ENGLISH COMMENTARY
follows God, but is inspired by God, and carried by God. The language is unconsciously echoed by à Kempis:[1] 'He rides pleasantly enough whom the grace of God carries. And what wonder if he feels no burden, who is carried by the Almighty, and led by the sovereign guide.'
Ch. 24. The first principle is a repetition of what was said in x. 11, to be satisfied with acting justly in what is done in the present and embracing gladly what is assigned to him in the present. The mention of Right relates to the passage of Plato, which he referred to in the last words of x. 11. He adds that to blame either a chance concourse of atoms or a wise providence is madness (viii. 17). The second principle is the recognition of the universal law (iv. 5; xii. 23) which governs the continuity and cessation of the life of the individual.
The third principle seems to be conceived as a corrective to pride; we are to rise above the earth's plane, in idea, and to look down on men's trivial engagements (vii. 48; ix. 30), comparing them with the cloud of unseen witnesses.
In this unique passage Marcus appears to adopt the common belief in the presence of unseen spirits in the atmosphere (he does not say that they walk the earth). This is a revival or a survival of primitive animism, of which it has been said:[2] 'To an early Greek, the earth, water and air were full of living eyes; of theoi, of daimones, of Kêres. To Homer and Hesiod they are "myriads from whom there is no escape or hiding."'
It is difficult now to realize that this was also the general belief in England in the seventeenth century, and was shared by writers like Milton and Sir Thomas Browne.
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
Unseen.[3]
Sir Thomas Browne[4] uses the Stoic doctrine of a scale of Nature to justify belief in these spirits, a higher order than man: 'therefore for Spirits, I am so far from denying their existence, that I could easily believe that not only whole countries, but particular persons have their tutelary and guardian angels'; and later we meet with
