Note 5 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

(1) Secondary goods. Still, there remains the question, How can this be possible? and this is no easy one to answer. The contemporary opponents of the Stoics already took exception to the way in which the first demands of nature were by them excluded from the aims of a life5 according to nature; and we, too, cannot suppress a feeling of perplexity at being told that all duties aim at attaining what is primarily according to nature, but that what is according to nature must not be looked upon as the aim of our actions;6 since not that which is simply according to nature, but the rational choice and combination of what is according to nature constitutes the good.7 Even if the Stoics pretend to dispose of this difficulty, they cannot, at least, fail to see that whatever contributes to bodily well-being must have a certain positive value, and must be desirable in all cases in which no higher good suffers in consequence; and, conversely, that whatever is opposed to bodily well-being, when higher duties are not involved, must have a negative value (ἀπαξία), and, consequently, deserve to be avoided.8 Such objects and actions they would not, however, allow to be included in the class of goods which are absolutely valuable.9 It was therefore a blending of Peripatetic with Stoic teaching when Herillus, the fellow-student of Cleanthes, enumerated bodily and outward goods as secondary and subsidiary aims besides virtue.10