But while on the one hand the consciousness of our being thus bound up with others, as parts of a common whole, supplies a motive for action and forbids all exclusive self-regard, as far as feeling is concerned; on the other hand the consciousness that the individual reason (τὸ λογιστικόν, τὸ ἡγεμονικόν) in each man is a portion of the Universal Reason, a revelation to him personally of the Divine Will',-this preserves intact the individuality of each, and enables and requires him to act and think for himself, and to stand alone, regardless of the opinions and wishes of the world outside. It is this sense of independence towards man and of responsibility towards God which especially distinguishes the Stoic morality from that which preceded it. The Stoics may be said to have introduced into philosophical ethics the conception of Duty, involving obligation, as distinguished from that of Good, regarded as the desirable or the useful or the beautiful, and of Virtue as the way to this. Not that Duty is with them mere obedience to an external law;

1 See Chrysippus in Diogenes VII. 88, 'We call by the name of Zeus the Right Reason which pervades the universe;' Zeno in Cic. N. D. 1. 36 'God is the divine law of nature, commanding what is right, forbidding what is wrong,' Cic. Leg. II. 10, and 1. 18, 'Law is first the mind and reason of Jupiter, and then reason in the mind of man;' Leg. I. 33, ‘To whom nature has given reason, to them she has given law;' Chrysippus in Plut. Comm. Not. p. 1076 'not even the smallest particle can exist otherwise than as God wills” (ἄλλως ἔχειν ἀλλ ̓ ἢ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ Διὸς βούλησιν); also passages from Seneca referred to. in a previous note.

2 Compare the Stoic definition of right and wrong as that which is commanded or forbidden by law, τὸ κατόρθωμα νόμου πρόσταγμα eîvai, Tò d'åμápтnμa vóμov åπayópevμa Plut. Sto. Rep. II. 1, and other passages quoted by Zeller p. 245.

it is also the following of the highest natural impulse (opμn). But impulse by itself is no trustworthy guide. (ὁρμή). On the contrary it is one chief work of reason in man to subdue and eradicate his irrational impulses. These passions (mán), as they are called, originate in a perversion of the reason itself. The four principal are pleasure and pain, which may be defined as false beliefs of present good or evil; hope and fear, which are similar beliefs in reference to the future. No man can be called virtuous who has not got rid of all such beliefs and arrived at the state of pure άnáleia. We may distinguish different virtues in thought, as the Stoics themselves summed up their teaching on this subject under the four Cardinal Virtues, which represent four principal aspects of the one Honestum or Decorum; but in fact no virtue can exist apart from the rest. He who has a right judgment and right intention is perfectly virtuous, he who is without right judgment and intention is perfectly vicious. There is no mean. The wise man is perfectly happy, the fool perfectly miserable: all the actions of the former are wise and good; all the actions of the latter foolish and bad. There may

be a progress towards wisdom, but, until the actual moment of conversion, even those who are advancing (oi πрокожтоνтES) must still be classed among the fools3.

Thus in the original Stoicism we have the strange

1 See Zeller III. 1, p. 2233.

2 So Aristotle had said that all other virtue is involved in opóvnois. Eth. VI. 13, VII. 2.

3 See Plut. Mor. p. 1058. Among the Stoics you go to bed stupid and ignorant and unjust and intemperate, a pauper and a slave; you wake up in a few hours a king, or rather a God, rich and wise and temperate and just.'

M. P.

I I

union of a highly ideal ethics with a materialistic philosophy. But it was impossible to maintain this uncompromising idealism in practice. The later Stoics found themselves compelled to admit that, apart from virtue and vice, the absolute Good and Evil, there were preferences to be made among things indifferent. Some of these, such as bodily health, mental endowments, even wealth and position, were allowed to have comparative value, and, as such, were called πpoŋyμéva, producta or praeposita, 'preferable,' while their opposites were termed ά#ожроŋyμéva, rejecta, ‘undesirable'; and the name adiάpopa was now limited to such things as were entirely neutral and could not influence choice. In like manner it was allowed that, besides the perfectly virtuous actions of the wise man (katopłwμata, perfecta officia), there was a subordinate class of appropriate actions (kalÝKOVTA, media officia), which might be performed by one who had not attained to perfection, or which might have reference to some preferable end other than the absolute good. Again, since they were compelled to allow that their perfectly wise man, whom they vaunted to be equal to Zeus, had never existed, they found it necessary to allow a positive value to рокожй, progress towards wisdom, and to self-control as contrasted with absolute apathy.

The Stoics paid great attention to the subject of Natural Theology and pleased themselves with discovering evidence, in the external universe, of a creative intelligence and a providential care for man. Cicero gives the Stoical argument on this head in the Second Book of his Natura Deorum. Holding, as they did, the optimist theory of the perfection of the universe, they were bound

to reconcile this with the apparent existence of moral and physical evil. They endeavoured to do so by the following reasoning. What we call evil is only imperfection; and in a system compounded of parts, the imperfection of the parts taken separately is essential to the perfection of the whole. What we call physical evil is a necessary result of natural causes, and is in itself a matter of indifference: it only becomes evil to the man who uses it wrongly. Many things which are commonly regarded as evil are really beneficial; as an instance, Chrysippus cited the prevention of over-population by means of war'. Moral evil, which arises like disease from human weakness, is the necessary foil and condition of virtue. How could prudence and courage display themselves, if there were no choice to be made between good and evil; if there were no injustice and fraud to guard against and endure? In the end however all evil will be converted into good. If we sometimes see virtue unrewarded, this is because the government of the world proceeds by general laws, which, though best for the whole, necessarily involve the possibility of what seems to be individual hardship. But this is, after all, only appearance, for good and evil lie not in feeling, but in action. He who acts fittingly is happy, and it is always in our own power to act fittingly to the circumstances in which we are placed. If in no other way, it is at least in our power to quit a world in which we are hindered from action. God has placed in our hands, as the last safeguard of our freedom,

1 Compare Plut. Stoic. Rep. 32, and other passages quoted by Zeller III. 1. p. 1743.

2 The same argument is used by Bp. Butler in the Analogy Pt. I. ch. 7.

this highest privilege of self-removal (evλoyos égaywyń), not to be used at random, but to save another's life, or to escape from being forced into anything degrading, or at the lowest to cut short unprofitable years.

One other characteristic doctrine of the Stoics may be mentioned here. It will have been noticed that none of the above-named representatives of the school were of pure Greek birth, and that most were only connected with Greece by the Macedonian conquests. It was easy to rise from this fact to the higher doctrine which flowed naturally from their first principle, the doctrine namely that all men were members of one State, that the world is the common City of Gods and men, that all men are brethren as having the same Divine Father. Sir A. Grant has further called attention to the fact that Zeno himself and some of his most distinguished followers belonged to Semitic towns or colonies; and he suggests that the characteristic features of Stoicism, its stern morality, its deep religious earnestness, may perhaps be traced to this connexion.

There is indeed a very striking resemblance, mixed with no less striking contrasts, not only between particular sayings of individual Stoics, especially Seneca', and the language of the New Testament, but between Stoicism and Christianity in regard to their general view of the facts of the physical and moral universe. The Stoic pantheism, i.e. the doctrine of the interpenetration and transfusion of all nature by a Divine Spirit, has its Christian counterpart in St Paul's words, 'in Him we live

1 Cf. the appendix on St Paul and Seneca in Bp. Lightfoot's edition of the Epistle to the Philippians.