MEDITATIONS ENCHIRIDION Written in the form of confessions, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius express with great beauty and tenderness the essence of Stoic philosophy. The Stoic, whose life is one of passive, meditative searching for God's truth in nature, feels that God is ever present, and thus looks on everything and all men as his equals. Marcus Aurelius states that the Stoic lives as if upon a mountain, superior to vanities and expecting very little from his fellow men, but helping and sympathizing with them. We are made for cooperation, like the hands, like the feet. The Stoic does not rail at misfortune, for that would be to criticize God's handiwork. Nor