Note 11 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

(2) Classes of things indifferent. Nor were the Stoics minded to follow the contemporary philosopher, Aristo of Chios (who in this point, too, endeavoured to place their School on the platform of the Cynic philosophy), in denying any difference in value between things morally indifferent11 and in making the highest aim in life consist in indifference to all external things.12 Virtue with them bears, in comparison with the Cynic virtue, a more positive character, that of an energetic will; they, therefore, required some definite relation to the outward objects and conditions of this activity which should regulate the choosing or rejecting—or, in other words, the practical decision. Accordingly, they divided things indifferent into three classes. To the first class belong all those things which, from a moral or absolute point of view, are neither good nor evil, but yet which have a certain value; no matter whether this value belongs to them properly, because they are in harmony with human nature, or whether it belongs to them improperly, because they are means for advancing moral and natural life, or whether it belongs to them on both grounds. The second class includes everything which, either by itself or in its relation to higher aims, is opposed to nature and harmful. The third, things which, even in this conditional sense, have neither positive nor negative value. The first class bears the name of things preferential (προηγμένον), or things desirable; the second is the class of things to be eschewed (ἀποπροηγμένον); the third is the class of things intermediate.13 The last is called, in the strict sense, indifferent, ἀδιάφορον.14 It includes not only what is really indifferent, but whatever has such a slight negative or positive value that it neither enkindles desire nor aversion. Hence the terms προηγμένον and ἀποπροηγμένον are defined to mean respectively that which has an appreciable positive or negative value.15 Under things preferential, the Stoics include partly mental qualities and conditions, such as talents and skill, even progress towards virtue, in as far as it is not yet virtue; partly bodily advantage—beauty, strength, health, life itself; partly external goods—riches, honour, noble birth, relations, &c. Under things to be eschewed, they understand the opposite things and conditions; under things indifferent, whatever has no appreciable influence on our choice, such as the question whether the number of hairs on the head is even or uneven; whether I pick up a piece of waste paper from the floor, or leave it; whether one piece of money or another is used in (3) Collision of modified and abstract theory. payment of a debt.16 Yet they drew a sharp distinction between the purely relative value of things preferential, and the absolute value of things morally good. Only the latter are really allowed to be called good, because they only, under all circumstances, are useful and necessary. Of things morally indifferent, on the other hand, the best may, under certain circumstances, be bad, and the worst—sickness, poverty, and the like—may, under certain circumstances, be useful.17 Just as little would they allow that the independence of the wise man suffered by the recognition outside himself of a class of things preferential. For the wise man, said Chrysippus,18 uses such things without requiring them. Nevertheless, the admission of classes of things to be preferred and to be declined obviously undermines their doctrine of the good. Between what is good and what is evil, a third group is introduced, of doubtful character; and since we have seen the term ἀδιάφορον is only applied to this group in its more extended meaning, it became impossible for them to refuse to apply the term good to things desirable,19 or to exclude unconditionally from the highest good many of the things which they were in the habit of pronouncing indifferent.20 Nor was this concession merely the yielding of a term, as will appear when particular instances are considered. Not only may Seneca21 be heard, in Aristotelian manner, defending external possessions as aids to virtue—not only Hecato, and even Diogenes, uttering ambiguous sentences as to permitted and forbidden gains22—not only Panætius giving expression to much that falls short of Stoic severity23—but even Chrysippus avows that in his opinion it is silly not to desire health, wealth, and freedom from pain,24 and that a statesman may treat honour and wealth as real goods;25 adding that the whole Stoic School agrees with him in thinking it no disparagement for a wise man to follow a profession which lies under a stigma in the common opinion of Greece.26 He did not even hesitate to assert that it is better to live irrationally than not to live at all.27 It is impossible to conceal the fact that, in attempting to adapt their system to general opinion and to the conditions of practical life, the Stoics were driven to make admissions strongly at variance with their previous theories. It may hence be gathered with certainty that, in laying down those theories, they had overstrained a point.