The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

THEOLOGY AND RELIGION 227
principle in human experience things are known by
us only in relation to their opposites, and our desires
repose on relativity : as Heracleitus long ago said,
"sickness makes health pleasant and good; hunger,
satiety ; weariness,
rest." But the law need not be so
interpreted as to require that these opposites must
be absolute contrasts. In order to consciousness, we
must have change a uniform temperature, continued
:
indefinitely without variation, would be to us the same
thing as no temperature at all. But change
does not
necessarily mean transition to the entirely opposite
state. Degrees of warmth would give us consciousness
of heat, as much as a temperature in which warmth
alternates with extreme cold. And so we should be
conscious of good without experience of positive sin
or evil, if there were within good itself change from
one degree to another, or if there were varieties of
good. All that is required by the law of relativity is
perception of difference ;
and that does not demand
two absolutely contrasting states it would be enough
if there were two degrees of one state : I
might quite
well know what good is, without knowing sin or evil,
if I had experience of diverse kinds of good, or if my
perception of righteousness admitted of various ap
plications or were compatible with various modes of
apprehension. The world might very
well be full of
interest to me, though sin were eliminated, if holiness
were susceptible
tion.
of increase or of progressive realiza
The doctrine of Fate
Next, the Stoics teaching about Fate creates a
difficulty. We seem here to be in the iron grasp of