The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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162 THE STOIC CREED
maintain that, though a social being",
a man must not
yield to his social affections, or his social impulses,
otherwise he will disturb his tranquillity (taking upon
him the burdens and sorrows of others), and so fail
reach the state of arapa^a. For this reason, he must
cease caring for
his offspring, as well as refuse to take
part in public affairs all such duties would interfere
with his personal tranquillity and ease. On this
Epictetus makes a vigorous onslaught (Diss.
i.
23)
from the side of altruism and the sympathetic emotions,
insisting that nature is too strong for Epicurus here.
For, he says,
Epicurus knows that if once a child is
born, it is no longer in our power not to love it, or to
care about it and he concludes with a
; striking home
thrust u For my part,
I think that, even if
your father
and your mother had been told by an oracle that you
would say these things, they would not have cast you
off."
Thus, truth, according to Epictetus, may be
found in other parts of human nature than reason
to
the
social instincts at any rate can guide us. **
Thus also
Epicurus mutilated all the offices of a man and those of
the head of a house, and of a citizen, and of a friend,
but human desires he did not mutilate, for he could not
(Diss. ii. 20). (7) Then, lastly, another argument may
be mentioned. If pleasure be the chief good,
it was
urged, as by Cleanthes (see StobaBus, Floril. vi. 37),
that wisdom had been given to men for evil.
Enthusiasm of Humanity
This brings us to a further point in the Stoic char
acterization of virtue, a point that took firm hold of the
later Stoics in particular namely, that virtue is a social