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Professor  m  5.  /IDilner 


PHILOSOPHIES  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN 


STOICISM 


NOTE 

As  a  consequence  of  the  success  of  the  series  of  Religions 
Ancient  and  Modern,  Messrs.  CONSTABLE  have  decided  to  issue 
a  set  of  similar  primers,  with  brief  introductions,  lists  of  dates, 
and  selected  authorities,  presenting  to  the  wider  public  the 
salient  features  of  the  Philosophies  of  Greece  and  Rome  and  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  as  well  as  of  modern  Europe.  They  will 
appear  in  the  same  handy  Shilling  volumes,  with  neat  cloth 
bindings  and  paper  envelopes,  which  have  proved  so  attractive 
in  the  case  of  the  Religions.  The  writing  in  each  case  will  be 
confided  to  an  eminent  authority,  and  one  who  has  already 
proved  himself  capable  of  scholarly  yet  popular  exposition 
within  a  small  compass. 

Among  the  first  volumes  to  appear  will  be  :— 
Early  Greek  Philosophy.     By  A.  W.  BENN,  author  of  The  Philo 
sophy  of  Greece,  Rationalism  in  the  Nineteenth  Century. 
Stoicism.    By  Professor  ST.  GEORGE  STOCK,  author  of  Deduc 
tive  Logic,  editor  of  the  Apology  of  Plato,  etc. 
Plato.     By  Professor  A.  E.  TAYLOR,  St.  Andrews  University, 

author  of  The  Problem  oj  Conduct. 
Scholasticism.     By  Father  RICKABY,  S.  J. 
Hobbes.    By  Professor  A.  E.  TAYLOR. 
Locke.     By  Professor  ALEXANDER,  of  Owens  College. 
Comte  and  Mill.     By  T.   W.   WHITTAKER,    author    of    The 

Neoplatonists,  Apollonius  of  Tyana  and  other  Essays. 
Herbert  Spencer.     By  W.  H.  HUDSON,  author  of  An  Intro 
duction  to  Spencer's  Philosophy. 
Schopenhauer.    By  T.  W.  WHITTAKER. 
Berkeley.     By  Professor  CAMPBELL  FRASEK,  D.  C.  L. ,  LL.  D. 
Bergsen.    By  Father  TYRRELL. 


\  n  \ 


STOICISM 


By 

ST.    GEORGE   STOCK 


LONDON 

ARCHIBALD  CONSTABLE  fef  CO  LTD 

1908 


FOREWORD 

As  an  adherent  of  the  Peripatetic  ^School  myself, 
I  do  not  hold  a  brief  for  the  Stoics,  but  I  have 
endeavoured  to  do  them  justice,  and  perhaps  a 
little  more,  not  having  been  on  the  alert  to  rob 
them  of  some  borrowed  plumes.  The  Porch  has 
been  credited  with  a  great  deal  that  really  be 
longed  to  the  Academy  or  the  Lyceum.  If  you 
strip  Stoicism  of  its  paradoxes  and  its  wilful 
misuse  of  language,  what  is  left  is  simply  the 
moral  philosophy  of  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle, 
dashed  with  the  physics  of  Heraclitus.  Stoicism 
was  not  so  much  a  new  doctrine  as  the  form 
under  which  the  old  Greek  philosophy  finally 
presented  itself  to  the  world  at  large.  It  owed 
its  popularity  in  some  measure  to  its  extrava 
gance.  A  great  deal  might  be  said  about  Stoicism 
as  a  religion,  and  about  the  part  it  played  in  the 
formation  of  Christianity,  but  these  subjects  were 
excluded  by  the  plan  of  this  volume,  which  was 
to  present  a  sketch  of  the  Stoic  doctrine  based 
on  the  original  authorities. 

ST.  GEOKGE  STOCK,  M.A. 
Pemb.  Coll.  Oxford. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


i.  PHILOSOPHY  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS,  .  1 

n.  DIVISION  OF  PHILOSOPHY,             .  .                    10 

in.  LOGIC,         ....  15 

iv.  ETHIC,        ....  37 

v.  PHYSIC,                  .  .                     75 

vi.  CONCLUSION,          .            .  93 

DATES  AND  AUTHORITIES,             .  107 


-f 


STOICISM 
CHAPTER    I 

PHILOSOPHY   AMONG   THE   GREEKS   AND   ROMANS 

AMONG  the  Greeks  and  Romans  of  the  classical 
age  philosophy  occupied  the  place  taken  by 
religion  among  ourselves.  Their  appeal  was  to 
reason,  not  to  revelation.  To  what,  asks  Cicero 
in  his  Offices  (ii.  §  6),  are  we  to  look  for  training 
in  virtue,  if  not  to  philosophy  ?  The  modern 
mind  answers:  'To  religion.'  Now,  if  truth  is 
believed  to  rest  upon  authority,  it  is  natural  that 
it  should  be  impressed  upon  the  mind  from  the 
earliest  age,  since  the  essential  thing  is  that  it 
should  be  believed ;  but  a  truth  which  makes  its 
appeal  to  reason  must  be  content  to  wait  till 
reason  is  developed.  We  are  born  into  the 
Eastern,  Western,  or  Anglican  communion  or 
some  other  denomination,  but  it  was  of  his  own 
free  choice  that  the  serious-minded  young  Greek 
or  Roman  embraced  the  tenets  of  one  of  the 

A  I 


STOICISM 

great  sects  which   divided   the   world   of  philo 
sophy.     The  motive  which  led  him  to  do  so  in 
the   first   instance   may  have   been    merely   the 
influence  of  a  friend  or  a  discourse  from  some 
eloquent  speaker,  but  the  choice  once  made  was 
his  own  choice,  and  he  adhered  to  it  as  such. 
Conversions  from  one  sect  to  another  were  of  quite 
rare  occurrence.    A  certain  Dionysius  of  Heraclea, 
who  went  over  from  the  Stoics  to  the  Cyrenaics, 
was  ever   afterwards  known   as   'the   deserter.'1 
It  was  as  difficult  to  be  independent  in  philo 
sophy   as   it  is   with  us   to   be   independent   in 
politics.    When  a  young  man  joined  a  school,  he 
committed  himself  to  all  its  opinions,  not  only  as 
to  the  end  of  life,  which  was  the  main  point  of 
division,  but  as  to  all  questions  on  all  subjects. 
The   Stoic   did   not   differ   merely  in  his  ethics 
fromVthe   Epicurean;    he   differed    also    in    his 
theology  and  his  physics ''"aifcT  his  metaphysics. 
Aristotle,  as  Shakespeare  knew,  thought  young 
men  '  unfit  to  hear  moral  philosophy.'     And  yet 
it   was   a   question — or   rather   the   question — of 
moral  philosophy,  the  answer  to  which  decided 
the  young  man's  opinions   on  all   other  points. 
The  language  which  Cicero  sometimes  uses  about 

1  6  iLfraOtucvot,  Diog.  Laert.  vii.  §  166 ;  cp.  §§  23,  37  :  Cic. 
Acail.  Pr.  ii.  §  71  ;  Fin.  v.  §  94. 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  PHILOSOPHY 

the  seriousness  of  the  choice  made  in  early  life 
and  how  a  young  man  gets  eri trammelled  by  a 
school  before  he  is  really  able  to  judge,  reminds 
us   of  what   we  hear  said  nowadays   about   the 
danger  of  a  young  man's  taking   orders   before 
his  opinions  are  formed.1     To  this  it  was  replied 
that  the  young  man  only  exercised  the  right  of 
private  judgment  in  selecting  the  authority  whom 
he  should   follow,  and,  having   once  done  that, 
trusted    to    him    for    all    the    rest.      With    the 
analogue  of  this  contention  also  we  are  familiar 
in  modern  times.  Cicero  allows  that  there  would  be 
something  in  it,  if  the  selection  of  the  true  philo 
sopher  did  not  above  all  things  require  the  philo 
sophic  mind.     But  in  those  days  it  was  probably 
the  case,  as  it  is  now,  that,  if  a  man  did  not  form 
speculative    opinions  in   youth,  the   pressure  of 
affairs  would  not  leave  him  leisure  to  do  so  later. 
-•P16  life-spanj>f  JSena,  thg  jQund[ez,Q£  Stoicism, 
was  frWl^a.  347 ^to ^275^_He   did  not   begin 
teaching   till   315,  at   the   mature  age   of  forty. 
Aristotle  had  passed  away  in  322,  and  with  him 
closed  the  great  constructive  era  of  Greek  thought. 
The   Ionian  philosophers  had  speculated  on  the 
physical  constitution  of  the  universe,  the  Pytha 
goreans  on  the  mystical   properties  of  numbers, 

1  Acad.  Pr.  §8:  N.D.  i.  §66. 

3 


STOICISM 

Heraclitus  had  propounded  his  philosophy  of  fire, 
Democritus  and  Leucippus  had  struck  out  a  rude 
form  of  the  atomic  theory,  Socrates  had  raised 
questions  relating  to  man,  Plato  had  discussed 
them  with  all  the  freedom  of  the  dialogue,  while 
Aristotle  had  systematically  worked  them  out. 
The  later  schools  did  not  add  much  to  the  body 
of  philosophy.  What  they  did  was  to  emphasise 
different  sides  of  the  doctrine  of  their  predeces 
sors,  and  to  drive  views  to  their  logical  conse 
quences.  The  grea£ksson_pfJGr^ 
is  that  it  is 'worth  while  to  do  right,  irrespective 
^'r^irdTnd  punishinentand  jregardless  of  the 

.flhortness^oflff£ 

forced  by  the  earnestness  of  their  lives  and  the 
influence  of  their  mora^  teaching,  that  it  has- 
become  associatedlin^i  particularly  .with  them. 
Cicero,  though  he  always  classed  himself  as  an 
Academic,  exclaims  in  one  place  that  he  is  afraid 
the  Stoics  are  the  only  philosophers,  and,  when 
ever  he  is  combating  Epicureanism,  his  language 
is  that  of  a  Stoic.  Some  of  Vergil's  most  eloquent 
passages  seem  to  be  inspired  by  Stoic  specula 
tion.1  Even  Horace,  despite  his  banter  about  the 
sage,  in  his  serious  moods  borrows  the  language 

i  Georg.  iv.  219-227  ;  Mv.  vi.  724-751.    Cp.  D.L.  vii.  §  110  ; 
Aug.  C.D.  xiv.  3. 

4 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  Stoics.  It  was  they  who  inspired  the 
highest  flights  of  declamatory  eloquence  in 
Persius  and  Juvenal.  Their  moral  philosophy 
affected  the  world  through  Roman  law,  the  great 
masters  of  which  were  brought  up  under  its  in 
fluence.  So  all-pervasive  indeed  was  this  moral 
philosophy  of  the  Stoics,  that  it  was  read  by  the 
Jews  of  Alexandria  into  Moses  under  the  veil 
of  allegory,  and  was  declared  to  be  the  inner 
meaning  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  If  the  Stoics 
then  did^not^add  ...much  -to- -the -body  of  philo 
sophy,  they  did  a  great  work  in  popularising  it 
and  bringing  it  to  bear  upon  life. 

An  intense  practicality  was  a  mark  of  the  later 
Greek  philosophy.  This  was  common  to  Stoicism 
with  its  rival  Epicureanism.  Both  regarded 
philosophy  as  '  the  art  of  life,'  though  they  differed 
in-  their  conception  of  wha-t  that  art  should  be. 
Widely  as  the  two  schools  were  opposed  to  one 
another,  they  had  also  other  features  in  common. 
Both  were  children  of  an  age  in  which  the  free 
city  had  given  way  to  monarchies,  and  personal 
had  taken  the  place  of  corporate  life.  The 
question  of  happiness  is  no  longer,  as  with 
Aristotle,  and  still  more  with  Plato,  one  for  the 
state,  but  for  the  individual.  In  both  schools 
the  speculative  interest  was  feeble  from  the  first, 

5 


STOICISM 

and  tended  to  become  feebler  as  time  went  on. 
Both  were  new  departures  from  pre-existent 
schools.  Stoicism  was  bred  out  of  Cynicism,  as 
Epicureamsrn~ouF  of  Cyrenaicism.  Both  were 
content  to  fall  back  lor  their  physics  upon  the 
pre-Socratic  schools,  the  one  adopting  the  fire- 
philosophy  of  Heraclitus,  the  other  the  atomic 
theory  of  Dernocritus.  Both  were  in  strong  re 
action  against  the  abstractions  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  and  would  tolerate  nothing  but  con 
crete  reality.  The  Stoics  were  quite  as  material 
istic  in  their  own  way  as  the  Epicureans.  With 
regard  indeed  to  the  nature  of  the  "liighes't  good 
we  may,  with  Seneca,1  represent  the  difference  be 
tween  the  two  schools  as  a  question  of  the  senses 
against  the  intellect,  but  we  shall r  see  presently 
that  the  Stoics  regarded  the,  intellect  itself  as 
being  a  kind  of  body. 

The  Greeks  were  all  agreed  that  there  was  an 
end  or  aim  of  life,  and  that  it  was  to  be  called 
'happiness,'  but  at  that  point  their  agreement 
ended.  As  to  the  nature  of  happiness  there  was 
the  utmost  variety  of  opinion.  Democritus  had 
made  it  consist  in  mental  serenity,2  Anaxagoras 

1  Epist.  124,  §  2 :  quicumque  voluptatem  in  summo  ponuut, 
sensibile  indicant  bonum  :  nos  contra  intellegibile,  qui  illud 
animo  damus. 

2  Stob.  ii.  76:  D.L.  ix.  §45. 

6 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  PHILOSOPHY 

in  speculation,  Socrates  in  wisdom,  Aristotle  in 
the  practice  of  virtue  with  some  amount  of  favour 
from  fortune,  Aristippus  simply  in  pleasure. 
These  were  opinions  of  the  philosophers.  But, 
besides  these,  there  were  the  opinions  of  ordinary 
men  as  shown  by  their  lives  rather  than  by  their 
language.  Zeno's  contribution  to  thought  on  the 
subject  does  not  at  first  sight  appear  illuminating. 
He  said  that  the  end  was  '  to  live  consistently/ 1 
the  implication  doubtless  being  that  no  life  but 
the  passionless  life  of  reason  could  ultimately  be 
consistent  with  itself.  Cleanthes,  his  immediate 
successor  in  the  school,  is  credited  with  having 
added  the  words  'with  nature/  thus  completing 
s  the  well-known  Stoic  formula,  that  the  end  is  '  to  { 
I  live  consistently  with  nature.'2 

It  was  assumed  by  the  Greeks  that  the  ways  of 
nature  were  '  the  ways  of  pleasantness/  and  that 
'  all  her  paths '  were '  peace.'  This  may  seem  to  us 
a  startling  assumption,  but  that  is  because  we  do 
not  mean  by  '  nature '  the  same  thing  as  they  did. 
We  connect  the  term  with  the  origin  of  a  thing, 
they  connected  it  rather  with  the  end;  by  the 
'  natural  state '  we  mean  a  state  of  savagery,  they 

1  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  132,  TO  bfj-oXoyov/uifrus  £9)v. 

2  Ibid.  134;    D.L.   vii.    §  87,  TO  bfj.o\oyoi>fj.tvus  TTJ  <£i/<rei  Ify. 
Cic.  Off.  ii.  §  13,  convenienter  naturae  vivere. 

7 


STOICISM 

meant  the  highest  civilisation;  we  mean  by  a 
thing's  nature  what  it  is  or  has  been,  they  meant 
what  it  ought  to  become  under  the  most  favour 
able  conditions :  not  the  sour  crab,  but  the  mellow 
glory  of  the  Hesperides,  worthy  to  be  guarded  by 
a  sleepless  dragon,  was  to  the  Greeks  the  natural 
apple.  Hence  we  find  Aristotle  maintaining  that 
the  State  is  a  natural  product,  because  it  is 
evolved  out  of  social  relations  which  exist  by 
nature.  Nature  indeed  was  a  highly  ambiguous 
term  to  the  Greeks  no  less  than  to  ourselves,1 
but  in  the  sense  with  which  we  are  now  concerned 
the  nature  of  anything  was  defined  by  the 
Peripatetics  as '  the  end  of  its  becoming.' 2  Another 
definition  of  theirs  puts  the  matter  still  more 
clearly :  '  What  each  thing  is  when  its  growth  has 
been  completed,  that  we  declare  to  be  the  nature 
of  each  thing.' 3 

Following  out  this  conception  the  Stoics  identi 
fied  a  life  in  accordance  with  nature  with  a  life  in 
accordance  with  the  highest  perfection  to  which 
man  could  attain.  Now,  as  man  was  essentially 
a  rational  animal,  his  work  as  man  lay  in  living 
the  rational  life.  And  the  perfection  of  reason 

1  See  the  manifold  definitions  of  it  given  in  Arist.  Met.  iv.  4. 

2  Arist.  Met.  iv.  4,  §  7,  ri>  rAoj  TTJS 

3  Arist.  Pol.  i.  2,  §  8. 

8 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  PHILOSOPHY 

was  virtue.  Hence  the  ways  of  nature  were  no 
other  than  the  ways  of  virtue.  And  so  it  came 
about  that  the  Stoic  formula  might  be  expressed 
in  a  number  of  different  ways,  which  yet  all 
amounted  to  the  same  thing.  The  end  was  to 
live  the  virtuous  life,  or  to  live  consistently,  or 
to  live  in  accordance  with  nature,  or  to  live 
rationally. 

The  end  of  life  then  being  the  attainment  of 
happiness  through  virtue,  how  did  philosophy 
stand  related  to  that  end  ?  We  have  seen  already 
that  it  was  regarded  as  '  the  art  of  life.'  Just  as 
medicine  was  the  art  of  health,  and  the  art  of 
sailing  navigation,  so  there  needed  to  be  an  art 
of  living.  Was  it  reasonable  that  minor  ends 
should  be  attended  to,  and  the  supreme  end 
neglected  ? 


CHAPTER    II 

DIVISION   OF   PHILOSOPHY 

PHILOSOPHY  was  defined  by  the  Stoics  as  '  the 
knowledge  of  things  divine  and  human.' 1  It  was 
divided  into  three  departments,  logic,  ethic,  and 
physic.  This  division  indeed  was  in  existence 
before  their  time,2  but  they  have  got  the  credit  of 
it,  as  of  some  other  things  which  they  did  not 
originate.  Neither  was  it  confined  to  them,  but 
was  part  of  the  common  stock  of  thought.  Even 
the  Epicureans,  who  are  said  to  have  rejected 
logic,  can  hardly  be  counted  as  dissentients  from 
this  threefold  division.  For  what  they  did  was  to 
substitute  for  the  Stoic  logic  a  logic  of  their  own,3 
dealing  with  the  notions  derived  from  sense, 
much  in  the  same  way  as  Bacon  substituted  his 

1  Cic.  Fin.  ii.  §  37,  Off.  i.  §  153 :  Pint.  874  E,  Plac.  Phil.  i. 
ad  init. 

3  Arist.  Top.  i.  14,  §  4 :  Cic.  Acad.  Post.,  §  19 ;  Fin.  iv.  §  4, 
v.  §9. 

5  Sen.  Ep.  89,  §  11. 

10 


DIVISION   OF   PHILOSOPHY 

Novurn  Organum  for  the  Organon  of  Aristotle. 
Clean thes,  we  are  told,1  recognised  six  parts  of 
philosophy,  namely,  dialectic,  rhetoric,  ethic, 
politic,  physic,  and  theology;  but  these  are 
obviously  the  result  of  subdivision  of  the  primary 
ones.  Of  the  three  departments  we  may  say  that 
logic  deals  with  the  form  and  expression  of  know 
ledge,  physic  with  the  matter  of  knowledge,  and 
ethic  with  the  use  of  knowledge.  The  division 
may  also  be  justified  in  this  way.  Philosophy 
must  study  either  nature  (including  the  divine 
nature)  or  man;  and,  if  it  studies  man,  it  must 
regard  him  either  from  the  side  of  the  intellect  or 
of  the  feelings,  that  is,  either  as  a  thinking  (logic) 
or  as  an  acting  (ethic)  being. 

As  to  the  order  in  which  the  different  depart 
ments  should  be  studied,  we  have  had  preserved 
to  us  the  actual  words  of  Chrysippus  in  his  fourth 
book  on  Lives.2  '  First  of  all  then  it  seems  to  me 
that,  as  has  been  rightly  said  by  the  ancients, 
there  are  three  heads  under  which  the  specula 
tions  of  the  philosopher  fall,  logic,  ethic,  physic ; 
next,  that  of  these  the  logical  should  come  first, 
the  ethical  second,  and  the  physical  third ;  and 
that  of  the  physical  the  treatment  of  the  gods 
should  come  last,  whence  also  they  have  given 

1  D.L.  vii.  §  41.  2  Plut.  1035  A,  B,  Sto.  Repug.  9. 

II 


STOICISM 

the  name  of  "completions"1  to  the  instruction 
delivered  on  this  subject.'2  That  this  order  how 
ever  might  yield  to  convenience  is  plain  from 
another  book  on  the  use  of  reason,  where  he  says 
that  '  the  student  who  takes  up  logic  first  need 
not  entirely  abstain  from  the  other  branches  of 
philosophy,  but  should  study  them  also  as  occasion 
offers.3  3 

Plutarch  twits  Chrysippus  with  inconsistency, 
because,  in  the  face  of  this  declaration  as  to  the 
order  of  treatment,  he  nevertheless  says  that 
morals  rest  upon  physics.  But  to  this  charge  it 
may  fairly  be  replied  that  the  order  of  exposition 
need  not  coincide  with  the  order  of  existence. 
Metaphysically  speaking,  morals  may  depend 
upon  physics,  and  the  right  conduct  of  man  be 
deducible  from  the  structure  of  the  universe,  but 
for  all  that  it  may  be  advisable  to  study  physics 
later.  'Physics'  meant  the  nature  of  God  and 
the  Universe.  Our  nature  may  be  deducible 
from  that,  but  it  is  better  known  to  ourselves  to 
start  with,  so  that  it  may  be  well  to  begin  from 
the  end  of  the  stick  that  we  have  in  our  hands. 


1  rcXerdj. 

2  By  this  passage,  aided  by  Sext.  Emp.  adv.  Math.  vii.  §  22, 
we  are  able  to  correct  the  statement  of  D.L.  vii.  §  40. 

3  Pint.  1035  E,  Sto.  Repug.  9. 

12 


DIVISION   OF   PHILOSOPHY 

But  that  Chrysippus  did  teach  the  logical  de 
pendence  of  morals  on  physics  is  plain  from  his 
own  words.  In  his  third  book  on  the  Gods  he 
says:  'For  it  is  not  possible  to  find  any  other 
origin  of  justice  or  mode  of  its  generation,  save 
that  from  Zeus  and  the  nature  of  the  universe ; 
for  anything  we  have  to  say  about  good  and  evil 
must  needs  derive  its  origin  therefrom/  and  again 
in  his  Physical  Theses :  '  For  there  is  no  other  or 
more  appropriate  way  of  approaching  the  subject 
of  good  and  evil  on  the  virtues  or  happiness  than 
from  the  nature  of  all  things  and  the  administra 
tion  of  the  universe  ...  for  it  is  to  these  we 
must  attach  the  treatment  of  good  and  evil, 
inasmuch  as  there  is  no  better  origin  to  which  we 
can  refer  them,  and  inasmuch  as  physical  specula 
tion  is  taken  in  solely  with  a  view  to  the  distinction 
between  good  and  evil.' l 

The  last  words  are  worth  noting,  as  showing 
that  even  with  Chrysippus,  who  has  been  called 
the  intellectual  founder  of  Stoicism,  the  whole 
stress  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Porch  fell  upon  its 
moral  teaching.  It  was  a  favourite  metaphor 
with  the  school  to  compare  philosophy  to  a  fertile 
vineyard  or  orchard.  Ethic  was  the  good  fruit, 
physic  the  tall  plants,  and  logic  the  strong  wall. 

1  Plut.  1035  C,  D,  Sto.  Repug.  9. 
13 


STOICISM 

The  Avail  existed  only  to  guard  the  trees,  and  the 
trees  only  to  produce  the  fruit.1  Or  again 
philosophy  was  likened  to  an  egg,  of  which  ethic 
was  the  yolk  containing  the  chick,  physic  the 
white,  which  formed  its  nourishment,  while  logic 
was  the  hard  outside  shell.  Posidonius,  a  later 
member  of  the  school,  objected  to  the  metaphor 
from  the  vineyard  on  the  ground  that  the  fruit 
and  the  trees  and  the  wall  were  all  separable, 
whereas  the  parts  of  philosophy  were  inseparable. 
He  preferred  therefore  to  liken  it  to  a  living 
organism,  logic  being  the  bones  and  sinews,  physic 
the  flesh  and  blood,  but  ethic  the  soul.2 

1  Philo,  i.  302,  De  Agr.  §  3,  i.  589,  Mut.  Norn.  10  ;  S.  E. 
adv.  M.  vii.  §  17  ;  D.L.  vii.  §  40. 

-  S.  E.  adv.  M.  vii.  §§  18,  19;  D.L.  vii.  §  40,  who 
interchanges  the  places  of  physic  and  ethic. 


CHAPTER  III 

LOGIC 

THE  Stoics  had  a  tremendous  reputation  for  logic. 
In  this  department  they  were  the  successors,  or 
rather  the  supersessors,  of  Aristotle.  For  after 
the  death  of  Theophrastus  the  library  of  the 
Lyceum  is  said  to  have  been  buried  underground 
at  Scepsis  until  about  a  century  before  Christ. 
So  that  the  Organon  may  actually  have  been  lost 
to  the  world  during  that  period.  At  all  events 
under  Strato,  the  successor  of  Theophrastus,  who 
specialised  in  natural  science,  the  school  had  lost 
its  comprehensiveness.  Cicero l  even  finds  it  con 
sonant  with  dramatic  propriety  to  make  Cato 
charge  the  later  Peripatetics  with  ignorance  of 
logic !  On  the  other  hand,  Chrysippus  became 
so  famous  for  his  logic  as  to  create  a  general 
impression  that,  if  there  were  a  logic  among  the 
gods,  it  would  be  no  other  than  the  Chrysippean.2 

1  Fin.  iii.  §  41.  2  Cic.  Brut.  §  118. 

15 


STOICISM 

But,  if  the  Stoics  were  strong  in  logic,  they 
were  weak  in  rhetoric.1  This  strength  and  weak 
ness  were  characteristic  of  the  school  at  all 
periods.  Cato  is  the  only  Roman  Stoic  to  whom 
Cicero  accords  the  praise  of  real  eloquence.  In 
the  dying  accents  of  the  school,  as  we  hear  them 
in  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  imperial  sage  counts  it  a 
thing  to  be  thankful  for  that  he  had  learnt  to 
abstain  from  rhetoric,  poetic,  and  elegance  of 
diction.2  The  reader  however  cannot  help  wish 
ing  that  he  had  taken  some  means  to  diminish 
the  crabbedness  of  his  style.  If  a  lesson  were 
wanted  in  the  importance  of  sacrificing  to  the 
Graces,  it  might  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
early  Stoic  writers,  despite  their  logical  subtlety, 
have  all  perished,  and  that  their  remains  have  to 
be  sought  for  so  largely  in  the  pages  of  Cicero. 
In  speaking  of  'logic'  as  one  of  the  three  depart 
ments  of  philosophy,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that 
the  term  was  one  of  much  wider  meaning  than 
it  is  with  us.  It  included  rhetoric,  poetic,  and 
grammar  as  well  as  dialectic,  or  logic  proper,  to 
say  nothing  of  disquisitions  on  the  senses  and 
the  intellect,  which  we  should  now  refer  to 
psychology. 

1  Cic.  Brut.  §  118,  Paradoxa,  Introd.  §  2. 

2  Marc.  Ant.  i.  §  7. 

16 


LOGIC 

The  school,  it  has  been  said,  was  weak  in 
rhetoric.  Nevertheless  Cleanthes  wrote  an  Art 
of  Rhetoric,  and  so  did  Chrysippus,  but  such  as 
Cicero  could  recommend  to  the  perusal  of  any  one 
whose  ambition  was  to  hold  his  tongue.1  They 
followed  the  well-established  division  of  rhetoric 
into  deliberative,  judicial,  and  demonstrative, 
recognising  that  the  ends  of  public  speaking  are 
to  sway  the  counsels  of  men,  or  to  plead  the 
cause  of  justice,  or  to  put  forward  some  person 
or  thing  as  an  object  of  praise  or  blame.2  Among 
the  requisites  of  the  oratcr  they  enumerated 
invention,  style,  arrangement,  and  delivery.3  A 
fifth  requisite,  namely,  memory,  is  usually  added:4 
for  the  other  equipments  are  of  little  use  to  the 
orator,  if  there  be  not  memory  to  retain  the 
thought,  language,  and  arrangement.  Another 
point  on  which  the  Stoics  followed  established 
tradition  was  in  the  analysis  of  a  speech  into 
preface,  narration,  controversial  matter,  and  con 
clusion.5 

With  regard  to  '  invention '  Cicero  complains  of 

1  Fin.  iv.  §  7. 

2  Arist.  Rhet.  i.  2,  §  3,  ad  Alex.  2,  §  1  ;  D.L.  vii.  §  42 ;  Cic. 
Inv.  i.  §  7  ;  Cornif.  ad  Herenn.  i.  2,  §  2.         3  D.L.  vii.  §  42. 

4  Cic.  Inv.  i.  §  9 ;  Cornif.  ad  H.  i.  §  3  ;  Philo,  i.  652,  Do 
Somn.  i.  35. 

5  D.L.  vii.  §  42 ;  Cic.  Inv.  i.  §  19 ;  Cornif.  ad  H.  i.  §  4. 

B  I/ 


STOICISM 

the  Stoics  for  their  neglect  of  it  as  an  art.1  They 
had  nothing  corresponding  to  the  topics  of  Aris 
totle,  to  supply  material  for  dialectic,  nor  any 
orator's  vade-mecum,  such  as  the  later  'Art'  of 
Hermagoras,  which  almost  saved  people  the 
trouble  of  thinking. 

Logic  as  a  whole  being  divided  into  rhetoric 
and  dialectic,  rhetoric  was  denned  to  be  'the 
knowledge  of  how  to  speak  well  in  expository 
discourses,'  and  dialectic  as  'the  knowledge  of 
how  to  argue  rightly  in  matters  of  question  and 
answer.'2  Both  rhetoric  and  dialectic  were 
spoken  of  by  the  Stoics  as  virtues;  for  they 
divided  virtue,  in  its  most  generic  sense,  in  the 
same  way  as  they  divided  philosophy,  into  physi 
cal,  ethical,  and  logical.3  Rhetoric  and  dialectic 
were  thus  the  two  species  of  logical  virtue.  Zeno 
expressed  their  difference  by  comparing  rhetoric 
to  the  palm  and  dialectic  to  the  fist.4 

Instead  of  throwing  in  poetic  and  grammar 
with  rhetoric,  the  Stoics  subdivided  dialectic  into 
the  part  which  dealt  with  the  meaning  and  the 
part  which  dealt  with  the  sound,  or,  as  Chrysippus 

1  Fin.  iv.  §  10. 

2  Sen.  Ep.  89,  §  17  ;  D.L.  vii.  §§  41,  42. 

8  Cic.  Acad.  Post.  §  5,  cp.  Pr.  §  132  ;  Pint.  874  E,  Plac. 
Phil.  i.  ad  init.  ;  D.L.  vii.  §  92. 

4  Cic.  Fin.  ii.  §  17,  Orat.  §  113 ;  Quint.  Inst.  ii.  20,  §  7. 

18 


LOGIC 

phrased  it,  concerning  significants  and  significates.1 
Under  the  former  came  the  treatment  of  the 
alphabet,  of  the  parts  of  speech,  of  solecism,  of 
barbarism,  of  poems,  of  amphibolies,  of  metre  and 
music  2  —  a  list  which  seems  at  first  sight  a  little 
mixed,  but  in  which  we  can  recognise  the  general 
features  of  grammar,  with  its  departments  of 
phonology,  accidence,  and  prosody.  The  treat 
ment  of  solecism  and  barbarism  in  grammar 
corresponded  to  that  of  fallacies  in  logic.  With 
regard  to  the  alphabet  it  is  worth  noting  that  the 
Stoics  recognised  seven  vowels  and  six  mutes.3 
This  is  more  correct  than  our  way  of  talking  of 
nine  mutes,  since  the  aspirate  consonants  are 
plainly  not  mute.  There  were,  according  to  the 
Stoics,  five  parts  of  speech—  name,  appellative, 
verb,  conjunction,  article.  'Name'  meant  a 
proper  name,  and  '  appellative  '  4  a  common  term. 
There  were  reckoned  to  be  five  virtues  of  speech 
—  Hellenism,  clearness,  conciseness,  propriety,  dis 
tinction.  By  'Hellenism'  was  meant  speaking 
good  Greek.  '  Distinction  '  was  defined  to  be  '  a 
diction  which  avoided  homeliness.'  5  Over  against 
these  there  were  two  comprehensive  vices,  bar- 

1  Sen.  Ep.  89,  §  17  ;  D.L.  vii.  §§  43,  62. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §  44.       3  Ibid.  §  57.     4  irpoffrjyopia,  D.L.  vii.  §  58. 
6  Ibid.     59,      KaraffKcvij      dt      6<m      X<?£ts      e/CTre^evyum      rbv 


19 


STOICISM 

barism  and  solecism,  the  one  being  an  offence 
against  accidence,  the  other  against  syntax. 

One  does  not  associate  the  idea  of  poetry  much 
with  the  austere  sect  of  the  Stoics.  Still  it  should 
be  remembered  that  the  finest  devotional  utter 
ance  of  Paganism  is  Cleanthes'  Hymn  to  Zeus, 
and  that  Aratus  among  the  Greeks,  and  among 
the  Romans  Manilius,  Seneca,  Persius,  and  Juvenal 
may  be  set  down  to  the  credit  of  the  school. 

Amphiboly  was  defined  as  'diction  which 
signifies  two  or  more  things  in  the  strict  prose 
sense  of  the  terms  and  in  the  same  language.'  It 
is  thus  a  general  name  for  ambiguity.1 

We  come  now  to  that  part  of  dialectic  which 
deals  with  the  meaning,  not  with  the  expression, 
and  which  answers  to  our  logic.  The  Stoics  were 
far  from  taking  that  confined  view  of  logic  which 
would  limit  it  to  mere  consistency  and  deny  its 
relation  to  truth.  They  defined  Dialectic  as  '  the 
science  of  what  is  true  and  false,  and  what  is 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other.'  2  Under  the  last 
head  would  come  a  question.  Ancient  logic  was 
essentially  concerned  with  this  as  being  con- 


1  The  example  given  by  D.L.  vii.  §  62  is  avXyrpls 

which  may  be  read  so  as  to  mean  (1)  The  house  has  fallen  three 
times  ;  (2)  The  flute-girl  has  had  a  fall.  This  is  what  Aristotle 
would  call  the  fallacy  of  division. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §§42,  62. 

20 


LOGIC 

ducted  by  way  of  question  and  answer.  From 
the  wide  point  of  view  of  the  Stoic  definition  of 
Dialectic,  it  is  evident  that  the  problem  of  the 
canon  and  criterion  of  truth  presents  itself  as 
fundamental;  and  that  definition  also  becomes 
a  matter  of  great  importance  as  being  concerned 
with  ascertaining  the  real  nature  of  things.  It 
was  by  the  criterion  that  the  different  reports  of 
the  senses  had  to  be  corrected ;  and  if  definitions 
were  not  founded  on  true  ideas,  our  grasp  on 
reality  would  be  enfeebled  from  the  first.1  With 
the  Stoics  then,  as  with  ourselves,  the  difficulties 
of  logic  came  at  the  beginning.  They  boldly 
plunged  into  the  subject  with  a  disquisition  on 
sense-impressions,  feeling  that,  if  truth  were  to  be 
made  good,  it  must  be  by  reliance  on  the  validity 
of  the  senses.2  After  that  the  topics  come  much 
in  our  order.  The  treatment  of  sensation  leads 
up  to  that  of  notions,  which  are  our  concepts  or 
terms;  then  we  have  a  disquisition  on  proposi 
tions,  their  parts  and  varieties,  very  much  dis 
guised  by  strange  phraseology ;  then  come  moods 
and  syllogisms ;  and  last  of  all  fallacies.3 

1  D.  L.  vii.  §  42. 

2  Ibid.,  $  49.     Cicero,  Acad.  Pr.  §  29,  says  that  the  criterion 
of  truth  and  the  nature  of  the  highest  good  are  the  two  ques 
tions  of  supreme  importance  in  philosophy. 

3  D.  L.  vii.  §  43. 

21 


STOICISM 

The  famous  comparison  of  the  infant  mind  to 
a  blank  sheet  of  paper,  which  we  connect  so 
closely  with  the  name  of  Locke,  really  comes 
from  the  Stoics.1  The  earliest  characters  in 
scribed  upon  it  were  the  impressions  of  sense, 
which  the  Greeks  called  'phantasies.'  A  phan 
tasy  was  denned  by  Zeno  as  'an  impression  in 
the  soul."2  Cleanthes  was  content  to  take  this 
definition  in  its  literal  sense,  and  believe  that 
the  soul  was  impressed  by  external  objects  as 
wax  by  a  signet  -  ring.3  Chrysippus,  however, 
found  a  difficulty  here,  and  preferred  to  interpret 
the  Master's  saying  to  mean  an  alteration  or 
change  in  the  soul.4  He  figured  to  himself  the 
soul  as  receiving  a  modification  from  every  ex 
ternal  object  which  acts  upon  it,  just  as  the  air 
receives  countless  strokes  when  many  people  are 
speaking  at  once.5  Further,  he  declared  that  in 
receiving  an  impression  the  soul  was  purely 
passive,  and  that  the  phantasy  revealed,  not  only 
its  own  existence,  but  that  also  of  its  cause,  just 
as  light  displays  itself  and  the  things  that  are 

1  Plut.  900  B,  Plac.  11. 

2  ruTraxm  tv  ^vxv,  D.L.  vii.  §§  45,  50 ;  S.E.  adv.  M.  vii.  228, 
230. 

3  D.  L.  vii.,  §  45  ;  S.E.  adv.  M.  vii.  228,  372,  viii.  400. 

4  D.  L.  vii.,  §  50,  dXXoioxm  ;  S.E.  adv.  M.  vii.  230  crepotwffis. 

5  S.E.  adv.  M.  vii.  230,  231. 

22 


LOGIC 

in  it.1  Thus  when  through  sight  we  receive  an 
impression  of  white,  an  affection  takes  place  in 
the  soul,  in  virtue  whereof  we  are  able  to  say 
that  there  exists  a  white  object  affecting  us. 
The  power  to  name  the  object  resides  in  the 
understanding.  First  must  come  the  phantasy, 
and  then  the  understanding,  having  the  power 
of  utterance,  expresses  in  speech  the  affection 
it  receives  from  the  object.  The  cause  of  the 
phantasy  was  called  the  '  phai.tast,' 2  e.g.  the 
white  or  cold  object.  If  there  is  no  external 
cause,  then  the  supposed  object  of  the  impression 
was  a  '  phantasm/  such  as  a  figure  in  a  dream, 
or  the  Furies  whom  Orestes  sees  in  his  frenzy.3 

How  then  was  the  impression  which  had 
reality  behind  it  to  be  distinguished  from  that 
which  had  not?  'By  the  feel'  is  all  that  the 
Stoics  really  had  to  say  in  answer  to  this  question. 
Just  as  Hume  made  the  difference  between  sense- 
impressions  and  ideas  to  lie  in  the  greater  vivid 
ness  of  the  former,  so  did  they ;  only  Hume  saw 
no  necessity  to  go  beyond  the  impression,  whereas 
the  Stoics  did.  Certain  impressions,  they  main 
tained,  carried  with  them  an  irresistible  con- 

1  Plut.  900  D,  Plac.  11  ;  cp.  S.E.  adv.  M.  vii.  162,  163. 

2  Plut.  900  E,  Plac.  12. 

3  Eur.  Great.  255-59. 

23 


STOICISM 

viction  of  their  own  reality,  and  this,  not  merely 
in  the  sense  that  they  existed,  but  also  that 
they  were  referable  to  an  external  cause.  These 
were  called  '  gripping  phantasies.' l  Such  a  phan 
tasy  did  not  need  proof  of  its  own  existence,  or 
of  that  of  its  object.  It  possessed  self-evidence.2 
Its  occurrence  was  attended  with  yielding  and 
assent  on  the  part  of  the  soul.3  For  it  is  as 
natural  for  the  soul  to  assent  to  the  self-evident 
as  it  is  for  it  to  pursue  its  proper  good.4  The 
assent  to  a  gripping  phantasy  was  called  'com 
prehension/  as  indicating  the  firm  hold  that  the 
soul  thus  took  of  reality.5  A  gripping  phantasy 
was  defined  as  '  one  which  was  stamped  and  im 
pressed  from  an  existing  object,  in  virtue  of  that 
object  itself,  in  such  a  way  as  it  could  not  be 
from  a  non-existent  object.' 6  The  clause  '  in 

1  KaToKrjTrTiKai  <j>avTa<ricu.     The  name  is  ambiguous,   and  is 
sometimes  used  in  the  sense  of  'grippable,'  being  now  referred 
to  the  grasp  of  the  object  on  the  mind,  and  now  to  that  of  the 
mind  of  the  object.     Cicero  twice  insists  on  the  latter  sense  as 
having  been  that  of  Zeno,  Acad.  Post.  §  41  ;  Pr.  §  145.     Cp. 
Fin.  iii.  §  17,  v.  §  76  ;  Acad.  Pr.  §§  17,  31,  62. 

2  Iv&pycta.     Cic.  Acad.  Pr.  §  17  ;  Post.  §  41  ;  S.E.  adv.  M. 
vii.  364. 

3  D.  L.  vii.  §  51  (Uera  et£ews  /cat  (riry/carafl&rews. 

4  Cic.  Acad.  Pr.  §  38. 

6  S.E.  adv.  M.  vii.  154. 

6  Ibid.  248 ;  D.  L.  vii.  §§  46,  50 ;  Cic.  Acad.  Pr.  §§  18,  77, 
112. 

24 


LOGIC 

virtue  of  that  object  itself  was  put  into  the 
definition  to  provide  against  such  a  case  as  that 
of  the  mad  Orestes,  who  takes  his  sister  to  be  a 
Fury.1  There  the  impression  was  derived  from 
an  existing  object,  but  not  from  that  object  as 
such,  but  as  coloured  by  the  imagination  of  the 
percipient. 

The  criterion  of  truth  then  was  no  other  than 
the  gripping  phantasy.  Such  at  least  was  the 
doctrine  of  the  earlier  Stoics;2  but  the  later 
added  a  saving  clause  '  when  there  is  no  impedi 
ment.'  For  they  were  pressed  by  their  opponents 
with  such  imaginary  cases  as  that  of  Admetus 
seeing  his  wife  before  him  in  very  deed,  and 
yet  not  believing  it  to  be  her.  But  here 
there  was  an  impediment.  Admetus  did  not 
believe  that  the  dead  could  rise.  Again  Mene- 
laus  did  not  believe  in  the  real  Helen,  when  he 
found  her  on  the  island  of  Pharos.  But  here 
again  there  was  an  impediment.  For  Menelaus 
could  not  have  been  expected  to  know  that  he 
had  been  for  ten  years  fighting  for  a  phantom. 
When  however  there  was  no  such  impediment, 
then,  they  said,  the  gripping  phantasy  did  indeed 
deserve  its  name;  for  it  almost  took  men  by 

1  Eur.  Orest.  264. 

2  S.E.  adv.  M.  vii.  253  ;  D.  L.  vii.  §  54. 

25 


STOICISM 

the   hair   of    the   head    and    dragged    them    to 
assent.1 

So  far  we  have  used  '  phantasy '  only  of  real  or 
imaginary  impressions  of  sense.  But  the  term 
was  not  thus  restricted  by  the  Stoics,  who  divided 
phantasies  into  sensible  and  not  sensible.  The 
latter  came  through  the  understanding  and  were 
of  bodiless  things,  which  could  only  be  grasped 
by  reason.2  The  '  ideas  '  of  Plato,  they  declared, 
existed  only  in  our  minds.  '  Horse,'  '  man/  and 
'animal'  had  no  substantial  existence,  but  were 
phantasms  of  the  soul.  The  Stoics  were  thus 
what  we  should  call  Conceptualists.3 

Comprehension  too  was  used  in  a  wider  sense 
than  that  in  which  we  have  so  far  employed  it. 
There  was  comprehension  by  the  senses,  as  of 
white  and  black,  of  rough  and  smooth,  but  there 
was  also  comprehension  by  the  reason  of  demon 
strative  conclusions,  such  as  that  the  gods  exist, 
and  that  they  exercise  providence.4  Here  we 
are  reminded  of  Locke's  declaration.5  ''Tis  as 
certain  there  is  a  God,  as  that  the  opposite 
angles,  made  by  the  intersection  of  two  straight 
lines,  are  equal.'  The  Stoics  indeed  had  great 

1  S.E.  adv.  M.  vii.  257.  2  D.  L-  vii.  §  51. 

3  Stob.  Eel.  i.  332 ;  Plut.  882  E,  Plac.  10. 

4  D.  L.  vii.  §  52.  5  Essay  i.  4,  §  16. 

26 


LOGIC 

affinities  with  that  thinker,  or  rather  he  with 
them.  The  Stoic  account  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  mind  arrives  at  its  ideas  might  almost 
be  taken  from  the  first  book  of  Locke's  Essay. 
As  many  as  nine  ways  are  enumerated,  of  which 
the  first  corresponds  to  simple  ideas — 

(1)  by  presentation,  as  objects  of  sense  ; l 

(2)  by  likeness,  as  the  idea  of  Socrates  from  his 

picture ; 

(3)  by  analogy,  that  is,  by  increase  or  decrease, 

as  ideas  of  giants  and  pigmies  from  men, 
or  as  the  notion  of  the  centre  of  the  earth, 
which  is  reached  by  the  consideration  of 
smaller  spheres ; 

(4)  by  transposition,  as  the  idea  of  men  with 

eyes  in  their  breasts  ; 

(5)  by  composition,  as  the  idea  of  a  Centaur  : 

(6)  by  opposition,  as  the  idea  of  death   from 

that  of  life ; 

(7)  by  a  kind  of  transition,  as  the  meaning  of 

words  and  the  idea  of  place  ; 2 

(8)  by  nature,  as  the  notion  of  the  just  and  the 

good; 

(9)  by  privation,  as  '  handless.' 3 

1  D.  L.  vii.  §  53  ;  S.  E.  xi.  250. 

2  D.  L.  vii.  §  53 ;  Cic.  N.  D.  i.  §  105. 

3  See  further  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  33 ;  S.  E.  xi.  250,  251  ;  D.  L.  x. 
§32. 

27 


STOICISM 

The  Stoics  resembled  Locke  again  in  endeavour 
ing  to  give  such  a  definition  of  knowledge  as 
should  cover  at  once  the  reports  of  the  senses 
and  the  relation  between  ideas.  Knowledge  was 
defined  by  them  as  '  a  sure  comprehension '  or  '  a 
habit  in  the  acceptance  of  phantasies  which  was 
not  liable  to  be  changed  by  reason.' 1  On  a  first 
hearing  these  definitions  might  seem  limited  to 
sense-knowledge ;  but,  if  we  bethink  ourselves  of 
the  wider  meanings  of  '  comprehension '  and  of 
'phantasy,'  we  see  that  the  definitions  apply,  as 
they  were  meant  to  apply,  to  the  mind's  grasp 
upon  the  force  of  a  demonstration  no  less  than 
upon  the  existence  of  a  physical  object.2 

Zeno,  with  that  touch  of  oriental  symbolism 
which  characterised  him,  used  to  illustrate  to  his 
disciples  the  steps  to  knowledge  by  means  of 
gestures.  Displaying  his  right  hand  with  the 
fingers  outstretched  he  would  say,  'That  is  a 
phantasy ' ;  then,  contracting  the  fingers  a  little, 
'That  is  assent';  then,  having  closed  the  fist, 
'  That  is  comprehension ' ;  then,  clasping  the  fist 
closely  with  the  left  hand,  he  would  add,  '  That  is 
knowledge.' 

A   '  notion,'   which    corresponds   to   our   word 

1  D.  L.  vii.  §  47 ;  Stob,  Eel.  ii.  128,  130 ;  S.  E.  vii.  §  151  ; 
Cic.  Acad.  Post.  §  41.  2  S.  E.  viii.  397. 

28 


LOGIC 

'  concept/  was  defined  as  '  a  phantasm  of  the 
understanding  of  a  rational  animal.'  For  a  notion 
was  but  a  phantasm  as  it  presented  itself  to  a 
rational  mind.  In  the  same  way  so  many 
shillings  and  sovereigns  are  in  themselves  but 
shillings  and  sovereigns,  but,  when  used  as  pas 
sage-money,  they  become  '  fare.'  Notions  were 
arrived  at  partly  by  nature,  partly  by  teaching 
and  study.  The  former  kind  of  notions  were 
called  '  preconceptions/  the  latter  went  merely  by 
the  generic  name.1 

Out  of  the  general  ideas  which  nature  imparts 
to  us  reason  was  perfected  about  the  age  of  four 
teen,  at  the  time  when  the  voice — its  outward  and 
visible  sign — attains  its  full  development,  and  when 
the  human  animal  is  complete  in  other  respects, 
as  being  able  to  reproduce  its  kind.2  Thus  reason, 
which  united  us  to  the  gods,  was  not,  according  to 
the  Stoics,  a  pre-existent  principle,  but  a  gradual 
development  out  of  sense.  It  might  truly  be  said 
that  with  them  the  senses  were  the  intellect.3 

Being  was  confined  by  the  Stoics  to  body,  a 
bold  assertion  of  which  we  shall  meet  the  conse 
quences  later.  At  present  it  is  sufficient  to 

1  Plut.  900  B,  C,  D,  Plac.  iv.  11  ;  Cic.  Acad.  Pr.  §§  21,  22; 
Fin.  v.  §  59,  iii.  §  33. 

2  Plut.  900  C,  Plac.  iv.  11,  909  C,  Plac.  v.  23  ;  Stob.  Eel.  i. 
792.  3  cic.  Acad>  Pr  §  30 

29 


STOICISM 

notice  what  havoc  it  makes  among  the  categories. 
Of  Aristotle's  ten  categories  it  leaves  only  the 
first,  Substance,  and  that  only  in  its  narrowest 
sense  of  Primary  Substance.  But  a  substance,  or 
body,  might  be  regarded  in  four  ways— 

(1)  simply  as  a  body; 

(2)  as  a  body  of  a  particular  kind  ; 

(3)  as  a  body  in  a  particular  state  ; 

(4)  as  a  body  in  a  particular  relation. 
Hence  result  the  four  Stoic  categories  of  — 

substrates, 

suchlike, 

so  disposed, 

so  related.1 

But  the  bodiless  would  not  be  thus  conjured  out 
of  existence.  For  what  was  to  be  made  of  such 
things  as  the  meaning  of  words,  time,  place,  and 
the  infinite  void  ?  Even  the  Stoics  did  not  assign 
body  to  these,  and  yet  they  had  to  be  recognised 
and  spoken  of.  The  difficulty  was  got  over  by 
the  invention  of  the  higher  category  of  '  some 
what,'  which  should  include  both  body  and  the 
bodiless.  Time  Avas  a  '  somewhat,'  and  so  was 
space,  though  neither  of  them  possessed  being.2 


,  iroid,  Trcbs  HXOVTO.,  irpbs  ri,  7ru>y 
2  S.  E.  x.  218,  237  ;  D.  L.  vii.  140,  141  ;  Stob.  Eel.  i.  392; 
Sen.  Ep.  58,  §§  13,  15. 

30 


LOGIC 

In  the  Stoic  treatment  of  the  proposition  gram 
mar  was  very  much  mixed  up  with  logic.  They 
had  a  wide  name  which  applied  to  any  part  of 
diction,  whether  a  word  or  words,  a  sentence,  or 
even  a  syllogism.1  This  we  shall  render  by  '  diet.' 
A  diet  then  was  defined  as  '  that  which  subsists  in 
correspondence  with  a  rational  phantasy.'2  A 
diet  was  one  of  the  things  which  the  Stoics 
admitted  to  be  devoid  of  body.  There  were  three 
things  involved  when  anything  was  said — the 
sound,  the  sense,  and  the  external  object.  Of 
these  the  first  and  the  last  were  bodies,  but  the 
intermediate  one  was  not  a  body.3  This  we  may 
illustrate,  after  Seneca,  as  follows.  You  see  Cato 
walking.  What  your  eyes  see  and  your  mind 
attends  to  is  a  body  in  motion.  Then  you  say, 
'  Cato  is  walking.'  The  mere  sound  indeed  of 
these  words  is  air  in  motion,  and  therefore  a  body, 
but  the  meaning  of  them  is  not  a  body,  but  an 
enouncement  about  a  body,  which  is  quite  a 
different  thing.4 

On  examining  such  details  as  are  left  us  of  the 
Stoic  logic,  the  first  thing  which  strikes  one  is 
its  extreme  complexity  as  compared  with  the 
Aristotelian.  It  was  a  scholastic  age,  and  the 

1  D.  L.  vii.  §  63.  2  Ibid.  §  6.3 ;  S.  E.  viii.  70. 

8  S.  E.  viii.  11,  12.  4  Sen.  Ep.  117,  §  13. 

31 


STOICISM 

Stoics  refined  and  distinguished  to  their  hearts' 
content.  As  regards  immediate  inference,  a 
subject  which  has  been  run  into  subtleties  among 
ourselves,  Chrysippus  estimated  that  the  changes 
which  could  be  rung  on  ten  propositions  exceeded 
a  million,  but  for  this  assertion  he  was  taken  to 
task  by  Hipparchus,  the  mathematician,  who 
proved  that  the  affirmative  proposition  yielded 
exactly  103,049  forms  and  the  negative  310,952.1 
With  us  the  affirmative  proposition  is  more 
prolific  in  consequences  than  the  negative.  But 
then  the  Stoics  were  not  content  with  so  simple  a 
thing  as  mere  negation,  but  had  negative,  arnetic, 
and  privative,  to  say  nothing  of  supernegative 
propositions.  Another  noticeable  feature  is  the 
total  absence  of  the  three  figures  of  Aristotle; 
and  the  only  moods  spoken  of  are  the  moods  of 
the  complex  syllogism,  such  as  the  modus  ponens 
in  a  conjunctive.  Their  type  of  reasoning  was— 

If  A,  then  B. 

But  A. 
/.  B. 

The  important  part  played  by  conjunctive 
propositions  in  their  logic  led  the  Stoics  to 
formulate  the  following  rule  with  regard  to  the 
material  quality  of  such  propositions :  Truth  can 

1  Pint.  1047  C,  Sto.  Repug.  29. 
32 


LOGIC 

only  be  followed  by  truth;  but  falsehood  may 
be  followed  by  falsehood  or  truth. 

Thus,  if  it  be  truly  stated  that  it  is  day,  any 
consequence  of  that  statement,  e.g.  that  it  is  light, 
must  be  true  also.  But  a  false  statement  may 
lead  either  way.  For  instance,  if  it  be  falsely 
stated  that  it  is  night,  then  the  consequence  that 
it  is  dark  is  false  also.  But  if  we  say :  '  The  earth 
flies/  which  was  regarded  as  not  only  false,  but 
impossible,1  this  involves  the  true  consequence 
that  the  earth  is.  Though  the  simple  syllogism 
is  not  alluded  to  in  the  sketch  which  Diogenes 
Laertius  gives  of  the  Stoic  logic,  it  is  of  frequent 
occurrence  in  the  accounts  left  us  of  their  argu 
ments.  Take  for  instance  the  syllogism  where 
with  Zeno  advocated  the  cause  of  temperance 

One  does  not  commit  a  secret  to  a  man  who 

is  drunk. 

One  does  commit  a  secret  to  a  good  man. 
/.  A  good  man  will  not  get  drunk. 

The  chain-argument,  which  we  wrongly  call 
the  Sorites,  was  also  a  favourite  resource  with 
the  Stoics.  If  a  single  syllogism  did  not  suffice 
to  argue  men  into  virtue,  surely  a  condensed 
series  must  be  effectual!  And  so  they  demon- 

1  Here  \ve  may  recall  the  warning  of  Arago  to  call  nothing 
impossible  outside  the  range  of  pure  mathematics. 

c  33 


STOICISM 

strated  the  sufficiency  of  wisdom  for  happiness  as 
follows— 

The  wise  man  is  temperate  ; 

The  temperate  is  constant ; 

The  constant  is  unperturbed ; 

The  unperturbed  is  free  from  sorrow ; 

Whoso  is  free  from  sorrow  is  happy. 
.-.  The  Avise  man  is  happy.1 

The  above  will  serve  as  a  specimen  of  the 
purely  verbal  arguments  which  the  Stoics  were 
pleased  to  put  forward.  Cicero  is  fond  of  com 
paring  their  method  to  thorns  and  pin-pricks, 
which  irritate  the  exterior  without  having  any 
vital  effect.2  If  logic  was  their  strength,  it  was 
also  their  weakness;  for,  notwithstanding  their 
conviction  that  logic  was  concerned  with  the 
actual  truth  of  things,  we  find  them  so  revelling 
in  the  pure  forms  of  reasoning  as  to  be  content 
to  play  the  game  even  with  counters  instead  of 

coin. 

The  delight  which  the  early  Stoics  took  m 
this  pure  play  of  the  intellect  led  them  to  pounce 
with  avidity  upon  the  abundant  stock  of  fallacies 
current  among  the  Greeks  of  their  time.  These 
seem— most  of  them— to  have  been  invented  by 

1  Sen.  Ep.  85,  §  2  ;  Cic.  T.D.  iii.  §  18. 

2  Fin>  iv.  §  7  ;  T.D.  ii.  §  42 ;  Parad.  Intr.  §  2. 

34 


LOGIC 

the  Megarians,  and  especially  by  Eubulides  of 
Miletus,  a  disciple  of  Eucleides,  but  they  became 
associated  with  the  Stoics  both  by  friends  and 
foes,  who  either  praise  their  subtlety  or  deride 
their  solemnity  in  dealing  with  them.  Chry- 
sippus  himself  was  not  above  propounding  such 

sophisms  as  the  following 

Whoever  divulges  the  mysteries  to  the  un 
initiated  commits  impiety. 
The  hierophant  divulges  the  mysteries  to  the 

uninitiated. 
/.  The  hierophant  commits  impiety. 

Anything  you  say  passes  through  your  mouth. 

You  say  '  a  wagon.' 

.'.  A  wagon  passes  through  your  mouth. 
He  is  said  to  have  written  eleven  books  on 
the  No-one  fallacy.  But  what  seems  to  have 
exercised  most  of  his  ingenuity  was  the  famous 
Liar,  the  invention  of  which  is  ascribed  to 
Eubulides.1  This  fallacy,  in  its  simplest  form,  is 
as  follows :  If  you  say  truly  that  you  are  telling 
a  lie,  are  you  lying  or  telling  the  truth  ?  Chry- 
sippus  set  this  down  as  inexplicable.  Neverthe 
less  he  was  far  from  declining  to  discuss  it.  For 

i  Cic.  Div.  ii.  §  11  ;  Plut.  1070  D  ;  Com.  Not.  24;  D.L.  ii 
§  108. 

35 


STOICISM 

we  find  in  the  list  of  his  works  a  treatise  in 
live  books  on  the  Inexplicables ;  an  Introduction 
to  the  Liar  and  Liars  for  Introduction ;  six  books 
on  the  Liar  itself;  a  work  directed  against  those 
who  thought  that  such  propositions  were  both 
false  and  true;  another  against  those  who  pro 
fessed  to  solve  the  Liar  by  a  process  of  division ; 
three  books  on  the  solution  of  the  Liar;  and 
finally  a  polemic  against  those  who  asserted  that 
the  Liar  had  its  premisses  false.1  It  was  well 
for  poor  Philetas  of  Cos  that  he  ended  his  days 
before  Chrysippus  was  born,  though,  as  it  was, 
he  grew  thin  and  died  of  the  Liar,  and  his 
epitaph  served  as  a  solemn  reminder  to  poets 
not  to  meddle  with  logi< 


4  Philetas  of  Cos  am  I, 
'Twas  the  Liar  who  made  me  die, 
And  the  bad  nights  caused  thereby.' 

Perhaps  we  owe  him  an  apology  for  the  trans 
lation.2 


1  D.L.  vii.  §§96-98. 

2  Athen.  ix.  401   C  :— 


/cat  VVKTUV  0/wrtSes  i 


CHAPTER  IV 

ETHIC 

have  already  had  to  touch  upon  the  psy 
chology  of  the  Stoics  in  connection  with  the  first 
principles  of  logic.  It  is  no  less  necessary  to  do 
so  now  in  dealing  with  the  foundation  of  ethic. 

The  Stoics,  we  are  told,  reckoned  that  there 
were  eight  parts  of  the  soul.  These  were  the  five 
senses,  the  organ  of  sound,  the  intellect,  and  the 
reproductive  principle.1  The  passions,  it  will 
be  observed,  are  conspicuous  by  their  absence. 
For  the  Stoic  theory  was  that  the  passions  were 
simply  the  intellect  in  a  diseased  state  owing 
to  the  perversions  of  falsehood.  This  is  why 
the  Stoics  would  not  parley  with  passion,  con 
ceiving  that,  if  once  it  were  let  into  the  citadel 
of  the  soul,  it  would  supplant  the  rightful  ruler. 

1  D.L.   vii.  §§  110,   157;  Philo,   ii.  506;  De  Incor.   Mund 
§  19. 

37 


STOICISM 

Passion  and  reason  were  not  two  things  which 
could  be  kept  separate,  in  which  case  it  might 
be  hoped  that  reason  would  control  passion,  but 
were  two  states  of  the  same  thing,  a  worse  and 
a  better.1 

The  unperturbed  intellect  was  the  legitimate 
monarch  in  the  kingdom  of  man.  Hence  the 
Stoics  commonly  spoke  of  it  as  'the  leading 
principle.' 2  This  was  the  part  of  the  soul  which 
received  phantasies,3  and  it  was  also  that  in  which 
impulses  were  generated,4  with  which  we  have 
now  more  particularly  to  do. 

Impulse,  or  appetition,  was  the  principle  in  the 
soul  which  impelled  to  action.6  In  an  unper- 
verted  state  it  was  directed  only  to  things  in 
accordance  with  nature.6  The  negative  form  of 
this  principle,  or  the  avoidance  of  things  as  being 
contrary  to  nature,  we  shall  call  '  repulsion.' 7 

Notwithstanding  the  sublime  heights  to  which 
Stoic  morality  rose,  it  was  professedly  based  on 

1  Sen.  de  Ira.  i.  8,  §§  2,  3  ;  Pint.  446  F,  447  A,  de  Virt.  Mor.  7. 

2  Cic.  N.D.  ii.  §  29  ;  D.L.  vii.  §§  133,  139, 159  ;  Philo,  i.  625, 
ii.  438 ;  Sen.  Ep.  121,  §  13. 

3  S.E.  vii.  236.  4  D.L.  vii.  §  159. 
5  Cic.  Off.  i.  §§  101,  132. 

e  Cic.  Fin.  iv.  §  39,  v.  §  17;  Acad.  Pr.  §  24;  Off.  ii.  §  18, 
i.  §  105  ;  Sen.  Ep.  124,  §  3  ;  113,  §§  2,  18  ;  121,  §  13. 

7  D.L.  vii.  §  104  ;  Plut.  1037  F,  Sto.  llepug.  11  ;  Stob.  Eel.  ii. 
142,  144,  148,  162;  Cic.  Fin.  v.  §  18;  N.D.  ii.  §34. 

38 


ETHIC 

solf-love,  wherein  the  Stoics  were  at  one  with 
the  other  schools  of  thought  in  the  ancient 
world. 

The  earliest  impulse  that  .appeared  in  a  newly- 
born  animal  was  to  protect  itself  and  its  own 
constitution,  which  were  '  conciliated '  to  it  by 
nature.1  What  tended  to  its  survival  it  sought, 
what  tended  to  its  destruction  it  shunned.  Thus 
self-preservation  was  the  first  law  of  life. 

While  man  was  still  in  the  merely  animal 
stage,  and  before  reason  was  developed  in  him, 
the  things  that  were  in  accordance  with  his 
nature  were  such  as  health,  strength,  good  bodily 
condition,  soundness  of  all  the  senses,  beauty, 
swiftness — in  short,  all  the  qualities  that  went  to 
make  up  richness  of  physical  life  and  that  con 
tributed  to  the  vital  harmony.  These  were  called 
'  the  first  things  in  accordance  with  nature.' 2 
Their  opposites  were  all  contrary  to  nature,  such 
as  sickness,  weakness,  mutilation.3  Under  the 
first  things  in  accordance  with  nature  came  also 
congenital  advantages  of  soul,  such  as  quickness 
of  intelligence,  natural  ability,  industry,  applica- 

1  D.L.  vii.  §  85;  Plut.  1038  B,  Sto.  Repug.  12;  Cic.  Fin.  iii. 
§  16,  iv.  §  26,  v.  §  24 ;  Sen.  Ep.  82,  §  15  ;  121,  §  14. 

2  Aul.  Cell.  xii.  5,  §  7  ;  Luc.  Vit.  Auct.  23  ;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  60, 
136,  148 ;  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §§  17,  21,  22,  v.  §  18. 

3  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  144 ;  Cic.  Fin.  v.  §  18. 

39 


STOICISM 

tion,  memory,  and  the  like.1  It  was  a  question 
whether  pleasure  was  to  be  included  among  the 
number.  Some  members  of  the  school  evidently 
thought  that  it  might  be,2  but  the  orthodox 
opinion  was  that  pleasure  was  a  sort  of  after 
growth,3  and  that  the  direct  pursuit  of  it  was 
deleterious  to  the  organism.  The  after-growths 
of  virtue  were  joy,  cheerfulness,  and  the  like.4 
These  were  the  gambollings  of  the  spirit,  like 
the  frolicsomeness  of  an  animal  in  the  full  flush 
of  its  vitality,  or  like  the  blooming  of  a  plant. 
For  one  and  the  same  power  manifested  itself  in 
all  ranks  of  nature,  only  at  each  stage  on  a  higher 
level.  To  the  vegetative  powers  of  the  plant  the 
animal  added  sense  and  impulse;  it  was  in 
accordance  therefore  with  the  nature  of  an  animal 
to  obey  the  impulses  of  sense ;  but  to  sense  and 
impulse  man  superadded  reason,  so  that,  when 
he  became  conscious  of  himself  as  a  rational 
being,  it  was  in  accordance  with  his  nature  to 
let  all  his  impulses  be  shaped  by  this  new  and 
master  hand.5  Virtue  was  therefore  pre-eminently 

1  Stob.  ii.  60 ;  Cic.  Fin.  v.  §  18 

2  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  17  ;  S.E.  xi.  73. 

:<  D.L.  vii.  §§  86,  94.    Cp.  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  32;  Stob.  Eel.  ii. 
78,  110. 

4  D.L.  ii.  §  94 ;  Epict.  Frag.  52. 
6  D.L.  vii.  §86. 

40 


ETHIC 

in  accordance  with  nature.1  What,  then,  we  must 
now  ask,  is  the  relation  of  reason  to  impulse  as 
conceived  by  the  Stoics?  Is  reason  simply  the 
guiding,  and  impulse  the  motive  power  ?  Seneca 
protests  against  this  view,  when  impulse  is  identi 
fied  with  passion.  One  of  his  grounds  for  doing 
so  is  that  reason  would  be  put  on  a  level  with 
passion,  if  the  two  were  equally  necessary  for 
action.2  But  the  question  is  begged  by  the  use 
of  the  word  '  passion,'  which  was  denned  by  the 
Stoics  as  '  an  excessive  impulse.'  Is  it  possible 
then,  even  on  Stoic  principles,  for  reason  to  work 
without  something  different  from  itself  to  help 
it  ?  Or  must  we  say  that  reason  is  itself  a 
principle  of  action  ?  Here  Plutarch  comes  to 
our  aid,  who  tells  us  on  the  authority  of  Chry- 
sippus  in  his  work  on  Law  that  impulse  is  'the 
reason  of  man  commanding  him  to  act,'  and 
similarly  that  repulsion  is  'prohibitive  reason.'3 
This  renders  the  Stoic  position  unmistakable, 
and  we  must  accommodate  our  minds  to  it  in 
spite  of  its  difficulties.  Just  as  we  have  seen 
already  that  reason  is  not  something  radically 
different  from  sense,  so  now  it  appears  that 
reason  is  not  different  from  impulse,  but  itself 

1  Plut.  1062  C,  Com.  Not.  9. 

-  De  Ira.  i.  10,  §  2.  3  Plut.  1037  F,  Sto.  Repug.  11. 

41 


STOICISM 

the  perfected  form  of  impulse.  Whenever  im 
pulse  is  not  identical  with  reason — at  least  in  a 
rational  being — it  is  not  truly  impulse,  but  passion. 
The  Stoics,  it  will  be  observed,  were  Evolu 
tionists  in  their  psychology.  But,  like  many 
Evolutionists  at  the  present  day,  they  did  not 
believe  in  the  origin  of  mind  out  of  matter.  In 
all  living  things  there  existed  already  what  they 
called  '  seminal  reasons,'  which  accounted  for  the 
intelligence  displayed  by  plants  as  well  as  by 
animals.1  As  there  were  four  cardinal  virtues,  so 
there  were  four  primary  passions.  These  were 
delight,  grief,  desire,  and  fear.2  All  of  them  were 
excited  by  the  presence  or  the  prospect  of  fancied 
good  or  ill.  What  prompted  desire  by  its  pro 
spect  caused  delight  by  its  presence,  and  what 
prompted  fear  by  its  prospect  caused  grief  by  its 
presence.3  Thus  two  of  the  primary  passions  had 
to  do  with  good  and  two  with  evil.  All  were 
furies  which  infested  the  life  of  fools,  rendering 
it  bitter  and  grievous  to  them ;  and  it  was  the 
business  of  philosophy  to  fight  against  them. 

1  D.L.  vii.  §§  110,  136,  148,  157,  159,  viii.  §29  ;  Pint.  1077  B, 
Com.  Not.  35,  881  E,  Plac.  i.  6 ;  Stob.  Eel.  i.  322,  372,  414, 
ii.  60,  148,  150  ;  Philo,  ii.  504,  de  Incor.  Mund.  §§  17,  18. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §  110;  Stob.   Eel.  ii.    166;  Cic.   Fin.   iii.   §  35; 
T.D.  iii.  §  24  ;  iv.  §§  8,  11,  13,  43. 

3  Epict.  Diss.  iv.  1,  §  84. 

42 


ETHIC 

Nor  was  this  strife  a  hopeless  one,  since  the 
passions  were  not  grounded  in  nature,  but  were 
due  to  false  opinion.1  They  originated  in  volun 
tary  judgments,  and  owed  their  birth  to  a  lack  of 
mental  sobriety.  If  men  wished  to  live  the  span 
of  life  that  was  allotted  to  them  in  quietness  and 
peace,  they  must  by  all  means  keep  clear  of  the 
passions. 

The  four  primary  passions  having  been  formu 
lated,  it  became  necessary  to  justify  the  division 
by  arranging  the  specific  forms  of  feeling  under 
these  four  heads.2  In  this  task  the  Stoics  dis 
played  a  subtlety  which  is  of  more  interest  to  the 
lexicographer  than  to  the  student  of  philosophy. 
They  laid  great  stress  on  the  derivation  of  words 
as  affording  a  clue  to  their  meaning ;  and,  as  their 
etymology  was  bound  by  no  principles,  their  in 
genuity  was  free  to  indulge  in  the  wildest  freaks 
of  fancy. 

Though  all  passion  stood  self-condemned,  there 
were  nevertheless  certain  '  eupathies,'  or  happy 
affections,  which  would  be  experienced  by  the 
ideally  good  and  wise  man.3  These  were  not 
perturbations  of  the  soul,  but  rather  '  con- 

1  Cic.  Acad.  Post.  §  39  ;  Fin.  Hi.  §  35  ;  T.D.  iii.  §  24  ;  iv.  §  14  ; 
D.L.  vii.  §  111  ;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  168. 

2  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  35 ;  T.D.  iii.  §  24. 

3  D.L.  vii.  §116. 

43 


STOICISM 

stancies';1  they  were  not  opposed  to  reason,  but 
were  rather  part  of  reason.  Though  the  sage 
would  never  be  transported  with  delight,  he 
would  still  feel  an  abiding  'joy ' 2  in  the  presence 
of  the  true  and  only  good  ;  he  would  never  indeed 
be  agitated  by  desire,  but  still  he  would  be  ani 
mated  by  'wish,'3  for  that  was  directed  only  to 
the  good ;  and,  though  he  would  never  feel '  fear,' 
still  he  would  be  actuated  in  danger  by  a  proper 
'  caution.' 4 

There  was  therefore  something  rational  corre 
sponding  to  three  out  of  the  four  primary  passions 
— against  delight  was  to  be  set  joy ;  against  desire, 
wish;  against  fear,  caution;  but  against  grief 
there  was  nothing  to  be  set,  for  that  arose  from 
the  presence  of  ill,  which  would  never  attach  to 
the  sage.  Grief  was  the  irrational  conviction  that 
one  ought  to  afflict  oneself,  where  there  was  no 
occasion  for  it.  The  ideal  of  the  Stoics  was  the 
unclouded  serenity  of  Socrates,  of  whom  Xan 
thippe  declared  that  he  had  always  the  same  face, 
whether  on  leaving  the  house  in  the  morning  or 
on  returning  to  it  at  night. 

1  Cic.  T.D.  iv.  §§  14,  80. 

2  xapa  as  opposed  to  TjSovrj,  Cic.  T.D.  iv.  §  13;  Plut.  1046  B, 
Sto.  Repug.  25. 

3  povX-rjcris  as  opposed  to  e-jridv/jiia.. 

4  ei)\ct/3eta  as  opposed  to  06/3os. 

44 


ETHIC 

As  the  motley  crowd  of  passions  followed  the 
banners  of  their  four  leaders,  so  specific  forms  of 
feeling  sanctioned  by  reason  were  severally  as 
signed  to  the  three  eupathies. 

Things  were  divided  by  Zeno  into  good,  bad  arid 
indifferent.1  To  good  belonged  virtue  and  what 
partook  of  virtue ;  to  bad  vice  and  what  partook 
of  vice.  All  other  things  were  indifferent. 

To  the  third  class  then  belonged  such  things  as 
life  and  death,  health  and  sickness,  pleasure  and 
pain,  beauty  and  ugliness,  strength  and  weakness, 
honour  and  dishonour,  wealth  and  poverty,  victory 
and  defeat,  nobility  and  baseness  of  birth.2 

Good  was  defined  as  that  which  benefits.3  To 
confer  benefit  was  no  less  essential  to  good  than 
to  impart  warmth  was  to  heat.4  If  one  asked  in 
what '  to  benefit '  lay,  one  received  the  reply  that 
it  lay  in  producing  an  act  or  state  in  accordance 
with  virtue ;  and  similarly  it  was  laid  down  that 
'  to  hurt '  lay  in  producing  an  act  or  state  in 
accordance  with  vice.5  The  indifference  of  things 
other  than  virtue  and  vice  was  apparent  from  the 
definition  of  good,  which  made  it  essentially  bene- 

1  Stob.  ii.  90 ;  D.L.  vii.  §  101 ;  Plut.  1064  C,  Com.  Not.  12 ; 
Sen.  Ep.  82,  §  10. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §  102;  Stob.   Eel.  ii.   92:  Ceb.  Tab.  36;  Epict. 
Diss.  ii.  9,  §  13.  3  D.L.  vii.  §  94;  Stob.  ii.  96. 

4  D.L.  vii.  §  103.  6  Ibid.,  104. 

45 


STOICISM 

ficial.  Such  things  as  health  and  wealth  might 
be  beneficial  or  not,  according  to  circumstances  ; 1 
they  were  therefore  no  more  good  than  bad. 
Again,  nothing  could  be  really  good,  of  which  the 
good  or  ill  depended  on  the  use  made  of  it;  but  this 
was  the  case  with  things  like  health  and  wealth. 

Good  having  been  identified  with  virtue,  there 
could  be  no  question  of  any  conflict  between  the 
right  and  the  expedient.  This  was  a  point  on 
which  the  Stoic  doctrine  was  very  explicit.  The 
good  was  expedient  and  fitting  and  profitable  and 
useful  and  serviceable  and  beautiful  and  beneficial 
and  choiceworthy  and  just.2  These  various  pre 
dicates  were  defined,  generally  in  accordance  with 
their  etymology,  in  such  a  way  as  to  avoid  the 
charge  of  one  being  a  mere  synonym  of  the  other. 
Their  contraries  were  all  applicable  to  the  bad.3 

The  true  and  only  good  then  was  identical  with 
what  the  Greeks  called  '  the  beautifu] '  and  what 
we  call '  the  right.'  To  say  that  a  thing  was  right 
was  to  say  that  it  was  good,  and,  conversely,  to  say 
that  it  was  good  was  to  say  that  it  was  right,  this 
absolute  identity  between  the  good  and  right,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  between  the  bad  and  wrong, 
was  the  head  and  front  of  the  Stoic  ethics.  The 

1  Ceb.  Tab.  38  ;  D.L.  vii.  §  100. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §  98 ;  Stob.  ii.  94,  96.  3  Stob.  ii.  96,  202. 

46 


ETHIC 

right  contained  in  itself  all  that  was  necessary  for 
the  happy  life ;  the  wrong  was  the  only  evil,  and 
made  men  miserable,  whether  they  knew  it  or  not.1 

As  virtue  was  itself  the  end,  it  was  of  course 
choiceworthy  in  and  for  itself,  apart  from  hope 
or  fear  with  regard  to  its  consequences.2  More 
over,  as  being  the  highest  good,  it  could  admit  of 
no  increase  from  the  addition  of  things  indifferent. 
It  did  not  even  admit  of  increase  from  the  pro 
longation  of  its  own  existence;  for  the  question 
was  not  one  of  quantity,  but  of  quality.  Virtue 
for  an  eternity  was  no  more  virtue,  and  therefore 
no  more  good,  than  virtue  for  a  moment.  Even 
so  one  circle  was  no  more  round  than  another, 
whatever  you  might  choose  to  make  its  diameter, 
nor  would  it  detract  from  the  perfection  of  a 
circle,  if  it  were  to  be  obliterated  immediately  in 
the  same  dust  in  which  it  had  been  drawn.3 

To  say  that  the  good  of  men  lay  in  virtue  was 
another  way  of  saying  that  it  lay  in  reason,  since 
virtue  was  the  perfection  of  reason.4 

1  D.L.  vii.  §  101 ;  Stob.  ii.  202;  Cic.  Acad.  Post.  §§  7,  35; 
T.D.  iii.  §  34 ;  Off.  iii.  §§  11,  35  ;  Sen.  Ep.  71,  §  4. 

-  D.L.  vii.  §89. 

*  Sen.  Ep.  74,  §  27  ;  Plut.  1062  A,  Com.  Not.  8,  1046  D,  Sto. 
Repug.  26. 

4  Cic.  Fin.  iv.  §  35,  T.D.  ii.  §  47,  iv.  §  34,  v.  §  39  ;  Sen.  Ep. 
76,  §  10. 

47 


STOICISM 

As  reason  was  the  only  thing  whereby  Nature 
had  distinguished  man  from  other  creatures,  to 
live  the  rational  life  was  to  follow  Nature.1 

Nature  was  at  once  the  law  of  God  and  the  law 
for  man.2  For  by  the  nature  of  anything  was 
meant,  not  that  which  we  actually  find  it  to  be, 
but  that  which  in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  it 
was  obviously  intended  to  become. 

To  be  happy  then  was  to  be  virtuous;  to  be 
virtuous  was  to  be  rational ;  to  be  rational  was  to 
follow  Nature ;  and  to  follow  Nature  was  to  obey 
God.  Virtue  imparted  to  life  that  even  flow 3  in 
which  Zeno  declared  happiness  to  consist.  This 
was  attained  when  one's  own  genius  was  in 
harmony  with  the  will  that  disposed  all  things.4 

Virtue,  having  been  purified  from  all  the  dross 
of  the  emotions,  came  out  as  something  purely 
intellectual,  so  that  the  Stoics  agreed  with  the 
Socratic  conception  that  virtue  is  knowledge. 
They  also  took  on  from  Plato  the  four  cardinal 
virtues  of  Wisdom,  Temperance,  Courage,  and 
Justice,  and  defined  them  as  so  many  branches  of 
knowledge.  Against  these  were  set  four  cardinal 
vices  of  Folly,  Intemperance,  Cowardice,  and 


1  Sen.  Ep.  66,  §  39.  2  Cic.  Off.  iii.  §  23. 

3  efyoia  /3iou,  Stob.  ii.  138  ;  S.E.  xi.  30. 

4  D.L.  vii.  §88. 

48 


ETHIC 

Injustice.     Under  both  the  virtues  and  vices  there 
was  an  elaborate  classification  of  specific  qualities. 
But   notwithstanding   the   care   with   which   the 
Stoics  divided  and  subdivided  the  virtues,  virtue, 
according  to  their  doctrine,  was  all  the  time  one 
and   indivisible.     For  virtue  was  simply  reason, 
and  reason,  if  it  were  there,  must  control  every 
department  of  conduct  alike.     '  He  who  has  one 
virtue  has  all/  was  a  paradox  with  which  Greek 
thought  was   already  familiar.     But   Chrysippus 
went  beyond  this,  declaring  that  he  who  displayed 
one  virtue  did  thereby  display  all.     Neither  was 
the  man  perfect   who   did   not  possess   all   the 
virtues,  nor  was   the   act   perfect  which  did  not 
involve   them   all.1     Where   the   virtues  differed 
from   one   another  was   merely  in   the   order   in 
which  they  put  things.     Each  was  primarily  itself, 
secondarily  all  the  rest.     Wisdom  had  to  deter 
mine  what  it  was  right  to  do,  but  this  involved 
the  other  virtues.     Temperance   had   to  impart 
stability  to  the  impulses,  but  how  could  the  term 
'temperate'  be  applied  to  a  man  who  deserted 
his   post   through    cowardice,   or   who   failed   to 
return  >  deposit  through  avarice,  which  is  a  form 
of  injustice,   or  yet  to   one  who   misconducted 

1  Plut.  1046  F,  Sto.  Repug.  27 ;  D.L.  vii.  §  125;  Stob.  Eel.  ii. 
112 ;  Cic.  Acad.  Post.  §  38 ;  T.D.  iii.  §  17. 

D  49 


STOICISM 

affairs  through  rashness,  which  falls  under  folly  ? 
Courage  had  to  face  dangers  and  difficulties,  but 
it  was  not  courage,  unless  its  cause  were  just. 
Indeed   one  of  the  ways  in  which   courage  was 
defined   was    as    'virtue    fighting   on   behalf    of 
justice.'1     Similarly  justice  put  first  the  assigning 
to  each  man  his  due,  but  in  the  act  of  doing  so 
had  to  bring  in  the  other  virtues.     In  short,  it 
was  the  business  of  the  man  of  virtue  to  know 
and  to  do  what  ought  to  be^done  ;  for  what  ought 
to  be  done  implied  wisdom  in  choice,  courage  in 
endurance,  justice  in  assignment,  and  temperance 
in -abiding  by  one's  conviction.2     One  virtue  never 
acted  by  itself,  but  always  on  the  advice  of  a  com 
mittee.3     The  obverse  to  this  paradox — '  He  who 
has  one  vice  has  all  vices ' — was  a  conclusion  which 
the  Stoics  did  not   shrink  from  drawing.4     One 
might  lose  part  of  one's  Corinthian  ware  and  still 
retain  the  rest,  but  to  lose  one  virtue — if  virtue 
could  be  lost — would  be  to  lose  all  along  with  it.5 
We  have  now  encountered  the  first  paradox  of 
Stoicism,  and  can  discern  its  origin  in  the  identi 
fication  of  virtue  with  pure   reason.     In  setting 
forth   the   novelties   in    Zeno's   teaching,  Cicero 

1  Cic.  Off.  i.  62.  2  D.L.  vii.  §  126. 

a  Sen.  Ep.  67.§  10.  4  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  216. 

*  Cic.  T.U.  ii.  §32. 

50 


ETHIC 

mentions  that,  while  his  predecessors  had  recog 
nised  virtues  due  to  nature  and  habit,  he  made 
all  dependent  upon  reason.1  A  natural  conse 
quence  of  this  was  the  reassertion  of  the  position 
which  Plato  held,  or  wished  to  hold,  namely,  that 
virtue  can  be  taught.2  But  the  part  played  by 
nature  in  virtue  cannot  be  ignored.  It  was  not 
in  the  power  of  Zeno  to  alter  facts ;  all  he  could 
do  was  to  legislate  as  to  names.  And  this  he  did 
vigorously.  Nothing  was  to  be  called  virtue 
which  was  not  of  the  nature  of  reason  and  know 
ledge,  but  still  it  had  to  be  admitted  that  nature 
supplied  the  starting-points  for  the  four  cardinal 
virtues — for  the  discovery  of  one's  duty  and  the 
steadying  of  one's  impulses,  for  right  endurances 
and  harmonious  distributions.3  To  nature  were 
due  the  seeds,  though  the  harvest  was  reaped  by 
the  sage;  hers  were  the  sparks,  though  the  fire 
was  to  be  fanned  into  flame  by  teaching.4 

From  things  good  and  bad  we  now  turn  to 
things  indifferent.  Hitherto  the  Stoic  doctrine 
has  been  stern  and  uncompromising.  We  have 
now  to  look  at  it  under  a  different  aspect,  and  to 
see  how  it  tried  to  conciliate  common-sense. 

1  Acad.  Post.  §  38. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §  91  ;  Sen.  Ep.  90  §  44,  123  §  16. 

3  Stob.  ii.  108;  D.L.  vii.  §  89. 

4  Cic.  T.D.-iii.  §2;  Fin.  v.  §  18. 

51 


STOICISM 

By  things  indifferent  were  meant  such  as  did 
not  necessarily  contribute  to  virtue,  for  instance, 
health,  wealth,  strength,  and  honour.  It  is  possible 
to  have  all  these  and  not  be  virtuous ;  it  is  possible 
also  to  be  virtuous  without  them.  But  we  have 
now  to  learn  that,  though  these  things  are  neither 
good  nor  evil,  and  are  therefore  not  matter  for 
choice  or  avoidance,  they  are  far  from  being 
indifferent  in  the  sense  of  arousing  neither  impulse 
nor  repulsion.  There  are  things  indeed  that  are 
indifferent  in  the  latter  sense,  such  as  whether 
you  put  out  your  finger  this  way  or  that,  whether 
you  stoop  to  pick  up  a  straw  or  not,  whether  the 
number  of  hairs  on  your  head  be  odd  or  even. 
But  things  of  this  sort  are  exceptional.  The  bulk 
of  things  other  than  virtue  and  vice  do  arouse  in 
us  either  impulse  or  repulsion.  Let  it  be  under 
stood  then  that  there  are  two  senses  of  the  word 
'  indifferent ' — 

(1)  neither  good  nor  bad, 

(2)  neither  awaking  impulse  nor  repulsion.1 
Among  things  indifferent  in  the  former  sense 

some  were  in  accordance  with  nature,  some 
were  contrary  to  nature,  and  some  were  neither 
one  nor  the  other.  Health,  strength,  and  sound 
ness  of  the  senses'were  in  accordance  with  nature ; 

1  D.L.  vii.  §  104  ;  Stob.  ii.  142;  S.E.  xi.  59-61. 
52 


ETHIC 

sickness,  weakness,  and  mutilation  were  contrary 
to  nature;  but  such  things  as  the  fallibility  of 
the  soul  and  the  vulnerability  of  the  body  were 
neither  in  accordance  with  nature  nor  yet  contrary 
to  nature,  but  just  nature. 

All  things  that  were  in  accordance  with  nature 
had  '  value/  and  all  things  that  were  contrary  to 
nature  had  what  we  must  call '  disvalue.' l  In  the 
highest  sense  indeed  of  the  term  '  value,'  namely, 
that  of  absolute  value  or  worth,  things  indifferent 
did  not  possess  any  value  at  all.2  But  still  there 
might  be  assigned  to  them  what  Antipater  ex 
pressed  by  the  term  '  a  selective  value '  or  what 
he  expressed  by  its  barbarous  privative  '  a  disselec- 
tive  disvalue.'  If  a  thing  possessed  a  selective 
value,  you  took  that  thing  rather  than  its  contrary, 
supposing  that  circumstances  allowed,  for  instance 
health  rather  than  sickness,  wealth  rather  than 
poverty,  life  rather  than  death.  Hence  such 
things  were  called  '  takeable '  and  their  contraries 
'  untakeable.'  Things  that  possessed  a  high  degree 
of  value  were  called  'preferred,'  those  that  possessed 
a  high  degree  of  disvalue  were  called  'rejected.' 
Such  as  possessed  no  considerable  degree  of  either 

1  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  152;  D.L.  vii.  §  105;  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §§  20,  50, 
51. 

2  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  154,  156. 

53 


STOICISM 

were  neither  preferred  nor  rejected.1  Zeno,  with 
whom  these  names  originated,  justified  their  use 
about  things  really  indifferent  on  the  ground  that 
at  court '  preferment '  could  not  be  bestowed  upon 
the  king  himself,  but  only  on  his  ministers.2 

Things  preferred  and  rejected  might  belong  to 
mind,  body,  or  estate.  Among  things  preferred 
in  the  case  of  the  mind  were  natural  ability,  art, 
moral  progress,  and  the  like,  while  their  contraries 
were  rejected.  In  the  case  of  the  body,  life, 
health,  strength,  good  condition,  completeness, 
and  beauty  were  preferred,  while  death,  sickness, 
weakness,  ill-condition,  mutilation,  and  ugliness 
were  rejected.  Among  things  external  to  soul 
and  body,  wealth,  reputation,  and  nobility  were 
preferred,  while  poverty,  ill-repute,  and  baseness 
of  birth  were  rejected.3 

In  this  way  all  mundane  and  marketable  goods, 
after  having  been  solemnly  refused  admittance 
by  the  Stoics  at  the  front  door,  were  smuggled 
in  at  a  kind  of  tradesman's  entrance  under  the 
name  of  things  indifferent.  We  must  now  see 
how  they  had,  as  it  were,  two  moral  codes,  one  for 
the  sage  and  the  other  for  the  world  in  general. 

1  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  144,  156  ;  D.L.  vii.  §  105;  S.E.  xi.  62  ;  Cic. 
Acad.  Post.  §  36  ;  Fin.  iii    §§  15,  52,  53,  iv.  §  72,  v.  §§  78,  90. 

2  Stob.  ii.  156 ;  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  52. 

B  D.L.  vii.  §  106;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  146. 

54 


ETHIC 

The   sago   alone  could  act  rightly,  but   other 
people  might    perform  '  the  proprieties.'  1     Any 
one  might  honour  his  parents,  but  the  sage  alone 
did  it  as  the  outcome  of  wisdom,  because  he  alone 
possessed  the  art  of  life,  the  peculiar  work  of 
which  was  to  do  everything  that  was  done  as  the 
result  of  the  best  disposition.2     All  the  acts  of 
the  sage  were  'perfect  proprieties,'  v^hich  were 
called  '  Tightnesses.'  3    All  acts  of  all  other  men 
were  sins  or  '  wrongnesses.'     At  their  best  they 
could  only  be  '  intermediate  proprieties.'  4     The 
term   '  propriety,'    then,  is  a  generic   one.     But, 
as   often   happens,  the  generic  term   got   deter 
mined    in    use   to    a   specific   meaning,  so    that 
intermediate   acts   arc   commonly   spoken  of  as 
'  proprieties  '  in  opposition  to  '  lightnesses.'     In 
stances  of  Tightnesses  are  displaying  wisdom  and 
dealing  justly;  instances  of  proprieties  or  inter 
mediate  acts  are  marrying,  going  on  an  embassy, 
and  dialectic.5 

The  word  '  duty  '  is  often  employed  to  trans- 


1  TO. 

2  S.E.  xi.  201,  202. 

3  Stob.  ii.   158,  160,  184;  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §§  24,  59,  iv.   S  15; 
Acad.    Post.  §  37;    Off.  i.   §  8,  iii.  §  14,  pro  Mur.  §s  3,  11, 
GO. 

4  Stob.  ii.  158,  100;  Pint.  1037  F.,  Sto.  Repug.   11  ;   Cic. 
Acad.  Post.  §  37  ;  OiT.  i.  §  8  ;  T.  D.  iii.  §  11. 

"  Stob.  ii.  158,  192. 

55 


STOICISM 

late  the  Greek  term  which  we  are  rendering  by 
'  propriety.'  Any  translation  is  no  more  than  a 
choice  of  evils,  since  we  have  no  real  equivalent 
for  the  term.  It  was  applicable  not  merely  to 
human  conduct  but  also  to  the  actions  of^the 
lower  animals,  and  even  to  the  growth  of  plants.1 
Now,  apart  from  a  craze  for  generalisation,  we 
should  hardly  think  of  the  'stern  daughter  of 
the  voice  of  God '  in  connection  with  an  amceba 
corresponding  successfully  to  stimulus;  yet  the 
creature  in  its  inchoate  way  is  exhibiting  a  dim 
analogy  to  duty.  The  term  in  question  was  first 
used  by  Zeno,  and  was  explained  by  him,  in 
accordance  with  its  etymology,  to  mean  what  it 
came  to  one  to  do,2  so  that,  as  far  as  this  goes, 
'  becomingness '  would  be  the  most  appropriate 
translation. 

The  sphere  of  propriety  was  confined  to  things 
indifferent,3  so  that  there  were  proprieties  which 
were  common  to  the  sage  and  the  fool.  It  had 
to  do  with  taking  the  things  which  were  in 
accordance  with  nature  and  rejecting  those  that 
were  not.  Even  the  propriety  of  living  or  dying 
was  determined,  not  by  reference  to  virtue  or 
vice,  but  to  the  preponderance  or  deficiency  of 

1  D.L.  vii.  §  107;  Stob.  ii.  158. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §  108.  3  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  59 ;  Stob.  ii.  226. 

56 


ETHIC 

things  in  accordance  with  nature.  It  might  thus 
he  a  propriety  for  the  sage  in  spite  of  his  happi 
ness,  to  depart  from  life  of  his  own  accord,  and 
for  the  fool  notwithstanding  his  misery,  to  remain 
in  it.  Life,  being  in  itself  indifferent,  the  whole 
question  was  one  of  opportunism.  Wisdom 
might  prompt  the  leaving  herself  should  occasion 
seem  to  call  for  it.1 

Since  men  in  general  were  very  far  from  being 
sages,2  it  is  evident  that,  if  the  Stoic  morality  was 
to  affect  the  world  at  large,  it  had  to  be  accom 
modated  in  some  way  to  existing  circumstances. 
No  moral  treatise  perhaps  has  exercised  so  wide 
spread  an  influence  as  that  which  was  known  to 
our  forefathers  under  the  title  of  Tully's  Offices. 
Now  that  work  is  founded  on  Pansetius,  a  rather 
unorthodox  Stoic,  and  it  does  not  profess  to  treat 
of  the  ideal  morality  at  all,  but  only  of  the  inter 
mediate  proprieties  (iii.  §  14).  We  may  notice 
also  that  in  that  work  the  attempt  to  regard 
virtue  as  one  and  indivisible,  is  frankly  aban 
doned  as  being  unsuitable  to  the  popular  in 
telligence  (ii.  §  35). 

We  pass  on  now  to  another  instance  of  accom- 

1  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  61  ;  Stob.  ii.  22G  ;  Plut.  1063  D.,  Com. 
Not.  11,  1042  D.,  Sto.  Repug.  18;  1039  E.,  Sto.  Repug.  14. 

2  Cic.  Off.  i.  §  46. 

57 


STOICISM 

modation.  According  to  the  high  Stoic  doctrine 
there  was  no  mean  between  virtue  and  vice.1  All 
men  indeed  received  from  nature  the  starting- 
points  for  virtue,  but  until  perfection  had  been 
attained  they  rested  under  the  condemnation  oi:' 
vice.  It  was,  to  employ  an  illustration  of  the 
poet-philosopher  Cleanthes,  as  though  Nature 
had  begun  an  iambic  line  and  left  men  to  finish 
it.2  Until  that  was  done  they  were  to  wear  the 
fool's  cap.  The  Peripatetics,  on  the  other  hand, 
recognised  an  intermediate  state  between  virtue 
and  vice,  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  progress 
or  proficience.3  Yefc  so  entirely  had  the  Stoics, 
for  practical  purposes,  to  accept  this  lower  level, 
that  the  word  '  proficience '  has  come  to  be  spoken 
of  as  though  it  were  of  Stoic  origin. 

Seneca  is  fond  of  contrasting  the  sage  with 
the  proficient.4  The  sage  is  like  a  man  in  the 
enjoyment  of  perfect  health.  But  the  proficient 
is  like  a  man  recovering  from  a.  severe  illness, 
with  whom  an  abatement  of  the  paroxysm  is  equi 
valent  to  health,  and  who  is  always  in  danger  of 
a  relapse.  It  is  the  business  of  philosophy  to 
provide  for  the  needs  of  these  weaker  brethren. 

1  D.  L.  vii.  §  127.  2  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  110. 

3  D.  L.  vii.  §  127  ;  Acad.  Post.  §  20 ;  Fin.  iv.  §  G6  ;  Off. 
iii.  §  17;  Sen.  Ep.  71,  §36. 

*  Ep.  71,  §  30  ;  72,  §  6  ;  75,  §  8  ;  94,  §  50. 

58 


ETHIC 

The  proficient  is  still  called  a  fool,  but  it  is 
pointed  out  that  he  is  a  very  different  kind  of 
fool  from  the  rest.  Further,  proficients  are 
arranged  into  three  classes,  in  a  way  that  re 
minds  one  of  the  technicalities  of  Calvinistic 
theology.  First  of  all,  there  are  those  who  are 
near  wisdom,  but,  however  near  they  may  be  to 
the  door  of  Heaven,  they  are  still  on  the  wrong 
side  of  it.  According  to  some  doctors,  these  were 
already  safe  from  backsliding,  differing  from  the 
sage  only  in  not  having  yet  realised  that  they 
had  attained  to  knowledge;  other  authorities 
however  refused  to  admit  this,  and  regarded  the 
first  class  as  being  exempt  .only  from  settled 
diseases  of  the  soul,  but  not  from  passing  attacks 
of  passion.  Thus  did  the  Stoics  differ  among 
themselves  as  to  the  doctrine  of  '  final  assurance.' 
The  second  class  consisted  of  those  who  had  laid 
aside  the  worst  diseases  and  passions  of  the  soul, 
but  might  at  any  moment  relapse  into  them. 
The  third  class  was  of  those  who  had  escaped 
one  mental  malady,  but  not  another,  who  had 
conquered  lust,  let  us  say,  but  not  ambition, 
who  disregarded  death,  but  dreaded  pain.  This 
third  class,  adds  Seneca,  is  by  no  means  to  be 
despised.1 

1  Sen.  Ep.  75,  §  8. 

59 


STOICISM 

Epictetus  devotes  a  dissertation  (i.  4)  to  the 
same  subject  of  progress  or  proficience.  The 
only  true  sphere  for  progress,  he  declares,  is  that 
in  which  one's  work  lies.  If  you  are  interested 
in  the  progress  of  an  athlete,  you  expect  to  see 
his  biceps,  not  his  dumb-bells ;  and  so  in  morality 
it  is  not  the  books  a  man  has  read,  but  how  he 
has  profited  by  them  that  counts.  For  the  work 
of  man  is  not  to  master  Chrysippus  on  impulse, 
but  to  control  impulse  itself. 

From  these  concessions  to  the  weakness  of 
humanity  we  now  pass  to  the  Stoic  paradoxes, 
where  we  shall  see  their  doctrine  in  its  full 
rigour.  It  is  perhaps  these  very  paradoxes 
which  account  for  the  puzzled  fascination  with 
which  Stoicism  affected  the  mind  of  antiquity, 
just  as  obscurity  in  a  poet  may  prove  a  surer 
passport  to  fame  than  more  strictly  poetical 
merits. 

The  root  of  Stoicism  being  a  paradox,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  offshoots  should  be  so  too. 
To  say  that  '  Virtue  is  the  highest  good,'  is  a 
proposition  to  which  every  one  who  aspires  to  the 
spiritual  life  must  yield  assent  with  his  lips,  even 
if  he  has  not  yet  learnt  to  believe  it  in  his  heart. 
But  alter  it  into  '  Virtue  is  the  only  good,'  and  by 
that  slight  change  it  becomes  cit  once  the  teeming 

60 


ETHIC 

mother  of  paradoxes.  By  a  paradox  is  meant 
that  which  runs  counter  to  general  opinion.  Now 
it  is  quite  certain  that  men  have  regarded,  do 
regard,  and,  we  may  safely  add,  will  regard  things 
as  good  which  are  not  virtue.  But,  if  we  grant 
this  initial  paradox,  a  great  many  others  will 
follow  along  with  it — as,  for  instance,  that '  Virtue 
is  sufficient  of  itself  for  happiness.'  The  fifth 
book  of  Cicero's  Tusculan  Disputations  is  an 
eloquent  defence  of  this  thesis,  in  which  the 
orator  combats  the  suggestion  that  a  good  man 
is  not  happy  when  he  is  being  broken  on  the 
wheel ! 

Another  glaring  paradox  of  the  Stoics  is  that 
'  All  faults  are  equal.'  They  took  their  stand 
upon  a  mathematical  conception  of  rectitude. 
An  angle  must  be  either  a  right-angle  or  not ;  a 
line  must  be  either  straight  or  crooked :  so  an  act 
must  be  either  right  or  wrong.  There  is  no  mean 
between  the  two,  and  there  are  no  degrees  of 
either.  To  sin  is  to  cross  the  line.  When  once 
that  has  been  done,  it  makes  no  difference  to  the 
offence  how  far  you  go.  Trespassing  at  all  is 
forbidden.  This  doctrine  was  defended  by  the 
Stoics  on  account  of  its  bracing  moral  effect,  as 
showing  the  heinousness  of  sin.  Horace  gives 
the  judgment  of  the  world  in  saying  that  com- 
61 


STOICISM 

mon-sense  and  morality,  to  say  nothing  of  utility, 
revolt  against  it.1 

Here  are  some  other  specimens  of  the  Stoic 
paradoxes.  '  Every  fool  is  mad.'  '  Only  the  sage 
is  free,  and  every  fool  is  a  slave.'  '  The  sage  alone 
is  wealthy.'  '  Good  men  are  always  happy,  and 
bad  men  always  miserable.'  '  All  goods  are 
equal.'  '  No  one  is  wiser  or  happier  than  another.' 
But  may  not  one  man,  we  ask,  be  more  nearly 
wise  or  more  nearly  happy  than  another  ?  '  That 
may  be,'  the  Stoics  would  reply,  '  but  the  man 
who  is  only  one  stade  from  Canopus  is  as  much 
not  in  Canopus  as  the  man  who  is  a  hundred 
stades  off;  and  the  eight-day-old  puppy  is  still  as 
blind  as  on  the  day  of  its  birth ;  nor  can  a  man 
who  is  near  the  surface  of  the  sea  breathe  any 
more  than  if  he  were  full  five  hundred  fathom 
down.' 2 

In  so  far  as  the  above  paradoxes  do  not  depend 
upon  a  metaphorical  use  of  language,  they  all 
seem  traceable  to  three  initial  assumptions — the 
identification  of  happiness  with  virtue,  of  virtue 
with  reason,  and  the  view  taken  of  reason  as 
something  absolute,  not  admitting  of  degrees, 

1  Sat.  i.  iii.  96-98. 

2  D.  L.  vii.  §  120 ;  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  48  ;  Plut.  1063  A,  Com. 
Not.  10. 

62 


ETHIC 

something  which  is  either  present  in  its  entirety 
or  not  at  all.  There  was  no  play  of  light  and 
shadow  in  the  Stoic  landscape,  for  they  had  done 
away  with  the  clouds  of  passion.  They  could  not 
allow  that  these  more  or  less  obscured  the  rays  of 
reason,  having  refused  to  admit  that  there  was  a 
difference  of  nature  between  the  clouds  and  the 
sunlight,  passion,  according  to  them,  being  only 
reason  gone  wrong. 

It  is  only  fair  to  the  Stoics  to  add  that 
paradoxes  were  quite  the  order  of  the  day  in 
Greece,  though  they  greatly  outdid  other  schools 
in  producing  them.  Socrates  himself  was  the 
father  of  paradox.  Epicurus  maintained  as 
staunchly  as  any  Stoic  that  'No  wise  man  is 
unhappy,'  and,  if  he  be  not  belied,  went  the  length 
of  declaring  that  the  wise  man,  if  put  into  the 
bull  of  Phalaris,  would  exclaim,  <  How  delightful ! 
How  little  I  mind  this  ! ' 1 

It  is  out  of  keeping  with  common-sense  to  draw 
a  hard  and  fast  distinction  between  good  and  bad. 
Yet  this  was  what  the  Stoics  did.2  They  insisted 
on  effecting  here  and  now  that  separation  between 
the  sheep  and  the  goats,  which  Christ  postponed 
to  the  Day  of  Judgment.  Unfortunately,  when  it 

1  Cic.  Fin.  i.  §  61  ;  T.  D.  ii.  §  18,  v.  §  73. 

2  D.  L.  vii.  §  127;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  116. 

63 


STOICISM 

came  to  practice,  all  were  found  to  be  goats,  so 
that  the  division  was  a  merely  formal  one.  '  It 
approves  itself,'  says  Stobseus,1  '  to  Zeno  and  the 
Stoic  philosophers  who  came  after  him  that  there 
are  two  kinds  of  men,  one  good,  the  other  bad. 
The  good  all  their  life  display  the  virtues,  and  the 
bad  the  vices.  Whence  one  kind  are  always 
right  in  all  that  they  purpose,  the  other  always 
wrong.  And  inasmuch  as  the  good  avail  them 
selves  of  the  arts  of  life  in  their  conduct,  they 
do  all  things  well,2  as  doing  them  wisely  and 
temperately  and  in  accordance  with  the  other 
virtues ;  whereas  the  bad,  on  the  contrary,  do  all 
things  ill.  The  good  are  great  and  well-grown 
and  tall  and  strong.  Great,  because  they  are  able 
to  attain  thef objects  which  they  set  before  them 
selves  and  which  are  dependent  on  their  own 
will :  well-grown,  because  they  find  increase  from 
every  quarter;  tall,  because  they  have  reached 
the^height  which  befits  a  noble  and  good  man ; 
and  {strong,  because  they  are  endowed  with  the 
strength; that  befits  them.  The  good  man  is  not 
to  be  vanquished  or  cast  in  a  combat,  seeing  that 
he  is  "neither  compelled  by  any  one  nor  does  he 
compel  another ;  he  is  neither  hindered  nor  does 
he  hinder;  he  is  neither  forced  by  any  one  nor 

1  Eel.  ii.  198,  200.  2  Athen.  158a. 

64 


ETHIC 

does  he  himself  force  any  man ;  he  neither  does 
ill  nor  is  himself  done  ill  to,  nor  falls  into  ill,  nor 
is  deceived  nor  deceives  another,  nor  is  he  mis 
taken  or  ignorant,  nor  does  he  forget,  nor  enter 
tain  any  false  supposition,  but  is  happy  in  the 
highest  degree  and  fortunate  and  blessed  and 
wealthy  and  pious  and  beloved  of  God  and  worthy 
of  everything,  fit  to  be  a  king  or  general  or  states 
man,  and  versed  in  the  arts  of  managing  a  house 
hold  and  making  money:  whereas  the  bad  have 
all  the  attributes  that  are  opposite  to  these.  And 
generally  to  the  virtuous  belong  all  good  things, 
and  to  the  bad  all  evils.' 

The  good  man  of  the  Stoics  was  variously 
known  as  '  the  sage/  or  '  the  serious  man  ' 
(o  o-jrovSacos),  the  latter  name  being  inherited 
from  the  Peripatetics.  We  used  to  hear  it  said 
among  ourselves  that  a  person  had  become 
'serious/  when  he  or  she  had  taken  to  religion. 
Another  appellation  which  the  Stoics  had  for  the 
sage  was  '  the  urbane  man  '  (o  ao-Telo<>),  while  the 
fool  in  contradistinction  was  called  a  <  boor.' 
'  Boorishness  '  was  defined  as  '  an  inexperience  of 
the  customs  and  laws  of  the  state.'1  By  'the 
state '  was  meant,  not  Athens  or  Sparta,  as  would 
have  been  the  case  in  a  former  age,  but  the 

1  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  210. 
E  65 


STOICISM 

society  of  all  rational  beings,  into  which  the  Stoics 
spiritualised  the  state.  The  sage  alone  had  the 
freedom  of  this  city,  and  the  fool  was  therefore 
not  only  a  boor,  but  an  alien  or  an  exile.1  In  this 
city  justice  was  natural  and  not  conventional,  for 
the  law  by  which  it  was  governed  was  the  law  of 
right  reason.2  The  law  then  was  spiritualised  by 
the  Stoics,  just  as  the  state  was.  It  no  longer 
meant  the  enactments  of  this  or  that  community, 
but  the  mandates  of  the  eternal  reason  which 
ruled  the  world,  and  which  would  prevail  in  the 
ideal  state.  Law  was  denned  as  'right  reason 
commanding  what  was  to  be  done,  and  forbidding 
what  was  not  to  be  done.'  As  such  it  in  no  way 
differed  from  the  impulse  of  the  sage  himself.3 

As  a  member  of  a  state  and  by  nature  subject 
to  law,  man  was  essentially  a  social  being.  Be 
tween  all  the  wise  there  existed  'unanimity,' 
which  was  <  a  knowledge  of  the  common  good/ 4 
because  their  views  of  life  were  harmonious. 
Fools,  on  the  other  hand,  whose  views  of  life 
were  discordant,  were  enemies  to  one  another  and 
bent  on  mutual  injury. 

As  a  member  of  society  the  sage  would  play 

1  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  208.  2  Ibid. 

*  Ibid.  190,  192. 

4  Ibid.  184,  222.     Cp.  Arist.  E.N.  ix.  6. 

66 


ETHIC 

his  part  in  public  life.1  Theoretically  this  was 
always  true,  and  practically  he  would  do  so, 
wherever  the  actual  constitution  made  any 
tolerable  approach  to  the  ideal  type.  But,  if 
the  circumstances  were  such  as  to  make  it  cer 
tain  that  his  embarking  on  politics  would  be  of 
no  service  to  his  country,  and  only  a  source  of 
danger  to  himself,  then  he  would  refrain.  The 
kind  of  constitution  of  which  the  Stoics  most 
approved  was  a  mixed  government,  containing 
democratic,  aristocratic,  and  monarchical  elements. 
Where  circumstances  allowed  the  sage  would 
act  as  legislator,  and  would  educate  mankind, 
one  way  of  doing  which  was  by  writing  books 
which  would  prove  of  profit  to  the  reader. 

As  a  member  of  existing  society  the  sage  would 
marry  and  beget  children,  both  for  his  own  sake 
and  for  that  of  his  country,  on  behalf  of  which, 
if  it  were  good,  he  would  be  ready  to  suffer  and 
die.  Still  he  would  look  forward  to  a  better 
time  when,  in  Zeno's  as  in  Plato's  republic,  the 
wise  would  have  women  and  children  in  common, 
when  the  elders  would  love  all  the  rising  genera 
tion  equally  with  parental  fondness,  and  when 
marital  jealousy  would  be  no  more.2 

1  D.L.  vii.  §  121  ;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  186,  224,  228;  Cic.  Fin.  iii. 
§68.  2  D.L.  vii.  §§33,  131. 


STOICISM 

As  being  essentially  a  social  being,  the  sage 
was  endowed  not  only  with  the  graver  political 
virtues,  but  also  with  the  graces  of  life.  He  was 
sociable,  tactful,  and  stimulating,  using  conversa 
tion  as  a  means  for  promoting  goodwill  and 
friendship ;  so  far  as  might  be,  he  was  all  things 
to  all  men,1  which  made  him  fascinating  and 
charming,  insinuating  and  even  wily;  he  knew 
how  to  hit  the  point  and  to  choose  the  right 
moment;  yet  with  it  all  he  was  plain  and  un 
ostentatious  and  simple  and  unaffected;  in  par 
ticular  he  never  delighted  in  irony,  much  less 
in  sarcasm.2 

From  the  social  characteristics  of  the  sage  we 
turn  now  to  a  side  of  his  character  which  appears 
eminently  anti-social.  One  of  his  most  highly- 
vaunted  characteristics  was  his  self-sufficingness. 
He  was  to  be  able  to  step  out  of  a  burning  city, 
coming  from  the  wreck,  riot  only  of  his  fortunes, 
but  of  his  friends  and  family,  and  to  declare 
with  a  smile  that  he  had  lost  nothing.3  All  that 
he  truly  cared  for  was  to  be  centred  in  himself.4 
Only  thus  could  ho  be  sure  that  Fortune  would 
not  wrest  it  from  him. 

The  apathy  or  passionlessness  of  the  sage  is 

i  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  220.  a  Ibid.  222. 

3  Cic.  Lael.  §  7 ;  Sen.  de  Const.  Sap.  5.    4  Cic.  T.D.  v.  §  30. 

68 


ETHIC 

another  of  his  most  salient  features.  The  passions 
being,  on  Zeno's  showing,  not  natural,  but  forms 
of  disease,  the  sage,  as  being  the  perfect  man, 
would  of  course  be  wholly  free  from  them.  They 
were  so  many  disturbances  of  the  even  flow 
in  which  his  bliss  lay.  The  sage  therefore  would 
never  be  moved  by  a  feeling  of  favour  towards 
any  one ;  he  would  never  pardon  a  fault ;  he 
would  never  feel  pity ;  he  would  never  be  prevailed 
upon  by  entreaty ;  he  would  never  be  stirred  to 
anger.1 

To  say  that  the  sage  is  not  moved  by  partiality 
may  be  let  pass  as  representing  an  unattainable, 
but  still  highly  proper  frame  of  mind.  But  to 
say  that  he  is  unforgiving 2  is  apt  to  raise  a  pre 
judice  against  him  on  the  part  of  the  natural 
man.  There  were  two  reasons,  however,  for  this 
statement,  which  tend  to  alter  the  light  in  which 
it  first  presents  itself.  One  was  the  ideal  con 
ception  which  the  Stoics  entertained  of  law. 
The  law  was  holy  and  just  and  good.  To  remit 
its  penalties  therefore,  or  to  deem  them  too 
severe,  was  not  the  part  of  a  wise  man.  Hence 
they  discarded  Aristotle's  conception  of  'equity' 
as  correcting  the  inequalities  of  law.3  It  was 

1  Cic.  pro  Mur.  §§61,  62. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §  123 ;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  190.  3  Ibid. 

69 


STOICISM 

a  thing  too  vacillating  for  the  absolute  temper 
of  their  ethics.  But  a  second  reason  for  the  sage 
never  forgiving  was  that  he  never  had  anything 
to  forgive.  No  harm  could  be  done  to  him  so 
long  as  his  will  was  set  on  righteousness,  that  is, 
so  long  as  he  was  a  sage :  the  sinner  sinned 
against  his  own  soul. 

As  to  the  absence  of  pity  in  the  sage  the  Stoics 
themselves  must  have  felt  some  difficulty  there, 
since  we  find  Epictetus  recommending  his  hearers 
to  show  grief  out  of  sympathy  for  another,  but 
to  be  careful  not  to  feel  it.1  The  inexorability 
of  the  sage  was  a  mere  consequence  of  his  calm 
reasonableness,  which  would  lead  him  to  take 
the  right  view  from  the  first.  Lastly,  the  sage 
would  never  be  stirred  to  anger.  For  why  should 
it  stir  his  anger  to  see  another  in  his  ignorance 
injuring  himself? 

One  more  touch  has  yet  to  be  added  to  the 
apathy  of  the  sage.  He  was  impervious  to  won 
der.  No  miracle  of  nature  could  excite  his 
astonishment — no  mephitic  caverns,  which  men 
deemed  the  mouths  of  hell,  no  deep-drawn  ebb 
tides,  the  standing  marvel  of  the  Mediterranean- 
dwellers,  no  hot  springs,  no  spouting  jets  of  fire.2 

From  the  absence  of  passion  it  is  but  a  step 

1  Ench.  16.  2  D.L.  vii.  §  123. 

70 


ETHIC 

to  the  absence  of  error.  So  we  pass  now  to  the 
infallibility  of  the  sage — a  monstrous  doctrine, 
which  was  never  broached  in  the  schools  before 
Zeno.1  The  sage,  it  was  maintained,  held  no 
opinions,2  he  never  repented  of  his  conduct,3  he 
was  never  deceived  in  anything.  Between  the 
daylight  of  knowledge  and  the  darkness  of 
nescience  Plato  had  interposed  the  twilight  of 
opinion,  wherein  men  walked  for  the  most  part. 
Not  so  however  the  Stoic  sage.  Of  him  it  might 
be  said,  as  Charles  Lamb  said  of  the  Scotchman 
with  whom  he  so  imperfectly  sympathised :  '  His 
understanding  is  always  at  its  meridian — you 
never  see  the  first  dawn,  the  early  streaks.  He 
has  no  falterings  of  self-suspicion.  Surmises, 
guesses,  misgivings,  half -intuitions,  semi -con 
sciousnesses,  partial  illuminations,  dim  instincts, 
embryo  conceptions,  have  no  place  in  his  brain 
or  vocabulary.  The  twilight  of  dubiety  never 
falls  upon  him.'  Opinion,  Avhether  in  the  form 
of  an  ' ungripped  assent '  or  of  a  '  weak  supposi 
tion'  was  alien  from  the  mental  disposition  of 
the  serious  man.4  With  him  there  was  no  hasty 

1  Cic.  Acad.  Pr.  §  77. 

2  D.L.  vii.  §§  121,  177,  201  ;  Stob.  ii.  230;  Cic.  Acad.  Post, 
§  42,  Pr.  §§  54,  59,  66,  77,  pro  Mur.  §§  61,  62 ;  Lact.  Div.  Inst. 
iii.  4.          3  Cic.  Mur.  §  61  ;  D.L.  vii.  §  122  ;  Stob.  ii.  230-234. 

•»  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  230. 

71 


STOICISM 

or  premature  assent  of  the  understanding,  no 
forgetfulness,  no  distrust.  He  never  allowed 
himself  to  be  overreached  or  deluded ;  never  had 
need  of  an  arbiter ;  never  was  out  in  his  reckon 
ing  nor  put  out  by  another.1  No  urbane  man 
ever  wandered  from  his  way,  or  missed  his  mark, 
or  saw  wrong,  or  heard  amiss,  or  erred  in  any 
of  his  senses;  he  never  conjectured  nor  thought 
better  of  a  thing;  for  the  one  was  a  form  of 
imperfect  assent,  and  the  other  a  sign  of  previous 
precipitancy.  There  was  with  him  no  change, 
no  retractation,  and  no  tripping.  These  things 
were  for  those  whose  dogmas  could  alter.2  After 
this  it  is  almost  superfluous  for  us  to  be  assured 
that  the  sage  never  got  drunk.  Drunkenness, 
as  Zeno  pointed  out,  involved  babbling,  and  of 
that  the  sage  would  never  be  guilty.3  He  would 
not,  however,  altogether  eschew  banquets.  In 
deed,  the  Stoics  recognised  a  virtue  under  the 
name  of  '  conviviality,'  which  consisted  in  the 
proper  conduct  of  them.4  It  was  said  of  Chry- 
sippus  that  his  demeanour  was  always  quiet, 
even  if  his  gait  were  unsteady,  so  that  his  house 
keeper  declared  that  only  his  legs  were  drunk.6 

1  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  232. 

2  Ibid.  234.  3  Ibid.  224. 

4  Ibid.  118;  D.L.  vii.  §  118;  Sen.  Ep.  123,  §  15. 

5  D.L.  vii.  §  183. 

72 


ETHIC 

There  were  pleasantries  even  within  the  school 
on  this  subject  of  the  infallibility  of  the  sage. 
Aristo  of  Chios,  while  seceding  on  some  other 
matters,  held  fast  to  the  dogma  that  the  sage 
never  opined.1  Whereupon  Perseus  played  a 
trick  upon  him.  He  made  one  of  two  twin 
brothers  deposit  a  sum  of  money  with  him  and 
the  other  call  to  reclaim  it.  The  success  of  the 
trick  however  only  went  to  establish  that  Aristo 
was  not  the  sage,  an  admission  which  each  of  the 
Stoics  seems  to  have  been  ready  enough  to  make 
on  his  own  part,  as  the  responsibilities  of  the 
position  were  so  fatiguing. 

There  remains  one  more  leading  characteristic 
of  the  sage,  the  most  striking  of  them  all,  and 
the  most  important  from  the  ethical  point  of 
view.  This  was  his  innocence  or  harmlessness. 
He  would  not  harm  others,  and  was  not  to  be 
harmed  by  them.2  For  the  Stoics  believed  with 
Socrates  that  it  was  not  permissible  by  the  divine 
law  for  a  better  man  to  be  harmed  by  a  worse. 
You  could  not  harm  the  sage  any  more  than 
you  could  harm  the  sunlight;  he  was  in  our 
world,  but  not  of  it.  There  was  no  possibility 
of  evil  for  him,  save  in  his  own  will,  and  that 
you  could  not  touch.  And  as  the  sage  was 

1  D.  L.  vii.  §  162.  2  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  204. 

73 


STOICISM 

beyond  harm,  so  also  was  he  above  insult.  Men 
might  disgrace  themselves  by  their  insolent  atti 
tude  towards  his  mild  majesty,  but  it  was  not 
in  their  power  to  disgrace  him.1 

As  the  Stoics  had  their  analogue  to  the  tenet 
of  final  assurance,  so  had  they  also  to  that  of 
sudden  conversion.  They  held  that  a  man  might 
become  a  sage  without  being  at  first  aware  of  it.2 
The  abruptness  of  the  transition  from  folly  to 
wisdom  was  in  keeping  with  their  principle  that 
there  was  no  medium  between  the  two,  but  it  was 
naturally  a  point  which  attracted  the  strictures 
of  their  opponents.  That  a  man  should  be  at 
one  moment  stupid  and  ignorant  and  unjust  and 
intemperate,  a  slave  and  poor  and  destitute,  at 
the  next  a  king,  rich  and  prosperous,  temperate 
and  just,  secure  in  his  judgments  and  exempt 
from  error,  was  a  transformation,  they  declared, 
which  smacked  more  of  the  fairy-tales  of  the 
nursery  than  of  the  doctrines  of  a  sober  philo 
sophy.3 

1  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  226. 

a  Ibid.  236 ;  Plut.  1062  B,  Com.  Not.  9. 

3  Plut.  1058  B,  St.  Abs. 


74 


CHAPTER  V 

PHYSIC 

WE  have  now  before  us  the  main  facts  with 
regard  to  the  Stoic  view  of  man's  nature,  but  we 
have  yet  to  see  in  what  setting  they  were  put. 
What  was  the  Stoic  outlook  upon  the  universe  ? 
The  answer  to  this  question  is  supplied  by  their 
Physic. 

There  were,  according  to  the  Stoics,  two  first 
principles  of  all  things,  the  active  and  the.  passive. 
The  passive  was  that  unqualified  being  which  is 
known  as  Matter.  The  active  was  the  Logos  or 
reason  in  it,  which  is  God.  This,  it  was  held, 
eternally  pervades  matter  and  creates  all  things.1 
This  dogma,  laid  down  by  Zeno,  was  repeated 
after  him  by  the  subsequent  heads  of  the  school. 

There  were  then  two  first  principles,  but  there 
were  not  two  causes  of  things.  The  active  prin 
ciple  alone  was  cause;  the  other  was  mere 

1  D.  L.  viii.  §  134 ;  Plut.  878c.,  Plac.  i.  3 ;  Stob.  Eel.  i.  306. 

75 


STOICISM 

material  for  it  to  work  on — inert,  senseless,  desti 
tute  in  itself  of  all  shape  and  qualities,  but  ready 
to  assume  any  qualities  or  shape.1 

Matter  was  denned  as  'that  out  of  which 
anything  is  produced.' 2  The  Prime  Matter,  or 
unqualified  being,  was  eternal,  and  did  not  admit 
of  increase  or  decrease,  but  only  of  change.  It 
was  the  substance  or  being  of  all  things  that  are.3 

The  Stoics,  it  will  be  observed,  used  the  term 
'matter'  with  the  same  confusing  ambiguity 
with  which  we  use  it  ourselves,  now  for  sensible 
objects,  which  have  shape  and  other  qualities, 
now  for  the  abstract  conception  of  matter,  which 
is  devoid  of  all  qualities. 

Both  these  first  principles,  it  must  be  under 
stood,  were  conceived  of  as  bodies,  though  with 
out  form,  the  one  everywhere  interpenetrating 
the  other.4  To  say  that  the  passive  principle,  or 
matter,  is  a  body  comes  easy  to  us,  because  of 
the  familiar  confusion  adverted  to  above.  But 
how  could  the  active  principle,  or  God,  be  con 
ceived  of  as  a  body  ?  The  answer  to  this  question 
may  sound  paradoxical.  It  is  because  God  is  a 
spirit.  A  '  spirit '  in  its  original  sense  meant  air 

i  Sen.  Ep.  65,  §§  2,  4,  12.  2  D.  L.  vii.  §  150. 

3  Stob.  Eel.  i.  322,  324,  374,  414,  434;  D.  L.  vii.  §  150. 

4  D.  L.  vii.  §  134. 

76 


PHYSIC 

in  motion.  Now  the  active  principle  was  not  air, 
but  it  was  something  which  bore  an  analogy  to 
it — namely,  aether.  ^Ether  in  motion  might  be 
called  a  '  spirit '  as  well  as  air  in  motion.  It  was 
in  this  sense  that  Chrysippus  defined  '  the  thing 
that  is '  to  be  '  a  spirit  moving  itself  into  and  out 
of  itself  or  '  spirit  moving  itself  to  and  fro.' 

From  the  two  first  principles,  which  are  un- 
generated  and  indestructible,  must  be  distin 
guished  the  four  elements,  which,  though  ultimate 
for  us,  yet  were  produced  in  the  beginning  by 
God  and  are  destined  some  day  to  be  reabsorbed 
into  the  divine  nature.  These  with  the  Stoics 
were  the  same  which  had  been  accepted  since 
Empedocles — namely,  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water. 
The  elements,  like  the  two  first  principles,  were 
bodies ;  unlike  them,  they  were  declared  to  have 
shape  as  well  as  extension.1 

An  element  was  defined  as  '  that  out  of  which 
things  at  first  come  into  being  and  into  which 
they  are  at  last  resolved.' 2  In  this  relation  did 
the  four  elements  stand  to  all  the  compound 
bodies  which  the  universe  contained.  The  terms 
earth,  air,  fire,  and  water  had  to  be  taken  in  a 
wide  sense,  earth  meaning  all  that  was  of  the 
nature  of  earth,  air  all  that  was  of  the  nature  of 
1  D.  L.  vii.  §  134.  2  jbid.  §  136. 

77 


STOICISM 

air,  and  so  on.1     Thus  in  the  human  frame  the 
bones  and  sinews  pertained  to  earth. 

The  four  qualities  of  matter — hot,  cold,  moist, 
and  dry — were  indicative  of  the  presence  of  the 
four  elements.  Fire  was  the  source  of  heat,  air 
of  cold,  water  of  moisture,  and  earth  of  dry  ness. 
Between  them  the  four  elements  made  up  the 
unqualified  being  called  Matter.2  All  animals 
and  other  compound  natures  on  earth  had  in 
them  representatives  of  the  four  great  physical 
constituents  of  the  universe;  but  the  moon, 
according  to  Chrysippus,  consisted  only  of  fire 
and  air,  while  the  sun  was  pure  fire.3 

While  all  compound  bodies  were  resolvable 
into  the  four  elements,  there  were  important 
differences  among  the  elements,  themselves.  Two 
of  them,  fire  and  air,  were  light ;  the  other  two, 
water  and  earth,  were  heavy.  By  'light'  was 
meant  that  which  tends  away  from  its  own 
centre ;  by  '  heavy,'  that  which  tends  towards  it.4 
The  two  light  elements  stood  to  the  two  heavy 
ones  in  much  the  same  relation  as  the  active  to 
the  passive  principle  generally.  But  further,  fire 
had  such  a  primacy  as  entitled  it,  if  the  definition 
of  element  were  pressed,  to  be  considered  alone 

1  Stob.  Eel.  i.  314.  3  D.  L.  vii.  §  137. 

3  Stob.  i.  314.  4  Plut.,883  A,  Plac.-i.  12. 

78 


PHYSIC 

worthy  of  the  name.1  For  the  three  other  ele 
ments  arose  out  of  it  and  were  to  be  again  resolved 
into  it. 

We  should  obtain  a  wholly  wrong  impression 
of  what  Bishop  Berkeley  calls  '  the  philosophy  of 
fire,'  if  we  set  before  our  minds  in  this  connection 
the  raging  element,  whose  strength  is  in  destruc 
tion.  Let  us  rather  picture  to  ourselves  as  the 
type  of  fire  the  benign  and  beatific  solar  heat,  the 
quickener  and  fosterer  of  all  terrestrial  life.  For 
according  to  Zeno,  there  were  two  kinds  of  fire, 
the  one  destructive,  the  other  what  we  may  call 
'  constructive/  and  which  he  called  '  artistic.' 
This  latter  kind  of  fire,  which  was  known  as 
aBther,  was  the  substance  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
as  it  was  also  of  the  soul  of  animals  and  of 
the  'nature'  of  plants.2  Chrysippus,  following 
Heraclitus,  taught  that  the  elements  passed  into 
one  another  by  a  process  of  condensation  and 
rarefaction.  Fire  first  became  solidified  into  air, 
then  air  into  water,  and  lastly  water  into  earth. 
The  process  of  dissolution  took  place  in  the  reverse 
order,  earth  being  rarefied  into  water,  water  into 
air,  and  air  into  fire.3  It  is  allowable  to  see  in  this 

1  Stob.  Eel.  i.  312,  314. 

2  Ibid.  538  ;  Cic.  N.D.  ii.  §  41,  Acad.  Post.  §  39. 

3  Stob.  Eel.  i.  314. 

79 


STOICISM 

old-world  doctrine  an  anticipation  of  the  modern 
idea  of  different  states  of  matter — the  solid,  the 
liquid,  and  the  gaseous,  with  a  fourth  beyond  the 
gaseous,  which  science  can  still  only  guess  at,  and 
in  which  matter  seems  almost  to  merge  into  spirit. 

Each  of  the  four  elements  had  its  own  abode  in 
the  universe.  Outermost  of  all  was  the  ethereal 
fire,  which  was  divided  into  two  spheres,  first  that 
of  the  fixed  stars,  and  next  that  of  the  planets. 
Below  this  lay  the  sphere  of  air,  below  this  again 
that  of  water,  and  lowest,  or,  in  other  words,  most 
central  of  all,  was  the  sphere  of  earth,  the  solid 
foundation  of  the  whole  structure.  Water  might 
be  said  to  be  above  earth,  because  nowhere  was 
there  water  to  be  found  without  earth  beneath  it, 
but  the  surface  of  water  was  always  equidistant 
from  the  centre,  whereas  earth  had  prominences 
which  rose  above  water.1 

Extension  was  essential  to  body,  though  shape 
was  not.  A  body  was  '  that  which  has  extension 
in  three  dimensions — length,  breadth,  and  thick 
ness.'  2  This  was  called  also  a  solid  body.  The 
boundary  of  such  a  body  was  a  surface,3  which  was 
1  that  which 'possesses  length  and  breadth  only,  but 
not  depth.'  The  boundary  of  a  surface  was  a  line 

1  D.  L.  vii.  §§  137,  155  ;  Stob.  i.  446. 

2  D.  L.  vii.  135.  Cp.  Euc.  xi.  Def.  1.       3  Cp.  Euc.  i.  Def.  2. 

80 


PHYSIC 

which  was  'length  without  breadth/  as  in  Euclid, 
or  'that  which  has  length  only.'  Lastly,  the 
boundary  of  a  lino  was  a  point,  which  was  declared 
to  be  'the  smallest  sign'  (o-rjpetov  e'Xa^o-roi/). 
This  definition  is  suggestive  of  the  minima 
visibilia  or  coloured  points  of  Hume,  but  we  know 
that  the  Stoics  did  not  allow  that  a  line  was  made 
up  of  points,  or  a  surface  of  lines,  or  a  solid  of 
surfaces.  The  Stoic  definition  however  has  the 
advantage  over  Euclid's  in  telling  us  something 
positive  about  a  point.  The  conception  of  a  point 
as  'position  without  magnitude/1  which  was 
current  before  the  time  of  Euclid  (B.C.  323-283) 
is  better  than  either  of  them. 

A  geometrical  solid  is  not  body,  as  we  know  it 
or  as  the  Stoics  conceived  it,  for  they  regarded 
the  universe  as  a  plenum.  <  Passivity '  with  them 
seems  to  have  occupied  the  place  of '  resistance ' 
with  us  as  the  attribute  which  distinguished  body 
from  void. 

When  we  say  that  the  Stoics  regarded  the 
universe  as  a  plenum,  the  reader  must  understand 
by  '  the  universe '  the  Cosmos  or  ordered  whole. 
Within  this  there  was  no  emptiness  owing  to  the 
pressure  of  the  celestial  upon  the  terrestrial 
sphere.2  But  outside  of  this  lay  the  infinite  void, 

1  Arist.  Met.  iv.  6  §  24.  a  D.  L.  vii.  §  140 

F  81 


STOICISM 

without  beginning,  middle  or  end.1  This  occupied 
a  very  ambiguous  position  in  their  scheme.  It 
was  not  being,  for  being  was  confined  to  body, 
and  yet  it  was  there.  It  was  in  fact  nothing,  and 
that  was  why  it  was  infinite.  For,  as  nothing 
cannot  be  a  bound  to  anything,  so  neither  can 
there  be  any  bound  to  nothing.2  But  while 
bodiless  itself,  it  had  the  capacity  to  contain  body, 
a  fact  which  enabled  it,  despite  its  non-entity,  to 
serve,  as  we  shall  see,  a  useful  purpose. 

Did  the  Stoics  then  regard  the  universe  as 
finite  or  as  infinite  ?  In  answering  this  question 
we  must  distinguish  our  terms,  as  they  did.  The 
All,  they  said,  was  infinite,  but  the  Whole  was 
finite.  For  the  All  was  the  cosmos  and  the  void, 
whereas  the  Whole  was  the  cosmos  only.  This 
distinction  we  may  suppose  to  have  originated 
with  the  later  members  of  the  school.  For 
Apollodorus  noted  the  ambiguity  of  the  word  All 
as  meaning, 

(1)  the  cosmos  only, 

(2)  cosmos  +  void.3 

If  then  by  the  term  '  universe '  we  understand  the 
cosmos,  or  ordered  whole,  we  must  say  that  the 

i  Plut    883  F,  Plac.  i.  18  ;  1054  B,  Sto.  Repug.  44  ;   Stub. 
Eel.  i.  382.  2  Stob.  Eel.  i.  392. 

3  Plut.  886  C,  Plac.  ii.  1 ;  D.  L.  vii.  §  143. 
82 


PHYSIC 

Stoics  regarded  the  universe  as  finite.  All  being 
and  all  body,  which  was  the  same  thing  with 
being,  had  necessarily  bounds;  it  was  only  not 
being  which  was  boundless.1 

Another  distinction,  due  this  time  to  Chry- 
sippus  himself,  which  the  Stoics  found  it  con 
venient  to  draw,  was  between  the  three  words 
' void/  ' place '  and  'space.'  Void  was  denned  as 
'  the  absence  of  body  ' ;  place  was  that  which  was 
occupied  by  body  ;  the  term  '  space '  was  reserved 
for  that  which  was  partly  occupied  and  partly 
unoccupied.2  As  there  was  no  corner  of  the 
cosmos  unfilled  by  body,  space,  it  will  be  seen, 
was  another  name  for  the  All.  Place  was  com 
pared  to  a  vessel  that  was  full,  void  to  one  that 
was  empty,  and  space  to  the  vast  wine- cask,3  such 
as  that  in  which  Diogenes  made  his  home,  which 
was  kept  partly  full,  but  in  which  there  was 
always  room  for  more.  The  last  comparison  must 
of  course  not  be  pressed.  For,  if  space  be  a  cask, 
it  is  one  without  top,  bottom,  or  sides. 

But  while  the  Stoics  regarded  our  universe  as 
an  island  of  being  in  an  ocean  of  void,  they  did 
not  admit  the  possibility  that  other  such  islands 

1  Stob.  i.  392. 

2  Ibid.   382;  Plut.  884  A,  Plac.   i.     20;  Sext.   Emp    PH 
iij-  12*-  s  Stob.  Eel.  i.  392. 

83 


STOICISM 

might  exist  beyond  our  ken.  The  spectacle  of 
the  starry  heavens,  which  presented  itself  nightly 
to  their  gaze  in  all  the  brilliancy  of  a  southern 
sky— that  was  all  there  was  of  being ;  beyond  that 
lay  nothingness.  Democritus  or  the  Epicureans 
might  dream  of  other  worlds,  but  the  Stoics 
contended  for  the  unity  of  the  cosmos,1  as 
staunchly  as  the  Mahometans  for  the  unity  of 
God ;  for  with  them  the  cosmos  was  God. 

In  shape  they  conceived  of  it  as  spherical,  on 
the  ground  that  the  sphere  was  the  perfect  figure, 
and  was  also  the  best  adapted  for  motion.2  Not 
that  the  universe  as  a  whole  moved.  The  earth 
lay  at  its  centre,  spherical  and  motionless,  and 
round  it  coursed  the  sun,  moon,  and  planets,  fixed 
each  in  its  several  sphere,  as  in  so  many  con 
centric  rings,  while  the  outermost  ring  of  all, 
which  contained  the  fixed  stars,  wheeled  round 
the  rest  with  an  inconceivable  velocity. 

The  tendency  of  all  things  in  the  universe  to 
the  centre  kept  the  earth  fixed  in  the  middle,  as 
being  subject  to  an  equal  pressure  on  every  side. 
The  same  cause  also,  according  to  Zeno,  kept  the 
universe  itself  at  rest  in  the  void.  But  in  an 

1  Plut.  879  A,  Plac.  i.  5;  Stob.  Eel.  i.  496;  D.L.  vii.  §  143. 

2  Stob.  Eel.  i.  356 ;  Plut.  879  D,  886  C,  Plac.  ii.  2 ;  D.L.  vii. 
§139. 

84 


PHYSIC 

infinite  void  it  could  make  no  difference  whether 
the  whole  were  at  rest  or  in  motion.  It  may 
have  been  a  desire  to  escape  the  notion  of  a 
migratory  whole  which  led  Zeno  to  broach  the 
curious  doctrine  that  the  universe  has  no  weight, 
as  being  composed  of  elements  whereof  two  are 
heavy  and  two  are  light.  Air  and  fire  did  indeed 
tend  to  the  centre,  like  everything  else  in  the 
cosmos,  but  not  till  they  had  reached  their 
natural  home.  Till  then  they  were  of  an  '  upward- 
going  '  nature.  It  appears,  then,  that  the  upward 
and  downward  tendencies  of  the  elements  were 
held  to  neutralise  one  another,  and  so  leave  the 
universe  devoid  of  weight.1 

The  beauty  of  the  universe  was  a  topic  on 
which  the  Stoics  delighted  to  descant.  This  was 
manifest  from  its  form,  its  colour,  its  size,  and  its 
embroidered  vesture  of  stars.2  Its  form  was  that 
of  a  sphere,  which  was  as  perfect  among  solid  as 
the  circle  among  plane  figures,  and  for  the  same 
reason,  namely,  that  every  point  on  the  circumfer 
ence  was  equidistant  from  the  centre.3  Its  colour 
was  in  the  main  the  deep  azure  of  the  heavens, 
darker  and  more  lustrous  than  purple,  indeed  the 
only  hue  intense  enough  to  reach  our  eyes  at  all 

:  Stob.  Eel.  i.  406,  408.  2  Plut§  879  D>  plac   |   6 

3  Cic.  N,D.  ii.  §47. 

85 


STOICISM 

through  such  a  vast  interjacent  tract  of  air.1  In 
size,  which  is  an  essential  element  of  beauty,  it 
was  of  course  beyond  compare.  And  then  there 
was  the  glory  of 

1  the  star-eyed  flash  of  heaven, 
Time's  fair  embroidery,  work  of  cunning  hand.5  a 

The  universe  was  the  only  thing  which  was 
perfect  in  itself;3  the  one  thing  which  was  an 
end  in  itself.  All  other  things  were  perfect  indeed 
as  parts,  when  considered  with  reference  to  the 
whole,  but  were  none  of  them  ends  in  themselves,4 
unless  man  could  be  deemed  so,  who  was  born  to 
contemplate  the  universe  and  imitate  its  perfec 
tions.5  Thus  then  did  the  Stoics  envisage  the 
universe  on  its  physical  side — as  one,  finite,  fixed 
in  space,  but  revolving  round  its  own  centre, 
earth,  beautiful  beyond  all  things,  and  perfect  as 
a  whole. 

But  it  was  impossible  for  this  order  and  beauty 
to  exist  without  mind.  The  universe  was  per 
vaded  by  intelligence,  as  man's  body  is  pervaded 
by  his  soul.  But,  as  the  human  soul,  though 
everywhere  present  in  the  body,  is  not  present 
everywhere  in  the  same  degree,  so  it  was  with  the 

1  Plut.  879  D,  Plac.  i.  6. 

2  S.E.  adv.  M.  ix.  54.  3  Cic.  N.D.  ii.  §  37. 
4  Plut.  1055  F,  Sto.  Repug.  44.      D  Cic.  N.D.  ii.  §  37. 

86 


PHYSIC 

world -soul.     The  human  soul  presents  itself  not 
only  as  intellect,  but  also  in  the  lower  manifesta 
tions  of  sense,  growth,  and  cohesion.     It  is  the 
soul  which  is  the  cause  of  the  plant-life,  which 
displays  itself  more  particularly  in  the  nails  and 
ha'ir;  it  is  the  soul  also  which  causes  cohesion 
among  the  parts  of  the  solid  substances,  such  as 
bones  and  sinews,  that  make  up  our  frame.1     In 
the  same  way  the  world- soul  displayed  itself  in 
rational  beings  as  intellect,  in  the  lower  animals 
as  mere  soul,  in  plants  as  nature  or  growth,  and 
in  inorganic  substances  as  '  holding '  or  cohesion.2 
To  this  lowest  stage  add  change,  and  you  have 
growth  or  plant-nature ;  super-add  to  this  phantasy 
and  impulse,  and  you  rise  to  the  soul  of  irrational 
animals;  at  a  yet  higher  stage  you  reach  the 
rational  and  discursive  intellect,  which  is  peculiar 
to  man  among  mortal  natures.3 

We  have  spoken  of  soul  as  the  cause  of  the 
plant-life  in  our  bodies,  but  plants  were  not 
admitted  by  the  Stoics  to  be  possessed  of  '  soul ' 
in  the  strict  sense.4  What  animated  them  was 

1  D.L.  vii.  §  139. 

2  S.E.   adv.    M.  ix.  81;   Philo,  i.  71,  Leg.  All.  7;  ii.  496, 
Incor.  Mund.  §  10 ;  ii.  606,  de  Mund.  §  4  ;  Plut.  451  de  Virt. 
Mor.  12. 

3  Philo,  i.  71,  Leg.  All.  ii.  §7. 

4  Plut.  910  B,  Plac.  v.  26;  M.  Ant.  vi.  14. 

87 


STOICISM 

'nature'  or,  as  we  have  called  it  above,  'growth.'1 
Nature,  in  this  sense  of  the  principle  of  growth, 
was  defined  by  the  Stoics  as  '  a  constructive  fire, 
proceeding  in  a  regular  way  to  production/  or  '•  a 
fiery  spirit  endowed  with  artistic  skill.'2     That 
Nature  was  an  artist  needed  no  proof,  since  it  was 
her  handiwork  that  human  art  essayed  to  copy. 
But  she  was  an  artist  who  combined  the  useful 
with  the  pleasant,  aiming  at  once  at  beauty  and 
convenience.3     In   the  widest  sense  Nature  was 
another  name  for   Providence,  or   the  principle 
which  held  the  universe   together,4  but,  as  the 
term  is  now  being  employed,  it  stood   for  that 
degree  of  existence  which  is  above  cohesion  and 
below  soul.     From    this    point  of    view  it  was 
defined  as  '  a  cohesion  subject  to  self-originated 
change  in  accordance  with  seminal  reasons,  effect 
ing  and  maintaining  its  results  in  definite  times, 
and  reproducing  in  the  offspring  the  characteristics 
of  the  parent.'     This  sounds  about  as  abstract  as 
Herbert  Spencer's  definition  of  life  ;  but  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  nature  was  all  the  time  a 
c  spirit/  and,  as  such,  a  body.     It  was  a  body  of  a 
less  subtle  essence  than  soul.5    Similarly,  when 


2  D.L.  vii.  §  156  ;  Cic.  N.D.  ii.  §  57;  Plut.  881  E,  Plac.  i.  6. 

3  D.L.  vii.  §  149  ;  Cic.  N.D.  ii.  §  58. 

4  D.L.  vii.  §  148.  5  Plut.  1052  F,  Sto.  Repug.  41. 

88 


PHYSIC 

the  Stoics  spoke  of  cohesion,  they  are  not  to  be 
taken  as  referring  to  some  abstract  principle  like 
attraction.  'Cohesions/  said  Chrysippus,  'are 
nothing  else  than  airs ;  for  it  is  by  these  that  bodies 
are  held  together ;  and  of  the  individual  qualities  of 
things  which  are  held  together  by  cohesion  it  is 
the  air  which  is  the  compressing  cause,  which  in 
iron  is  called '  hardness,'  in  stone '  thickness/  and  in 
silver '  whiteness.'  Not  only  solidity  then,  but  also 
colours,  which  Zeno  called  '  the  first  schematisms ' 
of  matter 1  were  regarded  as  due  to  the  mysterious 
agency  of  air.  In  fact,  qualities  in  general  were 
but  blasts  and  tensions  of  the  air,  which  gave  form 
and  figure  to  the  inert  matter  underlying  them.2 

As  the  man  is  in  one  sense  the  soul,  in  another 
the  body,  and  in  a  third  the  union  of  both,  so  it 
was  with  the  cosmos.  The  word  was  used  in 
three  senses — 

(1)  God, 

(2)  the  arrangement  of  the  stars,  etc. 

(3)  the  combination  of  both.3 

The  cosmos,  as  identical  with  God,  was  described 
as  'an  individual  made  up  of  all  being,  who  is 
incorruptible  and  ungenerated,  the  fashioner  of 

1  Plut.  883  C,  Plac.  i.  15 ;  Stob.  Eel.  i.  364. 

2  Plut.  1054  A,  Sto.  Repug.  43. 

3  D.L.  vii.  §§  137,  138 ;  Bus.  Pr.  Ev,  xv.  15,  §§  1,  2. 

89 


STOICISM 

the  ordered  frame  of  the  universe,  who  at  certain 
periods  of  time  absorbs  all  being  into  himself  and 
again   generates    it    from    himself.'1     Thus    the 
cosmos  on  its  external  side  was  doomed  to  perish, 
and  the  mode  of  its  destruction  was  to  be  by  fire, 
a  doctrine  which   has   been   stamped  upon   the 
world's  belief  down  to  the  present  day.     What 
was  to  bring  about  this   consummation  was  the 
soul  of  the  universe  becoming  too  big  for  its  body, 
which  it  would  eventually  swallow  up  altogether.2 
In  the  '  efflagration,'  when  everything  went  back 
to  the  primeval  tether,  the  universe  would  be  pure 
soul  and  alive  equally  through  and  through.     In 
this  subtle  and  attenuated  state  it  would  require 
more  room  than  before,  and  so  expand  into  the 
void,  contracting   again  when   another  period  of 
cosmic  generation  had  set  in.     Hence  the  Stoic 
definition  of  the  Void  or  Infinite  as  '  that  into 
which  the  cosmos  is  resolved  at  the  efflagration.' 

In  this  theory  of  the  contraction  of  the  universe 
out  of  an  ethereal  state  and  ultimate  return  to 
the  same  condition  one  sees  a  resemblance  to  the 
modern  scientific  hypothesis  of  the  origin  of  our 
planetary  system  out  of  the  solar  nebula  and  its 
predestined  end  in  the  same.  Especially  is  this 

1  D.L.  vii.  §  137. 

a  Plut.  1052  C,  Sto.  Rcpug.  39,  1053  B,  Sto.  Repug.  41. 

90 


PHYSIC 

the  case  with  the  form  in  which  the  theory  was 
held  by  Cleanthes,  who  pictured  the  heavenly 
bodies  as  hastening  to  their  own  destruction  by 
dashing  themselves,  like  so  many  gigantic  moths, 
into  the  sun.  Cleanthes  however  did  not  conceive 
mere  mechanical  force  to  be  at  work  in  this 
matter.  The  grand  apotheosis  of  suicide  which  he 
foresaw  was  a  voluntary  act;  for  the  heavenly 
bodies  were  Gods,  and  were  willing  to  lose  their 
own  in  a  larger  life.1 

Thus  all  the  deities  except  Zeus  were  mortal, 
or  at  all  events,  perishable.  Gods,  like  men, 
were  destined  to  have  an  end  some  day.  They 
would  melt  in  the  great  furnace  of  being  as 
though  they  were  made  of  wax  or  tin.  Zeus 
then  would  be  left  alone  with  his  own  thoughts,2 
or  as  the  Stoics  sometimes  put  it,  Zeus  would  fall 
back  upon  Providence.  For  by  Providence  they 
meant  the  leading  principle  or  mind  of  the  whole, 
and  by  Zeus,  as  distinguished  from  Providence, 
this  mind  together  with  the  cosmos,  Avhich  was 
to  it  as  body.  In  the  efilagration  the  two  would 
be  fused  into  one  in  the  single  substance  of 
a3ther.3  And  then  in  the  fulness  of  time  there 

1  Plut.  1075  D,  Com.  Not.  31. 

2  Sen.  Ep.  9,  §  16. 

3  Plut.  1077  D,  Com.  Not.  36;  Philo.  ii.  501,  Incor.  Mund., 
§14. 

91 


STOICISM 

would  be  a  restitution  of  all  things.  Everything 
would  come  round  again  exactly  as  it  had  been 
before.1 

Alter  erit  turn  Tiphys,  et  altera  quag  vehat  Argo 

delectos  heroas  ;  erunt  etiam  altera  bella, 

atque  iterum  ad  Troiam  magnus  mittetur  Achilles. 

To  us  who  have  been  taught  to  pant  for  pro 
gress,  this  seems  a  dreary  prospect.  But  the 
Stoics  were  consistent  Optimists,  and  did  not 
ask  for  a  change  in  what  was  best.  They  were 
content  that  the  one  drama  of  existence  should 
enjoy  a  perpetual  run  without  perhaps  too  nice  a 
consideration  for  the  actors.  Death  intermitted 
life,  but  did  not  end  it.  For  the  candle  of  life, 
which  was  extinguished  now,  would  be  kindled 
again  hereafter.  Being  and  not  being  came 
round  in  endless  succession  for  all  save  Him, 
into  whom  all  being  was  resolved,  and  out  of 
whom  it  emerged  again,  as  from  the  vortex  of 
some  seonian  Maelstrom.2 

1  Stob.  Eel.  i.  414 ;  Lact.  Div.  Inst.  vii.  23  ;  Numenius  in 
Eus.  Pr.  Ev.  xv.  18. 

2  Sen.  Ep.  30,  §  11  j  36,  §  10 ;  54,  §  5 ;  71,  §§  13,  14. 


CHAPTER   VI 

CONCLUSION 

WHEN  Socrates  declared  before  his  judges  that 
'  there  is  no  evil  to  a  good  man  either  in  life 
or  after  death,  nor  are  his  affairs  neglected  by 
the  gods/ 1  he  sounded  the  keynote  of  Stoicism, 
with  its  two  main  doctrines  of  virtue  as  the  only 
good,  and  the  government  of  the  world  by  Pro 
vidence.  Let  us  weigh  his  words,  lest  we  in 
terpret  them  by  the  light  of  a  comfortable 
modern  piety.  A  great  many  things  that  are 
commonly  called  evil  may  and  do  happen  to  a 
good  man  in  this  life,  and  therefore  presumably 
misfortunes  may  also  overtake  him  in  any  other 
life  that  there  may  be.  The  only  evil  that  can 
never  befall  him  is  vice,  because  that  would 
be  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Unless  therefore 
Socrates  was  uttering  idle  words  on  the  most 
solemn  occasion  of  his  life,  he  must  be  taken 

1  Plat.  Apol.  41  D. 

93 


STOICISM 

to  have  meant  that  there  is  no  evil  but  vice, 
which  implies  that  there  is  no  good  but  virtue. 
Thus  we  are  landed  at  once  in  the  heart  of  the 
Stoic  morality.  To  the  question  why,  if  there 
be  a  providence,  so  many  evils  happen  to  good 
men,  Seneca  unflinchingly  replies :  '  No  evil  can 
happen  to  a  good  man;  contraries  do  not  mix.' 
God  has  removed  from  the  good  all  evil,  because 
he  has  taken  from  them  crimes  and  sins,  bad 
thoughts  and  selfish  designs,  and  blind  lust  and 
grasping  avarice.  He  has  attended  well  to  them 
selves,  but  he  cannot  be  expected  to  look  after 
their  luggage;  they  relieve  him  of  that  care  by 
being  indifferent  about  it.1  This  is  the  only 
form  in  which  the  doctrine  of  divine  providence 
can  be  held  consistently  with  the  facts  of  life. 
Again,  when  Socrates  on  the  same  occasion  ex 
pressed  his  belief  that  it  was  not  'permitted  by 
the  divine  law  for  a  better  man  to  be  harmed 
by  a  worse,'  he  was  asserting  by  implication  the 
Stoic  position.  Neither  Meletus  nor  Anytus  could 
harm  him,  though  they  might  have  him  killed 
or  banished,  or  disfranchised.  This  passage  of 
the  Apology,  in  a  condensed  form,  is  adopted  by 
Epictetus  as  one  of  the  watchwords  of  Stoicism.2 

1  Sen.  de  Prov.  2,  6  ;  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  29. 

2  Epict.  Ench.  52. 

94 


CONCLUSION 

There  is  nothing  more  distinctive  of  Socrates 
than  the  doctrine  that  virtue  is  knowledge.1 
Here  too  the  Stoics  followed  him,  ignoring  all 
that  Aristotle  had  done  in  showing  the  part 
played  by  the  emotions  and  the  will  in  virtue. 
Reason  was  with  them  a  principle  of  action; 
with  Aristotle  it  was  a  principle  that  guided 
action,  but  the  motive  power  had  to  come  from 
elsewhere.2  Socrates  must  even  be  held  respon 
sible  for  the  Stoic  paradox  of  the  madness  of  all 
ordinary  folk.3 

The  Stoics  did  not  owe  much  to  the  Peri 
patetics.  There  was  too  much  balance  about 
the  master-mind  of  Aristotle  for  their  narrow 
intensity.  His  recognition  of  the  value  of  the 
passions  was  to  them  an  advocacy  of  disease  in 
moderation ;  his  admission  of  other  elements  be 
sides  virtue  into  the  conception  of  happiness 
seemed  to  them  to  be  a  betrayal  of  the  citadel ; 
to  say,  as  he  did,  that  the  exercise  of  virtue  was 
the  highest  good  was  no  merit  in  their  eyes,  un 
less  it  were  added  to  the  confession  that  there 
was  none  beside  it.  The  Stoics  tried  to  treat 
man  as  a  being  of  pure  reason.  The  Peripatetics 
would  not  shut  their  eyes  to  his  mixed  nature, 

1  Xen.  Mem.  iii.  9,  §§  4,' 5. 

2  E.  N.  vi.  2,  §  5.  3  Xen   Mem   Ui   9  §  6 

95 


STOICISM 

and  contended  that  the  good  of  such  a  being 
must  also  be  mixed,  containing  in  it  elements 
which  had  reference  to  the  body  and  its  environ 
ment.  The  goods  of  the  soul  indeed,  they  said, 
far  outweighed  those  of  body  and  estate,  but  still 
the  latter  had  a  right  to  be  considered.  That 
virtue  is  the  one  thing  needful  would  have  been 
acknowledged  by  the  Peripatetics  as  well  as  by 
the  Stoics,  but  in  a  different  sense.  The  Peri 
patetics  would  have  meant  by  it  that  such  things 
as  health  and  wealth  and  honour  and  family 
and  friends  and  country,  though  good  in  their 
way,  were  yet  not  to  be  compared  with  goods 
of  the  soul;  whereas  the  Stoics  meant  literally 
that  there  were  no  other  goods.  In  practice 
the  two  doctrines  would  come  to  the  same  thing, 
since  the  adherent  of  either  sect  would,  if  true 
to  his  principles,  equally  sacrifice  the  lower  to 
the  higher  in  case  of  conflict.  But  the  Peri 
patetics  had  the  advantage  of  calling  those 
things  goods  which  everybody,  except  for  the 
sake  of  argument,  acknowledges  to  be  such. 
With  regard  to  happiness  also  they  were  on  the 
side  of  common  opinion.  Happiness  is  not 
thought  of  apart  from  virtue,  nor  yet  apart  from 
fortune.  It  has  its  inner  and  its  outer  side. 
The  Stoics  admitted  only  the  inner;  the  Peri- 


CONCLUSION 

patetics  included  the  outer  also.  By  confining 
happiness  to  its  inner  side  the  Stoics  identified 
it  with  virtue.  But  this  is  essentially  a  one 
sided  view.  Happiness  is  a  composite  concep 
tion.  It  is  like  the  image  seen  by  Nebuchad 
nezzar  in  his  dream,  which  began  in  fine  gold 
and  ended  in  miry  clay.  So  happiness  consists  in 
the  main  of  the  pure  gold  of  virtue,  but  tails  off 
towards  the  extremities  into  meaner  materials. 

But  though  we  may  decline  to  talk  with  the 
Stoics,  demurring  to  their  misuse  of  language,  we 
need  not  refuse  to  admire  the  loftiness  of  their 
aspirations.  They  would  fain  have  had  the 
image  of  their  sage  wrought  of  fine  gold  from 
head  to  heel.  They  felt  that  no  good  but  the 
highest  can  be  satisfying.  They  were  seeking  for 
a  peace  which  the  world  cannot  give;  and  they 
said  to  Virtue,  as  Augustine  said  to  God,  '  Our 
heart  can  find  no  rest,  until  it  rest  in  thee.' x 
They  saw  that,  if  happiness  depended  in  any 
degree  upon  externals,  the  imperturbable  serenity 
of  the  sage  would  be  impossible.  In  truth  it  is 
impossible.  Christianity  recognised  this  in  post 
poning  happiness  to  a  future  life.  But  it  was  the 
craving  for  such  perfect  peace  which  led  to  the 
Stoic  position.  They  were  convinced  also  that 

1  Conf.  i.  i. 
G  97 


STOICISM 

the  good  man  must  be  beloved  of  God  and  the 
object  of  His  care;  but  they  saw  that  this  was 
not  so  with  regard  to  things  external :  therefore 
they  inferred  that  these  were  indifferent.1  And, 
if  indifferent,  then  despicable ;  so  that  they 
needed  not  to  worry  about  them.  They  had  but 
to  keep  a  conscience  void  of  offence,  and  let  other 
things  look  after  themselves.2  To  take  no  thought 
for  the  morrow  was  the  outcome  of  their  teaching, 
as  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  But  the  Stoics 
were  ready  to  carry  out  their  doctrine  to  its 
logical  consequences,  and,  if  food  were  not  forth 
coming,  to  avail  themselves  of  the  open  door.3 
How  long  virtue  lasted,  they  declared,  was  beside 
the  point ;  it  was  the  state  of  mind  that  counted. 
The  sage  would  deem  that  time  pertained  not  to 
him.4  Thus  were  the  Stoics  ready  to  serve  God 
for  nought,  asking  not  even  for  the  wages  of 
'  going  on  and  still  to  be.'  They  did  not  judge  of 
His  providence  by  the  loaves  and  fishes  that  fell 
to  their  share,  but  had  the  faith  which  could 
exclaim,  '  Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust 
Him.'  Why  should  he  who  possesses  the  only 
good  complain  of  the  distribution  of  things  indif- 

1  Sen.  Ep.  74,  §  10.  2  Cic.  T.  D.  v.  §  4. 

3  Epict.  Diss.  i.  9,  §§  19,  20 ;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  198. 

4  Sen.  Ep.  32,  §  4. 

98 


CONCLUSION 

ferent  ?  The  true  Stoic,  having  chosen  the  better 
part,  was  content  to  'be  still  and  murmur  not.' 
There  might  be  a  future  life — the  Stoics  believed 
there  was— but  it  never  presented  itself  to  them 
as  necessary  to  correct  the  injustice  of  this. 
There  was  no  injustice.  Virtue  needed  no  reward, 
or  could  not  fail  of  it,  for  it  could  not  fail  of  itself. 
Nor  could  the  vicious  fail  of  their  punishment,  for 
that  punishment  was  to  have  missed  the  only 
good.1 

'  Virtutem  videant,  intabescantque  relicta.' 2 

Though  the  Stoics  were  religious  to  the  point 
of  superstition,  yet  they  did  not  invoke  the  terrors 
of  theology  to  enforce  the  lesson  of  virtue.  Plato 
does  this  even  in  the  very  work,  the  professed 
object  of  which  is  to  prove  the  intrinsic  superi 
ority  of  justice  to  injustice.  But  Chrysippus  pro 
tested  against  Plato's  procedure  on  this  point, 
declaring  that  the  talk  about  punishment  by  the 
gods  was  mere  '  bugaboo.' 3  By  the  Stoics  indeed, 
no  less  than  by  the  Epicureans,  fear  of  the  gods 
was  discarded  from  philosophy.*  The  Epicurean 
gods  took  no  part  in  the  affairs  of  men ;  the  Stoic 
God  was  incapable  of  anger. 

1  Sen-  EP-  97,  §  14.  2  Pers  Sat>  Hi  3g 

3  Plut.  1040  B,  Sto.  Repug.  15;  Cic.  N.  D.  ii.  §  5 

4  Cic.  Off.  iii.  §  102. 

99 


STOICISM 

The  absence  of  any  appeal  to  rewards  and 
punishments  was  a  natural  consequence  of  the 
central  tenet  of  the  Stoic  morality,  that  virtue  is 
in  itself  the  most  desirable  of  all  things.  Another 
corollary  that  flows  with  equal  directness  from  the 
same  principle  is  that  it  is  better  to  be  than  to 
seem  virtuous.  Those  who  are  sincerely  convinced 
that  happiness  is  to  be  found  in  wealth  or 
pleasure  or  power  prefer  the  reality  to  the  appear 
ance  of  these  goods;  it  must  be  the  same  with 
him  who  is  sincerely  convinced  that  happiness 
lies  in  virtue.  To  be  just  then  is  the  great 
desideratum  :  how  many  know  that  you  are  so  is 
not  to  the  purpose.1  Far  more  important  than 
what  others  think  of  you  is  what  you  have  reason 
to  think  of  yourself.2  The  same  searching  spirit 
is  displayed  in  the  Stoic  declaration  that '  to  be 
in  lust  is  sin  even  without  the  act.'3  He  who 
apprehends  the  force  of  such  philosophy  may 
well  apostrophise  it  in  the  words  of  Cicero :  '  One 
day  well  spent  and  in  accordance  with  thy  pre 
cepts  is  worth  an  immortality  of  sin.' 4 

Despite  the  want  of  feeling  in  which  the  Stoics 
gloried,  it  is  yet  true  to  say  that  the  humanity  of 
their  system  constitutes  one  of  its  most  just 

i  Sen.  Ep.  113,  §  32.  2  Ibid.  29,  §  11. 

s  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  32.  4  Cic.  T.  D.  v.  §  5. 

IOO 


CONCLUSION 

claims  on  our  admiration.  They  were  the  first 
fully  to  recognise  the  worth  of  man  as  man ; l 
they  heralded  the  reign  of  peace,2  for  which  we 
are  yet  waiting;  they  proclaimed  to  the  world 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of 
man ;  they  were  convinced  of  the  solidarity  of 
mankind,  and  laid  down  that  the  interest  of  one 
must  be  subordinated  to  that  of  all.3  The  word 
'philanthropy/  though  not  unheard  before  their 
time,4  was  brought  into  prominence  by  them  as  a 
name  for  a  virtue  among  the  virtues. 

Aristotle's  ideal  state,  like  the  Republic  of 
Plato,  is  still  an  Hellenic  city ;  Zeno  was  the  first 
to  dream  of  a  republic  which  should  embrace  all 
mankind.  In  Plato's  Republic  all  the  material 
goods  are  contemptuously  thrown  to  the  lower 
classes,  all  the  mental  and  spiritual  reserved  for 
the  higher.  In  Aristotle's  ideal  the  bulk  of  the 
population  are  mere  conditions,  not  integral  parts, 
of  the  state.  Aristotle's  callous  acceptance  of  the 
existing  fact  of  slavery  blinded  his  eyes  to  the 
wider  outlook,  which  already  in  his  time  was 
beginning  to  be  taken.  His  theories  of  the 
natural  slave  and  of  the  natural  nobility  of  the 

1  Cic.  Fin.  iii.  §  63,  Off.  iii.  §  27. 

2  Cic.  Off.  iii.  §  25 ;  Lact.  Div.  Inst.  vi.  §  11. 

3  Cic.  Off.  iii.  §  26,  Fin.  iii.  §  64. 

4  Plat.  Euthph.  3  D  ;  Xen.  Mem.  i.  2,  §  60. 

101 


STOICISM 

Greeks  are  mere  attempts  to  justify  practice.  In 
the  Ethics  there  is  indeed  a  recognition  of  the 
rights  of  man,  but  it  is  faint  and  grudging. 
Aristotle  there  tells  us  that  a  slave,  as  a  man, 
admits  of  justice,  and  therefore  of  friendship,1 
but  unfortunately  it  is  not  this  concession  which 
is  dominant  in  his  system,  but  rather  the  reduc 
tion  of  a  slave  to  a  living  tool  by  which  it  is 
immediately  preceded.  In  another  passage  Aris 
totle  points  out  that  men,  like  other  animals,  have 
a  natural  affection  for  the  members  of  their  own 
species,  a  fact,  he  adds,  which  is  best  seen  in 
travelling.2  This  incipient  humanitarianism  seems 
to  have  been  developed  in  a  much  more  marked 
way  by  Aristotle's  followers  ; 3  but  it  is  the  Stoics 
who  have  won  the  glory  of  having  initiated 
humanitarian  sentiment. 

Virtue,  with  the  earlier  Greek  philosophers, 
was  aristocratic  and  exclusive.  Stoicism,  like 
Christianity,  threw  it  open  to  the  meanest  of 
mankind.  In  the  kingdom  of  wisdom,  as  in  the 
kingdom  of  Christ,  there  was  '  neither  barbarian, 
Scythian,  bond,  nor  free.'  The  only  true  freedom 
was  to  serve  philosophy,4  or,  which  was  the  same 

1  E.  N.  viii.  11,  §  7,  1161*  5-8.      a  Ibid.  1,  §  3,  1155*  20-22. 

3  Cic.  Acad.  Post.  i.  §  21 ;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.  254. 

4  Sen.  Ep.  8  §  7,  37  §  4 ;  Philo,  ii.  451,  Q.  O.  P.  L.  §  7. 

102 


CONCLUSION 

thing,  to  serve  God ; l  and  that  could  be  done  in 
any  station  in  life.  The  sole  condition  of  com 
munion  with  gods  and  good  men  was  the  pos 
session  of  a  certain  frame  of  mind,  which  might 
belong  equally  to  a  gentleman,  to  a  freedman,  or 
to  a  slave.  In  place  of  the  arrogant  assertion  of 
the  natural  nobility  of  the  Greeks,  we  now  hear 
that  a  good  mind  is  the  true  nobility.2  Birth  is 
of  no  importance ;  all  are  sprung  from  the  gods. 
1  The  door  of  virtue  is  shut  to  no  man :  it  is  open 
to  all,  admits  all,  invites  all — free  men,  freedmen, 
slaves,  kings,  and  exiles.  Its  election  is  not  of 
family  or  fortune;  it  is  content  with  the  bare 
man.'3  Wherever  there  was  a  human  being, 
there  Stoicism  saw  a  field  for  well-doing.4  Its 
followers  were  always  to  have  in  their  mouths 
and  hearts  the  well-known  line— 

'  Homo  sum,  human!  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto.' 6 

Closely  connected  with  the  humanitarianism  of 
the  Greeks  is  their  cosmopolitanism. 

Cosmopolitanism  is  a  word  which  has  con 
tracted  rather  than  expanded  in  meaning  with 
the  advance  of  time.  We  mean  by  it  freedom 

1  Sen.  Vit.  B.  15  §  6.  2  Sen.  Ep.  44,  §  2. 

3  Sen.  Ben.  iii.  18,  §  2.  4  Sen.  Vit.  B.  24,  §  2. 

5  Ter.  Heaut.  77  ;  Cic.  Leg.  i.  §  33 ;  Sen.  Ep.  95,  §  53. 
103 


STOICISM 

from  the  shackles  of  nationality.  The  Stoics 
meant  this  and  more.  The  city  of  which  they 
claimed  to  be  citizens  was  not  merely  this  round 
world  on  which  we  dwell,  but  the  universe  at 
large  with  all  the  mighty  life  therein  contained. 
In  this  city,  the  greatest  of  earth's  cities,  Rome, 
Ephesus,  or  Alexandria,  were  but  houses.1  To  be 
exiled  from  one  of  them  was  only  like  changing 
your  lodgings,2  and  death  but  a  removal  from 
one  quarter  to  another.  The  freemen  of  this 
city  were  all  rational  beings— sages  on  earth  and 
the  stars  in  heaven.  Such  an  idea  was  thoroughly 
in  keeping  with  the  soaring  genius  of  Stoicism. 
It  was  proclaimed  by  Zeno  in  his  Republic,  and 
after  him  by  Chrysippus  and  his  followers.3  It 
caught  the  imagination  of  alien  writers,  as  of 
the  author  of  the  Peripatetic  De  Mundo  (vi.  §  36), 
who  was  possibly  of  Jewish  origin,  and  of  Philo  4 
and  St.  Paul,5  who  were  certainly  so.  Cicero  does 
not  fail  to  make  use  of  it  on  behalf  of  the  Stoics ; 6 
Seneca  revels  in  it;  Epictetus  employs  it  for 

1  Sen.  Ep.  102,  §  21 ;  M.  Ant.  iii.  11. 

2  Cic.  Parad.  §  18. 

3  Pint.  329  A,  Alex.  Mag.  F.  aut  V.  16,  1076  F,  Com.  Not 
34 ;  Cic.  N.  D.  ii.  §  154. 

4  i.  1,  Mund.  Op.  §  1  ;  i.  34,  Mund.  Op.  §  49 ;  i.  161,  Cher. 
§  34 ;  ii.  10,  Abr.  §  13 ;  ii.  486,  V.  C.  §  11. 

5  Phil.  iii.  20.  s  Fin.  iiL  §  64 

104 


CONCLUSION 

edification;  and  Marcus  Aurelius  finds  solace  in 
his  heavenly  citizenship  for  the  cares  of  an 
earthly  ruler — as  Antoninus  indeed  his  city  is 
Rome,  but  as  a  man  it  is  the  universe.1 

The  philosophy  of  an  age  cannot  perhaps  be 
inferred  from  its  political  conditions  with  that 
certainty  which  some  writers  assume ;  still  there 
are  cases  in  which  the  connexion  is  obvious.  On 
a  wide  view  of  the  matter  we  may  say  that  the 
opening  up  of  the  East  by  the  arms  of  Alexander 
was  the  cause  of  the  shifting  of  the  philosophic 
standpoint  from  Hellenism  to  cosmopolitanism. 
If  we  reflect  that  the  Cynic  and  Stoic  teachers 
were  mostly  foreigners  in  Greece,  we  shall  find 
a  very  tangible  reason  for  the  change  of  view. 
Greece  had  done  her  work  in  educating  the  world, 
and  the  world  was  beginning  to  make  payment 
in  kind.  Those  who  had  been  branded  as  natural 
slaves  were  now  giving  laws  to  philosophy.  The 
kingdom  of  wisdom  was  suffering  violence  at  the 
hands  of  barbarians. 

1  M.  Ant.  iv.  4,  vi.  44,  x.  15. 


105 


DATES  AND  AUTHORITIES 

B.C. 

Death  of  Socrates.     .....  399 

Death  of  Plato 347 

ZENO.            ......  347-275 

Studied  under  Crates,   .             .             .            .  325 

Studied  under  Stilpo  andJXenocrates,               .  325-315 

Began  teaching.             ....  315 

Epicurus 341-270 

Death  of  Aristotle 322 

Death  of  Xenocrates.             .             .             .             •  315 

CLEANTHES.              .            .         Succeeded  Zeno  275 

CHRYSIPPUS.             .            .         Died  207 
ZENO  OF  TARSUS.      .            .         Succeeded'Chrysippus  — 
Decree  of  the  Senate  forbidding  the  teaching  of 

philosophy  at  Home.          .  .161 

DIOGENES  OF  BABYLON. 

Embassy  of  the  philosophers  to  Home.         .            .  155 
ANTIPATER  OF  TARSUS. 
PAN^ETIUS.     Accompanied  Africanus  on  his  mission 

to  the  East.            ...  143 
His  treatise  on  'Propriety'  was  the  basis  of 
Cicero's  ',De  Officiis.' 

The  Scipionic  Circle  at  Rome. 

This  coterie  was  deeply  tinctured  with  Stoicism. 

107 


STOICISM 

B.C.. 

Its  chief  members  were— The  younger  Afri- 
canus,  the  younger  Lselius,  L.  Furius  Philus, 
Manilius,  Spurius  Mummius,  P.  Rutilius 
Rufus,  Q.  ^Elius  Tubero,  Polybius,  and 
Paneetius. 

Suicide  of  Blossius  of  Cunise,  the  adviser  of  Tiberius 

Gracchus,  and  a  disciple  of  Antipater  of  Tarsus.  .  130 

Mnesarchus,  a  disciple  of  Pansetius,  was  teaching  at 
Athens  when  the  orator  Crassus  visited  that  city.  Ill 

HECATON  OF  RHODES. 

A  great  Stoic  writer,  a  disciple  of  Pansetius, 
and  a  friend  of  Tubero. 

POSIDONIUS.              .            .                        •  About  128-44 
Born  at  Apameia  in  Syria, 
Became  a  citizen  of  Rhodes, 

Represented  the  Rhodians  at  Rome,     .  86 

Cicero  studied  under  him  at  Rhodes,    .  78 

Came  to  Rome  again  at  an  advanced  age,  51 

Cicero's  philosophical  works.  .  .  •          54-44 

These  are  a  main  authority  for  our  knowledge 

of  the  Stoics.  A.D. 

Philo  of  Alexandria  came  on  an  embassy  to  Rome.  39 

The  works  of  Philo  are  saturated  with  Stoic- 
ideas,  and  he  displays  an  exact  acquaintance 
with  their  terminology. 

SENECA. 

Exiled  to  Corsica,          .  41 

Recalled  from  exile,       .  49> 

Forced  by  Nero  to  commit  suicide.       .  6& 

His  Moral  Epistles  and  philosophical  works 
generally  are  written  from  the  Stoic  stand 
point,  though  somewhat  affected  by  Eclec 
ticism. 

108 


DATES  AND  AUTHORITIES 

A.D. 

Plutarch.       ......     Flor.  80 

The  Philosophical  works  of  Plutarch  which 
have  most  bearing  upon  the  Stoics  are — 

De  Alexandri  Magni  fortuna  aut  virtute, 

De  Virtute  Morali, 

De  Placitis  Philosophorum, 

De  Stoicoruui  Repugnantiis, 

Stoicos  absurdiora  poetis  dicere, 

De  Communibus  Notitiis. 

EPICTETUS,  ......     Flor.  90 

A  freedman  of  Epaphroditus, 

Disciple  of  C.  Musonius  Rufus, 

Lived  and  taught  at  Rome  until  A.D.  90,  when 
the  philosophers  were  expelled  by  Domitian. 
Then  retired  to  Nicopolis  in  Epirus,  where 
he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Epictetus  wrote  nothing  himself,  but  his  Dis 
sertations,    as    preserved    by  Arrian,   from 
which  the  Encheiridion  is  excerpted,  contain 
the  most  pleasing  presentation  that  we  have    • 
of  the  moral  philosophy  of  the  Stoics. 

C.  MUSONIUS  RUFUS. 

Banished  to  Gyaros,  ....  65 

Returned  to  Rome,  ....  68 

Tried  to  intervene  between  the  armies  of 

Vitellius  and  Vespasian,  ...  69 

Procured  the  condemnation  of  Publius  Celer 

(Tac.  H.  iv.  10 ;  Juv.  Sat.  iii.  116),  . 

Q.  JUNIUS  RUSTICUS.  ....    Cos.  162 

Teacher  of  M.  Aurelius,  who  learnt  from  him 
to  appreciate  Epictetus. 

109 


STOICISM 

A.D. 

M.  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS.  .  .  .  Emperor  161-180 

Wrote  the  book  commonly  called  his  'Medi 
tations  '  under  the  title  of  '  to  himself.' 
He  may  be  considered  the  last  of  the  Stoics. 

Three  later  authorities  for  the  Stoic  teaching  are— 

Diogenes  Laertius,        .  .  .  200  ? 

Sextus  Empiricus,         .  .  225  ? 

Stobceus,  .  .  500? 

Modern  works — 

Von  Arnim's  edition  of  the  '  Fragmenta  Stoi- 

coruni  Veterum, 
Pearson's  *  Fragments  of  Zeno  and  Cleanthes,' 

Pitt  Press, 
Remains  of  C.  Musonius  Rufus  in  the  Teubner 

series, 

Zeller's  '  Stoics  and  Epicureans,' 
Sir  Alexander  Grant,  '  Ethics  of  Aristotle,' 
Essay  VI.  on  the  Ancient  Stoics, 
Lightfoot  on  the  Philippians,  Dissertation  II., 
'  St.  Paul  and  Seneca.' 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  CONSTABLE,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press 


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