than the denial of existence. The conception of God, 
 as the motive and sustaining power of things, was 
 made to tally with the scheme of monistic materialism ; 
 and it needed little violence to language at a time when 
 the material presence of God in phenomena was still 
 among the familiar assumptions of polytheistic belief. It 
 was only necessary to adapt it rigorously to the terms 
 of Stoic thought, and dissociate it from any suggestion 
 of transcendence or immateriality of being. God im- 
 manent in the Cosmos, not extraneous or antecedent to 
 it, is revealed as the one omnipresent cause and mani- 
 festation of life. Not only is the inherence of God a 
 condition and necessity of being, but God is made com- 
 mensurate with being : the pantheistic conception of the 
 world is complete and all-inclusive. God acts and inheres 
 in as many forms as the vital energy itself, and must be 
 recognised no less in the physical energies of heat, and 
 breath, and vital currents than in the psychical energies 
 of soul, and mind, and reason, or in the larger moments 
 of cosmic energies, which, as destiny, or providence, or 
 faith, rule the appointment of phenomena, and determine 
 the direction and the order of the evolution of the 
 
Ixiv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 universe. In this sense, but in this sense only, God 
 was immanent in man, and reveals himself in his most 
 essential form as conscious reason. This tenet de- 
 cisively differentiates Stoic pantheism from other pan- 
 theistic forms of thought Platonic thought, in referring 
 existence and all activities of thought or consciousness 
 to immanence of the Idea, was in a sense pantheistic ; 
 so still more was Aristotelian, in treating form as an 
 effect of the divine reason. But both asserted priority 
 of ontological existence for the divine ; and neither 
 admitted the idea of conscious pantheism, nor tried to 
 break down the permanent dualism of subject and 
 object, Matter and Form. God was the primary 
 efficient cause of existence, but was implicit as an 
 effect, not immanent as sustaining, energising, self- 
 conscious life. In the Stoic creed God is in no sense 
 transcendent above matter, but immanent and consub- 
 stantial : the world is the substance of God ; l Nature is 
 not the creation or the image, but the fulfilment and 
 content of the Divine. 
 
 All are but parts of one stupendous Whole, 
 Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul. 
 
 Stoicism, in ascribing phenomena to the action of 
 mind, attached a moral, instead of a merely mechanical, 
 interpretation to each motion of the Universe. It was, 
 alike in whole and part, the expression of purpose 
 working towards a conscious end. ' Necessity ' in the 
 physical order, and ' Destiny ' in the moral, are re- 
 conciled as self-acting ' Providence,' irresistible, rational, 
 
 1 ov<ria.v 6eov Zrjvwv (ferjcri rov 6\ov K6<r/J.ov /ecu rbv ovpavbv. 
 
 Diog. L. 7, 148. 
 
in 2 STOIC DOGMA Ixv 
 
 and beneficent. 1 Not merely in general scope, but in 
 every detail, its action was teleological. To the consistent 
 pantheist, imperfection in the universe must argue defect 
 or unreason in God ; and faith loses every stay unless it 
 can hold that ' the disposing Reason contains no evil, 
 does no evil, and inflicts no injury on anything.' 2 To 
 the perfect Tightness of the whole the Stoic clings with 
 immovable conviction. Purpose, design, providence, 
 were everywhere at work, and all lower processes must 
 be interpreted as means towards higher ends 3 in- 
 organic life subserving the design of organic, vegetable 
 or animal ; the vegetable or animal subserving the 
 social and the rational ; the physical existing for the 
 intellectual ; the part or individual for the whole. 4 Each 
 part olive or fig tree, horse or dog 5 is there to make 
 complete the universal order, of which it forms a 
 transient part. Man is no exception to the rule, but its 
 highest and conscious exemplification. To him, too, 
 the world-order becomes at once a norm and a con- 
 straining stress, to which his action must (willingly or 
 unwillingly) accommodate itself. As a norm of action it 
 becomes to his moral sense an outer law, empowered 
 to prescribe authoritative rules of life and obligation, 
 a ' categorical imperative ' of duty. ' The good man 
 submits his own judgment to the power that disposes 
 all, as good citizens to the law of the state.' 6 
 
 1 ii. 2, 3 ; v. 8, 24 ; viii. 35 ; xii. 14. 
 
 2 vi. i ; ii. II, 17; vi. 44; ix. 28, 35; x. i, 20; xi. 17; xii. 5. 
 3 v. 16, 30 ; vii. 55 ; xi. IO, 18. 
 
 4 Cf. ii. 3 ; v. 8, 22 ; vi. 45, 54 ; x. 6, 33 ; xi. 18. 
 
 5 iv. 6, 23, 48 ; v. 1,6; viii. 15, 19 ; x. 8 ; xii. 16. 
 
 6 Epict. i, 12, 7. 
 
Ixvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 Hence, for the first time in Greek thought, there 
 emerges the idea of duty and of the sense of sin, inde- 
 pendent of inner impulses or of human obligation or 
 relationship. Nature, immanent as thought, looks down 
 forbiddingly upon the motions of sense, impulsive and 
 precipitate ; and looks up with guiding and sympathetic 
 reverence to that cosmos of which it is part. Assuming 
 the role of a constraining power, that as whole to 
 part can overrule the action of the individual to the 
 purposes of the world-order, it erects an outer deter- 
 minism, beside which man's freedom resolves itself 
 into capacity for conscious co-operation with a power 
 that exceeds and comprehends his own. Man, like 
 the olive, but with consciousness superadded, spends 
 his brief moment according to nature's law, and ' falls 
 when it is ripe.' 1 Thus Stoic freewill becomes a 
 selective power 2 of inner self-determination, by which 
 reason or moral will is able to accept or to resist 
 the reactions of sense and impulse and circumstance 
 upon inner disposition. Passive obedience may be- 
 come active. In the sweep of the great cosmic 
 current, Will can for its season keep personality intact, 
 and may consciously realise and accept the trend 
 of destiny; but its action is circumscribed to itself; 
 it cannot shape events, or move or modify things 
 without, or vary by a hair's breadth the course of 
 Necessity. It becomes devout and almost fatalistic 
 resignation 
 
 1 iv. 48. 
 
 2 In the terms of Epictetus a x/ ) ?7< rts (f>wra-<ri-&v. Epict. I, I, 
 5-7 ; i, 20, 5-7. 
 
in 2 STOIC DOGMA Ixvii 
 
 Lead me, O Zeus, and lead me, Destiny, 
 What way soe'er ye have appointed me ! 
 I follow unafraid ; yea though the will 
 Turn recreant, I needs must follow still. 
 
 CLEANTHES ap. EPICTETUM, Encheiridion. 
 
 As a further consequence of this, the declared com- 
 munity of mind between the cosmos and man, and 
 the perception of a single purpose uniting both in 
 common ends, produced a sympathetic sentiment 
 towards nature, unknown before except as some vague, 
 instinctive presage, unauthorised and unexplained. But 
 when nature stood revealed as a sentient being, pulsing 
 and interpenetrated everywhere with the same stream of 
 life as fed man's own, the pathetic fallacy found stand- 
 ing-ground in fact, and became, alike in ethics and in 
 poetry, a new source of imaginative appeal, that, from 
 Cleanthes to Shelley, from Vergil to Wordsworth, has 
 expatiated in the enlarging fervours of the poetry of 
 pantheism. 
 
 No system of material monism will permanently 
 satisfy man's intellectual constitution ; it is meta- 
 physically shallow, and fails to meet the necessities or 
 account for the existence of thought ; but the Stoic at- 
 tempt, noble, far-reaching, and on its own lines exhaustive, 
 not merely held for centuries a more active and com- 
 manding sway over the minds and hearts of men than the 
 metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, not merely interwove 
 itself with Christian discipline and doctrine, and found 
 philosophic reconstruction in Spinoza, but at this day, 
 alike in the poetic and scientific imagination, enjoys a 
 wider currency, and exercises a more invigorative appeal 
 
Ixviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 in the field of natural religion than any other extra- 
 Christian interpretation of the universe. And rightly so ; 
 for Stoic Pantheism first gave reasoned form and basis to 
 that imperious instinct of cosmic unity, and likewise of 
 communion between human and divine, which haunts 
 men with persistent power, and which any philosophy 
 aspiring to be permanent must explain and justify. Thus 
 it is no surprise to find the genius of Stoicism perfectly 
 expressed in the lines of one to whom its formal doctrines 
 were a sealed book : 
 
 O God, within my breast, 
 Almighty, ever-present Deity ! 
 
 Life, that in me has rest, 
 As I undying life have power in thee. 
 
 With wide-embracing love 
 Thy spirit animates eternal years, 
 
 Pervades and broods above, 
 Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears. 
 
 Though earth and man were gone, 
 And suns and universes ceased to be, 
 
 And thou wert left alone, 
 Every existence would exist in thee. 
 
 There is not room for Death, 
 No atom that his might could render void : 
 
 Thou Thou art Being, Breath, 
 And what Thou art may never be destroyed. 1 
 
 3. The Soul of Man. Psychology. 
 The relation of man to the world gives the key to 
 1 Emily Bronte, Poems. 
 
in 3 STOIC DOGMA Ixix 
 
 his inner constitution. Human psychology, which the 
 Stoics diligently elaborated, rests on the pantheistic as- 
 sumption which is the keystone of their system. Every 
 manifestation of life derives from the immanent presence 
 of the one world-life. The soul in man, incarnate for a 
 season as a spring of human life, is subsequently re- 
 absorbed into the cosmic spirit from which it emerged 
 as a seminal principle of separate life. Comprising and 
 controlling all the activities of thought, emotion, sense, 
 and life, like the world-soul itself, it may be known by 
 many names. Epictetus, for instance, speaks usually of 
 ' soul ' j but Marcus characteristically favours the schol- 
 astic designation, which throws chief emphasis upon the 
 directive will, and calls it the Hegemonic^- or Master 
 Power. The purest expression of soul, the distinctively 
 human element, which unites man with the highest in 
 nature, and keeps him 'in touch with god,' 2 is the 
 Reason, Mind, or Understanding (Aoyos, vos, Stavota, 
 Aoyioy/,os) ; the sovereign presence of this element lifts 
 man above every other creature, cements the inalien- 
 able brotherhood of kind, and makes conscious con- 
 formity to nature his spiritual prerogative and goal. 
 An absolute unity prevails within the dominion of man's 
 self, and the whole is properly described by that which 
 is its highest function and expression ; virtue and know- 
 ledge are made one, and the contributory activities, 
 which concern the emotions or the appetites or the 
 
 1 This I have reluctantly paraphrased in the text as Inner Self, 
 or here and there Governing Self ; for the World Hegemonikon (vi. 
 36 ; vii. 75) I have used Soul. 
 
Ixx INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 functions of the physical organisms, are ' parts ' and 
 movements of the same life-force. 
 
 Stoic psychology does not base itself on study and 
 observation of psychical processes, so much as on de- 
 termined vindication of the supremacy of the Hegemonic 
 power or will. The unity and the ascendancy of the 
 Hegemonicon was held to exclude any psychology such 
 as the Platonic, which accorded distinct and separable 
 status to the rational and the irrational nature, to 
 Reason, Passion, and Desire. The Stoic declined to 
 recognise rival and independent powers, and regarded 
 the emotional or sensuous, as well as the rational and 
 intellectual, activities as ' parts of the soul.' Physically, 
 they are conceived as currents of the one life-giving 
 Pneuma, acting by different channels upon centres of 
 consciousness, placed in the heart, or by some teachers 
 in the brain. In this way they are incorporated in the 
 one soul-energy, and placed absolutely at the disposition 
 of the directive power. They are set in motion by 
 external stimuli, but in their realisation as physical or 
 psychical activities (trdOr), oppat, d/ae^ets) they are actual 
 affections, functions, and 'parts' of the soul itself, 
 and their subordination to the intellectual or reasoning 
 faculty depends upon the fact that their action and 
 indeed existence rests upon 'judgments,' favourable or 
 adverse, and that the supreme judgment-forming power, 
 man's guarantee of freedom, is vested in the reason, 
 and is able to ignore and override the dictates or the 
 protests of emotion, sensibility, or passion. In the case 
 of the animals l we see impulse and instinct, unprovided 
 1 iii. 16; vi. 16 ; vii. 55. 
 
in 3 STOIC DOGMA Ixxi 
 
 with the superior check which puts man on a higher 
 plane. In man, impulses and affections are not of 
 necessity irrational ; on this point the language of 
 Chrysippus and others is unmistakable. Strictly speak- 
 ing, they are in themselves non-rational, but capable 
 of adoption by the reason, and so of becoming 
 rationalised. But there is a constant tendency among 
 the zealots and rhetoricians of the school to press the 
 verbal antithesis, to decry all forms of emotion as aber- 
 rations from right reason, and to exact from the Wise 
 Man their entire eradication. The question is at 
 bottom one of terms. It is possible to confine the 
 terms emotion, desire, and the like to those unauthorised 
 affections and impulses, which are not incorporated by 
 the directive power and so raised into constituent 
 parts of virtue or right reason. On that understanding 
 the doctrine of Apathy (d-jrdOeia) may be pressed without 
 reserve, and the emotions treated as suspects or detected 
 criminals ; but the restriction is arbitrary and misleading, 
 as at variance with psychological fact. The emotions 
 and affections do not change their nature in receiving 
 sanction and adoption from the reason and the will ; 
 and Stoicism lost much in moral efficacy by obscuring 
 and even denying this psychological fact, and extending 
 its disapproval of irrational (or unrationalised) emotions 
 into a wholesale and undiscriminating ban. 
 
 Sensation is treated on the same lines ; the five 
 senses, often grouped as a single faculty of soul, are 
 thought of as outlying feelers, so to speak, of the Pneuma, 
 directed from the centre to the surface of the body, 
 and maintaining communication between the conscious 
 
Ixxii- INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 Pneuma within and cognate manifestations of Pneuma 
 without ; the act of consciousness is referred to the 
 interior soul, the sense-organs only providing instruments 
 of communication. The pleasures of sense, just as 
 those of reason in its own department, are due to the 
 smooth or rough flow of the Pneuma-currents l in the 
 channels appropriated to their action, though Reason 
 and Will have power to ignore such excitations at their 
 pleasure. In a lower order still, and served by other 
 organs, comes the generative or reproductive faculty) 
 and (without much clearness or coherence of view) the 
 faculty of speech. 2 Throughout, the materiality of the 
 soul is unflinchingly affirmed, and nowhere more un- 
 reservedly so (in spite of some incidental laxities of 
 expression) than in Marcus, who, following the medical 
 theorisers of his day, describes the soul as an exhalation 
 of the blood. 3 Death similarly is the 'evaporation' 4 of 
 the immanent Pneuma from the physical organism, prior 
 to its extinction or re-immergence in the world-Pneuma. 
 The object of these laboured and somewhat barren 
 speculations is plain, namely, the determination to main- 
 
 1 See p. Ivii. 2 This classification seems referred to in xii. 31. 
 
 3 avadvfjdaffis d0' cu'yuaros, v. 33 ; vi. 15. The principle of 
 evaporation (dva6v/j.ia(ris) plays a large part in the speculations of 
 the Ionian physicists. To Heraclitus, soul is an exhalation from 
 air, and Cleanthes regards the sun, the Hegemonikon of the World, 
 as recruited by exhalation from the sea. The transition from liquid 
 to gaseous is the normal assumption ; but the explicit pathological 
 association with the blood, as vehicle of vital warmth, was worked 
 out by Diogenes of Apollonia and the medical school. In Marcus 
 it possibly reflects the personal teaching of Galen, 
 vi. 4. 
 
in 3 STOIC DOGMA Ixxiii 
 
 * 
 
 tain, throughout the spheres of perception, emotion, 
 desire, and reason, the totality of the individual as an 
 organic and inseparable unity. The Stoics did much 
 for the establishment of this conception, and it was 
 unfortunate that they did not grasp it even more com- 
 pletely in assigning to the different faculties their prero- 
 gatives and spheres of exercise. A sounder ethic would 
 have resulted from a more complete analysis and under- 
 standing of the nature of will. Here the Stoics like 
 other schools of antiquity came short, and were content 
 to rest in psychological abstractions adopted or devised 
 by their first masters. Instead of investigating the ends 
 of action, and finding in them intrinsic or external 
 criteria to determine the relative value of particular 
 functions and precedence among the faculties, the Stoics 
 selected a single faculty or group of faculties and assigned 
 them exclusive, and more or less arbitrary, dominion over 
 the rest. They were right in declaring the highest and 
 most essential element in man to be the rational, other- 
 wise denominated the social or the universal, 1 as relating 
 man's consciousness to the widest and most compre- 
 hensive range of interests. But they erred, partly under 
 the influence of Socratic dicta^ in identifying this rational 
 faculty too exclusively with the intellectual. That virtue 
 is inseparable from knowledge is true ; as virtue passes 
 beyond the instinctive impulses, and widens its range of 
 action and view, the more do perception, insight, and 
 foresight become indispensable. But besides the faculty 
 
 } The habitual terms in M. A. are Xoyt/o?, rational^ TroXtn/o? and 
 KoivuviKr], social (or unselfish'), and the more unusual KadoXiicri, catholic 
 or universal, e.g. in vi. 14, vii. 64. 
 
Ixxiv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 of knowing, virtue involves the habit of willing and 
 acting ; while it leans on the understanding for guidance, 
 it derives its motive power from desire and will. 
 Analysis may separate the three, and adjudge precedence 
 in time or dignity; but every moral act presupposes 
 not only the knowledge which reveals and defines the 
 end, but also the desire which adopts it, and the will 
 which gives effect to the desire in an act of self-deter- 
 mination. Without desires, which depend for, their 
 existence on the affections and emotions, knowledge 
 remains impotent, and loses the motive power which 
 elevates it into virtue. Each exercise of virtue implies 
 an existing basis of character and knowledge, determin- 
 ing itself in a new act of volition. Thus in so far as the 
 Stoics were misled by an unsound psychology into 
 denouncing all emotional activities, and set themselves 
 to 'efface' and 'extinguish' impressions and desires, 1 
 instead of enforcing the need of selecting, guiding, and 
 utilising them to the best end, they narrowed and 
 weakened the scope of their morality. By suppression 
 of desires, the moral ideal could easily be reduced to 
 the hard and narrow self- consistency, towards which 
 the Stoic type habitually leans, or drill itself or decline 
 into the moral 'apathy' which results from restricting 
 virtue to the sphere of intellectual and unimpassioned 
 self-regard. This is the secret of that ' accent of futility,' 
 
 1 Few maxims recur more frequently in M. A. Cf. e.g. v. 2, 
 36 ; vi. 13 ; vii. 17, 29 ; viii. 29, 47 ; ix. 7 ; xi. 16, to which iv. 
 7 and all its parallels ii. 15 ; iii. 9 ; iv. 3, 39 ; vi. 52 ; vii. 14, 16 ; 
 viii. 40; ix. 13; xi. 16, 18; xii. 8, 22, 25, 26 may properly 
 be added. 
 
in 4 STOIC DOGMA Ixxv 
 
 which marks the thoughts even of a writer so keenly 
 alive to altruistic and social obligation as Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 4. Knowledge and Perception 
 
 Such was the organism of the soul, by means of which 
 perception, judgment, knowledge, and will were effectu- 
 ated and unified. Knowledge was based upon material 
 sense-perception. Through the senses the mind had 
 contact with external objects, and perception was ex- 
 plained as an ' impression ' made upon the soul, 1 or, in 
 more guarded language, as a ' modification of the soul,' 2 
 produced by the impact of types or images of the objects 
 of sense. Perception then is an affection or movement 
 within the soul produced by an impulse from without ; 
 but the active and motive power in perception is 
 regarded as proceeding in the main from the thing 
 perceived, 3 not as supplied or emitted by the percipient ; 
 the soul is mainly passive, though in the act of per- 
 ception the response elicited from the percipient implies 
 an answering activity in the percipient's consciousness. 
 The perception itself does not originate in a movement 
 or activity of consciousness, but is rather a result or con- 
 tent of consciousness called into play by an outer force. 
 Sensation entertains the impression, and conscious per- 
 ception results. Such sense -perceptions are of very 
 different kinds, and vary according to their relation to 
 the object which they reproduce : perceptions frequently 
 
 1 Ti/Troxns tv 
 
 3 Almost all Greek schools, not excluding the Platonic, treat 
 perception and thought as communicated from without. 
 
Ixxvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 give imperfect or misleading representations of the 
 objects which they represent, and to this is due that 
 untrustworthiness of the senses which was used by the 
 Sceptics and other schools to undermine the very possi- 
 bility of certain knowledge. But, according to Stoic 
 belief, there do exist perceptions which, to a healthy 
 consciousness, give so complete and perfect a represen- 
 tation of the object and all its sensuous properties and 
 qualities, 'apprehend' it so fully, 1 and reproduce it so 
 convincingly, that by an inner and self-evidencing virtue 
 they constrain mental assent to the completeness and 
 accuracy of the representation, and furnish a sure basis 
 for knowledge. 
 
 It has been usual 2 to restrict these authoritative per- 
 ceptions to the sphere of sense-impression, and to urge 
 that there was no logical escape from this for the con- 
 sistent materialist ; but Stoic monism, by its identification 
 of matter with soul, eludes this difficulty, and the organs 
 of sense are not the only possible channels of contact 
 between subject and object, the mind and the external 
 world. The Stoic paradoxes regarding the ' materiality ' 
 
 1 Hence called (})ai>Ta<ricu KaraX^Trrt/cai. (pavTaaiai, which I have 
 (almost consistently) rendered 'regards' or 'impressions,' occurs 
 very frequently in M., and is certainly not restricted to sense- 
 impressions. 
 
 a I have ventured to follow Bonhoffer, who is at issue with most 
 previous interpreters. The discussion hardly falls within the scope 
 of M. Aurelius, and I have therefore been content to summarise 
 results. He refers to the doctrine of ' assent ' or certitude, e.g. 
 KaTd\r)\l/is (iv. 22 ; ix. 6) and <nry/carc0e0-ts (v. 10 ; viii. 7 ; xi. 
 37), and cf. iii. 9 ; vii. 54, 55 but does not treat the subject 
 systematically. 
 
in 4 STOIC DOGMA Ixxvii 
 
 of virtues, concepts, moral or aesthetic qualities, and such 
 like, do not involve the corollary, that such qualities or 
 conceptions admit of sensuous perception only, but on 
 the contrary themselves imply that, even on the material- 
 istic assumption, mind can come in contact with things 
 external to itself through other organs than those of 
 sense. The fact that virtue or beauty or number or God 
 is in Stoic phraseology 'a body,' does not preclude it 
 from being perceived by some other organ of soul than 
 the five organs of sense. The reason or understanding, 
 the psychical as well as the sensuous activities of the 
 immanent soul, are no less ' bodily ' than the senses, and 
 it seems correct and consistent (in spite of strong counter 
 assertions) to believe that the Stoics admitted ' percep- 
 tions of reason ' as well as ' perceptions of sense ' to a 
 place in their theory of knowledge. Without this admis- 
 sion it is difficult to understand how authority could be 
 claimed for any abstract conceptions, or for existences 
 that lie outside the range of sensuous perception. To 
 these perceptions of the reason the same note of authority, 
 varying with the completeness of the apprehension and 
 representation, will attach as to the perceptions of sense 
 already discussed. Thus then the means and bases of 
 knowledge are twofold, first the organs of sense, secondly 
 certain organs of apprehension resident in reason and 
 forming elements in the unique constitution of the 
 human mind. These inborn elements of reason have a 
 specific name (TrpoArjj/'as) attached to them, and are a 
 universal endowment of the mind of man. They consist 
 in certain innate ideas (KOLVO.I eWoicu) of moral qualities, 
 good and bad, becoming and unbecoming, fair and foul, 
 
Ixxviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 and so forth. They are not indeed consciously realised 
 from the moment of birth, but are nevertheless implicit 
 in thought, and as the seminal reason gradually matures, 
 they become an integral part of the reasoning conscious- 
 ness. Neither again are they perfect or infallible in 
 exercise, any more than the perceptions of sense ; rather 
 they are general and indeterminate ideas, which need 
 careful comparison and adjustment and development 
 under the guiding disciplines of reason. But in right 
 surroundings, and under just and watchful disciplines, 
 they gradually become clarified and perfected, and lead 
 on to invincible convictions, which in the moral sphere 
 carry as clear and compelling a certitude as the attesta- 
 tions derived from sense. 
 
 Knowledge then is grounded on perceptions or im- 
 pressions of outward existences, conveyed to the mind 
 by the appropriate organs of sense or (in the case of 
 certain abstract ideas and super-sensuous existences) of 
 intellectual apprehension. But the perceptions are by 
 no means equally valid ; and as soon as the perception 
 has made itself felt and become a content of conscious- 
 ness, it is for reason or understanding to test it, to 
 pass judgment, and to accord approval or rejection. 1 
 The approving verdict, which affirms that the perception 
 is a real representation corresponding to an actual object, 
 is technically known as ' assent ' ; and this ' assent,' 
 which, physically viewed, rests on right tension in the 
 mental energy, may be strong or weak, mistaken or 
 sound, true or false j its action depends partly on the 
 subjective condition of the perceiving and ratifying mind, 
 1 vi. 52 ; vii. 16, 68 ; viii. 28, 47 ; xi. 16, 18 (7). 
 
in 4 STOIC DOGMA Ixxix 
 
 partly on the objective character of the representation 
 itself. It may yield a convinced assurance corresponding 
 to a true and actual representation; or again a convinced 
 assurance which, however positive and dogmatic, is 
 founded on a misleading or imperfect representation, 
 and is consequently false or faulty in its assumptions ; 
 or, finally, a weaker sense of assurance passing through 
 various grades of faltering conviction, until it ceases to 
 deserve even the name of ' opinion ' (Sofa) at all. 
 
 The executive criteria then of knowledge, wjiich must 
 be applied to outer existences to test and measure their 
 reality, are twofold sense and innate ideas. Reason 
 directs their application, and in certain cases there ensues 
 (according to Stoic belief) a specific and incontrovertible 
 sense of ' assent/ an answering affection and compulsion 
 of the soul, that carries its own warrant of reality, and 
 assures to the Wise Man infallible apprehension of very 
 truth. 
 
 Perception and sensation then consist of impressions 
 upon the soul-organ, set in motion by objects of sense. 
 But those impressions the dogma is essential, and the 
 one guarantee of man's moral independence are sub- 
 ject to the sovereignty of Reason. They play upon the 
 organs of sense as strings upon the marionette ; 1 but 
 their power and their authority stop there. 2 They try 
 incessantly to force an entrance to the inner citadel, to 
 confound reason and take it by storm, to anticipate or 
 sway its verdicts ; 3 but it is the office of reason to keep 
 
 1 ii. 2 ; iii. 16 ; vi. 16, 28 ; vii. 3, 29 ; xii. 19. 
 
 2 vii. 1 6 ; viii. 41, etc. 
 3 For these various figures, iii. 6; v. 36 ; vi. 52; vii. 16; viii. 36, 48. 
 
Ixxx INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 them at arm's length, standing without, stating their 
 case, awaiting judgment. 1 Mind retains absolute power 
 of self-determination, however imperiously impressions 
 clamour and agitate. It is 'self-swayed, self-moved,' 
 enabled by selective and circumscriptive power 2 to 
 ' modify the objects upon which it plays into accord with 
 the judgments which it approves.' 3 It is proof against 
 the reactions of circumstance, for 'The view taken 
 is everything,' as Marcus again and again reiterates. 4 
 ' Affect what will the parts of my being from without ! 
 the parts affected can if they please find fault. So long 
 as I do not view the infliction as an evil, I remain 
 uninjured.' 5 ' Efface impression ; stay impulse ; quench 
 inclination ; be master of your Inner Self ' 6 that is 
 the business and prerogative of mind. 
 
 This unconditional sovereignty of reason in the 
 individual life secures to man that perfect independence 
 of the will which seemed the indispensable condition of 
 virtue. Proof against affections of the flesh, disturb- 
 ances of the emotions, and all 'slings and arrows' of 
 outrageous fortune, he becomes 'a. citadel impregnable 
 to passion,' 7 a headland round which all billows of 
 circumstance boil and break in vain. 8 But, as the event 
 proved, his independence is gained at the expense of a 
 yet more commanding subordination. If, as the life- 
 power of the universe, the controlling faculty has rights 
 
 1 iii. 1 6 ; iv. 3 ; v. 19 ; vii. 2, 68 ; viii. 28 ; ix. 15 ; xi. 16. 
 
 2 v. 26 ; viii. 36 ; xii. 3. 3 v. 19 ; vi. 8 ; vii. 16, 67 ; xi. I. 
 4 ii. 15 ; iii. 9 ; iv. 3, 39 ; vi. 52 ; xi. 18 (7) ; xii. 8, 22, 25, 26. 
 
 6 vii. 14. 6 ix. 7 ; cf. iv. 24 ; v. 2 ; vii. 29 ; viii. 29, 47. 
 
 7 viii. 48. 8 iv. 49. 
 
in 4 STOIC DOGMA Ixxxi 
 
 indefeasible and unassailable within the little state of 
 man, it becomes on the same showing a part only, a 
 single jot, 1 in the interminable sum and series of cosmic 
 being. And the inference was not evaded or denied ; 
 the chain of causation 2 and of consequence was absolute 
 from the beginning ; the history of the universe was but 
 the unfolding of the providence of God 3 in sequences 
 that followed one another with unalterable cyclic regu- 
 larity ; 4 the recurrent processes of nature, 5 the rise and 
 fall of kingdoms, 6 the ceaseless round of human circum- 
 stance, 7 the destiny of individuals, 8 are all part of that 
 great 'web of Klotho,' which issues from the primal 
 cause, forewoven by the predestinations of eternity. 9 
 The moral determinism, even more than the physical, 
 is absolute and irreversible : the one end of man lies in 
 conformity with ' the inviolable necessity,' 10 so that in 
 the last resort, as cosmic Monism necessarily implied, 11 
 moral freedom resolves itself into a determination or 
 self-subjugation of the will into harmony with the work- 
 ing of destiny, into obedient following of reason and of 
 God. 12 Man's attitude to circumstance, not the direction 
 of it, remains within his own control. Knowing or un- 
 knowing, willing or loth, 13 all work towards the inevitable 
 consummation 
 
 ducimt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. 
 
 1 v. 24 ' 2 v. 8. 3 ii. 3. 
 
 4 v. 13, 32 ; ix. 28 ; xi. i 5 viii. 6, 50; xii. 24. 
 
 6 iv. 32 ; vii. 49 ; x. 27. 7 iv. 32 ; vi. 37 ; vii. I ; ix. 14. 
 
 8 v. 13. 9 iv. 34 ; and cf. ii. 3 ; iii. 4, n, 16 ; iv. 26 ; 
 
 v. 8 ; viii. 23 ; x. 5. 10 xii. 14. n See p. Ixvi. 
 
 12 iii. 9, 12 ; vii. 31 ; ix. I ; x. ii, 12, 28 ; xii. 27, 31. 
 
 13 vi. 42 ; x. 28. 
 
Ixxxii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 The difficulties thus raised are fundamental, and 
 on the monistic assumption, certainly as formulated by 
 the Stoics, insuperable. The independence of the will 
 as a true first principle or dp^r) is incompatible with its 
 identification with the world-soul. If, as Stoic masters 
 taught, the highest consciousness of man represents the 
 most complete and perfect embodiment of the world- 
 spirit, the saving thought of self-determination towards 
 some transcendent, and yet unapprehended, harmony is 
 excluded. Not only is man part of the universal pre- 
 destination, but the limits of that predestination are 
 known and absolute. The subjection imposed becomes 
 intolerable. It is impossible to identify the soul of man 
 with the infinite creative spirit of the universe, and at 
 the same time to circumscribe his outlook within the 
 finite limitations of space and time and 'the material 
 shell.' 1 Nature as a whole may be conceived as in 
 some marvellous way at once self-circumscribed and 
 self-sufficing ; 2 but the individual limited isolated part 
 cannot at once inherit and express the spiritual fulness 
 of the whole, and at the same time acquiesce in the 
 transient and incomplete appropriation of limitations 
 that are final. Further, the facts of consciousness 
 remain unsatisfied. The Stoics laboured the classifica- 
 tion and nomenclature of various orders of emotion, but 
 give no account of the inner antagonisms that exist 
 between reason, desire, and impulse. They do not 
 
 1 For enforcement of time limitations see ii. 14, 17 J iii. 10, 
 12; iv. 16, 19, 26, 49; vi. 32; vii. 29, 54; viii. 2, 7, 36, 44; 
 ix. 25, 29; x. II ; xii. I, 3, 26. 
 
 2 viii. 50. 
 
 
in 4 STOIC DOGMA Ixxxiii 
 
 grapple with the central difficulty, the origin and exist- 
 ence of irregular and irrational impulses in the soul, or 
 show how their presence is compatible with a nature that 
 is altogether good.' 1 All alike are operations of the 
 Pneuma, and the Pneuma is divided against itself. If 
 lusts and affections, good desires and bad, all spring from 
 the same fountain-head, every guarantee for the eventual 
 prevalence of good is withdrawn. The destiny of 
 creation reveals itself in never-ending cycles of unpro- 
 gressive conflict, and no thought of moral evolution 
 enters in to brace endeavour or justify optimism. As 
 part of this predestination, the basis of individual virtue 
 itself becomes precarious. Such are some of the diffi- 
 culties involved in the Stoic scheme. 
 
 To this extent then and by this route Greek thought 
 approached the moral problems of 'free-will,' which it 
 bequeathed in intensified form to Christianity. The 
 Stoics did not push the issue to its ultimate contradic- 
 tions ; circumscribing and in effect sacrificing free per- 
 sonality, they were content to leave the conception of 
 Order supreme and paramount ; and their problem was 
 not complicated by the idea of life as probation, by any 
 doctrine of reward or punishment in a life to come, or 
 by any need of provision for the remission of sins. The 
 diseased or rebellious member might suffer loss; it 
 might estrange or excommunicate itself as some mal- 
 content from the social system ; 2 it might entail upon 
 itself forfeitures, pains, disabilities, or death; it might 
 become a kind of tumour or excrescence on the body : 3 
 
 1 Compare p. Ixv. 
 2 ii. 16 ; viii. 34 ; ix. 23. 3 iv. 29. 
 
Ixxxiv INTRODUCTION SECT. HI 4 
 
 but even so ' the health of the world-order, the welfare 
 and well-being of Zeus,' l was not impaired, nor its move- 
 ment contravened ; disaffection was powerless to in- 
 terrupt or baulk the purposes of providence, and in 
 opposing it does but become fuel for the flame, 2 feeding 
 and strengthening what it essays to check and counteract. 
 By this narrowing of the field, Stoic belief escaped 
 some of the difficulties which beset the Christian in 
 accounting for the existence of pain and evil. Partly 
 by allowing vicarious suffering of the part for the 
 advantage of the whole, and partly by condoning evil 
 as an incident and mode of the prevalence of good, it 
 sought to break the direct impact of the argument, 
 and to avoid the admission of any ultimate triumph of 
 evil, or any finaK defeat of the power and wisdom and 
 beneficence of God. But though the most urgent 
 difficulties were thus evaded by Stoicism, and deeper 
 difficulties such, for instance, as those that hinge on 
 environment, on heredity, or on erroneous belief were 
 not yet broached, yet it brought men face to face with 
 ' the inscrutable problems of individual responsibility, and 
 owned their exigence to an extent that may be mea- 
 sured by the distance which separates the stalwart bravado 
 of Diogenes from the acceptant optimism of Epictetus, 
 or the hard defiance of Cato from the devout resignation 
 of Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 1 v. 8. 
 2 iv. i ; viii. 32, 35, 57 ; x. 31, 33. 
 
IV. STOICISM IN HISTORY 
 
 HISTORICALLY, Stoicism belongs to the age of the 
 Diadochi; the career of Alexander was ended before 
 Zeno repaired to Athens and enrolled himself among 
 the disciples of Crates. 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 TroAis as the supreme 
 unit of morality. The conception of the state enlarged 
 to that of the nation, and nationality became cosmo- 
 politan in its field of exercise. ' Hellenism ' was no 
 longer restricted to the cities and colonies of Greece, 
 but was called upon to realise itself as a social and 
 intellectual entity from the ^Egean to the Indies. The 
 reconstruction of Ethics was immediate and fundamental. 
 In Plato it is a standing assumption that the city is ' by 
 nature ' the Greatest Common Measure of individual 
 morality ; in Aristotle the same idea still dominates the 
 field of ethics, and moral prerogative is intimately bound 
 up with civic status ; ' natural ' obligation is not identical 
 for the slave and for the freeman, towards the citizen 
 and towards the alien. 
 
 Greek ethics from the first expressed realised con- 
 ditions of Greek life ; and the changes of formula that are 
 
Ixxxvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 common to all the post-Aristotelian, or more truly to all 
 post-Alexandrian, schools are another testimony to the 
 freshness and sincerity of the Greek intelligence. In 
 all alike Stoic, Epicurean, or Cyrenaic the civic basis 
 is abandoned for the individualist and universal. The 
 ethical ideal becomes internal and, as the city widens to 
 the world, transcends limitations of status or franchise ; 
 and belongs to man as man, the common seal of his 
 humanity. As a consequence of this it becomes, 
 or appears to become, for a time, less vital in its effect 
 upon the lives of individuals; it plays less obvious a 
 part in history ; the Athenian or the Spartan ideal, by 
 virtue of its limitations, visibly dominates the lives and 
 words and behaviour of representative Athenians or 
 Spartans ; it is tangible and unmistakable. A universal 
 ideal is less determinate, and in so far frequently less 
 efficacious ; more remote and unattainable in practice, 
 it is prone to compromise with tradition and environ- 
 ment ; the Stoic Wise Man does not appear upon 
 the stage of history, least of all in the days or place 
 which first promulgated the idea. Stoic morality was 
 indeed too novel, too many-sided, and too revolutionary 
 for immediate realisation in the arena of public action. 
 In repudiating the civic tie, it failed at first to supply 
 effective substitutes and incentives to altruistic obligation : 
 politically and socially it was for a time sterile, and 
 indeed rather a naturalised than native product of true 
 Hellenism. Throughout the Hellenic stage, it is im- 
 possible to instance great personalities avowedly con- 
 forming aim and practice to Stoic principles. Though 
 these gradually, no doubt, began to leaven moral 
 
iv STOICISM IN HISTORY Ixxxvii 
 
 philosophy and to influence standards of action and 
 sentiment, Stoicism proper was an affair of the schools. 
 It was academic before it could become practical ; it 
 was necessary for it to submit theory to the checks of 
 experience, before it could command allegiance from 
 the householder, the citizen, and the statesman, as well 
 as the scholar and recluse. But in its Athenian home, 
 engaged in stimulating controversy with rival schools of 
 thought, strengthening defences, abandoning untenable 
 positions, and mellowing the individualist paradoxes 
 of Cynism by maturer conceptions of social aim and 
 obligation, it prepared itself for larger destinies. 
 
 In the historic embassy, which proceeded from 
 Athens to Rome in 155 B.C., to plead for toleration to 
 philosophers, the Stoic School was represented by 
 Diogenes ; but its first effective apostle was Panaetius of 
 Rhodes, who, a few years later, introduced it at Rome 
 under the most favourable auspices. A man of means 
 and culture, belonging to one of the oldest and most 
 distinguished families of Rhodes, Panaetius devoted him- 
 self by deliberate predilection, not by any accident or 
 secondary motive, to the lifelong pursuit of philosophy. 
 At Athens, after hearing the best masters of the day, 
 he attached himself to the Stoic School, of which he 
 was eventually to become the recognised head. Like 
 Polybius, he became a member of that Scipionic circle 
 which first naturalised Hellenic culture at Rome, and 
 by travel as well as domestic intercourse formed ties of 
 special intimacy with the younger Scipio. Rome and 
 Athens were almost equally the centres of his activity, 
 and through him the Stoic philosophy, in a somewhat 
 
Ixxxviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 eclectic and Platonic form, secured an early and abiding 
 hold upon the intellectual leaders of Rome. The De 
 Officiis of Cicero is a confessed adaptation from the 
 cognate treatise of Panaetius. 
 
 But apart from the personality of Panaetius, Stoicism 
 fell upon congenial soil; the time was ripe for its 
 acceptance. The historical parallel is full of interest 
 and meaning. Scipio, the friend and patron of Panaetius, 
 executed final doom on Carthage. As Stoicism sprang 
 historically out of the supersession of Greek city-states 
 and 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. 
 Upon the fall of Carthage, Africa and Macedonia were 
 constituted Provinces of Rome ; a few years added Asia 
 to the number; Rome was no more a city, but an 
 Empire, and her mightiest task, the evolution of Imperial 
 law and administration, lay before her. In the accom- 
 plishment of this Stoicism was no unimportant factor. 
 It was the one philosophy, which in its conceptions of 
 social obligation, of world-citizenship, and of the solidarity 
 and brotherhood of man, contained the germs of a great 
 political order. True, the enactment of laws does not 
 come within the province of schools of philosophy, and 
 influence must filter through individuals, rather than 
 proceed from accredited or formal organisations, but it 
 must not for that reason be belittled or ignored, and in 
 the case of Stoicism the proof rests on no mere inferential 
 evidence. Its voice was continually heard among the 
 official circles of Rome ; the earliest of great Roman 
 lawyers, M. Scaevola the Augur, and the yet more 
 
iv STOICISM IN HISTORY Ixxxix 
 
 famous Pontifex, were among the first to give welcome 
 to Panaetius ; Cato and Cicero, each in their own way, 
 are witnesses to its continued power; among Augustan 
 lawyers it could claim S. Sulpicius Rufus, Sextus 
 Pompeius, and others as disciples ; throughout the 
 darkest days of Imperial oppression it upheld the forms 
 of liberty ; carrying accepted weight in family and state, 
 and slowly mitigating the rigours and inequalities of the 
 old regime with the humaner influences that are the 
 glory of the Flavian and Antonine successions, it finally, 
 in the persons of the Antonines, father and son, took its 
 seat upon the throne. 
 
 In the field of letters the position of Stoicism was 
 more assured and definite. At the middle of the 
 second century, when wealth, supply of slaves, and 
 empire had wrought an increase of luxury and leisure, 
 which made intellectual as well as other forms of re- 
 creation a necessity, Rome stood at the turning of the 
 ways. She must either create a literature at home, or 
 import it from abroad. Literature first finds form in 
 poetry, and the rough Saturnian, or uncouth pro- 
 vincialism of the Atellane farce, had no chance against 
 hexameter and iambic, and the finished perfection of 
 Greek drama. It was vain for Censor or Senate to 
 expel philosophers and lay a ban upon rhetoricians and 
 professors ; the last and stoutest champion of the Latin 
 school, Cato himself, in his old age accepted Greek 
 supremacy, and Rome imported literature as a part of 
 her plunder of the world. Terence vindicates his claim 
 to originality by the boast that his plays are drawn 
 direct and solely from the Greek. 
 
xc INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 In the earlier phases of this Grgeco-Roman literature, 
 so far as it survives, the borrowing is too direct and 
 crude, and the moral intention too unreflective, to give 
 materials for judgment ; but as soon as the national con- 
 sciousness finds play in poets of Italian stock, and the 
 yield of literature becomes full and representative, we see 
 the whole national ethos reshaping itself upon the lines 
 of Greek philosophy. Rome showed the same docility 
 in borrowing its moral, as its poetical formulas from 
 Greece. If Lucretius swings the blade of Epicurus in 
 his fierce onset against the timid formalisms of the 
 national religion, Vergil throughout conveys his national 
 ideal in tones modulated from Stoicism. 
 
 Principio caelum ac terras camposque liquentes 
 lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra 
 spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
 mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet. 
 inde hominum pecudumque genus vitaeque volantum 
 et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus. 
 
 bine metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque. 1 
 
 God is not banished to fenced paradises of far 
 Intermundia, 
 
 Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, 
 Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, 
 Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
 Their sacred, everlasting calm 
 
 but reigns as that 
 
 fortuna omnipotens et ineluctabile fatum 
 
 which irresistibly controls the destinies of nations. 
 1 Aen. vi. 724-733- 
 
iv STOICISM IN HISTORY xci 
 
 Mythology is used for poetic machinery and embellish- 
 ment, but the plot moves at the ordering and disposition 
 of cosmic destiny. The Fortune or Majesty of Rome 
 is not so much the work of man, as the visible march 
 of God in history, the ordinance and monotone of 
 Fate. Man is but the acceptant instrument of gods 
 desine fata deum flecti sperare precando. 
 
 In presence of an order too mighty for defiance, too 
 impersonal for protest, and too august for sympathy, 
 resolution, and endurance, rather than confidence or 
 exultation, become the poet's note. 
 
 Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito 
 
 voices the same profound and tearless acceptance, as 
 haunts the page of Marcus. Struggle will attain its 
 unseen inevitable goal ; that is enough to give dignity 
 and strength to resignation, but not to animate life 
 with hope. The most characteristic and immortal of 
 Vergilian notes such for instance as 
 
 sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt 
 or 
 
 tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore 
 
 epitomise the mood which dominates the thoughts of 
 Marcus. 
 
 Once genuinely naturalised, the earliest flowers of 
 a transplanted and imitative literature are likely to 
 prove the fairest ; they will not possess generative faculty 
 or reproductive- virtue. It was so with the Graeco- 
 Roman poetry of the Caesarean and Augustan era. 
 Its Golden Age is brief and isolated ; and as it subsides 
 into the silver decadence, Seneca in his Tragedies, 
 
xcii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 Persius in his Satires, Lucan in his Pharsalia, remind 
 us how much Stoicism did to fan the flickering after- 
 glow of Latin poetry into life. Satire and social 
 epigram each bear testimony to its growing power and 
 recognition as a factor in social development. 
 
 Prose tells a somewhat different tale. There, at 
 least in what may be called the political departments 
 History, Oratory, Memoirs, Epistolary correspondence, 
 and Law the Latin mind displayed unsurpassed con- 
 structive power. These only reflect indirectly, or in- 
 clude as an incident of their main theme, the currents 
 of philosophic thought. But here, too, it may be said 
 that such moral inspirations as appear spring mainly, if 
 not entirely, from Stoic impulses ; while in philosophic 
 treatises Stoicism holds the field almost alone. Cicero 
 is indeed encyclopaedic in his range of interest ; but it 
 is hardly too much to say that he failed to commend 
 to his own countrymen, or even to assimilate for his 
 own purposes, anything that lay outside of Stoicism. 
 His permanent contributions to moral philosophy were 
 the De Officiis and the Tusculan Disputations. The 
 metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, and the Sceptical 
 dialectic of the later Academy, were meaningless and 
 unintelligible to the Roman. For him, Ethics were the 
 sole content of philosophy; and the only system that 
 came into active competition with Stoicism was that 
 of Epicurus. 
 
 Its earliest propaganda in Rome was vigorous and 
 well sustained; and Lucretius embraced it with an 
 iconoclastic fervour that is without parallel in the 
 history of the School. But he found no following : 
 
iv STOICISM IN HISTORY xciii 
 
 though the name and fashion of Epicureanism continued 
 to prevail, it did not produce one spokesman or teacher 
 of conviction and ability, and fast degenerated into the 
 superficial and popular apologetics of self-indulgence; 
 as such it found adherents among the dilettanti of the 
 capital, but it touched no responsive chord in the 
 national ethos of Rome, and was incapable of that 
 accommodation to traditional beliefs which commended 
 Stoicism to men of patriotic, conservative, and religious 
 temperament. Thus, though the School survived at 
 Athens, and M. Aurelius himself included it among his 
 professorial endowments, as an effective creed and theory 
 of morals it was dead. 
 
 Stoicism was, in fact, the one philosophy congenial 
 to the Roman type. The emphasis it laid on morals, 
 the firmness and austerity of its code, the harshness of 
 its judgment on defaulters, the stern repudiation of 
 emotional considerations or impulses, even the narrow- 
 ness and inflexibility of its moral logic, all commended 
 it to Roman sympathies. The strength of Rome, the 
 secret of her empire, lay in character^ in an operative 
 code of honour, domestic, civic and (more at least than 
 in other states) international. And the Stoic concep- 
 tion of virtue corresponded closely to the range of qualities 
 denoted by Roman virtus manliness. The traditional 
 .type of Roman patriot, the patrician stedfastness of a 
 Camillus or Dentatus, the devotion of a Decius, the 
 dogged self-sacrifice of a Regulus, the sternness of a 
 Brutus ordering his disobedient son to execution, the 
 immovable and often ruthless allegiance to the con- 
 stituted order of the commonwealth, were treasured 
 
 8 
 
xciv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 historical exemplifications of unformulated Stoicism. Its 
 very narrowness and obstinacy of view was in its favour. 
 Cato (of Utica) was typically Roman, and by his faults 
 and limitations as much as his backbone of virtue 
 became for a time the ideal of Roman Stoicism. ' The 
 Republican opposition,' as Mommsen in his scornful 
 manner puts it, ' borrowed from Cato its whole attitude 
 stately, transcendental in its rhetoric, pretentiously 
 rigid, hopeless, and faithful to death ; and accordingly, 
 it began even immediately after his death to revere as a 
 saint the man who in his lifetime was not unfrequently 
 its laughing-stock and scandal.' The strength and the 
 persistence of these historical attachments finds testimony 
 in the Thoughts of Marcus, 1 and they enriched Stoicism 
 with that vein of sentiment which in theory it plumed 
 itself upon repudiating. Roman Stoicism, as it were, 
 'believed in the communion of saints.' 
 
 Thus the more morality, political and personal, 
 became self-conscious, and the need of some reasoned 
 theory of conduct was pressed home by Greek influences 
 to men of character and culture, the more did every- 
 thing that was serious at Rome gravitate towards 
 rational and tempered Stoicism as its creed. In the 
 long Reign of Terror, under which Rome cowered in 
 the first century, when virtue could only speak with 
 bated breath, and liberty and honour kept within 
 closed doors, Stoicism (like Christianity) was maturing 
 and effectualising its moral energies. It gains a breadth 
 and a reality unknown to it before, and takes shape as 
 ' Roman Stoicism.' The Satires of Persius voice the 
 
 1 See infra, p. cxxv. 
 
iv STOICISM IN HISTORY xcv 
 
 almost inarticulate fury of indignation which it could 
 stir in the breasts of the young and chivalrous ; the life of 
 Epictetus proves how it laid hold of the conscience of 
 the slave and the freedman, as well as the high-born 
 and the cultured. The death of Arria the elder, with 
 its superb finale, the salon of the younger Arria, the 
 voluntary suicide of Paulina, the teaching of Musonius 
 Rufus, and the writings of Seneca, show how Stoicism 
 had won to itself that which was bravest and gentlest 
 in the womanhood of Rome. The women of this day 
 are the precursors of Lucilla, mother of Marcus 
 Antoninus. In the judgment of the people, to which 
 Tacitus is an impartial witness, the Stoics were, through- 
 out this crisis, identified with all that was left of courage 
 and integrity in public life. When silence was the last 
 form of protest left, in the provinces and in the army, 
 the official journal was scanned to see ' what Thrasea had 
 refused to doj and in his person Nero ' sought to murder 
 virtue herself.' 
 
 By Nero, by Vespasian, by Domitian, Stoics were 
 honourably singled out for exile, for proscription, and 
 for death. Musonius Rufus stedfastly bore exile in Gyara 
 and penal servitude in Greece ; Rubellius Plauttis, 
 Seneca, Thrasea Paetus, Helvidius Priscus, Rusticus, and 
 Senecio, all sealed their testimony with their blood. 
 When in the last years of Domitian a caitiff Senate 
 decreed the burning of the books of Arulenus Rusticus 
 and Herennius Senecio, 'they thought,' writes Tacitus, 
 himself ex-praetor to the tyrant, 'that in that flame 
 they were extinguishing the voice of Rome, the freedom 
 of the Senate, the conscience of the race, that in 
 
xcvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 expelling the philosophers and laying all goodness under 
 ban, honour would nowhere any more rise and look 
 them in the face.' It was no wonder that, when 
 happier days dawned, a virtual monopoly of moral 
 education fell to a school whose doctrines were certified 
 thus. 
 
 Upon the material side the age of the Antonines 
 presents a picture of unsurpassed prosperity. Under 
 Hadrian Rome touched its zenith of material pomp and 
 affluence. The Forum was a blaze of temples, porticoes, 
 basilicas ; the Caesars' palaces crowned the Palatine ; 
 the Golden House of Nero had been superseded by the 
 yet more stupendous circles of the Colosseum ; the 
 Mausoleum of Hadrian rose in marble under the eyes 
 of the boy Marcus , forums, baths, theatres, aqueducts, 
 vied with each other in architectural magnificence. 
 Among all the remains of Pagan opulence, there is 
 none which so overpowers the imagination with sense of 
 profusion of scale as Hadrian's suburban villa, still in 
 its ruins covering some eight square miles, with its maze 
 of triclinia, audience chambers, baths, and colonnades, 
 paved with mosaic, ceiled and enriched with scroll or 
 tracery or arabesque, its fountains of porphyry, its fish- 
 ponds and lakes, its mimic landscapes reproducing 
 nature's choicest handiwork vales of Tempe, ravines of 
 Styx, harbours of Canopus and everywhere the niches 
 and pedestals provided for the unexhausted creations of 
 the sculptor's skill. Though with the accession of the 
 Antonines outlay on public buildings and extravagance 
 in spectacles was much reduced, and imperial residences 
 dismantled to meet necessities of state, yet the Antonine 
 
iv STOICISM IN HISTORY xcvii 
 
 Column and the sculptures of the Triumphal Arch show 
 that traditions of good workmanship still lingered on. 
 
 Upon the intellectual side this huge material splen- 
 dour leans wholly on the past. It is an age of culture 
 and of decadence, not of production. The last Latin 
 writers Statius and Martial in verse, the Plinies, 
 Tacitus, Quintilian, Columella in prose belong to the 
 preceding period, and after them Latin literature sinks 
 to its lowest depths. Throughout the western world 
 for the first time it may be said for a thousand years 
 poetry ceased to exist. History sinks to the levels 
 of Suetonius and then expires; rhetoric decays into 
 the conceits of Fronto ; while the new literature of 
 Christianity is only in its cradle. The best work is 
 done by Greeks, and is mainly exegetical or scientific ; 
 though Plutarch, Lucian, and others, redeem the age 
 from total literary barrenness. But, on the other hand, 
 it is, beyond precedent, an age of schools and universi- 
 ties, of recitations and praelections, of hospitals and 
 orphanages; education, for the first time treated as a 
 science by Quintilian, is on the moral side entrusted to 
 the philosopher, on the intellectual to the grammarian 
 and rhetorician. 
 
 The Stoic in his extremer form a Cynic every- 
 where predominates. He is the standing target for the 
 spleen of the Satirist or the mirth of the jester. He 
 was to be found in all places of public resort, in the 
 pulpit, in the drawing-room, and at Court. He is 
 not limited to the role of schoolmaster or pro- 
 fessor, but as private tutor, as secretary, and as ethical 
 adviser, becomes a familiar figure in the households of 
 
xcviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 the great. 1 Such households maintained large bodies 
 of dependents, who as readers, scribes, stewards, 
 doctors, and artists of all kinds, ministered to luxury 
 and directed the labours of the slaves. Among them 
 the position of the Stoic has been compared to that of 
 the domestic chaplain of a bygone day. He was part 
 of the decorum of a great house, with functions half 
 moral and half social ; he was expected to advise, to 
 edify, to sympathise, to entertain, to ease the wheels of 
 domestic life and intercourse. The position of such 
 men, foreigners and pensioners, as professional moralists 
 was full of difficulty, and there were, no doubt, pro- 
 fessing Stoics, who (like other men) sacrificed dignity 
 or paltered with morals to keep in the good graces of 
 an employer. The Graeculus esuriens at times found the 
 Stoic garb the most convenient in which to ingratiate him- 
 self and get a livelihood. But the first book 2 of the 
 Thoughts shows how much they contributed to set high 
 standards of courtesy and conscientiousness and ethical 
 refinement ; and critics as well as eulogists admit that in 
 the hour of trial the bereaved, the sick, and the dying 
 turned for support to the presence and consolations of 
 the philosopher. 
 
 Political history, except in its personal bearings upon 
 Marcus, lies outside our compass. Throughout the 
 vast area of the Empire peace, order, and good govern- 
 ment prevailed ; supervision, vigilant and effective, was 
 exercised over military and civil governors, and the 
 frontiers were kept with vigour and self-restraint ; free 
 developments of civic and provincial life were liberally 
 1 Cf. i. 16. 2 i. 5-15. 
 
 
iv STOICISM IN HISTORY xcix 
 
 encouraged ; and the blessings which paternal govern- 
 ment and enlightened bureaucracy are able to confer 
 were extended in all directions. But at the seat of rule 
 power and responsibility centred more and more in the 
 person of the Emperor. Good jurists, upright officials, 
 and industrious civil servants seem the best that Rome 
 could still produce; as general, as writer, as statesman 
 Marcus seems the last of the Romans. 
 
 As prelude to the consideration of his Thoughts, it 
 may be useful to set forth his genealogy, and a brief 
 synopsis of events referred to in the following section. 
 
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V. MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 
 
 HISTORY represents Marcus as discoursing for three 
 days to the assembled Senate the days preceding his 
 departure for his last campaign upon the principles of 
 philosophy and the way of virtue ; and modern philosophic 
 romance has drawn upon the Thoughts to dramatise the 
 scene in full. While such a resetting is interesting and 
 legitimate, and while it is possible to reproduce with 
 certainty the general colour and contents which such 
 Imperial exhortations must have exhibited, we must not 
 be misled as to the true characters of the Thoughts them- 
 selves. These soliloquies were never meant, as some 
 would seem to think, for a set exposition of philosophy ; 
 neither are they a homily or treatise intended for edifica- 
 tion of readers or the ears of Roman Senators. For 
 adaptation to that purpose something must be put in, 
 and much must be left out. They belong to the privacy 
 of the closet, addressed to no eye or ear but his own 
 reminiscences, reflections, interrogations, admonitions 
 ' To Himself' This is the one title that has any vestige 
 of authority, and it were well if they had been always 
 so described and known. They are a manual of personal 
 duty and of self-examination, by which a solitary soul, 
 charged with immense responsibilities, sought to under- 
 
civ INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 stand, to discipline, and to confirm itself, and so in 
 the conduct of life to attain a more susceptible ap- 
 preciation, a more strenuous devotion, a perfected 
 allegiance of will to the leadings of nature and God. 
 Their counterpart has emanated more often from the 
 cell or the hermitage than from the statesman's cabinet 
 or the general's praetorium ; they are a De Imitatione 
 such as might have been penned amid the isolations of 
 Khartoum. 
 
 Among philosophers Marcus is neither prophet, law- 
 giver, nor scribe ; he is not a teacher expounding a creed, 
 confirming doubters, or controverting opponents. He is 
 a diarist conversing with himself, not claiming even for 
 the doctrines of his school, much less for his own judg- 
 ments, any absolute infallibility or certitude. 1 There is 
 no pretence to completeness, little even to method, in 
 the handling of ethical topics. Terminology is not 
 always, from the scholastic point of view, exact or 
 uniform. Words are used in the popular sense as well 
 as in the technical. Quotations are admitted from alien 
 schools and teachers, 2 for not even the straitest ortho- 
 doxy foregoes eclecticism in the privacy of medita- 
 tion. Allowing this amount of latitude, it is true to say 
 that the presentation of Stoicism found in the Thoughts 
 is correct and careful beyond expectation. In early 
 boyhood 3 he was attracted by its doctrines and its dis- 
 ciplines, in manhood he espoused them as his rule of 
 life ; each day from its first waking hour, 4 each action 
 
 1 v. 10. 
 
 2 E.g. Epicurus, vii. 64 ; Plato, vii. 35, 44-48, 63 ; x. 23 ; Theo- 
 phrastus, ii. 10. 3 i. 6. 4 ii. I ; x. 13. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cv 
 
 and each abstinence, each word and each silence, 1 each 
 gesture and each look, 2 was a conscious and diligent 
 observance of Stoic precept, till the tenets of the masters, 
 so learned and practised and appropriated, became a 
 second nature, prescribing not merely instinctive canons 
 of behaviour, but even the inevitable moulds of thought 
 and of expression. 
 
 Of most of the censures levelled at his inaccuracy it 
 may be said, either that the language is to be judged by 
 common sense and not intended to be technical, or that 
 the term or tenet assailed is a genuine ingredient of 
 Stoicism in its Graeco-Roman form. His theory 3 of 
 knowledge, impulse, and perception is in close accord 
 with that of Epictetus ; his attribution of non-reasoning 
 ' Soul ' to animals is express and deliberate 4 ; his attitude 
 to Atomism, or to the ' future state ' of the Soul, is sound 
 and coherent. The latter is a good typical instance for 
 examination. 
 
 Depending as it necessarily did on distant and in- 
 secure hypotheses, and leaving ethical issues unaffected, 
 the doctrine does not bulk largely in Stoic discussion. 
 Death, a re-arrangement or dispersion of the bodily 
 elements, could not imply annihilation of the Pneuma, 
 a thing logically and physically inadmissible, but only 
 cessation of the particular form of immanence. That 
 after death the animating soul or pneuma was sooner or 
 later re-assimilated into the stock of universal soul, all 
 Stoics were agreed; but while some held that death 
 connoted the end of separable existence, others thought 
 
 1 i. 10 ; vi. 53 ; vii. 4, 30. 2 vii. 24, 37, 60 
 
 3 Cf. Section in. 4. 4 So vi. 14 ; ix. 8, 9. 
 
cvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 that, qualitatively at least, though not with any survival 
 of personality, the soul-pneuma retained its independence 
 until the general conflagration of the Universe, when a 
 new cycle of being begins, and the Pneuma reproduces 
 from itself the forms of immanence previously realised. 
 Chrysippus limited even this qualitative retention of 
 being to the souls of the wise, believing that in all other 
 cases reabsorption took place before the final conflagra- 
 tion. From the nature of the case, and from Stoic dis- 
 taste for gratuitous metaphysical hypotheses, there was 
 room for difference of judgment, and Seneca illustrates 
 the tendency of Roman Stoicism to make at least verbal 
 concessions to the popular belief in some survival after 
 Jdeath. In his own conviction Marcus nowhere seems 
 /to waver ; death, wherever he has occasion to give clear 
 / and simple utterance to his own thoughts, is always a 
 [ dissolution of being, that is, the end of action, impulse, 
 I will, or thought, that terminates every human activity, 
 \ and bounds our brief span of life with an eternity that 
 \ contains neither hint nor hope nor dread of further 
 conscious being. 1 The bodily elements will pass to 
 other uses, earth to earth and dust to dust, while the 
 life-giving Pneuma will rejoin that ethereal or fiery 
 / being of which it is a part. Death is the last word said 
 I of the greatest and the least, of Alexander or his stable- 
 l boy, and equally extinguishes the virtuous and vicious, 
 , the wise man and the fool : 2 ' had it been better other- 
 wise, the gods would have had it so ; from its not being 
 so, be assured it ought not so to be.' 3 So resolute and 
 \ unequivocal falls his own utterance. 
 
 2 iii. 3 ; vi. 24, 47. 3 xii. 5. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cvii 
 
 But there remain passages in which other possibilities 
 are broached, and which some have interpreted as a 
 wavering back on hope, inconsistent with his philosophic 
 creed. This mistakes the writer's attitude. Just as the 
 devout Christian will in his self-communings face the 
 moral corollaries consequent on a denial of the resurrec- 
 tion or of a future life, so too Marcus will entertain and 
 test the consequences of postulates to which he himself 
 gives no assent. The inferences, set down as alternative \ 
 hypotheses only, will be found to leave the moral issue, 
 which is under consideration, strengthened or unaffectedly 
 In two passages 1 ' loss of sensation ' at death is con- 
 trasted with ' sensation changed in kind and experiencing 
 another life.' His own belief is that death ends sensation, 
 but even on the other (the Platonic or the Pythagorean) 
 assumption, the fear of death is groundless. Next in a 
 series of parallel passages the alternative of ' dispersion ' 2 
 is put forward as one account of death ; the term is 
 regularly connected with the ' Atomic ' theory of life, 
 held by the Epicurean school, and in every instance 
 Marcus is consciously quoting the view and terminology 
 of adverse thinkers. Just as he contrasts the Cosmic 
 interpretation of the world with the Atomic not because 
 conviction wavers, but because candour must not burke 
 the alternative so, too, side by side with that reabsorp- 
 tion which follows from his own monistic system, he 
 must set the corollary of ' dispersion ' which follows from 
 atomic materialism ; in either case, life is small and 
 
 1 iii. 3 ; viii. 58. 
 
 2 <r/fe5acr//6s and <r/ce5a(T0?jj'cu, vi. 4, 10, 24 ; vii. 32 ; viii. 25 ; 
 x. 7. 
 
cviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 transitory, but in the latter even life as it is loses all 
 moral meaning and motive. 1 But besides the inadmis- 
 sible alternatives there remain hypotheses between which 
 Marcus feels it unimportant to decide. Death may 
 mean final extinction 2 of the Pneuma a conclusion 
 which Cicero imputes to another Roman Stoic, Cornutus, 
 and to which Marcus feels at least no ethical objection. 
 But in assuming the destruction instead of the reabsorp- 
 tion of the life-giving spirit, it does from the physical 
 side sap the Stoic dogma, which regards the sum of 
 Pneuma as constant and eternal; and in all serious 
 discussion 3 of the subject Marcus adheres to the 
 orthodox tenet of reabsorption. At the death of the 
 body the soul undergoes change of place and phase,* 
 and returns to something approaching its pre-incarnate 
 \condition. Some Stoics placed such disembodied souls 
 'in the upper regions,' or 'in the sub-lunar ' or 'the 
 stellar' sphere. And these speculations are in the 
 writer's mind when he speaks of souls passing ' into the 
 air,' 5 the upper or rarer air that is to say, akin to the 
 ' fiery ether ' of which soul is constituted. There, 
 peradventure by progressive assimilation, analogous to 
 the gradual decomposition of the mortal body, it is 
 eventually reabsorbed or reassumed into the seminal 
 principles of life, 6 out of which it originally sprang, 
 
 1 vi. 10. 
 
 2 <rpt<ris v. 33 ; vii. 32 ; viii. 25 ; x. 22, 31 ; xi. 3 ; cf. iii. 3 ; 
 vi. 24 ; viii. 58. 
 
 3 Esp. iv. 21. 
 
 4 Denoted by rpoir-fi x. 7 ; by ^erdorao-ts in v. 33, vii. 32, and 
 the verb iv. 21, viii. 25 ; by fj.erapo\ri iv. 14, 21. 
 
 5 iv. 21. 6 iv. 14, 21 ; vi. 24 ; x. 7. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cix 
 
 awaiting new activities or the complete reintegration 
 which takes place at the final conflagration of the present 
 order. The denial of the 'hope of immortality' is A 
 settled and complete ; there is no place in the Thoughts \ 
 for the rhetorical ambiguities of Seneca ; and for Marcus 
 as indubitably as for Epictetus 'there is no work nor / 
 device nor wisdom nor knowledge in the grave whither / 
 thou goest.' 
 
 This digression, if rather minute, will have served 
 to illustrate the right method of studying the Thoughts, 
 if we desire to get at the mind of Marcus and his 
 exact relation to Stoic doctrine. The quality of treat- 
 ment is of a piece with the conditions and character of 
 workmanship. The ethical value of the work does not 
 rest on exactness or originality of speculative thought. 
 Receptiveness, not originality, was the note of his own 
 genius, as well as of the age and society in which he 
 lived. For true self-realisation and that satisfaction of 
 the energies which alone brings happiness, the problems 
 of physics and metaphysics seemed almost as empty and 
 unprofitable as the exercises in rhetoric from which 
 he had turned impatiently when manhood was mature. 1 
 The life of Reason was more than logic, and not the 
 monopoly of schoolmen. ' Do not,' he writes, ' because 
 dialectic and physics lie beyond your ken, despair on 
 that account of freedom, self-respect, unselfishness, and 
 tractability toward God.' 2 Stoic physics and logic are 
 not to Marcus an arena for argument or speculation, but 
 accepted presuppositions needed to make life coherent 
 
 1 i. 7 and close of 17 ; viii. I. 
 2 vii. 67. 
 
ex INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 and intelligible. The interest lies in another plane, in 
 the ethics of practical experience. 
 
 Epictetus is the teacher to whom Marcus Aurelius is 
 most allied in age, in doctrine, and in scope of thought. 
 In the emphasis, as well as in the substance, of their 
 teaching there is close resemblance ; their psychology 
 and their epistemology agree ; they insist on the 
 same main ethical dogmas ; they take the same 
 attitude towards abstract dialectic, and to rival schools 
 of philosophy Cynic, Epicurean, or Sceptic. In their 
 concentration upon practical ethics, their recurrence to 
 Socratic formulas, their abandonment of Stoic arroga- 
 tions of certitude and indefectibility, their extension and 
 enforcement of social obligation, their ethical realisation 
 of the omnipresent immanence of God, they occupy the 
 same position towards Stoicism. But the likeness goes 
 deeper than mere general traits. Among his debts to 
 his chief teacher Rusticus, Marcus recalls with crowning 
 emphasis his gift of the Memoirs of Epictetus.^ With 
 the treatise of Ariston, they may be regarded as the 
 instrument of his 'conversion.' The disciple names 
 Epictetus 2 in the same category with Chrysippus and 
 Socrates, quotes him 3 more often than any philosopher, 
 and borrows from his stores his favourite excerpts, 
 metaphors, and illustrations ; thought and language are 
 saturated with conscious and unconscious reminiscences, 
 too numerous to recapitulate. The most noteworthy 
 differences arise from Marcus' fuller recognition and 
 
 1 i. 7. 2 vii. 19. 
 
 3 See iv. 41 ; v. 29 ; xi. 33, 34, 35, 36, 37. The citation 
 from Plato in vii. 63 is in the form preserved only by Epictetus. 
 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxi 
 
 application of the idea of the cosmos. This makes 
 itself felt in more than one direction ; in duties to others 
 the cosmic claim tends to absorb and supersede individual 
 virtue and even social fellowship ; in duties to self, the 
 immanence of the indwelling God, while conceived 
 more impersonally, becomes more vivid and imperious 
 in operation ; in physics, especially in the physiology of 
 mind and spirit and in cosmic * sympathy of parts,' surer 
 foundations are provided for pantheistic reverence and 
 belief. 
 
 The other and more obvious differences that separate 
 them are the result of position and of temperament. 
 
 As a professed teacher, Epictetus was called upon to 
 examine and weigh grounds of evidence and modes of 
 proof, to accept or reject criteria, to formulate bases of 
 belief, to confront and criticise the tenets of friendly or 
 hostile schools ; he addresses himself to all sorts and 
 conditions of men, the man of the study, the man of 
 the market-place, and the man of the bureau; to 
 philosophers and laymen, to prudes and profligates, 
 misers and spendthrifts, to the privileged and the 
 oppressed, to representatives of every class and age and 
 station in life, from the patrician or proconsul to the 
 freedman and the slave. For the moralist he classifies 
 virtues and vices, tracks their affinities and exposes their 
 disguises ; for the crowd, he deals with the round of 
 daily life, its faults, its foibles and its vicissitudes ; he 
 has shrewd counsels for the quarrelsome, the talkative or 
 the affected ; he holds up the mirror to indolence, 
 hypocrisy, or stubbornness ; he discourses upon manners 
 no less than morals, discussing the ethics of dress, of 
 
cxii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 theatre-going, of physical exercise, of personal cleanli- 
 ness ; he pokes fun at fashion or unmasks meanness ; 
 he spices his talk with homely and concrete illustration, 
 racy and sometimes coarse ; he appeals now to litera- 
 ture and history, now to anecdotes of philosophers or 
 characters upon the stage ; his humour is fresh, caustic 
 and imperturbable, in personality and method reminding 
 us of Socrates. 
 
 In manner, the contrast offered by Marcus is com- 
 
 (plete. No sense of mission, and no hankering after 
 novelty or eclat, inspires his pen. He has neither 
 objectors to gainsay, nor disciples to edify ; he does not 
 exhort or rebuke, spur the apathetic or shame the re- 
 probate ; he has no mixed audience to attract and hold, 
 no diversity of circumstances to take into account. He 
 need not season instruction with wit, or diversify his 
 theme with illustration; such illustrations as occur are 
 from the large analogies of nature or from the ordered 
 round of day-by-day activities. The proofs and pro- 
 cesses which Epictetus discusses and justifies, Marcus 
 assumes as known and granted ; it is beside his mark 
 to complete or articulate his system as a whole, to 
 / formulate a moral casuistry for varieties of fortune, age, 
 / and circumstance. He has but a single auditor serious, 
 V dispassionate, intent, himself. And even so the range 
 of introspection and of utterance is severely circumscribed. 
 Temptations of the flesh, for instance, except in forms of 
 weariness or pain, have passed out of sight. 'A few 
 principles, brief and elemental ' x they are enough : he 
 
 1 iv. 3, with which xi. 18 may be compared, as a summary of 
 ' all the commandments/ 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxiii 
 
 plays with no fancy, indulges no reverie, gives the rein 
 to no emotion ; ' our fathers had no fuller vision, neither 
 will our children behold any new thing.' l He meditates 
 and cross-examines self with the analytic voice of reason, 
 which restricts 2 each circumstance to its tiny sphere of 
 significance and power, which dissects each impression 
 into the sorry terms of its material counterpart, 3 which 
 disenchants sense of the illusions of movement and 
 colour, which 'views itself, determines itself,' 4 and 
 ' maintains a motion of its own, towards its appointed 
 end.' 5 
 
 On first perusal the Thoughts probably seem too 
 highly moralised to be entirely sincere or interesting 
 as a self -revelation. They create an impression of 
 monotony, of formality, of reticence and schooled de- 
 corum resulting from habitual self-restraint. The cry 
 of pain, the outburst of indignation or impatience is 
 silenced almost as soon as said ; it is an ejaculation only 
 or a sigh, that never becomes explicit in the name of an 
 offender or the description of an offence. Feeling and 
 passion are hushed in principles and maxims, until the 
 record of spiritual experience becomes upon the surface 
 impersonal and colourless. But as tone and manner 
 grow familiar, the individuality of the writer becomes 
 distinct, intense, and unmistakable. Self-repression does 
 not obliterate the lines of personality, but unifies and 
 in a manner augments their effect; and the thoughts 
 To Himself become the one authentic testament and 
 record of philosophy upon the throne. For .once J the 
 
 1 xi. i. 2 viii. 36 ; ix. 25. 
 
 3 For references, p. cxxxiv. 4 xi. i. 5 viii. 60 ; v. 14. 
 
cxiv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 philosopher was king,' and the experience is recorded 
 for all time. Behind the mask of monarchy the man's 
 lineaments are disclosed ; we overhear the wistful affec- 
 tions and the lone regrets, the sense of personal short- 
 coming 1 and wasted endeavour, the bitterness of 
 aspirations baffled and protests unheeded, the confes- 
 sions of despondency and sometimes of disgust, 2 we 
 realise the exhausting tedium of 'life at Court lived 
 well,' 3 the profound ennui of autocracy in its enforced 
 companionship with intrigue and meanness and malice 
 and self-seeking, 4 the stern demands of duty hampered 
 by power and realised in renunciation, the pride and the 
 patience, the weakness and the strength, the busy loneli- 
 ness, 6 the mournful serenity, the daily death in life, of 
 the Imperial sage. 
 
 Throughout, the Thoughts are homogeneous, one of 
 the simplest and sincerest self-presentments ever penned, 
 'the most human' Renan calls them 'of all books.' 
 This results at once from the characteristic limitations 
 of ethical appeal and the wide comprehensiveness of 
 application. Tradition has preserved for us the figure 
 of the apostle of love, aged with labours, and in his 
 last days summarising the lore of life and holiness in 
 the reiterated charge, ' Little children, love one another.' 
 And there is something of the same insistence, the 
 same arresting monotony of note in the very different 
 message of Marcus the recurrent reference of each 
 
 1 ii. 4, 6 ; v. 9 ; viii. I ; x. 8. 
 
 2 iv. 28; vii. 21, 36 ; viii. 20, 24 ; ix. 17, 24. 3 v. 16. 
 
 4 E.g. ii. I ; v. 10 ; ix. 3, 27, 29, 30, 34, 42 ; x. 8, 9, 13, 36. 
 
 5 ix. 29 ; x. 9, 13. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxv 
 
 mood, each incident, each perplexity as it arises to the 
 criterion of cosmic duty. All is cosmos : of this cosmos 
 thou art part : for thee and for it there is but ' one order, 
 one god, one being, one law : ' l not self-will, but the 
 cosmos, the will of God, is the way of virtue and the 
 rule of life. And in applying this touchstone to the 
 complicated vicissitudes, demands, and emergencies of 
 life, he has not his eye upon a congregation, or a side- 
 glance for posterity. An Eikon Basilike such as this 
 would have found wide vogue, had publication been 
 designed or permitted, at a time when 'to be without an 
 image of the author seemed a sacrilege.' What accident 
 of faithful piety concealed and preserved the document, 
 cannot be guessed, but for nine centuries 2 no note or 
 whisper betrays its existence. Fourteen hundred years 
 after they were written down, the Thoughts re-emerge, 3 a 
 revelation of personality, without parallel in the literature 
 of Greek or Roman philosophy. Who can reconstruct 
 for himself the personality of Plato or of Aristotle ? We 
 have full-length portraits of Socrates and Epictetus? 
 which reproduce their lineaments and habits, their way 
 of life, the shrewd and cheery optimism of their talk; 
 but even here we do not hold the key of individuality, 
 or penetrate, as Marcus bids us, into the inner self. 4 
 While to the attentive reader of these self-communings 
 Marcus Aurelius becomes so absolutely known, that 
 
 1 vii. 9. 
 
 2 Until Suidas, lexicographer of the eleventh century. 
 
 3 Editio princeps by Xylander, Zurich 1558, from a manuscript 
 subsequently lost. 
 
 4 iv. 38 ; vi. 3 ; vii. 59 ; viii. 6l. 
 
cxvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 mere records of fact and observations of historians 
 become almost superfluous. His nature contained no 
 surprises ; he is always his own man ; so that each 
 record seems, as it were, inevitable, a something of which 
 we had heard before, something familiar or divined, 
 though memory had dropped the detail. 
 
 The chroniclers tell us that ' from childhood he was 
 of a serious cast ' ; that his demeanour was that of ' a 
 courteous gentleman, modest yet strenuous, grave but 
 affable'; 1 that 'he never changed his countenance for 
 grief or gladness.' 2 His bodily health was weakly from 
 the first, and strained by overwork ; notwithstanding 
 scrupulous care it was a constant source of suffering 
 and disablement, and in later life power of digestion 
 and sleep wholly gave way. 3 His private bearing and 
 menage were of extreme simplicity : as Caesar, he would 
 receive at his small private house, in ordinary citizen 
 attire; abroad, he wore plain woollen stuffs, and when 
 not in attendance on the Emperor would dispense 
 entirely with suite or outrunners. In family relations 
 he loved his mother and his children dearly, 4 and 
 grieved deeply at their loss ; he condoned the faults of 
 Lucius Verus, 5 and in mourning remembered none of 
 the mortal frailties of Faustina. 6 Faithful and diligent 
 
 1 Cf. i. 10; v. 31 ; vi. 53 ; vii. 4, 30. These and the follow- 
 ing references note chance coincidences or correspondences occurring 
 in the Thoughts. On dress and equipage, cf. i. 7, 16, 17. 
 
 2 vii. 24, 37, 60. 
 
 3 Cf. i. 8, 15, 16, 17 ; iv. 3 ; v. I, 5 ; vi. 2 ; vii. 64 ; viii. 12. 
 
 4 i. 3, 11, 13, 17; vi. 12. 5 i. 14, 17. 
 
 6 i. 17, his one notice of Faustina, breathes enduring affection 
 and respect. After her death their statues, wrought in silver, 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxvii 
 
 in his attachments, he found time even as Emperor to 
 keep up personal correspondence 1 with the circle of his 
 friends. The fidelity of Antoninus to Hadrian earned 
 him the sobriquet of Pius ; but the official assiduity of 
 Marcus was yet more unrelaxed in its devotion ; 2 during 
 three-and-twenty years, we read, he absented himself for 
 two nights only from the side of Antoninus ; he never 
 missed a meeting of the Senate, or left before its close ; 
 he would give days to the hearing of a single case, and 
 extended the days of assize to 230 in the year. His 
 intellectual traits were love of reading, 3 taste for 
 antiquities and history, 4 addiction to philosophy, and 
 extreme docility of temperament ; in manhood as in 
 youth * he never dropped attendance upon lectures ' ; as 
 Emperor he sat at the feet of Sextus and of Apollonius ; 5 
 he visited the schools of Smyrna and of Alexandria ; he 
 endowed chairs of all the philosophies 6 at Athens. At 
 Eleusis he underwent solitary initiation. Citizens and 
 soldiers believed in the efficacy of his prayers, 7 as the 
 sculptures of the Antonine column to this day bear 
 witness. His self-distrust declared itself in the misgivings 
 with which he entered on the Caesarship, and in the 
 
 became the shrine to which all the brides and bridegrooms of 
 Rome repaired to make their nuptial vows (Dio. Cass. 71, 31) 
 a more significant testimony than coins, or votive memorials, or 
 ceremonial apotheosis. 
 
 1 i. 12. 2 Cf. i. 16. 3 ii. 2, 3 ; xi. 7. 
 
 4 Cf. i. 14; iii. 14; iv. 32, 33; vii. i; viii. 3, 25, 31, 37; 
 x. 27, 37 ; xii. 27. 5 i. 8, 9, 17. 
 
 6 i. 12; ii. 10, 15; vii. 64; ix. 41: and various quotations 
 recognise non-Stoic schools. Cf. bfj.oda.ft.velv, ^77 o/j-odoy/JUTeiv, xi. 8. 
 
 7 vi. 23, 44 ; ix. 40 ; x. 36. 
 
cxviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 offer of abdication with which he met the rebellion of 
 Avidius Cassius. 
 
 / His laws and rescripts aim chiefly at protecting 
 / orphans, wards, and minors, at relieving debtors and the 
 \ destitute, at enlarging the rights of women, at curbing 
 the arbitrary privileges of ' fathers ' and ' masters,' at 
 emancipating and giving civil rights to slaves, in a word 
 at imbuing Roman jurisprudence with the principles 
 of Stoic justice, and so realising a world-citizenship in 
 ' an equal commonwealth based on equality of right and 
 equality of speech, and an imperial rule respecting first 
 and foremost the liberty of the subject.' \ He mitigated, 
 so far as a Caesar could, the ferocity of gladiatorial 
 shows; 2 he introduced buttons on the foils of the 
 fencers, and nets under the high -rope dancers. At 
 Rome he erected a temple, of new and unique dedica- 
 tion, to Beneficence. He upheld law and civic obligation, 
 and approved the sentence of Justin, and the execution 
 of the Christian confessors of Lyons. 3 Rigorous in 
 public economics and strict in the distribution of largess, 4 
 he craved permission of the Senate to sell Imperial 
 treasures to defray the needs of war, with the words, 
 ' Nothing we have is our own ; even the house we live 
 in is yours.' Each word and trait finds some echo or 
 counterpart in the Thoughts, and the reader makes 
 answer to himself, Of course he thus acted, or said, or 
 looked; how could he otherwise? Dio Cassius and 
 Capitolinus become, as it were, commentaries upon his 
 own soliloquies. 
 
 1 i. 14 ; cf. i. 16, 17 ; vi. 30. 2 x. 8. 3 xi. 3. 
 
 4 i. 16, 17. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxix 
 
 With the Thoughts in our hands he is far more 
 intelligible and unmistakable to us to-day, than to his own 
 contemporaries. Silence makes men enigmas to their 
 fellows. Though by tenacity of moral will he was the 
 strongest man of his generation, Avidius Cassius took 
 him for 'a philosophic mule,' interpreting his sufferance 
 of evil-doers and his leniency to traitors as an index of 
 stupidity, hypocrisy, and weakness. When, in days of 
 gloom and terror, death for the fourth time put forth his 
 hand and took from him his little son, his last but 
 Commodus, Rome saw only the unmoved face ; but the 
 reader of the Thoughts knows how the loss of a dear 
 child l recurs as the type instance of a poignant grief, 
 and how twice brooding over Commodus he combines 
 the desolate citations 
 
 Lives are reaped like ears of corn, 
 One is spared, another shorn. 
 
 Though I and both my sons be spurned of God, 
 There is, be sure, a reason. 2 
 
 There are men, often of highly sensitive nature, who 
 pass for unemotional, because they will not give the rein 
 to individual passion, but find satisfaction for their 
 emotions in general rather than in personal affections ; 
 their very sensitiveness and restraint takes refuge in 
 reserve. This is the temper which has animated re- 
 formers, patriots, philanthropists of the Mazzini, Howard, 
 or Wilberforce type, the men who have espoused causes 
 and principles and large enthusiasms of humanity, and 
 
 1 i. 8 ; viii. 49 ; ix. 40 ; x. 34, 35 ; xi. 34. 
 2 vii. 40 ; xi. 6. 
 
cxx INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 this it is which in varied notes of aspiration, disappoint- 
 ment, and resolve gives depth and pathos to the 
 Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius. 'To be misunderstood 
 even by those whom one loves,' writes Amiel, 'is the 
 cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad 
 and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so 
 few understand.' This, and the obstinate contradic- 
 tion between attainment and desire. To stand well-nigh 
 single-handed for reason and for right; to work with 
 worthless instruments ; to withhold vain interference and 
 correction ; to let second-bests alone ; to silence scruples 
 and endure compromise ; to crave for peace and spend 
 \Jiis years in hunting down Sarmatians ; l to preside at the 
 tedious butchery of gladiatorial games with the heart that 
 cried, ' How long, how long ? ' 2 to turn forgiving eyes 
 and unreproachful lips upon the perilous debaucheries 
 of Lucius and the frailties of Faustina ; to live friendless 
 and exiled for his people's sake ; to cling to the belief in 
 reason and just dealing against the day-by-day experience 
 of unreason, violence, and greed; patiently, resolutely 
 dv)^crOaL /cat oVe^ea^ou, ' to endure and to refrain ' ; to 
 exhaust body and soul in the long effort to save Rome, 
 and in return for all this to partake always ' the king's 
 portion Well-doing, 111 report '; 3 to be isolated, thwarted, 
 maligned, and misinterpreted this was no light bearing 
 of the cross. Through the cadences of patience and re- 
 nunciation and resolve there seems to float continually 
 the refrain of Epicurus ' Pain past bearing brings an 
 end ; pain that lasts, may be borne ' 4 and accent and 
 
 1 x. 10. 2 vi. 46. 
 
 3 vii. 36. 4 vii. 33, 64, 66 ; viii. 36, 46 ; x. 3. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxi 
 
 tone adjust themselves completely to the grave linea- 
 ments the sculptor has transcribed for us in stone, 1 the 
 countenance of reflective and enduring fortitude, not 
 so wholly sad but that it is tinged with the far-off vision 
 of fruitions not yet revealed, but possibly in store 
 for humankind ; acquainted sadly with the worth and 
 worthlessness of Csesarean estate ; not unaware of low 
 motives or mean men, yet bent on dispensation of an 
 even justice to the conquered, the captive, or the 
 coward ; ' a priest and minister of gods,' 2 passing in an 
 imperial calm the proffered homage of barbarians and 
 the noisy plaudits of the crowd, 3 unelated, unillusioned, 
 and 'till god sounds the withdrawal, still ready for the 
 march.' 4 
 
 Throughout the Thoughts the moral standpoint is 
 imperial. It is not only or chiefly that the Ideal Prince 
 is set forth in the pattern of Antoninus, 5 that there are 
 references to Court life and its conditions, 6 or to the 
 duty of 'the ram to the flock and the bull to the 
 herd ' ; 7 it is the moral climate of the whole, that which 
 makes the work unique in interest and use. Here is no 
 Stoic declamation about chains and racks, tyrants and 
 libertines, but a Caesar of Rome to whom the empti- 
 ness of riches, the vanity of power, and the hollowness 
 of praise or fame 8 are not a topic but an experience 
 
 1 The reliefs from the Triumphal Arch of Marcus Aurelius, par- 
 ticularly the scenes of Sacrifice and of Pardon. 
 
 2 iii. 4. 3 x. 34. 4 iii. 5. 5 i. 16, 17 ; vi. 30. 
 
 6 iv. 3 ; v. 16 ; vi. 12 ; viii. 9, 31 ; x. 27, etc. 
 
 7 xi. 18 (i) ; cf. iii. 5. 
 
 8 ii. 12, 17; iii. 6, 10 ; iv. 3, 19, 20, 33; v. 33; vi. 16; vii. 
 6 ; viii. 21, 44, 52, 53 ; ix. 30, 34 ; x. 34 ; xii. 8. 
 
cxxii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 taking counsel with himself how to ' choose the highest 
 and hold it fast.' 1 
 
 The cardinal virtues of Stoicism Justice, Truth, 
 Wisdom, and Courage 2 are applied to the estate of 
 monarchy. Justice does not wield the sword, but comes 
 pressing the plea of the weak and the obligation of 
 the strong 'forbearance is one part of justice,' 3 and 
 recognising the tie of kind will not overlook the allow- 
 ance due to ignorance ; and a still more imperial note 
 animates a reflection such as this : ' We are not true to 
 justice if we strive for things secondary, or if we allow 
 ourselves to be imposed upon, or draw hasty and 
 fallible conclusions.' 4 So again, Truth 5 is never figured 
 as protest or contradiction, but as that simplicity of 
 bearing, that openness of mind, that singleness of word 
 and act, that quiet undeviating * pursuit of the straight 
 course,' which power and place make doubly difficult. 
 Courage and Wisdom are viewed from the same out- 
 look, as of one * strong and patient and provoked 
 every day.' 
 
 Herein lies the salient contrast between Epictetus 
 the freedman and Marcus Aurelius the Emperor. 
 How could Epictetus, reviewing life, have numbered 
 among its blessings ' that he had never been called upon 
 to borrow from another,' 6 or have regarded it as the 
 worst ignominy ' to receive favours he could not return '? 7 
 
 1 iii. 6; v. 21. 2 Enumerated iii. 6. 
 
 3 iv. 3 ; cf. iii. II ; ix. 22. 4 xi. 10. 
 
 5 Among many passages, cf. esp. i. n ; iii. 4, 16 ; iv. 18, 51 ; 
 
 v - 3 > vi- 3 I i x> l > x - 1 3 > xn - 2 9" 
 
 6 i. 17. 7 xi. 25. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxiii 
 
 The virtues sought, the vices eschewed, in range, in 
 treatment, and in distribution of emphasis, presuppose 
 the position of authority. Throughout, men are regarded 
 as recipients, rather than dispensers of kindnesses ; 
 duties to equals, and duties to inferiors monopolise the 
 field ; all coarser and more flagrant forms of vice, or 
 actions that could be called criminal, are merely named 
 as objects of repulsion. The moral distractions and 
 perturbations which he dreads are those which beset 
 power and place and privilege, to disturb serenity of 
 soul. The regards are fixed on 'sins of respectability,' 
 on indolence, impatience, discourtesy, officiousness, 1 and 
 on such more delicate forms of moral delinquency as self- 
 absorption in the press of current duties, 2 as want of 
 moral nerve and allowance of morbid self-distrusts, 3 as 
 uncertainty of purpose, frivolity, and aimlessness 4 of life, 
 or as the intellectual indolence which rushes to hasty 
 conclusions and leaves us at the mercy of unwarranted 
 impressions or desires. The treatment of virtues is no 
 less characteristic and discriminating. Beside the solid 
 virtues and charities incumbent on the ruler, are set the 
 social graces which adorn the gentleman consideration, 
 candour, modest, attentive and intelligent perception, 
 tact and address in conversation ; 5 and the compass of 
 morality is extended to such refinements as cheerfulness 
 in leadership, 6 belief in friends' affection, 7 wise husbandry 
 and just apportionment 8 of powers, careful selection 
 
 1 ii. I ; iii. 5. 2 j I2 
 
 3 v. 5. 4 i. 15 ; ii. 7, 16, 17 ; vii. 4 ; xi. 21. 
 
 5 i. 10 ; vi. 53 ; vii. 4, 30 ; viii. 22, 30 ; xi. 13, 18 (9). 
 
 6 iii. 5. 7 i. 14. 8 iii. n ; iv. 32; vii. 3 ; viii. 29, 43. 
 
cxxiv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 among competing claims, 1 reserve of leisure 2 for purposes 
 of self-examination and recreation of the inner life. 
 Leisure as well as labour, thought as well as action, 3 de- 
 portment 4 as well as motive, are scrupulously moralised. 
 Although these finer sensibilities attest the humanis- 
 ing influences of Hellenic culture and good taste, Greek 
 draperies and accent do not obscure the Roman heredity 
 and type. In some sense indeed he is 'the last of the 
 Romans,' the final specimen and representative of the 
 political traditions of Rome. The Western Empire will 
 indeed, largely by acquired momentum and inertia, still 
 last out two centuries, but its few good Emperors will 
 be soldiers of fortune or versatile Orientals. The blood 
 of Marcus was of Spanish and Italian stock, trained 
 in the best traditions of Roman administration. His 
 grandfather, Annius Verus, was Prefect of the City, and 
 three times held the Consulship ; the earliest of Marcus' 
 remembrances was the impression of his dignified official 
 suavity. 5 His father's career 6 was cut short during his 
 tenure of the prastorship. Upon the mother's side, 
 grandfather and great-grandfather 7 were both twice 
 Consul, and from a child he was at home among the 
 best Patrician circles. The Emperor Hadrian, with 
 playful pleasantry, would call him as a little boy Veris- 
 simus 8 instead of Verus. He learned his principles of 
 
 1 iv. 24. 
 
 2 Cf. e.g. i. 12 ; ii. 5, 7 ; iv. 3, 24 ; vi. II ; viii. 51. 
 3 i. 3 ; iii. 4. 4 vii. 24, 37, 60; xi. 15. 
 
 5 i. i. 6 i. 2. 
 
 7 Calvisius Tullus, and Catilius Severus, referred to i. 4. 
 8 Dio Cass. 69, 21 ; but so too on medal, and in dedication of 
 Justin's First Apology. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxv 
 
 government from Antoninus, who was par excellence the 
 State official. The Flavian dynasty and Trajan had 
 been Imperial Commanders -in -Chief: Hadrian, by a 
 new conception of the Imperial function, had become 
 the universal ' Visitor ' of his immense domain, mould- 
 ing, comprehending, and unifying the whole on broad 
 Imperial lines. In Antoninus there emerges the new 
 type, the Imperial ' official,' becoming more and more 
 the autocratic chief of a highly-organised bureaucracy, 
 which through its various departments of Civil Law, 
 Exchequer, Public Works, Police, War, Posts, and the 
 like directed the world of provinces from Rome. In 
 this assiduous, watchful, and highly conservative 1 school 
 of statesmanship Marcus was nursed. 
 
 In boyhood, antiquities and history fascinated his 
 attention, and constant touches reveal the hold these 
 subjects had upon him. The old names, 2 Camillus 
 Caeso Volesus, have a pleasant savour of the past; 
 among the Quadi he deplores that he may not re-read 
 his c deeds of ancient Rome and Greece, garnered for 
 old age ' ; 3 he founds his political ideals upon the 
 patriots of Rome, Cato and Brutus, Thrasea and 
 Helvidius. 4 He had a reverence for old forms and 
 offices and usages; he treated the Senate with punc- 
 tilious respect, 5 exhibiting a ceremonious and almost 
 sentimental deference to prerogatives that were hardly 
 more than titular. 
 
 Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque 
 was his reminder to generals in the field ; and if any- 
 
 1 i. 1 6, travTO, Kara ra irdrpLa irpdaauv. 2 iv. 33. 
 
 3 iii. 14. 4 i. 14 ; cf. vi. 44. 5 Cf. viii. 30. 
 
 I 
 
cxxvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 where in the Thoughts there sounds a ring of martial 
 exhilaration it is associated with the word * Roman.' l 
 He not only gave its Golden Age to Rome, but pushed 
 the empire to its furthest geographical extension. He 
 ' triumphed ' 2 over Parthians in the East, over Germans 
 and Sarmatians in the North ; through fourteen stubborn 
 years of war he held and secured the marches of the 
 Danube ; the Antonine Column is no vain or boastful 
 trophy, it is the monument of victories that secured to 
 the Empire the two last centuries out of which the new 
 order of the world, East and West, was born. Softened 
 and chastened though it is by his age and the circum- 
 stances of life and upbringing, his character is Roman 
 to the core, Roman in resolution and repression, 
 Roman in civic nobility and pride, Roman in tenacity 
 of imperial aim, Roman in respect for law, Roman in 
 self-effacement for service of the State. 
 
 Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento 
 hae tibi erunt artes pacisque imponere morem, 
 parcere subiectis et debellare superbos. 
 
 One other trait of temperament is Roman religious- 
 ness of mind. For poetry and literature, Rome borrowed 
 her mythology from Greece ; but for life and conduct, 
 belief centred upon embodiments of the divine as numina, 
 powers and influences rather than persons, regulating 
 all actions and phenomena. In their impersonal ubiquity 
 
 1 iii. 5 ; cf. ii. 5. 
 
 2 The Parthian triumph the first for sixty years was in 166, 
 with titles Parthicus, Medicus, Pater Patriae ; the Marcomannic, 
 following titles Germanicus and Sarmaticus, in 176. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxvii 
 
 they seem almost prepared for a creed of pantheistic 
 immanence. In infancy, Vaticanus urged the baby's 
 new-born cry ; Fabulinus prompted his first word ; Cuba 
 rocked his cot. In outgoing and incoming, Iterduca set 
 him on his road and Domiduca gave safe return. On 
 the farm Terminus kept his boundary, Robigo mildewed 
 his crop, Cloacina ordered his drains, Sterquilinus gave 
 virtue to his manure. For Rome, the Fortune or the 
 Safety or the Majesty of the City extended and preserved 
 the Empire ; in house and town, the ancestral Penates of 
 the hearth and the Lares of the streets guarded the 
 intercourse of life ; in the individual breast, a ministering 
 Genius shaped his destinies and responded to each mood 
 of melancholy or of rnirth. Thus all life lay under the 
 regimen of spiritual powers, to be propitiated or appeased 
 by appointed observances and ritual and forms of prayer. 
 To this punctilious and devout form of Paganism Marcus 
 was inured from childhood ; at the vintage festival he 
 took his part in chant and sacrifice ; at eight years old 
 he was admitted to the Salian priesthood ; * he was 
 observed to perform all his sacerdotal functions with a 
 constancy and exactness unusual at that age ; was soon 
 a master of the sacred music; and had all the forms 
 and liturgies by heart.' l Our earliest statue depicts him 
 as a youth offering incense ; and in his triumphal bas- 
 reliefs he stands before the altar, a robed and sacrificing 
 priest. To him ' prayer and sacrifice, and all observances 
 by which we own the presence and nearness of the 
 gods ' are ' covenants and sacred ministries ' admitting to 
 
 1 Cf. Capit. 4. In 139, he became Pontifex Maximus, Augur > 
 Quindecemvir Sacris Faciundis, Septemvir Epulonum. 
 
cxxviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 /^intimate communion with the divine.' 1 This habit of 
 / mind accommodated itself perfectly to Stoic teaching, to 
 / an interpretation of the universe which (in the words of 
 Epictetus) averred that * all earth is crammed with gods 
 \ and spiritual powers.' 2 Stoicism in fact provided an in- 
 ^ telligible theology and theocratic basis for the intricate 
 mechanism of sign and formula and rite, which natural 
 magic had gradually riveted upon a simple, scrupulous, 
 and superstitious folk. Dream and oracle and even 
 ordered coincidences of phrase become channels of 
 spiritual grace and revelation. 3 Philosophy and religion 
 clasp hands as means of reconciliation with God, and 
 deliverance from invisible powers of evil. With the 
 exception, in a sense, of Julian, whose religious revival 
 bordered on caricature, Marcus is the most * god-fearing ' 4 
 figure in Roman history, and perhaps the only one 
 which can be called devout. He not only inaugurated 
 his campaigns with antique rites and solemn lectisternia, 
 but as Emperor fulfilled his desire of receiving the mystic 
 initiations of Eleusis. And this sense of religion pervades 
 his writing like an atmosphere. The tone is changed 
 from that of earlier Stoicism ; the pantheism is less 
 physical, and the language more theistic. Life is the 
 presence of God ; the course of the world is the evolution 
 
 1 vi. 44 ; xii. 5 ; cf. v. 7 ; vi. 23 ; ix. 40 ; x. 36 ; xii. I. 
 
 2 Epict. 3, 13, 15. 
 
 3 i. 17 ; ix. 27. 
 
 4 vi. 30 ; cf. i. 16. Amm. Marc, notes the likeness, and re- 
 applies to Julian the epigram directed against M. Aurelius : 
 
 We the white bulls bid Marcus Caesar hail ! 
 Win but one victory more, our kind will fail. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxix 
 
 of Providence; the hand of God, or gods 1 for the 
 theistic or polytheistic forms of belief are alike covered 
 and interpreted by Pantheism is operative everywhere ; 
 above all his voice is articulate within man's self, as his 
 indwelling life and soul. 
 
 In this way man enters into partnership with God, 
 and shares his franchise in the universe ; 2 God in man, 
 man with God are spiritual confederates ; life is con- 
 tinuous ministration to the divine ; 3 man's moral sense, 
 ' an efflux of god ' 4 * a particle of Zeus ' 5 ' an effluence 
 of the disposing reason of the world ' 6 is one with the 
 moral movement of the universe 
 
 The soul that rises with us, oui- life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting 
 And cometh from afar. 
 
 The word of Heraclitus rjOos av0pw7ru> 6W//,<oi/ Character 
 is mans destiny is filled with new reality of meaning 
 the indwelling Genius, which Romans reverenced, is 
 an embodied conscience responsible for every act and 
 word not to the individual merely, but to the august 
 tribunal from which it draws its sanction. Seneca 
 handles the theme with more rhetorical artifice, Epictetus 
 with warmer touches of personal relationship, but in 
 neither is the assurance of the ' god within ' more intense 
 
 1 ' God ' and * gods ' will be found almost equally common. 
 In the Translation I have written both with the small ' g,' as 
 alone consonant with Stoic mood and way of thought. Zeus is 
 used iv. 23 ; v. 8, 27 ; xi. 8. 
 
 2 See ii. I ; viii. 2 ; x. I. 
 
 3 \eirovpye1f v. 31 ; vi. 28 ; x. 22, and cf. iii. 4. 
 
 4 xii. 26. 5 v. 27. 6 ii. 4. 
 
cxxx INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 in conviction, or more elevated in expression than in 
 Marcus. 1 His ' ruler and guide,' his 'pilot' and his 
 'lawgiver,' his 'monarch and lord,' man must 'keep the 
 deity enshrined within his heart unsoiled and unperturbed, 
 serenely concerting the divine Order by truth of utterance 
 and justice of act.' By this, ' the most precious organ 
 we possess, we attain faith, honour, truth, law, and a 
 good god within.' 2 
 
 In this way Marcus grafts public and personal religion 
 into the central tenet of Cosmic order and inherence 
 which dominates his universe of thought. This de- 
 termines for him the life c in conformity with nature/ 3 
 and from it may be deduced all the main affirmations 
 which make up his moral system. 
 
 The individual is part of a whole, knit together in 
 essential unity of being, operation, and design. The 
 action of the part has meaning only as a function of the 
 whole. To recognise the function is reason, to discharge 
 it life 'in smooth flow.' All obligation is cosmic in its 
 source and sanction. Justice, the base of all the virtues,' 4 
 expresses itself towards man, but is in essence a part of 
 holiness, 5 a consonance of will with God ; so likewise in- 
 justice is no mere infringement or misappropriation of 
 another's right, but a transgression of the primal will, a 
 sin of irreverence committed not against man but God. 6 
 
 1 Cf. ii. 13, 17; iii. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 16 ; iv. I, 12; v. 10, 
 26, 27; vii. 64; viii. 45; x. 13; xii. I, 19, 26. 
 
 2 x. 13 
 
 3 iv. 23, 29, 49; v. i, 25; vi. 16; vii. u, 18; viii. i, 5, 
 54 ; x. 2, 25, 28 } xi. 1 6, 20, etc. 
 
 4 xi. 10. 6 xi. 20; xii. i. 6 xi. i. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxxi 
 
 Truth similarly is spoken of as 'a name for nature,' and to 
 fall from truth is not merely to mislead or wrong another, 
 but * to fight against the order of the universe, and to be . 
 at civil war with one's own being.' 1 Belief in its cosmic 
 import enlarges and elates the thought of duty. It is 
 a covenant that, in so far as we identify ourselves with 
 the power outside ourselves, by which we live and move 
 and have our being, effort will not be wasted or misspent. 2 
 It consecrates patience, enabling us to acquiesce in 
 apparent failure or impotence ; ' even in sleep we are 
 fellow-workers with god.' 3 It heightens contentment 
 in well-doing, 4 while it chastens self-complacency ; duty 
 is life kept natural, and * moving in smooth flow.' 5 ' The 
 horse runs, the hound hunts, the bee makes honey ; so 
 the man that does his duty does not raise a shout, but 
 passes on to the next act, as a vine to the bearing of 
 clusters for next season.' 6 It only can keep c the straight 
 way ' 7 through life's distracting maze, speak peace among 
 the bawling of tongues, 8 and conduct the storm-tossed 
 mariner to ' still waters and a waveless bay.' 9 
 
 The doctrine of tranquillity is ultimately pushed to \^ 
 lengths that threaten moral energy. Founded on the / 
 thought of cosmic determinism, 10 and divorced from the 
 compensations and suggestions of redress that the hope 
 of immortality supplies, this view of life entails the sad, 
 
 1 ix. I. 2 Cf. iii. 12. 3 vi. 42; cf. vi. 14, 43 ; vii. 13. 
 4 On the joy of virtue, iii. 6 ; iv. 24 ; v. 9 ; vi. 7 ; vii. 13 ; viii. 
 26, 43 ; x. 33 ; xi. I, 16 ; xii. 29. 
 
 5 ii. 5 ; v. 9, 34 ; x. 6. 6 v. 6. 
 
 7 iv. 18, 51 ; v. 3 ; vi. 17 ; vii. 55 ; x. u. 8 vii. 68. 
 
 9 xii. 22. 10 See pp. Ixvi. and Ixxxi. 
 
\ 
 
 cxxxii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 and even sombre, resignation which enwraps the Thoughts. 
 The part ' loses its life ' in a continuous act of cosmic 
 participation and surrender, enforcing no claim and cher- 
 ishing no hope upon its own individual behalf. Things 
 without will not ' dazzle or daunt ' ; 1 it will ' neither seek 
 nor shun ' 2 the appointments of destiny ; * for me nothing 
 is early and nothing late that is in season for thee, great 
 Universe.' 3 Unmurmuring it accepts pain, sickness, 
 failure, or bereavement; 'pain, if past bearing, ceases 
 to be borne.' It foregoes its right not only to realise 
 itself, but even to exist : it accepts the decree that the 
 holiest and noblest should be utterly extinguished and 
 cease to be : the part is but for the perfection of the 
 f whole; accepting its apportionment, it refuses under 
 any provocation 'to find fault with god.' 4 Such self- 
 submission contrasting strangely with the proud self- 
 sufficiencies of infant Stoicism sounding the last depths 
 of self-effacement, silencing but not satisfying the 
 authentic instincts of finite personality, can only be 
 maintained by suppressing factors in consciousness, 
 whose claims are indefeasible. 
 
 The Stoic doctrine of Apathy, instead of perceiving 
 in Reason and Will a directive self-adjustment of the 
 emotions into true harmony with their surroundings, 
 summons them to refuse and expunge and override 
 the motions and affections which are conscious of the 
 outer stimulus. The kingdom of the Ego is divided 
 
 1 xii. i, 13 ; cf. i. 15. 
 2 iii. 7, 12 ; vii. 34 ; viii. 52 ; ix. i ; x. 13, 34 ; xi. II. 
 
 3 iv. 23. 
 4 vi. 16, 41 ; viii. 17 ; ix. I, 39 ; x. I ; xii. 12, 24. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxxiii 
 
 against itself, and the parts warring against each other 
 are brought to moral impotence. Suppression of the 
 emotions is destruction, not conservation or adjustment 
 of energy, and so far as it takes effect involves waste, 
 or even self- expenditure, of the one source of motive 
 power. Good order and contentment in the soul are 
 based on long-suffering, inexorable coercion of all un- 
 satisfied affections, with sure sapping of the moral 
 energies. ' Apathy,' on this showing, becomes a passion- 
 less heroism in which moral responsibility declines into 
 fatalistic acquiescence, and the independence and being 
 of the self are finally annulled. Not only ignoble and 
 selfish emotions are to be suppressed, but also the 
 most ennobling and energetic, all that aspire beyond 
 the present, all that do well to be angry in resisting 
 antagonism to wrong, all that kindle duty into desire 
 and suffuse it with emotional warmth. 'Teach men 
 or bear with them,' ' Blame none ' become aphorisms of 
 the virtue, which moves only within the prescriptions of 
 the individual reason. Disabled for inspiration or for 
 reproach, it becomes an anxious exercise of self- con- 
 straint, patient, restricted, and ineffectual. Hence the 
 deep individual pessimism which appears side by side 
 with the pantheistic optimism, and which so broadly 
 distinguishes the Stoic and the Christian doctrines of 
 resignation. The universal optimism of the Stoic allows 
 and even rests on pessimism in the particulars ; the part 
 is of necessity the whole in a form of incomplete and like- 
 wise imperfect realisation ; its interest and its existence is 
 subordinate to the well-being of the whole, and its transi- 
 ence and insignificance become topics of consolation. 
 
cxxxiv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 The individual is part of the whole but how in- 
 finitesimally small a part !^ and how ephemeral ! A 
 morsel of soul, upon a grain of earth, man occupies a 
 
 (moment between the two infinities. 1 No compensating 
 assurance of spiritual permanence or of larger contingent 
 issues is permitted to relieve the littleness of life. 
 ' Grains of frankincense on the same altar, one drops 
 sooner, another later it makes no difference.' 2 The 
 quantitative insignificance of man and on a basis of 
 strictly monistic materialism the inference is logical 
 has its counterpart in the qualitative. Material things 
 and all things are material may be analysed into 
 their constituents of cause and substance, 3 and their 
 content is nothing more than the material analysis dis- 
 closes. ' Just as we analyse the food we eat into the 
 dead carcase of bird or beast, the purple robe we wear 
 into sheep's wool dipped in secretions of the shell-fish, 
 so should we do through the whole range of life ' : ' push 
 analysis to the component parts, and you are disen- 
 chanted ; apply the process to life too as a whole.' * 
 So in reiterated diminutives, half ^pitying and half- con- 
 temptuous, things are one by one reduced to the beggarly 
 elements of which they are made up. Man is but ' the 
 puff of breath ' that for a day ' carries its corpse.' 5 But 
 the same argument which forecloses aspiration, also annuls 
 the power of vain desires. Life finds its sole complete- 
 
 1 iv. s> 5 ; v - J3 23 ; ix - 3 2 ; xii - 7, 32- 
 
 ' 2 iv. 15, and cf. ii. 17; iv. 32, 35, 44; vi. 36, 37, 46; vii. 
 I ; ix. 14 ; xi. I ; xii. 24. 
 
 3 ii. 12; iii. II ; v. 13 ; vii. 29; viii. II ; ix. 25 ; xii. IO, 29. 
 
 4 vi. 13 ; viii. 21 ; ix. 36 ; xi. 2, 17. 5 ix. 24. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxxv 
 
 ness in itself, in the realisation and fulfilment of its 
 cosmic part, undistracted by baits of worthless pleasure, 
 or lures of wealth or state, or the evanescent bubble of 
 fame.- Stripped of their husks and veils, 1 none of 
 these things can either tempt, or satisfy, or last. 
 
 But man's cosmic relationship carries other and far 
 more inspiring implications. If inherence in the unitary 
 whole circumscribes individuality, it implies at the same 
 time a fellowship of interest among the parts, that to 
 ' nature's sincere familiar ' 2 becomes a conscious and en- 
 gaging bond. And this sympathetic tie of parts touches 
 chords in the imagination and the heart of Marcus that 
 had not before been sounded. There is not only a 
 vague and wistful sense of unity, but an almost personal 
 tenderness towards nature, both in organic and inorganic 
 phases of action, that is new to literature. The 
 harmonious courses of the stars, 3 the free bounties of 
 air and rain and sunlight, 4 the ordered industries and 
 happy societies of bird and beast and insect, 5 the co- 
 operations of feet and hands and eyelids and teeth, 6 the 
 ripening and the passing of vine and fig and olive, 7 the 
 distinctive beauties of youth and prime and age, 8 and 
 even the more baleful aspects of the immanent world- 
 life * the lion's scowl, and the foam that flecks the wild 
 boar's mouth ' 9 proclaim one origin, one life, one end, 
 and stir ' an accent of emotion ' that opens up new 
 
 1 xii. 2, 8. 2 iii. 2. 3 vii. 47 ; ix. 9 ; xi. 27. 
 
 4 viii. 57 ; ix. 8 ; xii. 30. 
 
 5 v. 1,6; vi. 14 ; ix. 9 ; xi. 18 (9). 6 ii. I ; ix. 42. 
 
 7 iv. 6 ; v. 6 ; viii. 19. 8 iii. 2, cf. iv. 20; vii. 24. 
 
 9 iii. 2 ; vi. 36. 
 
cxxxvi INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 vistas of poetic utterance. " Earth is in love with rain, 
 and holy aether loves. Yes, the world-order is in love 
 with fashioning whatever is to be. To the world-order I 
 profess 'Thy love is mine.'" 1 The very modernness of 
 touch may cause the rarity and novelty of such a section 
 as iii. 2 to escape the reader's notice. The directness 
 and the delicacy of the realism go far beyond the gener- 
 alities of the Hymn of Cleanthes, and anticipate notes 
 such as those of the Prometheus Unbound: 
 
 The wandering voices and the shadows these 
 
 Of all that man becomes, the mediators 
 
 Of that best worship, love, by him and us 
 
 Given and returned ; swift shapes and sounds, which grow 
 
 More fair and soft, as man grows wise and kind, 
 
 And, veil by veil, evil and error fall. 
 
 And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather 
 Strength for the coming day and all its joy. 
 And death shall be the last embrace of her 
 Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother, 
 Folding her child, says, ' Leave me not again. ' 
 
 Thus man has conscious communion with all parts 
 of the great whole : but a special tie of kind unites him 
 with one member of the order, his fellow-men. In the 
 economy of nature all things exist for sake of something 
 else, the lower ever subserving the needs of the higher. 2 
 Man, the crown of nature, differentiated from all other 
 creatures by the gift of Reason, 3 is called to minister to 
 
 1 x. 21 ; cf. v. 4. 
 2 v. 16, 30; vii. 55; xi. 10, 18. 
 
 3 iii. 4, 6, 9 ; iv. 3, 4, 29 ; v. 16, 34 ; vi. 14, 23 ; ix. 8, 9 ; 
 xi. i, 20, etc. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxxvii 
 
 man. We are made for one another : ' the bond of 
 kind makes alls things human dear.' * The rational and 
 social element is as inherent in the constitution of man, 
 as gravity in the various elements of matter. 2 He can- 
 not escape or annul this property of nature ; he is (as 
 Aristotle too had said) * a social being,' made for social 
 action; its authentications are paramount and binding, 
 its performance his refreshment and delight. 3 It is 
 in the pages of Marcus that the conception of the social 
 tie gains fullest recognition and enforcement. Rational 
 soul only attains its height, in realising 'catholic and 
 social aims.' 4 The seed of this is found historically in 
 the bond of citizenship, which supplied the Athenian 
 Greek with his basis of morality and human obligation. 
 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 the associations of ' citizenship ' were too 
 deeply grafted into moral consciousness to be killed out. 
 They survived into the idea of a 'world -citizenship.' 
 ' The world is as it were a city,' 5 and if to the Athenian 
 Athens was Dear City of Cecrops, to the Stoic the 
 universe is Dear City of God? At the outset the phrase 
 
 1 ii. i, 13; iii. 4; iv. 3, 4 ; v. i, 16, 30; vi. 39; vii. 13, 
 22, 31, 55; viii. 8, 26, 56, 59; ix. i, 27 ; xi. i, 10, 18 ; xii. 30. 
 
 2 ix. 9 ; xi. 20. 
 
 3 iii. 6, ii ; v. i, 6, 16 ; vi. 7, 14, 30; vii. 5, 55, 74; viii. 
 12, 23 ; ix. 31, 42 ; x. 6 ; xi. 21 ; xii. 20. 4 vi. 14, etc. 
 
 6 ii. 16; iii. n ; iv. 3, 4, 23; vi. 44; vii. 8; x. 6, 15; 
 xii. 36. 6 iv. 23. 
 
cxxxviii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 ' world-citizenship ' had perhaps more sound than mean- 
 ing, and so far as it possessed positive content, connoted 
 status and franchise, rather than claims of sacrifice or 
 service. But noble phrases are pregnant : as the ob- 
 ligations involved in status gradually compelled the 
 moral assent, as the ' part ' (meros) learned to recognise 
 and own its contributory offices as ' member ' (melos}, 1 the 
 idea of ' world-citizenship ' came to include the whole 
 range of social duty and endeavour. Implicit in all 
 human relationship, the social tie affects every contact of 
 man with man, establishing a bond of brotherhood, which 
 forbids all selfish isolation of interest. 'What is not 
 good for the swarm is not good for the bee.' 2 It ensures 
 community of sentiment with every man. * Enter into 
 every man's Inner Self, and let every other man enter 
 into thine.' 3 It inspires, impels the life of active service. 
 'We are made for co-operation, as feet, as hands, as 
 eyelids, as the upper and the lower teeth.' And this 
 law of service is as binding on the Caesar as on the 
 churl. Moreover, do what we will or resist as we may, 
 the great bond is inalienable ; no temporary disclaimer 
 or repudiation can annul it. The individual may for a 
 moment violate, but he cannot impair or destroy the 
 solidarity of man. 'Consider the goodness of god, 
 with which he has honoured man : he has put it in his 
 power never to be sundered at all from the whole ; and 
 if sundered, then to rejoin it once more, and coalesce, 
 and resume his contributory place.' 4 Men, in spite of 
 themselves, remain ' members of the body.' And, as 
 
 1 vii. 13. 2 ii. 3 ; v. 8, 22 ; vi. 45, 54 ; x. 6, 33. 
 
 3 viii. 61. 4 viii. 34; xi. 8. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxxxix 
 
 it contemplates the comprehending unity, the thought 
 clothes itself in noble phraseology, and summons man, 
 as man, to become ' the peer and fellow-citizen of god ' 
 and the sharer of his law and franchise. 1 < 
 
 Clearly this thought of ' world-citizenship ' transcends ) 
 political relationships of any narrower kind ; but yet the 
 political circumstances of his age and the personal 
 position from which the Emperor applied philosophy to 
 life, contributed to invest the formula with new con- 
 viction and reality. The realisation of a confederate 
 'world-city,' of a Civitas Dei upon earth coextensive 
 with the sway and genius of Rome, floats before the 
 vision of the Emperor as a consummation of world- 
 history. Rome, in the ' Golden Age ' of the Antonines, \ 
 stood for Law and Order from the Euphrates to the 
 Atlantic, from the Northumbrian wall of Antoninus to / 
 Mount Atlas and the Tropic of Cancer. Already in the 
 hands of the great jurists, whose labours began to shape 
 the Perpetual Edict, the lex naturae^ which stands above 
 human caprice or national vicissitude, was becoming 
 formulated as ius naturale natural right, which Stoic 
 influences helped to secure as the moral basis of 
 Imperial code law. ' Cosmopolitanism, the dream of 
 philosophers in the downfall of Greek independence, 
 becomes at last upon the throne of Roman Caesars a 
 proud self-consciousness of Rome's historic mission.' 
 
 This large recognition of the social tie makes Stoicism \ 
 humane and catholic, redeeming it from the dryness, j 
 which resulted from the too exclusive emphasis on] 
 reason, and from the intolerance consequent on a purely/ 
 
 i - * 
 
 1 vni. 2 ; x. I. 
 
cxl INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 individualistic morality. Stoicism insisted from the 
 first on the inwardness of virtue, and placed morality 
 in disposition and motive, not in obedience to prescribed 
 canons of action. As long as the gaze turned inward, 
 and mere self-consistency satisfied the demand of con- 
 formity to nature, pride and self-centred egoism were 
 the natural and almost inevitable outcome. But the 
 acceptance of a cosmic standard of reference, while 
 leaving the stress on motive and disposition unimpaired, 
 safeguards against selfish and self-satisfied contraction of 
 view. Excess of individualism, eccentricity of thought 
 or behaviour, is checked instead of encouraged; and 
 the moral pedantry of a Brutus or even a Helvidius, or 
 the aggressive spleen of a Juvenal or Persius, become as 
 alien to the temper of Marcus, as the tasteless vagaries 
 of a Diogenes. Alongside of modesty, forbearance, 
 and all that makes up * temperance ' a liberal enlarge- 
 ment is given to the active emotions, which right reason 
 can approve and authorise. Patience may extend to 
 pity ; * pride and indifference give way to meekness and 
 unselfish concern for others ; virtue may find delights 
 in offices of good ; and all the more temperate forms of 
 love kindness, charity, goodwill, and such like come 
 into free play. 2 But one restriction remains. The 
 quality of love is various, and Greek discriminates 
 where English is ambiguous. The forms in which this 
 sympathy for man is set forth, are devoid of emotion ; 
 if the term of passion ever escapes the sage's lips, it is 
 
 1 ii. 13 ; vii. 26. 
 
 2 The stress laid on the virtues here mentioned is reiterated. 
 For virtue as delight, see refs. p. cxxxi. note. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxli 
 
 the thought of Nature, not of man that stirs it. The \ 
 love of neighbour is not an outgoing of personal affec- 
 tion, but at most a befriending care for kind ; it falls / 
 short of ' brotherhood ' (the term adopted in transla- ' 
 tion *) for it is not indeed direct from man to man, 
 but transmitted through the cosmos. It remains im-\ 
 personal and generic, belonging to the same moral J 
 category as patriotism, or political fraternity, or devotion 
 to a cause : but, spread over a larger and less tangible 
 object, it falls short of these in ardour of desire, and 
 much more lacks the effusion, the joy, the impulsive 
 energy and the quick indignations of altruistic love. 
 Therefore to the last it condemns the Stoic to some 
 lukewarmness of faith and ineffectiveness of personal , 
 appeal ; and leaves him content ' to better men or bear / 
 with them,' 2 'to keep in charity with liars and with 
 rogues,' 3 'to blame none,' 4 and to accept misunderstand- 
 ing and dislike as normal items of experience. 5 Life 
 will have little glow and death no sting. 
 
 Death is the seal of man's position in the cosmos. 
 He is but a part, insignificant in space and time ; the part 
 passes, only the whole abides. Death is an incident 6 
 in the brief incident of its existence : it is for nature's 
 good, acceptable not terrible. 7 The Thoughts are 
 
 4 Cf. ii. I ; iv. 3 ; v. 22, '25 ; vi. 27, 55 ; vii. 22, 29 ; 
 viii. 14, 17; ix. 4, ii, 20, 38, 42; x. 4; xi. 16, 18; xii. 
 12, 16. 
 
 5 ii. I ; x. 36. 6 iv. 5 ; vi. 2 ; ix. 3 ; x. 36 ; xii. 23. 
 
 7 ii. 12; iii. 5, 7, 16 ; iv. 48; v. 29, 33; ix. 3, 21; x. 8, 
 29, 36 ; xii. 35. 
 
 k 
 
cxlii INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 steeped in the near consciousness of its approach. 1 For 
 just appreciation of thejr purport, and sympathetic 
 rapport with their mood, they must be regarded as 
 farewell reflections upon life and a greeting given in 
 advance to death. The first book is a retrospect on 
 life, moving among its treasured memories of help and 
 friendship ; ' thou art an old man ' 2 is the- prelude to the 
 second ; ' thy life is all but finished,' * its tale fully told 
 and its service accomplished ' ; 3 it remained, while the 
 powers of mind and body still held out, 4 to adjust 
 himself as in the presence of death for reunion with the 
 whole. Life's day had been laborious, and its setting 
 was grey and solitary. At seventeen he had entered 
 the responsibilities of Csesarship, and from that day the 
 wear and tear of office had been continuous. At forty 
 the whole weight of Empire fell upon his shoulders, 
 and the colleagueship of L. Verus proved an addition 
 rather than a relief to care. At forty-six came the 
 imperious call which summoned him to the long exile 
 of the Camp : and the imminent fate of Rome hung on 
 the staunchness of his resolution. ' As man, as Roman, 
 as Imperator, he held the van keeping a brave face.' 5 
 But the strain of self-sustainment, 'upright, not 
 uprighted,' 6 was exhausting. The attachments of his 
 youth had been to older men, and death or circumstance 
 had. withdrawn them from his side ; the philosophers 
 and councillors shunned the privations of the camp; 
 
 1 ii. 5, II, 17; iii. 16; iv. 37; v. 33; vi. 30; vii. 29, 69; 
 xi. 18 ; xii. I. 
 
 2 ii. 2 ; cf. iii. 5. 3 ii. 6 ; v. 31. 4 iii. i. 
 5 iii. 5. 6 iii. 5 ; vii. 12. 
 
v MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxliii 
 
 Galen loved Rome too well to attend him on the 
 Danube, and no poet or man of letters has told the\ 
 story of his Marcomannic wars. Even the solace and / 
 companionship of books was missing. 1 The sur- 
 roundings and associates of war were harsh and 
 uncongenial, 2 yet his presence was necessary with the 
 legions. In the home affections, on which he had 
 most leaned, the hand of bereavement had pressed 
 heavily ; of five sons, death had spared only Commodus, 
 and in 176 his spirit was broken by the death of 
 Faustina. It must have taxed all his fortitude to 
 stand out 'life's remainder,' 3 waiting for the 'retreat 
 to sound,' with powers at the last stage of exhaustion. N 
 The Thoughts are the cry of isolation that escaped him, ^ 
 as 'Among the Quad!,' and 'At CarnuntumJ* he bore / 
 the load of Empire and the solitude of power. Nerves / 
 and digestion under long strain had quite worn out, so 
 that he scarcely ate or slept. Theriac a sedative 
 drug had, Galen tells us, become almost his food ; 
 and Julian introduces him among the Caesars, as 
 1 very grave, his eyes and features drawn somewhat with 
 hard toils, and his body luminous and transparent 
 with abstemiousness from food.' 'Death is rest': | 
 ' depart then with serenity serene as he who gives thee J 
 thy discharge.' 5 f 
 
 The impressive pathos, which attaches to this 
 convinced presentiment of death, is more than personal. 
 
 1 ii. 2, 3 ; iii. 14 ; iv. 30 ; and perhaps viii. 8. 
 2 ii. i ; v. 10 ; viii. 44 ; ix. 3, 27, 29, 30, 34 ; x. I, 8, 9, 13, 36. 
 
 3 iii. 4 ; iv. 31 ; x. 15 ; xi. 16 ; xii. 3. 
 4 Subscription to Books I. and II. 5 vi. 28 ; xii. 36. 
 
cxliv INTRODUCTION SECT. 
 
 /The funeral notes, which culminate in the Nunc Dimittis 
 \of the closing book, are the knell of a dying age. Over 
 the tomb of Marcus, too, the historian might fitly inscribe 
 the mournful epitaph LAST OF HIS LINE. 1 Last of 
 Roman Stoics, he is also the last of Emperors in whom 
 the ancient stock of Roman virtue survived. He stood, 
 but half unconsciously, at the outgoings of an age, filled 
 with a sense of transitoriness in all things human, of 
 epochs, empires, dynasties as well as individuals passing 
 to dust and oblivion. The gloom of decadence 
 haunted and oppressed him. Rome was in truth 
 already bankrupt bankrupt in purse, bankrupt in 
 intellect, bankrupt in moral and even in animal vigour. 
 Power centred more and more in the hands of the 
 Chief of state, not because the Emperor strained after 
 prerogative, to which the whole bent of Marcus was 
 opposed, but because Senate and Patricians had lost 
 the capacity and almost the ambition for rule. When 
 the barbarian invaders knocked at the gates of Aquileia 
 the Emperor had to sell the imperial personalities to 
 raise funds for war; ravaged by plague, Italy could 
 not recruit her legions except from slaves and gladiators ; 
 the procreation of children seemed to fail ; and from 
 this time forth the face of the Campagna began to 
 assume the desolation of a place of tombs. Though 
 outwardly 'the Eternal City' stood in plenitude of 
 world -wide power, signs of the times declared the 
 beginning of the end. The golden pause of the 
 Antonine age is the moment of equilibrium before the 
 quickening acceleration of ' The Decline and Fall ' : its 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS cxlv 
 
 
 era dates from lyth March 180 A.D., the death-day of 
 Marcus Antoninus. 
 
 His end was as his life, deliberate, unflinching, 
 resolute. Six days of inability to eat or drink, through 
 which the habit of duty still struggled with the failing 
 body ; the summons to his friends ; words tinged with a 
 sad irony upon the vanity of life ; the passionless fare- 
 well ' Why weep for me ? think of the army and its 
 safety : I do but go on before. Farewell ! ' Then the 
 brief wanderings of delirium haec luctuosi belli opera 
 sunt, then the covered head, and the everlasting rest. 
 Rome forgot the Emperor in the man * Marcus my 
 father ! Marcus my brother ! Marcus my son ! ' cried the 
 bereaved citizens. At his funeral the ordinary lamenta- 
 tions were omitted ; and men said to one another, ' He 
 whom the gods lent us, has rejoined the gods.' 
 
 Stoicism, by its treatment of the emotions, set itself 
 at a disadvantage ; it tended to make all life joyless, 
 and the best life impossible. Notwithstanding, Marcus 
 Aurelius Antoninus survives as perhaps the loftiest 
 exemplar of unassisted duty, whom history records 
 unalterably loyal to the noblest hypothesis of life he 
 knew. For him, life was indeed 'more like wrestling 
 than dancing/ x yet * in his patience he won his soul.' 
 He lived when national virtue was dead, and almost 
 buried ; yet by integrity, by industry, and by mere 
 fairness of mind, he helped not a little to make Roman 
 Law the mother of codes and the saviour of society. 
 War was to him a hateful ' hunting of Sarmatians,' yet 
 'duty made him a great Captain,' and he stayed the 
 1 vii. 61. 
 
 ) 
 
cxlvi INTRODUCTION SECT, v 
 
 barbarian till Western civilisation was Christian, and 
 
 / safe. Intellectually, he had neither genius nor learning, 
 
 / and wrote only for relief of sleeplessness and solitude : 
 
 yet the centuries still turn to him for wisdom ; and the 
 \ Thoughts remain imperishable, dignifying duty, shaming 
 V weakness, and rebuking discontent. 
 
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 
 TO HIMSELF 
 
BOOK I 
 
 MeMNHCO TCON 
 
 FROM my grandfather Verus, integrity and i 
 command of temper. 
 
 From the reputation and the memory of my 2 
 father, self-respect and manliness. 
 
 From my mother, to be god-fearing and liberal ; 3 
 to check not malicious action only, but each 
 malicious thought ; simplicity in daily living and 
 avoidance of the ways of opulence. 
 
 Thanks to my great-grandfather, I did not 4 
 attend public lectures, but was supplied with good 
 masters at home, and learned that in such matters 
 free outlay is no extravagance. 
 
 From my tutor, not to take sides with the 5 
 Greens or the Blues, the Big Shields or Little 
 Shields : to be industrious, of few wants, and to 
 
2 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 wait upon myself ; to mind my own business and 
 to scout slander. 
 
 From Diognetus, nobility of aim : disbelief in 
 sorcerers and wizards and their spells, in tales of 
 exorcism and such like : distaste for quail-fighting 
 and other such excitements : tolerance in argu- 
 ment : familiarisation with philosophy, and attend- 
 ance first on Bacchius, then on Tandasis and 
 Marcianus ; my boyish essays and my aspirations 
 after the plank bed and skin, with the other 
 requirements of Greek training. 
 
 From Rusticus, I first conceived the need 
 of moral correction and amendment : renounced 
 sophistic ambitions and essays on philosophy, dis- 
 courses provocative to virtue, or fancy portraitures 
 of the Sage or the philanthropist : learned to 
 eschew rhetoric and poetry and fine language : 
 not to wear full dress about the house, or other 
 affectations of the kind : in my letters to keep to 
 the simplicity of his own, from Sinuessa, to my 
 mother : to be encouraging and conciliatory to- 
 wards any one who was offended or out of temper, 
 at the first offer of advances upon their side. He 
 taught me to read accurately, and not to be 
 satisfied with vague general apprehension ; and 
 

 i TO HIMSELF 3 
 
 not to give hasty assent to chatterers. He intro- 
 duced me to the memoirs of Epictetus, presenting 
 me with a copy from his own stores. 
 
 From Apollonius, to keep free and to stake 8 
 nothing on the hazards of chance ; never, for one 
 instant, to lose sight of reason ; to keep equable 
 in temper, under assaults of pain, or the loss of a 
 child, or in tedious illnesses. His example was 
 a living demonstration, that the utmost intensity 
 admits of occasional relaxation. He was a model 
 of patience in explanation ; and visibly one who 
 made the least of his own experience and profici- 
 ency in philosophic exposition ; he taught me how 
 to receive factitious favours, without either sacrifice 
 of self-respect or churlish disregard. 
 
 From Sextus, kindliness ; and the model of a 9 
 well-ordered household ; the idea of life in con- 
 formity with nature ; dignity without affectation ; 
 sympathetic concern for friends ; tolerance for the 
 simple and unlettered ; the universal cordiality, 
 which made his society more agreeable than any 
 flattery, while never for a moment failing to com- 
 mand respect ; his steady intuition for discerning 
 and methodising the principles essential to right 
 living, avoiding all display of anger or emotion, and 
 
4 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 showing a perfect combination of unimpassioned yet 
 affectionate concern. In his commendation there 
 was no loudness, and about his learning no parade. 
 
 10 From Alexander the grammarian, to be un- 
 censorious ; not to be carping and severe upon 
 lapses of grammar or idiom or phrase, but dexter- 
 ously to supply the proper expression, by way of 
 rejoinder or corroboration, or discussion of the 
 matter rather than the language, or some other 
 graceful reminder or hint 
 
 11 From Fronto, to understand that malice and 
 doubleness and insincerity are characteristic of 
 the tyrant, and that Patricians, as we call them, 
 only too often fail in natural affection. 
 
 12 From Alexander the Platonist, seldom and 
 only when driven to it, to say or write, * I have no 
 time ' ; and not to indulge the tendency to cry off 
 from duties arising out of our natural relations with 
 those about us, on the pretext of press of business. 
 
 13 From Catulus, never to slight a friend's 
 remonstrances, even though they happen to be 
 unreasonable, but to try and restore him to good 
 humour ; to be hearty in praise of my teachers, 
 as in the memoirs of Domitius and Athenodotus ; 
 and genuinely fond of my children. 
 
 
i TO HIMSELF 5 
 
 From my brother Verus, love of belongings, 14 
 love of truth, and love of justice ; my knowledge 
 of Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, and Brutus, 
 and the conception of an equal commonwealth 
 based on equality of right and equality of speech, 
 and of imperial rule respecting first and foremost 
 the liberty of the subject. From him too I 
 learned harmonious well-attuned devotion to philo- 
 sophy : freehanded zeal for the good of others ; 
 hopefulness, and belief in friends' affection ; not 
 to withhold the expression of disapproval, and 
 not to leave friends to conjecture what one wanted 
 or did not want, but to be plain with them. 
 
 From Maximus, self-mastery and concentra- 15 
 tion of aim ; cheerfulness under sickness or other 
 visitations ; a pleasant blending of affability and 
 dignity ; with unruffled alacrity in the performance 
 of appointed tasks. He inspired every one with 
 the belief that whatever he said he thought, and 
 that whatever he did was done from pure motives. 
 Nothing could dazzle, and nothing daunt him ; 
 there was no pressing forward, no hanging back, 
 no hesitation ; no ogling and fawning on one 
 hand, or frets and frowns on the other. Kind, 
 generous, and genuine, he gave one the impression 
 
6 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 of goodness undeviating and even incorruptible. 
 No one could ever have felt him patronising, yet 
 no one could have borne to account himself his 
 better ; so gracious was his manner. 
 16 From my father I learned gentleness, and 
 unshaken adherence to judgments deliberately 
 formed ; indifference to outward show and com- 
 pliment ; industry and assiduity ; an ear open to 
 all suggestions for the public weal ; recognition 
 inflexibly proportioned to desert ; the tact that 
 knew where severity was called for, or the reverse ; 
 renunciation of all boy favourites ; disinterested- 
 ness of purpose. His friends had free leave to 
 be absent from the imperial table, or to dis- 
 pense themselves from attendance in his suite, 
 and his sentiments were unchanged towards those 
 who were detained on various calls. At the 
 council - board his investigations were search- 
 ing and persistent, where others would have been 
 content with ready-made impressions and neglected 
 strict inquiry. Stedfast in friendships, he avoided 
 either caprice or extravagance. He seemed always 
 up to the mark and bright. His forethought was 
 remarkable, and his unostentatious prevision for 
 the smallest trifles. Personal applause or flattery 
 
i TO HIMSELF 7 
 
 of any kind he kept in check. Vigilant in 
 providing for imperial necessities, he carefully 
 husbanded his resources, without flinching from 
 the consequent complaints. Towards the gods 
 he was not superstitious ; towards men, he neither 
 courted popularity nor pandered to the mob, but 
 was in all points sober and safe, distrustful of 
 flash or novelty. The luxuries which tend to 
 refine life, and of which fortune is so lavish, he 
 enjoyed at once modestly and unfeignedly ; if 
 there, he partook unaffectedly, if absent, he did 
 not feel the lack. No one could charge him with 
 crotchets or vulgarity or pedantry, or fail to 
 recognise the manly ripeness and maturity of one 
 superior to flattery, and well able to govern both 
 himself and others. Added to this, he esteemed 
 all true philosophers; to the rest he was 
 never acrimonious, yet contrived to keep his 
 distance. His manner was friendly, gracious 
 but not carried to excess. In attention to the 
 body he hit the happy mean : there was no 
 excessive hugging of life, no foppishness, and on 
 the other hand no undue neglect ; his wise self- 
 management made him almost independent of 
 doctoring, or of medicines or embrocations. He 
 
8 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 was ready and generous in recognising any 
 real proficiency, in rhetoric for instance, or juris- 
 prudence, or national customs, or any other 
 subject ; and eager to assist any to shine in their 
 particular sphere of excellence. In everything 
 a loyal son of Rome, he did not in such matters 
 study appearances. He was free from caprice 
 or humours, constant in attachment to the same 
 places and the same things. After paroxysms 
 of headache, he would return fresh and vigorous 
 to his usual avocations. His official secrets were 
 few, the rare and occasional exceptions being 
 solely matters of public importance. He was 
 discerning and moderate in organising public 
 spectacles, in executing public works, in dis- 
 tribution of largess and the like ; always with 
 an eye to the actual need, rather than to the 
 popularity they brought. He never bathed at 
 odd hours, or took a passion for building ; never 
 set up for a connoisseur of eatables, of the texture 
 and tints of clothes, or of personal charms. His 
 dress came from Lorium where his country house 
 was, and was generally of Lanuvian wool. The 
 story of his conduct to the apologetic tax-collector 
 at Tusculum is a sample of his general demeanour. 
 
i TO HIMSELF 9 
 
 There was no perversity about him, no black looks 
 or fits : he never forced things, as one says, ' past 
 sweating point ' ; but was invariably rational and 
 discriminating giving judgments leisurely, calm, 
 systematic, vigorous, and consistent. One might 
 fairly apply to him what was claimed for Socrates, 
 that he could either enjoy or leave things which 
 most people find themselves too weak to abstain 
 from, and too self-indulgent to enjoy. Strength, 
 and with strength endurance, and sobriety in both, 
 attest the perfected inviolable soul, as the illness 
 of Maximus showed. 
 
 From the gods good grandsires, good parents, 17 
 a good sister, good teachers ; good associates, 
 kinsmen, friends, good almost every one : and 
 that I did not hastily take offence with any one 
 of them, though my natural disposition might 
 easily enough have betrayed me into it ; but by 
 the goodness of the gods circumstances never 
 conspired to put me to the test. Thanks to the 
 gods that I was removed when I was, from the 
 side of my grandfather's mistress ; that I kept 
 the flower of my youth ; that I did not force my 
 virility, but patiently bided my time. That in my 
 imperial father I found a chief, who eradicated 
 
io MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 conceit, and brought me up to the idea, that court 
 life need not entail men-at-arms or brocaded 
 robes or flambeaux or statues or such like pomp ; 
 but that a prince may contract his state to the 
 style of a private citizen, without therefore demean- 
 ing himself or relaxing imperial and representative 
 position. The gods granted me a brother, whose 
 influence stimulated me to cultivate my natural 
 powers, while his respect and affection gave me 
 new heart ; children of good parts, and free from 
 bodily deformities. They saved me from making 
 too much way with rhetoric and poetry and the 
 rest, in which I might have become absorbed, 
 had I found it all smooth going. Thanks to 
 them, I early advanced my tutors to the position 
 and dignity to which I saw they aspired, and did 
 not put them off with hopes of my eventually 
 doing so, as for the present they were still young : 
 I became acquainted with Apollonius, Rusticus, 
 and Maximus ; and I got clear and rooted impres- 
 sions of what is meant by living in accordance 
 with nature. The gods have done their part ; 
 their gifts, their aid, their inspirations have not 
 been wanting to help me to realise the life con- 
 formed to nature ; that I still fall short of it is 
 
i TO HIMSELF n 
 
 my own fault, and comes of not heeding stedfastly 
 the reminders, I may almost say the dictates of 
 the gods. Thanks to the gods, my physical 
 strength has stood as it has, the strain imposed : 
 thanks to them, I kept clear both of Benedicta 
 and Theodotus, and came safe out of later loves. 
 Though often vexed with Rusticus, I never went 
 to extremes that I might have repented. Though 
 my mother was destined to die young, at least 
 her latest years were spent with me. Whenever 
 I wanted to help a case of poverty or other need, 
 I was never told that I had no funds for the 
 purpose ; while I have never found myself similarly 
 obliged to accept charity from another. Thanks 
 too for such a wife, so submissive, so affectionate, 
 so simple : for abundance of good tutors for my 
 children : for help vouchsafed in dreams, more 
 particularly for relief from bloodspitting and 
 dizziness : and for the Caietan's response ' That 
 depends on you.' Thanks too that, in spite of 
 my ardour for philosophy, I did not fall into the 
 hands of any sophist, or sit poring over essays 
 or syllogisms, or become engrossed in scientific 
 speculation. All this is by the help of the gods 
 and destiny. 
 
 Among the Quadi, by tJie Gran. 
 
BOOK II 
 
 d <\Ne2^T<\CTOC Bfoc <BfcoTOC. PLATO 
 
 1 WHEN you wake, say to yourself To-day I 
 shall encounter meddling, ingratitude, violence, 
 cunning, malice, self-seeking; all of them the 
 results of men not knowing what is good and 
 what is evil. But seeing that I have beheld the 
 nature and nobility of good, and the nature and 
 meanness of evil, and the nature of the sinner, 
 who is my brother, participating not indeed in 
 the same flesh and blood, but in the same mind 
 and partnership with the divine, I cannot be 
 injured by any of them ; for no man can involve 
 me in what demeans. Neither can I be angry 
 with my brother, or quarrel with him ; for we are 
 made for co-operation, like the feet, the hands, the 
 eyelids, the upper and the lower rows of teeth. 
 To thwart one another is contrary to nature ; and 
 
BOOK ii MARCUS ANTONINUS 13 
 
 one form of thwarting is resentment and estrange- 
 ment 
 
 Flesh, breath, and the Inner Self that is all. 2 
 Good-bye, my books ! strain after them no more ; 
 they are not your portion. As in the near 
 presence of death, despise poor flesh this refuse 
 of blood and bones, this web and tissue of nerves 
 and veins and arteries. Breath too ! what is it ? 
 a puff of wind, never the same, but every moment 
 exhaling, and again inhaled. Last comes the 
 Inner Self on that stake all : you are an old 
 man ; do not let it be a slave any longer, pulled 
 puppet -like by self-seeking impulse; nor resist 
 destiny, either chafing at the present, or bemoan- 
 ing the future. 
 
 In the gods' work there is providence every- 3 
 where. For the action of chance is the course of 
 nature, or the web and woof of the dispositions 
 of providence. From providence flows all ; and 
 side by side with it is necessity and the advantage 
 of the Universe, of which you are a part. To 
 every part of nature that which Nature brings, 
 and which helps towards its conservation, is good. 
 The conservation of the world-order depends not 
 only on the changes of the elements, but also on 
 
14 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 those of the compounded wholes. Be content 
 with what you have, find there your principles 
 of life. No more of thirsting after books, that 
 you may die not murmuring but in serenity, 
 truly and heartily grateful to the gods. 
 
 Think how long you have gone on postponing, 
 how often the gods have granted days of grace, 
 which you have failed to use. It is high time to 
 give heed to the order of which you are a part, and 
 to the great disposer, of whom your being is an efflu- 
 ence ; and to perceive that the limit of your time is 
 circumscribed ; use it to gain the unclouded calm, 
 or 'twill be gone, and nevermore within your power. 
 
 Every hour staunchly, as a Roman and a man, 
 resolve to do the work in hand, with scrupulous 
 and unaffected dignity, affectionately, freely, justly ; 
 securing respite for yourself from all other in- 
 truding regards. And this you will secure, if you 
 perform each task as though it were your last, free 
 from all waywardness, from passions averse to the 
 dictates of reason, from insincerity, self-love, 
 and discontent with destiny. See how few things 
 a man need hold fast, to secure the smooth flow 
 of a godly life for the gods will require nothing 
 more of him who keeps true to these. 
 
ii TO HIMSELF 15 
 
 Is violence done you ? Then do not violence 6 
 to thyself, my soul. Not for long will thy day 
 for self-reverence be. Each lives but once ; thy 
 life is all but finished, and still instead of respect- 
 ing thyself alone, thou dost stake thy fortunes 
 upon the souls of others. 
 
 Pressure of outer claims distracts you. Then 7 
 give yourself some respite from the taskwork of 
 new good, and have done with the restless whirl. 
 But there is want of concentration in its other form 
 to guard against ; there are the triflers in action, 
 tired of life, with no fixed aim towards which to 
 direct each endeavour, yes, and each regard. 
 
 It were hard to find a man distempered by 8 
 not understanding what is passing in another's 
 soul ; but those who do not intelligently follow 
 the motions of their own, cannot but be in a 
 distemper. 
 
 Ever bear in mind what Nature is at large, 9 
 what my own nature is, how this stands to that, 
 how small a portion of how great a whole, and 
 further, that no man can prevent you from 
 keeping act and word always accordant with that 
 nature of which you are a part. 
 
 In comparing sins so far as they admit of 10 
 
16 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 general comparison Theophrastus sagely ob- 
 serves that sins of desire are more heinous than 
 sins of passion. For passion is an estrangement 
 from reason, accompanied by sense of pain and 
 inward constriction ; but sins of desire, in which 
 pleasure gets the better of us, imply more of 
 feminine incontinence. And surely it is right 
 and philosophical to say that sinning with 
 pleasure is more culpable than sinning with pain. 
 The latter is like acting under provocation, and 
 being driven into passion by pain : the former is 
 a spontaneous impulse towards wrong, driving one 
 to satisfaction of desire. 
 
 11 Whatever you do or say or think, it is in your 
 power, remember, to take leave of life. In de- 
 parting from this world, if indeed there are gods, 
 there is nothing to be afraid of; for gods will 
 not let you fall into evil. But if there are no 
 gods, or if they do not concern themselves with 
 men, why live on in a world devoid of gods, or 
 devoid of providence? But there do exist gods, 
 who do concern themselves with men. And they 
 have put it wholly in the power of man not to fall 
 into any true evil. Were there real evil in what 
 remains against that too they would have pro- 
 
ii TO HIMSELF 17 
 
 vided, putting within man's power an absolute 
 immunity. But how can that, which does not 
 make a man worse, make his life worse ? Nature 
 could never have made the oversight, either un- 
 knowingly, or yet knowingly, through inability to 
 guard against it or set it right. Nature could not, 
 either through lack of power or lack of skill, have 
 made such a blunder as to let good and evil indif- 
 ferently befall the good and bad indiscriminately. 
 Yet death and life, good report and evil report, 
 pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and all such 
 things fall to the good arid bad indifferently, and 
 neither ennoble nor demean. The inference is that 
 they are neither good nor evil. 
 
 By mind-power we apprehend how quickly all 12 
 things vanish, bodies in the material world, their 
 memories in the lapse of time ; we understand 
 the nature of all things of sense, particularly 
 those which decoy us with the bait of pleasure, or 
 terrify us with the threat of pain, or are dinned 
 into our ears by self-conceit ; how cheap they are 
 and despicable, filthy, perishable, dead. Intelli- 
 gence appraises those, whose views and voices 
 bestow repute ; it teaches the nature of death, 
 and shows that any one who looks it fairly in the 
 
i8 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 face, and mentally analyses the idea into the im- 
 pressions which it contains, will come to regard it 
 simply as an act of nature ; and none but a child 
 is terrified at that. Nay, and not merely an 
 act of nature, but for nature's good. Finally, by 
 intellect we learn how man has touch with god, 
 and with what part of his being, and how, when 
 this takes place, the said part is affected. 
 
 13 Nothing is more disheartening than the weary 
 round of spying out everything, probing (as 
 Pindar says) ' the depths of earth/ guessing and 
 prying at the secrets of our neighbours' souls, 
 instead of realising that it is enough to keep 
 solely to the god within, and to serve him with 
 all honesty ; and our service to god is to keep 
 him pure from passion, and waywardness, and dis- 
 content with that which comes from gods or men. 
 The gods' works command respect, by virtue of 
 their excellence ; the works of men love, by virtue 
 of the bond of brotherhood ; and sometimes withal 
 pity, by reason of their ignorance of good and evil, 
 a blindness as disabling as that which obliterates 
 distinction between black and white. 
 
 14 Though you live three thousand years, ay or 
 three million, no man, remember, can lose another 
 
ii TO HIMSELF 19 
 
 life than that which he now lives, or live another 
 than that which he now loses. The longest and 
 the shortest come to the same thing. The present 
 is the same for all (even though the loss be not 
 the same) ; what you lose or win, is just the 
 flying moment. A man cannot be losing either 
 past or future how can he be deprived of that 
 which is not his ? Remember then two things 
 first, that all things from all eternity are of one 
 and the same recurrent form, and that it makes 
 no difference whether a man watches the same 
 show for a hundred years, or for two hundred, or 
 for an infinity ; secondly, that the loss of the 
 longest -lived and the shortest is one and the 
 same. It is the present only of which a man can 
 be deprived, that and that only being his, and 
 what is not his he cannot lose. 
 
 The view taken is everything. The objections 15 
 urged against Monimus the Cynic are obvious ; 
 but so too is the value of the dictum, if one 
 accepts the gist of it, so far as it is true. 
 
 Man's soul does violence to itself, first and 16 
 foremost when it makes itself, so far as it can, a 
 kind of tumour and excrescence on the universe ; 
 any chafing against the order of things is a 
 
20 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 rebellion against nature, whose unity includes the 
 various natures of the* several parts. And again, 
 secondly, when it estranges itself, or actively 
 opposes another to his hurt, as happens in fits of 
 anger. Thirdly, there is self-violence, when it 
 succumbs to pleasure or to pain. Fourthly, when 
 it plays false, by feigned and untrue act or word. 
 Fifthly, when in action or endeavour it becomes 
 aimless and works at random and unintelligently, 
 when even trifles demand reference to an end ; 
 and the end of rational beings is, to walk as 
 followers of the reason and the ordinance of the 
 city and commonwealth most high. 
 17 In man's life, time is but a moment ; being, 
 a flux ; sense is dim ; the material frame corrupt- 
 ible ; soul, an eddy of breath ; fortune a thing 
 inscrutable, and fame precarious. In brief, things 
 of the body are but a stream that flows, things of 
 the soul a dream and vapour ; life, a warfare and 
 a sojourning ; and after- fame, oblivion. What 
 then can direct our goings ? One thing and one 
 alone, philosophy ; which is, to keep the deity 
 within inviolate and free from scathe, superior 
 to pleasures and to pains, doing nothing at 
 random, nothing falsely or disingenuously, and 
 
ii TO HIMSELF 21 
 
 lacking for naught, whatever others do or leave 
 undone ; accepting the apportioned lot, as coming 
 from the same source as man himself ; and 
 finally, in all serenity awaiting death, the natural 
 dissolution of the elements of which each creature 
 is compounded. And if the component elements 
 have nought to fear in the continuous change 
 from form to form, why should one look askance 
 at the change and dissolution of the whole ? It 
 is of nature ; and nature knows no evil. 
 
 At Carnuntum. 
 
BOOK III 
 
 DEO PARERE LIBERTAS 
 
 l WE must take into account, not only that each 
 day consumes so much of life, and leaves so much 
 less behind, but also that, even if life is prolonged, 
 there remains the uncertainty whether the under- 
 standing will still retain discernment and the per- 
 ceptive intuitions which bring insight into things 
 divine and human. Dotage may set in, involving 
 no failure of respiration, nutrition, impression, 
 impulse, or the like ; but premature decay of full 
 self-mastery, of nice exactitude in calculating duties, 
 of just correlation of them as a whole, of clear per- 
 ception whether the time has come to quit the scene, 
 and such like criteria of active and well-ordered 
 intelligence. We must press forward then, not 
 only because each day is one step nearer death, but 
 also because apprehension and intelligence may 
 prematurely fail. 
 
BOOK in MARCUS ANTONINUS 23 
 
 Watch well the grace and charm, that belong 2 
 even to the consequents of nature's work. The 
 cracks for instance and crevices in bread-crust, 
 though in a sense flaws in the baking, yet have a 
 fitness of their own and a special stimulus to tickle 
 the appetite. Figs again, just at perfection, gape. 
 In ripe olives the very nearness of decay adds its 
 own beauty to the fruit. The bending ears of 
 corn, the lion's scowl, the foam that drips from 
 the wild boar's mouth, and many other things, 
 though in themselves far from beautiful, yet looked 
 at as consequents on nature's handiwork, add new 
 beauty and appeal to the soul, so that if only 
 one attains deeper feeling and insight for the 
 workings of the universe, almost everything, even 
 in its consequents and accidents, seems to yield 
 some pleasing combination of its own. Thus 
 the actual jaws of living beasts will be not less 
 picturesque than the imitations produced by artists 
 and sculptors. The old woman and the old man 
 will have an ideal loveliness, as youth its ravishing 
 charm, made visible to eyes that have the skill. 
 Such things will not appeal to all, but will strike 
 him only who is in harmony with nature and her 
 sincere familiar. 
 
24 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 / Hippocrates cured many sick, but himself fell 
 sick and died. The .Chaldeans foretold many 
 deaths, but fate overtook them too. Alexander, 
 Pompey, Julius Caesar, razed city after city to 
 the ground, and cut thousands and thousands to 
 pieces, horse and foot, upon the field of battle, 
 but for them too came the hour of departure. 
 Heraclitus after all his speculations on the con- 
 flagration of the universe, was water-logged with 
 dropsy, and died in a plaster of GQW dung 
 Democritus was killed by vermin ; and Socrates 
 by vermin of another kind. What does it all 
 come to ? This. You embark, you make life's 
 voyage, you come to port : step out. If for 
 another life, there are gods everywhere, there 
 as here. If out of all sensation, then pains and 
 pleasures will solicit you no more, and you will 
 drudge no more for the carnal shell, which is so 
 unworthy of its ministering servant. For the 
 spirit is mind and god, the body refuse clay. 
 
 Do not waste what is left of life in regarding 
 other men, except when bent upon some unselfish 
 gain. Why miss opportunities for action by thus 
 persistently regarding what so-and-so is doing 
 and why, what he is saying or thinking or 
 
in TO HIMSELF 25 
 
 planning, or anything else that dazes and distracts 
 you from allegiance to your Inner Self? In the 
 sequence of your regards, shun wayward random 
 thoughts, and, above all, meddling and ill-nature ; 
 limit yourself habitually to such regards, that if 
 suddenly asked ' What is in your thoughts now ? ' 
 you could tell at once the candid and unhesitating 
 truth a direct plain proof, that all your thoughts 
 were simple and in charity, such as befit a social 
 being, who eschews voluptuous or even self-in- 
 dulgent fancies, or jealousy of any kind, or malice 
 and suspicion, or any other mood which you would 
 blush to own. A man so minded, and committed 
 finally to the pursuit of virtue, is indeed a priest 
 and minister of gods, true to that inward and 
 implanted power, which keeps a man unsoiled by 
 pleasure, invulnerable by pain, free from all touch 
 of arrogance, innocent of all baseness, a combatant 
 in the greatest of all combats, which is the mastery 
 of passion, steeped in justice to the core, and with 
 his whole heart welcoming all that befalls him as 
 his portion : I seldom, and only in view of some 
 large unselfish gain, does he regard what other 
 men say or do or think. In action his own 
 conduct is his sole concern, and he realises 
 
26 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 without fail the web of his own destiny ; action he 
 makes high, convinced that destiny is good ; for 
 his apportioned destiny sweeps man on with the 
 vaster sweep of things.: He forgets not his bond 
 of brotherhood with every rational creature ; nor 
 that the law of man's nature implies concern for 
 all men ; and that he must not hold by the 
 opinion of the world, but of those only who live 
 conformably to nature. He bears steadily in 
 '. mind what manner of men they are who do not 
 \ so live, and at home and abroad, by night and 
 \ by day, what kind of company they keep ; nor 
 \ can he take account of such men's praise, when 
 they do not even please or satisfy themselves. 
 
 *sr> 
 
 5 Let action be willing, disinterested, well- 
 advised, ungrudging ; thought modest and un- 
 pretentious. No overtalking and no overdoing. 
 Give the god within the control of what you are 
 a living man, full-aged, a citizen, a Roman, an 
 Imperator/ you have held the van ; you are as 
 one who waits for the retreat from life to sound, 
 ready for the march, needing not oath nor witness. 
 Herein is the secret of brightness, of self-complete- 
 ness without others' aid, and without the peace 
 which is in others' gift Upright, not uprighted. 
 
in TO HIMSELF 27 
 
 Does man's life offer anything higher than 6 
 justice, truth, wisdom, and courage, t in a word, 
 than the understanding at peace with itself, in 
 conforming action to the law of reason, and with 
 destiny in all apportionments that lie beyond its 
 own control ? If you sight anything higher still, 
 turn to it, say I, with your whole heart, and have 
 fruition of your goodly find. But if there appear 
 nothing higher than the implanted deity within, 
 which gives the impulses their mandate, which 
 scrutinises the impressions, which (in the words of 
 Socrates) is weaned from the affections of sense, 
 which takes its mandate from the gods, and con- 
 cerns itself for men ; and if all else proves mean 
 and cheap in comparison with this, allow no scope 
 to any rival attraction or seduction, which will 
 preclude you from the undistracted cultivation of 
 your own peculiar good. No outer claimant not 
 popular applause, nor power, nor wealth, nor self- 
 indulgence may compete with the authorisations 
 of the social reason. For a moment they may seem 
 to harmonise, but suddenly they take the mastery, 
 and sweep you from your moorings. I say then, 
 simply and freely, choose the highest and hold 
 it fast. The highest is that in which lies true 
 
28 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 advantage. If your advantage as a reasoning 
 being, make sure of it ; if only as a living thing, 
 so state the case, not bolstering your judgment 
 by any self-conceit, only be sure there lurks no 
 error in your scrutiny. 
 
 Never prize anything as self-advantage, which 
 will compel you to break faith, to forfeit self- 
 respect, to suspect or hate or execrate another, to 
 play false, to desire anything which requires screens 
 or veils. He who is loyal to his own indwelling 
 mind and god, and a willing votary of that inward 
 grace, makes no scene, heaves no sighs, needs not 
 a wilderness nor yet a crowd. The best is his, 
 the life that neither seeks nor shuns. Whether 
 his soul in its material shell remains at his disposal 
 for a longer or a shorter space, he cares not a whit. 
 So soon as it is time for him to take his leave, he 
 is as ready to go his way as to engage in any 
 other seemly or self-respecting act ; careful of one 
 thing only, that while life shall last, his under- 
 standing shall never disown the relation of a being 
 possessed of mind and social aim. 
 
 In the understanding throughly purged and 
 chastened, there is no place for ulcerous sore or 
 fester. Destiny cannot cut short the man's career 
 
in TO HIMSELF 29 
 
 still incomplete, like an actor quitting the stage 
 before the piece is finished and played out. He 
 does not cringe nor brag, he does not lean nor 
 yet stand off, he is accountable to none and yet 
 has no concealments. 
 
 Treat reverently your assumptive faculty : by 9 
 it and it alone is your Inner Self secured against 
 assumptions not in harmony with nature and with 
 the constitution of a rational creature. It is our 
 warranty for mental circumspection, for community 
 with men, and for the walk with gods. 
 
 Casting all else away, hold fast these few 10 
 verities. And bear in mind withal that every man 
 lives only in the present, this passing moment ; 
 all else is life outlived, or yet undisclosed. Man's 
 life has but a tiny span, tiny as the corner of earth 
 on which he lives, short as fame's longest tenure, 
 handed along the line of short-lived mortals, who 
 do not even know themselves, far less the dead 
 of long ago. 
 
 To these add yet one injunction more. Always 11 
 define and outline carefully the object of percep- 
 tion, so as to realise its naked substance, to dis- 
 criminate its own totality by aid of its surroundings, 
 to master its specific attributes, and those of the 
 
30 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 component elements into which it can be analysed. 
 Nothing so emancipates the mind, as the power of 
 systematically and truthfully testing everything 
 that affects our life, and looking into them in such 
 a way as to infer the kind of order to which each 
 belongs, the special use which it subserves, its 
 relation and value to the universe, and in particular 
 to man as a citizen and member of that supreme 
 world-city, of which all other cities form as it 
 were households. What is the object, ask, which 
 now produces the given impression upon me? of 
 what is it compounded ? how long has it to last ? 
 on what virtue does it make demand ? gentleness, 
 courage, truth, good faith, simplicity, self-help, or 
 what ? In each case say, This comes from god ; 
 or, This is part of the co-ordination, the concaten- 
 ating web, the concurrence of destiny : or, This is 
 from one who is of the same stock and kind and 
 fellowship as I, but who is ignorant of his true 
 relation to nature ; I am not ignorant, and there- 
 fore in accordance with nature's law of fellowship 
 I treat him kindly and justly ; though at the same 
 time in things relative I strive to hit their proper 
 worth. 
 12 If you put to use the present, earnestly, vigor- 
 
in TO HIMSELF 31 
 
 ously, and considerately, following the law of 
 reason ; if, careless of by-gains, you keep your god 
 within pure and erect, as though at any moment 
 liable to be re-claimed ; if, waiting for nothing and 
 shunning nothing, you keep your being whole, 
 conforming present action to nature's law, and 
 content with even truth of word and utterance, 
 then you will be in the way of perfection. And 
 none has power to hinder. 
 
 As surgeons keep their instruments and knives 13 
 at hand for sudden calls upon their skill, keep you 
 your principles ever ready to test things divine 
 and human, in every act however trifling remem- 
 bering the mutual bond between the two. No 
 human act can be right without co-reference to 
 the divine, nor conversely. 
 
 Be not misguided any more : you will not now 14 
 re-read your Memorabilia, nor your deeds of ancient 
 Rome and Greece, nor the essays and extracts 
 which you garnered for old age. No, push forward 
 to the end, fling empty hopes away, and as you care 
 for self, to your own rescue, while you yet may. 
 
 They little know the full meaning of to steal, to 15 
 sow, to buy, to be at peace, to see the right course : 
 such seeing needs another organ than the eye. 
 
32 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK in 
 
 16 Body, soul, mind, these three : to the body 
 belong sensations, to the soul impulses, to the 
 mind principles. The impressions of sense we 
 share with cattle of the field : the pulls of impulse 
 with brute beasts, with catamites, with Phalaris, 
 or Nero ; and mind is still the guide to obvious 
 duties, even for the atheist, the traitor, and for 
 those who lock the door for sin. Well then, if all 
 else is shared, the good man's one distinction is to 
 welcome gladly all that in the web of destiny 
 befalls ; to keep the god implanted in his breast 
 unsoiled, not perturbed by any tumult of impres- 
 sions, keeping his watch serene, a seemly follower 
 of god, not false to truth in utterance, or to justice 
 in act. Though the whole world misdoubt him 
 because his life is simple, self-respecting, and 
 cheerful, he is angered with no man, and does 
 not turn aside from the path that leads to his 
 life's goal, unto which he must come pure and 
 peaceful and ready to depart, in unrebellious 
 harmony with his appointed portion. 
 
BOOK IV 
 
 CK coy r^P T^NOC ecMGN. CLEANTHES 
 
 0U)N MeCTA K<\1 A(MMO'NO)N. EPICTETUS 
 
 WHEN the sovereign power within is true to 1 
 nature, its attitude towards outer circumstance is 
 that of ready adjustment to whatever is possible 
 and offered for acceptance. It does not set its 
 affections on any determinate material, but keeps 
 each impulse and preference conditional and subject 
 to reservation. Obstacles encountered it converts 
 into material for itself, just as fire lays hold of 
 accumulations, which would have choked a feeble 
 light ; for a blaze of fire at once assimilates all 
 that is heaped on, consumes it, and derives new 
 vigour from the process. 
 
 Let no act be performed at random, or without 2 
 full philosophic consideration. 
 
 Men seek retirement in country house, on shore 3 
 
34 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 or hill ; and you too know full well what that yearn- 
 ing means. Surely a very simple wish ; for at what 
 hour you will, you can retire into yourself. No- 
 where can man find retirement more peaceful and 
 untroubled than in his own soul ; specially he who 
 hath stores within, a glance at which straightway 
 sets him at perfect ease ; meaning by ease good 
 order in the soul, this and nothing else. Ever 
 and anon grant yourself this retirement, and so 
 renew yourself. Have a few principles brief and 
 elemental, recurrence to which will suffice to shut 
 out the court and all its ways, and anon send you 
 back unchafing to the tasks to which you must 
 return. What is it chafes you ? Men's evil-doing ? 
 Do but fall back upon your tenet, that rational 
 beings exist for one another, that forbearance is a 
 part of justice, that wrong-doing is involuntary, 
 and think of all the feuds, suspicions, hates and 
 brawls, that ere now lie stretched in ashes ; think, 
 and be at rest. Or is it the portion assigned 
 you in the universe, at which you chafe ? Recall 
 to mind the alternative either a foreseeing pro- 
 vidence, or blind atoms and all the abounding 
 proofs that the world is as it were a city. Or is 
 it bodily troubles that assail ? Realise again that 
 
iv TO HIMSELF 35 
 
 when the understanding has once possessed itself 
 and recognised its own prerogative, it is not bound 
 up any more with the pneuma-current, smooth or 
 rough, and recur to all that you have learned and 
 accepted regarding pain and pleasure. Or does 
 some bubble of fame torment you ? Then fix 
 your gaze on swift oblivion, on the gulf of infinity 
 this way and that, on the empty rattle of plaudits 
 and the undiscriminating fickleness of professed 
 applause, on the narrow range within which you 
 are circumscribed. The whole earth is but a 
 point, your habitation but a tiny nook thereon : 
 and on the earth how many are there who will 
 praise you, and what are they worth ? Well then, 
 remember to retire within that little field 1 of self. 
 Above all do not strain or strive, but be free, and 
 look at things as a man, as a human being, as a 
 citizen, as a mortal. Foremost among the maxims 
 to which you can bend your glance, be these two 
 first, things cannot touch the soul, but stand with- 
 out it stationary ; tumult can arise only from views 
 within ourselves : secondly, all things you see, 
 in a moment change and will be no more ; ay, 
 think of all the changes in which you have 
 1 See x. 23, note. 
 
36 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 yourself borne part. The world is a process of 
 variation ; life a process of views. 
 
 If the mind-element is common to us all, so 
 likewise is that reason which makes us rational ; 
 and therefore too that reason, which bids us do or 
 leave undone ; and therefore the world-law ; there- 
 fore we are fellow-citizens, and share a common 
 citizenship ; and the world is as it were a city. 
 What other citizenship is common to the whole 
 of humankind ? From thence, even from this 
 common citizenship, comes our franchise mind, 
 reason, and law. If not, whence indeed ? For 
 just as the earthly element in me is derived from 
 earth, the watery from another element, breath 
 from a given source, and again the hot and igneous 
 from its own proper source for nothing comes from 
 nothing, or can pass into nothing so assuredly 
 the mind-element has likewise its own origin. 
 
 Death, like birth, is a revelation of nature ; a 
 composition of elements and answering dissolution. 
 There is nothing in it to cause us shame. It is 
 in consonance with the nature of a being possessed 
 of mind, and does not contradict the reason of its 
 constitution. 
 
 That from such and such causes given effects 
 
 
iv TO HIMSELF 37 
 
 result is inevitable ; he who would not have it so, 
 would have the fig-tree yield no juice. Fret not. 
 Remember too that in a little you and he will both 
 be dead ; soon not even your names will survive. 
 
 Get rid of the assumption, and therewith you 7 
 get rid of the sense ' I am an injured man ' ; get 
 rid of the sense of injury, you get rid of the injury 
 itself. 
 
 What does not make the man himself worse, 8 
 does not make his life worse either, nor injure him, 
 without or within. 
 
 It is a necessity demanded by the general good. 9 
 
 1 All that happens, happens aright.' Watch 10 
 narrowly, and you will find it so. Not merely in 
 the order of events, but in just order of right, as 
 though some power apportions all according to 
 worth. Watch on then, as you have begun ; in 
 all that you do, let goodness go with the doing- 
 goodness in the strict meaning of the word. In 
 every action make sure of this. 
 
 Do not take the views adopted by him who 11 
 does the wrong, nor those he would have you 
 adopt ; just look at facts, as they truly are. 
 
 Two rules of readiness ; be ready, first, to do 12 
 just that which reason, your king and lawgiver, 
 
38 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 suggests for the help of men, and, secondly, be 
 ready to change your coarse, should some one after 
 all correct and convert you out of your conceit. 
 Only the conversion must be due to some con- 
 vincing consideration, such as justice or public 
 gain, and the appeal must be of that order only, 
 not apparent pleasure or popularity. 
 
 13 Have you reason ? I have. Then why not use 
 it ? Let reason do its work, and what more would 
 you have ? 
 
 14 You exist but as a part inherent in a greater 
 whole. You will vanish into that which gave you 
 being ; or rather, you will be retransmuted into 
 the seminal and universal reason. 
 
 15 Many grains of frankincense on the same altar ; 
 one drops sooner, another later it makes no 
 difference. 
 
 16 In ten days, instead of a monkey or a beast, 
 you can become in the gods' eyes as a god, if you 
 do but revert to the principles of your creed and 
 to reverence for reason. 
 
 17 Do not live as though you had a thousand 
 years before you. The common due impends ; 
 while you live, and while you may, be good. 
 
 18 How much valuable time may be gained by 
 
iv TO HIMSELF 39 
 
 not looking at what some neighbour says or does 
 or thinks, but only taking care that our, own acts 
 are just and holy ; the good man must not heed 
 black hearts, but head straight for the goal, casting 
 not a glance behind. 
 
 He who is aflutter for fame perceives not, that 19 
 of those who remember him every man will soon 
 be dead ; so too in due course will each of their 
 successors, till the last flicker of memory, through 
 flutterings and failings, dies altogether out. Nay 
 assume that those who remember you are immortal, 
 and memory immortal, what is that to you ? To 
 you dead, absolutely nothing. Well but to you 
 living, what good is praise, except indeed for some 
 secondary end ? Why then neglect unseasonably 
 nature's present gift, and cling to what one or 
 another says hereafter? 
 
 Anything in any wise beautiful or noble, owes 20 
 the beauty to itself, and with itself its beauty ends ; 
 praise forms no part of it ; for praise does not 
 make its object worse or better. This is true of 
 the commoner forms of beauty material objects 
 for instance and works of art no less than of the 
 ideal ; true beauty needs no addition, any more 
 than law, or truth, or kindness, or self-respect. 
 
40 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 For which of these can praise beautify, or censure 
 mar? Is the emerald less perfect, for lacking 
 praise ? or is gold, or ivory, or purple ? a lyre or 
 a poniard, a floweret or a shrub ? 
 21 If souls survive death, how can the air hold 
 them from all eternity ? How, we reply, does 
 earth hold the bodies of generation after generation 
 committed to the grave ? Just as on earth, after 
 a certain term of survival, change and dissolution 
 of substance makes room for other dead bodies, 
 so too the souls transmuted into air, after a period 
 of survival, change by processes of diffusion and 
 of ignition, and are resumed into the seminal prin- 
 ciple of the universe, and in this way make room 
 for others to take up their habitation in their stead. 
 Such is the natural answer, assuming the survival 
 of souls. And we must consider not only the sum 
 total of bodies duly buried, but also of creatures 
 daily devoured by ourselves and the other animals. 
 What numbers are thus consumed, and as it were 
 buried in the bodies of those who feed on them ! 
 Yet the requisite room is provided by the assimila- 
 tion into blood, and forms of variation into air or fire. 
 How can the truth be searched out in this case ? 
 By distinguishing between matter and cause. 
 
iv TO HIMSELF 41 
 
 Do not be dazed by the whirl. Whatever the 22 
 impulse, satisfy justice ; whatever the impression, 
 make sure of certitude. 
 
 I am in harmony with all, that is a part of thy 23 
 harmony, great Universe. For me nothing is early 
 and nothing late, that is in season for thee. All 
 is fruit for me, which thy seasons bear, O Nature ! 
 from thee, in thee, and unto thee are all things. 
 " Dear City of Cecrops ! " saith the poet : and wilt 
 not thou say, ' Dear City of God ' ? 
 
 " Do few things \ if you would have cheer" A 24 
 better rule methinks is to do only things necessary, 
 things which in a social being reason dictates, and 
 as it dictates. For this brings the cheer that 
 comes of doing a few things, and doing them well. 
 Most of the things we say or do are not necessary ; 
 get rid of them, and you will gain time and tran- 
 quillity. Thus in every case a man should ask 
 himself, Is this one of the things not necessary? 
 and we ought to get rid not only of actions, that 
 are not necessary, but likewise of impressions ; 
 then superfluous actions will not follow in their 
 train. 
 
 Make trial of the good man's life and see how 25 
 in your case it succeeds of the man satisfied with 
 
42 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 his allotted portion in the universe, and content to 
 keep his action just, his ^disposition charitable. 
 
 26 You have seen the other side of the picture ? 
 Now look on this. Be tranquil : be simple. Does 
 another do wrong ? The wrong is his own. Does 
 aught befall you ? It is well a part of the destiny 
 of the universe ordained for you from the beginning ; 
 all that befalls was part of the great web. In fine, 
 Life is short ; let us redeem the present by help 
 of reasonableness and right. In relaxation, be 
 sober. 
 
 27 Either an ordered universe, or else a welter of 
 confusion. Assuredly then a world -order. Or 
 think you that order subsisting within yourself is 
 compatible with disorder in the All ? And that 
 too when all things, however distributed and 
 diffused, are affected sympathetically. 
 
 28 "A black heart" ay, a womanish, a perverse 
 heart, a heart of brute beast or babe or cattle, 
 stupid and false and hypocritical, a huckster's or a 
 tyrant's. 
 
 29 If he who does not recognise what is in the 
 universe is a stranger to the universe, none the 
 less is he who does not recognise what is passing 
 there. He is an exile, expatriated from the com- 
 
iv TO HIMSELF 43 
 
 munity of reason ; a blind man, with cataract of the 
 mental eye ; a pauper, who needs another's help, 
 and cannot provide his own living ; an excrescence, 
 who as it were excretes and separates himself from 
 the order of nature, by discontent with his sur- 
 roundings ; for the same nature which produced 
 you, produced them too ; a social outcast, who 
 dissevers his individual soul from the one common 
 soul of reasoning things. 
 
 One philosopher goes without coat ; another 30 
 without book. Quoth our half-clad friend, ' Bread 
 I have none, yet I hold fast to reason.' And so 
 say I, ' Provender of learning I have none, and 
 yet hold fast.' 
 
 * Love your trade, however humble,' and find in 31 
 it refreshment. Spend life's remainder, as one who 
 with his whole heart has committed his all to the 
 gods, and is neither tyrant nor slave to any man. 
 
 Picture, for instance, the times of Vespasian 32 
 there you see folk marrying, rearing children, 
 falling sick, dying, warring, feasting, trading, farm- 
 ing, flattering, pushing, suspecting, plotting, praying 
 for deaths, grumbling at fate, loving, amassing, 
 coveting consulships or crowns. Yet, where now 
 is all that restless life ? Or pass a step on to the 
 
44 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 \ 
 
 times of Trajan ! Again it is the same. That 
 life too is dead. So likewise scan the many 
 registers of ages and of nations ; see how hard 
 they strove, how fast they fell, and were resolved 
 into the elements. Above all dwell in retrospect 
 on those whom you yourself have seen straining 
 after vanities, instead of following out the law of 
 their own being, and, clinging tight to that, resting 
 content. This acts as a sure reminder that interest 
 in an object must be in proportion to the real 
 worth of the particular object. It will save you 
 from disheartenment not to become unduly en- 
 grossed in things of lesser moment 
 33 The accustomed phrases of old days are the 
 archaisms of to-day. So too the names that were 
 once on all men's lips, are now as it were archaisms 
 Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus ; and a little 
 later, Scipio and Cato ; yes even Augustus, and so 
 with Hadrian and Antoninus. All things fade, as 
 a tale that is told, and soon are buried in complete 
 oblivion. This is true even of the shining lights 
 of fame. As for the rest, no sooner is the breath 
 out of them, than they are * to fortune and to fame 
 unknown.' 1 And what, after all, is eternity of 
 
 1 Marcus quotes two familiar epithets from Homer, Od. i. 242. 
 
iv TO HIMSELF 45 
 
 fame ? Just emptiness. What then remains, 
 worthy of devotion ? One thing only ; the under- 
 standing just, action unselfish, speech that abhors 
 a lie, and the disposition that welcomes all that 
 befalls, as inevitable, as familiar, and as flowing 
 from a like origin and source. 
 
 Freely resign yourself to Clotho, helping her 34 
 to spin her thread of what stuff she will. 
 
 Everything is but for a day, remembrancer alike 35 
 and the remembered. 
 
 Watch how all things continually change, and 36 
 accustom yourself to realise that Nature's prime 
 delight is in changing things that are, and making 
 new things in their likeness. All that is, is as it 
 were the seed of that which shall issue from it. 
 You must not limit your idea of seed to seeds 
 planted in the earth or in the womb which is 
 most unphilosophical. 
 
 Death is at hand but not yet are you simple, 37 
 or unperturbed, or incredulous of possible injury 
 from without, or serene towards all, or convinced 
 that in just dealing alone is wisdom. 
 
 Descry men's Inner Selves, and see what the 38 
 wise shun or seek. 
 
 Evil for you lies not in any self external to 39 
 
46 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 your own ; nor yet in any phase or alteration of 
 your material shell. Where is it then ? In that 
 part of you which forms your views of what is evil. 
 Refuse the view, and all is well. Though the poor 
 flesh, to which it is so near allied, be cut or burned, 
 fester or rot, still let this judging faculty remain 
 at peace, adjudging nothing either bad or good, 
 that can equally befall the bad man and the good. 
 For that which equally befalls a man, whether he 
 conforms to nature or no, is neither for nor against 
 nature. 
 
 40 Constantly picture the universe as a living 
 organism, controlling a single substance and a single 
 soul, and note how all things are assimilated to a 
 single world-sense, all act by a single impulse, and 
 all co-operate towards all that comes to pass ; and 
 mark the contexture and concatenation of the web. 
 
 41 What am I ? " A poor soul laden with a corpse " 
 said Epictetus. 
 
 42 Things in change take no harm, nor the pro- 
 ducts of change good. 
 
 43 Time is a river, the mighty current of created 
 things. No sooner is a thing in sight, than it is 
 swept past, and another comes sweeping on, and 
 will anon be by. 
 
iv TO HIMSELF 47 
 
 All that befalls is as accustomed and familiar 44 
 as spring rose, or summer fruit ; so it is with 
 disease, death, slander, intrigue, and all else that 
 joys or vexes fools. 
 
 Subsequents follow antecedents by bond of 45 
 inner consequence ; it is no merely numerical 
 sequence of arbitrary and isolated units, but 
 a rational interconnexion. And just as things 
 existent exhibit harmonious co-ordination, so too 
 things coming into being display not bare succes- 
 sion but a marvellous internal relationship. 
 
 Remember the word of Heraclitus. " The 46 
 death of earth the birth of water, the death of 
 water the birth of air, the death of air fire," and 
 so conversely. Remember too his "reveller, un- 
 conscious which way his road leads " ; and again, 
 " men quarrel with their ever-present friend," even 
 with the reason that disposes the universe ; and 
 his " To what they meet each day, men still keep 
 strange." And again, " We must not act and speak 
 like men asleep," albeit even then we seem to act 
 and speak ; l nor yet " as children from their father's 
 lips," that is to say, blindly take all for granted. 
 
 Suppose some god informed you that to-morrow, 47 
 
 1 The same mot is cited again vi. 42. 
 
48 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 or at most the day after, you would be dead, you 
 would not be greatly exercised whether it were 
 the day after rather than to-morrow, not if you 
 have a spark of spirit for what difference is 
 there worth considering? So, too, never mind 
 whether it is ever so many years hence, or to- 
 morrow. 
 
 48 Constantly realise how many physicians are 
 dead, who have often enough knit their brows over 
 their patients ; how many astrologers, who have 
 pompously predicted others' deaths ; philosophers, 
 who have held disquisitions without end on death 
 or immortality ; mighty men, who have slain their 
 thousands ; tyrants, who in exercise of their pre- 
 rogative of death have blustered as though they 
 were Immortals ; whole cities buried bodily, Helice, 
 Pompeii, Herculaneum, and others without end. 
 Then count up those whom you have known, one 
 by one ; how one buried another, was in his turn 
 laid low, and another buried him ; and all this in a 
 little span ! In a word, look at all human things, 
 behold how fleeting and how sorry but yesterday 
 a mucus-clot, to-morrow dust or ashes ! Spend 
 your brief moment then according to nature's law, 
 and serenely greet the journey's end, as an olive 
 
 
iv TO HIMSELF 49 
 
 falls when it is ripe, blessing the branch that bare it 
 and giving thanks to the tree which gave it life. 
 
 Be like the headland, on which the billows dash 49 
 themselves continually ; but it stands fast, till 
 about its base the boiling breakers are lulled to rest. 
 Say you, ' How unfortunate for me that this should 
 have happened ' ? Nay rather, ' How fortunate, 
 that in spite of this, I own no pang, uncrushed by 
 the present, unterrified at the future ! ' The thing 
 might have happened to any one, but not every 
 one could have endured without a pang. Why 
 think that a misfortune, rather than this a good 
 fortune ? Can you apply the term misfortune 
 at all to that which is not a frustration of men's 
 nature? or can you regard anything as a frustra- 
 tion of his nature, which is not contrary to the will 
 of that nature ? Think rather You have learned 
 the will of nature. Can that which has befallen 
 you possibly prevent you from being just, lofty, 
 temperate, discerning, circumspect, truthful, self- 
 respecting, free, and all else in which man's nature 
 finds its full reward ? Remember then henceforth 
 in every case where you are tempted to repine, to 
 apply this principle not, ' The thing is a misfor- 
 tune,' but * To bear it bravely is good fortune.' 
 
 E 
 
50 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK iv 
 
 50 A simple, yet effectual, help towards disregard 
 of death, is to dwell on those who have clung 
 tenaciously to life. What have they got by it, 
 more than those taken in their prime ? Some- 
 where, somewhen, in any case they lie low, Cadici- 
 anus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, and the rest who, 
 however many they first carried to the grave, came 
 thither themselves at last. And how slight the 
 difference after all, how much afflicted, how ill- 
 companioned, and in how poor a body ! It is 
 as nothing, compared with the unfathomable past 
 and the infinite beyond. In the presence of that, 
 is not * Trigerenian Nestor ' 1 as the three days' 
 babe? 
 
 51 Ever run the short way : and the short way is 
 the way of nature, aiming at perfect soundness in 
 every word and every act. Such is the rule that 
 gives deliverance from worry and irresolution and 
 all secondary aims and artifice. 
 
 1 M. plays upon the familiar epithet * Gerenian ' of Nestor, the 
 typical ancient of Greek literature, and Trigeron (rpiytywv) ' thrice- 
 aged/ an epithet applied to Nestor by the Greek epigrammatists. 
 
BOOK V 
 
 IN the morning, when you feel loth to rise, fall 1 
 back upon the thought ' I am rising for man's 
 work. Why make a grievance of setting about 
 that for which I was born, and for sake of which 
 I have been brought into the world ? Is the end 
 of my existence to lie snug in the blankets and 
 keep warm ? ' ' It is more pleasant so.' ' Is it 
 for pleasure you were made ? not for doing, 
 and for action ? Look at the plants, the sparrows, 
 the ants, spiders, bees, all doing their business, 
 helping to weld the order of the world. And 
 will you refuse man's part ? and not run the 
 way of nature's ordering ? ' ' Well, but I must 
 have rest.' 'True, yet to rest too nature sets 
 bounds, no less than to eating and to drinking : in 
 spite of which you pass the bounds, you transgress 
 
52 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 nature's allowance : while in action, far from that, 
 you stop short of what is within your power. 
 You do not truly love yourself; if you did, you 
 would love your nature, and that nature's will. True 
 lovers of their art grow heart and soul absorbed 
 in working at it, going unwashed, unfed ; you 
 honour your nature less than the carver does his 
 carving, or the dancer his dancing, or the hoarder 
 his heap, or the vainglorious man his glory. 
 They, for their darling pursuit, readily forego food 
 and sleep, to advance that upon which they are 
 bent. To you, does social action seem cheaper 
 than such things, and worth less devotion ? ' 
 
 What a solace to banish and efface every 
 tumultuous, unauthorised impression, and straight- 
 way to be lapped in calm ! 
 
 Claim your right to every word or action that 
 accords with nature. Do not be distracted by 
 the consequent criticism or talk, but if a thing 
 is good to be done or said, do not disclaim 
 your proper right. Other men's self is their own 
 affair, they follow their own impulse : do not 
 you heed them, but keep the straight course, 
 following your own nature and the nature of the 
 universe ; and the way of both is one. 
 
v TO HIMSELF 53 
 
 I walk the ways of nature, until I fall and 4 
 shall find rest, exhaling my last breath into that 
 element from which day by day I draw it, and 
 falling upon that wherefrom my father stored my 
 seed of life, my mother the blood, my nurse the 
 milk ; which for these many years provides my 
 daily meat and drink, supports my tread, bears 
 each indignity of daily use. 
 
 You have no special keenness of wit. So be 5 
 it yet there are many other qualities of which 
 you cannot say, * I have no gift that way.' Do 
 but practise them : they are wholly in your power ; 
 be sincere, dignified, industrious, serious, not 
 too critical or too exacting, but considerate and 
 frank, with due reserves in action, speech, and 
 accent of authority. See how many good qualities 
 you might exhibit, for which you cannot plead 
 natural incapacity or unfitness, and how you fail 
 to rise to your opportunities. When you murmur, 
 when you are mean, when you flatter, when you 
 complain of ill-health, when you are self-satisfied 
 and give yourself airs and indulge one humour 
 after another, is it forced on you by lack of 
 natural gifts ? Heavens ! You might long since 
 have been delivered from all that. It is only after 
 
54 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 all a question of some slowness, some lack of 
 quickness in perception ; and this you can train 
 and discipline, if you do not shut your eyes to it 
 or indulge your own stupidity. 
 
 There is a kind of man, who, whenever he does 
 a good turn, makes a point of claiming credit for it ; 
 and though he does not perhaps press the claim, 
 yet all the same at heart he takes up the position 
 of creditor, and does not forget what he has done. 
 But there is another, who so to say forgets what 
 he has done : he is like the vine that bears a 
 cluster, and having once borne its proper fruit 
 seeks no further recompense. As the horse that 
 runs, the hound that hunts, the bee that hives its 
 honey, so the man who does the kindness does not 
 raise a shout, but passes on to the next act, as a 
 vine to the bearing of clusters for next season. 
 ' What ! ' you object, ' are we to class ourselves 
 with things that act unconsciously, without intelli- 
 gence ? ' * Yes indeed ; but to do so is to assert 
 intelligence ; for it is a characteristic of the social 
 being to perceive consciously that his action is 
 social.' ' Yes i' faith, and to wish the recipient 
 too to perceive the same.' 'What you say is 
 true : but if you thus pervert the maxim's mean- 
 
v TO HIMSELF 55 
 
 ing, it will make you one of those described 
 above ; who indeed are misled by plausible appeals 
 to reason. Once master the true meaning, and 
 never fear that it will lead you into neglect of any 
 social act.' 
 
 An Athenian prayer Rain, rain, dear Zeus, 7 
 upon Athenian tilth and plains. We should either 
 not pray at all, or else in this simple, noble sort 
 
 We talk of doctors' orders, and say : ^Escula- 8 
 pius has prescribed him horse exercise, or cold 
 baths, or walking barefoot. It is the same with 
 Nature's orders, when she prescribes disease, 
 mutilation, amputation, or some other form of 
 disablement. Just as doctors' orders mean such 
 and such treatment, ordered as specific for such 
 and such state of health, so every individual has 
 circumstances ordered for him specifically in the 
 way of destiny. Circumstances may be said to 
 fit our case, just as masons talk of fitting 
 squared stones in bastions or pyramids, when 
 they adjust them so as to complete a given whole. 
 The adjustment is a perfect fit. Just as the 
 universe is the full sum of all the constituent 
 parts, so is destiny the cause and sum of all 
 existent causes. The most unphilosophical recog- 
 
56 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 nise it, in such phrases as ' So it came to pass for 
 him.' So and so then* was brought to pass, was 
 ' ordered ' for the man. Let us accept such 
 orders, as we do the orders of our ^Esculapius. 
 They are rough oftentimes, yet we welcome them 
 in hope of health. Try to think of the execution 
 and consummation of Nature's good pleasure as 
 you do of bodily good health. Welcome all that 
 comes, perverse though it may seem, for it leads 
 you to the goal, the health of the world-order, 
 the welfare and well-being of Zeus. He would not 
 bring this on the individual, were it not for the 
 good of the whole. Each change and chance 
 that nature brings, is in correspondence with that 
 which exists by her disposal. On two grounds 
 then you should accept with acquiescence what- 
 ever befalls first, because it happened to you, 
 was ordered for you, affected you, as part 
 of the web issuing from the primal causation ; 
 secondly, because that which comes upon the 
 individual contributes to the welfare, the con- 
 summation, yea and the survival, of the power 
 which disposes all things. As with the parts, so 
 is it with the causes ; you cannot sever any 
 fragment of the connected unity, without mutilat- 
 
v TO HIMSELF 57 
 
 ing the perfection of the whole. In every act of 
 discontent, you inflict, so far as in you lies, such 
 severance and so to say undoing. 
 
 Do not give way to disgust, do not lose heart, 9 
 do not be discouraged at flaws in strict consistency 
 of conduct : after each check, return to the charge, 
 thankful if in most things you acquit yourself like 
 a man ; and returning, love that to which you 
 return ; turn once and again to philosophy, not 
 as the urchin to his master, but as the sore-eyed 
 to the sponge and egg, or others to salves or 
 fomentation. Obedience to reason will thus 
 become not a question of outward show, but of 
 inward refreshment. Philosophy, remember, wills 
 only that which nature within you wills ; while 
 you willed something not in accord with nature. 
 ' Why what is more agreeable ? ' says pleasure, 
 with beguiling voice. Nay but consider, is it 
 more truly agreeable than loftiness of soul, free, 
 simple, gracious and holy ? What can be more 
 agreeable than wisdom itself, when you consider 
 the smooth unhalting flow of its intelligence and 
 apprehension ? 
 
 Things are so wrapped in veils, that to gifted 10 
 philosophers not a few all certitude seems un- 
 
58 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 attainable. Nay to the Stoics themselves such 
 attainment seems precarious ; and every act of 
 intellectual assent is fallible ; for where is the 
 infallible man ? Pass to the material world ; how 
 transitory, how worthless it all is, lying at the 
 disposal of the rake, the harlot or the robber ! 
 Or take the characters of those with whom you 
 consort ; to bear with even the most gentle-minded 
 is hard work, nay hard enough to put up even 
 with oneself. In all this darkness and filth, in 
 this incessant flux of being and of time, of motion 
 and things moved, I can imagine nothing that 
 deserves high prizing or intent pursuit. On 
 the contrary, one must take comfort to oneself, 
 while awaiting natural dissolution and not chafing 
 at the delay, and find refreshment solely in 
 these thoughts first, nothing will happen to me, 
 that is not in accord with Nature : secondly, I 
 need do nothing contrary to the god and deity 
 within me ; for that no man can compel me to 
 transgress. 
 
 11 What use am I now making of my soul ? that 
 is the question. Put it to yourself at every turn 
 and ask How goes it with that part of me, 
 known as the governing Inner Self? Whose soul 
 
v TO HIMSELF 59 
 
 have I now ? the child's ? the lad's ? the woman's ? 
 the tyrant's ? the cattle's ? or the beast's ? 
 
 This may serve you as a test of what the world 12 
 calls ' goods.' When once a man pictures the 
 reality of true and veritable ' goods,' goods such 
 as wisdom self-restraint justice and courage he 
 cannot with that picture in his mind add the 
 proverbial jest upon excess of goods ; it will not 
 fit. So long as the goods he pictures are goods 
 in the popular sense, he will have an open ear 
 for the poet's epigram, and accept it as perfectly 
 in point. It is true enough of excellence, as 
 regarded by the world : otherwise the witticism 
 would not fail to shock and offend ; and applied 
 to wealth, and the appurtenances of luxury or 
 show, we accept it as a smart and pointed 
 epigram. To it then, and ask yourself Can 
 I accord the dignity or the idea of ' goods ' to 
 things which do not by their conception preclude 
 the opprobrious taunt, that the abundance of them 
 leaves the owner not a corner ' to ease himself in ' ? l 
 
 1 The reference is to a fragment of Menander, restored by Cobet 
 with the help of this paragraph, and runnfng thus : 
 
 There's an old proverb, sir, against profusion, 
 If you'll excuse the somewhat coarse allusion 
 With such a glut of goods, amid the pelf 
 You've not a corner left in which to ease yourself. 
 
60 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 13 I consist of two elements, the causal and the 
 material ; neither of which can perish or cease to 
 exist, any more than they came into being from 
 previous non-existence. It follows then that 
 every part of me will be co-ordinated by change 
 into some other part of the world-order, and that 
 again into some new part, and so on ad infinitum. 
 My existence is but a stage in the succession, and 
 so too that of my parents, and so backwards once 
 more ad infinitum. There is no objection to this 
 view, even supposing the world is ordered in 
 finite cosmic cycles. 
 
 14 Reason and the reasoning process are in 
 themselves and their action self-sufficing faculties. 
 They derive their impulse from their own begin- 
 ning ; they march to their appointed end. Hence 
 the term rectitude l applied to conduct, signifying 
 that it never swerves from the right path. 
 
 15 Nothing strictly appertains to man, which is 
 not appointed for man, as man. Such things are 
 not among man's requirements, they have no 
 warranty in man's nature, and they do not perfect 
 or complete that nature. Neither therefore does 
 
 1 The etymological correspondence between KaT6p6u<ris rectitude 
 or Tightness of action, and opBbr^ directness of movement, baffles 
 literal translation. 
 
v TO HIMSELF 61 
 
 man's true end lie in them, nor that which con- 
 summates the end, to wit the good. Were any 
 of these things appointed for man, contempt and 
 mutiny against them could not be appointed like- 
 wise ; nor could self- detachment from them be 
 laudable ; nor, if they were truly goods, could 
 going short of them minister to goodness. 
 Whereas, the more a man deprives himself of 
 such things, or acquiesces in such deprivation, the 
 better he becomes. 
 
 Repeat impressions, and your understanding 16 
 will assimilate itself to them ; for the soul takes 
 the dye of its impressions. Steep it then con- 
 stantly in such sequences as these : where life is 
 possible, so too is right life ; you live at court, 
 then at court too live aright. Or again for 
 whatsoever purpose each thing is constituted, 
 thereto it tends ; and whereto it tends, there lies 
 its end ; and where its end is, there too is each 
 thing's gain and good. It follows that the good 
 of the reasoning creature lies in social action ; for 
 it has been long since shown, that we are made 
 for social action. Is it not palpable, that the 
 lower forms exist for the higher, and the higher 
 for one another ? And things with breath of life 
 
62 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 are higher than things without ; and things with 
 reason than with breath alone. 
 
 17 Pursuit of the impossible is idiotcy ; yet for the 
 worthless to abstain from such pursuit is impossible. 
 
 18 Whatever comes upon a man, nature has 
 formed him to bear. The same trials befall 
 another ; from ignorance of what has happened, 
 or for show of superiority, he stands stedfast and 
 undemoralised. What ! ignorance and self-com- 
 placency more strong than wisdom ! For shame ! 
 
 19 Things material cannot touch the soul in anyway 
 whatever, nor find entrance there, nor have power to 
 sway or move it. Soul is self-swayed, self-moved ; 
 and soul modifies the objects upon which it plays 
 into accord with the judgments. which it approves. 
 
 20 In one respect man stands to us in the closest 
 of all relations we must do good to them and bear 
 with them. But in so far as individuals obstruct 
 my proper action, man falls into the category of 
 things indifferent, just as much as sun or wind or 
 wild beast. They may indeed contravene some 
 particular action, but inner impulse and disposition 
 they cannot contravene, for these are subject to 
 reservation and also have inner modifying power. 
 For the understanding modifies and converts every 
 
TO HIMSELF 63 
 
 hindrance to action into furtherance of its prime 
 aim ; so that checks to action actually advance it, 
 and obstacles in the way promote progress. 
 
 In the universe honour that which is highest ; 21 
 and the highest is that which all else subserves, 
 and which overrules all. So too within yourself 
 honour the highest ; there too it is the same in 
 kind : it is that within you which all other powers 
 subserve, and by which your life is disposed. 
 
 What is not injurious to the city, cannot injure 22 
 the citizen. Whenever you feel the sense of 
 injury, apply this criterion If the city is not 
 injured, neither am I myself. If the city is 
 injured, do not fly into a rage with the author of 
 the injury ; ask, what misconception prompted it ? 
 
 Bethink thee often of the swiftness with which 23 
 things that are or come to be sweep past and 
 disappear. Being is a river in continual flow ; its 
 action for ever changing, its causes infinite in 
 variation. Hardly a thing stands fast, even within 
 your own purview. Infinity past and to come is 
 a fathomless gulf, into which vanish all things. 
 How foolish then in such a world to pant, to 
 strain, to fume, as though time and troubling 
 were for long ! 
 
64 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 24 Think of the sum of being, and in what a 
 morsel of it you partake ; the sum of time, com- 
 pared with the brief atom assigned to you ; of 
 destiny, and the jot you are of it ! 
 
 25 Does another wrong me ? See he to that his 
 disposition, his actions are his own. For me, I 
 have at this present just that which universal 
 nature wills me to have, and am doing just that 
 which my own nature wills me to do. 
 
 26 Whether the physical currents run smooth or 
 rough, let them not sway the governing and 
 sovereign self within. It must not confound itself 
 with them, but remain self-determinant, and circum- 
 scribe all such affections within the parts affected. 
 When these assimilate themselves to the under- 
 standing by that sympathy of parts which exists 
 in an organic unity, we must not attempt to resist 
 the physical sensation ; but on the other hand 
 the Inner Self must not go on to assume on 
 its own authority that the affection is either good 
 or bad. 
 
 27 Live with the gods. And he lives with the 
 gods, who ever presents to them his soul acceptant 
 of their dispensations, and busy about the will of 
 god, even that particle of Zeus, which Zeus gives 
 
 
v TO HIMSELF 65 
 
 to every man for his controller and governor to 
 wit, his mind and reason. 
 
 Do you get angry at rank armpits ? or 28 
 at foul breath ? What would be the good ? 
 Mouth, armpits are what they are, and being so, 
 the given effluvia must result. ' Yes, but nature 
 has given man reason, man can comprehend and 
 understand what offends ! ' ' Very good ! Ergo 
 you too have reason ; use your moral reason to 
 move his ; show him his error, admonish him. If 
 he attends, you will amend him ; no need for 
 anger you are not a ranter, or a whore.' 
 
 You can live here on earth, as you think to 29 
 live after your departure hence. If others disallow, 
 then indeed it is time to quit ; yet even so, not 
 as one aggrieved. The cabin smokes so I take 
 leave of it. Why make ado ? But so long as 
 there is no such notice to quit, I remain free, 
 and none will hinder me from doing what I will ; 
 that is, to conform to the nature of a reasonable 
 social being. 
 
 The mind of the universe is social. For see, 30 
 it has made the lower for sake of the higher ; and 
 combines the higher in a mutual harmony. See 
 how it gives its mandate, secures co-ordination, 
 
66 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 apportions everywhere according to worth, and 
 combines the dominants in mutual accord. 
 
 31 What of your past behaviour to the gods, to 
 your parents, brothers, wife, children, teachers, 
 tutors, friends, intimates, household? Can you, 
 in respect of all, say 
 
 I wrought no froward deed, said no rude word. 1 
 Yet recollect all that you have gone through, and 
 all you have found strength to bear : remember 
 that the story of your life is fully told and its 
 service accomplished ; recollect how many sights 
 of beauty you have seen ; how many pleasures 
 and pains foregone ; how many ambitions disre- 
 garded ; and how often you have shown grace to 
 the graceless. 
 
 32 How is it that souls untrained and ignorant 
 confound the trained and wise? The answer is, 
 What soul is trained and wise ? That only which 
 knows the beginning and the end, and the reason 
 diffused through all being, which through all 
 eternity administers the universe in periodic 
 cycles. 
 
 33 A little while and you will be ashes or a 
 skeleton, a name or not so much as a name ; and 
 
 1 Homer, Od. iv. 690. 
 
v TO HIMSELF 67 
 
 what is a name but so much rattle and sound ? 
 Life and all its prizes are empty, rotten, insig- 
 nificant, snapping puppies or quarrelsome children, 
 that laugh and anon fall to crying. Faith and 
 honour, justice and truth have taken wing 
 
 From widewayed earth to heaven. 1 
 What then still detains you here ? The objects 
 of sense are changeful and unstable ; the organs 
 of sense dim, and easily imposed upon ; poor soul 
 itself mere exhalation of the blood. And good 
 repute in such a world is emptiness. What then ? 
 serenely you await the end, be it extinction or 
 transmutation. While the hour yet tarries, what 
 help is there ? what, but to reverence and bless 
 the gods, to do good to men, " to endure and 
 to refrain " ? and of all that lies outside the 
 bounds of flesh and breath, to remember that it is 
 not yours, nor in your power. 
 
 Life in smooth flow is yours, if only you hold 34 
 straight on, keeping the track in views and acts. 
 Two things are common to the soul of god, the 
 soul of man, and the soul of every rational creature. 
 First, another cannot contravene their purpose; 
 secondly, in disposition and action attuned to 
 
 1 Hesiod, Works and Days, v. 197. 
 
68 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK v 
 
 justice lies their good, and therewith cessation of 
 desire. 
 
 35 If the fault is not in me, nor the act by fault 
 of mine, nor the common weal injured, why trouble 
 more about it ? What injury is it to the common 
 weal? 
 
 36 Do not let impression overbear judgment ; 
 cope with it according to your power, and by scale 
 of worth. Should you come short at all in things 
 of secondary worth, do not regard it as an injury 
 that were an evil habitude. Like the old man 
 in the play, who at parting begged for his foster- 
 child's top, but did not forget that after all it was 
 a top and nothing more so be it too with life. 
 
 37 Declaiming from the rostra you cry, * My good 
 man, have you forgotten what these good things 
 come to after all ? ' * True/ comes the answer, 
 ' but for all that eagerly pursued.' ' Is that a good 
 reason for your joining in the folly ? ' Whereso- 
 ever stranded, I can at any time become a man 'of 
 fortune.' For ' fortune ' means self-appropriation 
 of endowments truly good, and good endowments 
 are good moods, good impulses, good acts. 1 
 
 1 The references that might clear up this section have perished, 
 and both in language and arrangement much is obscure and 
 unintelligible. 
 
BOOK VI 
 NOYC AieKo'cMHce TT&NT&. ANAXAGORAS 
 
 THE substance of the universe is tractable and 1 
 plastic : and in the disposing reason there inheres 
 no cause that makes for evil, for it contains no evil, 
 does no evil, and inflicts no injury on anything. By 
 it all things come into being and run their course. 
 
 Do your duty whether shivering or warm, 2 
 never mind ; heavy-eyed, or with your fill of sleep ; 
 in evil report or in good report ; dying or with 
 other work in hand. Dying after all is but one 
 among life's acts ; there too our business is ' to 
 make the best of it.' 
 
 Look within ; do not let the specific quality or 3 
 
 y' 
 
 worth of anything escape you. 
 
 All material things soon change by evapora- 4 
 tion, where there is unity of being ; otherwise, by 
 dispersion. 
 
70 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 5 The disposing reason knows its condition, its 
 action, and the material on which it works. 
 
 6 Not to do likewise is the best revenge. 
 
 7 Be it your one delight and refreshment, to pass 
 from social act to social act, remembering god. 
 
 8 Our Inner governing Self is that which is self- 
 excited and self- swayed, which makes itself just 
 what it wills to be, and which makes all that 
 befalls seem to itself what it wills. 
 
 9 All things run their course in accordance with 
 the nature of the universe ; there is no other com- 
 peting nature, that either comprehends this from 
 without, or is itself comprehended within, or that 
 exists externally and unattached. 
 
 10 The world is either a welter of alternate com- 
 bination and dispersion, or a unity of order and 
 providence. If the former, why crave to linger on 
 in such a random medley and confusion? why 
 take thought for anything except the eventual 
 'dust to dust'? why vex myself? do what I will, 
 dispersion will overtake me. But on the other 
 alternative, I reverence, I stand stedfast, I find 
 heart in the power that disposes all. 
 
 11 When torn in pieces as it were by press of 
 work, straightway fall back upon yourself, and do 
 
vi TO HIMSELF 71 
 
 not break tune or rhythm more than you must ; 
 by thus habitually falling back on self, you will be 
 more master of the harmony. 
 
 Had you a stepmother and a mother too, you 12 
 would be courteous to the former, but for com- 
 panionship would turn continually to your mother. 
 For you the court is one, philosophy the other. 
 To her then turn and turn again, and find your 
 refreshment ; for she makes even court life seem 
 bearable to you, and you in it. 
 
 In regarding meats or eatables, you say, So 13 
 and so is the carcase of a fish, or fowl, or pig ; or 
 again, Falernian is so much extract of grape juice ; 
 the purple robe sheep's wool dyed with juices of 
 the shell-fish ; copulation, a mere physical process. 
 Regards of this kind explore and search the 
 actual facts, opening your eyes to what things 
 really are. So should you deal with life as a 
 whole, and where regards are over-credulous, strip 
 the facts bare, see through their worthlessness, and 
 so get rid of their vaunted embellishments. Pride 
 is the arch sophist ; and when you flatter yourself 
 you are most engrossed in virtuous ends, then are 
 you most befooled. Remember what Crates says 
 of Xenocrates himself. 
 
72 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 14 Ordinary admiration fastens as a rule on 
 natural objects, whose* unity is due to ' inward 
 hold ' l or to organic growth, such for instance as 
 stones, timber, fig-trees, vines or olives : as intelli- 
 gence advances, it takes note of soul-unities as seen 
 in flocks and herds : the yet more gentle-minded are 
 appealed to by the indwelling of rational soul, not 
 as yet universal in range, but manifesting itself in 
 art, or some form of proficiency, or in the bare 
 possession of troops of slaves. 2 But he who honours 
 rational soul, of universal and social aims, no longer 
 heeds aught else, but strives before everything to 
 keep his own soul alive and quick to rational and 
 social impulses, and joins with all of like kind in 
 working to this end. 
 
 15 Things hasten into being, things hasten out of 
 it ; even as a thing comes into being, this or that 
 part is extinct : phases of flux and variation con- 
 tinuously renew the world, just as the unfailing 
 
 1 The terminology is technical : for explanation, see Intro- 
 duction, p. Ivi. 
 
 2 The reference to slaves may seem abrupt and irrelevant. But 
 at Rome the connoisseur gratified his tastes, or established his repu- 
 tation, by the employment of slaves : the men of light and leading 
 kept their 'slave' establishment of painters, gem-cutters, gram- 
 marians, scribes, philosophers, and the like, just as the wealthy of 
 to-day collect libraries or pictures or blue china. 
 
vi TO HIMSELF 73 
 
 current of time perennially renews eternity. In 
 this river of existence how can one prize much any 
 of the things that race by, on none of which one 
 can take firm stand ? it were like setting one's love 
 on some sparrow that flits past and in an instant 
 is out of sight. Life itself may be regarded as so 
 much exhalation of blood and respiration of air. 
 A single breath, an inhalation and emission, such 
 as we perform every moment, fitly compares with 
 that final emission of the quickening pneuma^ which 
 you received but yesterday at birth, and now render 
 back to the element from which you first drew it. 
 
 What is worth prizing? Not the power of 16 
 transpiration, which we share with plants ; nor 
 respiration, shared with cattle and brute beasts ; nor 
 the impressions of sense ; nor the pulls of impulse ; 
 nor herding with each other ; nor nutrition, which 
 after all is no better than excretion. What then ? 
 the clapping of men's hands? No, nor clapping 
 of their tongues ; for the applause of the multitude 
 is but a clatter of tongues. Discarding reputation 
 then, what is there that remains prizeworthy? 
 To my mind, this command of one's appointed 
 being, alike for action and inaction, in the direction 
 of its guiding pursuits and arts. For the aim of 
 
74 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 every art is right adaptation of the product to the 
 end for which it is produced ; the gardener who 
 tends the vine, the horse-breaker, the dog-trainer, 
 all seek this end ; all forms of training and teach- 
 ing make for some object ; there lies the true end 
 of worth : secure that, and you need lay claim to 
 nothing else. Give up prizing a multitude of other 
 things, or you will never be free, self-sufficing, 
 passionless. Inevitably you will envy, grudge, 
 and look askance at those who can rob you of 
 your prize, and plot against those who have what 
 you yourself covet : the sense of something lacking 
 makes discord within, and leads on to constant 
 complaining against the gods. To respect and 
 honour your own understanding alone will put you 
 at satisfaction with yourself, in harmony with all 
 things social, and in accord with the gods, well 
 pleased that is to say with their dispensation and 
 world-ordering. 
 
 17 Upwards, downwards, round and round, course 
 the elements. But the motion of virtue is none 
 of these ; of some diviner mould, it pursues the 
 even tenor of courses unimagined. 
 
 18 What a thing is man ! To contemporaries 
 living at their side they will not give a good word, 
 
vi TO HIMSELF 75 
 
 yet themselves set store on the good word of 
 posterity, whom they have never seen nor will see. 
 It comes near to being vexed at not having the 
 good word of your ancestors ! 
 
 Because your own strength is unequal to the 19 
 task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers 
 of man ; but if anything is within the powers and 
 province of man, believe that it is within your 
 own compass also. 
 
 In the gymnasium, when some one scratches 20 
 us with his nails or in lunging hits our head, we 
 do not protest, or take offence, or harbour rooted 
 suspicions of design ; no, we just keep our eye 
 upon him, not with hostility or suspicion, but with 
 good-tempered avoidance. So too with the rest 
 of life ; let us shut our eyes to much in those who 
 are as it were tussling at our side. It is open 
 to us to avoid ; we need not suspect or quarrel. 
 
 If any one can convince and show me that 21 
 some view or action of mine is wrong, I will cheer- 
 fully change : I seek the truth, which never yet 
 hurt any man. What hurts is persisting in self- 
 deceit and ignorance. 
 
 I do my own duty ; all things else distract me 22 
 not ; for they are either things without breath, or 
 
76 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 things without reason, or things misguided, that 
 know not the way. 
 
 23 You have reason ; unreasoning creatures and 
 the world of material things have none : therefore 
 in your dealings with them rise superior and free. 
 Men have reason ; therefore in your dealings with 
 them, own the social tie. In all things call upon 
 the gods. And trouble not over the time it 
 occupies ; three hours so spent avail. 
 
 24 Death put Alexander of Macedon and his 
 stable boy on a par. Either they were received 
 into the seminal principles of the universe, or were 
 alike dispersed into atoms. 
 
 25 Consider how many things, physical and 
 psychical, go on at one and the same moment 
 within each one of us ; no wonder then that many 
 more, yea all things created, co-inhere together in 
 the one great whole, which we call the universe. 
 
 26 If some one asks you, ' How is Antoninus 
 spelt ? ', will you excite yourself over the utterance 
 of each letter ? Well then, if some one flies into 
 a rage, are you going to rage back ? Will you 
 not rather quietly enumerate the characters in 
 order one by one ? Here too remember that 
 every duty is the sum of given units. Keep 
 
vi TO HIMSELF 77 
 
 steadily to these, without perturbation and with- 
 out retaliation of ill-will, pursuing methodically 
 the appointed end. 
 
 Cruel, is it not, to prevent men from pushing 27 
 for what looks like their own advantage ? Yet in 
 a sense you forbid them that, when you resent 
 their going wrong. They are doubtless bent 
 upon their own objects and advantage. ' Not 
 so/ you say, 'in reality.' Teach them so then 
 and prove it, instead of resenting it. 
 
 Death is rest from impressions of sense, from 28 
 pulls of impulse, from searchings of thought, and 
 from service of the flesh. 
 
 Shame on it ! in this mortal life, the soul to 29 
 lose heart before the body ! 
 
 See that you be not be-Caesared, steeped in 30 
 that dye, as too often happens. Keep yourself 
 simple, good, sincere, grave, unaffected, a friend to 
 justice, god-fearing, considerate, affectionate, and 
 strenuous in duty. Struggle to remain such as 
 philosophy would have you. Respect the gods, 
 save men. Life is short ; and the earthly life 
 has but one fruit, inward holiness and social acts. 
 In all things the disciple of Antoninus. Re- 
 member his resolute championship of reason, his 
 
78 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 unvarying equability, his holiness, his serenity of 
 look, his affability, his .dislike of ostentation, his 
 keenness for certitude about the facts ; how he 
 would never drop a subject, till he saw into it 
 thoroughly and understood clearly ; how he bore 
 unjust reproaches without a word ; how he was 
 never in a hurry ; how he gave no ear to slander ; 
 how accurately he scrutinised character and 
 action ; never carping, or craven, or suspicious, or 
 pedantic ; how frugal were his requirements, in 
 house and bed and dress and food and service ; 
 how industrious he was and how long-suffering ; 
 how, thanks to his abstemious living, he could 
 restrain himself till evening, without even re- 
 lieving his physical needs at the usual hour. 
 Remember his constancy and evenness in friend- 
 ship, his forbearance to outspoken opposition, 
 his cheerful acceptance of correction ; and how 
 god-fearing he was, though without superstition. 
 Remember all this, that so your last hour may 
 find you with a conscience clear as his. 
 31 Recall your true, your sober self: shake off 
 the slumber and realise that they were dreams 
 that troubled you. Now wide awake once more, 
 look on it all as a dream. 
 
vi TO HIMSELF 79 
 
 I am of body and soul. To the body all 32 
 things are indifferent ; it has no power to make 
 differences. To the understanding all things are 
 indifferent, excepting its own activities. But its 
 own activities are all within its own control : 
 Moreover, even of these, it is concerned only with 
 the present ; future or past activities are at the 
 moment themselves indifferent. 
 
 No pain of hand or of foot is contrary to 33 
 nature, so long as the foot is doing foot's work, 
 and the hand hand's. So too to man, as man, 
 no pain is contrary to nature, so long as he is 
 doing man's work. If it violates nature, for him 
 it ceases to exist and is no evil for him. 
 
 What rare pleasures please robbers, rakes, 34 
 parricides, tyrants ! 
 
 See how common craftsmen accommodate 35 
 themselves to some extent to ignorant employers, 
 but all the same hold fast to the principles of their 
 craft and decline to depart from them. Shame 
 on us, that the architect and the doctor should 
 have more respect to the principles of their craft, 
 than man to his, which he shares with the gods. 
 
 In the universe Asia and Europe are but 36 
 corners ; ocean a drop ; Athos a grain ; the span 
 
8o MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 of time, a moment in eternity. All things are 
 small, unstable, vanishing. All issue from one 
 source, starting directly from the universal Soul, 
 or derivatively consequent. Even the lion's jaw, 
 venom, and all things baleful, thorns mud or what 
 not, are consequents of things grand and beautiful. 
 Do not regard them as alien to that which you 
 worship, but reflect upon the common source 
 of all. 
 
 37 He who sees what now is, hath seen all, all 
 that was from eternity, all that shall be without 
 end ; for all things are of one kind and of one 
 form. 
 
 38 Consider oftentimes the bond that knits all 
 things in the world -order, and their mutual 
 relationship. All things as it were intertwine, 
 all are in so far mutually dear ; for thing follows 
 thing in order, as the result of the continuous 
 vibration that thrills through all, and the unity of 
 all being. 
 
 39 Put yourself in harmony with the things 
 among which your lot is cast ; love those with 
 whom you have your portion, with a true love. 
 
 40 If any tool, or implement, or utensil is doing 
 the work for which it was produced, it is well 
 
vi TO HIMSELF 81 
 
 with it ; though there the producer is no longer 
 by. But in nature's unities the power which 
 produced is still within them and abides : so 
 much the more then must you have respect to it, 
 and believe that, if you handle and employ all 
 according to its will, you have all to your mind. 
 So is it with the universe, whose all is to its mind. 
 
 If you assume anything that lies outside your 41 
 own control to be a good for you or an evil, 
 then the incidence of such evil or the depriva- 
 tion of such good drives you into finding fault 
 with the gods, and hating the men who bring 
 about, or as you suspect will bring about, such 
 deprivation or incidence : and oftentimes we sin, 
 from being bent upon such things. But if we 
 account only that which is in our own control as 
 good or bad, there remains no reason either for 
 arraigning god, or setting ourselves at feud with 
 man. 
 
 One and all we work towards one consumma- 42 
 tion, some knowingly and intelligently, others 
 unconsciously. Just as Heraclitus, was it not, 
 said of those who sleep, that they too are at 
 work, fellow-workers in the conduct of the universe. 
 
 One works in one way, another in another ; and 
 
 G 
 
82 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 not least, he who finds fault and who tries to 
 resist and undo what ts done. Even of such the 
 world has need. It remains then to make sure, 
 in which ranks you range yourself ; he who 
 disposes all things will in any case make good 
 use of you, and will receive you into the number 
 of his fellow -workers and auxiliaries. Only do 
 not you play foil to the rest like the coarse jest 
 in the Comedy, to use the figure of Chrysippus. 1 
 
 43 Does the sun claim the rain's work ? or 
 ^Esculapius that of Ceres ? or again, each single 
 star are not all different, yet all co-operating to 
 the same end ? 
 
 44 If the gods took counsel about me and what 
 ought to befall me, doubtless they counselled 
 well : a god of ill counsel one can scarce imagine. 
 And what should impel them to seek my hurt ? 
 What advantage were it either to them or to 
 the universe, which is the first object of their 
 providence ? If they took no counsel about 
 me in particular, for the universe at all events 
 
 1 Plutarch, De Comm. Not. xiv., elucidates the reference. 
 'Just as comedies introduce jests which are vulgar enough in 
 themselves, yet improve the piece as a whole ; so too you may 
 criticise evil regarded by itself, yet allow that taken with all else it 
 has its use.' 
 
vi TO HIMSELF 83 
 
 they did, and the consequent results I am bound 
 to welcome and acquiesce in. If indeed they 
 take no thought for anything at all an impious 
 creed, then let us have done with sacrifice and 
 prayer and oaths, and all other observances by 
 which we own the presence and the nearness of 
 the gods. But if after all they take no thought 
 for anything to do with us, then it is in my own 
 power to take thought for myself; and what I 
 have to consider is my own interest ; and the 
 true interest of everything is to conform to its 
 own constitution and nature ; and my nature 
 owns reason and social obligation ; socially, as 
 Antoninus, my city and country is Rome, as a 
 man, the world. These are the societies, whose 
 advantage can alone be good to me. 
 
 All that befalls the individual is for the good 45 
 of the whole. That might suffice. But looking 
 closer you will perceive the general rule, that 
 what is good for one man is good for others too. 
 But ' good ' or * interest ' must be regarded as 
 wider in range than things indifferent. 
 
 As in the amphitheatre or other places of 46 
 amusement the monotony of tedious repetitions 
 makes the spectacle pall, so is it with the experi- 
 
84 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 ence of life ; up and down, everything is one 
 monotonous round. How long? How long? 
 
 47 Constantly realise the dead men of all kinds, 
 of every vocation, of every nationality, all dead. 
 Come down if you will to Philistion, Phoebus, 
 Origanion. Pass now to other 'tribes of the 
 great dead ' : we too must pass whither so many 
 have gone before skilled orators, august philo- 
 sophers, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Socrates ; 
 the heroes of old time ; generals and monarchs 
 that came after ; and in their train Eudoxus, 
 Hipparchus, Archimedes, minds keen and lofty, 
 wits busy supple and precocious ; yes and the 
 Menippuses too, who have made man's fateful 
 fleeting life their jest. Realise all these, all long 
 since in the dust. What matters it to them ? 
 what, still more, to those who have not even left 
 a name ? Here one thing is of real worth, to 
 live out life in truth and justice, with charity even 
 to the false and the unjust. 
 
 48 When you want to cheer your spirits, con- 
 sider the excellences of those about you one so 
 effective, another so unassuming, another so open- 
 handed, and so on and so on. Nothing is more 
 cheering than exemplifications of virtue in the 
 
vi TO HIMSELF 85 
 
 characters of those about us, suggesting them- 
 selves as copiously as possible. We should keep 
 them always ready to hand. 
 
 Does it annoy you to weigh so many pounds 49 
 only, instead of three hundred ? It is the same 
 with living so many years only, and not more. 
 You are content with the quantum of matter 
 allowed you ; be so too with the time. 
 
 Try to persuade men : but act, whether it is 50 
 liked or not, when principles of justice so demand. 
 If some one obstructs you by force, welcome the 
 rebuff and own no pang, utilising the hindrance for 
 exercise of virtue in another form. Endeavour, 
 remember, was subject to reservation, and you 
 did not aspire to impossibilities. To what then 
 did you aspire? To the endeavour just such as 
 it was. Gain that, and the object, for which we 
 were sent into the world, is realised. 
 
 The ambitious man rests personal good upon 51 
 action that depends on others ; the man of pleasure 
 upon personal affections of the body ; the man of 
 mind upon personal action. 
 
 You can decline this or that view of the matter, 52 
 and so escape all tumult of soul ; things in them- 
 selves have no power to force our judgments. 
 
86 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK vi 
 
 53 Practise attention to what others say, and do 
 your best to get into the speaker's mind. 
 
 54 What is not good for the swarm is not good 
 for the bee. 
 
 55 If the sailors abused the pilot, or the sick the 
 physician, would they have any other object, than 
 to make him save the crew or heal the patients ? 
 
 56 How many with whom I came into the world 
 have already quitted it ! 
 
 57 To the jaundiced honey seems bitter ; to the 
 hydrophobe water is horrible ; to children a ball 
 is a thing of beauty. Then why lose my temper ? 
 Think you false opinion takes less effect, than bile 
 in the jaundiced or the virus in hydrophobia ? 
 
 58 No one can stop you from living according to 
 the principle of your own nature : nothing will 
 happen to you contrary to the principle of the 
 universal nature. 
 
 59 Think what men are ! whom they care to 
 satisfy ! for what results ! and by what actions ! 
 How soon time will bury all ! how much it has 
 buried already ! 
 
BOOK VII 
 
 AC\(MCON. HERACLITUS 
 HGoc TTH[-H BIOY- ZEN O 
 
 WHAT is evil ? It is what you have seen again i 
 and again ; and in every case that occurs, remind 
 yourself that it is what you have seen again and 
 again. Up and down, everywhere you will find 
 the same things, repeating themselves at every 
 page of history, ancient mediaeval or quite recent ; 
 repeating themselves every day in our own cities 
 and homes. Nothing is new ; all is stale and all 
 is fleeting. 
 
 Look to first principles ; and how can they be 2 
 deadened, but by the extinction of the impressions 
 to which they correspond ? and these you may 
 continually kindle into glow. On any given thing, 
 I have the power to take the right view ; if so, 
 why vex myself? Things outside my own under- 
 
88 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 standing are nothing to my understanding. Grasp 
 that, and you stand upright : you can ever renew 
 your life. See things once more as you saw them 
 before ; and therein you have new life. 
 
 A mimic pageant, a stage spectacle, flocking 
 sheep and herding cows, an armed brawl, a bone 
 flung to curs, a crumb dropped in the fish- 
 tanks, toiling of burdened ants, the scamper of 
 scurrying mice, puppets pulled with strings such 
 is life. In such surroundings you must take your 
 stand, considerate and undisdainful ; yet under- 
 stand the while, that the measure of the man's 
 worth is the worth of his aims. 
 
 In talk we must intelligently understand what 
 is said, and in endeavour what is done. In the 
 latter, look straight at the aim to which it tends ; 
 in the former, watch carefully the meaning 
 conveyed. 
 
 Have I understanding equal to the task, yes or 
 no ? If yes, I use it for the work, as a tool 
 supplied by Nature : if no, either I step aside in 
 favour of some one better able to accomplish the 
 work, or, if duty for some reason forbids that, I act 
 as best I can, securing the help of some one, who 
 availing himself of my direction can carry out 
 
vii TO HIMSELF 89 
 
 what is opportune and serviceable for the common 
 fellowship. For all I do, whether alone or with 
 another's help, should aim solely at what promotes 
 the service and harmony of all. 
 
 How many, after choruses of praise, have 6 
 dropped into oblivion ; how many, who swelled the 
 chorus, have long since disappeared ! 
 
 Do not be ashamed of being helped. It is 7 
 incumbent upon you to do your appointed work, 
 like a soldier in the breach. What if you are lame 
 and cannot scale the battlement alone, but can 
 with another's help ? 
 
 Let not the future perturb you. You will face 8 
 it, if so be, with the same reason which is yours to 
 meet the present. 
 
 All things intertwine one with another, in a 9 
 holy bond : scarce one thing is disconnected from 
 another. In due co-ordination they combine for 
 one and the same order. For the world-order 
 is one made out of all things, and god is one 
 pervading all, and being is one, and law is one, 
 even the common reason of all beings possessed of 
 mind, and truth is one : seeing that truth is the 
 one perfecting of beings one in kind and endowed 
 with the same reason. 
 
90 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 10 Every material thing fast vanishes into the sum 
 of being ; and every cause is quickly re-assumed 
 into the universal reason ; and the memory of 
 everything is quickly buried beneath eternity. 
 
 11 To the reasoning being the act which is 
 according to nature is likewise according to 
 reason. 
 
 12 Upright or uprighted. 
 
 13 As in physical organisms the unity is made up 
 of separate limbs, so among reasoning things the 
 reason is distributed among individuals, constituted 
 for unity of co-operation. This thought will strike 
 more home, if you constantly repeat to yourself 
 ' I am a member of the sum of reasoning things/ 
 If you substitute meros for melos part for 
 member you do not yet love men from your 
 heart ; you have yet no certitude of joy in doing 
 kindnesses ; they are still bare duty, not yet a 
 good deed to yourself. 
 
 14 Affect what will the parts of my being liable 
 to affection from without ! the parts affected can 
 if they please find fault. So long as I do not 
 view the infliction as an evil, I remain uninjured. 
 And I need not so view it. 
 
 15 Whatever any one else does or says, my duty 
 
vii TO HIMSELF 91 
 
 is to be good ; just as gold or emerald or 
 purple for ever says, Whatever any one else does 
 or says, my duty is to be emerald and keep my 
 proper hue. 
 
 The Inner Self does not agitate itself does 16 
 not, for instance, terrify itself or excite its own 
 desires. If some one else can terrify or vex it, let 
 him. It will never itself induce such moods by 
 self-assumption. The body must take thought for 
 its own hurts, as best it can, and if hurt say so ; 
 the soul, to which belong terror, vexation or any 
 assumption of the kind, refuses hurt ; you cannot 
 wrest it to any such judgment. The Inner Self is 
 self-complete, subject to none but self-created needs, 
 and free accordingly from every perturbation or 
 contravention, except such as arise from its own 
 action. 
 
 Happiness literally, god within, or good. 1 17 
 What are you about here, Impression, you 
 deceiver ? Be off, sir as you came : I will none 
 of you. * You have come as an old friend/ you 
 say ? Well, peace be with you : only, begone ! 
 
 Does change terrify you ? Yet what can come 18 
 
 1 A play on the derivation of the Greek word Eudaimonia, and 
 untranslatable. 
 
92 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 into being without change ? What after all is 
 dearer, or more proper: to Nature? Can you 
 have your bath, without change passing upon the 
 firewood ? or nourishment, without change passing 
 upon the viands ? Can any serviceable thing be 
 accomplished without change? Do you not see 
 that change within yourself is of a piece with this, 
 and equally indispensable to Nature? 
 
 19 Being is as it were a torrent, in and out of 
 which all bodies pass, coalescing and co-operating 
 with the whole, as the various parts in us do with 
 one another. How many a Chrysippus, how 
 many a Socrates, how many an Epictetus has 
 time past swallowed up ! Extend the thought to 
 every man and every thing whatsoever. 
 
 20 One thing alone torments me, the fear of doing 
 something which is not meant for the constitution of 
 man, or in the way not meant, or not meant as yet. 
 
 21 Soon you will have forgotten all ; soon all will 
 have forgotten you. 
 
 22 It is man's special gift to love even those 
 who fall into blunders : it operates as soon as it 
 suggests, that men are your brothers, that sin is 
 of ignorance and unintentional, that in a little you 
 will both be dead, that, above all, no injury is done 
 
vii TO HIMSELF 93 
 
 you ; your Inner Self is not made worse than it 
 was before. 
 
 From the sum of being, as from wax, Nature 23 
 now moulds a nag ; then breaks it up, and utilises 
 the material to make a tree ; next, a man ; next, 
 some other thing ; and each has but a brief exist- 
 ence. But it is no hardship for the chest to be 
 broken up, any more than to be knocked together. 
 
 A scowl upon the face is a violation of nature. 24 
 Repeated often, beauty dies with it, and finally 
 becomes quenched, past all rekindling. From this v 
 fact try to understand, that it is contrary to reason ; 
 if once sensibility to sin is lost, what object in 
 still living on ? 
 
 A little while, and nature which disposeth all 25 
 things will change all that you see, and of their 
 substance make new things, and others again of 
 theirs, that the world may be ever fresh. 
 
 When any one does you a wrong, set yourself 26 
 at once to consider, what was the point of view, 
 good or bad, that led him wrong. As soon as you 
 perceive it, you will be sorry for him, not surprised 
 or angry. For your own view of good is either 
 the same as his, or something like in kind : and 
 you will make allowance. Or supposing your 
 
94 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 own view of good and bad has altered, you will 
 find charity for his mistake come easier. 
 
 27 Do not imagine yourself to have what you 
 have not ; but take full account of the excellences 
 which you do possess, and in gratitude remember 
 how you would hanker after them, if you had 
 them not. At the same time take care that in 
 thus hugging them, you do not get into the habit 
 of prizing them so much, that without them you 
 would be perturbed. 
 
 28 Withdraw into yourself. By nature our reason- 
 ing Inner Self finds self -contentment in just 
 dealing and the calm which follows in its train. 
 
 29 Efface impression. Check the pulls of impulse. 
 Circumscribe time to the present. Recognise all 
 that befalls, either yourself, or another. Divide 
 and analyse each material thing into cause and 
 matter. Realise your last hour. Let the wrong 
 remain with him, with whom it first originated. 
 
 30 Keep thought intent on what is said ; enter with 
 your mind into what is done and what is doing it. 
 
 31 Be your brightness that of simplicity and 
 self-respect, and of indifference to all that is not 
 virtue or vice. Love mankind. Walk with God. 
 "All things by law" saith the sage. Yes! 
 
vii TO HIMSELF 95 
 
 Gods or atoms, it suffices to remember that All 
 things are by law. Two words sum all. 
 
 Of Death. Death, in a universe of atoms, is 32 
 dispersion ; but if all is a unity, death is either 
 extinction or transmutation. 
 
 Of Pain. Pain that is past bearing, brings an 33 
 end ; pain that lasts, can be borne. The under- 
 standing in abstraction maintains its calm, and 
 the Inner Self is unimpaired. As for the parts 
 injured by the pain, let them (as best they can) 
 state their own case. 
 
 Of Glory and the vainglorious. Look at their 34 
 understandings, what they are, what they shun, 
 what they seek. And remember that as drift 
 hides drift of piling sand, so too in life what 
 comes after soon hides what went before. 
 
 From Plato. " ' Think you the man of lofty 35 
 understanding^ whose vision ranges over all time 
 and all being, can think great things of man's 
 life?' ^Impossible' ' Such an one then ivtll 
 attach no very great importance to death' ' Death / 
 no indeed' " * 
 
 From Antisthenes. "Well-doing, ill -report 36 
 a kings portion" 
 
 1 Plato, Republic, vi. 486 A. 
 
96 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 37 Shame on it for feature and gesture and 
 exterior adornment to, obey the bidding of the 
 understanding, and for the understanding not to 
 rule its own gesture and adornment. 
 
 38 Fret not at circumstance, which recks not of it. 1 
 
 39 To the immortal gods and us give joy. 
 
 40 Lives are reaped like ears of corn, 
 One is spared, another shorn. 2 
 
 41 Though I and both my sons be spurned of God, 
 There is be sure a reason. 
 
 42 Right on my side and justice 3 
 
 43 "No wailing with the waiters, and no fever- 
 throbsr 
 
 44 From Plato. " To such an one I should justly 
 reply There, friend, you are mistaken ; a man 
 who is worth anything at all should not reckon the 
 chances of life or death, but simply ask himself, in 
 regard to any action, Is it right or is it wrong ? 
 the act of a good man or a bad ? " 4 
 
 45 " The truth is, gentlemen, it stands thus. 
 Wherever a man's post is, whether selected by 
 
 1 Euripides, Bellerophon (Fr. 298). 
 
 2 Euripides, Hypsipyle (Fr. 752). 
 
 3 Aristophanes, Acharnians, v. 66 1. 
 
 4 Plato, Apology 28 B. 
 
vii TO HIMSELF 97 
 
 himself or assigned by his commander, there, as I 
 believe, it is his duty to stand fast in the hour of 
 danger, recking nothing of death or anything else 
 in comparison ivith dishonour'' * 
 
 " my friend, I would have you see that the 46 
 noble and the good is possibly something quite 
 different from saving and being saved ; the true 
 man will take little account of a few years more 
 or less of life ; that he will leave to God, not 
 hugging life, but believing that, as the women say, 
 no man can escape the hour of destiny ; and he 
 will turn his thoughts to consider how tie can best 
 spend the term of life appointed him to live'' 2 
 
 " Survey the courses of the stars, and join their 47 
 heavenly race'' Constantly realise the mutual 
 transformations of the elements. For such 
 imaginings purge away the soils of this earth- 
 life. 
 
 A fine thought of Plato's. So likewise in 48 
 discoursing of men, we should, " as from some 
 eminence, survey earth and its herds," camps, 
 farms, marriages, severances, births, deaths, the 
 babel of the law-courts, wastes of wilderness, 
 motley barbarians, festivals, dirges, fairs, all the 
 
 1 Plato, Apology 28 E. 2 Plato, Gorgias 512 n E. 
 
 H 
 
98 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 pell-mell of life and the order wrought out of 
 opposites. 
 
 49 Review the past, its changing powers and 
 dynasties, and you can forecast the future too. 
 The same forms will in every case repeat them- 
 selves ; the march of things keeps steady time. 
 To witness human life for forty years, or forty 
 thousand, is all one. What more will you see ? 
 
 50 Growths of earth return to earth ; 
 Seeds that spring of heavenly birth, 
 To heavenly realms anon revert l 
 
 yes, by dissolution of the atomic combinations, and 
 consequent scattering of the impassive elements. 
 
 51 By meat and drink and sorcery 
 Divert the sluice of destiny ! 2 
 
 God sends the breeze ; then murmur not, 
 Undaunted face the apportioned lot. 
 
 52 "More knock -me- down" * I grant, but not 
 more social -minded, more self-respecting, more 
 
 1 Euripides, Chrysippus (Fr. 833). 
 
 2 Euripides, Supplices, v. uio-i. 
 
 3 The word belongs to the Dorian vernacular, and recalls at 
 once the Spartan apophthegm dear to Stoic teachers. Plutarch 
 thus gives it, Apoph. Lac. 236 E. A young Spartan was vanquished 
 at Olympia. ' So your antagonist,' said some one, ' proved the 
 better man.' 'Better, nay ! but more knock-me-down.' 
 
vii TO HIMSELF 99 
 
 disciplined to circumstance, more charitable to 
 the oversights of neighbours. 
 
 Where an act can be performed in accord- 53 
 ance with that reason which men share with gods, 
 have no fear. Where service may be rendered by 
 action that keeps the even way and tenor of your 
 appointed being, you need apprehend no harm. 
 
 Everywhere, always, thus much is in your 54 
 power, god-fearing contentment with your present 
 hap, just dealing in your present circle, and 
 absorption in the present impression, that none 
 intrude uncertified. 
 
 Look not aside to other men's Selves, but fix 55 
 your eyes straight on the goal, to which nature 
 guides you nature at large by circumstance, 
 your own nature by the acts required of you. 
 Everything must act according to its constitu- 
 tion : and by constitution all other things exist 
 for sake of those with reason, just as in every 
 other case the lower exist for sake of the higher, 
 and things with reason for sake of one another. 
 In man's constitution the primary element is the 
 social ; the second, that it is proof against the 
 bodily affections ; for the motions of reason and 
 mind are self- determinant, and refuse subordin- 
 
ioo MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 ation to the motions of sense or impulse, both 
 which are animal in kind. The intellectual claim 
 primacy, and will not be brought into subjection ; 
 and justly so, for their function is to use all the 
 rest. Thirdly, the constitution of man's reason 
 includes circumspection and immunity from error. 
 Let but the Inner Self hold fast to these and 
 keep a straight course, and it comes by its own. 
 
 56 As one dead, and who has heretofore not found 
 life, resolve to live out what is left in nature's 
 way, as a gift of grace. 
 
 57 Love that which comes to pass inwoven in the 
 web, that and nothing else. What could better 
 suit your need ? 
 
 58 At each cross hap keep before your eyes those 
 who had the same to bear, who consequently 
 were vexed and aggrieved and full of complaining. 
 Where are they now? nowhere. Why follow 
 their example then, instead of leaving others' 
 moods to those who sway or are swayed by them, 
 and devoting yourself solely to making what use 
 you can of the mishap ? Then you will put it to 
 good use ; you will make it your working material. 
 Aim only and care only in each action to stand 
 self-approved. In both respects remember that 
 
vii TO HIMSELF 101 
 
 that on which action is based is in itself in- 
 different. 1 
 
 Dig within. Within is the fountain of good ; 59 
 ever dig, and it will ever well forth water. 
 
 Keep the body as well as the face in control, 60 
 and avoid contortions, either when in motion 
 or at rest. Just as in the face understanding 
 exhibits itself by preserving intelligence and 
 comeliness, we must make the same demand of 
 the body as a whole. It needs no practised 
 artifice to ensure this much. 
 
 Life is more like wrestling than dancing ; it 61 
 must be ready to keep its feet against all onsets 
 however unexpected. 
 
 Always be clear whose approbation it is you 62 
 wish to secure, and what their inner principles are. 
 Then you will not find fault with unintended 
 blunders ; neither will you need credentials from 
 them, when you look into the well-springs of their 
 views and impulses. 
 
 " No soul" says the philosopher, 2 " wilfully 63 
 misses truth " ; no nor justice either, nor wisdom, 
 nor charity, nor any other excellence. It is 
 
 1 The whole is doubtful interpretation, and in parts corrupt. 
 
 2 Plato, as twice quoted by Epictetus, Arr. I, 28, 2 and 22. 
 
102 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 essential to remember this continually; it will make 
 you gentler with every one. 
 
 64 In sickness or pain remind yourself that it 
 cannot demean or vitiate your pilot understanding ; 
 it does not impair it on the universal or the social 
 side. In most cases you may find support in the 
 saying of Epicurus, that " pain cannot be past 
 bearing or everlasting, if only you bear in mind 
 its limits, and do not let fancy supplement them." 
 Remember too that many things which surprise 
 us out of patience are really in the same category 
 as pain heaviness for instance, feverishness, or 
 want of appetite. Whenever any of these makes 
 you discontent, say to yourself that you are giving 
 in to pain. 
 
 65 Do not you feel towards the inhuman, as 
 human beings too often do to one another. 
 
 66 How do we know that Telauges was not 
 morally superior to Socrates ? It proves nothing 
 that Socrates died a more notable death, or was 
 a more proficient dialectician, or showed more 
 endurance on a frosty night, or had the spirit to 
 resist when ordered to arrest Leon, or that he 
 * perked his head ' 1 in the streets. On all this 
 
 1 Cf. Plato, Symp. 221 F from Aristophanes, Clouds 362. 
 
viz TO HIMSELF 103 
 
 one may have one's doubts, even assuming it true ; 
 the one important consideration is, what sort of 
 soul had Socrates ? could he rest content with 
 being just to men, and holy towards the gods ? 
 did he on the one hand resent men's evil-doing 
 or fall in bondage to another's ignorance ? did he 
 on the other accept the portion assigned, not as 
 something counter to nature or too grievous to be 
 borne ? and did he keep the affections of the 
 mind distinct from the affections of the flesh ? 
 
 In commingling mind with the other elements 67 
 of the compound, nature did not forbid it power 
 of self-determination, and supremacy within its 
 own domain. A man may easily enough be 
 godlike, yet never be recognised as such. Ever 
 remember this, and also that true happiness lies 
 in a very few things. Do not, because dialectic 
 and physics lie beyond your ken, despair on that 
 account of freedom, self-respect, unselfishness, and 
 tractability to god. 
 
 Live life out unrebelliously in perfect peace, 68 
 though the whole world bawl its wishes at you, 
 yes though wild beasts tear limb by limb this 
 material integument of flesh. Amid it all nothing 
 can prevent your understanding from possessing 
 
104 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 itself in calm, in true judgment upon each be- 
 setting claim, and in ready use of all material 
 at its disposal. So that judgment may say to 
 circumstance, ' This is what you intrinsically are, 
 though you may get credit for being something 
 different ' : and use may say to opportunity, ' You 
 are what I was looking for. For whatever comes 
 to hand is material for the practice of rational 
 and social virtue, in a word of that art which is 
 proper to man or god.' All that befalls is so 
 much assimilative material for god or man, never 
 novel or impracticable, but familiar and apt for use. 
 
 69 Herein is the way of perfection to live out 
 each day as one's last, with no fever, no torpor, 
 and no acting a part. 
 
 70 The immortal gods do not lose patience at 
 having to bear age after age with the froward 
 generations of men ; but still show for them all 
 manner of concern. Shall you, whose end is in 
 a moment, lose heart ? you, who are one of the 
 froward ? 
 
 71 It is absurd, not to fly from one's own evil- 
 doing, which is possible, but to fly from others', 
 which is impossible. 
 
 72 Whatever the rational and social faculty finds 
 
vii TO HIMSELF 105 
 
 devoid of mind or social aim, it reasonably 
 accounts inferior to itself. 
 
 You have done a kindness, another has 73 
 received it ; why be as the foolish and hanker 
 after something more, the credit for the kindness, 
 or the recompense ? 
 
 No one tires of service rendered. Service is 74 
 action after nature's way. Do not tire then of 
 service gained by service given. 
 
 The impulse of Nature made for a world of 75 
 order. All that now happens follows in the 
 train of consequence ; else you must deny reason 
 to the sovereign ends which guide the impulse 
 of the World-soul. This thought will oftentimes 
 minister calm. 
 
BOOK VIII 
 
 AEQUANIMITAS. Antoninus 
 
 1 ONE good corrective to vainglory is to remember 
 that you cannot claim to have lived your entire 
 life, nor even from youth up, as a philosopher. 
 To many another it is no secret, and no secret 
 to yourself, how far you fall short of philosophy. 
 Having touched pitch, it is hard for you still to 
 win the title of philosopher : and your position 
 militates against it. Now that your eyes are 
 really open to what the facts are, never mind 
 what others think of you ; be self-content, if only 
 for life's remainder, just so long as nature wills 
 you to live on. You have but to apprehend 
 that will, and let nothing else distract you : 
 you have tried much, and in misguided ways, 
 and nowhere have you found the happy life ; 
 not in systems, nor wealth, nor fame, nor self- 
 
BOOK vin MARCUS ANTONINUS 107 
 
 indulgence, nowhere. Where then is happiness ? 
 in doing that which man's nature craves. How 
 do it? by holding principles, from which come 
 endeavours and actions. What principles ? prin- 
 ciples touching good and bad to wit, that 
 nothing is good for a man, which does not make 
 him just, temperate, brave, free ; nothing evil, 
 that does not produce the opposite results. 
 
 Of every action ask yourself, What does it 2 
 mean for me ? shall I repent of it ? A little while 
 and I am dead, and there is an end of all. 
 Why crave for more, if only the work I am 
 about is worthy of a being intellectual, social- 
 minded, and on a par with god ? 
 
 Alexander, Caesar, Pompey, what are they 3 
 compared with Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates ? 
 The latter saw into things and what things were 
 made of, and their Inner Selves were at one ; as 
 for the former, how much foresight did they 
 possess, and in how much were they slaves ! 
 
 Protest till you burst ! Men will go on all 4 
 the same. 
 
 First and foremost, keep unperturbed. For 5 
 all things follow the law of Nature : and in a 
 little while you will vanish and be nought, even 
 
io8 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 as are Hadrian and Augustus. Secondly, face 
 facts open-eyed, bearing in mind that it is your 
 duty to be a man and to be good ; what man's 
 nature demands, that do without swerving ; so 
 speak, as seems to you most just ; only be it 
 considerately, modestly, and with sincerity. 
 
 It is Nature's work to shift and to transpose, to 
 remove thence and to carry thither. All is change ; 
 yet need we not fear any novelty ; all is the 
 wonted round ; nay even the apportionments equal. 
 
 Every nature finds content in pursuing the 
 tenor of its way : and the reasoning nature 
 moves on its own way, when in impressions it 
 yields assent to nothing false or insecure ; when 
 it directs impulse towards social action only ; 
 when it confines inclination and avoidance to 
 things within our power ; and when it welcomes 
 every apportionment of universal nature. For of 
 this it is a part, as the nature of the leaf is part 
 of the nature of the plant ; only that leaf-nature 
 is part of nature without sense or reason and 
 liable to contravention, while man-nature is part 
 of nature that is above contravention, possessed 
 of mind, and just ; seeing that it apportions to 
 successive men, equally and by scale of worth, 
 
viii TO HIMSELF 109 
 
 their participation in time, being, cause, action, 
 and circumstance. Only do not look for exact 
 equality in every case between individual and 
 individual, but in comparing the sum totals of 
 collective wholes. 
 
 Know everything 1 you cannot ; but check 8 
 arrogance you can, rise superior to pleasures or 
 pains you can, spurn reputation you can, keep 
 your temper with the stupid and the ingrate, yea 
 even care for them, you can. 
 
 For the future let none hear you reviling court- 9 
 life, nor you 2 yourself. 
 
 Repentance is self-reproach at having let slip 10 
 something of use. Now all good must be of use, 
 and the good man's object in life ; but no good 
 man would ever repent of having let a pleasure 
 slip ; pleasure therefore is neither of use, nor good. 
 
 Of any particular thing ask, What is it in 11 
 itself, and by its constitution ? what in substance 
 
 1 A slight and plausible correction for the MS. 'read.' See 
 Appendix. 
 
 2 Some manuscripts omit 'you' and read merely 'your own,' 
 but perhaps in order to save the grammar. The variation is 
 of some importance, as with ' you ' retained the antithesis is not 
 between Court -life and his own, but between grumbling before 
 others, and grumbling to himself. With ' you ' omitted, the 
 Court must be contrasted with the Camp. 
 
no % MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 and in matter ? what in respect of cause ? what is it 
 doing in the world ? and how long does it subsist ? 
 
 12 When you are drowsy and waking comes 
 hard, remind yourself that social action belongs 
 to your constitution and to human nature, while 
 sleep is a function shared by unreasoning animals. 
 And that which belongs to the individual nature, 
 is more proper and organic to it, and likewise 
 more congenial. 
 
 13 To every impression apply, if possible, the tests 
 of objective character, of subjective effect, and of 
 logical relation. 
 
 14 Whomsoever you meet, say straightway to your- 
 self What are the man's principles of good and 
 bad ? for if he holds such and such principles 
 regarding pleasure and pain and their respective 
 causes, about fame and shame, or life and death, 
 I shall not be surprised or shocked at his doing 
 such and such things ; I shall remember that he 
 cannot do otherwise. 
 
 15 Think of being shocked at the fig-tree bearing 
 figs ! you have just as little right, remember, to be 
 shocked at the world bearing the produce proper 
 to it. Shame on the physician or the pilot who 
 is shocked at a case of fever, or a contrary wind. 
 
vin TO HIMSELF in 
 
 Remember that to change your course and to 16 
 accept correction is no surrender of freedom. Your 
 action follows your own impulse and judgment, 
 and keeps the course which your own mind sets. 
 
 If the fault rests with you, why do it ? if with 17 
 another, with what do you find fault? the atoms, 
 or the gods ? Either is idiotcy. Find fault with 
 nobody. If you can, set the doer right ; if that 
 is impossible, at least set the thing right ; if 
 even that cannot be, to what purpose is your 
 fault-finding? For everything must have some 
 purpose. 
 
 That which dies does not drop out of the 18 
 universe. Here it bides, and here too it changes 
 and is dispersed into its elements, the rudiments 
 of the universe and of yourself. And they too 
 change, and murmur not. 
 
 Everything horse, vine, or what not exists 19 
 for some end. Marvel not that even the Sun 
 says, ' I have a work to do,' and so too the 
 other gods. What then is yours ? Pleasure ? Is 
 the thought tolerable ? 
 
 Nature takes concern in everything, in its 20 
 cessation no less than its first beginning or con- 
 tinuance. It is like one casting a ball. What 
 
ii2 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 good pray is it to the ball to rise, what harm to 
 drop, or even to lie fallen ? what good to the 
 bubble to hold together, or what harm to burst ? 
 so likewise with a candle. 
 
 21 Turn a thing inside out, and see what it is 
 like ; or what it becomes like when old or diseased 
 or in decay. Short-lived are praiser and praised 
 alike, remembrancer and remembered : and that 
 too only in a corner of one continent, and even 
 there all are not in accord with one another, or 
 even with themselves : and even the whole earth 
 is but a point. 
 
 22 Attend to what you have in hand whether 
 material object, or principle, or action, or thing 
 signified. 
 
 It serves you right. You prefer becoming 
 good to-morrow to being good to-day. 
 
 23 Acting let me refer all to the service of 
 men : bearing let me take what comes, referring 
 all to the gods, and to the universal source, from 
 which all things that come to pass concatenate. 
 
 24 Think of bathing and its accessories oil, sweat, 
 filth, foul water, and all things nauseating. So is 
 it with every part of life, and each material thing. 
 
 25 First Verus, then Lucilla ; first Maximus, then 
 
vin TO HIMSELF 113 
 
 Secunda ; first Diotimos, then Epitynchanos ; 
 first Faustina, then Antoninus. And so always. 
 First Hadrian, then Celer. The keen wits that 
 were, the prophets, or the magnates, where are 
 they now ? keen wits like Charax, Demetrius the 
 Platonist, Eudaimon and the like. All lived their 
 little day, all long since dead ; some denied even 
 brief remembrance, some passed into a tale ; or 
 fading ere now out of tales. Think on these 
 things, and remember that either your mortal com- 
 pound must be dispersed into its atoms, or else 
 the breath of life must be extinguished, or be 
 transmuted and enter a new order. 
 
 Man's mirth is to do man's proper work ; and 26 
 it is proper to man to wish well to his kind, to 
 rise superior to the motions of sense, to distinguish 
 impressions that are plausible, and to survey at 
 large Nature and her processes. 
 
 Man has three relations : first to the physical 27 
 organ, his material shell : secondly, to the divine 
 cause, from which proceed all things for all ; 
 thirdly, to those with whom he has to do. 
 
 Pain is either an evil for the body and if so, 28 
 let body state its case ; or for the soul but the 
 soul can maintain its own unclouded calm, and 
 
ii4 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 refuse to view it as evil. For every judgment or 
 impulse or inclination or avoidance is within, and 
 nothing evil can force entrance there. 
 
 29 Efface impressions, reiterating to yourself It 
 rests now with me, that within this soul of mine 
 there be no vice, nor desire, nor any perturbation 
 at all ; perceiving the true nature of all things, I 
 use each at its proper worth. Remember this 
 prerogative is yours by nature. 
 
 30 Alike in Senate and in individual intercourse, 
 let your language be dignified, but not elaborate ; 
 your words all sound. 
 
 31 Look at the court of Augustus wife, daughter, 
 offspring, elders, sister, Agrippa, kinsmen, inti- 
 mates, friends, Areius, Maecenas, physicians, priests 
 the whole circle dead. Pass again to other 
 instances, to the death not of an individual, but of 
 a stock, such as the Pompeii, and to the super- 
 scription graven upon tombs LAST OF HIS LINE : 
 reflect how hard his forefathers strained, to leave 
 behind them a successor ; and how after all there 
 needs must be a last ; and here finally the extinc- 
 tion of a long line. 
 
 32 In every single action try to make life a whole : 
 if each, so far as it can, contributes its part, be 
 
vni TO HIMSELF 115 
 
 satisfied ; and that, no man can hinder. ' Some 
 outer obstacle,' you say, ' will interfere.' ' Nay, 
 but nothing can touch the justice, wisdom, reason- 
 ableness of the intention.' * But may not some 
 form of action be prevented ? ' ' Possibly ; but by 
 welcoming that prevention, and with a good grace 
 adopting the alternative, you at once substitute 
 a course that will fit into its place in the whole 
 we have in view.' 
 
 Modestly take, cheerfully resign. 33 
 
 Have you ever seen a dismembered hand, or 34 
 foot, or decapitated head, lying severed from the 
 body to which it belonged ? Such does a man, 
 so far as he can, make himself, when he refuses to 
 accept what befalls, and isolates himself, or when 
 he pursues self-seeking action. You are cast out 
 from the unity of nature, of which you are an 
 organic part ; you dismember your own self. 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. But consider the good- 
 ness of god, with which he has honoured man : he 
 has put it in his power never to be sundered at all 
 from the whole ; and if sundered, then to rejoin 
 
ii6 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 it once more, and coalesce, and resume his con- 
 tributory place. 
 
 35 Each rational being shares (speaking generally) 
 the attributes of rational nature at large, among 
 others the following : as rational nature continually 
 modifies each form of obstruction or resistance, 
 subordinates it to the scheme of destiny, and so 
 incorporates it with itself, so too can the rational 
 being convert each hindrance into material for 
 himself, and use it to further his endeavour. 
 
 36 Do not let the impression of life as a whole 
 confound you. Do not focus in one all the 
 train of possible and painful consequences ; but as 
 each trouble comes, say to yourself What is 
 there here too hard to bear or to endure? and 
 you will be ashamed to avow it so. And yet 
 again remember, that you have not to bear up 
 against the future or the past, but always against 
 the present only. And even that you minimise, 
 when you strictly circumscribe it to itself, and 
 repudiate moral inability to hold out merely 
 against that. 
 
 37 Does Pantheia or does Pergamus still sit 
 beside the bier of Verus ? Chabrias or Diotimos 
 by Hadrian's ? Folly ! And suppose they did, 
 
vni TO HIMSELF 117 
 
 would the dead be conscious of it ? or if conscious, 
 glad ? or if glad, would the mourners live on for 
 ever? must they not in the order of things first 
 turn into old men and women, and then die? and 
 when they died, what could their lovers do next ? 
 All comes to stench and refuse at last. 
 
 If you have sharp eyes, see and discern the 38 
 inly wise. 
 
 In the constitution of the reasoning being I 39 
 perceive no virtue in mutiny against justice ; in 
 mutiny against pleasure I see self-control. 
 
 Take away your own view of what you regard 40 
 as painful, and you stand unassailable. 'But of 
 what you is this true ? ' ' Of reason.' ' But reason 
 and I are not the same.' ' Very good : then spare 
 reason the pain of giving itself pain ; and if some 
 other part of you is amiss, let it keep that view to 
 itself.' 
 
 A contravention of sense is an injury to the 41 
 life -nature; so likewise is a contravention of 
 impulse ; and similarly with any other form of 
 contravention or injury to the natural constitution. 
 In the same way any contravention of mind is an 
 injury to the mind -nature. Apply all this to 
 yourself. Are you affected by pain or pleasure ? 
 
ii8 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 Sensation must see to that. Has impulse or 
 endeavour suffered some check ? Well, if it was 
 without reservation, you therein did reason a 
 wrong ; accept the universal limitation, and forth- 
 with the injury or contravention vanishes. But 
 the freehold of the mind none other may con- 
 travene ; fire cannot touch it, nor steel, nor tyrant, 
 nor slander, nor any other thing ; so long as it 
 abides " poised as a sphere self-orbed." 
 
 42 What right have I to vex myself, when I never 
 yet wilfully vexed another ? 
 
 43 To every man his own good cheer. Be mine 
 - health in the Inner Self; estranged from no 
 man, and from no vicissitude of men, let me look 
 on everything and accept everything with charitable 
 eye, and use each according to its worth. 
 
 44 Harvest the present. Those who prefer pursuit 
 of after-fame do not reflect that posterity will be 
 men just like those who gall them now ; and that 
 they too will be but mortal. And after all what 
 matters to you the rattle of their voices, or the 
 kind of views they entertain about you ? 
 
 45 Take me and cast me where you will. There 
 I shall still have my deity within serene, content 
 so long as it can feel and act after the ordering of 
 
vin TO HIMSELF 119 
 
 its own constitution. Is change of place any good 
 reason for my soul injuring and debasing itself by 
 cringing, or craving, or cowering, or flinching? 
 What indeed is worth that ? 
 
 Nothing can befall a man that is not incidental 46 
 to men ; nor a cow, nor a vine, nor a stone, 
 that is not proper to cows, vines, QT stones. Why 
 chafe then at the occurrence of that which is 
 customary and natural to each ? Nature brings 
 nothing that you cannot bear. 
 
 If you are pained by anything without, it is 47 
 
 not the thing agitates you, but your own judgment 
 
 I 
 concerning the thing ; and this it is in your own 
 
 power to efface. If the pain comes from inward 
 state and disposition, who hinders you from correct- 
 ing the principle at fault? If however the pain 
 consists in not taking some action which you per- 
 ceive to be wholesome, why not act rather than 
 prolong the pain ? ' But some obstacle stronger 
 than yourself bars the way.' ' Then grieve not ; 
 the responsibility for inaction does not lie with 
 you.' * But life is not worth living, with the act 
 undone.' ' If so, take kindly leave of life, 
 serenely owning the obstacle and dying even as 
 he dies who succeeds.' 
 
120 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 48 Remember that your Inner Self is inexpugn- 
 able, when once it rallies to itself and consistently 
 declines to act against its will, even though the 
 defiance may be irrational. How much more 
 then, when its judgment is rational and made with 
 circumspection ? Therefore the mind free from 
 passions is a citadel ; man has no stronger fortress 
 to which he can fly for refuge and remain impreg- 
 nable. Ignorant is he, who has not seen this ; 
 unhappy he, who, having seen, yet flies not to the 
 refuge. 
 
 49 Do not draw inferences in excess of that 
 which the primary impressions announce. They 
 announce, ' So and so is speaking ill of you ' ; yes, 
 but they do not add that you are thereby injured : 
 or, * I see my child is sick 1 ' ; yes, but that there is 
 danger, I do not see. Always keep strictly to the 
 first impressions, without adding comments of 
 your own, and you are unaffected. Or rather, 
 add from within the recognition that all is part of 
 the world-order. 
 
 50 The gourd is bitter : drop it then ! There are 
 brambles in the path : then turn aside ! It is 
 enough. Do not go on to argue, Why pray have 
 these things a place in the world ? The natural 
 
vni TO HIMSELF 121 
 
 philosopher will laugh at you, just as a carpenter 
 or cobbler would laugh, if you began finding fault 
 because you saw chips or parings lying about 
 their shop. And yet they have a place for the 
 rubbish ; but Nature has nothing outside herself. 
 Herein is the marvel of her handiwork, that thus 
 self-circumscribed she yet transmutes into herself 
 every content that seems corrupt and old and use- 
 less, and from the same materials recreates afresh : 
 so as to avoid the need of fresh substance from 
 without, or of some place for her refuse. Her 
 own space, her own material, and her own handi- 
 work suffice. 
 
 In action, not dilatory ; in intercourse, not 51 
 indiscriminate ; in impressions, not rambling ; your 
 soul neither numb with constraint, nor fevered 
 with transports ; your life, undriven. 
 
 Say men kill you, quarter you, pursue you with 
 execrations : what has that to do with your under- 
 standing remaining pure, lucid, temperate, just? 
 It is as though a man stood beside some sweet 
 transparent fountain, abusing it, and it ceased not 
 to well forth draughts of pure water ; nay though 
 he cast in mud and filth, it will speedily disperse 
 them and wash them forth and take no stain. 
 
122 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 How then can you create a living fountain within ? 
 imbue yourself in freedom every hour, with charity, 
 simplicity and self-respect. 
 
 52 He who knows not the world-order, knows not 
 his own place therein. And he who knows not 
 for what end he exists, knows not himself nor the 
 world. He who fails in either knowledge, cannot 
 so much as say for what he himself exists. What 
 think you then of him, who seeks or shuns the 
 clatter of men, who understand not where or what 
 they are ? 
 
 53 Would you have the praises of him who thrice 
 an hour execrates himself? Would you satisfy 
 the man who cannot satisfy himself? And can a 
 man satisfy himself, who repents of nigh every- 
 thing he does ? 
 
 54 You breathe the air that encompasses you : 
 think likewise with the all-encompassing mind. 
 Mind-power is no less all-pervading and diffused 
 for him who can draw therefrom, than the atmo- 
 sphere for respiration. 
 
 55 Evil-doing does not hurt the universe at large : 
 evil to one part does not hurt another. It is 
 hurtful to the evil-doer only, and release from it is 
 within his reach as soon as he so wills. 
 
vin TO HIMSELF 123 
 
 To my moral will my neighbour's will is as 56 
 completely unrelated, as his breath is or his flesh. 
 Be we ever so much made for one another, our 
 Inner Selves have each their own sovereign rights : 
 otherwise my neighbour's evil might become my 
 evil, which is not god's good pleasure, lest another 
 have power to undo me. 
 
 We see the sun everywhere diffused and all- 57 
 pervading, yet unexhausted. For its diffusion is 
 by extension, and its rays (aktines) are so called 
 from ekteinesthai to extend. The nature of a ray 
 you may see, if you watch sunlight admitted 
 through a chink into a darkened room : for it 
 extends straight on, and supports itself on any solid 
 object which encounters it and disparts it from the 
 air beyond ; there it remains, and does not slip or 
 fall. Such too should be the effusion and diffusion 
 of the understanding, never exhausting but ever 
 extending itself, not impinging furiously and 
 violently upon the hindrances which it encounters ; 
 yet never failing or falling, but resting there and 
 illuminating that which receives it. That which 
 refuses to transmit it, will but deprive itself of 
 light. 
 
 He who fears death, fears either loss of sensa- 58 
 
124 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK vm 
 
 tion or change of sensation. But if sensation 
 ceases, you will feel no evil ; if sensation is changed 
 in kind, you will be a changed creature, and will 
 not cease to live. 
 
 59 Men exist for one another. Teach them then, 
 or bear with them. 
 
 60 There is motion and motion the motion of 
 the arrow, and the motion of mind. Yet mind, 
 even when it works cautiously and plays around 
 some problem, is none the less moving straight 
 on, towards its appointed end. 
 
 61 Enter into every man's Inner Self: and let 
 every other man enter into thine. 
 
BOOK IX 
 
 DUCUNT VOLENTEM FATA, NOLENTEM TRAHUNT. Seiieca 
 
 To be unjust is to sin. By Nature rational 1 
 beings have been constituted for one another's 
 sake, each to help each according to its worth, 
 and in no wise to hurt : and he who transgresses 
 the will of Nature, sins to wit, against the 
 primal deity. 
 
 And to lie is to sin against the same godhead. 
 For Nature is the nature of all things that are ; 
 and things that are have union with all things 
 from the beginning. Truth is indeed one name 
 for Nature, the first cause of all things true. The 
 wilful liar sins in that he deceives and does un- 
 justly ; the unwitting, in that he is at variance 
 with Nature, disordering and combating the order 
 of the Universe. For he who goes counter to the 
 
126 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 truth is at civil war within ; he has neglected the 
 faculties provided by Nature, and cannot any 
 longer distinguish false from true. 
 
 Again, to seek pleasures as good, or to shun 
 pains as evil, is to sin. For it inevitably leads 
 to complaining against Nature for unfair awards to 
 the virtuous and to the vile, seeing that the vile 
 are oftentimes in pleasure and come by things 
 pleasurable, while the virtuous are overtaken by 
 pain and things painful. Moreover, he who fears 
 pain will some time fear that which will form part 
 of the world-order ; and therein he sins. And he 
 who seeks after pleasures will not abstain from 
 unjust doing ; which is palpably an act of sin. 
 Where Nature makes no difference and were 
 she not indifferent, she would not bring both to 
 pass those who would fain walk with Nature 
 should conform their wills to like indifference. 
 Not to be indifferent to pain or pleasure, death 
 or life, evil report or good report, all which 
 Nature treats indifferently, is plainly to be guilty 
 of sin. By Nature treating them indifferently, I 
 mean that they befall indifferently all whose 
 existence is consequent upon the original impulse 
 of providence, which gave the origin and first 
 
ix TO HIMSELF 127 
 
 momentum to the cosmic ordering of things, 
 by selecting certain germs of future existences, 
 and assigning to them productive capacities of 
 realisation, change, and phenomenal succession. 
 
 The truly gentle would pass from among men 2 
 untainted by falsehood, insincerity, luxury, or 
 pride : and next best is, to grow disgusted with 
 these things before one breathes one's last. Or 
 can it be, that you are resolved to cleave fast to 
 evil, and that even experience does not prevail 
 upon you to shun the pestilence ? For corruption 
 of the understanding is a pestilence more deadly 
 far than any distemper or phase of the surround- 
 ing atmosphere. 1 That is death to animals, as 
 animals ; but this to men, as men. 
 
 Contemn not death, but give it welcome ; is 3 
 not death too a part of nature's will ? As youth 
 and age, as growth and prime, as the coming of 
 teeth and beard and grey hairs, as begetting and 
 pregnancy and bearing of children, as all other 
 operations of nature, even all that ' life in its 
 seasons brings to pass,' even such is dissolution. 
 Therefore the rational man should not treat death 
 with impatience or repugnance or disdain, but 
 2 Lit. fneuma, on which see Introd. p. liv. pp. 
 
128 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 wait for it as one of nature's operations. Just 
 as now you wait for the offspring to issue from 
 your wife's womb, so expect the hour when 
 your atom of soul will slip its mortal case. If 
 your heart asks for some simple and effective 
 reassurance, the best solace against death is 
 correct appreciation of the material things from 
 which you are to part, and of the moral natures 
 with which your soul will then cease to inter- 
 mingle. Far be it from you to take offence at 
 them ; nay rather, care for them and deal 
 gently with them ; yet remember, that you are 
 parting with men whose principles are not your 
 principles. The one thing, if any, which could 
 hold you back and chain you still to life, would 
 be companionship with kindred spirits. As it is, 
 amid the besetting worry and jangle of life, you 
 cry, ' Come quickly, death, for fear I too forget 
 myself!' 
 
 4 He who sins, sins against himself; he who 
 does wrong, wrongs himself, making himself evil. 
 
 5 Wrong comes often of not doing as well as 
 doing. 
 
 6 Certitude in present view, unselfishness in 
 present act, present contentment with all that 
 
ix TO HIMSELF 129 
 
 overtakes you from without have these, and it 
 suffices you. 
 
 Efface impression ; stay impulse ; quench in- 7 
 clination ; be master of your Inner Self. 
 
 The soul distributed among the irrational 8 
 animals is one, and so too is the soul instinct with 
 mind, that is portioned out among the rational ; 
 just as earth is one in all things earthy, and the 
 light one by which we see, and the air one which 
 we breathe, even all that have sight and breath 
 of life. 
 
 Things that share a common element feel the 9 
 impulse of kind towards kind. The earthy ever 
 gravitates towards earth, the aqueous seeks its 
 own level, and so too the aerial ; nothing short 
 of force can dispart them. Fire ascends attracted 
 by the elemental fire ; so ready is it always to 
 combine for ignition, that every solid, in propor- 
 tion to its dryness, readily ignites, the infusion of 
 that which hinders ignition being smaller. So 
 too everything which participates in the common 
 mind-nature feels the like impulse towards kind ; 
 nay more so for the higher the nature, the 
 readier the impulse to combination and fusion 
 
 with its counterpart. For observe ; among the 
 
 K 
 
130 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 irrational animals, bees swarm, cattle herd, birds 
 nest together, all owning forms of love. For at 
 this stage soul is present, and on this higher 
 plane of being a mutual attraction asserts itself, 
 which is not present in plants or stones or sticks. 
 Again among rational beings there are societies 
 and friendships, homes and communities, and in 
 war compacts and armistices. In the still higher 
 orders of being, even among distant bodies there 
 exists unity of a kind, as among the stars ; so 
 that ascent in the scale of being induces sympa- 
 thetic 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. Yes, but 
 even in the act of evasion, men are caught and over- 
 taken ; nature prevails. Watch, and you will see : 
 sooner will you find some particle of earth detached 
 from other earth, than man isolated from man. 
 10 Man bears fruit, so does god, so does the 
 world, all in their own season. That custom has 
 appropriated the term to the vine or the like, 
 matters not. Reason too bears fruit, alike for 
 the world and for itself ; and from it spring fruits 
 of like kind with reason itself. 
 
ix TO HIMSELF 131 
 
 Convert men, if you can : if you cannot, n 
 charity, remember, has been given you for this 
 end. See ! the gods too have charity for such, 
 helping them to divers things, health, wealth and 
 reputation ; so good are they. You too can do 
 the same ; who hinders you ? 
 
 Work hard, not making a martyr of yourself, 12 
 and not seeking pity or applause : seek one thing 
 only, action or inaction, as social law demands. 
 
 To-day I got clear of trouble ; say rather, I 13 
 cleared trouble out ; the trouble was not without 
 but within, a matter of views. 
 
 All things are alike familiar, fleeting, foul : 14 
 everything as it was in the days of the dead and 
 buried. 
 
 Facts stand outside us, just as they are, 15 
 knowing nothing and stating nothing about 
 themselves. What is it states the case for them ? 
 the Inner Self. 
 
 For a rational and social being good and evil 16 
 lie not in physical affection but in moral action, 
 just as virtue and vice lie not in an affection, but 
 in action. 
 
 To the thrown stone it is no ill to drop, nor 17 
 good to rise. 
 
132 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 18 Penetrate to men's Inner Selves, and you will 
 see what judges you fear, and how they judge 
 themselves. 
 
 19 Everything is in change. You yourself are 
 undergoing continuous variation, and piecemeal 
 destruction. So is the world at large. 
 
 20 Another's error let it lie. 
 
 21 In cessation of action, in surcease of impulse 
 or of judgment, in what may be termed their 
 death, there is no evil. Retraverse the stages of 
 growth, childhood, boyhood, youth, age each 
 one of them a change, a death. Is there any- 
 thing to be afraid of? Or retraverse the periods 
 of life, first under your grandfather, then under 
 your mother, then your father. Gather up all 
 the many phases and changes and cessations of 
 experience, and then ask yourself, Is there any- 
 thing to be afraid of? No more is there in the 
 cessation, the surcease, the change from life 
 itself. 
 
 22 Press straight to the Inner Self your own, the 
 world's, your neighbour's. Your own, that you 
 may make of it a true vessel of justice ; the 
 world's, that you may bear in mind of what you 
 are a part ; your neighbour's, that you may under- 
 
ix TO HIMSELF 133 
 
 stand whether it is ignorance or knowledge, and 
 may take into account the bond of brother- 
 hood. 
 
 i 
 
 You are part of a social whole, a factor 23 
 necessary to complete the sum ; therefore your 
 every action should help to complete the social 
 life. Any action of yours that does not tend, 
 directly or remotely, to this social end, dislocates 
 life and infringes its unity. It is an act of 
 sedition, and like some separatist doing what he 
 can to break away from civic accord. 
 
 Children's squabbles, a stage farce, and "poor 24 
 breath carrying a corpse " ! is not phantom-land 
 more palpable and solid ? 
 
 Get to the cause and its quality ; isolate it 25 
 from the material embodiment and survey it ; then 
 delimit the full span for which the individuality 
 in question can subsist. 
 
 " Woes unnumbered you have borne" because 26 
 you are not content to let your Inner Self follow 
 the law of its own being. Hold ! enough ! 
 
 When others censure, or resent, or make an 27 
 outcry over this or that, go near and penetrate 
 into their souls, and see what manner of men they 
 are. You will see there is no need for straining 
 
134 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 to commend yourself to their good opinion. Yet 
 kindliness remains a duty ; love is nature's claim. 
 And see ! the gods aid them in all manner of 
 ways, by dream and by oracle, yes even to gain 
 the ends, on which they are bent. 
 
 28 Up and down, to and fro, moves the world's 
 round, from age to age. Either the World-mind im- 
 parts each individual impulse in which case, accept 
 the impulse it imparts : or else it gave the impulse 
 once for all, with all its long entail of conse- 
 quence. It comes to this either a concourse of 
 atoms, or an appointment of destiny. 1 In fine, 
 either god works, and all is well ; or, if all 
 is random, be not you too a part of the 
 random. 
 
 Anon earth will cover us all ; then earth in its 
 turn will change ; then the resultant of the change ; 
 then the resultant of the resultant, and so ad 
 infinitum. The billows of change and variation 
 roll apace, and he who ponders them will feel 
 
 29 contempt for all things mortal. The universal 
 cause is like a winter torrent ; it sweeps all 
 before it. 
 
 How cheap in sooth are these pygmies of 
 
 1 The restoration is conjectural. 
 
ix TO HIMSELF 135 
 
 politics, these sage doctrinaires in statecraft ! 
 Drivellers every one. Well, man, what then ? 
 This and this only : do what nature here and now 
 demands. Endeavour the best you may ; do not 
 look round for your cue to some one else. Do not 
 hope for Utopia ; suffice it, if the smallest thing 
 makes head : to compass that one issue, believe, 
 is no small feat. Which of them all changes one 
 moral principle? And without change of prin- 
 ciples, what hope for them but bondage and 
 growling and lip-profession ? Go to, with your 
 Alexander and Philip and Demetrius of Phalerum ; 
 whether they saw the will of Nature, and schooled 
 themselves accordingly, is their affair ; but because 
 they strutted their parts, no one has condemned 
 me to follow suit. Simplicity and modesty are 
 the work of philosophy ; do not lead me away into 
 self-conceit 
 
 " As from some eminence survey the countless 30 
 herds" of men their thronging festivals, their 
 voyages of storm and voyages of calm, the 
 chequered phases of their appearance, action, 
 disappearance ; or imagine again the life of ages 
 past, the life of generations to come, the life now 
 living among savage tribes ; how many have never 
 
136 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 heard your name, how many will at once forget 
 it ! how many who perhaps applaud you now, will 
 very soon revile ! how valueless in sooth is memory, 
 or fame, or all else put together ! 
 
 31 To vicissitudes caused from without, be imper- 
 urbable : in actions whose cause lies with yourself, 
 
 be just in other words, let impulse and act make 
 social action their one end, and so fulfil the law 
 of nature. 
 
 32 The agitations that beset you are superfluous, 
 and depend wholly upon judgments of your own. 
 You can get rid of them, and in so doing will 
 indeed live at large, by embracing the whole 
 universe in your view and comprehending all 
 eternity and imagining the swiftness of change in 
 each particular, seeing how brief is the passage 
 from birth to dissolution, birth with its unfathom- 
 able before, dissolution with its infinite hereafter. 
 
 33 All that you see will soon have perished, and 
 those who have watched them perishing will soon 
 perish themselves : the longest-lived will be at one 
 with the babe who dies untimely. 
 
 34 Look at their Inner Selves, the things they 
 push for, the titles to their liking and respect. 
 Conceive their souls stripped naked and then, 
 
ix TO HIMSELF 137 
 
 fancy their censure hurting, or their plaudits doing 
 any good ! 
 
 Loss is another word l for change ; and change 35 
 is the joy of Nature. By Nature all things are 
 ordered well, all were of the same form from the 
 beginning, all will be like to everlasting. Why 
 then say that all things have been, that all things 
 ever will be evil, that among all the gods no 
 power has ever been devised to set them right, 
 but that the world is doomed to labour under 
 interminable ills ? 
 
 Decay is in the material substance of all things 36 
 water, dust, bones, and stench ! What is 
 marble but knobs of earth ? gold or silver but 
 sediment ? raiment but tags of hair ? purple but 
 shell -fish blood? and so on throughout. Yes 
 even the pneumatic current is in the same case, 
 ever changing from this to that. 
 
 Enough of moans, and murmurs, and monkey- 37 
 chatter! Why perturb yourself ? There is nothing 
 new, to excite you so. The cause, is it ? Look 
 the cause then in the face. Or the material sub- 
 stance ? Then look that in the face. Cause, or 
 
 1 The word-play of the original airo[3o\rj, fj-erajSoX-rj cannot be 
 reproduced. 
 
138 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 substance it can be nothing else. Only, as in 
 god's sight, be yourself .from this day forth more 
 simple-hearted and good. It is the same whether 
 you witness it a hundred years or three. 
 
 38 If he did wrong, with him lies the evil. 
 Suppose after all he did not ! 
 
 39 Either all things spring from a single source 
 possessed of mind, and combine and fit together 
 as for a single body, and in that case the part 
 has no right to quarrel with the good of the whole : 
 or else, it is a concourse of atoms, a welter ending 
 in dispersion. Why then perturb yourself? 
 
 Say to your Inner Self, Are you dead, perished, 
 false to yourself? like a beast, do you but join 
 the herd and chew the cud ? 
 
 40 The gods either have power, or they have not. 
 If they have not, why pray at all ? If they have, 
 why not pray for deliverance from the fear, or the 
 desire, or the pain, which the thing causes, rather 
 than for the withholding or the giving of the 
 particular thing ? Assuredly, if they can help 
 men at all, this is the way of help. But perhaps 
 you will say, The gods have put all that in my 
 own power. Then is it not better to exercise 
 your power and remain free, rather than to be set 
 
ix TO HIMSELF 139 
 
 on what is not in your own power, and become a 
 slave and cringer ? And who told you that the 
 gods do not assist us even to what is in our own 
 power ? Begin there with your prayers, and you 
 will see. Instead of ' Oh ! to enjoy her caresses ! ' 
 pray you against lusting after the enjoyment. 
 Instead of ' Rid me of my enemy ! ' pray you 
 against desire for the riddance. Instead of ' Spare 
 my little one ! ' pray you that your fears may be 
 at rest. Be this the direction of your prayers, 
 and watch what comes. 
 
 Says Epicurus ' When I was sick, I did not 41 
 converse about my bodily ailments, nor discuss 
 such matters with my visitors ; but continued to 
 dwell upon the principles of natural philosophy, 
 and more particularly how the understanding, 
 while participating in such disturbances of the 
 flesh, yet remains in unperturbed possession of 
 its proper good. And I would not,' he adds, 
 'give the doctors a chance of blustering and 
 making ado, but let life go on cheerily and 
 well.' Imitate Epicurus in sickness, if you are 
 sick, or in any other visitation. To be loyal to 
 philosophy under whatsoever circumstances, and 
 not join the babel of the silly and the ignorant, 
 
140 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 is a motto for all schools alike. Stick only to 
 the work in hand, and. to the tool you have for 
 doing it. 
 
 42 When some piece of shamelessness offends 
 you, ask yourself, Can the world go on without 
 shameless people ? Certainly not ! Then do not 
 ask for the impossible. Here you see is one of 
 the shameless, whom the world cannot get on with- 
 out. Similarly in any case of foul play or breach 
 of faith or any other wrong, fall back on the 
 same thought. When once you remember that 
 the genus cannot be abolished, you will be more 
 charitable to the individual. Another helpful 
 plan is, at once to realise what virtue Nature has 
 given to man to cope with the wrong. For she 
 provides antidotes, such as gentleness to cope with 
 the graceless, and other salves for other irritants. 
 You can always try to convert the misguided ; for 
 indeed every wrongdoer is really misguided and 
 missing his proper mark. Besides what harm has 
 he done to you ? for look none of the objects of 
 your ire has done anything that can inflict injury 
 upon your understanding ; yet there, and there 
 only, can evil or hurt to you find realisation. 
 What is there wrong, pray, or shocking, in the 
 
ix TO HIMSELF 141 
 
 clown acting the clown ? See that the fault does 
 not lie rather at your own door, for not expecting 
 him to go wrong thus. Reason supplied you with 
 faculties enabling you to expect that he would go 
 wrong thus ; you forgot, and then are surprised 
 at his having done so. When you complain of 
 some breach of faith or gratitude, take heed first 
 and foremost to yourself. Obviously the fault lies 
 with yourself, if you had faith that a man of that 
 disposition would keep faith, or if in doing a kind- 
 ness you did not do it upon principle, nor upon 
 the assumption that the kind act was to be its 
 own reward. What more do you want in return 
 for a service done ? Is it not enough to have 
 acted up to nature, without asking wages for it? 
 Does the eye demand a recompense for seeing, or 
 the feet for walking ? Just as this is the end for 
 which they exist, and just as they find their reward 
 in realising the law of their being, so too man is 
 made for kindness, and whenever he does an act 
 of kindness or otherwise helps forward the common 
 good, he thereby fulfils the law of his being and 
 comes by his own. 
 
BOOK X 
 
 ASPICE RESPICE PROSPICE 
 
 1 WILT thou one day, O my soul, be good and 
 simple, all one, all naked, clearer to sight than 
 this thy material shell ? Wilt thou taste one day 
 of fond and satisfied contentment? Wilt thou 
 one day be full and without lack, craving naught 
 and coveting naught, neither things with breath 
 nor things without, for indulgence of self-pleasing ? 
 neither time, for prolongation of enjoyment ? nor 
 region place or clime, nor sweet society of fellow- 
 men ? Wilt thou be content with thine actual 
 estate ? happy in all thou hast ? convinced that all 
 things are thine, that all is well with thee, that all 
 comes from the gods, that all must be well which 
 is their good pleasure, and which they bring to 
 pass for the salvation of the living whole, good 
 just and beautiful, from which all things have 
 
BOOK x MARCUS ANTONINUS 143 
 
 their being their unity and their scope, and into 
 which they are received at dissolution for the pro- 
 duction of new forms of being like themselves ? 
 Wilt thou be such one day, my soul, having 
 attained such fellowship with gods and men, as to 
 make no more complaint at all, nor be found of 
 them in any fault ? 
 
 Take heed to what your personal nature craves, 2 
 knowing that you are solely at nature's disposition ; 
 comply with it and do it, unless it involves injury 
 to your animal nature. But correspondently, 
 give heed to each craving of the animal nature 
 and accept it in full, unless it involves injury to 
 your nature as a rational being : and the rational 
 is ipso facto social. Apply these criteria to life, 
 and do so without fuss. 
 
 Whatever befalls, one of two things is true : 3 
 either you have strength to bear it, or you have 
 not. If what befalls is within your strength, do 
 not lose patience, but use your strength to bear 
 it : if it is beyond your strength, again lose 
 not patience : in destroying you it will cease to 
 exist. Yet remember that you have strength 
 to bear everything, which your own view of 
 the case can render endurable and bearable, 
 
144 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 if once regarded as a part of interest or else of 
 duty. 
 
 4 If a man mistakes, reason with him kindly and 
 point out his misconception. If you fail, blame 
 yourself, or no one. 
 
 5 Whatever befalls was fore -prepared for you 
 from all time ; the woof of causation was from all 
 eternity weaving the realisation of your being, and 
 that which should befall it. 
 
 6 Be the world atoms, or be it nature's growth, 
 stand assured first, that I am a part of the whole, 
 at nature's disposition ; secondly, that I am related 
 to all the parts of like kind with myself. First 
 then, inasmuch as I am a part, I shall not be dis- 
 content with any portion assigned me from the 
 whole : for nothing is hurtful to the part which 
 is good for the whole. The whole contains nothing 
 which is not for its own good ; this is true of 
 all nature's growths, with this addition in the case 
 of the world-nature, that there is no external cause 
 compelling it to generate anything hurtful to itself. 
 Thus in the thought that I am a part of such a 
 whole, I shall be content with all that comes to 
 pass. And, secondly, in so far as I own my rela- 
 tion to the parts of like kind with myself, I shall 
 
x TO HIMSELF 145 
 
 do nothing for self-seeking, but shall feel concern 
 for all such parts, directing every endeavour to- 
 wards the common good, and diverting it from the 
 contrary. So long as I pursue this course, life 
 must perforce flow smooth, smooth as the ideal 
 life of one ever occupied in the well-being of his 
 fellow-citizens, and accepting gladly whatever the 
 city assigns him as his part. 
 
 The parts of the whole, which are compre- 7 
 hended in the growth and nature of the world- 
 order, must necessarily perish signifying thereby 
 variation of form. Now if such variation is 
 inherently an evil and a necessity for the parts, 
 how can the whole escape deterioration, seeing 
 that the parts are prone to variation, and so 
 constituted as to perish in a variety of ways ? 
 Did nature, we ask, purposely intend the injury 
 of things which are part of herself, and make them 
 liable, nay necessarily incident, to injury ? or were 
 such results unforeseen by nature ? Neither sup- 
 position is credible. But suppose, dropping the 
 term Nature, we explain them as the natural course 
 of things, see the absurdity ; we first speak of 
 change as natural to the parts of the universe, and 
 then in the same breath express surprise or resent- 
 
146 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 ment as though at some unnatural procedure, while 
 all the time dissolution is merely into the original 
 elements of composition. For dissolution means 
 either dispersion of the elements of which I was 
 compounded, or else a change from solid into earthy 
 and from pneumatic into aerial, this being the 
 mode of re-assumption into the universal reason, 
 whether its destiny be cyclic conflagration or alter- 
 nations of eternal renovation. And do not regard 
 the solid or the pneumatic elements as a natal 
 part of being ; they are but accretions of yesterday 
 or the day before, derived from food and respira- 
 tion. The change affects that which is received 
 from without, not the original offspring of the 
 mother's womb. But even admitting that you are 
 intimately bound up with that by your individuality, 
 that does not affect the present argument. 
 
 You claim for yourself the attributes good, 
 modest, true, open-minded, even-minded, high- 
 minded : take care not to belie them. And should 
 you forfeit them, make haste to reclaim them. The 
 open mind, remember, should import discriminating 
 observation and attention ; the even mind un- 
 forced acceptance of the apportionments of Nature ; 
 the high mind sovereignty of the intelligence over 
 
x TO HIMSELF 147 
 
 the physical currents, smooth or rough, over vain- 
 glory, death, or any other trial. Keep true to 
 these attributes, without pining for recognition of 
 the same by others, and a changed man you will 
 enter upon a changed life. To go on being what 
 you have been hitherto, to lead a life still so dis- 
 tracted and polluted, were stupidity and cowardice 
 indeed, worthy of the mangled gladiators who, 
 torn and disfigured, cry out to be remanded till 
 the morrow, to be flung once more to the same 
 fangs and claws. Enter your claim then to 
 these few attributes. And if stand fast in them 
 you can, stand fast as one translated indeed to 
 Islands of the Blessed. But if you find yourself 
 falling away and beaten in the fight, be a man and 
 get away to some quiet corner, where you can still 
 hold on, or in the last resort take leave of life, 
 not angrily but simply, freely, modestly, achieving 
 at least this much in life, brave leaving of it. 
 Towards bearing these attributes in mind, it will 
 greatly assist you to keep in mind the gods, to 
 remember that they desire not flattery, but rather 
 that all reasoning beings should come unto their like- 
 ness, and be as the fig-tree doing fig-tree's work, the 
 dog the dog's, the bee the bee's, and man the man's. 
 
148 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 9 A stage-play, a fight, a scramble, a stupor, or 
 a bondage such is life ! and each day will help 
 to efface the sacred principles, which you divest of 
 philosophic regard or allegiance. It is your duty 
 to keep sight and action so alert, as to satisfy each 
 call, to effectualise each perception, and to main- 
 tain the full courage of conviction in reserve, but 
 unsuppressed. Ah ! when will you find fruition in 
 simple-heartedness? in dignity? in that understand- 
 ing which apprehends each thing's true being, its 
 position in the world, its term of existence, and 
 its composition, and which can say to whom it of 
 right belongs, and who can either give it or take 
 away ? 
 
 10 The spider is proud of catching a fly so is 
 one man of catching a hare, another of netting 
 a sprat, another boars, or bears, or Sarmatians. 
 Tested by philosophic principles, are they not 
 brigands, every one? 
 
 11 Habituate yourself to the perception of all-per- 
 vading change ; dwell on it continually, and order 
 your thoughts accordingly ; nothing more elevates 
 the mind, and emancipates it from the body. He 
 who realises that at any moment he may be called 
 on to leave the world and to depart from among 
 
x TO HIMSELF 149 
 
 men, commits himself without reserve to justice in 
 all his actions, to Nature in all that befalls. To 
 what will be said or thought of him, to what will 
 be done against him, he does not give a thought ; 
 but is content with two things only to be just in 
 his dealings and glad at his apportioned lot. Free 
 of all hurry and distractions, he has but one wish 
 
 to run the straight course of law, following on 
 in the straight course of god. 
 
 What need for misgivings, when you can see 12 
 what ought to be done ? If all is clear, go forward 
 
 considerately, but without swerving ; if not, 
 pause and take the best advice ; if new resistance 
 meets you, follow the lights of reason and its 
 faculties, holding last to what is plainly just ; 
 success is victory indeed, where in good truth 
 'default is no defeat.' Alacrity without hurry, a 
 bright mien and a steady mind this is the faithful 
 follower of reason. 
 
 Ask yourself as your waking thought, Can it 13 
 make any difference to me whether another does 
 what is just and right ? None whatever. When 
 you hear men blustering praise or blame of others, 
 do not forget that they themselves are in bed and 
 in board, the things they do, the things they shun, 
 
i5o MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 the things they seek, their thefts and rapines 
 done not with hands and feet, but with the most 
 precious organ we possess, even that whereby, if 
 we so will, we attain to faith and honour and truth 
 and law and a good god within. 
 
 14 To nature the all -giver and all -taker the 
 schooled and self-respecting mind says ' Give 
 what thou wilt, and take back what thou wilt '- 
 not in any tone of bravado, but solely of obedience 
 and goodwill. 
 
 15 The residue of life is short. Live as on a 
 mountain. It matters not whether here or there ; 
 everywhere you are a citizen of the city of the 
 world. Let men see and witness a true man, a 
 life conformed to nature. If they cannot bear 
 him, let them make away with him. Better that, 
 than life on their terms. 
 
 16 No more mere talk of what the good man 
 should be. Be it ! 
 
 17 Embrace in your regard all time and all being 
 and see that by the side of being, all individual 
 things are but a grain of millet, by that of time as 
 the turn of a screw. 
 
 18 Get a clear understanding of all material things 
 picture each one of them in dissolution, in 
 
x TO HIMSELF 151 
 
 change, and in decay, either by process of disper- 
 sion, or by its own appointed mode of death. 
 
 Eating, sleeping, breeding, excreting only 19 
 look at them : look at their lasciviousness and 
 wantonness, their rages and their outbursts of abuse! 
 A while back, to how many did they bow the 
 knee, and for what ends ! A little while, and 
 what will be their plight ! 
 
 For each is best, what Nature brings : and best 20 
 too at the time, when Nature brings it. 
 
 Earth is in love with rain, and holy aether loves. 1 21 
 
 Yes, the world-order is in love with fashioning 
 whatever is to be. To the world-order I profess 
 ' Thy love is mine.' Is there not a truth implicit 
 in the familiar ' as it listeth ' ? 2 
 
 Either You live on where you are ; to that 22 
 you are well used : or You move ofT, and so 
 doing have your wish : or You die, and your 
 
 1 Euripides. 
 
 2 The double meaning of the Greek 0i\et, ' loves/ and ' is 
 wont,' has no exact counterpart in English. The adaptation is 
 suggested by a passage of kindred spirit. ' Who took as the type 
 of the true man, the wind ? the wind that blows where it likes ; 
 and of which no man need ask whence or whither ; he may be 
 sure that it is going where it is needed to keep Nature's balance 
 true. Were not the wind's law, law enough for us?' Hinton, 
 The Place of the Physician. 
 
152 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 service is finished. There is no other alternative. 
 So be of good cheer. 
 
 23 Take for your axiom the old truth the field 1 
 is where you make it ; life here is just the same 
 as life within the field, or on the mountain, or the 
 shore, or where you will. In Plato's own phrase 
 
 " encompassed in his mountain fold, milking his 
 herds." 
 
 24 What of my Inner Self? what am I making 
 of it at this minute ? to what use am I putting it ? 
 is it empty of mind ? divorced and dissociated 
 from the bond of fellowship ? is it so ingrown 
 and engrossed in flesh, as to share each shift and 
 change ? 
 
 25 The slave who makes away from his master is 
 a runaway ; but law is our master ; and whoever 
 breaks away from law is a runaway. But vexa- 
 tion, anger, or fear mean refusal of something, 
 past present or to come, ordained by the sovereign 
 disposer, even Law, 2 who allots 2 to every man his 
 appointed work. So then to be vexed or angry 
 or afeard, is to make oneself a runaway. 
 
 1 In Marcus Aurelius the * field ' signifies the place of seclusion 
 and retirement, as in iv. 3. The phrase of Plato is from 
 Theatetus, 174 D E. 
 
 2 The Greek plays on the common derivation of v6fj,os vefteiv. 
 
x TO HIMSELF 153 
 
 The man drops seed into the womb and goes 26 
 his way, and thereupon a new cause takes up the 
 work and perfects the babe. What a flower of 
 what a seed ! Or again, one passes food through 
 the gullet, and thereupon a new cause takes up 
 the work, and makes of it sensation, impulse, in a 
 word life and all forms of vital strength. Con- 
 sider all that passes within the veil, and perceive 
 the power implied, just as we perceive the upward 
 and downward force of gravitation not with the 
 outward eye, yet no less palpably. 
 
 Let imagination remind you how all the varied 27 
 present does but repeat the past, and rehearse the 
 future. From your own experience, or from the 
 page of history, picture to yourself the same 
 dramas, the self-same scenes reproduced : the court 
 of Hadrian, the court of Antoninus, the court of 
 Philip, Alexander, Crcesus ; the same stock ro/es, 
 only with change of actors. 
 
 He who feels umbrage or discontent at any- 28 
 thing is like a sacrificial pig, which kicks and 
 squeals. And he who sits silent and solitary on 
 his couch, bemoaning our bonds, is in the same 
 case. To the reasonable being and to him only 
 is it vouchsafed to go freely hand in hand with all 
 
154 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 that comes ; the bare act of going with it none 
 can avoid. 
 
 29 Point by point, get clear upon every single act 
 you do, and ask yourself, ' Need loss of this make 
 me afraid of death ? ' 
 
 30 When offended at a fault in some one else, 
 divert your thoughts to the reflection, What is the 
 parallel fault in me ? Is it attachment to money ? 
 or pleasure ? or reputation ? as the case may be. 
 Dwelling on this, anger forgets itself and makes 
 way for the thought ' He cannot help himself 
 what else can he do ? If it is not so, enable 
 him, if you can, to help himself.' 
 
 31 Let sight of Satyron, Eutyches, or Hymen, 
 call up the thought of some Socratic ; Euphrates 
 that of Eutychion or Silvanus ; Alciphron that 
 of Tropaeophorus ; Xenophon that of Crito or 
 Severus ; a look at yourself, that of some Caesar 
 of the past ; and similarly with every other case, 
 suggesting the thought, Where are they all now ? 
 Nowhere or nobody knows where. In this way 
 you will come to look on all things human as 
 smoke and nothingness : especially if you bear in 
 mind, that the thing once changed can never be 
 itself again to all eternity. Why fret yourself 
 
x TO HIMSELF 155 
 
 then ? Why not be content decently to weather 
 out your little span ? What have you to fear, 
 what form of matter or condition ? What are they 
 all, but exercises for reason, scientifically and 
 philosophically facing the facts of life ? Persevere 
 then, till you make them part of your own being, 
 just as the healthy stomach assimilates its food, 
 or a quick fire turns everything you throw on into 
 flame and light. 
 
 Let no man have it in his power to say of 32 
 you with truth, that you lack simplicity or good- 
 ness ; make it a lie, for any one to think thus 
 of you. It is within your power : for who can 
 hinder you from being good and simple ? You 
 have but to decide to live no longer, if you can- 
 not be such ; for in that case reason itself does 
 not dictate it. 
 
 Given the material, what can produce the 33 
 soundest result in action or in speech ? that, 
 whatever it be, is in your power to do or say : 
 and no excuses, please, about being hindered. 
 You will never cease growling, till it comes as 
 natural to you to use all the available materials 
 for fulfilling the law of your being, as it is for 
 pleasure-seekers to choose luxury : every opening 
 
156 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 for giving our nature play we should view as a 
 form of enjoyment. Atfd the opening is always 
 there. The cylinder indeed cannot always enjoy 
 its proper motion ; neither can water, nor fire, nor 
 things which are at the disposition of the lower 
 organic nature or of irrational soul : in their case 
 lets and obstacles abound. But mind and reason 
 have the power of finding a way at will through 
 every impediment. Picture the facility with which 
 reason will find itself a way, as that by which fire 
 ascends, or a stone drops, or a cylinder rolls 
 downhill it leaves nothing more to crave for. 
 Remaining interferences either affect the body only, 
 which is a dead thing, or else, apart from the 
 assumptions and admissions of reason itself, have 
 no power to crush or to inflict any injury what- 
 soever ; otherwise the person exposed to them 
 would thereby be injured. For observe in the 
 case of all other forms of being, any injury be- 
 falling them implies deterioration of the object ; 
 but in this case the man is one may say bettered 
 and improved, by making good use of circum- 
 stances. Nothing in fine can hurt the true citizen, 
 which does not hurt the city ; and nothing can 
 hurt the city, which does not first hurt Law. But 
 
x TO HIMSELF 157 
 
 misadventures so-called hurt not the Law : there- 
 fore they hurt not city, nor yet citizen. 
 
 When once true principles have bitten in, 34 
 even the shortest and most trite of precepts serves 
 as a safeguard against the spirit of brooding or 
 fear. For instance 
 
 As wind-shed leaves on the sod. . . . 
 Such are the children of men. 1 
 
 As autumn leaves thy little ones ! and as leaves 
 too the crowd who shout their heartening plaudits 
 or heap their curses, or in secret cavil and gibe ; 
 as leaves too, even those who will succeed to 
 fame hereafter ! These all, and the like of them, 
 
 are but 
 
 Blossoming buds of the spring-time, 
 
 which the wind scatters, and a new foliage 
 clothes another wood. Transitoriness is written 
 upon them all ; and yet you seek or shun, as 
 though they would last for ever. A little while, 
 and you will close your eyes : and anon the dirge 
 will sound for him who bore your bier. 
 
 The healthy eye should see all that comes 35 
 in sight, and not say, ' I want things green ' 
 the confession of weak eyes. Healthy hearing, 
 
 1 Homer, //. vi. 147-8. 
 
158 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 healthy smell should be prepared for every sound 
 and every scent ; and the healthy stomach too 
 for all kinds of food, no less than the molar for 
 everything which it was made to grind. So too 
 the healthy understanding should be prepared 
 for all that befalls. The mind which cries ' Save 
 my little ones ' or ' Let every one applaud what- 
 ever I do,' is the eye that wants things green, or 
 the tooth that wants them soft. 
 
 No one is so fortunate, but that beside his 
 death-bed there will stand some welcoming the 
 coming blow. He was virtuous, say, and wise. 
 Well, at the last will not one and another say in 
 his heart, * Now let us breathe again, free of 
 master pedagogue ? True, he was never hard 
 on any of us, but I always felt that he was 
 tacitly condemning us.' Such is the reward of 
 the virtuous. But in our case how many other 
 reasons there are, to swell the throng of those 
 who would be quit of us ! Realise this as death 
 draws on, and solace your departure with the 
 reflection I am leaving a life, in which my own 
 associates, for whom I have so striven, prayed 
 and thought, themselves wish for my removal, 
 hoping that they will perchance gain something 
 
x TO HIMSELF 159 
 
 in freedom thereby. Why then should one cling 
 to longer sojourn here ? Yet do not therefore 
 leave them with any lack of charity ; keep true 
 to your own wont, friendly well-wishing and 
 serene, here too not dissociating yourself from 
 others. As in euthanasia the soul slips quietly 
 from the body, so let your departure be. Of these 
 elements nature joined and compounded you : now 
 she dissolves the union. Be it dissolved : I part 
 from what was mine yet unresisting, unrebelli- 
 ously ; just one step more in nature's course. 
 
 Whatever is done, and whoever does it, so far 37 
 as may be, make it a habit to ask the further 
 question, To what does the man's action tend? 
 And begin with yourself, testing yourself first of all. 
 
 That which pulls the strings, remember, is the 38 
 power concealed within ; there is the mandate, 
 the life, there, one may say, the man. Never 
 confound it with the mere containing shell, and 
 the various appended organs. They may be 
 compared to tools, with this difference, that the 
 connexion is organic. Indeed, apart from the 
 inner cause which dictates action or inaction, the 
 parts are of no more use, than the weaver's 
 shuttle, the writer's pen, or the coachman's whip. 
 
BOOK XI 
 
 Zey 4>Yceooc Apxnre, Nd/woy MGTA TT<J(NT<\ 
 
 CLEANTHES 
 
 TT^NTA NOMICTf 
 
 1 THE properties of rational soul it views itself, 
 determines itself, makes itself what it wills, bears 
 and itself reaps its own fruit while in the 
 vegetable or animal world the fruit is reaped by 
 others and, finally, attains its proper end at the 
 point where life reaches its term. In a dance or 
 a play or such like, an interruption leaves the 
 action incomplete : but not so with the soul ; at 
 every point and wheresoever arrested, she leaves 
 her task fulfilled and self-complete, and can say 
 ' I have come by my own.' Furthermore soul 
 ranges the universe, alike the world of form and 
 the world of void, and reaches forth into eternity, 
 and encompasses and comprehends the cyclic 
 regeneration of the universe, and perceives that 
 
BOOK xi MARCUS ANTONINUS 161 
 
 our fathers had no fuller vision, neither will our 
 children behold any new thing, but that the man 
 of any understanding who has come to two-score 
 years has in effect beheld all the uniform past and 
 the uniform to come. And yet another property of 
 rational soul is love of neighbours, truth, self-respect, 
 and that supreme self-reverence which is likewise 
 an attribute of Law. And this implies that the 
 law of Reason is coincident with the law of justice. 
 
 You will be disenchanted of the delights of 2 
 song and dance and the pancratium, if once you 
 decompose the melody into its constituent notes, 
 and ask yourself one by one, ' Is this the spell I 
 own ? ' You will turn from each in disgust. Or 
 analyse dancing in the same way into successions 
 of motion and rest ; or do the same with the 
 pancratium. In short, setting aside virtue and 
 virtuous acts, you have but to press analysis to 
 the component parts and you are disenchanted. 
 Apply the process to life too as a whole. 
 
 O for the soul ready, when the hour of dis- 3 
 solution comes, for extinction or dispersion or 
 survival ! l But such readiness must proceed from 
 inward conviction, not come of mere perversity, 
 
 1 Compare iv. 21, p. 40. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 like the Christians', but of a temper rational and 
 grave, and if it is to convince others unostenta- 
 tious. 
 
 4 Have I acted unselfishly? Good, I have my 
 reward. Be this your ever-present stay ; and 
 weary not. 
 
 5 What is your business ? to be good. How 
 can you succeed in this but by philosophic views, 
 first of Nature, then of man's own constitution ? 
 
 6 Tragedy, the first form of drama, drew its 
 lessons from experience, partly as true to the facts 
 of existence, and partly to take the sting, upon 
 the larger stage of life, from things which appeal 
 to the emotions on the stage. For there you see 
 the fulfilment of the just denouement ; and also 
 that there is strength to bear even in the agony of 
 O Cith&ron, Cithczron I l And the dramatists give 
 us words of help, such as the exquisite 
 
 Though I and both my sons be spurned of God, 
 There is be sure a reason. 
 
 Or again 
 
 Fret not at circumstance. 
 
 1 The cry of Oedipus the King (Soph. Oed. T. 1391) after the 
 terrible disclosure. For the quotations following, compare vii. 38, 
 40, 41. 
 
xi TO HIMSELF 163 
 
 Or 
 
 Lives are reaped like ears of corn 
 
 and the like. After tragedy came the old comedy, 
 reprimanding like a schoolmaster, and in its 
 bluff outspoken way usefully rebuking pride ; 
 somewhat in the style of like deliverances by 
 Diogenes. Next understand the meaning of middle 
 comedy, and finally of the new comedy, noting to 
 what ends it was applied and how it gradually 
 degenerated into mere mimic diversion. That 
 some good things occur even here, every one 
 knows ; but what was the main object and aim of 
 that school of poetry and drama ? 
 
 Palpably, no condition of life is so well suited 7 
 for philosophy, as that in which chance puts 
 you. 
 
 A branch lopped from its neighbour branch, 8 
 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. 
 Another's hand lops the branch ; but it is a 
 man's own act when hatred or estrangement 
 separates him from his neighbour, and he wots 
 not that he thereby cuts himself off from 
 the great world society. But, thanks be to 
 
1 64 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 Zeus who knits the bond of fellowship, it is in 
 our power to coalesce once more with our neigh- 
 bour, and recomplete the whole. Yet constant 
 repetition of the severance makes reunion and 
 restoration difficult for the separatist. The branch 
 which is part of the original growth and has 
 shared the continuous life of the tree, is not the 
 same as one that has been lopped off and re- 
 ingrafted, as the gardeners know well. So then 
 One at core, if not in creed. 
 
 9 Those who put obstacles in the way of your 
 following the law of Reason cannot divert you 
 from sound action ; so likewise let them not give 
 your charity a check. Make sure of both of 
 stedfastness in judgment and action, but also of 
 gentleness towards those who try to baulk or 
 otherwise annoy you. To lose your temper with 
 them is no less weakness, than to abstain from 
 action or to be cowed into giving in. Both are 
 alike deserters from the ranks both he who 
 succumbs, and he who is estranged from his 
 natural brother and friend. 
 
 10 Nature is never inferior to art ; for the arts are 
 but imitations of nature. If so, nature in its most 
 perfect and comprehensive form cannot fall short 
 
xi TO HIMSELF 165 
 
 of true artist workmanship. But all the arts use 
 the lower for the higher ; and so too does nature. 
 Thus we get at the origin of justice, which is the 
 basis of all the other virtues ; for we are not true 
 to justice, if we strive for things secondary, or if 
 we allow ourselves to be imposed upon, or draw 
 hasty and fallible conclusions. 
 
 The things it so perturbs you to seek or shun, 11 
 do not come to you ; rather, you go to them. 
 Only let your judgment of them hold its peace, 
 and they on their side will remain stationary, and 
 no one will see you either seeking them or 
 shunning. 
 
 The soul becomes a " self-rounded sphere," when 12 
 it neither strains outward, nor contracts inward by 
 self-constriction and compression, but shines with 
 the light, by which it sees all truth without and 
 truth within. 
 
 Will any contemn me ? See he to that. It 13 
 is for me to see that neither by act nor word I 
 merit contempt. Or hate me ? Again, his affair. 
 Mine is to be in charity and kindliness with every 
 one, ready to show this very man his misconcep- 
 tion, not in a carping spirit or with a parade of 
 forbearance, but honestly and in good part, like old 
 
1 66 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 Phocion, 1 if indeed he meant what he said. That 
 is the right inward temper, and before the eye of 
 god man should not ever cherish resentment or 
 indignation. How can it be an evil for you, to 
 follow the present authorisation of your own 
 nature, and to accept the seasonable course of 
 Nature? Have you not been set here as an 
 instrument for the advantage of the universe ? 
 
 14 They despise yet fawn on one another ; and to 
 get the better of each other, cringe to one another. 
 
 15 * To be simple, sir, in all my dealings, that is 
 my resolve ! ' What a hollow spurious ring it 
 has ! Tut, man, no need of professions. Truth 
 will speak for itself; it should be written upon 
 your forehead : it rings in the voice, it looks out 
 of the eyes, just as in the lover's expression the 
 beloved reads all. Goodness, true and simple, 
 should be like musk, so redolent that, will-he nill- 
 he, every one who draws near perceives its 
 fragrance. But the affectation of simpleness is 
 a dagger in the sleeve : 2 ' wolf-friendship ' is the 
 depth of meanness ; beyond everything, shun that 
 
 1 Referring probably to Phocion 's charge to his son, before 
 drinking the hemlock, 'to bear no ill-will against the Athenians.' 
 
 2 Literally, 'a crooked stick,' referring to the Greek proverb, 
 ' Nothing can make a crooked stick straight.' 
 
xi TO HIMSELF 167 
 
 Goodness, simplicity and kindness, look out of the 
 eyes, and there is no mistaking. 
 
 The perfecting of life is a power residing in 16 
 the soul, realised by indifference towards things 
 indifferent. The indifference will be attained by 
 contemplating everything in its elements, and also 
 as a whole, and by remembering that 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 efface any inscription 
 transcribed there unawares. The call upon self- 
 discipline will not be long, only till life is done 
 with. Why make a grievance and wish things 
 otherwise ? If they are in accordance with nature, 
 rejoice therein and find all easy ; if not, then seek 
 what is in accord with your own nature, and press 
 towards it through good repute or ill. The quest 
 after one's own good is its own excuse. 
 
 Consider from whence each thing has come, of 17 
 what materials it is composed, into what it is 
 changing, what it will be like when changed, and 
 that no harm can come to it. 
 
168 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 18 Heads of Philosophy 
 
 First. My relation towards men. We are 
 made for one another : or another point of view 
 I have been set at their head, as the ram heads 
 the flock, or the bull the herd : or, going back to 
 the beginning If not atoms, then nature dis- 
 posing all ; if so, things lower exist for the higher, 
 and the higher for one another. 
 
 Second. What are men like in board, in bed, 
 and so on ? above all, what principles do they 
 hold binding? and how far does pride enter into 
 their actual conduct ? 
 
 Third. If others are doing right, you have no 
 call to feel sore ; if wrong, it is not wilful, but 
 comes of ignorance. Just as " No soul wilfully 
 misses truth" * none wilfully disallows another's 
 due; are not men distressed if called unjust, or 
 ungracious, or grasping, or in any other way un- 
 neighbourly ? 
 
 Fourth. You are like others, and often do 
 wrong yourself. Even if you abstain from some 
 forms of wrong, all the same you have the bent 
 for wrongdoing, though cowardice or desire for 
 
 1 See vii. 63. 
 
xi TO HIMSELF 169 
 
 popularity, or some other low motive keeps you 
 from wrong of that kind. 
 
 Fifth. You cannot even be sure if they are 
 doing wrong ; for many actions depend upon some 
 secondary end. In short one has much to learn, 
 before one can make sure and certain about 
 another's action. 
 
 Sixth. When sorely provoked and out of 
 patience, remember that man's life is but for a 
 moment ; a little while, and we all lie stretched in 
 death. 
 
 Seventh. Men's actions resting with them 
 and their Inner Selves cannot agitate us, but 
 our own views regarding them. Get rid of these, 
 let judgment forego its indignation, and there- 
 with anger departs. How achieve this ? by 
 reflecting that they cannot demean you. For if 
 anything except what morally demeans is bad, 
 you too must plead guilty to all sorts of wrong- 
 doing, from brigandage l onwards. 
 
 Eighth. How much more unconscionable are 
 our anger and vexation at the acts, than the acts 
 which make us angry and vexed ! 
 
 Ninth. Kindness is invincible if only it is 
 
 1 x. 10 explains the reference. 
 
170. MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 honest, not fawning or insincere. What can 
 the most aggressive do/ if you keep persistently 
 kind, and as occasion offers gently remonstrate, 
 and seize the moment when he is bent on mischief, 
 for trying quietly to convert him to a better frame 
 of mind. ' Not so, my son, we are made for other 
 ends ; you cannot hurt me, you hurt yourself, my 
 son.' Then point him gently to the general law 
 of things, that neither do the bees act so, nor any 
 of the gregarious animals ; but avoid any touch of 
 irony or fault-finding, and be affectionate and con- 
 ciliatory in tone ; not in schoolmaster style, or to 
 show off before others, but quietly in his own ear, 
 even if others are standing by. 
 
 Bear these nine heads in mind, gifts as it 
 were of the nine Muses. While you still live, 
 before it is too late, begin to be a man ! Be on 
 your guard against flattering as well as against 
 petulance ; both come of self-seeking, and both 
 do harm. In fits of anger remind yourself that 
 true manliness is not passion, but gentleness 
 and courtesy, the more masculine as well as the 
 more human : this it is, and not irritation or 
 discontentment, that implies strength and nerve 
 and manhood ; the absence of passion gives the 
 
xi TO HIMSELF 171 
 
 measure of its power. Anger, like grief, is a 
 mark of weakness ; both mean being wounded, 
 and wincing. 
 
 Tenth and lastly a gift, so please you, from 
 Apollo leader of the Choir. Not to expect the 
 worthless to do wrong, is idiotcy : it is asking an 
 impossibility. To allow them to wrong others, 
 and to claim exemption for yourself, is graceless 
 and tyrannical. 
 
 There are four moods to which your Inner Self 19 
 is liable, against which you must constantly be 
 upon the watch, and as soon as detected suppress 
 with the appropriate comment. Either, this is a 
 needless fancy : or, this is anti-social : or, this does 
 not come from your own heart and not to speak 
 from one's heart is a moral inconsequence. Or, 
 fourthly, you will never forgive yourself; for such 
 a feeling implies subjection and abasement of the 
 diviner element in you to the perishable and less 
 honourable portion, the body and its coarser 
 apprehensions. 
 
 By nature breath and all the igneous element 20 
 in your composition ascend ; yet in obedience to 
 the order of things, they accept subordination and 
 keep their place in the compound. Conversely, 
 
172 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 all the earthy and watery elements in you tend to 
 descend ; yet by steady* levitation they retain a 
 position which is not theirs by nature. Thus the 
 elements, we see, obey the law of things, and 
 persistently retain their appointed place, until the 
 signal for dissolution sounds their release. Fie on 
 it, that your mind-element alone should disobey 
 and resent the post assigned ; though no violence 
 is laid upon it, nothing but what is in accordance 
 with its nature ; yet it breaks away impatiently. 
 For motions of injustice, intemperance, anger, 
 vexation, fear, are simply a rebellion against 
 nature. When our Inner Self chafes against any- 
 thing that happens, in so doing it quits its post. 
 It is made for holiness and god-fearing, no less 
 than for justice. These too are included in the 
 thought of world-communion, nay are prior even 
 to the dues of justice. 
 
 21 Where the life has no unity of aim, the man 
 cannot live life at unity with himself. Nor is it 
 enough to say this, unless you go on to add what 
 the true aim should be. In the idea of goods at 
 large, as popularly understood, there is no unity, 
 but only in goods of a certain kind, namely social 
 goods ; similarly for unity of aim, the basis of the 
 
xi TO HIMSELF 173 
 
 aim must be social and unselfish. Direct all your 
 inward endeavours to this end, and you will give 
 unity to all your actions, and be always con- 
 sistent with yourself. 
 
 Think of the mountain-mouse 1 and the town- 22 
 mouse, and the poor beast's scurry and scare ! 
 
 Socrates called popular beliefs Bug-bears for 23 
 children. 
 
 The Spartans at their festivals, for their guests 24 
 set seats in the shade, for themselves sat where 
 they could. 
 
 Socrates declined the invitation of Archelaus 25 
 son of Perdiccas, "to avoid" he said "death with 
 ignominy " to wit, receiving favours he could not 
 return. 
 
 Among the statutes of the Ephesians was an 26 
 injunction, to meditate continually on some ancient 
 model of virtue. 
 
 The Pythagoreans bid us every morning lift our 27 
 eyes to heaven, to meditate upon the heavenly bodies 
 pursuing their everlasting round their order, their 
 purity, their nakedness. For no star wears a veil. 
 
 1 Marcus habitually uses ' mountain ' to signify unperturbed 
 withdrawal from the world, and the adjective here echoes x. 15, 
 23, and opening of iv. 2. 
 
174 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 28 Think of Socrates with the sheepskin round his 
 loins, when Xanthippe had marched off with his 
 cloak, and what he said to his friends who 
 modestly beat a retreat when they saw him in 
 such a guise. 
 
 29 In reading and in writing you cannot give 
 rules till you have obeyed them. Much more 
 in life. 
 
 30 Slave that thou art, reason is not for thee ! 
 
 31 And my dear heart laughed within. 1 
 
 32 Virtue they'll taunt and with hard words revile. 2 
 
 33 To look for figs in winter is fool's work ; so is 
 it to look for a child, when the time is past. 
 
 34 As you fondle your little one, says Epictetus, 
 murmur to yourself * To-morrow perchance it will 
 die.' * Ominous, is it ? ' ' Nothing is ominous,' 
 said the sage, ' that signifies an act of nature. Is 
 
 35 it ominous to harvest the ripe ears ? ' The green 
 grape, the cluster, the raisin, change following 
 change, not into nothingness but to the not yet 
 realised. 
 
 36 " No man can rob us of our will" says Epictetus. 3 
 
 37 Epictetus urged the need of a sound grammar 
 
 1 Homer, Od. ix. 413. 2 Hesiod, Works and Days, v. 184. 
 
 3 Arrian, Epict. I. xi. 37, ill. xxii. 105. 
 
xi TO HIMSELF 175 
 
 of assent ; and in dealing with the impulses, to take 
 good heed to keep them subject to reservation, 
 unselfish, and in due proportion to their object : 
 always to refrain inclination, and to limit avoid- 
 ance to things within our own control. 
 
 " // is 110 trifle at stake" he said " it means, 38 
 are you in your senses, or are you not ? " 
 
 ' What would you have ? ' Socrates used to say, 39 
 rational men's souls, or irrational ? ' ' Rational.' 
 ' Souls healthy or souls depraved ? ' * Healthy.' 
 ' Then why not seek for them ? ' ' Because we 
 have them already.' ' Then why fight and be at 
 variance ? ' 
 
BOOK XII 
 
 ANIMULA VAGULA BLANDULA, 
 
 HOSPES COMESQUE CORPORIS, 
 
 QUAE NUNC ABIBIS IN LOCA ? Hadrian 
 
 1 ALL the good things to which you pray sooner 
 or later to attain may be yours at once, if 
 only you will not stand in your own way ; if 
 only, leaving the past alone and committing the 
 future to the hand of providence, you will direct 
 the present and that only, in the way of holi- 
 ness and justice : of holiness, that you may be 
 glad in your apportioned lot, nature's assignment, 
 it for you and you for it ; of justice, that 
 you may freely and without subterfuge speak 
 truth and follow law and treat things at their 
 worth, knowing no contravention from evil in 
 another, nor from false view within, nor from 
 sound nor yet sensation of this fleshly shell : for 
 
BOOK xii MARCUS ANTONINUS 177 
 
 the part affected must look to that. If then, now 
 that you near your end, leaving all else alone, 
 you will reverence only your Inner Self and the 
 god within, if you will fear not life some time 
 coming to an end, but never beginning life at all 
 in accord with nature's law, then indeed you will 
 be a man, worthy of the universe that begat you, 
 and no more a stranger to your fatherland, ever 
 in amaze at the unexpectedness of what each day 
 brings forth, and hanging upon this event or that. 
 
 God sees men's Inner Selves stripped of their 2 
 material shells and husks and impurities. Mind 
 to mind, his mental being touches only the like 
 elements in us derivative and immanent from him. 
 By accustoming yourself to the same habit, you 
 will save yourself most part of the distracting 
 strain. For he who looks not to his shell of 
 flesh, will assuredly not make ado over raiment 
 and house and reputation, intent on the mere 
 trappings and stagings. 
 
 You consist of three parts body, breath, 3 
 mind. The first two are yours, to the extent of 
 requiring your care : the third only is properly 
 your own. Now if you separate from your true 
 
 self your understanding all that others do or 
 
 N 
 
i;8 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 say, all that you have yourself done or said, all 
 that perturbs you for the future, all that belongs 
 to your material shell or vital breath and lies out- 
 side your own control, all finally that sweeps past 
 you in the swirl of circumstance, if thus exempting 
 and clearing your mind -faculty from the play 
 of destiny, you enable it to live free and un- 
 restricted, doing what is just, willing what 
 befalls, and saying what is true if, I say, you 
 thus separate from your Inner Self the outer 
 ties and attachments, the influences of time past 
 and time to come, and so make yourself in the 
 language of Empedocles 
 
 A rounded sphere, poised in rotating rest ; 
 
 and train yourself to live in what alone is life 
 the present, then you will be able, for life's re- 
 mainder and till death, to live on constant to the 
 deity within, unperturbed, ingenuous, serene. 
 
 How strange it is, that every one loves himself 
 above all others, yet attaches less weight to his 
 own view of himself, than to that of other men. 
 Suppose, for instance, some god or some wise 
 teacher stood at a man's elbow and bade him 
 utter aloud each thought that came into his heart 
 
xii TO HIMSELF 179 
 
 or mind, he could not endure it for a single day. 
 So much more deference do we pay to what 
 our neighbours think of us, than to our own 
 selves. 
 
 How is it that the gods, who ordered all things 5 
 well and lovingly, overlooked this one thing ; that 
 some men, elect in virtue, having kept close covenant 
 with the divine, and enjoyed intimate communion 
 therewith by holy acts and sacred ministries, 
 should not, when once dead, renew their being, 
 but be utterly extinguished ? If it indeed be so, 
 be sure, had it been better otherwise, the gods 
 would have so planned it. Were it right, it would 
 be likewise possible ; were it according to nature, 
 nature would have brought it to pass. From its 
 not being so, if as a fact it is not so, be assured it 
 ought not so to be. Do you not see that in 
 hazarding such questions you arraign the justice 
 of god ? nay we could not thus reason with the 
 gods, but for their perfectness and justice. And 
 from this it follows that they would never have 
 allowed any unjust or unreasonable neglect of 
 parts of the great order. 
 
 Practise even where you despair of success. 6 
 Want of practice makes the left hand helpless in 
 
i8o MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 all else, but in handling the bridle it is more 
 efficient than the right.: that comes of practice. 
 
 7 Think what a man should be in body and 
 soul, when death overtakes him : think of the 
 shortness of life, of the unfathomable eternity 
 behind and before, of the weakness of all things 
 material. 
 
 8 Strip off the husks, and look at the underlying 
 causes ; look at the tendencies of action ; at pain, 
 pleasure, death, reputation ; at man, his own dis- 
 quieter ; see how every contravention comes from 
 within, not from without ; how the view taken is 
 everything. 
 
 9 In applying principles to action be like the 
 boxer 1 not the swordsman. The swordsman lays 
 by his sword and takes it up again ; but the 
 boxer's hand is always there, he has nothing to do 
 but to clench it. 
 
 10 Look at things as they are, discriminating 
 matter, cause, and tendency. 
 
 11 How great is man's prerogative to do nothing 
 but what god approves, and to accept all that god 
 assigns. 
 
 12 In the order of nature, we must not find 
 
 1 Strictly " pancratiast " a mixture of boxing and wrestling. 
 
xii TO HIMSELF 181 
 
 fault with gods who do no wrong, witting or 
 unwitting ; nor yet with men, whose wrong is 
 done unwittingly. Therefore find fault with 
 none. 
 
 How silly .and how strange, to be amazed at 13 
 anything in life ! 
 
 Either fixed necessity and an inviolable order, 14 
 or a merciful providence, or a random and un- 
 governed medley. If an inviolable necessity, why 
 resist? If a providence, waiting to be merciful, 
 make yourself worthy of the divine aid. If a 
 chaos uncontrolled, be thankful that amid the 
 wild waters you have within yourself an Inner 
 governing mind. If the waves sweep you away, 
 let them sweep flesh, breath and poor mortality ; 
 the mind they shall never sweep. 
 
 Shall the flame of a lamp give light till it is 15 
 extinguished, and not lose its radiance ; and shall 
 the truth within you and justice and wisdom con- 
 sent to premature extinction ? 
 
 He gives me the impression of wrongdoing, 16 
 but after all how do I know, whether it is wrong ? 
 or supposing it was, that he did not upbraid him- 
 self for it like the mourner defacing his own 
 visage ? He who would not have the vile do 
 
182 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 wrong, is like one who would not have the fig-tree 
 bear juice in her figs, or infants squall, or the 
 horse neigh, or anything else that is in the order 
 of things. What else can result, his bent being 
 what it is ? If it aggrieves you, amend it. 
 
 17 If it is not your duty, do not do it : if it is not 
 true, do not say it. 
 
 is Be it your endeavour always to look at the 
 whole, and see what the actual thing is that pro- 
 duces the impression, and resolve it by analysis 
 into cause, matter, tendency, and duration of time 
 within which it must cease to exist. 
 
 19 It is time to recognise that you have within 
 you something higher and more divine than that 
 which produces the affections of sense, or just 
 pulls the strings within. How is it with my 
 understanding, at this moment ? fear ? suspicion ? 
 desire ? or what ? 
 
 20 First, do nothing at random, or unpurposed. 
 Secondly, direct all action to some social end. 
 
 21 A little while and your place will know you 
 no more : so too with everything you now see, 
 and every one with whom you live. All things 
 change and pass and perish, that others may 
 succeed. 
 
xii TO HIMSELF 183 
 
 The view taken is everything ; and that rests 22 
 with yourself. Disown the view, at will ; and 
 behold, the headland rounded, there is calm, still 
 waters and a waveless bay. 
 
 No action whatsoever is the worse for ceasing, 23 
 when the time for cessation comes : neither is the 
 author of the action, merely because his action 
 ceases. So too with the sum of all our actions, 
 which is life when the time for cessation comes, 
 it is none the worse merely because it ceases ; nor 
 do we impute evil to him, who at the right time 
 brings the sequence to an end. Nature sets the 
 right time and the limit ; sometimes the individual 
 nature with its bidding of old age, but in any case 
 Nature at large, who by constant changes of the 
 parts keeps the whole universe ever fresh and 
 vigorous : and that which is of advantage to the 
 universe is ever good and lovely. To the in- 
 dividual then cessation of life is no evil, for there 
 is nothing in it demeaning, seeing that it lies 
 outside our own control and comes not of self- 
 seeking : and it is a good, in that to the universe 
 it is seasonable, serviceable, and subserving other 
 ends. Thus man becomes a vessel of god, at one 
 with god in tendency and in intent. 
 
1 84 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 24 Three maxims to fall back upon. 
 
 I. In action, do nothing at random, or at 
 variance with the ways of justice : all outward 
 circumstance, remember, is either chance or pro- 
 vidence ; you cannot quarrel with chance, and you 
 cannot arraign providence. 
 
 II. Think what everything is from the sem- 
 inal germ to its quickening with soul, and from 
 soul-quickening to the yielding up of soul ; think 
 of what it is compounded and into what it is 
 dissolved. 
 
 in. Supposing that translated to some higher 
 region you could look down upon the world of 
 man, and discern its manifold variety, and em- 
 brace within your vision his vast environment of 
 things in air and things in heaven, remember that, 
 however often so translated, you will see always 
 the same sights, all uniform, all transitory. What 
 food is here for pride ? 
 
 25 Reject the view and straightway, you are 
 whole. Who hinders the rejection ? 
 
 26 Impatience at anything means that you forget 
 That all things follow the law of Nature ; that 
 the fault lies at another's door ; that everything ' 
 which happens, ever did, ever will, ever does in 
 
xii TO HIMSELF 185 
 
 every case so happen : further, that you forget 
 man's brotherhood with all mankind, not by blood 
 or physical descent, but by community in mind : 
 and yet again that each man's mind is god, an 
 efflux of deity ; that nothing is strictly a man's 
 own, but even his child, his body, his very soul, 
 have come from god ; that the view taken is 
 everything ; and that every one can live, or lose, 
 the present alone. 
 
 Dwell in retrospect on those who gave resent- 27 
 ment rein, who knew the transports of big ambi- 
 tions, failures, feuds, and every change and chance. 
 Then reflect, Where are they all now ? Smoke, 
 ashes, and a tale, or less than a tale. Recall each 
 instance of the kind Fabius Catulinus on his 
 farm, Lucius Lupus in his gardens, Stertinius at 
 Baiae, Tiberius at Capreae, Velius Itufus, or any 
 other such fanciful endeavour ! how paltry all such 
 striving ! how far more philosophical simply to use 
 the material supplied to make oneself just and 
 wise and a follower of gods ! The pride which 
 masks as modesty is the most perverse of all. 
 
 To those who press the question, ' Where have 28 
 you seen the gods, whence your conviction of 
 their existence, that you worship them as you do ? ' 
 
i86 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK 
 
 I reply first, they are visible even to the bodily 
 eye : secondly, neither have I set eyes upon my 
 soul, and yet I do it reverence. So is it with 
 the gods ; from my continual experience of their 
 power, I have the conviction that they exist, and 
 yield respect. 
 
 29 This is the way of salvation to look throughly 
 into everything and see what it really is, alike in 
 matter and in cause ; with your whole heart to do 
 what is just and say what is true : and one thing 
 more, to find life's fruition in heaping good on 
 good so close, that not a chink is left between. 
 
 30 The light of the sun is one, even though dis- 
 parted by walls, hills, or a hundred other things : 
 its common substance is one, though disparted by 
 any number of individual bodies. So too soul is 
 one, though disparted among any number of natures 
 and individualities. And soul possessed of mind 
 is one, though we think of it as distributed in 
 parts. All the other constituents of the various 
 wholes breath, material elements, and so forth 
 possess neither sense nor mutual relationship ; 
 yet even they are held in union by the unifying 
 element and identity of gravitation. But thought 
 tends specifically towards its counterpart, and 
 
xii TO HIMSELF 187 
 
 combines with it, and the instinct of community 
 declines disunion. 
 
 Why hanker for continuous existence? is it 31 
 for sensation, desire, growth ? or again, for speech, 
 utterance, thought? which of these seems worth 
 the craving? If each and all of these are of 
 small regard, address yourself to the final quest, 
 the following of reason and of god. Reverence 
 for them cannot be reconciled with repining at the 
 losses death entails. 
 
 What a jot of infinite unfathomable time is 32 
 assigned to any one of us ! In a moment it 
 vanishes into eternity. What a morsel of the 
 sum of being ! or of the sum of soul ! on what a 
 grain of the whole earth you crawl ! Mindful of 
 all this, regard one thing only as of moment, to 
 do what your own nature directs, to bear what 
 universal nature brings. 
 
 How goes it with your Inner Self? that is 33 
 everything. All else, in your control or out of it, 
 is dust of the dead and smoke. 
 
 The best quickener to contempt of death is 34 
 this that even those who account pleasure good 
 and pain evil, contemn it notwithstanding. 
 
 For the man, to whom good means solely that 35 
 
i88 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK xn 
 
 which comes in season, to whom it is all one 
 whether he follows the law of Reason in few acts 
 or in many, to whom it matters not whether his 
 outlook on the world be long or short for that 
 man death has no terrors. 
 
 36 Man, you have been a citizen of the great 
 world city. Five years or fifty, what matters it ? 
 To every man his due, as law allots. Why then 
 protest ? No tyrant gives you your dismissal, 
 no unjust judge, but nature who gave you the 
 admission. It is like the praetor discharging 
 some player whom he has engaged. ' But the 
 five acts are not complete ; I have played but 
 three.' Good : life's drama, look you, is com- 
 plete in three. The completeness is in his hands, 
 who first authorised your composition, and now 
 your dissolution ; neither was your work. Serenely 
 take your leave ; serene as he who gives you the 
 discharge. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 SELECTED emendations of the text, adopted in the trans- 
 lation and not found in printed editions. The line- 
 numbering is from the Tauchnitz text. 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 14, /. 7 For oueXcc or ojuctXec, read cuLueXec 
 
 1 6, /. 12 For anoXeupeeNTCON, read anoXiupeeNTCON 
 
 14 Read IHIJULONON CON cm aXXoc TIC npoanecTH 
 THC epeuNHC, apKeceeic . . 
 
 41 Omit KT6c 
 
 48 Omit TO TCI ncrrpia 9uXdccciN 
 
 57 For aNepconoic, read aXXoic, taken for 
 
 ONOIC 
 
 59 For OUK ^N acopeT, read OUK HN acopi 
 J 7j I' 53 For xai TOIJTOU in KaiinTH cocnep XP" CH - 
 read KCXJ T6 ToO CN KQIIHTH "cocnep 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 2, end For unoduececu, read cmo&upeceai 
 
 4, end For olxHCTai Kai O!XHCH Kai aueic ou/ 
 
 HSCTQI, read olxHCCTQi Kai aueic OUK 
 
 fateita 
 
190 MARCUS ANTONINUS 
 
 6, opening For ufipize, ufipize CIUTHN, cb ipuyH read 
 ufipizH : JUH ufipize CEOUTHN. cb yvyH' 
 and in following line etc for the eu, ou, 
 or fipaxuc variants 
 
 1 6, /. 5 For CN juepei, read INCOCCI 
 
 BOOK III 
 
 2, /. 1 8 For Hdecoc ncoc diacuNicraceai, read tidecoc 
 
 ncoc idig cuNicraceai 
 4, //. 3-4 For HTOI rap aXXou eprou crepH rourecTi 
 
 9aNTazojuLNoc, read TI rap aXXou eprou 
 
 CTpH OUTCOC T1 9aNTaZOJULNOC KT\. 
 
 5, /. 9 For IN be TO ^aibpoN, read IN be TOUTCO TO 
 
 >8, /. 2 For juLJUioXucjuLNON, read nejucoXucueNON 
 12, /. 7 For Hpco'i'KH, read eupo'iKH 
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 3, /. 12 For OUTHN, OUTI^N, or XuriHN, read au\HN 
 //. 23-24 Read aXXa TO ccojucmKd cou 
 
 TI CNNOHCaC . . 
 
 5, /. 2 Read cuncpicic eK TOIOUTCON 
 
 Xucic etc TQUTO 
 
 1 6, /. i After ee6c, insert eeotc 
 1 8, /. i For acxoXiaN, read eucxoXiaN 
 19, end I have modified punctuation, and as final 
 
 words read napiHC rap NGN aicaipcoc THN 
 
 9uciKHN 36ciN, aXXou TINOC 
 
 X6rou Xom6N 
 21, /. 4 For npoc HNTINO enidiajiiONHN, read 
 
 nOCHN T1NO 
 
APPENDIX 191 
 
 24, /. 2 After dueiNON, insert JULONON 
 27, opening Read HTOI KOCJULOC SiaTerarueNOC, ft KUKGCON 
 cu.unc90pHJULNoc. dXXd JUHN KOCUOC- H 
 
 N CO1 JU.eN . . ; 
 
 30 Rcpunctuated ; with dXXcoc (for dXXoc) 
 
 attached to BiBXiou clause 
 33, /. 4 For AeoNNdroc, read ACNTQTOC 
 40, /. 2 For enexoN, read dn^ON, or better ^pencm 
 46, end Read on ou dcT nafdac TOKCCON d>N [or 
 
 ooc], Tourecri Kara vpiXoN, KaeoTi nap- 
 
 51, /. 4 For CTpareiac, read erparreiac 
 
 BOOK V 
 
 5, /. 7 For jueraXefoN, read dueraXeiON 
 6 Besides small amendments 9ucei for 
 
 I have at various points re-arranged 
 26, /. 5 For THN IrepaN cuJuindeeiaN, read THN jmepcbN 
 
 cujuindeeiaN 
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 13, /. 13 For icTOpidN, read ropeiaN 
 
 45, /. 4 Insert H before 4ni TCON ueccoN 
 
 BOOK VII- 
 
 2, opening Read Yde rd borjuiaTa- ncoc rap dXXcoc . . . 
 1 6, /. 8 For ou rap ezeic, read ou napeXseic 
 31, /. 4 For eri ei oafjuoNa TO croixeia, read eire 
 e'l're croixeia, dpKeT &H jae- 
 
 
 56, /. i Insert JUIH before ju^xpi NGN 
 
192 MARCUS ANTONINUS 
 
 66, /. 7 For emcTHceicN, read dniCTHceiEN 
 
 67, opening Supply TON NoGN (with Schultz) from end of 
 preceding section 
 
 BOOK VIII 
 
 8, opening naNra rmcocKeiN for cmariNGOCKeiN seems 
 
 probable 
 21, /. 2 For NOCHCCIN & nopNeOcaN, read NOCHCQN 
 
 [&'] ft anonuficaN 
 
 35, /. 4 For eninepirpenei. read en neprrpenei 
 38 Read BXene KpmcoN 9ucei co9COTdrouc 
 
 41, end Read oux onoON anrerai, OTQN reNHrai 
 
 C9dTpOC KUK\OTGpHC JULONIH 
 
 51, end Read ncoc OUN nHFHN aeNNQON eseic ; 
 
 elcduou ceauTON KT\. 
 57, /. 7 For cocnep diaipeTrai read enepeiderai 
 
 BOOK IX 
 
 i, /. 36 Read &NTI roO cujuBameiN eniCHC TOIC eni- 
 riNOjmeNOic, omitting Kara TO ksnc and 
 
 riNOJULN01C KQ1 
 
 3, /. 9 For oXocxepcbc, read ducxcpcbc 
 28, /. 4 Provisionally read ft anas copjj.Hce, TO 5e 
 Xoina KQT* enaKoXoueHCiN 
 TponoN rap TINQ drouoi ft A 
 
 BOOK X 
 
 7, end For cc XfaN npocnXeKei, read cii XION 
 
 npocnXeKH 
 9, /. 3 For 6 9ucioXorHT6c, read ou 9ucioXorHTcoc 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 193 
 
 12, /. 8 Read H re an6nrcacic <5m6Teunu' oOic &TIN 
 
 (for 6:nb TOUTOU ecriN) 
 19, /. 2 For 6NdpoNOJU.ouJU.CNOi, read aNdporuNou- 
 
 JUCNOI 
 
 BOOK XI 
 
 6 In first clause, for frri . . . JUH axeecee, read 
 
 were . . . juri axeeceai 
 
 12, /. 2 For cneipHTai, read cucneiparai. 
 15, /. 3 Read aurb 9aNHCrar Ni roO jmerconou 
 
 rerpa9eai 69eiXei eOeuc H 9&>NH roioO- 
 
 TON HxeT- eueuc N TOIC oJuuuaciN 
 1 6, /. 10 Read TI JULCNTOI 5ucKoXoN OUK aXXcoc 
 
 raOra ; 
 
 BOOK XII 
 
 2, end For dcxoXHcerai, read c 
 
 30, /. 8 For TO NooGN of Edd., read r6 
 
 31, /. 2 For r6 XrtreiN, read TO Xerem 
 
 THE END 
 
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