Marcus Aurelius (Haines 1916)/Book 9

by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Layout 2

BOOK IX

1. Injustice is impiety. For in that the Nature of the Universe has fashioned rational creatures for the sake of one another^[1] with a view to mutual benefit based upon worth, but by no means for harm, the transgressor of her will acts with obvious impiety against the most venerable of Deities.

And the liar too acts impiously with respect to the same Goddess. For the Nature of the Universe is the Nature of the things that are. And the things that are have an intimate connexion with all the things that have ever been. Moreover this Nature is named Truth, and is the primary cause of all that is true. The willing liar then is impious in so far as his deceit is a wrong-doing; and the unwilling liar too, for he is out of tune with the Nature of the Whole, and an element of disorder by being in conflict with the Nature of an orderly Universe; for he is in conflict who allows himself, as far as his conduct goes, to be carried into opposition to what is true. And whereas he had previously been endowed by nature with the means of distinguishing false from true, by neglecting to use them he has lost the power.^[2]

Again he acts impiously who seeks after pleasure as a good thing and eschews pain as an evil. For such a man must inevitably find frequent fault with the Universal Nature^[3] as unfair in its apportionments to the worthless and the worthy, since the worthless are often lapped in pleasures and possess the things that make for pleasure, while the worthy meet with pain and the things that make for pain. Moreover he that dreads pain will some day be in dread of something that must be in the world. And there we have impiety at once. And he that hunts after pleasures will not hold his hand from injustice. And this is palpable impiety.

But those, who are of one mind with Nature and would walk in her ways, must hold a neutral attitude^[4] towards those things towards which the Universal Nature is neutral—for she would not be the Maker of both were she not neutral towards both. So he clearly acts with impiety who is not himself neutral towards pain and pleasure, death and life, good report and ill report, things which the Nature of the Universe treats with neutrality. And by the Universal Nature treating these with neutrality I mean that all things happen neutrally in a chain of sequence^[5] to things that come into being and their after products^[6] by some primeval impulse of Providence,^[7] in accordance with which She was impelled by some primal impulse to this making of an ordered Universe, when She had conceived certain principles for all that was to be, and allocated the powers generative of substances and changes and successions such as we see.

2. It were more graceful doubtless for a man to depart from mankind untainted with falsehood and all dissimulation and luxury and arrogance; failing that, however, the 'next best course' is to breathe out his life when his gorge has risen at these things. Or is it thy choice to throw in thy lot with vice, and does not even thy taste of it yet persuade thee to fly from the pestilence? For the corruption of the mind is a pest far worse than any such miasma and vitiation of the air which we breathe around us. The latter is a pestilence for living creatures and affects their life, the former for human beings and affects their humanity.

3. Despise not death,^[8] but welcome it, for Nature wills it like all else. For dissolution is but one of the processes of Nature,^[9] associated with thy life's various seasons, such as to be young, to be old, to wax to our prime and to reach it, to grow teeth and beard and gray hairs, to beget, conceive and bring forth. A man then that has reasoned the matter out should not take up towards death the attitude of indifference, reluctance, or scorn, but await it as one of the processes of Nature.^[10] Look for the hour when thy soul shall emerge from this its sheath, as now thou awaitest the moment when the child she carries shall come forth from thy wife's womb.^[11]

But if thou desirest a commonplace solace too that will appeal to the heart, nothing will enable thee to meet death with equanimity better than to observe the environment thou art leaving and the sort of characters with whom thy soul shall no longer be mixed up.^[12] For while it is very far from right to be disgusted with them,^[13] but rather even to befriend and deal gently with them,^[14].yet it is well to remember that not from men of like principles with thine will thy release be. For this alone, if anything, could draw us back and bind us to life, if it were but permitted us to live with those who have possessed themselves of the same principles as ours. But now thou seest how thou art driven by sheer weariness at the jarring discord of thy life with them to say: Tarry not, O Death, lest peradventure I too forget myself.^[15]

4. He that does wrong, does wrong to himself.^[16] The unjust man is unjust to himself, for he makes himself bad.^[17]

5. There is often an injustice of omission as well as of commission.

6. The present assumption rightly apprehended, the present act socially enacted, the present disposition satisfied with all that befalls it from the Cause external to it—these will suffice.

7. Efface imagination.^[18] Restrain impulse. Quench desire. Keep the ruling Reason in thine own power.

8. Among irrational creatures one life is distributed, and among the rational one intellectual soul has been parcelled out. Just as also there is one earth for all the things that are of the earth; and one is the light whereby we see,^[19] and one the air we all breathe that have sight and life.

9. All that share in a common element have an affinity for their own kind. The trend of all that is earthy is to earth; fluids all run together; it is the same with the aerial; so that only interposing obstacles and force can keep them apart. Fire indeed has a tendency to rise by reason of the elemental fire, but is so quick to be kindled in sympathy with all fire here below that every sort of matter, a whit drier than usual, is easily kindled owing to its having fewer constituents calculated to offer resistance to its kindling. So then all that shares in the Universal Intelligent Nature has as strong an affinity towards what is akin, aye even a stronger. For the measure of its superiority to all other things is the measure of its readiness to blend and coalesce with that which is akin to it.

At any rate to begin with among irrational creatures we find swarms and herds and bird-colonies and, as it were, love-associations.^[20] For already at that stage there are souls, and the bond of affinity shews itself in the higher form to a degree of intensity not found in plants or stones or timber. But among rational creatures are found political communities and friendships and households and gatherings and in wars treaties and armistices. But in things still higher a sort of unity in separation even exists, as in the stars. Thus the ascent to the higher form is able to effect a sympathetic connexion^[21] even among things which are separate.

See then what actually happens at the present time; for at the present time it is only the intelligent creatures that have forgotten their mutual affinity and attraction, and here alone there is no sign of like flowing to like. Yet flee as they will, they are nevertheless caught in the toils, for Nature will have her way. Watch closely and thou wilt see 'tis so. Easier at any rate were it to find an earthy thing in touch with nothing earthy than a man wholly severed from mankind.

10. They all bear fruit—Man and God and the Universe: each in its due season bears. It matters nought that in customary parlance such a term is strictly applicable only to the vine and such things. Reason too hath its fruit both for all and for itself, and there issue from it other things such as is Reason itself.^[22]

11. If thou art able, convert the wrong-doer.^[23] If not, bear in mind that kindliness was given thee to meet just such a case. The Gods too are kindly to such persons and even co-operate with them for certain ends—for health, to wit, and wealth and fame, so benignant are they.^[24] Thou too canst be the same; or say who is there that prevents thee.

12. Do thy work not as a drudge, nor as desirous of pity or praise. Desire one thing only, to act or not to act as civic reason directs.

13. This day have I got me out of all trouble, or rather have cast out all trouble, for it was not from without, but within, in my own imagination.^[25]

14. All these are things of familiar experience^[26]; in their duration ephemeral,^[27] in their material foul. Everything is now as it was in the days of those whom we have buried.^[28]

15. Objective things stand outside the door, keeping themselves to themselves, without knowledge of or message about themselves. What then has for us a message about them? The ruling Reason.

16. Not in being acted upon but in activity lies the evil and the good of the rational and civic creature, just as his virtue too and his vice lie in activity and not in being acted upon.

17. The stone that is thrown into the air is none the worse for falling down, or the better for being carried upwards.^[29]

18. Find the way within into their ruling Reason, and thou shalt see what these judges are whom thou fearest and what their judgment of themselves is worth.^[30]

19. Change is the universal experience.^[31] Thou art thyself undergoing a perpetual transformation and, in some sort, decay^[32]: aye and the whole Universe as well.

20. Another's wrong-doing should be left with him.^[33]

21. A cessation of activity, a quiescence from impulse and opinion and, as it were, their death, is no evil. Turn now to consider the stages of thy life—childhood, boyhood, manhood, old age—each step in the ladder of change a death. Is there anything terrible here? Pass on now to thy life under thy grandfather, then under thy mother, then under thy father,^[34] and finding there many other alterations, changes, and cessations, ask thyself: Is there anything terrible here? No, nor any in the ending and quiescence and change of the whole of life.^[35]

22. Speed to the ruling Reason of thyself, and of the Universe, and of thy neighbour of thine own, that thou mayest make it just; of that of the Universe, that thou mayest therewithal remember of what thou art a part; of thy neighbour, that thou mayest learn whether it was ignorance with him or understanding, and reflect at the same time that it is akin to thee.

23. As thou thyself art a part perfective of a civic organism, let also thine every act be a part perfective of civic life. Every act of thine then that has no relation direct or indirect to this social end, tears thy life asunder and destroys its unity, and creates a schism, just as in a commonwealth does the man who, as far as in him lies, stands aloof from such a concord of his fellows.

24. Children's squabbles and make-believe, and little souls bearing up corpses^[36]—the Invocation of the Dead^[37] might strike one as a more vivid reality!

25. Go straight to that which makes a thing what it is, its formative cause,^[38] and, isolating it from the material, regard it so. Then mark off the utmost time for which the individual object so qualified is calculated to subsist.

26. By not being content with thy ruling Reason doing the work for which it was constituted, thou hast borne unnumbered ills. Nay, 'tis enough!

27. When men blame or hate thee or give utterance to some such feelings against thee, turn to their souls, enter into them, and see what sort of men they are. Thou wilt perceive that thou needest not be concerned as to what they think of thee. Yet must thou feel kindly towards them, for Nature made them dear to thee. The Gods too lend them aid in divers ways by dreams^[39] and oracles, to win those very things on which their hearts are set.^[40]

28. The same, upwards, downwards,^[41] from cycle to cycle are the revolutions of the Universe. And either the Universal Mind feels an impulse to act in each separate case—and if this be so, accept its impulsion—or it felt this impulse^[42] once for all, and all subsequent things follow by way of consequence; and what matters which it be, for if you like to put it so the world is all atoms [or indivisible].^[43] But as to the Whole, if God—all is well; if haphazard—be not thou also haphazard.^[44]

Presently the earth will cover us all. It too will anon be changed, and the resulting product will go on from change to change, and so for ever and ever. When a man thinks of these successive waves of change and transformation, and their rapidity, he will hold every mortal thing in scorn.^[45]

29. The World-Cause is as a torrent, it sweeps everything along. How negligible these manikins that busy themselves with civic matters and flatter themselves that they act therein as philosophers! Drivellers all! What then, O Man? Do what Nature asks of thee now. Make the effort if it be given thee to do so and look not about to see if any shall know it.^[46] Dream not of Utopias but be content if the least thing go forward, and count the outcome of the matter in hand as a small thing.^[47] For who can alter another's conviction? Failing a change of conviction, we merely get men pretending to be persuaded and chafing like slaves under coercion. Go to now and tell me of Alexander and Philip and Demetrius of Phalerum. Whether they realized the will of Nature and schooled themselves thereto, is their concern. But if they played the tragedy-hero, no one has condemned me to copy them. Simple and modest is the work of Philosophy: lead me not astray into pomposity and pride.

30. Take a bird's-eye view of the world, its endless gatherings^[48] and endless ceremonials,^[49] voyagings manifold in storm and calm, and the vicissitudes of things coming into being, participating in being, ceasing to be. Reflect too on the life lived long ago by other men, and the life that shall be lived after thee, and is now being lived in barbarous countries; and how many have never even heard thy name, and how many will very soon forget it, and how many who now perhaps acclaim, will very soon blame thee, and that neither memory nor fame nor anything thing else whatever is worth reckoning.

31. Freedom from perturbance in all that befalls from the external Cause, and justice in all that thine own inner Cause prompts thee to do; that is, impulse and action finding fulfilment in the actual performance of social duty as being in accordance with thy nature.

32. It is in thy power to rid thyself of many unnecessary troubles, for they exist wholly in thy imagination. Thou wilt at once set thy feet in a large room by embracing the whole Universe in thy mind and including in thy purview time everlasting, and by observing the rapid change in every part of everything, and the shortness of the span between birth and dissolution, and that the yawning immensity before birth is only matched by the infinity after our dissolution.

33. All that thine eyes behold will soon perish and they, who live to see it perish, will in their turn perish no less quickly; and he who outlives all his contemporaries and he who dies before his time will be as one in the grave.

34. What is the ruling Reason^[50] of these men, and about what sort of objects have they been in earnest, and from what motives do they lavish their love and their honour! View with the mind's eye their poor little souls in their nakedness. What immense conceit this of theirs, when they fancy that there is bane in their blame and profit in their praises!

35. Loss and change,^[51] they are but one. Therein doth the Universal Nature take pleasure,^[52] through whom are all things done now as they have been in like fashion from time everlasting; and to eternity shall other like things be. Why then dost thou say that all things have been evil and will remain evil to the end, and that no help has after all been found in Gods, so many as they be, to right these things, but that the fiat hath gone forth that the Universe should be bound in an unbroken chain of ill?

36. Seeds of decay in the underlying material of everything—water, dust, bones, reek! Again, marble but nodules of earth, and gold and silver but dross, garments merely hair-tufts, and purple only blood. And so so with everything else. The soul too another like thing and liable to change from this to that.

37. Have done with this miserable way of life, this grumbling, this apism! Why fret? What is the novelty here? What amazes thee? The Cause? Look fairly at it. What then, the Material? Look fairly at that. Apart from these two, there is nothing. But in regard to the Gods also now even at the eleventh hour show thyself more simple,^[53] more worthy.

Whether thy experience of these things lasts three hundred years or three, it is all one.

38. If he did wrong, with him lies the evil. But maybe he did no wrong.^[54]

39. Either there is one intelligent source, from which as in one body all after things proceed—and the part ought not to grumble at what is done in the interests of the whole—or there are atoms, and nothing but a medley and a dispersion.^[55] Why then be harassed? Say to thy ruling Reason: Thou art dead! Thou art corrupt! Thou hast become a wild beast! Thou art a hypocrite! Thou art one of the herd! Thou battenest with them!

40. Either the Gods have no power or they have power. If they have no power, why pray to them^[56]? But if they have power, why not rather pray that they should give thee freedom from fear of any of these things and from lust for any of these things and from grief at any of these things [rather] than that they should grant this or refuse that. For obviously if they can assist men at all, they can assist them in this. But perhaps thou wilt say: The Gods have put this in my power. Then is it not better to use what is in thy power like a free man than to concern thyself with what is not in thy power like a slave and an abject? And who told thee that the Gods do not co-operate with us^[57] even in the things that are in our power? Begin at any rate with prayers for such things and thou wilt see. One prays: How may I lie with that woman!^[58] Thou: How may I not lust to lie with her! Another: How may I be quit of that man! Thou: How may I not wish to be quit of him! Another: How may I not lose my little child! Thou: How may I not dread to lose him.^[59] In a word, give thy prayers this turn, and see what comes of it.

41. Listen to Epicurus^[60] where he says: In my illness my talk was not of any bodily feelings, nor did I chatter about such things to those who came to see me, but I went on with my cardinal disquisitions on natural philosophy, dwelling especially on this point, hom the mind, having perforce its share in such affections of the flesh, yet remains unperturbed, safeguarding its own proper good. Nor did I—he goes on—let the physicians ride the high horse as if they were doing grand things, but my life went on well and happily. Imitate him then in sickness, if thou art sick, and in any other emergency; for it is a commonplace of every sect not to renounce Philosophy whatever difficulties we encounter, nor to consent to babble as he does that is unenlightened in philosophy and nature; . . . devote thyself to thy present work alone and thy instrument for performing it.

42. When thou art offended by shamelessness in any one, put this question at once to thyself: Can it be that shameless men should not exist in the world? It can not be. Then ask not for what can not be.^[61] For this man in question also is one of the shameless ones that must needs exist in the world. Have the same reflection ready for the rogue, the deceiver, or any other wrongdoer whatever. For the remembrance that this class of men cannot but exist will bring with it kindlier feelings towards individuals of the class. Right useful too is it to bethink thee at once of this: What virtue has Nature given man as a foil to the wrong-doing in question? For as an antidote against the unfeeling man she has given gentleness,^[62] and against another man some other resource.

In any case it is in thy power to teach the man that has gone astray the error of his ways. For every one that doth amiss misses his true mark and hath gone astray. But what harm hast thou suffered? Thou wilt find that not one of the persons against whom thou art exasperated has done anything capable of making thy mind worse; but it is in thy mind^[63] that the evil for thee and the harmful have their whole existence.

Where is the harm or the strangeness in the boor acting—like a boor? See whether thou art not thyself the more to blame in not expecting that he would act thus wrongly. For thy reason too could have given thee means for concluding that this would most likely be the case. Nevertheless all this is forgotten, and thou art surprised at his wrongdoing.

But above all, when thou findest fault with a man for faithlessness and ingratitude,^[64] turn thy thoughts to thyself. For evidently the fault is thine own, whether thou hadst faith that a man with such a character would keep faith with thee, or if in bestowing a kindness thou didst not bestow it absolutely and as from the very doing of it having at once received the full complete fruit.^[65]

For when thou hast done a kindness, what more wouldst thou have? Is not this enough that thou hast done something in accordance with thy nature? Seekest thou a recompense for it? As though the eye should claim a guerdon for seeing, or the feet for walking! For just as these latter were made for their special work, and by carrying this out according to their individual constitution they come fully into their own, so also man, formed as he is by nature for benefiting others, when he has acted as benefactor or as co-factor in any other way for the general weal, has done what he was constituted for, and has what is his.^[66]

Footnotes

1. v. 30; viii. 59.
2. vii. 2.
3. vi. 16 ad fin. 41. cp. Epict. i. 6, § 39.
4. Or, attitude of indifference.
5. viii. 75.
6. Or, that are consequent upon some primeval impulse. Providence here = κοινή φύσις.
7. ix. 28.
8. But cp. Capit. xxviii. 4 (of Marcus): mortem contemnens.
9. x. 36, § 2.
10. cp. Montaigne i. 19 (Florio's version): "The same way you came from death to life, returne without passion or amazement from life to death. Your death is but a piece of the world's order, and but a parcel of the world's life."
11. Hardly a personal touch, as Vibia Aurelia, Faustina's last child, was born in 166. Besides, ἔμβρυον has no article.
12. x. 36; Plato, Phaed. 66 B.
13. As Marcus himself often was. cp. v. 10; vi. 12; viii. 8.
14. x. 4.
15. cp. the despairing echo of these words by General Gordon, who was a reader of Marcus, from Khartum: "There is nothing left for me to prevent me speaking evil of everyone and distrusting my dear Lord but death."
16. iv. 26; ix. 38. Epict. ii. 10, § 26.
17. Or, does himself harm. Plutarch (Stoic. Contrad. 12) shews that Chrysippus contradicts himself on this point. Justin (Apol. i. 3), speaking of persecution to Pius and Marcus, turns the tables on the latter, saying that in injuring innocent Christians they injured themselves. Epict. iv. 5. 10.
18. vii. 29; viii. 29, 49; xii. 25.
19. xii. 30.
20. cp. Aesch. Prom. Vin. 492: στέργηθρα.
21. cp. Epict. i. 14 ad init.
22. St. Paul, Gal. v. 22.
23. v. 28; viii. 59.
24. ix. 27.
25. v. 2; viii. 40; xii. 22. cp. Montaigne, i. 40 (Florio's version): "Men, saith an ancient Greek sentence, are tormented by the opinions they have of things and not the things themselves. . . . If evil have no entrance into us but by our judgment, it seemeth that it lieth in our power either to contemne or turn them to our good. . . . If that which we call evil and torment be neither torment nor evil, but that our fancy only gives it that quality, it is in us to change it."
26. iv. 44.
27. iv. 35.
28. ii. 4; iv. 32.
29. viii. 20.
30. iv. 38; vii. 34.
31. v. 23; vii. 18.
32. iv. 3 ad fin.; vii. 25.
33. vii. 29; ix. 38.
34. Pius. See on i. 17. § 3.
35. cp. Lucian, de Luct. 15.
36. iv. 41 πνευμάτιον = ψυχάριον.
37. Possibly refers to the Νέκυια of Homer (Od. xi.). Menippus (Diog. Laert. Men. 6) also wrote a Νέκυια (cp. above, vi.47). But it was a term for the invocation of the dead, see Just. Ap. i. 18.
38. To the Formative, or Efficient Cause, of things is due not only that they exist, but that they are what they are. To translate the words here literally by the quality of the Cause conveys no meaning. cp. vi. 3.
39. i. 17 ad fin.
40. ix. 11, 40.
41. The Heraclitan round of change between the elements; see iv. 46.
42. ix. 1, § 4.
43. Possibly ἀμερῆ is a gloss, or ὁμοιομερή should be read. (cp. Epict. Frag. 175.)
44. ii. 5; iv. 2, etc. τὸ ὅλον may also be taken to mean in fine.
45. ix. 19; xii. 21. cp. Capit. xxviii. 4 of Marcus on his death-bed, ridens res humanas.
46. v. 6, § 1. Sen. Ep. 79: Haec nos oportet agere licet nemo videat.
47. Or, reading οὐ μικρόν: deem the success of the matter in hand no small thing.
48. vii. 3, 48.
49. nearly = our colloquial "functions."
50. vii. 34, 62; ix. 18.
51. The play on the words cannot be kept.
52. vii. 18.
53. iv. 26.
54. vii. 29.
55. iv. 27; vi. 10; vii. 32; xii. 14.
56. vi. 44.
57. ix. 27. St. Paul, Rom. viii. 26: τὸ πνεῦμα συναντιλαμβάνεται. Gataker very aptly quotes Augustine, de Grat. Christi i. 15: Cur petitur quod ad nostram pertinet potestatem, si Deus non adjuvat voluntatem?
58. Sen. Ep. 10 ad fin.; Shak. Lucr. 50.
59. Capit. xxi. § 3.
60. See Diog. Laert. Epicur. § 10.
61. v. 17. cp. Dio 71. 34, § 4.
62. Epict. Man. 10; St. Paul, Tit. iii. 2: πρᾳότητα πρὸς πάντας.
63. Lit. there, i.e. in thy mind.
64. cp. the striking parallel in Dio 71. 24, § 2, τὸ μηδὲν πιστὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποις εἶναι: ibid. 71. 26, § 2, πίστιν καταλύσαντι πιστὸν διαγενέσθαι, where Marcus is speaking to his soldiers on the revolt of Cassius; and 27. § 1, where, writing to the Senate, he calls Cassius ἀχάριστος. I cannot help thinking that this section of the Thoughts was written at the time of the rebellion in 175, and that Marcus is here taking himself to task.
65. v. 6; vii. 73.
66. iv. 49; xi. 1. cp. St. Matt. vi. 2. Marcus was noted for εὐεργεσία, Dio 71. 34, §3; C.I.Gr. 2495, 4697^c.