The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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154 THE STOIC CREED
connexion with their famous distinction of the two
kinds of Duty
"the suitable" or
fitting"
and "the
right," Ko.OrjK.ov and Karop&ojua, a distinction (together
with the elaborate working out of it)
that entitled them
to be regarded as the originators of what Bentham calls
Deontology or the science of duty. Indeed, the term
"duty" (KaOrJKov) is said to have been first employed
in the technical ethical sense by Zeno, who wrote a
treatise On Duty (Diog. Laert. vii. 2I). 1 But duty, as
KaOfJKov, is simply the suitable or fitting, and not that
absolute rule of right
that the term designates to-day.
It is applicable only to things "indifferent" (officium
medium), and signifies any action in everyday
meets a want or serves a purpose, any line of conduct
life that
for which a reason may be given. It is not, therefore,
strictly speaking, "virtue,"
which moves in a different
and a higher sphere. Strict virtue is
/caTo/>0a>yua (honestum,
or rectum^ or officiu
m perfectuni] duty in its purest form,
which is not simply conformity to right reason, but con
formity which flows from the will, the full
knowledge,
and the simple intention of the wise man. Hence, in
this specific sense, and from the point of view of abstract
theory, virtue is indivisible : there cannot be degrees of
it. There can be degrees only in things
that have
relative value ;
but virtue has absolute worth it is to
be sought for its own sake, and is the same under all
circumstances. It is not, therefore, a "habit
(?is),"
as Aristotle had taught
it can neither diminish nor
increase: it is, in distinctive Stoic terminology, a
1 The Stoic s mode of handling Duty, in all its practical detail,
including the seasonable and decorous (decorum, TO trptirov} in
conduct, may be seen in Cicero s De Officiis.