ENGLISH COMMENTARY
made to Universal Nature and to man's Intelligence as a part of that Nature. Not until Book xii do we again meet that personal emotion and aspiration which make Books ii and iii so individual and intense. There are indeed exceptional outbursts of personal feeling, but on the whole these central Books might have been intended for the use of a learner rather than for solitary self-revelation. Moreover, much that was earlier taken for granted is here stated more fully, and new and larger matters are introduced. Thus we have the question of retirement or retreat from the world (chs. 3 and 24); the alternative between an ordered providential system and a mechanical atomistic theory (chs. 3. 2 and 27); the problem of the soul's persistence after death (ch. 21, contrast iii. 3); the great conception of the Eternal City and its law (chs. 4, 12, and 23, contrast ii. 16); the declaration of the intrinsic worth of Goodness and Beauty (ch. 20, contrast iii. 2). Again, the writer puts more fully and more clearly the Stoic belief in the sympathetic unity which underlies and governs the ceaseless coming into particular being and passing away of the world of experience, and with this he connects the doctrine of Heraclitus of Ephesus (chs. 36, 42, 43, 45, and 46).
Against this background of ordered change his own life and fortunes, his personal fame, dwindle to their just insignificance, and death is regarded with calm detachment as a natural incident in an eternal process. All that is required of a man is to maintain his moral independence, 'to be free and to regard circumstance as a man, a human being, a member of the Eternal City, a mortal.'[1] This moral independence is secured by the assertion of the reason, which is his individual nature, by continual control of his thoughts and imaginations, by right and beneficent conduct to his neighbour, by a joyous acceptance of the portion assigned to him from eternity.
Of the date of composition there is no evidence, unless we may suppose that the figure of the sands of oblivion (ch. 33), the mention of embalming (ch. 48), the references to the destruction of Helice (ch. 48) and to the pyramids (v. 8) were suggested by the Emperor's visit to Egypt and the East in a.d. 175–6.
Chs. 1–5. The first five chapters arise from reflection upon two
- ↑ iv. 3. 4. Contrast ii. 5 and iii. 5, where the emphasis is on his duty as a Roman.
