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The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained. Annotation by Russell

McNeil, translation by George Long. Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths, 2007.

In this slim book of annotated selections from the Meditations, Russell McNeil makes the mind

of the Stoic Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius stunningly accessible to the modern

reader. The foregoing sentence may seem paradoxical, because Marcus Aurelius is arguably the

most accessible of ancient philosophers, and his masterpiece, the Meditations (the original work

lacks a title, and it has also been called Marcus Aurelius to Himself) has remained in publication

almost since its composition, and still sells well in a number of translations in a variety of

languages today. What McNeil has accomplished is a selection and reassembly of the

disconnected fragments that make up the accepted text into parts that exhibit a rational

arrangement by subjects. These parts have to do with the Stoic ideas of happiness, virtue, the

body, the mind, method, the environment, daily practice, and society.

The reader must know at the outset that this edition is not a new translation of the

Meditations. McNeil has used the authoritative edition of the 1862 translation by the British

scholar George Long, but has modernized and Americanized Long's Victorian English, carefully

eliding language that might seem sexist or politically incorrect these days. The result is clear and

readable, although without turning to Long and the original Greek (the language in which the

well-educated emperor chose to write his own reflections), one can never be sure if Marcus

Aurelius was indeed as smooth as McNeil makes him sound. Also, this is not strictly speaking a

commentary on the Meditations, since McNeil's annotations are not intended only to explain the

thoughts and syntax of the author, but also to expand on the ideas encountered in the text and to

expound on their relevance to the reader and to modern issues. The book is not only a competent

scholarly treatment of an ancient philosophical text, but beyond that a tract written by an

articulate and convincing modern Stoic. McNeil makes no attempt to conceal the fact that he

finds the Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius valuable as a guide to personal and social thought and

action. This reviewer must make a brief quibble before proceeding further. McNeil refers to the

philosopher by the name "Aurelius" almost throughout the book, and I found this annoying. All

modern classical scholars and historians call him "Marcus," which was the only one of his many

names that was used throughout his life. "Aurelius" is the name of his Roman proletarian gens,

and should always be used in combination with his nomen (Marcus). In the Meditations he, when

referring to himself by name, uses his adoptive father's name, Antoninus. In the rest of this

review, then, the reader will know whom I mean when I mention "Marcus."

Marcus has a lot to say about nature. The word appears constantly in his writing, and has

a central role in the structure of his philosophy. McNeil notes this with approval, and envisions

Marcus as a forerunner of the ideas of "nature as a single ecosystem" (p. xxii) and "an ancient

and universal Gaia ecology" (p. 158). But do even the selections in this volume support such an

extension of Stoic ideas? At times it seems so. Marcus speaks of "The nature of which you are

part" (p. 155) and "The continuous spinning of the web and the interconnections in all of its

parts" (p. 159). His most constant concern, however, is with the only thing over which we have

any control: our opinion (attitude). It is that which we must bring into accord with nature, and the

nature with which we must be most concerned is our own human nature. True enough, in Stoic

thought human nature is inextricably linked with the natural law that governs the universe.

Marcus constantly warns us to act in accord with nature, and to do nothing against nature. In this

effort, reason will be our guide. But reason tells us that we can do nothing against nature:

"Nothing can happen to a man or woman which is not according to the nature of a human being"

(p. 203). Nature is absolute necessity; nothing can happen against nature. What, then, is the

import of Marcus' warning that we must do nothing against nature? It is a warning against false

opinion. Opinion guided by reason is true opinion, and all other opinion is false opinion. If we

act following false opinion, we act as it were against nature, and the result will be pain, anger,

depression, and other bad things for ourselves. Nothing from outside can hurt us, only the false

opinion we have can hurt us. The cure is reason (philosophy) and the true opinion it will provide.

Then what about environmental problems such as climate change? McNeil says that

Marcus would "tell us that it is within our intellectual power to see this looming misfortune as an

opportunity to restore the harmony between nature and humanity that is the basis of human

purpose" (p. 166). But would he, really? It seems to me that Marcus would say that climate

change is something that comes from outside, and therefore cannot harm us. What could harm us

is a false opinion of it. Also, Marcus would say that we can do nothing about climate change, and

that therefore it should not concern us. It is one of those many things, like violence done to us by

others, or poverty, or sexual abuse, which cannot really harm us in our inmost selves and is

therefore neither good nor evil. So is there no Stoic response to climate change that modern

humans can find at all satisfying? I think there is. McNeil constantly emphasizes Marcus'

insistence on love as a basic principle, and that we are by nature social beings: "The prime

principle then in the rational constitution is the social." (p.147). If climate change is harming

fellow members of our community (and if Marcus could be enlightened by the modern scientific

understanding of anthropogenic causes of climate change), Marcus could well say that we ought

to do the various things that science indicates may at least mitigate the magnitude and impact of

climate change as an act of benevolence toward our fellow rational beings. He does say that even

within the broad spectrum of those things that are neither good nor evil, such actions are

rationally indicated and in accord with nature. The exercise of virtue is personal good. As in

feeding the hungry, however, our own personal good must be our concern. Feeding the hungry

does them no good in itself, since it does not teach them true opinion.

Even if one is not convinced by this book to adopt Stoic principles for oneself, one can

admire it as a work of scholarship and a valuable explanation of an ancient philosophy that has

lasting influences in today's intellectual world. There are very few errors in matters of fact, but

one at least calls for correction. McNeil, in explaining Marcus' sense of the vast size of the Earth

compared to an individual human inhabitant, refers to Eratosthenes' measurement of the size of

the terrestrial globe (p. 26). He did this by measuring the angles (not the lengths) of shadows cast

by vertical poles in two distant locations (they did not have to be of the same height, and in a

version of the story, one location was a well, not a pole). This occurred at noon on the same day,

the summer solstice (not when the Sun was at the zenith in each spot, but only in the southern

one). McNeil says one pole was in Alexandria (correct) and the other in Cyrene in modern-day

Libya—about 500 miles due south. A glance at the map shows this to be impossible, since

Cyrene is way off to the west. The correct identification of the second place is Syene at the First

Cataract, which corresponds to modern Aswan in Upper Egypt. Eratosthenes' solution for the

Earth's circumference is argued because there are conflicting values for the length of the Greek

stadium, the unit of distance, but some estimates are closer to the true girth of the globe than the

one McNeil gives.

In representing the character of MA, McNeil is uniformly laudatory and when flaws

appear that are inescapable for any imperfect human leader, defensive. If Marcus despised the

bloody spectacles of the Roman arena, why did he do nothing to stop them? McNeil says that

Marcus detested war, spent much of his reign fighting the northern barbarians out of defensive

necessity, and did not engage in wars of expansion or conquest. But when he erected his notable

public monument, the Column of MA, which portrays his battles in a spiral relief, he patterned it

exactly after the Column of Trajan, his predecessor, which portrays the aggressive annexation of

Dacia (modern Romania). McNeil says Marcus Aurelius favored representative democracy, but

in the relevant passage Marcus says only that a king should respect the freedom of subjects.

Although McNeil portrays him as lenient toward those who held other ideas (but not self-serving

egoists), Marcus Aurelius did not extend toleration to the Christians. McNeil presents several

excuses for this (p. 212), but nonetheless there were bloody persecutions during his reign in

Lugdunum and Vienne, and Marcus did not intervene. This was a source of confusion to

Christian historians such as Eusebius, who thought that good emperors like Marcus Aurelius had

not been persecutors, but found evidence to the contrary. None of this invalidates Marcus' Stoic

ideals, of course. It only shows that he did not consistently embody them, a fact that McNeil is

reluctant to admit.

These omissions are forgivable, however, in an editor who has manifest sympathy with

his subject and a profound understanding of the many dimensions of the Stoic worldview.

McNeil is a fine writer who can introduce the reader who has little background in the classics to

one of the most temperate and consoling philosophers of all time. In a period of history when

many philosophers, Neo-Platonists and others, valued pure spirit above such physical things as

the body and the natural environment, Marcus Aurelius insisted on the integration of human

inner life with nature and insisted that the creations of nature were at least as beautiful as the

works of art. We still have much to learn from him, and Russell McNeil's eloquent book can help

us in that task.

J. Donald Hughes University of Denver

Use of "Aurelius" as name

A commitment to stoicism

Loved him

Pneuma and logos

Reason

Perfection of nature's laws = beauty

We ought to live according to nature

The Divinity of Nature

Zeno xxiii

Reason, not faith

Cyclical universe

Love is attraction to beauty

Knowledge of nature

McNeil avoids Long's sexist language, but Nature remains feminine

1 The Promise of Stoicism

The logos within

We seek retreats—retire into your own soul

Desiring, spirited, reasoning 7

Natural unity: the ruling principle of nature

Sin is any action contrary to nature

(No! Sin is action resulting from false opinion)

Is the soul material? 15

GUTs and TOEs 16

"Understanding is an opinion acquired through the use of reason. This sort of opinion can lead to

the exercise of virtue… and this is personal good." 18

There is nothing elitist about Stoicism.

Soon you will be ash 25

The whole earth is a point 27

Syene (he thinks it is Cyrene) is not in Libya! Explanation of Eratosthenes not clear. 26

Entropy

"Whatever happens, happens for the best." 34

McNeil takes refuge in the Heisenberg principle 34

2 Stoicism and Virtue 37

Love

Respect nature 45

3 Stoicism and Vice 57

No need for a war on terror 58

"If you do not know what the world is, you know not where you are." 65

"You are like a priest and minister of nature." 75

"They are far less likely to worry about physical or economic security when dealing with a

major… environmental crisis." 80 The environmental crisis is noted by McNeil, not Marcus.

4 Stoicism and the Body 87

You are formed by nature to bear everything 95

It is your interest or duty to bear it

Toleration and freedom of expression 96

Epicurus and pain

Death ends the discursive movements of the thoughts 105

Is there another kind of sensation after death? 107

We are supposed to love society, but we can't stand our stupid neighbors! 108

5 Stoicism and the Mind 113

World-soul has corporeal nature 114

Say more about Socrates 116

Knowing yourself: mind, not body

We are able to understand nature and its laws

The ruling intelligence 121

Works of art are only called beautiful 123

The beauty of nature and her works: ripe fruit, lion's eyebrows, boars' foam 125

Art imitates nature

False opinions disturb the soul 126

6 The Method of Stoicism 129

Abandon all discontent and blame 132

The consolation of philosophy (loving wisdom) 136

He is laying foundations for the study of science (?) 142

"The prime principle then in the rational constitution is the social." 147

The rational is superior to the animal

We are deeply integrated within the perfect fabric of nature (McNeil)

7 Stoicism and the Environment 151

The Seeds of Logos

Failure to cite sources – spermatikoi logoi

Avoids meaning of "abuse" 153

"The nature of which you are part" 155

Personal fulfillment or the environment 154

Harmonizing with nature 157

"O Nature: from you are all things, in you are all things, to you all things return." 157

The universe as one living being 159

Compared with Lovelock 158

"The continuous spinning of the web and the interconnections in all of its parts" 159

"An ancient and universal Gaia ecology" 158

The sea is a drop, Athos a clod

All things are bonded with one another 163

McNeill says the auto engine is unnatural but the fuel cell is natural. 162

Recycling?

"Nature and climate change" has nothing to say about that.

Animals devoid of reason, but have love

Abuse 166

Nature is necessity 167 (McNeil avoids the implications)

8 The Practice of Stoicism 169

The wrestler's art 171

Prayer?

Love the art you have learned

Compassion for wrongdoers

Labor not contrary to (your) nature 177

Anger management 181

"Act with justice in all your actions in accordance with the universal nature" 191

Nothing in this world can ever cause us harm

"Nothing can happen to a man or woman which is not according to the nature of a human being"

203

Statelessness 206

9 Society and Government in Stoicism 209

McNeil pretends that Marcus Aurelius was a democrat 210

Same law for all, equal rights, freedom of speech 211

Condemned Christianity 212

Universe a concourse of atoms, or nature is a system 217

Heraclitus and logos 218

Those who oppose play a part in nature's plan

"The state will never suffer real harm, because the law and order of the universe—the ruling

intelligence—is impervious to harm. 225-225

Show whoever causes harm where the error is 227

Marcus Aurelius did not conduct expansionary campaigns or wars of aggression 226

(But he approved of Trajan's Dacian campaigns ¥)!

Opposition to dissent 229

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