The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

286 L^ELIUS; OR,
vanced some very extraordinary positions relating to the
subject of our present inquiry as, indeed, what subject
;
is there which these subtle geniuses have not tortured
with their sophistry
dissuade their disciples from entering into any strong
? The authors to whom I allude
attachments, as unavoidably creating supernumerary
disquietudes to those who engage in them, and as every
man has more than sufficient to call forth his solicitude
in the course of his own affairs, it is a weakness, they
contend, anxiously to involve himself in the concerns of
others. They recommend it also in all connexions of
this kind to hold the bands of union extremely loose, so
as always to have it in one s power to straiten or relax
them as circumstances and situations shall render most
expedient. They add, as a capital article of their doctrine,
that to live exempt from cares is an essential ingredient
to constitute human happiness, but an ingredient, how
ever, which he who voluntarily distresses himself with
cares in which he has no necessary and personal interest,
must never hope to possess.
I have been told, likewise, that there is another set of
pretended philosophers of the same country, whose tenets
concerning this subject are of a still more illiberal and
ungenerous cast, and I have already, in the course of this
conversation, slightly animadverted upon their principles.
The proposition they attempt to establish is that friend
ship is an affair of self-interest entirely, and that the
proper motive for engaging in it is, not in order to gratify
the kind and benevolent affections, but for the benefit
of that assistance and support which is to be derived from
the connexion. Accordingly they assert that those
persons are most disposed to have recourse to auxiliary
alliances of this kind who are least qualified by nature or
fortune to depend upon their own strength and powers ;
the weaker sex, for instance, being generally more inclined
to engage in friendships than the male part of our species ;