Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/389

 

This Book has a happier tone than the second, and the language is less abstract and impersonal; the writer seems to be in a clearer atmosphere, above the mists of difficulty and doubt, the melancholy sense of transience and human futility which lies at least on the surface of Book ii. The sentences convey an impression of personal devotion to a religious ideal, an evident warmth of feeling, a sentiment which rarely recurs in the Meditations until we reach the closing Book. This effect is produced partly by the repeated call to austere self-dedication in the presence of approaching death, partly by the recognition of the 'God seated within', the visitant from another world, of whom Marcus hardly speaks again until the closing pages.

The whole Book gives a sense of unity of composition, which is reflected in the linguistic expression; there is a recurrence of arresting words and phrases, many of them peculiar to this Book. As I have said elsewhere, the general character may correspond to the circumstances in which the reflections were composed, a time of relative quiet at general head-quarters, in Carnuntum, from which this part of the Meditations is dated.

'''Chs. 1–3.''' These three chapters are designed as a preface to the precepts which begin in ch. 4. The familiar thought that life is spending itself day by day is reinforced by the reminder that man's mental powers often wane before the body is exhausted. He says that he must press on 'while the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh' when the power of understanding 'truths human and divine' will be darkened.

'''Ch. 1.''' The phrase, 'knowledge of divine and human things', is a Stoic definition of philosophy. The Stoics generalized the view common to Greeks and Romans that men's happiness lies in keeping the religious observances of their fathers, in showing justice and generosity to their fellows. The formula embraced what, in other words, Marcus calls the Holy and the Right (xi. 20, 21; xii. 1).

The Stoic creed universalized this national expression of religious and social duty to include the duty which is common to all men. To live by the right rule of Nature was to become a member of the Commonwealth of gods and men (iv. 4). Thus Rh