Note 8 — Chapter XIV · THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE AND ITS HISTORICAL POSITION.

In ethics, too, the difference of the two Schools is also fully apparent. Stoic morality recognises, at least conditionally, a positive and negative value in external things and circumstances; the Cynic allows to these absolutely no value. The former forbids affection contrary to reason, the latter any and every kind of affection.8 The former throws the individual back upon human society, the latter isolates him. The former teaches citizenship of the world in a positive sense, requiring all to feel themselves one with their fellow-men; the latter in a negative sense, that of feeling indifferent to home and family. The former has a pantheistic tone about it, due to the lively feeling of the connection between man and the universe, and a definite theological stamp owing to its taking a stand by positive religion; the latter has a rationalistic character, owing to the enfranchisement of the wise man from the prejudices of popular belief, with which it has exclusively to do. In all these respects Stoicism preserves the original character of the Socratic philosophy far better than Cynicism, which only caricatured them. Still it departs from that character in two respects. In point of theory the Stoic doctrine received a systematic form and development such as Socrates never contemplated; and in natural science, it cultivated a field avoided by Socrates on principle, however much its doctrine of Providence, and its view of nature as a system of means subordinated to ends, may remind of Socrates. On the other hand, interest in science, although limited to the subject of ethics, is with Socrates far deeper and stronger than with the Stoics, the latter pursuing scientific research only as a means for solving moral problems. Hence the Socratic theory of a knowledge of conceptions, simple though it may sound, contained a fruitful germ of unexpanded speculation, in comparison with which all that the Stoics did is fragmentary. The Stoic ethics are not only more expanded and more carefully worked out in detail than those of Socrates, but they are also more logical in clinging to the principle that virtue alone is an unconditional good. There are no concessions to current modes of thought, such as Socrates allowed, who practically based his doctrine of morals upon utility. On the other hand, the moral science of the Stoics also falls far short of the frankness and cheerfulness of the Socratic view of life. If in many respects it toned down the asperities of Cynicism, still it appropriated its leading principles far too unreservedly to avoid accepting a great number of its conclusions.