CHAPTER IV.. Authorities for the Stoic Philosophy: Its Problem and Divisions.

AUTHORITIES FOR THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY: ITS PROBLEM AND DIVISIONS.

To give a faithful exposition of the Stoic philosophy is a work of more than ordinary difficulty, owing to the circumstance that all the writings of the earlier Stoics, with the exception of a few fragments, have been lost. Those Stoics whose complete works are still extant—Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Heraclitus, Cornutus—lived under the Roman Empire, and therefore belong to a time in which all Schools alike exposed to foreign influences had surrendered or lost sight of many of their original peculiarities, and had substituted new elements in their place. The same remark applies to writers like Cicero, Plutarch, Diogenes, Sextus Empiricus, and the commentators on Aristotle, who may be considered as authorities at second hand for the teaching of the Stoics; but it is more than doubtful whether everything which they mention as Stoic teaching really belongs to the older members of that School. That teaching can, however, be ascertained with sufficient certainty on most of the more important points, partly by comparing accounts when they vary, partly by looking to definite statements on which authorities agree for the teaching and points of difference between individual philosophers, such as Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus; partly too by consulting such fragments of their writings as are still extant. Yet, when the chief points have been settled in this way, many difficulties still remain. In the first place, it will be found that only isolated points of their teaching, with at most a few arguments on which to base them, are recorded; but the real connection of their tenets, and the motives which gave rise to them, can only be known by conjecture. Had the writings of Zeno and Chrysippus come down to us in their entirety, we should have had a much surer foundation on which to build, and far less would have been left to conjecture. An opportunity, too, would then have been afforded of tracing the inward growth of the Stoic teaching, and of deciding how much of that teaching was due to Zeno, and how much to Chrysippus. That this work of discrimination can now only be done very imperfectly, is the second difficulty, and it arises from the nature of the authorities. It may be ascertained without difficulty what the teaching of the Stoics was since the time of Chrysippus, but only on a few points are the differences between Chrysippus and his predecessors known. For the most part, the authorities do not hesitate to attribute to the founder of the School all that was known to them as belonging to its later members, just as everything Pythagorean was directly attributed to Pythagoras, and everything Platonic to Plato. Still, there can be no doubt that the Stoic teaching was very considerably expanded by Chrysippus, and altered in many ways. But how considerable the alterations were, and in what they consisted, are questions upon which there is little direct evidence.

The path is thus marked out, which must be followed in giving an exposition of the Stoic philosophy. If full information were forthcoming respecting the rise of the Stoic system and the form it assumed under each one of its representatives, it would be most natural to begin by reviewing the motives which led Zeno to his peculiar teaching, and by describing the system as it grew up. Next it would be right to trace step by step the changes and expansions which it received at the hands of each succeeding teacher. In default of the necessary information for such a treatment of the subject, it will be better to pursue another course. The Stoic teaching will have to be treated as a whole, in which the contributions of individuals can no longer be distinguished. It will have to be set forth in the form which it assumed after the time of Chrysippus. The share of individuals in constructing the system, and their deviations from the general type, cannot be considered, except in cases where they are placed beyond doubt by the statements of the ancients, or by well-founded historical surmises. Stoicism will have to be described in the first place as it is traditionally known, without having its principles explained or resolved into their component factors; without even considering how they grew out of previous systems. Not till this has been done will it be possible to analyse the purport and structure of the system, so as to fathom its leading motives, to understand the connection of its various parts, and thus to ascertain its true position in history.

Proceeding next to ask in what form the problem of philosophy presented itself to the Stoics, three points deserve to be specially noticed. 1. In the first place, philosophy was determined practically by an end in view. 2. The character of this end was decided by the idea of conformity with reason; and 3, this view was substantiated by intellectual proof.

The real business of all philosophy, according to the Stoics, is the moral conduct of man. Philosophy is the exercise of an art, and more particularly of the highest art—virtue: it is therefore the learning of virtue. Now virtue can only be learnt by exercise, and therefore philosophy is at the same time virtue, and the several parts of philosophy are so many distinct virtues. Morality is the central point towards which all other enquiries converge. Even natural science, although lauded as the inmost shrine of philosophy, is, according to Chrysippus, only necessary for the philosopher to enable him to distinguish between things good and evil, between what should be done and what should be left undone. So far from approving pure speculation, which Plato and Aristotle had commended as the height of human happiness, Chrysippus plainly asserted that to live for speculation is equivalent to living only for pleasure. With this view of Chrysippus most of the statements of the Stoics as to the relation of various branches of philosophy to each other agree, although there is a certain amount of vagueness about them, owing to reasons which will shortly be mentioned; and on no other hypothesis can the internal structure and foundation of their system be satisfactorily explained. It is enough to remark here, as has been done before, that the most important and most distinctive points established by the Stoic School belong to the sphere of ethics. In logic and natural science the School displays far less independence, for the most part following older teachers; and it is expressly noted, as a deviation from the ordinary teaching of the School, that Herillus, the pupil of Zeno, declared knowledge to be the highest good, thus making it the chief end in philosophy.

This view of the problem of philosophy is more precisely defined by the Stoic doctrine of virtue. Philosophy should lead to right action and to virtue. But right action is, according to the Stoics, only rational action, and rational action is action which is in harmony with human and inanimate nature. Virtue consists therefore in bringing man’s actions into harmony with the laws of the universe, and with the general order of the world. This is only possible when man knows that order and those laws; and thus the Stoics are brought back to the principles of Socrates, that virtue may be learnt; that knowledge is indispensable for virtue, or rather that virtue is identical with right knowledge. They define virtue in so many words as knowledge, vice as ignorance. If sometimes they seem to identify virtue with strength of will, it is only because they consider strength of will to be inseparable from knowledge, so that the one cannot be conceived without the other. Hence the practical study of philosophy conducts with them to the intellectual; philosophy is not only virtue, but without philosophy no virtue is possible. Granting that the attainment of virtue, and the happiness of a moral life, are the chief ends which the Stoics propose to themselves, still the possession of a comprehensive scientific knowledge is indispensable, as the only means thereto.

These remarks prove the need for the Stoics of that kind of scientific knowledge which has to do with life, the morals and the actions of mankind, in short, of Ethics. Whether further scientific knowledge is necessary, was a question on which the earliest adherents of the Stoic teaching expressed different opinions. Zeno’s pupil, Aristo of Chios, held that the sole business of man is to pursue virtue, and that the sole use of language is to purify the soul. This purifying process, however, is neither to be found in logical subtleties nor in natural science. Logic, as doing more harm than good, he compared to a spider’s web, which is as useless as it is curious; or else to the mud on a road. Those who studied it he likened to people eating lobsters, who take a great deal of trouble for the sake of a little bit of meat enveloped in much shell. Convinced, too, that the wise man is free from every deceptive infatuation, and that doubt, for the purpose of refuting which logic has been invented, can be more easily overcome by a healthy tone of mind than by argument, he felt no particular necessity for logic. Nay, more, he considered that excessive subtlety transforms the healthy action of philosophy into an unhealthy one. Just as little was Aristo disposed to favour the so-called encyclical knowledge: those who devote themselves to this knowledge instead of to philosophy he compared to the suitors of Penelope, who won the maids but not the mistress. Natural science would probably have received a more favourable treatment at the hands of Aristo, had he not shared the opinion of Socrates, that it is a branch of knowledge which transcends the capacity of the human mind; and having once embraced this notion, he was inclined to pronounce all physical enquiries useless. His attitude towards other sciences has therefore been generally expressed by saying that he excluded from philosophy both logic and natural science, on the ground that both are useless; the former being irrelevant, and the latter transcending our powers. Even ethics was limited by Aristo to most fundamental notions—to enquiries into good and evil, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly. The special application of these notions to the moral problems suggested by particular relations in life, he declared to be useless and futile; proper for nursemaids and trainers of young children, but not becoming for philosophers; wherever there is a proper knowledge and a right disposition, such particular applications will come of themselves without teaching; but when these are wanting, all exhortations are useless.

These views are mentioned as peculiar to Aristo, and as points in which he differed from the rest of his School; and, to judge from his controversial tone, the opposite views were those almost universally entertained by Stoics. That controversial tone, in fact, appears to have been directed not only against assailants from without—such as the Peripatetics and Platonists—but far more against those members of the Stoic School, who attached greater importance than he did to special ethical investigations, and to logical and physical enquiries. Among their number must have been Zeno and Cleanthes; for Zeno set the example to his School of dividing philosophy into logic, ethics, and natural science; witness the titles of his logical and physical treatises and also the statements in reference to theoretical knowledge and natural science which are expressly attributed to him. Moreover, Zeno himself recommended to others, and himself pursued, logical enquiries. Indeed, his whole mental habit, with its keen appreciation of even the subtleties of the Megarians, bears testimony to an intellectual type of thought which is far removed from that of Aristo. It was, moreover, Zeno who chose that curt and unadorned logical style, which is found in its greatest perfection in Chrysippus. Logical and scientific treatises are also known to have been written by Cleanthes, who, in his division of philosophy, allotted separate parts to logic, to rhetoric, and to natural science, and the name of Cleanthes is one of frequent occurrence, not only in the natural science, but more particularly in the theology of the Stoics. Still more exhaustive enquiries into logic and natural science appear to have been set on foot by Sphærus. These prove that the energies of the Stoic School must have been directed to these subjects before the time of Chrysippus, although these branches of science were no doubt subservient to ethics, whilst ethics held the most important and highest place in their philosophy. At a later time, when Chrysippus had expanded the system of the Stoics in every direction, and especial attention had been devoted to logic, the necessity for these sciences came to be generally recognised. More especially was this the case with regard to natural science, including ‘theology.’ All ethical enquiries must start, according to Chrysippus, with considering the universal order and arrangement of the world. Only by a study of nature, and a knowledge of what God is, can anything really satisfactory be stated touching good and evil, and all that is therewith connected.

Less obvious is the connection between logic and the ultimate aim of all philosophical enquiries. Logic is compared by the Stoics to the shell of an egg, or to the wall of a city or garden; and is considered to be of importance, because it contributes towards the discovery of truth and the avoiding of error. The value of logic in their eyes is, therefore, essentially due to its scientific method; its proper aim is the art of technical reasoning; and thus, following Aristotle, an unusually full treatment is allowed to the doctrine of the syllogism. That the value attached to logic must have been considerable is proved by the extraordinary care which Chrysippus devoted to the subject; hence, the Stoics would never allow, in dispute with the Peripatetics, that logic was only an instrument, and not a part of philosophy. To later writers that stiff logical mode of description, regardless of all beauty of language, appeared to be a peculiarity of the Stoic school, and hence that School was characteristically known as the School of the Reasoners. Frequent instances will be found hereafter of the Stoic preference for dry argument and formal logic; in Chrysippus this fondness degenerated to a dry formalism devoid of taste.

The foregoing remarks have already established the three main divisions of philosophy which were universally acknowledged by the Stoics —Logic, Natural Science, and Ethics. As regards the relative worth and sequence of these divisions, very opposite views may be deduced from the principles of the [(1) Threefold division.] Stoic teaching. There can be no doubt, and, indeed, all are agreed in allowing, that logic was subservient to the other two branches of science, being only an outpost of the system. If therefore in arranging the parts the advance is from the less important to the more important, logic will hold the first place. It will occupy the last place if the opposite mode of procedure is followed. But the relation existing between ethics and natural science is an open question. On the one hand, ethics appears to be the higher science, the crowning point of the system, the subject towards which the whole philosophical activity of the School was directed; for philosophy is practical knowledge, and its object is to lead to virtue and happiness. On the other hand, virtue and the destiny of man consist in conformity to the laws of nature, which it is the province of science to investigate. Therefore, natural science has the higher object. It lays down the universal laws which in ethics are applied to man. To it, therefore, in the graduated scale of sciences, belongs the higher rank.

In attempting to harmonise these opposite considerations, the Stoics did not always succeed. At one time natural science is preferred to ethics, at another time ethics to natural science, in the enumeration of the several branches of philosophy. In the comparisons by means of which their relations to each other were explained, ethics appears at one time, at another time natural science, to be the aim and soul of the whole system. Different views were even entertained in reference to the order to be followed in teaching these sciences. In describing the Stoic system, preference will be here given to that arrangement which begins with logic and goes on to natural science, ending with ethics; not only because that arrangement has among its supporters the oldest and most distinguished adherents of the Stoic School, but also because in this way the internal relation of the three parts to each other can be most clearly brought out. Allowing that, in many essential respects, natural science is modified by ethical considerations; still, in the development of the system, the chief results of science are used as principles on which ethical doctrines are founded; and logic, although introduced later than the other two branches of study, is the instrument by means of which they are put into scientific shape. If the opportunity were afforded of tracing the rise of the Stoic teaching in the mind of its founder, it would probably be possible to show how the physical and logical parts of the system gradually gathered around the original kernel of ethics. But knowing Stoicism only as we do from the form which it attained after the time of Chrysippus, it will be enough, in analysing that form, to proceed from without to within, and to advance from logic through natural science to ethics. When this has been done it will be time to go back over the same ground, and to explain how from the ethical tone of Stoicism its peculiar speculative tenets may be deduced.