"Thanks to the gods again, that I have made haste to raise those who have cared for my education, to the honors which they seemed to desire. They have enabled me to understand Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus, and have held out to me, surrounded with brilliant light, the picture of a life conformed to nature. I have fallen short of it in the end, it is true; but it is my fault. If my body has long supported the rude life which I lead; if, in spite of my frequent neglect of Rusticus, I have never overstepped the bounds, or done any thing of which I should repent; if my mother, who died young, was able, nevertheless, to pass her last years near me; if, whenever I have wished to succor the poor or afflicted, money has never been wanting; if I have never needed to accept any thing from others; if I have a wife of an amiable, affectionate, and pure character; if I have found many capable men for the education of my children; if, at the beginning of my passion for philosophy, I did not become the prey of a sophist,--it is to the gods that I owe it all. Yes, so many blessings could only be the result of the aid of the gods and a happy fortune." This divine candor breathes in every page. No one has ever written more simply than did he for the sole purpose of unburdening his heart to God, his only witness. There is not a shadow of system in it. Marcus Aurelius, to speak exactly, had no philosophy: although he owed almost every thing to stoicism transformed by the Roman spirit, it is of no school. According to our idea, he has too little curiosity; for he knows not all that a contemporary of Ptolemy and Galen should know: he has some opinions on the system of the world, which were not up to the highest science of his time. But his moral thought, thus detached from all alliance with a system, reaches a singular height. The author of the book, "The Imitation," himself, although free from the quarrels of the schools, does not rise to this, for his manner of feeling is essentially Christian. Take away his Christian dogmas, and his book retains only a portion of its charm. The book of Marcus Aurelius, having no dogmatic base, preserves its freshness eternally. Every one, from the atheist, or he who believes himself one, to the man who is the most devoted to the especial creeds of each worship, can find in it some fruits of edification. It is the most purely human book which exists. It deals with no question of controversy. In theology, Marcus Aurelius floats between pure Deism, Polytheism interpreted in a physical sense according to the manner of the Stoics, and a sort of cosmic Pantheism. He holds not much more firmly to one hypothesis than to the other, and he uses indiscriminately the three vocabularies of the Deist, Polytheist, and Pantheist. His considerations have always two sides, according as God and the soul have, or have not, reality. It is the reasoning which we do each hour; for, if the most complete Materialism is right, we who have