It is also, moreover, the river of the Platonists as mentioned by Plutarch: "All things simultaneously come to be and perish : actions, words, and feelings -
for Time like a river carries everything away." 21 The same river is mentioned by Ovid : "Time itself flows on in constant mot ion, just like a river . . . wave is pushed on by wavc." 21
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When, in the passage quoted above, Seneca uses the expression propone -
"place before your mind's eye'', that is, "represent to yourself the abyss of time" - he makes it clear that he is talking about an exercise of the imagination which the S toic must practice. It is an instance of the same kind of exercise when, in his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius tries to embrace the dimensions of the universe in his imagination, and to look at things from on high, 2l in order to reduce them to their true value.
Think of the whole of being, in which you participate to only a tiny degree; think of the whole of eternity, of which a brief, tiny portion has been assigned to you; think about fate, of which you are such an insignificant part. 24
If you were to find yourself suddenly raised up into the air, and observed from on high the busy hodgepodge of human affairs, you would despise them, as you saw at the same time how vast is the domain of the beings inhabiting the air and the ether.25
You have the power to strip off many superfluous things that are obstacles to you, and that depend entirely upon your value-judgements; you will open up for yourself a vast space by embracing the whole universe in your thoughts, by considering unending eternity, and by reflecting on the rapid changes of each particular thing; think of how short is the span between birth and dissolution, and how vast the chasm of time before your birth, and how the span after your dissolution will likewise be infinite.26
The rational soul . . . travels through the whole universe and the void that surrounds it . . . it reaches out into the boundless extent of infinity, and it examines and contemplates the periodic rebirth of all things. 27
Asia and Europe arc little corners of the world; every sea is a droplet in the world; each present instant of time is a point in eternity; everything is puny, unstable, and vanishing.28
How puny a portion of infmite, gaping eternity has been assigned to each man; it vanishes with all speed into the Unending. How puny a portion of the substance of the All; how puny a portion of the soul of the All. Of the whole of the earth , how puny is the lump you are crawling on!29
The difference between these texts and the passage quoted above from De Qµincey lcnpN to t he eye. For the latter, the distortion of time and space is, n11 it wc1·c, impoNcd upon him from outside; the addict is the passive victim
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Figures
of his impressions. For Marcus, by contrast, the consideration of the infinity of time and space is an active process; this is made quite clear by his repeated admonitions to "represent to himself" and "think of" the totality of things.
We have to do here with a traditional spiritual exercise which utilizes the faculties of the imagination. De Quincey speaks of a distortion of the instant, which takes on monstrous proportions. Marcus, by contrast, speaks of an effort to imagine the infinite and the all, in order that all instants and places may be seen reduced to infinitesimal proportions. In Marcus' case, this voluntary exercise of the imagination presupposes a belief in the classical Stoic cosmological scheme: the universe is situated within an infinite void, and its duration is comprised within an infinite time, in which periodic rebirths of the cosmos are infinitely repeated. Marcus' exercise is intended to provide him with a vision of human affairs capable of replacing them within the perspective of universal nature.
Such a procedure is the very essence of philosophy. We find it repeated -
in identical form, beneath superficial differences of vocabulary - in all the philosophical schools of antiquity.30 Plato, for instance, defines the philosophical nature by its ability to contemplate the totality of time and being, and consequently to hold human affairs in contempt.31 We encounter this same theme32 among Platonists like Philo of Alexandria·13 and Maximus of Tyre;34
in Neopythagoreanism35 among the Stoics,36 and even among the Epicureans, as we have seen in the passage from Metrodorus quoted above. 37
In Cicero's Dream of Scipio, the grandson of Scipio Africanus contemplates the earth from on top of the Milky Way. The earth appears so small to him that the Roman empire seems imperceptible, the inhabited world resembles a tiny island in the midst of the ocean, and life itself seems less substantial than a point.38 This theme was kept alive throughout Western tradition. One thinks of Pascal's "two infinities": "Let the earth seem like a point . . . compared to the vast orbit described by this star . . .
" 39
Marcus Aurelius' notes to himself give us very little information about his personal experiences. To be sure, in some chapters of the Meditations we can discern some minimal autobiographical data, but these are few and far between (only 35-40 chapters, out of 473, contain such information). Often, these details consist in no more than a name, such as Pantheia, mistress of Lucius Verus, who sat next to her lover's tomb, or the mimes Philistion, Phoibos, and Origanion. Marcus tells us practically nothing about himself.
But what about those numerous statements by Marcus which seem steeped in pessimism? Don't they tell us anything about his psychological states? If one gathers them together, they certainly give the impression of a complete disdain for human affairs. We seem to find in them the expression of bitterness, disgust, and even "nausea" 40 in the face of hum an existence: "Just like your bath-water appears to you - oil, sweat, filth, dirty water, all kinds of loathsome stuff - such is ench port ion of life, 11nd every Nllh11t11ncc." 41 In
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the first instance, this kind of contemptuous expression is reserved for the flesh and the body, which Marcus calls "mud," "dirt," and "impure blood." 42
Yet the same treannent is reserved for things mankind usually considers as important values:
These foods and dishes . . . are only dead fish, birds and pigs; this Falemian wine is a bit of grape-juice; this purple-edged toga is some sheep's hairs dipped in the blood of shellfish; as for sex, it is the rubbing together of pieces of gut, followed by the spasmodic secretion of a little bit of slime.43
Marcus takes a similarly illusion-free view of human activities: "Everything highly prized in life is empty, petty, and putrid; a pack of little dogs biting each other; little children who fight, then laugh, then burst out crying." 44 The war in which Marcus defended the borders of the empire was, for him, like a hunt for Sarmatian slaves, not unlike a spider's hunt for flies.45 Marcus cast a pitiless glance on the chaotic agitation of human marionettes: "Think about what they're like when they're eating, sleeping, copulating, defecating. Then think of what they're like when they're acting proud and important, when they get angry and upbraid their inferiors. " "" Human agitation is all the more ridiculous because it lasts only an instant, and ends up as very little indeed: