The principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the hard and definite lines of a philosophic system. But the great laws which guided his actions and moulded his views of life were few and simple, and in his book of Meditations, which is merely his private diary written to relieve his mind amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to them again and again. "Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery," he says to himself, "will wipe out those holy principles of thine;" and this is why he committed those principles to writing. Some of these I have already adduced, and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as before, of the beautiful and scholar-like translation of Mr. George Long.
All pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Emperor to be most wisely regarded under a threefold aspect, namely, if considered in reference to the gods, as being due to laws beyond their control; if considered with reference to the nature of things, as being subservient and necessary; and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being dependent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with which we endure them.
The following passages will elucidate these points of view:--
"The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly it has made the inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the superior to one another." (v. 30.)
"Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within.... The Universe is Transformation; life is opinion" (iv. 3.)
"To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a mad dog?" (vi. 52.)
"How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity." (v. 2.)
The passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a relative thing,--as being good in the making,--the unripe and bitter bud of that which shall be hereafter a beautiful flower,--although not expressed with perfect clearness, yet indicate his belief that our view of evil things rises in great measure from our inability to perceive the great whole of which they are but subservient parts.
"All things," he says, "come from that universal ruling power, either directly or by way of consequence. And accordingly the lion's gaping jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, as mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful. Do not therefore imagine that they are of another kind from that which thou dost venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all."
In another curious passage he says that all things which are natural and congruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and attractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and corrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked. "And again, figs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other things--though they are far from being beautiful, if a man should examine them severally--still, because they are consequent upon the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper insight about the things found in the universe there is hardly one of those which follow by way of consequence which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure." (iv. 2.)