Note 22 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

Sext. Math. xi. 61. See above, p. 232, 3. Diog. 103: The good can only do good, and never do harm; οὐ μᾶλλον δ’ ὠφελεῖ ἢ βλάπτει ὁ πλοῦτος καὶ ἡ ὑγίεια· οὐκ ἄρ’ ἀγαθὸν οὔτε πλοῦτος οὔθ’ ὑγίεια. Again: ᾧ ἔστιν εὖ καὶ κακῶς χρῆσθαι, τοῦτ’ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀγαθόν· πλούτῳ δὲ καὶ ὑγιείᾳ ἔστιν εὖ καὶ κακῶς χρῆσθαι, κ.τ.λ. In Sen. Ep. 87, 11, instead of the proposition, that nothing is a good except virtue, the following arguments are given as traditional among the Stoics (interrogationes nostrorum), apparently taken from Posidonius (see p. 31, 35, 38): (1) Quod bonum est, bonos facit: fortuita bonum non faciunt: ergo non sunt bona. (Similarly in M. Aurel. ii. 11, iv. 8: Whatever does no moral harm, does no harm to human life.) (2) Quod contemptissimo cuique contingere ac turpissimo potest, bonum non est; opes autem et lenoni et lanistæ contingunt: ergo, &c. (So, too, Marc. Aurelius, v. 10.) (3) Bonum ex malo non fit: divitiæ fiunt, fiunt autem ex avaritia: ergo, &c. (Conf. Alex. Aphr. Top. 107: τὸ διὰ κακοῦ γιγνόμενον οὐκ ἔστιν ἀγαθόν· πλοῦτος δὲ καὶ διὰ πορνοβοσκίας κακοῦ ὄντος γίνεται, κ.τ.λ.) (4) Quod dum consequi volumus in multa mala incidimus, id bonum non est: dum divitias autem consequi volumus, in multa mala incidimus, &c. (5) Quæ neque magnitudinem animo dant nec fiduciam nec securitatem, contra autem insolentiam, tumorem, arrogantiam creant, mala sunt: a fortuitis autem (previously, not only riches but health had been included in this class) in hæc impellimur: ergo non sunt bona. That riches are not a good is proved by Diogenes (in Cic. Fin. iii. 15, 49); that poverty and pain are no evils is proved by the argument, quoted in Sen. Ep. 85, 30: Quod malum est nocet: quod nocet deteriorem facit. Dolor et paupertas deteriorem non faciunt: ergo mala non sunt. The Stoic proposition is also established from a theological point of view. Nature, says M. Aurel. ii. 11, ix. 1, could never have allowed that good and evil should equally fall to the lot of the good and the bad; consequently, what both enjoy equally—life and death, honour and dishonour, pleasure and trouble, riches and poverty—can neither be good nor evil. On the value of fame, see id. iv. 19. ↑