Stoics and Saints - College of Stoic Philosophers

14 LATER GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
age of dogmatism never fails
to lead on to an age of scepticism,
which does judgment on its dogmas and torments its dis
ciples but in the
;
everlasting No/ no age can rest. Pyrrho
himself confessed It is hard to strip off the man. On the
humanity of human nature, which is constant through the
ages, many a proud system goes to wreck.
It was in the midst of this Cynicism as to manners and
morals, and Scepticism as to truth, that the Epicureans and
Stoics began to rebuild the lapsed structure of Philosophy.
It is to be noted that with Pyrrho too, as with them, the one
question was happiness. He doubted of everything and
maintained an impassive imperturbability we will not call
it serenity, serenity belongs to a higher sphere because he
thought he should be happier in doing
so. It was the one
attraction of Scepticism it freed him
;
from the pain and the
trouble of any overmastering, imperious thought. Indeed this
concern about the every day interests and happiness of men,
which became the key note of the philosophy of the Sects, ran
through the whole scale of life in those days. Men turned
their thoughts in upon themselves. Imagine the horror with
which an Athenian of the noble days of Athens would have
heard Carneades tell Clitomachus that he thought a philoso
pher would not be greatly troubled if his country were
!
conquered In the dramatic literature of the time the same
spirit reigns. In the old comedy Aristophanes had the
citizen always on the stage; all the interest of the drama
was political; all the jokes and sarcasms were pointed at
political persons or political doings. Aristophanes
is a sealed
book to those who are not familiar with the public life of his
day. But in Menander, in the comedy
of the time of which
we are now speaking, politics are never alluded to. All is
personal and domestic; the woes of lovers, the tricks of
slaves, the knaveries of tradesmen, the intrigues of wives
occupy the whole stage. We have already seen that in one