{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_7514/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_7514","id":"gutenberg_7514","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7514","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy","Stoics"],"text":"Produced by Charles Franks, Ted Garvin, S. R. Ellison and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA GUIDE TO STOICISM\n\nby St. George Stock\n\n\n\nTEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. 347\n\nEdited by E. Haldeman-Julius.\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\nIf you strip Stoicism of its paradoxes and its wilful misuse of\nlanguage, what is left is simply the moral philosophy of Socrates,\nPlato and Aristotle, dashed with the physics of Heraclitus. Stoicism\nwas not so much a new doctrine as the form under which the old Greek\nphilosophy finally presented itself to the world at large. It owed\nits popularity in some measure to its extravagance. A great deal\nmight be said about Stoicism as a religion and about the part it\nplayed in the formation of Christianity but these subjects were\nexcluded by the plan of this volume which was to present a sketch of\nthe Stoic doctrine based on the original authorities.\n\n    ST GEORGE STOCK M A\n        _Pemb. Coll. Oxford_\n\n\n\n       A GUIDE TO STOICISM.\n\n         ST GEORGE STOCK\n\n\nPHILOSOPHY AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.\n\nAmong the Greeks and Romans of the classical age philosophy occupied\nthe place taken by religion among ourselves. Their appeal was to\nreason not to revelation. To what, asks Cicero in his Offices, are we\nto look for training in virtue, if not to philosophy? Now, if truth\nis believed to rest upon authority it is natural that it should be\nimpressed upon the mind from the earliest age, since the essential\nthing is that it should be believed, but a truth which makes its\nappeal to reason must be content to wait till reason is developed. We\nare born into the Eastern, Western or Anglican communion or some\nother denomination, but it was of his own free choice that the\nserious minded young Greek or Roman embraced the tenets of one of the\ngreat sects which divided the world of philosophy. The motive which\nled him to do so in the first instance may have been merely the\ninfluence of a friend or a discourse from some eloquent speaker, but\nthe choice once made was his own choice, and he adhered to it as\nsuch. Conversions from one sect to another were of quite rare\noccurrence. A certain Dionysius of Heraclea, who went over from the\nStoics to the Cyrenaics, was ever afterward known as \"the deserter.\"\nIt was as difficult to be independent in philosophy as it is with us\nto be independent in politics. When a young man joined a school, he\ncommitted himself to all its opinions, not only as to the end of\nlife, which was the main point of division, but as to all questions\non all subjects. The Stoic did not differ merely in his ethics from\nthe Epicurean; he differed also in his theology and his physics and\nhis metaphysics. Aristotle, as Shakespeare knew, thought young men\n\"unfit to hear moral philosophy\". And yet it was a question--or\nrather the question--of moral philosophy, the answer to which decided\nthe young man's opinions on all other points. The language which\nCicero sometimes uses about the seriousness of the choice made in\nearly life and how a young man gets entrammelled by a school before\nhe is really able to judge, reminds us of what we hear said nowadays\nabout the danger of a young man's taking orders before his opinions\nare formed. To this it was replied that a young man only exercised\nthe right of private judgment in selecting the authority whom he\nshould follow, and, having once done that, trusted to him for all the\nrest. With the analogue of this contention also we are familiar in\nmodern times. Cicero allows that there would be something in it, if\nthe selection of the true philosopher did not above all things\nrequire the philosophic mind. But in those days it was probably the\ncase, as it is now, that, if a man did not form speculative opinions\nin youth, the pressure of affairs would not leave him leisure to do\nso later.\n\nThe life span of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was from B.C. 347 to\n275. He did not begin teaching till 315, at the mature age of forty.\nAristotle had passed away in 322, and with him closed the great\nconstructive era of Greek thought. The Ionian philosophers had\nspeculated on the physical constitution of the universe, the\nPythagoreans on the mystical properties of numbers; Heraclitus had\npropounded his philosophy of fire, Democritus and Leucippus had\nstruck out a rude form of the atomic theory, Socrates had raised\nquestions relating to man, Plato had discussed them with all the\nfreedom of the dialogue, while Aristotle had systematically worked\nthem out. The later schools did not add much to the body of\nphilosophy. What they did was to emphasize different sides of the\ndoctrine of their predecessors and to drive views to their logical\nconsequences. The great lesson of Greek philosophy is that it is\nworth while to do right irrespective of reward and punishment and\nregardless of the shortness of life. This lesson the Stoics so\nenforced by the earnestness of their lives and the influence of their\nmoral teaching that it has become associated more particularly with\nthem. Cicero, though he always classed himself as an Academic,\nexclaims in one place that he is afraid the Stoics are the only\nphilosophers, and whenever he is combating Epicureanism his language\nis that of a Stoic. Some of Vergil's most eloquent passages seem to\nbe inspired by Stoic speculation. Even Horace, despite his banter\nabout the sage, in his serious moods borrows the language of the\nStoics. It was they who inspired the highest flights of declamatory\neloquence in Persius and Juvenal. Their moral philosophy affected the\nworld through Roman law, the great masters of which were brought up\nunder its influence. So all pervasive indeed was this moral\nphilosophy of the Stoics that it was read by the Jews of Alexandria\ninto Moses under the veil of allegory and was declared to be the\ninner meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures. If the Stoics then did not\nadd much to the body of Philosophy, they did a great work in\npopularising it and bringing it to bear upon life.\n\nAn intense practicality was a mark of the later Greek philosophy.\nThis was common to Stoicism with its rival Epicureanism. Both\nregarded philosophy as 'the art of life,' though they differed in\ntheir conception of what that art should be. Widely as the two\nschools were opposed to one another, they had also other features in\ncommon. Both were children of an age in which the free city had given\nway to monarchies, and personal had taken the place of corporate\nlife. The question of happiness is no longer, as with Aristotle, and\nstill more with Plato, one for the state, but for the individual. In\nboth schools the speculative interest was feeble from the first, and\ntended to become feebler as time went on. Both were new departures\nfrom pre-existent schools. Stoicism was bred out of Cynicism, as\nEpicureanism out of Cyrenaicism. Both were content to fall back for\ntheir physics upon the pre-Socratic schools, the one adopting the\nfirm philosophy of Heraclitus, the other the atomic theory of\nDemocritus. Both were in strong reaction against the abstractions of\nPlato and Aristotle, and would tolerate nothing but concrete reality.\nThe Stoics were quite as materialistic in their own way as the\nEpicureans. With regard indeed to the nature of the highest god we\nmay, with Senaca represent the difference between the two schools as\na question of the senses against the intellect, but we shall see\npresently that the Stoics regarded the intellect itself as being a\nkind of body.\n\nThe Greeks were all agreed that there was an end or aim of life, and\nthat it was to be called 'happiness,' but at that point their\nagreement ended. As to the nature of happiness there was the utmost\nvariety of opinion. Democritus had made it consist in mental\nserenity, Anaxagoras in speculation, Socrates in wisdom, Aristotle in\nthe practise of virtue with some amount of favour from fortune,\nAristippus simply in pleasure. These were opinions of the\nphilosophers. But, besides these, there were the opinions of ordinary\nmen, as shown by their lives rather than by their language. Zeno's\ncontribution to thought on the subject does not at first sight appear\nilluminating. He said that the end was 'to live consistently,' the\nimplication doubtless being that no life but the passionless life of\nreason could ultimately be consistent with itself. Cleanthes, his\nimmediate successor in the school, is credited with having added the\nwords 'with nature,' thus completing the well-known Stoic formula\nthat the end is 'to live consistently with nature.'\n\nIt was assumed by the Greeks that the ways of nature were 'the ways\nof pleasantness,' and that 'all her paths' were 'peace.' This may\nseem to us a startling assumption, but that is because we do not mean\nby 'nature' the same thing as they did. We connect the term with the\norigin of a thing, they connected it rather with the end; by the\n'natural state' we mean a state of savagery, they meant the highest\ncivilization; we mean by a thing's nature what it is or has been,\nthey meant what it ought to become under the most favourable\nconditions; not the sour crab, but the mellow glory of the Hesperides\nworthy to be guarded by a sleepless dragon, was to the Greeks the\nnatural apple. Hence we find Aristotle maintaining that the State is\na natural product, because it is evolved out of social relations\nwhich exist by nature. Nature indeed was a highly ambiguous term to\nthe Greeks no less than to ourselves, but in the sense with which we\nare now concerned, the nature of anything was defined by the\nPeripatetics as 'the end of its becoming.' Another definition of\ntheirs puts the matter still more clearly. 'What each thing is when\nits growth has been completed, that we declare to be the nature of\neach thing'.\n\nFollowing out this conception the Stoics identified a life in\naccordance with nature with a life in accordance with the highest\nperfection to which man could attain. Now, as man was essentially a\nrational animal, his work as man lay in living the rational life. And\nthe perfection of reason was virtue. Hence the ways of nature were no\nother than the ways of virtue. And so it came about that the Stoic\nformula might be expressed in a number of different ways which yet\nall amounted to the same thing. The end was to live the virtuous\nlife, or to live consistently, or to live in accordance with nature,\nor to live rationally.\n\n\nDIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY.\n\nPhilosophy was defined by the Stoics as 'the knowledge of things\ndivine and human'. It was divided into three departments; logic,\nethic, and physic. This division indeed was in existence before their\ntime, but they have got the credit of it as of some other things\nwhich they did not originate. Neither was it confined to them, but\nwas part of the common stock of thought. Even the Epicureans, who are\nsaid to have rejected logic can hardly be counted as dissentients\nfrom this threefold division. For what they did was to substitute for\nthe Stoic logic a logic of their own, dealing with the notions\nderived from sense, much in the same way as Bacon substituted his\nNovum Organum for the Organon of Aristotle. Cleanthes we are told\nrecognised six parts of philosophy, namely, dialectic, rhetoric,\nethic, politic, physic, and theology, but these are obviously the\nresult of subdivision of the primary ones. Of the three departments\nwe may say that logic deals with the form and expression of\nknowledge, physic with the matter of knowledge, and ethic with the\nuse of knowledge. The division may also be justified in this way.\nPhilosophy must study either nature (including the divine nature) or\nman; and, if it studies man, it must regard him either from the side\nof the intellect or of the feelings, that is either as a thinking\n(logic) or as an acting (ethic) being.\n\nAs to the order in which the different departments should be studied,\nwe have had preserved to us the actual words of Chrysippus in his\nfourth book on Lives. 'First of all then it seems to me that, as has\nbeen rightly said by the ancients, there are three heads under which\nthe speculations of the philosopher fall, logic, ethic, physic; next,\nthat of these the logical should come first, the ethical second, and\nthe physical third, and that of the physical the treatment of the\ngods should come last, whence also they have given the name of\n\"completions\" to the instruction delivered on this subject'. That\nthis order however might yield to convenience is plain from another\nbook on the use of reason, where he says that 'the student who takes\nup logic first need not entirely abstain from the other branches of\nphilosophy, but should study them also as occasion offers.'\n\nPlutarch twits Chrysippus with inconsistency, because in the face of\nthis declaration as to the order of treatment, he nevertheless says\nthat morals rest upon physics. But to this charge it may fairly be\nreplied that the order of exposition need not coincide with the order\nof existence. Metaphysically speaking, morals may depend upon physics\nand the right conduct of man be deducible from the structure of the\nuniverse but for all that, it may be advisable to study physics\nlater. Physics meant the nature of God and the Universe. Our nature\nmay be deducible from that but it is better known to ourselves to\nstart with, so that it may be well to begin from the end of the stick\nthat we have in our hands. But that Chrysippus did teach the logical\ndependence of morals on physics is plain from his own words. In his\nthird book on the Gods he says 'for it is not possible to find any\nother origin of justice or mode of its generation save that from Zeus\nand the nature of the universe for anything we have to say about good\nand evil must needs derive its origin therefrom', and again in his\nPhysical Theses, 'for there is no other or more appropriate way of\napproaching the subject of good and evil on the virtues or happiness\nthan from the nature of all things and the administration of the\nuniverse--for it is to these we must attach the treatment of good and\nevil inasmuch as there is no better origin to which we can refer them\nand inasmuch as physical speculation is taken in solely with a view\nto the distinction between good and evil.'\n\nThe last words are worth noting as showing that even with Chrysippus\nwho has been called the intellectual founder of Stoicism the whole\nstress of the philosophy of the Porch fell upon its moral teaching.\nIt was a favourite metaphor with the school to compare philosophy to\na fertile vineyard or orchard. Ethic was the good fruit, physic the\ntall plants, and logic the strong wall. The wall existed only to\nguard the trees, and the trees only to produce the fruit. Or again\nphilosophy was likened to an egg of which ethic was the yolk\ncontaining the chick, physic the white which formed its nourishment\nwhile logic was the hard outside shell. Posidonius, a later member of\nthe school, objected to the metaphor from the vineyard on the ground\nthat the fruit and the trees and the wall were all separable whereas\nthe parts of philosophy were inseparable. He preferred therefore to\nliken it to a living organism, logic being the bones and sinews,\nphysic the flesh and blood, but ethic the soul.\n\n\nLOGIC\n\nThe Stoics had a tremendous reputation for logic. In this department\nthey were the successors or rather the supersessors of Aristotle. For\nafter the death of Theophrastus the library of the Lyceum is said to\nhave been buried underground at Scepsis until about a century before\nChrist, So that the Organon may actually have been lost to the world\nduring that period. At all events under Strato the successor of\nTheophrastus who specialized in natural science the school had lost\nits comprehensiveness. Cicero even finds it consonant with dramatic\npropriety to make Cato charge the later Peripatetics with ignorance\nof logic! On the other hand Chrysippus became so famous for his logic\nas to create a general impression that if there were a logic among\nthe gods it would be no other than the Chrysippean.\n\nBut if the Stoics were strong in logic they were weak in rhetoric.\nThis strength and weakness were characteristic of the school at all\nperiods. Cato is the only Roman Stoic to whom Cicero accords the\npraise of real eloquence. In the dying accents of the school as we\nhear them in Marcus Aurelius the imperial sage counts it a thing to\nbe thankful for that he had learnt to abstain from rhetoric, poetic,\nand elegance of diction. The reader however cannot help wishing that\nhe had taken some means to diminish the crabbedness of his style. If\na lesson were wanted in the importance of sacrificing to the Graces\nit might be found in the fact that the early Stoic writers despite\ntheir logical subtlety have all perished and that their remains have\nto be sought for so largely in the pages of Cicero. In speaking of\nlogic as one of the three departments of philosophy we must bear in\nmind that the term was one of much wider meaning than it is with us.\nIt included rhetoric, poetic, and grammar as well as dialectic or\nlogic proper, to say nothing of disquisitions on the senses and the\nintellect which we should now refer to psychology.\n\nLogic as a whole being divided into rhetoric and dialectic: rhetoric\nwas defined to be the knowledge of how to speak well in expository\ndiscourses and dialectic as the knowledge of how to argue rightly in\nmatters of question and answer. Both rhetoric and dialectic were\nspoken of by the Stoics as virtues for they divided virtue in its\nmost generic sense in the same way as they divided philosophy into\nphysical, ethical, and logical. Rhetoric and dialectic were thus the\ntwo species of logical virtue. Zeno expressed their difference by\ncomparing rhetoric to the palm and dialectic to the fist.\n\nInstead of throwing in poetic and grammar with rhetoric, the Stoics\nsubdivided dialectic into the part which dealt with the meaning and\nthe part which dealt with the sound, or as Chrysippus phrased it,\nconcerning significants and significates. Under the former came the\ntreatment of the alphabet, of the parts of speech, of solecism, of\nbarbarism, of poems, of amphibolies, of metre and music--a list which\nseems at first sight a little mixed, but in which we can recognise\nthe general features of grammar, with its departments of phonology,\naccidence, and prosody. The treatment of solecism and barbarism in\ngrammar corresponded to that of fallacies in logic. With regard to\nthe alphabet it is worth noting that the Stoics recognised seven\nvowels and six mutes. This is more correct than our way of talking of\nnine mutes, since the aspirate consonants are plainly not mute. There\nwere, according to the Stoics, five parts of speech--name,\nappellative, verb, conjunction, article. 'Name' meant a proper name,\nand 'appellative' a common term.\n\nThere were reckoned to be five virtues of speech--Hellenism,\nclearness, conciseness, propriety, distinction. By 'Hellenism' was\nmeant speaking good Greek. 'Distinction' was defined to be 'a diction\nwhich avoided homeliness.' Over against these there were two\ncomprehensive vices, barbarism and solecism, the one being an offence\nagainst accidence, the other against syntax.\n\nThe famous comparison of the infant mind to a blank sheet of paper,\nwhich we connect so closely with the name of Locke, really comes from\nthe Stoics. The earliest characters inscribed upon it were the\nimpressions of sense, which the Greeks called \"phantasies.\" A\nphantasy was defined by Zeno as \"an impression in the soul.\"\nCleanthes was content to take this definition in its literal sense,\nand believe that the soul was impressed by external objects as wax by\na signet ring. Chrysippus, however, found a difficulty here, and\npreferred to interpret the Master's saying to mean an alteration or\nchange in the soul. He figured to himself the soul as receiving a\nmodification from every external object which acts upon it just as\nthe air receives countless strokes when many people are speaking at\nonce. Further, he declared that in receiving an impression the soul\nwas purely passive and that the phantasy revealed not only its own\nexistence, but that also of its cause, just as light displays itself\nand the things that are in it. Thus, when through sight we receive an\nimpression of white, an affection takes place in the soul, in virtue\nwhereof we are able to say that there exists a white object affecting\nus. The power to name the object resides in the understanding. First\nmust come the phantasy, and the understanding, having the power of\nutterance, expresses in speech the affection it receives from the\nobject. The cause of the phantasy was called the \"phantast,\" _e.\ng._ the white or cold object. If there is no external cause, then\nthe supposed object of the impression was a \"phantasm,\" such as a\nfigure in a dream, or the Furies whom Orestes sees in his frenzy.\n\nHow then was the impression which had reality behind it to be\ndistinguished from that which had not? \"By the feel\" is all that the\nStoics really had to say in answer to this question. Just as Hume\nmade the difference between sense-impressions and ideas to lie in the\ngreater vividness of the former, so did they; only Hume saw no\nnecessity to go beyond the impression, whereas the Stoics did.\nCertain impressions, they maintained, carried with them an\nirresistible conviction of their own reality, and this, not merely in\nthe sense that they existed; but also that they were referable to an\nexternal cause. These were called \"gripping phantasies.\" Such a\nphantasy did not need proof of its own existence, or of that of its\nobject. It possessed self-evidence. Its occurrence was attended with\nyielding and assent on the part of the soul. For it is as natural for\nthe soul to assent to the self-evident as it is for it to pursue its\nproper good. The assent to a griping phantasy was called\n\"comprehension,\" as indicating the firm hold that the soul thus took\nof reality. A gripping phantasy was defined as one which was stamped\nand impressed from an existing object, in virtue of that object\nitself, in such a way as it could not be from a non-existent object.\nThe clause \"in virtue of that object itself\" was put into the\ndefinition to provide against such a case as that of the mad Orestes,\nwho takes his sister to be a Fury. There the impression was derived\nfrom an existing object, but not from that object as such, but as\ncoloured by the imagination of the percipient.\n\nThe criterion of truth then was no other than the gripping phantasy.\nSuch at least was the doctrine of the earlier Stoics, but the later\nadded a saving clause, \"when there is no impediment.\" For they were\npressed by their opponents with such imaginary cases as that of\nAdmetus, seeing his wife before him in very deed, and yet not\nbelieving it to be her. But here there was an impediment. Admetus did\nnot believe that the dead could rise. Again Menelaus did not believe\nin the real Helen when he found her on the island of Pharos. But here\nagain there was an impediment. For Menelaus could not have been\nexpected to know that he had been for ten years fighting for a\nphantom. When, however, there was no such impediment, then they said\nthe gripping phantasy did indeed deserve its name, for it almost took\nmen by the hair of the head and dragged them to assent.\n\nSo far we have used \"phantasy\" only of real or imaginary impressions\nof sense. But the term was not thus restricted by the Stoics, who\ndivided phantasies into sensible and not sensible. The latter came\nthrough the understanding and were of bodiless things which could\nonly be grasped by reason. The ideas of Plato they declared existed\nonly in our minds. Horse, man, and animal had no substantial\nexistence but were phantasms of the soul. The Stoics were thus what\nwe should call Conceptualists.\n\nComprehension too was used in a wider sense than that in which we\nhave so far employed it. There was comprehension by the senses as of\nwhite and black, of rough and smooth, but there was also\ncomprehension by the reason of demonstrative conclusions such as that\nthe gods exist and that they exercise providence. Here we are\nreminded of Locke's declaration: \"'Tis as certain there's a God as\nthat the opposite angles made by the intersection of two straight\nlines are equal.\" The Stoics indeed had great affinities with that\nthinker or rather he with them. The Stoic account of the manner in\nwhich the mind arrives at its ideas might almost be taken from the\nfirst book of Locke's _Essay_. As many as nine ways are\nenumerated of which the first corresponds to simple ideas--\n\n(1) by presentation, as objects of sense\n\n(2) by likeness, as the idea of Socrates from his picture\n\n(3) by analogy, that is, by increase or decrease, as ideas of giants\nand pigmies from men, or as the notion of the centre of the earth,\nwhich is reached by the consideration of smaller spheres.\n\n(4) by transposition, as the idea of men with eyes in their breasts.\n\n(5) by composition, as the idea of a Centaur.\n\n(6) by opposition, as the idea of death from that of life.\n\n(7) by a kind of transition, as the meaning of words and the idea of\nplace.\n\n(8)by nature, as the notion of the just and the good\n\n(9)by privation, as handless\n\nThe Stoics resembled Locke again in endeavoring to give such a\ndefinition of knowledge as should cover at once the reports of the\nsenses and the relation between ideas. Knowledge was defined by them\nas a sure comprehension or a habit in the acceptance of phantasies\nwhich was not liable to be changed by reason. On a first hearing\nthese definitions might seem limited to sense knowledge but if we\nbethink ourselves of the wider meanings of comprehension and of\nphantasy, we see that the definitions apply as they were meant to\napply to the mind's grasp upon the force of a demonstration no less\nthan upon the existence of a physical object.\n\nZeno, with that touch of oriental symbolism which characterized him,\nused to illustrate to his disciples the steps to knowledge by means\nof gestures. Displaying his right hand with the fingers outstretched\nhe would say, \"That is a phantasy,\" then contracting the fingers a\nlittle, \"That is assent,\" then having closed the fist, \"That is\ncomprehension,\" then clasping the fist closely with the left hand, he\nwould add, \"That is knowledge.\"\n\nA notion which corresponds to our word concept was defined as a\nphantasm of the understanding of a rational animal. For a notion was\nbut a phantasm as it presented itself to a rational mind. In the same\nway so many shillings and sovereigns are in themselves but shillings\nand sovereigns, but when used as passage money they become fare.\nNotions were arrived at partly by nature, partly by teaching and\nstudy. The former kind of notions were called preconceptions; the\nlatter went merely by the generic name.\n\nOut of the general ideas which nature imparts to us, reason was\nperfected about the age of fourteen, at the time when the voice--its\noutward and visible sign--attains its full development, and when the\nhuman animal is complete in other respects as being able to reproduce\nits kind. Thus reason which united us to the gods was not, according\nto the Stoics, a pre-existent principal, but a gradual development\nout of sense. It might truly be said that with them the senses were\nthe intellect.\n\nBeing was confined by the Stoics to body, a bold assertion of which\nwe shall meet the consequences later. At present it is sufficient to\nnotice what havoc it makes among the categories. Of Aristotle's ten\ncategories it leaves only the first, Substance, and that only in its\nnarrowest sense of Primary Substance. But a substance or body might\nbe regarded in four ways--\n\n  (1) simply as a body\n  (2) as a body of a particular kind\n  (3) as a body in a particular state\n  (4) as a body in a particular relation.\n\nHence result the four Stoic categories of--\n\n    substrates\n    suchlike\n    so disposed\n    so related\n\nBut the bodiless would not be thus conjured out of existence. For\nwhat was to be made of such things as the meaning of words, time,\nplace, and the infinite void? Even the Stoics did not assign body to\nthese, and yet they had to be recognized and spoken of. The\ndifficulty was got over by the invention of the higher category of\nsomewhat, which should include both body and the bodiless. Time was a\nsomewhat, and so was space, though neither of them possessed being.\n\nIn the Stoic treatment of the proposition, grammar was very much\nmixed up with logic. They had a wide name which applied to any part\nof diction, whether a word or words, a sentence, or even a syllogism.\nThis we shall render by \"dict.\" A dict, then, was defined as \"that\nwhich subsists in correspondence with a rational phantasy.\" A dict\nwas one of the things which the Stoics admitted to be devoid of body.\nThere were three things involved when anything was said--the sound,\nthe sense, and the external object. Of these the first and the last\nwere bodies, but the intermediate one was not a body. This we may\nillustrate after Seneca, as follows: \"You see Cato walking. What your\neyes see and your mind attends to is a body in motion. Then you say,\n'Cato is walking'.\" The mere sound indeed of these words is air in\nmotion and therefore a body but the meaning of them is not a body but\nan enouncement about a body, which is quite a different thing.\n\nOn examining such details as are left us of the Stoic logic, the\nfirst thing which strikes one is its extreme complexity as compared\nwith the Aristotelian. It was a scholastic age, and the Stoics\nrefined and distinguished to their hearts' content. As regards\nimmediate inference, a subject which has been run into subtleties\namong ourselves, Chrysippus estimated that the changes which could be\nrung on ten propositions exceeded a million, but for this assertion\nhe was taken to task by Hipparchus the mathematician, who proved that\nthe affirmative proposition yielded exactly 103,049 forms and the\nnegative 310,962. With us the affirmative proposition is more\nprolific in consequences than the negative. But then, the Stoics were\nnot content with so simple a thing as mere negation, but had negative\narnetic and privative, to say nothing of supernegative propositions.\nAnother noticeable feature is the total absence of the three figures\nof Aristotle and the only moods spoken of are the moods of the\ncomplex syllogism, such as the _modus penens_ in a conjunctive.\nTheir type of reasoning was--\n\n  If A, then B\n  But A\n  B\n\nThe important part played by conjunctive propositions in their logic\nled the Stoics to formulate the following rule with regard to the\nmaterial quality of such propositions: Truth can only be followed by\ntruth, but falsehood may be followed by falsehood or truth.\n\nThus if it be truly stated that it is day, any consequence of that\nstatement, _e.g._ that it is light, must be true also. But a\nfalse statement may lead either way. For instance, if it be falsely\nstated that it is night then the consequence that it is dark is false\nalso. But if we say, \"The earth flies,\" which was regarded as not\nonly false but impossible [Footnote: Here we may recall the warning\nof Arago to call nothing impossible outside the range of pure\nmathematics] this involves the true consequence that the earth is.\nThough the simple syllogism is not alluded to in the sketch which\nDiogenes Laertius gives of the Stoic logic, it is of frequent\noccurrence in the accounts left us of their arguments. Take for\ninstance the syllogism wherewith Zeno advocated the cause of\ntemperance--\n\n  One does not commit a secret to a man who is drunk.\n  One does commit a secret to a good man.\n  A good man will not get drunk.\n\nThe chain argument which we wrongly call the Sorites was also a\nfavorite resource with the Stoics. If a single syllogism did not\nsuffice to argue men into virtue surely a condensed series must be\neffectual. And so they demonstrated the sufficiency of wisdom for\nhappiness as follows----\n\n  The wise man is temperate\n  The temperate is constant\n  The constant is unperturbed\n  The unperturbed is free from sorrow\n  Whoso is free from sorrow is happy\n  The wise man is happy\n\nThe delight which the early Stoics took in this pure play of the\nintellect led them to pounce with avidity upon the abundant stock of\nfallacies current among the Greeks of their time. These seem--most of\nthem--to have been invented by the Megarians and especially by\nEubulides of Miletus a disciple of Eucleides but they became\nassociated with the Stoics both by friends and foes who either praise\ntheir subtlety or deride their solemnity in dealing with them.\nChrysippus himself was not above propounding such sophisms as the\nfollowing--\n\n  Whoever divulges the mysteries to the uninitiated commits impiety\n  The hierophant divulged the mysteries to the uninitiated\n  The hierophant commits impiety\n\n  Anything that you say passes through your mouth\n  You say a wagon\n  A wagon passes through your mouth\n\nHe is said to have written eleven books on the No-one fallacy. But\nwhat seems to have exercised most of his ingenuity was the famous\nLiar, the invention of which is ascribed to Eubulides. This fallacy\nin its simplest form is as follows. If you say truly that you are\ntelling a lie, are you lying or telling the truth? Chrysippus set\nthis down as inexplicable. Nevertheless he was far from declining to\ndiscuss it. For we find in the list of his works a treatise in five\nbooks on the Inexplicables an Introduction to the Liar and Liars for\nIntroduction, six books on the Liar itself, a work directed against\nthose who thought that such propositions were both false and true,\nanother against those who professed to solve the Liar by a process of\ndivision, three books on the solution of the Liar, and finally a\npolemic against those who asserted that the Liar had its premises\nfalse. It was well for poor Philetas of Cos that he ended his days\nbefore Chrysippus was born, though as it was he grew thin and died of\nthe Liar, and his epitaph served as a solemn reminder to poets not to\nmeddle with logic--\n\n    Philetas of Cos am I\n    'Twas the Liar who made me die\n    And the bad nights caused thereby.\n\nPerhaps we owe him an apology for the translation.\n\n\nETHIC\n\nWe have already had to touch upon the psychology of the Stoics in\nconnection with the first principles of logic. It is no less\nnecessary to do so now in dealing with the foundation of ethic.\n\nThe Stoics we are told reckoned that there were eight parts of the\nsoul. These were the five senses, the organ of sound, the intellect\nand the reproductive principle. The passions, it will be observed,\nare conspicuous by their absence. For the Stoic theory was that the\npassions were simply the intellect in a diseased state owing to the\nperversions of falsehood. This is why the Stoics would not parley\nwith passion, conceiving that if once it were let into the citadel of\nthe soul it would supplant the rightful ruler. Passion and reason\nwere not two things which could be kept separate in which case it\nmight be hoped that reason would control passion, but were two states\nof the same thing--a worse and a better.\n\nThe unperturbed intellect was the legitimate monarch in the kingdom\nof man. Hence the Stoics commonly spoke of it as the leading\nprinciple. This was the part of the soul which received phantasies\nand it was also that in which impulses were generated with which we\nhave now more particularly to do.\n\nImpulse or appetition was the principle in the soul which impelled to\naction. In an unperverted state it was directed only to things in\naccordance with nature. The negative form of this principle or the\navoidance of things as being contrary to nature, we shall call\nrepulsion.\n\nNotwithstanding the sublime heights to which Stoic morality rose. It\nwas professedly based on self-love, wherein the Stoics were at one\nwith the other schools of thought in the ancient world.\n\nThe earliest impulse that appeared in a newly born animal was to\nprotect itself and its own constitution which were conciliated to it\nby nature. What tended to its survival, it sought; what tended to its\ndestruction, it shunned. Thus self-preservation was the first law of\nlife.\n\nWhile man was still in the merely animal stage, and before reason was\ndeveloped in him, the things that were in accordance with his nature\nwere such as health, strength, good bodily condition, soundness of\nall the senses, beauty, swiftness--in short all the qualities that\nwent to make up richness of physical life and that contributed to the\nvital harmony. These were called the first things in accordance with\nnature. Their opposites were all contrary to nature, such as\nsickness, weakness, mutilation. Under the first things in accordance\nwith nature came also congenial advantages of soul such as quickness\nof intelligence, natural ability, industry, application, memory, and\nthe like. It was a question whether pleasure was to be included among\nthe number. Some members of the school evidently thought that it might\nbe, but the orthodox opinion was that pleasure was a sort of\naftergrowth and that the direct pursuit of it was deleterious to the\norganism. The after growths of virtue were joy, cheerfulness, and the\nlike. These were the gambolings of the spirit like the frolicsomeness\nof an animal in the full flush of its vitality or like the blooming\nof a plant. For one and the same power manifested itself in all ranks\nof nature, only at each stage on a higher level. To the vegetative\npowers of the plant the animal added sense and Impulse. It was in\naccordance therefore with the nature of an animal to obey the\nImpulses of sense, but to sense and Impulse man superadded reason so\nthat when he became conscious of himself as a rational being, it was\nin accordance with his nature to let all his Impulses be shaped by\nthis new and master hand. Virtue was therefore pre-eminently in\naccordance with nature. What then we must now ask is the relation of\nreason to impulse as conceived by the Stoics? Is reason simply the\nguiding, and impulse the motive power? Seneca protests against this\nview, when impulse is identified with passion. One of his grounds for\ndoing so is that reason would be put on a level with passion, if the\ntwo were equally necessary for action. But the question is begged by\nthe use of the word 'passion,' which was defined by the Stoics as 'an\nexcessive impulse.' Is it possible then, even on Stoic principles,\nfor reason to work without something different from itself to help\nit? Or must we say that reason is itself a principle of action? Here\nPlutarch comes to our aid, who tells us on the authority of\nChrysippus in his work on Law that impulse is 'the reason of man\ncommanding him to act,' and similarly that repulsion is 'prohibitive\nreason.' This renders the Stoic position unmistakable, and we must\naccomodate our minds to it in spite of its difficulties. Just as we\nhave seen already that reason is not something radically different\nfrom sense, so now it appears that reason is not different from\nimpulse, but itself the perfected form of impulse. Whenever impulse\nis not identical with reason--at least in a rational being--it is not\ntruly impulse, but passion.\n\nThe Stoics, it will be observed, were Evolutionists in their\npsychology. But, like many Evolutionists at the present day, they did\nnot believe in the origin of mind out of matter. In all living things\nthere existed already what they called 'seminal reasons,' which\naccounted for the intelligence displayed by plants as well as by\nanimals. As there were four cardinal virtues, so there were four\nprimary passions. These were delight, grief, desire and fear. All of\nthem were excited by the presence or the prospect of fancied good or\nill. What prompted desire by its prospect caused delight by its\npresence, and what prompted fear by its prospect caused grief by its\npresence. Thus two of the primary passions had to do with good and\ntwo with evil. All were furies which infested the life of fools,\nrendering it bitter and grievous to them; and it was the business of\nphilosophy to fight against them. Nor was this strife a hopeless one,\nsince the passions were not grounded in nature, but were due to false\nopinion. They originated in voluntary judgements, and owed their\nbirth to a lack of mental sobriety. If men wished to live the span of\nlife that was allotted to them in quietness and peace, they must by\nall means keep clear of the passions.\n\nThe four primary passions having been formulated, it became necessary\nto justify the division by arranging the specific forms of feeling\nunder these four heads. In this task the Stoics displayed a subtlety\nwhich is of more interest to the lexicographer than to the student of\nphilosophy. They laid great stress on the derivation of words as\naffording a clue to their meaning; and, as their etymology was bound\nby no principles, their ingenuity was free to indulge in the wildest\nfreaks of fancy.\n\nThough all passion stood self-condemned, there were nevertheless\ncertain 'eupathies,' or happy affections, which would be experienced\nby the ideally good and wise man. These were not perturbations of the\nsoul, but rather 'constancies'; they were not opposed to reason, but\nwere rather part of reason. Though the sage would never be\ntransported with delight, he would still feel an abiding 'joy' in the\npresence of the true and only good; he would never indeed be agitated\nby desire, but still he would be animated by 'wish,' for that was\ndirected only to the good; and though he would never feel fear still\nhe would be actuated in danger by a proper caution.\n\nThere was therefore something rational corresponding to three out of\nfour primary passions--against delight was to be set joy; against\ngrief there was nothing to be set, for that arose from the presence\nof ill which would rather never attach to the sage. Grief was the\nirrational conviction that one ought to afflict oneself where there\nwas no occasion for it. The ideal of the Stoics was the unclouded\nserenity of Socrates of whom Xanthippe declared that he had always\nthe same face whether on leaving the house In the morning or on\nreturning to it at night.\n\nAs the motley crowd of passions followed the banners of their four\nleaders so specific forms of feeling sanctioned by reason were\nseverally assigned to the three eupathies.\n\nThings were divided by Zeno into good, bad, and indifferent. To good\nbelonged virtue and what partook of virtue; to bad, vice and what\npartook of vice. All other things were indifferent.\n\nTo the third class then belonged such things as life and death,\nhealth and sickness, pleasure and pain, beauty and ugliness, strength\nand weakness, honour and dishonour, wealth and poverty, victory and\ndefeat, nobility and baseness of birth.\n\nGood was defined as that which benefits. To confer benefit was no\nless essential to good than to impart warmth was to heat. If one\nasked in what 'to benefit' lay one received the reply that it lay in\nproducing an act or state in accordance with virtue, and similarly it\nwas laid down that 'to hurt' lay in producing an act or state in\naccordance with vice.\n\nThe indifference of things other than virtue and vice was apparent\nfrom the definition of good which made it essentially beneficial.\nSuch things as health and wealth might be beneficial or not according\nto circumstances; they were therefore no more good than bad. Again,\nnothing could be really good of which the good or ill depended on the\nuse made of it, but this was the case with things like health and\nwealth.\n\nThe true and only good then was identical with what the Greeks called\n'the beautiful' and what we call 'the right'. To say that a thing was\nright was to say that it was good, and conversely to say that it was\ngood was to say that it was right; this absolute identity between the\ngood and the right and, on the other hand, between the bad and wrong,\nwas the head and front of the Stoic ethics. The right contained in\nitself all that was necessary for the happy life, the wrong was the\nonly evil, and made men miserable whether they knew it or not.\n\nAs virtue was itself the end, it was of course choiceworthy in and\nfor itself, apart from hope or fear with regard to its consequences.\nMoreover, as being the highest good, it could admit of no increase\nfrom the addition of things indifferent. It did not even admit of\nincrease from the prolongation of its own existence, for the question\nwas not one of quantity, but of quality. Virtue for an eternity was\nno more virtue, and therefore no more good, than virtue for a moment.\nEven so one circle was no more round than another, whatever you might\nchoose to make its diameter, nor would it detract from the perfection\nof a circle if it were to be obliterated immediately in the same dust\nin which it had been drawn.\n\nTo say that the good of men lay in virtue was another way of saying\nthat it lay in reason, since virtue was the perfection of reason.\n\nAs reason was the only thing whereby Nature had distinguished man\nfrom other creatures, to live the rational life was to follow Nature.\n\nNature was at once the law of God and the law for man. For by the\nnature of anything was meant, not that which we actually find it to\nbe, but that which in the eternal fitness of things it was obviously\nintended to become.\n\nTo be happy then was to be virtuous, to be virtuous was to be\nrational, to be rational was to follow Nature, and to follow Nature\nwas to obey God. Virtue imparted to life that even flow in which Zeno\ndeclared happiness to consist. This was attained when one's own\ngenius was in harmony with the will that disposed of all things.\n\nVirtue having been purified from all the dross of the emotions, came\nout as something purely intellectual, so that the Stoics agreed with\nthe Socratic conception that virtue is knowledge. They also took on\nfrom Plato the four cardinal virtues of Wisdom, Temperance, Courage,\nand Justice, and defined them as so many branches of knowledge.\nAgainst these were set four cardinal vices of Folly, Intemperance,\nCowardice, and Injustice. Under both the virtues and vices there was\nan elaborate classification of specific qualities. But\nnotwithstanding the care with which the Stoics divided and subdivided\nthe virtues, virtue, according to their doctrine, was all the time\none and indivisible. For virtue was simply reason and reason, if it\nwere there, must control every department of conduct alike. 'He who\nhas one virtue has all,' was a paradox with which the Greek thought\nwas already familiar. But Chrysippus went beyond this, declaring that\nhe who displayed one virtue did thereby display all. Neither was the\nman perfect who did not possess all the virtues, nor was the act\nperfect which did not involve them all. Where the virtues differed\nfrom one another was merely in the order in which they put things.\nEach was primarily itself, secondarily all the rest. Wisdom had to\ndetermine what it was right to do, but this involved the other\nvirtues. Temperance had to impart stability to the impulses, but how\ncould the term 'temperate' be applied to a man who deserted his post\nthrough cowardice, or who failed to return a deposit through avarice,\nwhich is a form of injustice, or yet to one who misconducted affairs\nthrough rashness, which falls under folly? Courage had to face\ndangers and difficulties, but it was not courage unless its cause\nwere just. Indeed one of the ways in which courage was defined was a\nvirtue fighting on behalf of justice. Similarly justice put first the\nassigning to each man his due, but in the act of doing so had to\nbring in the other virtues. In short, it was the business of the man\nof virtue to know and to do what ought to be done, for what ought to\nbe done implied wisdom in choice, courage in endurance, justice in\nassignment and temperance in abiding by ones conviction. One virtue\nnever acted by itself, but always on the advice of a committee. The\nobverse to this paradox--He who has one vice has all vices--was a\nconclusion which the Stoics did not shrink from drawing. One might\nlose part of one's Corinthian ware and still retain the rest, but to\nlose one virtue--if virtue could be lost--would be to lose all along\nwith it.\n\nWe have now encountered the first paradox of Stoicism, and can\ndiscern its origin in the identification of virtue with pure reason.\nIn getting forth the novelties in Zeno's teaching, Cicero mentions\nthat, while his predecessors had recognized virtues due to nature and\nhabit, he made all dependent upon reason. A natural consequence of\nthis was the reassertion of the position which Plato held or wished\nto hold, namely, that virtue can be taught. But the part played by\nnature in virtue cannot be ignored. It was not in the power of Zeno\nto alter facts. All he could do was to legislate as to names. And\nthis he did vigorously. Nothing was to be called virtue which was not\nof the nature of reason and knowledge, but still it had to be\nadmitted that nature supplied the starting points for the four\ncardinal virtues--for the discovery of one's impulses, for right\nendurances and harmonious distributions.\n\nFrom things good and bad we now turn to things indifferent. Hitherto\nthe Stoic doctrine has been stern and uncompromising. We have now to\nlook at it under a different aspect, and to see how it tried to\nconciliate common sense.\n\nBy things indifferent were meant such as did not necessarily\ncontribute to virtue, for instance health, wealth, strength, and\nhonor. It is possible to have all these and not be virtuous, it is\npossible also to be virtuous without them. But we have now to learn\nthat though these things are neither good nor evil, and are therefore\nnot matter for choice or avoidance, they are far from being\nindifferent in the sense of arousing neither impulse nor repulsion.\nThere are things indeed that are indifferent in the latter sense,\nsuch as whether you put out your finger this way or that, whether you\nstoop to pick up a straw or not, whether the number of hairs on your\nhead be odd or even. But things of this sort are exceptional. The\nbulk of things other than virtue and vice do arouse in us either\nimpulse or repulsion. Let it be understood then that there are two\nsenses of the word indifferent--\n\n   (1) neither good nor bad\n   (2) neither awaking impulse nor repulsion\n\nAmong things indifferent in the former sense, some were in accordance\nwith nature, some were contrary to nature and some were neither one\nnor the other. Health, strengths and soundness of the senses were in\naccordance with nature; sickness weakness and mutilation were\ncontrary to nature, but such things as the fallibility of the soul\nand the vulnerability of the body were neither in accordance with\nnature nor yet contrary to nature, but just nature.\n\nAll things that were in accordance with nature had 'value' and all\nthings that were contrary to nature had what we must call 'disvalue'.\nIn the highest sense indeed of the term 'value'--namely that of\nabsolute value or worth--things indifferent did not possess any value\nat all. But still there might be assigned to them what Antipater\nexpressed by the term 'a selective value' or what he expressed by its\nbarbarous privative, 'a disselective disvalue'. If a thing possessed\na selective value you took that thing rather than its contrary,\nsupposing that circumstances allowed, for instance, health rather\nthan sickness, wealth rather than poverty, life rather than death.\nHence such things were called takeable and their contraries\nuntakeable. Things that possessed a high degree of value were called\npreferred, those that possessed a high degree of disvalue were called\nrejected. Such as possessed no considerable degree of either were\nneither preferred nor rejected. Zeno, with whom these names\noriginated, justified their use about things really indifferent on\nthe ground that at court \"preferment\" could not be bestowed upon the\nking himself, but only on his ministers.\n\nThings preferred and rejected might belong to mind, body or estate.\nAmong things preferred in the case of the mind were natural ability,\nart, moral progress, and the like, while their contraries were\nrejected. In the case of the body, life, health, strength, good\ncondition, completeness, and beauty were preferred, while death,\nsickness, weakness, ill condition, mutilation and ugliness were\nrejected. Among things external to soul and body, wealth, reputation,\nand nobility were preferred, while poverty, ill repute, and baseness\nof birth were rejected.\n\nIn this way all mundane and marketable goods, after having been\nsolemnly refused admittance by the Stoics at the front door, were\nsmuggled in at a kind of tradesman's entrance under the name of\nthings indifferent. We must now see how they had, as it were, two\nmoral codes, one for the sage and the other for the world in general.\n\nThe sage alone could act rightly, but other people might perform \"the\nproprieties.\" Any one might honor his parents, but the sage alone did\nit as the outcome of wisdom, because he alone possessed the art of\nlife, the peculiar work of which was to do everything that was done\nas the result of the best disposition. All the acts of the sage were\n\"perfect proprieties,\" which were called \"rightnesses.\" All acts of\nall other men were sins or \"wrongnesses.\" At their best they could\nonly be \"intermediate proprieties.\" The term \"propriety,\" then, is a\ngeneric one. But, as often happens, the generic term got determined\nin use to a specific meaning, so that intermediate acts are commonly\nspoken of as \"proprieties\" in opposition to \"rightnesses.\" Instances\nof \"rightnesses\" are displaying wisdom and dealing justly, instances\nof proprieties or intermediate acts are marrying, going on an\nembassy, and dialectic.\n\nThe word \"duty\" is often employed to translate the Greek term which\nwe are rendering by \"propriety.\" Any translation is no more than a\nchoice of evils, since we have no real equivalent for the term. It\nwas applicable not merely to human conduct, but also to the acting of\nthe lower animals, and even to the growth of plants. Now, apart from\na craze of generalization we should hardly think of the \"stern\ndaughter of the voice of God\" in connection with an amoeba\ncorresponding successfully to stimulus, yet the creature in its\ninchoate way is exhibiting a dim analogy to duty. The term in\nquestion was first used by Zeno, and was explained by him, in\naccordance with its etymology, to mean what it came to one to do, so\nthat as far as this goes, 'becomingness' would be the most\nappropriate translation.\n\nThe sphere of propriety was confined to things indifferent, so that\nthere were proprieties which were common to the sage and the fool. It\nhad to do with taking the things which were in accordance with nature\nand rejecting those that were not. Even the propriety of living or\ndying was determined, not by reference to virtue or vice, but to the\npreponderance or deficiency of things in accordance with nature. It\nmight thus be a propriety for the sage in spite of his happiness, to\ndepart from life of his own accord, and for the fool notwithstanding\nhis misery, to remain in it. Life, being in itself indifferent, the\nwhole question was one of opportunism. Wisdom might prompt the\nleaving herself should occasion seem to call for it.\n\nWe pass on now another instance of accommodation. According to the\nhigh Stoic doctrine, there was no mean between virtue and vice. All\nmen indeed received from nature the starting-points for virtue, but\nuntil perfection had been attained they rested under the condemnation\nof vice. It was, to employ an illustration of the poet-philosopher\nCleanthes, as though Nature had begun an iambic line and left men to\nfinish it. Until that was done they were to wear the fool's cap. The\nPeripatetics, on the other hand, recognized an intermediate state\nbetween virtue and vice, to which they gave the name of progress and\nproficience. Yet so entirely had the Stoics, for practical purposes,\nto accept this lower level, that the word \"proficience\" has come to\nbe spoken of as though it were of Stoic origin.\n\nSeneca is fond of contrasting the sage with the proficient. The sage\nis like a man in the enjoyment of perfect health. But the proficient\nis like a man recovering from a severe illness, with whom an\nabatement of the paroxysm is equivalent to health, and who is always\nin danger of a relapse. It is the business of philosophy to provide\nfor the needs of these weaker brethren. The proficient is still\ncalled a fool, but it is pointed out that he is a very different kind\nof fool from the rest. Further, proficients are arranged into three\nclasses, in a way that reminds one of the technicalities of\nCalvinistic theology. First of all, there are those who are near\nwisdom, but, however near they may be to the door of Heaven, they are\nstill on the wrong side of it. According to some doctors, these were\nalready safe from backsliding, differing from the sage only in not\nhaving yet realized that they had attained to knowledge; other\nauthorities, however, refused to admit this, and regarded the first\nclass as being exempt only from settled diseases of the soul, but not\nfrom passing attacks of passion. Thus did the Stoics differ among\nthemselves as to the doctrine of \"final assurance\". The second class\nconsisted of those who had laid aside the worst diseases and passions\nof the soul, but might at any moment relapse into them. The third\nclass was of those who had escaped one mental malady but not another;\nwho had conquered lust, let us say, but not ambition; who disregarded\ndeath, but dreaded pain, This third class, adds Seneca, is by no\nmeans to be despised.\n\nFrom these concessions to the weakness of humanity we now pass to the\nStoic paradoxes, where we shall see their doctrine in its full rigor.\nIt is perhaps these very paradoxes which account for the puzzled\nfascination with which Stoicism affected the mind of antiquity, just\nas obscurity in a poet may prove a surer passport to fame than more\nstrictly poetical merits.\n\nThe root of Stoicism being a paradox, it is not surprising that the\noffshoots should be so too. To say that \"Virtue is the highest good\"\nis a proposition to which every one who aspires to the spiritual life\nmust yield assent with his lips, even if he has not yet learned to\nbelieve it in his heart. But alter it into \"Virtue is the only good\"\nand by that slight change it becomes at once the teeming mother of\nparadoxes. By a paradox is meant that which runs counter to general\nopinion. Now it is quite certain that men have regarded, do regard,\nand, we may safely add will regard things as good which are not\nvirtue. But if we grant this initial paradox, a great many others\nwill follow along with it--as for instance that \"Virtue is sufficient\nof itself for happiness\". The fifth book of Cicero's _Tusculan\nDisputations_ is an eloquent defense of this thesis, in which the\norator combats the suggestion that a good man is not happy when he is\nbeing broken on the wheel.\n\nAnother glaring paradox of the Stoics is that \"All faults are equal\".\nThey took their stand upon a mathematical conception of rectitude. An\nangle must be either a right angle or not, a line must be either\nstraight or crooked, so an act must be either right or wrong. There\nis no mean between the two and there are no degrees of either. To sin\nis to cross the line. When once that has been done it makes no\ndifference to the offense how far you go. Trespassing at all is\nforbidden. This doctrine was defended by the Stoics on account of its\nbracing moral effect as showing the heinousness of sin. Horace gives\nthe judgment of the world in saying that common sense and morality,\nto say nothing of utility, revolt against it.\n\nHere are some other specimens of the Stoic paradoxes. \"Every fool is\nmad\". \"Only the sage is free and every fool is a slave\". \"The sage\nalone is wealthy\". \"Good men are always happy and bad men always\nmiserable\". \"All goods are equal\". \"No one is wiser or happier than\nanother\". But may not one man we ask be more nearly wise or more\nnearly happy than another? \"That may be\", the Stoics would reply,\n\"but the man who is only one stade from Canopus is as much not in\nCanopus as the man who is a hundred stades off; and the eight day old\npuppy is still as blind as on the day of its birth; nor can a man who\nis near the surface of the sea breathe any more than if he were full\nfive hundred fathom down\".\n\nIt is only fair to the Stoics to add that paradoxes were quite the\norder of the day in Greece, though they greatly outdid other schools\nin producing them. Socrates himself was the father of paradox.\nEpicurus maintained as staunchly as any Stoic that \"No wise man is\nunhappy\", and, if he be not belied, went the length of declaring that\nthe wise man, if put into the bull of Phalaris would exclaim: \"How\ndelightful! How little I mind this!\"\n\nIt is out of keeping with common sense to draw a hard and fast\ndistinction between good and bad. Yet this was what the Stoics did.\nThey insisted on effecting here and now that separation between the\nsheep and the goats, which Christ postponed to the Day of Judgment.\nUnfortunately, when it came to practice, all were found to be goats,\nso that the division was a merely formal one.\n\nThe good man of the Stoics was variously known as 'the sage', or,\n'the serious man', the latter name being inherited from the\nPeripatetics. We used to hear it said among ourselves that a person\nhad become serious, when he or she had taken to religion. Another\nappellation which the Stoics had for the sage was 'the urbane man',\nwhile the fool in contradistinction was called 'a boor'. Boorishness\nwas defined as an inexperience of the customs and laws of the state.\nBy the state was meant, not Athens or Sparta, as would have been the\ncase in a former age, but the society of all rational beings into\nwhich the Stoics spiritualised the state. The sage alone had the\nfreedom of this city and the fool was therefore not only a boor, but\nan alien or an exile. In this city, Justice was natural and not\nconventional, for the law by which it was governed was the law of\nright reason. The law then was spiritualised by the Stoics, just as\nthe state was. It no longer meant the enactments of this or that\ncommunity, but the mandates of the eternal reason which ruled the\nworld and which would prevail in the ideal state. Law was defined as\nright reason commanding what was to be done and forbidding what was\nnot to be done. As such, it in no way differed from the impulse of\nthe sage himself.\n\nAs a member of a state and by nature subject to law, man was\nessentially a social being. Between all the wise there existed\n\"unanimity,\" which was \"a knowledge of the common good,\" because\ntheir views of life were harmonious. Fools, on the other hand, whose\nviews of life were discordant, were enemies to one another and bent\non mutual injury.\n\nAs a member of society the sage would play his part in public life.\nTheoretically this was always true, and practically he would do so,\nwherever the actual constitution made any tolerable approach to the\nideal type. But, if the circumstances were such as to make it certain\nthat his embarking on politics would be of no service to his country,\nand only a source of danger to himself, then he would refrain. The\nkind of constitution of which the Stoics most approved was a mixed\ngovernment containing democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical\nelements. Where circumstances allowed the sage would act as\nlegislator, and would educate mankind, one way of doing which was by\nwriting books which would prove of profit to the reader.\n\nAs a member of existing society the sage would marry and beget\nchildren, both for his own sake and for that of his country, on\nbehalf of which, if it were good, he would be ready to suffer and\ndie. Still he would look forward to a better time when, in Zeno's as\nin Plato's republic, the wise would have women and children in\ncommon, when the elders would love all the rising generation equally\nwith parental fondness, and when marital jealousy would be no more.\n\nAs being essentially a social being, the sage was endowed not only\nwith the graver political virtues, but also with the graces of life.\nHe was sociable, tactful and stimulating, using conversation as a\nmeans for promoting good will and friendship; so far as might be, he\nwas all things to all men, which made him fascinating and charming,\ninsinuating and even wily; he know how to hit the point and to choose\nthe right moment, yet with it all he was plain and unostentatious and\nsimple and unaffected; in particular he never delighted in irony much\nless in sarcasm.\n\nFrom the social characteristics of the sage we turn now to a side of\nhis character which appears eminently anti-social. One of his most\nhighly vaunted characteristics was his self-sufficingness. He was to\nbe able to step out of a burning city, coming from the wreck not only\nof his fortunes, but of his friends and family, and to declare with a\nsmile that he has lost nothing. All that he truly cared for was to be\ncentered in himself. Only thus could he be sure that Fortune would\nnot wrest it from him.\n\nThe apathy or passionlessness of the sage is another of his most\nsalient features. The passions being, on Zeno's showing, not natural,\nbut forms of disease, the sage, as being the perfect man, would of\ncourse be wholly free from them. They were so many disturbances of\nthe even flow in which his bliss lay. The sage therefore would never\nbe moved by a feeling of favour towards any one; he would never\npardon a fault; he would never feel pity; he would never be prevailed\nupon by entreaty; he would never be stirred to anger.\n\nAs to the absence of pity in the sage, the Stoics themselves must\nhave felt some difficulty there since we find Epictetus recommending\nhis hearers to show grief out of sympathy for another, but to be\ncareful not to feel it. The inexorability of the sage was a mere\nconsequence of his calm reasonableness, which would lead him to take\nthe right view from the first. Lastly, the sage would never be\nstirred to anger. For why should it stir his anger to see another in\nhis ignorance injuring himself?\n\nOne more touch has yet to be added to the apathy of the sage. He was\nimpervious to wonder. No miracle of nature could excite his\nastonishment--no mephitic caverns, which men deemed the mouths of\nhell, no deep-drawn ebb tides--the standing marvel of the\nMediterranean dweller, no hot springs, no spouting jets of fire.\n\nFrom the absence of passion it is but a step to the absence of error.\nSo we pass now to the infallibility of the sage--a monstrous doctrine\nwhich was never broached in the schools before Zeno. The sage, it was\nmaintained, held no opinions, he never repented of his conduct, he\nwas never deceived in anything. Between the daylight of knowledge and\ndarkness of nescience Plato had interposed the twilight of opinion\nwherein men walked for the most part. Not so however the Stoic sage.\nOf him it might be said, as Charles Lamb said of the Scotchman with\nwhom he so imperfectly sympathized: \"His understanding is always at\nits meridian--you never see the first dawn, the early streaks.\" He\nhas no falterings of self suspicion. Surmises, guesses, misgivings,\nhalf intuitions, semiconsciousness, partial illuminations, dim\ninstincts, embryo conceptions, have no place in his brain or\nvocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls upon him. Opinion,\nwhether in the form of an ungripped assent, or a weak supposition,\nwas alien from the mental disposition of the serious man. With him\nthere was no hasty or premature assent of the understanding, no\nforgetfulness, no distrust. He never allowed himself to be\noverreached or deluded, never had need of an arbiter, never was out\nin his reckoning nor put out by another. No urbane man ever wandered\nfrom his way, or missed his mark, or saw wrong, or heard amiss, or\nerred in any of his senses; he never conjectured nor thought of a\nbetter thing, for the one was a form of imperfect assent, and the\nother a sign of previous precipitancy. There was with him no change,\nno retraction, and no tripping. These things were for those whose\ndogmas could alter. After this it is almost superfluous for us to be\nassured that the sage never got drunk. Drunkenness, as Zeno pointed\nout, involved babbling, and of that the sage would never be guilty.\nHe would not, however, altogether eschew banquets. Indeed, the Stoics\nrecognized a virtue under the name of 'conviviality,' which consisted\nin the proper conduct of them. It was said of Chrysippus that his\ndemeanor was always quiet, even if his gait were unsteady, so that\nhis housekeeper declared that only his legs were drunk.\n\nThere were pleasantries even within the school on this subject of\ninfallibility of the sage. Aristo of Chios, while seceding on some\nother matters, held fast to the dogma that the sage never opined.\nWhereupon Persaeus played a trick upon him. He made one of two twin\nbrothers deposit a sum of money with him and the other call to\nreclaim it. The success of the trick however only went to establish\nthat Aristo was not the sage, an admission which each of the Stoics\nseems to have been ready enough to make on his own part, as the\nresponsibilities of the position were so fatiguing.\n\nThere remains one more leading characteristic of the sage, the most\nstriking of them all, and the most important from the ethical point\nof view. This was his innocence or harmlessness. He would not harm\nothers and was not to be harmed by them. For the Stoics believed with\nSocrates that it was not permissible by the divine law for a better\nman to be harmed by a worse. You could not harm the sage any more\nthan you could harm the sunlight; he was in our world, but not of it.\nThere was no possibility of evil for him, save in his own will, and\nthat you could not touch. And as the sage was beyond harm, so also\nwas he above insult. Men might disgrace themselves by their insolent\nattitude towards his mild majesty, but it was not in their power to\ndisgrace him.\n\nAs the Stoics had their analogue to the tenet of final assurance, so\nhad they also to that of sudden conversion. They held that a man\nmight become a sage without being at first aware of it. The\nabruptness of the transition from folly to wisdom was in keeping with\ntheir principle that there was no medium between the two, but it was\nnaturally a point which attracted the strictures of their opponents.\nThat a man should be at one moment stupid and ignorant and unjust and\nintemperate, a slave and poor, and destitute, at the next a king,\nrich, and prosperous, temperate, and just, secure in his judgements\nand exempt from error, was a transformation, they declared, which\nsmacked more of the fairy tales of the nursery than of the doctrines\nof a sober philosophy.\n\n\nPHYSIC\n\nWe have now before us the main facts with regard to the Stoic view of\nman's nature, but we have yet to see in what setting they were put.\nWhat was the Stoic outlook upon the universe? The answer to this\nquestion is supplied by their Physic.\n\nThere were, according to the Stoics, two first principles of all\nthings, the active and the passive. The passive was that unqualified\nbeing which is known as Matter. The active was the Logos, or reason\nin it, which is God. This, it was held, eternally pervades matter and\ncreates all things. This dogma, laid down by Zeno, was repeated after\nhim by the subsequent heads of the school.\n\nThere were then two first principles, but there were not two causes\nof things. The active principle alone was cause, the other was mere\nmaterial for it to work on--inert, senseless, destitute in itself of\nall shape and qualities, but ready to assume any qualities or shape.\n\nMatter was defined as that out of which anything is produced. The\nPrime Matter, or unqualified being, was eternal and did not admit of\nincrease or decrease, but only of change. It was the substance or\nbeing of all things that are.\n\nThe Stoics, it will be observed, used the term \"matter\" with the same\nconfusing ambiguity with which we use it ourselves, now for sensible\nobjects which have shape and other qualities, now for the abstract\nconception of matter, which is devoid of all qualities.\n\nBoth these first principles, it must be understood, were conceived of\nas bodies, though without form, the one everywhere interpenetrating\nthe other. To say that the passive principle, or matter, is a body\ncomes easy to us, because of the familiar confusion adverted to\nabove. But how could the active principle, or God, be conceived of as\na body? The answer to this question may sound paradoxical. It is\nbecause God is a spirit. A spirit in its original sense meant air in\nmotion. Now the active principle was not air, but it was something\nwhich bore an analogy to it--namely aether. Aether in motion might be\ncalled a 'spirit' as well as air in motion. It was in this sense that\nChrysippus defined the thing that is, to be a spirit moving itself\ninto and out of itself, or spirit moving itself to and fro.\n\nFrom the two first principles which are ungenerated and\nindestructible must be distinguished the four elements which, though\nultimate for us, yet were produced in the beginning by God and are\ndestined some day to be reabsorbed into the divine nature. These with\nthe Stoics were the same which had been accepted since\nEmpedocles--namely earth, air, fire and water. The elements, like the\ntwo first principles were bodies; unlike them, they were declared to\nhave shape as well as extension.\n\nAn element was defined as that out of which things at first come into\nbeing and into which they are at last resolved. In this relation did\nthe four elements stand to all the compound bodies which the universe\ncontained. The terms earth, air, fire and water had to be taken in a\nwide sense: earth meaning all that was of the nature of earth, air\nall that was of the nature of air and so on. Thus, in the human\nframe, the bones and sinews pertained to earth.\n\nThe four qualities of matter--hot, cold, moist and dry--were\nindicative of the presence of the four elements. Fire was the source\nof heat, air of cold, water of moisture, and earth of dryness.\nBetween them, the four elements made up the unqualified being called\nMatter. All animals and other compound natures on earth had in them\nrepresentatives of the four great physical constituents of the\nuniverse, but the moon, according to Chrysippus, consisted only of\nfire and air, while the sun was pure fire.\n\nWhile all compound bodies were resolvable into the four elements,\nthere were important differences among the elements, themselves. Two\nof them, fire and air, were light; the other two, water and earth,\nwere heavy. By 'light' was meant that which tends away from its own\ncentre, by 'heavy,' that which, tends towards it. The two light\nelements stood to the two heavy ones in much the same relation as the\nactive to the passive principle generally. But further, fire had such\na primary as entitles it, if the definition of element were pressed,\nto be considered alone worthy of the name. For the three other\nelements arose out of it and were to be again resolved into it.\n\nWe should obtain a wholly wrong impression of what Bishop Berkeley\ncalls 'the philosophy of fire' if we set before our minds in this\nconnection, the raging element whose strength is in destruction. Let\nus rather picture to ourselves as the type of fire the benign and\nbeatific solar heat, the quickener and fosterer of all terrestrial\nlife. For according to Zeno, there were two kinds of fire, the one\ndestructive, the other what we may call 'constructive,' and which he\ncalled 'artistic'. This latter kind of fire, which was known as\naether, was the substance of the heavenly bodies, as it was also of\nthe soul of animals and of the 'nature' of plants. Chrysippus,\nfollowing Heraclitus, taught that the elements passed into one\nanother by a process of condensation and rarefaction. Fire first\nbecame solidified into air, then air into water and lastly water into\nearth. The process of dissolution took place in the reverse order,\nearth being rarefied into water, water into air, and air into fire.\nIt is allowable to see in this old world doctrine an anticipation of\nthe modern idea of different states of matter--the solid, the liquid,\nand the gaseous, with a fourth beyond the gaseous which science can\nstill only guess at, and in which matter seems almost to merge into\nspirit.\n\nEach of the four elements had its own abode in the universe.\nOutermost of all was the ethereal 'fire' which was divided into two\nspheres: first that of the fixed stars and next that of the planets.\nBelow this lay the sphere of 'air', below this again that of 'water',\nand lowest or in other words, most central of all was the sphere of\n'earth', the solid foundation of the whole structure. Water might be\nsaid to be above earth because nowhere was there water to be found\nwithout earth beneath it, but the surface of water was always\nequidistant from the centre, whereas earth had prominences which rose\nabove water.\n\nWhen we say that the Stoics regarded the universe as a plenum, the\nreader must understand by 'the universe' the Cosmos or ordered whole.\nWithin this there was no emptiness owing to the pressure of the\ncelestial upon the terrestrial sphere. But outside of this lay the\ninfinite void without beginning, middle, or end. This occupied a very\nambiguous position In their scheme. It was not being, for being was\nconfined to body and yet it was there. It was in fact nothing, and\nthat was why it was infinite. For as nothing cannot be bound to any\nthing, so neither can there be any bound to nothing. But while\nbodiless itself, it had the capacity to contain body, a fact which\nenabled it, despite its non-entity, to serve, as we shall see, a\nuseful purpose.\n\nDid the Stoics then regard the universe as finite or as infinite? In\nanswering this question we must distinguish our terms, as they did.\nThe All, they said, was infinite, but the Whole was finite. For the\n'All' was the cosmos and the void, whereas the 'Whole' was the cosmos\nonly. This distinction we may suppose to have originated with the\nlater members of the school. For Appolodorus noted the ambiguity of\nthe word 'All' as meaning,\n\n   (1) the cosmos only,\n   (2) cosmos + void\n\nIf then by the term \"universe\" we understand the cosmos, or ordered\nwhole, we must say that the Stoics regarded the universe as finite.\nAll being and all body, which was the same thing with being, had\nnecessarily bounds, it was only not being, which was boundless.\n\nAnother distinction, due this time to Chrysippus himself, which the\nStoics found it convenient to draw, was between the three words\n'void,' 'place' and 'space'. Void was defined as 'the absence of\nbody', place was that which was occupied by body, the term 'space'\nwas reserved for that which was partly occupied and partly\nunoccupied. As there was no corner of the cosmos unfilled by body,\nspace, it will be seen, was another name for the All. Place was\ncompared to a vessel that was full, void to one that was empty, and\nspace to the vast wine-cask, such as that in which Diogenes made his\nhome, which was kept partly fully, but in which there was always room\nfor more. The last comparison must of course not be pressed. For if\nspace be a cask, it is one without top, bottom or sides.\n\nBut while the Stoics regarded our universe as an island of being in\nan ocean of void, they did not admit the possibility that other such\nislands might exist beyond our ken. The spectacle of the starry\nheavens, which presented itself nightly to their gaze in all the\nbrilliancy of a southern sky--that was all there was of being, beyond\nthat lay nothingness. Democritus or the Epicureans might dream of\nother worlds, but the Stoics contended for the unity of the cosmos as\nstaunchly as the Mahometans for the unity of God, for with them the\ncosmos was God.\n\nIn shape they conceived of it as spherical, on the ground that the\nsphere was the perfect figure and was also the best adapted for\nmotion. Not that the universe as a whole moved. The earth lay in its\ncentre, spherical and motionless, and round it coursed the sun, moon,\nand planets, fixed each in its respective sphere as in so many\nconcentric rings, while the outermost ring of all, which contained\nthe fixed stars, wheeled round the rest with an inconceivable\nvelocity.\n\nThe tendency of all things in the universe to the centre kept the\nearth fixed in the middle as being subject to an equal pressure on\nevery side. The same cause also, according to Zeno, kept the universe\nitself at rest in the void. But in an infinite void, it could make no\ndifference whether the whole were at rest or in motion. It may have\nbeen a desire to escape the notion of a migratory whole which led\nZeno to broach the curious doctrine that the universe has no weight,\nas being composed of elements whereof two are heavy and two are\nlight. Air and fire did indeed tend to the centre like everything\nelse in the cosmos, but not till they had reached their natural home.\nTill then they were of an upward-growing nature. It appears then that\nthe upward and downward tendencies of the elements were held to\nneutralise one another and to leave the universe devoid of weight.\n\nThe universe was the only thing which was perfect in itself, the one\nthing which was an end in itself. All other things were perfect\nindeed as parts, when considered with reference to the whole, but\nwere none of them ends in themselves, unless man could be deemed so\nwho was born to contemplate the universe and imitate its perfections.\nThus, then, did the Stoics envisage the universe on its physical\nside--as one, finite, fixed in space, but revolving round its own\ncentre, earth, beautiful beyond all things, and perfect as a whole.\n\nBut it was impossible for this order and beauty to exist without\nmind. The universe was pervaded by intelligence as man's body is\npervaded by his soul. But as the human soul though everywhere present\nin the body is not present everywhere in the same degree, so it was\nwith the world-soul. The human soul presents itself not only as\nintellect, but also in the lower manifestations of sense, growth, and\ncohesion. It is the soul which is the cause of the plant life, which\ndisplays itself more particularly in the nails and hair; it is the\nsoul also which causes cohesion among the parts of the solid\nsubstances such as bones and sinews, that make up our frame. In the\nsame way the world-soul displayed itself in rational beings as\nintellect, in the lower animals as mere souls, in plants as nature or\ngrowth, and in inorganic substances as 'holding' or cohesion. To this\nlowest stage add change, and you have growth or plant nature;\nsuper-add to this phantasy and impulse and you rise to the soul of\nirrational animals; at a yet higher stage you reach the rational and\ndiscursive intellect, which is peculiar to man among mortal natures.\n\nWe have spoken of soul as the cause of the plant life in our bodies,\nbut plants were not admitted by the Stoics to be possessed of soul in\nthe strict sense. What animated them was 'nature' or, as we have\ncalled it above, 'growth'. Nature, in this sense of the principle of\ngrowth, was defined by the Stoics as 'a constructive fire, proceeding\nin a regular way to production,' or 'a fiery spirit endowed with\nartistic skill'. That Nature was an artist needed no proof, since it\nwas her handiwork that human art essayed to copy. But she was an\nartist who combined the useful with the pleasant, aiming at once at\nbeauty and convenience. In the widest sense, Nature was another name\nfor Providence, or the principle which held the universe together,\nbut, as the term is now being employed, it stood for that degree of\nexistence which is above cohesion and below soul. From this point of\nview, it was defined as \"a cohesion subject to self originated change\nin accordance with seminal reasons effecting and maintaining its\nresults in definite times, and reproducing in the offspring the\ncharacteristics of the parent\". This sounds about as abstract as\nHerbert Spencer's definition of life, but it must be borne in mind\nthat nature was all the time a 'spirit', and as such a body. It was a\nbody of a less subtle essence than soul. Similarly, when the Stoics\nspoke of cohesion, they are not to be taken as referring to some\nabstract principle like attraction. 'Cohesions,' said Chrysippus,\n'are nothing else than airs, for it is by these that bodies are held\ntogether, and of the individual qualities of things which are held\ntogether by cohesion, it is the air which is the compressing cause\nwhich in iron is called \"hardness\", in stone \"thickness\" and in\nsolver \"whiteness\"'. Not only solidarity then, but also colours,\nwhich Zeno called 'the first schematisms' of matter were regarded as\ndue to the mysterious agency of air. In fact, qualities in general\nwere but blasts and tensions of the air, which gave form and figure\nto the inert matter underlying them.\n\nAs the man is in one sense the soul, in another the body, and in a\nthird the union of both, so it was with the cosmos. The word was used\nin three senses--\n\n  (1) God\n  (2) the arrangement of the stars, etc.\n  (3) the combination of both.\n\nThe cosmos as identical with God was described as an individual made\nup of all being who is incorruptible and ungenerated, the fashioner\nof the ordered frame of the universe, who at certain periods of time\nabsorbs all being into himself and again generates it from himself.\nThus the cosmos on its external side was doomed to perish and the\nmode of its destruction was to be by fire, a doctrine which has been\nstamped upon the world's belief down to the present day. What was to\nbring about this consummation was the soul of the universe becoming\ntoo big for its body, which it would eventually swallow up\naltogether. In the efflagration, when everything went back to the\nprimeval aether, the universe would be pure soul and alive equally\nthrough and through. In this subtle and attenuated state, it would\nrequire more room than before and so expand into the void,\ncontracting again when another period of cosmic generation had set\nin. Hence the Stoic definition of the Void or Infinite as that into\nwhich the cosmos is resolved at the efflagration.\n\nIn this theory of the contraction of the universe out of an ethereal\nstate and ultimate return to the same condition one sees a\nresemblance to the modern scientific hypothesis of the origin of our\nplanetary system out of the solar nebula, and its predestined end in\nthe same. Especially is this the case with the form in which the\ntheory was held by Cleanthes, who pictured the heavenly bodies as\nhastening to their own destruction by dashing themselves, like so\nmany gigantic moths, into the sun. Cleanthes however did not conceive\nmere mechanical force to be at work in this matter. The grand\napotheosis of suicide which he foresaw was a voluntary act; for the\nheavenly bodies were Gods and were willing to lose their own in a\nlarger life.\n\nThus all the deities except Zeus were mortal, or at all events,\nperishable. Gods, like men, were destined to have an end some day.\nThey would melt in the great furnace of being as though they were\nmade of wax or tin. Zeus then would be left alone with his own\nthoughts, or as the Stoics sometimes put it, Zeus would fall back\nupon Providence. For by Providence they meant the leading principle\nor mind of the whole, and by Zeus, as distinguished from Providence,\nthis mind together with the cosmos, which was to it as body. In the\nefflagration the two would be fused into one in the single substance\nof aether. And then in the fulness of time there would be a\nrestitution of all things. Everything would come round regularly\nagain exactly as it had been before.\n\nTo us who have been taught to pant for progress, this seems a dreary\nprospect. But the Stoics were consistent Optimists, and did not ask\nfor a change in what was best. They were content that the one drama\nof existence should enjoy a perpetual run without perhaps too nice a\nconsideration for the actors. Death intermitted life, but did not end\nit. For the candle of life, which was extinguished now, would be\nkindled again hereafter. Being and not being came round in endless\nsuccession for all save him, into whom all being was resolved, and\nout of whom it emerged again, as from the vortex of some aeonian\nMaelstrom.\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\nWhen Socrates declared before his judges that \"there is no evil to a\ngood man either in life or after death, nor are his affairs neglected\nby the gods\", he sounded the keynote of Stoicism, with its two main\ndoctrines of virtue as the only good, and the government of the world\nby Providence. Let us weigh his words, lest we interpret them by the\nlight of a comfortable modern piety. A great many things that are\ncommonly called evil may and do happen to a good man in this life,\nand therefore presumably misfortunes may also overtake him in any\nother life that there may be. The only evil that can never befall him\nis vice, because that would be a contradiction in terms. Unless\ntherefore Socrates was uttering idle words on the most solemn\noccasion of his life, he must be taken to have meant that there is no\nevil but vice, which implies that there is no good but virtue. Thus\nwe are landed at once in the heart of the Stoic morality. To the\nquestion why, if there be a providence, so many evils happen to good\nmen, Seneca unflinchingly replies: \"No evil can happen to a good man,\ncontraries do not mix.\" God has removed from the good all evil:\nbecause he has taken from them crimes and sins, bad thoughts and\nselfish designs and blind lust and grasping avarice. He has attended\nwell to themselves, but he cannot be expected to look after their\nluggage: they relieve him of that care by being indifferent about it.\nThis is the only form in which the doctrine of divine providence can\nbe held consistently with the facts of life Again, when Socrates on\nthe same occasion expressed his belief that it was not \"permitted by\nthe divine law for a better man to be harmed by a worse\", he was\nasserting by implication the Stoic position. Neither Meletus nor\nAnytus could harm him, though they might have him killed or banished,\nor disfranchised. This passage of the Apology, in a condensed form,\nis adopted by Epictetus as one of the watchwords of Stoicism.\n\nThere is nothing more distinctive of Socrates than the doctrine that\nvirtue is knowledge. Here too the Stoics followed him, ignoring all\nthat Aristotle had done in showing the part played by the emotions\nand the will in virtue. Reason was with them a principle of action;\nwith Aristotle it was a principle that guided action, but the motive\npower had to come from elsewhere. Socrates must even be held\nresponsible for the Stoic paradox of the madness of all ordinary\nfolk.\n\nThe Stoics did not owe much to the Peripatetics. There was too much\nbalance about the master mind of Aristotle for their narrow\nintensity. His recognition of the value of the passions was to them\nan advocacy of disease in moderation: his admission of other elements\nbesides virtue into the conception of happiness seemed to them to be\na betrayal of the citadel, to say as he did that the exercise of\nvirtue was the highest good was no merit in their eyes, unless it\nwere added to the confession that there was none beside it. The\nStoics tried to treat man as a being of pure reason. The Peripatetics\nwould not shut their eyes to his mixed nature, and contended that the\ngood of such a being must also be mixed, containing in it elements\nwhich had reference to the body and its environment. The goods of the\nsoul indeed, they said, far outweighed those of body and estate, but\nstill the latter had a right to be considered.\n\nThough the Stoics were religious to the point of superstition, yet\nthey did not invoke the terrors of theology to enforce the lesson of\nvirtue. Plato does this even in the very work, the professed object\nof which is to prove the _intrinsic_ superiority of justice to\ninjustice. But Chrysippus protested against Plato's procedure on this\npoint, declaring that the talk about punishment by the gods was mere\n'bugaboo'. By the Stoics indeed, no less than by the Epicureans, fear\nof the gods was discarded from philosophy. The Epicurean gods took no\npart in the affairs of men; the Stoic God was incapable of anger.\n\nThe absence of any appeal to rewards and punishments was a natural\nconsequence of the central tenet of the Stoic morality: that virtue\nis in itself the most desirable of all things. Another corollary that\nflows with equal directness from the same principle is that is better\nto be than to seem virtuous. Those who are sincerely convinced that\nhappiness is to be found in wealth or pleasure or power prefer the\nreality to the appearance of these goods; it must be the same with\nhim who is sincerely convinced that happiness lies in virtue.\n\nDespite the want of feeling in which the Stoics gloried, it is yet\ntrue to say that the humanity of their system constitutes one of its\nmost just claims on our admiration. They were the first fully to\nrecognise the worth of man as man; they heralded the reign of peace\nfor which we are yet waiting; they proclaimed to the world the\nfatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; they were convinced of\nthe solidarity of mankind, and laid down that the interest of one\nmust be subordinated to that of all. The word \"philanthrop,\" though\nnot unheard before their time, was brought into prominence by them as\na name for a virtue among the virtues.\n\nAristotle's ideal state, like the Republic of Plato, is still an\nHellenic city; Zeno was the first to dream of a republic which should\nembrace all mankind. In Plato's Republic all the material goods are\ncontemptuously thrown to the lower classes, all the mental and\nspiritual reserved for the higher. In Aristotle's ideal the bulk of\nthe population are mere conditions, not integral parts of the state.\nAristotle's callous acceptance of the existing fact of slavery\nblinded his eyes to the wider outlook, which already in his time was\nbeginning to be taken. His theories of the natural slave and of the\nnatural nobility of the Greeks are mere attempts to justify practice.\nIn the Ethics there is indeed a recognition of the rights of man, but\nit is faint and grudging. Aristotle there tells us that a slave, as a\nman, admits of justice, and therefore of friendship, but\nunfortunately it is not this concession which is dominant in his\nsystem, but rather the reduction of a slave to a living tool by which\nit is immediately preceded. In another passage Aristotle points out\nthat men, like other animals, have a natural affection for the\nmembers of their own species, a fact, he adds, which is best seen in\ntravelling. This incipient humanitarianism seems to have been\ndeveloped in a much more marked way by Aristotle's followers, but it\nis the Stoics who have won the glory of having initiated humanitarian\nsentiment.\n\nVirtue, with the earlier Greek philosophers, was aristocratic and\nexclusive. Stoicism, like Christianity, threw it open to the meanest\nof mankind. In the kingdom of wisdom, as in the kingdom of Christ,\nthere was neither barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free. The only true\nfreedom was to serve philosophy, or, which was the same thing, to\nserve God; and that could be done in any station in life. The sole\ncondition of communion with gods and good men was the possession of a\ncertain frame of mind, which might belong equally to a gentleman, to\na freedman, or to a slave. In place of the arrogant assertion of the\nnatural nobility of the Greeks, we now hear that a good mind is the\ntrue nobility. Birth is of no importance; all are sprung from the\ngods. \"The door of virtue is shut to no man; it is open to all,\nadmits all, invites all--free men, freedmen, slaves, kings and\nexiles. Its election is not of family or fortune; it is content with\nthe bare man.\" Wherever there was a human being, there Stoicism saw a\nfield for well doing. Its followers were always to have in their\nmouths and hearts the well-known line--\n\n Homo sum humani nihil a me allenum puto\n\nClosely connected with the humanitarianism of the Greeks is their\ncosmopolitanism.\n\nCosmopolitanism is a word which has contracted rather than expanded\nin meaning with the advance of time. We mean by it freedom from the\nshackles of nationality. The Stoics meant this and more. The city of\nwhich they claimed to be citizens was not merely this round world on\nwhich we dwell, but the universe at large with all the mighty life\ntherein contained. In this city, the greatest of earth's\ncities--Rome, Ephesus or Alexandria, were but houses. To be exiled\nfrom one of them was only like changing your lodgings, and death but\na removal from one quarter to another. The freemen of this city were\nall rational beings--sages on earth and the stars in heaven. Such an\nidea was thoroughly in keeping with the soaring genius of Stoicism.\nIt was proclaimed by Zeno in his Republic, and after him by\nChrysippus and his followers. It caught the imagination of alien\nwriters as of the author of the Peripatetic _De Mundo_ who was\npossibly of Jewish origin and of Philo and St Paul who were certainly\nso. Cicero does not fail to make of it on behalf of the Stoics;\nSeneca revels in it; Epictetus employs it for edification and Maucus\nAurelius finds solace in his heavenly citizenship for the cares of an\nearthly ruler--as Antoninus indeed his city is Rome, but as a man it\nis the universe.\n\nThe philosophy of an age cannot perhaps be inferred from its\npolitical conditions with that certainty which some writers assume;\nstill there are cases in which the connection is obvious. On a wide\nview of the matter we may say that the opening up of the East by the\narms of Alexander was the cause of the shifting of the philosophic\nstandpoint from Hellenism to cosmopolitanism. If we reflect that the\nCynic and Stoic teachers were mostly foreigners in Greece we shall\nfind a very tangible reason for the change of view. Greece had done\nher work in educating the world and the world was beginning to make\npayment in kind. Those who had been branded as natural slaves were\nnow giving laws to philosophy. The kingdom of wisdom was suffering\nviolence at the hands of barbarians.\n\n\n\nDATES AND AUTHORITIES\n                                             BC\nDeath of Socrates                              399\nDeath of Plato                                 347\nZeno                                       347 275\n  Studied under Crates                         325\n  Studied under Stilpo and Xenocrates      325 315\n  Began teaching                               315\nEpicurus                                   341 270\nDeath of Aristotle                             322\nDeath of Xenocrates                            315\nCleanthes succeeded Zeno                       275\nChrysippus died                                207\nZeno of Tarsus succeeded Chrysippus            ---\nDecree of the Senate forbidding the\n           teaching of philosophy at Rome      161\nDiogenes of Babylon\nEmbassy of the philosophers to Rome            155\nAntipater of Tarsus\nPanaetius Accompanied Africanus on\n  his mission to the East                      143\n  His treatise on Propriety was the\n  basis of Cicero's De Officiis.\nThe Scipionic Circle at Rome\n  The coterie was deeply tinctured with\n    Stoicism. Its chief members were--\n    The younger Africanus\n    the younger Laelius\n    L. Furius Philus\n    Manilius\n    Spurius Mummius\n    P. Rutillus Rufus\n    Q. Aelius,\n    Tubero\n    Polybius and\n    Panaetius\nSuicide of Blossius of Cumae, the adviser\n  of Tiberius Gracchus and a disciple\n  of Antipater of Tarsus                       130\nMnesarchus, a disciple of Panaetius, was\n  teaching at Athens when the orator\n  Crassus visited that city                    111\nHecaton of Rhodes\n  A great Stoic writer, a disciple of\n  Panaetius and a friend of Tubero\nPosidonius                            About 128-44\n  Born at Apameia in Syria\n  Became a citizen of Rhodes\n  Represented the Rhodians at Rome              86\n  Cicero studied under him at Rhodes            78\n  Came to Rome again at an advanced age         51\nCicero's philosophical works                 54-44\n  These are a main authority for our\n  knowledge of the Stoics.\n                                               A.D.\nPhilo of Alexandria came on an embassy to Rome  39\n  The works of Philo are saturated with Stoic\n  ideas and he displays an exact acquaintance\n  with their terminology\nSeneca\n  Exiled to Corsica                             41\n  Recalled from exile                           49\n  Forced by Nero to commit suicide              65\n  His Moral Epistles and philosophical\n    works generally are written from\n    the Stoic standpoint though somewhat\n    affected by Eclecticism\nPlutarch                                  Flor. 80\n  The Philosophical works of Plutarch\n    which have most bearing upon the\n    Stoics are--\n      De Alexandri Magni fortuna aut virtute,\n      De Virtute Morali,\n      De Placitis Philosophorum,\n      De Stoicorum Repugnantiis,\n      Stoicos absurdiora poetis dicere,\n      De Communibus Notitiis.\nEpictetus                                 Flor. 90\n  A freedman of Epaphroditus,\n  Disciple of C Musonius Rufus,\n  Lived and taught at Rome until A. D. 90\n    when the philosophers were expelled by\n    Domitian. Then retired to Nicopolis in\n    Epirus, where he spent the rest of his life.\n  Epictetus wrote nothing himself, but his\n    Dissertations, as preserved by Arrian,\n    from which the Encheiridion is excerpted,\n    contain the most pleasing presentation that\n    we have of the moral philosophy of the Stoics.\nC Musonius Rufus\n  Banished to Gyaros ...                        65\n  Returned to Rome ...                          68\n  Tried to intervene between the armies\n    of Vitellius and Vespasian ...              69\n  Procured the condemnation of Publius Celer\n   (Tac H iv 10, Juv Sat iii 116) ...           --\nQ Junius Rusticus ...                      Cos 162\n  Teacher of M Aurelius who learnt\n    from him to appreciate Epictetus\n\nM Aurelius Antoninus Emperor ...           161-180\n  Wrote the book commonly called his\n    \"Meditations\" under the title of\n    \"to himself\"\n  He may be considered the last of the\n    Stoics\n\nThree later authorities for the Stoic teaching are--\n  Diogenes Laertius ...                        200?\n  Sextus Empiricus ...                         225?\n  Stobaeus ...                                 500?\n\nModern works--\n  Von Arnim's edition of the \"Fragmenta Stoicorum Veterum\"\n  Pearson's \"Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes\" Pitt Press\n  Remains of C Musonius Rufus in the Teubner series\n  Zeller's \"Stoics and Epicureans.\"\n  Sir Alexander Grant, \"Ethics of Aristotle\"\n  Essay VI on the Ancient Stoics\n  Lightfoot on the Philippians, Dissertation II,\n  \"St. Paul and Seneca.\"","title":"A Guide to Stoicism","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":17837}