The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

PRESENT-DAY VALUE OF STOICISM 245
for the workings of the universe, almost everything,
even in its consequents and accidents, seems to yield
some pleasing combination of its own. Thus the actual
jaws of living beasts will be not less picturesque than
the imitations produced by artists and sculptors. The
old woman and the old man will have an ideal loveli
ness, as youth its
ravishing charm, made visible to the
eyes that have the skill. Such things will not appeal
to all, but will strike him only who is in harmony with
Nature, and her sincere familiar."
This shows great observation of Nature and intimate
communing with her, but there is
wanting
that keen
appreciation of the beatity of Nature as manifesting the
divine and the ideal that is characteristic of modern
philosophy.
The beauty recognized
is that of suitability
to circumstances or adaptation of means to ends, rather
than the beauty of shade and colour, seen in the clouds
and the sunset, etc., it is scientific more than aesthetic.
This is in line with the Stoic s central conception of
morality, which emphasizes the grandeur, rather than
the beauty, of holiness. Order and harmony, in nature
and in morals alike, are to him supreme
: the artistic
side of either is only secondary hardly even that.
Again, its intensely experiential character.
Both its
psychology and its ethics, no less than its religion, are
based on, and tested by, experience. Human nature
as we find it,
and the external world as known to our
selves through inductive study of it, are the stable
foundations of the Stoic philosophy and speculation
;
and theory are only subsequent and grounded on our
knowledge of these.