Note 13 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

In this extension of the moral theory, besides the desire for scientific completeness, the endeavour may also be observed to subordinate all sides of human activity to moral considerations. In the virtuous man, as the Stoics held, everything becomes virtue;13 and hence everything is included in moral philosophy. Thereby, without doubt, the Stoic School contributed in no small degree towards settling and defining moral ideas, not only for its immediate contemporaries, but also for all subsequent times. Nevertheless, the more the teaching of the School entered into the details of every-day life, the more impossible it became to prevent practical considerations from overriding the natural severity of Stoic principles, or to keep the strictness of scientific procedure from yielding to considerations of experience.