Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47

Nothing can happen to any man that is not a human accident, nor to an ox that is not according to the nature of an ox, nor to a vine that is not according to the nature of a vine, nor to a stone that is not proper to a stone.

If then there happens to each thing both what is usual and natural, why should you complain? For the Common Nature brings nothing which may not be borne by you.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 8 (tr Long)

We will speak of nature in many ways, and we appeal to many aspects of the natural. We may say that nature is a harmony or a balance, that which is pure and pristine, free from impediment, the way the world works before any artificiality steps in, the true direction everything has deep down to the core.

Many of the Ancients saw nature as the guiding source of all action, the very expression of something’s essence. I have long thought that Aristotle’s definition makes up in precision for what some may say it lacks in poetry: “nature is a principle or cause of being moved and of being at rest, in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not through another.”

It is accordingly proper that something behave according to its identity, that what it does reflects what it is. A stone, a river, a vine, an ox, or a man exist in harmony with their own natures, and the underlying Nature of all things, when they fulfill their innate purpose. In the simplest sense, the stone acts solidly, the river acts fluidly, the vine acts with nutrition, growth, and reproduction, the ox further acts with sensation, the man acts even further with reason and choice.  

I appreciate how Marcus Aurelius here highlights another piece to the whole order of Nature. Not only will things act according to their particular natures, in agreement with what they are, but they will also be acted upon according to their particular natures, in agreement with what they are. In other words, what a stone, a river, a vine, an ox, or a man do as well as what happens to them will always work together.

I might think it is somehow unnatural for a stone to be broken, or for a river to dry up, or for a vine to be cut, or for an ox to be yoked, or for a man to suffer. Surely such circumstances will hinder each of these things from being what they are intended to be? Not at all, because the conditions they must face are a very part of what they are, and their responses are only possible through such a process of change.

Let me look at myself. I may understand that, as a creature of mind and will, I am here to know the truth and love the good. But the loss of fortune, of pleasure, of fame, of wealth, or of health seems to be standing in the way of my living well, and so I might claim that pain, disgrace, poverty, or sickness are unnatural to me.

Yet those conditions can be perfectly natural to me, since I can still always make use of them to live with wisdom and virtue, just as the vine can be natural if it is pruned, or the ox if it is put to work in a field. What happens to me is never unnatural, even as how I use my free choice to react to what happens could well be unnatural.

Yes, it is even natural for things to cease to be, just as it is natural for an animal to both eat and be eaten, because it is natural for something new to grow out of something old.

It is the order of Providence, the unity of all things that Marcus Aurelius here calls the Common Nature, that makes this possible. Nothing happens without purpose, for good can always arise from any situation.

I should therefore work with my own nature, and never against it, by embracing every event as something I am made not merely to endure, but also to transform. My complaints reflect poorly on what I do, not upon what is done to me.

Written in 5/2008