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Question

According to Marcus Aurelius, in what five ways does the soul do violence to itself?

A passage from the Meditations lists five ways we injure our own character, none of them physical.

Updated

The short answer

In Meditations 2.16, Marcus Aurelius names five ways the soul does violence to itself: resenting what happens, turning against another person or acting to injure them, being overpowered by pleasure or pain, being insincere in word or deed, and acting or moving without any aim or purpose. Each is described as an injury the soul inflicts on itself, not something inflicted on it from outside. The list functions as a private checklist for self-examination, not a judgment of other people.

Key points

  • Marcus Aurelius lists five self-inflicted injuries to the soul in Meditations 2.16.
  • The first is resentment at events, which he compares to becoming a tumour on the universe.
  • The second is turning away from someone or moving to harm them, which he identifies with anger.
  • The third is being overpowered by pleasure or pain, meaning losing governance of yourself to a feeling.
  • The fourth is insincerity, playing a part and speaking or acting untruly.
  • The fifth is acting without an aim, which Marcus corrects by saying even small acts should refer to an end.

The longer answer

In Meditations 2.16, Marcus Aurelius lists five specific ways the soul harms itself. All five are things we do to ourselves, not things done to us.

Resentment at what happens. Marcus starts with the strongest image: the soul becomes "an abscess and, as it were, a tumour on the universe" (Meditations 2.16) when it resents events. He explains why this counts as self-harm: being vexed at anything that happens is a separation of yourself from nature, since nature contains the causes of everything that happens, including the parts you dislike. The complaint does not change the event. It only cuts the complaining mind off from the whole it belongs to.

Turning against another person, or acting to harm them. The second injury happens when the soul "turns away from any man, or even moves towards him with the intention of injuring" (Meditations 2.16), which Marcus identifies as the state of an angry person. Notice the two forms this takes: withdrawal and attack. Both are described as things the angry soul does to itself, not primarily to the other person. The damage lands first in the one who is angry.

Being overpowered by pleasure or pain. Third, the soul does violence to itself "when it is overpowered by pleasure or by pain" (Meditations 2.16). This is not a claim that pleasure and pain are evil. It is a claim about being overpowered, about losing your own governing judgment to a feeling. The problem is the loss of rule over yourself, not the feeling itself.

Insincerity. Fourth is when the soul "plays a part, and does or says anything insincerely and untruly" (Meditations 2.16). Putting on a face, saying what you do not mean, acting a role for effect: Marcus counts this as an injury to the soul that does it, since it splits the person between what they show and what they are.

Acting without an aim. Fifth, and the one Marcus explains most fully, is when the soul lets any of its own acts or movements go without a purpose, doing something thoughtlessly and without considering what it is (Meditations 2.16). He adds the positive version immediately: even the smallest things should be done with reference to an end, and for a rational being that end is to follow reason and the law of what he calls the most ancient city and polity, meaning the shared rational order that all people participate in by virtue of being rational.

A common way to misread this list is to hear "violence to itself" as a figure of speech, a dramatic way of saying these behaviors are bad for you in the way an unhealthy habit is bad for you. Marcus means something stronger. For a Stoic, the soul just is your faculty of choice, the part of you that judges and decides. These five acts are not things that happen to that faculty from outside. They are things the faculty does to itself, by its own assent. That is why the list is worth taking seriously: nothing external produced any of these five injuries. Resentment, malice, being overpowered, insincerity, and aimlessness are all judgments and choices, which means they are also the one place where you have real power to stop.

The practical use of the list is as a check. At the end of a day, or in the middle of a difficult one, you can ask which of the five you are closest to doing right now. Are you resenting something that has already happened. Are you turning away from someone or wishing them harm. Are you being carried by a pleasure or a pain rather than governing your response to it. Are you saying something you do not mean. Are you drifting through an action without any sense of what it is for. Marcus wrote this list to himself, as a private check, not as a rule for judging others. Read it the same way.

Primary passages

The soul of man does violence to itself, first of all, when it becomes an abscess and, as it were, a tumour on the universe, so far as it can.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.16 Read in context

The opening image sets the register: resentment is not just unpleasant, it is a wound the soul inflicts on itself.

For to be vexed at anything which happens is a separation of ourselves from nature, in some part of which the natures of all other things are contained.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.16 Read in context

Marcus explains why complaint counts as self-injury: it cuts you off from the whole you belong to.

In the next place, the soul does violence to itself when it turns away from any man, or even moves towards him with the intention of injuring, such as are the souls of those who are angry.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.16 Read in context

The second harm names both withdrawal and attack as forms of the same injury, anger.

In the third place, the soul does violence to itself when it is overpowered by pleasure or by pain.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.16 Read in context

The third harm is about losing governance of yourself to a feeling, not about feeling itself being bad.

Fourthly, when it plays a part, and does or says anything insincerely and untruly.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.16 Read in context

Insincerity splits the person between what they show and what they are.

Fifthly, when it allows any act of its own and any movement to be without an aim, and does anything thoughtlessly and without considering what it is, it being right that even the smallest things be done with reference to an end

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.16 Read in context

The fifth harm, aimlessness, comes with Marcus's own remedy: refer even small acts to an end.

Important distinctions

Feeling pleasure or pain versus being overpowered by it

Marcus does not say feeling pleasure or pain harms the soul. He says being overpowered by it does. The Stoic target is loss of governance over your own judgment, not the presence of a feeling. First movements, involuntary reactions like a flinch of pain, are not the injury Marcus is describing here.

Anger's target versus anger's damage

The second injury sounds like it is about harming another person, since it involves the intention to injure. But Marcus locates the damage in the angry soul itself, in its turning away or moving to attack. The other person may or may not be harmed. The soul that turns is harmed regardless.

Objections and replies

Is resentment really self-harm, or just an honest reaction to real evils?

A skeptic might say that being vexed at genuine wrongs, injustice, cruelty, loss, is not a self-inflicted wound but an appropriate response to the world. Calling it violence to the soul can sound like it asks people to accept anything that happens without complaint.

Reply

Marcus is not asking you to approve of what happens. He is pointing out that vexation, the inner state of resentment, separates you from a nature that includes the causes of the event. The claim is about what resentment does to your own connection to the whole, not a verdict on whether the event itself was welcome. Elsewhere in the same passage he treats death, pain, and dishonor as things that happen to good and bad alike and so are not themselves good or evil (Meditations 2.11), which is the background for why resenting them does you no good.

Doesn't insincerity sometimes protect people, as in tact or diplomacy?

Someone might object that saying less than the full truth, or softening how you say something, is often necessary and kind, not a moral failure.

Reply

The passage names playing a part and speaking or acting insincerely and untruly, which is narrower than tact. Choosing not to say something is different from saying something you do not mean. The injury Marcus describes is the internal split between what you show and what you actually judge to be true, not the ordinary discretion of choosing your words.

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Sources

  1. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Primary text, Stoa library