The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

52 THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANTONINUS
uses for the purpose of his present existence. The air is
universally diffused for him who is able to respire, and so
for him who is willing to partake of it the intelligent
is diffused as wide
power, which holds within it all things,
and free as the air (vm, 54). It is
by living a divine life
that man approaches to a knowledge of the divinity. 1
is
by following the divinity within, Saifiwv or 0e6s, as
Antoninus calls it, that man comes nearest to the deity,
the supreme good, for man can never attain to perfect
agreement with his internal guide (TO Live
->]^e.p.oviKov).
with the gods. And he does live with the gods who
constantly shows to them that his own soul is satisfied
with that which is assigned to him, and that it does all
the daemon (Sal/jiwv) wishes, which Zeus hath given to
every man for his guardian and guide, a portion of him
self. And this daemon is
every man s understanding, and
reason (v, 27).
There is in man, that is in the reason, the intelligence, a
superior faculty which if it is exercised rules all the rest.
This is the ruling faculty (TO ^e^oviKov), which Cicero
(De Natura Deorum, n, 11) renders by the Latin word
It
beauty most comely, In life immortal, and in virtue supreme :
wherefore though he is invisible to human nature, he is seen by his
very works. Other passages to the same purpose are quoted by
Gataker (p. 382). Bishop Butler has the same as to the soul :
Upon
the whole then our organs of sense and our limbs are certainly instru
ments, which the living persons, ourselves, make use of to perceive
and move with. If this is not plain enough, he also says : It
follows that our organized bodies are no more ourselves, or part of
ourselves than anv otlier matter around us. (Compare Anton.
x, 38.)
1
The reader may consult Discourse V, Of the existence and
nature of God, in John Smith s Select Discourses. He has prefixed
as a text to this Discourse, the striking passage of Agapetus, Paroenes,
3 : He who knows himself will know God ;
and he who knows
God, will be made like to God ;
and he will be made like to God, who
has become worthy of God and
;
he becomes worthy of God, who
does nothing unworthy of God, but thinks the things that are his,
and speaks what he thinks, and does what he speaks. I suppose
that the old saying, Know thyself, which is attributed to Socrates
and others, had a larger meaning than the narrow sense which is
generally given to it.