The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

134 THE STOIC CREED
and beauty of soul. "I would rather be mad than
pleased (//.avciV /xaAAoi/ ^ ^o-feiV),"
1
said Antisthenes ;
and thereby he showed, at least, that he aimed at
raising character high.
In all this, we have the first draft of the Wise Man,
which the Stoics
accepted and took over but improved
upon, and which explains to us how "the
Cynic"
became to them the technical name for the Ideal
Sage. 2
But, next, in order to a happy life
for the individual,
the Cynics dwelt much on the necessity of living in
accordance with nature ;
and it was, doubtless, from
this source that the Stoics derived the conception and
the formula. Yet, between the teaching
of the two
schools there was a great contrast. The "nature" to
which the Cynics wished to return was that of unre
strained unconventional living. Hence, Antisthenes
took as a model for civilized man the life
of the lower
animals and of primitive man ; thereby interpreting
nature in a way that did not safeguard the higher
morality, but might be looked upon as sanctioning im
morality and licentiousness. "The Cynics took the
savage as their teacher in all seriousness, just as
Diderot and Rousseau did in a later age. They glori
fied the state of nature with inexhaustible eloquence
and ingenuity, and they never wearied of anathematis
ing the pernicious influence of civilisation." 3 Thus,
they cast aside the sound Aristotelian dictum that the
1
Diog. Laert. vi. 4.
2
See Epictetus, Dissertations, Hi. 22.
3
Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. ii. p. 144, Eng. tr.