The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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ETHICS: EXPOSITION 151
under certain conditions, counselled suicide
As death is a thing destined to all, and its advent,
therefore, beyond our power to prevent, in other
words, as it is one of the things
indifferent
(d8ia</>opa,
res medicz, indifferentes\ it is not to be dreaded by the
wise man. Rather, the wise man, just
because he is
wise, may, if life s circumstances be such as to impede
his development or impair his usefulness, properly
enough accelerate its advent. The soul is at best but
the hospes comesque corporis." "Hence, they say
also that with good reason
may the wise man deprive
himself of life, for the sake either of his fatherland
or of his friends, or if he be suffering from very acute
pain, or from mutilations, or
from incurable diseases
(Diog. Lae rt. vii. 66). This is the doctrine of what
Epictetus calls "the open door." "When he (God)
does not supply the necessaries, he gives the signal for
retreat, opens the door, and says to you, Go (Epic.
Diss. iii.
13). "Only," he adds in another place (Diss.
you must not do it
thoughtlessly, you must not
i.
29),
do it as a coward, nor on any slight pretext." So, too,
Marcus Aurelius (Med. v. 29)
: can live here on
earth, as you
think to live
after your departure hence.
If others disallow, then indeed it is time to quit ; yet
even so, not as one aggrieved. The cabin smokes so
I take leave of it.
Why make ado ? But so long as
there is no such notice to quit,
I remain free, and none
will hinder me from doing what I will ;
that is, to
conform to the nature of a reasonable social being."
1
1
For an interesting casuistical discussion, turning- on the fact
of individual peculiarities, of when and to whom suicide is per
missible, see Cicero, De Officiis,
i.
31.