ENGLISH COMMENTARY
one whose choice is governed by ends which lead him to bad faith, hatred, suspicion and so forth. What a contrast to the man who observes the ritual of the spirit within him!
Ch. 9. Marcus states more fully what was briefly hinted in ii. 15. What determines a man's conduct is his imagination. and that depends upon his judgment. If he honours and disciplines that power within him which is independent of circumstance, he can be a free man, a reasonable member of the Commonwealth, man's fellow, God's disciple.
How the judgment is to be disciplined is explained in ch. 11.
Ch. 10. The present moment, which was said in ii. 14 to be all man has, is of primary importance; a brief instant between two eternities of time (iv. 50; ix. 32; xii. 7). Compared with the Universe how small the little corner of the earth man inhabits, how small even the most lasting reputation! The object of the aphorism appears to be to humble conceit as well as to emphasize the immediacy of duty. The same order of reflection appears in Pascal,[1] with much of the same purpose: 'Que l'homme, étant revenu à soi, considère cc qu'il est au prix de ce qui est; qu'il se regarde comme égaré dans ce canton détourné de la nature, et que de ce petit cachot où il se trouve logé, j'entends l'univers, is apprenne à estimer la terre, les royaumes, les villes et soi-même son juste prix. Qu'est-ce qu'un homme dans l'infini?'
Ch. 11. This is his first statement of a method which Marcus often recommends or refers to in passing. The object is to secure sanity of judgement, to clarify and fortify the reason and will. Without clearness and distinctness, as Descartes has said, speculative investigation is deluded, practical life vague and undetermined, even misguided. To put it in the language of the Stoics, the object is to obtain the imagination which 'grasps its object', a state of mind which they regarded as the intellectual and moral criterion. The method is here applied to the objects of moral judgment. Test every experience which presents itself in order to determine what that which affects the imagination through the senses (and will therefore move the impulses) really is. Strip it of all irrelevant circumstances till it stands before you in its naked outline, unprejudiced by subjectivity. Divide it into the elements
- ↑ Pascal, Pensées, 72 Br.
