No More Learning

This border does not prevent the guiding principle om perceiving everything that goes on within the body, and thereby it ensures the unity of consciousness of the entire living being, just as, within the cosmic living being, everything goes back to the single consciousness of the guiding principle of the universe (IV, 40). From this new perspective, Marcus continues, we cannot prevent sensations om penetrating within the guiding principle, since they are natural phenomena; nevertheless, the guiding principle must not add its own value-judgments concerning them.
On one hand, the guiding principle ensures the unity ofliving beings, so that the sensations and emotions which I perceive are mine, since I perceive them om within. On the other hand, however, the guiding
The Discipline of Assent 1 1 7
principle considers these sensations and emotions as somehow alien to itself, inso r as it re ses to acquiesce and participate in the disturbances which they introduce into the body. And yet, shouldn't the sage be completely impassive, and the complete master of his body and of his soul? This is how the Stoic sage is usually conceived. In ct, however, the Stoic sage, as Seneca points out, 12 is r om being insensitive:
There are mis rtunes which strike the sag ithout incapacitat­ ing him, of course-such as physical pain, in rmity, the loss of iends or children, or the catastrophes of his country when it is devastated by war. I grant that he is sensitive to these things, r we do not impute to him the hardness ofa rock or ofiron. There is no virtue in putting up with that which one does not feel.
This initial shock of emotion is the same movement, independent of our will, ofwhich Marcus Aurelius speaks. Seneca is quite miliar with it, too:13
This is how passions are born, develop, and become excessive. First of all, there is an initial involuntary movement; a kind of prepara­ tion r and threat ofpassion. Then there is a second one, accompa­ nied by a desire which we are still able to reject: to wit, the idea that "I have to get even because someone has done me wrong. . . . " Finally, there is a third movement which can no longer be mastered . . . we must have revenge at costs. The rst shock to the soul cannot be avoided with the help of reason, any more than other re ex movements which happen to the body, such as yawning . . . reason cannot vanquish them, but perhaps habit and constant atten­ tion may attenuate them. The second movement, which arises om ajudgment, can be suppressed by ajudgment.
According to the Stoics, then, even the sage himself cannot escape these rst involuntary movements. As Seneca puts it,14 he always els appear­ ances or "shadows ofpassions. "
The urth circle, a "rushing tide which bathes you with its waves," is that of the course of events; in other words, it is the course of Destiny and ofthe time in which Destiny unveils itself(IV, 43):
A river of events, a violent current: that is what eternity is. No sooner has each thing appeared than it has already passed; another comes along, and it too will be swept away.
II8 THE INNER CITADEL Elsewhere, Marcus writes (V, 23):
Think o en ofhow quickly beings and events pass and disappear; r substance is like a river in perpetual ux.
I Marcus adds, we can recognize that this ux of things and events is alien to us, then we will be "raised above the tangled web ofDestiny. " To be sure, our body and our vital breath are swept along by this ux, and both our representations ofthings which are received into the body and our vital breath belong to this ux, because they are produced by causes outside ofus. Yet the selfbecomes aware ofthe ct that, thanks to its eedom ofjudgment-which also implies eedom of desire and of the will-it stands apart om this ux. The sel then, identical with the guiding principle, is raised above the web ofdestiny.
When the self thus becomes aware of its eedom, it acts only by making its reason coincide with the Reason ofuniversal Nature. It wants that which happens; in other words, it wants what universal Nature wants. The self now tells the truth, both inwardly and outwardly: in
other words, whenever a representation presents itself to the guiding principle in order to obtain its assent, the self restricts itself to what is. It holds st to the objective representation, without adding value-judg­ ments to things which have no moral value. Finally, the self now does what is right: that is, it acts in accordance with Reason, in the service of the human community. Here (XIII, 3, 3) we recognize Epictetus' three exercise themes (topoi), which, as we have seen, were taken up again by Marcus Aurelius. To circumscribe and delimit one's self thus means to practice the llowing exercises:
(r) in the area ofassent, it means not approving those value-judgments which may be in uenced by the body and the vital breath, which are something other than mysel
(2) in the area ofdesire, it means recognizing that everything that does not depend upon my moral choice is indi erent; and
(3) in the area ofaction, it means going beyond the egoistic concern r my body and my vital breath, in order to rise up to the viewpoint of Reason, which is common to all human beings; thus, it means willing that which is bene cial to the common good.
A er he has arrived at this culminating point, Marcus returns to the theme ofthe delimitation ofthe sel in order to clari certain aspects of the process. The e ort of concentration must make us aware of the ct that things have become attached to us, and are no longer distinguishable
The Discipline of Assent 1 1 9
om us. Our self has become con sed with such things, because we have attached ourselves to them. Epictetus is nd of this theme of our alienation toward things to which we attach ourselves (IV, 1 , 1 1 2) :
Puri your judgments, so that nothing that is not "yours" may become attached to you or become connatural with you, so that you do not feel any su ering ifit is snatched away om you.
Such objects are not "ours," Epictetus reminds us, not only because they are di erent om us, but above all because they belong to Destiny and to God, who are ee to take them back a er they have given them to us (III, 24, 84):
When you become attached to something, do not do so as to an object that cannot be taken away om you, but as ifit were some­ thing like a pot or a glass cup, so that, if it is broken, when you remember what it was, you will not be disturbed . . . Remember that what you love is mortal, and that nothing of what you love belongs to you in the proper sense of the term. It has been given to you r the time being, not rever or in such a way that it cannot be taken away om you, but, like a g or a bunch of grapes, at a particular season of the year. If you get a craving r them during the winter, then you're stupid.
Marcus Aurelius then returns to the importance ofconcentrating upon the present moment. This indissoluble link between the delimitation of the self and the delimitation of the present moment is extremely sig­ ni cant. It is only when I am active, either within myself or upon the outside world, that I am truly myself and at liberty; and it is only in the present moment that I can be active. Only the present is mine, and the present is all that I live.
When the selfhas thus isolated and returned into itself, says Marcus, it can be compared to the Sphai s of Empedocles. For Empedocles, this term denoted that uni ed state of the universe when it is dominated by Love, as opposed to the state ofdivision it is in when dominated by Hate. While in its state ofunity, the universe is perfectly round, delighting in its
joy l immobility. In the philosophical tradition, Empedocles' Sphairos had become the symbol of the sage, "completely within itsel well­ rounded and spherical, so that nothing extraneous can adhere to it, because of its smooth and polished surface, " in the words of Horace. 15
120 THE INNER CITADEL
Such an image corresponds to the ideal of the inner citadel, invincible and impenetrable (VIII, 48, 3), which represents the selfthat has delim­ ited itsel
At the end ofthis passage, Marcus alludes to our inner daimon, which, r him, is identical with the sel the guiding principle, or the culty of re ection. I shall return below to this notion ofthe daimon.
As we can see, this delimitation of the self is, in the last analysis, the ndamental exercise ofStoicism. It implies a complete trans rmation of our self-consciousness, of our relation toward our body and toward external goods, and of our attitude toward the past and the present. It calls r concentration on the present moment, an asceticism of detach­ ment, the recognition ofthe universal causation ofDestiny, in the midst ofwhich we are plunged, and the discovery ofthe power we possess to
judge eely, that is, to give things whatever value we wish to give them. Thus, the process ofthe delimitation ofthe selfbrings about a distinc­ tion between two elements. On the one hand, there is what we believe to be our true self our body, but also our soul-the vital principle­ together with the emotions that it feels. On the other hand, there is our power to choose. That which we think is our true selfis imposed upon us by Destiny, but in ct our genuine selfis situated high above Destiny. This opposition between our two " selves " appears quite clearly in a passage where Marcus Aurelius confesses that he is slow-minded. This trait, he writes, is inborn in him; it belongs to his character and his physical constitution, and there re does not depend upon him, any more than do his size or the color ofhis eyes. What does depend on him,
by contrast, is his eedom to act in a moral way (V, 5):
So it's not likely that they're going to admire your quick-witted­ ness. So be it! But there are many other matters about which you cannot say that you are not gi ed; these are the things that you must display, because they are completely within your control: avoiding duplicity; being serious; putting up with su ering; having contempt r pleasure; not complaining about Destiny; having few needs; being ee, benevolent, and simple; avoiding idle chatter; possessing greatness of soul. Can't you el how many things there are which you are capable of displaying, and r which the absence of talent and natural capacities can no longer serve you as an excuse?
Two things are opposed in this passage: the awareness by means of which one discovers one's psychological sel with its qualities and its defects, and such as it is determined by Destiny. Over and against this, we
The Discipline ofAssent 121
see the awareness ofone's selfqua guiding principle, and there re capa­ ble of acceding to the sphere of morality. We thus have to do with two aspects of the culty of reasoning and thinking. Although reason is inherent in every human being, it is only equally present in all human beings in its role as a culty ofjudgment and ofmoral decision-making. This, however, does not prevent the existence ofqualitative di erences in speculation and in expression, according to one's individual particu­ larities .
Let us be clear: the sel whether envisaged as a principle of eedom capable ofacceding to morality, or as a guiding principle, is not, by itself, either good or evil. It is indi erent. To be able to choose means being able to choose between good and evil; consequently, it means being able to be either good or evil. For Marcus, rationality is not good in and of itsel as it was r Plato. Reason can be utterly depraved (X, 1 3 ) :
Men commit [these evil actions] not with their hands or et, but with the noblest part of themselves. If it so wishes, however, this same part may become ith, modesty, truth, law, or a good daimon.
This delimitation of the sel as a potential r liberty which transcends Destiny, is equivalent to the delimitation ofthe culty I possess tojudge, and either to give or to withhold my assent om my value-judgments. I may be constrained by Destiny to have a body; to be sick or poor; to be hungry; or to die on such-and-such a day; but I can think whatever I please about such situations. I can re se to consider them as mis rtunes, and no one can tear this eedom ofviewpoint away om me.
In the name of what, however, or in virtue of what shall I judge that the only good is moral good, and the o y evil moral evil? This is where the mystery of eedom comes in. As Marcus says, the sel in its capacity as the power ofjudging and choosing, can also become " ith, modesty, truth, law, or a good daimon, " as well as the contrary of any of these . Thus the self, ifit so desires, can identi itselfwith universal Reason, or the transcendent Norm which posits the absolute value ofmorality. This is precisely the level at which Marcus was situating himself when he wrote his spiritual exercises; in other words, he was identi ing himself with this universal Reason or transcendent Norm. This is what Epictetus used to call "the Other" (I, 30, l):
When you go to see some important personage, remember that there is an Other, watching what happens om above, and that it is better to please this Other than that man.
122 THE INNER CITADEL
Like an inner voice, this Other has a dialogue with the guiding principle in the discussion which Epictetus imagines llowing this passage. It is, moreover, this same transcendent Other with whom Marcus Aurelius carries on a dialogue in the Meditations.
It can thus be said-although Marcus does not make the distinction explicitly-that there is a di erence between two kinds of eedom. On the one hand, there is freedom of choice, by virtue of which the guiding principle has the possibility ofrendering itself either good or evil. On the other, there is realfreedom, thanks to which the guiding principle chooses moral good and universal Reason, and thereby ensures that its judgments are true, its desires l lled, and its acts of will e cacious. Only real eedom is eedom in the ll sense ofthe term.
Thus, the guiding principle is an "inner citadel," already impregnable in its guise as eedom of choice, which cannot be rced if it re ses. This citadel is still more impregnable, however, in its guise as real ee­ dom-that is, if it manages, thanks to its identi cation with universal Reason, to liberate itself om all that could possibly subjugate its judg­ ments, desires, and its will (VIII, 48):
Remember that the guiding principle becomes invincible when it turns itself toward itsel and is content with not doing that which it does not wish to do, even ifits resistance is unreasonable.
What shall happen, then, if it surrounds itself with circumspec­ tion and reason when it emits a judgment? This is why the intellect, when eed om the passions, is a citadel; r mankind has no stronger rtress than this. Ifwe take re ge within it, we will be in an impregnable position om now on.
When the guiding principle thus discovers that it is ee in its judg­ ments, that it can give whatever value it pleases to the events which happen to it, and that nothing can rce it to commit moral evil, then it experiences a eling ofabsolute security. From now on, it feels, nothing can invade it or disturb it. It is like a cli against which the crashing surf breaks constantly, while it remains standing unmoveably as the waves come, bubbling, to die at its feet (IV, 49, l).
In the passage om Marcus which I have discussed at length above, one can observe a complete equivalence between ve terms:
r. thesel
2. intellect (nous);
The Discipline ofAssent 123
3. the power ofre ection (dianoia);
4. the guiding principle egemonikon); and 5 . the inner daimon.
this is in complete con rmity with Stoic tradition, including the idea ofthe daimon, which seems clearly to turn up in the writings ofCh sip­ pus. 16 The de nition ofthe happy li , according to Chrysippus, is that in which everything is done "in accordance with the harmony between the daimon within each one of us and the will of the governor of the uni­ verse. "
It is not di cult r modern readers to understand this identi cation of the selfwith the intellect, the power ofre ection, or the guiding princi­ ple; but the idea of the daimon may seem more obscure. It is a very old notion: in the Homeric poems, daimon o en evokes the idea ofindivid­ ual destiny, or more generally, a di use divine power. Everyone is mil­ iar with Socrates' daimon, which Plato presents as an inner voice; but we ought not to rget that Plato himsel when he speaks near the end of the Timaeus (9oa) ofthe rational soul "which is the sovereign soul within us," asserts that "the god has given it to each one ofus as a present, as ifit were a daimon. " A few lines later (9oc), Plato adds that whoever has succeeded in touching true reality "renders ceaseless worship to the divinity, and keeps the daimon which lives within him in good state. " For Aristotle, the intellect within us is something divine. 17
Might not this daimon within us be a power which transcends the self, and which cannot there re be identi ed with the self? And yet, even though r Plato we are the rational soul, he nevertheless tells us that we must keep this daimon "in good state. " This is probably a re rence to the statue ofa god, to which worship must be o ered.
We nd the same ambiguity in Marcus Aurelius. Sometimes he tells us that we must conserve this inner divinity and preserve it om all con­ tamination, as ifit could be stained (II, 13, l; II, 17, 4; III, 12, l; III, 16, 3). Elsewhere, however, Marcus asserts that we must carry out the will of the daimon which God has given to us, as though we had to do with a reality which transcends us (III, 5, 2; V, 27).
In ct, however, such assertions do not mean that Marcus thinks of the daimon as something di erent om the intellect or the power of re ection. For instance, he says ofthe power ofre ection (III, 7, 4)-just as he says ofthe daimon-that we must take care all our lives "to preserve it om a de rmation which would not be tting r a being which thinks and lives in community with other human beings . "
124 THE INNER CITADEL
Everything becomes clear ifwe replace the word daimon by "reason. " On the one hand, reason r the Stoics is a part of universal divine Reason; it was given to us by the latter, and we must do what reason wishes. On the other hand, however, our reason may become corrupted, and we must there re take care to preserve it against every attack. This celestial gi is a agile one.
What, however, is the precise relationship between this daimon and the self? To be sure, it corresponds to the transcendent Norm, which, as we have seen, was equivalent to Reason. It also corresponds to the "Other" mentioned by Epictetus: a kind of inner voice which imposes itself upon us. Here, however, we come ce to ce with the paradox ofmoral li , r the self identi es itself with a transcendent Reason which is simulta­ neously above it and identical with it; it is a case of"Someone within me, more myself than mysel£ "18 As Plotinus19 said of the Intellect, by virtue ofwhich we lead a spiritual life: "It is a part ofourselves, and we ascend toward it. "
Although the selfmay thus raise itselfto a transcendent level, it is ve di cult r it to keep itselfthere. The gure ofthe daimon allows Marcus Aurelius to express, in religious terms, the absolute value ofmoral intent and the love ofmoral good. No value is superior to virtue and the inner daimon (III, 6, r-2), and everything else, compared to the mysteries which honor the eminent dignity ofthe inner daimon, is worthless petty­ mindedness (III, 6, 3).
There is something quite remarkable in this Stoic a rmation of the transcendence ofthe realm ofmoral intent, compared to all other reality. It could be compared to the distinction between the three orders which we nd in Pascal: the order ofthe " esh"; that ofthe "spirit"; and that of the "will. "20 Above all, it can be compared to Pascal's distinction be­ tween the triad of "bodies," "spirits," and "charity. " Each order tran­ scends the others to an in nite degree:21
One little thought could not be made to arise om all bodies taken together, r this is impossible and they are ofdi erent orders. One single movement of true charity could not be derived om all bodies and spirits; r that is impossible. It is of another order, and is supernatural.
In Pascal, this idea is intended to allow us to understand that Jesus Christ has neither the splendor of physical grandeur, nor that of intellectual genius. There is nothing more simple than He, and yet more hidden. His
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grandeur is of another order. Similarly, r the Stoics, the order of good will and moral intent in nitely transcends the order of thought and of theoretical discourse, as well as that ofphysical magnitude. What makes humankind equal to God is reason, when it chooses moral good.
"Eve thing is a matter ofjudgment"
The discipline of assent, then, orders us to consent only to comprehen­ sive representations, and it represents logic as the latter is lived and put into practice. It might there re appear that this discipline is exercised only in a limited and determinate area-the rectitude of our inner dis­ course-and that it does not interfere with the other areas of exercise, namely those of desire and of action.
In ct, however, this is by no means the case. In the rst place, the discipline of assent is not exercised only with regard to inner discourse, but also with regard to outer discourse. In other words, part ofit consists in not lying, either to oneselfor to others. It is r this reason that Marcus calls the virtue which corresponds to this discipline "truth" (IX, I, 2). Above all, however, as we have seen throughout this chapter, there is a sense in which the discipline ofassent embraces all the other disciplines, which can only be practiced through the perpetual recti cation of our inner discourse-that is, what we say to ourselves about things. On the one hand, the discipline of assent is the same thing as the criticism of our value-judgments, and to practice it presupposes that we accept a nda­ mental Stoic principle of action: that the only good is moral good, and the only evil is moral evil. On the other hand, practicing the disciplines of desire and of action consists essentially in recti ing the judgments which we bring to bear upon things. Leaving aside doctrinal re nements and quarrels within the school, we can say that r the Stoics in general, desire and impulses to action are essentially acts ofassent. 22 It is no doubt true that their notion implies that of "movement-toward," but this movement is inseparable om our inner adherence to a speci c judg­ ment or discourse which is uttered about things.
Thus, we can say that, r Marcus, "everything is a matter ofvalue­ judgments. " This does not imply any kind ofsubjectivism or skepticism, but is the simple application ofwhat we could call Stoic "intellectual­ ism. " Inherited om Socratism, this doctrine proclaims that all virtue is a kind ofknowledge,23 and that all vice is ignorance. Whatever the precise meaning ofthis Socratic doctrine may have been, it is clear that it is not a question of theoretical or abstract knowledge and ignorance, but of a
126 THE INNER CITADEL
knowledge and a non-knowing which engage the individual. The kind of knowledge at issue does not have to do with judgments of existence, but with value-judgments, which bring into question one's entire way of living. This nuance is conveyed well by the term "realize. " A person who commits a ult does not "realize" that his action is bad. He thinks it is good, by means of a lse value-judgment. A good man, by contrast, "realizes" that moral good is the only good, which is the same as to say that he understands the kind of li to which his value-judgment com­ mits him. There is implied within this doctrine the idea that every person has a natural desire r the good, and that he can only il to achieve it by being mistaken about the nature of the good. As Rene Schaerer24 has correctly observed, this is the postulate upon which Socratic and Platonic dialectics are based: "No discussion is possible ifone's adversary re ses to admit that good-in one rm or another-is better than evil. "
It is om the viewpoint of this "intellectualism" that we can say that "no one is evil voluntarily"; r the apparently evil person, although he naturally desires the good, is simply mistaken by the value-judgment he brings to bear upon the nature of the good. As Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius both say, llowing Plato: "each soul is deprived of the truth involuntarily. "
Epictetus elsewhere gives rce l expression to this doctrine (II, 26):
All errors imply a contradiction, r since he who errs does not wish to err, but to succeed, it is obvious that he is not doing what he wishes. What does the thiefwant to do? That which is pro table to him. If there re, the is a harm l thing r him, then he is not doing what he wishes. Now contradiction is, r every rational soul, naturally abhorrent. So long as the soul is not aware that it is in­ volved in a contradiction, nothing prevents it om doing contra­ dictory things. Once it has become aware, however, it is absolutely necessary that it desist om contradiction and ee, just as in the case of error. He who notices his error is obliged by harsh necessity to renounce it; but as long as the error does not appear, he adheres to it as if it were the truth. He who is able to show each person the contradiction which is the cause of his error, and to make clear to him in what sense he is not doing what he wants, and is doing what he does not want, is there re a skilled talker, and knows how to re te and persuade at the same time. Indeed, if a person can be shown this, then he will retreat of his own accord. As long as you do not show this, however, do not be surprised if he persists in his
The Discipline ofAssent 127
error, r he does what he does because he believes it is a good action. Socrates was ll of con dence in his ability to do this, and that is why he used to say: " I don't usually quote authorities to back up what I say, but am always satis ed with my interlocutor. It is he whose vote I take, and him I call rth as a witness, and he alone replaces all the others r me. " For he knew that once the rational soul is set in motion, like a scale, it is going to tip whether people want it to or not. Point out a contradiction to the guiding principle, and it will give it up. Ifyou do not, then it is yourselfyou should accuse, rather than the person you cannot persuade.
"Everything is a matter ofvalue-judgment," says Marcus (II, I 5; XII, 26, 2), whether the subject is the discipline ofassent, the discipline of desire, or that of action. Can the last two, then, be reduced to the rst? The descriptions given by Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus incline us to think that they apply to di erent domains, in accordance with the vari­ ous relationships with reality into which we enter. My relationship to universal Nature and the cosmos is the subject ofthe discipline ofdesire; my relationship to human nature is that of the discipline of action; and my relationship with myself-inso r as I am a power of assent-is the domain of the discipline of assent. Nevertheless, it is the same method which is used in the three disciplines. It is always a matter of examining and criticizing the judgments which I bring to bear, either on the events which happen to me, or on the actions which I want to undertake. From this point ofview, as Emile Brehier has said, "logic penetrates the whole of our conduct. "25
7
THE DISCIPLINE OF DESIRE, OR AMOR FATI
Discipline ofdesire and discipline ofthe impulses
The ancient Stoics distinguished two main nctions ofthe guiding prin­ ciple: assent, which is concerned with the areas of representation and knowledge, and active impulse orme) or the will, which is concerned with the area ofthe motor nctions, or ofthe movement toward objects which is caused by our representations. 1 After them, Epictetus and Mar­ cus Aurelius are the only Stoic thinkers who distinguish not two, but three nctions: assent, desire, and active impulse, to which the three disciplines of assent, desire, and impulse correspond.
It is interesting to note that we nd in Marcus Aurelius a systematic description of reality, which justi es this opposition between desire and impulse in a way that is much more precise than anything to be und in the sayings of Epictetus as reported by Arrian.
Desire and active impulse represent a reduplication of the notion of the will. Desire is, as it were, an ine ective will, whereas active impulse or tendency is will which produces an action. Desire is related to a ectiv­ ity, while tendency is related to the motor nctions. Desire is situated in the area of what we feel-pleasure and pain-and of what we wish to feel: it is the domain of passion, in the double sense of a state of the soul and of passivity with regard to an external rce which imposes itself upon us. Tendency, by contrast, is situated in the domain of what we want or do not want to do. It is the domain of action and initiative, and implies the idea ofa rce within us which wants to exercise itself
For Marcus, desire and aversion presuppose passivity. They are pro­ voked by external events, which are themselves the product of a cause which is exte al to us; the tendency to act or not to act, by contrast, is the e ect of that cause which is within us (IX, 3 r ) . For Marcus, these two causes correspond respectively to common and universal Nature, on the one hand, and to our nature, on the other (XII, 32, 3):
The Discipline ofDesire 129
Don't imagine that anything is important except that you act as your own nature leads you, and that you su er as common Nature ordains.
Elsewhere, Marcus writes (y, 25):
At this moment, I have what common Nature wants me to have in this moment, and I'm doing what my own nature wants me to be doing at this moment.
And again (yl, 58):
No one is going to stop you om living according to the reason of your own nature, and nothing will happen to you contrary to the reason of common Nature.
By opposing external and internal causes, common Nature and one's own nature, Marcus provides an ontological undation r the disci­ plines of desire and of impulse. The rmer's object is my relationship with the immense, inexorable, and imperturbable course ofNature, with its ceaseless ux ofevents. At every instant, I encounter the event which has been reserved r me by Destiny; that is, in the last analysis, the unique, universal, and common Cause of all things. The discipline of desire will there re consist in re sing to desire anything other than what is willed by the Nature ofthe All.
The obj ect of the second discipline-that of active impulses and the will-is the way in which my own minuscule causality inserts itself within the causality of the world. In other words, this discipline consists in wanting to do that which my own nature wants me to do.
We saw earlier that the discipline of assent constitutes, as it were, the ndamental method of the other two disciplines, since both desire and impulse depend on the assent which we either give to, or withhold om, our representations.
If this is the case, and the discipline of assent is somehow implied by the two others, then one can say that the practice ofthe philosophical li can be summed up in the two disciplines of desire and the active will (Marcus Aurelius, XI, 13, 4):
What evil can there be r you, ifyou do that which, in this present moment, is appropriate to your nature;
and if you accept that which, in this present moment, comes at the moment which is opportune r the Nature efthe All?
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What precisely is meant by these two natures? "My" nature is not my particular individual character, but my nature as a human being and my reason, which I have in common with all human beings. Thus, it corre­ sponds to that transcendent selfwhich we have seen in the context ofthe discipline of assent: that divine principle or daimon which is within us 0/, IO, 6):
Nothing will happen to me which is not in accordance with the Nature of the Whole, and it is possible r me to do nothing which is contrary to mygod and my daimon.
"My" nature and the common Nature are not opposed, nor external to each other, r "my" nature and "my" reason are nothing other than an emanation om universal Reason and universal Nature, which are immanent in all things. Thus, these two natures are identical (VII, 55, 1):
Keep looking straight ahead, in order to see where nature is leading you; both the nature ofthe All, by means ofthe events which happen to you, and your own nature, by means ofthat which you must do.
These ideas go back to the Old Stoa, and can be traced at least as r back as Chrysippus. 2 While de ning the moral goal as life in con rmity with nature, Chrysippus speci ed that he understood by this term both universal Nature and that nature which is peculiar to humankind. The identity between "nature" hysis) and "reason" �ogos) is, moreover, attested throughout the Stoic tradition. 3 The ct that these two terms are identical means that the wo d, together with all beings, is produced by a process of growth (in a sense, this is the meaning of the word physis), which has within itself its own method, rational law of cause and e ect, and organization (this is the meaning of the word logos) . Human beings, as rational animals, live according to nature when they live according to that inner law which is reason.
We constantly return to the ndamental intuition of Stoicism: self­ coherence, which is at the same time the law which generates reality and that which regulates human thought and conduct. The two disciplines of desire and impulse thus consist, in the last analysis, in remaining coherent with oneself; and this is the same thing as remaining coherent with the Whole of which we are only a part (IV, 29, 2) :
He who ees the reason ofthe human community is a gitive. . . . He who separates and distances himself om the Reason of com-
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man Nature, and complains about what happens to him, is an abscess upon the world . . . He who splits o his own particular soul om the soul of other rational beings is like an amputated limb of the city, r the soul is one.
By means ofthe discipline ofdesire, we are to desire only that which is use l to the constituted by the world, because that is what universal Reason wants. By means of the disciplines of the will and of our im­ pulses, we must want only that which serves the Whole constituted by the human city, because that is what is wanted by right reason, which is common to humankind.
Circumscribing the present
As the reader has perhaps already noticed, what characterizes the presen­ tation ofthe three exercise-themes in Marcus Aurelius, and di erentiates it considerably om the analogous expositions und in the sayings of Epictetus as written down by Arrian, is the insistence with which Marcus emphasizes that these exercises are concerned with the present. In the case of the discipline of assent, they are concerned with our present representations. In the discipline of desire, these exercises are directed toward the present event; and in the discipline of active impulse what counts are our present actions. We have already seen that the exercise intended to delimit and circumscribe the self was, simultaneously and indissolubly, an e ort to concentrate upon the present.
This process of delimiting the present is entirely analogous to the process by means ofwhich we hold st to the cts and to reality in our objective and adequate representations, and re se to add value-judg­ ments to them. There is, a er all, a sense in which the value-judgments which trouble us are always related either to the past or to the ture. We become agitated about the consequences which a present event-or even something that happened long ago-may have r us in the ture; or else we are a aid ofsome ture event. In any case, instead ofsticking exclusively to what is happening right here and now, our representations constantly over ow toward the past and the ture-in other words, toward something which does not depend on us, and is there re indif­ rent (VI, 32, 2):
Everything other than its own activity is indi erent to the culty of re ection (dianoia). Everything that is its own activity, however, is within its power. Moreover, even among these latter activities, the
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re ective culty concerns itself only about the present; r even its past or ture activities are now indi erent to it.
Only the present is within our power, simply because the only thing that we live is the present moment (II, 14; III, ro, r ; XII, 26, 2). Becom­ ing aware of the present means becoming aware of our eedom.
For the present is real and has value only ifwe become aware ofit; that is to say, if we delimit it by distinguishing the present action or event om the past and om the ture. We must there re recognize that our real lives are limited to a minuscule point which, by the intermediary of the present event or action, places us in constant contact-whether ac­ tively or passively-with the overall movement of the universe. "To circumscribe that which is lived in the present" means simultaneously to isolate oneselfwith regard to the past and to the ture, and to recognize our pumness.
The delimitation of the present has two principal aspects. On the one hand, its goal is to make di culties and hardships bearable, by reducing them to a succession of brief instants. On the other, it is a matter of increasing the attention we bring to bear upon our actions, as well as the consent which we grant to the events that happen to us. These two aspects can, moreover, be reduced to one ndamental attitude, which consists, as we can already glimpse, in trans rming our way of seeing things, and our relationship to time.
The rst of these aspects appears very clearly in the llowing passage (VIII, 36):
Don't trouble yourselfby representing to yourselfthe totality oflife in advance. Don't try to go over in your mind all the pain l hardships, in all their varying intensity and number, which might possibly happen. Rather, when each of them occurs, ask yoursel "What is there about this situation that is unbearable or intoler­ able? ", r you will be ashamed if you answer a rmatively. In addition, remind yourself that it is not the present, nor the past, which weighs upon you, but always the present; and this present will seem smaller to you if you circumscribe it by de ning and isolating it, and if you make your re ective culty ashamed at the ct that it cannot put up with such a small, isolated little matter.
We always encounter the same method of the criticism of repre­ sentations and value-judgments, which consists in tearing away om
The Discipline ofDesire 1 3 3
things their lse appearance-which is what ightens us-and in de n­ ing them adequately, without mixing in any representations which are alien to the initial, objective representation we have of them. This is what I have ca ed the method of physical de nition. For Marcus, it consists not only in reducing a given reality to what it is, but also in decomposing it into its parts, in order to discover that it is only an assembly ofits parts, and nothing else. No object can make us lose our mastery over ourselves, ifwe submit it to this method ofdivision (XI, 2):
A seductive melody . . . you can despise it ifyou divide it into each ofits sounds, and ifyou ask yourselfifyou are lesser than each one of them taken separately; if you are, you would be lled with shame. The same thing will happen ifyou repeat this procedure in the case of the dance, by decomposing it into each movement or each gure. . . . In general, then, and with the exception ofvirtue and its e ects, remember to head as quickly as you can r the parts of a process, in order, by dividing them, to get to the point where you have contempt r them. Transpose this method, moreover, to life in its entirety.
Either because of his reading of Marcus Aurelius, or as a result of a personal experience, Anatole France wrote something similar:4
My mother used to say that when you went over them one by one, there was nothing extraordinary about Mme. Gance's atures. Every time my mother expressed this opinion, however, my ther used to shake his head in disbelief No doubt, my worthy ther was doing the same thing I was: he wasn't going over Mme. Gance's features one by one; and whatever they may have been like m detail, their total e ect was charming.
In any case, the reader will not have iled to notice Marcus' conclud­ ing remark: "Transpose this method to life in its entirety. " Here we recognize the methods of de nition and delimitation of the present instant, which I have just discussed. We must not, says Marcus, lose our self-control because of a song or a dance, since these things can ulti­ mately be resolved into a series ofnotes or movements which are noth­ ing but so many successive instants. Similarly, we must not let ourselves become discouraged by the obal representation of the whole of life­ that is, of the hardships and di culties which await us. Like a song or
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a dance, our lives are divisible into smaller units, and consist only ofsuch units. In order to execute a song or a dance step, we need to perform each one ofthese units in succession. Li , too, consists only ofa series of such instants which we live in succession, and the better we are able to isolate each one and de ne it precisely, the better we shall be able to gain control over the entire series.
The other intention ofthe exercise ofde ning the present is to inten­ si the attention we bring to bear upon what we are doing or experienc­ ing. Here, we are no longer concerned with diminishing hardships or su ering; on the contrary, our goal is to exalt the consciousness of our existence and our eedom. Marcus does not expand upon this theme, but we can sense it in the insistence with which he returns to the necessity of concentrating upon our present representations, our present actions, and the present event, as well as the necessity of avoiding worry aboutthepastorthe ture(XII,r, r-2):
the happiness you are seeking by such long, roundabout ways: you can have it right now. . . . I mean, ifyou leave all ofthe past behind you, if you abandon the ture to providence, and if you arrange the present in accordance with piety andjustice.
It should be pointed out here that, r Marcus, "piety" represents that discipline of desire which makes us consent "piously" to the divine will, as the latter is made manifest in events. Likewise, "justice" corresponds to the discipline of action, which makes us act in the service of the human community.
Marcus repeats the same exhortation elsewhere (XII, 3 , 4) :
If you apply yourself to living only that which you are living-in other words, the present-then you can live the rest of your life until your death in peace, benevolence, and serenity.
What is required is that we dedicate ourselves, completely and whole­ heartedly, to what we are in the process of doing at a given instant, without worrying about either the past or the ture (VI, 7):
Take joy and repose in one thing only: to pass om one action accomplished in the service of the community to another action accomplished in the service ofthe community; all this accompanied by the remembrance of God.
The Discipline ofDesire 135 There is also a feeling of urgency about this attitude, r death can
arriveatanymoment(II,5, 2):
Each oflife's actions must be performed as ifit were the last.
When we view things om the perspective ofdeath, it is impossible to let a sin e one of li 's instants pass by lightly. I like Marcus and the Stoics, we believe that the only good thing is moral action and a perfectly good and pure intent, then we must trans rm our way of thinking and of acting in this very instant. The thought of death confers seriousness, in nite value, and splendor to every present instant ofli . "To perform each oflife's actions as ifit were the last" means to live the present instant with such intensity and such love that, in a sense, an entire li time is contained and completed within it.
Most people are not alive, because they do not live in the present, but are always outside of themselves, alienated, and dragged backwards and rwards by the past and by the present. They do not know that the present is the only point at which they are truly themselves and ee. The present is the only point which, thanks to our action and our conscious­ ness, gives us access to the totality ofthe wo d.
In order to lly comprehend Marcus' attitude toward the present, we must recall the Stoic de nition ofthe present, as it is given in a summary of Stoic philosophy:5
Just as the entire void is in nite in every direction, so all of time is in nite in both directions. Both the past and the ture are in nite. He [i. e. , Chrysippus] states very clearly that, in general, time is never present, r since that which is continuous is divisible ad in nitum, then in accordance with this division all of time is also divisible ad in nitum. There re, there is no present time, in the proper sense ofthe term; rather, it is spoken ofin an extended sense (kata platos). Chrysippus says that only the present "actually be­ longs" yparchein) [to a subject]; whereas the past and the ture are realized yphestanai), but "do not at all belong actually [to a sub­ ject]," just as it is said that only those predicates which really occur "actually belong. " For instance, "walking" belongs to me actually when I am walking, but does not belong to me actually when I am lying or sitting down . . .
Here we are ced with two diametrically opposed conceptions ofthe present: the rst considers the present as the limit between the past and
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the ture, within a time which is continuous, and hence in nitely divisible. From this quasi-mathematical point of view, the present does not exist. According to the second conception, the present is de ned in relation to the human consciousness which perceives it, as well as to the unity of the intention and attention which I bring to bear upon it. It is, on this analysis, that which I am currently doing, expressing, and feeling. From this point of view, the present does have a certain duration or "thickness" which admits ofgreater or lesser degrees (kata platos). In this sense, the Stoic de nition of the present is entirely analogous to that of Henri Bergson, who in Pensee et le mouvant drew a distinction be­ tween the present as a mathematical instant, which is nothing but a pure abstraction, and that present which has a certain thickness or duration,
which is more or less de ned and delimited by my attention. 6
In attempting to understand the opposition introduced by Chrysippus between, on the one hand, the present, and on the other the past and the ture, the reader will no doubt have been willing to grant that the present is "that which currently belongs to me," but may have been quite astonished to read that the past and the ture "are realized. " Without entering into Chrysippus' technical re nements, which already seemed exaggerated to the writers of antiquity, one can say in response that what is important in the passage discussed above is not so much the opposition between the two Greek terms which Chrysippus chose to use-hyparchein and hyphestanai, elsewhere hyphestekenai, both of which mean "to exist, " "to be real"-but rather their di erence of tense. The word hyparchein, when used with relation to the present, means "to be real qua current process"; whereas the word hyphestanai, used with regard to the past and the ture, means "to be real qua something determined and de nitive. " The rmer has an inchoative and durative rce: it denotes that which is happening right at this moment. The latter, by contrast, has a de nitive value. The reader may, moreover, be willing to
grant that the past has a de nitive value. But the ture?
Here we must recall that, r the Stoics, the ture was just as much determined as the past. 7 For Destiny, there is neither ture nor past, but everything is determined and de nite. 8 Chrysippus chose the verb hy­ parchein because it was a technical term of logic, which Aristotle e­ quently used to designate the inherence ofan accident or an attribute in a subject; thus it is a word which denotes a relationship to a subject. Walking is "present"-that is, it belongs to me currently-when I am walking. The past and the ture, by contrast, do not currently belong to me. Even if I think about them, they are independent of my initiative and do not depend on me. There re, the present has reality only in
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relation to my consciousness, thought, initiative, and eedom. It is these which ve it a kind ofthickness and duration, which in tum is linked to a series of unities: of the meaning of the discourse which I utter, of my moral intention, and ofthe intensity ofmy attention.
When Marcus speaks of the present, he is always talking about this durative present, which has a kind of thickness. Clearly, it is within this present that I situate the representation which I am having at this mo­ ment, the desire I am feeling at this moment, and the action which, at this moment, I am performing. It is also this "thick" present, however, which I can lessen by circumscribing and delimiting it, in order to make it more bearable. Such a "shrinkage" of the present does not imply, as Goldschmidt thought,9 that the lived present would then be reduced to a mathematical, in nitely divisible instant. Goldschmidt thought he could percieve two attitudes toward the present in Marcus: one which de­ nounced the unreality of the present instant, and another which be­ stowed reality upon the present instant via the initiative of a moral agent. On the contrary: we have seen how Marcus compared life to songs and to dance. Songs and dance are made up of units-notes and move­ ments-which do have a certain thickness, however slight it may be. Now, a succession of unreal entities can never be put together so as to give rise to a dance, a song, or a life. Moreover, when Marcus speaks of the present in terms of a point within in nity, we can tell om the context that he is still talking about a lived present, which has a certain thickness (VI, 36, r):
Asia and Europe are comers ofthe world. The sea is a drop ofthe world. Athas is a lump of earth, and all present time is a point within in nity. Everything is tiny and unstable, and everything vanishes (in immensity) .
Here, Marcus is not a rming the unreality of Asia, of the sea, or of Mount Athas, and hence not of the present, either. Rather, he is a rming-in a very scienti c way, so to speak-their relative smallness within the immensity ofthe Whole, and not their nonexistence. 10 Once again, we are dealing with the method of"physical" de nition.
Events, the present, and cosmic consciousness
According to Epictetus, the goal of the discipline of desire was that we not be ustrated in our desires, nor fall into that which we had been trying to avoid. In order to realize this goal, we had to desire only that
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which depends upon us-that is, the moral good-and ee only om that which depends on us: in this case, moral evil. That which does not depend on us is the realm ofthe indi erent: we must not desire it, but we must not ee om it either, r ifwe do we risk " lling into what we are trying to avoid. " Epictetus, we noted, linked this attitude to our consent to Destiny.
Marcus Aurelius takes up this doctrine point r point, yet in his writings its implications and its consequences appear more clearly and explicitly. Above all, the discipline of desire in Marcus is related rst and remost to the way in which we are to greet the events which result om the overall movement of universal Nature, which are produced by what Marcus calls the "exterior cause" (VIII, 7):
Rational nature (that is, the nature peculiar to human beings) l­ lows the path which is appropriate to it . . . if it has desires and aversions only r that which depends upon us, and ifit greets with
joy all that common Nature allots to it.
What is thus allotted to human nature is nothing other than the events which happen to it (III, 16, 3):
The proper characteristic of the good man is to love and to greet joy lly all those events which he encounters (ta sumbainonta), and
which are linked to him by Destiny.
We have already seen that, r the Stoics, what is present r me is that which is currently happening to me: in other words, not merely my current actions, but also the present event with which I am con onted. Here again, as in the case of the present in general, it is my thought and my attention which singles out om the ux of things that which has meaning r me; at which point my inner discourse will declare that such-and-such an event is happening to me. Moreover-whether I know it or not-the overall movement ofthe universe, set in motion by divine Reason, has brought it about that I have been destined, om all eternity, to encounter such-and-such an event. This is why I have trans­ lated the word sumbainon (etymologically "that which goes together [with] ") , which Marcus customarily uses to denote that which happens, by the phrase "the events which we encounter. " To be still more precise, one would have to translate this as "the event which adjusts itselfto us,"
The Discipline ofDesire 139 but such an expression cannot always be used. This is, however, precisely
the meaning which Marcus gives to the word sumbainon (V, 8 , 3 ) :
We say that events are tting to us (sumbainein), just as masons say that the square stones they use in walls or in pyramids " t each other" (sumbainein), when they are well-adapted to each other in a given combination.
The imagery of the construction of the edi ce of the universe is rein rced by that of weaving. The interweaving of the woof and the wa was a traditional, archaic image, linked to the gure ofthe Moirai, who, as early as Homer, spun the destiny of each human being. 11 The three Parcai, named Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, appear- rst in the Orphic Derveni papyrus,12 and then in Plato13 and the Stoics-as the mythical gures ofthe cosmic law which emanates om divine Reason. The llowing is a testimony to the Stoic doctrine:14
The Moirai (or "Parts") are so named because of the process of separation (diame smos) which they carry out: Clotho ("the spin­ ner"), Lachesis ("she who distributes the lots"), and Atropos ("the in exible one ") . Lachesis is so called because she distributes the lots which individuals have received according to justice; Atropos [gets her name] because the division of the parts is unchangeable in any ofits details, and is immutable since eternal time. Fina y, Clotho is so named because the distribution takes place in accordance with Destiny, and that which occurs reaches its end in con rmity with what she has spun.
Another testimony gives voice to approximately the same repre­ sentations:15
The Moirai get their name om the ct that they distribute and assign things to each one of us. . . . Chrysippus suggests that the number of the Moi i corresponds to the three times in which all things have their circular movement, and by means of which all things achieve their completion. Lachesis is so called because she attributes to each human being his or her destiny; Atropos is so called because of the immutable and unchanging character of the distribution; and Clotho is so called because ofthe ct that things
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are woven and linked together, and that they can travel only one path, which is perfectly well-ordered.
The "events which I encounter," and which "adjust themselves to me" have been woven together with me by Clotho, the gure ofDes­ tiny or universal Reason (IV, 3 4) :
Abandon yourself willingly to Clotho; let her weave you together with whatever event she pleases.
Marcus Aurelius is nd ofmentioning this interweaving:
This event which you are encountering . . . it happened to you; it was coordinated with you; and was in relation to you, since it was woven together with you, om as r back as the most ancient of causes (V, 8, 12).
So something has happened to you? Good! Every event that you encounter has been linked to you by Destiny, and has, since the beginning, been woven together with you om the l (IV, 26) .
Whatever happens to you has been prepared r you in advance om eternity, and the interweaving of causes has, since rever, woven together your substance and your encounter with this event (X, 5).
While this motif is strongly emphasized by Marcus, it is not absent om Epictetus' sayings, as recorded by Arrian (I, 12, 25):
Will you be an and unhappy with what Zeus has ordained? He de ned and ordained these things together with the Moirai, who were present at your birth and wove your destiny.
For the Stoics, events were predicates, as we saw in the case of"walk­ ing," which is present to me when "I am walking. " I then, an event happens to me, this means that it has been produced by the universal totality ofthe causes which constitute the cosmos. The relationship be­ tween myselfand such an event presupposes the entire universe, as well as the will of universal Reason. We shall have to examine later whether this will de nes the event in all its details, or merely gives it an initial
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impulse. For the moment, it is su cient to note that whether I am ill, or lose my child, or am the victim ofan accident, it is the entire cosmos which is implicated in the event.
This interconnection or interweaving-the mutual implication of things in all things-is one ofMarcus' vorite themes. For him, as r the Stoics in general, the cosmos is but a single living entity, endowed with a unique consciousness and will (IV, 40) :
How all things cooperate to produce everything that is produced; how everything is linked and wound up together
in order to rm a "sacred connection" (IV, 40; VI, 38; VII, 9).
Thus, each present moment, the event which I encounter within it, and my encounter with this event, imply and potentially contain all the movement of the universe. This notion is in agreement with the Stoic conception ofreality as total mixture, or the interpenetration of things within things.