STOICISM
=The Position of Stoicism in Antiquity.= The Stoic School had a long
history, and for five hundred years it was well-nigh the dominating
system of thought. Its importance is shown in the attacks on all sides
by which it was honored. It was subjected to a continued critical
testing by the Peripatetics, Epicureans, Skeptics, and the Academy. It
was without doubt the most comprehensive School of the Hellenic-Roman
Period, and numbered as its adherents the most brilliant personalities
of the time. In its importance to history its only rival was
neo-Platonism, which came after it. Stoicism accomplished much
toward solving the problem of life, for it is one of the great inner,
spiritual movements of humanity. It was a system of philosophy raised
upon the ruins of polytheism――a religion for the educated classes, who
tried to harmonize the old religion with the new philosophic needs. In
the early Christian centuries it led the moral reform by reviving the
classic ideals. It became a retreat into the invisible order, a solace
amid unrest. Particularly at that time the Stoic felt the emptiness
of human life, for his possession of eternity made earthly existence
seem as nothing. Yet it was a movement of subjective reflection and
individual motive; but as such it could not prove itself adequate when
the structure of Roman society broke down.
But we must not take the _Roman_ Stoics as the representatives of
the sect. The Stoics stood for more than moral reflection. The great
achievement came from the first three leaders――_the achievement
of giving a scientific basis to morals_. The Stoics made ethics an
independent science. Such an elaborate system of morals as that of
the Stoics had never before existed. Stoicism was morality with a
theoretical foundation, and the foundation was the most imposing part
of the edifice. This appeared in Roman jurisprudence, and in later
times in Grotius, Descartes, Spinoza, the Calvinists and Puritans,
and in Kant and Fichte. The writings of the individual Stoics have
become a part of the world’s literature, and the Stoic view of life
has maintained itself as a dignified and independent type.
=The Three Periods of Stoicism.= The five hundred years of the history
of the Stoic School are usually divided into three periods. The first
is about 90 years long, in which the doctrine was formulated; the
second is 200 years long, when the doctrine was modified; the third was
200 years long, when it became a popular moral philosophy. The first
two periods were theoretical, the third was practical.
=1. Period of Formulation of the Doctrine= (294 B. C.–206 B. C.),
sometimes called the period of Cynical Stoicism. This period contains
the three great leaders: Zeno (340–265 B. C.), Cleanthes, leader of
the School from 264 to 232 B. C., and Chrysippus (280–206 B. C.). Zeno
of Tarsus, Diogenes of Seleucia, and Antipater of Tarsus were other
important representatives.
=2. Period of Modified Stoicism= (206 B. C.–1 A. D.). This was the
period of transition. This period shows a modification of the original
severe Cynical character of the doctrine and also the spread of
Stoicism to Rome. This modification shows an approach to Plato and
Aristotle. The most important representative of this period is Panætius
(180–110 B. C.), who introduced the doctrine into Rome through his
friendship with Scipio Africanus. Other eminent Stoics of this period
were Posidonius and Boëthus of Sidon.
=3. Period of Roman Stoicism= (1–200 A. D.). During this period
Stoicism became a popular moral philosophy. The theoretic teachings
of the first two periods were successfully translated by the Roman
Stoics in an impressive way into practical observations. Furthermore,
Stoicism was being inspired with the rising religious feeling so that
it expressed the noblest moral sentiments of antiquity. The chief
representatives were Seneca (4–65 A. D.), Epictetus (living 90 A. D.)
the philosophic slave, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 A. D.).
Other Stoics of this period were L. Annæus Cornutus, M. Annæus Lucanus,
Persius, and M. Musonius Rufus.
=The Stoic Leaders.= One of the striking features of the Stoic School
is that its leaders were not pure Greeks. Nearly all the members before
the Christian era belong by birth to the mixed races of Asia Minor and
the eastern archipelago. Moreover, the later Stoics were mainly Romans,
led by the Phrygian, Epictetus. The Stoics who were Greeks were third
or fourth rate men. The Stoic School contained so many eminent thinkers
that its doctrine was not framed once and for all, like the Epicurean
doctrine. During the five hundred years from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius,
theoretic changes went on within the School, and the changes were
rather modifications than development. Fundamentally, Stoicism remained
the same, for it was a religious attitude of mind.
Athens was the abiding-place of the Stoic School, but Athens of that
day had little to say to it except to receive it. The great Stoic
leaders, the first three Stoics, like the three tragic poets, formed
a group that is rarely equaled. They were Zeno, Cleanthes, and
Chrysippus. Zeno and Chrysippus came from Cyprus, and Cleanthes came
from Assos, not far from Troy. Cyprus, Lycia, and Pisidia showed a
strong inclination for the Stoic teaching. Tarsus, which is in Cilicia,
had a strong Stoic School, and its influence on the training of
St. Paul is seen in his theology.
The founding of the Stoic School was the result of the experiences of
Zeno of Citium. Having lost much of his wealth in commerce, he turned
to philosophy at Athens. Impressed with the character of Socrates,
he attached himself successively to the Cynic, Megarian, and Platonic
Schools, but without much satisfaction. He made himself master of
the teachings of these Schools, and then founded a School of his own.
It is said that when he asked for admittance to the Academy, Polemo,
the leader, replied, “I am no stranger to your Phœnician art, Zeno. I
perceive your design is to creep slyly into my garden and steal away my
fruit.” In 294 B. C. he began to teach in the Painted Porch (see map,
p. 219), a painted colonnade in the Athenian market-place. The School
thereafter went by the name of Stoa, or the Porch. His contemporary
antagonists were Arcesilaus in the Academy, and Epicurus. Zeno’s
reputation throughout Greece was very high and well deserved. He was
a parsimonious man, simple and rude spoken. He used a bad dialect,
foreign words, and taught a strange doctrine. He suffered a slight
wound and, taking it as a hint of destiny, committed suicide, saying,
“I am coming, Earth, why do you call me?”
Stoicism did not flourish under Cleanthes (who was leader of the School
for thirty-two years), although to-day he is the best known of these
three leaders on account of his _Hymn to Zeus_. He was originally a
pugilist, and was so poor that he had to work as a water-carrier by
night in order to attend the lectures of Zeno by day. He is said to
have had a heavy mind, but it was nevertheless the mind of an inspired
prophet and a thoughtful man of science. When Cleanthes received
the Stoic doctrines from Zeno, they were still plastic. He made them
monistic and pantheistic, and introduced the doctrine of “tension.”
Under Chrysippus (280–206 B. C.) Stoicism was revived and he saved
it from extinction. Chrysippus was the systematizer of the School and
its literary representative. He wrote five hundred and five separate
treatises, three hundred of which were on logical subjects. He is
said to have seldom let a day pass without writing five hundred lines.
He was the moderating influence of the School, mediating between
extremes and removing objections. He restated Zeno’s doctrines, but his
discourses abound in curious subtleties rather than argument. He was a
much more scholarly man than his predecessors, and passed for the most
learned man in antiquity. “Give me doctrines,” he said to Cleanthes,
“and I will find arguments for them.” His haughtiness created many
adversaries, both in the Academy and among the Epicureans, and he had
great contempt for men of rank. He said, “If I thought any philosopher
excelled me, I would myself become his pupil.” It was a common saying
in those days, “No Chrysippus, no Stoa.” In the hands of Chrysippus the
Stoic teaching became a well-rounded system.
=The Stoic Writings.= Nearly all the writings of the early Stoics
have been lost. Only fragments have been preserved from the writings
of other men like Cicero, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, and Diogenes
Laertius, and these men do not always distinguish between early and
later Stoicism. The principal source of our knowledge of early Stoicism
is Diogenes Laertius. The _Hymn to Zeus_ of Cleanthes is the most
noteworthy fragment extant of the early period. Of the later Stoics
of the Empire many writings have been saved: the ethical treatises and
epistles of Seneca, the _Diatribes_ and _Encheiridion_ of Epictetus,
and the _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius. The later Stoic writings
transmit the teaching of the earlier leaders modified by many foreign
influences. Such second-hand authorities as Cicero, Plutarch, Diogenes
Laertius and Sextus Empiricus, and the Aristotelian commentators give
reports so vitiated that it is doubtful if they report any element
belonging to the earlier teaching. The doctrine of the Stoics, since
the time of Chrysippus, however, is known beyond peradventure.
=The Stoics and Cynics.= The Stoics tried to build up the life of the
soul after the pattern of the virtuous Wise Man, whose outlines they
borrowed from the transfigured and lofty form of Socrates. (Noack.)
Their teaching is not merely a refinement and advance over the Cynic
School as Epicureanism had been to the Cyrenaic School. Stoicism and
Epicureanism used their sources in different ways. The Stoic would give
up more than the Epicurean, and the negative side of his teaching is
therefore greater; but in recompense he offers more in the shape of a
comprehensive metaphysics. The Cyrenaic doctrine of pleasure became the
corner stone of Epicureanism. The Cynic sensualistic rigorism became
in the Stoic teaching a negative and relatively unimportant doctrine.
While the Stoic distinction of virtue was not unproductive, the most
influential aspect of Stoicism was its dissemination of humane culture.
Thus, in contrast with the Cynics, the Stoics had a deep interest
in scientific theory. The Stoic, less than the Cynic, contrasted the
individual with the world. The Stoics have a more intelligent, freer,
and milder morality. To the Cynics, external things have no value; to
the Stoics, they have both a positive and a negative value. Beneath
these differences there is the same self-sufficiency in virtue, the
same withdrawal within, the same moral strength of will, the same
antithesis between good and evil. Stoicism was original, but not enough
so to mark the beginning of a new epoch.
=The Two Prominent Stoic Conceptions.= There are two Stoic conceptions
that rise prominently above all the rest of their teaching. One is
the conception of personality, the other is the conception of Nature.
Epicureanism built up the conception of personality, but it had no
need of an objective principle of Nature; and indeed the Epicurean
conception of personality seems to be only a clever adjustment and an
avoidance of the problems of life, compared to the clear-cut, heroic,
and vigorous Stoic conception of personality. Thus in Epicureanism
there is one prominent conception, in Stoicism there are two.
These two Stoic principles stand side by side. The Stoic builds them
up together, even though he fails to make them entirely compatible.
All the essential difficulties and all the excellencies of Stoicism
lie in the juxtaposition of the conceptions of personality and Nature.
In early Stoicism each conception is stated with great vigor. In later
Stoicism their harmony is approximated by the modification of each. The
result was an ethical dualism and a metaphysical monism.
=The Conception of Personality.= Against Epicureanism the Stoic fought
for the dignity of the soul. The ideal personality of the Wise Man
is the central point in Stoicism. Even more than Aristotle did the
Stoic emphasize the unity and independence of the individual soul as
contrasted to its particular states. For the first time in European
thought does the soul become an independent factor to be reckoned with.
The Stoic picture of the ideal personality is of a life completely
sundered from outward conditions, free from earthly trammels, but at
the same time the organ of universal law. Contemporaries asked the
Stoics, How can such an ideal be a person? How can he live among his
fellow men? How can he reconcile himself to human want? After setting
forth this ideal during the 175 years of their first period, it is
not strange that they were finally forced to modify it in response
to practical demands. At this point we shall consider the original
portrayal of the Wise Man.
=1. The Stoic Psychology.= The Stoic built his conception of
personality upon a deep psychological analysis. The soul in the body
is like the pneuma in the world (see p. 255). Not only does the soul
transform the excitations of the several sense organs into perceptions,
but its distinguishing faculty is its power of transforming the
excitations of the feelings into acts of will. This was called by the
Stoics _the assent of the reason, and is the distinguishing feature of
the Stoic conception of personality_. It established for the first time
in history the independence of the personal soul. The Stoic felt keenly
the antagonism between the reason and the senses, and he also felt
that by estimating the senses as merely relative in value they would
so much the more dignify the reason as the fundamental feature of the
personality. While, therefore, all knowledge comes from the senses, the
Stoic maintained that no knowledge exists in the senses by themselves.
The assent of the reason is necessary to transform the sensations into
true knowledge. The reason is not an aggregate of sensations, but an
independent function of the personality. It transforms the sensations
into perceptions, the perceptions into acts of will. The reason is
therefore a kind of generating power of consciousness and is free from
everything external. But in contrast to this free rational side is the
irrational nature of man; for the reason is liable to suffer failure,
when it allows itself to be hurried along to give assent to exciting
causes. Then emotions arise, and emotions are failures, mental
disturbances, and in chronic cases diseases. Man is not always able to
defend himself against the excitations of his environment, but he can
refuse to give the excitations his assent. He can refuse to allow the
excitations to become emotions and to pour forth his life in passion.
Man may be in the world and not of it. He may govern the world by
controlling himself. The Wise Man is free from the emotions, and virtue
consists in their absence. The virtuous man is self-sufficient in the
proud consciousness that he can look upon pleasure as not a good and
pain as not an evil.
What guide does the reason have in granting or refusing its assent
to its perceptions from without? What is the criterion of the truth?
The clearness of the perception――the clearness in the sense that the
presentation lays hold of the mind and extorts its assent. The truth
is the “irresistible presentation” or the “apprehending presentation.”
Who can know the truth? The Wise Man. By what means? By sensation and
preconception. By what sign? By the sign of its irresistible power. The
Wise Man is perfectly free and perfectly necessitated――he never gives
assent except to what constrains assent.
=2. The Highest Good.= What is then the Highest Good or happiness for
such a personality? After such an analysis, what would the Stoic be
likely to conceive to be the true ends of life? The very nature of the
personality gives the answer. Personality is fundamentally rational
activity which seeks to preserve itself and to gratify its own nature.
The Highest Good is the law of its own rationality, and virtue consists
in being rational. In reaching for the Highest Good man can transcend
his particular faculties in his free obedience to his own reason; and
the wholeness of his existence depends upon the wholeness of his deed.
Thus is the inner activity _whole_ in contrast to the partial outer
activities. Inwardness attains complete independence and finds the
depth of the soul. We are free and we are happy if the whole being
goes out in contemplation of the world reason which is our reason, and
if all the feelings that make us dependent on the world are excluded.
Since the emotions place a false value on things, happiness demands
a whole effort and ceaseless activity. We must not merely theorize,
but thought must become conduct. Thought-action yields happiness.
It does not matter whether man acts with reference to this or that,
for external objects are neither good nor bad. The whole question
is whether the reason controls the passions or not. If the reason
controls, the end is good; if the passions control, the end is evil;
all other ends are indifferent. The reason either does or does not rule,
and an act is either good or not. Good is not relative, but absolute;
and such relative matters as wealth, honor, and riches are matters of
indifference. Even life itself is one of the indifferent things and may
be taken when it does not serve the ends of reason. The Highest Good
is that inner unity――that disposition――which is governed by a single
principle.
The Stoic word for this ideal Good is apathy, just as the Epicurean
word was ataraxy or imperturbability. Positively defined, it is virtue.
Negatively defined, can we say it was passionlessness? This would not
be quite correct. By apathy the Stoic means not absence of all feeling,
but _absence of control by the feelings_. The Stoic was filled with joy,
gratitude, serene confidence, and unwavering submission in regard to
rational law. Apathy is not dull insensibility, but immovable firmness.
It is absence of the emotions that render the man dependent on the
world, but it is not absence of the reaching out of the soul for the
divine. The Highest Good or Apathy is (1) intellectual resignation to
the universe, (2) practical inner harmony, and (3) self-control. In
seeking to be rational, man is following an impulse,――the impulse of
self-preservation.
=The Conception of Nature.= In comparison with the Epicurean
the position of the Stoic was peculiarly involved. The ideal
imperturbability of the Epicurean was simple in so far that it required
nothing beyond itself. It was an individual matter and varied with the
individual. But the Stoic ideal personality is based upon the reason,
that is eternally one and the same. What is this absolute principle
that gives to the human reason its absoluteness? What is the extent
of the law of the reason that the human reason itself implies? Thus
the Stoic needed to supplement his conception of personality and the
Epicurean did not. Because his individualism was more rigorous, it
needed the more to be supported. The Stoic principle of morality had to
have its foundation in the absolute nature of things. This foundation
could not be the politico-moral principle of Greek national life, for
that existed no longer. It could not be a transcendent, supersensuous,
or incorporeal principle, for his Cynic inheritance would forbid his
looking beyond experience. The supplementary absolute principle of the
Stoics must be an immanent principle, a living power in the world. A
pantheistic conception of Nature took its place side by side with the
Stoic conception of personality, and this conception of Nature became
the central point of the Stoic metaphysics. For this the Stoics adopted
the Logos doctrine of Heracleitus, which will be recalled as the
doctrine of primal matter as rational, just, and fateful changingness.
The Stoics were reinforced in this by Aristotle’s teleological
philosophy of nature. Yet they tried to overcome the dualism of matter
and Form as it existed in Aristotle’s teaching, and one feels that
the Stoic pantheism was a conscious and avowed pantheism. The Stoic
conception of Nature is that of a unitary, rational, and living whole,
having no parts, but only determinate forms. Yet it cannot be called a
hylozoism, like the doctrine of Heracleitus, for there Form and matter
had not been distinguished. In the intervening years Form and matter
had been separated, and the Stoic sought to put them together again. In
comparison with the doctrine of the Old Schools, the Stoic teaching was
(1) monistic, as against their dualism, (2) materialistic, as against
their idealism, but (3) like them, it was teleological.
1. In the first place, _Nature is an all-pervading World-Being_. It
is God, “in whom we live and move and have our being.” It contains in
itself all cosmic phenomena, and processes, past, present, and future.
It is the World-ground and the World-mind, and yet it is all-in-all.
It is the productive and formative power, the vitalizing principle.
In general, it is the creative and guiding reason; in particular,
it is Providence or divine government. It is the unswerving whole
in which the single events of history take place. To the Stoics the
cosmic Reason was so apparent in Nature that purpose appeared to them
in everything. In their hands the great teleological conception of
Aristotle’s immanent purposiveness sank to the petty purposiveness for
human beings and for the gods. Yet it is no wonder that this conception
of an all-pervasive deity became a religion to the Stoics and raised
their moral code to the region of the sublime. The world is Fate so far
as the minutest movements are determined. Nature is Providence so far
as those determinations are full of purpose. Nature is in every part
perfect and without blemish.
2. In the second place, _Nature is an all-compelling law_. Nature
is an inviolable necessity, an inevitable destiny, that holds all
phenomena in complete causal connection. Yet this destiny only proves
the complete purpose of the whole. The Stoic seized upon the central
principle of Democritus,――which the Epicureans had overlooked,――the
supremacy of law. “The doctrine of Democritus passed over to the
Epicureans only so far as it was atomism and mechanism; with regard to
the deeper and more valuable principle of the universal reign of law
in Nature, his legacy passed to the Stoics.”[35] There is no such thing
as chance; everything is caused. In Epicureanism one finds the doctrine
of necessity, but the necessity comes from the atoms themselves. In
Stoicism the necessity resides in the living activity of the whole.
A living activity! Herein the Stoic conception differs from the
Democritan teaching. The necessity is a living necessity, the destiny
a living destiny.
3. In the third place, _Nature is matter_. On the theoretical side
Stoicism agrees with Epicureanism only at one point,――both were
materialistic. The materialism of both these New Schools got a
disproportionate prominence because it had to be defended against
the attacks of the Academy and the Lyceum. The materialism of the
Epicureans was a mere adoption of a theory; the materialism of the
Stoics was only one aspect of its supplementary basis. Nevertheless,
to the Stoic matter alone is real, because _it alone acts and is acted
upon_. Everything is matter,――nature-objects, God and the soul, and
even the qualities, forces, and relations between material bodies. The
Stoics regarded the presence and interchange of the qualities of things
as the appearance and intermingling of bodies in these things.
There can be no doubt about the materialism of the Stoic teaching,
although both material and spiritual attributes are ascribed to God
in a way that is startling. The Heracleitan conception of fire as
the primary substance is the Stoic conception of God. God is fire,
air, ether, and most commonly the atmospheric currents which pervade
all things. But God is also the World-soul, the World-mind, the
Cosmic-reason, the universal Law, Nature, Destiny, Providence. He is a
perfect, happy, and kind Being. In single statements these aspects are
often combined and God is described as the Fiery Reason of the world,
the Mind in matter, the reasonable Air-currents. The Stoic equation is
Nature ＝ Matter ＝ Fire ＝ Reason ＝ Fate ＝ Providence ＝ God.
The Stoics followed Heracleitus also in their conception of the
development of the present world from the cosmic fire. “In all points
of detail their views on what we call physical science are contemptible.
They contained not one iota of scientific thinking.”[36] They followed
Aristotle, however, in their description of the elements and their
teleological arrangements.
The primitive substance changes by its own inner rational law into
force and matter. Force is the World-soul, the pneuma or warm breath,
which pervades all things. Matter is the World-body, and is water and
earth. In cosmic periods the primitive fire is destined to re-absorb
the world of variety into itself and then consume it in a universal
catastrophe.
The most important feature in the Stoic materialism is the
conception of pneuma, or the force into which the original substance
is differentiated. This is the World-soul. Nature is thus conceived as
dynamical. The Stoic word for the World-soul is translated by various
expressions, as “creative reason,” “generative powers,” “formative
fire-mind.” It penetrates all things and dominates all as their active
principle. Through it the universe is one, not a plurality of parts.
The pneuma is the life of the universe. Its motion is spontaneous; its
development is teleological. The pneuma is an extraordinarily condensed
conception, containing as it does suggestions from Heracleitus’ Logos,
Anaxagoras’ Nous, Democritus’ fire-atoms, and Aristotle’s Energeia.
The human being has a constitution analogous to the universe. Man is
the microcosm and the universe the macrocosm. The soul of man is the
pneuma which holds his body together, and it is an emanation from the
divine pneuma. Mental states――thought and emotions――are air currents.
Virtue is the tension of the atmospheric substance of the soul. The
material, yet divine, pneuma constitutes man’s reason, causes his
activities, is seated in his breast. Since the pneuma is a body,
it disconnects itself from the human corpse at death, has a limited
immortality, and returns to the cosmic pneuma at the conflagration of
the world.
=The Conceptions of Nature and Personality supplement each other.=
Thus fundamentally the personality is identical with the cosmos――it is
reason. To turn the matter about, by reason or “nature” the Stoic means
two things that are essentially one. He means the reason of man, or the
reason of the world; to “live according to nature” is to live according
to the nature of man or according to the nature of the world. The life
of the Wise Man as a harmony with physical nature is a harmony with
itself as well. The antithesis to “nature” or “reason” is sensuous
nature. What we speak of as the natural impulses were not “natural”
at all in the Stoic teaching.
“Nature” as universal is the creative cosmic power acting for ends.
Coördination with this constitutes morality. It is a willing obedience
to eternal necessity. The “fool” acts according to his sensations
and impulses, and therefore against “nature.” But the Wise Man, by
withdrawing within himself, is his own independent master because he
is acting universally. “Nature” is the life-unity of the human soul
with the world reason. True individual morality is therefore universal
morality, complete humanity, universal rationality. To obey “nature” is
to develop the essential germ in one’s self.
Thus these two points of view were obtained of life-unity: a
universe rationally guiding in all its changes; the human individual
epitomizing this universe in himself as a rule for his conduct amid his
vicissitudes.
=The Stoic and Society.= Men are divided into two classes,――the
entirely wise and virtuous, or the entirely foolish and vicious. There
is no middle ground. If a man possesses a sound reason, he has all
the virtues; if he lacks this reason, he lacks all. There are only
a few Sages; the mass of men are fools. The Stoics were continually
lamenting with Pharisaical pessimism the great baseness of men. From
their sublime height they looked upon the Wise Man as incapable of
sin, upon the fool as incapable of virtue. In thus denying the ordinary
distinctions between good and evil, they were dangerous in politics.
Their political perspective was not reliable. In general, they did
not enter the politics of the democracies where they lived. They were,
however, often the advisers of tyrants, and often assisted in removing
them (as in the case of Julius Cæsar). The Stoic School of Musonius
Rufus made a splendid Puritan protest against Nero and Domitian,
and finally his disciples and friends controlled the empire for a
century (second century A. D.).[37] The Stoic regarded his Wise Man as
attaining the same independence that the Epicurean claimed for his Wise
Man. He is lord and king. He is inferior to no other rational being,
not even to Zeus himself.
The Stoic differs from the Epicurean in his attitude toward the
political state. The two Schools agree that the sufficient Wise Man
needs the state but little. The Epicurean teaches that society is
not natural and not inherent in human nature. The Stoic, however,
maintained that society is a divine institution, which gives way only
occasionally to man’s individual perfecting. Since man and the cosmic
reason are identical, all men are essentially identical. When men
therefore lead a life of reason, they lead a social life. This realm
of reason includes not Romans alone, but all men, gods, and slaves. But
the political government is only secondary, for the Stoic’s ideal is
a universal empire. The Stoic’s interest in practical politics was as
weak as his ideal of a rational society was transcendent. His teaching
of justice and love for man was, however, a forecasting of the coming
religious emancipation.
There are two antagonistic tendencies running through Stoicism. The
first is to seek society with its virtues,――justice, love of men,
sociability or cosmopolitanism. The second dispenses with society to
gain an inner freedom. Yet these two tendencies often coincide.
They may be presented as follows:――
_To seek society._ _To dispense with society._
1. Exaltation of justice and Exaltation of inner freedom
love. and happiness.
2. World citizenship. The Wise Man.
3. Relations and degrees of Absolute virtue and absolute
virtue. vice.
4. Virtue depends somewhat on Knowledge alone is virtue.
conditions.
5. Individual should submit to Individual should make fate.
fate.
=Duty and Responsibility.= The Stoic’s identity of human and cosmic
reason elevated the law of human conduct into a strict, universal law
of duty. It embodies, on the one hand, the Cynic’s protest against
external law, and on the other the construction of the inner moral
law. The backbone of Stoicism is sense of responsibility. The Stoics
brought out as never before the contrast between what is and what ought
to be. They were the most outspoken doctrinaires of antiquity, and
formed a school of character building in stubbornness. As time went on
they substituted human nature for cosmic nature, and then accentuated
human nature as conscience. The individual could then define the right
for himself, and this sort of individualism was developed with so
much skill that it admitted great laxity of morals. Duty commands
some things and forbids others, but there are left a great mass of
activities that are ethically indifferent. These indifferent matters
offered opportunity for these men of conscience to perform what in the
eyes of others were crimes (for example, Brutus). Baseness is only what
is unconditionally forbidden.
Yet it must not be supposed that the Stoics generally employed
the indifferent as an excuse for moral license. On the contrary,
the concept of life as a struggle originated with the Stoics, and
from them it passed into the common consciousness of man. There was
before them (1) the struggle with environment dominated by a false
evaluation, (2) the struggle with effete civilization, (3) the struggle
particularly with one’s self. The Stoic hero of inner courage and
greatness of soul rises above his fellows, not because he gains
dominion over the world, but because in indifference to it he isolates
himself. He exists in premeditation of doing rather than in the
actual doing in which his power would be spent. Still, in the absolute
contrast between the good and the evil, in making life a disjunctive,
an “Either――Or,” duty got a definite and distinct meaning. Duty,
according to the Stoics’ conception, had not so much the nature of
an imperative as of what is suitable,――an act adapted to nature, a
consistent and justifiable act. In a manner unknown to antiquity the
ethical nature of conduct was thus universalized in the new conceptions
of philanthropy, of the universality of God and man, in the tendency
to suppress slavery and care for the poor and sick. Nevertheless, as a
moral force Stoicism accepted the world as it found the world, and did
not attempt to make it over.
=The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Freedom.= On the questions
of moral freedom and evil, the Stoics suffered severe attacks from
the Academy and the Epicureans. Alone among the Schools of antiquity
the Stoics preached the doctrine of Fate. The demands of ethical
responsibility, however, required that the individual should determine
his own conduct. To suit these demands the Stoic did not modify his
fundamental conception of Nature, but he tried to justify his position
on the ground that the individual expressed the law of nature. His
argument may be stated thus: Man is like God; Man is one with God;
Man is free. It was also stated on psychological grounds. Man can have
one of two attitudes toward the world-law: (1) his performance may
be through blind compulsion; (2) his performance may be through an
intelligent understanding of the law, in which case he is free. The
occurrence of his act is fateful, but it makes great difference to the
man whether the occurrence is in spite of him or with his intelligent
acquiescence. The occurrence is not an evil in itself; for physical
evils are no evils, and things that appear to be moral evils are
(1) subservient to the good; (2) merely relative to good; or (3) show
that God’s ways are not our ways. My will is mine though necessary; my
will is mine though it be law. The soul is free when it fulfills its
own destiny. God works through man’s will. Outer circumstances are
only accessory causes, but the main cause is the assent of the will.
At the same time the Stoics did not shrink from the logic of their own
fatalism. Chrysippus said that only on the basis of determinism could
correct judgments of the future be made. Only on this ground could the
gods foreknow. Only the necessary can be known.
=The Modifications of the Stoic Doctrine after the First Period.= The
inherent difficulties in the Stoic doctrine and the attacks upon it
gave rise to later concession that only further complicated it. (1) The
moral ideal was lowered to make a set of rules for the mediocre man,
and thereby the Stoics became the originators of the dangerous doctrine
of a twofold morals.
(2) By admitting any supposition instead of strict scientific deduction
into their theory they introduced probabilism. An absolute personality!
An absolute Nature! In order to make either practical the Stoics had
to modify both. In the course of time, when new leaders represented the
School, there came compromises according to practical exigencies. The
teaching of the Wise Man was superseded by instruction how to become
wise. The moral idealism was not renounced but the idea of progress was
introduced.
(3) The doctrine of Goods was modified. From out the Goods, esteemed
as indifferent, there appear Goods as desirable. Yet these were never
thought to be Goods in themselves, but were only adapted to further the
Good in itself. Such were, for example, the physical Good of health,
enjoyment of the senses, etc. On the side of its ideals Stoicism thus
was brought into touch with practical life.
(4) A distinction was made concerning those who were not Wise Men. It
was recognized that all “fools” are not the same distance from virtue.
There are then recognized progressive men,――men who are improving.
Apathy is thus modified by a state of progress. Even the Wise Man has
in common with others the affections of his senses, such as pain. The
Stoic ethical aristocracy became more humane. Nevertheless, the Stoic
never yielded this point, viz., that there is no gradual growth in
virtue. Virtue is not attained through a transition. It is a sudden
turning about.
(5) During the empire Stoicism became merely a moral philosophy, but
even in this form it was an impressive presentation of the noblest
convictions of antiquity. It prepared moral feeling for Christianity.
The more Stoicism became mere moralizing, the more the Cynic element in
it dominated it. In the first and second centuries Cynicism was revived
by wandering, garbed preachers, who went about affecting beggary and
teaching morals.