Stoics and Saints - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE STOIC EXCLUSIVENESS. 33
that Stoicism was specially favourable to the development
of the patriotic passion. Its weakness was that its eye
was too constantly
bent inwards. The motive of actions
was all that it cared about
;
and to external things it
professed itself indifferent. It regarded
the multitude as
fools, and nursed no small measure of intellectual and
spiritual pride. The Stoics formed an aristocracy of wisdom,
and a small one; and these features of the system did not
much encourage devotion to the public welfare. Their
apathy, which they so successfully cultivated, was a defence
against evil surroundings,
and rather a hindrance than a
stimulus to political action, or efforts for reform. Indeed
in these days politics amounted simply to a battle of
kites and crows/ and reform was hopeless. In happier
times their idea of the manly
life and of the claims of
duty might have made them energetic champions
of the
cause of justice and of liberty ;
for in evil days they proved
themselves able to suffer for this cause with a courage and
dignity which have never been surpassed. But public life
was, on the whole, a distraction which they avoided ;
and
charity, beneficent thought and work for others, they did
not cultivate. Their doctrine about the indifference of out
ward things made them hard to the appeal of sorrow. Who
can tell? they said, these evils from which this poor
wretch seems to be suffering, may be evils only in
appearance;
or, if
they are real, he should exercise himself to endure.
They had no conception of true benignity
in the order of
nature. It was all good, they would say, very good, but
only to the philosopher, the man who lives according to
nature ;
there is no hope for making things work for good
to weaklings
and fools. So that all round it was a hard
doctrine, and a narrow one
;
and like the doctrine of Epicurus,
it tended to shut man up within himself; though
it made
him within his narrow circle a much nobler and more useful
c