A Stoic Breviary

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.36 

IMAGE: Gustave Moreau, The Young Man and Death (1865) 

. . . Thus Epictetus has given a short but exact character of these three sorts of persons. 

The perfect philosophers are guilty of no miscarriages; for their understanding is sufficiently accomplished to direct them, and the irrational part readily submits to those directions. So that there is nothing but harmony and compliance, and consequently, they have nobody to lay any misery to the charge of; for indeed, they cannot labor under anything that is truly and properly misery. They cause none to themselves, for this would be a contradiction to the perfection of their wisdom and virtue, and nothing else causes them any, for they do not suppose any external causes capable of doing it. 

The ignorant and untaught err in both these respects. Neither their reason, nor their passions, are rightly disposed. They lay all their unhappiness to others, upon an erroneous imagination, that it proceeds from things without us. And indeed, it is easy and pleasant, and fit for ignorant wretches, to shuffle off their own faults from themselves, and throw them upon other people. 

The young proficient, who has attained to the first principles of wisdom, though he be guilty of some miscarriages, and falls now and then into evil, yet he understands wherein it consists, and from whence it is derived, and what it was that first gave birth to it; and therefore he lays it at the right door. 

And these marks are so distinguishing, that no man, who makes a wise use of them, can be in danger of confounding these three classes of men, the accomplished philosopher, the rude and untaught, and the young proficient. 

This metaphor is so much the more warrantable and pertinent, for the resemblance which education bears to the management of ourselves: for this is properly the training up of a child, under the care and correction of a master. 

Our sensual part is the child in us; and, like all other children, does not know its own good, and is violently bent upon pleasure and pastime. The master that has the care of it, is reason; this fashions our desires, prescribes them their bounds, reduces and restrains them, and directs them to that which is best for them. 

So that the ignorant and untaught live the life of a child left to himself, run giddily on, are perpetually in fault, as being heady and heedless, and minding nothing, but the gratifying of their own inclinations; and so these men never think themselves to blame. 

The young proficients have their master at hand, correcting and instruction them; and the child in them is pretty towardly, and begins to submit to rules. 

So that if these men are at any time in the wrong, they are presently sensible who has been to blame, and accuse nobody but the offender himself. 

But the perfect and accomplished philosophers are such, whose master keeps a constant eye upon them, and has conquered the child’s stubborn and perverse spirit. 

[20] My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. [21] Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. [22] For they are life to him who finds them, and healing to all his flesh. [23] Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life. [24] Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. [25] Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. [26] Take heed to the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. [27] Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil. 

IMAGE: Nicholas Roerich, The Straight Path (1912) 

. . . None but ignorant and undisciplined people tax others with their misfortunes. The young proficient blames himself; but he who is a philosopher indeed, blames neither others nor himself.

Comment: 

The connection of this with what went before is so close, that if a conjunction were added, and we read thus, for none but ignorant and undisciplined people tax other with their misfortunes, it would give a very good reason why we should never lay our troubles, or fears, or disorders, or any other calamity we fancy ourselves in, to anything, or anybody’s charge, but our own: since this way of proceeding, he says, comes from want of being taught better. And then to this character of the ignorant and undisciplined, he adds those of one who is a beginner only in philosophy, and one who has attained to a mastery in it. 

The perfect philosopher never thinks anything, that befalls him, evil; or charges anybody with being the occasion of his misfortunes; because he lives up to the dictates of nature and reason, and is never disappointed in his pursuits and desires, nor ever overtaken with his fears. 

He that is but raw and unfinished, does indeed sometimes miss of his desires, and fall into the mischiefs he would flee from, because the brutish inclinations move too strongly in him at such times. And when this happens, the first elements he learned, which taught him to distinguish things in and out of our power, teach him too, that he himself, and none but he, is the true cause of all his disappointments, and all his disasters. And the occasion of them all was his mistaking the things without us, and placing a man’s proper good and evil in them.

But you will say, perhaps, since this young philosopher knows, that our own proper good and evil depends upon our own power and choice (and the accusing himself implies that he knows thus much), how comes it to pass, that he takes wrong measures, and renders himself liable to this blame? 

Probably, because the knowledge of good and evil is the first step to be made toward virtue, this being the proper act of reason: but the brutish appetites do not always presently submit to reason, nor suffer themselves to be easily reduced and tempered by it; and especially, where it happens, as it does very often, that reason is negligent and sluggish, and the irrational part active, and perpetually in motion, by which means the passions gather strength, and usurp and absolute dominion. This was the case of her in the play:

Remorse and sense of guilt pull back my soul, But stronger passion does her powers control; With rage transported, I push boldly on, And see the precipice I cannot shun. 

So that for some time it is pretty tolerable, if reason can work upon the passions, and either draw them by force, or charm and win them over some softer way: for, when this is done, then the knowledge of the intelligent part is more clear and instructive, and proceeds without any distraction at all. 

No wonder therefore, if men but little trained in philosophy make some false steps while their passions are not yet totally subdued, and their reason does not operate in its full strength. And when they do so, they accuse themselves only, as having admitted that distinction of things in and out of our own power, though as yet they seem to have but an imperfect notion of it. 

But they that are ignorant, and absolutely untaught, must needs commit a world of errors, both because of that violent agitation which their passions are continually in, and of the ignorance of their rational part, which has not yet learned to distinguish real good and evil, from what is so in appearance only: nor does it take them off from brutality, not so much as in thought only. By brutality I mean such low and mean notions, as persuade us, that our body is properly ourselves, and our nature; or, which is yet worse, when we think our riches so, as the covetous do. 

Now while we continue thus ignorant, there are several accounts to be given for our doing amiss: we do it, because we think all our good and evil consist in things without us; and, not being at all sensible, what is properly the happiness or unhappiness of human nature, or whence it proceeds, we fall foul upon other people; and fancy, that they, who obstruct or deprive us of those external advantages we so eagerly pursue, or that bring upon us any of the calamities we would avoid, are the real causes of all our misery. 

. . . Now Epictetus, it is true, has drawn his argument from that which is generally esteemed the most formidable evil that we are capable of suffering: but however, since most of us, when we lie under the present smart of any calamity, straightaway imagine it worse than death (for what can be more usual, than for people in pain, and very often in no great extremity of it neither, to wish for death to deliver them from it, and when reduced to poverty, to tell us, they had much rather be dead than live in want?) upon this account, we may apply Epictetus’ argument to these instances also. 

As to pain, what degree of it is there so violent, which men, nay even those of low and vulgar spirits, are not content to go through, to cure a dangerous disease? They do not only endure, but choose and pay for it: they thank their physicians for putting them to torture, and look upon cutting and burning, as acts of the greatest tenderness and friendship. 

Now, though this makes it pretty plain, that men, who are well pleased to purchase life so dear, must needs be of the opinion, that no pain is so terrible to human nature as death; yet the principal use I would make of this observation is, to show, that men can really suffer with great patience and resolution, can harden themselves against what they count very dreadful, and meet it with a composed countenance, when once they are persuaded, that enduring it will be for their advantage. 

What prodigious instances of patience were the Lacedaemonian youths, who endured scourgings so barbarous, as almost to expire under the rod, and all this, merely for a little ostentation and vainglory? Now this, it is evident, they did not out of any compulsion, but freely and cheerfully; for they offered themselves to the trial, of their own accord. 

And the reason why they held out so obstinately was, not that their sense of pain was less quick and tender than that of other people (though more hardened too than people who indulge themselves in effeminacy and ease), but because they thought it their glory and their virtue, to suffer manfully and resolutely. 

For the same reason, Epictetus would tell you, that poverty is no such formidable thing neither: because he can produce the example of Crates the Theban to the contrary; who, when he disposed of all he was worth to the public, and said, 

Let others keep, or mourn lost, store, Crates’ own hands make Crates poor. 

That moment put an end to his slavery; and his freedom commenced, from the time he had disburdened himself of his wealth. 

Now the manifest consequence of all this is, that nothing of this kind is terrible and insupportable in its own nature, as we fondly imagine. So far from it, that there may be some cases, when such things are much more eligible, and better for us: I mean, when they are converted to higher and more excellent purposes for our own selves; by tending to the advantage and improvement of the reasonable soul. 

The only expedient, to retain an even temper in the midst of these accidents, is to possess our minds with just notions of them. And the regulating of these notions is in our own power: consequently, the preventing of those disorders, that proceed from the want of such a regulation, is in our own power too. 

And one great advantage to persons thus disposed will be, the learning how to manage those things that are not at our disposal, as though they were. For if it be not in my power to prevent defamation or disgrace, the loss of my goods or my estate, affronts and violent insults upon my person, yet thus much is in my power, to possess myself with right apprehensions of these things; to consider them, not only as not evil, but sometimes the instruments and occasion of great good. 

Now such an opinion as this, makes it almost the same thing to a man, as if they did not happen at all; or, which is all one, makes him think himself never the worse, but sometimes the better for them, when they do. And I take it for granted, that every wise man will allow it more for our (that is, for the soul’s) honor and advantage, to have behaved ourselves gallantly under afflictions, than never to have been afflicted at all: and the greater still in proportion, is the honor and advantage gained by them. 

For, as to bodies that are able to bear it, the most violent motions exercise them best, and make greatest improvements of health, and strength, and activity; so the mind too must be put upon sharp trials sometimes, to qualify it for suffering gallantly, when any accident gives us an occasion. 

And this may be accomplished these two way: by getting a right notion of them, and by being well prepared against them. And this is to be done, partly, by accustoming the body to hardship, which indeed is of general use, and has enabled even ignorant and ill men to slight blows, and other pains, which we commonly think intolerable; and partly by fixing the mind in a provident forecast, and distant expectation of them. And all these things we may certainly do, if we please. 

A man, when he gets drunk, is led by a beardless lad, tripping, knowing not where he steps, having his soul moist. 

The dry soul is the wisest and best. 

IMAGE: Jan Steen, The Drunken Couple (c. 1660)