Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

xl INTRODUCTION SECT.
hardly be accidental, and goes far to prove that Eastern
predispositions were latent in the Stoic creed. Early
in life he came under the influence of the Heraclitean
School of physics, whose traditions kept their hold upon
Asiatic Greeks, assimilated as an integral part of his
thought the doctrine of physical Flux, and found in it
a potential harmony between the materialist individualism
of the Cynics and the Megarian doctrine of the One.
The passage from Cynism to Stoicism, the change
of conception or of stress which it involved in the
treatment of common terms, best shows the gradual
and half-conscious way in which the scheme of Stoicism
was evolved. We have seen how, in its definition and
pursuit of virtue and of happiness, the Cynics gave
unconditional authority to the criteria of individual
experience and will. These were direct, imperious, and
valid, and this conviction lies at the base of their
philosophic creed. 'Life in agreement with Nature'
was the summary of their aim, and was a formula well
calculated at once to attract and to mislead disciples.
For centuries philosophy had been engaged upon the
'
of nature '
and now ; that it
study and explanation
was looking for some general formula corresponding
to the idea of virtue, such as might provide a canon
of right living simple, consistent, and authoritative, no
prescription could have seemed more apposite or satisfy-
ing
'
than that of agreement with nature.' It presented,
at first sight, such straightforward and self-commending
credentials, that practice might well precede discus-
sion, and dispense with scruples of dialectic and
meant clearly the functions
analysis.
For man, '
nature '