Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/452

 his sons, Commodus and Verus, the latter of whom died in infancy. In any case the point is that there is reason in what man does not understand.

'''Ch. 42.''' This line, which Aristophanes parodied, is cited by Cicero in his letters to Atticus as a kind of proverb. Clement quotes the line, adding, in terms derived partly no doubt from a Stoic source: 'the soul deems nothing to be evil save ignorance and action not according with right Reason, always in all things giving thanks to God.'

'''Ch. 43.''' The fragment, whose origin and context are unknown, appears to be quoted to illustrate the point of v. 36 and vii. 69, that we are not to be carried out of our course by the sorrow of another.

'''Chs. 44–6.''' Socrates taught, by precept and example, the incomparable worth of a good life; in comparison length of days does not count in the balance.

'''Chs. 47–9.''' These aphorisms, which are in the manner of Marcus, are intended to promote purity of imagination, elevation of soul, resignation to life's brevity. The first is a variation upon a Pythagorean theme, without, however, any reference to the music of the spheres, whose songs 'divide the night and lift our thoughts to Heaven'. It is combined with a reference to the Heraclitean doctrine of continual change. The contrast between the lucid order of the heavenly luminaries and the grime of terrestrial things is continued in ch. 48, in an image perhaps suggested by Plato, that of rising above human life to contemplate it from above. This second aphorism also closes with a reference to the concordia discors of Heraclitus. This leads to ch. 49, with its stress upon the rhythm that rales a world of transient appearance. Thus we meet, as elsewhere in the Meditations, with the antithesis between all-pervasive law and mundane squalor and pettiness. This is a contradiction present in the older thinkers. Consider the contempt which Plato throws upon man's littleness in his last work, the Laws, how Aristotle depreciates his inquiries into the animal world by comparison with astronomy. So Galen, Marcus' 360