The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

"
THE SOCRATIC IMPULSE 9
is
ignorance and virtue knowledge. 1 Again, we can
scarcely be wrong in ascribing to him the emphatic
assertion of the supreme importance for character of
the virtue of abstemiousness or self-control. His own
life was one in which this virtue played a prominent
2
part and his laudation of moderation in
;
Xenophon, 3
and his insistence on the necessity of reducing the
number of our desires and wants, and of strictly sub
ordinating the lower pleasures of our nature to the
higher, if we would not be slaves, showed that he made
this the foundation of morality. We can see, further,
that it was the tendency of Socrates to ground virtue
on utility, to estimate it
by its consequences : that
alone is
good which is good
for someone or which
serves some end "a
dung-basket that serves its
purpose is more beautiful than an unserviceable shield
4
of gold."
In this respect, he anticipated the modern
pragmatist (Professor James, for instance, or Mr. F. C.
S. Schiller), who maintains that truth, in order to be
true, must have practical results, must work
in the wider doctrine of
humanism,"
yea more,
it consists in
consequences, more especially if those be good. 5
Then, lastly, we can hardly question that the historical
Socrates reasoned on Theistic lines, basing his con
ception of God and God s providence on teleology or
the marks of design manifest in the universe 6
and
;
that his views on the Soul are
1
See the Protagoras of Plato.
2 See Xenophon, Memorabilia,
accurately represented,
i. 2.
3
See Memorabilia, i. 5, 6 ;
also ii. i.
4
See Xenophon, Memorabilia, iv. 6.
5
See Appendix.
6 See Xenophon, Memorabilia, i. 4 iv. ; 3.