Note 1 — Chapter XIII · THE RELATION OF THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY TO RELIGION.

A. Inner connection of the Stoic system. Having now investigated the Stoic system in detail, we are in a position to pass a definite judgment on the scope of the Stoic philosophy, the import and the relation of its various parts, and its historical position. Its peculiar character manifests itself before all things in the three points to which attention was drawn at the outset:1—its pre-eminently practical tone, the determination of this practical tendency by the notions of the good and of virtue, and the use of logic and natural science as a scientific basis. Speculative knowledge is not, as we have seen, to the Stoics an end in itself, but only a means for producing a right moral attitude; all philosophical research stands directly or indirectly in the service of virtue. Both in the earlier and in the later days of its existence the Stoic School advocated this principle in the most determined and exclusive manner, nor was it even denied by Chrysippus, the chief representative of its science and learning.