Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

in 4 STOIC DOGMA Ixxxi
indefeasible and unassailable within the little state of
man, it becomes on the same showing a part only, a
single jot, 1 in the interminable sum and series of cosmic
being. And the inference was not evaded or denied ;
the chain of causation 2 and of consequence was absolute
from the beginning ;
the history of the universe was but
the unfolding of the providence of God 3 in sequences
that followed one another with unalterable cyclic regu-
4 5
larity the recurrent ;
processes of nature, the rise and
fall of kingdoms, 6 the ceaseless round of human circum-
stance, 7 the destiny of individuals, 8 are all part of that
great 'web of Klotho,' which issues from the primal
cause, forewoven by the predestinations of eternity. 9
The moral determinism, even more than the physical,
is absolute and irreversible : the one end of man lies in
'
10 with the inviolable necessity,' so that in
conformity
the last resort, as cosmic Monism necessarily
11
implied,
moral freedom resolves itself into a determination or
self-subjugation of the will into harmony with the working
of destiny, into obedient following of reason and of
God. 12 Man's attitude to circumstance, not the direction
of it, remains within his own control. Knowing
or un-
knowing, willing or loth, 13 all work towards the inevitable
consummation
ducimt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
1
v. 24
'
2
v. 8.
4
v. 13, 32 ; ix. 28 ; xi. i
3 ii. 3.
5 viii. 6, 50; xii. 24.
6
iv. 32 ; vii. 49 ; x. 27.
7
iv. 32 ; vi. 37 ; vii. I ; ix. 14.
8
v. 13.
9
iv. 34 ; and cf. ii. 3 ; iii. 4, n, 16 ; iv. 26 ;
n See p. Ixvi.
v. 8 viii. ; 23 ; x. 5.
10
xii. 14.
12
iii. 9, 12 ; vii. 31 ; ix. I ; x. ii, 12, 28 ; xii. 27, 31.
13
vi. 42 ; x. 28.