Note 100 — Chapter XII · APPLIED MORAL SCIENCE.

However much these two causes—and, in particular, the first—must have contributed to bring about the Stoic ideal of a citizenship of the world, nevertheless the connection of this idea with the whole of their system is most obvious. If human society, as we have seen, has for its basis the identity of reason in individuals, what ground have we for limiting this society to a single nation, or feeling ourselves more nearly related to some men than to others? All men, apart from what they have made themselves by their own exertions, are equally near, since all equally participate in reason. All are members of one body; for one and the same nature has fashioned them all from the same elements for the same destiny.100 Or, as Epictetus expresses it in religious language,101 all men are brethren, since all have in the same degree God for their father. Man, therefore, who and whatever else he may be, is the object of our solicitude, simply as being man.102 No hostility and ill-treatment should quench our benevolence.103 No one is so low but that he has claims on the love and justice of his fellow-men.104 Even the slave is a man deserving our esteem, and able to claim from us his rights.105