individualism of marcus aurelius.pdf

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The Individualism of Marcus Aurelius. 20I

THE INDIVIDUALISM OF MARCUS AURELIUS.When Marcus Aurelius set down in his "Meditations" the

results of those endeavors after self-discipline which wereessential to his ideas of duty, he not only furnished the worldwith an example of the loftiest moral insight, but he gaveexpression to a temperament and type of mind which willalways influence life. He is by no means "the last of hisline"; he will never be without spiritual descendants. In thepages of Dr. Rendall, we have recently had placed before usa masterly portrayal of the man. Yet it would be giving apoor return for the benefit received if on that account we wereto cease to study Marcus' actual work.

Let us glance for a moment at his teaching as a whole.Be resigned, he at all times insists. Self-submission to thecontinuous act of participation and surrender which the Stoiccosmos manifests, leads to the acceptance of whatever is inseason for the universe. An individual man is part, but prac-tically an insignificant part, of the whole. All is well with thecosmos, but we can only reach that view by the contemplationof the insignificance of particulars. It appears, however, asif the thought which underlies this doctrine must ultimatelydefeat its own end; for we are left finally with a limited indi-vidual which expresses, or at least participates in, the fullnessof the whole, and, notwithstanding is ordered to acquiesce,literally without a murmur, in an incompleteness which, isinscrutable. What wonder if the individual revolts? Curi-ously enough, we find the direct antithesis of this view in thehedonism of Omar Khayyam. Take the famous stanza-"Ah Love could you and I with Him conspireTo grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entireWould we not shatter it to bits-and thenRemould it nearer to the Heart's Desire "In a former edition of the Rubatiyat the word "Him" is ren-dered "Fate" by Fitz Gerald, which appears to be an improve-ment. But in any case, the verse presents us with a strikingVol. XIV-No. 2 14


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202 International Journal of Ethics.contrast to the Stoic view of the universe. It reverses thepicture, and shows how faith in the music of the spheres maybe opposed by faith in the unfathomable injustice of things.For Marcus there is really no such conflict between the cosmicand the ethical process as Professor Huxley conceived, andtherefore it does not need to be explained; for Omar (or FitzGerald masquerading as Omar) the cosmic process is so pro-foundly unethical, that the ethical process which arises withinit is hardly worthy of the name.

Marcus, then, as so many great moralists have done, abidesby the harmony. And the result is, that if we pessimisticallysubject ourselves to an over-ruling'optimism, we reach one ofhis main points of view; we grasp his individualism in essen-tials. The problem thus indicated, indeed-the reconciling ofthe part with the whole-has probably not been satisfactorilysolved yet. But there seems to be little question that the moreisolated the individual is made-in accordance with Marcus'tendency-the more difficult is the philosophical task. If manharmonizes with his fellow-man merely by fitting in to himin a marvelous way, and not by being identical with him inspite of differences, the strain of unifying which is put uponthe cosmos bids fair to break it. To assume that these parallellines meet at infinity is very questionable metaphysics. Theunifying power itself remains a mystery. But let us see howMarcus' compromise is worked out by him in some of thedetails of ethics.

The isolation of the inner man is the first point that strikesus. The inner man is self-swayed, makes itself just what itwills to be, makes all that happens seem to itself what it wills.Withdraw into yourself, says Marcus; for by nature our rea-soning inner self finds content in just dealing and the calmwhich follows. As to pain, if it is past bearing, it brings anend; if not, it can be endured. And in doing all this we aredischarging, of course, a cosmic function: "life in smoothflow" is the discharge of that function; to recognize that factis reason. Such an attitude, when not only ourselves but otherscome to be considered, makes us regard justice, and indeed allvirtue, as primarily cosmic-a duty to God or to the universe.


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The Individualisn of Marcus Aurelius. 203Secondarily, however, virtue branches out into a social prin-ciple; and accordingly, we arrive in due time at the famous"XVorld-city" of which all men are citizens. Virtue branchesout in this secondary way, because man is the apex of nature.Man is by nature social, and he cannot get behind his nature.He has even, in addition, a lower sort of communion with theinferior parts of the world.

The practical result of this doctrine is that Marcus retreatsinto himself triumphantly at times when we should considerthat he ought to be out of doors. It is well, therefore, to lookfor a statement in the "Meditations" which will show Marcus'attitude at its best, and yet indicate where his tendency breaksaway from the modern world. For that will enable us to seewhere, in ethics, his compromise between the cosmic and thesocial differs from the compromise or reconciliation betweenthe two which modern religious thought presents. And we findsuch a statement in the well-known passage: "The residue oflife is short. Live as on a mountain. It matters not whetherhere or there; everywhere you are a citizen of the city of theworld. Let men see and witness a true man, a life conformedto nature. If they cannot bear him, let them make away withhim. Better that than life on their terms" (X. 15). The ex-tract is striking for its nobility of spirit; not less so for theabsence of eagerness to improve mankind positively. The toneis the true tone of kindliness; but not of "Compel them to comein." Marcus' harmonizing of the cosmic with the moral issubject to his usual restraint; "nothing too much," he seemsto say. It has not such rich and full tones as that of Christen-dom. This fact seems to be an essential feature of the case.

In the struggle to show forth the characteristics of a trueman, Marcus relied mainly on reason; and relied on it in a waythat has so often been discussed apropos of Stoicism that weneed not spend much time on it. Reason, the judgment-formingpower, could, in his view, over-ride passion and sensibility gen-erally. Yet strongly as he held that the good man must haveseverely disciplined passion and desire by reason, condemna-tion, in set terms, of the grosser forms of vice is singularlyabsent from his writings. He takes all that for granted. He


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204 International Journal of Ethics.is mainly concerned with the refinements of a rationalisticmorality. And he only combats the doctrine of "pleasure"indirectly, as it has no vital interest for him. Death and life,good report and evil report, pain and pleasure, riches andpoverty, he says, can neither enoble nor demean. This doc-trine, no doubt, simplifies the problem for him unwarrantably,as it enables him to fall back on his idea of "indifferent things"in order to escape practical difficulties; but on the other handsome of his finest utterances are in enunciation of the partialtruth contained in his error-the fact that virtue rises abovethe mere vicissitudes of fortune.

His view of life naturally affects his view of death. On thequestion of suicide, he is, of course, according to modern no-tions, unsound; though there are passages in his work whichwould themselves afford a good answer to those opinions ofhis which have been condemned. The passage at the end ofthe "Meditations," however-his nunc dimittis-shows theessential part of his sombre outlook. There he compares theend of life to the discharge given by the praetor to a playerwhose task is done. No tyrant gives us our dismissal, butnature. The completeness of the work is not in our hands."Death" it has been said in modern times, "is an incident thatdoesn't count." Thus Marcus' apathy has a note in it whichis characteristic of all disciplined minds. Life, no doubt, mustnot be made a meditation upon death; but death is a fact notto be gainsaid. The man who imagines that life is given himfor the working out of purposes, for a connected and rationalseries of endeavors, and fails to consider how death, with itsimmediate possibility and its ultimate certainty, continuouslyaffects these, has still something to learn from Marcus' "harp-ing" on his latter end.According to the traditional view, Marcus represents theapproximation of the heathen to the Christian Schools; andhis "piety" was almost a prophecy of the future. The "wayof perfection," which, he proclaimed, was to live out each dayas one's last, with no fever, no torpor and no acting a part, wasa way which many were to tread after him-ascetic -and indi-vidualistic like himself. And if he sometimes showed a pes-


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The Individualism of Marcus Aurelius. 205simism which was not exactly imitated afterwards, his ideasof life as over-shadowed by death and yet triumphing over ithave a curious significance for us. There is little doubt thathe did not believe in the immortality of the soul in any sensethat would satisfy Chritianity. On the other hand he is abso-lutely free from "other-worldliness." He is not sordid in aspiritual way as some have been. Much discussion-some of itvery unprofitable-has been spent on the endeavor to deter-mine how far Marcus is entitled to the praises usually con-ferred on the "Saint" of Christendom; but surely, if we re-member that his ideas of brotherly love were only a shadeless intense than those of Christendom, and that, on the otherhand, the future life was absolutely dark to him, we havesufficiently determined his general position.

Isolated as he conceived the moral self to be, Marcus buildshis spiritual edifice confidently on men's moral convictions."There is nothing absolutely good," he seems to say, "exceptthe good will; and you know it. Be logical then in your con-duct; act out your convictions." There is, however, a char-acteristically individualistic note in his utterances on the sub-ject. If you can find anything better than virtue, he tells you,then seize hold of it by all means, and enjoy the result of yourdiscovery. Yet he is not afraid of your making such a dis-covery. This confidence in the moral appeal reproduces itselfin another light in our own day. We often hear it said that,for all practical purposes, the ethical view of the world is thewidest and deepest we have. An ethical view is not necessarilyopposed to an intellectual, but as a matter of fact it is moresuccessful in reducing the world to unity or harmony than anyintellectual view that we can find at present. It is supreme,therefore, for the time being. The teaching of Marcus mighthave tended towards such a doctrine, had it not been held backby Stoic dogma. The frame-work of his mental world, how-eyer, was an unquestioned Stoicism; and in the modern appeal,the individualistic note is less strongly accentuated.

It has sometimes been suggested that Marcus' outlook onlife has in it, not merely an element of individualistic "detach-ment," but also an element of affectation, even of self-conceit.


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206 International Journal of Ethics.In a character less gifted by nature than his, it is said, hisprinciples would result in "priggishness"; it is only the refine-ment of his disposition that prevents the baser element fromshowing itself more completely. Now it is, of course, a factthat the Stoic may be unduly self-important. But we must becareful to attribute the effect to the right cause. Conceit isclearly a besetting sin of humanity; and the misuse of anyprinciple, or set of principles, of moral action is likely to leadto it. In Marcus' case, though it is very difficult to argueabout such a point, the impression left as a whole seems to beanything but that of arrogance or pride. He can hardly beaccused of vanity-a thing indeed which his soul loathed.Sincerity is conspicuous in his utterances; "no acting a part."And probably the reason why he seems to many readers to beso "Christian" a "heathen" is that the virtue of humility in theChristian sense was part of the fibre of his moral being.

One point there is, however, which may be considered moreapposite. Marcus, like all moralists who lay great stress onthe inner life, values character beyond all else. For him, aswe have said, the good will is fundamental. Now when char-acter is thus made prominent, and a man's attention is directedto what he is, there may arise the appearance of spiritual pride.But it is difficult to see how we can have morality at all on anyother basis than that of character. If we are not to be allowedto differentiate sharply between ourselves "good" and our-selves "bad," we may as well give tip the game. No doubt onewho is continually occupied with his own character-who iscontinually fingering his own motives-generally becomesspiritually morbid. But the result flows, not from the con-viction that he, personally, must be good, but from an intro-spection which is prosecuted at wrong times and in wrong cir-cumstances. To have a reasonable conviction of the worth ofcharacter, not merely in others, but in ourselves, is essential,and it is not Pharisaic. It may be that Marcus' self-question-ing is too continuous; but it must be remembered that the im-pression produced by his book is that of the cumulative effectof many musings. It was not intended that you should readthe work all at once-if indeed it was intended that you should


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Tue Indi-viduclisnmlf Marcus Aurelius. 207read it at all. Marcus wrote for himself. And if it is askedwhy the other side of life is not more adequately representedin his meditations, probably the best answer that can be givenis that he wrote in the manner in which he could best remindhimself of the principles he valued. If you do not like hismethods, pass on; but you cannot generally condemn them.

There is another characteristic of the book which has atendency to make it seem slightly pedantic if not affected.Marcus' individualism, as we have pointed out, was philoso-phical, though not merely philosophical. And it strikes usperhaps that Marcus clung with undue tenacity to his Stoicdogma, because that dogma is no longer our dogma; and weare familiar with the names of great men who have arrivedat practical ideas very much the same as those of Marcus, witha different kind of dogma supporting them. Marcus did notrealize how in the future Stoicism itself would be separatedinto a kernel and a husk. His disciples indeed have alwaysreturned, as he told them to return, to philosophy, as the sore-eyed to the sponge and egg-but not always to his philosophy.

The great practical defect, then, of the ethics of the "Medi-tations" seems to be that there is no sufficient appreciation ofthe fact that it is not through the retiral but through the ad-vance of the soul that personality develops, and its dignity isincreased. To him that hath shall be given; and the person-ality which minimizes or despises its human relationships de-feats its own end. The very essence of the individuality whichMarcus desires consists, we might say, in its inability to existfor itself; and it is just this inability which constitutes its spir-itual wealth, its great possession. It cannot become cosmicsimply by abstraction. Nevertheless, by a back-stroke as itwere, peace and tranquility of the inner self-so ardently de-sired by man-can be gained; and in representing the latteraspect of the human soul Marcus' work has great value. Forhe was driven forward, as it were in spite of himself, into thegreat world-city where men were not merely made to fit intoone another for working purposes, like "the upper and lowerrows of the teeth," but in some measure lived and died andhad their spiritual being in common. Marcus could appreciate


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208 InterncationalJournal of Ethics.this in some degree, and, at the same time keep his eyes fixedsteadily and calmly on eternal righteousness. He was a Stoicto whom life's fitful fever was not altogether as nothing, andtherefore he has the power of imparting to those who areoppressed by that fever something of his own Stoic calm. Hewas not so strong as never to be weak.

Further, he raises in the minds of all who are interested inthe problems of Theism, in a characteristic and telling way, thequestion of how far such patience and such faith in righteous-ness as he possessed are independent of a theistic basis, andwhether his spiritual insight was in accordance with, or wentbeyond, his philosophy. In particular his individualism raisesthe question of the ultimate value of the human soul. Is hispessimism, pessimism? Is his calm really calm. The verynobility of his spirit, as I have already indicated, forces us toask if his outlook was complete; because here we have Stoicismin the form in which it is most attractive to us. Not by hisown arguments, but by his influence, one way or other, on ourarguments, he primarily draws us to him. He has given usthe means of understanding his inmost thoughts, and we arealmost bound in honor to make the best spiritual use of themwe can. W. A. WATT.

GLASGOW.

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