One passage more will conclude this matter.  It contains all that the emperor could say (ii. 11):  “To go from among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of providence?  But in truth they do exist, and they do care for human things, and they have put all the means in man’s power to enable him not to fall into real evils.  And as to the rest, if there was anything evil, they would have provided for this also, that it should be altogether in a man’s power not to fall into it.  But that which does not make a man worse, how can it make a man’s life worse?  But neither through ignorance, nor having the knowledge but not the power to guard against or correct these things, is it possible that the nature of the universe has overlooked them; nor is it possible that it has made so great a mistake, either through want of power or want of skill, that good and evil should happen indiscriminately to the good and the bad.  But death certainly and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things equally happen to good and bad men, being things which make us neither better nor worse.  Therefore they are neither good nor evil.”

The Ethical part of Antoninus’ Philosophy follows from his general principles.  The end of all his philosophy is to live conformably to Nature, both a man’s own nature and the nature of the universe.  Bishop Butler has explained what the Greek philosophers meant when they spoke of living according to Nature, and he says that when it is explained, as he has explained it and as they understood it, it is “a manner of speaking not loose and undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true.”  To live according to Nature is to live according to a man’s whole nature, not according to a part of it, and to reverence the divinity within him as the governor of all his actions.  “To the rational animal the same act is according to nature and according to reason"[A] (vii. 11).  That which is done contrary to reason is also an act contrary to nature, to the whole nature, though it is certainly conformable to some part of man’s nature, or it could not be done.  Man is made for action, not for idleness or pleasure.  As plants and animals do the uses of their nature, so man must do his (v. 1).

    [A] This is what Juvenal means when he says (xiv. 321),—­

    “Nunquam aliud Natura aliud Sapientia dicit.”

Man must also live conformably to the universal nature, conformably to the nature of all things of which he is one; and as a citizen of a political community he must direct his life and actions with reference to those among whom, among other purposes, he lives.[A] A man must not retire into solitude and cut himself off from his fellow-men.  He must be ever active to do his part in the great whole.  All men are