Meditations, Marcus Aurelius [websites to read books for free TXT] 📗

Odyssey, where the king of the gods says, “Men

say that evil comes to them from us, but they bring it on themselves

through their own folly.” The answer is plain enough even to the Greek

commentator. The poets make both Achilles and Zeus speak appropriately to

their several characters. Indeed, Zeus says plainly that men do attribute

their sufferings to the gods, but they do it falsely, for they are the

cause of their own sorrows.

 

Epictetus in his Enchiridion makes short work of the question of evil. He

says, “As a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing it, so neither

does the nature of evil exist in the universe.” This will appear obscure

enough to those who are not acquainted with Epictetus, but he always

knows what he is talking about. We do not set up a mark in order to miss

it, though we may miss it. God, whose existence Epictetus assumes, has

not ordered all things so that his purpose shall fail. Whatever there may

be of what we call evil, the nature of evil, as he expresses it, does not

exist; that is, evil is not a part of the constitution or nature of

things. If there were a principle of evil in the constitution of things,

evil would no longer be evil, as Simplicius argues, but evil would be

good.

 

One passage more will conclude this matter. It contains all that the

emperor could say: “To go from among men, if there are gods, is not a

thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil; but if

indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs,

what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of

providence? But in truth they do exist, and they do care for human

things, and they have put all the means in man’s power to enable him not

to fall into real evils. And as to the rest, if there was anything evil,

they would have provided for this also, that it should be altogether in a

man’s power not to fall into it. But that which does not make a man

worse, how can it make a man’s life worse? But neither through ignorance,

nor having the knowledge but not the power to guard against or correct

these things, is it possible that the nature of the universe has

overlooked them; nor is it possible that it has made so great a mistake,

either through want of power or want of skill, that good and evil should

happen indiscriminately to the good and the bad. But death certainly and

life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things equally

happen to good and bad men, being things which make us neither better nor

worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.”

 

The Ethical part of Antoninus’ Philosophy follows from his general

principles. The end of all his philosophy is to live conformably to

Nature, both a man’s own nature and the nature of the universe. Bishop

Butler has explained what the Greek philosophers meant when they spoke of

living according to Nature, and he says that when it is explained, as he

has explained it and as they understood it, it is, “a manner of speaking

not loose and undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and

true.” To live according to Nature is to live according to a man’s whole

nature, not according to a part of it, and to reverence the divinity

within him as the governor of all his actions. “To the rational animal

the same act is according to nature and according to reason.” That which

is done contrary to reason is also an act contrary to nature, to the

whole nature, though it is certainly conformable to some part of man’s

nature, or it could not be done. Man is made for action, not for idleness

or pleasure. As plants and animals do the uses of their nature, so man

must do his (V. 1).

 

Man must also live conformably to the universal nature, conformably to

the nature of all things of which he is one; and as a citizen of a

political community he must direct his life and actions with reference to

those among whom, and for whom, among other purposes, he lives. A man

must not retire into solitude and cut himself off from his fellow-men. He

must be ever active to do his part in the great whole. All men are his

kin, not only in blood, but still more by participating in the same

intelligence and by being a portion of the same divinity. A man cannot

really be injured by his brethren, for no act of theirs can make him bad,

and he must not be angry with them nor hate them: “For we are made for

co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the

upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to

nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn

away” (II. 1).

 

Further he says: “Take pleasure in one thing, and rest in it in passing

from one social act to another social act, thinking of God” (VI. 7).

Again: “Love mankind. Follow God” (VI. 31). It is the characteristic of

the rational soul for a man to love his neighbor (XI. 1). Antoninus

teaches in various passages the forgiveness of injuries, and we know that

he also practiced what he taught. Bishop Butler remarks that “this divine

precept to forgive injuries and to love our enemies, though to be met

with in Gentile moralists, yet is in a peculiar sense a precept of

Christianity, as our Saviour has insisted more upon it than on any other

single virtue.” The practise of this precept is the most difficult of all

virtues. Antoninus often enforces it and gives us aid towards following

it. When we are injured, we feel anger and resentment, and the feeling is

natural, just, and useful for the conservation of society. It is useful

that wrongdoers should feel the natural consequences of their actions,

among which is the disapprobation of society and the resentment of him

who is wronged. But revenge, in the proper sense of that word, must not

be practiced. “The best way of avenging thyself,” says the emperor, “is

not to become like, the wrongdoer.” It is plain by this that he does not

mean that we should in any case practise revenge; but he says to those

who talk of revenging wrongs, “Be not like him who has done the wrong.

When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what

opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen

this, thou wilt pity him, and wilt neither wonder nor be angry” (VII.

26). Antoninus would not deny that wrong naturally produces the feeling

of anger and resentment, for this is implied in the recommendation to

reflect on the nature of the man’s mind who has done the wrong, and then

you will have pity instead of resentment; and so it comes to the same as

St. Paul’s advice to be angry and sin not; which, as Butler well explains

it, is not a recommendation to be angry, which nobody needs, for anger is

a natural passion, but it is a warning against allowing anger to lead us

into sin. In short the emperor’s doctrine about wrongful acts is this:

wrongdoers do not know what good and bad are: they offend out of

ignorance, and in the sense of the Stoics this is true. Though this kind

of ignorance will never be admitted as a legal excuse, and ought not to

be admitted as a full excuse in any way by society, there may be grievous

injuries, such as it is in a man’s power to forgive without harm to

society; and if he forgives because he sees that his enemies know not

what they do, he is acting in the spirit of the sublime prayer, “Father,

forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

 

The emperor’s moral philosophy was not a feeble, narrow system, which

teaches a man to look directly to his own happiness, though a man’s

happiness or tranquillity is indirectly promoted by living as he ought to

do. A man must live conformably to the universal nature, which means, as

the emperor explains it in many passages, that a man’s actions must be

conformable to his true relations to all other human beings, both as a

citizen of a political community and as a member of the whole human

family. This implies, and he often expresses it in the most forcible

language, that a man’s words and action, so far as they affect others,

must be measured by a fixed rule, which is their consistency with the

conservation and the interests of the particular society of which he is a

member, and of the whole human race. To live conformably to such a rule,

a man must use his rational faculties in order to discern clearly the

consequences and full effect of all his actions and of the actions of

others: he must not live a life of contemplation and reflection only,

though he must often retire within himself to calm and purify his soul by

thought, but he must mingle in the work of man and be a fellow-laborer

for the general good.

 

A man should have an object or purpose in life, that he may direct all

his energies to it; of course a good object (II. 7). He who has not one

object or purpose of life, cannot be one and the same all through his

life (XI. 21). Bacon has a remark to the same effect, on the best means

of “reducing of the mind unto virtue and good estate; which is, the

electing and propounding unto a man’s self good and virtuous ends of his

life, such as may be in a reasonable sort within his compass to attain.”

He is a happy man who has been wise enough to do this when he was young

and has had the opportunities; but the emperor seeing well that a man

cannot always be so wise in his youth, encourages himself to do it when

he can, and not to let life slip away before he has begun. He who can

propose to himself good and virtuous ends of life, and be true to them,

cannot fail to live conformably to his own interest and the universal

interest, for in the nature of things they are one. If a thing is not

good for the hive, it is not good for the bee (VI. 54).

 

One passage may end this matter. “If the gods have determined about me

and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well,

for it is not easy even to imagine a deity without forethought; and as to

doing me harm, why should they have any desire towards that? For what

advantage would result to them from this or to the whole, which is the

special object of their providence? But if they have not determined about

me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at least;

and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general

arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them.

But if they determine about nothing—which it is wicked to believe, or if

we do believe it, let us neither sacrifice nor pray nor swear by them,

nor do anything else which we do as if the gods were present and lived

with us; but if however the gods determine about none of the things which

concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and