Note 22 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.
Oswald J. (Oswald Joseph) Reichel translation
The Academicians and Peripatetics were most vigorously attacked by the Stoics for including among goods external things which are dependent on chance. For how can that be a good under any circumstances, which bears no relation to man’s moral nature, and is even frequently obtained at the cost of morality?22 If virtue renders a man happy, it must render him perfectly happy in himself, since no one can be happy who is not happy altogether. Were anything which is not in man’s power allowed to influence his happiness, it would detract from the absolute worth of virtue, and man would never be able to attain to that imperturbable serenity of mind without which no happiness is conceivable.23