466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



shown by works ; but the interesting aspect of any faith is best 

 shown by the theory involved, the intellectual ideal, the point aimed 

 at, the sweep of the curve ; and we are at no loss for information of 

 this kind with i-egard to Antoninus, although there is but little record 

 of his personal practice. His faith, as a man of the world, was in a 

 good, social habit of life ; in active, industrious, kindly cooperation. 

 He believed in the present opportunity, in its duties especially. Enjoy 

 life (he says) by joining one good thing to another, so as not to leave 

 even the smallest interval between ; and make your acts refer to noth- 

 ing else than to a social end not forgetting that the kinship is close 

 between every man and the whole human race, which is not a com- 

 munity of a little blood or seed, but of intelligence. 



Although an emperor, he was, therefore, in a certain sense, a very 

 good republican ; and he argues that we ought to propose to our- 

 selves an object in life that shall be of a socially political kind, and 

 actually stigmatizes any thought that tends to destroy social union as 

 one of four j^rincipal aberrations of the superior faculty. He has an 

 appreciative sense of humor that would easily become grim, if the 

 whole soul of the man were not basked in sunshine, and full of good- 

 tempered acquiescence in the mysterious chances (as they seem to be) 

 of Providence. Heraclitus, he says (after so many speculations on the 

 conflagrations of the universe), was filled with water internally, and 

 died smeared over with mud. 



He then gives several other equally untoward illustrations, and 

 proceeds quite cheerfully to draw his moral and urge a constant 

 readiness to close the voyage of life. 



The defect in his range of ideas is in the direction that might be 

 anticipated in the too great detachment and isolation of the purely 

 mental capacity. We do not find a comprehension of the close and 

 intimate connection between material and immaterial (amounting to 

 identity so far as personal experience is concerned), which has been 

 established by modern scientific research. An undue prominence is 

 given to the power of individual will in the direction of self-control 

 and the avoidance of evil; sufficient allowance is not made for human 

 nature that is, the exaggerations of passion, appetite, or, in general 

 terms, of temperament. There is, however, no suggestion of pre- 

 judice, no shallow closing of the avenues through which fresh infor- 

 mation may come, and one feels that when with our modern oppor- 

 tunities for investisration it does come, the fresh statement is in 

 harmony with what has preceded it in the definitions of Antoninus, 

 which prove to be right as far as they go, but are incomplete. 



Although a logician on principle, by natural gifts, and by con- 

 stant practice, there is nothing pitiless in his logic. It would almost 

 seem that he had been aware of the hardness that so easily accom- 

 panies the power to state with precision a sequence of cause and effect, 

 and he chooses rather to show how easy it is to prove logically that 



