The Stoic Philosophy
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page 19
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
not
know
of
any system
that
15
But
is.
I
believe that it represents a way of looking at
the world and the practical problems of
which possesses
for the
still
a permanent
life
interest
human race, and a permanent power
of inspiration.
I
shall approach it, therefore,
rather as a psychologist than as a philosopher
or historian.
I
shall not attempt to trace the
growth or variation of Stoic doctrine under
its
various professors, nor yet to scrutinize
the logical validity of its arguments.
I
shall
merely try as best I can to make intelligible
its
great central
principles
and the almost
irresistible appeal which they made to so many
of the best minds of antiquity.
From this point of view I will begin by a
very rough general
suggestion
the religions known to history
viz.,
fall
into
that
two
broad classes, religions which are suited for
times
of
good
government
and
religions
which are suited for times of bad government
;
page 20
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
16
or
for
religions
for
religions
which accept the world or which
prosperity
adversity,
defy the world, which place their hopes in
the betterment of human life on this earth or
which look away from
By
tears.
I
"the
it
as from a vale of
in
world"
this
connection
mean the ordinary concrete world, the well-
known companion of the flesh and the Devil
not the universe.
;
For some of the religions
which think most meanly of the world they
know have a profound admiration for all, or
nearly all, those parts of the universe where
they have not been.
Now, to be really successful in the struggle
for existence, a religion
of circumstances.
adversity,
;
sets
A religion which fails in
which deserts you just when the
world deserts you,
affair
must suit both
would be a very poor
on the other hand, it is almost equally
fatal for a religion to collapse as soon
successful.
Stoicism, like
as
Christianity,
it
is
was
page 21
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
primarily a religion
for
the
and defiance
religion of defence
a
oppressed,
but,
;
like
had the requisite power of
Christianity,
it
adaptation.
Consistently or inconsistently,
it
opened its wings to embrace the needs both
of success and of failure.
I
To illustrate what
mean- contrast for a moment the
an active,
practical,
life
of
modern
philanthropic,
Bishop with that of an anchorite
like
Simeon
and filth
Stylites, living in idleness
on the top of a large column
;
or,
St.
again,
contrast the Bishop s ideals with those of the
author of the Apocalypse, abandoning himself
to visions of
a gorgeous reversal of the order
of this evil world
of the blessed.
tians
;
and the bloody revenges
All three are devout Chris
but the Bishop
is
working with the
world of men, seeking its welfare and help
ing
its
practical
needs
rejecting or cursing
same way we shall
;
the other
two are
In
somewhat the
find that
our two chief
it.
c
page 22
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
i8
preachers of Stoicism are, the one a lame
and penniless slave to whom worldly success
is as
nothing, the other an Emperor of Rome,
keenly interested in good administration.
The founder
of
the
Stoic
school,
Zeno,
came from Cilicia to Athens about the year
320 B.C.
His place of birth is, perhaps, signi
ficant.
He was a Semite, and came from the
East.
The Semite was apt in his religion to
be fierier and more uncompromizing than the
Greek.
The time
significant.
of his
coming is certainly
It was a time when landmarks
had collapsed, and human life was left, as it
seemed, without a guide.
in
Greece of the
fifth
The average man
century B.C. had two
main guides and sanctions for his conduct of
life :
the welfare of his City and the laws and
traditions of his ancestors.
and next the traditional
First the
religion
;
fourth century both of these had fallen.
us see how.
City,
and in the
Let
page 23
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
Devotion
the
19
or
Community
The
produced a religion of public service.
to
City
City represented a high ideal, and
it
sented supreme
B.C.
supreme
power.
By
had
been
power
Athens, and
all
320
repre
the
overthrown.
independent Greek
cities,
had fallen before the overwhelming force of
the great military monarchies of Alexander
and
his
The high
generals.
same time was seen
community
himself,
to
be
to
ideal
the
at
narrow.
The
which a man should devote
he should devote himself at
if
all,
must surely be something larger than one
of these walled cities set
hills.
Now when the Jews lost
Holy City they had
that they
still,
had still, a guide left.
taken from
"
their separate
Thus the City, as a guide of life, had
proved wanting.
their
upon
us,"
says the
Book
or believed
"Zion
is
of Esdras
;
nothing is left save the Holy One and His
Law."
But Greece had no such Law.
The
page 24
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
Greek
religious
had
tradition
been riddled with criticism.
long
since
would not
It
bear thinking out, and the Greeks liked to
The
think things out.
fell
traditional
religion
not because the people were degenerate.
Quite the contrary
it
;
fell,
as
has some
it
times fallen elsewhere, because the people were
The people had advanced, and
progressive.
the traditional religion had not kept pace with
them.
tion.
And we may add another considera
If the
themselves
Gods
of tradition
capable
of
had proved
their
protecting
worshippers, doubtless their many moral and
intellectual
overlooked.
deficiencies
might
have
But they had not.
proved no match
for
been
They had
Alexander
and
the
Macedonian phalanx.
Thus the work that lay before the genera
tion of
320 B.C. was twofold.
rebuild a
They had
new public spirit, devoted
the City, but to something greater
;
to
not to
and they
page 25
\x
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
21
had to rebuild a religion or philosophy which
should be a safe guide in the threatening
chaos.
We will see how Zeno girded him
self to this task.
Two questions lay before him
and what_to believe.
in the first,
but
it
His
could
real
real or unreal,
it
was
For if we do
true or untrue,
is
we cannot form any reliable
rules about conduct or
as
interest
not be answered
without first facing the second.
not in the least know what
how to live
anything
else.
And,
happened, the Sceptical school of phi
losophy, largely helped by Plato, had lately
been active
in
denying
the
possibility
of
human knowledge and throwing doubt on the
very existence of reality.
Their arguments
were extraordinarily good, and many of them
have not been answered yet
;
they affect both
the credibility of the senses and the supposed
laws of reasoning.
The Sceptics showed how
the senses are notoriously fallible and con-
page 26
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
22
tradictory,
and how the laws of reasoning
lead by equally correct processes to opposite
Many modern
conclusions.
philosophers,
from Kant to Dr. Schiller and Mr. Bertrand
Russell, have
footsteps.
followed
respectfully in their
But Zeno had no patience with this
sort of thing.
He wanted to get to business.
Also he was a born
fighter.
His dealings
who argued against him
always remind me of a story told of the
Duke of Wellington when his word was
with
opponents
The Duke, when
doubted by a subaltern.
he was very old and incredibly distinguished,
was telling how once, at mess in the Penin
sula, his servant had opened a bottle of port,
and inside found a rat.
a very large
bottle,"
"It
must have been
remarked the subaltern.
The Duke fixed him with his eye.
a
damned small
subaltern, abashed
a very small
bottle."
"
;
"
rat."
"Oh,"
"
said
then no doubt
It
It was
it
the
was
was a damned large
page 27
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
rat,"
And
the Duke.
said
23
there the matter
has rested ever since.
Zeno began by asserting the existence ot
the
real
"
real ?
world.
"
What do you mean by
asked the Sceptic.
material.
I
"
matter."
mean
"
mean solid and
I
that this
table
solid
is
And God," said the Sceptic,
"
and
Are they solid matter?"
Per
"more solid, if
fectly solid," says Zeno
any
the soul?
"
;
thing, than the table."
virtue or justice
"And
or the Rule of Three; also solid
"
is
Of course," said Zeno
matter?"
"
;
quite solid."
what may be called "high doctrine," and
Zeno s successors eventually explained
their master did not really
was
"
This
solid
matter, but that
that
mean that justice
it
was a sort of
tension, "or mutual relation, among material
objects.
situation.
This amendment saves the whole
But
it
is
well
to
remember the
uncompromising materialism from which the
Stoic system started.
page 28
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
24
Now we can get a step further.
world
is
real,
If
the
how do we know about
it ?
By the evidence of our senses
;
for the sense-
impression (here Stoics and Epicureans both
followed the fifth-century physicists) is simply
the imprint of the real thing
upon our mind-
As such it must be true.
stuff.
exceptional cases where
senses
deceive
us
In the few
we say
we speak
"
that
"our
incorrectly.
The sense-impression was all right
;
is
it
we
who have interpreted it wrongly, or received
in
it
in
some incomplete way.
each
case
impression."
is
impression which
we
sense-
comprehensive
think
I
it
means a sense-
"
"grasps
be one which
"grasp,"
What we need
The meaning of this phrase is
not quite clear.
may
a
"
its
"
"
grasps
object
us, or
so that we cannot doubt
;
but it
which
it.
In
any case, when we get the real imprint of the
object upon our senses, then this imprint
of necessity
true.
is
When the Sceptics talk
page 29
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
25
about a conjurer making "our senses deceive
us,"
or when they object that a straight stick
put half under water looks as if it were bent
such cases the impression
it
is
is
the interrjretation that
is
when they argue
because men
fallacious
perfectly true
;
may gQ.jwrong.
-.
Similarly,
In
they are talking inexactly.
in the middle,
that
reasoning
habitually
make
mistakes in it, they are confusing the laws of
reasoning with the inexact use which people
make of them.
that twice
two
You might just as well say
is
not four, or that 7 x 7
not 49, because people often
is
make mistakes
in doing arithmetic.
Thus we obtain a world which is in the first
place real and in the second knowable.
Now
we can get to work on our real philosophy,
our doctrine of ethics and conduct.
And we
upon a very simple principle,
build
it
down
first
by
Zeno s
master,
founder of the Cynic School
:
Crates,
laid
the
the principle
page 30
THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY
that
That
Nothing but Goodness is Good.
seems plain enough, and harmless enough
and so does its corollary
ness
is
:
you call "good,"
clear that
it
is
goodness
in
it.
;
Nothing but bad
In the case of
bad."
object which
"
any concrete
it seems quite
only good because of some
We,
perhaps,
should
not
express the matter in quite this way, but we
should scarcely think it worth while to object
Zeno chooses to phrase it so, especially as
if
the statement itself seems
little
better than a
truism.
Now, to an ancient Greek the form of the
phrase was quite familiar. He was accus
tomed to asking
to
"
What is the good
?"
It was
him the central problem of conduct.
meant
"
:
It
What is the object of life, or the
element in things which makes them worth
having?"
"
Thus
the
principle will
Nothing is worth living
ness."
for
mean:
except good
The only good for man is to be good.