Note 92 — Chapter XIII · DAILY DUTIES.

See above, § 319. It does not seem possible to accept Pearson’s view (on Z. fr. 128) that Zeno intended πόνος to be the προηγμένον, and ἡδονή the ἀποπροηγμένον; but both he and his successors undoubtedly recognised the value of πόνος (toil) as a discipline. The following remarks communicated to the writer by Mr Pearson throw much light on a really difficult question. ‘Even the Cynics are forced to admit that not all “pleasure” is to be condemned (the evidence is in Zeller’s Socratics, p. 308), but the only form of it which deserves consideration is that which is the result and after-effect of πόνος. In other words, it may be argued that true pleasure is the cessation of pain (Plat. Phileb. 44 B). The glorification of Heracles the toilsome hero corresponds; but pleasure as understood by the vulgar is unhesitatingly to be rejected. Zeno was the inheritor of all this, and, if he ever said that ἡδονή was προηγμένον, his remark can only have applied to the ἀπονία-ἡδονή; and such certainly was the view of Chrysippus (Plut. Sto. rep. 30, 2).’ In the passage here referred to from Plutarch ἀπονία takes the place of ἡδονή as a προηγμένον; so also in Stob. ii 7, 7 e and Cic. Fin. iii 15, 51. See further §§ 347, 371.