Note 91 — Chapter XII · APPLIED MORAL SCIENCE.

(b) Practical aversion to political life. Following out this idea,91 Epictetus dissuades from matrimony and the begetting of children. Allowing that the family relation may be admitted in a community of wise men, he is of opinion that it is otherwise under existing circumstances; for how can a true philosopher engage in connections and actions which withdraw him from the service of God? The last expression already implies that unfavourable times were not the only cause deterring the Stoics from caring for family or the state, but that the occupation in itself seemed to them a subordinate and limited one. This is stated in plain terms by Seneca and Epictetus: He who feels himself a citizen of the world finds in an individual state a sphere far too limited, and prefers devoting himself to the universe;92 man is no doubt intended to be active, but the highest activity is intellectual research.93 On the subject of civil society, opinions were likely to vary, according to the peculiarities and circumstances of individuals. The philosopher on the throne was more likely than the freedman Epictetus to feel himself a citizen of Rome as well as a citizen of the world,94 and to lower the demands made on a philosophic statesman.95 At the same time, the line taken by the Stoic philosophy cannot be ignored. A philosophy which attaches moral value to the cultivation of intentions only, and considers all external circumstances as indifferent, can hardly produce a taste or a skill for overcoming those outward interests and circumstances with which a politician is chiefly concerned. A system which regards the mass of men as fools, which denies to them every healthy endeavour and all true knowledge, can hardly bring itself unreservedly to work for a state, the course and institutions of which depend upon the majority of its members, and are planned with a view to their needs, prejudices, and customs. Undoubtedly, there were able statesmen among the Stoics of the Roman period; but Rome, and not Stoicism, was the cause of their statesmanship. Taken alone, Stoicism could form excellent men, but hardly excellent statesmen. And, looking to facts, not one of the old masters of the School ever had or desired to have any public office. Hence, when their opponents urged that retirement was a violation of their principles,96 Seneca could with justice meet the charge by replying, that the true meaning of their principles ought to be gathered from their actual conduct.97