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STOICS , a school of philosophers founded at the See also:close of the 4th See also:century B.C. by See also:Zeno of See also:Citium, and so called from the See also:Stoa or painted. See also:corridor (crro& aouciXn) on the See also:north See also:side of the See also:market-See also:place at See also:Athens, which, after its restoration by See also:Cimon, the celebrated painter See also:Polygnotus had adorned with frescoes representing scenes from the Trojan See also:War. But, though it arose on Hellenic See also:soil, from lectures delivered in a public place at Athens, the school is scarcely to be considered.' a product of purely See also:Greek See also:intellect, but rather as the firstfruits of that inter-See also:action between See also:West and See also:East which followed the conquests of See also: By the old Stoa is meant the period (c. 304–205 B.C.) down to the See also:death of See also:Chrysippus, the second founder; then was laid the See also:foundation of theory, to which hardly anything of importance was afterwards added. Confined almost to Athens, the school made its way slowly among many rivals. Aristo of Chios and Herillus of Carthage, Zeno's heterodox pupils, Persaeus, his favourite See also:disciple and housemate, the poet See also:Aratus, and Sphaerus, the adviser of the Spartan See also: Thus, quite apart from the See also:general similarity of their ethical doctrine, the Cynics were materialists; they were also nominalists, and combated the Platonic ideas; in their theory of knowledge they made use of " reason " (Xbyos), which was also one of their leading ethical conceptions. In all these particulars Zeno followed them, and the last is the more important, because, Chrysippus having adopted a new criterion of truth—a clear and distinct See also:perception of sense—it is only from casual notices we learn that the See also:elder Stoics had approximated to Cynicism in making right reason the See also:standard. At the same time, it is certain that the See also:main outlines of the characteristic See also:physical doctrine, which is after all the foundation of their ethics and See also:logic, were the work of Zeno. The See also:Logos, which had been an ethical or psychological principle to the Cynics, received at his hands an See also:extension throughout the natural world, in which Heraclitean influence is unmistakable. See also:Reading the Ephesian doctrine with the eyes of a Cynic, and the Cynic ethics in the See also:light of Heracliteanism, he came to formulate his distinctive theory of the universe far in advance of either. In taking this immense stride and identifying the Cynic " reason," which is a See also:law for See also:man, with the " reason " which is the law of the universe, Zeno has been compared with See also:Plato, who similarly extended the Socratic " general notion " from the region of morals—of See also:justice, See also:temperance, virtue—to embrace all See also:objects of all thought, the verity of all things that are. If the recognition of physics and logic as two studies co-See also:ordinate with ethics is sufficient to differentiate the mature Zeno from the Cynic author of the Republic, no less than from his own heterodox disciple Aristo, the "eaathes. elaboration on all sides of Stoic natural philosophy belongs to Cleanthes, who'certainlywas not the merely docile and receptive intelligence he is sometimes represented as being. He carried on and completed the assimilation of Heraclitean doctrine; but his own contributions were more distinctive and See also:original than those of any other Stoic. Zeno's seeming See also:dualism of See also:God (or force) and formless See also:matter he was able to transform into the lofty See also:pantheism which breathes in every See also:line of the famous hymn to See also:Zeus. Heraclitus had indeed declared all to be in See also:flux, but we ask in vain what is the cause for the unceasing See also:process of his ever-living See also:fire. It was See also:left for Cleanthes to discover this See also:motive cause in a conception See also:familiar to Zeno, as to the Cynics before him, but restricted to the region of ethics—the conception of tension or effort. The soul of the See also:sage, thought the Cynics, should be strained and braced for See also:judgment and action; his first need is firmness (ebrovia) and Socratic strength. But the mind is a corporeal thing. Then followed the flash of genius: this varying tension of the one substance everywhere See also:present, a purely physical fact, accounts for the diverse destinies of all innumerable particular things; it is the veritable cause of the flux and process of the universe.
Zeno.
Herein lies the See also: In his Republic Zeno had gone so far as to declare the routine See also:education of the See also:day (e.g. See also:mathematics, See also:grammar, &c.) to be of no use. Such Cynic crudity Chrysippus rightly judged to be out of keeping with the requirements of a great dogmatic school, and he laboured on all sides after thoroughness, erudition and scientific completeness. In See also:short, Chrysippus made the Stoic system what it was, and as he left it we proceed to describe it. And first we will inquire, What is philosophy? No idle gratification of curiosity, as Aristotle fabled of his See also:life intel-Concepuon lectual (which would be but a disguise for refined ofPhioso- See also:pleasure), no theory divorced from practice, no phy. pursuit of See also:science for its own See also:sake, but knowledge so far forth as it can be realized in virtuous action, the learning of virtue by exercise and effort and training. So absolutely is the " rare and priceless See also:wisdom " for which we strive identical with virtue itself that the three main divisions of philosophy current at the time and accepted by Zeno—logic, physics and ethics—are defined as the most generic or comprehensive i'irtues. How otherwise could they claim our attention? Accordingly Aristo, holding to Cynicism when Zeno himself had got beyond it, rejected two of these parts of philosophy as useless and out of reach—a divergence which excluded him from the school, but strictly consistent with his view that ethics alone is scientific knowledge. Of the three divisions logic is the least important; ethics is the outcome of the whole, and historically the all-important vital See also:element; but the See also:foundations of the whole system are best discerned in the science of nature, which deals pre-eminently with the macrocosm and the See also:microcosm, the universe and man, including natural theologyand an See also:anthropology or psychology, the latter forming the See also:direct introduction to ethics. The Stoic system is in brief: (a) materialism, (b) dynamic materialism, lastly (c) See also:monism or pantheism. (a) The first of these characters is described by anticipation in Ph~,sks. Plato's Sophist (246 C seq.), where, arguing with those " who See also:drag everything down to the corporeal " (o sa), the Eleatic stranger would See also:fain prove to them the existence of some-thing incorporeal, as follows. " They admit the existence of an animate See also:body. Is soul then something existent (data)? Yes. And the qualities of soul, as justice and wisdom—are they visible and tangible? No. Do they then exist? They are in a See also:dilemma." Now, however effective against Plato's contemporary Cynics or Atomists, the reasoning is thrown away upon the Stoics, who take boldly the one See also:horn of this dilemma. That qualities of bodies (and therefore of the corporeal soul) exist they do not deny; but they assert most uncompromisingly that they are one and all (wisdom, justice, &c.) corporeal. And they strengthen their position by taking Plato's own See also:definition (247 D), namely being is that which has the power to See also:act or be acted upon," and turning it against him. For this is only true of Body; action; Materialism except by contact, is inconceivable; and they reduce . every form of See also:causation to the efficient cause, which implies the,communication of See also:motion from one body to another. Again and again, therefore, only Body exists. The most real realities to Plato and Aristotle had been thought and the objects of thought, vows and 1/o1jT(i, whether abstracted from sensibles or inherent in " matter," as the incognizable basis of all See also:concrete existence. But this was too great an effort to last long. Such spiritualistic theories were nowhere really maintained after Aristotle and outside the circle of his immediate followers. The reaction came and left nothing of it all; for five centuries the dominant See also:tone of the older and the newer schools alike was frankly materialistic. " If," says Aristotle, " there is no other substance but the organic substances of nature; physics will be the highest of the sciences," a conclusion which passed for axiomatic until the rise of See also:Neoplatonism. The analogues therefore of metaphysical problems must be sought in physics; particularly that problem of the causes of things for which the Platonic See also:idea and the Peripatetic " constitutive form " had been, each in its turn, received solutions. (b) Tension. But the doctrine that all existence is confined within the limits of the sensible universe—that there is no being See also:save corporeal being or body—does not suffice to characterize, the Stoic system; it is no less a doctrine of the Epicureans. It is the idea of tension or tonicity as the essential attribute of body, in contradistinction to passive inert matter, which is distinctively Stoic. The Epicureans leave unexplained the primary constitution and first movements of their atoms or elemental solids; See also:chance or See also:declination may See also:account for them. Now, to the Stoics nothing passes unexplained; there is a reason (Xbyos) for everything in nature. Everything which exists is at once capable of acting and being acted upon. In everything that exists, therefore, even the smallest particle, there are these two principles. By virtue of the passive principle the thing is susceptible of motion and modification; it is matter which determines substance (oboia). The active principle makes the matter a given determinate thing, characterizing and qualifying it, whence it is termed quality (1rotbris). For all that is or happens there is an immediate cause or antecedent; and as " cause " means " cause of motion," and only body can act upon body, it follows that this antecedent cause is itself as truly corporeal as the matter upon which it acts. Thus we are led to regard the active principle " force " as everywhere co-extensive with " matter," as pervading and permeating it, and together with it occupying and filling space. This is that famous doctrine of universal permeation (KpEats Se' &too), by which the See also:axiom that two bodies cannot occupy the same space is practically denied. Thus that See also:harmony of See also:separate doctrines which contributes to the impressive simplicity of the Stoic physics is only attained at the cost of offending healthy common sense, for Body itself is robbed of a characteristic attribute. A thing is no longer, as Plato once thought, hot or hard or See also:bright by partaking in abstract See also:heat or hardness or brightness, but by containing within its own substance the material of these qualities, conceived as See also:air-currents in various degrees of tension. We hear, too, of corporeal days and years, corporeal virtues, and actions (like walking) which are bodies (Qwµara). Obviously, again, the Stoic quality corresponds to Aristotle's essential form; in both systems the active principle, " the cause of all that matter becomes," is that which accounts for the existence of a given concrete thing (X&yos rqs ovaias). Only here, instead of assuming something immaterial (and therefore un- verifiable), we fall back upon a current of air or See also:gas (srveuµa); the essential reason of the thing is itself material, See also:standing to it in the relation of a gaseous to a solid body. Here, too, the reason of things—that which accounts for them—is no longer some See also:external end to which they are tending; it is something acting within them, " a spirit deeply interfused," germinating and developing as from a See also:seed in the heart of each separate thing that exists (Xoyos vaep,uartx6s). By its prompting the thing grows, develops and decays, while this " germinal reason," the element of quality in the thing, remains See also:constant through all its changes. (c) What then, we ask, is the relation between the active and the passive principles? Is there, Matter and or is there not, an essential distinction between sub-Force. stance or matter and pervading force or cause or quality? Here the Stoa shows signs of a development of doctrine. Zeno began, perhaps, by adopting the formulas of the See also:Peripatetics, though no doubt with a conscious difference, postulating that form was always attached to matter, no less than matter, as known to us, is everywhere shaped or informed. Whether he ever overcame the dualism. which the See also:sources, such as they are, unanimously ascribe to him is not clearly ascertained. It seems probable that he did not. But we can See also:answer authoritatively that to Cleanthes and Chrysippus, if not to Zeno, there was no real difference between matter and its cause, which is always a corporeal current, and therefore matter, although the finest and subtlest Monism, matter. In fact they have reached the final result of unveiled See also:hylozoism, from which the distinction of the active and passive principles is discerned to be a merely formal See also:con-cession to Aristotle, a See also:legacy from his dualistic doctrine. His technical See also:term Form (eraos) they never use, but always Reason or God. This was not the first time that approaches had been made to such a doctrine, and Diogenes of Apollonia in particular was led to oppose Anaxagoras, who distinguished Nous or Thought from every other See also:agent within the cosmos which is its work by postulating as his first principle something which should be at once physical substratum and thinking being. But until dualism had been thought out, as in the Peripatetic school, it was impossible that monism (or at any See also:rate materialistic monism) should be definitely and consciously maintained. One thing is certain: the Stoics provided no loophole of See also:escape by entrenching upon the " purely material " nature of matter; they laid down with rigid accuracy its two chief properties—extension in three dimensions, and resistance, both being traced back to force. There were, it is true, 'certain inconsistent conceptions, creations of thought to which nothing real and external corresponded, namely, time, space, void, and the idea expressed in See also:language ()s€sr6v). But this inconsistency was covered by another: though each of these might be said to be something, they could not be said to exist. The distinction of force and matter is then something transitory and relative. Its history will serve as a See also:sketch of the See also:cosmogony of the Stoics, for they too, like earlier philosophers, Cosmogony.have their " See also:fairy tales of science." Before there was See also:heaven or See also:earth, there was See also:primitive substance or Pneuma, the See also:everlasting presupposition of particular things. This is the totality of all existence; out of it the whole visible universe proceeds, hereafter to be again resolved into it. Not the less is it the creative force, or deity, which develops and shapes this universal See also:order or cosmos. To the question, What is God? Stoicism rejoins, What is God not? In this original See also:state of Pneuma God and the world are absolutely identical. But even then tension, the essential attribute of matter, is at work. Though the force working every-where is one, there are diversities of its operation, corresponding to various degrees of tension. In this primitive Pneuma there riust reside the utmost tension and heat; for it is a fact of observation that most bodies expand when heated, whence we infer that there is a pressure in heat, an expansive and dispersive tendency. The Pneuma .cannot long withstand this intense pressure. Motion backwards and forwards once set up goes to cool the glowing See also:mass of fiery vapour and to weaken the tension. Hereupon follows the first differentiation of primitive substance—the separation of force from matter, the See also:emanation of the world from God. The germinal world-making See also:powers 0(QTrEpgaTLK01 X6'yoL), which, in virtue of its tension, slumbered in Pneuma, now proceed upon their creative task. The primitive substance, be it remembered, is not Heraclitus's fire (though Cleanthes also called it See also:flame of fire, 4aot) any more than it is the air or " breath " of Anaximenes or Diogenes of Apollonia. Chrysippus determined it, following Zeno, to be fiery breath or See also:ether, a spiritualized sublimed intermediate element. The See also:cycle of its transformations and successive condensations constitutes the life of the universe, the. mode of existence proper to finite and particular being. For the universe and all its parts are only different embodiments and stages in that See also:metamorphosis of primitive being which Heraclitus had called a progress up and down (oSos avw Kara)). Out of it is separated, first, elemental fire, the fire which we know, which See also:burns and destroys; and this, again, condenses into air or aerial vapour; a further step in the downward path derives See also:water and earth from the solidification of air. At every See also:stage the degree of tension requisite for existence is slackened, and the resulting element approaches more and more to " inert " matter. But, just as one element does not wholly pass over into another (e.g. only a part of air is transmuted into water or earth), so the Pneuma itself does not wholly pass over into the elements. The See also:residue that remains in original purity with its tension yet undiminished is the ether in the highest See also:sphere of the visible heavens, encircling the world of which it is See also:lord and See also:head. From the elements the one substance is transformed into the multitude of individual things in the orderly universe, which again is itself a living thing or being, and the Pneuma pervading it, and conditioning life and growth everywhere, is its soul. But this process of differentiation is not eternal; it continues only until the times of the restoration of all things. For the world which has grown up will in turn decay. The tension which has been relaxed will again be tightened; there will be a See also:gradual See also:resolution of things into elements, and of elements into the primary substance, to be consummated in a general conflagration when once more the world will be absorbed in God. Then in due order a new cycle of development begins, reproducing the last in every minutest detail, and so on for ever. The doctrine of Pneuma, vital breath or " spirit," arose in the medical schools. The simplest reflection among savages and See also:half-civilized men connects vitality with the air inhaled in Pneuma. respiration; the disciples of Hippocrates, without much modifying this primitive belief, explained the See also:maintenance of vital warmth to be the See also:function of the breath within the organism. In the time of Alexander the Great Praxagoras discovered the distinction between the See also:arteries and the See also:veins. Now in the See also:corpse the former are empty; hence, in the light of these preconceptions they were declared to be vessels for conveying Pneuma to the different parts of the body. A generation afterwards Erasistratus made this the basis of a new theory of diseases and their treatment. Vital spirit, inhaled from the outside air, rushes through the arteries till it reaches the various centres, especially the See also:brain and the heart, and there causes thought and organic movement. But long before this the See also:peculiar character of air had been recognized as something intermediate to the corporeal and the incorporeal: when Diogenes of Apollonia revived the old Ionian hylozoism in opposition to the dualism of Anaxagoras, he made this, the typical example of matter in the gaseous state, his one element. In Stoicism, for the moment, the two conceptions are united, soon, however, to diverge—the medical conception to receive its final development under See also:Galen, while the philosophical conception, passing over to See also:Philo and others, was shaped and modified at Alexandria under the influence of Judaism, whence it played a great part in the developments of Jewish and See also:Christian See also:theology. The influence upon Stoicism of Heraclitus has been differently conceived. Siebeck would reduce it within very small dimensions, but this is not See also:borne out by the concise history found at contrast to See also:Herculaneum (See also:Index here., ed. See also:Comparetti, See also:col. 4 seq.). meraciitus. They substituted primitive Pneuma for his primitive fire, but so far as they are hylozoists at all they stand upon the same ground with him. Moreover, the commentaries of Cleanthes, Aristo and Sphaerus on Heraclitean writings (Diog. See also:Laer. vii. 174, ix. 5, 15) point to common study of these writings under Zeno. Others again (e.g. See also:Lassalle) represent the Stoics as merely diluting and distorting Heracliteanism. But this is altogether wrong, and the proofs offered, when rightly sifted, are often seen to See also:rest upon the distortion of Heraclitean doctrine in the reports of later writers, to assimilate it to the better known but essentially distinct innovations of the Stoics. In Heraclitus the constant flux is a metaphysical notion replaced by the interchange of material
elements which Chrysippus stated as a See also:simple proposition of physics. Heraclitus offers no See also:analogy to the doctrine of four (not three) elements as different grades of tension; to the conception of fire and air as the " form," in Aristotelian terminology, of particulars; nor to the function of organizing fire which works by methodic See also:plan to produce and preserve the world (ri;p rsxeieev 6Slw ,3a6i;'ov ir1 yivso w e6u/See also:lou). Nor, again, is there any analogy to the peculiar Stoic doctrine of universal intermingling (epuacs ii Moe). The two active elements interpenetrate the two See also:lower or more relaxed, winding through all parts of matter and so pervading the greater masses that there is no See also:mechanical mixture, nor yet a chemical See also:combination, since both " force " and " matter " retain their relative characters as before. Even the distinction between " force " and
matter "—so See also:alien to the spirit of Heraclitus—is seen to be a necessary consequence. Once assume that every character and See also:property of a particular thing is determined solely by the tension in it of a current of Pneuma, and (since that which causes currents in the thing cannot be absolutely the same with the thing itself) Pneuma, though present in all things, must be asserted to vary indefinitely in quantity and intensity. So condensed and coarsened is the indwelling air-current of inorganic bodies that no trace of See also:elasticity or life remains; it cannot even afford them the power of motion; all it can do is to hold them together (QUVEKTLKi/ Suvaµls), and, in technical language, Pneuma is present in See also: Later on much See also:evidence goes to show that (by a divergence from the orthodox standard perhaps due to Platonic influence) it was a Stoic tenet to concede a soul, though not a rational soul, throughout the See also:animal kingdom. To this higher manifestation of Pneuma can be traced back the " esprits animaux " of See also:Descartes and See also:Leibnitz, which continue to See also:play so great a part even in See also:Locke. The universal presence of Pneuma was confirmed by observation. A certain warmth, akin to the vital heat of organic being, seems to be found in inorganic nature: vapours from the earth, hot springs, See also:sparks from the See also:flint, were claimed as the last remnant of Pneuma not yet utterly slackened and See also:cold. They appealed also to the velocity and See also:dilatation of aeriform bodies, to whirlwinds and inflated balloons. The Logos is See also:quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged See also:sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the See also:joints and marrow. Tension itself Cleanthes defined as a fiery stroke (ravii aup6s) ; in his hymn to Zeus See also:lightning is the See also:symbol of divine activity. Take the fundamental properties of body—extension and resistance. The former results from distance; but distances, or dimensions, are straight lines, i.e. lines of greatest tension (cis .epov s- rauEvi ). Tension produces dilatation, or increase in distance. Resistance, again, is explained by cohesion, which implies binding force. Again, the primary substance has rectilinear motion in two directions, back-wards and forwards, at once a condensation, which produces cohesion and substance, and a dilatation, the cause of extension and qualities. How near this comes to the scientific truth of attraction and repulsion need hardly be noted. From the astronomers the Stoics borrowed their picture of the universe—a plenum in the form of a See also:series of layers or concentric rings, first the elements, then the planetary and stellar See also:spheres, massed See also:round the earth as centre—a picture which dominated the See also:imagination of men from the days of See also:Eudoxus down to those of See also:Dante or even See also:Copernicus. As to the physical constitution of bodies, they were content to reproduce the Peripatetic doctrine with slight modifications in detail, of hardly any importance when compared with the See also:change of spirit in the doctrine taught. But they rarely prosecuted researches in physics or See also:astronomy, and the newly created sciences of See also:biology and See also:comparative See also:anatomy received no adequate recognition from them. If, however, in the science of nature the Stoics can See also:lay claim to no striking originality, the See also:case is different when we come to the science of man. In the rational creatures— Psychology. man and the gods—Pneuma is manifested in a high degree of purity and intensity as an emanation from the world-soul, itself an emanation from the primary sub-stance of purest ether—a spark of the See also:celestial fire, or, more accurately, fiery breath, which is a mean between fire and air, characterized by vital warmth more than by dryness. The physical basis of Stoic psychology deserves the closest attention. On the one See also:hand, soul is corporeal, else it would have no real existence, would be incapable of extension in three dimensions (and therefore of equable See also:diffusion all over the body), incapable of holding the body together, as the Stoics contended that it does, herein presenting a See also:sharp contrast to the Epicurean tenet that it is the body which confines and shelters the light vagrant atoms of soul. On the other hand, this corporeal thing is veritably and identically reason, mind, and ruling principle (Moyer, vows, ?ye .iovLKbv) ; in virtue of its divine origin Cleanthes can say to Zeus, " We too are thy offspring," and a See also:Seneca can calmly insist that, if man and God are not on perfect equality, the superiority rests rather on our side. What God is for the world that the soul is for man. The Cosmos must be conceived as a single whole, its variety being referred to varying stages of condensation in Pneuma. So, too, the human soul must possess See also:absolute simplicity, its varying functions being conditioned by the degrees or See also:species of its tension. It follows that of " parts " of the soul, as previous thinkers imagined, there can be no question; all that can consistently be maintained is that from the centre of the body—the heart—seven distinct air-currents are discharged to various See also:organs, which are so many modes of the one soul's activity.' The ethical consequences of this position will be seen at a later stage. With this psy- chology is intimately connected the Stoic theory of knowledge. From the unity of soul it follows Theory of that all psychical processes—sensation, assent, Knowledge. impulse—proceed from reason, the ruling part; that is to say, there is no strife or See also:division: the one rational soul alone has sensations, assents to judgments, is impelled towards objects of desire just as much as it thinks or reasons. Not that all these powers at once reach full maturity. The soul at first is void of content; in the embryo it has not developed beyond the nutritive principle of a plant (dnxns) : at See also:birth the " ruling part " is a See also:blank tablet, although ready prepared to receive See also:writing. This excludes all possibility of innate ideas or any See also:faculty akin to intuitive reason. The source of all our knowledge is experience and discursive thought, which manipulates the materials of sense. Our ideas are copied from stored- up , sensations. No other theory was possible upon the foundation of the Stoic physics. See also:Note the parallel between the macrocosm and the microcosm. The soul of the world fills and penetrates it: in like manner the human soul pervades and breathes through all the body, informing and guiding it, stamping the man with his essential character of rational. There is in both alike a ruling part, though this is situate in the human heart at the centre—not in the brain, as the analogy of the celestial ether would suggest. Finally, the same cause, a relaxation of tension, accounts for See also:sleep, decay and death of man and for the See also:dissolution of the world; after death the disembodied soul can only maintain its separate existence, even for a limited time. by mounting to that region of the universe which is akin to its nature. It was a See also:moot point whether all souls so survive, as Cleanthes thought, or the souls of the See also:wise and See also:good alone, which was the opinion of Chrysippus; in any case, sooner or later individual sot's are merged in the soul of the universe, from which they proceeded. The relation of the soul of the universe to God is quite clear: it is an inherent property, a mode of His activity, an effluence or emanation from the fiery ether which surrounds the universe, penetrating and permeating it. A Stoic might consistently maintain that World-Soul, See also:Providence, Destiny and Germinal Reason are not See also:mere synonyms, for they See also:express different aspects of God, different relations of God to things. We find ourselves on the See also:verge of a system of abstractions, or " attributes turned into entities," as barren as any excogitated in See also:medieval times. In a certain sense, Scholasticism began with Chrysippus. To postulate different substances as underlying the different forces of nature would have been to surrender the fundamental thought of the system. What really is—the Pneuma—neither increases nor diminishes; but its modes of working, its different currents, can be conveniently distinguished and enumerated as evidence of so many distinct attributes. One inevitable consequence of materialism is that subject and See also:object can no longer be regarded as one in the act of perception, as Plato and Aristotle tended to assume, however imper- Pp>~ept)n. fectly the See also:assumption was carried out. The presump- tion of some merely external connexion, as between any other two corporeal things, is alone admissible and some form of the ' These derivative powers include the five senses, speech and the reproductive faculty, and they bear to the soul the relation of qualities to a substance. The ingenious See also:essay of Mr R. D. See also:Archer See also:Hind on the. Platonic psychology (Journ. of Phil. x. 120) aims at establishing a parallel unification on the spiritualistic side; cf. See also:Rep. x. 612 A. representative See also:hypothesis is most easily called in to account for perception. The Stoics explained it as a transmission of the perceived quality of the object, by means of the sense See also:organ, into the percipient's mind, the quality transmitted appearing as a disturbance or impression upon the corporeal See also:surface of that " thinking thing," the soul. Sight is taken as the typical sense. A conical See also:pencil of rays diverges from the pupil of the See also:eye, so that its See also:base covers the object seen. In sensation a presentation is conveyed, by an air-current, from the sense organ, here the eye, to the mind, i.e. the soul's " ruling part " in the See also:breast; the presentation, besides attesting its own existence, gives further information of its object—visible See also:colour or See also:size, or whatever be the quality in the thing seen. That Zeno and Cleanthes crudely compared this presentation to the impression which a See also:seal bears upon See also:wax, with protuberances and indentations, while Chrysippus more prudently determined it vaguely as an occult modification or " mode " of mind, is an interesting but not intrinsically important detail But the mind is no mere passive recipient of impressions from without, in the view of the Stoics. Their See also:analysis of sensation supposes it to react, by a variation in tension, against the current from the sense-organ; and this is the mind's assent or dissent, which is inseparable from the sense presentation. The contents of experience are not all alike true or valid: See also:hallucination is possible; here the Stoics join issue with See also:Epicurus. It is necessary, therefore, that assent should not be given indiscriminately; we must determine a criterion of truth, a See also:special formal test whereby reason may recognize the merely plausible and hold fast the true. In an earlier age such an inquiry would have seemed superfluous. To Plato and Aristotle the nature and operation of thought and reason constitute a sufficient criterion. Since their day not only had the opposition between sense and reason broken down, but the reasoned See also:scepticism of Pyrrho and See also:Arcesilaus had made the impossibility of attaining truth the primary See also:condition of well-being Yet the standard which ultimately found See also:acceptance in the Stoic school was not put forward, in that form, by its founder. Zeno, we have reason to believe, adopted the Cynic Logos for his guidance to truth as well as to morality. As a disciple of the Cynics he must have started with a theory of knowledge somewhat like that developed in the third part of Plato's Theaetetus (201 C seq.)—that simple ideas are given by sense, whereas " opinion," which is a complex of simple ideas, only .becomes knowledge when joined with Logos. We may further suppose that the more obvious of Plato's objections had led to the correction of " reason " into " right reason. However that may be, it is certain from Aristotle (Nic. Eth. vi. 13, I144b, 17) that virtue was defined as a " See also:habit " in accordance with right reason, and from Diog. Laer. vii. 54 that the earlier Stoics made right reason the standard of truth. The law which regulates our action is thus the ultimate criterion of what we know—practical knowledge being understood to be of See also:paramount importance. But this criterion was open to the persistent attacks of Epicureans and Academics, who made clear (i) that reason is dependent upon, if not derived from, sense, and (2) that the utterances of reason lack consistency. Chrysippus, therefore, conceded something to his opponents when he substituted for the Logos the new See also:standards of sensation (afeOnols) and general conception (rp6A,n/ns = anticipation, i.e. the generic type formed in the mind unconsciously and spontaneously). At the same time he was more clearly defining and safeguarding his predecessors' position. For reason is consistent in the general conceptions wherein all men agree, because in all alike they are of spontaneous growth. Nor was the term sensation sufficiently definite. The Criterion of same Chrysippus fixed upon a certain characteristic of true presentations, which he denoted by the much Truth, disputed term " apprehensive " (KaraXnarLs1 ¢avravla). Provided the sense organ and the mind be healthy, provided an external object be really seen or heard, the presentation, in virtue of its clearness and distinctness, has the power to extort the assent which it always lies in our power to give or to withhold. Formerly this technical phrase was explained to mean " the perception which irresistibly compels the subject to assent to it as true." But this, though apparently supported by Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math. vii. 257), is quite erroneous; for the presentation is called Karaa>,arbv, as well as KaraXn,rru, 4aeraeta, so that beyond all doubt it is something which the percipient subject grasps, and not that which grasps or " See also:lays hold of " the percipient. Nor, again, is it wholly satisfactory to explain KaraXn,rTLK1 as virtually passive, " apprehensible," like its opposite &KaraXnrrros; for we find a'VTLXn1TLKit r(OV VrrOKEL/AEVWV used as an alternative phrase (ibid. vii. 248). It would seem that the perception intended to constitute the standard of truth is one which, by producing a See also:mental counterpart of a really existent external thing, enables the percipient, in the very act of sense, to " lay hold of " or apprehend an object in virtue of the presentation or sense impression of it excited in his own mind. The reality of the external object is a necessary condition, to exclude hallucinations of the senses ; the exact See also:correspondence between the external object and the See also:internal percept is also necessary, but naturally hard to secure, for how can we compare the two? The external object is known only in perception. However, the younger Stoics endeavoured to meet the assaults of their persistent critic See also:Carneades by suggesting various modes of testing a singlepresentation, to see whether it were consistent with others, especially such as occurred in See also:groups, &c.; indeed, some went so far as to add to the definition " coming from a real object and exactly corresponding with it " the clause " provided it encounter no obstacle." The same criterion was available for knowledge derived more directly from the intellect. Like all materialists, the Stoics can only distinguish the sensible from the intelligible as Degrees of thinking when the external object is present (aieBaviceOat) Knowledge. and thinking when it is absent (Evvoeiv) The product of the latter See also:kind includes memory (though this is, upon a strict analysis, something intermediate), and conceptions or general notions, under which were confusedly classed the products of the imaginative faculty. The work of the mind is seen first in " assent "; if to a true presentation the result is " simple See also:apprehension " (Kara)^n>Gis : this stands in close relation to the KaraXnrrrlKi) ¢avraeta, of which it is the necessary See also:complement) ; if to a false or unapprehensive presentation, the result is " opinion " (S6 a), always deprecated as akin to See also:error and See also:ignorance, unworthy of a wise man. These processes are conceivable only as " modes " of mind, changes in the soul's substance, and the same is true of the higher conceptions, the products of generalization. But the Stoics were not slow to exalt the part of reason, which seizes upon the generic qualities, the essential nature of things. Where sense and reason conflict, it is the latter that must decide. One isolated " apprehension," however See also:firm its grasp, does not constitute knowledge or science (Erum Mn) ; it must be of the firmest, such as reason cannot shake, and, further, it must be worked into a system of such apprehensions which can only be by the mind's exercising the " habit " (EEls) of attaining truth by continuous tension. Here the work of reason is assimilated to the force which binds together the parts of an inorganic body and resists their separation. There is nothing more in the order of the universe than extended See also:mobile bodies and forces in tension in these bodies. So, too, in the order of knowledge there is nothing but sense and the force of reason maintaining its tension and connecting sensations and ideas in their proper sequence. Zeno compared sensation to the outstretched hand, See also:flat and open; bending the fingers was assent ; the clenched fist was " simple apprehension," the mental grasp of an object; knowledge was the clenched fist tightly held in the other hand. The See also:illustration is valuable for the light it throws on the essential unity of diverse intellectual operations as well as for enforcing once more the Stoic doctrine that different grades of knowledge are different grades of tension. Good and evil, virtues and vices, remarks See also:Plutarch, are all capable of being " perceived "; sense, this common basis of all mental activity, is a sort of See also:touch by which the ethereal Pneuma which is the soul's substance recognizes and See also:measures tension. With this exposition we have already invaded the See also:province of logic. To this the Stoics assigned a See also:miscellany of studies—See also:rhetoric, See also:dialectic, including grammar, in addition to formal Logic logic—to all of which their See also:industry made contributions. Some of their innovations in grammatical terminology have lasted until now: we still speak of oblique cases, genitive, See also:dative, See also:accusative, of verbs active ((Spelt), passive (iirrrla), neuter (oi' frspa), by the names they gave. Their corrections and fancied improvements of the Aristotelian logic are mostly useless and pedantic. Judgment (&E1w/2a) they defined as a See also:complete idea capable of expression in language (rssrbv atrorsXis), and to distinguish it from other enunciations, as a wish or a command, they added " which is either true or false." From simple judgments they proceeded to See also:compound judgments, and declared the hypothetical See also:syllogism to be the normal type of reason, of which the categorical syllogism is an See also:abbreviation. Perhaps it is See also:worth while to quote their treatment of the categories. Aristotle made ten, all co-ordinate, to serve as " heads of See also:predication " under which to collect distinct scraps of information respecting a subject, probably a man. For this the Stoics substituted four summa genera, all subordinate, so that each in turn is more precisely determined by the next. They are Something, or Being, determined as (t) substance or subject matter, (2) essential quality, i.e. substance qualified, (3) mode or chance attribute, i.e. qualified substance in a certain condition (See also:Iron ixov), and, lastly, (4) relation or relative mode (in full 1nrOKE(/LEVOV IroLov Irpbs Ti irws gXov). The zeal with which the school prosecuted logical inquiries had one practical result—they could use to perfection the unrivalled weapon of analysis. Its chief employment was to lay things See also:bare and sever them from their surroundings, in order that they might be contemplated in their simplicity, with rigid exactness, as 'objects of thought, apart from the illusion and exaggeration that attends them when presented to sense and imagination. The very perfection and precision of this method constantly tempted the later Stoics to abuse it for the systematic depreciation of the objects analysed. The ethical theory of the Stoics stands in the closest connexion with their physics, psychology and cosmology. A See also:critical account of it will be found in the See also:article ETHICS. It may be Ethics. briefly summarized here. Socrates had rightly said that Virtue is Knowledge, but he had not definitely shown in what this knowledge consists, nor had his immediate successors, the Cynics, made any serious See also:attempt to solve the difficulty. The Stoics not only drew up an elaborate See also:scheme of duties, but also crystallized their theory in a general law, namely that true goodness lies in the knowledge of nature and is obtained by the exercise of Reason. The most elementary part of nature is pure ether, which is possessed of divine reason. This Reason even non-rational man unconsciously manifests in his mechanical or instinctive actions which tend to the preservation of himself. The truly wise man will therefore live as much as possible in conformity with nature, (i.e. nature uncorrupted by the errors of society), and, though as an individual and part of the whole not See also:master of his fate, will yet have self-See also:control even in the midst of misfortune and See also:pain. All evil See also:passion is due to erroneous judgment and morbid conditions of mind which may be divided into chronic ailments (vocrivara) and infirmities ($ppmorivara), i.e. into permanent or temporary disorders. In contrast to the See also:Cyrenaics and the Epicureans, the Stoics denied that pleasure is actually or ought to be the object of human activity. The non-rational man aims at self-preservation, and the wise man will imitate him deliberately, and when he fails he will suffer with equanimity. To him the so-called " goods " (e.g. See also:health, See also:wealth, &c.) are " indifferent " ((1i 4ope) ; since he must live, he will exercise his reasoning faculty upon them, and will regard some as " preferred " (rpon'yu&a) and others as to be " rejected " (&rorponyuh,a), but he will not regard either class as possessed of an See also:intrinsic value. The end of action is, therefore, a harmonious consistent life " according to nature " and (cf. Heraclitus) an ordered unity of action. Virtue is its own good; the highest exercise of reason is its own perfection. It follows (I) that pleasure, being quite outside the See also:pale is not the object but merely an ertykvvnua (See also:accompaniment) of virtuous action, and (2) that there is, within the circle of virtue, no degree. An action is simply virtuous or not; it cannot be more or less virtuous. The result of this theory of ethics is of great value as emphasizing the importance of a systematic view of conduct, but it fails to resolve satisfactorily the great Socratic See also:paradox that evil is the result of ignorance. For even though they attempt to substantiate the idea of responsibility by maintaining that ignorance is voluntary, they cannot find any answer to the question whether some men may not be without the capacity to choose learning (but see ETHICS: History, § Stoics). In their view of man's social relations the Stoics are greatly in advance of preceding schools. We saw that virtue is a law which governs the universe: that which Reason poii[anism. and God ordain must be accepted as binding upon the particle of reason which is in each one of us. Human law comes into existence when men recognize this See also:obligation; justice is therefore natural and not something merely conventional. The opposite tendencies, to allow to the individual responsibility and freedom, and to demand of him obedience to law, are both features of the system; but in virtue even of the freedom which belongs to him qua rational, he must recognize the society of rational beings of which he is a member, and subordinate his own ends to the ends and needs of this society. Those who own one law are citizens of one state, the city of Zeus, in which men and gods have their dwell- See also:ing. In that city all is ordained by reason working intelligently, and the members exist for the sake of one another; there is an intimate connexion (avniraBeua) between them which makes all the wise and virtuous See also:friends, even if personally unknown, and leads them to contribute to one another's good. Their intercourse should find expression in justice, in friendship, in See also:family and See also:political life. But practically the Stoic philosopher always had some good excuse for withdrawing from the narrow political life of the city in which he found himself. The cir- cumstances of the time, such as the decay of Greek city-life, the foundation of large territorial states under absolute Greek rulers which followed upon Alexander's conquests, and after- wards the rise of the world-empire of Rome, aided to develop the leading idea of Zeno's Republic. There he had anticipated a state without family life, without law courts or coins, without schools or temples, in which all See also:differences of See also:nationality would be merged in the common brotherhood of man. This .See also:cos- mopolitan citizenship remained all through a distinctive Stoic See also:dogma; when first announced it must have had a powerful influence upon the minds of men, diverting them from the distractions of almost parochial politics to a boundless vista. There was, then, no longer any difference between Greek and See also:barbarian, between male and See also:female, See also:bond and See also:free. All are members of one body as partaking in reason, all are equally men. Not that this led to any movement for the abolition of See also:slavery. For the Stoics attached but slight importance to external cir- cumstances, since only the wise man is really free, and all the unwise are slaves. Yet, while they accepted slavery as a permanent institution, philosophers as wide apart as Chrysippus and Seneca sought to mitigate its evils in practice, and urged upon masters humanity in the treatment of their slaves. The religious problem had peculiar interest for the school which discerned God everywhere as the ruler and upholder, and at the same time the law, of the world that See also:Religion. He had evolved from Himself. The physical ground- work lends a religious See also:sanction to all moral duties, and Cleanthes's noble hymn is evidence how far a system of natural religion could go in providing See also:satisfaction for the cravings of the religious See also:temper: " Most glorious of immortals, 0 Zeus of many names, almighty and everlasting, See also:sovereign of nature, directing all in accordance with law, thee it is fitting that all mortals should address.... Thee all this universe, as it rolls circling round the earth, obeys wheresoever See also:thou dost See also:guide, and gladly owns thy sway. Such a See also:minister thou holdest in thy invincible hands—the two-edged, fiery, ever-living thunderbolt, under whose stroke all nature shudders. No work upon earth is wrought apart from thee, lord, nor through the divine ethereal sphere, nor upon the See also:sea; save only whatsoever deeds wicked men do in their own foolishness. See also:Nay, thou knowest how to make even the rough smooth, and to bring order out of disorder; and things not friendly are friendly in thy sight. For so hast thou fitted all things together, the good with the evil, that there might be one eternal law over all. . . . Deliver men from fell ignorance. Banish it, See also:father, from their soul, and See also: The See also:search for a deeper hidden meaning beside the literal one had been begun by See also:Democritus, See also:Empedocles, the See also:Sophists and the Cynics. It remained for Zeno to carry this to a much greater extent and to seek out or invent " natural principles" (Xbyoc 4vvtKoi) and moral ideas in all the legends and in the See also:poetry of See also:Homer and See also:Hesiod. In this sense he was the See also:pattern if not the " father " of all such as allegorize and reconcile. See also:Etymology was pressed into the service, and the wildest conjectures as to the meaning of names did See also:duty as a basis for mythological explanations. The two favourite Stoic heroes were See also:Hercules and Ulysses, and nearly every See also:scene in their adventures was made to disclose some moral significance. Lastly, the practice of See also:divination and the See also:consul- Divination. tation of oracles afforded a means of communication between God and man—a concession to popular beliefs which may be explained when we reflect that to the faithful divination was something as essential as See also:confession and spiritual direction to a devout See also:Catholic now, or the study and See also:interpretation of Scripture texts to a See also:Protestant. Chrysippus did his best to reconcile the superstition with his own rational doctrine of strict causation. Omens and portents, he explained, are the natural symptoms of certain occurrences. There must be countless indications of the course of Providence, for the most part unobserved, the meaning of only a few having become known to men. His opponents argued, " if all events are foreordained, divination is superfluous "; he replied that both divination and our behaviour under the warnings which it affords are included in the See also:chain of causation. Even here, however, the See also:bent of the system is apparent. They were at pains to insist upon purity of heart and life as an indispensable condition for success in prophesying and to enlist piety in the service of morality. When Chrysippus died (01. 143 = 208-204 B.C.) the structure of Stoic doctrine was complete. With the Middle Stoa we Middle enter upon a period at first of comparative inaction, stria. afterwards of internal reform. Chrysippus's See also:im- mediate successors were Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes of Seleucia (often called the Babylonian) and See also:Antipater of Tarsus, men of no originality, though not without ability; the two last-named, however, had all their energies taxed to sustain the conflict with Carneades (q.v.). This was the most formidable See also:assault the school ever encountered; that it survived was due more to the foresight and elaborate precautions of Chrysippus than to any efforts of that " See also:pen-doughty " pamphleteer, Antipater (KaXaµoQ6as), who shrank from opposing himself in See also:person to the eloquence of Carneades. The subsequent history testified to the importance of this controversy. The special objects of attack were the Stoic theory of knowledge, their theology and their ethics. The physical basis of the system remained unchanged but neglected; all creative force or even original research in the departments of physics and See also:metaphysics vanished. Yet problems of interest bearing upon psychology and natural theology continued to be discussed. Thus the cycles of the world's existence, and the universal conflagration which terminates each of them, excited some doubt. Diogenes of Seleucia is said to have wavered in his belief at See also:las ; Boethus, one of his pupils, flatly denied it. He regarded the Deity as the guide and upholder of the world, watching over it from the outside, not as the immanent soul within it, for according to him the world was as soulless as a plant. We have here a See also:compromise between Zeno's and Aristotle's doctrines. But in the end the universal conflagration was handed down without question as an article of belief. It is clear that the activity of these teachers was chiefly directed to ethics: they elaborated fresh See also:definitions of the chief good, designed either to make yet clearer the sense of the formulas of Chrysippus or else to meet the more urgent objections of the New Academy. Carneades had emphasized one striking apparent inconsistency: it had been laid down that to choose what is natural is man's highest good, and yet the things chosen, the " first objects according to nature," had no place amongst goods. Antipater may have met this by distinguishing " the attainment " of primary natural ends from the activity directed to their attainment (Plut. De See also:Comm. Not. 27, 14, p. 1072 F); but, earlier still, Diogenes had put forward his See also:gloss, viz. " The end is to calculate rightly in the selection and rejection of things according to nature." Archedemus, a contemporary of Diogenes, put this in plainer terms still: " The end is to live in the performance of all fitting actions " (rnivra Ttt KatiiKovra .rtreXovvras ). Now it is highly improbable that the earlier Stoics would have sanctioned such interpretations of their dogmas. The mere performance of relative or imperfect duties, they would have said, is some-thing neither good nor evil; the essential constituents of human good is ignored. And similar criticism is actually passed by Posidonius: " This is not the end, but only its necessary concomitant; such a mode of expression may be useful for the refutation of objections put forward by the Sophists " (Carneades and the New Academy?), " but it contains nothing of morality or well-being " (Galen, De Plac. Hipp. et Plat. p. 470 K). There is every ground, then, for concluding that we have here one concession extorted by the assaults of Carneades. For a similar compromise there is express testimony: " good repute " (e'SoEia) had been regarded as a thing wholly indifferent in the school down to and including Diogenes. Antipater was forced to assign to it " See also:positive value," and to give it a place amongst " things preferred " (Cic. De jilt. iii. 57). These modifications were retained by Antipater's successors. Hence come the increased importance and See also:fuller treatment which from this time forward fall to the See also:lot of the " external duties "(KaO KoPra). The rigour and consistency of the older system became sensibly modified. To this result another important See also:factor contributed. In all that the older Stoics taught there breathes that See also:enthusiasm for righteousness in which has been traced the The Sage. earnestness of the Semitic spirit; but nothing presents more forcibly the See also:pitch of their moral See also:idealism than the doctrine of the Wise Man. All mankind fall into two classes—the wise or virtuous, the unwise or wicked—the distinction being absolute. He who possesses virtue possesses it whole and entire; he who lacks it lacks it altogether. To be but a hand's-breadth below the surface of the sea ensures drowning as infallibly as to be five See also:hundred fathoms deep. Now the wise man is drawn as perfect. All he does is right, all his opinions are true; he alone is free, See also:rich, beautiful, skilled to govern, capable of giving or receiving a benefit. And his happiness, since length of time cannot increase it, falls in nothing short of that of Zeus. In contrast with all this, we have a picture of universal depravity. Now, who could claim to have attained to the sage's wisdom? Doubtless, at the first See also:founding of the school Zeno himself and Zeno's pupils were inspired with this See also:hope; they emulated the Cynics Antisthenes and Diogenes, who never shrank out of modesty from the name and its responsibilities. But the development of the system led them gradually and reluctantly to renounce this hope as they came to realize the arduous conditions involved. Zeno indeed could hardly have been denied the See also:title conferred upon Epicurus. Cleanthes, the " second Hercules," held it possible for man to attain to virtue. From anecdotes recorded of the tricks played upon Aristo and Sphaerus (Diog. Laers vii. 162, 117) it may be inferred that the former deemed himself infallible in his opinions, i.e. set up for a sage; Persaeus himself, who had exposed the pretensions of Aristo, is twitted with having failed to conform with the perfect generalship which was one trait of the wise man when he allowed the citadel of See also:Corinth to be taken by Aratus (Athen. iv. 1.02 D). The trait of See also:infallibility especially proved hard to establish when successive heads of the school seriously differed in their doctrine. The prospect became daily more distant, and at length faded away. Chrysippus declined to call himself or any of his contemporaries a sage. One or two such manifestations there may have been—Socrates and Diogenes?—but the wise man was rarer, he thought, than the See also:phoenix. If his successors allowed one or two more exceptions, to Diogenes of Seleucia at any rate the sage was an unrealized ideal, as we learn from Plutarch (De comm. not. 33, 1076 B), who does not fail to seize upon this extreme view. Posidonius left even Socrates, Diogenes and Antisthenes in the state of progress towards virtue. Although there was in the end a reaction from this Moatfkaextreme, yet it is impossible to See also:mistake the bearing dons to of all this upon a practical system of morals. So Pradke. long as dialectic subtleties and exciting polemics afforded See also:food for the intellect, the gulf between theory and practice might be ignored. But once let this system be presented to men in See also:earnest about right living, and eager to profit by what they are taught, and an ethical reform is inevitable. Conduct for us will be separated from conduct for the sage. We shall he told not always to imitate him. There will he a new law, dwelling specially upon the " external duties" required of all men, wise or unwise; and even the sufficiency of virtue for our happiness may be questioned. The introducer and expositor of such I a twofold morality was a remarkable man. See also:Born at Rhodes c. 185 B.C., a citizen of the most flourishing of Greek states and almost the only one which yet retained vigour and freedom, Panaetius lived for years in the See also:house of Scipio See also:Africanus the younger at Rome, accompanied him on embassies and See also:campaigns, and was perhaps the first Greek who in a private capacity had any insight into the working of the Roman state or the I character of its citizens. Later in life, as head of the Stoic school at Athens, he achieved a reputation second only to that of Chrysippus. He is the earliest Stoic author from whom we have, even indirectly, any considerable piece of work, 1 as books i. and ii. of the De ofliiciis are a rechauffe, in See also:Cicero's See also:fashion, of Panaetius " Upon External Duty " (irepl rou xa6, ICOPToc). The introduction of Stoicism at Rome was the most momentous of the many changes that it saw. After the first sharp collision with the See also:jealousy of the national authorities stokism in it found a ready acceptance, and made rapid progress Rome' amongst the noblest families. It has been well said that the old heroes of the republic were unconscious Stoics, fitted by their narrowness, their stern simplicity and devotion :o duty for the almost Semitic earnestness of the new doctrine. In Greece its insensibility to See also:art and the cultivation of life was a fatal defect; not so with the shrewd men of the world, desirous of qualifying as See also:advocates or jurists. It supplied them with an incentive to scientific research in See also:archaeology and grammar; it penetrated jurisprudence until the belief in the ultimate identity of the See also:jus gentium with the law of nature modified the See also:praetor's edicts for centuries. Even to the prosaic religion of old Rome, with its narrow original conception and multitude of See also:burden-some See also:rites, it became in some sort a support. See also:Scaevola, following Panaetius, explained that the prudence of statesmen had established this public institution in the service of order midway between the errors of popular superstition and the barren truths of enlightened philosophy. Soon the influence of the pupils reacted upon the doctrines taught. Of speculative interest the See also:ordinary Roman had as little as may be; for abstract discussion and controversy he cared nothing. Indifferent to the scientific basis or logical development of doctrines, he selected from various writers and from different schools what he found most serviceable. All had to be simplified and disengaged from technical subtleties. To attract his Roman pupils Panaetius would naturally choose simple topics susceptible Panaetius. of rhetorical treatment or of application to individual details. He was the representative, not merely of Stoicism, but of Greece and Greek literature, and would feel See also:pride in introducing its greatest masterpieces: amongst all that he studied, he valued most the writings of Plato. He admired the classic See also:style, the exquisite purity of language, the flights of imagination, but he admired above all the philosophy. He marks a reaction of the genuine Hellenic spirit against the narrow austerity of the first Stoics. Zeno and Chrysippus had introduced a repellent technical terminology; their writings lacked every See also:grace of style. With Panaetius the Stoa became eloquent: he did his best to improve upon the uncouth words in See also:vogue, even at some slight cost of accuracy, e.g. to discard aporrypigov for ehxps o rov, or else designate it " so-called good," or even simply " good," if the context allowed. The part Panaetius took in philological and See also:historical studies is characteristic of the man. We know much of the results of these studies; of his philosophy technically we know very little. He wrote only upon ethics, where historical knowledge would be of use. Crates of NIallus, one of his teachers, aimed at fulfilling the high functions of a " critic " according to his own definition—that the critic must acquaint himself with all rational knowledge. Panaetius was competent to pass judgment upon the critical " divination " of an See also:Aristarchus (who was perhaps himself also a Stoic), and took an .interest in the restoration of Old See also:Attic forms to the See also:text of Plato. Just then there had been a movement towards a wider and more liberal education, by which even contemporary Epicureans were affected. Diogenes the Babylonian had written a See also:treatise on language and one entitled The See also:Laws. Along with grammar, which had been a prominent See also:branch of study under Chrysippus, philosophy, history, See also:geography, See also:chronology and kindred subjects came to be recognized as See also:fields of activity no less than See also:philology proper. It has been recently established that See also:Polybius the historian was a Stoic, and it is clear that he was greatly influenced by the form of the system which he learned to know, in the society of Scipio and his friends, from Panaetius.) Nor is it improbable that works of the latter served Cicero as the originals of his De republica and De legibus.2 Thus the gulf between Stoicism and the later Cynics, who were persistently hostile to culture, could not fail to be widened. Hirzel, Untersuch. ii. 841 seq. Polybius's rejection of divination is decisive. See, e.g. his explanation upon natural causes of Scipio the Elder's See also:capture of New Carthage, " by the aid of See also:Neptune," x. r r (cf. x. 2). P. Voigt holds that in vi. 5, 1, riacv irtpotc rwv OtXoa64iwv is an allusion to Panaetius. 2 This at least, is maintained by Schmekel. A See also:wave of See also:eclecticism passed over all the Greek schools in the 1st century inc. Platonism and scepticism had left undoubted traces upon the doctrine of such a reformer as Panaetius. He Eclectkism. had doubts about a general conflagration; possibly (he thought) Aristotle was right in affirming the eternity of the present order of the world. He doubted the entire system of divination. On these points his disciples Posidonius and Hecato seem to have reverted to orthodoxy. But in ethics his innovations were more suggestive and fertile. He separated wisdom as a theoretic virtue from the other three which he called practical. Hecato slightly modified this: showing that precepts (Bewp$See also:para) are needed for justice and temperance also, he made them scientific virtues, reserving for his second class the unscientific virtue (&Betprtros &peril) of courage, together with health, strength and such-like " excellencies." Further, Panaetius had maintained that pleasure is not altogether a thing indifferent : there is a natural as well as an unnatural pleasure. But, if so, it would follow that, since pleasure is an emotion, apathy or eradication of all emotions cannot be unconditionally required.' The gloss he put upon the definition of the end was " a life in accordance with the promptings given us by nature "; the terms are all used by older Stoics, but the individual nature (itµl') seems to be emphasized. From Posidonius, the last representative of a comprehensive study of nature Posidonius. and a subtle erudition, it is not surprising that we get the following definition: the end is to live in contemplation of the reality and order of the universe, promoting it to the best of our power, and never led astray by the irrational part of the soul. The heterodox phrase with which this definition ends points to innovations in psychology which were undoubtedly real and important, suggested by the difficulty of maintaining the essential unity of the soul. Panaetius had referred two faculties (those of speech and of See also:reproduction) to animal impulse and to the vegetative " nature' (bats) respectively. Yet the older Stoics held that this ¢bats was changed to a true soul (,ltux,i) at birth. Posidonius, unable to explain the emotions as " judgments " or the effects of judgments, postulated, like Plato, an irrational principle (including a concupiscent and a spirited element) to account for them, although he subordinated all these as faculties to the one substance of the soul lodged in the heart. This was a serious departure from the principles of the system, facilitating a return of later Stoicism to the dualism of God and the world, reason and the irrational part in man, which Chrysippus had striven to surmount.' Yet in the general approximation and See also:fusion of opposing views which had set in, the Stoics fared far better than See also:rival schools. Their system became best known and most widely used by individual eclectics. All the assaults of the sceptical Academy had failed, and within fifty years of the death of Carneades his degenerate successors, unable to hold their ground on the question of the criterion, had capitulated to the enemy. See also:Antiochus of See also:Ascalon, the professed restorer of the Old Academy, taught a medley of Stoic and Peripatetic dogmas, which he boldly asserted Zeno had first borrowed from his school. The wide diffusion of Stoic phraseology and Stoic modes of thought may be seen on all hands—in the language of the New Testament writers, in the compendious " histories of philosophy " industriously circulated by a See also:host of writers about this time (ccf. H. Diels, Doxographi graeci). The writings of the later Stoics have come down to us, if not entire, in great part, so that Seneca, See also:Cornutus, See also:Persius, See also:Lucan, See also:Epictetus, See also:Marcus Aurelius are known at first hand. They do not profess to give a scientific exposition Stoles The Later of doctrine, and may therefore be dismissed some- what briefly (see EPICTETUS and MARCUS AURELIUS). We learn much more about the Stoic system from the scanty fragments of the first founders,4 or even from the epitomes of Diogenes Laertius and See also:Stobaeus, than from these writers. They testify to the restriction of philosophy to the practical side, and to the increasing tendency, ever since Panaetius, towards a relaxation of the rigorous ethical doctrine and its approximation to the form of religious conviction. This finds most marked expression in the doctrines of submission to Providence and universal philanthropy. Only in this way could they hold their ground, however insecurely, in See also:face of the religious reaction of the 1st century. In passing to Rome, Stoicism quitted the school for actual life. The fall of the republic was a gain, for it Works of Posidonius and Hecato have served as the basis of extant Latin See also:treatises. Cicero, De divinatione, perhaps De natura deorum, i. ii., comes in part from Posidonius; Cicero, De finibus, iii., and Seneca, De beneficiis, i.–iv., from Hecato, who is also the source of Stobacus, Eel. eth. ii. To. Cf. H. H. See also:Fowler, Panaetii et Hecatonis fragmenta (See also:Bonn, 1885). 4 Cf. C. See also:Wachsmuth, Commentationes 11. de Zenone Ciliensi et Cleanthe Assio (See also:Gottingen, 1874). Baguet's Chrysippus (See also:Louvain, 1822) is unfortunately very incomplete. released so much intellectual activity from civic duties. The life and death of See also:Cato fired the imagination of a degenerate age in which he stood out both as a Roman and a Stoic. To a long line of illustrious successors, men like Thrasea Paetus and Helvidius See also:Priscus, Cato bequeathed his resolute opposition to the dominant power of the times; unsympathetic, impracticable, but fearless in demeanour, they were a standing reproach to the corruption and tyranny of their age. But when at first, under See also:Augustus, the empire restored order, philosophy became bolder and addressed every class in society, public lectures and spiritual direction being the two forms in which it mainly showed activity. Books of direction were written by Sextius in Greek (as after-.wards by Seneca in Latin), almost the only Roman who had the ambition to found a See also:sect, though in ethics he mainly followed Stoicism. His contemporary Papirius Fabianus was the popular lecturer of that day, producing a powerful effect by his denunciations of the See also:manners of the time. Under Tiberius, Sotion and Attalus were attended by crowds of hearers. In Seneca's time there was a See also:professor, with few hearers it is true, even in a provincial See also:town like See also:Naples. At the same time the antiquarian study of Stoic writings went on apace, especially those of the earliest teachers—Zeno and Aristo and Cleanthes. Seneca is the most prominent See also:leader in the direction which Roman Stoicism now took. His penetrating intellect had Seneca mastered the subtleties of the system of Chrysippus, but they seldom appear in his works, at least without, See also:apology. Incidentally we meet there with the doctrines of Pneuma and of tension, of the corporeal nature of the virtues and the affections, and much more to the same effect. But his attention is claimed for physics chiefly as a means of elevating the mind, and as making known the wisdom of Providence and the moral See also:government of the world. To reconcile the ways of God to man had been the ambition of Chrysippus, as we know from Plutarch's criticisms. He argued plausibly that natural evil was a thing indifferent—that even moral evil was required in the divine See also:economy as a See also:foil to set off good. The really difficult problem why the prosperity of the wicked and the calamity of the just were permitted under the divine government he met in various ways: sometimes he alleged the forgetfulness of higher powers; sometimes he fell back upon the See also:necessity of these contrasts and See also:grotesque passages in the See also:comedy of human life. Seneca gives the true Stoic answer in his treatise On Providence: the wise man cannot really meet with misfortune; all outward calamity is a divine See also:instrument of training, designed to exercise his powers and See also:teach the world the indifference of external conditions. In the soul Seneca recognizes an effluence of the divine spirit, a god in the human See also:frame; in virtue of this he maintains the essential dignity and internal freedom of man in every human being. Yet,'in striking coritrast to this orthodox tenet is his vivid conception of the weakness and misery of men, the hopelessness of the struggle with evil, whether in society or in the individual. Thus he describes the body (which, after Epicurus, he calls the flesh) as a mere husk or fetter or See also:prison of the soul; with its departure begins the soul's true life. Sometimes, too, he writes as if he accepted an irrational as well as a rational part of the soul. In ethics, if there is no novelty of doctrine, there is a surprising change in the mode of its application. The ideal sage has receded; philosophy comes as a physician, not to the whole but to the sick. We learn that there are various classes of patients in " progress " (7rpoKo7r7n, i.e. on their way to virtue, making painful efforts towards it. The first stage is the eradication of vicious habits: evil tendencies are to be corrected, and a guard kept on the corrupt propensities of the reason. Suppose this achieved, we have yet to struggle with single attacks of the passions: irascibility may be cured, but we may succumb to a See also:fit of rage. To achieve this second stage the impulses must be trained in such a way that the fitness of things indifferent may be the guide of conduct. Even then it remains to give the will that property of rigid infallibility without which we are always liable to err, and this must be effected by the training of the judgment. Other peculiarities of the later Stoic ethics are due to the conditionof the times. In a time of moral corruption and oppressive See also:rule, as the early empire repeatedly became to the privileged classes of Roman society, a general feeling of insecurity led the student of philosophy to seek in it a See also:refuge against the vicissitudes of See also:fortune which he daily beheld. The less any one man could do to interfere in the government, or even to safe-guard his own life and property, the more heavily the common fate pressed upon all, levelling the ordinary distinctions of class and character. Driven inwards upon themselves, they employed their See also:energy in severe self-examination, or they cultivated resignation to the will of the universe, and towards their See also:fellow men forbearance and forgiveness and humility, the virtues of the philanthropic disposition. With Seneca this resignation took the form of a constant meditation upon death. Timid by nature, aware of his impending See also:doom, and at times justly dissatisfied with himself, he tries all means of reconciling him-self to the idea of See also:suicide. The act had always been accounted allowable in the school, if circumstances should call for it: indeed, the first three teachers had found such circumstances in the infirmity of old age. But their attitude towards the " way out " (E arycoryi7) of incurable discomforts is quite unlike the anxious sentimentalism with which Seneca dwells upon death. From Seneca we turn, not without satisfaction, to men of sterner See also:mould, such as Musonius See also:Rufus, who certainly deserves a place beside his more illustrious disciple, Epic- Musonius. tetus. As a teacher he commanded universal respect, and wherever we catch a glimpse of his activity he appears to See also:advantage. His philosophy, however, is yet more concentrated upon practice than Seneca's, and in ethics he is almost at the position of Aristo. Epictetus testifies to the powerful hold he acquired upon his pupils, each of whom felt that Musonius spoke to his heart. The practical conclusion of his philosophy is that he must cheerfully accept the inevitable. In the life and teaching .of Epictetus this thought See also:bore abundant See also:fruit. The beautiful character which See also:rose See also:superior to weakness, poverty and slave's See also:estate is also presented Epictetus. to us in the Discourses of his disciple See also:Arrian as a See also:model of religious resignation, of forbearance and love towards our brethren, that is, towards all men, since God is our common father. With him even the " physical basis " of ethics takes the form of a religious dogma—the providence of God and the perfection of the world. We learn that he regards the baiiswv or " See also:guardian See also:angel " as the divine part in each man; sometimes it is more nearly See also:conscience, at other times reason. His ethics, too, have a religious character. He begins with human weakness and man's need of God: whoso would become good must first be convinced that he is evil. Submission is enforced by an See also:argument which almost amounts to a retractation of the difference between things natural and things contrary to nature, as under-stood by Zeno. Would you be cut off from the universe? he asks. Go to, grow healthy and rich. But if not, if you are a part of it, then become resigned to your lot. Towards this See also:goal of approximation to Cynicism the later Stoics had all along been tending. Withdrawal from the active duty of the world must See also:lead to passive endurance, and, ere long, complete indifference. Musonius had recommended See also:marriage and condemned unsparingly the exposure of infants. Epictetus, however, would have the sage hold aloof from domestic cares, another Cynic trait. So, too, in his great See also:maxim " bear and forbear," the last is a command to refrain from the external advantages which nature offers. Epictetus is marked out amongst Stoics by his renunciation of the world. He is followed by a Stoic See also:emperor, M. Aurelius See also:Antoninus, who, though in the world, was not of it. Aurelius. The Meditations give no systematic exposition of belief, but there are many indications of the religious spirit we have already observed, together with an almost Platonic psychology. Following Epictetus, he speaks of man as a corpse bearing about a soul; at another time he has a threefold division—(1) body, (2) soul, the seat of impulse (ervevpariov), and (3) vows or intelligence, the proper ego. In all he writes there is a vein of sadness: the flux of all things, the vanity of life, are thoughts which perpetually recur, along with resignation to the will of God and forbearance towards others, and the religious longing to be rid of the burden and to depart to God. These peculiarities in M. Antoninus may perhaps be explained in harmony with the older Stoic teaching; but, when taken in connexion with the rise of Neoplatonism and the revival of superstition, they are certainly significant. None of the ancient systems fell so rapidly as the Stoa. It had just touched the highest point of practical morality, and in a generation after M. Antoninus there is hardly a professor to be named. Its most valuable lessons to the world were preserved in See also:Christianity; but the See also:grand simplicity of its monism slumbered for fifteen centuries before it was revived by See also:Spinoza. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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