Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.30

The Intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly, it has made the inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the superior to one another.

You see how it has subordinated, coordinated, and assigned to everything its proper portion, and has brought together into concord with one another the things which are the best.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

While we Moderns have knowledge of the natural world that would have amazed the Ancients, the Ancients had something that we too often neglect. They sought to understand the identity of things within the context of order and purpose, and therefore as an expression of harmonious design. We seek out the structure of matter and the laws by which it moves, while they also sought out the essence of things and their ultimate ends. Their world was not just a place where “stuff happened”. It was a world woven from intertwined strands of meaning.

In Aristotelian terms, while we Moderns, following Francis Bacon, perceive efficient and material causes, the Ancients also perceived formal and final causes. It isn’t just about matter moving about, but matter given form, directed toward a goal.

The whole Universe is, in this sense, social, because each and every thing plays a part within the balance and relationship of the whole. Things that are less perfect exist for the sake of things that are more perfect, and things that are more perfect exist for the sake of one another. A hand or a foot serves a man, and men mutually serve one another.

I will sometimes feel as if I am in constant conflict with things in the world, and always struggling with others. Events and circumstances seem to go against me. The people who should be friends and neighbors seem more like enemies and competitors. I then remind myself that this impression comes only from letting my passions blind the clarity of my thinking. In both the bigger picture and the smaller picture, for the cosmos as a whole and for the rational and social animals that live within it, every aspect is balanced with every other.

I lose track of the role I must play when I feel resentment for the role everything else must play. I get back on track when I commit myself to my part, and can thereby accept, respect, and trust in the purpose of the other parts.

When I was a child, I always enjoyed simply observing different instances of cooperation, things such as the way water and rocks act upon one another, or the interplay of bees and flowers, or the harmony of different players in an orchestra. One of my favorite assignments in elementary school had been making a colorful poster displaying the overlapping water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles.

Whenever I now observe things in life that seem harsh, conflicting, or severe, I turn back to those fond memories. Something may diminish or cease to be, but wherever there is a lessening in one part, there is an increase in another, and wherever there is an ending, there is also a new beginning. Nothing is in vain, since everything is relational and social. 

Written in 8/2006