f c J t 'i 1 U ;ii if- ■ • . .In \ ,►'1' ^ ! ■fr> "" y , t r 1 1 Y \ J 73 173 CHAPTER IX ETHICS: SPECIAL POINTS I ' " Living agreeably to nature" — how interpreted Influence of doctrine on modern ethical systems II JWhe Stoic doctrine of Will To be taken in connexion with psychology of desire 174 176 176 177 III Virtue as happiness Protest against moral materialism ^ IV Value of Stoic Cosmopolitanism Morality essentially social Contrast with Epicureanism Influence on St. Paul and Christianity Carried by Aurelius into Legislation . V ''The dignity of man Self-respect .... Kindness to the lower animals . Connexion between ethics and religion Even human laws echo the divine Influence of Stoicism on Roman Jurisprudence VI "Regenerative power of a virtuous life . Moral heroes, of the past b 178.- 179 - 180 — 180 180-- 180 181 182 182 183 183 184., 184 184 184. xvin TABLE OF CONTENTS Epictetus's account of Diogenes, the Cynic Moral heroes, of the present Teaching- morality by example . y VII Stoics' helpfulness to others Classification of duties . The Cardinal Virtues . Germ of the modern threefold grouping PAGE i8s i8S 185 186 186 187 187 CHAPTER X ETHICS: DEFECTS The Ideal Sage too unsympathetic / Does not sufficiently recognize the emotions . The power of an ideal .... •^CDnder what circumstances the Stoic ideal effective ^yhen ineffective ..... ''tJomparison of Stoicism with Christianity In the conception of self-sufficiency With regard to the kindlier feelings Advance in Stoic teaching here . The Stoical Ideal, in part non-human . Perception of this led to changes in the system Relative virtue . Degrees in virtue and in vice . Brotherhood of mankind Moral progress ..... II Involuntary injury .... / This doctrine not supported by experience Ground of the dictum . . ... Ignores the fact of malevolent affectiogs The offender to be won, not by reason, but by love. The doctrine regards sin as a mere defect III The doctrine of adiaphora too unbending The Stoic view of the body 188 189 190 190 191 K 191 X 191 19Z 192 192 193 193 "94 . 194 194 19s 195 '95 196 196 '97 198 198 TABLE OF CONTENTS xix PAGE Alien to man and a hindrance . . . . -199 Correct view ....... 199 \Slovenly neglect of the body condemned by Stoics . 200 ^pie reasons given by Epictetus .... 200 Death as a " thing indifferent " .... 201 "Suicide allowed ....... 20^ Shows an inadequate notion of both God and man . . 202 ^ Counselled infanticide .... tC 203 IV The Stoics unjust to Epicurean Hedonism . . . 203- Wrong view of Pleasure and Pain . . 203 Laid stress on the lower pleasures .... 204 Epicums's view of pleasure ..... 204 Epicurus's doctrine of desire . . 205 Hedonism and noble aspirations . . 206 CHAPTER XI THEOLOGY AND RELIGION Metaphysics of ethics . . ... 208 V Can there be ethics without metaphysics ? . . . 208 I The World one and Perfect This the view sub specie leternitaiis . . .210 No such thing as evil or as sin ..... 21a Providence : Optimism The course of the world teleologically determined . 211 Providence both universal and special . . .211 Stoical optimism the result . . . . 212 i Nevertheless, the Stoic sometimes pessimistic . .212 Cheerful acquiescence in the World-Order . . . 213 Significance for the present day . . . .213 ISvGOD PERSONAL OR IMPERSONAL? Discrepancy between Stoic Physics and Ethics here . 214 Epictetus almost monotheist . .214 Aurelius pantheistic ... . . ^ig) Difficulty in determining .... 215 Deity both all-pervasive essence and Moral . .216 XX TABLE OF CONTENTS Proofs of God's Existence Cleanthes's proof from the Primitive Fire (i) Inductive proofs . . • ■ Argument from man's constitution Stress laid on man's moral nature Argument from history or Consensus gentium . The Teleological argument Moral government of the world (2) Deductive proofs . • • • Truth, in propositions regarding the future^ . Argument from notion of the world as a universe Argument from God's foreknowledge . Argument from Divination Against Agnosticism God knowable . . • ■ • A modified agnosticism . . ■ ■ The Deity limited by Fate ^Seneca and Cleanthes .... The doctrine partially ignored . Mythology and Divination Did not discard " the gods " Supported Divination by examples PAGE 217 217 217 218 218 ■ 218 219 219 219 219 220 220 220 221 222 222 223 223 II Observations 223 The Problem of Evil Discrepancy between Stoic teaching and Conscience . 223 Denial of sin is merely dogmatic assertion . . . 223 ■-^ob's difficulty — how solved by Stoics .... (22^ Evil is good in disguise, and is for the best . . . 224 Suffering is disciplinary ... . . 225 > Seneca, De Providentid ...... 225 Epictetus. ....... 226 Suffering vicarious, and is of nature of atonement . . 226 Stoic held evil and sin to be necessary on law of Relativity . 226 This an overstraining of the law .... 227 TABLE OF CONTENTS XXI The Doctrine of Fate Numbing, when strictly expressed May be so interpreted as to bring out a great truth P*Seneca ...... Cleanthes ..... ^Stoic acquiescence lacks hope for future Divination Probably, a philosophical acknowledgment of supernatural Distinction between kinds of Divination Technical or artificial divination Its value to be tested by inductive procedure Natural divination Personal character of agent important here On the lines of Prophecy Justification of proof of God's existence from divination Prayer Acknowledgment of the supernatural The purpose of Prayer . Aurelius on Prayer Cleanthes's Hymn to Zeus PAGE 228 228 229 229 229 230 231 231 231 232 232 232 233 233 234 235 CHAPTER XII PRESENT-DAY VALUE OF STOICISM The Stoic philosophy instinct with life . Its value as science and speculation Its ethical and religious value . Stoicism to be studied as an aid to right living Stoicism has been opposed to Christian Theology JUarcus Aurelius given as our model here Renan's attitude . Leslie Stephen Why Aurelius is thus chosen Characteristics of his Meditations Matthew Arnold's estimate Aurelius not anti-supematuralist Much less is Epictetus or Seneca 237 237 238. 238- 239 239 239 240 240 24<0 242 242 242 xxii TABLE OF CONTENTS II Renan lays the stress on the wrong point Points to be emphasized in Stoicism Its recognition of the world as a system Its sympathy with Nature and her processes . Appreciation of the beauty in natural scenery wanting- Its experiential nature . ■ • ■ ■ -Its insistence on character Its reverent and devout spirit . . • • Its view of the World as a manifestation of Divine Order, and Social Order binding as having Divine sanction Faith in the future of the individual alone wanting . The high estimate of human nature Its acquiescence in the World-Order and Social service Carlyle on Blessedness PAGE 243 243 244 244 24s 24s 246 246 247 248 249 250 250 Epictetus and service of the Divine . . . 251 III These points have perennial value .... 252 ' Practical utility of writings of Epictetus, Aurelius, and Seneca 252 Farrar ...... J. S. Mill Wisdom justified of all her children Christian view of Divine revelation /Debt of Christian civilization to Stoicism 252 253 253 2S3 254 APPENDIX PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM I These defined .... How Stoical ethics is " pragmatical " . Nature of Pragmatism .... Truth determined by the active side of man's nature Voluntarism verstis Intellectualism Axioms originally postulates Appeal to experience and consequences The stress laid on the practical need of human nature . 257 Opposed to a priorism and Absolutism . . . 258 2SS 256 256 256 256 257 2S7 TABLE OF CONTENTS xxiii II PAGE Has the merit of appealing to Experience and the whole of human nature ...... 260 Deals with concrete experience, and not abstract thought . 261 Rejects Absolutism of the bloodless type . . 262 III Over-emphasizes action on the will .... 262 Plan or purpose implies an intellectual factor . . . 263 Intellect sometimes igfnored, sometimes disparaged . . 263 Weak metaphysically ...... 264 If human wants are everything, metaphysics as a rational human want must count for something . . . 265 Metaphysics compatible with science of Nature and Induction 265 Use of an ideal ....... 265 THE STOIC CREED Section A.— MOULDING INFLUENCES, AND LEADERS OF THE SCHOOL CHAPTER I THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE " First Socrates, Who, firmly good in n corrupted state, Against the rage of tyrants single stood, Invincible ! calm Reason's holy law. That voice of God within th' attentive mind. Obeying, fearless, or in life or death : Great moral teacher ! wisest of mankind ! " Thomson. I All the Greek philosophies that have permanently influenced the world attach themselves ultimately to Socrates — not least that of the Stoics,^ whose founder was first drawn to philosophy by the Memorabilia of Xenophon (see Diogenes Laertius, vii. 3), and which reproduced as its fundamental features the leading ^ The name " Stoic " comes from Stoa Poecile or Painted Porch at Athens, in which Zeno, the founder, lectured. I 2 THE STOIC CREED characteristics of Socrates, namely, his ethical spirit, his religious reverence, his psychological standpoint, his regard for experience and concrete fact, and his distinctively practical cast of mind. There are differ- ences, of course, and very marked ones too — seen most in the speculative tendencies of the Stoics and their interest in the science of nature ; but the inspiration is undoubted. And so the subject of Stoicism is best introduced by some consideration of Socrates and the Socratic impulse. This consideration may very well, for the purpose in hand, concern itself with the four points of (i) the relation of Socrates to the pre-Socratic philosophers, (2) his distinctive position, (3) his relation to the Sophists, and (4) his personal character. II The study of mind may, in a general sense and with necessary qualifications, chiefly with the qualification that Socrates was in part anticipated by the Sophists, be said to date from Socrates (b.c. 469 to 399). Previously to his time, no doubt, there was much speculation and eager questioning of a philosophical kind among the Greeks, but for the most part it centred in external nature or the material universe — its structure and constitution, the phenomena of change or flux exhibited by it, its being or reality ; and man himself was interpreted from the side of the universe, as a part of nature. The Ionic or Physical philoso- phers (Thales, Anaximander, etc.) occupied themselves with the examination and investigation of the world, and regarded it as the end and aim of philosophy to THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE 3 achieve a cosmogony or physical explanation of the cosmos. In this way, they were all naturally materialists, and took simply a mechanical view of things. Their great quest was for the material apxfi or first principle of existence — the primitive stuff or matter out of which the world was formed ; Thales (b.c. 640 to 550) finding it in water, Anaximenes in air, Heracleitus in fire. But if the first principle of things was material, so too must be all that is dependent on it : so too must be the human soul, which was variously conceived as fire, air, breath. Mental facts and processes, accordingly, — consciousness itself, sensation, intellection, volition, — were interpreted materially. Parmenides, the Eleatic, laid down the doctrine that like acting upon like is the cause of sensation. This doctrine Empedocles (born about 500 B.C.) accepted, and, combining it with his own special teaching that man, like the universe, consists of the four elements fire, air, earth, water, proceeded to explain thereby sense-perception in all its forms. Effluvia or emanations (airoppoiai) from the different external bodies enter man through pores (n-opoi), and, like being recognized by like (fire by fire, water by water, etc.), give rise to what we know respectively as the sensations of sight, hearing, taste, smell. All is explained by material effluxes and pores, and the recognition of like by like {■q yvSxns tov o/xoiov tS o/ioto)). This dominance of materialism is specially obvious in the Atomic philosophy, represented by Democritus (born about 460 e.g.), the doctrines of which we shall see, later on, in their full development, when we come to the psychology of Epicurus. Even Anaxagoras (born about 500 B.C.), who was probably 4 THE STOIC CREED the first of the Greek philosophers to attain to the conception of mind or vow as the explanatory term of existence, did not put this conception to any very effective use. Striking, indeed, was his utterance, "All things were together; then mind came and set them in order {n-avTa ^rumra. rjv o/^oB' tlra vovi eXOmv airk SiEKoV/^Tjcre)," 1 but its efficiency depended on the application of it ; and, unfortunately, Anaxagoras put it forth only in a tentative way, as a shy, philosophical suggestion of design in the universe, rather than as a firmly-grasped all-explanatory principle. Aristotle tells us (Met. i. 4) that "Anaxagoras uses his Intelli- gence simply as a device to create the world where- withal ; or when he is hard pressed to say why it must be necessarily as it is, then again he drags it in : in all other cases he would credit anything and everything rather than Intelligence with being the cause of pheno- mena." And it is the bitter complaint of Socrates in the Phado, in a passage that may very well have been autobiographical, that when he (Socrates) went to the writings of Anaxagoras to be instructed in his teleo- logical principles, he was put off with a discourse on the secondary and physical causes of things, — indeed, on "the conditions" of things instead of "the causes," — and gives as a concrete example his own present case of calmly sitting awaiting his .fate in prison in place of making his escape, as his friends counselled him to do. "I might compare him," he says, "to a person who began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when he endea- voured to explain the causes of my several actions in ' See Diogenes Laertius, ii. 6. THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE 5 detail, went on to show that I sit here beqause my body is made up of bones and muscles ; and the bones, as he would say, are hard, and have joints which divide them, and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, which have also a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains them ; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, and this is why I am sitting here in a curved posture — that is what he would say ; and he would have a similar ex- planation of my talking to you, which he would attri- bute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the same sort, for- getting to mention the true cause, which is, that the Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and ac- cordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence. . . . There is surely a strange confusion of causes and conditions in all this. "1 III It was the characteristic of Socrates that he turned men's thoughts from the study of matter and mechanical causes to self-reflection or the study of mind : as Cicero puts it rhetorically, in the Ttcsculan Disputations (v. 4), "Socrates was the first to call down philosophy from heaven, and to place it in cities, and to introduce it into the houses of men, compelling men to examine into life and morals, and good and evil." This he regarded as a divine vocation, as a work imposed upon him by the Deity, in discharging which he made prominent the position that self-knowledge, "know thyself" [yvSiOi. ' Jowett's trans. 6 THE STOIC CREED areavTov ^), is man's first duty and chief concern. This meant, on its negative side, that attention must be with- drawn from physics and physical speculations — from natural science and cosmology ; and, on its positive side, that it must be concentrated on the mind— "the proper study of mankind is man." But this is, in part at least, psychology. Not, however, that Socrates, like Aristotle, worked out a psychology, or did much towards the scientific exposition of the province and functions of mind generally. His interest lay mainly in Ethics and Politics, not in mental science ; and what we owe to him is, (i) the impulse to the determinate and exact consideration of ethical and social phenomena, and (2) the clear presentation and systematic applica- tion of the true method of psychological investiga- tion, — namely, the inductive method — comparison and generalization — leading to clear concepts and precise definitions. In this second particular, he is the father of the Logic of Consistency, and, in especial, of that province of Logic known to moderns as Definition and Classification. It was in direct contact, however, with living minds, not by the dogmatic enunciation of abstract formulae, that he exercised his art ; and how he proceeded was thus : — Through dexterity and skill in Dialectic, by persistent oral cross-questioning of his fellow-citizens in the market-place, in the workshops, in the schools, under pretence of his own ignorance (dp(oveia), thereby ■ bringing ideas to the birth {q /iaicurtK^ '''^xyv)' he elicited and enforced two things, — (a) men's in- ' In the Memorabilia of Xenophon (iii. 9), he puts this from the obverse side, " Be not ignorant of thyself " (/lifj iyvSei. See the Protagoras of Plato. ^ See Xenophon, Memorabilia, i. 2. ' See Memorabilia, i. 5, 6 ; also ii. i. * See Xenophon, Memorabilia, iv. 6. ' See Appendix. ° See Xenophon, Memorabilia, i. 4 ; iv. 3. lo THE STOIC CREED in all essentials, by Plato in the Apologia and the Phcedo. The real Socrates was characterized by religious reverence and personal piety (Xenophon and Plato alike— e.^., in Euthyphro—\i€\ng witnesses), and his teleology is strict and definite— so much so that it commended itself as a model to natural theologians in Christendom for many centuries. Nor are his views on Immortality less striking (Xenophon and Plato, again, being at one here) ; although it is not often observed that the ultimate conclusion that Socrates reaches is a guarded one. Of the immortality of the soul, he affirms, he is personally convinced, but he does not profess that he can prove it by irrefragable argument — absolute demonstration is impossible in the matter. "It came to me," he says, "apart from de- monstration, with a sort of natural likelihood and fitness." That is all ; but it is much. Apart, however, from positive doctrine, Socrates was practically the founder of mental and moral science, and the great stimulator to philosophic thought because of his firm grasp of the inductive method applied to mental and moral subjects and carried systematically out in his peculiar dialectic of cross-examination, and because of the variety and many-sidedness of his ideas, leading to great developments in the hands of his pupils. Although gruff and even repulsive in his outward person, he had the extraordinary magnetic power of attracting and stimulating thinking men of all tempera- ments, and of sowing seeds that should germinate and grow in many different soils. That he should have laid hold on the heart and the imagination of Plato, and THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE ii become the hero and the sage of the Platonic Dialogues, is itself sufficiently remarkable. Remarkable is it also that he should have so captivated Xenophon as to impel him, like another Boswell, to write a treatise of recollections of the master's conversations, and this, too, with a view to defend him against the accusations that had brought about his condemnation and death, — a treatise charged with the reverence and affection of the whole-hearted admirer and devoted disciple. But it is no less remarkable that he should have thrown out so many fruitful and suggestive thoughts as to be virtually the founder of all the leading post-Socratic schools — Platonic, Peripatetic, Cynic, Cyrenaic, Megaric, Stoic, Epicurean alike. All derived their impulse, directly or indirectly, from him ; and each claimed for its own tenets a basis in the Socratic teaching. IV But the position of Socrates cannot be fully under- stood unless we take it in connexion with the Sophists. The Sophists were pre-eminently educationists, active teachers of the liberal arts, but more particularly of the arts that bear upon the business and duties of life. They were, therefore, necessarily rhetoricians and logicians (in so far, at any rate, as logic has to do with disputation), and theoretical politicians as well. They claimed in special to teach the art of discussion and address, so as to guide public opinion and to train young aspirants for political honours, fitting them for civic life, and enabling them to be a power in the senate or in the law-courts. "If Hippocrates comes to me," says Protagoras, in the Platonic dialogue of that name. 12 THE STOIC CREED "he will learn . . . prudence in affairs private as well as public ; He will learn to order his own house in the best manner, and he will be able to speak and act for the best in the affairs of the State. Do I understand you, I said ; and is your meaning that you teach the art of politics, and that you promise to make men good citizens? That, Socrates, is exactly the profession which I make," In this respect they may be desig- nated professors of intellectual fencing, with a dis- tinct and definite practical end in view. But they were philosophers also ; and, although they had no fixed philosophical system of their own, although they founded no school, philosophical principles lay at the root of their dialectical procedure, for there can be no true education, there can be no true rhetoric (even if we understand rhetoric simply as oratory, forensic or political), that does not implicate psychology. It was in his treatise on Rhetoric, not in his Psychology, that Aristotle gave his completest analysis of the Emotions ; and modern writers on Rhetoric have equally laid psychology under contribution — witness, for example, Campbell in his Philosophy of Rhetoric and Bain in his Rhetoric and Composition. What, then, was peculiar to the Sophists as philo- sophical educationists was this. In philosophy, they made the first great start towards amended thinking under the leading of Protagoras by departing from the old physical speculation and directing man's attention specially to man himself. In doing so, they raised some of the perennial problems of thought and will (such as, the nature and power of reason, the value of THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE 13 sense-perception, the basis of morality, the dependence of virtue on education), giving explicit utterance to them and offering a solution of them from the standpoint of individual consciousness and of practical experience ; and although their philosophy was in many ways un- satisfactory and inadequate, it was a distinct advance in the march of human thinking. No doubt, the dis- putation by which it was operated was of a peculiar kind — it was what is known as Eristic or wrangling, or the art of " popular and approximate debate " ; but that is not to be condemned without discrimination, even though, in the hands of degenerate teachers (say, dur- ing the latter part of Plato's life and in the days of Aristotle), it became what we nowadays know by the disparaging name of sophistry — of cavilling, of captious criticism and quibbling, of arguing for the sake of victory, or attempting against all comers to "make the worse appear the better reason." For that simply means that it shared the fate of many other good things, which have been brought into disrepute by being un- worthily handled, and cannot reasonably be held responsible for men's abuse of it. On the side of politics, on the other hand, the effort of the professional Sophists about the time of Socrates was to get men to think and act in an independent fashion, to feel dissatisfied with inherited custom and mere authority, and to subject common opinion and popular belief to a thorough sifting. For this purpose, they did, in the spirit of free inquiry, treat of such things as government and positive institutions and law, and they handled the political virtues (justice and the like), not forgetting, however, the training of the in- 14 THE STOIC CREED dividual in character. And if here again degeneracy set in, and the rhetor made a base use of his oppor- tunities, disregarding high principle and contracting a mercenary spirit, prizing his art only in the light of how much money it could bring him, we must not condemn the ideal because the real fell so far short of it. The day for passing a wholesale condemnation on the Sophists is gone — thanks mainly to Hegel in Germany and to Grote in England, and Gomperz has nobly followed up the lead at the present day.^ The situation was as follows : Given an age far back, long before the invention of printing (such as we con- ceive printing) and the influence of the Press — an age, therefore, when spoken address was all-powerful ; given a highly intellectual, an eagerly inquisitive, a naturally disputational, an eminently artistic, and a politically enthusiastic people, democratic in their leanings ; and given the desire of the patriotic and the ambitious to be able to sway this people, and the circumstance that it was only by ability to sway them that high place and influence could be achieved in the State ; given, further, the keenness of the ancient Greek for culture and for the artistic expression of it in speech, — and there we have, in brief form, the circumstances that determined the nature and marked off the limits of the sophistic art. Yet, it must be emphasized — the basis of the sophistic ' See Grote, History of Greece, vol. viii. ; Zeller, Presocratic Philosophy (Kng. tr.), vol. ii. ; Schwegler, History of Philosophy, especially Dr. Hutchison Stirling's Essay in the Annotations of his English translation ; Gomperz, Greek Thinkers (Eng. tr.), vol. i. bk. iii. chap. 5. THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE 15 art was psrychology, — a distinct view of human thought and human volition, implying a knowledge of men's passions, interests, and motives, and a familiarity with the various springs of human action. Even the phi- lological researches of the Sophists, in which they excelled, point in this direction. More still, the Sophists had their own view of the nature of thought. They held that Reason was a powerful instrument for criticism and destruction, but was not competent to reach absolute truth. It is limited in its extent, and deals necessarily with the impressions of sense, which are different to different individuals and relative to the percipient ; so that knowledge, in the strict sense of the term, is impossible, and there is no greater justification for the opinion that one may hold than there is for its opposite ; or, to put it in express sophistic phraseology, an assertion and its contradictory are equally defensible. But if there is no such thing as absolute truth, neither is there any such thing as absolute morality. Here as there, all may be questioned, and belief may be im- pugned. The logical result, therefore, is universal scepticism — scepticism in cognition and in morals alike. Gorgias of Leontini (date about B.C. 483 to 375) put it bluntly, on the intellectual side, when he said : " Nothing is ; if anything is, it cannot be known ; if it be known, it cannot be communicated." Thus, being, cognition, and articulate speech fell at a stroke, each and all came under the ban of nescience. But the formula of sophistic negation that most deeply affected subsequent thought, and is prominent in the history of philosophy, is that of Protagoras (born about 490 B.C.). " Man," said he, "is the measure of all things (irovTuv i6 THE STOIC CREED ■XprjlidTiav fUrpov avSpayirov eivai) ; of things that are, that they are ; of things that are not, that they are not." Now, this sophistic view of the relativity of human knowledge and of human morality, this Protagorean doctrine of komo mensura {pArpov avOpayiroi), individual- istically interpreted, ^ was met by Socrates — met, not after the manner of the modern critic of philosophical positions, but according to his own dialectic, in the critical clash of intellect personally confronting intellect ; and the contrary doctrine, though not in so many words, was championed by him, namely, that human reason, though limited in its range, can give us truth, and that morality has a stable basis in reason and is universally valid. In this way, while agreeing with the Sophists in upholding the rights of the individual to think and to act, he separated from them wholly in his appreciation of the dignity of the individual and his ability to effect great things as participating in universal reason. If "man is the measure of all things," then the logical conclusion seemed to be that truth is merely ' It has been argued (e.g:, by Gomperz) that this individualistic interpretation is not the correct one ; for, however it may have been in the days (say) of Aristotle or even at the end of Plato's life, neither Protagoras nor the Sophists of Socrates's time did inter- pret it individualistically. In this there probably is some truth ; but the point is that the Sophists did actually degenerate, on the line of this interpretation, and that both Plato and Aristotle (the one in the Thecsietus and the other in the Metaphysics) did interpret the Protagorean formula individualistically, which seems to show that relativity to the individual was at any rate implicit in the formula. It is never well to forget that Plato and Aristotle were themselves Greeks and lived near to the Socratic moment, and so were able to appreciate movements of their time and to gauge tendencies in a way that is scarcely open to modern non-Hellenic thinkers. THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE 17 relative, and things are as they appear to each to be : there is no universally valid knowledge. That con- clusion was drawn by Plato and by Aristotle alike. ^ Whence it follows logically, also, that Ethics has no unimpeachable groundwork, but varies with the in- dividual and the age, according to circumstances, and expediency or self-interest becomes the supreme virtue : that is right or wrong to each man as it seems to each' to be. That Protagoras himself drew these conclusions is very far from obvious ; but they were implicit in the ordinary rendering of his formula. Here the historic Socrates, in his principles and method, stood forth as the defender of Reason. In discussion, he demanded as the criterion of truth clear concepts, and enforced the dictum that, given clear concepts, consistent and coherent thinking becomes possible, and high-principled and coherent action too; and this just means uncon- ditional knowledge and absolute or objective moral law. He did not, any more than Protagoras, desert the subjective standpoint — the standpoint of the conscious self or ego : he had simply a more just idea of what the self or ego meant. He fully admitted that error is possible, and that the senses may deceive us and convention mislead ; but, at the same time, he insisted that Reason has in itself the power of detecting and correcting error, and so of reaching certainty. Sub- jective conviction, he practically maintained, rests on objective grounds — what is true for me is true for you and for other intelligent beings (intelligence itself secures that, for intelligence is not a mere individual or private possession, but is shared by others and ' See Plato, Theatetus ; and Aristotle, Metaphysics, bk. x. 6. 2 i8 THE STOIC CREED designates our common nature, thereby giving "truth for all ") ; and absolute nescience or universal scepticism is suicidal — even in proclaiming that truth is unattain- able, the sceptic assumes the truth of reason, its trust- worthiness as destructive of itself, — which is absurd.^ Thus Socrates virtually enunciated the principle that lies at the root of epistemology, and may claim to have placed metaphysics on a stable foundation. That, then, was what gave Socrates his position and marked him oflF from the Sophists (strictly so called), separating him from them in spirit and in aim alike, as also in the conclusions reached, and what gives him his distinctive importance in the history of human thought. His influence on the Stoic teaching, more especially on its ethical side, will be apparent as we proceed. Meanwhile, as the personal character of Socrates counts for much, owing not only to the nobility of his death but also to the energy and nobility of his life, this chapter may fitly end with a passage from Xenophon's Memorabilia, characterizing the Socrates whom he knew so well. For if it be so that the Memorabilia was the book that first drew Zeno to the study of philosophy, the picture of Socrates that we there find may very well be credited with having aroused, to some extent at least, his regard for the master, and may serve to suggest to us how the Stoics ' For modern presentations of the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, see Hume (A Treatise of Human Nature), Hamilton (Metaphysics and Discussions), J. S. Mill (An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy), Herbert Spencer (First Principles). THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE 19 should have come to venerate Socrates and to accept him as one of their Ideal sages. If Plato, at one in his estimate of Socrates with Xenophon, could conclude the Pheedo with the sentence, "Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend ; concerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and justest and best," Xenophon could conclude his Memorabilia thus : "To me personally he was what I have already endeavoured to describe : so pious and devoutly religious that he would take no step apart from the will of heaven ; so just and upright that he never did even a trifling injury to any living soul ; so self-con- trolled, so temperate, that he never at any time chose the sweeter in place of the better ; so sensible, and wise, and prudent, that in distinguishing the better from the worse he never erred ; nor had he need of any helper, but for the knowledge of these matters, his judgment was at once infallible and self-sufficing. Capable of reasonably setting forth and defining moral questions, he was also able to test others, and where they erred, to cross-examine and convict them, and so to impel and guide them in the path of virtue and noble manhood (tTr' aperiiv Koi Ka\oKdya6iav). With these characteristics, he seemed to be the very impersonation of human perfection and happiness. Such is our estimate. If the verdict fail to satisfy, I would ask those who disagree with it to place the character of any other side by side with this delineation, and then pass sentence " (Mem. iv. 8, trs. by H. G. Dakyns). Perfection embodied in an individual — such did Socrates appear to his immediate disciples to be ; and that explains how he should have become the object of special regard and devotion even to the Stoics, whose test of greatness was life and character, not mere power of abstract speculation. CHAPTER II THE STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS "Those budge doctors of the Stoic fur."— Milton. I Assuming, then, that the Stoic philosophy shared in the Socratic impulse, and, consequently, has thus far its general character determined, it next becomes necessary to consider the determining factors of its special form.^ This will best be done if we take a brief preliminary survey of the circumstances under which it arose and the situation it was designed to meet, as well as of the difficulties that beset us in our interpretation of it. Although destined to be a philosophy wielding a deep and widespread influence in Athens and iby and by in Rome, and thence outward throughout the civilized world, it had neither Athenian nor Roman for, its founder, but Zeno, a native of Citium, in Cyprus, in whose veins is said to have run Phoenician blood. ^ Nevertheless, its teaching was originally formulated at ^ More will be said, later on, regarding the Cynic influence and the contrast of the Epicurean Physics and Ethics. * The strength of the case for the Semitic origin of Stoicism may be seen by a reference to Sir Alexander Grant's The Ethics of Aristotle, vol. i., Essay vi., and to Bishop Lightfoot's Epistle to the Philippians, Diss, ii., "St. Paul and Seneca." 20 STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS 21 Athens, was addressed to Graeks, was cast in Hellenic moulds and nurtured under Hellenic patronage. When first it saw the light, at the end of the fourth century B.C., it came to a declining people — a people past the heyday of their political freedom, jvith' their intellectual interest in truth narrowed, and the disintegrating touch of social corruption and moral turpitude visibly laid upon them. The greatness of the days of Pericles was gone, and the distance between the age of Plato and the age of Zeno was enormous. It may be illustrated by the character of the comic plays that found favour. "The comedy of Aristophanes has for its scene the main resorts of the public political life of its time. It is a caricature of public men and public measures. Athens, with its foreign relations and its domestic politics, is the topic which reappears in a hundred shapes, and drags into its compass even the inmates of the women's chamber and the character and ideas of the public thinkers. In the new comedy of Menander and Philemon, public life is unknown. It is the family and the social aspects of life which are the perpetual theme. Instead of generals and statesmen, demagogues and revolutionaries, the new comedy presents a re- curring story of young men's love affairs, and pld men's economies, o'f swaggering captains and wily valets-de- chambre, hangers-on at rich men's tables, and young women working mischief by their charms. The whole comedy turns on one aspect of domestic life — it is full of embroiling engagements between lovers, and brings the cook and the dinner- table prominently on the stage." ^ To "stem the tide of deterioration, and, if possible, to produce in men a healthy robust moral nature, whiclf would be able to resist the temptations to degeneracy that on every hand presented themselves, 1 W. Wallace, Epicureanism, p. 10. 22 THE STOIC CREED and which would yield inward and abiding peace in the midst of the exceptional difficulties and trials that were inseparable from the exigencies of the times, — was one great object that Stoicism served, and for the accom- plishment of which it was consciously called into existence. This so far explains some of its distinctive positions— particularly, its doctrines of Providence and the true nature and source of human happiness. It explains also, in part, how Ethics became to it the supreme and all - important science ; speculation, physical and metaphysical, being subordinated thereto. Ariston of Chios even went the length of saying that "dialectical arguments are like cobwebs, which, although they seem to weave something artistic, are useless " (Diog. Laert. vi. 2)'. That might stand as a motto for Bacon and for Locke. But the personal character, natural temperament, and intellectual training of its great founders had also their marked influence. We can clearly discern, throughout the whole term of the existence of Stoicism as a separate philosophical school, traces of the austerity and simplicity of life that characterized the Semitic Zeno ; of the deep religious spirit, anchored on physical speculation, that dis- tinguished Cleanthes ; of the hard logical reasoning and subtle dialectic that was conspicuous in the self- confident and redoubtable Chrysippus. Moreover, the period of years, whether twenty or ten (the number is disputed), spent by Zeno, in preparation for his work of teaching, in the various Greek schools — Cynic, Megaric, Academic, Peripatetic — was not without its STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS 23 effect in shaping- the form that Stoicism took. Even though ultimately opposed to one and all of these schools, Zeno learned and assimilated something from each, and reproduced it in his teaching. Although repelled by the slovenly and sometimes offensive habits and not less by the intellectual narrowness of the Cynics, he, nevertheless, caught their spirit of a high ethical ideal and a contempt for mere pleasure, and based his own ethical system on the conception of the Ideal wise man. Hence, Diogenes the Cynic could be accepted by the Stoics as a pattern sage (along with Socrates and Hercules and a few others) ; but it was Diogenes -without the tub.^ From the Megarics, and more especially from Stilpo, whose pupil he was, he would at least acquire an interest in Logic, and would be sharpened by them in the practice of Eristic, for which they were famous. He would learn from Stilpo, further, the doctrine of P'assionlessness or uTradeta, which that great Megaric shared with the Cynic school. By the Academics he would be introduced, among other things, to certain Platonic ethical notipns, and to the teaching of Heracleitus — a teaching which, as we know, he highly prized, accepting it as the groundwork of his own physical theorizing. He would learn from the Aristotelians formal logic and metaphysics, no less than natural science. Indeed, so fully did the various Greek schools affect Zeno, that even in his own day he was roundly accused of being a plagiarist or a mere eclectic, devoid of originality.^ But this may simply have meant that he had an open and receptive mind, ' The Cynic influence is further considered in Chapter VII. ^ See Diogenes Laertius, vii. 20. 24 THE STOIC CREED and that he was less under the sway of the spirit ol sect than many of his contemporaries. It is no easy matter, in any age, for a partisan to see that a thinker's first duty is to be sympathetic towards other thinkers, and ready to believe that there is truth even in systems from which he himself dissents. If Zeno was com- paratively tolerant, that surely was a virtue, not a vice. When he listened to and learned from the different teachers of the diverse tenets, he only showed that he had in him the genuine spirit of the earnest seeker after truth ; and when he broke off from this teacher and from that at particular points, and essayed to occupy an independent position, he simply acted on the proper philosophic maxim, " Dear to me is Plato, but dearer still is Truth {amicus Plato, magis arnica Veritas)." Nevertheless, the founders of Stoicism were — perhaps by nature, at all events from the pressure of circum- stances — eager controversialists ; and controversialists were all their successors. It was the fate of the school to be constantly engaged in philosophical warfare. One ground of polemic lay with Epicurus and the Epicureans on the physical explanation of the nature and constitution of the universe. Zeno possibly, and Cleanthes certainly, entered the lists here ; but Chry- sippus was the combatant that stood forth pre-eminent. To those protagonists it seemed impossible that the world should have arisen, as the Epicureans maintained it did, by a fortuitous concourse of atoms. That doc- trine appeared to give an erroneous idea of Providence, and left the world an inexplicable riddle. Therefore, it had to be strenuously resisted. ' ' Either an ordered STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS 25 universe," urged Marcus Aurelius {Meditations, iv. 27), "or else a welter of confusion. Assuredly then a world-order. Or think you that order subsisting within yourself is compatible with disorder in the All ? " "Recall to mind the alternative (iv. 3) — either a fore- seeing providence, or blind atoms — and all the abound- ing proofs that the world is as it were a city." In like manner, Balbus, in Cicero's De Natur& Deorum (ii. 37), maintains that it is as easy to believe that, by throwing a large quantity of the letters of the alphabet at random on the ground, there would emerge, legible and clear, the Annals of Ennius, as to believe that the world, so obviously showing marks of wisdom and design, could have been produced by the fortuitous concourse of atoms.^ To the Epicurean Ethics a no less strenuous 6ppo- sition had to be made. If "pleasure" were man's highest good, then, it seemed, egoism and selfishness ruled, virtue was stripped of its absolute value, and morality had no sure foundation. " In the constitution of the reasoning being I perceive no virtue in mutiny against justice ; in mutiny against pleasure I see self- control" (Aurel. viii. 39). Hence the Stoical treat- ment of the emotions and desires. Complete, repression of these was the counsel, if peace were to be secured : " Banish joys, banish fear, put hope also to flight, and let not grief be present " (Boethius, De Consol. Phil. Lib. i. metrum 7). No one carried on this antagonism to Hedonistic Ethics more persistently than Epictetus.^ ' The Epicurean Cosmogony will be considered in Chapter VI. " See, for example, Dissertations, i. 23 and ii. 5. The arguments against Epicurean Hedonism will be adduced in Chapters VIII. andX. 26 THE STOIC CREED In the same way, a merciless war had to be waged, over the Theory of Knowledge, with Pyrrho and other sceptics. If there were no such thing as Truth, or if Truth were not attainable by man, if man's wisest motto were nihil scire ("to know nothing"), then human reason was rendered impotent and human action paralyzed. In this connexion, a prominent place must be assigned to Chrysippus. These oppositions were inveterate and permanent ; and they explain much of what might not at first sight be obvious in the Stoic philosophy. But " the Stoic philosophy " is a wide word ; and we must not forget that it covers teaching that grew and developed from the fourth century B.C. to, at any rate, the second century a.d., and that, while the home ot its first activity was Greece, the city of its later develop- ment was Rome. We must remember, moreover, that the materials for our knowledge of the first period of it are very meagre — only fragments of the voluminous writings of Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus (for they all wrote voluminously i) have come down to us, and the Stoicism with which we are most familiar is that of the second or Roman period — associated specially with the names of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius ; i.e., the Stoicism which has been modified by the lapse of time, by change of country (from Greece to Italy, from Athens to Rome), and by assimilation of elements from other and competing philosophies. No ' See, for instance, the list of writings given by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives, Doctrines, and Sayings of Eminent Philo- sophers. STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS 27 doubt, through the labours of recent scholars — particu- larly Zeller, Stein, Hirzel, von Arnim — we are able, to a not inconsiderable extent, to reproduce the leading teaching of the earliest Stoics, and to apportion to each his distinctive doctrines, and thereby to trace advance in the first or Greek period. Yet not without a certain danger. It is proverbially difficult to prove a negative ; and if we were left solely to deep-sea dredging for our evidence, we sholild inevitably infer that no human body was ever buried in the sea, for human bones have not been dredged from the depths of the ocean. It needs great care and discrimination before we can, with any plausibility even, demonstrate from mere fragments of the writings of an author that this or that doctrine was not held by him. But with care and discrimina- tion much may be done ; and, at any rate, we can now, more specifically, appraise the works of Cleanthes and appreciate his originality. So long as "the Hymn to Zeus " was the solitary specimen of his productions known to students, or taken notice of by them, his place could only be that of a religiously-minded man, bent on giving a theological interpretation of the universe, and breathing a pious submission to the world-order which it was refreshing to feel and to come in contact with. But now that his fragments and the references to him and criticisms of him in Greek and in Latin writers have been fully brought together,^ he is seen to stand forth a most important figure in Stoicism, stamping -his personality on the physical speculations of the school (just as Chrysippus stamped his personality on its logic) ; and by his Materialism carried through- ' See, e.g., Pearson's Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes. 28 THE STOIC CREED out all the spheres of philosophical inquiry he gives a remarkable unity to the system. But, for all this, our knowledge of early Stoicism is fragmentary, and, for the most part, at second hand,i and the Stoicism in which we are most at home is that of the Roman period —matured developed Stoicism, old yet fresh and vigorous, and destined to leave a permanent mark on the civilized world. The respective contributions of the first three great Stoics have been succinctly expressed by Mr. Pearson (The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes, p. 48) thus : "To Zeno belong the establishment of the logical criterion, the adaptation of Heraclitean physics, and the introduction of all the leading ethical tenets. Cleanthes revolutionised the study of physics by the theory of tension and the development of pantheism, and by applying his materialistic views to logic and ethics brought into strong light the mutual inter- dependence of the three branches. The task of Chry- sippus was to preserve rather than to originate, to reconcile inconsistencies, to remove superfluous out- growths, and to maintain an unbroken line of defence against his adversaries." A further difficulty confronts us in the fact that the Stoic writings possessed by us are not methodical ex- positions of the system, but either notes of lectures delivered on promiscuous subjects, or treatises on separate portions of the Stoic doctrine, or jottings of . random thoughts (resembling Pascal's Pensees or Cole- • Our chief authority is Diogenes Laertius, who lived probably in the second century after Christ. STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS 29 ridge's Aids to Reflection) made for private use and as helps to personal conduct — one might almost say, to personal piety and devotion. To the first class belong the Dissertations or Discourses of Epictetus (originally eight books, now only four), which were simply Arrian's memoranda of his master's prelections — unpruned, unassorted, and unsifted,^ a mixture of the gold and the dross, yet charged with human interest and enlivened by anecdote and humour ; and even Arrian's selections of the master's dicta, known as the Encheiridion or Handbook, while it removes the dross, does not present a homogeneous system, or give more than glimpses which the reader must develop for himself. It is, moreover, rather lopsided, presenting in excess the more unbending side of Stoicism and subordinating too much the "amiable" virtues. Seneca's prose writings exemplify the second class. They are either books on isolated Stoical themes (" On Anger," "On Benefits," "On the Blessed Life," etc.), or casual expositions contained in Letters (one hundred and twenty-four in number, addressed to Lucilius) — letters, no doubt, that are practically lectures of the moral philosopher, hortatory, edifying, full of sage counsel clothed in graceful language, with a tendency to prolixity, and a proneness on the part of the moralist to become the moralizer (to be classed, as to style and spirit, along with the philosophical group of Addison's papers in The Spectator, or with Dugald Stewart's moral philosophy lectures), but not systematic treatises, . ^ According to modern notions, Arrian would not be regarded as a good editor. •, 1 30 THE STOIC CREED unfolding in a continuous coherent fashion the various branches of Stoical investigation. Indeed, Seneca was distinctly averse to system-building. He had neither the inclination nor the ability for methodical speculation ; and, even in Ethics, he is more of the preacher than of the philosopher. He ever and anon seems to long for the wisdom of the ancients, which was concerned merely with precepts about what to do and what to avoid, when men, being less learned, were far better morally; and it is a real pain to him that "plain and open virtue should now be turned into an obscure and ingenious science, and that men should be taught to dispute and not to live " {Epistles, 95). Moreover, the conditions under which he wrote were unfavourable to system. He had to address himself to specific points as opportunity required, and he meant his counsel for edification — he was always ready to "improve the occasion." The nearest, perhaps, that we come to a systematic Stoic treatise is in Cicero's De Officiis ("On Duties"); two books of which are avowedly reproductions of Panaetius's teaching — clearly tinged,, however, with the shrewd common sense of the Roman statesman and politician himself. The third class is represented by Marcus Aurelius's Meditations (to. «ts ia.-m6v), — a supremely precious volume, as giving us the artless picture of a great Emperor drawn by himself, yet a picture, in all probability, never intended for public gaze, — precious as revealing to us the upright nature of an amiable, pure, magnanimous soul, full of high thoughts and generous sentiments, and inspiring us by its whole-hearted resignation to destiny, but not in any way a rounded whole or an STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS 31 articulated dissertation. In a word, we have here simply the guileless earnest presentation of a limited , number of great ethical notions in the shape of self- musings, and the stimulating example of a lovable man in the highest social rank, the idolized "philosopher- pontiff," moulding his life consistently on his own principle — "Whatever any one else does or says, my duty is to be good ; just as gold or emerald or purple for ever says. Whatever any one else does or says, my duty is to be an emerald and keep my proper hue " {Med. vii. 15). This lack of system all along the line is unfortunate and tantalizing', — all the more so as it was in great measure intentional. One can quite well understand the position of Epictetus, who was a teacher by pro- fession and a man with a mission, and who naturally conceived it to be his duty to lecture rather than to write, and, in lecturing, to stir his hearers by ardent words uttered straight from the heart in conversational style, rather than to perplex and possibly to repel them by sterile logomachies and mere intellectual conceits. Arrian's characterization of him insists on his intensity and his infectious enthusiasm. ^ But the position of others, not thus situated, is more difficult to understand. Marcus Aurelius, however, near the opening of his Meditations (i. 7), lets us into the secret. When acknowledging his debt to the Stoic Rusticus, who was the first to arouse in him the desire to live rightly, he expresses his gratitude that he was kept back by him from " sophistic ambitions and essays on philosophy, discourses provocative to virtue, or fancy portraitures ' See Arrian's dedicatory letter to Lucius Gellius. 32 THE STOIC CREED of the sage or the philanthropist," while he ''learned to eschew rhetoric and poetry and fine language." This is significant. As it was the aim of the Stoics to form men, and not merely to train reasoners or to produce orators, that determined their mode of procedure. To them, character was the great thing ; and so it seemed better to stimulate the heart to morality and to attend to conduct than to pose as learned pedants, or even to delight the intellect with legitimate logic and speculation. Hence, the later Stoics have done themselves an injustice. When what we have to judge them by is simply a collection of partially disjointed reflections, frequently reiterated, and of practical moral counsels — wise, searching, and direct, yet not systematized, — it cannot but be that they should often appear to us inconsistent, and that we should sometimes find it extremely difficult to see how different utterances of the same man are to be reconciled. Lastly, we have the difficulty of teaching as tested by practice. We shall do the Stoics a grievous wrong if we be not on our guard against allowing our knowledge of the aberrations of individual Stoics, or traditional stories regarding them, or, perhaps, unworthy and false charges of opponents against them, to prejudice us in our estimate of the intrinsic value of the system. If, on the one hand, there were Stoics who drew antinomian conclusions from Stoical premises, especially from the "apathy" of the wise man and the doctrine of things "indifferent," and lived accordingly (just as there were STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS 33 early Christians who defended antinomianism by St. Paul's doctrine of God's free grace), there, were, on the other hand. Stoics (and many of them) who lived noble lives ; and, in particular, we have Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, who are brilliant examples to all ages of practice conforming to precept. Earlier, we have Zeno, the founder, of whom it is recorded by Diogenes Laertius (vii. 9), that the assembly decreed him a golden crown and a tomb in the Ceramicus at the public expense, on the ground that "he had spent many years in the city in the pursuit of philosophy, and was in all respects a good man, and had exhorted the young men who sought his intercourse to the practice of virtue and temperance, setting up his own life to all as a model in the things that are best, being in con- formity with the doctrines on which he discoursed." So that noble lives there were among the Stoics, of which any creed might be proud ; and, for the rest, we may ask, What philosophy, or what religion, can stand the rigorous test of absolutely consistent 'lives on the part of all its adherents ? It is principlesSS\2X we must gauge — principles in their legitimate, and not merely in their actual, effect in practice ;_ and on an unprejudiced examination of these principles and their legitimate outcome, must our estimate be formed. II There Is no need here to offer biographies of " those budge doctors of the Stoic fur." That has been done with suflScient fulness by Zeller and others ; and, in particular, the three great Roman Stoics — Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius — have been limned in 3 34 THE STOIC CREED his wonted picturesque manner by Dean Farrar in his Seekers after God. But a table, embodying the leading names, with dates, may here be appended. It will show at a glance the Presidents of the Greek School, as well as the masters of the Latin period. TABLE I. Greek Period Presidents of the School (Zeno (who founded the school about 308 B.C.). Cleanthes (born 331 B.C. ; died 232 B.C.). Chrysippus (282-209 B.C.). Zeno of Tarsus (about 206 e.g.). Diogenes of Seleucia (about 150 b.c). Antipater of Tarsus (about 144 b.c). 'Pansetius of Rhodes (about 180-111 b.c. — a friend of Scipio Africanus the younger, and greatly instrumental in introducing Transitional-! Stoicism into Rome). Posidonius of Apamea in Syria (born about 13s B.C. — teacher of Cicero, when he , visited Rhodes). II. Roman Period L. AnnsEus Seneca (3-65 a.d.). Epictetus (left Rome in 94 a.d. — on the ex^pulsion of the philosophers by Domitian — for Nicopolis in Epirus, where he taught and died). M. Aurelius Antoninus (born 121 a.d. ; Emperor, 161-180 a.d.). ' Chrysippus is usually designated " the second founder of the School," according to the saying, " Had there been no Chrysippus, there would have been no Stoa.'' But the independent work of Cleanthes seems to entitle him also to the name of founder. STOIC MASTERS AND THEIR WRITINGS 35 According to the usual division, the first three names constitute the Older Stoa ; the other names of the Greek period designate the Middle Stoa ; and the Later Stoa is covered by the names of the Roman period How far this grouping seems to mark advance in teaching, or to exhibit the development of doctrine in the school, will be shown at the close of next chapter. Section B.— STOIC SCIENCE AND SPECULATION CHAPTER III CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY " To every impression apply, if possible, the tests of objective character, of subjective effect, and of logical relation {, ■jradoKoyeiv, SioKeKTiKeijeirdat), " — AuRELius, " He who neglects education walks lame to the end of his life, and returns imperfect and good for nothing to the world below." Plato. " Philosophiae servias oportet, ut tibi contingat vera libertas." Seneca. I When Philosophy, in the early part of the sixth century of the Christian era, disclosed herself in vision to Boethius, as he lay in the prison of Ticinum waiting his tragic end, she appeared as a Woman of a very reverent countenance, with glowing eyes, penetrating with a power beyond that of human eyes, of vivid complexion and inexhaustible strength, although so full of years that she could not be deemed to belong to the present age. Her stature was difficult to define. For, at one time, she would confine herself within the common human measure ; at another time, she seemed to raise her head so high as to penetrate the heavens, 36 CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 37 and be lost to the gaze of the beholder. Her garments, woven by her own hands, were wrought of the slenderest threads, with exquisite art and of imperishable material. Yet withal the mist of antiquity and even of neglect had overspread them. On the lower edge was inscribed the letter w ; and, on the upper, the letter 6. And between these two letters there was a series of others, by which you could ascend, as by the steps of a ladder, from the lower to the higher. The vesture itself, how- ever, had been torn by violent hands, and fragments of it borne away. In her right hand she carried books ; and, in her left hand, a sceptre.^ Now, all this was allegorical, and was intended to indicate, as in a picture, the nature and pretensions of Philosophy, as conceived by one who may not unfairly be designated the last of the Stoics, if also " the last of the Romans." The majestic Lady, with reverent countenance and glowing eyes and exhaustless vigour and lively com- plexion, typifies Philosophy, and emphasizes its perennial interest and worth. The exquisite apparel, woven of indestructible material, points to the value, durability, and excellence of philosophic thought. The changing figure of Philosophy — now human, now divine — in- dicates the twofold subject-matter, — things of earth and things of heaven. The lower letter -ir represents Philosophy in its practical and more mundane aspect ; while 6 is the region of theory ^— of theology and speculation. And the way from the one to the other is unbroken ; the ascent is made by a continuous grada- tion. Alas ! that men should have rent the garment, ' See De Consolaiione Philosophice, Lib. i. Prosa i and 3. 38 THE STOIC CREED and carried off the fragments ; prizing the parts more highly than the whole. Philosophical sects, like all others, have much to answer for. Yet, take Philosophy in its entirety, and what, according to Boethius, have we ? We have an instructress and a consoler : light and comfort come from thence— the deepest intellectual insight and sovereign regulative power. We have both the "books" and the "sceptre": on the one side, illumination of the mind ; on the other side, guidance of the will. Philosophy, when rightly interpreted, is of studies supreme ; for unity is given to human nature and harmony to life, when principles and practice meet. What then, let us ask more particularly, is Philo- sophy ? From -K to 6 The Stoics defined it in a single phrase as ' ' striving after wisdom," and wisdom they defined as " knowledge of things divine and human," so that these things de- termine the scope of philosophy.^ To modern thinkers, this definition may seem inadequate and even naive. But there is more in it, especially when taken in con- nexion with the Stoics' application of it, than at first sight appears. There is this, at least, in it : — first, that no speculation is philosophy that does not run up into consideration of the divine or all-comprehending principle of existence ; and, secondly, that no philo- sophic speculation on things divine can rightly claim to be legitimate that does not start from, and guide itself ' See, e.g., Epictetus, Diss. i. 14 ; Seneca, Ep. 88. CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 39 by, a knowledge of things human. The ascent from ir to 6 is continuous, unbroken. Two errors, therefore, are here excluded — errors into which students of the mind have frequently fallen, and which are still pitfalls : — first, the error of supposing that psychology or study of psychical states alone is philosophy ; secondly, the reverse error of ignoring psychology and dealing with metaphysics as though it had for us a wholly inde- pendent footing — were entirely unrelated to, and inde- pendent of, the facts and principles of human nature. Philosophy, in order to be correctly understood, must neither be separated from an experiential basis nor be identified with the bare scientific investigation of experience. In another sense, also, study of the divine, as well as of the human, is necessary — namely, when we come to deal with the practical applications of philosophy. The two classes of interest, theoretical and practical, are so- intimately connected as to be interdependent ; and any neglect of the one necessarily tells adversely on the other. The Stoics were very insistent on this point ; and earnest ethical teachers ever since have been equally emphatic. Take a single example from Marcus Aurelius. In the third book of his Meditations (iii. 13) occur these sentences : "As surgeons keep their instruments and knives at hand for sudden calls upon their skill, keep you your principles ever ready to test things divine and human, in every act however trifling remembering the mutual bond between the two. No human act can be right without co-reference to the divine, and conversely." Philosophy, then, has for its subject-matter things 40 THE STOIC CREED human and divine : it must rise from tt to 6, and determine the principle of union between the two. Thai is the first step in the definition. Leading Characteristics But now, if there is a principle of union to be deter- mined, that means : (i) That philosophy is the unifying science : it is the effort of the mind to reach the rational interpretation of the universe, by viewing the parts in the light of the whole and grasping the underlying principle. Consequently, it must deal with the deepest problems of human life — those connected with God or the Absolute ; with Self, the Ego, or the Soul ; and with the World or Nature. (2) Hence, it rises beyond the mere study of isolated occurrences or existences in their fragmentary aspects and the formulating of their laws, — in other words, beyond the mere scientific study of them, — and seeks to determine their reason or their ■why: as Aristotle puts it {Met. v. i), "Philosophy is the knowledge of things by their causes." (3) Never- theless, it presupposes that knowledge of existences in their laws and modes of existence has first been obtained. The secondary unities of knowledge must be established before the great all - comprehending unity can be reached. Whence it follows that there is no real opposition between philosophy and science, — not even between philosophy and the physical sciences. For, though the procedure of physical science is analytic, it is not that alone. All analysis leads up to synthesis ; and every one of the physical sciences aims at unifying its material. Indeed, the material itself, when brought CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 41 under science {scientia) — that is, when it is really known, — is a subject for philosophy ; and the deeper conceptions of science (such as "force," "space") are seen to have full meaning only in a philosophical setting. But if so, then philosophy differs from physical science mainly in the circumstance that it lays bare the in- tellectual presuppositions of such science, and is, therefore, more general. But if there is no opposition between philosophy and physical science, much less is there opposition between philosophy and mental science. On the contrary, the mental sciences are philosophy's handmaids ; and philosophy, from one point of view, may quite correctly be conceived as a genus, having the mental disciplines under it as species, for a knowledge of the that and the how is inseparable from a knowledge of the wherefore and the why. The Constituent Sciences Let us then, next, view the various mental disciplines and sciences as branches of philosophy — as the parts of the three - barbed arrow with which Hercules wounded Here and vanquished Hades — that is, being interpreted, dispelled ignorance and penetrated into things secret. In an inquiry of this kind, modern philosophers naturally look first to psychology, and ask. What, in any proffered scheme of the sciences, is the place assigned to psychology, and why ? But this was not how the Stoics proceeded — at least, not explicitly. With them there is no definite and specific treatment of psychology. Their classification of the sciences (one 42 THE STOIC CREED that, in all likelihood, originated with them) was simply threefold— namely, into Logic, Physics, and Ethics. In explication of this grouping, they "compared philo- sophy to an animal, likening logic to the bones and I sinews, physics to the fleshy parts, and ethics to the soul ; or, again, to an egg, logic being the shell, and ethics the white, and physics the yolk ; or to an all- productive field, logic being the surrounding fence, ethics the fruit, and physics the soil or the trees ; or to a city well fortified and governed by reason " (Diogenes Laertius, vii. 33). From this threefold grouping, psy- chology is apparently excluded. And even when, as with Cleanthes, we duplicate each science and extend the division to six members — namely, Logic and Rhetoric, Physics and Theology, Ethics and Politics, we seem to be no nearer effecting an independent place for psy- chology than we were before. Yet there can be no question that the Stoics were supremely psychological. Their whole philosophy, indeed, may be said to repose on psychology, for the study of human nature, on its individual and on its social side, is for them paramount and fundamental, and even physical speculation and metaphysical inquiries have their basis in man's mental constitution, and repose on his conscious experience. Hence the Stoics (more especially, those of the earlier times) were conspicuous among the philosophers of antiquity in insisting on a philosophical vocabulary (which was very much the same thing as a psychological vocabulary) — on the discrimination of synonyms and the precise and scientific use of mental terms ; thereby anticipating the demands of the present day. Indeed, so strict were they in their requirements here, that Cicero, CONCEPTION OF PHILOSOPHY 43 unable duly to appreciate the need for exact terminology (which is only another way of expressing the need for exact thinking), criticizes them for introducing and coining new terms, or for giving new meanings to old terms, and designates Zeno ignohilis verborum opifex ("a vile coiner of words "). But, clearly, the Stoics were right. There can be no true mental science without an abundance of properly defined and accurately applied terms ; and though we may allow that a newly-coined word ought not to be barbarously formed (an admission that contains a rebuke to many modern men of science, as much as to any of the ancient Stoics), we must insist that the attempt to introduce technical exactness into 4>hilosophical speech bespoke a psychological interest on the part of the Stoics that is remarkable, and that augured well for their future. Then, further, psychological insight and psychological analysis run through all the Stoical sciences. Their Logic, when it comes to Theory of Knowledge or Epistemology, is markedly psychological. Pyschologi- cal, again, is their Physics, in so far as the universe is conceived as a macrocosm, with man as its counterpart microcosm, and in so far as the substance of the universe is regarded as identical with that of man's soul. Psychological, too, and supremely so, is their Ethics. Here, they essayed a psychological analysis and classification of the Emotions ; from the standpoint of psychology, they handled moral science, emphasiz- ng the mind's assent {uvyKo.Ta.Oi(Ti