Note 149 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

The Stoics delight in insisting upon the perfection of the wise man, and contrasting with it the absolute faultiness of the foolish man, in a series of paradoxical assertions.149 The wise man only is free, because he only uses his will to control himself;150 he only is beautiful, because only virtue is beautiful and attractive;151 he only is rich and happy (εὐτυχὴς), because goods of the soul are the most valuable, true riches consisting in being independent of wants.152 Nay, more, he is absolutely rich, since he who has a right view of everything has everything in his intellectual treasury,153 and he who makes the right use of everything bears to everything the relation of owner.154 The wise only know how to obey, and they also only know how to govern; they only are therefore kings, generals, pilots;155 they only are orators, poets, and prophets;156 and since their view of the Gods and their worship of the Gods is the true one, only amongst them can true piety be found—they are the only priests and friends of heaven; all foolish men, on the contrary, are impious, profane, and enemies of the Gods.157 Only the wise man is capable of feeling gratitude, love, and friendship,158 he only is capable of receiving a benefit, nothing being of use or advantage to the foolish man.159 To sum up, the wise man is absolutely perfect, absolutely free from passion and want, absolutely happy;160 as the Stoics conclusively assert, he in no way falls short of the happiness of Zeus,161 since time, the only point in which he differs from Zeus, does not augment happiness at all.162 On the other hand, the foolish man is altogether foolish, unhappy, and perverse; or, in the expressive language of the Stoics, every foolish man is a madman, he being a madman who has no knowledge of himself, nor of what most closely affects him.163