Jean Delville, The God-Man (1903)
The Death of Marcus Aurelius
Sunday, May 3, 2026
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Saturday, May 2, 2026
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Friday, May 1, 2026
Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.3
You borrow, says one, these views from philosophers. I was afraid you would have told me that I borrowed it from panderers.
But Socrates reasoned in the manner you do—by Hercules, you say well; for it is recorded that he was a learned and a wise person.
Meanwhile as we are contending, not with blows, but with words, I ask you whether good men should inquire what was the opinion of porters and laborers, or that of the wisest of mankind? Especially too as no truer sentiment than this can be found, nor one more conducive to the interests of human life.
For what influence is there which can more deter men from the commission of every kind of evil, than if they become sensible that there are no degrees in sin? That the crime is the same, whether they offer violence to private persons or to magistrates. That in whatever families they have gratified their illicit desire, the turpitude of their lust is the same.
But Socrates reasoned in the manner you do—by Hercules, you say well; for it is recorded that he was a learned and a wise person.
Meanwhile as we are contending, not with blows, but with words, I ask you whether good men should inquire what was the opinion of porters and laborers, or that of the wisest of mankind? Especially too as no truer sentiment than this can be found, nor one more conducive to the interests of human life.
For what influence is there which can more deter men from the commission of every kind of evil, than if they become sensible that there are no degrees in sin? That the crime is the same, whether they offer violence to private persons or to magistrates. That in whatever families they have gratified their illicit desire, the turpitude of their lust is the same.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3
The observant teacher quickly discovers all of the ways his students will try to escape from an argument that makes them feel uncomfortable, and one of them is what I like to call the “stigma of snobbery”, a sort of corollary to the informal fallacy of ad populum.
“Yeah, well only eggheads say things like that! Why should I listen to some snooty philosopher?”
Indeed, if you are merely referring to a professional scholar, he may have much to teach you about footnotes and etymologies, even as he may not have much to offer you on becoming a wiser and a better human being. But do you include a Socrates, or a Diogenes, or an Epictetus in such a category? Were their noses in books, or were they out on the streets?
If I want to get something done right, whose guidance should I seek? It is the carpenter who can show me how to craft a chair, not the banker. It is the farmer who can advise me on growing a crop, not the lawyer. And it is the philosopher, properly understood, who can teach me right from wrong, not the celebrity demagogue of the hour.
The power to master a trade is within all of us, though only a few will freely choose the self-discipline necessary for such an excellence. Do not confuse the pretension of elitism with the authenticity of merit.
The Stoic claim about all virtues and vices being equal in kind is far more than a theoretical notion. It does me a world of good to remember why there is no such thing as a little bit of theft, or a little bit of adultery, or a little bit of murder, and that whatever the degrees of circumstance, each and every instance is a violation of my nature. As much as I justified the trifling diversion as harmless, it was a surrender of character from the very beginning.
When I first began to take my Catholic faith seriously, I was taken aback by the stark simplicity of an old-school confession: “number and species”. I was not being asked to provide any elaborate narrative for my sins, as if this could somehow alleviate my responsibility, and I was just required to state what I had done, and how many times I had done it.
If it involved mortal sin—grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent—then each and every instance was itself a deal-breaker, which completely separated me from sanctifying grace. Behind the formal language, it turned out to be a healthy dose of common sense.
The libertine will assume I am being priggish and repressed, but I have found that gently nurturing my conscience, without falling back on any cheap excuses, has allowed me to become far more compassionate and merciful: I know precisely what sort of a total jerk I have been, so I can hardly hold it against you. Beware the equivocation of the knave!
The observant teacher quickly discovers all of the ways his students will try to escape from an argument that makes them feel uncomfortable, and one of them is what I like to call the “stigma of snobbery”, a sort of corollary to the informal fallacy of ad populum.
“Yeah, well only eggheads say things like that! Why should I listen to some snooty philosopher?”
Indeed, if you are merely referring to a professional scholar, he may have much to teach you about footnotes and etymologies, even as he may not have much to offer you on becoming a wiser and a better human being. But do you include a Socrates, or a Diogenes, or an Epictetus in such a category? Were their noses in books, or were they out on the streets?
If I want to get something done right, whose guidance should I seek? It is the carpenter who can show me how to craft a chair, not the banker. It is the farmer who can advise me on growing a crop, not the lawyer. And it is the philosopher, properly understood, who can teach me right from wrong, not the celebrity demagogue of the hour.
The power to master a trade is within all of us, though only a few will freely choose the self-discipline necessary for such an excellence. Do not confuse the pretension of elitism with the authenticity of merit.
The Stoic claim about all virtues and vices being equal in kind is far more than a theoretical notion. It does me a world of good to remember why there is no such thing as a little bit of theft, or a little bit of adultery, or a little bit of murder, and that whatever the degrees of circumstance, each and every instance is a violation of my nature. As much as I justified the trifling diversion as harmless, it was a surrender of character from the very beginning.
When I first began to take my Catholic faith seriously, I was taken aback by the stark simplicity of an old-school confession: “number and species”. I was not being asked to provide any elaborate narrative for my sins, as if this could somehow alleviate my responsibility, and I was just required to state what I had done, and how many times I had done it.
If it involved mortal sin—grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent—then each and every instance was itself a deal-breaker, which completely separated me from sanctifying grace. Behind the formal language, it turned out to be a healthy dose of common sense.
The libertine will assume I am being priggish and repressed, but I have found that gently nurturing my conscience, without falling back on any cheap excuses, has allowed me to become far more compassionate and merciful: I know precisely what sort of a total jerk I have been, so I can hardly hold it against you. Beware the equivocation of the knave!
—Reflection written in 5/1999
Thursday, April 30, 2026
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Wednesday, April 29, 2026
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Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Maxims of Goethe 86
Whether memoirs are written by masters of servants, or by servants of masters, the processes always meet.
IMAGE: Nicolaes Maes, The Idle Servant (1655)
Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.2
Will any man call a person honest, who, having a deposit of ten pounds of gold made to him without any witness, so that he might take advantage of it with impunity, shall restore it, and yet should not do the same in the case of ten thousand pounds?
Can a man be accounted temperate who checks one inordinate passion and gives a loose to another?
Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left. If good offices are done with an upright intention, nothing can be more upright than upright is; and therefore it is impossible that anything should be better than what is good.
It therefore follows that all vices are equal; for the obliquities of the mind are properly termed vices. Now we may infer, that as all virtues are equal, therefore all good actions, when they spring from virtues, ought to be equal likewise; and therefore it necessarily follows, that evil actions springing from vices, should be also equal.
Can a man be accounted temperate who checks one inordinate passion and gives a loose to another?
Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left. If good offices are done with an upright intention, nothing can be more upright than upright is; and therefore it is impossible that anything should be better than what is good.
It therefore follows that all vices are equal; for the obliquities of the mind are properly termed vices. Now we may infer, that as all virtues are equal, therefore all good actions, when they spring from virtues, ought to be equal likewise; and therefore it necessarily follows, that evil actions springing from vices, should be also equal.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3
If I look at it from the side of my circumstances, then one crime can be radically different from another, either more or less severe, but if I look at it from the side of my character, then every crime does my soul an identical amount of harm. A virtue is the complete affirmation of my humanity, and thus it can become no better, while a vice is a complete rejection of my humanity, and thus it can become no worse.
This takes some getting used to. It is not a denial of our complexity, where both good and bad are at work within us, nor does it ignore the very real consequences of our choices. It rather asks us to measure our progress by the fulfillment of our whole being, instead of just subtracting some points over here, and then adding a few more over there.
Once again, I find both of Cicero’s examples to be extremely helpful. A man may commit fraud at the corner store for $10, or he may commit fraud on the stock market for $10 million, yet the duplicity itself is just the same. Another fellow may give up the booze for the new year, and he then starts to gorge himself on donuts, yet the gluttony itself is just the same.
When I worked in social services, it was common for the staff to lift their lunch money out of the petty cash box; the boss wasn’t looking, and surely no one would care about such a small amount. There was much outrage and pearl-clutching, however, when it turned out that a manager had paid for his vacation to San Francisco on the company credit card. Crucify him!
When I was in college, I found myself in a circle with unwritten rules about cheating on girlfriends or boyfriends. If you fooled around when you were drunk, this was considered a harmless amusement, but if you dared to go all the way when you were sober, you would face the wrath of the entire community. I was not surprised when so many of my peers later had failed marriages.
Over the years, I have grappled with countless temptations, some of which I mastered, many others which I allowed to master me. One of my greatest mistakes was to underestimate the little enticements, thinking it more important to take giant leaps instead of baby steps. I was forgetting how a man who cannot be good in small things cannot be good in big things, because any vice, at any scale, is equally an affront to his dignity. To sell myself for a trinket is as bad as selling myself for a kingdom.
As the perfection of our very nature, there is nothing higher than virtue. As the denial of our very nature, there is nothing lower than vice. Though the debts we owe to others may be greater or lesser, the debts we owe to ourselves are always absolute.
If I look at it from the side of my circumstances, then one crime can be radically different from another, either more or less severe, but if I look at it from the side of my character, then every crime does my soul an identical amount of harm. A virtue is the complete affirmation of my humanity, and thus it can become no better, while a vice is a complete rejection of my humanity, and thus it can become no worse.
This takes some getting used to. It is not a denial of our complexity, where both good and bad are at work within us, nor does it ignore the very real consequences of our choices. It rather asks us to measure our progress by the fulfillment of our whole being, instead of just subtracting some points over here, and then adding a few more over there.
Once again, I find both of Cicero’s examples to be extremely helpful. A man may commit fraud at the corner store for $10, or he may commit fraud on the stock market for $10 million, yet the duplicity itself is just the same. Another fellow may give up the booze for the new year, and he then starts to gorge himself on donuts, yet the gluttony itself is just the same.
When I worked in social services, it was common for the staff to lift their lunch money out of the petty cash box; the boss wasn’t looking, and surely no one would care about such a small amount. There was much outrage and pearl-clutching, however, when it turned out that a manager had paid for his vacation to San Francisco on the company credit card. Crucify him!
When I was in college, I found myself in a circle with unwritten rules about cheating on girlfriends or boyfriends. If you fooled around when you were drunk, this was considered a harmless amusement, but if you dared to go all the way when you were sober, you would face the wrath of the entire community. I was not surprised when so many of my peers later had failed marriages.
Over the years, I have grappled with countless temptations, some of which I mastered, many others which I allowed to master me. One of my greatest mistakes was to underestimate the little enticements, thinking it more important to take giant leaps instead of baby steps. I was forgetting how a man who cannot be good in small things cannot be good in big things, because any vice, at any scale, is equally an affront to his dignity. To sell myself for a trinket is as bad as selling myself for a kingdom.
As the perfection of our very nature, there is nothing higher than virtue. As the denial of our very nature, there is nothing lower than vice. Though the debts we owe to others may be greater or lesser, the debts we owe to ourselves are always absolute.
—Reflection written in 5/1999
IMAGE: Briton Riviere, The Temptation in the Wilderness (1898)
Monday, April 27, 2026
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James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 28
28.
Καταφρονήσει μού τις; ὄψεται. ἐγὼ δὲ ὄψομαι ἵνα μή τι καταφρονήσεως ἄξιον πράσσων ἣ λέγωνεὑρίσκωμαι. μισήσει; ὄψεται. ἀλλὰ ἐγὼ εὐμενὴς καὶ εὔνους παντὶ καὶ τούτῳ αὐτῷ ἕτοιμος τὸ παρορώμενον δεῖξαι, οὐκ ὀνειδιστικῶς οὐδὲ ὡς κατεπιδεικνύμενος ὅτι ἀνέχομαι, ἀλλὰ γνησίως καὶ χρηστῶς.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13
28.
How recks it me to wrangle it at all?
My part it is to rule me so withal,
And live so, that no cynic mood can hoot.
Hath any hated me, let him look to ’t,
Have, if he will, a sole, ne’er double, brawl;
My part is to hate not, and know ’twill fall
That as the tree is trained so is the fruit.
If one have stripes, fangs, claws and fur,
As such there be among us human creatures
In spiritual mark, why, then we see
A tiger with the tiger manner stir,
And tiger thrift go with the tiger features.
But I, who am a man, must man-like be.
IMAGE: Hu Zaobin, Victory or Defeat (c. 1930)
Sunday, April 26, 2026
Sayings of Ramakrishna 283
In whatever direction it went the crowd of kites and crows followed it, screeching and cawing.
Getting tired of this annoyance, the kite let go the fish, when it was instantly caught by another kite, and at once the crowd of kites and crows transferred their kind attentions to the new owner of the fish.
The first kite was left unmolested, and sat calmly on the branch of a tree.
Seeing this quiet and tranquil state of the bird, the Avadhûta, saluting it, said, "You are my Guru, O Kite; for you have taught me that so long as man does not throw off the burden of the worldly desires he carries, he cannot be undisturbed and at peace with himself."
Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.1
Paradox 3: That All Misdeeds Are in Themselves Equal, and Good Deeds the Same
The matter it may be said is a trifle, but the crime is enormous; for crimes are not to be measured by the issue of events, but from the bad intentions of men. The fact in which the sin consists may be greater in one instance and less in another, but guilt itself, in whatsoever light you behold it, is the same.
A pilot oversets a ship laden with gold or one laden with straw: in value there is some difference, but in the ignorance of the pilot there is none.
Your illicit desire has fallen upon an obscure female. The mortification affects fewer persons than if it had broken out in the case of some high-born and noble virgin; nevertheless it has been guilty, if it be guilty to overstep the mark.
When you have done this, a crime has been committed; nor does it matter in aggravation of the fault how far you run afterward; certainly it is not lawful for anyone to commit sin, and that which is unlawful is limited by this sole condition, that it is shown to be wrong.
If this guilt can neither be made greater nor less (because, if the thing was unlawful, therein sin was committed), then the vicious acts which spring out of that which is ever one and the same must necessarily be equal.
Now if virtues are equal among themselves, it must necessarily follow that vices are so likewise; and it is most easy to be perceived that a man cannot be better than good, more temperate than temperate, braver than brave, nor wiser than wise.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3
As if it weren’t shocking enough to hear that virtue is the only human good, the Stoics then proceed to claim that all virtues are equally good, and that all vices are equally bad. This is why I am plodding through this section even more slowly than usual.
I would like to think that I am sensitive to subtleties, and yet I also run the danger of piling on so many conditions that I end up erasing the original distinction. Initially, it didn’t sit right with me that good and evil could be so clearly delineated, although I eventually discovered why my confusion arose from my own vacillation, a desire for a convenient escape clause from my own responsibilities.
Even as we should rightly speak of more or less, this can only be gauged by first recognizing a simple state of presence or absence. However great the extent of the degrees, the identity always remains one and the same in kind, just as increasing or decreasing the quantity does not alter the underlying existence of a quality.
Furthermore, as much as the circumstances will vary, the intentions behind our human acts are either in accord with nature or contrary to nature, such that an offense may be viewed as big or small, narrow or broad, but it stands as an offense nonetheless, and it therefore serves to deny us a life of excellence. Fiddle with the accidents as much as you wish, the essence will stay constant.
If that comes across as too abstract, Cicero’s examples are refreshingly grounded in everyday experience. Regardless of the cargo, the captain was still careless at the helm. Regardless of her background, the playboy still treated the woman shamefully. The slacker is a slacker, and the scoundrel is a scoundrel.
I will never forget a nasty little fellow I once knew, who crashed my friend’s car, but refused to take the blame on the grounds that it was already such a wreck. I had to remind myself that beating him senseless could not be justified on the grounds that he was already such a selfish bastard.
A few years later, I watched in horror as a frat boy ridiculed a young lady until she burst into tears. I couldn’t find the words to put him in his place, so I merely stared at him in disbelief. “Chill out, dude,” he said. “It’s not like she’s a hottie or anything.” This is what happens when we grade our behavior on a sliding scale of utility.
Whether it is to save my hide or to avoid an awkward moment, to lie is to lie. Whether it is to win the big contract or to satisfy a whim, to steal is to steal. So too, any integrity is an act of courage, and any gift is an act of kindness, no matter the stakes. The true value of the deed is in the purity of the disposition, not in calculating the most favorable outcomes.
In other words, virtues and vices cannot be tabulated on a business ledger. One person can be richer than another, but all good people are equal to one another, whatever their other assets might be.
As if it weren’t shocking enough to hear that virtue is the only human good, the Stoics then proceed to claim that all virtues are equally good, and that all vices are equally bad. This is why I am plodding through this section even more slowly than usual.
I would like to think that I am sensitive to subtleties, and yet I also run the danger of piling on so many conditions that I end up erasing the original distinction. Initially, it didn’t sit right with me that good and evil could be so clearly delineated, although I eventually discovered why my confusion arose from my own vacillation, a desire for a convenient escape clause from my own responsibilities.
Even as we should rightly speak of more or less, this can only be gauged by first recognizing a simple state of presence or absence. However great the extent of the degrees, the identity always remains one and the same in kind, just as increasing or decreasing the quantity does not alter the underlying existence of a quality.
Furthermore, as much as the circumstances will vary, the intentions behind our human acts are either in accord with nature or contrary to nature, such that an offense may be viewed as big or small, narrow or broad, but it stands as an offense nonetheless, and it therefore serves to deny us a life of excellence. Fiddle with the accidents as much as you wish, the essence will stay constant.
If that comes across as too abstract, Cicero’s examples are refreshingly grounded in everyday experience. Regardless of the cargo, the captain was still careless at the helm. Regardless of her background, the playboy still treated the woman shamefully. The slacker is a slacker, and the scoundrel is a scoundrel.
I will never forget a nasty little fellow I once knew, who crashed my friend’s car, but refused to take the blame on the grounds that it was already such a wreck. I had to remind myself that beating him senseless could not be justified on the grounds that he was already such a selfish bastard.
A few years later, I watched in horror as a frat boy ridiculed a young lady until she burst into tears. I couldn’t find the words to put him in his place, so I merely stared at him in disbelief. “Chill out, dude,” he said. “It’s not like she’s a hottie or anything.” This is what happens when we grade our behavior on a sliding scale of utility.
Whether it is to save my hide or to avoid an awkward moment, to lie is to lie. Whether it is to win the big contract or to satisfy a whim, to steal is to steal. So too, any integrity is an act of courage, and any gift is an act of kindness, no matter the stakes. The true value of the deed is in the purity of the disposition, not in calculating the most favorable outcomes.
In other words, virtues and vices cannot be tabulated on a business ledger. One person can be richer than another, but all good people are equal to one another, whatever their other assets might be.
—Reflection written in 5/1999
IMAGE: Quentin Matsys, Ill-Matched Lovers (c. 1525)
Saturday, April 25, 2026
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Friday, April 24, 2026
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