INTRODUCTION
when the results achieved by this method are considered. The new or revived Meditations are not in fact a continuous treatise, neither is the confusion and repetition of the actual book removed. The new order appears less explicable, fairly judged, than the old. The second difficulty is that, in this new construction, the passages now juxtaposed do not agree in composition with that of their neighbours: passages which in the present text are closely connected, either in subject or in verbal expression, or in both, have become widely sundered. To take two crucial instances, the sections of the present Book i, with their evident order and purpose, are now parcelled out in a different order and under more than one heading. Again the last chapter of Book xii, which has every indication of a designed close, is removed elsewhere, connected indeed with cognate reflections, but robbed of its natural intention and effect.[1]
The latest attempt in this manner is M. Gustav Loisel's A moi-même,[2] an arrangement this time in twelve Books. The Meditations so presented are interesting to read, and the editor throws light on the mind of Marcus by his work; but it is difficult to accept his results or his further contention that Marcus has left the clue to the order of his work. In his candid preface M. Loisel has recorded M. Haussoulier's critique of his work and it is, I think, conclusive. May we not say that he has done for Marcus, what was done by Budde[3] with no idea of reproducing a lost original? He has enabled us to view together under subject-headings,[4] a variety of attempts made by
- ↑ L. C. T. Rousseau, Morale de Marc-Aurèle, Empereur Romain, Paris, An. vii (1798–9), has eight chapters, divided into twenty-four sections. There is also Histoire philosophique de Marc-Aurèle, avec les pen sées de ce prince présentées dans un ordre nouveau . . . par feu M. Ripault, Paris 1830.
- ↑ A moi-même, Paris, 1926, par Gustave Loisel. M. Loisel has also written a popular, but careful, life of the Emperor.
- ↑ Marci Antonini libri xii, Leipsic, 1729; Introductionem ad philosophiam stoicam ex mente M. Antonini praemisit Ioan. Franciscus Buddeus . . . Ienensis.
- ↑ Some idea of M. Loisel's reconstruction may be got from the close of his new
