Note 81 — Chapter XII · APPLIED MORAL SCIENCE.

The ideal of the Stoics, however, was not realised in any one of the existing forms of government, but in that polity of the wise which Zeno described, undoubtedly when a Cynic,81 but which was fully set forth by Chrysippus82—a state without marriage, or family, or temples, or courts, or public schools, or coins83—a state excluding no other states, because all differences of nationality have been merged in a common brotherhood of all men.84 Such an ideal may show that, for the Stoic philosophers, there could be no hearty sympathy with the state or the family, their ideal state being, in truth, no longer a state. Indeed, the whole tone of Stoicism, and still more, the circumstances of the times to which it owed its rise and growth, were against such a sympathy. If Plato could find no place for a philosopher in the political institutions of his time, how could a Stoic, who looked for happiness more exclusively in seclusion from the world, who contrasted, too, the wise man more sharply with the multitude of fools, and lived for the most part under political circumstances far less favourable than Plato? To him the private life of a philosopher must have seemed beyond compare more attractive than a public career. An intelligent man, taking advice from Chrysippus,85 avoids business; he withdraws to peaceful retirement; and, though he may consider it his duty not to stand aloof from public life, still he can only actively take a part in it in states which present an appreciable progress towards perfection.86 But where could such states be found? Did not Chrysippus state it as his conviction that a statesman must either displease the Gods or displease the people?87 And did not later Stoics accordingly advise philosophers not to intermeddle at all in civil matters?88 Labour for the commonwealth is only then a duty when there is no obstacle to such labour; but, as a matter of fact, there is always some obstacle, and in particular, the condition of all existing states.89 A philosopher who teaches and improves his fellow-men benefits the state quite as much as a warrior, an administrator, or a civil functionary.90