Our good Marcus Aurelius, on this point as on all others, was in advance of the ages. He never cared to argue with himself concerning God and the soul. As if he had read the "Criticism of Practical Reason," he saw clearly, that, where the Infinite is concerned, no formula is absolute; and that, in such matters, one has no chance of seeing the truth during his life, without much self-contradiction. He distinctly separates moral beauty from all theoretical theology. He allows duty to depend on no metaphysical opinion of the First Cause. The intimate union with an unseen god was never carried to a more unheard-of delicacy. "To offer to the government of God that which is within thee,--a strong being ripened by age, a friend of the public good, a Roman, an emperor, a soldier at his post awaiting the signal of the trumpet, a man ready to quit life without regret." "There are many grains of incense destined to the same altar: one falls sooner, the other later, in the fire; but the difference is nothing." "Man should live according to nature during the few days that are given him on the earth, and, when the moment of leaving it comes, should submit himself sweetly, as an olive, which, in falling, blesses the tree which has produced it, and renders thanks to the branch which has borne it." "All that which thou arrangest is suited to me, O Cosmos! Nothing of that which comes from thee is premature or backward to me. I find my fruit in that which thy seasons bear, O Nature! From thee comes all; in thee is all; to thee all returns." "O man! thou hast been a citizen in the great city: what matters it to thee to have remained three or five years? That which is governed by laws is unjust for no one. What is there, then, so sorrowful in being sent from the city, not by a tyrant, not by an unjust judge, but by the same nature which allowed thee to enter there? It is as if a comedian is discharged from the theatre by the same prætor who engaged him. But wilt thou say, 'I have not played the five acts; I have played but three?' Thou sayest well; but in life three acts suffice to complete the entire piece.... Go, then, content, since he who dismisses thee is content." Is this to say that he never revolted against the strange fate which leaves man alone face to face with the needs of devotion, of sacrifice, of heroism, and nature with its transcendent immorality, its supreme disdain for virtue? No. Once at least the absurdity, the colossal iniquity, of death, strikes him. But soon his temperament, completely mortified, resumes its power, and he becomes calm. "How happens it that the gods, who have ordered all things so well, and with so much love for men, should have forgotten one thing only; that is, that men of tried virtue, who during their lives have had a sort of interchange of relations with divinity, who have made themselves loved by it on account of their pious acts and their sacrifices, live not after death, but may be extinguished forever?