CHAPTER XI. THE STOIC THEORY OF MORALS AS MODIFIED BY PRACTICAL NEEDS. CHAP. XI. to be de sired and avoided. THE Stoic theory of Ethics is entirely based on the proposition, that only virtue is a good and only vice an evil. This proposition, however, frequently A. Things brought the Stoics into collision with current views; nor was it without its difficulties for their own system. In the first place, virtue is made to depend for its existence upon certain conditions, and to lead to certain results, from which it is inseparable. These results, we have already seen, were included by the Stoics in the list of goods. Moreover, virtue is said to be the only good, because only what is according to nature is a good, and rational conduct is for man the only thing according to nature. But will this absolute and unconditional statement stand criticism? Is not the instinct of self-preservation, according to the Stoic teaching, the primary impulse? and does not this instinct manifestly include the preservation and advancement of our outward life? The Stoics, therefore, could not help including physical goods and activities among things according to nature-for instance, CHAP. XI. health, a right use of the senses, and such like.' Practically, too, the same admission was forced upon them by the consideration2 that, if there is no difference in value between things in themselves, rational choice—and, indeed, all acting on motives— is impossible. At the same time, they reject the notion that what is primarily according to nature must therefore be perfect or good, just as in theory they allow that the source of knowledge, but not truth itself, is derived from the senses. When man has once recognised the universal law of action, he will, according to their view, think little of what is sensuous and individual, only considering it instrumental in promoting virtue and reason.3 1 Cic. Fin. iii. 5, 17. Gell. N. A. xii. 5, 7: The primary objects of natural self-love are the para Karà púσw; and self-love consists mainly in this: Ut omnibus corporis sui commodis gauderet [unusquisque], ab incommodis omnibus abhorreret. Stob. Ecl. ii. 142: Some things are according to nature, others contrary to nature, others neither one nor the other. Health, strength, and such like, are among things according to nature; τῶν δὲ κατὰ φύσιν ἀδιαφόρων ὄντων τὰ μέν ἐστι πρῶτα κατὰ φύσιν τὰ δὲ κατὰ μετοχήν. πρῶτα μέν ἐστι κατὰ φύσιν κίνησις ἢ σχέσις κατὰ τοὺς σπερματικούς λόγους γινομένη, οἷον ὑγιεία καὶ αἴσθησις, λεγὼ δὲ τὴν κατάληψιν καὶ ἰσχύν, κατά μετοχὴν δὲ . . . οἷον χεὶρ ἀρτία καὶ σῶμα ὑγιαῖνον καὶ αἰσθήσεις μὴ πεπηρωμέναι, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τῶν παρὰ φύσιν κατ ̓ ἀνάλογον. Cic. Fin. ii. 15, 50: Dein ceps explicatur differentia rerum: quam si non ullam esse diceremus, confunderetur omnis vita, ut ab Aristone: nec ullum sapientis munus aut opus inveniretur, cum inter res eas, quæ ad vitam degendam pertinerent, nihil omnino interesset neque ullum delectum adhiberi oporteret. The theoretical adiapopía of the Sceptics was assailed by the Stoa on the same ground. 3 Cic. Fin. iii. 6, 21: Prima est enim conciliatio [οἰκείωσις] hominis ad ea quæ sunt secundum naturam, simul autem cepit intelligentiam vel notionem potius, quam appellant ἔννοιαν illi, viditque rerum agendarum ordinem et ut ita dicam concordiam, multo eam pluris aestimavit quam omnia illa quæ primum dilexerat: atque ita cognitione et ratione collegit ut statueret in eo collocatum summum illud hominis per se laudandum et expetendum bonum 2 XI. Still, it would be difficult to say how this is to be CHAP. possible. The contemporaries of the Stoics already objected to the way in which a primary instinct (1) Secondwas excluded from the natural aims of life;' nor ary goods. can we suppress a feeling of perplexity at being told that all duties aim at attaining what is according to nature, but that what is according to nature must not be looked upon as the aim of our actions; that the good consists not in what is according to nature, but in the rational choice and adoption of what is according to nature. Even if the Stoics pretend to dispose of this difficulty, they could not, at least, fail to see that whatever contributes to bodily wellbeing must have a certain positive value, and must be desirable in all cases in which no higher good suffers in consequence; and, contrariwise, that whatever is opposed to bodily well-being, when higher duties are not involved, must have a negative value (ȧmağía), and, consequently, deserve to be avoided.* . . . cum igitur in eo sit id bonum, quo referenda sint omnia quamquam post oritur, tamen id solum vi sua et dignitate expetendum est, eorum autem quæ sunt prima naturæ propter se nihil expetendum, &c. αὐτὰ μὲν [τὰ] πρῶτα κατὰ φύσιν 1 Plut. Com. Not. 4; Cic. Fin. μήδ' ἐφιεμένους τοῦ τυχεῖν ἐκεῖνον ir. 17; v. 24, 72; 29, 89. * Cic. Fin. iii. 6, 22 : Ut recte dici possit, omnia officia eo referri, ut adipiscamur principia natur: nec tamen ut hoc sit bonorum ultimum, propterea quod non inest in primis naturæ conciliationibus honesta actio. Consequens enim est et post oritur. Plut. C. Not. 26, 2: ei yàp τὸ τέλος ἔχειν, ἀλλ' οὐ δεῖ ἐκεῖνα Cic. 1. c. 6, 20; Plut. 1. c.; СНАР. Such objects and actions they would not, however, allow to be included in the class of goods which are absolutely valuable;' and it was therefore a blending of the Stoic with the Peripatetic teaching when Herillus, the fellow-student of Cleanthes, enumerated bodily and outward goods as secondary and subsidiary aims besides virtue.2 (2) Classes Nor yet were the Stoics prepared to follow the of things indifferent. contemporary philosopher, Aristo of Chios (who endeavoured on this point too to bring their School to the level of the Cynic philosophy), in holding that there is no difference in value between things morally indifferent and in making the highest attitude that of indifference to all external things. 1 Stob. ii. 132 : διαφέρειν δὲ λέ- Diog. vii. 165: Herillus Bearing, as Cic. Legg. i. 21, 55: Si, ut Chius Aristo dixit, solum bonum esse diceret quod honestum esset malumque quod turpe, ceteras res omnes plane pares ac ne minimum quidem utrum adessent an abessent interesse. Ibid. 13, 38. Fin. iv. 17, 47: Ut Aristonis esset explosa sententia dicentis, nihil differre aliud ab alio nec esse res ullas præter virtutes et vitia intra quas quidquam omnino interesset. Ibid. ii. 13, 43; iii. 3, 11; 15, 50; iv. 16, 43; 25, 68; v. 25, 73; Acad. ii. 42, 130; Offic. Fragm. Hortens. (in Nonn. Præfract.); Diog. vii. 160; Sext. Math. xi. 64. Čie. usually places Aristo together with Pyrrho. • Diog. L. c. : τέλος ἔφησεν εἶναι τὸ ἀδιαφόρως ἔχοντα ζην πρὸς τὰ μεταξὺ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας μηδὲ ἡντινοῦν ἐν αὐτοῖς παραλλαγὴν ἀπολείποντα ἀλλ' ἐπίσης ἐπὶ πάντων ἔχοντα. Cic. Acad. 1. c.: does the Stoic virtue, in comparison with the Cynic virtue, the impress of a positive active will, it led these philosophers to look about them to find some definite relation to the external circumstances and conditions of the will which should serve as a standard for choosing or rejecting-in short, for deciding all practical matters. Accordingly, they divided things indifferent into three classes. To the first class all those things belong which, from a moral or absolute point of view, are neither good nor evil, but yet which have a certain value; no matter whether this value belongs to them properly, because they are in harmony with human nature, or whether it belongs to them improperly, because they are means for advancing moral and natural life, or whether it belongs to them on both grounds. The second class includes everything which, either by itself or in its relation to higher aims, is opposed to nature and harmful; the third, things which, even in this conditional sense, have neither positive nor negative value. The first class bears the name of things preferential (πponyμévov), or things to be preferred; the second is the class of things to be declined (anоponyμέvov); the third is the class of things intermediate. The latter is called, in the Huic summum bonum est in his rebus neutram in partem moveri: quæ àdiápopa ab ipso dicitur. Chrysippus, in Plut. C. Not. 27, 2: Indifference to that which is neither good nor bad presupposes the idea of the good, and yet, according to Aristo, the good only consists in that state of in- 1 Diog. vii. 105 : τῶν ἀδιαφόρων CHAP. XI. |