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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

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in 3 STOIC DOGMA Ixxiii<br />

tain, throughout the spheres <strong>of</strong> perception, emotion,<br />

desire, and reason, the <strong>to</strong>tality <strong>of</strong> the individual as an<br />

organic and inseparable unity. The S<strong>to</strong>ics did much<br />

for the establishment <strong>of</strong> this conception, and it was<br />

unfortunate that they did not grasp it even more com-<br />

pletely in assigning <strong>to</strong> the different faculties their prerogatives<br />

and spheres <strong>of</strong> exercise. A sounder ethic would<br />

have resulted from a more complete analysis and under-<br />

standing <strong>of</strong> the nature <strong>of</strong> will. Here the S<strong>to</strong>ics like<br />

other schools <strong>of</strong> antiquity came short, and were content<br />

<strong>to</strong> rest in psychological abstractions adopted or devised<br />

by their first masters. Instead <strong>of</strong> investigating the ends<br />

<strong>of</strong> action, and finding in them intrinsic or external<br />

criteria <strong>to</strong> determine the relative value <strong>of</strong> particular<br />

functions and precedence among the faculties, the S<strong>to</strong>ics<br />

selected a single faculty or group <strong>of</strong> faculties and assigned<br />

them exclusive, and more or less arbitrary, dominion over<br />

the rest. They were right in declaring the highest and<br />

most essential element in man <strong>to</strong> be the rational, other-<br />

wise denominated the social or the universal, 1 as relating<br />

man's consciousness <strong>to</strong> the widest and most comprehensive<br />

range <strong>of</strong> interests. But they erred, partly under<br />

the influence <strong>of</strong> Socratic dicta^ in identifying this rational<br />

faculty <strong>to</strong>o exclusively with the intellectual. That virtue<br />

is inseparable from knowledge is true ; as virtue passes<br />

beyond the instinctive impulses, and widens its range <strong>of</strong><br />

action and view, the more do perception, insight, and<br />

foresight become indispensable.<br />

But besides the faculty<br />

} The habitual terms in M. A. are Xoyt/o?, rational^ TroXtn/o? and<br />

KoivuviKr], social (or unselfish'), and the more unusual KadoXiicri, catholic<br />

or universal, e.g. in vi. 14, vii. 64.<br />

*

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