Philosophy as a way of life

where the soul is urged to bring its inner movements into accord with the movements and harmony of the all. Again, we find the same theme in the area of meteorologia: that is, speech which - according to the Hippocratic method, as Plato says in the Phaedrus21 places the soul and human affairs within the

-

perspective of the all. Such a method, Plato adds, leads to nobility of thought.

Epicurean physics also opens up a wide field for mental flight, in the infinity of space and the infinite number of worlds. Thus Lucretius: "Since space stretches far beyond the boundaries of our world, into the infinite, our mind seeks to sound out what lies within this infinity, in which the mind can plunge its gaze at will, and to which the mind's thoughts can soar in free flight. " 22 Elsewhere, Lucretius says that Epicurus has "boldly broken down the tightly shut gates of nature," and "Advanced far beyond the the flaming walls of our world. " 23 In mind and thought, claims Lucretius, Epicurus has sped through the whole of infinity, thence to return victoriously and teach us what can and cannot come into being. 24

This spiritual conquest of space kindled the enthusiasm of the eighteenth century, which dreamed of producing a new Lucretius. Andre Chenier25

sought to give new life to this ideal in his unfinished poem "Hermes": Equipped with the wings of Buff on

And lit by the torch of Newton, my flight

Often soars, with Lucretius, beyond the azure girdle That stretches around the globe.

I sec Being, Life, and their unknown Source; And all the worlds tumbling through the Ether.

I follow the comet with its fiery tail

And the stars, with their weight, form and distance; I voyage with them in their immense orbits . . .

Before my avid gaze, the diverse Elements unfold, With their Strife and their Love, the Causes and the Infinite.26

To return to Epicurean cosmic flights: the Epicurean sage's gaze upon infinity probably corresponds to that of the Epicurean gods. Unconcerned by mundane affairs in their bright, eternal tranquillity, they spend their time contemplating the infinity of space, time, and the multiple worlds.

We encounter this same tranquillity in the Stoic tradition, especially in the text from Philo of Alexandria cited more fully below, which describes philosophers in the following terms:

As their gonl is a life of peace and serenity, they contemplate nature and eve1·y1 hin� found within her: they attentively explore the earth, the sea,

244

Themes

the air, the sky, and every nature found therein. In thought, they accompany the moon, the sun, and the rotations of the other stars, whether fixed or wandering. Their bodies remain on earth, but they give wings to their souls, so that, rising into the ether, they may observe the powers which dwell there, as is fitting for those who have truly become citizens of the world. 27

For Marcus Aurelius, only the "physical" viewpoint on things is capable of giving us greatness of soul; thus we have often found him practicing those spiritual exercises which have to do with the "physical" viewpoint on things.

As he says in book 9 of the Meditations: "You have the power to strip off many superfluous things that are obstacles to you and that depend entirely

,

upon your value-judgments; you will open up for yourself a vast space by embracing the whole universe in your thoughts, by considering unending eternity." 28 In book 7, he admonishes himself as follows: Watch and see the courses of the stars as if you were running alongside them, and continually dwell in your mind upon the changes of the elements into one another; for these imaginations wash away the foulness of life on the earth. When you are reasoning about mankind, look upon earthly things below as if from some vantage point above them.29

We shall return later to the final phrase. Elsewhere, Marcus describes the way in which the soul plunges itself into the totality of space and the infinity of time: "it traverses the whole Universe and the surrounding void, and surveys its shape, reaches out into the boundless extent of time, embracing and pondering the periodic rebirth of the all." 30 The goal of physics as a spiritual exercise was to relocate human existence within the infinity of time and space, and the perspective of the great laws of nature. This is what Marcus means by the all-embracing metamorphosis he mentions,31 but he also has in mind the correspondence of all things, and the mutual implication of each thing in everything else.