he diviner part within him has been
overpowered and yields to the less honorable and to the perishable part,
the body, and its gross pleasures. In a word, the views of Antoninus on
this matter, however his expressions may vary, are exactly what Bishop
Butler expresses when he speaks of "the natural supremacy of reflection
or conscience," of the faculty "which surveys, approves, or disapproves
the several affections of our mind and actions of our lives."

Much matter might be collected from Antoninus on the notion of the
Universe being one animated Being. But all that he says amounts to no
more, as Schultz remarks, than this: the soul of man is most intimately
united to his body, and together they make one animal, which we call
man; so the Deity is most intimately united to the world, or the
material universe, and together they form one whole. But Antoninus did
not view God and the material universe as the same, any more than he
viewed the body and soul of man as one. Antoninus has 110 speculations
on the absolute nature of the Deity. It was not his fashion to waste his
time on what man cannot understand.[A] He was satisfied that God exists,
that he governs all things, that man can only have an imperfect
knowledge of his nature, and he must attain this imperfect knowledge by
reverencing the divinity which is within him, and keeping it pure.

[A] "God, who is infinitely beyond the reach of our narrow
capacities" (Locke, Essay concerning the Human Understanding,
ii. chap. 17).

From all that has been said, it follows that the universe is
administered by the Providence of God ([Greek: pronoia]), and that all
things are wisely ordered. There are passages in which Antoninus
expresses doubts, or states different possible theories of the
constitution and government of the universe; but he always recurs to his
fundamental principle, that if we admit the existence of a deity, we
must also admit that he orders all things wisely and well (iv. 27; vi.
1; ix. 28; xii. 5; and many other passages). Epictetus says (i. 6) that
we can discern the providence which rules the world, if we possess two
things,--the power of seeing all that happens with respect to each
thing, and a grateful disposition.

But if all things are wisely ordered, how is the world so full of what
we call evil, physical and moral? If instead of saying that there is
evil in the world, we use the expression which I have used, "what we
call evil," we have