Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

in 2 STOIC DOGMA Ixi
deniable purpose which the course of physical phenomena
everywhere exhibited, 1 and which the ethical needs of
man demanded and implied. Though morality, from
man to man, might seem individualist, that is to say,
atomic, its very existence does in fact presuppose a
larger sanction, which alone makes it identical and
authoritative a moral order binding upon individuals,
and integrating them into a society. The old sanction
of civic obligation had withered in practice and been
expunged from theory, but the survival of morality itself
confirmed the existence of a basis at once individual
and universal. This lay in a common source of energy,
not in mere parity of individual impulses. Alike then
from the physical and the moral side, it appeared that
the cause of being was material and unitary, and common
characteristics suggested, if they did not prove, identity
of nature. Converging lines of evidence from many
sides corroborated and justified acceptance of this
supposition. The play of subject upon object, through
the various organs of mind and sense ; the abounding
evidences of mutual adaptation ;
the vital and emotional
rapport 2 that exists between ourselves and nature ; the
subtle '
sympathy of parts ' 3
that links together the
remotest members of the universe in heaven, earth, and
air ; the unwearying courses of the sun ; the fateful
4 concurrences and influences of the stars the ; evidences
of augury and divination ; the availing prayers and
1 iv. 3, 27 ; vi. 10 ; vii. 75 ; x. 28 ; xii. 14.
2 Cf. iii. 2; vi. 14, 36; x. 21.
3 iv. 27 ; ix. 9 ; cf. vi. 38 ; vii. 9.
4 Cf. vii. 47 ; xi. 27.
e