"Judge every word and deed which is according to nature to be fit for thee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows...but if a thing is good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee." (v. 3.)
Sometimes, indeed, Marcus Aurelius wavers. The evils of life overpower him. "Such as bathing appears to thee," he says, "_oil, sweat, dirt, filthy water, all things disgusting--so is every part of life and everything_" (viii. 24); and again:--"Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment." But more often he retains his perfect tranquillity, and says, "Either thou livest here, and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou art going away, and this was thine own will; or thou art dying, and hast discharged thy duty. _But besides these things there is nothing. Be of good cheer, then_." (x. 22.) "Take me, and cast me where thou wilt, for then I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can feel and act conformably to its proper constitution." (viii. 45.)
There is something delightful in the fact that even in the Stoic philosophy there was some comfort to keep men from despair. To a holy and scrupulous conscience like that of Marcus, there would have been an inestimable preciousness in the Christian doctrine of the "forgiveness of the sins." Of that divine mercy--of that sin-uncreating power--the ancient world knew nothing; but in Marcus we find some dim and faint adumbration of the doctrine, expressed in a manner which might at least breathe calm into the spirit of the philosopher, though it could never reach the hearts of the suffering multitude. For "suppose," he says, "that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast made by nature a part, but now hast cut thyself off--_yet here is the beautiful provision that it is in thy power again to unite thyself_. God has allowed this to no other part--after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. _But consider the goodness with which He has privileged man; for He has put it in his power, when he has been separated, to return and to be reunited, and to resume his place_" And elsewhere he says, "If you cannot maintain a true and magnanimous character, go courageously into some corner where you _can_ maintain them; or if even there you fail, depart at once from life, not with passion, but with modest and simple freedom--which will be to have done at least _one_ laudable act." Sad that even to Marcus Aurelius death should have seemed the only refuge from the despair of ultimate failure in the struggle to be wise and good!