Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.5

The Reason that governs knows what its own disposition is, and what it does, and on what material it works.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6 (tr Long)

I will sometimes be quite wary of trusting the judgments of others, because I have seen how often those judgments can be twisted by greed and deception. I am even more likely to be wary of trusting my own judgments, because I have seen how often I have stumbled and fallen. Once bitten, twice shy.

Sadly, I then apply my reservations to the Universe itself, and to the Divine Reason that gives it order and purpose. I perceive that the judgments of other rational creatures, including my own judgments, admit of limits, and can therefore be subject to error. So I then falsely assume that all judgment is limited, and can admit of error.

The crucial difference, however, is that one form of mind is indeed imperfect, while the other is perfect. One is only a particular aspect of being, while the other includes within itself the completeness of all being. For the Stoic, one is a lesser emanation of another that is greater, a specific part within an all-inclusive whole.

I recognize it as a quirk of only my own thinking and writing, but this is why I distinguish between nature and Nature, mind and Mind, reason and Reason.

I should indeed question my own estimation, and the estimation of others. This does not mean I should ever be dismissive, but I should certainly be critical. To be critical of the Reason that rules over all things, however, I need only be critical of my own apprehension of its workings, not that there is a true meaning and purpose to those workings. It is innately lacking in nothing, because it is itself the fullness of everything.

From my own earlier philosophical background, I recall a concept from Fulton Sheen’s God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy, a book that changed my own thinking in so many ways:

The Divine Intellect is a measure, not a thing measured.

The human intellect is a thing measured, not a measure.

On a more personal level, I also often think of a wonderful line by Cardinal Newman, from his prayer “The Mission of My Life”:

He knows what He is about.

Life is certainly full of things that are fallible. I include my own power to choose and act well within that category. But if I always seek to conform my own judgment to the order of Nature, to the design of Providence, and to the workings of Reason, I am approaching, however humbly and fitfully, a completely trustworthy standard. I am working to be in harmony with the whole, in the words of the Chandogya Upanishad, with “the one without a second”.

Written in 9/2006