CHAPTER VI. The Book of Meditations

THE BOOK OF MEDITATIONS

It was in the midst of this active strife that Marcus wrote one of the most introspective and peaceful of books--his Thoughts About Himself (τὰ εἰς ἑαυτὸν βιβλία)--the twelve books of his Meditations. Few books have had such influence over men’s lives, and its influence still abides; and for all students of humanity it will ever be a priceless document illustrative of one great phase of human thought, and one great thinker. Surely Stevenson, testifying to the moulding force of this little book on his own life, did not exaggerate in saying: “The dispassionate gravity, the noble forgetfulness of self, the tenderness of others that are there expressed, and were practised on so large a scale in the life of its writer, make this book a book quite by itself. No man can read it and not be moved.... When you have read, you carry away with you a memory of the man himself; it is as though you had touched a loyal heart, looked into brave eyes and made a noble friend; there is another bond on you thenceforward, binding you to life and to the love of virtue.”

The secret of this charm and influence is in the candour and utter absence of self-consciousness of the book. It reveals the author as he wished himself to live, a sincere and open life, “lived on the mountain top--a naked soul more visible than the body which clothed it,” a soul whose thoughts may be read “as the beloved one reads all things in the lover’s eyes.” These jottings were the fruit of his frequent searchings of the heart, the outward expression of the inner life of one who seemed to live all within, with now and then some golden gleanings from his favourite moralists. These thoughts he meant to be his strength against the beggarly elements in his weaker moments. They, with the Discourse of Epictetus, were to be his mainstay. This latter book--a noble book too--was his à Kempis, and to it he owed the suggestion of gathering together his own thoughts. Having these he bore his cloister always with him.

“Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power, whenever thou shalt choose, to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that, by looking into them, he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and I affirm that tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat and renew thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou returnest.”

“For with what art thou discontented?” he asks himself. The badness of men? The lot that is assigned to thee out of the universe? The clinging of corporal things still to thee? The desire of the thing called fame? Thou hast maxims that will alleviate all these. “This then remains. Remember to retire into this little territory of thine own, and above all do not distract or strain thyself, but be free and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal. But amongst the things readiest to thy hand to which thou shalt return, let there be these, which are two: One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within. The other is that all these things which thou seest change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes thou hast already witnessed. The Universe is transformation; life is opinion.”

In these last sentences we have the kernel of the Stoic doctrine of resignation.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

The mind can weave its own Universe; and with it it rests to weave it a fairyland of ordered goodness and beauty. All things without are fleeting and unstable, shadows that will pass, mists that disappear at dawn. “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” “The aids to nobler life are all within.” Man is but part of the Universe, and his best wisdom is to live in accord with its beautiful harmony, which disposes all things sweetly for the good of all. It would be contrary to the Divine Kosmos, the ordering of the great world-spirit, if what were for the good of all were not for the good of each:

“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 any 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 those things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and I can inquire about that which is useful; and that is useful to each man which is conformable to his own constitution and nature. But my nature is rational and social; my city and country so far as I am Antoninus is Rome, but so far as I am a man it is the world. The things then that are useful to these cities are alone useful to me.”

All this is very beautiful; it is admirable; but it is not human. An abstract idea never ministered to a mind diseased or healed a broken heart; and when all is said the Stoic Weltanschauung is a sad one. As Arnold felt many have felt: “It is impossible to rise from reading Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear.” But we must add with him: “Honour to the sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it.” For ourselves we feel a need of something more personal, something with more love and sympathy and appeal. How chilling are the maxims of the Porch beside the glowing verses of the Apostle of Love, which express the essence of Christianity--an intense personal love for God, an acceptance of all trials from a motive of love, and a love of our neighbour like unto the love God bears them.

This was the Christian answer to all the ancient philosophies--the solution of the world-problem by love; and neither in Marcus Aurelius nor Plotinus nor any of the great pagans do we find anything at once so human and divine, anything which so responds to the noblest aspirations of the human soul without losing sight of its weakness.

But it is not the formal doctrine of the book of the Meditations which gives it its attraction; it is the spirit of the author it reveals so intimately. Rarely do we get from philosophers such familiar self-revelation as this from the beginning of the fifth book: interesting, even though it suggests a lack of humour and sense of proportion:

“In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present--I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into this world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm? But this is more pleasant--Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure and not at all for action or exertion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees, working together to put in order their several parts of the Universe? And art thou unwilling to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is according to thy nature?” Imagine the sight of a spider rousing a sluggard!

And again in the same book:

“Thou sayest, Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits. Be it so; but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, I am not formed for them by nature. Show those qualities then which are altogether in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? or art thou compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to murmur, and to be stingy, and to flatter and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be restless in thy mind? No, by the gods; but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only if in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting it nor yet taking pleasure in thy dullness.”

Stoic optimism can scarcely be said to have solved the mysteries of evil and the unrest of the soul, or satisfied the craving for happiness, for guidance and support which is deep down in every heart. Yet the followers of that school were a good influence on a corrupt world. We feel in all the book of the Meditations a calm strength, a forbearance, a perseverance despite failure in good resolutions, which does all honour to its author living in the most sensual surroundings. And in Marcus this stern character is relieved by touches of tender affection and gratitude constantly recurring. They reveal a character far inferior to that of the Christian Saint; nobody except some of our neo-pagan paradoxists will look for such perfection in him; the marvel is that he so often reminds us of them and approaches them even afar. In none of those pagan heroes do we find that blending of strength and humility, of austerity and gentlest love, that touch of the Light Divine and that reflex of Christ, which remove a St. Francis de Sales or a St. Vincent de Paul a whole heaven’s breadth from them and make it an irreverence to compare the one to the other.

But we do find wonderful things in them. Take, for instance, the nine considerations which Marcus proposed for himself as an aid to bearing with those who had offended him; they are given in the eleventh book, and the second of them well shows the imperfection inseparable from pagan virtue, even the highest: (1) All men are born for one another. (2) Consider the private vices of those that have offended thee. (3) If they do wrong it is involuntarily and in ignorance. (4) Thou also doest many things wrong, and thou art a man like others; and even if thou dost abstain from certain faults still thou hast the disposition to commit them, though either through cowardice or concern about reputation or some such mean motive thou dost abstain from such faults. (5) You may be judging them rashly. (6) “Man’s life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.” (7) Your annoyance is due not to those acts but to your own impressions. (He says elsewhere: “How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquillity.”) (8) Anger and vexation are a greater evil than the thing which causes them. (9) One of the most amiable passages in the Meditations: “Consider that benevolence is invincible if it be genuine, and not an affected smile and acting a part. For what will the most violent man do to thee if thou continuest to be of a benevolent disposition towards him, and if, as opportunity offers, thou gently admonishest him and calmly correctest his errors at the very time when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, Not so, my child: we are constituted by nature for something else: I shall certainly not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my child--and show him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and that even bees do not do as he does, nor any animals, which are formed by nature to be gregarious. And thou must do this neither with any double meaning nor in way of reproach, but affectionately and without any rancour in thy soul; and not as if thou wert lecturing him, nor yet that any by-stander may admire, but when he is alone.” Again he asks himself what have the evil deeds of others to do with the intellect’s abiding pure, self-possessed, temperate, and just. Nothing at all: “Even as if one standing by a sweet and transparent fountain were to utter abuse against it, and it ceased not to pour forth its salutary waters. And if one cast mud or filth therein, it would speedily dissipate and wash it away, and would in no wise be stained by it. How shalt thou be an ever-flowing spring, and not a cistern? Grow every hour into freedom, united with gentleness, simplicity and modesty.”

The view of his fellow-men which Marcus expresses is a curious mixture of charity, pity, and contempt. He frequently strengthened himself against human respect by considering that the evil lives of other men made their opinion contemptible. These passages seem to reveal a nature tinged with spiritual pride and aloofness. He insists time and again on the fellowship of men, as fellow-citizens of one great polity: but he has a profound sense of their folly and baseness too. Yet his lonely nature craved for friendship with kindred souls, though seemingly fastidious in its friendship. With his detached attitude towards his fellow-men it is little wonder that he had but few friends; and he was conscious of it. In a letter to Fronto he mentions this and also in a passage from the Meditations: “Solace your departure with the reflection: I am leaving a life in which my own associates, for whom I have so strived, prayed, and thought, themselves wish for my removal, their hope being that they will perchance gain in freedom thereby.”

This note of world-weariness and disillusion as regards everything men prize recurs again and again in the course of the Meditations: it runs through his doctrines of resignation, of charity and forbearance, of self-restraint and peace. Its recurrence in the many--perhaps too many--quotations in this chapter may have wearied the reader: yet I do not regret that I have made it prominent, for it was the most intense idea in the Emperor’s mind, and surely strange enough to be interesting when found in the ruler of the greatest of Empires at the height of its civilisation. I hope, too, that these quotations will initiate the reader into the spirit of the great Stoic. There was no question of giving an exact account of the system expounded in the Meditations: for there is no such system; Marcus Aurelius was more interested in virtue than in learning; he would rather feel compunction than know its definition.