Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

xxxiv INTRODUCTION SECT.
injunction, Know thyself, and in the formulas, Virtue is
knowledge Virtue may be taught 1 No one wilfully goes
wrong 11
Virtue results in happiness; and all these
maxims are first principles of Stoic dogma. In respect
of all, Stoicism at least in its later exponents adheres
more closely to the Socratic tradition than any other
school ; and, alike in temper and interest, Epictetus re-
produces the teaching of the master more faithfully than
any of his disciples or more immediate successors.
The power of the Socratic conclusions lay in affirm-
ing the ultimate harmony of morality with reason, and
in vindicating for the results of reason real and authori-
tative validity. Man's moral sense, the existence of
which is irrefragable, demands and certifies the reality
of knowledge. The weakness of the affirmations,
regarded as a system of ethics, apart from the confusion
of will with knowledge, lay in defective and
confused analysis of the contents of 'goodness.' To
give positive meaning and efficacy to the dictum, *
Virtue
is knowledge,' it was indispensable to define with some
precision the subject-matter of the knowledge meant.
To explain it as '
knowledge of the good '
mere tautology, until the contents of *
goodness '
enumerated or defined. According
reduced it to
were
as the idea of
pleasure or advantage or prosperity was permitted to
preponderate, the maxim could be turned to Hedonistic,
Utilitarian, or Eudsemonistic inferences, so that by
variety of emphasis broadly contrasted types of ethical
1 Cf. vi. 27 ; viii. 59 ; ix. 11 ; x. 4 ; xi. 18 (9).
2 ii. I ; iv. 3 ; vii. 22, 62, 63 ; viii. 14 ; x. 30 ; xi. 18 (3) ;
xii. 12.