nobody
knows how. In one passage (iv. 21) he speaks of living principles, souls
([Greek: psychahi]) after the dissolution of their bodies being
received into the "seminal principle of the universe." Schultz thinks
that by "seminal principles Antoninus means the relations of the various
elemental principles, which relations are determined by the Deity and by
which alone the production of organized beings is possible." This may be
the meaning; but if it is, nothing of any value can be derived from
it.[A] Antoninus often uses the word "Nature" ([Greek: physis]), and we
must attempt to fix its meaning, The simple etymological sense of
[Greek: physis] is "production," the birth of what we call Things. The
Romans used Natura, which also means "birth" originally. But neither the
Greeks nor the Romans stuck to this simple meaning, nor do we. Antoninus
says (x. 6): "Whether the universe is [a concourse of] atoms or Nature
[is a system], let this first be established, that I am a part of the
whole which is governed by nature." Here it might seem as if nature were
personified and viewed as an active, efficient power; as something
which, it not independent of the Deity, acts by a power which is given
to it by the Deity. Such, if I understand the expression right, is the
way in which the word Nature is often used now, though it is plain that
many writers use the word without fixing any exact meaning to it. It is
the same with the expression Laws of Nature, which some writers may use
in an intelligible sense, but others as clearly use in no definite sense
at all. There is no meaning in this word Nature, except that which
Bishop Butler assigns to it, when he says, "The only distinct meaning of
that word Natural is Stated, Fixed, or Settled; since what is natural as
much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so,
_i.e._, to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is
supernatural or miraculous does to effect it at once." This is Plato's
meaning (De Leg., iv. 715) when he says that God holds the beginning and
end and middle of all that exists, and proceeds straight on his course,
making his circuit according to nature (that is by a fixed order); and
he is continually accompanied by justice, who punishes those who deviate
from the divine law, that is, from the order or course which God
observes.

[A] Justin (Apol. ii. 8) has the words [Greek: kata
spermatikou logou meros], where he is speaking of the