In the wretched times from the death of Augustus to the murder of Domitian, there was nothing but the Stoic philosophy which could console and support the followers of the old religion under imperial tyranny and amidst universal corruption.
The doctrines of Epictetus and Antoninus are the same, and Epictetus is the best authority for the explanation of the philosophical language of Antoninus and the exposition of his opinions.
Epictetus addressed himself to his hearers in a continuous discourse and in a familiar and simple manner. Antoninus wrote down his reflections for his own use only, in short unconnected paragraphs, which are often obscure.
The Stoics made three divisions of philosophy, Physic, Ethic, and Logic. ...It appears, however, that this division was made before Zeno's time and acknowledged by Plato. ...Logic is not synonymous with our term Logic in the narrower sense of that word.
Cleanthes, a Stoic, subdivided the three divisions, and made six: Dialectic and Rhetoric, comprised in Logic; Ethic and Politic; Physic and Theology. This division was merely for practical use, for all Philosophy is one.
Even among the earliest Stoics, Logic or Dialectic does not occupy the same place as in Plato: it is considered only as an instrument which is to be used for the other divisions of Philosophy.
According to the subdivision of Cleanthes, Physic and Theology go together, or the study of the nature of Things, and the study of the nature of the Deity, so far as man can understand the Deity, and of his government of the universe. This division or subdivision is not formally adopted by Antoninus, for... there is no method in his book; but it is virtually contained in it.
Cleanthes also connects Ethic and Politic, or the study of the principles of morals and the study of the constitution of civil society.
Antoninus does not treat of Politic. His subject is Ethic, and Ethic in its practical application to his own conduct in life as a man and as a governor. His Ethic is founded on his doctrines about man's nature, the Universal Nature, and the relation of every man to everything else. It is therefore intimately and inseparably connected with Physic or the Nature of Things and with Theology or the Nature of the Deity.
Besides the want of arrangement in the original [work of Marcus Aurelius] and of connection among the numerous paragraphs, the corruption of the text, the obscurity of the language and the style, and sometimes perhaps the confusion in the writer's own ideas - besides all this there 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 philosophy is worth anything, if the teacher has not lived the "life of an apostle," and been ready to die "the death of a martyr." "Not in passivity [the passive affects], but in activity, lie the evil and the good of the rational social animal, just as his virtue and his vice lie not in passivity, but in activity" (IX. 16).
The emperor Antoninus was a practical moralist. From his youth he followed a laborious discipline, and though his high station placed him above all want or the fear of it, he lived as frugally and temperately as the poorest philosopher.
The emperor says that life is smoke, a vapour, and St. James in his Epistle is of the same mind; that the world is full of envious, jealous, malignant people, and a man might be well content to get out of it.
He [Marcus Aurelius] has doubts perhaps sometimes even about that to which he holds most firmly. There are only a few passages of this kind, but they are evidence of the struggles which even the noblest of the sons of men had to maintain against the hard realities of his daily life.
He [Marcus Aurelius] constantly recurs to his fundamental principle that the universe is wisely ordered, that every man is a part of it and must conform to that order which he cannot change, that whatever the Deity has done is good, that all mankind are a man's brethren, that he must love and cherish them and try to make them better, even those who would do him harm.
He [Marcus Aurelius]... plainly distinguishes between Matter, Material things, and Cause, Origin, Reason. This is conformable to Zeno's doctrine that there are two original principles of all things, that which acts and that which is acted upon. That which is acted on is the formless matter: that which acts is the reason, God, who is eternal and operates through all matter, and produces all things.
A prudent governor will not roughly oppose even the superstitions of his people, and though he may wish they were wiser, he will know that he cannot make them so by offending their prejudices.
Our extant ecclesiastical histories are manifestly falsified, and what truth they contain is grossly exaggerated; but the fact is certain that in the time of M. Antoninus the heathen populations were in open hostility to the Christians, and that under Antoninus' rule men were put to death because they were Christians.
I could have made the language [in the translation of Meditations] more easy and flowing, but I have preferred a ruder style as being better suited to express the character of the original.
The last reflection of the Stoic philosophy that I have observed is in Simplicius' "Commentary on the Enchiridion of Epictetus." Simplicius was not a Christian, and such a man was not likely to be converted at a time when Christianity was grossly corrupted. But he was a really religious man, and he concludes his commentary with a prayer to the Deity which no Christian could improve.
From the time of Zeno to Simplicius, a period of about nine hundred years, the Stoic philosophy formed the characters of some of the best and greatest men. Finally it became extinct, and we hear no more of it til the revival of letters in Italy.
Epictetus and Antoninus have had readers ever since they were first printed. The little book of Antoninus has been the companion of some great men.
The chief business of education... is to attempt to form good habits in children, to improve the understanding, and to check the formation of bad habits.
Great abilities are rare, and they are often accompanied by qualities which make the abilities useless to him who has them, and even injurious to society.
I have heard it maintained that it is always the teacher's fault if a boy does not learn, even a stupid and idle boy; but I leave the decision of this matter to the "communis sensus," the common intelligence of mankind.
Out of... average boys, if they are well brought up, come some of the most useful men to society, and sometimes great men; for the apparent dulness or slowness of some boys is only apparent: they do not apprehend quickly, because they see difficulties which sharper boys do not see, but when they emerge from the hide-bound state, they go on at a great rate, soberly and steadily. These boys become the men whom we trust... with weighty matters.
The deplorable condition of many of our people on whom much money has been spent is mainly owing to their wretched education, during which they have tasted of many things, but have relished nothing, learned nothing well, and have been turned out with the unhappy conceit in their heads that they have been educated, because they think that they have learned something.
It is an undoubted truth that, if a thing is not learned well, there is more harm done than good acquired.
It is almost useless to warn against this multiplicity of subjects which now distract boys and perplex teachers. The experiment of teaching a little of all things must be tried: it is demanded by opinion, founded on small or no reflection, it is required by competition for prizes, distinctions, and places; and it is encouraged by examinations and the questions proposed, which direct in a manner the course of education.
When I look at the number of things which a boy must now learn, or is encouraged to learn, and when I look at the questions in the examination papers, I am quite content that I was brought up in other days; and that if I did not learn much and was taught next to nothing, I have kept to old age the sense, whatever it may be, which came with me into the world.
I think it is a truth, and an important truth, that the fundamentals of all school teaching ought to be the same.
We have, all of us, with a few unlucky exceptions, for which special schools are required, hands, eyes, and ears; and all these members should be trained and practiced in elementary education, as a means of improving the use of these organs, and so improving the great organ which directs and oversees the work of hands, eyes, and ears, and judges of its own work and its own acts.
All education which is in its kind complete and good, is the means of forming character, and of making useful men and women.
Prometheus... found the human race in a pitiable condition. They saw, he says, but they really saw not: they heard, but they understood not: they were like the phantoms of our dreams, and their labour was useless and unprofitable.
Every man who observes, must have seen what bad listeners most people are. Inability to attend carefully to what is spoken is a great defect, which leads to blunders, misrepresentation, and sometimes to quarrels.
A few have a great power of listening and attending, but they are only few, and this power gives them a superiority over those who cannot attend.
The inability to listen and to attend is of course a mental defect; but habit may make the defect so great, that a man's ears may almost lose the faculty of hearing what another man says, and he may be able to hear only the sweet sound of his own voice. Such incapable people are generally great talkers, very tiresome, and bad companions. They cannot be debaters in public assemblies, and can only deliver themselves of their own words.
A man who attempts to debate when he cannot listen must make a wretched display of impotence.
This power of attention is that which perhaps more than any thing else distinguishes those who do great things from those who can do nothing well.
By drawing an object the children will also learn a fundamental doctrine of philosophy; but I don't recommend letting them know what the doctrine is. They will discover it some time. We do not draw objects as they are: we draw them as they seem to be. To the eye things are what they seem to be, but they are in reality, if you know what that means, something else.
What must we do with these sciences in schools—I mean the elementary part of them? for... the amount which we can teach in a school to the ordinary kind of boys, that is the very great majority, is not much.
We must do something to lead boys to look at the wonderful objects by which we are surrounded, and to examine them carefully. I don't think that lectures are of much use. They will now and then amuse, and may teach boys a little; and if the lectures are followed by examinations, they will teach more.
Real learning... is a thing in which the learner is not a receiver only of words written or spoken: he must be a doer.
I am not a man of science, and I do not wish to be thought so. If I were, I would rather not have the name. There are men, named men of science, for whom I have great respect; there are many for whom I have no respect.
Could not a boy be taught the elements of astronomy at the sole cost of using his eyes and his brain; taught slowly, certainly, and not wearied with too much at once? Some would learn more than others; but all would learn something. This is real science, real knowledge, which will make a boy wiser, and probably better too. He will learn to observe carefully, and not to be deceived, as we sometimes are, by appearances.
If we want a subject that is nearer, I think botany is the best. I do not mean classification of plants. I mean their structure, growth, propagation, parts, and uses. ...I know no other thing which presents the same facilities in the way of material, and the opportunities of seeing and handling it. I have heard that a great botanist, who lived in our time, used to teach some village children to gather and examine plants.
I have said nothing about religious teaching as one of the means of forming a good character. ...I, who am not a teacher of religion, do not presume to say how it should be taught, so taught as to be practical. If you merely teach dogmas dogmatically, you are not teaching in the sense in which I understand teaching... and learning... does not consist merely in knowing: it is not learning unless there is some corresponding doing.
In whatever way you who teach may manage this business, I advise you not to trust too much to the inculcation of creeds and dogmas by words written or spoken.