The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

54 THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANTONINUS
knowledge by reverencing the divinity which is within
him, and keeping it pure.
From all that has been said it follows that the universe
is administered by the Providence of God (rrrpovoia), and
that all things are wisely ordered.
There are passages in
which Antoninus expresses doubts, or states different
possible theories of the constitution and government of
the Universe, but he always recurs to his fundamental
principle, that if we admit the existence of a deity, we
must also admit that he orders all things wisely and well
(iv, 27 ; vi, 1 ; ix, 28 ; xn, 5, and many other passages).
Epictetus says (i, 6) that we can discern the providence
which rules the world, if we possess two things, the power
of seeing all that happens with respect to each thing, and
a grateful disposition.
But if all things are wisely ordered, how is the world
so full of what we call evil, physical and moral ? If
instead of saying that there is evil in the world, we use
the expression which I have used, what we call evil,
we have partly anticipated the emperor s answer. We
see and feel and know imperfectly very few things in the
few years that we live, and all the knowledge and all the
experience of all the human race is positive ignorance of
the whole, which is infinite. Now as our reason teaches
us that everything
is in some way
related to and con
nected with every other thing, all notion of evil as being
in the universe of things is a contradiction, for if the
whole comes from and is
governed by an intelligent being,
it is impossible to conceive anything in it which tends to
the evil or destruction of the whole (vm, 55 ; x, 6).
Everything is in constant mutation, and yet the whole
subsists. We might imagine the solar system resolved
into its elemental parts, and yet the whole would still
subsist ever young and perfect.
All things, all forms, are dissolved and new forms
appear. All living things undergo the change which we