The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANTONINUS
be properly discussed by carefully observing the distinction.
Antoninus does not treat of Politic. His subject
is Ethic,
and Ethic in its practical application to his own conduct
in life as a man and as a governor. His Ethic is founded
on his doctrines about man s nature, the Universal Nature,
and the relation of every man to everything else.
It is
therefore intimately and inseparably connected with Physic
or the nature of Things and with Theology or the Nature of
the Deity. He advises us to examine well all the impress
ions on our minds (fyavraa-icu)
and to form a right judg
ment of them, to make just conclusions, and to inquire into
the meanings of words, and so far to apply Dialectic, but he
has no attempt at any exposition of Dialectic, and his philo
sophy is in substance purely moral and practical. He says
(vin, 13), Constantly and, if it be possible, on the occasion
of every impression on the soul, 1
apply to it the principles
of Physic, of Moral and of Dialectic which is :
only another
way of telling us to examine the impression in every
possible way. In another passage (in, 11) he says, To
the aids which have been mentioned let this one still be
added : make for thyself a definition or description of the
object (TO fyavrao-Tov) which is presented to thee, so as
to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance,
in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell thyself its
proper name, and the names of the things of which it has
been compounded, and into which it will be resolved.
Such an examination implies a use of Dialectic, which
Antoninus accordingly employed as a means towards
1
The original is Vi irdo-Tjy tpavrao-las. We have no word which
expresses fya.vTa.aia, for it is not only the sensuous appearance
which comes from an external object, which object is called -rt,
fyavTa.<n6v, but it is also the thought or feeling or opinion which is
produced even when there is no corresponding external object before
us. Accordingly everything which moves the soul is fya.vTa.<jT6v
and produces a fya.vTa.aia,
In this extract Antoninus says fyvaio\oytlv, Ka.6o\oytiv,
5<a\e/c-
TKftW0a(. I have translated iraQoXoytlv by using the word Moral
(Ethic), and that is the meaning here.