THE STOICS
Zeno of Cyprus, the founder of the Stoic School, a Greek of Phoenician
descent, was born about 342 B.C., and died in 270. He is said to have
followed philosophy; because he lost all his property in a
ship-wreck--a motive characteristic of the age. He came to Athens, and
learned philosophy under Crates the Cynic, Stilpo the Megaric, and
Polemo the Academic. About 300 B.C. he founded his school at the Stoa
Poecile (many-coloured portico) whence the name Stoic. He died by his
own hand. He was followed by Cleanthes, and then by Chrysippus, as
leaders of the school. Chrysippus was a man of immense productivity
and laborious scholarship. He composed over seven hundred books, but
all are lost. Though not the founder, he was the chief pillar of
Stoicism. The school attracted many adherents, and flourished for many
centuries, not only in Greece, but later in Rome, where the most
thoughtful writers, such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus,
counted themselves among its followers.
We know little for certain as to what share particular Stoics, Zeno,
Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, had in the formation of the doctrines of the
school. But after Chrysippus the main lines of the doctrine were
complete. {345} We shall deal, therefore, with Stoicism as a whole,
and not with the special teaching of particular Stoics. The system is
divided into three parts, Logic, Physics, and Ethics, of which the
first two are entirely subservient to the last. Stoicism is
essentially a system of ethics which, however, is guided by a logic as
theory of method, and rests upon physics as foundation.
Logic.
We may pass over the formal logic of the Stoics, which is, in all
essentials, the logic of Aristotle. To this, however, they added a
theory, peculiar to themselves, of the origin of knowledge and the
criterion of truth. All knowledge, they said, enters the mind through
the senses. The mind is a _tabula rasa_, upon which sense-impressions
are inscribed. It may have a certain activity of its own, but this
activity is confined exclusively to materials supplied by the physical
organs of sense. This theory stands, of course, in sheer opposition to
the idealism of Plato, for whom the mind alone was the source of
knowledge, the senses being the sources of all illusion and error. The
Stoics denied the metaphysical reality of concepts. Concepts are
merely ideas in the mind, abstracted from particulars, and have no
reality outside consciousness.
Since all knowledge is a knowledge of sense-objects, truth is simply
the correspondence of our impressions to things. How are we to know
whether our ideas are correct copies of things? How distinguish
between reality and imagination, dreams, or illusions? What is the
criterion of truth? It cannot lie in concepts, since these are of our
own making. Nothing is true save {346} sense-impressions, and
therefore the criterion of truth must lie in sensation itself. It
cannot be in thought, but must be in feeling. Real objects, said the
Stoics, produce in us an intense feeling, or conviction, of their
reality. The strength and vividness of the image distinguish these
real perceptions from a dream or fancy. Hence the sole criterion of
truth is this striking conviction, whereby the real forces itself upon
our consciousness, and will not be denied. The relapse into complete
subjectivity will here be noted. There is no universally grounded
criterion of truth. It is based, not on reason, but on feeling. All
depends on the subjective convictions of the individual.
Physics.
The fundamental proposition of the Stoic physics is that "nothing
incorporeal exists." This materialism coheres with the sensationalism
of their doctrine of knowledge. Plato placed knowledge in thought, and
reality, therefore, in the Idea. The Stoics, however, place knowledge
in physical sensation, and reality, therefore, in what is known by the
senses, matter. All things, they said, even the soul, even God
himself, are material and nothing more than material. This belief they
based upon two main considerations. Firstly, the unity of the world
demands it. The world is one, and must issue from one principle. We
must have a monism. The idealism of Plato and Aristotle had resolved
itself into a futile struggle against the dualism of matter and
thought. Since the gulf cannot be bridged from the side of the Idea,
we must take our stand on matter, and reduce mind to it. Secondly,
body and soul, God and {347} the world, are pairs which act and react
upon one another. The body, for example, produces thoughts
(sense-impressions) in the soul, the soul produces movements in the
body. This would be impossible if both were not of the same substance.
The corporeal cannot act on the incorporeal, nor the incorporeal on
the corporeal. There is no point of contact. Hence all must be equally
corporeal.
All things being material, what is the original kind of matter, or
stuff, out of which the world is made? The Stoics turned to
Heracleitus for an answer. Fire is the primordial kind of being, and
all things are composed of fire. With this materialism the Stoics
combined pantheism. The primal fire is God. God is related to the
world exactly as the soul to the body. The human soul is likewise
fire, and comes from the divine fire. It permeates and penetrates the
entire body, and, in order that its interpenetration might be regarded
as complete, the Stoics denied the impenetrability of matter. Just as
the soul-fire permeates the whole body, so God, the primal fire,
pervades the entire world. He is the soul of the world. The world is
His body.
But in spite of this materialism, the Stoics averred that God is
absolute reason. This is not a return to idealism. It does not imply
the incorporeality of God. For reason, like all else, is material. It
means simply that the divine fire is a rational element. Since God is
reason, it follows that the world is governed by reason, and this
means two things. It means, firstly, that there is purpose in the
world, and therefore, order, harmony, beauty, and design. Secondly,
since reason is law as opposed to the lawless, it means that the
universe is {348} subject to the absolute sway of law, is governed by
the rigorous necessity of cause and effect.
Hence the individual is not free. There can be no true freedom of the
will in a world governed by necessity. We may, without harm, say that
we choose to do this or that, that our acts are voluntary. But such
phrases merely mean that we assent to what we do. What we do is none
the less governed by causes, and therefore by necessity.
The world-process is circular. God changes the fiery substance of
himself first into air, then water, then earth. So the world arises.
But it will be ended by a conflagration in which all things will
return into the primal fire. Thereafter, at a pre-ordained time, God
will again transmute himself into a world. It follows from the law of
necessity that the course taken by this second, and every subsequent,
world, will be identical in every way with the course taken by the
first world. The process goes on for ever, and nothing new ever
happens. The history of each successive world is the same as that of
all the others down to the minutest details.
The human soul is part of the divine fire, and proceeds into man from
God. Hence it is a rational soul, and this is a point of cardinal
importance in connexion with the Stoic ethics. But the soul of each
individual does not come direct from God. The divine fire was breathed
into the first man, and thereafter passes from parent to child in the
act of procreation. After death, all souls, according to some, but
only the souls of the good, according to others, continue in
individual existence until the general conflagration in which they,
and all else, return to God.
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Ethics.
The Stoic ethical teaching is based upon two principles already
developed in their physics; first, that the universe is governed by
absolute law, which admits of no exceptions; and second, that the
essential nature of man is reason. Both are summed up in the famous
Stoic maxim, "Live according to nature." For this maxim has two
aspects. It means, in the first place, that men should conform
themselves to nature in the wider sense, that is, to the laws of the
universe, and secondly, that they should conform their actions to
nature in the narrower sense, to their own essential nature, reason.
These two expressions mean, for the Stoics, the same thing. For the
universe is governed not only by law, but by the law of reason, and
man in following his own rational nature is _ipso facto_ conforming
himself to the laws of the larger world. In a sense, of course, there
is no possibility of man's disobeying the laws of nature, for he, like
all else in the world, acts of necessity. And it might be asked, what
is the use of exhorting a man to obey the laws of the universe, when,
as part of the great mechanism of the world, he cannot by any
possibility do anything else? It is not to be supposed that a genuine
solution of this difficulty is to be found in Stoic philosophy. They
urged, however, that, though man will in any case do as the necessity
of the world compels him, it is given to him alone, not merely to obey
the law, but to assent to his own obedience, to follow the law
consciously and deliberately, as only a rational being can.
Virtue, then, is the life according to reason. Morality is simply
rational action. It is the universal reason which is to govern our
lives, not the caprice and self-will {350} of the individual. The wise
man consciously subordinates his life to the life of the whole
universe, and recognises himself as merely a cog in the great machine.
Now the definition of morality as the life according to reason is not
a principle peculiar to the Stoics. Both Plato and Aristotle taught
the same. In fact, as we have already seen, to found morality upon
reason, and not upon the particular foibles, feelings, or intuitions,
of the individual self, is the basis of every genuine ethic. But what
was peculiar to the Stoics was the narrow and one-sided interpretation
which they gave to this principle. Aristotle had taught that the
essential nature of man is reason, and that morality consists in
following this, his essential nature. But he recognized that the
passions and appetites have their place in the human organism. He did
not demand their suppression, but merely their control by reason. But
the Stoics looked upon the passions as essentially irrational, and
demanded their complete extirpation. They envisaged life as a battle
against the passions, in which the latter had to be completely
annihilated. Hence their ethical views end in a rigorous and
unbalanced asceticism.
Aristotle, in his broad and moderate way, though he believed virtue
alone to possess intrinsic value, yet allowed to external goods and
circumstances a place in the scheme of life. The Stoics asserted that
virtue alone is good, vice alone evil, and that all else is absolutely
indifferent. Poverty, sickness, pain, and death, are not evils.
Riches, health, pleasure, and life, are not goods. A man may commit
suicide, for in destroying his life he destroys nothing of value.
Above all, pleasure is not a good. One ought not to seek pleasure.
Virtue is {351} the only happiness. And man must be virtuous, not for
the sake of pleasure, but for the sake of duty. And since virtue alone
is good, vice alone evil, there followed the further paradox that all
virtues are equally good, and all vices equally evil. There are no
degrees.
Virtue is founded upon reason, and so upon knowledge. Hence the
importance of science, physics, logic, which are valued not for
themselves, but because they are the foundations of morality. The
prime virtue, and the root of all other virtues, is therefore wisdom.
The wise man is synonymous with the good man. From the root-virtue,
wisdom, spring the four cardinal virtues, insight, bravery,
self-control, justice. But since all virtues have one root, he who
possesses wisdom possesses all virtue, he who lacks it lacks all. A
man is either wholly virtuous, or wholly vicious. The world is divided
into wise men and fools, the former perfectly good, the latter
absolutely evil. There is nothing between the two. There is no such
thing as a gradual transition from one to the other. Conversion must
be instantaneous. The wise man is perfect, has all happiness, freedom,
riches, beauty. He alone is the perfect king, statesman, poet,
prophet, orator, critic, physician. The fool has all vice, all misery,
all ugliness, all poverty. And every man is one or the other. Asked
where such a wise man was to be found, the Stoics pointed doubtfully
at Socrates and Diogenes the Cynic. The number of the wise, they
thought, is small, and is continually growing smaller. The world,
which they painted in the blackest colours as a sea of vice and
misery, grows steadily worse.
In all this we easily recognize the features of a resuscitated
Cynicism. But the Stoics modified and softened {352} the harsh
outlines of Cynicism, and rounded off its angles. To do this meant
inconsistency. It meant that they first laid down harsh principles,
and then proceeded to tone them down, to explain them away, to admit
exceptions. Such inconsistency the Stoics accepted with their habitual
cheerfulness. This process of toning down their first harsh utterances
took place mainly in three ways. In the first place, they modified
their principle of the complete extirpation of the passions. Since
this is impossible, and, if possible, could only lead to immovable
inactivity, they admitted that the wise man might exhibit certain mild
and rational emotions, and that the roots of the passions might be
found in him, though he never allowed them to grow. In the second
place, they modified their principle that all else, save virtue and
vice, is indifferent. Such a view is unreal, and out of accord with
life. Hence the Stoics, with a masterly disregard of consistency,
stuck to the principle, and yet declared that among things indifferent
some are preferable to others. If the wise man has the choice between
health and sickness, he will choose the former. Indifferent things
were divided into three classes, those to be preferred, those to be
avoided, and those which are absolutely indifferent. In the third
place, the Stoics toned down the principle that men are either wholly
good, or wholly evil. The famous heroes and statesmen of history,
though fools, are yet polluted with the common vices of mankind less
than others. Moreover, what were the Stoics to say about themselves?
Were they wise men or fools? They hesitated to claim perfection, to
put themselves on a level with Socrates and Diogenes. Yet they could
not bring themselves to admit that there was {353} no difference
between themselves and the common herd. They were "proficients," and,
if not absolutely wise, approximated to wisdom.
If the Stoics were thus merely less consistent Cynics, and originated
nothing in the doctrines of physics and ethics so far considered, yet
of one idea at least they can claim to be the inventors. This was the
idea of cosmopolitanism. This they deduced from two grounds. Firstly,
the universe is one, proceeds from one God, is ordered by one law, and
forms one system. Secondly, however much men may differ in
unessentials, they share their essential nature, their reason, in
common. Hence all men are of one stock, as rational beings, and should
form one State. The division of mankind into warring States is
irrational and absurd. The wise man is not a citizen of this or that
State. He is a citizen of the world.
This is, however, only an application of principles already asserted.
The Stoics produced no essentially new thought, in physics, or in
ethics. Their entire stock of ideas is but a new combination of ideas
already developed by their predecessors. They were narrow, extreme,
over-rigorous, and one-sided. Their truths are all half-truths. And
they regarded philosophy too subjectively. What alone interested them
was the question, how am I to live? Yet in spite of these defects,
there is undoubtedly something grand and noble about their zeal for
duty, their exaltation above all that is petty and paltry, their
uncompromising contempt for all lower ends. Their merit, says
Schwegler, was that "in an age of ruin they held fast by the moral
idea."
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