CHAPTER XI.. The Stoic Theory of Morals As Modified by Practical Needs.

THE STOIC THEORY OF MORALS AS MODIFIED BY PRACTICAL NEEDS.

The Stoic theory of Ethics is entirely rooted in the proposition, that only virtue is a good and only vice an evil. This proposition, however, frequently brought the Stoics into collision with current views; nor was it without its difficulties for their own system. In the first place, virtue is made to depend for its existence upon certain conditions, and to lead to certain results, from which it is inseparable. These results, we have already seen, were included by the Stoics in the list of goods. Moreover, virtue is said to be the only good, because only what is according to nature is a good, and rational conduct is for man the only thing according to nature. But can this be so absolutely and unconditionally stated? According to the Stoic teaching the instinct of self-preservation being the primary impulse, does not this instinct manifestly include the preservation and advancement of outward life? The Stoics, therefore, could not help including physical goods and activities among things according to nature—for instance, health, a right enjoyment of the senses, and such like. Practically, too, the same admission was forced upon them by the consideration that, if there is no difference in value between things in themselves, rational choice—and, indeed, all acting on motives—is impossible. At the same time, they reject the notion that what is first according to nature must therefore be perfect or good, just as in theory they allow that the source of knowledge, but not truth itself, is derived from the senses. When man has once recognised the universal law of action, he will, according to their view, think little of what is sensuous and individual, and only look upon it as an instrument in the service of virtue and reason.

Still, there remains the question, How can this be possible? and this is no easy one to answer. The contemporary opponents of the Stoics already took exception to the way in which the first demands of nature were by them excluded from the aims of a life according to nature; and we, too, cannot suppress a feeling of perplexity at being told that all duties aim at attaining what is primarily according to nature, but that what is according to nature must not be looked upon as the aim of our actions; since not that which is simply according to nature, but the rational choice and combination of what is according to nature constitutes the good. Even if the Stoics pretend to dispose of this difficulty, they cannot, at least, fail to see that whatever contributes to bodily well-being must have a certain positive value, and must be desirable in all cases in which no higher good suffers in consequence; and, conversely, that whatever is opposed to bodily well-being, when higher duties are not involved, must have a negative value (ἀπαξία), and, consequently, deserve to be avoided. Such objects and actions they would not, however, allow to be included in the class of goods which are absolutely valuable. It was therefore a blending of Peripatetic with Stoic teaching when Herillus, the fellow-student of Cleanthes, enumerated bodily and outward goods as secondary and subsidiary aims besides virtue.

Nor were the Stoics minded to follow the contemporary philosopher, Aristo of Chios (who in this point, too, endeavoured to place their School on the platform of the Cynic philosophy), in denying any difference in value between things morally indifferent and in making the highest aim in life consist in indifference to all external things. Virtue with them bears, in comparison with the Cynic virtue, a more positive character, that of an energetic will; they, therefore, required some definite relation to the outward objects and conditions of this activity which should regulate the choosing or rejecting—or, in other words, the practical decision. Accordingly, they divided things indifferent into three classes. To the first class belong all those things which, from a moral or absolute point of view, are neither good nor evil, but yet which have a certain value; no matter whether this value belongs to them properly, because they are in harmony with human nature, or whether it belongs to them improperly, because they are means for advancing moral and natural life, or whether it belongs to them on both grounds. The second class includes everything which, either by itself or in its relation to higher aims, is opposed to nature and harmful. The third, things which, even in this conditional sense, have neither positive nor negative value. The first class bears the name of things preferential (προηγμένον), or things desirable; the second is the class of things to be eschewed (ἀποπροηγμένον); the third is the class of things intermediate. The last is called, in the strict sense, indifferent, ἀδιάφορον. It includes not only what is really indifferent, but whatever has such a slight negative or positive value that it neither enkindles desire nor aversion. Hence the terms προηγμένον and ἀποπροηγμένον are defined to mean respectively that which has an appreciable positive or negative value. Under things preferential, the Stoics include partly mental qualities and conditions, such as talents and skill, even progress towards virtue, in as far as it is not yet virtue; partly bodily advantage—beauty, strength, health, life itself; partly external goods—riches, honour, noble birth, relations, &c. Under things to be eschewed, they understand the opposite things and conditions; under things indifferent, whatever has no appreciable influence on our choice, such as the question whether the number of hairs on the head is even or uneven; whether I pick up a piece of waste paper from the floor, or leave it; whether one piece of money or another is used in [(3) Collision of modified and abstract theory.] payment of a debt. Yet they drew a sharp distinction between the purely relative value of things preferential, and the absolute value of things morally good. Only the latter are really allowed to be called good, because they only, under all circumstances, are useful and necessary. Of things morally indifferent, on the other hand, the best may, under certain circumstances, be bad, and the worst—sickness, poverty, and the like—may, under certain circumstances, be useful. Just as little would they allow that the independence of the wise man suffered by the recognition outside himself of a class of things preferential. For the wise man, said Chrysippus, uses such things without requiring them. Nevertheless, the admission of classes of things to be preferred and to be declined obviously undermines their doctrine of the good. Between what is good and what is evil, a third group is introduced, of doubtful character; and since we have seen the term ἀδιάφορον is only applied to this group in its more extended meaning, it became impossible for them to refuse to apply the term good to things desirable, or to exclude unconditionally from the highest good many of the things which they were in the habit of pronouncing indifferent. Nor was this concession merely the yielding of a term, as will appear when particular instances are considered. Not only may Seneca be heard, in Aristotelian manner, defending external possessions as aids to virtue—not only Hecato, and even Diogenes, uttering ambiguous sentences as to permitted and forbidden gains —not only Panætius giving expression to much that falls short of Stoic severity —but even Chrysippus avows that in his opinion it is silly not to desire health, wealth, and freedom from pain, and that a statesman may treat honour and wealth as real goods; adding that the whole Stoic School agrees with him in thinking it no disparagement for a wise man to follow a profession which lies under a stigma in the common opinion of Greece. He did not even hesitate to assert that it is better to live irrationally than not to live at all. It is impossible to conceal the fact that, in attempting to adapt their system to general opinion and to the conditions of practical life, the Stoics were driven to make admissions strongly at variance with their previous theories. It may hence be gathered with certainty that, in laying down those theories, they had overstrained a point.

By means of this doctrine of things to be preferred and things to be eschewed, a further addition was made to the conception of duty. Under duty, or what is proper, we have already seen, the Stoics understand rational action in general, which becomes good conduct, or κατόρθωμα, by being done with a right intention. The conception of duty, therefore, contains in itself the conception of virtuous conduct, and is used primarily to express what is good or rational. Duty thus appears to have a twofold meaning, in consequence of the twofold characters of things desirable and things good. If the good were the only permitted object of desire, there would, of course, be but one duty—that of realising the good; and the various actions which contribute to this result would only be distinguished by their being employed on a different material, but not in respect of their moral value. But if, besides what is absolutely good, there are things relatively good, things not to be desired absolutely, but only in cases in which they may be pursued without detriment to the absolute good or virtue—if, moreover, besides vice, as the absolute evil, there are also relative evils, which we have reason to avoid in the same cases—the extent of our duties is increased likewise; a number of conditional duties are placed by the side of duties unconditional, differing from the latter in that they aim at pursuing things to be preferred, and avoiding things to be eschewed. From this platform, all that accords with nature is regarded as proper, or a duty in the more extended sense of the term; and the conception of propriety is extended to include plants and animals. Proper and dutiful actions are then divided into those which are always such and those which are only such under peculiar circumstances—the former being called perfect, the latter intermediate duties; and it is stated, as a peculiarity of the latter, that, owing to circumstances, a course of conduct may become a duty which would not have been a duty without those peculiar circumstances. In the wider sense of the term, every action is proper or in accordance with duty which consists in the choice of a thing to be preferred (προηγμένον) and in avoiding a thing to be eschewed. On the other hand, a perfect duty is only fulfilled by virtuous action. A virtuous life and a wish to do good constitute the only perfect duty.

Some confusion is introduced into this teaching by the fact that in setting up the standard for distinguishing perfect from imperfect duties, the Stoics sometimes look at the real, sometimes at the personal value, of actions, without keeping these two aspects distinct. They therefore use the terms perfect and imperfect sometimes to express the difference between conditional and unconditional duties; at other times, to express that between morality and law. Far worse than the formal defect is the grouping in this division under the conception of duty things of the most varied moral character. If once things which have only a conditional value are admitted within the circle of duties, what is there to prevent their being defended, in the practical application of the Stoic teaching, on grounds altogether repugnant to the legitimate consequences of the Stoic principles?

In accordance with these admissions, the Stoic system sought in another respect to meet facts and practical wants by abating somewhat from the austerity of its demands. Consistently carried out, those demands require the unconditional extirpation of the whole sensuous nature, such as was originally expressed by the demand for apathy. But just as the stricter Stoic theory of the good was modified by the admission of προηγμένα, so this demand was modified in two ways; the first elements of the forbidden emotions were allowed under other names; and whilst emotions were still forbidden, certain mental affections were permitted, and even declared to be desirable. Taking the first point, it is allowed by the Stoics that the wise man feels pain, and that at certain things he does not remain wholly calm. This admission shows that their system was not identical with that of the Cynics. It is not required that men should be entirely free from all mental affections, but only that they should refuse assent to them, and not suffer them to obtain the mastery. With regard to the other point, they propound the doctrine of εὐπάθειαι, or rational dispositions, which, as distinct from emotions, are to be found in the wise man, and in the wise man only. Of these rational dispositions, they distinguish three chief besides several subordinate varieties. Although this admission was intended to vindicate the absence of emotions in the wise man, since the permitted feelings are not emotions, still it made the boundary-line between emotions and feelings so uncertain that in practice the sharply-defined contrast between the wise and the foolish threatened wellnigh to disappear altogether.

This danger appears more imminent when we observe the perplexity in which the Stoics were placed when asked to point out the wise man in experience. For not only do opponents assert that, according to their own confession, no one, or as good as no one, can be found in actual history who altogether deserves that high title, but even their own admissions agree therewith. They describe even Socrates, Diogenes, and Antisthenes as not completely virtuous, but only as travellers towards virtue. It was of little avail to point to Hercules or Ulysses, or, with Posidonius, to the mythical golden age, in which the wise are said to have ruled. The pictures of those heroes would have to be changed altogether, to bring them into harmony with the wise man of the Stoics; and Posidonius might be easily disposed of on Stoic principles, by the rejoinder that virtue and wisdom are things of free exercise, and, since free exercise was wanting in the case of the first men, their condition can only have been a state of unconscious ignorance, and not one of perfection. If, in reality, there are no wise men, the division of men into wise and foolish falls at once to the ground: all mankind belong to the class of fools; the conception of the wise man is an unreal fancy. It becomes, then, difficult to maintain the assertion that all fools are equally foolish, and all the wise are equally wise. If, instead of producing real wisdom, philosophy can only produce progress towards wisdom, it can hardly be expected to take such a modest estimate of its own success as to allow that there is no real distinction between a zealous student and a bigoted despiser of its doctrines.

It was therefore natural that the Stoics, notwithstanding their own maxims, found themselves compelled to recognise differences among the bad and differences among the good. In reference to their system these differences were, indeed, made to depend in the case of the bad upon the greater or less difficulty of healing the moral defects, or, in the case of the good, upon qualities morally indifferent. It was also natural that they should so nearly identify the state of προσκοπὴ—or progress towards wisdom, the only really existing state—with wisdom that it could hardly be distinguished therefrom. If there is a stage of progress at which a man is free from all emotions, discharges all his duties, knows all that is necessary, and is even secure against the danger of relapse, such a stage cannot be distinguished from wisdom, either by its want of experience or by the absence of a clear knowledge of oneself. For has it not been frequently asserted that happiness is not increased by length of time, and that the wise man is at first not conscious of his wisdom? If, however, the highest stage of approximation to wisdom is supposed still to fall short of wisdom, because it is not sure of its continuance, and though free from mental diseases, it is not free from emotions, how, it may be asked, do these passing emotions differ from the mental affections which are found in the wise man? Is there any real distinction between them? If the progressing candidate has attained to freedom from diseased mental states, is the danger of a relapse very great? Besides, the Stoics were by no means agreed that the really wise man is free from all danger. Cleanthes held with the Cynics that virtue can never be lost; Chrysippus admitted that, in certain cases, it is defectible. After all this admission is only one among many traits which prove that the Stoics were obliged to abate from the original severity of their demands.