Chief Ancient Philosophies: Stoicism
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page 3
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^":f
CHIEF ANCIENT
PHILOSOPHIES.
^
STOICISM.
BY
Rev. W. W. CAPES,
FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, AND READER IN ANCIENT HISTORY,
OXFORD.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION.
APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.
LONDON.
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS
;
43, Ql SEN
VICTORIA STREET
NEW YORK
:
;
AND 48, PICCADILLY.
POTT, YOUNG, & CO.
1880.
page 5
CONTENTS.
Chapter
I.
II.
Page
The Thought and Character of Socrates
The Cynics
5
14
III.
The Rise of Stoicism and its Relation to
IV.
Stoicism in the Rigour of its Essential
V.
Stoicism tempered by Concessions to Com-
THE Spirit of the Age
22
Principles
37
mon Sense
54
Rome under the Republic
VI.
Stoicism at
VII.
The Critics and Enemies of Stoicism under
VIII.
The Social Status of the Professional
....
THE Early Empire
64
78
,
Moralists at Rome
106
IX.
The Career of Seneca
127
X.
Seneca as a Moralist
143
XI.
Seneca and St. Paul, or the Relation of
Stoicism to Christianity
XII.
Epictetus, or Stoicism in the Cottage ...
XIII.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, or Stoicism
ON THE Throne
XIV.
166
180
200
The Stoic Creed and Temper in Relation
to other Aspects of Thought
B
2
230
page 7
STOICISM.
CHAPTER
I.
THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES.
The study of Stoicism cannot
be properly begun
some attempt to trace its germs in earlier
speculation, and to note what was the state of Greek
without
society in which it first took root before it was trans-
and perhaps to kindlier soils. Like
famous systems which divided the earnest
thinkers of the old Greek world, its real
starting-point
is to be found in the life and
thought of Socrates,
whose original and striking figure fills so marked a
ferred to other
all
the
place in
the
pictures
of the social
life
at
Athens
towards the close of the fifth century before our era.
Not that Greek philosophy began with him. There
had been no lack before of serious efforts to solve
some of the many problems which had forced themupon men's thoughts when they looked out
upon the universe around them, or tried to think
about their own relations to the world unseen, and
to the infinities that lay before and after.
But these
earlier seekers after wisdom had no chart or rules
by which to steer, had no instruments or method
selves
page 8
6
STOICISM.
of discovery, and could make therefore little progress
There was a sublime audacity in
the way in which they grappled with great questions,
constructed systems of the universe, and explained
as they thought the laws of nature, before they had
in their course.
determined the simplest rules of logic, or had any
more appliances than the experience of the untrained
senses.
They were like the early painters who aspired
often to portray the imagery of heaven, or to deal
with lurid scenes of future judgment, before they had
learnt even the rudiments of perspective or anatomy.
They gave birth
therefore to
little
more than guess-
work, lighted up here and there with flashes of strange
insight, that may remind us of the discoveries of later
came of all their subtle thought,
no tests by which to disentangle truth
from error. There was a want of balance and proportion in their hasty systems which seemed to
At one time they had
oscillate from pole to pole.
moods
and
to
see
the
qualities of outward
eyes
only
nature, and language seemed to them to bear no
higher meaning, and mind and its processes to be but
At another time they were
subtler forms of matter.
ages ; but nothing
for they had
much impressed by the fleeting character of all
the knowledge gained through sense, that thought
alone seemed sure and solid, while all experience else
so
was treacherous and unreal.
There was no practical
value in their speculations while they rested on this
level. The love of wisdom, which the name philosophy
implied, was strong
and earnest
;
it
was a natural
yearning to explain the mysteries of the world
in
page 9
THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES.
which men
to
fruits
furnished
lived,
but
it
justify
itself to
men
with
had borne
no solid
had not
as yet
sober sense.
7
It
any rule of action, with any
standard of what was right or wrong.
It had not
helped to train them for the needs of social life ;
for
it
had not fitted them to serve their country or
to push their fortunes in any of the arts of peace or
Such had not been its aim indeed it never
had aspired to do such work, but then again it might
be urged that little else had yet been gained no sure
knowledge of the world of nature, no full acquaintBut while philoance with the powers of thought.
was
dreaming on, disdaining to be man's
sophy
counseller and guide in common life, another
power was ready to step into the vacant place, and
In Sicily,
to meet all the demands of higher culture.
and among the isles of Greece, a class of teachers
had arisen, who had made a special study of the arts
of speech and forms of language, and all the show
of literary graces.
They had learnt much of men
and manners as they passed from land to land, and
were familiar ^vith all the topics of politics and art
war.
;
:
and morals which had roused the interest of the age.
They professed to educate the rising youth for public
life,
to
train
them
for
the fence of words
in the
national assembly and the law courts, to stock their
memory with graceful phrases as well as with the lessons
Old-fashioned folks, indeed, might
shake their heads and say that the so-called sophists
had the show of wisdom, not its substance ; that they
of ripe statecraft.
did not care for truth, but only for effect, and were quite
page 10
STOICISM.
8
indifferent to the
ends which knowledge should be
made to serve.
They probably unsettled
old con-
by comparing the customs and the laws of
different nations, and often ran a tilt at venerable
victions
dogmas out of mere bravado or caprice.
It
might seem, perhaps, to careless eyes as if
only one of this new class of pro-
Socrates were
Like them he seemed to court
fessional teachers.
men's notice, to
live chiefly out of doors,
for ever talking to the young men
and to be
he gathered round
him, and to treat often too with scant respect time-
honoured customs and beliefs. But unlike them he
affected no display, and made no pretensions to
like older thinkers, he was but
superior knowledge
;
a seeker after wisdom, with a deeper sense of his own
ignorance than the rest the irony^ which was so
marked a feature of his style, consisted in the humility
;
with which he owned his want of knowledge, in his
willingness to hear what others had to say, and in
what they thought the captious spirit with which he
probed and criticised their answers. But he felt
strongly that the ideas of men around him were all
loose and hasty and one-sided, not based on any
sure experience or careful scrutiny of facts.
They
were often inconsistent
in themselves, or carelessly
gathered from imperfect data a few questions or a
few appeals to other cases were enough to show the
\
need of further thought
such notions.
real only in so far as
which the class
to correct
Knowledge, he
it
and to complete
was true and
said,
consisted in conceptions in
qualities were duly gathered
from a
page 11
THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES.
wide experience amply
sifted,
and
all
9
the seeming
quibbles of his daily talk were but infinitely varied
illustrations of what we call the processes of definition
and induction. His was a method of inquiry therefore, but no system really formed ; he had no definite
theories or body of connected doctrines to be handed
on by his disciples, or defended as a sacred trust.
So it was that schools of widely different tenets alike
owned his influence and revered his name. The
same principle and method were applied by all, but
led them in some cases to conclusions far apart.
But one feature which they mostly shared was his
Socrates is said
large interest in moral questions.
to
have brought down philosophy from heaven to
earth ; he
certainly discouraged for awhile all the
ambitious speculations about the universe at large
The
with which the older thinkers were so busy.
one thing of paramount importance in his eyes was
the standard of right action ; if man is to rule his
life
aright
and good
he must know what
;
all
his efforts
is
honourable,
just,
must be centred on that
will give him the virtue of
manhood. Without knowledge there is, he
thought, no virtue possible, but only a blind following
knowledge, which alone
true
of custom, authority, or law, or an aimless drifting
with caprice or passion.
Each, therefore, of the great
Socratic schools
rule of
life
;
had
its
own moral system, and its
wisdom were the men
the votaries of
who were most
intent
to
practise
virtue ;
and as
heathen days in faltering and misleading accents on such subjects, and in the decline
religion spoke in
page 12
lO
STOICISM.
of Greece the laws and sanctions of the State had
daily less of moral force, philosophy stepped into
their place and became the " Ductor dubitantium,"
the guide for the consciences of earnest men.
Another feature of Socratic thought
is
the
high
estimate it formed of the dignity of manhood, which
was thus to be a law unto
element was lodged,
man
;
its
future
life
it
A certain divine
itself.
seemed, within the soul of
beyond the grave was probable,
though hardly capable of proof The value of its
piety transcended far the worth of any offerings
which it could make to God, and
in
some privileged
cases, as of Socrates himself, some superhuman guid-
ance might be vouchsafed, not from without, but
from within.
It
has been said that the practical importance of
these moral speculations grew larger as the purity and
binding force of the standards of the State declined,
but they tended also in their turn to estrange men in
some degree from public life. It is true that Socrates
himself spoke in the highest terms of duty to the
State and of obedience to
its
He urged
common weal, and
commands.
the competent to labour for the
endured death himself that he might not violate his
country's laws. But his political ideal could not agree
with the facts of the Greek republics of his day.
The statesman's virtue lay in knowledge ; that alone,
not popular election or haphazard, could confer the
For the well-being of all an aristocracy
right to rule.
of intellect must hold command, but when the masses
are in power the upright official cannot secure right
page 13
THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES.
1 1
and justice, and will often best consult his dignity by
retiring into private life.
Moreover, the whole tone of his teaching, and his
method of inquiry, well might seem to disparage the common code of morals and the usual
critical
rules of conduct which rested on authority or custom.
republics of old days had done
the
strong glow of patriotic feeling,
great things by
and by unshrinking obedience to the national codes
The little Greek
of honour.
They were troubled by no doubts, but
and duty with the preBut man's virtue now
was to consist in the knowledge of right and wrong
identified alike their interest
sent well-being of the State.
;
his first duty was to follow his convictions ; the laws
even of his country might be called in question, and
in the larger
feelings towards its enemies be merged
The martyrdom
sense of human brotherhood.
of
Socrates is in itself a symbol of this conflict, a proof
that the Greek conscience claimed to direct
career, free henceforth
from
all
its
own
dictation from the
State.
But the independence of character which Socrates
professed included something more than social freedom. It was not enough to rise above the opinions
of
the
thoughtless
hazftrd to the inner
crowd, and to cleave at all
sense of right ; reasonable self-
respect, he thought, could only be maintained by
control, by such a mastery over the desires that none
self-
should assert itself too strongly, or interfere with the
He did not indeed push matters to
pursuit of truth.
extremes, or disparage the natural pleasures of the
page 14
12
STOICISM.
There was no ascetic rigour in his conduct
such as later moraUsts have often preached and pracsenses.
tised ; but in the simpHcity of his daily life, in his
cheerful abstinence from self-indulgence, in the hardi-
hood with which he bore hunger and thirst and heat
and cold, while yet he could truly say that he was
thoroughly happy in his moderation, he lived up to
his own sense of human dignity, and left a model of
philosophic independence which has influenced the
whole tone of later thought.
There was no revolt in Socrates against the standards of his age and country, but still it is of interest
to note that there were features in him which were
certainly not of a Greek type.
There was something
eccentric in his outer man, an obvious want of har-
mony between his looks and character which was
almost a matter of jest among his friends, and which
offended the cultivated taste of Athens.
The common
current of his talk and the nature of his illustrations
hardly were in keeping with the grace and artistic
He took his examples from the
beauty of his times.
commonest subjects, without much regard to prejudice and fashion, and explained the notion of the
beautiful as consisting in
mere usefulness.
He was
so sunk at times in meditation as to forget the outer
world a while, and the stiffness of his posture at such
times was paralleled by a certain want of delicate tact
and
intellectual
hearers.
sympathy
for
the
feelings
of his
This may have weakened perhaps his influ-
ence while he
lived, but
it
also
may explain some
sides of the Socratic thought in the later forms which
page 15
THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES.
it
13
assumed, and which were still less in harmony with
the spirit of Greece.
With these remarks, then, we may pass from the
method and sentiments of Socrates himself, but the
points which have been thus lightly touched on will
meet us often at a later stage. The paramount importance thus ascribed to moral questions, the high
estimate of human dignity, the estrangement from the
business of public life or the protest at its lower rules
of action, the ideal of the unruffled calm of selfcontrol, and the partial disregard of the balance and
harmony natural to Greece
- these were
all
developed
afterwards in various forms, and some of them were
pushed to great extremes, but nowhere with such
extravagance as by the Cynics.
page 16
STOICISM.
14
CHAPTER II.
THE CYNICS.
It was not many years after the death of Socrates
before some of the tendencies which have been noticed
in his teaching
were carried out in their extremest
forms, and paraded as a rule of Hfe before the startled
What we read of them
eyes of an Athenian public.
may sound almost like a grotesque parody of the
Socratic thought, but they were professed
ip^sober
earnestness at first, and lasted on with little change of
phrase or argument for at least 500 years, reappearing
even afterwards to some extent in Christian dress, and
stamping a familiar epithet on every modern language.
The Cynic sect began with Antisthenes, who was
of Athenian birth, but the chief champion of that
militant philosophy was Diogenes, of Sinope, whose
striking figure
and bold epigrams
filled
a far larger
The gymnasia or public halls
space in public fancy.
of the Greek cities were used not only for athletic
exercises,
but
also
by the
lecturers,
rhetoricians,
sophists, who found in
them a willing audience or a
ready market
literary wares.
for their
Antisthenes
and his followers frequented one called Cynosarges,
and the first half of the word may probably have given
a nickname to the rising sect, for the wits of Athens
were not slow to play upon the meaning of the name,