Part 2 — CHAPTER XIV. THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE AND ITS HISTORICAL POSITION.

(1) Ethical side of Stoicism. If it be then asked what is the right moral attitude, the Stoics reply: action conformable to nature and reason—in other words, virtue. Virtue, however, implies two things. On the one hand it implies the resignation of the individual to the universe, obedience to the universal law; on the other hand it implies the harmony of man with himself, the dominion of the higher over the lower nature, of reason over emotion, and the rising superior to everything which does not belong to his true nature. Both statements may be reconciled, because the law of morality is addressed only to reasonable beings, and is the law of their nature, and can only be carried into execution by their own exertions. Still, in the Stoic ethics, two currents of thought may be clearly distinguished, which from time to time come into actual collision; the one requiring the individual to live for the common good and for society, the other impelling him to live for himself only, to emancipate himself from all that is not himself, and to console himself with the feeling of virtue. The first of these tendencies impels man to seek the society of others; the second enables him to dispense with it. From the former spring the virtues of justice, sociability, love of man; from the latter, the inner freedom and happiness of the virtuous man. The former culminates in citizenship of the world; the latter in the self-sufficingness of the wise man. In as far as virtue includes everything that can be required of man, happiness depends on it alone; nothing is good but virtue, nothing is evil but vice; all that is not connected with the moral nature is indifferent. On the other hand, in as far as virtue is based on human nature, it stands on the same footing with all else that is conformable with nature. If its own peculiar value cannot be surrendered, no more can it be required that we should be indifferent to its conformity to nature, that it should not have for us some positive or negative value, or in some way affect our feelings. Therewith the doctrine of things indifferent and the wise man’s freedom from emotions begins to totter. Lastly, if we look at the way in which virtue exists in man, we arrive at different results, according as we look at its essence or its manifestation. Virtue consists in acting conformably with reason, and reason is one and undivided; hence it appears that virtue forms an undivided unity, and must be possessed whole and entire or not at all. From this proposition the contrast of the wise and foolish man, with all its bluntness and extravagances, is only a legitimate consequence. Or, again, if we look at the conditions upon which, owing to human nature, the acquisition and possession of virtue depends, the conviction is inevitable that the wise man as drawn by the Stoics never occurs in reality. Hence the conclusion is undeniable that the contrast between wise men and fools is more uncertain than it at first appeared to be. Thus all the main features of the Stoic ethics may be simply deduced from their one fundamental notion, that rational action or virtue is the only good.

(3) Connection of the moral and scientific elements. This statement must of course not be taken to mean that the Stoics first developed their ethical principles independently of their theory of the universe, and afterwards brought the two into connection with each other. On the contrary, it was by the peculiar connection of theory and practice that Stoicism itself first came into existence. The leading thought of Zeno consists in the attempt to vindicate the supremacy of virtue by a scientific knowledge of the laws of the world; and he becomes the founder of a new School only by bringing to Cynicism those scientific ideas and aims which he had learned himself in the School of Polemo, Stilpo, and Diodorus, or otherwise gathered from a study of ancient philosophy. These elements are not therefore accidentally brought together in Stoicism, but they are co-extensive, and dependent one upon the other. As in the natural science and theory of knowledge of the Stoics, the experimental basis on which their system was built may be easily seen, so the peculiar development of their ethics supposes all those positions respecting the universe and the powers therein at work, which form the most important part of their natural science. Only by a scientific treatment of this kind was Stoicism at all able to improve upon the imperfection of the Cynic ethics, so far at least as it really did so, and to accommodate itself to the wants of human nature, so far as to be able to exercise an influence at large. Upon this union of ethics and metaphysics that religious attitude of the Stoic system reposes, to which it owes in a great measure its historical importance. Thereby it occupies so influential a position in an age in which intellectual power was indeed declining, but in which the interest for science was keen. But that Stoic physics and metaphysics should have adopted this line, and no other; that Zeno and his followers, who draw on former systems for their own on the most extensive scale, should have borrowed from these systems these and no other positions, and expanded them in this and no other direction; these results are, doubtless, ultimately due to their moral attitude. All that bore on the subject of ethics, and supported it, they appropriated; all that was opposed thereto they rejected. The Stoic system as such owes its rise to a union of ethical and speculative elements, in which both were more definitely determined by one another; still the ethical platform is the one on which its formation commences, and which primarily determined its course and results.

The way for Stoicism was more directly paved by the Aristotelian speculations as to the origin of notions and conceptions. Here the Stoics did little more than omit (in conformity with their principles) what their predecessor had said as to an original possession and immediate knowledge of truth. It has been remarked on an earlier occasion how closely their formal logic followed that of Aristotle; they contented themselves with building on Aristotelian foundations, and even their additions have more reference to grammar than to logic. The actual influence of Peripatetic views on those of the Stoics appears to have been least in the province of ethics. Here the crudity of the Stoic conception of virtue, the entire suppression of emotions, the absolute exclusion of everything external from the circle of moral goods, the distinction between the wise and the foolish man, the attacks on a purely speculative life, present a sharp contrast to the caution and many-sidedness of Aristotle’s moral theory, to his careful weighing of current opinions and their practicability, to his recognition of propriety in every shape and form, and to the praise which he lavishes on a purely speculative life. What the Stoics chiefly owe to Aristotle is the formal treatment of the materials and the psychological analysis of individual moral faculties. On the other hand, the province of ethics must be looked to for traces of the teaching which Zeno received from Polemo, perhaps even from Xenocrates.

C. The Stoic philosophy as a whole. (1) Its historical position. By the aid of these remarks it now becomes possible to give a satisfactory account of the history of Stoicism. Belonging to an age of moral debasement and political oppression, its founder, Zeno, conceived the idea of liberating himself and all who were able to follow him from its degeneracy and slavery by means of a philosophy which, by purity and strength of moral will, would procure independence from all external things, and unruffled inward peace. That his endeavours should have taken this practical turn, that he should have proposed to himself not knowledge as such, but the moral exercise of knowledge as the object to be realised, was in part due to his own personal character, and may be in part referred to the general circumstances of the times. On nobler and more serious minds, these circumstances weighed too heavily not to call forth opposition and resistance in place of listless contemplation. The sway of the Macedonian, and afterwards of the Roman Empire, was far too despotic to allow the least prospect of open resistance. Nor must it be overlooked that philosophy itself had reached a pass at which satisfactory answers to speculative problems were no longer forthcoming; hence attention was naturally directed to questions of morals.

(2) Its onesidedness. It was the fault of the age that it could no longer come up to the many-sidedness of an Aristotle or a Plato. Stoicism, it is true, approximates thereto more nearly than any other of the post-Aristotelian systems. But in its practical view of philosophy, in its materialistic appeal to the senses, in its theoretical self-sufficiency, setting up the wise man as superior to the weaknesses and wants of human nature; in its citizenship of the world, throwing political interests into the background; and in so many other traits it is the fit exponent of an epoch in which the taste for purely scientific research and the delight in ethical speculation were at an end, whilst out of the overthrow of states, and the growth of freedom, the idea of humanity was coming to the fore. Stoicism represented most powerfully the moral and religious convictions of such an age, yet not without onesidedness and exaggeration. By exercise of the will and by rational understanding, man is to become free and happy. This aim is, however, pursued so persistently that the natural conditions of human existence and the claims of individuality are ignored. To man, regarded as the exponent of universal law, as little freedom of will is allowed by the Stoic natural science in face of the inexorable course of nature as freedom of action is allowed by the Stoic ethics in face of the demands of duty. The universal claims of morality are alone acknowledged; the right of the individual to act according to his peculiar character, and to develop that character, is almost ignored. The individual, as such, dwindles into obscurity, whilst a high place in the world is assigned to mankind collectively. The individual is subordinated to the law of the whole; but by regarding nature as a system of means and ends, and introducing the belief in Providence and Prophecy, the universe is again subordinated to the interests of man—a view against which a more careful research has many objections to urge. In both respects Epicureanism is in decided contrast to Stoicism, though agreeing with it in the general tone of its practical philosophy and in its aim to make man independent of the outer world and happy in himself.