THE TEMPLE OF PALLAS
Now, though there is great difficulty in understanding all the passages of Antoninus, in which he speaks of Nature, of the changes of things and of the economy of the universe, I am convinced that his sense of Nature and Natural is the same as that which I have stated; and as he was a man who knew how to use words in a clear way and with strict consistency, we ought to assume, even if his meaning in some passages is doubtful, that his view of Nature was in harmony with his fixed belief in the all-pervading, ever present, and ever active energy of God. ([ii. 4]; [iv. 40]; [x. 1]; [vi. 40]; and other passages. Compare Seneca, De Benef., iv. 7. Swedenborg, Angelic Wisdom, 349-357.)
There is much in Antoninus that is hard to understand, and it might be said that he did not fully comprehend all that he wrote; which would however be in no way remarkable, for it happens now that a man may write what neither he nor anybody can understand. Antoninus tells us ([xii. 10]) to look at things and see what they are, resolving them into the material (ὕλη) , the casual (αἲτιον), and the relation (ἀναφορά), or the purpose, by which he seems to mean something in the nature of what we call effect, or end. The word Cause (αἰτία) is the difficulty. There is the same word in the Sanscrit (hétu); and the subtle philosophers of India and of Greece, and the less subtle philosophers of modern times, have all used this word, or an equivalent word, in a vague way. Yet the confusion sometimes may be in the inevitable ambiguity of language rather than in the mind of the writer, for I cannot think that some of the wisest of men did not know what they intended to say. When Antoninus says ([iv. 36]), "that everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be," he might be supposed to say what some of the Indian philosophers have said, and thus a profound truth might be converted into a gross absurdity. But he says, "in a manner," and in a manner he said true; and in another manner, if you mistake his meaning, he said false. When Plato said, "Nothing ever is, but is always becoming" (ἀεὶ γίγνεται), he delivered a text, out of which we may derive something; for he destroys by it not all practical, but all speculative notions of cause and effect. The whole series of things, as they appear to us, must be contemplated in time, that is in succession, and we conceive or suppose intervals between one state of things and another state of things, so that there is priority and sequence, and interval, and Being, and a ceasing to Be, and beginning and ending. But there is nothing of the kind in the Nature of Things. It is an everlasting continuity ([iv. 45]; [vii. 75]). When Antoninus speaks of generation ([x. 26]), he speaks of one cause (αἰτία) acting, and then another cause taking up the work, which the former left in a certain state, and so on; and we might perhaps conceive that he had some notion like what has been called "the self-evolving power of nature;" a fine phrase indeed, the full import of which I believe that the writer of it did not see, and thus he laid himself open to the imputation of being a follower of one of the Hindu sects, which makes all things come by evolution out of nature or matter, or out of something which takes the place of Deity, but is not Deity. I would have all men think as they please, or as they can, and I only claim the same freedom which I give. When a man writes anything, we may fairly try to find out all that his words must mean, even if the result is that they mean what he did not mean; and if we find this contradiction, it is not our fault, but his misfortune. Now Antoninus is perhaps somewhat in this condition in what he says ([x. 26]), though he speaks at the end of the paragraph of the power which acts, unseen by the eyes, but still no less clearly. But whether in this passage ([x. 26]) lie means that the power is conceived to be in the different successive causes (αἰτίαι), or in something else, nobody can tell. From other passages, however, I do collect that his notion of the phenomena of the universe is what I have stated. The Deity works unseen, if we may use such language, and perhaps I may, as Job did, or he who wrote the book of Job. "In him we live and move and are," said St. Paul to the Athenians; and to show his hearers that this was no new doctrine, he quoted the Greek poets. One of these poets was the Stoic Cleauthes, whose noble hymn to Zeus, or God, is an elevated expression of devotion and philosophy. It deprives Nature of her power, and puts her under the immediate government of the Deity.
"Thee all this heaven, which whirls around the earth,
Obeys, and willing follows where thou leadest.
Without thee, God, nothing is done on earth,
Nor in the ethereal realms, nor in the sea,
Save what the wicked through their folly do."
Antoninus' conviction of the existence of a divine power and government was founded on his perception of the order of the universe. Like Socrates (Xen. Mem., iv. 3, 13, etc.) he says that though we cannot see the forms of divine powers, we know that they exist because we see their works.
"To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods, or how dost thou comprehend that they exist and so worshipest them? I answer, in the first place, that they may be seen even with the eyes; in the second place, neither have I seen my own soul, and yet I honor it. Thus then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of their power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them." ([xii. 28], and the note. Comp. Aristotle de Mundo, c. 6; Xen. Mem. i. 4, 9; Cicero, Tuscul. i. 28, 29; St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, i. 19, 20; and Montaigne's Apology for Raimond de Sebonde, ii. c. 12.) This is a very old argument, which has always had great weight with most people, and has appeared sufficient. It does not acquire the least additional strength by being developed in a learned treatise. It is as intelligible in its simple enunciation as it can be made. If it is rejected, there is no arguing with him who rejects it: and if it is worked out into innumerable particulars, the value of the evidence runs the risk of being buried under a mass of words.
Man being conscious that he is a spiritual power, or that he has such a power, in whatever way he conceives that he has it—for I wish simply to state a fact—from this power which he has in himself, he is led, as Antoninus says, to believe that there is a greater power, which, as the old Stoics tell us, pervades the whole universe as the intellect[A] (νοῦς) pervades man. (Compare Epictetus' Discourses, i. 14; and Voltaire à Mad^e. Necker, vol. lxvii., p. 278, ed. Lequien.)
[A] I have always translated the word νοῦς, "intelligence" or "intellect." It appears to be the word used by the oldest Greek philosophers to express the notion of "intelligence" as opposed to the notion of "matter." I have always translated the word λόγος by "reason," and λογικός by the word "rational," or perhaps sometimes "reasonable," as I have translated νοερός by the word "intellectual." Every man who has thought and has read any philosophical writings knows the difficulty of finding words to express certain notions, how imperfectly words express these notions, and how carelessly the words are often used. The various senses of the word λόγος are enough to perplex any man. Our translators of the New Testament (St. John, c. 1.) have simply translated ὁ λόγος by "the word," as the Germans translated it by "das Wort;" but in their theological writings they sometimes retain the original term Logos. The Germans have a term Vernunft, which seems to come nearest to our word Reason, or the necessary and absolute truths which we cannot conceive as being other than what they are. Such are what some people have called the laws of thought, the conceptions of space and of time, and axioms or first principles, which need no proof and cannot be proved or denied. Accordingly the Germans can say, "Gott ist die höchste Vernunft," the Supreme Reason. The Germans have also a word Verstand, which seems to represent our word "understanding," "intelligence," "intellect," not as a thing absolute which exists by itself, but as a thing connected with an individual being, as a man. Accordingly it is the capacity of receiving impressions (Vorstellungen, φαντασίαι), and forming from them distinct ideas (Begriffe), and perceiving differences. I do not think that these remarks will help the reader to theunderstanding of Antoninus, or his use of the words νοῦς and λόγος. The emperor's meaning must be got from his own words, and if it does not agree altogether with modern notions, it is not our business to force it into agreement, but simply to find out what his meaning is, if we can.
Justinus (ad Diognetum, c. vii.) says that the omnipotent, all-creating, and invisible God has fixed truth and the holy, incomprehensible Logos in men's hearts; and this Logos is the architect and creator of the Universe. In the first Apology (c. xxxii.), he says that the seed (σπέρμα) from God is the Logos, which dwells in those who believe in God. So it appears that according to Justinus the Logos is only in such believers. In the second Apology (c. viii.) he speaks of the seed of the Logos being implanted in all mankind; but those who order their lives according to Logos, such as the Stoics, have only a portion of the Logos (κατὰ σπερματικοῦ λόγου μέρος), and have not the knowledge and contemplation of the entire Logos, which is Christ. Swedenborg's remarks (Angelic Wisdom, 240) are worth comparing with Justinus. The modern philosopher in substance agrees with the ancient; but he is more precise.
God exists then, but what do we know of his nature? Antoninus says that the soul of man is an efflux from the divinity. We have bodies like animals, but we have reason, intelligence, as the gods. Animals have life (ψυχή) and what we call instincts or natural principles of action: but the rational animal man alone has a rational, intelligent soul (ψυχὴ λοική, υοερά). Antoninus insists on this continually: God is in man,[A] and so we must constantly attend to the divinity within us, for it is only in this way that we can have any knowledge of the nature of God. The human soul is in a sense a portion of the divinity, and the soul alone has any communication with the Deity; for as he says ([xii. 2]): "With his intellectual part alone God touches the intelligence only which has flowed and been derived from himself into these bodies." In fact he says that which is hidden within a man is life, that is, the man himself. All the rest is vesture, covering, organs, instrument, which the living man, the real[B] man, uses for the purpose of his present existence. The air is universally diffused for him who is able to respire; and so for him who is willing to partake of it the intelligent power, which holds within it all things, is diffused as wide and free as the air ([viii. 54]). It is by living a divine life that man approaches to a knowledge of the divinity.[C] It is by following the divinity within δαίμων or θεός, as Antonius calls it, that man comes nearest to the Deity, the supreme good; for man can never attain to perfect agreement with his internal guide (το ήγεμονικόν). "Live with the gods. And he does live with the gods who constantly shows to them that his own soul is satisfied with that which is assigned to him, and that it does all the daemon (δαίμων) wishes, which Zeus hath given to every man for his guardian and guide, a portion of himself. And this daemon is every man's understanding and reason" ([v. 27]).