Note 39 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

(2) Modification of apathy. This danger appears more imminent when we observe the perplexity in which the Stoics were placed when asked to point out the wise man in experience. For not only do opponents assert that, according to their own confession, no one, or as good as no one, can be found in actual history who altogether deserves that high title,39 but even their own admissions agree therewith.40 They describe even Socrates, Diogenes, and Antisthenes as not completely virtuous, but only as travellers towards virtue.41 It was of little avail to point to Hercules or Ulysses,42 or, with Posidonius,43 to the mythical golden age, in which the wise are said to have ruled. The pictures of those heroes would have to be changed altogether, to bring them into harmony with the wise man of the Stoics; and Posidonius might be easily disposed of on Stoic principles, by the rejoinder that virtue and wisdom are things of free exercise, and, since free exercise was wanting in the case of the first men, their condition can only have been a state of unconscious ignorance, and not one of perfection.44 If, in reality, there are no wise men, the division of men into wise and foolish falls at once to the ground: all mankind belong to the class of fools; the conception of the wise man is an unreal fancy. It becomes, then, difficult to maintain the assertion that all fools are equally foolish, and all the wise are equally wise. If, instead of producing real wisdom, philosophy can only produce progress towards wisdom, it can hardly be expected to take such a modest estimate of its own success as to allow that there is no real distinction between a zealous student and a bigoted despiser of its doctrines.