LIFE
been carried and may be carried again. The interest of mankind is peculiarly attracted by signal goodness in high places; for that testimony to the worth of goodness is the most striking which is borne by those to whom all the means of pleasure and self-indulgence lay open, by those who had at their command the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the ruler of the grandest of empires; and he was one of the best of men.' He goes on to compare him with St. Louis of France and King Alfred of England. So the great historian of Greek philosophy, Edward Zeller, has written: 'We know how consistently Marcus Antoninus himself lived up to his precepts. From his life, as from his words, there comes to us a nobility of soul, a purity of mind, a conscientiousness, a loyalty to duty, a gentleness, piety and love of man, which in that century, and on the Roman imperial throne, we must admire two-fold.'
Renan speaks of the 'gospel which never grows old', revealed in the Meditations, and M. Aimé Puech has written recently of Marcus Aurelius: 'Si le stoīcisme, quand il en est l'interprète, nous inspire un attrait qu'aucun autre de ses sectateurs n'a su lui donner, c'est que nous voyons dans les Pensées non pas la doctrine enseignée, mais la doctrine vécue.' It is of this doctrine that the following pages endeavour to give a summary, by following his teaching, Book by Book, as he expounds it.
