die hoechste Vernunft,” the Supreme Reason.  The Germans have also a word Verstand, which seems to represent our word “understanding,” “intelligence,” “intellect,” not as a thing absolute which exists by itself, but as a thing connected with an individual being, as a man.  Accordingly it is the capacity of receiving impressions (Vorstellungen, [Greek:  phantasiai],) and forming from them distinct ideas (Begriffe), and perceiving differences.  I do not think that these remarks will help the reader to the understanding of Antoninus, or his use of the words [Greek:  nous] and [Greek:  logos].  The emperor’s meaning must be got from his own words, and if it does not agree altogether with modern notions, it is not our business to force it into agreement, but simply to find out what his meaning is, if we can.

Justinus (ad Diognetum, c. vii.) says that the omnipotent, all-creating, and invisible God has fixed truth and the holy, incomprehensible Logos in men’s hearts; and this Logos is the architect and creator of the Universe.  In the first Apology (c. xxxii.), he says that the seed ([Greek:  sperma]) from God is the Logos, which dwells in those who believe in God.  So it appears that according to Justinus the Logos is only in such believers.  In the second Apology (c. viii.) he speaks of the seed of the Logos being implanted in all mankind; but those who order their lives according to Logos, such as the Stoics, have only a portion of the Logos ([Greek:  kata spermatikou logou meros]), and have not the knowledge and contemplation of the entire Logos, which is Christ.  Swedenborg’s remarks (Angelic Wisdom, 240) are worth comparing with Justinus.  The modern philosopher in substance agrees with the ancient; but he is more precise.

God exists then, but what do we know of his nature?  Antoninus says that the soul of man is an efflux from the divinity.  We have bodies like animals, but we have reason, intelligence, as the gods.  Animals have life ([Greek:  psyche]) and what we call instincts or natural principles of action:  but the rational animal man alone has a rational, intelligent soul ([Greek:  psyche logike noera]).  Antoninus insists on this continually:  God is in man,[A] and so we must constantly attend to the divinity within us, for it is only in this way that we can have any knowledge of the nature of God.  The human soul is in a sense a portion of the divinity, and the soul alone has any communication with the Deity; for as he says (xii. 2):  “With his intellectual part alone God touches the intelligence only which has flowed and been derived from himself into these bodies.”  In fact he says that which is hidden within a man is life, that is, the man himself.  All the rest is vesture, covering, organs, instrument, which the living man, the real[B] man, uses for the purpose of his present existence.  The air is universally diffused for him who is able to respire; and so for him who is willing to partake of it the intelligent