11: Nature Versus nature

     As mentioned in my post of 1/19/18, one of the fundamental teachings of Stoicism is that its adherents should strive to live "in accordance with nature." However, in his eleventh letter to Lucilius, Seneca uses the word nature in more than one sense. The issue came up in the context of a visit to Seneca by a young friend of Lucilius. Seneca was impressed by this young person's talent and intelligence, and was charmed when he blushed out of modesty:
          "I suspect he is one who will retain this tendency even when he has fully grown up and has rid himself of every fault -- even when he is wise. For natural flaws of body or mind are not removed by any amount of wisdom: what is innate and implanted may be mitigated by treatment but not overcome. ... These things are not eliminated either by training or by any amount of practice; no, nature exerts its force, using these flaws to remind even the strongest of what their nature is. I am sure that blushing is one of these things; for even in the soberest of grown men it still arises, and suddenly too. ... such characteristics are not cast out by any amount of wisdom. If wisdom could erase all defects, it would have nature itself under its charge. All contributions made by the circumstances of one's birth and one's bodily temperament will remain with us after the mind has at length managed in large part to settle itself. None of these can be ordered down, any more than they can be summoned at will."
Seneca also mentions several Roman politicians who struggled with blushing well after their youth was over.
     The Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius lived in the century following Seneca's death. In his Meditations, Marcus shows a knack for boiling things down to their essence -- which is probably why he is still being read, almost two thousand years later. According to Marcus: "... don't treat anything as important except doing what your nature demands, and accepting what Nature sends you." So according to the Stoics, each of us has his or her own personal nature (with a small "n"), but we are all subject to Nature (with a capital "N").
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References:
     Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: A New Translation, with an Introduction, by Gregory Hays (The Modern Library, New York, 2003), Book 12, 32, page 169. 
      Seneca, Letters on Ethics to Lucilius, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary by Margaret Graver and A.A. Long (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2015), Letter 11, 1-4, pages 46-47, and 6, page 47.