han the
assumption of a rival theory for argument's sake. If worldly things
'be but as a dream, the thought is not far off that there may be an
awakening to what is real. When he speaks of death as a necessary
change, and points out that nothing useful and profitable can be brought
about without change, did he perhaps think of the change in a corn of
wheat, which is not quickened except it die? Nature's marvellous power
of recreating out of Corruption is surely not confined to bodily things.
Many of his thoughts sound like far-off echoes of St. Paul; and it is
strange indeed that this most Christian of emperors has nothing good
to say of the Christians. To him they are only sectaries 'violently and
passionately set upon opposition.

Profound as philosophy these Meditations certainly are not; but Marcus
Aurelius was too sincere not to see the essence of such things as
came within his experience. Ancient religions were for the most
part concerned with outward things. Do the necessary rites, and you
propitiate the gods; and these rites were often trivial, sometimes
violated right feeling or even morality. Even when the gods stood on the
side of righteousness, they were concerned with the act more than with
the intent. But Marcus Aurelius knows that what the heart is full of,
the man will do. 'Such as thy thoughts and ordinary cogitations are,' he
says, 'such will thy mind be in time.' And every page of the book shows
us that he knew thought was sure to issue in act. He drills his soul, as
it were, in right principles, that when the time comes, it may be guided
by them. To wait until the emergency is to be too late. He sees also the
true essence of happiness. 'If happiness did consist in pleasure,
how came notorious robbers, impure abominable livers, parricides, and
tyrants, in so large a measure to have their part of pleasures?' He who
had all the world's pleasures at command can write thus 'A happy lot and
portion is, good inclinations of the soul, good desires, good actions.'

By the irony of fate this man, so gentle and good, so desirous of quiet
joys and a mind free from care, was set at the head of the Roman Empire
when great dangers threatened from east and west. For several years he
himself commanded his armies in chief. In camp before the Quadi he dates
the first book of his Meditations, and shows how he could retire within
himself amid the coarse clangour of arms. The pomps and glories which
he despised were all