ENGLISH COMMENTARY
This truly Christian forbearance has been sometimes censured. It is condemned by Renan,[1] who calls the reflection 'une des pensées où la bonté est exagéree jusqu'a la fausseté'. He discovers the disastrous results of a father's leniency in the character of his brutalized son and successor Commodus. Yet Commodus began his reign well; only, after a while, he was corrupted, like Nero, by absolute power and evil counsellors.
Chs. 17–20. Four brief chapters which appear to be closely connected, and which summarize what is handled more largely in iii. 11. Action or intent arise from a change in consciousness. Some experience awakens an imagination, what we call an impression. The remedy (ch. 18) is to discover what the thing which prompts the impression is in reality. Distinguish its material aspect from the form which gives it individuality; this is a necessity whether it is of speculative or practical moment. Consider it also in connexion with its purpose; see whether, for example, it is conceived with a selfish or a social end in view (ch. 20).
He adds that the duration of the object, its place in the time-series, must also be weighed (iii. 11. 2). He may intend merely to remind himself that all human experience is transient (xi. 18, subsection vi), or the pain-pleasure aspect of consciousness may be before him, and considerations such as Epicurus suggested in reference to pain-pleasure (vii. 64).
This analysis of a state of consciousness (ch. 19) will exhibit a conflict between the ideal self (reason) and the self of passions and wrong impulses, which tend to make the better self their plaything. He hints that if the governing self loses control, the psychical centre becomes the seat of passions, which usurp the seat of reason; in this way degeneration of the psychical unity ensues, a kind of moral insanity. Turn back the leaves to the sad summaries of degeneracy in iv. 28, v. 11, and ix. 39.
Here he may have in mind the besetting sins of the absolute ruler; his envy and duplicity (i. 11); the crimson infection of the imperial robe (vi. 30. 1); a Tiberius in the gloomy and suspicious retirement of Capri (xii. 27); the pitiable declension of a Nero (iii. 16); the ruling passion, the vanity, of lesser men (xii. 27).
The remedy for diseased egoism in all its forms is to correct
- ↑ Renan, Marc-Aurèle, ch. xxvi, p. 472.
