The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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148 THE STOIC CREED
judgment or opinion of it. "Pain," says Aurelius
(Med. viii. 28, 29), "is either an evil for the body
and if so, let the body state its case ;
or for the soul
but the soul can maintain its own unclouded calm,
and refuse to view it as an evil. For every judgment
or impulse or inclination or avoidance is within, and
nothing
evil can force entrance there. Efface im
pressions, reiterating to yourself It rests now with
me, that within this soul of mine there be no vice,
nor desire, nor any perturbation at all ; perceiving
the true nature of all things, I use each at its proper
worth. Remember this prerogative
is
yours by
nature." Cleanthes went farther, and maintained that
pleasure is not only not a good, but is "contrary to
nature" and "worthless." It was his opinion that
all the emotions (love, fear, grief)
they lack that strain or tension (roVos)
are weaknesses :
which he so
persistently emphasized, and on which the strength
of the soul, no less than that of the body, depends,
and which constitutes in man self-control, and robust
moral fibre (eyKparcia), and also conditions every
l
virtue ; they are on the side of loosening and col
lapse, not on that of coherence, persistence, and
stability. "The freehold of the mind none other may
contravene ;
fire cannot touch it, nor steel, nor tyrant,
nor slander, nor any other thing ; so long
abides * poised as a sphere self-orbed
Med. viii. 41).
The doctrine under consideration is
as it
(Aurelius,
put most strik-
1 The Stoics took over the cardinal virtues from Plato, and gave
a handling of each wisdom, self-control, courage, righteousness
or justice.