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refrain from adding any judgment value to naked reality.60 In the words of Epictetus: "we shall never give our assent to anything but that of which we have an objective representation," 61 and he adds the following illustration: So-and-so's son is dead.
What happened?
His son is dead.
Nothing else?
Not a thing.
So-and so's ship sank.
What happened?
His ship sank.
So-and-so was carted off to prison.
What happened?
He was carted off to prison.
- But if we now add to this "He has had bad luck," then each of us is adding this observation on his own account.62
In these objective/realistic definitions, some historians63 believe they can discover the traces of an attitude of repugnance in the face of matter and the objects of the physical world. Thus, according to this view, Marcus Aurelius renounced the Stoic doctrine of the immanence of divine reason in the world and in matter, and there is no longer any trace in him of the admiration felt by Chrysippus for the phenomenal world. We can therefore, it is alleged, find traces in Marcus of a tendency to affirm the transcendence of a divinity existing apart from the phenomenal world.
Some passages in Marcus do indeed seem provocative in this regard, but they require the most painstaking interpretation. When, for instance, Marcus evokes "the putridity of the matter underlying all things . . . liquid, dust, bones, stench," M he does not mean to say that matter itself is putrefaction; rather, he wants to emphasize that the transformations of matter, qua natural processes, are necessarily accompanied by phenomena which seem to us to be repugnant, although in reality they too are natural.
The passage we have cited above65 may seem even more provocative: "Just like your bath-water appears to you - oil, sweat, filth, dirty water, all kinds of loathsome stuff - such is each portion of life, and every substance." This concise text can be interpreted in several different ways. In the first place, we could say that Marcus is here applying his method of objective definitions.
What he means to say would be this: "when I observe physical and physiological phenomena as they truly are, I have to admit that there nre many aspects of them which seem to me to he diNl(UNt inl( or 1 rlvi11class="underline" 1 hcy
Marcus Aurelius
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consist of dust, the filth which covers abandoned objects, bad smells, and stenches. Our objective representation must recognize all .these aspects of reality, without seeking to conceal any of them." Yet this realist vision has a threefold function. In the first place, it is intended to prepare us to confront life such as it is. As Seneca remarks,
To be offended by these things is just as ridiculous as to complain that you got splashed in the bath, or that you got pushed around in a crowd, or that you got dirty in a mud-puddle. The same things happen in life as in the baths, in a crowd, or on the road . . . Life is not a delicate thing.66
Secondly, the realistic outlook is not intended to deny the immanence of reason in the world, but to persuade us to search for reason where it can be found in its purest state: in the daimon or inner genius, that guiding principle within man, source of freedom and principle of the moral life.
Finally, by reinforcing the sombre tones of disgust and repulsion, such definitions are intended to provide a contrast with the splendid illumination which transfigures all things when we consider them from the perspective of universal reason. Elsewhere, Marcus does not hesitate to declare: Everything comes from above, whether it has originated directly in that common directing principle, or whether it is a necessary consequence thereof. Thus, the gaping jaws of a lion, poison, and all kinds of unpleasant things, like thorns and mud, are by-products of those venerable, beautiful things on high. Don't imagine, therefore, that these unpleasant things are alien to that principle you venerate, but rather consider that source of all things. 67
Here it is quite clear that filth, dust, and other such apparently repulsive aspects of reality are the necessary consequence of a natural process which, in the last analysis, goes back to universal reason. It is thus not matter itself which seems repulsive to us, but the accessory phenomena which accompany its transformations. Here Marcus68 is in complete accord with Stoic orthodoxy, according to which matter is docile and subservient to reason, which molds and governs it. The function of Marcus' physico/objective definitions is precisely to make us realize that the feelings of repulsion we feel in the presence of some phenomena which accompany natural processes are nothing but an anthropocentric prejudice. In the following charming passage, Marcus expresses his belief that nature is beautiful in all its aspects: There iK Komc:thing pleasant and attractive about even the incidental hy-prudm·111 of 11111ur1d l'hc:nomc:na. For instance, when bread is being
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baked, some parts of it split open, and it is precisely those parts which split apart in this way, and which, in a sense, have nothing to do with bread-making itself, which are somehow quite appropriate, and excite our appetite in a most particular way. The same is true of figs: it is when they are at their ripest that they burst open. In the case of very ripe olives, it is precisely their proximity to decay which adds to them a certain beauty. The same is true with ripe ears of corn which bend towards the ground; with the lion's wrinkled forehead; with the foam spuming forth from the mouths of wild pigs, and many other such things: if we look at them in isolation, they are far from being beautiful.
Nevertheless, because they are incidental by-products of natural processes, they add to the beauty of these processes and have an attractive effect on us. Thus, as long as one has a feeling for, and a deep understanding of Nature's processes, there is scarcely any of the things that occur as incidental by-products which will not present itself to one as pleasant, at least in some of its aspects. Such a person . . . will look upon the actual gaping jaws of wild beasts with no less pleasure than upon all the imitations of them that sculptors and painters offer us. With his wise vision, he will be able to discern the rich maturity of old men and women, as well as the lovely charm in young children; and there arc many such things, which do not appeal to everyone; only to that person who has truly familiarized himself with nature and its workings.69
It is instructive to compare this text with the passage from Aristotle quoted abovc.70
Already in Aristotle, but especially in Marcus Aurelius, we can see a revolution taking place. In the place of an idealistic aesthetics, which considers as beautiful only that which is rational and functional, manifesting beautiful proportions and an ideal form, there appears a realistic aesthetics which finds beauty in things just the way they are, in everything that lives and exists. We know from Aulus Gellius,71 moreover, that Marcus' distinction between nature's original plan and the unforeseen consequences resulting from this plan goes back to Chrysippus. Thus, in this case as well, Marcus stands firmly within orthodox Stoic tradition.
To return to the "provocative" passage with which we began:72 it appears that Marcus' meaning is as follows. When dealing with what the Stoics termed indiflerentia73
that is, things which depend not upon us, but upon
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universal nature- we must not make any distinction between what is repulsive and what is pleasant; any more than does nature itself.74 Dirt, mud, and thorns, after all, come from the same source as the rose and the springtime.