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THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS
VOL. II.
THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS
by
ALFRED WILLIAM BENN
Εὑρηκέναι μὲν οὖν τινὰς τῶν ἀρχαίων καὶ μακαρίων φιλοσόφων
τὸ ἀληθὲς δεῖ νομίζειν· τίνες δὲ οἱ τυχόντες μάλιστα καὶ πῶς ἂν
καὶ ἡμῖν σύνεσις περὶ τούτων γένοιτο ἐπισκέψασθαι προσήκει
PLOTINUS
Quamquam ab his philosophiam et omnes ingenuas disciplinas
habemus: sed tamen est aliquid quod nobis non liceat, liceat illis
CICERO
In Two Volumes
VOL. II.
London
Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1 Paternoster Square
1882
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved)
CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
THE STOICS pages 1-52
I. Why the systems of Plato and Aristotle failed to secure a hold
on contemporary thought, 1—Fate of the schools which they founded,
2—Revival of earlier philosophies and especially of naturalism,
3—Antisthenes and the Cynics, 4—Restoration of naturalism to its former
dignity, 6.
II. Zeno and Crates, 7—Establishment of the Stoic school, 8—Cleanthes
and Chrysippus, 9—Encyclopaedic character of the Stoic teaching, 9—The
great place which it gave to physical science, 10—Heracleitean reaction
against the dualism of Aristotle, 11—Determinism and materialism of the
Stoics, 12—Their concessions to the popular religion, 14.
III. The Stoic theory of cognition purely empirical, 15—Development of
formal logic, 16—New importance attributed to judgment as distinguished
from conception, 16—The idea of law, 17—Consistency as the principle
of the Stoic ethics, 18—Meaning of the precept, Follow Nature,
19—Distinction between pleasure and self-interest as moral standards,
20—Absolute sufficiency of virtue for happiness, 21—The Stoics wrong
from an individual, right from a social point of view, 22—Theory
of the passions, 23—Necessity of volition and freedom of judgment,
24—Difficulties involved in an appeal to purpose in creation, 24.
IV. The Stoic paradoxes follow logically from the absolute distinction
between right and wrong, 25—Attempt at a compromise with the ordinary
morality by the doctrines (i.) of preference and objection, 26—(ii.) of
permissible feeling, 27—(iii.) of progress from folly to wisdom, 27—and
(iv.) of imperfect duties, 27—Cicero’s _De Officiis_, 28—Examples of
Stoic casuistry, 29—Justification of suicide, 30.
V. Three great contributions made by the Stoics to ethical speculation,
(i.) The inwardness of virtue, including the notion of conscience,
31—Prevalent misconception with regard to the Erinyes, 32—(ii.) The
individualisation of duty, 33—Process by which this idea was evolved,
35—Its influence on the Romans of the empire, 36—(iii.) The idea of
humanity, 36—Its connexion with the idea of Nature, 37—Utilitarianism
of the Stoics, 38.
VI. The philanthropic tendencies of Stoicism partly neutralised by
its extreme individualism, 40—Conservatism of Marcus Aurelius, 41—The
Stoics at once unpitying and forgiving, 42—Humility produced by their
doctrine of universal depravity, 42—It is not in the power of others to
injure us, 43—The Stoic satirists and Roman society, 44.
VII. The idea of Nature and the unity of mankind, 44—The dynamism of
Heracleitus dissociated from the teleology of Socrates, 46—Standpoint
of Marcus Aurelius, 46—Tendency to extricate morality from its external
support, 47—Modern attacks on Nature, 48—Evolution as an ethical
sanction, 49—The vicious circle of evolutionist ethics, 50—The idea of
humanity created and maintained by the idea of a cosmos, 51—The prayer
of Cleanthes, 52.
CHAPTER II.
EPICURUS AND LUCRETIUS pages 53-119
I. Stationary character of Epicureanism, 53—Prevalent tendency to
exaggerate its scientific value, 55—Opposition or indifference of
Epicurus to the science of his time, 57.
II. Life of Epicurus, 58—His philosophy essentially practical, 59—The
relation of pleasure to virtue: Aristippus, 60—Pessimism of Hêgêsias,
61—Hedonism of Plato’s _Protagoras_, 61—The Epicurean definition of
pleasure, 62—Reaction of Plato’s idealism on Epicurus, 63—He accepts
the negative definition of pleasure, 64—Inconsistency involved in his
admissions, 65.
III. Deduction of the particular virtues: Temperance, 66—Points of
contact with Cynicism, 66—Evils bred by excessive frugality, 67—Sexual
passion discouraged by Epicureanism, 67—Comparative indulgence shown
to pity and grief, 68—Fortitude inculcated by minimising the evils of
pain, 69—Justice as a regard for the general interest, 70—The motives
for abstaining from aggression purely selfish, 70—Indifference of the
Epicureans to political duties, 73—Success of Epicureanism in promoting
disinterested friendship, 74.
IV. Motives which led Epicurus to include physics in his teaching,
75—His attacks on supernaturalism directed less against the old
Polytheism than against the religious movement whence Catholicism
sprang, 76—Justification of the tone taken by Lucretius, 78—Plato and
Hildebrand, 78—Concessions made by Epicurus to the religious reaction,
80—His criticism of the Stoic theology, 81.
V. Why Epicurus adopted the atomic theory, 82—Doctrine of infinite
combinations, 83—Limited number of chances required by the modern
theory of evolution, 84—Objections to which Democritus had laid
himself open, 85—They are not satisfactorily met by Epicurus, 85—One
naturalistic theory as good as another, 87—except the conclusions of
astronomy, which are false, 87.
VI. Materialism and the denial of a future life, 88—Epicurus tries to
argue away the dread of death, 89—His enterprise inconsistent with
human nature, 90—The belief in future torments is the dread of death
under another form, 92—How the prospect of death adds to our enjoyment
of life, 93—Its stimulating effect on the energies, 94—The love of life
gives meaning and merit to courage, 95.
VII. The Epicurean theory of sensation and cognition, 95—Negative
character of the whole system, 98—Theory of human history: the doctrine
of progressive civilisation much older than Epicurus, 98—Opposition
between humanism and naturalism on this point, 99—Passage from a drama
of Euphorion, 99.
VIII. Lucretius: his want of philosophic originality, 100—His alleged
improvements on the doctrine of Epicurus examined, 101—His unreserved
acceptance of the Epicurean ethics, 103—In what the difference
between Lucretius and Epicurus consists, 103—Roman enthusiasm for
physical science, 104—Sympathy of Lucretius with early Greek thought,
105—The true heroine of the _De Rerum Naturâ_, 105—Exhibition of life
in all its forms, 106—Venus as the beginning and end of existence,
106—Elucidation of the atomic theory by vital phenomena, 107—Imperfect
apprehension of law: the _foedera Naturai_ and the _foedera fati_,
108—Assimilation of the great cosmic changes to organic processes,
110—False beliefs considered as necessary products of human nature,
111—and consequently as fit subjects for poetic treatment, 112—High
artistic value of the _De Rerum Naturâ_, 113—Comparison between
Lucretius and Dante, 113.
IX. Merits and defects of Epicurus: his revival of atomism and
rejection of supernaturalism, 114—His theory of ethics, 115—His
contributions to the science of human nature, 116—His eminence as
a professor of the art of happiness, 116—His influence on modern
philosophy greatly exaggerated by M. Guyau, 117—Unique combination of
circumstances to which Epicureanism owed its origin, 119.
CHAPTER III.
THE SCEPTICS AND ECLECTICS: GREEK PHILOSOPHY IN ROME pages 120-194
I. Philosophic embassy from Athens to Rome, 120—Lectures of Carneades
on Justice _versus_ Expediency, 121—Public and private morality in
Rome: position of Cato, 122—His motion for the dismissal of the
embassy, 123—Carneades and Plato, 123.
II. Different meanings of the word scepticism, 123—False scepticism
as an ally of orthodoxy, 125—Vein of doubt running through Greek
mythology, 126—Want of seriousness in Homer’s religion, 127—Incredulous
spirit shown by some of his characters, 127—Similar tendency in
Aeschylus and Herodotus, 128—Negative and sceptical elements in early
Greek thought, 128.
III. Protagoras the true father of philosophical scepticism, 129—The
three theses of Gorgias, 130—Sceptical idealism of the Cyrenaic school,
132—Scepticism as an ally of religion with Socrates and Plato, 133—The
_Parmenides_, the _Sophist_, and the _Timaeus_, 134—Synthesis of
affirmation and negation in metaphysics and in dialectics, 135—Use of
scepticism as a moral sanction by the Megarians, 136.
IV. Life and opinions of Pyrrho, 137—Denial of first principles:
present aspect of the question, 139—Practical teaching of Pyrrho,
140—Encouragement given to scepticism by the concentration of thought
on human interests, 141—Illogical compromise of Epicurus, 143—Parasitic
character of the sceptical school, 143.
V. Origin of the New Academy, 144—Character and position of Arcesilaus,
145—The Stoic theory of certainty, 146—Criticism of Arcesilaus: his
method of infinitesimal transitions, 147—Systematic development and
application of the Academic principle by Carneades, 148—His analysis
of experience, 149—His attack on syllogistic and inductive reasoning,
150—His criticism of the Stoic and Epicurean theologies, 151—Sceptical
conformity to the established religion, 153—Theory of probable evidence
as a guide to action, 154—_A priori_ reasoning of the ancient sceptics,
155—Their resemblance in this respect to modern agnostics, 156—and also
in their treatment of ethics, 157—Obedience to Nature inculcated by
Carneades, 158.
VI. Return of Greek thought to the Sophistic standpoint, 158—Obstacles
to a revival of spiritualism, 159—Platonising eclecticism of the
Academy: Philo and Antiochus, 160—Approximation of Stoicism to
Aristotle’s teaching, 162—General craving for certainty and stability
in philosophy, 163.
VII. Sudden paralysis of the Greek intellect, 165—Probable influence of
the new Latin literature, 165—Adaptation of Greek philosophy to Roman
requirements, 166—Increased prominence given to the anti-religious side
of Epicureanism, 167—Its ethics ill-suited to the Roman character,
168—Growing popularity of Stoicism: Panaetius and Posidonius, 168—It is
temporarily checked by the influence of the Academy, 169.
VIII. Academic eclecticism of Cicero, 170—His attempted return to the
principles of Socrates, 171—Natural instinct as the common ground of
philosophy and untrained experience, 172—Practical agreement of the
different ethical systems, 173—The weakness of Cicero’s character
favourable to religious sentiment, 173—His theological position,
174—Contrast between Cicero and Socrates, 175.
IX. The ideas of Nature, reason, and utility, 176—Meaning and value
which they possessed for a Roman, 177—Cynic tendencies of Roman
thought, 178—Influence exercised by the younger Cato in favour of
Stoicism, 179—The philosophy of natural law as illustrated in Roman
poetry, 180—Stoic elements in the _Aeneid_, 181—The Roman love of
simplification and archaism, 182—Cynicism of Juvenal, 183.
X. Neo-Scepticism as a reaction against Naturalism: Aenesidêmus,
184—Return to the standpoint of Protagoras, 184—Critical analysis of
causation and perception, 185—The ten Tropes, 186—Their derivation
from the categories of Aristotle, 186—Ethical scepticism of
Aenesidemus, 187—The Tropes simplified and extended to reasoning,
188—Their continued invincibility as against all appeals to authority,
189—Association of Scepticism with Empiricism, 189—Sextus Empiricus and
Hume on causation, 190.
XI. The philosophy of the dinner-bell and its implications,
191—Subsequent influence of Scepticism on Greek thought, 192—Unshaken
confidence of the Neo-Platonists in the power of reason, 193—Their
philosophy a genuine return to the standpoint of Plato and Aristotle,
193.
CHAPTER IV.
THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL pages 195-265
I. New views respecting the civilisation of the Roman empire,
195—Prejudices formerly entertained by its historians, 196—The literary
bias, 197—Evidence of intellectual and moral progress supplied by the
study of jurisprudence and epigraphy, 197—The new school of historians,
198—The vitality of polytheism much greater than was formerly supposed,
199—notwithstanding the scepticism of the most distinguished Roman
writers, 199—opposed as they were by a large and increasing body of
religious belief, 200.
II. Revival of religious authority under Augustus, 200—Feeling of
the provincials, 201—Isolated position of Horace, 201—The spread of
religious beliefs checked by the political organisation of the old
city-state, 202—and encouraged by the Roman conquest, 203—Sceptical
tendencies of the city-aristocracies, 204—the higher classes more
favourable than the people to free thought down to the time of the
French Revolution, 205.
III. Dissociation of wealth from education under the empire,
206—Stupidity and credulity of the centurions, 207—Ever-increasing
influence exercised by women, 208—and indirectly by children,
210—Slavery and religion, 211—The social despotism of the empire
destructive to intellectual independence, 211—Causes which prevented
the formation of a new aristocracy, 213.
IV. Nature-worship as a universal religion, 214—Isis and Serapis,
215—Mithras and the worship of the heavenly bodies, 215—Spread of
Judaism in Rome and elsewhere, 216—The Holy Land and the Sabbath,
218—Continued devotion paid to the Olympian deities, 219—Elasticity of
Graeco-Roman polytheism, 219—Development of indigenous superstition,
220.
V. Oracular character of the pagan religions, 221—Effect produced
by the intellectual movement in Greece, 221—Popular belief remains
stationary or becomes retrograde: Deisidaimonia, 222—Faith in omens
among the educated classes under Augustus, 223—Conversion of an infidel
by the oracle of Mopsus, 224—Alexander of Abonuteichus and his dupes,
224.
VI. Belief in prophetic dreams: the work of Artemidôrus, 227—Conversion
of an Epicurean, 229—The fighting-cock of Tanagra, 229—Piety displayed
by animals, 230—Increased reverence paid to Asclêpius and Heracles,
230—Aristeides the rhetor, 231—Deification of mortals, 232.
VII. The doctrine of immortality, 233—Epicurean epitaphs, 233—Attitude
of the Stoics and Peripatetics, 234—Opinions of literary and scientific
men, 234—Epitaphs testifying to the popular belief in a future
life, 235—Articles found in tombs, 236—Evidence afforded by figured
representations, 237—Frequency of ghostly apparitions, 240.
VIII. Reaction of supernaturalism on philosophy, 241—Decline
of Epicureanism, 241—Religious tendencies of Stoicism: Seneca,
241—Complete substitution of theology for physics by Epictêtus, 243—Why
he rejected the doctrine of human immortality, 244—Superstition of
Marcus Aurelius, 245—Decomposition of Stoicism: the Cynic revival,
246—Neo-Pythagoreanism: its temporary alliance with Stoicism, 247—and
subsequent return to the spiritualism of Plato and Aristotle, 248—The
Neo-Pythagorean creed, 249.
IX. Advantages possessed by Platonism in the struggle for existence,
250—Great extent of its influence, 250—The Platonist daemonology,
251—Conflicting tendencies in Plutarch’s writings, 253—Unmixed
superstition of Maximus Tyrius and Apuleius, 254—A prose hymn to Isis,
255—Combination of philosophy with Oriental theology, 256—Philo and the
Logos, 257—Dualistic pessimism of the Gnostics, 259.
X. Superficial analogy between modern Europe and the Roman empire,
261—Analysis of the points on which they differ, 262—Growth and
influence of physical science, 264—Spread of rationalism through all
classes of society, 265.
CHAPTER V.
THE SPIRITUALISM OF PLOTINUS pages 266-362
I. Plutarch on _Delays in the Divine Vengeance_, 266—A vision of
judgment, 267—Nero forgiven for the sake of Greece, 268—A century of
western supremacy in politics and literature, 268—Reaction begun by
Nero, 269—Revival of Greek literature: Plutarch and his successors,
269—Renewed cultivation of philosophy and science, 270—Sophisticism
and Platonism of the second century, 271—The two methods of
interpreting Plato, 272—The problem of the age, 273.
II. Life of Plotinus, 273—His personal influence and popularity,
275—The part assigned to him in a dialogue of Leopardi’s,
277—Composition and arrangement of his writings, 277—Mythical elements
in his biography, 280—Alleged derivation of his teaching from Ammonius
Saccas, 281.
III. Difficulties presented by the style of Plotinus, 282—General
clearness of his philosophy, 284—His dependence on Plato and exclusive
attention to the metaphysical side of Plato’s teaching, 285—His
unacknowledged obligations to Aristotle, 287.
IV. Plotinus on the spiritual interpretation of love and beauty,
287—His departure from the method of Plato, 289—Aristotelian
influences, 290—His subjective standpoint shared by Plato and
Aristotle, 291—Relation of the post-Aristotelian schools to their
predecessors, 292—The antithesis between materialism and spiritualism
common to both, 292—Services rendered by the later schools, 293.
V. Anti-materialistic arguments of Plotinus, 294—Coincidence with
modern philosophy, 295—Criticism of the Aristotelian doctrine,
296—Weakness of Greek philosophy in dealing with the phenomena of
volition, 297—Difficulties raised by astrology, 298—Plotinus as a
philosophical critic and reformer, 299.
VI. Intermediate position of the soul between the principles of unity
and division, 302—Combination of the Aristotelian Nous with the
Platonic Ideas, 303—Difficulties to which it gave rise, 304—Unity and
plurality in the Ideas and in the Nous, 304—Descent of the soul into
the material world, 305—The triad of body, soul, and spirit, 307—Search
for a supreme principle of existence: data furnished by Plato and
Aristotle, 307—The unity of all souls, 309—Universal dependence of
existence on unity, 310—Method for arriving at the One, 310—To what
extent Plotinus can be called a mystic, 312—Mystical elements in the
systems of his predecessors, 313.
VII. Retrospect and recapitulation, 315—Transition to the constructive
philosophy of Plotinus, 317—Three aspects of the supreme principle,
317—Creative power of the One, 318—Influence of false physical
analogies on metaphysics, 319—Inconceivability of causation apart from
time, 320—Subjective nature of logical and mathematical sequence,
321—The Neo-Platonic method in the Christian creeds, 322—How Plotinus
employed the method of generation by contraries, 322—Difficulty of
explaining the derivation of Soul from Nous, 323—and of accounting for
the existence of Matter, 323—Return to the Platonic identification of
Matter with Extension, 326—Generation of the Infinite from the One,
327—Hesitation of Plotinus between monism and dualism, 328—Influence of
Stoicism, 329—Substitution of contemplation for action as a creative
principle, 330.
VIII. The ethics of Plotinus: derivation of the cardinal virtues,
331—Absence of asceticism, 332—Condemnation of suicide, 332—Similar
view expressed by Schopenhauer, 333—Dialectic as a method for attaining
perfection, 333—The later writings of Plotinus, 334.
IX. Four points of view from which every great philosophical system may
be considered, 334—Inferiority of Neo-Platonism to the older schools of
Greek thought in absolute value, 335—Deserved neglect into which it has
fallen, 336—In combining the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle with
Stoicism, Plotinus eliminates the elements of truth and utility which
they severally contain, 336—High aesthetic value of Neo-Platonism,
338—Purity and unworldliness of Plotinus, 339—Complete self-absorption
of thought which he represents, 340.
X. Neo-Platonism not a product of Oriental tendencies, 341—Nor of the
religious revival of the empire, 342—Nor a mystical reaction against
Scepticism, 343—Independent attitude of Plotinus towards the old
religion, 344—His views on immortality, 345—His relation to pantheism,
346—His attack on the Gnostics, 347—Plotinus on the relation between
religion and morality, 348—Neo-Platonism a part of the great classical
revival, 349.
XI. The place of Plotinus in the history of philosophy, 350—The triumph
of spiritualism due to his teaching, 350—He secures the supremacy of
Plato and Aristotle during the Middle Ages, 351—His interpretation of
Plato universally accepted until a recent date, 352—The pantheistic
direction of modern metaphysics largely determined by Plotinus,
353—Neo-Platonic derivation of the Unknowable, 353—Atavism in
philosophy, 355.
XII. History of Neo-Platonism after Plotinus, 355—Its alliance with
the old religion, 356—Continued vitality of polytheism, 357—Increased
study of the classic philosophers, 358—Proclus and his system, 358—The
schools of Athens closed by Justinian, 360—The Greek professors in
Persia, 361—Final extinction of pagan philosophy, 362.
CHAPTER VI.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND MODERN THOUGHT pages 363-430
I. Continuity in the history of thought, 363—The triumph of
spiritualism followed by a breach between the two spiritualistic
schools, 364—Importance of the Realistic controversy, 365—Why Realism
was at first favoured by the Church, 366—Revolution effected by the
introduction of Aristotle’s complete works into the West, 367—Platonic
reaction of the Renaissance, 368—Its influence on literature,
369—Shakspeare a Platonist, 370—Renewed ascendency of Aristotle in
science, 371.
II. Bacon as an Aristotelian, 372—History the matter of science,
373—Bacon’s method of arrangement taken from Aristotle, 374—Origin of
his confusion between Form and Law, 375—The superinduction of Forms
and the atomic theory, 376—Relation of the _Novum Organum_ to the
_Topics_, 377—The method of negative instances, 378—The Lord Chancellor
and Nature, 379—The utilisation of natural forces brought about by a
method opposed to Bacon’s, 380—Association of the formal philosophy of
Aristotle and Bacon with the geocentric astronomy, 381.
III. The philosophic importance of the Copernican system first
perceived by Giordano Bruno, 382—How it led to a revival of Atomism,
383—Common pantheistic tendency of the anti-Aristotelian schools,
384—The analytical method applied to mathematics, 385—Survival of
Aristotelian ideas in the physics of Galileo, 385—His affinities with
Plato, 386—Influence of Platonic ideas on Kepler, 387.
IV. Descartes’ theory of Matter derived from the _Timaeus_, 388—and
developed under the influence of Democritus, 389—How the identification
of Matter with Extension led to its complete separation from Thought,
390—The denial of final causes a consequence of this separation,
390—Difference between the Cartesian and Baconian views of teleology,
391—Doctrine of animal automatism, 391—Localisation of feeling in
the brain, 392—The _Cogito ergo sum_ and its antecedents in Greek
philosophy, 392—Descartes interprets Thought after the analogy
of Extension, 393—Revival of the Stoic and Epicurean materialism:
transition to Hobbes, 394.
V. Hobbes not a link between Bacon and Locke, 395—The different
meanings which they respectively attached to the notion of experience,
395—Deductive and mathematical method of Hobbes, 396—His opposition
to the ethics of Aristotle, 397—His identification of happiness with
power, 398—Subordination of the infinite to the finite in Greek
philosophy, 398—Contrast offered by the illimitable aspirations of the
Renaissance, 399—Elements out of which Spinozism was formed, 400.
VI. Platonic method of Spinoza, 401—The limiting principles of Greek
idealism, 402—Their tendency to coalesce in a single conception,
403—Similar result obtained by an analysis of extension and thought,
404—Genesis of Spinoza’s Infinite Substance, 405—The uses of unlimited
credit in metaphysics, 406—Spinoza’s theory of cognition, 407—The
identity of extension and thought, 408.
VII. Influence of Aristotle’s logic on Spinoza, 409—Meaning of ‘the
infinite intellect of God,’ 410—Contingency as a common property
of extension and thought, 411—The double-aspect theory not held by
Spinoza, 412—The distinction between necessity and contingency in its
application to ethics, 413—The study of illusion in Malebranche and
Molière, 414—Intellectual character of Spinoza’s ethics, 415—Parallel
between knowledge and virtue, 416—Enumeration of the Greek elements in
Spinoza’s philosophy, 417.
VIII. The place of Scepticism in Greek thought, 418—Parallel between
Locke and the New Academy, 419—Results obtained by a complete
application of the analytical method, 420—Close connexion between
philosophy and positive science, 420—Increased prominence given to
ethical and practical interests by the method of Locke, 421—The idea of
Nature and the revival of teleology, 422—New meaning given to hedonism
by modern philosophy, 423—The Stoic side of modern utilitarianism,
423—Different combinations of the same ideas in ancient and modern
systems, 425.
IX. Conflict between analytical criticism and scholasticism,
426—The theory of evolution as a new application of the atomistic
method, 427—Transitional character of the principal systems of the
nineteenth century, 428—Aristotelian ideas in modern French thought,
428—Contrasting relations of ancient and modern philosophy to theology,
430.
THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
CHAPTER I.
THE STOICS.
I.
The systems of Plato and Aristotle were splendid digressions from the
main line of ancient speculation rather than stages in its regular
development. The philosophers who came after them went back to an
earlier tradition, and the influence of the two greatest Hellenic
masters, when it was felt at all, was felt almost entirely as a
disturbing or deflecting force. The extraordinary reach of their
principles could not, in truth, be appreciated until the organised
experience of mankind had accumulated to an extent requiring the
application of new rules for its comprehension and utilisation; and
to make such an accumulation possible, nothing less was needed than
the combined efforts of the whole western world. Such religious,
educational, social, and political reforms as those contemplated
in Plato’s _Republic_, though originally designed for a single
city-community, could not be realised, even approximately, within
a narrower field than that offered by the mediaeval church and the
feudal state. The ideal theory first gained practical significance
in connexion with the metaphysics of Christian theology. The place
given by Plato to mathematics has only been fully justified by the
development of modern science. So also, Aristotle’s criticism
became of practical importance only when the dreams against which
it was directed had embodied themselves in a fabric of oppressive
superstition. Only the vast extension of reasoned knowledge has enabled
us to disentangle the vitally important elements of Aristotle’s logic
from the mass of useless refinements in which they are imbedded; his
fourfold division of causes could not be estimated rightly even by
Bacon, Descartes, or Spinoza; while his arrangement of the sciences,
his remarks on classification, and his contributions to comparative
biology bring us up to the very verge of theories whose first
promulgation is still fresh in the memories of men.
Again, the spiritualism taught by Plato and Aristotle alike—by the
disciple, indeed, with even more distinctness than by the master—was
so entirely inconsistent with the common belief of antiquity as to
remain a dead letter for nearly six centuries—that is, until the time
of Plotinus. The difference between body and mind was recognised by
every school, but only as the difference between solid and gaseous
matter is recognised by us; while the antithesis between conscious
and unconscious existence, with all its momentous consequences, was
recognised by none. The old hypothesis had to be thoroughly thought out
before its insufficiency could be completely and irrevocably confessed.
Nor was this the only reason why the spiritualists lost touch of their
age. If in some respects they were far in advance of early Greek
thought, in other respects they were far behind it. Their systems
were pervaded by an unphilosophical dualism which tended to undo
much that had been achieved by their less prejudiced predecessors.
For this we have partly to blame their environment. The opposition
of God and the world, heaven and earth, mind and matter, necessity
in Nature and free-will in man, was a concession—though of course an
unconscious concession—to the stupid bigotry of Athens. Yet at the
same time they had failed to solve those psychological problems which
had most interest for an Athenian public. Instead of following up
the attempt made by the Sophists and Socrates to place morality on a
scientific foundation, they busied themselves with the construction
of a new machinery for diminishing the efficacy of temptation or for
strengthening the efficacy of law. To the question, What is the highest
good? Plato gave an answer which nobody could understand, and Aristotle
an answer which was almost absolutely useless to anybody but himself.
The other great problem, What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge?
was left in an equally unsatisfactory state. Plato never answered it at
all; Aristotle merely pointed out the negative conditions which must be
fulfilled by its solution.
It is not, then, surprising that the Academic and Peripatetic schools
utterly failed to carry on the great movement inaugurated by their
respective founders. The successors of Plato first lost themselves in
a labyrinth of Pythagorean mysticism, and then sank into the position
of mere moral instructors. The history of that remarkable revolution
by which the Academy regained a foremost place in Greek thought, will
form the subject of a future chapter: here we may anticipate so far
as to observe that it was effected by taking up and presenting in
its original purity a tradition of older date than Platonism, though
presented under a new aspect and mixed with other elements by Plato.
The heirs of Aristotle, after staggering on a few paces under the
immense burden of his encyclopaedic bequest, came to a dead halt, and
contented themselves with keeping the treasure safe until the time
should arrive for its appropriation and reinvestment by a stronger
speculative race.
No sooner did the two imperial systems lose their ascendency than the
germs which they had temporarily overshadowed sprang up into vigorous
vitality, and for more than five centuries dominated the whole
course not only of Greek but of European thought. Of these by far the
most important was the naturalistic idea, the belief that physical
science might be substituted for religious superstitions and local
conventions as an impregnable basis of conduct. In a former chapter[1]
we endeavoured to show that, while there are traces of this idea in the
philosophy of Heracleitus, and while its roots stretch far back into
the literature and popular faith of Greece, it was formulated for the
first time by the two great Sophists, Prodicus and Hippias, who, in the
momentous division between Nature and Law, placed themselves—Hippias
more particularly—on the side of Nature. Two causes led to the
temporary discredit of their teaching. One was the perversion by
which natural right became the watchword of those who, like Plato’s
Callicles, held that nothing should stand between the strong man
and the gratification of his desire for pleasure or for power. The
other was the keen criticism of the Humanists, the friends of social
convention, who held with Protagoras that Nature was unknowable, or
with Gorgias that she did not exist, or with Socrates that her laws
were the secret of the gods. It was in particular the overwhelming
personal influence of Socrates which triumphed. He drew away from the
Sophists their strongest disciple, Antisthenes, and convinced him that
philosophy was valuable only in so far as it became a life-renovating
power, and that, viewed in this light, it had no relation to anything
outside ourselves. But just as Socrates had discarded the physical
speculations of former teachers, so also did Antisthenes discard the
dialectic which Socrates had substituted for them, even to the extent
of denying that definition was possible.[2] Yet he seems to have kept
a firm hold on the two great ideas that were the net result of all
previous philosophy, the idea of a cosmos, the common citizenship of
which made all men potentially equal,[3] and the idea of reason as the
essential prerogative of man.[4]
Antisthenes pushed to its extreme consequences a movement begun by
the naturalistic Sophists. His doctrine was what would now be called
anarchic collectivism. The State, marriage, private property, and
the then accepted forms of religion, were to be abolished, and all
mankind were to herd promiscuously together.[5] Either he or his
followers, alone among the ancients, declared that slavery was wrong;
and, like Socrates, he held that the virtue of men and women was
the same.[6] But what he meant by this broad human virtue, which
according to him was identical with happiness, is not clear. We only
know that he dissociated it in the strongest manner from pleasure.
‘I had rather be mad than delighted,’ is one of his characteristic
sayings.[7] It would appear, however, that what he really objected
to was self-indulgence—the pursuit of sensual gratification for its
own sake—and that he was ready to welcome the enjoyments naturally
accompanying the healthy discharge of vital function.[8]
Antisthenes and his school, of which Diogenes is the most popular and
characteristic type, were afterwards known as Cynics; but the name
is never mentioned by Plato and Aristotle, nor do they allude to the
scurrility and systematic indecency afterwards associated with it.
The anecdotes relating to this unsavoury subject should be received
with extreme suspicion. There has always been a tendency to believe
that philosophers carry out in practice what are vulgarly believed to
be the logical consequences of their theories. Thus it is related of
Pyrrho the Sceptic that when out walking he never turned aside to
avoid any obstacle or danger, and was only saved from destruction by
the vigilance of his friends.[9] This is of course a silly fable; and
we have Aristotle’s word for it that the Sceptics took as good care
of their lives as other people.[10] In like manner we may conjecture
that the Cynics, advocating as they did a return to Nature and defiance
of prejudice, were falsely credited with what was falsely supposed
to be the practical exemplification of their precepts. It is at any
rate remarkable that Epictêtus, a man not disposed to undervalue the
obligations of decorum, constantly refers to Diogenes as a kind of
philosophical saint, and that he describes the ideal Cynic in words
which would apply without alteration to the character of a Christian
apostle.[11]
Cynicism, if we understand it rightly, was only the mutilated form of
an older philosophy having for its object to set morality free from
convention, and to found it anew on a scientific knowledge of natural
law. The need of such a system was not felt so long as Plato and
Aristotle were unfolding their wonderful schemes for a reorganisation
of action and belief. With the temporary collapse of those schemes
it came once more to the front. The result was a new school which so
thoroughly satisfied the demands of the age, that for five centuries
the noblest spirits of Greece and Rome, with few exceptions, adhered
to its doctrines; that in dying it bequeathed some of their most
vital elements to the metaphysics and the theology by which it was
succeeded; that with their decay it reappeared as an important factor
in modern thought; and that its name has become imperishably associated
in our own language with the proud endurance of suffering, the
self-sufficingness of conscious rectitude, and the renunciation of all
sympathy, except what may be derived from contemplation of the immortal
dead, whose heroism is recorded in history, or of the eternal cosmic
forces performing their glorious offices with unimpassioned energy and
imperturbable repose.
II.
One day, some few years after the death of Aristotle, a short, lean,
swarthy young man, of weak build, with clumsily shaped limbs, and head
inclined to one side, was standing in an Athenian bookshop, intently
studying a roll of manuscript. His name was Zeno, and he was a native
of Citium, a Greek colony in Cyprus, where the Hellenic element had
become adulterated with a considerable Phoenician infusion. According
to some accounts, Zeno had come to the great centre of intellectual
activity to study, according to others for the sale of Tyrian purple.
At any rate the volume which he held in his hand decided his vocation.
It was the second book of Xenophon’s Memoirs of Socrates. Zeno eagerly
asked where such men as he whose sayings stood recorded there were to
be found. At that moment the Cynic Crates happened to pass by. ‘There
is one of them,’ said the bookseller, ‘follow him.’[12]
The history of this Crates was distinguished by the one solitary
romance of Greek philosophy. A young lady of noble family, named
Hipparchia, fell desperately in love with him, refused several most
eligible suitors, and threatened to kill herself unless she was given
to him in marriage. Her parents in despair sent for Crates. Marriage,
for a philosopher, was against the principles of his sect, and he
at first joined them in endeavouring to dissuade her. Finding his
remonstrances unavailing, he at last flung at her feet the staff and
wallet which constituted his whole worldly possessions, exclaiming,
‘Here is the bridegroom, and that is the dower. Think of this matter
well, for you cannot be my partner unless you follow the same calling
with me.’ Hipparchia consented, and thenceforth, heedless of taunts,
conformed her life in every respect to the Cynic pattern.[13]
Zeno had more delicacy or less fortitude than Hipparchia; and the
very meagre intellectual fare provided by Crates must have left his
inquisitive mind unsatisfied. Accordingly we find him leaving this
rather disappointing substitute for Socrates, to study philosophy
under Stilpo the Megarian dialectician and Polemo the head of the
Academy;[14] while we know that he must have gone back to Heracleitus
for the physical basis from which contemporary speculation had by this
time cut itself completely free. At length, about the beginning of the
third century B.C., Zeno, after having been a learner for twenty years,
opened a school on his own account. As if to mark the practical bearing
of his doctrine he chose one of the most frequented resorts in the city
for its promulgation. There was at Athens a portico called the Poecile
Stoa, adorned with frescoes by Polygnôtus, the greatest painter of the
Cimonian period. It was among the monuments of that wonderful city,
at once what the Loggia dei Lanzi is to Florence, and what Raphael’s
Stanze are to Rome; while, like the Place de la Concorde in Paris, it
was darkened by the terrible associations of a revolutionary epoch.
A century before Zeno’s time fourteen hundred Athenian citizens had
been slaughtered under its colonnades by order of the Thirty. ‘I will
purify the Stoa,’ said the Cypriote stranger;[15] and the feelings
still associated with the word Stoicism prove how nobly his promise was
fulfilled.
How much of the complete system known in later times under this
name was due to Zeno himself, we do not know; for nothing but a
few fragments of his and of his immediate successors’ writings is
left. The idea of combining Antisthenes with Heracleitus, and both
with Socrates, probably belongs to the founder of the school. His
successor, Cleanthes, a man of character rather than of intellect,
was content to hand on what the master had taught. Then came another
Cypriote, Chrysippus, of whom we are told that without him the Stoa
would not have existed;[16] so thoroughly did he work out the system
in all its details, and so strongly did he fortify its positions
against hostile criticism by a framework of elaborate dialectic.
‘Give me the propositions, and I will find the proofs!’ he used to
say to Cleanthes.[17] After him, nothing of importance was added to
the doctrines of the school; although the spirit by which they were
animated seems to have undergone profound modifications in the lapse of
ages.
In reality, Stoicism was not, like the older Greek philosophies, a
creation of individual genius. It bears the character of a compilation
both on its first exposition and on its final completion. Polemo, who
had been a fine gentleman before he became a philosopher, taunted
Zeno with filching his opinions from every quarter, like the cunning
little Phoenician trader that he was.[18] And it was said that the
seven hundred treatises of Chrysippus would be reduced to a blank
if everything that he had borrowed from others were to be erased.
He seems, indeed, to have been the father of review-writers, and to
have used the reviewer’s right of transcription with more than modern
license. Nearly a whole tragedy of Euripides reappeared in one of his
‘articles,’ and a wit on being asked what he was reading, replied, ‘the
_Medea_ of Chrysippus.’[19]
In this respect Stoicism betrays its descent from the encyclopaedic
lectures of the earlier Sophists, particularly Hippias. While
professedly subordinating every other study to the art of virtuous
living, its expositors seem to have either put a very wide
interpretation on virtue, or else to have raised its foundation
to a most unnecessary height. They protested against Aristotle’s
glorification of knowledge as the supreme end, and declared
its exclusive pursuit to be merely a more refined form of
self-indulgence;[20] but, being Greeks, they shared the speculative
passion with him, and seized on any pretext that enabled them to
gratify it. And this inquisitiveness was apparently much stronger in
Asiatic Hellas, whence the Stoics were almost entirely recruited,
than in the old country, where centuries of intellectual activity had
issued in a scepticism from which their fresher minds revolted.[21]
It is mentioned by Zeller as a proof of exhaustion and comparative
indifference to such enquiries, that the Stoics should have fallen
back on the Heracleitean philosophy for their physics.[22] But all the
ideas respecting the constitution of Nature that were then possible had
already been put forward. The Greek capacity for discovery was perhaps
greater in the third century than at any former time; but from the very
progress of science it was necessarily confined to specialists, such as
Aristarchus of Samos or Archimedes. And if the Stoics made no original
contributions to physical science, they at least accepted what seemed
at that time to be its established results; here, as in other respects,
offering a marked contrast to the Epicurean school. If a Cleanthes
assailed the heliocentric hypothesis of Aristarchus on religious
grounds, he was treading in the footsteps of Aristotle. It is far
more important that he or his successors should have taught the true
theory of the earth’s shape, of the moon’s phases, of eclipses, and of
the relative size and distance of the heavenly bodies.[23] On this last
subject, indeed, one of the later Stoics, Posidonius, arrived at or
accepted conclusions which, although falling far short of the reality,
approximated to it in a very remarkable manner, when we consider what
imperfect means of measurement the Greek astronomers had at their
disposition.[24]
In returning to one of the older cosmologies, the Stoics placed
themselves in opposition to the system of Aristotle as a whole,
although on questions of detail they frequently adopted his
conclusions. The object of Heracleitus, as against the Pythagoreans,
had been to dissolve away every antithesis in a pervading unity
of contradictories; and, as against the Eleatics, to substitute
an eternal series of transformations for the changeless unity of
absolute existence. The Stoics now applied the same method on a scale
proportionate to the subsequent development of thought. Aristotle
had carefully distinguished God from the world, even to the extent
of isolating him from all share in its creation and interest in its
affairs. The Stoics declared that God and the world were one. So far,
it is allowable to call them pantheists. Yet their pantheism was very
different from what we are accustomed to denote by that name; from the
system of Spinoza, for example. Their strong faith in final causes and
in Providence—a faith in which they closely followed Socrates—would
be hardly consistent with anything but the ascription of a distinct
and individual consciousness to the Supreme Being, which is just
what modern pantheists refuse to admit. Their God was sometimes
described as the soul of the world, the fiery element surrounding and
penetrating every other kind of matter. What remained was the body
of God; but it was a body which he had originally created out of his
own substance, and would, in the fulness of time, absorb into that
substance again.[25] Thus they kept the future conflagration foretold
by Heracleitus, but gave it a more religious colouring. The process
of creation was then to begin over again, and all things were to run
the same course as before down to the minutest particulars, human
history repeating itself, and the same persons returning to live the
same lives once more.[26] Such a belief evidently involved the most
rigid fatalism: and here again their doctrine offers a pointed contrast
to that of Aristotle. The Stagirite, differing, as it would seem, in
this respect from all the older physicists, maintained that there was
an element of chance and spontaneity in the sublunary sphere; and
without going very deeply into the mechanism of motives or the theory
of moral responsibility, he had claimed a similar indeterminateness
for the human will. Stoicism would hear of neither; with it, as with
modern science, the chain of causation is unbroken from first to last,
and extends to all phenomena alike. The old theological notion of an
omnipotent divine will, or of a destiny superior even to that will, was
at once confirmed and continued by the new theory of natural law; just
as the predestination of the Reformers reappeared in the metaphysical
rationalism of Spinoza.[27]
This dogma of universal determinism was combined in the Stoical
system with an equally outspoken materialism. The capacity for either
acting or being acted on was, according to Plato, the one convincing
evidence of real existence; and he had endeavoured to prove that there
is such a thing as mind apart from matter by its possession of this
characteristic mark.[28] The Stoics simply reversed his argument.
Whatever acts or is acted on, they said, must be corporeal; therefore
the soul is a kind of body.[29] Here they only followed the common
opinion of all philosophers who believed in an external world,
except Plato and Aristotle, while to a certain extent anticipating
the scientific automatism first taught in modern times by Spinoza,
and simultaneously revived by various thinkers in our own day. To
a certain extent only; for they did not recognise the independent
reality of a consciousness in which the mechanical processes are either
reflected, or represented under a different aspect. And they further
gave their theory a somewhat grotesque expression by interpreting those
qualities and attributes of things, which other materialists have
been content to consider as belonging to matter, as themselves actual
bodies. For instance, the virtues and vices were, according to them,
so many gaseous currents by which the soul is penetrated and shaped—a
materialistic rendering of Plato’s theory that qualities are distinct
and independent substances.[30]
We must mention as an additional point of contrast between the Stoics
and the subsequent schools which they most resembled, that while these
look on the soul as inseparable from the body, and sharing its fortunes
from first to last, although perfectly distinct from it in idea, they
emphasised the antithesis between the two just as strongly as Plato,
giving the soul an absolutely infinite power of self-assertion during
our mortal life, and allowing it a continued, though not an immortal,
existence after death.[31]
What has been said of the human soul applies equally to God, who
is the soul of the world. He also is conceived under the form of a
material but very subtle and all-penetrating element to which our
souls are much more closely akin than to the coarse clay with which
they are temporarily associated. And it was natural that the heavenly
bodies, in whose composition the ethereal element seemed so visibly to
predominate, should pass with the Stoics, as with Plato and Aristotle,
for conscious beings inferior only in sacredness and majesty to the
Supreme Ruler of all.[32] Thus, the philosophy which we are studying
helps to prove the strength and endurance of the religious reaction to
which Socrates first gave an argumentative expression, and by which he
was ultimately hurried to his doom. We may even trace its increasing
ascendency through the successive stages of the Naturalistic school.
Prodicus simply identified the gods of polytheism with unconscious
physical forces;[33] Antisthenes, while discarding local worship,
believed, like Rousseau, in the existence of a single deity;[34] Zeno,
or his successors, revived the whole pantheon, but associated it with
a pure morality, and explained away its more offensive features by an
elaborate system of allegorical interpretation.[35]
It was not, however, by its legendary beliefs that the living power
of ancient religion was displayed, but by the study and practice of
divination. This was to the Greeks and Romans what priestly direction
is to a Catholic, or the interpretation of Scripture texts to a
Protestant believer. And the Stoics, in their anxiety to uphold
religion as a bulwark of morality, went entirely along with the popular
superstition; while at the same time they endeavoured to reconcile it
with the universality of natural law by the same clumsily rationalistic
methods that have found favour with some modern scientific defenders of
the miraculous. The signs by which we are enabled to predict an event
entered, they said, equally with the event itself, into the order of
Nature, being either connected with it by direct causation, as is the
configuration of the heavenly bodies at a man’s birth with his after
fortunes, or determined from the beginning of the world to precede it
according to an invariable rule, as with the indications derived from
inspecting the entrails of sacrificial victims. And when sceptics asked
of what use was the premonitory sign when everything was predestined,
they replied that our behaviour in view of the warning was predestined
as well.[36]
To us the religion of the Stoics is interesting chiefly as a part
of the machinery by which they attempted to make good the connexion
between natural and moral law, assumed rather than proved by their
Sophistic and Cynic precursors. But before proceeding to this branch
of the subject we must glance at their mode of conceiving another side
of the fundamental relationship between man and the universe. This is
logic in its widest sense, so understood as to include the theory of
the process by which we get our knowledge and of the ultimate evidence
on which it rests, no less than the theory of formal ratiocination.
III.
In their theory of cognition the Stoics chiefly followed Aristotle;
only with them the doctrine of empiricism is enunciated so distinctly
as to be placed beyond the reach of misinterpretation. The mind is at
first a _tabula rasa_, and all our ideas are derived exclusively from
the senses.[37] But while knowledge as a whole rests on sense, the
validity of each particular sense-perception must be determined by
an appeal to reason, in other words, to the totality of our acquired
experience.[38] So also the first principles of reasoning are not to be
postulated, with Aristotle, as immediately and unconditionally certain;
they are to be assumed as hypothetically true and gradually tested
by the consequences deducible from them.[39] Both principles well
illustrate the synthetic method of the Stoics—their habit of bringing
into close connexion whatever Aristotle had studiously held apart.
And we must maintain, in opposition to the German critics, that their
method marks a real advance on his. It ought at any rate to find more
favour with the experiential school of modern science, with those who
hold that the highest mathematical and physical laws are proved, not
by the impossibility of conceiving their contradictories, but by their
close agreement with all the facts accessible to our observation.
It was a consequence of the principle just stated that in formal
logic the Stoics should give precedence to the hypothetical over the
categorical syllogism.[40] From one point of view their preference
for this mode of stating an argument was an advance on the method
of Aristotle, whose reasonings, if explicitly set out, would have
assumed the form of disjunctive syllogisms. From another point of
view it was a return to the older dialectics of Socrates and Plato,
who always looked on their major premises as possessing only a
conditional validity—conditional, that is to say, on the consent of
their interlocutor. We have further to note that both the disjunctive
and the hypothetical syllogism were first recognised as such by the
Stoics; a discovery connected with the feature which most profoundly
distinguishes their logic from Aristotle’s logic. We showed, in dealing
with the latter, that it is based on an analysis of the concept, and
that all its imperfections are due to that single circumstance. It was
the Stoics who first brought judgment, so fatally neglected by the
author of the _Analytics_, into proper prominence. Having once grasped
propositions as the beginning and end of reasoning, they naturally and
under the guidance of common language, passed from simple to complex
assertions, and immediately detected the arguments to which these
latter serve as a foundation. And if we proceed to ask why they were
more interested in judgment than in conception, we shall probably
find the explanation to be that their philosophy had its root in the
ethical and practical interests which involve a continual process
of injunction and belief, that is to say, a continual association
of such disparate notions as an impression and an action; while the
Aristotelian philosophy, being ultimately derived from early Greek
thought, had for its leading principle the circumscription of external
objects and their representation under the form of a classified
series. Thus the naturalistic system, starting with the application of
scientific ideas to human life, ultimately carried back into science
the vital idea of Law; that is, of fixed relations subsisting between
disparate phenomena. And this in turn led to the reinterpretation
of knowledge as the subsumption of less general under more general
relations.
Under the guidance of a somewhat similar principle the Stoic logicians
attempted a reform of Aristotle’s categories. These they reduced to
four: Substance, Quality, Disposition, and Relation (τὸ ὑποκείμενον,
τὸ ποιὸν, τὸ πῶς ἔχον, and τὸ πρός τι πῶς ἔχον[41]); and the change
was an improvement in so far as it introduced a certain method and
subordination where none existed before; for each category implies, and
is contained in, its predecessor; whereas the only order traceable
in Aristotle’s categories refers to the comparative frequency of the
questions to which they correspond.
With the idea of subsumption and subordination to law, we pass at once
to the Stoic ethics. For Zeno, the end of life was self-consistency;
for Cleanthes, consistency with Nature; for Chrysippus, both the one
and the other.[42] The still surviving individualism of the Cynics is
represented in the first of these principles; the religious inspiration
of the Stoa in the second; and the comprehensiveness of its great
systematising intellect in the last. On the other hand, there is
a vagueness about the idea of self-consistency which seems to date
from a time when Stoicism was less a new and exclusive school than an
endeavour to appropriate whatever was best in the older schools. For to
be consistent is the common ideal of all philosophy, and is just what
distinguishes it from the uncalculating impulsiveness of ordinary life,
the chance inspirations of ordinary thought. But the Peripatetic who
chose knowledge as his highest good differed widely from the Hedonist
who made pleasure or painlessness his end; and even if they agreed in
thinking that the highest pleasure is yielded by knowledge, the Stoic
himself would assert that the object of their common pursuit was with
both alike essentially unmoral. He would, no doubt, maintain that the
self-consistency of any theory but his own was a delusion, and that
all false moralities would, if consistently acted out, inevitably
land their professors in a contradiction.[43] Yet the absence of
contradiction, although a valuable verification, is too negative a
mark to serve for the sole test of rightness; and thus we are led on
to the more specific standard of conformability to Nature, whether
our own or that of the universe as a whole. Here again a difficulty
presents itself. The idea of Nature had taken such a powerful hold on
the Greek mind that it was employed by every school in turn—except
perhaps by the extreme sceptics, still faithful to the traditions of
Protagoras and Gorgias—and was confidently appealed to in support of
the most divergent ethical systems. We find it occupying a prominent
place both in Plato’s _Laws_ and in Aristotle’s _Politics_; while the
maxim, Follow Nature, was borrowed by Zeno himself from Polemo, the
head of the Academy, or perhaps from Polemo’s predecessor, Xenocrates.
And Epicurus, the great opponent of Stoicism, maintained, not without
plausibility, that every animal is led by Nature to pursue its own
pleasure in preference to any other end.[44] Thus, when Cleanthes
declared that pleasure was unnatural,[45] he and the Epicureans could
not have been talking about the same thing. They must have meant
something different by pleasure or by nature or by both.
The last alternative seems the most probable. Nature with the Stoics
was a fixed objective order whereby all things work together as
co-operant parts of a single system. Each has a certain office to
perform, and the perfect performance of it is the creature’s virtue, or
reason, or highest good: these three expressions being always used as
strictly synonymous terms. Here we have the teleology, the dialectics,
and the utilitarianism of Socrates, so worked out and assimilated that
they differ only as various aspects of a single truth. The three lines
of Socratic teaching had also been drawn to a single point by Plato;
but his idealism had necessitated the creation of a new world for their
development and concentration. The idea of Nature as it had grown up
under the hands of Heracleitus, the Sophists, and Antisthenes, supplied
Zeno with a ready-made mould into which his reforming aspirations could
be run. The true Republic was not a pattern laid up in heaven, nor was
it restricted to the narrow dimensions of a single Hellenic state.
It was the whole real universe, in every part of which except in the
works of wicked men a divine law was recognised and obeyed.[46] Nay,
according to Cleanthes, God’s law is obeyed even by the wicked, and
the essence of morality consists only in its voluntary fulfilment. As
others very vividly put it, we are like a dog tied under a cart; if we
do not choose to run we shall be dragged along.[47]
It will now be better understood whence arose the hostility of the
Stoics to pleasure, and how they could speak of it in what seems such
a paradoxical style. It was subjective feeling as opposed to objective
law; it was relative, particular, and individual, as opposed to their
formal standard of right; and it was continually drawing men away from
their true nature by acting as a temptation to vice. Thus, probably
for the last reason, Cleanthes could speak of pleasure as contrary
to Nature; while less rigorous authorities regarded it as absolutely
indifferent, being a consequence of natural actions, not an essential
element in their performance. And when their opponents pointed to the
universal desire for pleasure as a proof that it was the natural end of
animated beings, the Stoics answered that what Nature had in view was
not pleasure at all, but the preservation of life itself.[48]
Such an interpretation of instinct introduces us to a new
principle—self-interest; and this was, in fact, recognised on all hands
as the foundation of right conduct; it was about the question, What is
our interest? that the ancient moralists were disagreed. The Cynics
apparently held that, for every being, simple existence is the only
good, and therefore with them virtue meant limiting oneself to the bare
necessaries of life; while by following Nature they meant reducing
existence to its lowest terms, and assimilating our actions, so far as
possible, to those of the lower animals, plants, or even stones, all of
which require no more than to maintain the integrity of their proper
nature.
Where the Cynics left off the Stoics began. Recognising simple
self-preservation as the earliest interest and duty of man, they held
that his ultimate and highest good was complete self-realisation, the
development of that rational, social, and beneficent nature which
distinguishes him from the lower animals.[49] Here their teleological
religion came in as a valuable sanction for their ethics. Epictêtus,
probably following older authorities, argues that self-love has
purposely been made identical with sociability. ‘The nature of an
animal is to do all things for its own sake. Accordingly God has so
ordered the nature of the rational animal that it cannot obtain any
particular good without at the same time contributing to the common
good. Because it is self-seeking it is not therefore unsocial.’[50]
But if our happiness depends on external goods, then we shall begin
to fight with one another for their possession:[51] friends, father,
country, the gods themselves, everything will, with good reason, be
sacrificed to their attainment. And, regarding this as a self-evident
absurdity, Epictêtus concludes that our happiness must consist solely
in a righteous will, which we know to have been the doctrine of his
whole school.
We have now reached the great point on which the Stoic ethics differed
from that of Plato and Aristotle. The two latter, while upholding
virtue as the highest good, allowed external advantages like pleasure
and exemption from pain to enter into their definition of perfect
happiness; nor did they demand the entire suppression of passion, but,
on the contrary, assigned it to a certain part in the formation of
character. We must add, although it was not a point insisted on by the
ancient critics, that they did not bring out the socially beneficent
character of virtue with anything like the distinctness of their
successors. The Stoics, on the other hand, refused to admit that there
was any good but a virtuous will, or that any useful purpose could be
served by irrational feeling. If the passions agree with virtue they
are superfluous, if they are opposed to it they are mischievous; and
once we give them the rein they are more likely to disagree with than
to obey it.[52] The severer school had more reason on their side than
is commonly admitted. Either there is no such thing as duty at all,
or duty must be paramount over every other motive—that is to say, a
perfect man will discharge his obligations at the sacrifice of every
personal advantage. There is no pleasure that he will not renounce, no
pain that he will not endure, rather than leave them unfulfilled. But
to assume this supremacy over his will, duty must be incommensurable
with any other motive; if it is a good at all, it must be the only
good. To identify virtue with happiness seems to us absurd, because
we are accustomed to associate it exclusively with those dispositions
which are the cause of happiness in others, or altruism; and happiness
itself with pleasure or the absence of pain, which are states of
feeling necessarily conceived as egoistic. But neither the Stoics
nor any other ancient moralists recognised such a distinction. All
agreed that public and private interest must somehow be identified;
the only question being, should one be merged in the other, and if so,
which? or should there be an illogical compromise between the two. The
alternative chosen by Zeno was incomparably nobler than the method of
Epicurus, while it was more consistent than the methods of Plato and
Aristotle. He regarded right conduct exclusively in the light of those
universal interests with which alone it is properly concerned; and if
he appealed to the motives supplied by personal happiness, this was a
confusion of phraseology rather than of thought.
The treatment of the passions by the Stoic school presents greater
difficulties, due partly to their own vacillation, partly to the very
indefinite nature of the feelings in question. It will be admitted that
here also the claims of duty are supreme. To follow the promptings of
fear or of anger, of pity or of love, without considering the ulterior
consequences of our action, is, of course, wrong. For even if, in
any particular instance, no harm comes of the concession, we cannot
be sure that such will always be the case; and meanwhile the passion
is strengthened by indulgence. And we have also to consider the bad
effect produced on the character of those who, finding themselves the
object of passion, learn to address themselves to it instead of to
reason. Difficulties arise when we begin to consider how far education
should aim at the systematic discouragement of strong emotion. Here
the Stoics seem to have taken up a position not very consistent either
with their appeals to Nature or with their teleological assumptions.
Nothing strikes one as more unnatural than the complete absence of
human feeling; and a believer in design might plausibly maintain that
every emotion conduced to the preservation either of the individual
or of the race. We find, however, that the Stoics, here as elsewhere
reversing the Aristotelian method, would not admit the existence of
a psychological distinction between reason and passion. According to
their analysis, the emotions are so many different forms of judgment.
Joy and sorrow are false opinions respecting good and evil in the
present: desire and fear, false opinions respecting good and evil in
the future.[53] But, granting a righteous will to be the only good,
and its absence the only evil, there can be no room for any of these
feelings in the mind of a truly virtuous man, since his opinions on the
subject of good are correct, and its possession depends entirely on
himself. Everything else arises from an external necessity, to strive
with which would be useless because it is inevitable, foolish because
it is beneficent, and impious because it is supremely wise.
It will be seen that the Stoics condemned passion not as the cause
of immoral actions but as intrinsically vicious in itself. Hence
their censure extended to the rapturous delight and passionate grief
which seem entirely out of relation to conduct properly so called.
This was equivalent to saying that the will has complete control
over emotion; a doctrine which our philosophers did not shrink from
maintaining. It might have been supposed that a position which the
most extreme supporters of free-will would hardly accept, would find
still less favour with an avowedly necessarian school. And to regard
the emotions as either themselves beliefs, or as inevitably caused
by beliefs, would seem to remove them even farther from the sphere
of moral responsibility. The Stoics, however, having arrived at the
perfectly true doctrine that judgment is a form of volition, seem to
have immediately invested it as such with the old associations of free
choice which they were at the same time busily engaged in stripping off
from other exercises of the same faculty. They took up the Socratic
paradox that virtue is knowledge; but they would not agree with
Socrates that it could be instilled by force of argument. To them vice
was not so much ignorance as the obstinate refusal to be convinced.[54]
The Stoic arguments are, indeed, when we come to analyse them, appeal
to authority rather than to the logical understanding. We are told
again and again that the common objects of desire and dread cannot
really be good or evil, because they are not altogether under our
control.[55] And if we ask why this necessarily excludes them from
the class of things to be pursued or avoided, the answer is that man,
having been created for perfect happiness, must also have been created
with the power to secure it by his own unaided exertions. But, even
granting the very doubtful thesis that there is any ascertainable
purpose in creation at all, it is hard to see how the Stoics could
have answered any one who chose to maintain that man is created for
enjoyment; since, judging by experience, he has secured a larger
share of it than of virtue, and is just as capable of gaining it by
a mere exercise of volition. For the professors of the Porch fully
admitted that their ideal sage had never been realised; which, with
their opinions about the indivisibility of virtue, was equivalent to
saying that there never had been such a thing as a good man at all.
Or, putting the same paradox into other words, since the two classes
of wise and foolish divide humanity between them, and since the former
class has only an ideal existence, they were obliged to admit that
mankind are not merely most of them fools, but all fools. And this,
as Plutarch has pointed out in his very clever attack on Stoicism,
is equivalent to saying that the scheme of creation is a complete
failure.[56]
IV.
The inconsistencies of a great philosophical system are best explained
by examining its historical antecedents. We have already attempted to
disentangle the roots from which Stoicism was nourished, but one of the
most important has not yet been taken into account. This was the still
continued influence of Parmenides, derived, if not from his original
teaching, then from some one or more of the altered shapes through
which it had passed. It has been shown how Zeno used the Heracleitean
method to break down all the demarcations laboriously built up by Plato
and Aristotle. Spirit was identified with matter; ideas with aerial
currents; God with the world; rational with sensible evidence; volition
with judgment; and emotion with thought. But the idea of a fundamental
antithesis, expelled from every other department of enquiry, took hold
with all the more energy on what, to Stoicism, was the most vital of
all distinctions—that between right and wrong.[57] Once grasp this
transformation of a metaphysical into a moral principle, and every
paradox of the system will be seen to follow from it with logical
necessity. What the supreme Idea had been to Plato and self-thinking
thought to Aristotle, that virtue became to the new school, simple,
unchangeable, and self-sufficient. It must not only be independent of
pleasure and pain, but absolutely incommensurable with them; therefore
there can be no happiness except what it gives. As an indivisible
unity, it must be possessed entirely or not at all; and being eternal,
once possessed it can never be lost. Further, since the same action may
be either right or wrong, according to the motive of its performance,
virtue is nothing external, but a subjective disposition, a state
of the will and the affections; or, if these are to be considered
as judgments, a state of the reason. Finally, since the universe is
organised reason, virtue must be natural, and especially consonant to
the nature of man as a rational animal; while, at the same time, its
existence in absolute purity being inconsistent with experience, it
must remain an unattainable ideal.
It has been shown in former parts of this work how Greek philosophy,
after straining an antithesis to the utmost, was driven by the very
law of its being to close or bridge over the chasm by a series of
accommodations and transitions. To this rule Stoicism was no exception;
and perhaps its extraordinary vitality may have been partly due to
the necessity imposed on its professors of continually revising their
ethics, with a view to softening down its most repellent features. We
proceed to sketch in rapid outline the chief artifices employed for
this purpose.
The doctrine, in its very earliest form, had left a large neutral
ground between good and evil, comprehending almost all the common
objects of desire and avoidance. These the Stoics now proceeded to
divide according to a similar principle of arrangement. Whatever,
without being morally good in the strictest sense, was either conducive
to morality, or conformable to human nature, or both, they called
preferable. Under this head came personal advantages, such as mental
accomplishments, beauty, health, strength, and life itself; together
with external advantages, such as wealth, honour, and high connexions.
The opposite to preferable things they called objectionable; and what
lay between the two, such as the particular coin selected to make a
payment with, absolutely indifferent.[58]
The thorough-going condemnation of passion was explained away to a
certain extent by allowing the sage himself to feel a slight touch
of the feelings which fail to shake his determination, like a scar
remaining after the wound is healed; and by admitting the desirability
of sundry emotions, which, though carefully distinguished from the
passions, seem to have differed from them in degree rather than in
kind.[59]
In like manner, the peremptory alternative between consummate wisdom
and utter folly was softened down by admitting the possibility of a
gradual progress from one to the other, itself subdivided into a number
of more or less advanced grades, recalling Aristotle’s idea of motion
as a link between Privation and Form.[60]
If there be a class of persons who although not perfectly virtuous are
on the road to virtue, it follows that there are moral actions which
they are capable of performing. These the Stoics called intermediate
or imperfect duties; and, in accordance with their intellectual
view of conduct, they defined them as actions for which a probable
reason might be given; apparently in contradistinction to those
which were deduced from a single principle with the extreme rigour
of scientific demonstration. Such intermediate duties would have for
their appropriate object the ends which, without being absolutely good,
were still relatively worth seeking, or the avoidance of what, without
being an absolute evil, was allowed to be relatively objectionable.
They stood midway between virtue and vice, just as the progressive
characters stood between the wise and the foolish, and preferable
objects between what was really good and what was really evil.
The idea of such a provisional code seems to have originated with
Zeno;[61] but the form under which we now know it is the result of
at least two successive revisions. The first and most important is
due to Panaetius, a Stoic philosopher of the second century B.C., on
whose views the study of Plato and Aristotle exercised a considerable
influence. A work of this teacher on the _Duties of Man_ furnished
Cicero with the materials for his celebrated _De Officiis_, under
which form its lessons have passed into the educational literature of
modern Europe. The Latin treatise is written in a somewhat frigid
and uninteresting style, whether through the fault of Cicero or of
his guide we cannot tell. The principles laid down are excellent,
but there is no vital bond of union holding them together. We can
hardly imagine that the author’s son, for whom the work was originally
designed, or anyone else since his time, felt himself much benefited
by its perusal. Taken, however, as a register of the height reached
by ordinary educated sentiment under the influence of speculative
ideas, and of the limits imposed by it in turn on their vagaries, after
four centuries of continual interaction, the _De Officiis_ presents
us with very satisfactory results. The old quadripartite division of
the virtues is reproduced; but each is treated in a large and liberal
spirit, marking an immense advance on Aristotle’s definitions, wherever
the two can be compared. Wisdom is identified with the investigation
of truth; and there is a caution against believing on insufficient
evidence, which advantageously contrasts with what were soon to be the
lessons of theology on the same subject. The other great intellectual
duty inculcated is to refrain from wasting our energies on difficult
and useless enquiries.[62] This injunction has been taken up and very
impressively repeated by some philosophers in our own time; but in the
mouth of Cicero it probably involved much greater restrictions on the
study of science than they would be disposed to admit. And the limits
now prescribed to speculation by Positivism will perhaps seem not less
injudicious, when viewed in the light of future discoveries, than
those fixed by the ancient moralists seem to us who know what would
have been lost had they always been treated with respect.
The obligations of justice come next. They are summed up in two
precepts that leave nothing to be desired: the first is to do no harm
except in self-defence; the second, to bear our share in a perpetual
exchange of good offices. And the foundation of justice is rightly
placed in the faithful fulfilment of contracts—an idea perhaps
suggested by Epicurus.[63] The virtue of fortitude is treated with
similar breadth, and so interpreted as to cover the whole field of
conduct, being identified not only with fearlessness in the face of
danger, but with the energetic performance of every duty. In a word,
it is opposed quite as much to slothfulness and irresolution as to
physical timidity.[64] Temperance preserves its old meaning of a
reasonable restraint exercised over the animal passions and desires;
and furthermore, it receives a very rich significance as the quality by
which we are enabled to discern and act up to the part assigned to us
in life by natural endowment, social position, and individual choice.
But this, as one of the most important ideas contributed by Stoicism
to subsequent thought, must be reserved for separate discussion in the
following section.
In addition to its system of intermediate duties, the Stoic ethics
included a code of casuistry which, to judge by some recorded
specimens, allowed a very startling latitude both to the ideal sage
and to the ordinary citizen. Thus, if Sextus Empiricus is to be
believed, the Stoics saw nothing objectionable about the trade of a
courtesan.[65] Chrysippus, like Socrates and Plato, denied that there
was any harm in falsehoods if they were told with a good intention.
Diogenes of Seleucia thought it permissible to pass bad money,[66]
and to sell defective articles without mentioning their faults;[67]
he was, however, contradicted on both points by another Stoic,
Antipater. Still more discreditable were the opinions of Hecato, a
disciple of Panaetius. He discussed the question whether a good man
need or need not feed his slaves in a time of great scarcity, with
an evident leaning towards the latter alternative; and also made it
a matter of deliberation whether in case part of a ship’s cargo had
to be thrown overboard, a valuable horse or a worthless slave should
be the more readily sacrificed. His answer is not given; but that the
point should ever have been mooted does not say much for the rigour
of his principles or for the benevolence of his disposition.[68] Most
outrageous of all, from the Stoic point of view, is the declaration of
Chrysippus that Heracleitus and Pherecydes would have done well to give
up their wisdom, had they been able by so doing to get rid of their
bodily infirmities at the same time.[69] That overstrained theoretical
severity should be accompanied by a corresponding laxity in practice
is a phenomenon of frequent occurrence; but that this laxity should
be exhibited so undisguisedly in the details of the theory itself,
goes beyond anything quoted against the Jesuits by Pascal, and bears
witness, after a fashion, to the extraordinary sincerity of Greek
thought.[70]
It was not, however, in any of these concessions that the Stoics found
from first to last their most efficient solution for the difficulties
of practical experience, but in the countenance they extended to an
act which, more than any other, might have seemed fatally inconsistent
both in spirit and in letter with their whole system, whether we choose
to call it a defiance of divine law, a reversal of natural instinct,
a selfish abandonment of duty, or a cowardly shrinking from pain. We
allude, of course, to their habitual recommendation of suicide. ‘If
you are not satisfied with life,’ they said, ‘you have only got to
rise and depart; the door is always open.’ Various circumstances were
specified in which the sage would exercise the privilege of ‘taking
himself off,’ as they euphemistically expressed it. Severe pain,
mutilation, incurable disease, advanced old age, the hopelessness
of escaping from tyranny, and in general any hindrance to leading a
‘natural’ life, were held to be a sufficient justification for such a
step.[71] The first founders of the school set an example afterwards
frequently followed. Zeno is said to have hanged himself for no better
reason than that he fell and broke his finger through the weakness of
old age; and Cleanthes, having been ordered to abstain temporarily
from food, resolved, as he expressed it, not to turn back after going
half-way to death.[72] This side of the Stoic doctrine found particular
favour in Rome, and the voluntary death of Cato was always spoken of
as his chief title to fame. Many noble spirits were sustained in their
defiance of the imperial despotism by the thought that there was one
last liberty of which not even Caesar could deprive them. Objections
were silenced by the argument that, life not being an absolute
good, its loss might fairly be preferred to some relatively greater
inconvenience.[73] But why the sage should renounce an existence where
perfect happiness depends entirely on his own will, neither was, nor
could it be, explained.
V.
If now, abandoning all technicalities, we endeavour to estimate the
significance and value of the most general ideas contributed by
Stoicism to ethical speculation, we shall find that they may be most
conveniently considered under the following heads. First of all,
the Stoics made morality completely inward. They declared that the
intention was equivalent to the deed, and that the wish was equivalent
to the intention—a view which has been made familiar to all by the
teaching of the Gospel, but the origin of which in Greek philosophy
has been strangely ignored even by rationalistic writers.[74] From the
inaccessibility of motives and feelings to direct external observation,
it follows that each man must be, in the last resort, his own judge.
Hence the notion of conscience is equally a Stoic creation. That we
have a mystical intuition informing us, prior to experience, of the
difference between right and wrong is, indeed, a theory quite alien
to their empirical derivation of knowledge. But that the educated
wrong-doer carries in his bosom a perpetual witness and avenger of
his guilt, they most distinctly asserted.[75] The difference between
ancient and modern tragedy is alone sufficient to prove the novelty
and power of this idea; for that the Eumenides do not represent even
the germ of a conscience is as certain as anything in mythology can
be.[76] On the other hand, the fallibility of conscience and the
extent to which it may be sophisticated were topics not embraced within
the limits of Stoicism, and perhaps never adequately illustrated by any
writer, even in modern times, except the great English novelist whose
loss we still deplore.
The second Stoic idea to which we would invite attention is that, in
the economy of life, every one has a certain function to fulfil, a
certain part to play, which is marked out for him by circumstances
beyond his control, but in the adequate performance of which his duty
and dignity are peculiarly involved. It is true that this idea finds no
assignable place in the teaching of the earliest Stoics, or rather in
the few fragments of their teaching which alone have been preserved;
but it is touched upon by Cicero under the head of Temperance, in the
adaptation from Panaetius already referred to; it frequently recurs
in the lectures of Epictêtus; and it is enunciated with energetic
concision in the solitary meditations of Marcus Aurelius.[77] The
belief spoken of is, indeed, closely connected with the Stoic
teleology, and only applies to the sphere of free intelligence a
principle like that supposed to regulate the activity of inanimate or
irrational beings. If every mineral, every plant, and every animal has
its special use and office, so also must we, according to the capacity
of our individual and determinate existence. By accomplishing the work
thus imposed on us, we fulfil the purpose of our vocation, we have done
all that the highest morality demands, and may with a clear conscience
leave the rest to fate. To put the same idea into somewhat different
terms: we are born into certain relationships, domestic, social, and
political, by which the lines of our daily duties are prescribed with
little latitude for personal choice. What does depend upon ourselves is
to make the most of these conditions and to perform the tasks arising
out of them in as thorough a manner as possible. ‘It was not only out
of ivory,’ says Seneca, ‘that Pheidias could make statues, but out of
bronze as well; had you offered him marble or some cheaper material
still, he would have carved the best that could be made out of that.
So the sage will exhibit his virtue in wealth, if he be permitted; if
not, in poverty; if possible, in his own country; if not, in exile; if
possible, as a general; if not, as a soldier; if possible, in bodily
vigour; if not, in weakness. Whatever fortune be granted him, he will
make it the means for some memorable achievement.’ Or, to take the more
homely comparisons of Epictêtus: ‘The weaver does not manufacture his
wool, but works up what is given him.’ ‘Remember that you are to act in
whatever drama the manager may choose, a long or short one according
to his pleasure. Should he give you the part of a beggar, take care
to act that becomingly; and the same should it be a lame man, or a
magistrate, or a private citizen. For your business is to act well the
character that is given to you, but to choose it is the business of
another.‘So spoke the humble freedman; but the master of the world had
also to recognise what fateful limits were imposed on his beneficent
activity. ‘Why wait, O man!’ exclaims Marcus Aurelius. ‘Do what Nature
now demands; make haste and look not round to see if any know it; nor
hope for Plato’s Republic, but be content with the smallest progress,
and consider that the result even of this will be no little thing.’[78]
Carlyle was not a Stoic; but in this respect his teaching breathes the
best spirit of Stoicism; and, to the same extent also, through his
whole life he practised what he taught.
The implications of such an ethical standard are, on the whole,
conservative; it is assumed that social institutions are, taking them
altogether, nearly the best possible at any moment; and that our
truest wisdom is to make the most of them, instead of sighing for
some other sphere where our grand aspirations or volcanic passions
might find a readier outlet for their feverish activity. And if the
teaching of the first Stoics did not take the direction here indicated,
it was because they, with the communistic theories inherited from
their Cynic predecessors, began by condemning all existing social
distinctions as irrational. They wished to abolish local religion,
property, the family, and the State, as a substitute for which the
whole human race was to be united under a single government, without
private possessions or slaves, and with a complete community of women
and children.[79] It must, however, have gradually dawned on them that
such a radical subversion of the present system was hardly compatible
with their belief in the providential origin of all things; and that,
besides this, the virtues which they made it so much their object to
recommend, would be, for the most part, superfluous in a communistic
society. At the same time, the old notion of Sôphrosynê as a virtue
which consisted in minding one’s own business, or, stated more
generally, in discerning and doing whatever work one is best fitted
for, would continue to influence ethical teaching, with the effect of
giving more and more individuality to the definition of duty. And the
Stoic idea of a perfect sage, including as it did the possession of
every accomplishment and an exclusive fitness for discharging every
honourable function, would seem much less chimerical if interpreted
to mean that a noble character, while everywhere intrinsically the
same, might be realised under as many divergent forms as there are
opportunities for continuous usefulness in life.[80]
We can understand, then, why the philosophy which, when first
promulgated, had tended to withdraw its adherents from participation
in public life, should, when transplanted to Roman soil, have become
associated with an energetic interest in politics; why it was so
eagerly embraced by those noble statesmen who fought to the death in
defence of their ancient liberties; how it could become the cement
of a senatorial opposition under the worst Caesars; how it could be
the inspiration and support of Rome’s Prime Minister during that
_quinquennium Neronis_ which was the one bright episode in more than
half a century of shame and terror; how, finally, it could mount the
throne with Marcus Aurelius, and prove, through his example, that
the world’s work might be most faithfully performed by one in whose
meditations mere worldly interests occupied the smallest space. Nor
can we agree with Zeller in thinking that it was the nationality, and
not the philosophy, of these disciples which made them such efficient
statesmen.[81] On the contrary, it seems to us that the ‘Romanism’ of
these men was inseparable from their philosophy, and that they were all
the more Roman because they were Stoics as well.
The third great idea of Stoicism was its doctrine of humanity. Men are
all children of one Father, and citizens of one State; the highest
moral law is, Follow Nature, and Nature has made them to be social
and to love one another; the private interest of each is, or should
be, identified with the universal interest; we should live for others
that we may live for ourselves; even to our enemies we should show
love and not anger; the unnaturalness of passion is proved by nothing
more clearly than by its anti-social and destructive tendencies. Here,
also, the three great Stoics of the Roman empire—Seneca, Epictêtus,
and Marcus Aurelius—rather than the founders of the school, must be
our authorities;[82] whether it be because their lessons correspond to
a more developed state of thought, or simply because they have been
more perfectly preserved. The former explanation is, perhaps, the more
generally accepted. There seems, however, good reason for believing
that the idea of universal love—the highest of all philosophical ideas
next to that of the universe itself—dates further back than is commonly
supposed. It can hardly be due to Seneca, who had evidently far more
capacity for popularising and applying the thoughts of others than for
original speculation, and who on this subject expresses himself with
a rhetorical fluency not usually characterising the exposition of new
discoveries. The same remark applies to his illustrious successors,
who, while agreeing with him in tone, do not seem to have drawn on
his writings for their philosophy. It is also clear that the idea in
question springs from two essentially Stoic conceptions: the objective
conception of a unified world, a cosmos to which all men belong; and
the subjective conception of a rational nature common to them all.
These, again, are rooted in early Greek thought, and were already
emerging into distinctness at the time of Socrates. Accordingly we find
that Plato, having to compose a characteristic speech for the Sophist
Hippias, makes him say that like-minded men are by nature kinsmen and
friends to one another.[83] Nature, however, soon came to be viewed
under a different aspect, and it was maintained, just as by some living
philosophers, that her true law is the universal oppression of the weak
by the strong. Then the idea of mind came in as a salutary corrective.
It had supplied a basis for the ethics of Protagoras, and still more
for the ethics of Socrates; it was now combined with its old rival by
the Stoics, and from their union arose the conception of human nature
as something allied with and illustrated by all other forms of animal
life, yet capable, if fully developed, of rising infinitely above them.
Nevertheless, the individual and the universal element were never quite
reconciled in the Stoic ethics. The altruistic quality of justice was
clearly perceived; but no attempt was made to show that all virtue is
essentially social, and has come to be recognised as obligatory on
the individual mainly because it conduces to the safety of the whole
community. The learner was told to conquer his passions for his own
sake rather than for the sake of others; and indulgence in violent
anger, though more energetically denounced, was, in theory, placed on
a par with immoderate delight or uncontrollable distress. So also,
vices of impurity were classed with comparatively harmless forms of
sensuality, and considered in reference, not to the social degradation
of their victims, but to the spiritual defilement of their perpetrators.
Yet, while the Stoics were far from anticipating the methods of
modern Utilitarianism, they were, in a certain sense, strict
Utilitarians—that is to say, they measured the goodness or badness
of actions by their consequences; in other words, by their bearing
on the supposed interest of the individual or of the community. They
did not, it is true, identify interest with pleasure or the absence
of pain; but although, in our time, Hedonism and Utilitarianism are,
for convenience, treated as interchangeable terms, they need not
necessarily be so. If any one choose to regard bodily strength, health,
wealth, beauty, intellect, knowledge, or even simple existence, as the
highest good and the end conduciveness to which determines the morality
of actions, he is a Utilitarian; and, even if it could be shown that a
maximum of happiness would be ensured by the attainment of his end, he
would not on that account become a Hedonist. Now it is certain that the
early Stoics, at least, regarded the preservation of the human race as
an end which rightfully took precedence of every other consideration;
and, like Charles Austin, they sometimes pushed their principles to
paradoxical or offensive extremes, apparently for no other purpose
than that of affronting the common feelings of mankind,[84] without
remembering that such feelings were likely to represent embodied
experiences of utility. Thus—apart from their communistic theories—they
were fond of specifying the circumstances in which incest would become
legitimate; and they are said not only to have sanctioned cannibalism
in cases of extreme necessity, but even to have recommended its
introduction as a substitute for burial or cremation; although this, we
may hope, was rather a grim illustration of what they meant by moral
indifference than a serious practical suggestion.[85]
Besides the encouragement which it gave to kind offices between
friends and neighbours, the Stoic doctrine of humanity and mutual
love was honourably exemplified in Seneca’s emphatic condemnation of
the gladiatorial games and of the horrible abuses connected with
domestic slavery in Rome.[86] But we miss a clear perception that
such abuses are always and everywhere the consequences of slavery;
and the outspoken abolitionism of the naturalists alluded to by
Aristotle does not seem to have been imitated by their successors in
later ages.[87] The most one can say is that the fiction of original
liberty was imported into Roman jurisprudence through the agency of
Stoic lawyers, and helped to familiarise men’s minds with the idea
of universal emancipation before political and economical conditions
permitted it to be made a reality.
VI.
It is probable that the philanthropic tendencies of the Stoics
were, to a great extent, neutralised by the extreme individualism
which formed the reverse side of their philosophical character; and
also by what may be called the subjective idealism of their ethics.
According to their principles, no one can really do good to any one
else, since what does not depend on my will is not a good to me. The
altruistic virtues are valuable, not as sources of beneficent action,
but as manifestations of benevolent sentiment. Thus, to set on foot
comprehensive schemes for the relief of human suffering seemed no part
of the Stoic’s business. And the abolition of slavery, even had it been
practicable, would have seemed rather superfluous to one who held that
true freedom is a mental condition within the reach of all who desire
it,[88] while the richest and most powerful may be, and for the most
part actually are, without it. Moreover, at the time when philosophy
gained its greatest ascendency, the one paramount object of practical
statesmen must have been to save civilisation from the barbarians,
a work to which Marcus Aurelius devoted his life. Hence we learn
without surprise that the legislative efforts of the imperial Stoic
were directed to the strengthening, rather than to the renovation,
of ancient institutions.[89] Certain enactments were, indeed, framed
for the protection of those who took part in the public games. It was
provided, with a humanity from which even our own age might learn
something, that performers on the high rope should be ensured against
the consequences of an accidental fall by having the ground beneath
them covered with feather beds; and the gladiators were only allowed
to fight with blunted weapons.[90] It must, however, be noted that in
speaking of the combats with wild beasts which were still allowed to
continue under his reign, Marcus Aurelius dwells only on the monotonous
character which made them exceedingly wearisome to a cultivated mind;
just as a philosophic sportsman may sometimes be heard to observe
that shooting one grouse is very like shooting another; while elsewhere
he refers with simple contempt to the poor wretches who, when already
half-devoured by the wild beasts, begged to be spared for another
day’s amusement.[91] Whether he knew the whole extent of the judicial
atrocities practised on his Christian subjects may well be doubted;
but it maybe equally doubted whether, had he known it, he would have
interfered to save them. Pain and death were no evils; but it was an
evil that the law should be defied.[92]
Those manifestations of sympathy which are often so much more precious
than material assistance were also repugnant to Stoic principles. On
this subject, Epictêtus expresses himself with singular harshness.
‘Do not,’ he says, ‘let yourself be put out by the sufferings of your
friends. If they are unhappy, it is their own fault. God made them
for happiness, not for misery. They are grieved at parting from you,
are they? Why, then, did they set their affections on things outside
themselves? If they suffer for their folly it serves them right.’[93]
On the other hand, if Stoicism did not make men pitiful, it made them
infinitely forgiving. Various causes conspired to bring about this
result. If all are sinners, and if all sins are equal, no one has
a right, under pretence of superior virtue, to cast a stone at his
fellows. Such is the point of view insisted on with especial emphasis
by Seneca, who, more perhaps than other philosophers, had reason to be
conscious how far his practice fell short of his professions.[94] But,
speaking generally, pride was the very last fault with which the Stoics
could be charged. Both in ancient and modern times, satirists have been
prone to assume that every disciple of the Porch, in describing his
ideal of a wise man, was actually describing himself. No misconception
could be more complete. It is like supposing that, because Christ
commanded his followers to be perfect even as their heavenly Father
is perfect, every Christian for that reason thinks himself equal to
God. The wise man of the Stoics had, by their own acknowledgment, never
been realised at all; he had only been approached by three characters,
Socrates, Antisthenes, and Diogenes.[95] ‘May the sage fall in love?’
asked a young man of Panaetius. ‘What the sage may do,’ replied the
master, ‘is a question to be considered at some future time. Meanwhile,
you and I, who are very far from being sages, had better take care not
to let ourselves become the slaves of a degrading passion.’[96]
In the next place, if it is not in the power of others to injure us,
we have no right to resent anything that they can do to us. So argues
Epictêtus, who began to learn philosophy when still a slave, and
was carefully prepared by his instructor, Musonius, to bear without
repining whatever outrages his master might choose to inflict on him.
Finally, to those who urged that they might justly blame the evil
intentions of their assailants, Marcus Aurelius could reply that even
this was too presumptuous, that all men did what they thought right,
and that the motives of none could be adequately judged except by
himself.[97] And all the Stoics found a common ground for patience
in their optimistic fatalism, in the doctrine that whatever happens
is both necessarily determined, and determined by absolute goodness
combined with infallible wisdom.[98]
Doctrines like these, if consistently carried out, would have utterly
destroyed so much of morality as depends on the social sanction; while,
by inculcating the absolute indifference of external actions, they
might ultimately have paralysed the individual conscience itself. But
the Stoics were not consistent. Unlike some modern moralists, who
are ready to forgive every injury so long as they are not themselves
the victims, our philosophers were unsparing in their denunciations
of wrong-doing; and it is very largely to their indignant protests
that we are indebted for our knowledge of the corruption prevalent
in Roman society under the Empire. It may even be contended that, in
this respect, our judgment has been unfairly biassed. The picture
drawn by the Stoics, or by writers trained under their influence,
seems to have been too heavily charged with shadow; and but for the
archaeological evidence we should not have known how much genuine human
affection lay concealed in those lower social strata whose records can
only be studied on their tombs.[99] It was among these classes that
Christianity found the readiest acceptance, simply because it gave a
supernatural sanction to habits and sentiments already made familiar by
the spontaneous tendencies of an unwarlike régime.
VII.
Before parting with Stoicism we have to say a few words on the
metaphysical foundation of the whole system—the theory of Nature
considered as a moral guide and support. It has been shown that
the ultimate object of this, as of many other ethical theories,
both ancient and modern, was to reconcile the instincts of
individual self-preservation with virtue, which is the instinct of
self-preservation in an entire community. The Stoics identified both
impulses by declaring that virtue is the sole good of the individual
no less than the supreme interest of the whole; thus involving
themselves in an insoluble contradiction. For, from their nominalistic
point of view, the good of the whole can be nothing but an aggregate
of particular goods, or else a means for their attainment; and in
either case the happiness of the individual has to be accounted for
apart from his duty. And an analysis of the special virtues and
vices would equally have forced them back on the assumption, which
they persistently repudiated, that individual existence and pleasure
are intrinsically good, and their opposites intrinsically evil. To
prove their fundamental paradox—the non-existence of individual as
distinguished from social interest—the Stoics employed the analogy of
an organised body where the good of the parts unquestionably subserves
the good of the whole;[100] and the object of their teleology was
to show that the universe and, by implication, the human race, were
properly to be viewed in that light. The acknowledged adaptation of
life to its environment furnished some plausible arguments in support
of their thesis; and the deficiencies were made good by a revival of
the Heracleitean theory in which the unity of Nature was conceived
partly as a necessary interdependence of opposing forces, partly as a
perpetual transformation of every substance into every other. Universal
history also tended to confirm the same principle in its application
to the human race. The Macedonian, and still more the Roman empire,
brought the idea of a world-wide community living under the same laws
ever nearer to its realisation; the decay of the old religion and the
old civic patriotism set free a vast fund of altruism which now took
the form of simple philanthropy; while a rank growth of immorality
offered ever new opportunities for an indignant protest against
senseless luxury and inhuman vice. This last circumstance, however, was
not allowed to prejudice the optimism of the system; for the fertile
physics of Heracleitus suggested a method by which moral evil could
be interpreted as a necessary concomitant of good, a material for the
perpetual exercise and illustration of virtuous deeds.[101]
Yet, if the conception of unity was gaining ground, the conceptions
of purpose and vitality must have been growing weaker as the triumph
of brute force prolonged itself without limit or hope of redress.
Hence Stoicism in its later form shows a tendency to dissociate the
dynamism of Heracleitus from the teleology of Socrates, and to lean on
the former rather than on the latter for support. One symptom of this
changed attitude is a blind worship of power for its own sake. We find
the renunciation of pleasure and the defiance of pain appreciated more
from an aesthetic than from an ethical point of view; they are exalted
almost in the spirit of a Red Indian, not as means to higher ends, but
as manifestations of unconquerable strength; and sometimes the highest
sanction of duty takes the form of a morbid craving for applause, as if
the universe were an amphitheatre and life a gladiatorial game.[102]
The noble spirit of Marcus Aurelius was, indeed, proof against such
temptations: and he had far more to dread than to hope from the
unlightened voice of public opinion; but to him also, ‘standing between
two eternities,’ Nature presented herself chiefly under the aspect of
an overwhelming and absorbing Power. Pleasure is not so much dangerous
as worthless, weak, and evanescent. Selfishness, pride, anger, and
discontent will soon be swept into abysmal gulfs of oblivion by the
roaring cataract of change. Universal history is one long monotonous
procession of phantasms passing over the scene into death and utter
night. In one short life we may see all that ever was, or is, or is
to be; the same pageant has already been and shall be repeated an
infinite number of times. Nothing endures but the process of unending
renovation: we must die that the world may be ever young. Death itself
only reunites us with the absolute All whence we come, in which we
move, and whither we return.[103] But the imperial sage makes no
attempt to explain why we should ever have separated ourselves from it
in thought; or why one life should be better worth living than another
in the universal vanity of things.
The physics of Stoicism was, in truth, the scaffolding rather than
the foundation of its ethical superstructure. The real foundation was
the necessity of social existence, formulated under the influence of
a logical exclusiveness first introduced by Parmenides, and inherited
from his teaching by every system of philosophy in turn. Yet there is
no doubt that Stoic morality was considerably strengthened and steadied
by the support it found in conceptions derived from a different
order of speculations; so much so that at last it grew to conscious
independence of that support.
Marcus Aurelius, a constant student of Lucretius, seems to have had
occasional misgivings with respect to the certainty of his own creed;
but they never extended to his practical beliefs. He was determined
that, whatever might be the origin of this world, his relation to
it should be still the same. ‘Though things be purposeless, act not
thou without a purpose.’ ‘If the universe is an ungoverned chaos, be
content that in that wild torrent thou hast a governing reason within
thyself.’[104]
There seems, then, good reason for believing that the law of duty,
after being divorced from mythology, and seriously compromised by
its association, even among the Stoics themselves, with our egoistic
instincts, gained an entirely new authority when placed, at least in
appearance, under the sanction of a power whose commands did not even
admit of being disobeyed. And the question spontaneously presents
itself whether we, after getting rid of the old errors and confusions,
may profitably employ the same method in defence of the same
convictions, whether the ancient alliance between fact and right can be
reorganised on a basis of scientific proof.
A great reformer of the last generation, finding that the idea of
Nature was constantly put forward to thwart his most cherished
schemes, prepared a mine for its destruction which was only exploded
after his death. Seldom has so powerful a charge of logical dynamite
been collected within so small a space as in Mill’s famous Essay
on Nature. But the immediate effect was less than might have been
anticipated, because the attack was supposed to be directed against
religion, whereas it was only aimed at an abstract metaphysical dogma,
not necessarily connected with any theological beliefs, and held by
many who have discarded all such beliefs. A stronger impression was,
perhaps, produced by the nearly simultaneous declaration of Sir W.
Gull—in reference to the supposed _vis medicatrix naturae_—that, in
cases of disease, ‘what Nature wants is to put the man in his coffin.’
The new school of political economists have also done much to show
that legislative interference with the ‘natural laws’ of wealth need
by no means be so generally mischievous as was once supposed. And the
doctrine of Evolution, besides breaking down the old distinctions
between Nature and Man, has represented the former as essentially
variable, and therefore, to that extent, incapable of affording a fixed
standard for moral action. It is, however, from this school that a new
attempt to rehabilitate the old physical ethics has lately proceeded.
The object of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s _Data of Ethics_ is, among other
points, to prove that a true morality represents the ultimate stage of
evolution, and reproduces in social life that permanent equilibration
towards which every form of evolution constantly tends. And Mr. Spencer
also shows how evolution is bringing about a state of things in
which the self-regarding shall be finally harmonised with the social
impulses. Now, it will be readily admitted that morality is a product
of evolution in this sense that it is a gradual formation, that it
is the product of many converging conditions, and that it progresses
according to a certain method. But that the same method is observed
through all orders of evolution seems less evident. For instance, in
the formation, first of the solar system, and then of the earth’s
crust, there is a continual loss of force, while in the development
of organic life there is as continual a gain; and on arriving at
subjective phenomena, we are met by facts which, in the present state
of our knowledge, cannot advantageously be expressed in terms of
force and matter at all. Even if we do not agree with George Sand in
thinking that self-sacrifice is the only virtue, we must admit that the
possibility, at least, of its being sometimes demanded is inseparable
from the idea of duty. But self-sacrifice cannot be conceived without
consciousness; which is equivalent to saying that it involves other
than mechanical notions. Thus we are confronted by the standing
difficulty of all evolutionary theories, and on a point where that
difficulty is peculiarly sensible. Nor is this an objection to be got
rid of by the argument that it applies to all philosophical systems
alike. To an idealist, the dependence of morality on consciousness is
a practical confirmation of his professed principles. Holding that the
universal forms of experience are the conditions under which an object
is apprehended, rather than modifications imposed by an unknowable
object on an unknowable subject, and that these forms are common to
all intelligent beings, he holds also that the perception of duty is
the widening of our individual selves into that universal self which is
the subjective side of all experience.
Again, whatever harmony evolution may introduce into our conceptions,
whatever hopes it may encourage with regard to the future of our
race, one does not see precisely what sanction it gives to morality
at present—that is to say, how it makes self-sacrifice easier than
before. Because certain forces have been unconsciously working towards
a certain end through ages past, why should I consciously work towards
the same end? If the perfection of humanity is predetermined, my
conduct cannot prevent its consummation; if it in any way depends
on me, the question returns, why should my particular interests be
sacrificed to it? The man who does not already love his contemporaries
whom he has seen is unlikely to love them the more for the sake of
a remote posterity whom he will never see at all. Finally, it must
be remembered that evolution is only half the cosmic process; it is
partially conditioned at every stage by dissolution, to which in the
long run it must entirely give way; and if, as Mr. Spencer observes,
evolution is the more interesting of the two,[105] this preference is
itself due to the lifeward tendency of our thoughts; in other words, to
those moral sentiments which it is sought to base on what, abstractedly
considered, has all along been a creation of their own.
The idea of Nature, or of the universe, or of human history as a
whole—but for its evil associations with fanaticism and superstition,
we should gladly say the belief in God—is one the ethical value of
which can be more easily felt than analysed. We do not agree with the
most brilliant of the English Positivists in restricting its influence
to the aesthetic emotions.[106] The elevating influence of these should
be fully recognised; but the place due to more severely intellectual
pursuits in moral training is greater far. Whatever studies tend
to withdraw us from the petty circle of our personal interests and
pleasures, are indirectly favourable to the preponderance of social
over selfish impulses; and the service thus rendered is amply repaid,
since these very studies necessitate for their continuance a large
expenditure of moral energy. It might even be contended that the
influence of speculation on practice is determined by the previous
influence of practice on speculation. Physical laws act as an armature
to the law of duty, extending and perpetuating its grasp on the
minds of men; but it was through the magnetism of duty that their
confused currents were first drawn into parallelism and harmony with
its attraction. We have just seen how, from this point of view, the
interpretation of evolution by conscience might be substituted for the
interpretation of conscience by evolution. Yet those who base morality
on religion, or give faith precedence over works, have discerned with a
sure though dim instinct the dependence of noble and far-sighted action
on some paramount intellectual initiative and control; in other words,
the highest ethical ideals are conditioned by the highest philosophical
generalisations. Before the Greeks could think of each man as a citizen
of the world, and as bound to all other rational beings by virtue
of a common origin and a common abode, it was first necessary that
they should think of the world itself as an orderly and comprehensive
whole. And what was once a creative, still continues to work as an
educating force. Our aspirations towards agreement with ourselves and
with humanity as a whole are strengthened by the contemplation of that
supreme unity which, even if it be but the glorified reflection of our
individual or generic identity, still remains the idea in and through
which those lesser unities were first completely realised—the idea
which has originated all man’s most fruitful faiths, and will at last
absorb them all. Meanwhile our highest devotion can hardly find more
fitting utterance than in the prayer which once rose to a Stoic’s
lips:—
But Jove all-bounteous! who, in clouds
enwrapt, the lightning wieldest;
May’st Thou from baneful Ignorance
the race of men deliver!
This, Father! scatter from the soul,
and grant that we the wisdom
May reach, in confidence of which,
Thou justly guidest all things;
That we, by Thee in honour set,
with honour may repay Thee,
Raising to all thy works a hymn
perpetual; as beseemeth
A mortal soul: since neither man
nor god has higher glory
Than rightfully to celebrate
Eternal Law all-ruling.[107]