University of Maryland School of Pharmacy - Terra Mariae Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

Page 22 text:

During tlic Iwiiilx cars which U)llo ved the death of Antoninus Pius, A.D. ICl, the rule of the vast and uii vi ldly Roman Empire was in the hands of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Asso- ciated with iiini, for a part of the time, was Lucius Verus, who, like Marcus, was an adopted son of the laic cniperor. Verus a])i)ears to have been a mere man of jdeasurc, — weak but not vic- ious : and he had the good sense to recognize the superiority, and defer to the judgment, of his associate. A clear picture of the two men is afforded by the correspondence between them, touch- ing a budding conspirator named Cassius, who was at the head of the Roman troops in Asia. ' erns wrote : Keep an eye on iiini ; wli.itever we do dissatisfies him: he takes care to collect friends and resources and seeks to make us ridiculous in the eyes of his soldiers by calling you a pliilosoi)hizing old woman, and me a dissolute boy and a frequenter of gaming houses. Marcus .- urelius replied: ' our coni])laints arv wmiliy luitlier of an em])ernr nor of our government. If the Cods destine the em])irc for Cassius, we slnll not be able to get rid of him: for you know the saying of your grand-father : No prince ever killed his successor. ' If on the other hand. Heaven abandons him, he will b;- caught in his own snares without our exhibiting cruelty in en- ticing him into them. :ic What then were the ])riiiciple wliicli. as the em[)enir lliniiglit, ought to govern a man ' s life? We learn them from a little diary, found after his death, — which occurred in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and while he was in cam]) near the jir. sent City i ' )f Vienna. The book is commonly known as the Meditations; it contains reflections jotted down from time to time as occasion of- fired: and it is clear from internal evidence, that the entries were made for private use, and not with anv view to publication. The teachings are largely those of the Stoic philosophy. — but with a difference. The old state religion of Rome, with its ]iantheon (if gods, known and unknown ; with its sacrifices and hnriil offerings : — this religion wa disintegrating, much as dogmatic theologj ' is tlisappearing to-day. And just as men to-day obs.-rxe outward forms of worship to which they give no intellectual assent, so the enijuTor. who was essentially religious, gave formal observance to ihe public worshi]). and, at the saini time, was working out his own plan of salvation. It is hard to ei)itomize this i)lan : and iirobablv no two r ' aders of the Meditations will agree upon what they see in them. In broafl outline, as it seems to me. the lessons, most useful if not most original, are these: that a man ought not to perplex hiniself about the future life, because the present order of the universe makes it worth while to do ones best. — irres])ective of whether death Ix: an end or a beginning: that in every man is a divine |)art. which can be kejit alive or killed, as the individual wills: that the only light which can guide a ni.in int ' i the way of tnilli. is within him; that nothing which befalls a man is really evil unless it injur. s his character, and not merely his rei)utation, |)erson, or estate; and therefore a man can be reallv hurl only by himself; that every man can. in a true sense, be the master of his fate and the captain of his soul; and that it is a mark of true re- ligion, not to say more about God than you really know. The following extracts from the Meditations are taken from the translation of a very emi- nent .scholar, the late George Long. The selections have been casually made; but they are suffi- cient to show the emperor ' s view of how a life should be lived, — whether it be a simple life or a strenuous one.

Page 21 text:

THE EXAMPLE OF AN EMPEROR BY JOSEPH C. FRANCE. A MAN who is entering upon his career with the natural and laudable hope of reaching therein at least a low degree of fame and fortune, needs a stout heart. — and much besides. He must have, in the first place, a clear conviction of his fitness for the struggle : possunt quia posse vidcntur, is a pithy saying. In the second place, there must be an increasable measure of actual fitness ; the man whose self-confidence has no other basis than ignorance, is but as a sounding brass. Finally, there must be opportunity ; but opportunity will profit a man nothing unless, by systematic and patient training, he keeps himself ready to kick the ball when it shall come to his feet. It may very wi. ' ll be objected by the candidate for success, that these ideas lack both nov- elty and vitalizing power ; and that what he needs is something more definite and practical. How may a man acquire a just confidence in himself? In what way can he increase his native capac- ity and learn, if not to create, at least to find and recognize opportunity? To such and similar questions, I believe that there is but one answer fairly adequate. In the larger sense, these things must be self-taught : and the lesson will never be learned until the student has. by a thorough self- examination, discovered his own particular limitations and deficiencies. Know Thyself, is a maxirn old as Egypt, and we are all ready enough to give it a formal assent ; but in a modern scheme of education, the practice of the maxim has but a small place. Lack of mental concentration, and of the power to hold on to an idea until you have seen through it : the habit of letting the tongue act in advance of the brain : indulgence in slovenly and disjointed speech, — ignoring the rule that every sentence, spoken or written, should contain a thought and be aimed as a bullet is aimed at a target ; the inability to draw legitimate inferences and to see things in their true proportions ; the distrust of your own final conclusions and an exaggerated conformity to prevailing opinion ; a shrinking from the downright No — these are failings which we see and deplore, frequently enough in others. Not however, until a man has discovered his own deficiencies : and not until self-kni)wl- edge has awakened a healthy, and not a morbid, dissatisfaction, will he be in the way of improve- ment and likely to command success because he deserves it. We read in Rabelais that his hero. Panurge, had every faculty except reason : and there will always be men whom no amount of introspection can improve. The present purpose, however, is not to deal with the numerous successors of Panurge. but to give a brief account of an em])eror who formed his life upon the principle of daily self-examination : who tried to learn his true self and live it ; and who found his philosophy sufiicient for the needs of an exciting and tem- pestuous career. 17

Page 23 text:

From Maximus, (a Stoic philosopher) I learned self-government, and not to be led aside by anything: and cheerfulness in all circumstances, as well as in illness; and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity, and to do what was set before me without complain- ing. I ol)served that ever l30(ly believed that he thought as he spoke, and that in all that he did he never had any bad intention ; and that he never showed amazement and surprise, and was never in a hurry, and never put off doing a thing, nor was perplexed of dejected, nor did he ever laugh to disguise his vexation, nor, on th? other hand, was he ever passionate or suspicious. He was accustomed to do acts of beneficence, and was ready to forgive, and was free from all falsehood : and he presented the appearance of a man who could not be driven from right, rather than of a man who had been improved. Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I sliall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things ha])pen to them b- ' reason of their ignor- ance of what is good and evil. Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with per- fect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom and justice, and to give th - self relief of all other thoughts. And thou wilt giv€ thyself relief if thou doest every act of thv life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given thee. The soul of man does violence to itself when it allows any act of its own and any move- ment to be without an aim, and does anytliing thoughtlessly and without considering what it is, it being right that even the smallest things be done with reference to an end. A man should use himself to think of those things only about which if one should suddenly ask, W ' jiat hast thou now in thy thoughts? with perfect openness thou mightest immediately an- swer, Tliis or That. And further let the Deity which is in thee be the guardian of a living being, manly and of ripe age, and engaged in matter political, and a Roman, and a ruler, who has taken his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life, and ready to go, ha ' ing neetl neither of oath nor of any man ' s testimony. Be cheerful also, and seek not external help nor the tran(|inllity which others give. A man then must stand erect, and not be kept erect by others. Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel tJiee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hyjiocrit, or to desire any- thing which needs walls and curtains ; for he who has j referred to everything else his own intelli- gence and daemon and the worship of its excellence, acts no tragic part, does not groan, will not need either solitude or much company, and what is chief of all, he will live without either pur- suing or flying from (death) ; but whether for a longer or a shorter time he shall have the soul enclosed in the body, he cares not at all ; for even if he must depart immediately, he will go as read- ily as if he were going to do anything else which can be done with decency and order ; taking care of this only all through life, that his thoughts turn not away from anything which belongs to an intelligent animal and a member of a civil comnninity. Make for thvself a definition or description of the thing which is presented to thee, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell thyself its proper name. 19