The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANTONINUS 39
establishing his Physical, Theological and Ethical prin
ciples.
There are several expositions of the Physical, Theological,
and Ethical principles, which are contained in the work of
Antoninus ;
and more expositions than I have read.
Ritter (Geschichte der Philosophic, iv, 241), after explain
ing the doctrines of Epictetus, treats very briefly and in
sufficiently those of Antoninus. But he refers to a short
essay, in which the work is done better. 1 There is also
an essay on the Philosophical Principles of M. Aurelius
Antoninus by J. M. Schultz, placed at the end of his
German translation of Antoninus (Schleswig, 1799). With
the assistance of these two useful essays and his own
diligent study a man may form a sufficient notion of the
principles of Antoninus ;
but he will find it more difficult
to expound them to others. Besides the want of arrange
ment in the original and of connexion among the numerous
paragraphs, the corruption of the text, the obscurity of
the language and the style, and sometimes perhaps the
besides all this there
confusion in the writer s own ideas,
is
occasionally an apparent contradiction in the emperor s
thoughts, as if his principles were sometimes unsettled,
as if doubt sometimes clouded his mind. A man who leads
a life of tranquillity and reflection, who is not disturbed
at home and meddles not with the affairs of the world, may
keep his mind at ease and his thoughts in one even course.
But such a man has not been tried. All his Ethical
philosophy and his passive virtue might turn out to be
idle words, if he were once exposed to the rude realities of
human existence. Fine thoughts and moral dissertations
from men who have not worked and suffered may be read,
but they will be forgotten. No religion, no Ethical philo
sophy is worth anything,
if the teacher has not lived the
life of an apostle, and been ready to die the death of a
1
De Marco Aurelio Antonino ... ex ipsius Commentariis.
Scriptio Philologica. Inslituit Nicolaus Bachius, Lipsiae, 182G.