Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO3 1822 601 3419'^^;

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V -^":fCHIEF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHIES.^STOICISM.BYRev. W. W. CAPES,FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, AND READER IN ANCIENT HISTORY,OXFORD.PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OFTHE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION.APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTINGCHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.LONDON.SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS ;43, Ql SEN VICTORIA STREET ;AND 48, PICCADILLY.NEW YORK : POTT, YOUNG, & CO.1880.

CONTENTS.ChapterPageI. The Thought and Character of Socrates 5II. The Cynics 14III. The Rise of Stoicism and its Relation toTHE Spirit of the Age 22IV. Stoicism in the Rigour of its EssentialPrinciples 37V. Stoicism tempered by Concessions to CommonSense 54VI. Stoicism at Rome under the Republic ....64VII.The Critics and Enemies of Stoicism underVIII. The,THE Early Empire 78Social Status of the ProfessionalMoralists at Rome 106IX. The Career of Seneca 127X. Seneca as a Moralist 143XI.Seneca and St. Paul, or the Relation ofStoicism to Christianity 166XII. Epictetus, or Stoicism in the Cottage ... 180XIII.Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, or StoicismON THE Throne 200XIV. The Stoic Creed and Temper in Relationto other Aspects of Thought 230B 2

STOICISM.CHAPTER I.THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES.The study of Stoicism cannot be properly begunwithout some attempt to trace itsgerms in earlierspeculation, and to note what was the state of Greeksociety in which it first took root before it was transferredto other and perhaps to kindlier soils. Likeall the famous systems which divided the earnestthinkers of the old Greek world, its real starting-pointis to be found in the life and thought of Socrates,whose original and striking figure fills so marked aplace in the pictures of the social life at Athenstowards the close of the fifth century before our era.Not that Greek philosophy began with him. Therehad been no lack before of serious efforts to solvesome of the many problems which had forced themselvesupon men's thoughts when they looked outupon the universe around them, or tried to thinkabout their own relations to the world unseen, andto the infinities that lay before and after. But theseearlier seekers after wisdom had no chart or rulesby which to steer, had no instruments or method

6 STOICISM.of discovery, and could make therefore little progressin their course. There was a sublime audacity inthe way in which they grappled with greatquestions,constructed systems of the universe, and explainedas they thought the laws of nature, before they haddetermined the simplest rules of logic, or had anymore appliances than the experience of the untrainedsenses. They were like the early painters who aspiredoften to portray the imagery of heaven, or to dealwith lurid scenes of future judgment, before they hadlearnt even the rudiments of perspective or anatomy.They gave birth therefore to little more than guesswork,lighted up here and there with flashes of strangeinsight, that may remind us of the discoveries of laterages ;but nothing came of all their subtle thought,for they had no tests by which to disentangle truthfrom error. There was a want of balance and proportionin their hasty systems which seemed tooscillate from pole to pole. At one time they hadonly eyes to see the moods and qualities of outwardnature, and language seemed to them to bear nohigher meaning, and mind and its processes to be butsubtler forms of matter. At another time they wereso much impressed by the fleeting character of allthe knowledge gained through sense, that thoughtalone seemed sure and solid, while all experience elsewas treacherous and unreal.There was no practicalvalue in their speculations while they rested on thislevel.The love of wisdom, which the name philosophyimplied, was strong and earnest it was a natural;yearning to explain the mysteries of the world in

THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES. 7which men lived, but it had borne as yet no solidfruits to justify itself to sober sense. It had notfurnished men with any rule of action, with anystandard of what was right or wrong. It had nothelped to train them for the needs of social life ;for it had not fitted them to serve their country orto push their fortunes in any of the arts of peace orwar. Such had not been its aim indeed ;it neverhad aspired to do such work, but then againitmightbe urged that little else had yet been gained: no sureknowledge of the world of nature, no full acquaintancewith the powers of thought. But while philosophywas dreaming on, disdaining to be man'scounseller and guide in common life, anotherpower was ready to step into the vacant place, andto meet all the demands of higher culture.In Sicily,and among the isles of Greece, a class of teachershad arisen, who had made a special study of the artsof speech and forms of language, and all the showof literary graces. They had learnt much of menand manners as they passed from land to land, andwere familiar ^vith all the topics of politics and artand morals which had roused the interest of the age.They professed to educate the rising youth for publiclife, to train them for the fence of words in thenational assembly and the law courts, to stock theirmemory with graceful phrases as well as with the lessonsof ripe statecraft. Old-fashioned folks, indeed, mightshake their heads and say that the so-called sophistshad the show of wisdom, not its substance ; that theydid not care for truth, but only for effect, and were quite

8 STOICISM.indifferent to the ends which knowledge should bemade to serve. They probably unsettled old convictionsby comparing the customs and the laws ofdifferent nations, and often ran a tilt at venerabledogmas out of mere bravado or caprice.It might seem, perhaps, to careless eyesas ifSocrates were only one of this new class of professionalteachers. Like them he seemed to courtmen's notice, to live chiefly out of doors, and to befor ever talking to the young men he gathered roundhim, and to treat often too with scant respect timehonouredcustoms and beliefs. But unlike them heaffected no display, and made no pretensions tosuperior knowledge like older; thinkers, he was buta seeker after wisdom, with a deeper sense of his ownignorance than the rest the; irony^ which was somarked a feature of his style, consisted in the humilitywith which he owned his want of knowledge, in hiswillingness to hear what others had to say, and inwhat they thought the captious spirit with which heprobed and criticised their answers. But he feltstronglythat the ideas of men around him were allloose and hasty and one-sided, not based on anysure experience or careful scrutiny of facts. Theywere often inconsistent in themselves, or carelesslygathered from imperfect data a few\ questions or afew appeals to other cases were enough to show theneed of further thought to correct and to completesuch notions. Knowledge, he said, was true andreal only in so far as it consisted in conceptions inwhich the class qualities were duly gathered from a

THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES. 9wide experience amply sifted, and all the seemingquibbles of his daily talk were but infinitely variedillustrations of what we call the processes of definitionand induction.His was a method of inquiry therefore,but no system really formed ;he had no definitetheories or body of connected doctrines to be handedon by his disciples, or defended as a sacred trust.So it was that schools of widely different tenets alikeowned his influence and revered his name. Thesame principle and method were applied by all, butled them in some cases to conclusions far apart.But one feature which they mostly shared was hislarge interest in moral questions. Socrates is saidto have brought down philosophy from heaven toearth ;he certainly discouraged for awhile all theambitious speculations about the universe at largewith which the older thinkers were so busy. Theone thing of paramount importance in his eyes wasthe standard of right action ; if man is to rule hislife aright he must know what is honourable, just,and good ;all his efforts must be centred on thatknowledge, which alone will give him the virtue oftrue manhood. Without knowledge there is, hethought, no virtue possible, but only a blind followingof custom, authority, or law, or an aimless driftingwith caprice or passion.Each, therefore, of the greatSocratic schools had its own moral system, and itsrule of life ;the votaries of wisdom were the menwho were most intent to practise virtue and as;religion spoke in heathen days in faltering and misleadingaccents on such subjects, and in the decline

lOSTOICISM.of Greece the laws and sanctions of the State haddaily less of moral force, philosophy stepped intotheir place and became the" Ductor dubitantium,"the guide for the consciences of earnest men.Another feature of Socratic thought is the highestimate it formed of the dignity of manhood, whichwas thus to be a law unto itself. A certain divineelement was lodged,it seemed, within the soul ofman ;its future lifebeyond the grave was probable,though hardly capable of proof The value of itspiety transcended far the worth of any offeringswhich it could make to God, and in some privilegedcases, as of Socrates himself, some superhuman guidancemight be vouchsafed, not from without, butfrom within.It has been said that the practical importance ofthese moral speculations grew larger as the purity andbinding force of the standards of the State declined,but they tended also in their turn to estrange men insome degree from publiclife. It is true that Socrateshimself spoke in the highest terms of dutyto theState and of obedience to its commands. He urgedthe competent to labour for the common weal, andendured death himself that he might not violate hiscountry's laws. But his political ideal could not agreewith the facts of the Greek republics of his day.The statesman's virtue lay in knowledge that ; alone,not popular election or haphazard, could confer theright to rule. For the well-being of all an aristocracyof intellect must hold command, but when the massesare in power the upright official cannot secure right

THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES. 1 1and justice,and will often best consult his dignity byretiring into private life.Moreover, the whole tone of his teaching, and hiscritical method of inquiry, well might seem to disparagethe common code of morals and the usualrules of conduct which rested on authority or custom.The little Greek republics of old days had donegreat things by the strong glow of patriotic feeling,and by unshrinking obedience to the national codesof honour. They were troubled by no doubts, butidentified alike their interest and duty with the presentwell-being of the State. But man's virtue nowwas to consist in the knowledge of right and wrong ;his first duty was to follow his convictions ;the lawseven of his country might be called in question, andfeelings towards its enemies be merged in the largersense of human brotherhood. The martyrdom ofSocrates is in itself a symbol of this conflict, a proofthat the Greek conscience claimed to direct its owncareer,State.free henceforth from all dictation from theBut the independence of character which Socratesprofessed included something more than social freedom.It was not enough to rise above the opinionsof the thoughtless crowd, and to cleave at allhazftrd to the inner sense of right ;reasonable selfrespect,he thought, could only be maintained by selfcontrol,by such a mastery over the desires that noneshould assert itself too strongly, or interfere with thepursuit of truth. He did not indeed push matters toextremes, or disparage the natural pleasures of the

12 STOICISM.senses. There was no ascetic rigour in his conductsuch as later moraUsts have often preached and practised;but in the simpHcity of his daily life, in hischeerful abstinence from self-indulgence, in the hardihoodwith which he bore hunger and thirst and heatand cold, while yet he could truly say that he wasthoroughly happy in his moderation, he lived up tohis own sense of human dignity, and left a model ofphilosophic independence which has influenced thewhole tone of later thought.There was no revolt in Socrates against the standardsof his age and country, but still it is of interestto note that there were features in him which werecertainly not of a Greek type. There was somethingeccentric in his outer man, an obvious want of harmonybetween his looks and character which wasalmost a matter of jest among his friends, and whichoffended the cultivated taste of Athens. The commoncurrent of his talk and the nature of his illustrationshardly were in keeping with the grace and artisticbeauty of his times. He took his examples from thecommonest subjects, without much regard to prejudiceand fashion, and explained the notion of thebeautiful as consisting in mere usefulness. He wasso sunk at times in meditation as to forget the outerworld a while, and the stiffness of his posture at suchtimes was paralleled by a certain want of delicate tactand intellectual sympathy for the feelings of hishearers. This may have weakened perhaps his influencewhile he lived, but it also may explain somesides of the Socratic thought in the later forms which

THE THOUGHT AND CHARACTER OF SOCRATES. 1 3itassumed, and which were still less in harmony withthe spirit of Greece.With these remarks, then, we may pass from themethod and sentiments of Socrates himself, but thepoints which have been thus lightly touched on willmeet us often at a later stage. The paramount importancethus ascribed to moral questions, the highestimate of human dignity, the estrangement from thebusiness of public life or the protest at its lower rulesof action, the ideal of the unruffled calm of selfcontrol,and thepartial disregard of the balance andharmony natural to Greece — these were all developedafterwards in various forms, and some of them werepushed to great extremes, but nowhere with suchextravagance as by the Cynics.

14 STOICISM.CHAPTER II.THE CYNICS.It was not many years after the death of Socratesbefore some of the tendencies which have been noticedin his teaching were carried out in their extremestforms, and paraded as a rule of Hfe before the startledeyes of an Athenian public. What we read of themmay sound almost like a grotesque parody of theSocratic thought, but they were professed ip^soberearnestness at first, and lasted on with littlechange ofphrase or argument for at least 500 years, reappearingeven afterwards to some extent in Christian dress, andstamping a familiar epithet on every modern language.The Cynic sect began with Antisthenes, who wasof Athenian birth, but the chief champion of thatmilitant philosophy was Diogenes, of Sinope, whosestriking figure and bold epigrams filled a far largerspace in public fancy. The gymnasia or public hallsof the Greek cities were used not only for athleticexercises, but also by the lecturers, rhetoricians,sophists, who found in them a willing audience or aready market for their literary wares. Antisthenesand his followers frequented one called Cynosarges,and the first half of the word may probably have givena nickname to the rising sect, for the wits of Athenswere not slow to play upon the meaning of the name,

THE CYNICS.15which meant "a dog," and found an apt referenceit to what they thought the low aims and dogged waysof the new teachers. Diogenes, especially, took therough banter in good part, recognising even itscharacteristic fitnessinby many a rude jest or symbolicact, and the Corinthians at last placed the figure of adog in Parian marble on his grave.No Greek school had so narrow an intellectualbasis, and in none was the moral type so entirely unchangedfrom age to age. It was the independenceof the character of Socrates which caught the fancyof Antisthenes ;the strength of will and power of selfassertionwas what he tried to copy, but he could notunderstand the analytic subtlety, or appreciate the pregnantshrewdness of his master's thought. Indeed, allspeculation seemed to him quite idle or fantastic whichdid not bear directly upon moral questions: general conceptionswere but fictions of the fancy, for individualsalone were real, definitions dealt with verbal quibbles,and the hopes of scientific progress were delusive.But no deep researches seemed to be required to givesuch knowledge as was needful for the guidance ofman's life, virtue alone could make him happy ;tosecure that he must concentrate his efforts on himself,and might safely neglect all beside. Nothingwas really good but virtue ; nothing but vice wasabsolutely bad ; all else should be indifferent. Theonly thing which he could truly call his own, whichmight be placed beyond the power of chance, wasmind ;in moral action, and in that alone, he couldbe really free ;all else depended upon some influence

1 6 STOICISM.from without, and might desert him in his hour ofneed. Wealth was very treacherous and blind, fataltemptation to some men, source of untold misery toothers. Honour was an empty bubble, blown by theignorant and foolish. Sensual pleasure was a formof madness, which threw the reason wholly off itsbalance. But labour and hardship, though man inhis folly shrunk from them, were good, for they servedto keep his powers in proper training, and raised himto a healthy independence.So Hercules was the type of the true hero, for oldfables pictured him as the knight errant, doing battlewith every form of evil, and never flinching from thepath of duty. The Cynics copied even, as best theycould, the traditipnal symbols with which he was investedby Greek art, and reproduced his club andlion's skin with the philosophicstaff and mantle.Virtue, therefore, in one sense, they thought, consistsof knowledge, but it is a knowledgethat all else isvanity, that common pleasures are at best treacherousand unsubstantial, and unworthy of serious pursuit.But virtue, in its positive aspect, is a course of training,an exercise of the free will, an assertion of thestrength within, an independence of all that lies without.The wise alone can gain that calm which isunruffled by the gusts of fortune, can find a homein any scene, and live a life of heaven on earth. Allelse are in a piteous plight, slaves to their passionsand unreason, living in a sort of lazar-house, wherethe Cynic can hardly find a healthy man, though hesearch with a lantern in his hand.

THE CYNICS. 17It was not enough with Socrates to practise moderation,or to control the wayward impulses of passion.Their object was to push much further their indifferenceto all that was not wholly in their power, toreduce their wants within the narrowest limits, andtrample on the pleasures they despised. The Greeklevel of requirements was moderate enough,ifjudgedby the standard of our modern comforts ;but theCynics would reduce life to its barest elements, andprune away most of the decencies of civilized societyas the mere superfluities of luxurious refinement.They gave up their property to live upon the beggar'sdole ; they were content with the scantiest clothing,and that sometimes so ragged that Antisthenes wastold his vanity might be seen through the holes of hisown coat. They could dispense with house or bed,and stretch themselves to sleep upon the stones, orlike Diogenes, in some convenient tub. The plainestdiet was thought enough;and as a return to simplenature, it was proposed even to dispense with the helpof fire, and to eat all their food uncooked.While so many of the wants of civilized life werethus discouraged,it was not likely that the institutionsof the State would be regarded with much favourThe sage, they thought, should feel himself a citizenof the world at large, and be indifferent to the pettypolitics of any little State, with all their much adoabout the trifles of honours or ofiicial rank. None ofthe governments that were could satisfy his judgment,for in all of them the choice of rulers turned on theaccidents of fortune, not on the essentials of true

1 8 STOICISM.moral worth. Of what value were the laws of anyState to one who had learnt to "be law unto himself,however useful they might be to provide for knavesand fools ?the social union atWhy should he prizeall who thought meanly of all its material symbols,such as money, markets, senate-houses, law-courts;who was careless even about civil freedom on theground that he alone was the real slave who wasmastered by his passions or his fears, and that strengthof will would assert itself with the more credit underdiscouraging conditions.In his "Dialogue of the Republic," Plato sketches animaginary picture of the simplest rudiments of sociallife in a supposed state of nature, but a young Athenianwho is present in the scene impatiently objectsthat such an Utopiaisonly fit for pigs. Plato is probablyreferring in this passage to the extravagancesof the Cynics, and itmay seem to us perhaps that thestricture is not too harsh when we find that someof themhad no reverence even for the sanctities of the home life,were an artificial bond-but thought the ties of familyage, and could be best replaced by a community ofwives, that the aspirant after virtue mightnot be distractedby material cares, or hamperedin his effortsto assert his perfect freedom.In their strange hankering for the state of nature,they professed such indifference to the opinion of theworld, that they seemed to aim at the suppression ofall modesty or shame. They insisted, that is, overmuchon the broad lines of distinction between conventionaldecencies and moral right.The latter was

THE CYNICS. 19done, they said, of any value, and we need only beashamed when we ignore its claims upon our reason.The former are artificial and unreal, varying as theydo from age to age and land to land. It is falsedelicacy, therefore, to regard the sentiments of otherson such points, or to refrain from any natural act inpublic, however revolting it may seem to the morbidtaste of silly worldlings.It is not to be supposed, indeed, that they couldalways act up to their principles completely, or pushto such outrageous lengths their disregard of finerfeelings. But in the stories left us of Diogenes andothers in grave writers, there is evidence enough ofbold effrontery and insolent self-assertion,relieved asitmight be by homely wit or humorous eccentricityof manner, ennobled as it was moreover by the missionaryspirit of their lives, and the energy with whichthey set themselves, alike in season and out of season,to preach the Cynic creed.The satirist, Lucian, who, five centuries later,mocks at the follies of his age, includes the Cynic inhis gallery of social portraits. In the auction scene,when each of the old philosophers of Greece is put upfor auction and knocked down to the highest bidderDiogenes appears among the others on the stage, and ismade to appraise himself in the characteristic languageof his sect. It is curious to note that here at least theportrait is no parody, or rather that there was nothingleft for caricature. Not a word is put into his mouththat is not ascribed to him by graver authors, andthe mad Socrates, as an ancient writerc 2called him, is

20 STOICISM.described with perfect sincerity and historic truth.Another scene of Lucian portrays a would-be sagethrusting himself uninvited on a supper party, descantingin high-flown terms on simple moderation,but disgusting all the guests with the boastful effronteryof his philosophic phrases, which contrastedstrangely with his drunken and lascivious habits.The description illustrates the fact, which we haveindeed from other sources, that many a sturdy beggarand ill-conditioned vagrant took up as a convenientdisguise the Cynic staff and mantle, bringing by hisdissolute life still more into disfavour the obnoxioustenets of the sect, somewhat as the monk's cowl, inthe later days of Christendom, was donned by manyan unworthy pretender to the spiritual life.The Cynics have often been comparedwith theBegging Friars of the Middle Ages, and some featuresof resemblance are obvious enough. Such are theself-chosen life of poverty, the austerity of dress andmanner, the missionary spirit often shown, the rudeuncourtly vigour of the language in which they denouncedvices in high places, while they spoke tothe people in the people's tongue.But the comparison rests mainly on the accidentsof dress, and manner, and ascetic life, and the pointsof difference are most essential. The mendicantorders chiefly did their work among the weak, andignorant, and poor. They moved to and fro amongthe neglected masses of the towns, or among villagersin lonely hamlets, ministering alike to body and tomind.They did not, like the Cynics, foster spiritual

THE CYNICS.CIpride, and preach counsels of perfection to the strongand self-contained ; they did not loosen recklesslythe ties of social union or domestic life, but they hadwords of comfort for the sick and hopeless, whilethey enforced the claims of homely duties, and bademen walk humbly with their God. They did notstunt or deform the ideal of intellectual life, forfrom the Dominican and Franciscan orders came thegreatest of the schoolmen, the subtlest spirits of theirage, famed in the lecture-halls of Paris and of Oxfordfor their mastery of the old systems of philosophy, aswell as for their reverent handling of the mysteries ofthe faith.

2 2 STOICISM.CHAPTER III.THE RISE OF STOICISM AND ITS RELATION TO THESPIRITOF THE AGE.The Roman satirist Juvenal remarked that thedistinction between the Cynics and the Stoics lay onlyin the coat they wore, and it is of interest for us tonote how the latter clung to the main principleswhich have just been described among the tenets ofthe former, while they tried to tone down the extravaganceof their conclusions. The Stoic system, likethe rest of the great Socratic schools, took form andsubstance first at Athens, and was gradually developedby Zenon, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus in the courseof the third century before our era.It was the age of Macedonian supremacy in Greece,when Alexander's empire had fallen into fragments,and the ceaseless wars, vices, and follies of his varioussuccessors filled the imagination of the world.Demosthenes, the great orator of the democracy ofAthens, had spent his energies and life in the fruitlesseffort to preserve the independence of his country ;the single-hearted Phocion, who had counselled moresubmissive action, but had proudly declined the profferedgold of Macedon, had been flung aside at last as adishonoured tool, and had fallen as a victim to the furyof a capricious people. Demetrius Phalereus, rulingas the viceroy of a foreign despot, had been a

THE RISE OF STOICISM. 23kindly patron of the arts and liberal studies, andsecured peace and plenty to the land to compensatefor the lost self-respect and turbulent energy offreedom.There were worse times indeed to follow, when thedegradation of the State was more complete, and theindignities of her public action more profound. Ifwe would know something of the social aspects ofthose times we shall find some striking illustrationsin Plutarch's account of Demetrius Poliorcetes, inwhose life adventurous exploits strangely contrastedwith wild extravagance and licence. What the rulersof the period often were we may judge from the quietwords of Plutarch " : Of the descendants of AntigonusPhilip was the only prince who put his son to death ;whereas in the families of other kings nothingis morecommon than the murder of sons, mothers, and wives.As for the killing of brothers, like a postulate ingeometry, it was considered as indisputably necessaryto the safety of the reigning prince."iRoyal insolence may be measured bythe madwhim of Demetrius, who ordered the Athenians to" raise two hundred and fifty talents in a very shorttime, and the money was exacted with the greatestrigour. When the money was brought in, and hesaw it all together, he ordered it to be given to Lamiaand his other mistresses to buy soap. Thus the disgracehurt them more than the loss,and the applicationmore than the impost." ^'Plutarch, " Demetrius," translation of Langhome. 'Ibid,

24 STOICISM.Even among the Macedonians athome he showeda haughtiness as great, offending by his ostentatiousdress and his hixurious and dissolute habits, but mostof allby the difficulty of access to him, for he eitherrefused to see the applicants, or behaved to them in aharsh and haughty manner." One day, when heseemed to come out in a more obliging temper, andto be something less inaccessible, he was presentedwith several petitions, all which he received and putthem in the skirt of his robe. The people of coursefollowed him with great joy ;but no sooner was hecome to the bridge over the Axius than he openedhis robe and shook them all into the river." iBut the Athenians were worthy of such rulers.their senile adulation they called Demetrius and hisfather gods and saviours, and abolishing the archonshipthey created special priests to do them honour,and prefixed their names to all the public acts."They consecrated the place where their patron firstalighted from his chariot, and erected an altar thereto Demetrius Catabates." They passed even a decree"that those who should be sent upon public businessto AntigonusInand Demetrius should not be calledambassadors, but Theori, a title which had been appropriatedto those who on the solemn festivalscarried the customary sacrifices to Delphi andOlympia in the name of the Grecian states." ^" These instances of adulation concluded withtheir changing the name of the month ]\Iunychion to1Plutarch, "Demetriur." « Ibid.

THE RISE OF STOICISM. 25Demetrion, with calling the last day of every monthDemetrios, and the Dionysia, or feasts of Bacchus,Demetria." ^ In Athenseus, again, we may read howthey received him when he came among them," notonly with frankincense and crowns, and libations ofwine, but they even went out to meet him with hymnsand choruses." The very hymn addressed to him onthis occasion is still existing, and it may help us tounderstand how far the religion of the age could bea stay or strength to earnest minds :—" Behold, the greatest of the gods and dearestAre come to this city ;For here Demeter and Demetrius arePresent in season.She indeed comes to duly celebrateThe sacred mysteriesOf her most holy daughter— he is presentJoyful and beautiful,As a god ought to be, with smiling face,Showering his blessings round.How noble doth he look ! his friends around.Himself the centre.His friends resemble the bright lesser stars,Himself is Phoebus.Plail, ever mighty Neptune's mightier son ;Hail, son of Venus !For other gods do at a distance keep,Or have no ears,Or no existence ;and they heed us not—But you are present.Not made of wood or stone, a genuine god.We pray to thee. "" Athenasus," Yonge's Translation, vi. 62.

26 STOICISM." This," says Athenjeus," is what was sung by thenation which once fought at Marathon, and theysang it not only in pubhc but in their private houses— men who had once put a man to death for offeringadoration to the King of Persia."Finally, they changed even the times and seasonsto humour his caprices, as when he wrote to tell themthat he proposed to have himself admitted to boththe greater and the lesser mysteries, which were heldproperly in different months and far " apart. Stratoclesprocured a decree that the month Munychion shouldbe called and reputed the month Anthesterion, to giveDemetrius an opportunity for his first initiation. Afterwhich Munychion was changed again into Boedromion."iBy these means Demetrius was admitted toboth mysteries.These extravagant compliances of Athens wereproved to be no fruit of love, for we read that afterthe decisive battle, which ruined the power of Demetrius,he reckoned chiefly on their loyalty, for with"them he had left his ships, his money, and his wifeDeidamia ;and in this distress he thought he couldhave no safer asylum than their affection. He,therefore,pursued his voyage ^^^th all',possible expeditionbut ambassadors from Athens met him near theCyclades, and entreated him not to think of goingthither, because the people had declared by an edictthat they would receive no king into their city ....To be deceived beyond all his expectations by the>Plutarch, "Demetrius."

THE RISE OF STOICISM. 2^Athenians, to find by facts that their affection, sogreat in appearance, was only false and counterfeit,was a thing that cut him to the heart." ^No wonder, then, if serious minds found politicsdistasteful, and sought a refuge in the quiet studieswhich promised to make them independent of thelow standards of society around them.The history of the Greek drama also seems to illustratethis change of feeling. The early comedy ofAthens reflects in every page the public movementsof the times ;is full of reference to the wars, diplomacy,and themes of national debate, and so is almostmeaningless without the knowledge of contemporaryannals. The plays of Menander, on the contrary,written as they were in times of political exhaustion,betake themselves almost entirely to the scenes ofprivate life, and find their chief interest in sentimentsand passions common to all"ages. I am a man,"says first one and then another of the characters ofthe new comedy in the period with which we areconcerned. The belief that men have all one natureand a common destiny seems always present to theirthoughts, and is appealed to as a ground for resignationand a motive for compassion, as well as anexcuse for tears and an argument for self-control.Philosophy came in to deepen the feeling and exploreits issues, while it substituted moral independencefor the old ideal of State rights and sovereign power.Athens, as we have seen, no longer gave the law'Plutarch, "Demetrius."

28 STOICISM,to a thousand subject-states; but she was still,withoutdispute, the intellectual centre of the civilized world.Students flocked to her, not only from the neighbouringlands of Greece and the islands of the Archipelago,but from the coasts of Asia Minor and the towns ofthe Phenician sea-board. It was a time of disquietand exhaustion, when the streams of national life wereflowingfeebly,and men could walk no more withoutmisgiving in the old paths of custom and religion.They turned, therefore, with eagerness to any teacherswho professed to have explored the mysteries oflife, and to have found a safe rule for human action.A sage's reputation often was enough to draw themfrom their distant homes in quest of wisdom. Notonly the young, but men, and greybeards even crossedthe seas to gather round some celebrated teacher inthe favoured home of Greek philosophy, where allthe rival systems had their eager followers and masterspirits. Sometimes they seemed to hear a suddencall to earnest thought, as in the later stories of conversionto religious life. Thus Zenon, as we readin the old story, came on other business to Athens,but while there took up in a bookseller's shop a copyof Xenophon's Socratic Memoirs, which he read longand earnestly, till he asked at " length, Where aresuch men to be found ?" The Cynic Crates, who waspassing by, was pointedout to him as one who hadthe secret of a higher life, and Zenon forthwith followedhim as a disciple, till he became himself ateacher in his turn. In that, as in the other schoolsof Athens, there were many votaries of Iearning,'young

THE RISE OF STOICISM. 29and old, who freely grouped themselves around arecognised leader, listening to his expositionof thetruth, and trying to reduce his lessons to the hard testof practice. Each was supposed to reproduce inauthorized form the tenets of the Plato, Aristotle, orAntisthenes, who had been the founders of the variousschools of thought. Once appointed to the post ofhonour, he filled itcommonlytill death closed hislabours ;but while he lived he chose another whomight step into his place when he was gone, or in hiswill put the ofifice in commission for a while,till thedisciples who were trusted most could make theirchoice. It was a purely voluntary system, for it waslong before the foremost men could be regarded asprofessors, appointed or salaried by the State. Rather,they lived upon the footing of the Free Churches ofour modern times, and the principal members actedsomewhat as the deacons, choosing at times, thoughit does not appear that they dismissed, their spiritualhead. To the credit of the philosophic sects, it shouldbe noticed that each enjoyed a rare degree of harmonywithin itself; even the most restless spiritsseldom ventured to dispute the master's claims totheir obedience, or to set up a rival oracle beside him.Many, even of the greatest name, appear to havewaited quietly for many years, till a vacancy was madeby death, or they were invited to assume the foremostplace.We hear only of one, Chrysippus, who set upfor himself while the head of his school was still alive ;'Cf. " University Life in Ancient Athens,"c. ii.

30 STOICISM.and even he owned his fault, we are told, in laterdays, and owned that the one thing which he regrettedwas undutiful behaviour to Cleanthes.In most of the Greek towns, as has been said, therewere public buildings called gymnasia, built chiefly, itis true, for bodily exercises and athletic feats, but largelyused, by the sufferance of the State, for the lecturesand discussions of the philosophers or sophists. It wasnot long before the several schools drew themselvesapart into special buildings or into various quartersof the city ;and some even took their most familiarname, such as the Academy of Plato, and the AristotelianLyceum, and the Garden of Epicurus in theouter Ceramicus, from the localities in which theymade themselves at home. There was a splendidporch or colonnade at Athens called the Stoa Poicile,from the varied paintings with which the genius ofthe great artist Polygnotus had adorned Memoriesit.of horror had been long associated with it as a sceneof judicial murder during the reign of terror of theThirty Tyrants, when so many of the foremost citizenshad died by the executioner's hand. But there werealso memories of the patriotism and the virtue thathad perished there, and Zenon was content to connecthis teaching with such lessons of the past when hegathered his disciples round him in the open spacewhich was then left at his disposal ;here he taught publiclyfor many years, and his successors chose it also asthe scene of their debates, and hence they soon gainedthe distinctive name of Stoics, and their sentimentswere called the tenets of the Porch. In most of the

THE RISE OF STOICISM.3 1schools we find some modest traces of endowments.Thus Theophrastus in his will disposed as follows ofthe house and garden near the Ilissus which cameinto his hands after Aristotle'sdeath :— " My gardenand the walk, and all the buildings which adjoin theglebe, I bequeath to such of my friends herein describedas care to pass their lives in them together instudy and philosophy, on condition that no one shallalienate them or make any individual claim; butthat all shall share alike, and live in domestic peacetogether,as is natural and right."Epicurus also left his famous garden, at his death,for the members of his school, and also set apart somefunds to keep the student world together." I givemy property in trust to Amynomachus and Timocrates,on the condition that they make over the use of thegarden and all it contains to Hermarchus and thosewho join his speculations, and to such as he maychoose to take his place, that they may there givethemselves to study ; and, moreover, I beg all whotake their principles from me to do their best as asolemn trust to keep Amynomachus and Timocratesto maintain the school-buildings inmy garden, andtheir heirs after them, as also those who may be appointedto replace my own successors. And out ofthe funds bequeathed by me I will that my executors,in concert with Hermarchus, provide religious servicesfor my father and mother, and brothers, and myself. . . and also for the stated meeting, to be held onthe 20th of every month, byall the members of mysect."

OT,2 STOICISM.Some of the philosophers had means enough tomaintain themselves in studious easewithout endowmentsof this sort ; but, besides this, nearly allaccepted presents from their hearers. Socrates, indeed,had thoughtit a low and mercenary practicefor the teacher to take pay from those he taught, andhis own friends and followers shared his sentiments,and taught freely all who came to learn. But beforelong the prejudice grew weaker, and the presents sentwere readily accepted, and payment even demandedas a due.But the true Cynic cared, as we have seen,for httle more than the means of bare subsistence.Some like Crates followed so far the counsels of perfectionthat they gave up all they had as only ahindrance in their quest for wisdom. The Stoics also,following their example, for some time discouragedall endowments, and would accept little or nothingfrom admirers or disciples. The wealthy or fastidiouswere likely to be repelled rather than attracted bytheir language; and if their enthusiasm was proofto irk-against hard words, they were sometimes putsome tasks to prove if the novices had the true hungerand thirst after philosophy. Thus Zenon, we are told,was too sensitive to the opinion of the world to carryout in their extreme forms the Cynic doctrines. "Onwhich account," says Diogenes Laertius, "Crates wishingto cure him of this false shame, gave him a jar oflentil porridge to carry through the Ceramicus ;andwhen he saw he was ashamed, and that he endeavouredto hide it,he struck the jar with his staff and brokeit,and as Zenon fled away, and the lentil porridge

THE RISE OF STOICISM. 33ran all down his legs, Crates called after him, ' Whydo you run away my little Phoenician ; you have doneno harm ? The 'lesson seems to have been taken ingood part, and the example followed afterwards in thetreatment of his own"disciples." Once, when ahandsome and wealthy Rhodian, but one who had noother qualification, was pressing him to take him as apupil, he, as he was not inclined to receive him, firstof all made him sit on the dusty seats that he mightdirt his cloak, then he put him down in the place ofthe poor that he might rub against their rags, and atlast the young man went away.''^It needed some toughness of moral fibre not to beoffended at such a course of treatment, and we neednot be surprised to find that among the earlier Stoicsthere were men of resolute temper, trained in the hardlife of penury and toil. Thus Cleanthes " came toAthens, having but four drachmas, as some peoplesay, and attaching himself to Zenon he devoted himselfto philosophy in a most noble manner Hewas especially eminent for his industry, so that as hewas a very poor man he was forced to undertakemercenary employment, and he used to draw water inthe gardens by night, and by day he used to exercisehimself in philosophical discussions. They also. . .say that he was on one occasion brought before acourt of justice to be compelled to give an accountwhat his sources of income were from which he maintainedhimself in such good condition and that then:^Diogenes Laertius," Zenon," translation by Yonge.D

34 STOICISM.he was acquitted, having produced as his witness thegardener in whose garden he drew the water, and awoman who was a meal-seller, in whose establishmenthe used to prepare the meal. And the judges of theAreopagus admired him, and voted that ten minseshould be given to him, but Zenon forbade him toaccept them."iBut Zenon had first practisedthe lessons of moderationwhich he enforced upon his younger friends." He was a person," says Diogenes," of great powers ofabstinence and endurance and of very simple habits,living on food which required no fire to dress it, andwearing a thin cloak, so that it was said of him —The cold of winter and the ceaseless rainCome powerless against him ;weak is the dartOf the fierce summer sun, or fell disease,To bend that iron frame. He stands apart,In nought resembling the vast common crowd :But patient and unwearied, night and day.Clings to his studies and philosophy."He cared as little for the banter of the comic poets,who made him the object of their witticisms, as for thelavish compliments of King Antigonus, who used tolisten to his lectures when he came to Athens, and atlast invited him to Macedonia to instruct himself andall his subjects in the paths of virtue. Zenon returneda courteous answer, speaking in a tone of dignifiedapproval of the great man's zeal for wisdom, andofferingto send to court some of histrusted friends,^Diogenes Laertius, "Zenon.''

THE RISE OF STOICISM. 35who would undertake the journey for which he wa^himself'too old and feeble. The Athenians themselves, it seems, had such respect for the good oldman who lived so long among them that they entrustedthe keys of the city to his care ;and whenhe passed away at length in ripe old age they voteda decree of public honours in the following terms :—" Since Zenon, the son of Innaseas, the Cittisean,has passed many years in the cityin the study ofphilosophy, being in all other respects a good man,and also exhorting all the young men who have soughthis company to the practice of virtue, and encouragingthem in the practice of temperance, making hisown life a model to all men of the greatest excellence ;since it has in every respect corresponded to the doctrineswhich he has taught,it has been determinedby the people to praise Zenon and to present himwith a golden crown in accordance with the law onaccount of his virtue and temperance, and to buildhim a tomb in the Ceramicus at the public expense.its vote five menAnd the people has appointed byof Athens who shall see tofrom among the citizensthe making of the crown and the building of thetomb. And the scribe of the borough shall enrolthe decree and engraveit on two pillars,and he shallbe permitted to place one pillar in the Academy andone in the Lyceum." ^The ascetic side of Stoicism was thus embodiedin the life of the first two great doctors of the^Diogenes Laertius, ' ' Zenon. "D 2

o 6STOICISM.school, which may have seemed perhaps, so fax,to careless eyes as onlyold Cynic creed. But its literarya softened form of theand constructiveaspect was best represented in the person of Chrysippus,who wrote more than seven hundred differenttreatises on philosophic questions, and showed suchpower of illustration and acuteness in developing thetenets of his sect that it was said, " Had there be^nno Chrysippus, there had been no Porch." Hiscritics, indeed, complained of the careless languageand the frequent repetitions of his works, and of theundue length of his quotations from the earlierauthors, and it is evident that he cared more for thematter than the artistic value of his writings.But theStoic system as a whole was expanded and completedby him, and when he died, in 206 B.C., its characteristicfeatures were entirely defined." If the gods have any logic,"author, "it is that of Chrysippus " yetsaid an ancienthe wrote toomuch, and from too many points of view, to be alwaysquite consistent in his statements. Plutarch, therefore,refers largely to him in his treatise on theStoic inconsistencies ; though his objections mainlyillustrate the natural contrasts between a rigid theoryand the real needs of common life, and the self-contradictionsthat arose out of the effort to becomelearned and many-sided and elastic without beinguntrue to a hard dogmatic creed.

STOICISM. 37CHAPTER IV.STOICISM IN THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIALPRINCIPLES.The strength and originality of the Stoic system isto be found undoubtedly in the rule of life which itprofessed, but nothing can seem more indefinite atfirst than the familiar phrase of "Hving in conformitywith Nature," in which their moral standard was expressed.It might seem to admit of almost any explanation,and to lend itself as well to the grosser formsof practical Epicureanism, which justify the fullestindulgence of the instincts, as to the finer moods ofHellenic thought which entrusted the regulation ofman's life to a sort of cultivated sympathy or artistictaste for natural beauty and refinement. Its valuemust depend upon the meaning which they gave tothe word " Nature," and thatwas too full and manysidedto be included in a definition. We must first,therefore, gain a clearer notion of their views uponthis and kindred subjects.•In the order and harmony of universal nature thereare signs enough, they argued, of a First Cause andGoverning Mind. Human instinct has everywherepointed to this cardinal truth, and from this flow themultitudinous forms of worship in all lands. A litde

38 STOICISM.thought upon the matter shows us that there must bea power inherent in the world to move it as the soulcan move the body. That power must have consciousnessand reason, else how can we explain thebeing of conscious creatures like ourselves, and allthe intricate machinery of inter-connected means andends. A building can no more exist without a builderthan the order of the world without a ruling spirit.As we mount in thought along the ladder of creation,from class to higher class above it,we cannot but goon to the belief in a yet higher being w^hose moraland intellectual perfection is quite infinite, whomfolks alike call God. Of Himphilosophers and simplethe Stoics speak in the language of devotional fervour,not only as an abstract Reason, but as a happy andbeneficent Creator. But if we ask what were thereal features of their creed we shall find to our surprisethat it was one of Pantheism undisguised. Godis the eternal substance which is always varying itsmoods, and passing into different forms as the creativework isgoing forward, and may be alike conceivedtherefore as the primary matter and the efficient forcewhich shapes the derivative materials of which allthings are made. Spoken of as active power He isGod, but as the sum of all his emanations and effectsHe is the world, for the visible universe is only apassing stage in the eternal progressin which God isdeveloping his powers. From God all things proceed,and to Him they will all return at last,when each cycle of time has run its course andthe old emanations are absorbed into the source

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 39of life, and the formation of a new world beginsafresh.This thorough-going Pantheism was expressed,,moreover, in materialistic symbols, borrowed at leastin part from a much earlier thinker, Heraclitus.God is conceived as fiery ether, or an atmosphericcurrent, passing now by condensation into the formsof water and of earth, sublimated again into the stateof air and fire, producing thus by turns the primaryelements out of which the world is made. A localhabitation is assigned to the central power fromwhich all the living forces flow, though there is nogeneral agreement on the subject; some call it heaven,while others hold it to be the sun or the centre ofthe earth. The matter in which this primary forcehas clothed itself awhile isbeing by slow degreesconsumed, and will be exhausted at the last, wheneach cycle of time has run its destined course. Theworld and all the derivative materials which it containswill be dissolved in "fervent heat," and thedivine substance, which "is uncompounded in itsessence pure," will then alone remain.Such expressions of the Stoics must not be regardedonly as a picture language to assist the fancy, as thefigures and symbols used by the soaring thought,when it would strive to body forth its visions. Ratherto them it seemed that material things alone werereal, their properties and forms were allproduced bythe existence of air currents, each radiating from thecentre to which it must again return. The qualitiesof the soul as of the body were only varieties of

causes40 STOICISM.tension caused by atmospheric impact,and thusemotions, impulses, and judgments even might beregarded as material objects. Much of this, nodoubt, was merely awkwardness of phraseology, andthe real meaning was that the realities in questionmust depend on some material conditions. But illchosenas the language seems, it runs through alltheir logical and physical discussions, and sets astamp of rude materialism on all their speculativethought.As a natural consequence their forms of speechwere fatalistic. There may seem, they said, to behazard and caprice around us, but all things cometo the birth and grow and pass away in unconditionaldependence:on a universal lawand effectsare unchangeably connected by an absolute necessitywhich rules all being and all becoming. This fate,lor destiny, is the reason of the world, for it is thenatural law in which theexpressed,course of the world may bethe order of Providence in -which theDeity unfolds his latent possibilities of being, andpasses by development through all his stages, thesum of all the generative reasons which produceand shape the individual moods of nature.Pantheistic systems often find in literary treatmenta lyric fervour of expression, and may be combinedin practice with a high degree of mystic resignation,but they are not quite in harmony with the languageof devotion, which implies throughout belief in thebeing of a personal God, distinct from and aboveHis creatures. Yet the phrases of simple piety are

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES.4Ito be found undoubtedly in Stoic writings, as inthe striking verses of Cleanthes' hymn :—" Thee it is lawful for all mortals to address. Forwe are Thy offspring, and alone of living creaturespossess a voice which is the image of reason. ThereforeI will for ever sing Thee and celebrate Thypower. All this universe rolling round the earthobeys Thee, and follows willingly atThy command.Such a minister hast Thou inThy invincible hands,the two-edged, flaming, vivid, thunderbolt. O King,most High, nothingis done without Thee, neitherin heaven or on earth, nor in the sea, except whatthe wicked do in their foolishness. Thou makes:order out of disorder, and what is worthless becomesprecious in Thy sight for;Thou hast fitted togethergood and evil into one, and hast established one lawthat exists for ever. But the wicked from fl}- Thylaw, unhappy ones, and though they desire to possesswhat isgood, yet they see not, neither do they hearthe universal law of God. If they would follow itwith understanding they might have a good life. Butthey go astray, each after his own devices— somevainly striving after reputation, others turning asideafter gain excessively, others after riotous livingand wantonness. Nay, but, O Zeus, Giver of allthings, who dwellest in dark clouds and rulest overthe thunder, deliver men from their foolishness.Scatter it from their souls, and grant them to obtainwisdom, for by wisdom Thou dost rightly governallthings ; that being honoured we may repay Theewith honour, singing Thy works without ceasing, as

42 STOICISM.it is right for us to do. For there is no greaterthing than this, either for mortal men or for thegods, to sing rightly the universal law."^A theory which identifies the world with God, andbelieves Him therefore to exist alike in the evil andthe good, might be in the long run fatal to intensityof moral purpose, tending as itnaturally does to slurover and efface the broad lines of distinction betweengood and evil which the common sense of humanityhas sharply drawn. Yet the Stoic morality was sternand rigid, insisting in uncompromising tones uponthe claims of duty. It was not content with thenatural outcome of a fatalistic creed, with the reveriesof calm submission absorbed in the contemplationof an infinite will, working out itsplans in all themultitudinous forms of nature, but it braced theenergies for active combat, and bade men resist andconquer evil. The existence of that evil might beexplained, they sometimes thought, as an imperfectionin detail which was necessary for the perfectionof the whole, or as a supplement and counterpartto good, or as a flaw inherent in man's nature, whicheven the providence of God could not remove.These explanations, if not quite consistent with theleading principles which they professed, still showhow strong was their anxiety to rescue spiritualrealities from the bondage of a materialistic creed,to assertthe dignity of God and man, and vindicatethe moral order of the world.'Sir A. Grant's translation.

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 43This, then, was their view of Nature, ruled in allits parts by universal reason, which enters into theplay of elemental forces, and ordains the preestablishedharmony of the blind machinery whichit sets in motion, while it attains to consciousness inman,—and, strange to say, leaves room if not for hispersonal freedom as commonly conceived,at leastfor his responsibility of choice, as well as for devotionalfeeling towards the God of which he ishimself a part.It is man's privilege, they said, that he alone ofearthly beings has the gift of reason, can see thewisdom of the Providence which rules the world, and bein sympathy with its creative thought. He has, indeed,animal impulses and appetites like the lower creatureswhich surround him, which are left by Nature to suchguidance, but man should surely respecthis betterself and be ruled by the noblest faculty within him.By virtue of this he may claim relationshipwith theEternal Reason, and this identity will be the closerthe more he gives free play and scope to thedivine element of intellect within him. This must,indeed, one day, at the end of the world's course,be resolved into the universal substance into whichall things will then return, when all individual existencewill be lost ; but, meantime, men may last onafter death as separatesouls, be cleansed even as ina state of purgatory from the stains and pollutionsof the life on earth, and mount heavenward throughthe lower air tillthey reach a purer atmospherecongenial to their own ethereal nature, while the

44 STOICISM.souls of the criminal and foolish may have been soweakened by continued contact and interminglingwith the evil as to have littlepower of vitality inherentin them when their bodies crumble to decay.All things pursue, by an unconscious instinct, whatis best suited to their nature :nothing else can havereal value for them. The essential element in man isreason, and the naturalness and well-being of his lifeconsist in rational action, or, in other words, inattuning all his thoughts and aims into perfectsympathy with the general law of reason, which isembodied in the universe around him. This, therefore,is the meaning of the Stoic rule. It is expressed,indeed, in varying forms. Some call it a life of consistencywith self, others the harmony of life withNature ;and Nature againis now explained as the constitutionof the personal agent, and now as the wholesystem of the world at large. But the real meaningalways is the same, that man can only lead a rationallifeby conforming to a general law, and thathe risesor falls in the scale of dignity and happiness as hesucceeds or fails in doing this with persistent purpose,as he has more or less, in other words, of thevirtue which consists in this willing obedience to law.The leading principle thus stated was carried outto its conclusions with an exclusive and uncompromisingrigour, and the startling paradoxes which theyheld seemed to follow naturally enough from theirone-sided treatment of great truths. Good,in itswider sense, was commonly defined in the earlierschools as that which satisfies a natural want, but the

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 45essential element, the true nature of man as distinctfrom other creatures, is his reason ;and his real goo^iHtherefore, lies in rational action, or in virtue. There Iis no good independently of virtue ;it is a popular^misnomer to distinguish various kinds or differentdegrees of good, though we may of course admit,which are themselves in-they said, that many thingsdifferent, may conduce and help to something whichis better than themselves. But bodily advantagesand gifts of fortune have no abiding character ofgood, satisfy no permanent want of reason, have notthat unconditional value of which alone the Stoic puriststook account. So even health and wealth must becounted as indifferent, that is, with no distinctivecharacter of good, for they may be and are sadlyabused, and we may not do such dishonour to theabsolute worth of virtue as to say that aught besideis needful to complete man's happiness. Still lessmust pleasure be the object of pursuit, as Epicurusand his followers held. Pleasure there is indeed invirtuous conduct, a cheerful serenity so sweet that wemay say that only the wise man knows true pleasure,but we must not make that our aim and objectwhich is indeed the consequence of noble action, butis itself too fleeting, sensuous, and unsubstantial, tobe a standard or a rule of life. Virtue should beitself its own reward, and cannot need extraneousconditions to complete the happiness of those whohave it. We need not say, indeed, that pleasure isunnatural and bad, though some stern moralists ofthe school would have it so ; enough to say, that it isj

46 STOICISM.not a real good, and must not be made an end, orthe morality of action disappears.If virtue was the only good for man,it followedthat for his true self vice alone was evil, though manyother things may seem to be so to the careless eyeswhich take account of the nature which connectshim with the lower creatures. Hardship, poverty,disgrace, pain, sickness, death, seem evils to thebeings who are content to live upon a lower level ;but to the sage who would live up to a life of reason,they are things in themselves indifferent, taking theircolour and their character from the use to which weput them.The wise man alone isfree, they said again, for hecan make himself independent of the whims of fortune,can rise superior to so-called troubles, guard himselfalike from care and fear and passionate desire, andenjoy the bliss of an unruffled calm. It is true thatin another sense he is not free, has indeed less senseof freedom than the careless crowd, for he can recognisethe general law of destiny within which all thingsrevolve. His will, he knows, is mysteriously linkedto the long chain of natural causes, but he seemsfree in that he can willingly obey the dictates of hisnature without being helplessly determined by thingsexternal to himself. He decides on that which reasonpoints to, and he acts under no sense of constraintor irksome pressure, for his will and universal intellectare one.If reason alone is a sufficient guide for man, hemust not value highly the animal impulses which also

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 47prompt to action. He stands on a higher level thanthat of instinct, which sets the lower world in motion,and makes unconscious creatures seek their good.He forfeits his privilege of manhood if he forsakesthe higher guidance for the lower. But this is notall ;and we are here brought to a distinctive featureof the Stoic system, and to the curious psychologywhich it implies. The moods of our emotional nature,to the stronger forms of which we give the name ofpassions, were thought by them to have their seatwithin the reason, but to be wholly disturbing andmisleading forces. Some fault of judgment or imagination,some false notion of good or evil lies alwaysat the root of each, and makes them so dangerousand misleading. Irrational fancy as to present goodgives rise to pleasure, while desire is a wrong estimateabout the future. Unreal imaginings of evil cause uscare as tothe present, or fear of that which we thinkmust come. It was easy to carry the analysis stillfurther through the various moods of human nature,though it AVas not easy to explain why these distemperedfancies should affect the judgment, or howthe distinction between truth and falsehood couldgive rise to all the different features which distinguishreason and emotion. But their theory made shortwork of all these states of feeling, and branded them asdisturbances of mental health, which tended to upsetthe natural balance of the soul, and to imperil fatallyits self-control. The wise man will learn to measurethings at their real value, and recognise the generallaw in all the shifting incidents around him ;he will

48 STOICISM.see that the passions are not natural to man, save inso far as are the diseases which affect the body ;hewill strive to keep the mastery over such faultyfancies, and be true to the consummate virtue whichis passionless and calm. There will be nothing forhim then to fear, for unreason is the only evil ;nothing to desire beyond himself, for his happinessof intellectual balance is quite selfcontained ;nocause for anger, for others cannot really harm him,and he should not need a thrill of feeling to stirhim to defend the right.It might be thought, perhaps, that this destructivecriticism would at least deal somewhat tenderly withthe grace of mercy and the feeling of compassion,but the austere moralists of the school would notallow of any such condescension to our human weakness.Relieve the wants and succour the distresses ofyour fellow-men, they said, in such measure as thelaws of general well-being may ordain, but thesedelicate tasks should be entrusted to the calmermoods of reason, and not to passionate thrills ofsympathy which will make you bungle in your work.Much of the seeming misery around you is unreal,for the evils of which men talk are often only thenightmares of their own disordered fancy ;the sagemust be careful not to come down from his serenerheights, to encourage the delusions of weak men, andthe strong ones will not want his pity, for the onlyevils that they know of for themselves are within theirpower to remove.This passionless serenity of balanced temper is

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 49what was meant by the Stoic apathy so famous in theschools of Greece and Rome ;itpostulated not onlythe absolute supremacy of reason but its rightfulclaims to be the only motive force within the soul,for itwould make a solitude of all besides and call itpeace ;but itimplied no torpor of ecstatic reveriesand mystic contemplation, such as those whichEastern ascetics have enjoyed, in iheir attempts toclose every pore and inlet of emotion, and to endalmost in pure nothingness of individual being.We have seen that in their pictures of the moral Ilife there is no place left for feeling, save in so far asits calmer moods may rank as states of reason ;whilethe emotions or the passions are regarded as a morbidbias given to the thoughts. It was far easier for themto ignore the will as a separate factor in the soul, orto see in itnothing more than knowledge in a state ofaction. But ifknowledgeis thus left as the onething needful in the analysis of human conduct, itwould seem to follow as by natural sequence that thedifferent virtues are only forms of partial knowledge,such as belong to our imperfect state, andthat we may all have, some more some less,of the truth which constitutes salvation. Butthey were far from allowing this conclusion.They insisted for the most it part, is true, that thevirtues were distinct in kind, accounting for theirseveral features sometimes by the variety of objectswith which they are connected, sometimes bypeculiar qualities inherent in the soul ;but all ofthem, they thought, have the same end in obedienceE

50 STOICISM.to the general laws of Nature— all have the samequality of tone or temper or conviction, on whichthey are all strung as on a silver thread, and whichonce broken carries with it the decay of each and all.The merit of each act consists alone in the intention,which is unconditionally good or bad. If it be theformer, virtue exists then in its entirety ; if the latter,the whole character is naught.Hence, well-known paradoxes follow, with whichthe wits of Rome afterwards made merry, and whichwere certainly of a kind to startle common sense.I St. There is no difference of degree they said betweenthe vices. The results may be widely different ofcourse : some seem to do much harm and otherslittle, but in themselves they are alike derangementsof the mental health, proofs that the right intention isnot present, but that unreason rules the soul. Thebad man, therefore, can do nothing right, and he thatcommits one crime is guiltyof all.lord ofhimself and master of the world.2nd. The wise man is absolutely perfect,There is no lovelinesson earth to be compared with the moral excellenceof virtue, no freedom like the peace of perfectself-control, no wealth like that of wisdom, whichfits him for every form of active work, and evenmakes him ruler and king by right divine if not byuniversal suffrage, as well as priest of the mysteries ofheaven and earth.3rd. The sage is a citizen of the whole world.There isnothing narrow, nothing selfish, in his views,for his whole effort is to rise above his personal and

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 51local limits to the sphere of universal law. He willnot neglect, indeed, the duties that lie readyto hishand ;he will respect the ties of family and country,though he will not let them bound his horizon ofbenevolence, and will often have to rise above theirincomplete and sordid maxims. Much of the Stoiclanguage on this subject may be, no doubt, explainedwith reference to the circumstances of their age,when the free commonwealths of Greece were overshadowedby the power of Macedon, and wider sympathiesand freer thought replaced the narrow intensityof the old Hellenic standards. Something wasdue, also, to the fact that the earlier Stoics were notcommonly of Greek descent, but came from theislands or the coasts of Asia, where Semitic influencehad largely modified the bias givenin the schools ofAthens. But apart from this, the leading principlesof their Stoic theory must have tended to discouragethe zeal of the patriot and the efforts of the statesman.As an able and learned critic has remarked,^ " aphilosophy which attaches moral value to the culti.vation of intentions only, considering all externalcircumstances at the same time as indifferent, canhardly produce a taste or a skill for overcoming thoseoutward interests and circumstances with which apolitician is chiefly concerned. A system. which regardsthe mass of men as fools, which denies to themevery healthy endeavour and all true knowledge, canhardly bring itself unreservedly to work for a State,'Zeller. Translation by Reichel, p. 307.E 2

52 STOICISM.the course and institutions of which depend upon themajority of its members, and are planned with a viewto their needs, prejudices, and customs. Undoubtedly,there were able statesmen among the Stoics of theRoman period, but Rome and not Stoicism was thecause of their statesmanship.Taken alone, Stoicismcould form excellent men, but hardly excellent statesmen.And looking to facts, not one of the oldmasters of theoffice."school ever had or desired any public4th. Local or national ties, as we have seen, laylightly on the conscience of the Stoic there were;occasions even, as he thought, when itmight be wellfor him to give uplife itself, if he could no longerplay his part in it with dignity or profit. They werevery far indeed from counselling or condoning suicidein fits of passion or despair. The fatal results of viceand folly were not to be shaken off so easily by onerash plunge into the void, but would leave their marksupon the undying soul, and condemn it to misery stillto come. But to the wise man death was in itselfno evil, and when he was brought face to face, assome might be, with conditions in which he couldnot turn his wisdom to a good account, or whensome nobler end might be attained by death, hemight calmly and cheerfully trust to his own handto give him freedom, or to usher him to a better lifebeyond the grave. Thus Zenon in ripe old age grewweary of the burden of his years, and recognised ina fall and broken limb the summons to be gone.Cleanthes was bidden to abstain from food awhile

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 53to cure a bodily disease, and persisted even in thesame course when the passing object was attained,saying that it was a pity to retrace his steps as hewas now so far upon the road. Cato courted deathwith his own hands when his cause was wholly lostand the commonwealth was ruined. And in the evildays of Roman tyranny the counsel fell on willingears, and many hurried from a world which seemedgiven over irredeemably to violence and lust.

54 STOICISM.CHAPTERSTOICISMTEMPERED BY CONCESSIONS TO COMMONSENSE.If Stoicism always had remained on the high levelof the austere and rigid tenets described in the lastchapter, it might have given substance to the reveriesof a few lonely thinkers here and there, but it wouldhardly have taken rank as one of the great movingforces of the earnest minds of heathendom. Ithad, indeed, already passed beyondthe narrowCynic dogmasit had abandoned the rude;protestagainst civilized life, and the discouragement ofspeculative thought. It had expanded on all sidesthe negative ideal at which the earlier system hadstoppedshort. But there was still too much of theCynic leaven working in its midst, in the frequentparade of paradox, the affected contempt for theopinion of the world, and ostentatious disparagementof common pleasures. It was too absolute in itsnegations, too unbending in its claims upon the conscience,to satisfy the countless souls who were cravinglight and guidance in the paths of duty, and notlofty sentiments about the vanity of human wishes.It was not long before the attempt was made to reconcilethe claims of theory and practice, to relax

TEMPERED BY CONCESSIONS TO COMMON SENSE. 55the rigour of their definitions, to tone down andmodify the absoluteness of their maxims, and so toclothe the dry skeleton with flesh and blood as toitgive vital force to move as a real power among thehearts and consciences of men. Itmay be well,first, to briefly indicate the chief directions in whichsome change or relaxation seemed required, withoutentering at present into much detail uponThe practical mind of Rome, which had littlethe subject.taste for verbal subtlety or paradox, was most earnestin requiringa rule of life suited to the demands ofcommon sense, and we shallhave occasion at a laterstage to quote largely from the great Roman Stoics,and see how much was gradually done by them togive warmth and colour, and many-sided interest, towhat might seem at first unlovely and ungracious.The extravagant pretensions of the earlier membersof the school to lavish all the resources of thelanguage in praise of the consummate sage sooncaught the attention of contemporary critics, whokeenly scrutinized its meaning. The wise man inwhom there is no folly— no weakness, selfishness, orsin— the king-philosopher and high-priest of huma-— nity where is he to be found, and what are thetokens of his presence ? The men and women whomwe know have their good qualities and evil blended,and few of us can seriously think that we have ever 'seen perfection embodied in an earthly shape. Callit an ideal, ifyou will, to which we may tend but notattain, but then we have a right to remind you thatyour picture is confessedly a type of unapproachable

56 STOICISM.perfection.Other systems, moral and religious, havetheir ideals, which may be of good service if theyshame us out of our languid self-content, and give us arule by which to measure the poor realities of commonlife.They too have had their doctrines of originalcorruption, have mourned over the prevaihng sinfulnessof man, and have spoken sometimes harshly ofthe hollowness of all the seeming virtues that belongto the stillunregenerate state. But they never venturedto affirm that, with a few possible but rareexceptions, humanity was made upof fools andat all.knaves, in whom there was no good thingSuch statements outrage common sense, and give nosort of help in the rough paths of common life. Thevast majority they seem to despair of and ignore, forthere is no goodin them on which to work, no fulcrumfor the moral lever; the perfect, if such there are, standabove man's help, for they have found peace, and canenjoy a grace which is indefectible when it is once won.To meet objections of this kind, the trenchant languageof the school was softened down by kindlierand more hopeful tones. The two extreme alternativeswere no longer regarded as exhaustive ;roomwas left for earnest seekers and toilers after virtue,who were part of their Church Militant, which wasnot as yet triumphant. Henceforth men are encouragedto go forward, there is much talk in the schoolof progress, the various stages and criteria of whichare reckoned up, and alike in theory and practiceengage a large share of their attention. It was aword little known as yet to heathen thought, which

TEMPERED BV CONCESSIONS TO COMMON SENSE. 57was singularly hopeless in its tone while ; Jewishbooks looked forward and spoke ever of a good timecoming, and had for the burden of their prophecythe bold, strong words " ''for ever," to the wisest evenof the seers of pagandom, society seemed to revolvein fated cycles, and man's life to have little chanceof being ever a gladder or a worthier thing. Butnow, one after another leading Stoir addressed himselfto the work of moral education ;the ascetic lifewas to be, as its name implies, a course of training,not an idle and contemptuous protest at the refinementsof our civilized life, but a series of experimentsto test the soul's native power to resist temptationand unloose the coils of habit.In softening down the outlines of their picture ofperfection, it was natural to relax the rigour of theapathy which had been made one of its marked features.It had been often urged already by Greekcritics, that Reason was not of itself an ultimatesource of action ; itsprovince was to sift and to comparethe elements of choice, and to step in withauthority among the various Desires, but not to setthe Will in motion byitself.If left to Reason's rulealone, without a motive force to stir it,the complexmachinery could never work, and apathy must shortlyend in complete stagnation of the natural system.In answer to such arguments, the Stoics said thatthere were reasonable states of feeling which mightl-and must exist in the wise man.Nothing passionateor turbulent, indeed, could be allowed there, onlythe gentlest ripples on the current of emotion ;and

58 STOICISM.the most colourless words were appropriated by themto these serenities of feeling, high and pure, whichwere worthy of admission into the holy peacefulnessof Stoic apathy. The difference between themselvesand their opponents, therefore, was narrowed now toa mere verbal question, and the old elements of theemotional nature, before seemingly excluded, werereadmitted under different names.Thus we have restored to us again some of thetenderer sympathies of human nature, which wereput before under the ban, making thus a cold andmutilated manhood, to offend us with its tonesof insolent paradox. The social instinct, with itscluster of kindred sentiments, is now allowed to rankas natural, thoughitmay seem to risk that independenceof the outer world which is the main conditionof the Stoic freedom. The virtue of mercy reappears,to drop its balm upon the wounds, and spare theoffender when he falls, thoughstillmisgivings areexpressed, and theory speaks with an uncertain soundon the emotional aspects of compassion. Friendshipand love too find their place, and that a large one>in the moral code, though put of course upon arational basis, and purged of all the grossness of ourcommon clay.We have seen above how narrow was the list ofthings admitted by the Stoics to be really good orevil, and how broadly nearly all the objects whichmen desire or shun were labelled by them as indifferent.Insisting as it did so much on a life agreeableto Nature, their theory made light of what are

TEMPERED BY CONCESSIONS TO COMMON SENSE. 59certainly the primary instincts of our complex being,and made the naturalness consist alone in the effortof reason to maintain a balance, and show obedienffeto a higher law. Yet common sense would have itssay upon the subject, and remind them that theremust be some motive for our choice in action, andthat none such can be supplied, if Reason on its sidecan see no difference of good or evil, and emotionon the other is to be silenced or completely purgedaway. A large concession, therefore, was requiredand made to modify the absoluteness of their definition.Among the wide class of things which are notgood or evil in the highest sense, there are yet somewhich have a kind of value, as meeting a naturalwant, or conducing to a higher good, or as helping tomaintain the body's health, or allowing freer play foractive thought. For these a new class was inventedof things to be preferred (TrpoTjy/LttVa), their contrarieswere to be avoided (cnrmrporjyiJiii'a),and the oldname indifferent (doia^opa) was now reserved fora much narrower class of things of neutral tint andaccidental value. The importance of the changeconsisted in the appreciable value thus assignedunder the first head to the bodily advantages andgifts of fortune, which the austerer spirits of theearlier school had contemptuously swept out of thelist of goods, as unworthy of the sage's seriousthought.In closeconnection with the compromisesand reservesdescribed above, there was one further distinctiondrawn by them which it is of interest to note.

6oSTOICISM,Their standard of right action had at first been veryabsolute in itsrequirements and trenchant in itsterms. It was virtuous conduct, dealingwith theunconditionally good, animated by a high and pureintention. But now the large class of secondarygoods, objects to be preferred or shunned, reasonablestates of calm emotion, which they had ignoredbefore, began to press upon the moralist's attention,who was bound to discuss their proper limits and thefitting modes of action in such cases, and to developfinally a code of moral rules to be applied in all theirvarying relations. These were only conditional andincomplete, falling short of the high standard of absoluteperfection (/vardp0w/ia)on which their eyes hadall been fixed before to the exclusion of these poordetails of common life, but they were seen now tohave a value for the many who were striving to makeprogress to a higher state, and who needed kindlyguidance while passing through the stages of transition.So these proprieties of conduct, these decenciesand rules of choice in worldly matters, weredefined and classified with an increasing care, attimes even with subtlety and casuistical minuteness,and it is curious to observe that the term employedto designate these lower rules (K-a0»//co)'7-a) passed firstinto the Latin word officia, and then into our Englishduties, thus gradually becoming more absolute insense, and more associated with ideas of law andconscience. To the Stoic, however,itimplied theworldly rules of work-day life,distinct from the counselsof perfection (/caropfluY*") addressed only to the

TEMPERED BY CONCESSIONS TO COMMON SENSE. 6 1privileged few, who could climb the philosophicheights and breathe the purer air where all sense ofeffort was henceforth merged in the fruition of theTruth.The distinction Hngered on in later ages, when theChristian saint stepped into the place of Stoic sage,and the old rules of ascetic lifepassedwith littlechange into the austerities of monk or hermit, andthose who would be perfect were bidden to renouncethe world, whose joys and sorrows, trials and temptationscould give scope only, it was thought, to ameaner and inglorious virtue, while even the sanctitiesof family ties and honest work were degraded tothe level almost of the things indifferent or at best ofrelative and imperfect value.There could not be much sympathy at first in theattitude of early Stoicism towards the popular religion.It was reverent and devout, indeed, developing theidea of Providence with a precision quite unknownbefore, recognising the Divine in all the many-sidedlife of Nature, but its Puritanism was of too cold andintellectual a type to be attracted by the sensuouspomp and symbolism of the people's worship ; itcould not possibly accept the fantastic immoralitiesof the old Greek legends, asgiving any true conceptionof the Godhead.It was somewhat hostile, therefore,at the first,— insisted that the Deity would notcare to dwell in buildings made with hands, thatprayers were for the most part spent upon unfittingobjects, such as goods of body or of fortune, or thatprayer was entirely a mistake, since God was good,

62 STOICISM.and knew far better than ourselves the needs to whichHe would minister in His own time. But the religiousconvictions of the people, however erring and onesidedin details, were too important to be lightlydealt with, for on them depended much of the respectfor law and order, and the most familiar sanctions ofmorality.Attempts were made, therefore, to reconcile thepopular and the philosophic creed. The Zeus of theGreek Pantheon was identified with the all-pervadingspirit of Divinity, of which the minds of men wereonly partial moods or emanations, and as such thereforesupernatural (^at'/xovec) ;while the universe contained,perhaps, still higher forms, on which thebounded fancy of the masses rested without mountingto their common source.As for the strange myths in the people's Bible, thefanciful descriptions of the poets, these were, perhaps,only the sensuous disguises of a picture language inwhich the thoughts of manhood had been bodiedforth for childish fancy there were; surely deepertruths below, though the symbols might seem coarseor grotesque, and a little patient study might ascertaintheir hidden meaning. By the method of allegoricalinterpretation the Stoics were enabled to explainthe follies or indecencies that shocked theirmoral sense in the old religious creed, and find belowthem a substratum of physical and spiritual truthsuch as could content the intellectual aspirations oftheir age.in ingenious ways, butIt was a method largely used by them andthey were not long allowed to

TEMPERED BY CONCESSIONS TO COMMON SENSE. 63retain exclusive hold upon it ;the schools of Neoplatonismresorted to it constantly, resolving by its aidthe simplest figures of poetry and facts of history intovague abstractions of the most transcendental type.Some of the early Christian fathers, such as Origen,used it largely in their turn, and thus succeeded inextracting a series of philosophic dogmas out of theplain naturalism of the historic language of the Pentateuch.

64 STOICISM.CHAPTER VI.STOICISM AT ROME UNDER THE REPUBLIC.The principles of Stoicism, which have been thus fardescribed, were developed chiefly in the lecture-ioomsof Athens, whose world-wide reputation as a seat oflearning drew earnest seekers after wisdom from everycivilized land. Students of many races there weremingled and; among them the Cilicians, Syrians, andothers of Semitic speech, seemed to have been mostattracted by the Stoic dogmas ;while the schools ofEpicurus and the New Academy were more congenialperhaps to the true Hellenic nature. In the Westthese systems of philosophy were little known. TheRoman energy, now in the mid course of its career ofconquest, was chiefly occupied with the stirring gameof politics and war, and had scarcely begun to meditateas yet upon the mysteries of life and Nature.The time-honoured customs and ceremonial usagesof public life, the rigour of domestic training with itsappeals to all the venerable associations of the past,the spirit of clanship and the fervour of patriotic zeal,these suppliedduty, which law and religionthe Roman with a definite rule ofalike enforced withpotent sanctions. But at length a new era openedwhen the legions crossed the seas, and the generals

STOICISM AT ROME UNDER THE REPUBLIC. 65and statesmen came into close contact with the oldercivilizations of the world.The language and thea necessary study to the governingliterature of Greece becamefamilies of theconquering State ;her poetry and art made them feelthe narro\vness and coldness of their own nationalculture ;Greek rhetoricians soon appeared at Romedazzling the inexperienced hearers with their speciouswords, ready to make any subject matter of debate,and to argue with equal readiness on every side. Theywere not accepted there, indeed, without a protest.The old spirit of conservatism found many a sturdyrepresentative among the ruling classes ;men like theolder Cato vehemently denounced the foreign brood ofsciolists and sophists, who played fast and loose withevery principle of faith and reason, and seemed ofvery wantonness to unsettle every conviction. Morethan once the magistrates or Senate decided on strongmeasures to put down the growing evil, and banishedfrom the soil of Italy the dangerous teachers whomthey dreaded.But the age was one of rapid change, and authoritywas powerless to stay the tide. Half a century hadbeen enough to humble every rival that barred theway of Rome's ambition, and had left her undisputedmistress in the East. The spoil of the world hadpoured into her coffers. Her capitalists and bankerswere not slow to turn their opportunities to goodaccount ;a new school of diplomatists and statesmenof wider aims and suppler policy had been trained inscenes of foreign warfare; one and all were of noF

66 STOICISM.mind to wa'ik in the old paths and be bound by theThe rude simplicity, therigid trammels of the past.narrow formalisms, the uninquiring faith of earlierdays seemed out of date the;wealth and power oithe governing race required a more artistic finish anda wider culture,such as only Greece was competentto give. It is true that the pretensions and the selfassertionsof the petty Hellenic commonwealthsseemed ridiculous enough to Roman eyes, now thatthey had ceased to breed a race of soldiers to defendthem ; they soon grew weary of appeals to rights thatwere not based upon material strength, and trampledthem down at last with insolent disdain of justice.But humbled as she was beneath her conqueror'sfeet, she gained ere long a wider influence than ever,for nationaland exchanged an intellectual supremacyfreedom. Some of the foremost families of Rome,like the circle of the great Scipio, the conqueror ofCarthage, set the stamp of their approval on theforeign culture, invited men of learning to theirhomes, filled their galleries with Hellenic works ofart, and tried to naturaHze the liberal studies uponRoman soil.But Greek thought was a powerful solvent, whichhad spared at home none of the creeds and institutionsof the past ;its merciless logic had disposed ofthe legendary fancies of the people's worship, hadcalled in question every local usage and every venerablephrase,till those convictions only could survivev/hich were not reasonable only, but were based onconscious reason.At Rome under the new influence

STOICISM AT ROME UNDER THE REPUBLIC 67the process was repeated. In the national rehgion,as far as it was of genuine home growth, there wasfar less for the critical spirit to attack.The Italian deities were abstractions of the reason,not clothed with poetic shapes by any personifyingfancy, nor invested with the passions or caprices ofour human nature. They gave rise therefore to nolegendary fictions, such as might embarrass the pietyof a later and reflecting age. There was no dogmaticcreed for criticism to examine, but there were ceremonialusages to be observed, and formularies to beguarded from neglect, and time-honoured methods forinterpreting the will of heaven. There was nothingin all this, as in the mythology of Homer and ofHesiod, that conflicted with the moral instincts of alater age, but it was too soulless and mechanical around of forms to satisfy the spiritual needs, or toinform the conscience when itreally wanted Hght orhelp. For rules of duty, men had looked not toReligion but to Law. Devotion to their country hadsupplied them with an animating motive, which hadtransfigured the selfishness of private action ;theearly training, the statute book, and the opinion ofthe world supplied the customary rules which sufficedfor all the common wants of life. But in the laterof Rome these sources and sanctions of thedaysmoral law spoke with an uncertain sound ;widerexperience and fuller thought brought manyan inconsistencyto light which had been unseen before,and where authority might be turned against itself,itremained only for reason to decide.F 2

68 STOICISM.Men naturally turned to the newly-imported theorieswhich professed to give help and guidance in suchquestions,but the Roman had little taste for abstractspeculations, and turned impatiently away from everythingthat seemed like transcendental metaphysics.It was the practical side only of the systems whichattracted his attention, and of this even he absorbedonly so much as was congenial to his nature. Thegreat philosophies of Plato and of Aristotle had losttheir freshness and their power even on their nativesoil,and no serious attempt was made to carry themacross the seas ;and they remained almost to the lastunknown, except in fragmentary forms, to Romanreaders. The New Academy, with its refined scepticismand balanced state of intellectual suspense, wasacceptable enough to dilettanti students, familiarwith all the learning of the schools, and indifferentto the wants of work-day life ;but it would not beartransplanting, and it seemed for the most part heartlesstrifling to the ruder natures trained on coarserfood.The system of Epicurus had an ugly sound, andappeared like a mere apology for self-indulgence tothose who did not weighall its reserves and definitions.Its founder lived indeed a pure and blamelesslife,and the pleasure which he advocated was a gladserenity unruffled by the gusts of passion^ and onlypossible for thoughtful and well-ordered souls. Butthere was nothing earnest or manly in its creed,nothing to brace the moral energieslife's dangers or temptations, or to speakfor conflict witlito the

STOICISM AT ROME UNDER THE REPUBLIC. 69irresolute conscience with the trumpet tones of duty.It had no faith in the moral government of theworld, or in a personal immortality ;and resolving asit did the powers of heaven into such stuff as dreamsare made of, it came into rude collision with thepopular worship, and awoke againstitself both thesuspicions of the governing classes and the hostilityof serious minds.It was far otherwise with the stern doctrines ofthe Porch, which were more akin to the Romantype of character than to the Greek itself Itstheories of Order and of Providence were suited toa law-making and an organizing race ; its allegorizingmethod respected the names and attributes of thenational Pantheon, while it reconciled them with itsown conception of the great World-spirit, varyingconstantly its moods in an endless series of emanations.Its tones of paradox, indeed, and its uncompromisingtheory had a startling effect at first whenthey fell upon unaccustomed ears. We read thatwhen the famous embassy was sent from Athens inwhich the heads of the leading philosophic schoolstook part, one of the chief magistrates asked thefollowing question in the presence Senate,—of the" Is it true, Carneades, that you hold that I am nota prgetor, because I am not a sage, and that this isnot a city,and that there is no true state in it ? "Carneades in answer" said, I do not think so, butthis Stoic does," turning to Diogenes, who stood besidehim. The anecdot.^ may serve to illustrate thebewilderment which the trenchant language of the

70 STOICISM.,Porch occasioned, and the seemingboldness of itsclaims to set its wise man high above the rulers. ofthe earth. But by 150 b.c, the higher circles offamiliar with its tenets.society at Rome had grownPantCtius of Rhodes, its most eminent professor,moved among the group which surrounded the greatScipio, attending him on his travels as a companionand a friend, as in his mission to the courts of Asia.He softened down the harsher tones, and dwelt uponthe practical aspects of the creed, to the exclusion ofall that might appear as arid dialectic or extravagantextremes. At the same time he gave his teachinga more attractive shape by his appeals to the opinionsand authority of earlier thinkers, as especially of Plato,whom he styled the very Homer of philosophers.The example of Scipio was followed by many othersof the leading nobles, and it soon became a commonpractice for every great mansion to include its cultivatedGreeks, half-friends, half-clients, who as poets,moralists,or rhetoricians instructed or amused theirwealthy patrons, and gave to the social intercourseabout them a learned tone and literary finish. Tothese, perhaps, the circle of the Gracchi owed muchof its wide sympathies and humanitarian aims, andsome of them at least had no wish to survive the fallof the statesmen whom they had encouraged withtheir counsels. As the times grew darker in the ageof revolution, and serious minds began to broodincreasingly upon the graver themes of politics andmorals, the fashion also grew for every great house tohave its own philosopher, or moralist as we may call

STOICISM AT ROME UNDER THE REPUBLIC.7 Ihim, as a sort of domestic chaplain or confessor.That the choice was often made with care we mayinfer from the story of the younger Cato, who is saidby Plutarch to have travelled all the way to Pergamusto invite the Stoic doctor Athenodorus to his house,where once installed he remained to end his days.Other systems, of course, found their adherents, andthe poem of Lucretius remains as a lasting monumentof the hold of Epicurean tenets upon some Romanminds ;but the followers of the Porch outnumberedallthe rest, and from them the favourite legal studiessoon received a definite stamp and scientific shapewhich was of great moment in the history of laterjurisprudence.For a century and more, however, men werecontent to hear these subjects orally discussed byforeign teachers, or to read about them in Greek textbooks;till the time of Cicero, scarcely an attempt wasmade to introduce them to a wider circle in a Latindress ;and Cicero himself first formed acquaintancewith these studies as a convenient source of illustrationor an exercise of dialectic skill. In later life,when untoward conditions forced him to retireawhile from the political arena, he sought distractionin philosophy, and rapidly produced a number oftreatises on the most important questions, which wereoften litde more than free translations from the Greek,though the style, selection, and illustrations were hisown. Two of these, especially, reflect the doctrinesof the Porch, and are of interest to us as showingthatin the judgment of the writer, who was no Stoic

72 STOICISM.by profession, but inclined by temper rather to astate of Academic doubt, no other rule of life hadsuch high claims as theirs for sterling value, and nonewas so suitable for Roman study. The work uponPropriety of Conduct (" De Officiis") is based confessedlyupon a treatise of Pangetius, while containingreferences to other doctors of the school, such asAntipater and Posidonius. In it Stoicism poses asa philosophy of common sense, employed in theservice of a high ideal, and droppingall its airs ofparadox ; though tending somewhat to casuisticaldiscussion in its effort to be practically useful, andhinting perhaps to worldly ears that it might bepossible to combine a high degree of theoretic rigourwith some complaisant indulgence in details.The other writing, called " Tusculan Disputations,"deals with some of the great questions of the Stoa ;such as the proper attitude in face of death, and pain,and sorrow, and other emotions of the soul, but in amore meditative and abstracted vein, avoiding allextravagance of language, and tempering the tenetsof the school with liberal doses of Platonic thought.to us as we readThey may seem but common placesthem in these calmer days, after centuries of moralizinghave worn the themes threadbare. But theyhad a real value for the author, who turned to thelessons of philosophy for comfort and courage inthose evil days. They were not mere empty phrasesof conventional rhetoric for the republicans who readthem on the eve of the proscriptions, and who foundin them arguments and illustrations of patient resig-

STOICISM AT ROME UNDER THE REPUBLIC. 73nation and heroic courage.Even Atticus, Epicureanas he was, wrote to his friend to tell him that he felta new fire and energy ashe turned over those pages.Indifference to death was in part the burden of itsteaching ;and the counsel fell in those days on willingears, for they received it often, not as a theme formystic meditation, but as an encouragement to withdrawfrom the scene without delay. At each crisisof the civil wars we read of a longlist of suicidesamong the champions of the fallen cause ;the factsof history thus form a melancholy comment on thepages of the moralist, and throw a lurid light uponthe words that else might seem to Christian eyes likethe mere idle sophistry of morbid rhetoric.There was one contemporary figure, the mostfamous Stoic of the age, the younger Cato, whoshows us in a striking form the strength and weaknessof the standard by which he ruled his life. Noone had more than he the courageto avow hisprinciples and act up to his convictions ;in an ageof political corruption there was no stain upon hishonour ;and his moral influence, when once exerted /to check the bribery of candidates for office, didmore, we are told, than all the laws and penal sanctionswhich enforced them. In the worst crisis ofthe revolution, when the spirits of other men weresoured, and the party cries grew fiercer, his temperseemed to become gentler, and to forbode the miseriesof civil war. Inflexible before, he pleaded for concessionsto avert the storm ;and when they wererefused, he raised his voice still for moderate counsels,

74 STOICISM.and spoke to unwilling ears of the claims of humanityand mercy. He struggled on, while hope remained,fearlessly and consistently in what he thought thecause of right and order ;and when at last that causeseemed ruined irretrievably, he calmly prepared toleave the scene where he could no longer act withself-respect, talking as he died upon the soul's immortalhopes, and the freedom which the wise manonly can enjoy. Imperialism suffered more, perhaps,from the protest of that voluntary death than fromanything which he had done during his lifetime and;the conqueror thought it needful, while the burdenof a subject world lay upon his shoulders, to penhimself a literary answer tothe praises which passedfrom mouth to mouth as well as to the more elaboratepanegyrics on the dead.^And yet, withal, the strength of the theories of lifewhich he embodied seemed to lie overmuch in theirpowers of resistance, and to lack adaptiveness tonew conditions. There were a pedantry and formalismin his adherence to the antiquated maxims whichwere wholly unsuited to the experienceof his times,a blindness in his reverence for an inelastic systemwhich made him constantly the dupe of his ownhollow and pretentious phrases. The old constitutionlay a-dying,for friends and foes alike had dealt itmany a death-blow, but Cato clung to it as thoughthe wit of man could not devise a better system, orwithout il save the cause of social order. Political1The " Anti-Cato" of Julius Ccesar.

STOICISM AT ROME UNDER THE REPUBLIC. 75action cannot be successful without allowance forvarieties of temper, and delicate tact innoticing theshifting currents of opinion, and some willingness togive and take in the necessary play of mutual compromisesand concessions. Cato, perhaps, was hamperedby the associations of his name, which madehim narrow his cosmopolitan ideal to the picture ofthe stubborn old republican who had made his familyillustrious in an earlier age. But the tenets of thePorch seem responsible in part for his failure as astatesman. They encouraged him in his contemptfor the opinion of the ignorant public, and nursedhis pride of haughty opposition. They made it seema weakness to give way on any point ;as if every rulewere alike sacred, and nothing could be yieldedwithout a sacrifice of principle or courage. Theymade him wTap himself too ostentatiously in thecloak of his own virtue, identify complacently hiscause with that of right, and pride himself on hisdefiance of the passions and unreason of weak men.Mommsen. the learned historian of Rome, afterdescribingthe introduction of the new theories ofethics a century before the end of the Republic, says,in a mocking spirit, that with all their show of popularitythe practical results were hardly more than this,that " two or three noble houses lived on poor fareto please the Stoa." He speaks again of the reactionagainst the fashionable system of philosophy duringthe long agony of the civil wars, and of the antipathyamong men of intellectual vigour to the pretentiousnessof Pharisaic phrases," coupled, doubtless, with

J 6ST0IC1SI>I.the increasing disposition to take refuge from practicallife in indolent apathy or empty irony, that occasionedduring this epoch the extension of the system ofEpicurus to a larger circle."^ It is probable that thehistorian somewhat underrates the moral influence oftheories for which he has so littlesympathy himself;but, indeed, in that exceptional ageof social dissolutionand upheaval, men would be more likely tolisten to the cry, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrowwe die," or be prompted to parade a sceptical indifferenceor cynical despair.But the writer does not speak so lightly of theinfluence of Cato's name and character upon thefollowing generation. "The unrelenting warfare whichthe ghost of the legitimate republic waged for centuries,from Cassius and Brutus down to Thrasea and Tacitus,—nay, even far later, against the Csesarian monarchya warfare of plots and of literature— was the legacywhich the dying Cato bequeathed to his enemies.This republican opposition borrowed from Cato itswhole attitude— stately, transcendental in its rhetoric,pretentiously rigid, hopeless, and faithful to death ;and, accordingly, itbegan even immediately after hisdeath to revere as a saint the man who in his lifetimewas not unfrequentlyits laughing-stock andscandal.""But though the din of civil wars may have madeit hard for any but a Cato or a Brutus to calmlymeditate on abstract questions, there can be no doubt*Mommsen. English translation, iv. 2, p. 560.* Ibid., p. 449.

STOICISM AT ROME UNDER THE REPUBLIC. 77that the victories of Pharsalia and PhiHppi, disastrousas they were to the repubUcan traditions, favoured thespread of jDhilosophic thought. The minds that wereweary of the turbulence and strife, and could find nomore an outlet for their energies in the affairs ofState, turned often with new interest to the theoriesof morals for which they had found no leisure inmore stirring times. The sentiments and standardsof their class or party were fatally discredited byrecent failure, and many a serious inquirer turned toseek after a new creed or a better rule of life. Theheavier the burden of Imperial rule, and the morestifling the official air in senate, law courts, or thestreets of Rome, the greater the inducement to explorethe resources of the inner life, and retire withinthe citadel of self, where alone shone the light offreedom.

78 STOICISM.CHAPTER VII.THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISJI UNDERTHE EARLY EMPIRE,As in the middle and the higher classes of societyat Rome in the first century of the Empire the moi-altone became more serious and sad, men turned, aswe have seen, with enthusiasm to the doctrines ofthe Porch as to a religious creed, and literature is fullof the testimony both of friends and foes to the widespreadand enduring nature of the movement. Satiresoon found out the weak points of the system whichmight be assailed with most advantage, and mademerry with Varro over the pedantry of phrase andverbal quibbles, or amused itself with Horace at theparadox that all crimes were of equal dye, and thatit therefore was as great a fault to spoil a neighbour'sgarden-stuff as to commit a robbery in holy places.To the votary of moderation, trying to reduce tactand good sense to a system,it seemed a very properjest to hear the Stoics talk in their pretentious wayof the wise man who was master of all learning, highand low, and every virtue, blessing, and accomplishmentto boot. And so, perhaps, we might conceivea scholar and gentleman of Corinth who had strayedunawares into the midst of the little Christian flockwhile the letters of St. Paul were being read, finding

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 79it hard to understand the writer when he spoke in /his strange way of himself, " as unknown, and yetwell known ;as dying, and behold we live ;aschastened, and not killed ;as sorrowful, yet alwaysrejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as havingnothing, and yet possessing all things." For Christianmysticism has itsparadoxes many, and they are foolishnessto those who know them not.The men of the world again, who recognised theworth of everything that had a money value, but whowere seldom haunted by the thought of anythingmuch better than themselves— they were impatientat this talk of the self-sufficiency of virtue, and theindifference to the gifts of fortune, and of sublimeideals of perfection. If any one spoke in their hearingof the need of meditating more on the great themesof human destiny and duty, they were likely enoughto answer in the words which Persius puts into themouth of one of the brawny centurions of common"life:— I am quite content wath what I know already;I have no mind to be like an Arcesilas or woe-begoneold Solon, to walk with head awry, and eyes fastenedon the ground, mumbling to himself or working withhis mouth in silencelike a madman, or thrusting outhis lips as though to weigh his words, pondering onsuch stuff as a dotard's dreams are made of, asthat nothing can come forth from nothing,and intonothing nothing can return. Is it to study this youlook so pale, or is this worth giving up a single meal ?"' ''Persius, " Satires," iii. 'JJ-^S-

8oSTOICISM.The seeming affectation of their dress and demeanourgave offence, and the sight of the philosophicstaff and mantle, the close-croppedhair and studiouslook often was a signal for much ignorant banter ofthe crowd, somewhat as in Christian lands there havebeen times and places when the friar's cowl ortonsure has provoked coarse sarcasm or an outburst,even, of unreasoning hate.Yet there was some excuse perhaps for such unfavourablejudgments in the fact that gross deceiversoften donned the cloak of the philosopher, and dealtin sanctimonious phrases, while they dragged theirhigh profession through the mjre of sensuality andlicence. For hypocrisyis of all times ;and everylofty creed, in itsheyday of popularity and sunshine,will have its dark shadows and its unclean growth ofthings that cannot bear the light.No wonder ifmany an honest formula gave out a suspicious ring toundiscerning ears, and sounded painfully like Pharisaicboasting, when notorious scandals of the kind lingeredin the public memory, and became stock examplesfor the satirists' pages. No wonder if thecareless livers, whose worldliness was visibly reproachedby all austerities of practice, exaggeratedthe occasional abuses ;as grave delinquencies amongmonastic orders furnished an excuse for generaloutcries of intolerance. They mocked loudly at thewould-be sages who talked so grandly of the contemptfor riches and for glory, and of treating the greatones of the earth as equals, while yet they wanted afee for every lesson, and were ready to do homage to

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 8 1the rich. They gladlywelcomed bitter words likethose of Lucian, who speaks of the professionalmoralists as " greedy of lucre, more passionate thandogs, more cowardly than hares, more lascivious thanasses, more thievish than cats, more quarrelsomethan cocks."But there were more adverse influences to facethan such opposition of an ignorant public. Theliterary and official classes looked with an evil eyeupon the speculations which set up a rival influenceto their own, and tempted men to linger in the newpaths of ascetic aims and mystic aspirations. Theold quarrel between philosophers and sophists whichdated from the days of Socrates and Plato, was renewedin new scenes and under different names, butthe principles at issue were the same. To the phrasemongersand the rhetoricians who were busy withthe graces of style and arts of culture, philosophyappeared like a sour pedant, whose narrow rules andpedagogic airs were repugnant to all true refinement.She angered them with her pretensions to sitin judgment on the moral life, and to dictate as toAvhat was and what was not men's duty. Thusto the rhetorician Fronto, his own favourite artseemed the only serious study of the age.^ "Forphilosophy," he thought, " no style was needed, nolaboured periods, nor touching peroration.Thestudent's intellect was scarcely ruffled while the lecturerwent droning on in the dull level ofhis tedious'"Age of the Antonines," p. 1S3.G

82 STOICISM.disquisitions. Lazy assent or a few lifeless wordsalone were needed, and the audience might be evenhalf- asleep while the firstly and secondly were leisurelyset forth, and truisms disguised in learned phrases.That done, the scholar's Avork was over ;no conningover tasks by night, no reciting or declaiming, nocareful study of the power of synonymsor themethods of translation." He thoughtit mere pretensionof philosophy to claim the sphere of morals forits special care. The domain of rhetoric was wideenough to cover that, as well as many another field ofthought her mission was to touch the; feelings andto guide men by persuasive speech. For words weresomething infinitely sacred, too precious to be trifledwith by any bungler in the art of speaking. As forthe thoughts, they were not likely to be wantingifonly the terms of oratory were fitly chosen.Quintilian, the celebrated critic, who made thepractice and theory of rhetoric his familiar study,was quite as bitter in his antipathy as Fronto. Tohim it also seemed that moral questions belonged tohis own domain by natural right, and that it was insufferablepride on the part of any school of abstractthought to claim the monopoly of such importantsubjects. The good man was the true sage, hethought, and in a matter so intensely practical therecould be no need of fine-drawn speculations.Lucian, writing as a man of letters, takes anotherline for his attack, without however quite disdainingthe use of arguments already stated. The Hermotimusof his dialogue is a student of ripe age. who

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 83had followed for twenty years with laborious anxietythe tenets of the Stoa, and yet was but a learner still,and did not count himself already perfect. In asmany years again he hopes, perhaps, to attain to hisideal, to despise the transitory vanities of life, andrise above the sordid impulses of anger .and of grief,like the doctor whose lectures he attends. Hisfriend, Lycinus, when he hears these gushing phrases,maliciously reminds him of a scene which he hadwitnessed when the sage in question was draggingbefore a magistrate one of his slippery disciples whowould not pay his fee, and so violent was his fit ofpassion that he almost strangled him with his ownhands by the way.He tells Hermotimus that he need be in no hurr}^to attend the morning's lecture, for the learned doctorhad made too free the day before on the occasionof a birthday festival, and was obliged to have anotice pasted up that he could not preach as usualthat morning. Then dropping such coarse banterfor a while, he asks his friend why Stoicism had beenchosen out of such a multitude of rival systems, forit could not be seriously thought that popularity, orgrand professions, or the solemn airs of the philosophersthemselves could weigh much with a manof sense in his choice of a spiritual guide. To illustratethe embarrassments of a decision he goes on infigurative :—" style Virtue, we will suppose, is like acity whose inhabitants enjoy unclouded happiness, asyour teacher who has reached it would describe,having attained to perfect wisdom ; brave, just, andG 2

84 STOICISM.temperate without alloy, they are almost in a worddivine. The theft and violence and greed we seearound us here are banished from that happy citywhere men live in peace and harmony together.that excites strife and rivalryinand pleasures and vain-glory that mightAllother towns, the goldstir dissensionin their midst, have been swept away as idlevanities, and life is therefore calm and happy underthe sanction of good lavv-s, and in the midst ofequality and freedom. What more natural than thatevery one should wish to be a citizen of such a State,and should not heed the weariness upon the road,or be discouraged by the time the journey takes, if hecan only get a resting-place assigned him and gain thestatus of a citizen ? I remember hearing an old manlong ago describe the way to get admission there ;hewas to guide me on the road, and get me the privilegeof the franchise, and find me a place even inhis own ward that I might share the general bliss.I was but fifteen years of age, but I was already inthe suburbs, almost entering on the promised land.My old friend told me, if I remember rightly, that inthat city all the inhabitants are aliens by birth whohave come to it from other lands ; they are barbarians,slaves, humpbacks, dwarfs, or paupers ; anyone who will may be enrolled without regard to fortune,birth, or dress, or shape, or looks, for thosethings do not matter. To become a citizen one needonly be intelligent, desire the good, work hard, spurnpleasure, and faint not or give way before the manyhardships on the road. He who can prove that these

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 85qualities are his, and can travel over the whole waythat leads there, has won his title to the franchise,whatever he may be in other ways, and will be placedon the same level as the rest. If the city were butfull in view and near at hand, be sure that I shouldlong since have made it myabode. But it is faraway, and the road needs careful search and guidance.A multitude of folks profess to act as guides,and say they know the waythat leads there. Butthey do not point to one and the same route, butto many difierent paths which have no connectionwith each other. One seems to lead you to theWest, another to the East, this one leads South, andthat goes North. One winds over the meadows andthrough shady groves, where all is fresh and charmingand there is no hardship for the traveller ;another lies over rough and stony ground, exposedto the full glare of the sun, and they that journeythere grow faint and parched. Yet all profess to leadto the same city. It bewilders me to find that atevery road I pass there is some one standingat theentrance beckoning to me with an air of certainty,and telling me to follow him with confidence, for he,and he alone, knows the right way, while all the restare blundering and will never reach the city, for theywould not follow the right guidance. If I listen tothe next, I hear only the same offers and the samereproaches, and so on, till I cannot tell what road totake or whom to trust to show the way."Hermotimus sees, of course, the meaning of thefigure, and assures his friend that if he were to listen

86 STOICISM.to every preacher in his turn he would never find asafer or more experienced guidance than from thedoctors of the Porch, and that the only way toreach the realms of virtue was to follow Zenonand Chrysippus. But Lycinus replies," Suppose, myfriend, that I were to listen only to the prompting ofaffection and to follow your advice, who know nothingbut the Stoic dogmas, and have never travelled byanother route, ifany God were to recall to lifePythagoras,Plato, Aristotle and the rest, and they were tocome round and ply me with importunate questions,*What reason, or whose authority, friend Lycinus, hasmade you prefer Zenon and Chrysippus to ourselves,who are so much more venerable than they, dating asthey do from yesterday, and that without a word toWouldus, or getting any knowledge of our systems ? 'it be enough to urge that I had full confidence in theadvice of Hermotimus ? I am sure that they wouldsay in answer, We have no ' idea for our part whoyour Hermotimus is, and on his side he knows us nobetter. But you should not pass your judgment onus on the evidence of a man who knows only onepath in philosophy, and has not even thoroughly exploredthat one. Lawgivers, my friend, do not givetheir sanction to the jury if they act in that way andonly listen to one party in a trial without allowing theother side to speak. They require them to hear bothsides in turn, and weigh their words impartially thatthey may distinguish truth and falsehood."The dialogue continues for some time in this strain,with many ingenious arguments and illustrations, but

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 87the burden is the same throughout, that the widerthe experience men have of philosophic systems, themore hopeless they-will feel of attaining absolutetruth, seeing that the would-be teachers are so many,and their theories so conflicting, and their pretensionsso arrogantly exclusive.From other quarters came pretensions of a moreutilitarian nature.In the numerous schools of declamation,when the growing youth was trained in thefence of words and ail the artifices of debate, it was afavourite practice, we are told, to proposeto the ingeniousstudents the following subject for debate :— Afather had three sons, who chose for their severalWhenprofessions philosophy, rhetoric, and medicine.he died he left the bulk of his substance to that oneof his children who could prove his own profession tobe the most useful to the State. The teachers whohad no love for abstract speculation gladly took theopportunity to develope all their common-placesabout the utter uselessness of what they termed suchcobwebs of airy metaphysics. And so, in a later age,we find that Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the philosophicprince, was despised as a mere book-worm bythe hardy soldier Avidius Cassius, who at length rosein revolt against him. In a letter to his son-in-law,which is still preserved, he wrote in characteristiclanguage on the subject :—" Where is Cato, the oldcensor ? where are the strict rules of ancient times ?They are vanished long ago,and no one dreams ofreviving them again, for our prince spends his time instar-gazing, in fine talk about the elements and the

88 STOICISM.human soul, in questions of justice and of honour,but neglects the interests of State meanwhile."Less prejudiced writers, though in more moderatelanguage, drew the same conclusions, and spoke likeTacitus of all such studies as suitable enough forearly youth, as a sort of intellectual gymnastic, but asquite unbecoming in maturer years; or like Pliny- theyounger, praised such of their friends as proved in theconduct of their life a piety, strength of mind, orjustice quite as great as that of any of the professorsof philosophy, and yet did not haunt the colonnadesor lecture-rooms, to waste their time in endless disputations,but were always to be seen in their officialdress in close attention to the affairs of State.It wasevident that large-minded, cultivated men, who had nolack of interest in moral questions, looked with somemisgiving at the growing popularity of the doctrinesof the Porch, which tended to distract men's thoughtsfrom the heat and press of active life, and led themto look for satisfaction in a sort of cloistered virtue,full of fine thoughts about their personal salvation,but of slight value to the struggling world below.The familiar arguments which have been so oftenurged in Christian lands against the spread of theconventual system find some sort of parallel in theprotests raised among the pagan society of Rome,that public duties were neglected and the responsibilitiesof workday life disparaged by the manyvotaries of mystic contemplation.These motives among others may probably haveinfluenced the ruling powers of Rome, which often

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 89looked with marked disfavour on the philosophicsects, and among them regarded with especial rancourthe chief members of the Stoic school. But moreoften, probably, this argument was urged as an excuseto disguise less creditable motives, and it may be ofinterest to enter into more details upon the subject,and to illustrate the mutual relations of the Imperialgovernors towards the tenets and professors of thePorch. We have spoken already of the influence onsucceeding generations of the protest of Cato's voluntarydeath. But for some time at least it was asrepublican, rather than as philosopher, that his memorywas revered or hated, and the early Empire showedfor half a century no suspicion of free thought, anddid not realize that there was any danger in it, eitherto itself or to the institutions which it sheltered.Augustus lived himself on terms of intimacy withnoted Stoics, and entrusted the young Claudius totheir care. Dion Cassius,it is true, in the warningwhich he puts into the mouth of his minister andconfidant Maecenas, makes him dwell upon the:— necessary limits to such toleration "Many of thosewho call themselves philosophers lead men astray todangerous innovations, it is well to be upon yourguard in dealing with them. For though Arius andAthenodorus have been proved to be men of honour,yet it must not be supposed that all who call themselvesthe same are really like them. For under thecloak of that profession many knaves bring infinitemisfortune on the State, as well as on their dupes."But Dion here gives expression to the fears of later

goSTOICISM.rulers, and Augustus, like his immediate successors,looked with apparent unconcern upon the spread ofthe Stoics, as of other sects.But in the days of Nero the Imperialattitude waswholly changed ;the leading Stoics of the age werestruck down by the strong hand of power, whilephilosophy in general was put under a ban, whichwas renewed from time to time, and was not finallyremoved till the tyranny of Domitian was over. Thepersecution had not in Nero's case at least the excuseof ignorant hatred, for he had been trained himselfin early years to follow the moral speculations ofhis teachers, till his mother stepped in to forbidthe studies as unworthyof a man of rank.His adviser,Seneca, who held the reins for him in his firstyears of government, had drunk deeply at the fountain-headof Stoic thought, and it had been one ofthe first signs of the emperor's wanton humour thathe loved to gather round him at his table professorsof the various schools of thought, and to make merrywith the hot disputes of their interminable dialectic.But in the year 59 a.d. the system of persecution wasbegun. If we may believe the somewhat questionableevidence in the memoirs of Apollonius of Tyana, thecharge of sorcery and magic was brought against theseekers after wisdom, some of whom were draggedbefore the courts, while others fled away from Romebefore the storm ; yet to the honour of the thinkersit is said that most of them stayed bravely at theirand were true to their convictions. One ofpostthe adherents of the Porch, indeed, Egnatius Celer,

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 91basely turned against his friend and pupil BareaSoranus, and worked his ruin by his lying charges,but the indignation roused was loud and deep, andthe treachery isspoken of as quite unique in theannals of the sect. For some years the attacks weremade on the representative men of different systemsas they caught the emperor's jealous eye, or as his vilefavourite, Tigellinus, dropped the seeds of suspicion inamonghis ears, but it was speciallythe ranks of thegreat Stoics that tyranny made havoc. RubelliusPlautus, the powerful pro-consul ; Seneca, the famousminister and moralist ;and Psetus Thrasea, one ofthe most commanding figures of the age, were amongthe foremost of the victims to the tyrant's hate orfear,and a crowd of less illustrious martyrs followed,among whom many a noble woman showed by wordor deed that the austere lessons of the school hadpassed out of the domain of theory, and had stampedthemselves as living truths upon her heart.At last came a general edict of proscription; whichonly heralded, however, Nero's headlong the example was a fatal one to tempt the caprice offall. Butabsolute power. Vespasian, in his turn, sorely irritatedby the contumacious words of Helvidius Priscus,the stifthecked son-in-law of Psetus, and goaded bythe prompting of his chief adviser, Mucianus, put fora while at least the Stoic and the Cynic sects underthe ban, and made Helvidius paypenalty of his bold bearing. Vespasianwith his life thesoon ruedhis fatal weakness ;but Domitian, the moody tyrant,had less .scruple, and in his hatred of free thought

92 STOICISM.he forbade entirely the teaching of philosophy, anddrove the professors forth from Rome. We may wellask what were the causes of this bitter hostility andpersecution.It might seem at first sightthat there could belittle in the Stoic creed which could bringits votariesinto rude collision with the ruling powers. It had amarked tendency, as we have seen, to wean menfrom the cares of pubhc life,and in evil days tomake them find a solace and distraction in the indulgenceof a tranquil meditation. As in Christian timesthe retirement to the cloister seemed to end thedanger from a disturber of the public peace,so itmight be thought that the staff and mantle of philosophywould set at rest for ever all fears of revolutionaryaction from those who had embraced thespiritual life. The Empire posed, indeed, as thedefender of the faith, and threw its protection roundthe forms of the established Church, and as suchmight fear the insidious action of free thought. Butof all systems Stoicism at the first could be harmonizedmost easily with the old Italian creed, andthrough its principles of allegory could explain withoutexcessive boldness even the later fancies of theHellenic myths. To this itmay be also added, thatunbelieving rulers have often patronized religion inthe interests of policy, as checking the passions ofthe vulgar through the influence of fear ;and Stoicismtook the place to many hearts of a kind of religiouscreed, and threw all its authority into the scale of

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 93social order. As such itmight seem a natural ally,to be courted rather than regarded with an evil eyeby all good governors.There is some weight in such considerations, butwe must not insist on them too strongly. ForStoicism, when it was transplanted to the soil ofRome, dropped much of its negative and transcendentallanguage, and became more practical andenergetic. The Empire of Rome was wide enoughto satisfy itscosmopolitan ideal; its business was to findor put enough of pure reason into the organizationof the State to meet the aspirations of the sage, andto enable him to take his part in public life withoutany sacrifice of self-respect. The most famous namesupon its roll of martyrs were the generals and statesmenwho had not despaired of the grossness of theworld, or withdrawn their vital energies from activework.Mysticism, too, has at other times, we may remember,given umbrage to the temporal power. TheChristian Quietists of the last century were silencedharshly with all the rigour of the law, and an absoluteKing of France was urgentto condemn whatcardinals and popes would have willingly ignored.The language of disinterested love seemed fatalheresy to the defenders of the orthodox faith ;rulersand priests, who relied exclusively on the influenceof constraint and fear as moral engines, would makeno terms with the enthusiasts who reliedupon affection,and who would fain mergeall their selfish

94 STOICISM.hopes and fears in the sublime ecstasies of adoration.There was extravagance, doubtless, in the language ofMadame Guyon and her friends which might wellawaken grave mistrust in calmer minds there ; mightseem some disparagement of the ceremonial forms ofthe religious life with which a humble piety couldnot dispense ;and so, too, the language of the RomanStoics, with itsrhapsodies about the world-spirit andthe universal reason, and the truths which wereveiled from careless eyes by the child-like fancies ofthe poets, might well sound like an attack upon thepeople's faith, which was the more dangerous becauseitsspirit was intensely earnest, and not like thefrivolous indifference of dilettanti sceptics. A Neroor Domitian, indeed, are not to be compared inorthodox feeling with a Louis XIV. of France, butthe Imperial regime began with the revival of thepopular religion;the rulers were themselves thesupreme pontiffs, and favourites and ministers wereprobably not slow to turn such arguments to goodaccount when they wished to crush a rival influencetoo near the throne.Could any of the courtiers have been present atthe literary gatherings before which the young StoicPersius read his second satire, they might have foundsome of his shafts of ridicule come home to theirown hearts, while others were aimed at the superstitionsof the people. The poet has no mercy onthe hypocrites who pray with bated breath for favourswhich they dare not own to other men, and so maketheir prayers an insult to the gods they worship ;but

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 95he deals in gentler style with the ignorant fancies ofthe masses :^—Lo ! from his little crib the grandam hoar, /Or aunt, well-vers'd in superstitious lore,Snatches the babe ; in lustral spittle dipsHer middle finger, and anoints his lipsAnd "forehead. Charms of potency," she cries," To break the influence of evil eyes."The spell complete, she dandles high in airHer starveling hope, and breathes a humble prayer /That heaven would only tender to his handsAll Crassus's houses, all Licinus's lands !Let every gazer by his charms be won,And kings and queens aspire to call him son.He exposes the folly of believing that the favourof Heaven can be bought by costly gifts:—O grovelling souls, and void of things divine,Why bring our passions to the immortal shrine.And judge from what this carnal sense delightsOf what is pleasing in their purer sights ?At last he ends in the accents of true spiritualfaith,—No !Of great Messala, now depraved and base,let me bring the immortals, what the raceOn their huge charger cannot ; bring a mind.Where legal and where moral sense are join'dWith the pure essence ; holy thoughts, that dwellIn the soul's most retired and sacred cell ;A bosom dyed in honour's noblest grain—Deep dyed — with these let me approach the fane,And heaven will hear the humble prayer I make,Though all my offering be a barley-cake.'Persius. Translation by Gifford, ii. 53.

96 STOICISM.But the real motives of the Imperial hatred arenot perhaps so far to seek, and were connectedwith the more superficial features of the sect.The attitude which they assumed on moral questions,their stern, uncompromising language, whichknew no respect of persons, and which seemedto make all distinctions between man and man oftrifling value as compared with the momentous differencebetween the few wise and the many foolish :their unbending dogmatism and stiff-necked assertionof their spiritual freedom ;these were of themselvesenough to make them odious to vicious rulers, and tosupply the wish, though not perhaps the occasion, forattack. Their favourite phrases about the Divineright of the wise man to govern sounded like a covertsatire on the unreason of the Cassar on the throne ;they had no mind like the flatterers of the court tocanonize their ruler or condone his vices ; they weretoo proud to catch the tones and copy the fashions ofthe palace, so their bearing, whether that of manlyself-respect or of Pharisaic self-complacency, madethem often seem like Mordecai by the gate. Therewere some, moreover, who did not confine themselvesto general language, but showed a foolish pride inbraving the displeasure of the ruling powers. TheCynic leaven still was working in the Stoic sect, andthere were preachers of morality among them whoparaded their independence both in and out of season,and mistook insolence for manly freedom. We mayillustrate this practice by a story of Cornutus, whowas summoned to a sort of Privy Council called by

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 97Nero, to advise him, when he thought of writing apoetic history of Rome. They discussed thenumber of the books of which the poem should consist,and some courtiers would have it that fourhundred would not be too many for so great asubject. Cornutus remonstrated loudly, saying, thatno one would read a work of such a portentouslength." Yet Chrysippus wrote far more," was urgedby some objector." True," was the critic's answer,"but then what he wrote was at least of some use tomankind."Yet few, perhaps, carried their audacityto suchlengths as Demetrius the Cynic, who even in thebaths lately built by Nero declaimed against theluxury of which such buildings were the proof,sparing no rank in his indiscriminate invective, andanswering the emperor'sthreats with bold defiance.He seems, however, to have been regarded as aprivileged railer, for he escaped with life, though hedid his best to irritate the ruling powers. WhenVespasian passed by as he was lying on the ground,we read, he would not rise to greet him, but onlyrecognised his presence with a gibe ;to which theemperor replied with patience, " You wish to provokeme, Demetrius, to passion, but I do not care tocrush a yelping hound."But it was not till Nero was far advanced uponthe path of tyranny and had stained his handswith his mother's blood, that hatred or fear at lastprovoked him to deeds of violence against the leadingStoics. They were the Puritans of the society ofH

98 STOICISM.Rome, who were known to frown at all his frivolouspursuits, and sternly to reprobate his cruel caprices.There were philosophic circles in the society of Rome,to which Cornutus gave the tone, and where asympathizing audience heard the young Persius readhis satires, applauding in them many a causticreference to the vices in high places and the frivolousfashions set by Nero's court. The common-placesof the Porch were charged with all the bitterness ofpersonal contempt, and informers were not slow totrace or to imagine the political allusions in many adiatribe upon the follies of the age.When cringing spirits fawned and flattered, andwhims in thehumoured or encouraged the despot'ssenate or the council chamber, the Stoics at leastprotested by their silence or withdrawal from thescene ; they were thought, some of them, to be Republicansat heart, they were known, at least, to be thecentre of a sort of constitutional opposition, howevermild and faint its efforts ; if there were to be a cryof revolution, it would come most likely from theirranks, and among them, asthe noblest and the mostrespected, a national leader would be found, such asa Plautus or a Thrasea, to whom men turned withwondering looks to see how far their toleration wouldbe carried. It was rumoured that some of themobserved in solemn state the birthdays of Brutus orof Cassius, who had murdered the first Csesar; othersspoke of Cato as the noblest model for a Roman,and such sentiments might one day prompt them topass from theory to vigorous action. At last a wide-

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 99spread conspiracy was traced against the emperor'sthe accused were some at least of the chieflife; amongStoic circles, though as a party they had held aloof;there were other plots, too, in the air, for the murmursof discontent were loud and deep, and it seemed to betime to strike down the prominent malcontents, andto provide for safety by a reign of terror.The most commanding figure among those martyrsof free thought was Thrasea Pastus, and a few detailsabout his life and social bearing may illustrate theinfluence of the Stoic creed upon the practical statesmenof the age, and its relations in such cases tothe Imperial regime.His birth-place, Padua, had thereputation of preserving much of the austerer virtueof the old Italian type, which had given place commonlyto sensuality and licence, but he left it in earlylife for Rome, where he gave himself to philosophicstudies, with no wish to forsake the world, but toplay his part in it with greater credit, in the highplace to which his wealth and noble parentage entitledhim. His wife Arria was the daughter of the heroine /of the same name of whom the famous story hasbeen toldthat when her husband was condemned todeath, she would not be left to live alone, butshowed him how to die when the fatal momentcame, plunging first the dagger into her own breast,and then handingit to him with the words, "SeePaetus, it does not hurt." Thrasea lived on terms ofintimacy with the notabilities of Rome, attaching tohimself especially the more earnest spirits of the age,such as Musonius Rufus and Demetrius, and the poetH 2

lOOSTOICISM.Persius. Like Cato of Utica,to whose life he devotedcareful study, he tried to turn his moral theories togood account in public life, regarding the properorganization of the State as the primary condition of allmoral progress ;while the firstduty of the citizenconsisted in helping to reform the evil, and in raisingthe tone of social thought. But he was no strictmartinet, or gloomy pedant with an intellectualhorizon bounded by a narrow range of rules. Hewas very tender and considerate in word and deed,fearing even to speak out too sternly in his moraljudgments, lest he should seem not to hate the evilonly, but the evil-doers. They were hard timesindeed in which his lot was cast, and there was littlein the constitution of the State to satisfy his highideal or to help to raise men to a better life. Theworld seemed ruled, in Nero's person, not by itshighest, but its lowest thought ; passion, not reason,took the lead ;the senate only met to register theirmaster's whims, and bespatter with fulsome praise hisvilest acts. How was the moralist of lofty standardto act with dignity on such a scene, and use theworld as not abusing it? His demeanour in thesenate-house was watched narrowly by friend and foe,and even in the distant provinces men turned overthe official journals to see how itlong would bepossible for Thrasea to take part in public life andstill be true to himself and loyal to the State. Hisattitudeunder these trying circumstances was one ofstudied moderation, equallyfree from the extremesof flattery or bravado. When the senate-house was

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 10 1turned into a courtof criminal justice, before whichpolitical offenders were arraigned, he threw all hisinfluence into the scale of mercy, checkingas far aspossible the licence of the false informers, and theservile truckling of the judges to what they supposedto be the will of their Imperial master. But he carefullyabstained meanwhile from the bitterness ofpersonal attacks or needless parade of independence,while he raised the tone of senatorial self-respect byhis quiet dignity of manner, which neither courteddangernor flinched from it. In the interests ofhumanity he raised his voice among them againstthe cruel usages of the gladiatorial shows, whichencouraged the worst instincts of a ferocious mob.Other voices after his took up the cry, and kindliersentiments were gradually fostered, to temper thehardness of the pagan world.Another time we fiindhim defending the privileges of the House and theindependence of the provincial rulers against thecorrupt influence of powerful intriguers in theprovinces, who pretended to make or mar the officialcareer of any statesman, and even to determine thecourse of proceedings in the senate. His owncharacter, indeed, stood high above the whisper ofsuspicion. When some complained in Nero's hearingof his decision as arbitrator in a the trial, emperorreplied with bitterness, " I wish I were as sure of hisaffection for me as I am of his perfect equity as judge."But the time came at last when he could no longerhope to check the servility of the official classes,who vied with each other in the demonstrations of

I02STOICISM.their joy when Poppsea bore a son to Nero, and oftheir grief when the young child was hurried off bydeath. Thrasea could not sitcalmly by when thanksgivingservices, temples, priesthoods, canonizationseven, were decreed. He had already left the senatehousein silence when the news of Agrippina's death,sent by the parricide himself, became the signal forpublic curses on her memory and compliments tothe Imperial assassin. But now he withdrew altogetherfrom official life, when it was idle to resist byineffectual remonstrance, and when silence might beconstrued into assent.But his was too marked a figure to escape unnoticed,and the protest of his silent absence was a theme forevery tongue. The members of the civil service in theprovinces, the military circles in the camp, read overthe longlist of decrees and votes and acclamations tosee what it was in which Thrasea would take no part ;malevolent informers whispered into Nero's ears thatsuch a policy of abstention could not be trifled withmuch longer, that society was being parted into twogreat camps, and that as Caesar and Cato were of oldthe chiefs of rival parties, so the State was nowdivided between the adherents of Thrasea and ofNero. Yet the emperor still hesitated to pushmatters to extremes. For a time he soothed hisvanity by the public slight which he put on Thraseawhen he appeared before him in a deputation fromthe senate ;he gave him time even now to bend beforethe threatening storm, and to make his peace bysome show of submission.

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICISM. 103At last the expected letter came, but Thrasea hadnothing to retract or to excuse he; simply asked toknow what were the charges laid against him, and hewould then prove that he was not guilty of disloyaltyin word or deed. The emperor would wait nolonger now the bloodhounds were let loose; uponhim in the senate, and the cringing house was madeto sentence him to death, leaving him only the poorprivilege of choosing the means and form of execution.The description which Tacitus has left us of thelast hours which he spent on earth is one of themost striking of the great historian's pages. We seehim walking in his garden while a company of histrue-hearted friends, among the noblest of Rome'sworthies, was gathering round him and his doomwas still uncertain. At last the fatal message came,as he was talking with the sage Demetrius of thenature of the soul and its relations to its earthlyhome ;he calmly bade his friends withdraw that theymight, if possible, escape his fate ; Arria, his wife, waseager, like her mother, to share her husband's death,but he begged her to live on to watch over their only:daughter and when he heard that his son-in-lawHelvidius was not condemned to die with him heseemed to forget himself entirely in his pleasure atthe tidings. The young quaestor who brought thewarrant for his death was standing by, and Thraseasaid to him with kindly air that he hopedhis turnto suffer would not come, but in such evil days itwas well to be prepared, and to learn how quietly

I04STOICISM.a clear conscience could face death. Then as hisveins were opened the current of his talk flowedcalmly on, while he sprinkled the ground with theblood which was pouring from his veins, and said, "Letthat be my libation to Jupiter, the god of freedom."It was no wonder, surely, if a character like thatimpressed so deeply the imagination of the age ; few,certainly, of the great men of the Stoa harmonizedso perfectly the claims of theory and practice, and invery few indeed was there so close a union of thesofter and the tenderer graces with all the dignity ofperfect manhood.But the pattern of his patient moderation was notfollowed by his son-in-law Helvidius Prisons, whoescaped from Nero only to suffer under one of themost prudent of emperors, Vespasian. Whether hewas provoked to impatience by the death of Thrasea,or was of more irreconcilable temper, he certainlycriticised so hotly all the policy of government,and flaunted so needlessly his republican ideals, thatat last even Vespasian's forbearance failed him, andhe allowed his judgment to be overruled by hispowerful adviser, Mucianus, who insisted on thedanger of such constant opposition, and prevailed onhim at last to sign the death-warrant of Helvidius.It is true that this account must be received withsome reserve, for Dion Cassius and Suetonius, fromwhom it comes, are writers of an Imperialist bias andreflect the prejudices of the ruling classes ; theythrow the odium of the act indeed on Mucianus,but possibly exaggerate the provocation given by the

THE CRITICS AND ENEMIES OF STOICIS-M. 105contumacious bearing of Helvidius, of whom authorsof higher character, hke Tacitus and the youngerPUny, speak with reverence and admiration. Howeverthat may be, Vespasian soon regretted the irrevocableact, but the opposition between the palace and theschool stilllingered on, and under the moody Domitianit led to another ban of exile for the philosophersin general, and to the death of Junius Rusticus,whom Thrasea had spoken of as a saint.But brighter days came in with Trajanand theAntonines. Freedom of thought and speculativestudies were not tolerated only, but encouraged ;special privileges were granted to the teachers, someof whom were treated with marked honour, andinvited to the court ;endowments even were createdand salaried professors named, to represent thegreat historic systems of philosophy.At last Stoicismitself mounted on the throne, and in the person ofMarcus Antoninus seemed to realize the high ideal ofthe king-philosopher which Plato had dreamed ofcenturies before.

I06STOICISM.CHAPTER VIILTHE SOCIAL STATUS OF THE PROFESSIONAL MORALISTSAT ROME.We have seen that in the early Empire, through evilreport and good report, in persecution or the sunshineof court favour, the influence of philosophy was ohthe increase, and that of Stoicism most of all. Somecourse of training in it was considered in good familiesas an almost necessary part of the education of theyoung.In the earlier days of the Republic a Romanyouth of talent attached himself to one of the greatspeakers of the day, followed him about from courtto court, watching every gesture and studying hisphrases, that he might fashion his own style on thefamiliar model, and learn in later life to emulate hisoratorical successes. But under the Imperial systemthe prizes of eloquence had ceased to dazzle, theschools of declamation grewwearisome to seriousminds, and graver spirits turned to some moralist orsage as to a spiritual director who might give themthe counsels of perfection. They were told emphaticallythat they could only hopeto rule their lifearight if they sought for guidance in such quarters." As exercise and medicine provide," says Plutarch,"for the body's health and strength, so philosophy

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME.loyalone can cure the weakness or the sickness of thesoul.By her help man learns to distinguish the noblefrom the base, the just from the unjust, the thingsworthy of our choice from those which we shouldshun ;she teaches him how he ought to act in all therelations of his social life, warning him to fear thegods, honour his parents, respect old age, obey thelaws, submit to governors, be loving to his friends,show self-control with w^omankind, tenderness withchildren, moderation with his slaves— above all, notto triumph overmuch in prosperous days, or to be castdown in adversity, not to be overmastered by pleasure,or brutalized by passion." ^How they acted on such principles we see fromthe example of the youthful Persius, who describes forus in touching language the early relations that wereformed between himself and the celebrated Cornutus,whom he chose to be his -guide and friend.When first I laid the purple by, and free,Yet trembling at my new-felt liberty,Approach'd the hearth, and on the Lares hungThe bulla, from my willing neck unstrung ;When gay associates sporting at my side,And the white boss display'd with conscious pride,Gave me, uncheck'd, the haunts of vice to trace,And throw my wandering eyes on eveiy face,When life's perplexing maze before me lay,And error, heedless of the better way,To straggling paths, far from the route of truth,Woo'd with blind confidence my timorous youth.'De Educ. Puer., c. lo.^Persius. Gifford, v. 49.

1 08 STOICISM.I fled to you, Cornulus, pleased to restMy hopes and fears on your Socratic breast.Nor did you, gentle sage, the charge decline ;Then, dext'rous to beguile, your steady lineReclaim'd, I know not by what winning force.My morals, warp'd from nature's straighter course ;While reason press'd incumbent on my soul,That struggled to receive the strong control,And took like wax, temper'd by plastic skill,The form your hand imposed, and bears it still.Can I forget, how many a summer's day.Spent in your converse, stole unmark'd away ?Or how, while listening with increased delight,I snatched from feasts the earlier hours of night ?One time (for to your bosom —still I grew)One time of study and of rest we knew ;One frugal board where, every care resigned.An hour of blameless mirth relaxed the mind.And SO, too, we read in the next century of MarcusAntoninus, that his studies of philosophy began at avery tender age, when he caught up with eagerness,and pushed even to excess, the lessons of hardihoodand self-control. He tried to put his principles tothe test of practice, to live simply in the midst ofluxury and licence, to content himself with frugalfare, and to take the bare groundfor his bed atnight. At last, it needed all his mother's gentle influenceto curb the enthusiasm of his ascetic humour.^He gave the Stoic Rusticus the credit of his conversionto philosophy :— " It was he who made me feelhow much I needed to reform and train my character.He warned me from the treacherous paths of'"Age of the Antonines," p. 28.J

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME.IO9sophistry, from formal speeches of parade, which aimat nothing higher than applause. Thanks to him Iam weaned from rhetoric and poetry, from affectedelegance of style, and can write now with simplicity.From him I have learned to concentrate my thoughtson serious study, and not to be surprised into agreeingwith all the random utterances of fluent speech."In the description which Aulus Gellius gives us ofhis student life at Athens we have a pleasant pictureof the close relations that existed between the teachersand the pupils, in the case at least of Taurus, thephilosopher,^ who was not content with formal lectures,^but did his best to form the character of his youngfriends by personal converse, chatting with them athis bedroom door when they walked home with himfrom lecture, travelling with them sometimes in thecountry, taking long walks to see them when he heardthat they were sick, and wiling away their wearinessby pleasant talk, in which the serious mingled withthe gay. If he asked his pupils to his table, he didnot care to tempt the appetite with costly viands, butthe simple fare of pudding or of salad was seasonedwith true Attic salt, and his guests were happier andwiser when they left him. He had a way of delicatelyhinting that a fault might be mended or bad habitdropped, which served its end while it spared hishearer's self-respect. Yet Taurus was no easy-goingteacher, with a standard easily attained. He liked totell his youthful friends the story of Euclides, who'"University Life at Athens," p. 48.

noSTOICISM.^ braved death to hear Socrates, his friend and guide,when it was penal for one of Megara to enter Athens ;whereas now-a-days, he said, philosophers must oftenwait till their pupils have recovered from the winepartyof the night before.We may gather from the same old writer that theprofessors sometimes presumed a little on the privilegesof their office, and pushed their rights of interferencesomewhat far, even with scholars of matureryears.^ Favorinus once was discoursing to his classwhen the message came that the wife of one of hisold pupils— a man of noble birth— had been just deliveredof a son." Let us go," he said," to congratulatethe father." And off he started with his train.They were ushered in together, and gave their complimentsand made inquiries for the mother's health.That done the professor said, "Of course the ladywill suckle her own child." Her mother answeredthat she was not strong enough, but must have a wetnursefor the purpose ;but Favorinus was not satisfiedwith the excuse, and then and there delivered a longlecture on the subject, insisting on the natural duty,and on the danger of such artificial habits. His remarksare sensible enough, as they appear in thenotes which Aulus Gellius wrote out from memory,and they may serve at least to illustrate the wide rangewhich the moralist of those days gave to his rights orduties of personal supervision.Often they had no need to obtrude their counsels,^Aul. Gell., xii. I.

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME.Illfor they were constantly consulted in the graver passagesof lifeby men who knew not how to apply theirmoral principles, or were in doubt about a case ofconscience. Even the frivolous and worldly, whohad long turned away from serious thought, knockedat their doors for consolation or advice in the darkerpassages of life. " Most men," says Dion Chrysostom," shrink from philosophers as from physicians ;as they will not buy drugs till they are sick, so theyrefuse the counsels of the moralist tillthey arewretched. A man is well-to-do, suppose, with a goodincome or a large estate, in sound health himself, hiswife and children well, his credit and reputationgood. He is too happy to give philosophy a thought.But let him lose his fortune or his health, he will bemore ready to listen then ;let his wife, or son, orbrother die, then he will send for the sage to comforthim, to teach him how to bear so much misfortune."But his figure is chiefly to be seen in the picturesdrawn for us of death-bed scenes, or when friends aregathering round the man on whom a prince haslooked with evil eye, and who has to face the thoughtof coming doom, or to escape life's evils by a voluntaryflight. One or more are always named in thedescriptions drawn by the master-hand of Tacitus,when a Plautus, or a Thrasea, or a Seneca is makingready for the last long journey. They were notthere, indeed, to shrive the penitent and offer absolution,like the priest-confessor of a later age, but tostrengthen the tones of manly resignation, and whisperhopes of life beyond the grave. So customary was

112 STOICISM.the practice, that in the account of the last hours ofPetronius we are told especially that the fastidiousworldling passed away, as he had lived, with frivolousepigrams upon his dying lips, and would not hear aword about the faith or aspirations of the wise.^Consistently enough, in the satirical romance whichhe had probably composed, Trimalchio, the vulgarupstart, gives directions to his servants that when histime draws near no ghostly counsels are to vex hispeace of mind, and no philosopher be admitted to hisdeath-bed.The lively interest in moral questions often led, aswe have seen, the earnest-minded to have constantresource to spiritual guides, to attach them even totheir persons, and to keep them for years together intheir homes. The fashion spread more widely than theactual need, till it became a recognised thing thatevery great mansion must have its professionalmoralist, to be ready with a word in season when theconversation took a serious tone, and to give an air ofproper dignity to the domestic life. But the relationmust have often been a trying one. A Cato with hisenthusiasm for wisdom might treat Athenodorus asan equal or superior ; Augustus was delicate enoughto treat Arius as a friend, and confide every thoughtto his discretion ;and so, perhaps, with many a generousnature the union was very close and tender,and even gained in strength as time wore on. Butthere was a coarseness in the moral fibre of theTac. " Annales," xvi. 19.

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME.II3Roman, a want of refinementin the treatment of dependents,a dulness of intellectual sympathy whichmust have often made him in such cases a churlishand exacting patron.The Greeks, who were most at home in speculativequestions, were by national character, in that age atleast, too complaisant and suppleto maintain adignity or claim the respect which their position oftenfailed to give them. Some, indeed, stood enough upontheir merits, as when Apollonius came from Colchisat the invitation of the prince, to teach philosophyto the young Marcus Antoninus, but declined to callupon him when he came to Rome, saying thatthepupil should wait upon the master, not the masteron the pupil. Antoninus the Elder only laughed athis pretentiousness, and said that it was easier, asit seemed, to come all the way from Colchis thanto walk across the street at Rome.The Satires of Lucian give us quite another picture,in his descriptions of the domestic philosopherin Roman houses ;the colours, doubtless, are toocoarse, but the very vehemence of the openingpages of his treatise on the subject show us howbitterly the writer, himself a Greek, resented theinsults shown to liberal studies by the purse-proudpatrons in their treatment of men of education andrefinement.! " Weigh not only the trouble, but thebaseness, dishonour, and servility of such employments.For first, from the time you are enter-'Lucian. Translation of Jasper Mayne, p. 66.I

114 STOICISM.tained, you are to forget your liberty and parentage, and are to resolve when you enter into suchrelations to leave your descent, freedom, and ancestorsat the door— for liberty cannot have admissionwith you who are received into such lowand ungenerous employment. A servant, therefore,however you are troubled at the name, a servantyou are necessarily to be, not of one, but many,and are to wait uncovered from morning to nightfor contemptible wages. Besides, not being bred ofa child to service, but comingto the trade late andwell-stricken in years, you will hardly pleaseor bemuch valued by your master. . . Because you have alarge beard, and are of a venerable aspect, and weara decent Greek mantle, and all men know you tobe a grammarian, or orator, or philosopher, hethinks it is for his reputation to minglewith those who go before him, to gracesuch a oneand setout his train. And from hence he gains the opinionof a patron of the Greek arts and of a friend tolearning, so that you are not hired for excellencyof parts, or discourse, but for your beard and gown,and, therefore, are always to be seen in his company,and never to be from him, but are to riseearly every morning to present yourself, and appearin your attendance. He sometimes laying his handupon you prates anything by chance, and makesshow to those he meets that in passage through thestreets he forgets not the Muses, but employs thesmall leisure of his walk in honest conferences :whilst you most wretchedly, sometimes going apace,

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME.II5sometimes softly, sometimes up, sometimes down(for such you know are the passages of the city),sweat, and put yourself out of breath. x\t lengthhe strikes into a house, to talk with some friendwhom he wants to visit, when, for want of a place tosit down, you are fain to read a book to pass awaythe time. After this, having neither eaten nor drunkthat day, discommodiously washed, and at an unseasonablehour, about midnight, perhaps, you go tosupper, and are no longer reverenced or regarded bythe rest. But if there be a new-comer you are setbelow him, and thrust into some obscure corner,where you sit as a spectator only of what isbrought totable, and like a dog gnaw the bones which descendto you, or, out of hunger, suck some withered saladrefused by those who sit above youIf at any time a pig be cut up, or a venison pasty,you had need have the carver your friend, or you willdivide with Prometheus, and nothing but bones willcome to your shareAfter a long time, at the Feast of Saturn, perchance,or Minerva, if some threadbare cloak or moth-eatengarment be sent you, you must receive it as a greatpresent.. . .Next, your whole pension comesnot to above six crowns, which ifyou demand you arethought impudent and troublesome, and thereforebefore you can receive it you must insinuate andflatter, and court the steward, which is one step ofservitude more; nor is he to be neglected, who isyour patron's friend and of his counselsPerhaps the carriage of the man is to be borne with ;I 2

1 1 6 STOICISM.but then the women affect, too, to have learned menin pay, who shall attend on their sedans, and theythink nothing conduceth so much to their otherAndbravery and pomp as to be called learned philosophersand better makers of verses than Sappho.for the raising of such an opinion they are accompaniedby pensionary rhetoricians, grammarians andphilosophers, who most ridiculously read to them,either while they are dressing themselves or curlingtheir hair, or at meal-time, for at other times they arenot at leisure. Sometimes while the philosopher isin the midst of his discourse, the chambermaid entersand delivers a letter to her lady from her lover,whereupon the sermon must break off till she havewritten an answer and can return to her lecture. . .I'll tellyou a passage which Thesmopolia, theStoic, told me of himself, very ridiculous but not incredible,or such as may not happen to any other.He lived with a wealthy, delicate, proud lady inthe city, who had occasion to take a journey where;he said, the firstcontemptible accident he sufferedwas, being a philosopher, to sit next in the coach toher page, whose name was Chelidonius (or Swallow).Judge you what a sight it was for a severe, grave,ancient man, with a white beard, to be placed next toan effeminate boy, whose eyeswere painted and lasciviouslyrolled in his head, and his neck wantonlybent to one side, who more deserved to be calledVulture, for his naked chin, than Swallow. Innumerable,he said, were the disturbances whichhe suffered from the page, who all the way sung

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME. 117and prattled, and if he had not restrained himwould have danced in the coach. He told me alsoof a certain charge laid upon him by the lady,'who calling to him, Thesmopolis,' quoth she,'ifyou love me you must not deny me a favourwhich I shall ask of you.' He, as it was fit, promisedto obey her request.'Then,' quoth she, ' I pray,because I take you to be an honest, careful, goodnaturedman, take my little bitch, Myrrhina, into thecoach and keep her for me, and see she lacks nothing,for she isvery big with puppies, and is even ready towhelp, and my other servants are such knaves thatupon the way they have neither care of her, nor, indeed,of me.' Thesmopolis, at her earnest entreaty,received the bitch. Here, then, was a spectacle mostridiculous to see. A littledog peeping under hisgown, just below his beard, and barking in a smallvoice (for such dogs are most in fashion), and lickingthe crumbs which stuck upon the philosopher's chin.The page, who sat next him, having, not unwittily,at supper played upon others of the company,broke a jest upon ThesmopoHs.'at lastAll I can say,'quoth he, ' of ThesmopoHs is only this, that of a Stoic,he is become a Cynic, for I heard when the littlebitch pupped in his gown.' These are the mockeries,or rather the affronts, which they fasten upon thosewho live with them, rendering them bylittle and littletame and patient of contemptsMany who have been cast upon that course of lifehave made descriptions to me ;some while they yetfelt the thraldom, deploring the many and great indig-

1 1 8 STOICISM.nities they endured ;others as if theyhad brokenprison, recounting with some pleasure what theyhadsuffered, much rejoicing to repeat the mischiefs theyhad escaped."An EngUsh reader of Lucian's lively satires mayrecall perhaps to memory a parallel in an age farnearer to our own." In the mansions of men of liberal sentiments andcultivated understandings," writes Macaulay, of the"end of the seventeenth century, the chaplain doubtlesswas treated with urbanity and kindness. Butthis was not the general feeling of the country gentlemen.The coarse and ignorant squire, who thoughtthat itbelonged to his dignity to have grace said everyday at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals,found means to reconcile dignity with economy. Ayoung Levite — such was the phrase then in use —might be had for his board, a small garret, and tenpounds a year, and might not only perform his professionalfunctions, might not only be the most patientof butts and of listeners, might not only be alwaysready in fine weather for bowls, and in rainy weatherfor shovelboard, but might also save the expense of agardener or of a groom. Sometimes the reverendman nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curriedthe coach-horses. He cast up the farrier's bills. Hewalked ten miles with a message or a parcel. If heHewas permitted to dine with the family, he was expectedto content himself with the plainest fare.might fill himself with the corned beef and the carrots;but as soon as the tarts and cheesecakes made their

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME.I19appearance, he quitted his seat, and stood aloof tillhe was summoned to return thanks for the repast,from a great part of which he had been excluded.The nature of the matrimonial connections which theclergymen of that age were in the habit of formingisthe most certain indication of the place which theorder held in the social system. A waiting-maid wasgenerally considered as the most suitable helpmatefor a parson. During several generations the relationsbetween priests and handmaidens were a theme forendless jest; nor would it be easy to find, in thecomedy of the seventeenth century, a single instanceof a clergyman who wins a spouse above the rank ofa cook.iBut there is evidence enough that many of the professionalmoralists at Rome enjoyed a reputation fartoo high to be exposed to so contumelious a treatmentas that which Lucian pictures. Such was MusoniusRufus, for example, who moved with perfect dignityin the highest social circles, won the respect of allwho heard him lecture, and left affectionate memoriesin the minds of men of different type, like Epictetusand the younger Pliny. So commanding was his influenceover the young nobles of his time, that Nero,whose jealous fears were roused, resolved to silencehis persuasive voice. As no charges of disloyaltycould be made good againsthim, after months spentin prison, he was banished to the bare rocks of Gyara,where it was thought he would at least be harmless.'Macaulay, Hist. i. 327.

I20STOICISM.But his fame brought so many a visitor from Greece,that the tyrant's fears again were stirred, and Musoniuswas himself hurried off, Hke a convict sentenced tohard labour, to work at thecanal by which Nero hadresolved that the Isthmus of Corinth should be pierced.Demetrius found him there among the workmen, andCynic as he was, could not restrain an exclamation ofsurprise. Musonius only struck his spade deeper intothe ground, and asked him why he should be grievedto see him toiling for the good of Greece, and if itwas not a less painful sightemperor playing like a common piper.?than that of a RomanOnce, indeed,his moral influence and prudence seemed to fail him,overbalanced by excess of zeal. In the civil warsthat followed close on Nero's fall, when the legions ofVespasian were knocking at the gatesof Rome andthe frightened senators sent envoys to the camp toplead for mercy, Musonius joined them on the mission,trusting overmuch to the eloquence of his own winningwords. But the rough soldiery was in no moodto listen to the rounded periods of the man of peace.He only met with ridicule and insult, which wouldhave soon passed on to blows if he had not hurriedfrom the camp, where the clash of arms drowned allappeals to reason.But the voice of Musonius was more persuasiveindealing with a different class. It was one of hisfavourite theses for discussion that both sexes alikeshould profit by the lessons of philosophy, and itwould seem that many of the women of his time werenot slow to take advantage of the invitation. This

1PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME. 121naturally leads our thoughts to one of the brightestfeatures of the age, which may rank also among thefairest fruits of Stoicism at Rome. In the hotbed ofImperial license there had been indeed a portentousgrowth of female shamelessness and lust. Many abad woman, like Messalina, had flaunted in thepeople's sight her orgies of extravagance and crime,and with such examples in high places there wasdanger that vice would cease to pay the homage ofhypocrisy to virtue. But now, as by natural reaction,and with the spread of philosophic teaching, thereappears suddenly upon the scene another and a higherstandard of true womanhood.The matrons of the early days of the Republicwere expected to be grave, decorous figures ; theystayed at home and spun their wool, as the old epitaphexpresses it,and controlled the household labours oftheirhandmaids, but they could not share their husband'shigher thoughts, or enliven his leisure withrefinement.In Cicero's time they were often more accomplished,and took a more brilliant part in public life, but withthe freer culture there was also spreading a laxer toneof thought, and graver scandals to the moral sense.But the leaven of Stoicism soon began to work amongthe social circles of the capital its ; principles of selfrestraintand order were congenial to the better typeof Roman character, and gradually passed from thestreets and lecture-rooms to the quiet retirement ofhome life, where without respect of persons they struckupon the chords of deeper thoughts,and furnished

122 STOICISM.Strength and solace in the darkest hours of absoluterule.The "Annals" of Tacitus are often sombre and depressing,but there is many a bright and stirring pagein which we read of a long line of noble women whosememory does honour to the early Empire. Such werethe two heroines of the name of Arria, each wife to adistinguished Paetus, with Fannia the daughter of theyounger such was the domestic circle in which;Persius grew up to manhood such was the 3 youngwife of Seneca, and many another taughtin familiarintercourse to understand the theory and the practiceof the Stoic morals, who vied with their husbands inthe hardihood of patient resolution, and temperedtheir vigorous principles with softer graces.We have seen already that the relation betweenthe domestic moralists and those who retained theirservices could not be maintained always at itsproperlevel. The professional teacher had his dangers alsoand temptations, as had the hearers who resorted tohis lectures. The former was tempted to forget thelofty aims of the philosopher, and to sink into theSophist or the Rhetorician. He might think more,that is,of the form than the matter of his lectures ;lay too much stress on the graces of styleand themodulations of the voice and elegancies of gesture ;try to win the admiration of his audience, not keepingsteadily in view the one thing needful^ which shouldbe— to instruct and to reform.The hearers, on their side, often came as to a lectureof parade to criticise the speaker's skill, or wile away

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME. 1 23a vacant hour, or to gather a few fine passages forlater use, but with littlethought to take seriously toheart the lessons which they heard, and turn them togood account in the conduct of their lives. Musoniusand others dwelt, as we are told, with emphaticearnestness upon this frivolity of purpose, speakingwithauthority aspreachers of righteousness themselves,and complaining like the great religious orators of everyage that the influence of their words was evanescenton the weak and unconverted conscience. Epictetusspeaks in his own homely way of the faults whichwere so common, then as since, with both the teachersand their scholars.^" Rufus was used to say, If youhave leisure to praise me, I am speaking to no purpose.Accordingly, he used to speak in such a waythat every one of us who was sitting there supposedthat some one had accused him before Rufus ;he sotouched on what was doing, he so placed beforetheeyes every man's faults. The philosopher's school,ye men, is a surgery ; you ought not to go out of itwith pleasure, but with pain. For you are not insound health when you enter ;one has dislocated hisshoulder, another has an abscess, a third a fistula, anda fourth a head-ache. Then do I sit and utter to youlittle thoughts and exclamations that you may praiseme and go away, one with his shoulder in the samecondition in which he entered, another with hisheadstill aching, and a third with his fistula or his abscessjust as they were ? Is it for this, then, that young'Epictetus, iii. 23. Long's translation.

124 STOICISM.men shall quit home and leave their parentsfriends and kinsmen and property, thatand theirthey may sayto you, 'Wonderful!' when you are uttering yourexclamations ? Did Socrates do this, or Zenon, orCleanthes ? What then ? is there not the hortatorystyle ? Who denies it ? as there is the styleof refutation,and the didactic style. Who, then, everreckoned a fourth style with these— the style of display? What is the hortatory style ? To be able toshow both to one person and to many the struggle inwhich they are engaged, and that they think moreabout anything than about what they really wish.For they wish the things that lead to happiness, butthey look for them in the wrong place.In order thatthis may be done, a thousand seats must be placed,and men must be invited to listen, and you mustascend the pulpit in a fine robe or cloak and describethe death of Achilles. Cease, I entreat you by thegods, to spoil good words and good acts as much asyou can. Nothing can have more power in exhortationthan when the speaker shows to the hearers thathe has need of them. But tell me who, when hehears you reading or discoursing, is anxious abouthimself, or turns to reflect on himself? or when hehas gone out, says, ' The philosopher hit me well ;Imust no longer do these things.' But does he not,even ifyou have a great reputation, say to someperson, He ' spoke finely about Xerxes ;'and anothersays, ' No;but about the battle of ?'Thermopylce Isthis listening to a philosopher ?"There were, however, worse abuses than the poor

PROFESSIONAL MORALISTS AT ROME. 125vanity of the public speaker who forgot awhile thegraver interests committed to his chargein the wishto dazzle those who heard him. The dialectic subtletyand the pedantry of logical parade which weresometimes encouraged in the Stoic schools had adangerous effect upon unbalanced minds, which, onthe strength of a few sophistic puzzles and sometechnicalities of mood and figure, thrust themselvesforward in the assurance of half-educated pride. Onesuch Aulus Gellius describes at length as dogmatisingmost offensively in the cultivated circle which wasgathered in the hospitable seat of Herodes Atticus,at Cephissia. The braggart paraded his glib phrasesand pretensions of omniscience in language bristlingwith the terms of logic ;but at last, to the relief ofall concerned, he was silenced by their host, who hadthe Table-talk of Epictetus brought to him, and readan appropriate passage, which distinguished in causticstyle the features of the true student and of the falsepretender to philosophy.^We have already spoken of the Cynic vagrants whodonned the sage's mantle and often in their coarseeffrontery dragged high professions through the mud.One such we read of as pushing rudely in among thefriends who were on a visit to Herodes, demandingalms of right, and grumbling because he was not recognisedas a compeer. "A beard and staff, indeed, Isee," was the"retort ; but no philosopher."Such abuses were apparent on the surface, and'Aulus Gellius, i. 2.

126 STOICISM.there were, no doubt, false prophets and pretendedseekers after wisdom, but their existence testifies tothe wide-spread interest in moral studies, and to theunfeigned desire on the part of very many to find arule of life,and listen to any preacher who seemedto have a message for his fellow-men. Among themthere were many, doubtless, like Demonax, whomLucian, satirist as he was, described in the most enthusiasticterms, as irreproachable in private life,simple in manners, winning in his words, consummatein his knowledge, and while incliningto the Stoicsystem, yet so full of tenderness and sympathy as toseem to take in the whole of the human race in hisaffection.The Athenians, among whom he lived, felt so muchveneration for him that when he passed by, eventhemagistrates rose up to do him honour ;and in hislater years he made his home each night in any housewhere he happened to go in, and the inmates gladlywelcomed him as though some good genius hadhonoured them with his presence. When he died hewas buried by the Slate with every honour, and thestone seat where it had been his wont to sit wascrowned with flowers, and regarded as a holy placefor time to come.

STOICISM. 127CHAPTER IX.THE CAREER OF SENECA.The life and influence of Seneca fill so large a placein the history of Stoicism at Rome, that we may findat someit of advantage to dwell upon these topicslength, for they will serve to bring before us and toillustrate several of the leading questions connectedwith the spread of philosophy among the highersocial circles, and the practical value of the doctrinesof the Porch. We shall have before us one who wasno professional moralist, but a scholar and a statesman;familiar with the world of fashion, endeavouringnot only to shape his life by the Stoic rule, but tohelp others as a sort of spiritual director, too wide inhis intellectual sympathiesto be content with therigid monotony of Zenon's paradoxes, and also it mustbe owned too weak in moral fibre to escape somecompromise of principle and honour ; straining aftera high ideal which he confesses that he is very farfrom having reached, and tempering the hard formalismof his school with tones of tenderness andsympathy, and with the language of a religious feelingwhich rises at times almost to a Christian level, thoughits real spirit is essentially cold and self-contained,and alien to the graces of the Gospel. No Roman

128 STOICISM.moralist has been so widely read, none perhaps hasbeen so variously judged, both in ancient and inmodern times. Criticism has fastened keenly on allthe seeming inconsistencies of theory and practice,and the real merits of the writer's style and thoughthave been decried because of his shortcomings as amoral agent. Some have been so struck by hisreligious phrases as to regard him, with the Latinfathers, as almost a Christian in disguise while ; others,like Diderot, with a very different bias, have pointedto the elevation of his moral standard as a proof ofthe powers of the unassisted reason.To many English readers Seneca isonly knownthrough the brilliant rhetoric of Macaulay, whichshowed littlemercy to his private character, while itridiculed his efforts as a moral teacher. Some of thecriticisms in question may be conveniently quotedhere:— "The ancient philosophy disdained to beuseful, and was content to be stationary. It dealtin theories of moral perfection, which were so sublimethat they never could be more than theories ;inattempts to solve insoluble enigmas ;in exhortationsto the attainment of unattainable frames of mind.It could not condescend to the humble office ofministering to the comfort of human beings. . . .'In my own time,' says Seneca, 'there have been inventionsof this sort, transparent windows, tubes fordiffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building,shorthand which has been carried to such aperfection that a writer can keep pace with the mostrapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is

THE CAREER OF SENECA. 129drudgery for the lowest slaves, philosophy lies deeper.It is not her office to teach men how to use theirhands. The object of her lessons is to form thesoul. . . . We shall next be told,' exclaims Seneca,'that the first shoemaker was a philosopher.' For ourown part if we are forced to make our choice betweenthe first shoemaker and the author of the three bookson Anger, we pronounce for the shoemaker. Itmaybe worse to be angry than to be wet. But shoeshave kept millions from being wet, and we doubtwhether Seneca ever kept anybody from being angry.... It isvery reluctantly that Seneca can bebrought to confess that any philosopher had everpaid the smallest attention to anything that couldpossibly promote what vulgar people would consideras the well-being of mankind. . . . He is forced toown that such a thing might happen, and itmayalso happen, he tells us, that a philosopher may beswift of foot. But it is not in his character of philosopherthat he either wins a race or invents a machine.No, to be sure. The business of a philosopher wasto declaim in praise of poverty with two millionssterling out at usury ;to meditate epigrammaticconceits about the evils of luxury, in gardens whichmoved the envy of sovereigns ;to rant about liberty,while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmenof a tyrant ;to celebrate the divine beauty of virtuewith the same pen which had just before written adefence of the murder of a mother by a son."iThe closing lines do little more than reproduce1Macaulay," Essay on Bacon."R

130 STOICISM.the invectives of a rancorous opponent, asuttered inthe crisis of a personal struggle. But Tacitus, whosedramatic pen records them,i speaks himself of Senecain terms of marked respect, and his authorityoutweighs that of the later writers, such as DionCassius, who have stained their pages with the foulestscandals. To estimate the justice of such chargeswe require to have before us some general sketch ofhis career.Seneca came of a Spanish family of ample means,but was brought in early years from Cordova to Rome.His father, a noted rhetorician in his day, had hisson trained in his favourite studies, and gave perhapsa bias to the style, which offended the taste of latterpurists like Quintilian. But before long his mindwas deeply stirred by the grave questions of philosophywhich he heard discussed by lecturers of variousschools, and he threw himself with youthful ardour intoausterities of ascetic practice which were iUsuited tohis feeble constitution, till it needed all his father'sinfluence to make him relax the rigour of his vegetarianrule. The names and tenets of his earlyteachers constantly recur, even in his latest writings,and though among them the prevailing tone wasStoic, yet other systems found exponents, to givemore width and freedom to his thought. A fewpassages from his works may serve not only to explainthe nature of his education, but also to throw lighton the state of philosophic studies in the Romancircles of the day.^Tacitus, " Annales," xiii. 42.

THE CAREER OF SENECA.I31It was the school of Sextius which was thenand the noble Roman from whom itespeciallyin vogue,took its name seems to have aimed at giving ascientific basis, combined with a slight Eastern tingeof mysticism, to the austerer qualities of the oldnational "character. A work of Q. Sextius the fatherwas read to us," says Seneca," a great man, believe me,and a Stoic, though he would not own it. Whatvigour and spirit there were in him, and that is morethan you will always find in the philosophers. . . .After reading him you will say,' There is life, and fire,and freedom in him, he seems to rise above thehuman level, and leaves me full of high self-confidence.Whatever mood I may be in when I take up hisI own that I long to brave all hazards, I amwritings,ready to cry out, ' Why dost thou loiter, fortune, tryyour strength upon me, you will find me quiteprepared.' I long for hardships to encounter, to testmy powers of endurance. For Sextius has thisstriking merit also, that while he makes you feel howgreat the prize of a happy life must be, he does notcause you to despair of gaining it, you will be assuredthat it ishigh above you, but still within your reachifyou will have it."iBut Seneca refers more often to the younger Sextiuswho extended his father's influence, and laid stresson two of the Pythagorean tenets, that of frequentself-examination, and of vegetarian diet. The latterpoint was especially insisted on by Sotion of Alexandria,who took a high place among the» " Epist." 64.K 2teachers of

132 STOICISM.this school, and Seneca speaks thus from personal"of his lectures. Sotion used to explain tomemoryus the reasons which led Pythagoras to abstainfrom animal food, and why Sextius did the same inlater times. Their motives were different, but didthem equal credit. The latter thoughtcould find food enough without resortingthat manto theblood of life, and that he learnt to practise crueltyby making murder minister to his pleasures. Weought, he said moreover, to cut short all that tendsto pamper us. He argued that a varied diet isprejudicial to good health, and ill-suited to our constitution.Pythagoras maintained that all livingbeings were akin, and that their souls passed by freeinterchange from one form to another. If he is tobe trusted, no soul dies altogether, nor is its lifesuspended for more than a brief moment, while themetamorphosis is taking place. After Sotion hadexplained these views and pressed them home withfurther arguments, he said, 'Great men have heldthese sentiments, therefore suspend your judgmentand reserve the right of embracing them yourself.If they are true,a law of nature ; if not,the abstinence from animal food isit is at least a measure ofeconomy. ... I was strongly influenced by suchlanguage and began to abstain myself, and after ayear's trial I found the practice not only easy, butagreeable. My mental powers seemed to gain invigour, and to this day I am not sure that they didnot. You may wonder why I dropped the practice.My early life fell in the years when Tiberius was

THE CAREER OF SENECA.I33prince, at the time when certain foreignrites wereput under a ban, and among the supposed evidencesof their superstition was the abstinence from theflesh of certain animals. My father, who had moredishke for philosophy than actual fear of the informers,begged me to be careful, so I returned to my formerhabits as to diet." ^There was also a famous professor of the Stoicschool whose lectures Seneca attended, and whosecharacteristic features he"describes. For my part,as often as I heard Attains enlarging on the vices andmiseries of life, I felt pity for mankind, and lookedon him as a superior being raised above the commonlevel of humanity. When he began to praise poverty,and to set himself to prove that everything whichwent beyondirksome burden, I leftour actual wants was a needless andhis lecture-room with the wishthat I was poor. After he had criticised our selfindulgence,praising chastity, sobriety,pure from the taint of superfluousand a mindas well as illicitpleasures, I desired to curtail all the enjoyments ofthe table. Some of this influence has clung to methrough life at; first, indeed, I threw myself withardour into all his rules, but the fashion of the worlddrew me away and Ihabits."retained only a few of my goodSeneca goes on to notice some of the costlierviands and luxurious ways of common life which he hadsucceeded in renouncing to the end, such, for example,as oysters, unguents, wine, and the use of baths. ^To these teachers we may add the name of Papirius»Ep. 108, ^ Ep. 108.

134 STOICISM.Fabianus, who also denounced with energy the vicesof the age, not deaHng much with abstract thought,but giving a rhetorical expression to the doctrines ofthe Porch. Seneca devotes a whole letter to thecriticism of his style, but lays no stress on anyspecial tenets on which he may have heard him dwell.^After some time spent in the lecture-rooms of thesephilosophers, he chose the Bar for his profession, atwhich he soon made himself a name, pleading sobrilliantly on one occasion before the EmperorCaligula, that the mad despot was moved to murderousenvy, but listened happily to the suggestion that theyoung lawyer seemed far gone in a decline, and thatit was surely needless to cut short a life w^hichhung already on so frail a thread. From that timeSeneca became a marked figure in the world offashion, but in those days of absolute rule, dangerfollowed closely on the steps of all who rose to highestate.The Imperial household was not large enough tohold in peacethe wife and sister of the dotardClaudius, but the former ere longsucceeded in destroyingthe influence and reputation of her rival,who was driven with tarnished honour from the court,while Seneca was denounced as the partner of Julia'sshame, and hurried off to Corsica to spend eightyears in exile. The charge came with an illgracefrom the profligate Messalina, who only cared tocompass the destruction of her rival, and such wasthe mockery of justice under Claudius that the'Ep. loo.

THE CAREER OF SENECA.I35emperor's sentence on the accused carries little orno presumption of their guilt.At most, perhaps,we may infer that the successful lawyer movedin the highest circles of the capital, and seemedto careless eyes to live more as a worldling than astudious ascetic. The blow was a very heavy oneto bear, and may wellhave overtasked his powers ofresignation. He could find, indeed, topics of consolation,such as those he urges in his letter to hismother Helvia, but there issomething strained andartificial in the phrases, which lack the ring of genuineconviction ;he sadly owns that he is very far frombeing perfect, and the lessons of the sages had hardlypower to cheer him in the hardships and monotonyof these long years of forced inaction. His spiritmust have been much broken before he penned hisletter to Polybius, the confidential minister of Claudius,in which master and servant are alike addressed interms of extravagant and cringing adulation. Of theformer he speaks as if he weare a very Solomon uponthe seat of justice, or a Titan supporting on his wearyshoulders the burden of a subject world ; yet a fewmonths later he insults his memory with savage ironyin the merciless burlesque where he describes theappearance of the late emperor among the realmsof spirits, to which he was pursued with the cursesand the scorn both of the living and the dead.^Dion Cassius does not fail to notice the mean flatteryto which Seneca stooped on this occasion, but hetells us also that the letter had been lost before his^Seneca, Ludus de morte Claudii.

136 STOICISM.time, and the scholar Lipsius therefore thought itpossible, and Diderot held it to be almost certain, thatthe fragment which bears the title in his works was alater forgery of some malignant critic, who has pushedthe language of servility so far as to make it read tous like overt satire. We would gladly wish it werenot genuine, but unhappily there can be little doubtthat the letter written was unworthy, whether we havethe original or not before us.At length the fall of Messalina brought hopes offreedom to the exile. Her successor, Agrippina, soonhad him recalled, wishing, says Tacitus, to do an actof grace to one who stood so high in popular esteem,and whose gratitude might be of service to her in thefuture.She entrusted even to his care her young sonNero, though with the ominous condition that he wasnot to learn philosophy, as if its lessons could have noserious value for a future ruler. When Claudius diedsoon after and Nero stepped upon the vacant throne,Seneca became his chief adviser, or rather sharedwith Burrus, the commander of the household troops,the main moving force of the new ministry. Thefirst five years of Nero's reignwere afterwards regardedas one of the brightest epochs of Imperialrule, and the actual regents may fairly have thecredit of the good government which they secured.But Seneca's eye had soon discerned the latentferocity of Nero's temper, which was not to be charmedaway by edifying treatises like those which he addressedto him "On Anger" and "On Clemency," themoral influence of which was sadly marred by the

THE CAREER OF SENECA. 137hints which fell on willing ears about the unlimitedpowers of the Imperial ruler. The annals of thecourt became a long tragedy of shame and horror.The estrangement between the mother and the sonhad soon begun, when Agrippina claimed to rule inNero's name, for his advisers, fearing with good reasonher capricious lusts, had worked upon his jealousand stooped even to introduce a rival influencefears,by encouraging a low amour. Agrippina's fierce resentmentfound a vent in ominous threats; she wouldhurry to the camp and bid the soldiers rally roundthe son of Claudius, whose rightful claims had beenignored, and hurl the thankless Nero from the throne.The threat cost her her life. But first the haplessboy, whose name she had abused, was disposed ofby a draught of poison. Then a plot was laid tosink the ship in which she sailed by night acrossthe bay of Naples, and when that failed recoursewas had to open force, and assassins were ordered todespatch her.There is no reason to believe that Seneca connivedat such atrocities, the details of which were left toconfidants of meaner stamp. But he has left a fatalstain upon his memory by the publicsanctions whichhe seemed to give to the deeds of horror when theyhad been done. It was not merely that he clung tooffice and remained at court, when a moralist ofsterner stamp would have retired from a scene wherevirtue could no longer act with dignity and freedom.For this it was possible to urge the plea that heowed a duty to the Roman world to use such influence

138 STOICISM.as still remained in the interests of right and order,and not leave the government to be a carnival forthe excesses of the unprincipled courtiers of a youngdespot who would take his passions only for hisguide. While the mad caprices of Caligula, and thecriminal abuse of power by the freedmen and wivesof Claudius, were still fresh in men's memories, itmight seem a paramount obligation for the statesmanto remain still at his post, if he could hope by hisauthority to avert or to delay such orgies of misrule.We cannot say how far such motives weighed, andthey are never expressly urged by Seneca himselfBut many a looker-on would have swept away suchpleas as hypocritic trifling, and sneeringly contrastedthe high professions of austere philosophy with thegrowing wealth of the great minister whose broadlands and mansions might be, and were, regarded asthe price of blood. It was hard enough before tofind an answer to such taunts, but it became almostimpossible when he had penned the famous messageto the Senate from the throne, which did not scrupleto imply that the murdered mother had failed in aplot against the emperor's life, and then died by herown hands in despair. It went on further to tramplemeanly on the memory of the fallen queen, ascribingto her all the worst atrocities of the last reign as wellas criminal ambition in the present. This is a blotupon the character of Seneca which no apology canwipe away. Decency required at least a little morerespect for the benefactress to whom he owed hisfreedom and his high estate. His gratitude, indeed.

THE CAREER OF SENECA.I39was rightly bounded by a higher duty to the State,and he had with good reason tried in earher years tothwart the influence of the proud and imperiouswoman over the court and Government of Nero.But that danger was aheadyover before the murderousdeed was done ; to pahiate its guiltwas anact of criminal weakness, and though the cringingSenate receivedthe message with applause, its writermust have forfeited the respect of honest men likeThrasea Psetus, who could not even stay in thesenate-house when it was read.As might have been expected, compromise couldnot long secure the influence for which so high aprice was paid. Real power drifted steadily awayfrom the advisers who could not honestly encourage,and dared not firmly check, the whims of theirImperial master.There were supple courtiers enoughto flatter and applaud ivhen he came forward, lyrein hand, to' sing and play before the populace ofRome ;there were boon companions to take partin the reckless fooling of his sumptuous banquets ;there were darker spirits, like Tigellinus, to whispermalignant words into his suspicious ear, and markthe victims for proscription. But Seneca, who wouldnot stoop so low, began to feel that there was noplace at court for one who would not bow or truckle ;wealth, and character, and independence were alikedangerous possessions when greedy sycophants hadcaught a despot's ear. Before long, therefore, heasked Nero's leave to retire once more into privatelife after thirteen years of public duties, and to return

140 STOICISM.all the gifts of his Imperial bounty. The flatteringanswer which was given did not blind him to hisdanger, and he withdrew thenceforth from the busyworld to spend his last days in earnest study andseclusion. Tyranny at first found other victims amongthe professors of theStoic creed, v/ho were regardedwith mistrust as disaffected to the ruling powers ;some, like Rubellius Plautus, were driven from publiclife in Rome, and struck down while in exile ;inothers, like Thrasea, abstention was counted as acrime, and it was felt that before long their turnwould come. At length an opportunity was found ;a wide-spread conspiracy against the emperor's lifehad been detected, and inor torture had extortedthe disclosures which fearthe innocent and guilty wereconfounded ; among them Seneca's name appearedupon the list, while his nephew, Lucan, certainly Avasactive in the plot. The evidence, indeed, was verymeagre, and in the bearing and answers of the accusedthere was no sign of guilty fear. But Nero wasresolved that he should die, and sent the fatal messageto announce his doom.The account of Seneca's last hours may be givenin the words of Tacitus :—" Seneca, quite unmoved,asked for tablets on which to inscribe his will, and onthe centurion's refusal, turned to his friends, protestingthat as he was forbidden to requite them, he bequeathedto them the onlybut still the noblestpossession yet remaining to him, the pattern of hislife, which if they remembered, they would win aname for moral worth and steadfast friendship. At

THE CAREER OF SENECA, 141the same time he called them back from theirtears to manly resolution, now with friendly talk,and now with the sterner language of rebuke.''Where,' he asked again and again, are yourmaxims of philosophy, or the preparation of so manyevils to come ? Who knew notyears' study againstNero's cruelty ? After a mother's and a brother'smurder, nothing remains but to add the destructionof a guardian and tutor.' Having spoken these andlike words, meant, so to say, for all, he embraced hiswife ;then softening awhile from the stern resolutionof the hour, he begged and implored her to spareherself the burden of perpetual sorrow, and in thecontemplation of a life virtuously spent, to endure ahusband's loss with honourable consolations. Shedeclared, in answer, that she too had decided to die,and claimed for herself the blow of the executioner.Thereupon Seneca, not to thwart her noble ambition,from an affection which would not leave behindhim for insult one whom he dearly loved, replied:'I have shown you ways of smoothing life ; youprefer the glory of dying. I will not grudge you sucha noble example. Let the fortitude of so courageousan end be alike in both of us, but let there be morein your decease to win fame.' Then byone and thesame stroke they sundered with a dagger the arteriesof their arms.Seneca, as his aged frame, attenuatedby frugal diet, allowed the blood to escape but slowly,severed also the veins of his legs and knees. Wornout by cruel anguish, afraid too that his sufferingsmight break his wife's spirit,and that as he looked on

142 STOICISMher tortures, he might himself sinK into irresolution,he persuaded her to retire into another chamber.Even at the last moment his eloquence failed himnot ;he summoned his secretaries, and dictated muchto them which, as it has been published for all readersin his own words, I forbear to paraphrase. ... Asthe tedious process of death still lingered on, hebegged Statius Annaeus to produce a poison with whichhe had some time before provided himself. It wasbrought to him, and he drank it in vain, chilled as hewas throughout his limbs and his frame closed againstthe efficacy of the poison. At last he entered a poolof heated water, from which he sprinkled the nearestof his slaves, adding the exclamation, * I offer thisliquid as a libation to Jupiter the deliverer.' He wasthen carried into a bath, with the steam of which hewas suffocated, and he was burnt without any of theusual funeral rites. So he had directed in a codicilof his will, when even in the height of his wealth andpower he was thinking of his life's close." ^A recent writer speaks of the dislike which Tacitusseems to feel for the character of Seneca. In thispassage at least there is nothing to support thequestionable statement, nor is there in the rumour towhich he refers in the next chapter, that the conspiratorshad intended that the empireshould behanded over not to Piso, for whom they had scantesteem, but to Seneca " as a man singledsplendid virtues by all persons of integrity."out for his' " Annals," xv. 63. Translation of Church and Brodribb.

STOICISM. 143CHAPTER X.SENECA ASA MORALIST.It has been said with truth that, as an author, Senecashould be regarded rather as a spiritual director thanas a systematic moralist ;his writings are not dogmatictreatises, but moral sermons. But the sameremark applies, in a great measure, to many of thephilosophers of the later Roman world. The earlierHellenic seekers after wisdom, while speculative interestswere strong, indulged their subtletyof witand spent much of their strength in abstract questions,which had often a merely controversial value.The greatest of them kept to the serene heights ofgeneral theory, seldom coming down into the hotpress and conflict of real life, to deal with the detailsof human action.But in the first and second centuries of our era,philosophy became for the most part religious in itstone, and earnestly practical in its appealsto intellectand heart. It aspired not only to furnish strugglingmen with an authoritative standard, but to guideand help and strengthen them in their efforts toattain it. To explain this itchange, would not beenough to point to the practical temper of the Romanas compared with that of the more speculative Greek.

144 STOICISM.In a corner of the old Greek world, at Chseroneia,Plutarch held for years his conferences on moralthemes, inviting those of the audience who pleasedto stay after his lectures, to lay bare the troubles oftheir conscience, or enter freely into the story oftheir personal doubts. Dion Chrysostom travelledwidely as a sort of missionary of a moral propaganda,with no original system to propose, but withan earnest sympathy for human trials, which madehim popular alike in the palace and the street.Aristides left behind him a whole volume of sermons,and Julian impressed upon the priests ofheathendom the novel duty of preaching to their coreligionistsas did the ministers of Christ. The tendencyin question was part, therefore, of a generalmovement due to the spirit of the age, influenced nodoubt in course of time by the enthusiasm of theChristian teaching, but answering also to a universalwant which the old religious and state systems failedto satisfy,now that the spirit of criticism was widelyspread, and the incoherencies of prejudice andcustom were exposed.There had been already much discussion amongthe later Stoics as to the respective value of abstractprinciples and special precepts. Some, as Ariston,with the dogmatism of the earlier school, had heldthat the one thing needful was to sweep away themists of prejudice and error, and to implant theright convictions in the mind, which can then be leftto its own native strength and force of will, andcannot possibly be furnished with directions to meet

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 145all the infinite varietyof circumstance and action.Others, like Posidonius, laid so much stress uponthe practical details, insisting at such length on thetheory of habits and description of the virtues, whichthey called by the pretentious names of ethology,characteristics, or moral imagery, as to leave the impressionon some readers that this side alone wasof real value, and that principles must be whollybarren without precepts. Seneca discusses the wholesubject at some length in two important letters (94,95), deciding sensibly enough that there must be aframework of general theory to give a scientific valueto the special rules, which should depend uponthe leaves and branches draw their sustenance andvital power from the trunk of which theyit asare themembers. But he is very urgent, on the other hand,as to the usefulness of practical direction. The massof men, he says, areweak, irresolute, passionate, andforgetful, soon blinded by sophistry, or led astray bybad example. The world in which they live is fullof specious falsehoods and misleading maxims.Theyneed, therefore, the help, the sympathy, the guidanceof a living rule, a voice that can speak with someauthority to heart or conscience, proverbial maximswhich embody general truth in striking forms, illustrationsto encourage or rebuke, friendly counselwhich may help the wavering forw-ard in the path ofprogress. We are far already from the crude paradoxof the earlier school, which, beyond the circle ofa few blest spirits, saw in the wide world only knavesand fools, all of whose vices seemed of equal black-L

146 STOICISM.ness. For Seneca had a large hopefulness in moralprogress ; they who felt that they were not alreadyperfect need not despair, but should push forward tothe light, clearing as they could the road for thosewho followed after, and leaving here and there asign-post for the unwary feet that else might stray.The volume of his letters to Lucilius, written probablyin his last years, brings this side of his characterand thought before us in every variety of light.He knows, we see, no royal road nor original systemof salvation, and therefore is not tempted to laytoo much stress on intellectual beliefs. But he is sokeenly sensible himself of the fleeting and unsubstantialnature of the interests of common life, that hetries to wean his friend Lucilius from the vanitiesand ambition of the world, that he mayattune histhoughts to higher things, and find the true happinessof spiritual peace. He never seems to weary ofthe importunity of his appeals, and letter followsletter on some fresh aspect of the rule of life. Noris his interest bounded to the welfare of a single soul,for he tells of his anxiety to bringothers within thecircle of his influence, and how he uses differentmethods to suit the varieties of character and age,bearing even patiently the waywardness of youth andpetulant rebuffs, in hope to find one day a favourablean access to the softenedmoment when he may gainheart. Lucilius, in his turn, must do his part tospread the moral propaganda, not failing to let dropa timely hint, and win other souls if possible to listento the words of spiritual counsel There is little

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 147assumption of authority as of a sage condescendingto poor worldlings on a lower level ;rather he pointsto the experience of his own efforts to go forward,recommending the self-discipline to which he hashimself recourse, the quiet times of meditation inretreat, when the spirit communes with the worldunseen ;the hard mattress and the scanty fare, withwhich he tries to keep the body under, and riseabove the need of riches which may one day takewing and fly away the; nightly musings when thestory of the day rises before the wakeful conscience,which gives sentence on the rash word and hasty act;—such are the methods of his self-improvement, the regimenwhich he prescribes for serious minds. Hecarries perhaps sometimes too far the frank admissionof his own shortcomings ;as when he tells of apleasant time which he spent in the country with afriend, when they bivouacked as they could, andshared the humblest fare, while a village bumpkindrove their rustic carriage. But while he enjoys theretrospect of all these simple pleasures, he admits thathe could not bear to be taken for the owner of thesorry vehicle in which they rode, and could not meetwithout a blush the grander carriages of people ofdistinction. He takes himself to task for havingmade so little progress, and caring over much for theopinion of the world, and setting a foolish value onsuperfluous wealth. ^At times he carries his confessions somewhat far,'Ep. 87.L 2

148 STOICISM.as when he tells his friend Lucilius that he has takenrooms above a public bath, that he might learn toconcentrate his thoughts, and disregard distractionsof all kinds. He dwells complacently on the curiousmedley of the local noises which were forced uponhis ears— the hissing and the groaning, the leapingand the splashing, the singing and the whistling, thehue and cry after the pickpocket, and many a disturbanceof the kind— as longa list as Londonerscould make of the costermongers' cries, and organgrindersand brass bands, or rumbling carriages thatallow no rest to mind or body. We read at the closeof the epistle that the experiment has been successful,and the writer thinks that he may leave theunpleasant scene, and betake himself to more attractivequarters.^It has been said above, that Seneca lays littlestress on rigid adherence to an abstract system. Itis curious to notice that the quotations which occurin the earlier letters to Lucilius are rarely drawn fromStoic authors, but most frequently from Epicurus,who had given his name to the theory most markedlycontrasted with the doctrines of the Porch. Pleasureis the standard of the one, while the other speaks ofright and duty. This seems to encourage a worldlyprudence, which would shun all high ambition, andchiefly aim at keeping on good terms with self, andwith mankind at large. That would nerve the willfor conflict, and live laborious days, and shun all self-'Ep. 58..

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 149indulgence as a traitor offering a kiss. There was acardinal opposition in the leading principles o-f the twosystems ;there was a momentous difference betweenthe two types of conduct to be traced in the rank andfile in either camp. The noblest spirits of the agewere Stoics, but very few of resolute temper and highaims professed the creed of Epicurus. Yet there isless difference than might have been expected whenwe pass from abstract theory to rules of conduct.For beyond the dialectics of the schools, and thehigh-sounding dogmas which divided ancient sages,there was a philosophy of common sense, whosestore of moral maxims, and list of virtues and ofvices, gradually became the common stock of all therival sects. Pleasure itself, as Epicurus painted it,became so refined and spiritualized a thing, that thehappinesswhich it secured was an ideal of calmserenity and chastened moderation,unruffled by thegusts of vicious passions, and scarcely to be distinguishedfrom the tranquil impassiveness of the Stoicsage. In practice, as in theory, the master lived ablameless lifeupon this higher level, which many ofhis followers found a very slippery incline ;while hisdelicate sensibilities of taste and temper took theplace of any sterner discipline of self-denial. Thefine sentiments and wise suggestions of his works arelargely used by Seneca, the more perhaps becauseLucilius had been before attracted to the sect ofEpicurus ; but, indeed, it was his constant practiceto pass freely from one school to another, and to takethe thoughts which suited him wherever he might

150 STOICISM.find them. Thus, he sometimes seems almost aPythagorean, when he recalls the Sotion whose lectureshe attended as a boy he talks like Plato on;the nature of the soul and immortality ;and speaks of" our" Demetrius as if he were a Cynic like hisfriend. No wonder if Quintilianhave remarked uponand other criticshis inconsistencies and want ofrigorous method, forgetting that his aims were practical,and that he cared more to direct a consciencethan to expound a system. Many of the letters toowere written with a special object ;the advice wouldvary with the circumstances, and no rigidly consistentrule could be applied to different types of characterand age.But there can be no doubt that Seneca adheredwithout hesitation to the Stoic creed, and his reservesand compromises belong more to his heart than tohis head. We still hear more than we could wish ofthe extreme positions of the school, though, as a manof the world and a warm-hearted friend, he had oftento abate the rigour of its claims. We hear too muchof the ideal man, whose absolute serenity is not to beclouded by any of the accidents of health or fortune,who cannot be touched by wrong or insult, never feelsanger, grief, or pity, or any of the impulses of ouremotional nature. He refuses to allow that this isan imaginary picture, though only to be realized perhapsby few, and at long intervals of time. And yet,at another time, he frankly owns that all this grandtheory leaves him unconvinced. To be faithful tothe tenets of his school he controverts the view of

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 151Aristotle that the emotions are necessary parts ofhuman nature, to be regulated, not repressed. Buthis own reasoning on the subject isinconsequent andfeeble, and betrays his sense of the weakness of athesis which he elsewhere surrenders in detail. Heseems to feel, indeed, throughout misgivings which heputs into the mouth of an objector, and never reallymeets." These are the reasons why your teaching carriesso littleweight ; you promise much more thanwe can hope for, still less credit. Then, after yourgrand professions that the sage is never poor, youadmit that he may be in want of clothing, food, andshelter. You say that the sage never can be foolish,yet allow that he may lose his senses, and utter sillywords, and go to whatever lengths his morbid violencemay force him. After denying that the wise man canever lose his freedom, you admit that he may be sold,and have to obey orders, and to do menial drudgeryto serve his master. So, after all your lofty airs, yougo to much the same lengths as other folks, thoughyou call things by new names. So I suspect that itissomething of the kind in this case : fine and grandas the statement sounds at first that the wise mancannot receive a \vrong or insult. For it makes allthe difference whether you assert that he is beyondthe influence of resentment or of wrong. If you meanthat he will bear it patiently, he enjoys no specialprivilege, only the common grace of patience, whichwe may leam by having much to bear. If you meanthat he never will be wronged, that is, that no man

152 STOICISM.will ever try to injure him, then I will give upall elseand be at once a Stoic." 1He cites with approval the example of the resoluteDemetrius, who complained that the powers of heavenhad not deigned to tell him of their purpose, that hemight have forestalled their purpose by offering freelywhat it was their pleasure to remove, since all that hehad was theirs to give, and theirs to take away."He speaks with admiration more than once of theconstancy of Stilbon, who seemed to lose his all,fortune, family, and home, when his city wasdestroyed, yet could say calmly that he had all hisproperty safe in his own keeping, meaning therebythe qualities of mind and temper, of which no enemycould rob him.^ He expends much idle subtlety onthe self-sufficiency of virtue, the happiness of which isnot to be impaired by any loss of friends or children ;it is but their bodies, not themselves, he says, we lose ;good cannot perish save by passing into evil; say theyare gone, yet their place is more than filled by thegood qualities which lived but lately in them ;for whatmatters it, if the waters flow away, if the fountain stillruns on.^ Still he owns that it is natural that all theoutward tokens of emotion should appear in the wiseman, the shifting colour, and the tottering limbs, andthe sudden chill of sorrow, for these are due to naturalimpulse where the mind has no control, but its resolutionwill be shown in the assurance that there isDial. ii. 3.Ibid. ii. 5.' Ibid. i. 5.*Ep. 74.

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 153no evil which can make his reason lose its healthybalance. ^Elsewhere, he says thathe has no wish to raise thesage above the common level of humanity, or treathim as a rock insensible to mortal pain, for he is madeup— of two elements the one irrational, which is fullof changing sensibilities while the rational; preservesthe balance of its calm and"fixed convictions. Forfear our theory should seem to travel beyond thebounds of nature, I admit that the wise man willexperiencefear and pain and pallor, for all these arebodily sensations, but the real evil or misfortune onlybegins then when these enslave the mind, and makeit own itsdegradation or ^its shame."It is evident that most of the paradox of the Stoicapathy is abandoned in these lines, and that it becomesfor the most part a mere question of names ifthe emotions are disapproved of only when they passbeyond control, and the term " evil " is restricted toa moral sense as distinct from physical discomfort.He is far, again, from expecting rigid self-restraintfrom his mourning friends, or from denouncing thechoking sense of "grief It would be inhuman," hesays, " not virtuous, to look on as calmly when ourkinsmen are borne out to burial as when we saw themliving at our side. . . . Let the tears flow as long asthe emotion bids them." Nor does he tolerate themonly when the griefis violent and loss is recent." There are tears to which we give free course, when'Ep. 74.2 Ibid. 7,.

f154 STOICISM.we recall to memorywhen we think over theirthe friends whomwe have lost,pleasant talk, their cheerfulintercourse, and tender offices of friendship. Let thetears flow then as they will."^The sage himself is no impassive thing, but willshow humanity in sorrow, though without loss of selfcontrol; yet, for himself, he owns that his grief forhis friend Serenus passed all proper bounds, so completelywas he over-mastered by his sorrow.^ He hasthe good sense to see that he who would rebukegrief must rebuke love as well, and his ownheart was warm and tender, and he does not think itunphilosophical to own He it. is careful of his health,he says on one occasion, more for the sake of hisloving wife, Paulina, than for himself. He sees howmuch her happiness, her life even, is bound up withhis own, and regardsit as a duty to indulge so farour natural affections.^ He protests against thesordid view of friendship, which would make thestrength of the tie depend upon the sense of profitfrom a friend's company or help, as though withEpicurus we desired to find a friend only to sit byour bed-side when we are ill,or to come to oursuccour when in poverty or prison. Rather,it is theexpression of a natural instinct, and not a calculationof self-interest. The best philtre or love-charm toprovoke affection is to feel love oneself The pleasureconsists in forming the friendship, not in after profit.should I make a friend ? To have some one" Why'Ep. 99.2 Ibid. 63.3 Ibid, 104.1

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 155to die for; to follow into banishment; to risk my ownlife to save him."i No good thing can be enjoyedwithout a friend to share it.^It is partly for this reason that he discourages allausterities of dress and manner, all Cynical disregardof common customs, as tending to isolate us from ourfellows, and to emphasize the points of difference thatdivide us, in place of fostering the kindly sympathies,the courtesy, and the gregarious instinct on which hisphilosophy, as interpreted by his own tenderness, laysso much stress.^This kindliness, he thinks, should be strong enoughto overleap the social barriers which divide us, andignore even the difference between the freeman andthe slave. No ancient moralist has spoken so feelinglyand earnestly upon this subject, or describedwith more contempt the haughty inhumanity of manya wealthy master, surrounded by a multitude of coweringmenials, in whom he saw, accordingproverb, " as many enemies as slaves."to the Roman" Not so,"says Seneca, " it is our own fault if we make themsuch ; they are of the same flesh and blood as we are,breathe the same air of heaven, are, or should be, ourfellows, companions, and our humble friends. Weneed not go abroad in quest of friendship ;we shallfind it, if we seek it,in our homes. Kindly intercoursewill bring to light their good qualitiestemper, and will gradually efface the grossertheir training or associations." *of mind orstains of»Ep. 9.=Ibid. 6.3 ^Ibid. 5. Ibid. 47.

156 STOICISM.He raised his voice also in protest against thebutchery of the gladiatorial shows, and the ferocity wi-thwhich criminals were exposed to the wild beasts whilethe populace looked on at the cruel sport. He warnshis friend Lucilius against the demoralizing influenceof such a scene, reacting as it must upon the character"and temper. They are highwaymen and murderers,you say, and deserve to die. True, they meet perhapswith their deserts ;but what have you done that youshould be condemned to sitby at such a sight ?"iWe see, therefore, that in spite of all his borrowedphrases of the school, there is little in Seneca's ownteaching of the hardness and the coldness of the Stoiccreed. In place of an unattainable ideal, which wasuntrue to the conditions of our human nature, wehave a discipline of self-improvement, with constanthopes of further progress,and criteria of the variousstages of perfectibility. 2 "Let us press on andpersevere ;more remains for us to do than we havedone already ;but the wish to improve is a great steptowards improvement.conscience bearsTo this myme witness. I do wish it with all my mind."^ Thesage's calm is no unfeeling self-contentment, butis coloured and warmed with social sympathies andtender moods, in which sorrow and love and pity finda place. The seeming impassiveness (aTrddeia) consistsonly in the mental balance by which the reasoncan measure things at their true value, and refuse tobe overpowered by emotion.But philosophy alone»Ep. 7.» Ibid. 75,' Ibid. 71.

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 157can teach us the true estimate of all that can befallus here; of the wealth and honours, business andpleasure, of our mortal lot ;and therefore Senecabetakes himself with ardour, and would guide othersalso, to the Mistress whose service alone is perfectfreedom.!But there was nothing in this intellectual freedom,he insisted, which should giveumbrage to the rulingpowers. They were quite mistaken who supposedthat the devoted students of philosophy must be turbulentor stiff-necked in their self-assertion, and disrespectfultowards magistrates or princes. Far fromthat, the more they prized the blessings of theirstudious ease, the more grateful they should be towardsthe rulers whose vigilance secured their restfrom danger or disturbance.There could be no fearof rival jealousies from those who should be raisedabove the ambition of the world, and for whom thegame of politics and war had less attraction than thecare of their own souls. As their happiness was morecomplete than that of other men, so they should havemore cause to thank the rulers to whom they owedtheir peace.^ It is the jealousy of Nero to whichthis passage points, and it is one of the few placesin the Letters where we have any direct referenceto the political aspects of the times. And yet,if we look more deeply, we shall find that to a greatextent they coloured his temper and gavea bias to'Philosophias sen'ias oportet, ut tibi contingat vera libertas(Ep. 8).'Ep. 73.

158 STOICISM./ his thought. They explain the gloomy tinge whichhis meditations often take from the abiding thoughtof death, which isalways present to his fancy. Itwas, indeed, a commonplace of the ancient moraliststo insist upon this subject, as the one theme on whichwe could never speculate in vain. As he says himself," for other things our preparations may be useless.The soul may be steeled against poverty, andriches abide with us to the end. We may have armedourselves against assault of pain, and yet never haveour patience tested, thanks to the good hap of a soundand healthy body ;we may have schooled ourselvesto bear with fortitude the loss of our departedfriends, while fortune wills that all whom we love outliveus ;this is the one discipline whose use will certainlyone day be tested." ^Even in early years the mind of Seneca may haveoften dwelt upon the thought of death, for he wasalways of weak health, and almost every variety ofailment had left its mark upon him. 2 His bodilyinfirmities form a frequent subject of reference inhis letters, though there isnothing querulous orunmanly in his tone. They lead him to dwell howeveron the question, whether itmay not seemadvisable one day to make an easier exit from theworld than that which nature might provide, and hedecides that he will not be impatient to depart inpeace so long as disease leaves his nobler facultiesuntouched ;should itbegin to lay rude hands upon'Ep. 70.2 jbj^_ ^^

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 159his reason or disturb his moral hfe, while itsparesthe vital spark, then he will speed away at once " asfrom a ruinous and crumbling house." ^But in later years more probablyit was the experienceof a despot'scruel capriceswhich made thevisions of death familiar to his fancy, and suicide inall its bearings an " engrossing question. Someprofessors of "philosophy maintain," he says, that wehave no right to lay violent hands upon ourselves,but that duty calls us to await the end which naturemay assign us. In saying this they do not see thatthey bar the road to freedom." But we may rejoinperhaps that in this comment Seneca is false to hisown principles, forgetting his own analysis of freedomas the state in which the reason holds the sway overthe passions, and has might as she has already right.He concludes that no general decision can be madeupon a question which depends so much on itsdetails, but he has no doubt at any rate that he maychoose his own form of an inevitable death, as wemay select a ship in which to make a voyage, or ahouse in which to dwell. "A longer life is not alwaysthe better, but a lingering death is always worse." ^Not only, as he thinks, have the heroes of humanitylike Cato asserted this right of theirs to die whenand how they pleased, but men of low degree,the poor gladiators of the stage,the barbarians orcriminals condemned to be thrown to the wild beasts,have flung defiance inthe face of death, and left ex-'Ep. 58.« Ibid. 70.

l6oSTOICISM,amples which the subjects of tyranny mayheart.take toIt has been remarked that of the modern criticswho have occupied themselves with Seneca, Garatwas the first to understand him rightly, and thatbecause he lived under a reign of terror whichof Nero. Herecalled the memory of the dark daystells us that he had the guillotine in prospect whenhe began to read afresh the works of Seneca for anew edition. He had read him in his earlier yearsof cheerful life before the Revolution ;he read himonce more in days of gloom, and found him quiteanother writer. The first time he had much workto keep the page still open ;the second timehe could scarcely tear himself away." His moralshad seemed before unnatural and high pitched;now they appeared hardly up to the level of ourown experience and needs." Or again," Seneca'sphilosophy was composed for those periods oflingering agony to which tyrants sometimes condemntheir people." Again, "There was need ofa philosophy to teach men to give up all theyhad before it was taken from them ;to isolatethem from their fellows who could do no more forthem ;to create a personal force and greatnesswhich despots and executioners might crush, butwhich they could not cause to tremble. Such isthe philosophy of Seneca." Or again,"He dwells,it is true, on the same truth a long time, butremember that it is not with him a question onlyof what he ought to think of death; he has to

SENECA AS A MORALIST.l6lmake himself ready for the moment when Silvanuswill come with Nero's message 'Die.' " ^This attitude of Seneca seems to have been /neglected by Macaulay in the criticism which wasquoted at the beginning of 4his chapter. It is not ^^'fair to treat his thought as idle moralizing uponabstract questions, such as the man of action maybrush impatiently aside, for it was really earnest meditationon the experience of actual life. It is possibleindeed that the lofty sentiments on anger and, onclemency may have been wasted on a Nero, andphrases about the vanity of wealth may have soundedas mere empty talk in the ears of many a Romannoble, but so perhaps the grandest eloquence ofChristian divines, even the preaching of Prophets andApostles, may have seemed to fail entirely to touchthe conscience of some hearers, yetitmight bethought mere shallow flippancy to treat such teachingas unpractical because it did not deal with themethods of induction or contribute to the materialcomforts of the age. Meditations such as Seneca's,inadequate as they may seem, took the place ofreligious principles among the educated circles of theRoman Empire, were a protest of real value againstthe coarse materialism of the old heathen world, taughtthe choicer spirits how to live with dignity and diewith honour, supplied a force of public sentiment ofwhich even despots had to take account, and didsomething to lessen the misery of the toiling masses'E. Havet, "Le Christianisme et ses Origines," ii. 256.M

l62STOICISM.by tender words of sympathy for the stranger and theslave. It is a matter of regret, no doubt, that theold philosophy of Greece and Rome busied itselfso little with the inductive method and the order ofthe physical world, helped so little to advance man'smastery over nature by the knowledge of its laws.This is no more true of Seneca, however, than of allthe schools of Hellenic thought. But the moralvalue of their speculations is not lessened by thefact that they neglected the fields of physical research,and it isunworthy of a serious critic thus to confusethe wants of different ages, and to treat with contemptthe ancient seekers after wisdom, who pondered onthe questions that were full of actual interest to themand theirs. In the letter which has been referred to(p. 129) Seneca distinguished, as he was warrantedin doing, the functions of the moralist and the mechanician,and it is idle to compare the usefulness ofeach, or to balance the increase of man's creaturecomforts against the improvement of his moral nature.If Seneca seems to underrate the value of the artist'sor inventor's v/ork, we must remember the asceticbias of his teaching, intended as it was to counteractin himself or others the sensualism and the mammonworship of the age. His tones may seem to us highpitched, his language too intense and highly coloured,but this is one of the literary features of the timesthemselves, when vice and luxury and despotic forcewere all realized in monstrous shapes, and challengedtherefore and excused some seeming extravagance ofrhetoric and style.

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 1 63We have not yet done, however, with Macaulay.There is an amusing passage in which he imagines aStoic and a follower of Bacon as fellow-travellersupon a "journey. They come to a village where thesmall-pox has begun to rage, and find houses shut up,intercourse suspended, the sick abandoned, mothersweeping in terror over their children. The Stoicassures the dismayed population that there is nothingbad inthe small-pox, and that to a wise man disease,deformity, death, the loss of friends are not evils.The Baconian takes out a lancet and begins to vaccinate.They find a body of miners in great dismay.An explosion of noisome vapours has just killed manyof those who were at work; and the survivors areafraid to venture into the cavern. The Stoic assuresthem that such an accident isnothingbut a mereaTTOTrporjyfiiror.The Baconian, who has no such fineword at his command, contents himself with devisinga safety-lamp. They find a shipwrecked merchantwringing his hands on the shore. His vesselwith an inestimable cargo has just gone down,and he is reduced in a moment from opulence tobeggary. The Stoic exhorts him not to seek happinessin things which lie without himself, and repeatsthe whole chapter of Epictetus np6c tovq Tr)v cnropiavc£?otcorac. The Baconian constructs a diving-bell,goes down in it,and returns with the most preciouseffects from the wreck. It would be easy to multiplyillustrations of the difference between the philosophyof thorns and the philosophy of the fruit, philosophyof words and the philosophy of works."M 2

164 STOICISM.It has been remarked with justice that in thispassage the author " only represents the conflict ofman with nature, and it is true that in confrontingnature only two alternatives are possible, action orsilence ; protest is not to be thoughtof. This is notso true when we have to face human injustice ;theredefiance is meritorious. What could the Baconian ofMacaulay have done had he been in the place ofSeneca? What was the operation possible to curethe world of Nero ? Itmay be said, that it was theinsurrection of Vindex ;and that is true, but Vindexdid not and could not act at once. It was needfulfirst that the world should be weary of the master ithad borne with so long. Physical evils are felt andrecognised directly, it is not so with that moralpoison of which nations die ; they must first be madeto feel that they are ill,and that is the first steptowards the cure. That is just what Seneca did,and his so-called declamations certainly contributedto cause that universal impatience which broughtabout deliverance." ^The opulence of Seneca, contrasted with hispraisesof contented poverty, has often moved the spleen ofcritics, as among others of Macaulay. Was it, besides,then becomeill-gotten wealth, the rhetorical phrasesstill more hollow and insincere. But as to its sourcewe have no certain evidence. He came of a familyof ample means ;his talents as an advocate broughthim large professional gains ;but above all the favour•E. Havet, " Le Christianisme et ses Origines," ii. 254.

SENECA AS A MORALIST. 165of the court heaped its bounties lavishly upon him.It was natural enough to sneer and say that he clungto office for the sake of wealth and honour, butthough his position was a false one he may well havebeen unwilling on far higher grounds to let his influencepass into worse hands. If he penned themessage of Nero to the senate with its attack on thememory of the murdered Agrippina, nothing canjustify his conduct. It exposed him to the vilestimputations, which were not probably well-founded,but which could not be disproved. But after that hegains in dignity and moral courage. He stoops tono flattery of Nero's vices ;he is taunted even withuncourtly frankness. He offers to resign all the solidfruits of the Imperial favour, and withdraws from theworld of fashion when the offer is declined. This isthe period in which the letters that we read werewritten, and their language is almost certainly sincere.He feels his wealth a dangerous burden, for thelightning strikes the loftiest spires. It makes him amark for jealous gossip, which he cannot alwaysleave unnoticed. Thus on one occasion he observes"our object should be to live by nature's rule, but itis unnatural to distress the body, to disfigure it bythe neglect of simple graces or by recourse to unwholesomeor repulsive fare. Philosophy requiresnot penal discipline, but moderation. He shows hisgreatness who can use earthenware like silver, nor ishe inferior who can treat his silver plate as if it werebut earthenware. It shows an abject soul not to beable to use wealth aright."

l66STOICISM.CHAPTER XLSENECA AND ST. PAUL, OR THE RELATION OFSTOICISM TO CHRISTIANITY.There are some letters which professedly belong toa correspondence between St. Paul and Seneca, inwhich the latter writes like one who is a Christian atheart, and seems tobe acquainted with the style anddoctrines of the former. They are, indeed, a clumsyforgery, for their literary form and thought, and thereferences which they contain, are such as could notpossibly proceed from either writer. But they pointto a prevalent belief among the Fathers of the LatinChurch that Seneca had felt the influence of St. Paul,and they grew probably out of the attempt to clothein circumstantial shape the wide-spread fancy.Men could not but be struck with the echoes ofChristian thought and feeling, which occur morefrequently in Seneca than in any heathen writer.They remembered that St. Paul lived in the samepart of the century, and was brought before Gallio,the statesman's brother, who was then provincialgovernor at Corinth that he was;lodged at Rome inthe custody of Burrus, the general of the praetoriansoldiers, who shared so long with Seneca the cares ofactual government, and that he stood at last for

SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 167judgment before Nero, or his council, and foundfriends or converts among those of Caesar's household.It seemed natural to suppose that in one or other ofthese waysSeneca's attention was called to theapostle, and that his earnest wish for self-improvementwas rewarded ere he died by a fuller measureof the truth. There is no direct evidence, indeed, ofany contact, except the similarity of thought whichgrows more marked in Seneca's later writings, but thebelief must have been early spread ;and St.Jeromenot merely speaks of him as " our own," a termwhich he might possibly apply to Virgil, or toany other Latin writer, but says that he rankshim in the catalogue of the saints, on the authorityof the well-known correspondence with St.Paul.In the days when Jerome lived, the ascetic spirithad taken strong hold upon the Christian Church ;multitudes were turning from the world which theydespaired of to the calm retirement of the cloister.In Seneca they found a moralist who seemed to thinkas meanly as themselves of the common interests ofthe life of cities ;who tried to wean himself andothers from the " lust of the flesh," and the "lust ofthe eyes," and the " pride of life," by stringent rulesof self-denial, by the exerciseof meditation, and detachmentfrom the busyworld. Here was a fundof sympathy far greater for them than for ourselves,and in their surprise and pleasure at such outwardfeatures of resemblance in the methods of selfdisciplinethey laid probably too little stress on the

1 68 STOICISM.essentials of the moral life, and on the articles of hisreligious creed.They found again in Seneca many of the specialterms adopted in their own spiritual language, andthese in the course of time had become colouredwith the associations of theology, and were full ofthe suggestions of its doctrines. They were naturallytempted to receive them in the sense familiar tothemselves ;to do otherwise required a serious eftbrt ofcritical reserve,though ttie words may have conveyedto earlier readers quite a different shade of meaning.Thus his " Saar Spiritus " sounded to them like the" Holy Spirit" of the Christian Trinity ;^^peccatiim""was the sin of which all men are guilty ; sahcs," the"salvation which should be their aim ; caro " was thebody with all its carnal passions, which can only betransfigured {transfigurari) by a spiritual grace, oneform of which they seemed to find a hint of in his" sacratnentujti"; while his influence on the moral lifewas traced in " caritas" or charitv.Some of the most striking parallels to our religiousthought belong, not to Seneca himself or to thesystem of philosophy which he embraced, but toearlier schools and different thinkers from whom hefreely borrowed.We have already called attention tothis tendency, which was natural enough in that lateage when rigid exclusiveness was out of date andeclecticism had become a ruling fashion. Thus thebeautiful expressions to be found in him about ourHeavenly Father, from whom come allgood andperfect gifts, whom we should try to imitate, that we

SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 169may be perfect like our Father of the ; guardian angelswho watch over us ;of the immortality beyond thegrave, and the decrees of Divine retribution ;of theextension of the guilt of vice from the act to the intention;the picture of the just man calmly confrontingpersecution and forgiving his worst enemies ;—be found in Plato cen-these and many others mayturies before they gained a place, but not always aharmonious setting, in the letters and dialogues ofSeneca. In the school of Pythagoras, which hefollowed in his youth,he may have learnt to examinehimself, as was his later practice, to listen to the voiceof conscience, and to confess the wrong which he haddone. From Epicurus, as we have seen, he borrowedmuch, and among other sentiments that one, " theconsciousness of sin is the first step towards salvation,"^ on which so much stress has been laid as anevidence of Scriptural doctrine. Of manyother ofhis highest thoughts traces could be found in earlierwritingsdetail.if it were worth while to discuss them inYet after all these reserves it must be owned thatthe parallels between the language of Seneca andScripture are often very close and striking. Thesubject is examined fully in a special work by a Frenchwriter ^ ;but the most carefully selected list isgivenby Bishop Lightfoot, in an essay in his treatise on the"Epistle to the Philippians," which has leftnothing' " Initium salutus est notitia peccati " (Ep. 28).^Aubertin," Seneque et St. Paul."

lyoSTOICISM.further to be said upon the question. Itmay beenough, therefore, to transcribe a few of the mostmarked examples to illustrate the close resemblanceof the thought. " The mind, unless it ispure andholy, comprehends not God."i " What will the wiseman do when he is buffeted ? He will do as Catodid when he was smitten on the mouth. He did notburst into a passion, did not avenge himself, did not^even forgive it,but denied itshaving been done."" I will be agreeable to friends, gentle and yielding to"enemies."-^ Give aid even to enemies."* "Do not,like those whose desire is not to make progress butto be seen, do anything to attract notice in your demeanouror mode of life.Avoid a rough exterior andunshorn hair, and a carelessly kept beard and professedhatred of money and a bed laid on the ground, andwhatever else affects ambitious display by a perversepath Let everything within us be unlike, but let our. . .^outward appearance resemble the common people."" If you imitate the gods, confer benefits even onthe unthankful : for the sun rises even on the wicked,and the seas are open to pirates." ^" Good does not grow of evil, any more than a figof an olive tree. The fruits correspond to theseed. "7" Let him break his bread with the hungry."^•Ep. 87;Matt. V. 8.2De Const. Sap. 14; cf. Matt. v. 39.»De Vita Beat. 20.^Ep. 5 ; cf. Matt. vi. 16.*De Otio, 28 ; cf. Matt. v. 44.^De Benef. 4; cf. Luke vi. 35.'Ep. 87 ; cf. Matt. vii. 17.^Ep. 95 cf. Isaiah Iviii. ; 7.

SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 171As regards the form of Seneca's expressions wemay notice how often the metaphors of Scriptureseem to reappear among his writings, as for example,that of the house built upon the rock ;of life regardedas a warfare and a pilgrimage ;of the athlete'scrown of victory ;of hypocrites like whited walls ;ofgirding the loins of the mind ;of spending and beingspent in faithful service.We may find traces even of some of the bestknown of the parables of Christ, as of the sower, andthe rich fool, and the debtor, and the talents out atusurj-.Resemblances so numerous and circumstantialseem to call for some attempt at explanation, such asthe supposed acquaintance of the moralist and theapostle. The silence of history makes this verydoubtful. Gallio and Burrus, as far as we know theircharacters, would attach too little significanceto thelanguage of St. Paul to speak or write about it totheir literary friends; and Seneca may well have failedto hear that some slaves or freemen of the palace wereattracted by a new form of devotion preached by aJewish prisoner from Asia. Yet it isprobable enough,as Bishop Lightfoot has observed, that the figures anddistinctive maxims of the Scriptures, the imageryadopted by our Lord, because already familiar tohis hearers, may have found their way by variouschannels even into the disdainful circles of philosophy.Seneca speaks, indeed, in scornful tones ofthe people of the Book ;he had given up in earlyyears his abstinence from animal food lest he should

172 STOICISM,be thought to share the scruples of some of the despisedraces of the East ; yet the Jews were spreadthrough every land, and quartering themselves in thecentre of the Roman world, had called the notice ofthe curious to their peculiar customs, and wonproselytes in every circle. Tacitus might show hiscontemptuous ignorance of their history in the past,but they clung with a tenacious grasp to their oldbooks, and diffused the utterances of the Law andProphets round them.While this spiritual influence was in the air, theStoics above others were likely to absorb some portionof it for ; though Hellenic in its origin and logic,the moral intensity of the Stoa and its ascetic tonewere Eastern. Its most celebrated teachers were drawnchiefly from the East, from the countries nearest tothe Holy Land, where the Jews of the dispersion mostabounded. All the currents of moral thought weremeeting and mingling at that time, and it is scarcelylikely that the two most distinctive should keep themselvesentirely apart.To this it has been added that Seneca himselfassociated freely with his slaves, and may well haveheard from some of them in hours of familiar intercourseabout the spiritual leaven that was working inthe bosom of the Jewish synagogue, and that wassoon to make the name of Christ the greatest in thecivilized world.And yet we must admit that the resemblances oftone and style do not touch the essentials of themoral system, and fail to bridge over the gulf between

SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 173the Stoic and the Christian creed. The former wasPantheistic still ; its God is diffused throughstages of creation its ; providenceis an inexorablefate ; itsHoly Spirit ebbs and flows like tidal wavesthrough all the multitudinous realms of Nature.The Fatherhood of God is an unmeaning phrase inall thesuch a system. Instead of filial devotion to a personalwill, we have submission to an absolute law; insteadof the humbling sense of sin against a perfect goodness,we have mere errors, and mistakes from ignoranceof natural conditions.Devotional language there may be, indeed, to expressthe fervour of emotion, kindled by the effort topursue in thought the Absolute Being in all its endlesschanges through the immensities of time and space.Large thoughts like these, long brooding in the mind,may make man feel his littleness at times, and fostera sort of humility of moral bearing, but they have nopower to give the tenderer saintlier gracesup the temper of true Christian meekness. And howcould it be otherwise when the same system allowedtliat makesuch boastful phrases as that " God surpasses theor thatgood man in this only that He is longer good,"^" the good man can excel God in the patience withJwhich he bears the trials of his mortal lot." -On the subject of immortality, again, the Stoic speakswith an uncertain sound. At one time he seems to soarwith Plato into clearer air, and to believe in a personalidentity remaining after death, and lasting on for end-'Ep. 73."De Prov. 6.

174 STOICISM.less ages.But how little hold it had on his convictionsis shown by some expressions in his letters to Lucilius:— " I was pleasantly engaged ininquiring aboutthe eternity of souls, or rather, I should say, in trusting.For I was ready to trust myself to the opinionsof great men, who avow rather than prove so veryacceptable a thing.I was surrendering myself to thisgreat hope, I was beginning to be weary of myself, todespise the remaining fragments of a broken life, asthough I were destined to pass away into that illimitabletime, and into the possession of eternity, whenI was suddenly aroused by the receipt of your letter,and this beautiful dream vanished."^ And so we oftenfind him balancing the two alternatives of regardingdeath either as a leap into utter nothingness or asthe birthday of eternity {(zterni natalis) ; and thateven in his "Consolation," where the most reassuringthoughts that he can find are brought to bear uponthe mourning Marcia. And, indeed, however waveringmight be his tone upon the subject, there can belittle doubt that the Stoic system could admit nofaith in personal immortality. The soul's vital forcemight, it is true, outlive a while the shock of bodilydecay, nobler spirits might survive the dissolution ofthe grosser beings round them, yet soon or late theirturn would come to pass into new modes of life,till thewhole cycle of material changes should be complete,and a period of time be closed by the great conflagrationwhich should dissolve all combinations into chaos.However that might be, the Stoic laidEp. I02.no stress on

SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 175any moral sequence between the life on earth and thehereafter; the claims of justice may be met, theythought, by the good and evil of our present lot, theaccount of which is balanced when the last debt ispaid at death.No personal Maker had brought man into being ;there was no one to call him to account for his stewardshipof powers entrusted to his keeping. Instead of,the Lord giveth, the Lord hath taken away" of our*'Burial Service, we read in Seneca, " Fortune hastaken away my friend, but he was her gift."Stoic looked on suicide as hisSo theright when he seemedto risk his dignity by staying longer on the scene.It might be cowardice, indeed, or weak impatience tohurry from the common ills of life, but he trusted hisown judgment— a sadly treacherous guide— to tellhim when he might withdraw in honour from thestage. The literature of the times is full of illustrations of this state of feeling, and among others apassage of his letters may serve to bring it home :—"Tullius Marcellinus, whom you know so well, ayoung man of quiet life, but prematurely aged, wastaken ill with a disease, which, though not incurable,was lingering and troublesome as requiring constantcarej and began to think of death. He called intocouncil many of his friends. Some cautiously gavehim the advice they would have taken in like case ;the flattering and insincere suggested what theythought he would be pleased to hear ;but our Stoicfriend, like a man of bold and resolute nature, to givehim his real due, seems to have offered him the best

Do176 STOICISM.advice. For he began :— as follows 'not vex yourself,my Marcellinus, as though you were making upyour mind on a matter of great moment. Life is nogrand thing. All your slaves, all kinds of animalshave life ;the great thingis to die with honour,prudently and bravely. Think how long you havegone through the old routine of food, and sleep, andanimal desire. Not only the thoughtful and the braveand wretched, but even the faithfulmay wish todie.' "1 The teachingfell on willing ears, till at timessuicide became almost a fashion among the highersocial circles.There was much that was very noble in their moralstandard ;but the impassiveness of their ideal was afatal error which marks at every turn the contrastbetween the Stoic and the Christian ethics. Theparadox that pain and losses are not evils not onlyoutraged common sense but weakened the motiveforce which was most needed for a movement of reform.The Gospel spirit has been called in our owntimes the "enthusiasm of charity." The Stoics, as wehave seen, had laid stress already on the duty ;theirhero, in the words of Lucan, feltthat he was born notfor himself, but for the world at large, and turnedfrom the carnage of the battle-fieldto think what theforce there wasted might have done even by materialefforts in the service of humanity. There might beof self-philanthropy there ; might be even a spiritsacrifice, such as Seneca puts forward ;but enthusiasm'Ep. 77.

SENECA AND ST. PAUL, 177there could not be in a system which discouraged allemotional fervour as the sorry weakness of our lowernature. Our moralist, indeed, himself was tender andwarm-hearted, because his philosophy had failed tospoil the good qualities which nature gave him. Inhis hands the system lost in rigorous logic whatitgained in true humanity. He traces, for example,the portrait of the sage in which, true to the definitionof his school, he treats compassion as unmanly weakness." To feel pain and grief for the misfortunes ofanother, to weep at the sight of suffering, is aweakness unworthy of the sage, for nothing shouldcloud his serenity or shake his firmness. Yet hewill readily do everything to which compassionprompts the souls that yield to it ;he will succourthe shipwrecked, welcome the exiled, and relievethe indigent. He will restore to the distractedmother her lost son, will ransom him from bondage ;like the gods, will let no misery pass unnoticed, butwill help those who need it most. His benevolencewill reach even to those who mainly suffer theirdeserts, but he will not make much ado or be unmannedat the sight of a poor beggar's emaciatedform or dirty rags. Only weak eyes get flushed andpainful at the sight of the iophthalmia of others."We have already seen indeed that there are manypassages in his letters which are quite inconsistentwith such teaching, pointing as they do both byprecept and example to tenderer sympathies and play'Clem. ii. 6.N

178 STOICISM.of natural emotions. He can only have acceptedthese repulsive Stoic maxims by putting a forcedmeaning on the words, and condemning love, pity,and resentment, when they are only passionate moodsand deaf to the voice of reason. No sect, he says,has shown more love to mankind than the Stoic ;andhere, of course, love passes into a higher stage of rationalaction, free from such taint of undisciplined emotion.With Seneca himself it tends to be a mere questionof words, for all the affections that a peremptorydefinition has proscribed are re-admitted under athin disguise as reasonable states. But the theoryitself thus stands condemned as beingeither false tonature, or a truism stated in most unnatural language.Its whole influence must have tended to repressemotion and check the free expression of thesympathies of social life. It appealed to the intellectindeed to undertake the corresponding duties, thoughwithout the assistance of its best ally, but it had littlepower to move the hearts of weak and ignorant menby terms so hard and cold, so little coloured by theloveliness of Christian graces. It spoke with forceto the strong and self-contained, who felt no needof stimulus, and could be a law unto themselves,but it could scarcely fail to foster intellectual prideby raising man to the level of his God, by leavinghim nothing to look up to, nothing to depend on,with no distrust of his own power to defy the loudeststorms of fortune. That pride must have borderedclosely on contempt for weaker natures, who had nosuch confidence in their own clearness of judgment

SENECA AND ST. PAUL. 179or strength of will. Such a ring of scorn we noticedin the tones of the early school when it describedthe helpless folly of the mass of ignorant men, andsomething like it may be still heard in the words ofSeneca when he " says, You have no cause to be angrywith them ; forgive rather, for ^they are all mad."These are surely most unlike the temper of those lastwords of Christ, with which they have sometimesbeen" compared, Father, forgive them, for theynot what they do."^De Benef. v. 17.N 2

l8cSTOICISM.CHAPTER XII.EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE.In quitting Seneca for Epictetus we pass from oneextreme of social standing to another :instead of thenoble Roman, sometime favourite of the world offashion, we enter the cell of a poor slave who hadnothing to attract attention but his homely wisdomand uncompromising steadiness of moral purpose. Ofhis personal history little has been told us. A Phrygianby birth, he was in early life a slave of Epaphroditus,who was himself a freedman high in the goodgraces of the Emperor Nero. We are told that themaster of Epictetus broke his slave's leg in wanton"frolic, at which he only said, I told you, master, youwould break it." But the story is not confirmed byother writers, and it is more likely that he was lameand feeble from his birth. He had little kindness toexpect indeed from one whose character would leadhim to oppress the weak and truckle to the strong.Thus he tells us"in one place, Epaphroditus had ashoemaker whom he sold because he was good fornothing. This fellow by some good luck was boughtby one of Caesar's men, and became Cassar's shoemaker.You should have seen what respect Epaphrodituspaid to him. 'How does the good Felicion do,

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. l8lI pray ? ' Then ifany of us asked, ' What is masterdoing?' the answer was, he isconsulting aboutsomethingwith FeHcion. Had he not sold the manas good for nothing? Who then made him wise all atonce."^There was probably no sympathy for culture,almost certainly no love for the special doctrinesof the Stoa in the confidant of Nero's revels, yethe gave his poor slave a liberal education, and senthim even to the lectures of the famous MusoniusRufus, one of the first teachers of the day. Butthe household of a wealthy Roman included itslibrarians, poets, rhetoricians, and philosophers, whoministered in various ways to the pride and vanity ofthe great men whom they served, and the master ofEpictetus doubtless aimed no higher than the rest ;yet freedom came in time, we know not how, andfame enough to make it needful for him to retirefrom Rome when Domitian put philosophy under aban. He crossed the seas, and made Nicopolis hishome henceforth, living a life of cheerful poverty,withoutparade, and winning many a hearer to listento his homely words and weighty thoughts ; leaving,however, nothing in literary shape behind him morethan the fragments of his conversation, gathered upby the loving care of his friend and pupil, Arrian.Nothing can well be simpler and more unadorned,though the speaker often found a telling phrase orvivid figure to give force and illustration to his'Epict. Diss. i. 19 ; Long's translation.

lS2STOICISM.thought. To the same hand we also owe theEncheiridion," or Manual, in which we have the*'substance of his familiar talk compressed into a fewterse and pregnant pages, which form a sort of wholeduty of man according to the Stoic rule of life, andwhich was afterwards received as the most authoritativeexposition of the tenets of the sect.Perhaps the most striking feature of his characterwhich is thus brought before us is his deep andearnest piety, which finds expression in such passagesas this :— " If we had understanding, ought we to doanything else both jointly and severally than to singhymns and bless the Deity and to tell of His benefits ?Ought we not when we are digging, and ploughing,and eating, to sing this hymn to God ? 'Great is God,who has given us such implements with which weshall cultivate the earth :great is God, who has givenus hands, the power of swallowing, a stomach, imperceptiblegrowth, and the power of breathing whilewe sleep.' This is what we ought to sing on everyoccasion, and to sing the greatest and most divinehymn for giving us the faculty of comprehending thesethings and using a proper way. Well, then, sincemost of you have become blind, oughtbe some man to fillthere not tothis office, and on behalf of allwhat else can I do, ato sing the hymn to God ? Forlame, old man, than sing hymns to God ? If then Iwere a nightingale, I would do the part ofa nightingaleif I were a swan, I would do like a swan. But:now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praiseGod : this is my work, I do it,nor will I desert this

EriCTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 183post SO long as I am allowed to keep it and !exhort you to join in this same song." ^IBut of speculations on the nature of the Divine wehave no trace in Epictetus. He speaks throughoutm persona) language, as of a Being distinct from theUniverse on which he acts, though sometimes headopts the popular terms of a polytheistic creed, butin a sense stripped of all its coarser adjuncts. Thus," As to piety towards the gods you must know thatthis is the chief thing, to have right opinions aboutthem, to think that they exist, and that they administerthe All well and justly; and you must fix yourselfin this principle to obey them, and to yield to them ineverything which happens, and voluntarily to follow itas being accomplished by the wisest intelligence.For ifyou do so, youwill never either blame thegods, nor will you accuse them of neglecting you." ^To the sense of the Fatherhood of God he tracesthe due estimate of human dignity and human duty." If a man should be able to assent to the doctrine ashe ought, that we are allsprung from God in anespecial manner, and that God is the father both ofmen and of gods, I suppose that he would never haveany ignoble or mean thoughts about himself But ifCeesar should adopt you, no one could endure yourarrogance and if; you know that you are the son ofZeus, will you not be elated ? Yet we do not so ;but since these two things are mingled in the generationof man, body in common with the animals, and>Diss. i. 16.=Ench. 31.

184 STOICISM.reason and intelligence in common with the gods,many incline to this kinship which is miserable andmortal ;and some few to that which is divine andhappy. The few have no mean or ignoble thoughtsabout themselves ;but with the many, it is quite contrary.For they say, What am I ? a poor miserableman, with my wretched bit of flesh. AV^retched, indeedbut ; you possess something better than yourbit of flesh.Why then do you neglect that whichisbetter, and why do you attach ^yourself to this?"Again, in another place he urges us to thinkof theduties which follow from this fellowship :—" Zeus hasplaced by every man a guardian, to whom he hascommitted the care of the man, a guardian who neversleeps, is never deceived. For to what better or morecareful guardian could he have entrusted each of us ?When then you have shut the doors and made darknesswithin, remember never to say that you are alone,for )'ou are not ;but God is within, and your daemoniswithin, and what need have they of light to see whatyou are doing ? To this God you ought to swear anoath just as the soldiers do to C^sar. But they whoare hired for pay swear to regard the safety of C^sarbefore all things and; you who have received so manyand such great favours, w^illyou not swear, or whenyou have sworn, will you not abide by your oath ?And what shall you swear ? Never to be disobedient,never to make any charges, never to find fault withanything that He has given, and never unwillinglyto'Diss. i. 3.

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 185do or to suffer anything that is necessary.Is this oathUke the soldier's oath ? The soldiers swear not toprefer any man to Coesar in this oath men swear to;honour themselves before all." ^But he insists even more emphatically on theresignationwhich should spring from the abiding sense ofkinship with the "Deity. Dare to look up to Godand say, Deal with me for the future as thou wilt; I amof the same mind as thou art ;I am thine : I refusenothing that pleases thee : lead me where thou wilt :clothe me in any dress thou choosest is it thy will that:I should hold the office of a magistrate, that I shouldbe in the condition of a private man, stay here oran exile, be poor, be rich ? I will make thy defenceto men in behalf of allthese conditions."— Again: "You see that Caesar appearswith great peace, that there are no longer enemies norbeto furnish usbattles, nor great associations of robbers nor of pirates,but we can travel at every hour, and sail from east towest. But can Csesar give us security from fever, also,from shipwreck, from fire, from earthquake, or fromlightning ? Can he from love, from sorrow, from envy ?He cannot. But the doctrine of philosophers promisesto give us peace even against these things. And whatdoes it say ? Men, if you will attend to me, whereveryou are, whatever you are doing, youwill not feelsorrow nor anger, nor compulsion nor hindrance, butyou will pass your lime without perturbations and freefrom everything. When man has this peace, not pro-'Diss. i. 14.= Ibid. ii. 16.

'l86STOICISM.claimed by Caesar, but by God through reason, is henot content when he is alone ? when he sees andreflects, now no evil can happen to me ;for methere is no robber, no earthquake, everythingisfull of peace, full of tranquillity:every way, every city,every meeting, neighbour, companion,is harmless.One person, whose business it is, supplies me withfood ;another with raiment ;another with perceptionsand preconceptions. And if he does notsupply what is necessary, he gives the signal forretreat, opens the door and says to you, 'Go.'Go whither ? To nothing terrible, but to the placefrom whence you came, to your friends and kinsmen,to the elements."!:— Or, again " God has no need of a spectator who isnot satisfied. He wants those who join in the festival,those who take part in the chorus, that they mayrather applaud, admire, and celebrate with hymns thesolemnity. But those who can bear no trouble, andthe cowardly. He will not unwillingly see absent fromthe great assembly ;for they did not when they werepresent behave as they ought to do at a festival, norfillup their place properly, but they lamented, foundfault with the Deity, fortune, their companions ;notseeing both what they had, and their own powers,which they received for contrary purposes, the powersof magnanimity, of a generous mind, manly spirit, andwhat we are now inquiring about, freedom.For whatpurpose then have I received these things ? To useDiss. iii. i^.

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 187them. How long? So long as He Avho has lentthem chooses."^Such sentiments, he thinks, ought to be strongenough to overrule all the weariness of life which mayincline men's thoughts to suicide." You might cometo me and say, Epictetus, we can no longer endure'being bound to this poor body, and feedingit andgiving it drink and rest and cleaning it,and for thesake of the body complying with the wishes of theseand of those. Are not these things indifferent andnothing to us ;and is not death no evil ? And arewe not in a manner kinsmen of God, and did we notcome from Him ? Allow us to depart from the placefrom whence we came ;allow us to be released atlast from these bonds by which we are bound andweighed down. Here there are robbers and thievesand courts of justice, and those who are namedtyrants, and think they have some power over us bymeans of the body and its possessions. Permit us toshow them that they have no power over any man ' ;'and I on my part would say, Friends, wait for God :when He shall give the signal and release you fromthis service, then go to Him ;but for the present endureto dwell in this place where He has put you :short indeed is this time of your dwelling here, andeasy to bear for those who are so disposed, for whattyrant, or what thief, or what courts of justice, areformidable to those who have thus considered asthings of no value the body and the possessions'Diss. iv. I.

1 88 STOICISM.of the body ? Wait, then ;do not depart without areason." ^The sense of the Fatherhood of God leadshim tothe large thought of human brotherhood, of which hespeaks, like Seneca, in most emphatic language :—"When some one asked, how may a man eat acceptablyto the gods, he answered : If he can eat justly'and contentedly, and with equanimity, and temperatelyand orderly, will it not be also acceptable to thegods ? But when you have asked for warm water andthe slave has not heard, or if he did hear, has broughtonly tepid water, or he is not even found to be in thehouse, then not to be vexed or to burst with passion, isnot this acceptable to the godsman endure such persons as this slave ? Slave your-will you not bear with your own brother, who hasself,? How then shall aZeus for his progenitor, and is like a son from thesame seeds and of the same descent from above?But ifyou have been put in any such higher place,will you immediately make yourself a tyrant ? Willyou not remember who you are, and whom you rule ?that they are kinsmen, that they are brethren by'of Zeus ?' But Inature, that they are the oftspringhave purchased them, and they have not purchased'me.' Do you see in what direction you are looking,that it is towards the earth, towards the pit, that it istowards these wretched laws of dead men ? but towxrdsthe laws of the gods you are not looking." -The same thought leads him also to give a wider'Diss. i. 9.* Ibid. i. 13.

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 189—range to the conceptions of nationality and race: " Ifthe things are true which are said by the philosophersabout the kinship between God and man, what elseremains for man to do than what Socrates did ?Never, in reply to the question to what country youbelong, say that you are an Athenian or Corinthian,but that you are a citizen of the world. . . He who hasobserved with intelligence the administration of theworld, and has learned that the greatest and supremeand the most comprehensive communityis that whichiscomposed of men and God, and that from Godhave descended the seeds, not only to my father andgrandfather, but to all beings which are generated onthe earth, and particularly to rational beings — whyshould not such a man call himself a citizen of theworld, why not a son of God, and whyshould he beafraid of anything which happens among men ?kinship with Caesar enoughIsto enable us to live insafety, and above contempt and without any fear atall ? and to have God for your maker and father andguardian, shall not this release us from sorrows andfears"?!But the strength of this piety of Epictetus appearsnowhere more markedly than in the picture which hedraws of the philosopher as a missionary bound by thestrong sense of a religious duty to spread abroad theknowledge of :— God's will. It was thus Diogenes actedin old days " Did Diogenes love nobody, who wasso kind and so much a lover of all, that for mankind'Diss. i. 9.

190 STOICISM.in general he willinglyundertook so much labour andbodily suflferings.He did love mankind, but how ?As became a minister of God, at the same time caringfor men, and being also subjectto God. For thisreason all the earth was his country, and no particularplace ;and when he was taken prisoner he did notregret Athens nor his associates and friends there, buteven he became familiar with the pirates and tried toimprove them ;and being sold afterwards he lived inCorinth as before at Athens ;and he would havebehaved the same if he had gone to the country ofthe Perrhsebi." 1It is thus also that the true philosopher must act inlater days :—" The true Cynic must know that he issent a messenger from Zeus to men about good andbad things, to show them that they have wandered,and are seeking the substance of good and evil whereit is not, but where it isthey never think, and that heis a spy, as Diogenes was carried off to Philip after thebattle of Chaeronea as a spy. For, in fact, the Cynicis a spy of the things which are good for men andwhich are evil, and it is his duty to examine carefullyand to come and report truly, and not to bestruck with terror, so as to point out as enemiesthose who are not enemies, nor in any other wayto be perturbed by appearances nor confounded."Or, again " The : thing is great, it is mystical, not acommon thing, nor is itgiven to every man. But noteven wisdom perhapsisenoughto enable a man to'Diss. iii. 24.

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 191take care of youths ;a man must have also a certainreadiness and fitness for this purpose, and a certainquality of body, and, above all things, he must haveGod to advise him to occupy this office, as God advisedSocrates to occupy the place of one who confuteserror, Diogenes the office of royalty and reproof, and^the office of teaching precepts."In the assurance of this commission from on highthe missionary Cynic will bear with cheerfulness thehardships of his lot, and they are many :— " Reflectmore carefully, know thyself, consult the divinity,without God attempt nothing, for if He shall adviseyou (to do this or anything) be assured that He intendsyou to become great or to receive many blows.For this very amusing quality is conjoined to a Cynic ;he must, be flogged like an ass, and when he is floggedhe must love those who flog him, as if he were thefather of all and the brother of all. . . . Do youthink that if a man comes to a Cynic and saluteshim, that he is the Cynic's friend, and that the Cynicwill think him worthy of receiving a Cynic into hishouse ? So that, ifyou please, reflect on this also,rather look round for some convenient dunghill onwhich you shall bear your fever, and which will shelteryou from the north wind, that you may not be frozen.But you seem to me to wish to go into some man'shouse and to be v/ell fed there for a time. Why, then,do you think of attempting so great a thing (as thelife of a Cynic?") 2'Diss. iii. 21.^ Ibid. iii. 22.

192 STOICISM.He will hold himself aloof from public life in theform of politics or civil duties which will seem unworthyof his interest. " If you ple.ise, ask me alsoif a Cynic shall engage in the administration of theState. Fool, do you seek a greater form of administrationthan that in which he isengaged ? Do youask if he shall appear among the Athenians and saysomething about the revenues and supplies, he whomust talk with all men, alike with Athenians, alikewith Corinthians, alike with Romans, not about supplies,nor yet about revenues, nor about peace or warbut about happiness and unhappiness, about goodfortune and bad fortune, about slavery and freedom ?When a man has undertaken the administration ofsuch a state, do you ask me also if he shall govern ?again I will say to you. Fool, what greater governmentshall he exercise than that which he exercisesnow?"iHe will have to abstain also from the blessings ofdomestic life, such as other men find natural andinnocent. " Said the young man, ' Shall marriage andthe begetting of children as a chief duty be undertakenby the Cynic ? ''If you grant me a communityof wise men,' Epictetus replies, ' perhapsno man willreadily apply himself to the Cynic practice. For onwhose account should he undertake this manner oflife ? However, if we suppose that he does, nothingwill prevent him from marrying and begetting children,for his wife will be another like himself, and his'Diss. ili. 22.

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 193father-in-law another like himself, and his childrenwill be brought up like himself But in the presentstate of things, which is like that of an army placedin battle order, is it not fit that the Cynic should,without any distraction, be employed only on theministration of God, able to go about among men,not tied down to the common duties of mankind, norentangled in the ordinary relations of life, which ifhe neglects, he will not maintain the character of anhonourable and good man ?and if he observes them,he will lose the character of the messenger and spy*and herald of God.' Yes, but Crates took a wife.'*You are speaking of a circumstance which arose fromlove and of a woman who was another Crates. Butwe are inquiring about ordinary marriages and thosewhich are free from distractions, and making this inquirywe do not find the affair of marriage in thisstate of the world a thing which is especially suited tothe Cynic.'"!Yet these counsels are intended only for the menengaged in missionary work, for others may enjoy thesocial pleasures that they innocently can if they seethat their will is not enfeebled or entangled by them." As on a voyage when the vessel has reached a port,ifyou go out to get water it is an amusement by theway to pick up a shell-fish or some bulb, but yourthoughts ought to be directed to the ship, and youought to be constantly watching if the captain shouldcall, and then you must throw away all those things,•Diss, iii, 22.O

STOICISM.J A rM^rhed into the shipto. you may not be bound and pU^hed^^like sheep ;so in life also .f thae g ^ ^^.^^^instead of a little bulbftom taking=;"d;*^yJ,,, ",/ „ ^^ to thethere will be nothing t° .P'^'^fU). But if the cap- * f^4tt regatd toship, and leave all *°=^ '^^^^j „en go far fromthem. But if you -« f>J^„,ake default.-^the ship,lestwhen 5-°" "^^a ^'.eadyto resigntheI„ anycasewemu^be* ;^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ f„,blessings which Gods «^^^^^ ,^^j „^awhile."Neversay about anyth.g^^^^, ^^but say I have restored r. Is you^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^has been'-'«^^^/;re,tatebeen taken frombeen restored, ^as your^^^^, .But,ou? Has not then thrs been a o^^^L who has takenl^^^oZ^^,,the giver de-,hat is it to you take^^^^'^^^ „,y,„o„ you,rfofUafa^ht-g'which belongs to another, astravellers do with their mn.' - -^^ to ourBut, indeed, *-^.f;'7„t7his moralist. Nohumanweakness m*lPf;=^^,,„„trol more sternlywhere is the rigour of Stoic se ^^^.^.^^stated than by Epic'etus and most^^ ^^^^paradoxes of *-;^°; ^^ Jvil in his sight .vhichThose thmgs alone are goo^^ ^^^^^^Be within our power to do or shun t^ ^^^^ ^^^ .„indifferentincluesmo^^owat^mtheir common Ufe , tne wm c^ 2 Ibid. II.»Encli., 7-

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 195the happiness of any moral agent; desire, regret,complaint, or pity are only forms of misplaced weaknessin regard to all the gifts and accidents offortune." Remember that in lifeyou ought to behave as ata banquet. Suppose that somethingis carried roundand isopposite to you. Stretch out your hand andtake a portion with decency. Suppose that itpassesby you. Do not detain it.Suppose that it is notyet come to you. Do not send your desire forwardto it,but wait till it is opposite to you. Do so withrespect to children, so with respect to a wife, so withrespect to magisterial offices, so with respect tcwealth, and you will be some time a worthy partnerof the banquets of the gods. But ifyou take noneof the things which are set before you, and evendespise them, then you will be not only a fellowbanqueterwith the gods, but also a partner withthem in power. For by acting thus Diogenes andHeracleitus and those like them were deservedlydivine, and were so called."^Another passage consistently extends this absenceof emotion to the losses or apparent misfortunes ofour fellows :—'' When you see a person weeping insorrow either when a child goes abroad or when he isdead, or when the man has lost his property, takecare that the appearance do not hurry you away withit as if he were suffering in external things. Butstraightway make a distinction in your mind, and beEnch., 15.O 2

STOICISM196U k that which has happeneditin readhaessto say, is not t^^^ ^^.^^ ^^^^^^^^that afflicts this ^^-^^> /' thing which afflicts thebut itis the op— bout th.s g^ ^^ ^^^^.^^.^^ ^^tnan. So far as words, then a^^^ ^^_^ .^ ^^^^^^^show h- f^X C' ake care that you do notlament with him. o^^^lament internally also __^^j^^;„ hisThe leading tenets of '\'^° ;^^^„,^^ instinctsuncompromising ^^^langnagedjicAe.^^^^^^^of the heart, and are ialse ^^^^^ .^ ^^^ ^^^^^ „{mony of human nature.throughout therearrogance or "ff-'^^--^^"^ „';„ his words. Iti, a ring of genome conv c^°^^^^^ ^ S,„ecanray move our =?'«" ^^ le surrounded by alldeclaim in praise of pove.ty^^^^^ ^^^.^^^^ ^t.he signs of l-y -J^;^t fine theories about thetimes might well df "

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 197nothing like the hair-shirt, and dirt, and macerationof many a later hermit. "If a Cynic is an object otcompassion, he seems to be a beggar all ; personsturn away from him, all are offended with him : forneither ought he to appear dirty, so that he shall notalso in this respect drive away men ;but his veryroughness ought to be clean and attractive." ^Or, again, " We ought not by the appearance ofthe body to deter the multitude from philosophy;but as in other things a philosopher should showhimself cheerful and tranquil, so also he should inthe things that relate to the body. See, ye men, thatI have nothing, that I want nothing ;see how I amwithout a house, and without a city,and an exile, ifithappens to be so, and without a hearth, I. live morefree from trouble and more happily than all of noblebirth, and than the rich. But look at my poor bodyalso, and observe that it is not injured by my hardway of living. But if a man says this to me whohas the appearance and face of a condemned man,what god shall persuade me to approach philosophy,if it makes men such persons ? Far from it, I wouldnot choose to do so even if I were going to become awise man. I indeed would rather that a young man,who ismaking his first movements towards philosophy,should come to me with his hair carefully trimmedthan with it dirty and rough, for there is seen in hima certain notion of beauty and a desire of that whichisbecoming ;and where he supposesit to be, therealso he strives that it shall be." -'Diss. iii. 22.^ Ibid, iv. II.

198 STOICISM.Yet there is no doubt upon the whole that EpictetusIS a Cynic rather than a Stoic he will allow;nocompromise between the rigour of theory and theclaims of common sense ;he will do nothing tosoften the hard outlines of his airdOeia his ; teachingis an ineffectual protest against the richness andmanysidedness of civilized life. In his own caseits sternness and rigour are disguised by the modestyof his language and the beauty of his devotionalfervour ;but it was powerless to move the masses,for it had no charm to heal the wounds and soothethe sufferings of stricken manhood, while with thestrong and self-contained itmight easily feed a sortof Pharisaic pride which would thank God that itwas not as other men. The following is thedying speech which Epictetus puts into the Cynic'smouth :—"If death surprises me when I am busy aboutthese things, it isenoughmy hands to God and say : Thefor me if I can stretch outmeans which I havereceived from- thee for seeing thy administration ofthe world and followingit I have not neglected: Ihave not dishonoured thee by my acts : see how Ihave used my perceptions have I ever blamed thee ?:have I been discontented with anything that happens,or wished it to be otherwise ? have I wished to transgressthe relations of things ? That thou hast givenme life, I thank thee for what thou hast given: solong as I have used the things which are thine I amcontent ;take them back and place them whereverthou mayest choose ;for thine were all things, thou

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. 199gavest them to me. Is it not enough to depart mthis state of mind, and what Ufe is better and morebecoming than that of a man who is in this state ofmind, and what end is more happy? " ^'Diss. iv. 10.

200 STOICISM.CHAPTER XIIIMARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, OR STOICISMTHRONE.ON THEIt may seem a long step from the cottage to thethrone, from the slave-born Epictetus to MarcusAurelius, the philosophic Emperor of the great Romanworld, but there should be no respect of persons inreligion, and philosophy bythis time had becomereligious in its principles and tones. It had ceasedto care much for abstract theory or dialectic, andaspired almost exclusively to guide the consciences ofearnest men. In no one is this tendency moremarked than in the gentle prince whose character,far more even thanmuster roll of Stoic worthies.A few hnes mayhis lofty station, graced the longbe useful first to bring before ourmemories the course of his career and the conditionsof his age. He was not born in the purple, like asovereign of modern days, nor exposed from the veryfirst to the temptations of the court, but he soon roseto high estate, and passed as an adopted son into thefamily of Antoninus, whose virtuesmade him knownto later history under the name of Pius. No painswere spared to train him worthily for the responsibilitiesof future greatness. Besides the watchful tendernessof his home circle, and the ripe experience of

STOICISM ON THE THRONE.20IAntoninus, he profited by the intercourse and guidanceof the first teachers of the day, whose lessonsfell on willing ears.But he soon passed from lighterstudies and from purely literary themes, to the graverthoughts of an inquiring spirit, anxious to drink deeplyat the sources of all heathen knowledge. The earnestwords which he pennedtowards the close of hiscareer, in the journal meant only for his personal use,may serve to show how strongly he recognised hisobligations to his early mentors, and how varied werethe influences which helped to form his character andenrich his thought." From my mother [I learned]piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only fromevil deeds, but even from evil thoughts and; further,simplicity in my way of living, far removed from thehabits of the rich.^ From Diognetus tohave become intimate with philosophy ;and to havebeen a hearer, first of Bacchius, then of Tandasisand Marcianus ;and to have desired a plank bedand skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs tothe Grecian discipline.- From Rusticus I receivedthe impression that my character required improvementand discipline ;and from him I learnednot to be led astray to sophistic emulation, nor towriting on speculative matters. . . . nor to showingmyself off as a man who practises much discipline, ordoes benevolent acts in order to make a display. . .;and I am indebted to him for being acquaintedwith the discourses of Epictetus, which he com-* " Tlie Thoughts of M. Aurelius Antoninus " ; translated byG. Long, i. 3.'"Thoughts,"i. 6.

202 STOICISM.municated to me out of his own collection.^ FromApollonius I learned .... to see clearly in a livingexample that the same man can be both resolute andyielding, and not peevish in giving his instruction;and to have had before my eyes a man who clearlyconsidered his experience and his skill in expoundingphilosophical principles as the smallest of his merits.^From Sextus, a benevolent disposition, and theexample of a family governed in a fatherly manner,and the idea of living conformably to nature : and•gravity without affectation and to tolerateignorant persons.^ From Fronto I learned to observewhat envy, and duplicity, and hypocrisy are in atyrant, and that generally those amongus who arecalled Patricians are rather deficient in paternalaffection.* From Severus I learned to love mykin, and to love truth, and to love justice, and throughhim I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion,Brutus ;and from him I received the idea of a polityin which there is the same law for all, a polityadministered with regard to equal rights and equalfreedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly governmentwhich respects most of all the freedom of thegoverned ;I learned from him also consistency andundeviating steadiness in my regard for philosophy ;and a disposition to do good, and to give to othersreadily, and to cherish good hopes, and to believethat I am loved by my friends.^ From Maximus I'"Thoughts,"!. 7.3"Thoughts," i. 9.5"Thoughts," i. 14.2""Thoughts,""Thoughts,"i. 8.i. 11.

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 203learned self-government, and not to be led asidr.by anything ;and cheerfulness in all circumstancesas well as in illness, and a just admixture in themoral character of sweetness and dignity, and to dowhat was set before me without complaining. Iobserved that everybody believed that he thoughtas he spoke, and that in all that he did he never hadany bad intention ;and he never showed amazementand surprise, and was never in a hurry, and never putoff doing a thing, nor was perplexed nor dejected,nor did he ever laugh to disguise his vexation,nor, on the other hand, was he ever passionateor suspicious.^ To the godsI am indebted forhaving good grandfathers, good parents, a goodsister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmenand friends, nearly everything good. ... I am thankfulthat I was subjected to a ruler and a father whowas able to take away all pride from me, and tobring me to the knowledge that it is possible for aman to live in a palace without wanting either guardsor embroidered dresses, or torches and statues, andsuch-like show ;but that it is in such a man's powerto bring himself very near to the fashion of a privateperson, without being for this reason either meanerin thought, or more remiss in action, with respect tothe things which must be done for the public interestin a manner that befits a ruler." 2But Marcus Aurelius had little leisure to becomethe studious recluse, to which perhaps his tastesinchned him most. Marked out in early life for the>"Thoughts," i. 15.2"Thoughts,"!. 17.

204 STOICISM.succession to the throne by Antoninus, he was trainedunder his experienced eye to bear the burden of thecares of state. On the emperor's death he shared thethrone awhile with Lucius Verus, but after a few yearsbecame the sole sovereign of the Roman world, withall the onerous responsibilities of absolute power.The task that lay before him was enormous. Theefficiency of every part of the greatmachine ofgovernment depended on his watchfulness and wisdom;from him the rank and the authority of the officialclasses were derived, and to him in every case of doubtthey naturally turned for sanction and for guidance.The boundaries of the Empire stretched to the furthestlimits of the civilized world, and all the lands whichitincluded looked to the Csesar on the throne as theone central source of law and order.Marcus Aureliuswas indeed no brilliant ruler, and had no high ambitionwith far-reaching plans, but he sincerely wishedto make his subjects happy, and spent in their serviceanxious and laborious years. His gentle nature wasbest suited for the quiet days of peace when he couldfind leisure among the cares of civil government forhis philanthropic schemes, could succour the poor andneedy, provide endowments for the orphaned, andsee that every class of suitors had prompt justicedone them. But untoward destiny required him tospend the best years of his life in an inglorious warfarewith enemies unknown to fame. Some passionateimpulse seemed to pass like a fiery cross along theborders, and barbarous hordes came swarming upwith fury to tlie attack, and threatened to burst the

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 20$barriers raised against them. The Parthians had beenhumbled for a time by Trajan, but were soon to showthemselves in arms once more. The Moors of Africawere on the move, and before long were sweepingover Spain with havoc and desolation in their track.The Caledonians of the far West were irritated morethan frightened by the long lines of wall and dykewhich had been built to shut them in, and their untamedfierceness was enough to make the Romantroops retire before the children of the mist. Fromthe mouth of the Dniester to where the Rhine bearsto the sea the waters of all its tributary rivers a multitudeof restless tribes with uncouth names andunknown antecedents, Teutonic, Slave, Finnish, andTartar, were roaming in hostile guise along thenorthern frontiers, and ready to burst in at everyunguarded point. ^ This was not all :earlyin hisreign great floods and famine had spread desolationthrough the centre of the Empire ;later on thesoldiers who came back from the wars in Parthiabrought with them the fatal seeds of plague, andspread them rapidly through all the countries of theWest. The famous Galen was called in to try allthat medical experience and skill could do, but hisefforts failed to check the ravages of pestilence, orbring its victims back to health. The scourge passedon with steady course from land to land, leaving atrack of panic and desolation where it stalked along.To this long list of misfortunes should be added thetreasonous disloyalty which cast a cloud of suspicion'Cf." The Age of the Antonines."

206 STOICISM.and anxiety over the last years of his Ufe. One ofhis best generals, Avidius Cassius, was known to havelong chafed at what he thought the need of a strongerhand to grapple with abuses and misgovernment, andnow, at a false rumour of the emperor's death, herose with his army in the East and proclaimed himselfa sovereign ruler. The movement was short-livedindeed, but the danger had been very real, and therewere ugly suspicions of disloyalty in the Senate andthe official circles, which did not spare even the wifeof the emperor himself There was enough in theconditions of the age to task the energies of the mostresourceful and resolute of rulers, but it seemed astrange irony of fortune which set the sensitive andtender-hearted Antoninus to the roughest work ofpolitics and war. He was perhaps too unsuspiciousand forbearing to cleanse the Augean stables ofcorruption in the public service ;he had too little ofthe soldier's tastes to make himself a name in history,like Trajan, as a great strategist or conqueror.But at least his lessons of philosophy had taught himnot to spare himself when duty called. He was notcontent to leave the distant legions to make headagainst the savage foes ;he would not depute to lessermen the post of danger when the Empire's safetyseemed at stake, but he left the court and Rome, andall the comforts which his quietmeditative natureprized, and faced the worst inclemencies of wintry warfareon the frontiers, where more than half his standingarmy was encamped for years, or was doing battlewith the swarms of multitudinous invaders. While

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 207there engaged in uncongenial duties, amid the clashof arms and the bustle of the camp, he found solaceand distraction in the quiet hours of loneliness, whenhe could muse upon the problems of life, and thehigh themes of duty, and the mysteries that lie beforeand after.We maystill read the meditations written byhim in his journal at such times ; they are simple andunaffected in their style, intended probably to meetno eye but his own, but nowhere else is the morantyof paganism couched in so pure and high and reverenta spirit.The distinctive features of the Stoiccreed have been described already at sufficient length,and among them the less pleasing qualities whichseemed to be the natural outcome of the system,though often toned down and disguised by writerswhose instincts perhaps were better than their logic.It must be of interestof the emperor's aspirationsto us to note how far the idealcould be freed from thedisfigurements of such unlovely tenets of the schoolwhich he professed to follow.The Pantheism of the earher thinkers was expressedat times, as we have seen, with a glow oflyric and devotional fervour which reads like thelanguage of trueprayer,and the following strains ofpiety, enthusiastic as they are, might possibly belongto such a creed :—"Everything harmonizes with mewhich is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothingfor me is too early nor too late, which is in due timefor thee. Everything is fruit to me, which thy seasonsbring, O Nature : from thee are all :things in thee

2o8STOICISM.are all things : to thee all things return. The poetsays, ' Dear city of Cecrops,' and wilt thou notsay, 'Dear city of Zeus? 'i "' The earth loves theshower,' and 'the solemn tether loves;' and theuniverse loves to make whatever is about to be. Isay then to the universe, that I love as thou lovest.And is not this too said that this or that lovesto be produced? "2 The same may be said also ofthe striking passage in which he dwells on the richvariety of natural beauty with a delicacy and refinementwhich Stoicism hitherto had done little toencourage " Even the : things which follow afterthe things which are produced according to naturecontain something pleasing and attractiveFigs, when they are quite ripe, gape open ;and in theripe olives the very circumstance of their being nearto rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit.And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion'seyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouthof wild boars, and many other things .... help toadorn them, and they please the mind ;so that if aman should have a feeling and deeper insight withrespect to the things which are produced in theuniverse, there ishardly one of those which followby way of consequence which will not seem to himto be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure.And so he will see even the real gaping jaws of wildbeasts with no less pleasure than those which paintersand sculptors show by imitation, and in an old womanand an old man he willbe able to see a certain ma-' " Thoughts," iv. 23.2 " Thoughts," x. 21.

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 209turity and comeliness, and the attractive lovelinessof young persons he will be able to look on withchaste eyes ;and many such things will presentthemselves, not pleasing to every man, but to himonly who has become truly familiar with Nature andher works. "^But his child-like trust and reverence find voicemore often in the terms which no Pantheist couldconsistently adopt, as when he says, " To go awayfrom among men, if there are gods, is not a thing tobe afraid of, for the godswill not involve thee inevil ;but if, indeed, they do not exist, or if theyhave no concern about human affairs, what is it to meto live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of providence? But in truth they do exist, and they docare for human things, and they have put all themeans in man's power to enable him not to fallinto real evils." ^"Whydost thou not wait intranquillity for thy end, whether it is extinction orremoval to another state ? And until that timecomes, what is sufficient ? Why, what else than tovenerate the gods and bless them, and to do good tomen, and to practise tolerance and self-restraint ;butas to everything which is beyond the limits of thy poorflesh and breath, to remember that this is neitherthine nor in thy power. "^He has no abstruse theories about the nature ofthe heavenly beings, but his heart and reason tellhim that they are, and that isenough for reverence»"Thoughts," iii. 2. 2"Thoughts,"" Thoughts," V. S3.ii. 11.

2IOSTOICISM.and love."To those who ask,— 'Where hast thou seenthe gods, or how dost thou comprehend that theyexist and so worshippest them ? ' I answer, in the firstplace, that they may be seen even with the eyes ;inthe second place, neither have I seen even my ownsoul, and yet I honour it. Thus then with respectto the gods, from what I constantly experience oftheir power, from this I comprehend that they exist,and I venerate them."iThanks to their inspiration virtuous life is possible"for man. I thank the gods .... that I receivedclear and frequent impressions about living accordingto nature, and what kind of life that is, so that, sofar as depended on the gods, and their gifts,andhelp, and inspirations, nothing hindered me fromforthwith living according to nature, though I stillfall short of itthrough my own fault, and throughnot observing the admonitions of the gods, and, Imay almost ^say, their direct instructions."They bear even with the evil, and bless them withtheir mercies." The gods, who are immortal, are notvexed because during so long a time they must toleratecontinually men such as they are, and so manyof them bad, and besides this, they also take care ofthem in all ways.so soon, art thou wearied of enduring the bad, andBut thou, who art destined to endthis too when thou art one of them ?"^They, or He, forhis language here as elsewhere is\mdecided, welcome the penitent with hopes of pardon.'"Thoughts," xii. 28. ^"Thoughts,"!. 17.3"Thoughts," vii. 70.

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 211"If thou didst ever see a hand cut off, or a foot,or a head, lying anywhere apart from the rest of thebody, such does a man make himself, as far as hecan, who is not content with what happens, andseparates himself from others, or does anythingunsocial. Suppose that thou hast detached thyselffrom the natural unity— for thou wast made by naturea part, but now thou hast cut thyself off— yet herethere is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy poweragain to unite thyself. God has allowed this to noother part, after it has been separated and cutasunder, to come together again. But consider thekindness by which He has distinguished man, for Hehas putit in his power not to be separated at allfrom the universal ;and when he has been separatedHe has allowed him to return and to be united, andto resume his place as a part."^This leads him to what seems a new conception ofthe holiness which man may reach, something distinctfrom the self-conscious pride of heathen virtue,and more akin to saintlier ideals, as resting on a newmotive which ancient moralists had rarely urged." Reverence that which is best in the universe, andthis is that which makes use of all things and directsall things. And in like manner also reverence thatwhich is best in thyself, and this is of the same kindas that. "2Or, more "explicitly, There remains that which ispeculiar to the good man, to be pleased and contentwith what happens, and with the thread which is'"Thoughts," viii. 34.P 2^"Thoutrhts," v. 21.

212 STOICISM.spun for him, and not to defile the divinity which isplanted in his breast, nor disturb itby a crowd ofimages, but to preserve it tranquil, followingit obedientlyas a god, neithersaying anything contrary tothe truth, nor doing anything contrary to justice.And if all men refuse to believe that he lives a simple,modest, and contented life, he is neither angrywith any of them, nor does he deviate from the waywhich leads to the end of life, to which a man oughtto come pure, tranquil, ready to depart, and with-,out any compulsion perfectly reconciled to his lot."iYet he does not count himself " to have apprehended,or to be already perfect.""Thou wilt soondie, and thou art not yet simple, nor free from perturbations,nor without suspicion of being hurt byexternal things, nor kindly disposed towards all;nor dost thou yet place wisdom only in actingjustly. "2 " Simple and modest is the work of philosophy,"he says elsewhere "; draw me not aside toinsolence and "^ pride. This is in a different strainfrom the offensive language of Chrysippus, who isIreported to have said that "the wise man was asnecessary to Zeus as Zeus to the wise man."The very strength of the religious convictions of thisearnest thinker leads him to deny the reality of much"that common sense calls evil. If there was anythingevil, the gods would have providedfor thisalso, that it should be altogether in a man's powernot to fall into it. Now that which does not make a1i6. ^"Thoughts," iii. 37."Thoughts," iv.3 " Thoughts," ix. 29.

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 213man worse, how can it make a man's life worse ?But neither through ignorance, nor having the knowledge,but not the power to guard against or correctthese things, is itpossible that the nature of theuniverse has overlooked them ;nor is itpossiblethat it has made so great a mistake, either throughwant of power or want of skill, that good and evilshould happen indiscriminately to the good and thebad. But death, certainly, and life,honour and dishonour,pain and pleasure, all these things equallyhappen to good men and bad, being things whichmake us neither better nor worse, therefore, theyare neither good nor evil."^ The optimism mayseem indeed unnaturally strained, and to be fatallyin conflict with the experience of our common manhood,but at least we have here no arrogance of paradox,no lofty airs of scorn for the weakness and thesuffering which cannot freely breathe in those serenerheights.He urges emphatically enough that " the kingdomof heaven is within us."" Look within," he says;"within is the fountain of good, and it will everbubble up, if thou wilt dig."- Yet it cometh notwith observation.There should be something almostunconscious and instinctive in true virtue. "Oneman, when he has done a service to another, isreadyto set it down to his account as a favour conferred.Another is not ready to do this, but still in his ownmind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and heknows what he has done. A third, in a manner, does'"Thoughts," ii. 11. ^ " Thoughts," vii. 59.

214 STOICISM.not even know what he has done, but he is like avine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothingmore after it has once produceditsproperfruit. Asa horse when he has run, a dog when he has trackedthe game, a bee when it has made the honey, so aman, when he has done a good act, does not call outfor others to come and see, but he goes on to anotheract, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes inseason.Must a man then be one of these, who, in amanner, act thus without observingit ? Yes— butthis very thing is necessary,a man is doing, for it may be said,otthe observation of whatit is characteristicthe social animal to perceive that he is working ina social manner, and indeed to wish that his socialpartner also should it.perceive. . . If thou wilt chooseto understand the meaning of what is said, do notfear that for this reason thou wilt omit any socialact." 1There was something of braggart ostentationalmost always in the ideal of the Stoic, who seemedto pose himself overmuch before the eyes of men,and to wrap himself obtrusively in the cloak of hisown virtue, while he defied the gusts of angry fortune.Marcus Aurelius at least was free from any suspicionof such boastful pride. The earlier writers of theschool had given a wide range to man's social dutieswhen they made him a citizen of the world at large,bound to promote the interests of others, but theylooked to the intellect alone to prompt his action, andmistrusted all strong feeling as a saving guide. Butwith our moralist benevolence becomes enthusiastic,1"Thoughts,"V. 6.

'^STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 215and a source of keen pleasure to the agent."Justas it is with the members in those bodies which areunited in one, so it is with rational beings which existseparate, for they have been constituted for oneco-operation. And the perception of this will bemore apparent to thee, if thou often sayest to thyselfthat I am a member [^t'Xoe] of the system ofrational beings. But if thou sayest that thou art apart [jue'poe], thou dost not yet love men from thyheart ;beneficence does not yet delight thee forits own sake ;thou still doest itbarely as a thingof propriety, and not yet as doing good to thyself."^He speaks in a new strain of the pleasures of /sympathy :—" When thou wishest to delight thyself,think of the virtues of those who live with thee ;forinstance, the activity of one, and the modesty ofanother, and the liberality of a third, and some othergood quality of a fourth. For nothing delights somuch as the examples of the virtues, when they areexhibited in the morals of those who live with usand present themselves m abundance, as far as ispossible."-He is not afraid even of the sentiment of pity,which sterner natures had regarded as unmanlyweakness :— "The things from the gods merit venerationfor their excellence ;and the things from menshould be dear to us by reason of kinship and;sometimes even, in a manner,they move our pity byreason of men's ignorance of good and bad ;this'"Thoughts," vii. 13."Thoughts," vi. 48.

2 I 6 STOICISM,defect being not less than that which deprives us olthe power of distinguishing things that are white andblack."!Virtue, he thinks, should give herself no airs, norlook too sternly on the vices and the follies of mankindbut wear a cheerful and engaging smile upon her face."A scowling look is altogether unnatural when it is;often assumed, the result is that all comeliness diesaway, and at last is so completely extinguished that itcannot be again lighted upat all.Try to concludefrom this very fact that it is contrary to reason. "^Severer Stoics held in despite of common sensethat there were no venial errors and no degrees ofheinousness in vice. Not so said Antoninus." Theophrastus in —his comparison of bad actssuch a comparison as one would make accordancewith the common notions of mankind— says, like atrue philosopher, that the offences which are committedthrough desire are more blameable than thosewhich are committed through anger. For he who isexcited by anger seems to turn away from reason witha certain pain and unconscious contraction ;but hewho offends through desire, being overpowered bypleasure, seems to be in a manner more intemperateand more womanish in his offences. Rightly then,and in a manner worthy of philosophy, he said thatthe offence which is committed with pleasure is moreblameable than that which is committed with pain ;and, on the whole, the one is more like a person whohas been firstwronged and through pain is compelled'"Thoughts," ii. 13.^ " Thoughts," vii. 24.

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 217to be angry ;but the other is moved by his ownimpulse to do wrong, being carried towards doingsomething by desire." ^How gently he could act the censor's part we read /in passages like these, which show how carefully heshunned all airs of superiority or moral scorn :— " Supposeany man shall despise me. Let him look tothat himself. But I will look to this, that I be notdiscovered doing or saying anything deserving ofcontempt. Shall any man hate me. Let him lookto it. But I will be mild and benevolent towardsevery man, and ready to show even him his mistake,not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of myendurance, but nobly and honestly, like the greatPhocion, unless indeed he only assumed it."^" Consider that a good disposition is invincible,if it be genuine, and not an affected smile and actinga part. For what will the most violent man do tothee, if thou continuest to be of a kind dispositiontowards him, and if as opportunity offers, thou gentlyadmonishest him and calmly correctest his errors atthe very time when he is trying to do thee harm,saying, ' Not so, my child ;we are constituted by naturefor something else. I shall certainly not be injured,but thou art injuring thyself, my child 'and show:him with gentle tact and by general principles thatthis is so, and that even bees do not do as he does,nor any animals which are formed by nature to begregarious ?" And thou must do this neither with any double'"Thoughts," ii. 10. ^ «'Thoughts," xi. 13.

2lSSTOICISM.meaning nor in the way of reproach, but affectionatelyand without any rancour in thy soul ;and not as ifthou wert lecturing him, nor yet that any bystandermay admire. Let this truth be . . . present to theein the excitement of anger, that to be moved bypassion is not manly ;but that mildness and gentleness,as they are more agreeableto human nature, soalso are they more manly ;and he who possessesthese qualities possesses strength, nerves and courage,and not the man who is subject to fits of passion anddiscontent."!He would return good for evil, and disarm malevolencewith loving patience." Suppose that men kill thee, cut thee in pieces,curse thee.What then can these things do to preventthy mind from remaining pure, wise, sober, just?For instance, if a man should stand by a limpid purespring, and curse it,the spring never ceases sendingup potable water ;and if he should cast clay into it orfilth, it will speedily disperse them and wash themout, and will not be at all polluted. How then shaltthou possess a perpetual fountain ?By forming thyselfhourly to freedom conjoined with contentment, simplicityand modesty." ^But there is a tone of plaintive melancholy at timeswhich shows us that the emperor wearied often of thecares of state, and found it no easy thing to deal sogently with the follies of mankind. The very evidenceof the struggle proves that his philosophy was notreserved only for his books :—' " Thoughts,"xi. i8.'^ " Thoughts," viii. 51.

STOICISM ON THE THRONE, 219" Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, andthou wilt depart more contentedly by reflecting thus :I am going away from such a life, in which even myassociates in behalf of whom I have striven so much,prayed and cared, themselves wish me to depart,hoping perchance to get some little advantage by it.Why, then, should a man cling to a longer stay here ?Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindlydisposed to them, but preserving thy own character,and friendly and benevolent and mild, and on theother hand, not as if thou wast torn away ;but aswhen a man dies a quiet death', the poor soul is easilyseparated from the body, such also ought thy departurefrom men tobe."^Though he tries to be one in spirit with his subjects,yet he feels the loneliness of intellectual isolation." Short is the little which remains to thee of life.Live as on a mountain. For it makes no differencewhether a man lives here or there, if he lives everywherein the world as in a state. Let men see,let them know a real man who lives accordingto nature. If they cannot endure him, let themkill him. For that is better than to live thus [asmen do]."3" Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton,and either a name or not even a name ;but name issound and echo. And the things which are muchvalued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling, and[like] little dogs biting one another, and little childrenquarrelling, laughing, and then straightway weeping.'"Thoughts," X. 36.2"Thoughts," X. 15.

220 STOICISM.But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and tiiithare fled"Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth." — (Hesiod.)"What then is there which still detains theehere ? . . . To have good repute amidst such a worldas this is an empty thing. Why, then, dost thou notwait in tranquillity for thy end, whether it is extinctionor removal to another state ? And until that timecomes what is sufficient ?Why, what else than tovenerate the gods and bless them, and to do good tomen, and to practise tolerance and self-restraint;but as to everything which isbeyond the limits of thepoor flesh and breath, to remember that this is neitherthine nor in thy power." iBut if we ask what hopes he entertained of a life beyondthe grave, we shall find that his judgment waverson the subject. On the one hand he seems to be assuredof a personal immortality formen of worth :— "Howcan it be that the gods after having arranged all thingswell and benevolently for mankind, have overlookedthis alone, that some men, and very good men, andmen who, as we may say, have had most communionwith the Divinity, and through pious acts and religiousobservances have been most intimate with the Divinity,when they have once died should never exist again,but should be completely extinguished ? But if thisis so, be assured that if itought to have been otherwise,the gods would have done it. For if it werejust, it would also be possible and if it were;according'"Thoughts," V. 3J.

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 221to nature, nature would have had it so. But becauseit is not so, if in fact it is not so, be thou convincedthat itought not to have been so : for thou seest evenof thyseU' that in this inquiry thou art disputing withthe Deity ;and we should not thus dispute withthe gods, unless they were most excellent and mostjust but if this is ; so, they would not haveallowed anything in the ordering of the universe to beneglected unjustly and irrationally." ^ But anotherpassage leaves a different impression on the mind, andis more consonant with the ordinarytenets of theschool :—" If souls continue to exist, how does the aircontain them from eternity ?But how does the earthcontain the bodies of those who have been buriedfrom time so remote ? For as here the mutation ©fthese bodies after a certain continuance, whatever itmay be, and their dissolution make room for otherdead bodies ;so the souls which are removed into theair after subsisting for some time are transmuted anddiffused, and assume a fiery nature by being receivedinto the seminal intelligence of the universe, and inthis way make room for the fresh souls which come todwell there. And this is the answer which a manmight give on the hypothesis of souls continuing toexist. "2But though there was this uncertainty about thefuture, there was none as to the duties of the presentlife, and no moody doubts had — power to cloud hispeaceful serenity of temper: "As to the animalswhich have no reason and generally all things and'"Thoughts," xii. 5.*"Thoughts,"iv. 21.

222 STOICISM.objects, do thou, since thou hast reason and they havenone, make use of them with a generous and hberalspirit.But towards human beings, as they havereason, behave in a social spirit.And on all occasionscall on the gods, and do not perplex thyself about thelength of time in which thou shalt do this ;for eventhree hours so spent are sufficient." ^ " Takecare that thou are not made into a Caesar, that thouart not dyed with this dye ;for such things happen.Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, freefrom affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper ofthe gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in all properacts. Strive to continue such as philosophy wishedto make thee. Reverence the gods and help men.Short is life. There is only one fruit of this terrenelife, a pious disposition and social acts. Do everythingas a discipleconstancy in everyof Antoninus. Remember hisact which was conformable toreason, and his evenness in all things, and his pietyand the serenity of his countenance, and his sweetness,and his disregard of . . .empty fame, and howhe bore with those who blamed him unjustly, withoutblaming them in return ;how he did nothing in ahurry; and how he listened not to calumnies; andhow exact an examiner of manners and actions hewas ;and not given to reproach people, nor timid,nor suspicious, nor a sophist ;. . . and how he toleratedfreedom of speech in those who opposed hisopinions ;and the pleasure which he had when anyman shovi^ed him anything better ;and how religious'"Thoughts," vi. 23.

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 223he was without superstition. Imitate all this, thatthou mayest have as good a conscience, when thylast hour comes, as he had."iTruly the man who could cultivate such graces wasnot far from the kingdom of heaven, and was in sympathymuch nearer to the Christian ideal than to thepride of Stoic apathy. But they cannot be regardedas the natural outcome of the system of philosophywhich he professed. There is no logical connectionbetween the practical maxims and the central dogmas.The currents of Platonic thought seem largely blendedwith the special doctrines of the Porch, for moralityhad now become many-sided and eclectic, but, aboveall, the various elements were fused and coloured bythe warmth of his own delicate and noble nature whichtransfigured the coldness and the poverty of the Stoiccreed.Later ages have not ceased to marvel how anemperor so humane, who approached so nearly to theChristian graces as did Antoninus, could have sanctionedany persecution of the Christian Church. Thefact itself cannot be reasonably questioned, in spiteof the well-meant efforts to discredit it.Tertullian,it is true, a few years later speaks of him as a mercifulprotector, as not, indeed, annulling the existing lawsagainst the Christians, but as weakening their forceby measures which repressed the persecuting zeal ofthe informers. ^Pious fancy, too, has fondly dwelt upon the story'"Thoughts," vi. 30.2 Tertullian, "Apologia," 5.

2 24 STOICISM.of the Christian soldiers whose prayers brought rainfrom heaven in the dire strait of his campaignagainst the Quadi, and on the edict in which thegrateful emperor proclaimed the entire freedom ofthe Church. But the document is hopelessly at variancewith undoubted facts, and even with the passageof Tertullian just referred to, though the language ofboth attests that the Christians of the next generationthought that the emperor had borne them no ill-will,whatever might have been the sentiment and actionof officials far away. Church history tells us of themartyrs on whom the sentence was pronounced byhis vice-regents, or whose cases were carried even byappeal before the bar of Csesar. The Christians arespoken of as obstinate fanatics in his " Meditations" ;the obstinate profession of their faith was still treatedas a crime, though the civilpower made no attemptto hunt them down. A fact so strange may naturallyseem to call for comment. Rome had, indeed,its national religion as by law established, and theemperorswere defenders of the faith. But itspolytheism was many-sided and elastic, and found aniche in its Pantheon for every new form of Easternworship. The Stoic system, on its side, had alwaystreated the popular religion with forbearance and withlittle of the caustic tones of earlier free-thought.There was no tradition of intolerance, therefore,borrowed from the temple or the philosophic school,and the character of the ruler on the throne seemedwholly alien to such a temper. He was not the manto look with jealousy at a religious creed whose moral

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 2 25system was so near his own, though the foundations onwhich it stood were so unlike. Nor is there much evidenceof " the narrow mahgnance of his fellow-Stoics,"by which he isthought to have been probably incited. ^It is true that the name of Rusticus, his early teacher,does appear as that of the magistrate who tried andsentenced Justin, but the action of the judge wasmainly formal, and there is little trace of personalrancour, though his tone may sound contemptuous indealing with professions which he could not understand.^Justin himself had donned the mantle of the sage,and passed throughall the schools in turn as a seekerafter wisdom, but though he spoke of the earlierphilosophers as taught by the inspiration of the Word,he may well have stirred the jealousy of those whosepartial knowledge he refuted, and who, like the Cynichave hounded onCrescens whom we read of, maythe populace against him. There is, indeed, a strangecoincidence of language which may point to someknowledge on the emperor's part of the " SecondApology " of Justin. He speaks of the soul whichshould be ready at any moment to be parted from thebody, " not from mere obstinacy, aswith the Christians,but considerately and with dignity and in a wayto persuade another, without tragic show (urpaywciwe)"-It has been thought that this contains a reference tothe wish expressed by Justin that some one would'^Sir A. Grant, "Oxford Essays," 1858, p. 119.Ruinart," Acta Martynim Selecta."Q

226 STOICISM.cry aloud with tragic voice {rpayiK^ rj) ^wr/j) anddenounce the iniquity of heathen judges.^It is, perhaps, a still more startling fancy whichascribes the emperor's course of action in this matterto the influence of Jewish prejudice and rancour.The Talmud speaks of intercourse between one ofthe Antonines and the greatest rabbi of the age,Jehuda-ha-Nasi, and illustrates in many ways themarked respect which the Roman ruler showed tothe great teacher of the Synagogue. A learnedtreatise has been written to prove that the Antoninusof the Talmud could be no other than the MarcusAurelius with whom we are concerned.^ Josephuscertainly had noted the general similarity betweenthe moral systems of the Pharisees and Stoics, bothof which tried to reconcile the doctrine of divinepredestination with the fact of man's free-will. Theargument itself is full of interest, but the links arefar too weak to bear the strain of any inferences fromthem, and it would be unjust alike to the saintlyJehuda and the dispassionate Antoninus to supposethat any personal influence was in this way broughtto bear against the Christians. The Jews of Smyrnamight be busy in the popular excitement which wasfatal to the life of Polycarp; Justin's death mightpossibly be due to bitter feelings stirred by controversywith the Stoics and the Jews but we have no ;right to'"Second Apol." c. xii. ; cf. Prof. Plumptre, " Contemp.Review," 1869, p. 83.^ Dr. Arnold Bodek, " Marcus Aurelius als Freund undZeitgenosse des Rabbi Jehuda-ha-Nasi, 1S6S."

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 227impute unworthy motives on such poor evidence asthis, or to ascribe to noble spirits the petty malignityof meaner natures. But the legal aspect of the questionhad been ruled by Trajan long ago when Plinyasked for guidance as a judge ;his answer put theChurch under the ban, and his successors acted onthe precedent so set, though like him they had nowish to encourage informers to hunt down theirvictims. The Imperial government looked withjealous eyes at all the corporate unions which mightprove the centres of conspiracy against the State;unless founded with its sanction they were treated assecret societies beyond the pale of law, and, strangeas it may seem to us, the Christian Church was oftenregarded with suspicion as a dangerous and antisocialmovement. Its dogmas roused no opposition,for they were little known to statesmen or to princes ;itshigh ideal was hidden from the wise and prudent,and revealed only unto babes ;but its little brotherhoodswere springing into life in every land, andspreading their influence men knew not how orwhere. Whatever the secret of its force, the potentleaven was working from below, while the network ofits hierarchy seemed to envelope every class. Theyprofessed, indeed, obedience to the ruling powers, buttheir loyalty was not beyond suspicion. They had nolove for the soldier's life, and shrunk from all officialpledges and all the observances of public life onwhich the stamp of the state idolatry was set ; theywere heard to speak of a higher rule than that ofCaesar, and of the blasphemy of the divine honoursQ 2

2 28 STOICISM.paid to man ; they seemed at times to push theircourage to defiance in the hot wish to win the martyr'scrown. They were thought to be churlish andmorose, for they could not take a part in the merrymakingsof their neighbours, associated as these werewith the symbols and practices of a false religion.For themselves they had no image in their homesor chapels, and they were therefore branded asatheists by ignorant dislike. Wild stories spreadof all the horrors of their secret meetings how; theyjoined in sensual revelry, and shed the blood ofmurdered innocents, till the outraged gods markedtheir displeasure by some scourge of pestilence orflood or fire.The thunderclouds of popular frenzyhere and there in fierceburst outexplosions when the peoplesrose against the Christians in wild tumult, and hurriedthem with vengeful cries before the governor orjudge. There was little to be proved, indeed, againstthem but the membership in an illegal sect and theseeming bigotry with which they clung to their profession.The magistrates did not always credit thewild charges brought against them, nightmare shapesas they were of vulgar fancy, but still the Christiansociety, with its organized unity and widespreadmembers, with its notorious dislike to the institutionsof the age and its prophecies of speedy change, naturallyseemed to worldly eyes like a permanent menaceto the established order. When the barbarians wereon the move, and every man was needed to defendthe frontiers, the vital forces of society were weak-

STOICISM ON THE THRONE. 229ened by the austere sectaries who stood aloof fromthe service of tlie State, and seemed to reserve theirloyalty and zeal for the spread of a mystic brotherhoodwhose homage was not paid to an earthlyCcesar, and whose New Jerusalem eclipsed the majestyof Rome. Apologists, indeed, might find it easy todisprove the calumnies of ignorant malice, mighteven in the boldness of their innocence appeal to theequity of the emperor himself, but the cares of governmenttasked all his powers, and even the wise andgentle Antonines probably accepted the currentprejudices of the ruling classes, and neglected to lookdeeper into the real doctrines of the Church withwhich they had so much unconscious sympathy ofspirit. To these causes may be apparently ascribedthe startling paradox of persecution raging in the ageand with the sanction of the most tolerant and largeheartedCaesars of the Roman Empire.

230 STOICISM.CHAPTER XIV.THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER IN RELATION TOOTHER ASPECTS OF THOUGHT.The foregoing pages have been occupied almostexclusively with the moral aspect of the Stoic system,in which all its real force and originality was centered.It only remains to gather up in a concluding chaptersome remarks on its relations to other departmentsof social thought and progress. It confronted theChristian Church, as we have seen, as a rival influence,appealing chiefly to the pride and self-control ofresolute natures, though turning at last to preach,as Lactantius observes, even to women and toslaves,^ but with no balm for stricken consciences,or gospel of consolation for the weak. TheChurch, therefore, borrowed nothing from it atthe first, except perhaps a technical phrase or twoand illustrations, which point either to the commonplacesof the schools or to an attitude of consciousbe ascribed theopposition. To the first class maypsychological division of man's nature into body,soul, and spirit, which appears in slightly differentforms in Marcus Aurelius and St. Paul ; or, again, the'Lactantius, " Instit. Div.," iii. 23.

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 23 1quotation from Cleanthes or Aratus in the famousspeech delivered on Mars Hill at Athens.^ To the latterbelong the possible references in St. Paul's Epistles tothe ideal of the sage and the citizen of the world atlarge, which Bishop Lightfoot has suggested, andwhich may be best given in his words. The Stoicsage " alone is free, he alone ishappy ;he alone isbeautiful.He, and he alone, possesses absolute wealth.He is the true king and the true priest. Now, maywe not say that this image has suggested many expressionsto the Apostle of the Gentiles ? 'Evennow ye are full,'^he exclaims in impassioned irony tothe Corinthians ;'even now are ye rich, even now areye made kings without us ;we are fools for Christ,but ye are wise in Christ ;we are weak, but ye arestrong ; ye are glorious, but we are dishonoured.'^''All things are yours,' he says elsewhere, all thingsare yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' '^So, too, he describes himself and the other Apostles,'as being grieved, yet always rejoicing; as beggars,yet making many rich ; as having nothing, and yetpossessing all things.'^'In everything at every timehaving every self - sufficiency ... in everythingenriched.'*^ 'I have learnt,' he says again, 'in whatsoever circumstances I am, to be self-sufficing.I haveall strength in Him that giveth me power. I haveall things to the full and to overflowing.''''''Ek (70V yap yivoQ iofikv (Acts xvii. 28).' I Cor. iv. 8.^* 2 Cor. vi. 10.*Ibid. iv. lO.Ibid. ix. 8, 11.* Ibid. iii. 22.^Phil. iv. il, 13, 18.

232 STOICISM." This universal dominion ... ispromised alike bythe Stoic philosopher to the wise man and by theChristian Apostle to the believer. But the one mustattain itby self-isolation, the other by incorporation.It is ep TM fvlvvaiiovvTL (inHim that giveth power) thatthe faithful becomes all-sufiicient. All things are his ;but they are only his, in so far as he is Christ's, andbecause Christ is God's. Here, and here only, theApostle found the realization of the proud ideal whichthe chief philosophers of his native Tarsus hadsketched in such bold outline and painted in thesebrilliant colours."The same writer also points to the passages whichseem to bear the traces of the Stoic images of thegreat commonwealth of which all men are members."Our citizenship is in heaven."^ "God raised uswith Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenlyplaces in Christ "Jesus."^ Therefore ye are no morestrangers and sojourners, but fellow-citizens with thesaints and members of God's household."^ "Fulfilyour duties as citizens worthily of the Gospel of"Christ."* We being many are one body in Christ,"and members one of another."^ For as the bodyis one and hath many members, and all the membersof the body being many are one body, so also isChrist ;for we all are baptized in one Spirit into onebody, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free."^" There is neither Jew nor Greek ;there is neither''Phil. iii. 20.Ephes.ii. 6.' Ibid. ii. 19.* Phil. i. 27.*Rom. xii. 5.* i Cor. xii. 12.

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 233bond nor free ;there is no male and female ; for yeall are one in Christ Jesus."'With reference to this cosmopolitan :— ideal it hasbeen well said by another writer " The city of God,of which the Stoics doubtfully and feebly spoke, wasnow set up before the eyes of men. It was no unsubstantialcity such as we fancy in the clouds, noinvisible pattern such as Plato thought might be laidup in heaven, but a visible corporation whose membersmet together to eat bread and drink wine, andinto which they were initiated by bodily immersion inwater. Here the Gentile met the Jew whom he hadbeen accustomed to regard as an enemy of the humanrace ;the Roman met the lying Greek sophist, theSyrian slave, the gladiator born beside the Danube.In brotherhood they met, the natural birth andkindred of each forgotten, the baptism alone rememberedin which they had been born again to God andto each other." ^In the next age some of the most cultivated of /the Christian converts passed into the Church throughthe portals of philosophy, and like Justin, stillput onthe Stoic mantle, holdingbecome flesh and dwelt awhile on earth, had been thethat the Word which hadsource of spiritual light in earlier ages, and thatSocrates and other earnest seekers after truth hadbeen in some sense unconscious Christians as in communionwith the Eternal Word. It was thus that'Gal. iii. 28.'"Ecce Homo," p. 136; cf. Lightfoot, St. Paul's Ep. toPhilippians.

234 STOICISM.Clemens of Alexandria maintained that God had madethree covenants with men, in heathen philosophy, andJewish law, and Christian Gospel. When the gloomand vigour of asceticism brooded over Christiansociety at the break-up of the old Roman world, itwas remembered that no system had insisted like theStoic on the vanity of earthly pleasures, and the soul'spower to rise above the entanglements of sense tothe fruition of the absolute and the divine. Menread the doctrine of original corruption in Seneca'scomplaints of universal folly,and tempered the prideof Stoic self-restraint with the yearnings of penitenceand self-abasement.There was much to attract and little to offend inthe Manual of Epictetus and the thoughts of Antoninus;men forgot the essential difference that laybelow the outward features of resemblance, whileapocryphal documents and letters gave a substantialshape to the floating fancies that Seneca must haveSt. Paul, and that Marcus Aureliusknown and lovedmust have publicly professed his reverent regard forthe Christian Faith.But Stoicism as a system had by thistime passedaway;its definite outlines had been long sincesoftened or effaced, and various forms of mysticism,claiming to be sprung from the Platonic thought,were the only powers that kept the field as rivals tothe Christian Church.To science and to abstract thought the contributions of the Stoics were of little value. They mappedout, indeed, the world of knowledge into the three de-

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 235partments of ethic, logic, and physic, and though theycentered their interest and energy upon the first, theywere far from neglecting the two others. It is true thatAriston of Chios, Zenon'spupil, compared logic to aspider's web, which is as useless as it is curious ;andlikened those who studied it to people eating lobsters,who took much trouble for the sake of a little morselsheltered in its fence of shell. Natural science heregardedas an ambitious effort to transcend thelimits of our human powers, and likely therefore tobear little fruit. Yet others of the school were notdeterred from much intellectual activity in thesedirections, though if we looked only to the value of theresults which they obtained, we might feel inclinedto sympathize with the pessimism of Ariston. Logicthey regarded in the light of the egg's shell, or thewall of a city or a garden, because itmight help toguard the truth from rude assaults, but they couldadd nothing of solid use to the analysis of the formalprocesses of thought which Aristotle had alreadymade, and could only multiply fine-drawn distinctionsand subtleties of grammatical nomenclature.In dealing with the fundamental question of thestandard or criterion of truth, they formulated a sortof philosophy of common sense, which may remind usof some later systems, such as those of Locke or Reid.Sensation is the only source of all our knowledge ;the soul is a blank leaf, sensation is the hand whichcovers it with writing. From the memoryof ourperceptions we pass onward to experience and generalnotions (7rpo\i)\peit:, KoivalEyyoLai), OUt of which

236 STOICISM.knowledge is built up ;but the difference betweensensation and knowledgeis one only of degree, dependingon the strength of our conviction. ForZenon compared sensation to the outstretchedfingers, assent to the closing hand, conviction to thefist,and knowledge to one fistgrasped firmly by theother. Some of our perceptions carry with them anirresistible conviction of the truth ; they not onlyrepresent external facts, but they make us grasp themas it were in immediate apprehension, and warrantour belief in their reality {KaTaXrjwTiKfj (puvTaaia), andso enable us to negative the scepticism which despairsof truth (a.KaTaXr]\pia). The simplicity andbareness of these logical positions were disguised bythe dialectical acuteness of Chrysippus, who didmost to spreadthe use of the barren subtleties andthorny quibbles which Seneca so harshly criticisesin his fellow Stoics, though he condescends at timesto show his expertness in such weapons of debate.In connection with the theory of knowledge givenabove, they held that the only realities were bodilyobjects ;virtues and vices, thoughts, emotions, dayand night and seasons, were material beings, formatter only can be acted on or act.They went beyond this to reproduce, though notconsciously perhaps, the views of the much earlierthinker Heraclitus, in regarding a fiery ether as theprimary element which passes by successive changesinto the four elements which are known to sense ;while it is one with the universal reason, and withthe soul of man, which is his dsemoa Like him

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 237they spoke of destiny as the law of the wholeuniverse, and of alternate phases of creation and ofconflagration in the eternal flux of natural causes.There is little distinctly original in these cosmicalassumptions, though with all their crudeness of materialismthey rounded off their pantheistic system ina manner which deeply impressed the imaginationof the world, and stoutly maintained the doctrineof free-will, although they seemed to sacrifice itto their theories of natural necessity and divine predestination.Nor had the Stoics much to add to what was knownalready or believed in any of the special branchesof physical inquiry. We read of treatises, indeed, byPosidonius and others on such questions, but theircontents, as far as they are known to us, seem basedon Aristotle's Physics. There is a work of Seneca'swhich deals with questions of natural philosophy, butthe treatment is rhetorical and careless, disfigured bycredulity in the supposed facts which it records, asby onesidedness and prejudice in its conclusions.But still there is a feature which may impress us aswe read his writings on such subjects, and which isstrikingly contrasted ^vith the temper of the Greeksfrom whom he mainly drew, and that is the enthusiasmwith which he dwells upon the intellectualwealth which had been already won, combined withthe large hopefulness of future progress. To Aristotleit had seemed that arts, discoveries, and knowledgewere all found and lost in turn as the cycle of theuniverse came round, but Seneca speaks in quite

238 STOICISM.another strain in passages like these which we maycomets, so rare aquote :— " Why do we wonder thatphenomenon, have not yet had their laws assigned ?That we should know so little of their beginning andtheir end, when their recurrence is at wide intervals ?It isnot yet fifteen hundred years since Greece reckonedthe stars and gave them names.There are stillmany nations which are acquainted with the heavensby sight only, which do not yet know why the moondisappears, why she is eclipsed. It is but lately thatamong us philosophy has reduced these matters to acertainty. The day shall come when the course oftime and the labour of a maturer age shall bring tolight what is yet concealed. One generation, even ifit devoted itself to the skies, is not enough for researchesso extensive. How then can it be so, whenwe divide this scanty allowance of years into noequal shares between our studies and our vices ?These things then must be explained by a long successionof inquiries. We have but just begun toknow how arise the morning and evening appearances,the stations, the progressions, and the retrogradationsof the fixed stars which put themselves inour way, which appearing perpetually in another andanother place compel us to be curious. Some onewill hereafter demonstrate in what region the cometswander, why they move so far asunder from the rest,of what size and nature they are. Let us be contentwith what we have discovered, let posterity contributeits share to truth, "i'"Quest. Nat." vii. 25.

VTHE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 239And again :—" Let us not wonder that what liesso deep is brought out so slowly. How manyanimals have become known for the first time in thisage And the members of future ! generations shallknow many of which we are ignorant. Many thingsare reserved for ages to come, when our memoryshall have passed away.The world would be a smallthing, indeed, if it did not contain matter of inquiryfor all the world. Eleusis reserves something for thesecond visit of the worshipper. So, too, Nature doesnot at once disclose all her mysteries. We thinkourselves initiated : we are but in the vestibule. Thearcana are not thrown open without distinction andwithout reserve. This age will see some things, thatwhich comes after us others."^With these prophecies of future progress we maynaturally connect the visions, one day to be realized,of new worlds to be discovered beyond the boundsof ocean, far remoter even from the Roman kenthan Western Thule, such as Seneca's drama of"Medea" brings before us with singular vividness andforce :—" Venient annis secula serisQnibus oceanus vincula rerumLaxet, et ingens pateat tellus,Tethysque novos deteget orbes,Nee sit terns ultima Thule."To legal studies the contributions of the Stoicswere far more important,but they consisted more in' " Quest. Nat." vii. 30, 31 ; cf. Whewell, '* Phil, of InductiveSciences," ii. 139.

240 STOICISM.the informing spirit, than in any definite conceptionswhich were borrowed. The schools of Greece hadlong ago insisted on a law of nature, distinct fromthe conventional usages of different lands and ages.The Stoics took up the phrase almost as a commonplace,but laid a special emphasis upon it,and madeit the key-note of their moral system, as a guide totheory and rule for practice in all the departments ofman's action. The great jurists of the Empire werefamiliar with the training of the schools, and theysaw in the law of nature an ideal of simplicity anduniversal truth for the legal student and reformer.Some rudiments of this they found already in theprinciples which lay beneath the prsetor's edicts, intendedfor the aliens to whom the strict Romanusages of family rights and property could not apply,and for whose benefit the magistrates had fallen backon general maxims, common, as it was thought, to asupposed Law of Nations {jus genimm),but needinghis sanction to be binding as a set of positiveenactments. The rules handed on from one praetorto another, expanded and systematized as time wenton, came into existence solely to supply the shortcomingsof the civil law, in dealing with the casesto which that could not be with strict proprietyapplied. They were drawn from the supposed lawof nations, as an element common to all humancodes ; they were thought to be based upon a law ofnature rather than the accidents of race, and age,and country; they became a sort of equity, correctiveof the earlier inelastic forms.The precedent so

'THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 241set was followed steadily by the great lawyers, whogave coherent and articulate expressionto the imperialcodes ;from the prevalent system of philosophythey drew, perhaps unconsciously, strongphrases about natural justice, and endeavoured bydefinition and analogy, and methods of interpretation, to infuse an animating spirit into the dry formalismsof the past, and to bring the statute law intomore and more of harmony with their ideal. Theydid not carry this so far, indeed, as might have beenexpected, and the contrasts are often very markedbetween the abstract principles as stated in preamblesof the Digest, and the practical details whichregulate the different sides of social action. Buttheywere not theorists alone, but men of action forced totake account of the temper of the age and the forcesof resistance : not philosophers dealing with imaginarybeings, but statesmen hampered by historicdata, and the prejudices of the masses and the partialenlightenment of men in power. They had,therefore, to tolerate much that was inconsistent withtheir cardinal maxims of human equality and universalbrotherhood and the commonwealth of nations." Gaius, Ulpian, Papinian, and Paulus," it has been" said, appear very timid by the side of Seneca andEpictetus."! But the influence of the Stoic theorymight still be very real, though we must allow forthe constant force of friction. Christianity foundmuch to do in breathing a larger and humaner spiritDenis, " Idees Morales dans I'Antiquite ;"ap. Sir A. Grant,p. 121. R

242 STOICISM.into the various relations of society as defined bycivil law, but it was no slight help to it in its reformingwork that principles so true and so wide-reachinghad been uttered with authority already in theRoman codes, and held up thereby to the reverenceof later ages.Among the severe comments of an eminent divinealready cited, we may read that Stoicism died out,having produced during its short lifetime onlyvery transient and partial effects and that; rigorousand unflinching as was the system in its principlesand heroic in its proportions, the direct results were"marvellously little. It was a staff of professors withoutclasses. It produced, or at least attracted, a fewisolated great men, but on the life of the masses andon the policy of states it was almost wholly powerless."'A modern jurist,on the other hand, affirms that withthe single exception of Christianity no form of beliefevertookpossession of so great a number of Europeans,or held it so long ;and that it moulded human institutionsand affected human destiny to a greaterextent than allthe other philosophical systems eitherof the ancient or the modern world. ^ The latterseems thetruer estimate, though as the point of viewis different it may be possible to accept them bothwith some reserves. Stoicism had a religious philosophyindeed, but was not an organized religion, andwas too severely abstract to touch the heart and the'Bishop Lightfoot, "App. to St. Paul's Ep. to the Philipp."' " Lorimer, Institutes of Law," p. ii6.

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 243imagination of the people. Its direct influence onthe lower classes probably was very slight, thoughthe C>Tiic missionaries spread some knowledge ofits principles in coarser forms. It was othenvisewith the higher and the middle classes, but even hereit is not easy to give definite proofs or apply materialtests. In dealing with societies that have outwardsymbols of communion we may be able to count thenumbers and appraise some positive results, but howare we to measure the influence of aspiritual leavenworking in the midst of a complex social system,A^ith countless forces of attraction and repulsion allaround it. The literature, whether grave or gay, ofthe early Roman Empire abundantly attestsitspopularityand wide diffusion. Under the Antonines itreigned supreme as a rule of life among the highercircles. It stamped itself ineffaceably upon the languageof the civil law; it gave a tone to earnestthought on moral questions ; it set an example ofresolute self-control which became one at least ofthe moving forces of the age, and provided in thehomely talk of Epictetus a manual in constant usein serious households. What more itmight havedone we cannot say, for the Christian Church wasready by that time to take upits work from the farhigher vantage-ground of an organized society, witha personal ideal and a new spirit of enthusiasticservice. The new-comer had already all that wagof vital efficacy in the Stoic creed, together with freshelements to which heathen philosophy could not ofitself attain. But Stoicism still lived on, though weR 2

244 STOICISM.cannot always trace its influence, or distinguish theseveral currents in their course. It lost its essentialfeatures, we are told, meantime, while itpassed awayin the dissolving view of mystic fancy. Itmay beso, but with its rigorous logic it dropped much ofits pride, its hardness, and its airs of paradox and;the moral temper which survived passed into newforms, while the old system crumbled to decay.The influence of this Stoic temper may be tracedin the Jewish Philo and the School of Alexandria,deepening their scorn of sensual indulgence, whileperhaps it encouraged the pride of intellectual isolation,but providing at any rate a solid resting-pointof moral propaganda amongallthe reveries of transcendentalspeculation ;and though the later philosophiesof the old heathen world called themselvescommonly by other names, yet they gathered up whatwas true and vital in the lessons and examples of theStoic system. In later times it is hard,if not impossible,to trace with certainty the interminglingcurrents which flowed from the schools and fromthe Church, but we may note that in the " Consolation" of Boethius, while there is no sure evidenceof Christian thought, the Stoic elements are presentunmistakeably. The writer, in the words of Gibbon,was '• the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tullywould have acknowledged for their fellow-countryman."^The work itself was read, perhaps, morelargely in succeeding centuriesthan any other legacy'Gibbon, chap. xxix.

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 245of pagan thought, and was the starting-point of awhole literature in which the same thoughts wererepeated with countless varieties of form. The doctrinesof the Porch contributed in this way probablyto the ascetic and chivalrous ideals which formed ofthemselves so large a part of the thought and actionof the Middle Ages, and if we cannot always tracetheir presence in the sentiments of modern Europe,the reason may be that spiritual, like gaseous, forcesintermingle freely as by natural law. At the Renaissance,indeed, when enthusiastic scholars turnedback anew to the old classic models and revived thespirit of the bygone past, each of the old systems ofphilosophy lived once more awhile in the devotionof a few adherents, and the Stoic system, amongothers, found itschampions and exponents, such asJustus Lipsius, who carried his sympathy so far,as not only in his commentaries upon Tacitus tobreak out into rapturous admiration when the lasthours of Thrasea are recorded, but even in hisprivate letters to sanction the eiiXoyog et,ay(oyr] ofthe school, or the voluntary exit from the worldin face of hopelessly untoward conditions.^ Butsuch unlovely elements of the old pagan alloywere purged away, while the noble spirit lived onin other shapes, and took service in the ChristianChurch.Some measure of that temper may be surely foundin the Calvinism of the Reformation, with its austere" •J. Lipsii, Epist.Cent." ii. 26.

246 STOICISMmorality and the unbending rigourof its abstractprinciples, and high theories of divine foreknowledgecoupled with the practical insistence on the facts ofman's freewill. The first essay with which its author,Calvin, began his literary labours, was a commentaryon Seneca's treatise upon " Clemency;" and Geneva,the scene of his life's work, has been called by Michelet" the spiritual city built up of Stoicism upon the rockof predestination."The same temper reappeared again in pagan dressat the close of the last century in France, whererevolutionary spirits, turning impatiently from whatthey thought the lower ideals of Catholicism, soughtfor a rule of life in heathen ethics, and nursed theirfancy with the pictures of the stern old republicansof Cato's type, or martyrs of conscience and of libertylike Thrasea Pastus. It was but a soriy parody,indeed, performed with most unlovely strut and declamation,in which the actors hardly entered intothe spirit of the system which they copied, butthought chiefly of the accidents and outward forms.To some of them, like Rousseau, the nature thatthey hankered after was a fond fiction of the fancy,a supposed ideal of man's innocence when wantswere few and instincts healthy, and the luxuries ofcivilized refinement all unknown.It was in a far other sense that a moralist of ourown country, Bishop Butler, reverted to the old Stoicrule of following nature ;like the doctors of thePorch he held that man should be a law unto himself,and that, as in a well-ordered state, the well-

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 247being of every part depends on the harmony andbalance of the whole.But two corrections seemed required to reconcile/the ancient standard to the claims of common sense,and both were therefore urged by Bishop Butler.The first was to eschew the paradox of apathy, whichtreated the emotions like hostile powers to be repressed,rather than natural impulses to be guidedand controlled. The next was to invert the argumentof the Stoic optimists, who urged that as God's providentialgovernment must needs be perfect, andman's happiness must depend on the virtue whichlies within his power,it follows that virtue alone isa real good, while pain, privation, and disgrace,though seeming evils, are not real. But the Christiandivine maintained, that as the present life is oftennot a perfect whole which satisfies our sense ofjustice, it leads our faith onward to a life beyond thegrave, where the seeming inequalities of our lot maybe redressed, and a sublimer justice done to all mankind.Yet even with these cautions and reserves,the rule, so modernized, has not been safe from criticalattack. Of such we may content ourselves with twoexamples, quite different as they are in source andmeaning. The first expresses in satiric style theperplexity of common sense, that would have a simplerule to guide it,and knows not how to deal withgeneral theories and vague abstractions. Thus weread in the " Rasselas " of Dr. Johnson the philosopher's:— sonorous maxims '"The way to be happyis to live according to nature, in obedience to that

248 STOICISM.universal and unalterable law with which every heartis originally impressed He that lives according. . .to nature will suffer nothing from the delusions ofhope, or importunities of desire he will receive and;reject with equability of temper and act or suffer as;the reason of things shall alternately prescribe. Othermen may amuse themselves with subtle definitions orintricate ratiocinations. Let them learn to be wiseby easier means ;let them observe the hind of theforest, and the linnet of the grove ;let them considerthe life of animals whose motions are regulated byinstinct; they obey their guide and be happy.' ....When he had spoken, he looked round him witha placid air and enjoyed the consciousness of hisown beneficence. Sir,' said the prince, with great'modesty, * as I, like all the rest of mankind, amdesirous of felicity, my closest attention has beendiscourse : I doubt not the truthfixed upon yourof a position which a man so learned has so confidentlyadvanced. Let me only know what it isto live according to nature.' 'When I find youngmen so humble and so docile,' said the philosopher,'I can deny them no information which my studieshave enabled me to afford. To live according tonature is to act always with due regard to the fitnessarising from the relations and qualities of causes andeffects ;to concur with the great and unchangeablescheme of universal felicity to ; co-operate with thegeneral disposition and tendency of the present systemof things.'"The prince soon found that this was one of the

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 249sages whom he should understand less as he heardhim longer. He therefore bowed and was silent ;andthe philosopher, supposing him satisfied and the restvanquished, rose up and departed with the air of aman that had co-operated with the present system." ^The criticism needs, perhaps, no serious answer, asitmight be urged with little variation of detail againstall attempts at scientific treatment, where abstractionstake the place of concrete rules.The second comes from quite another quarter—from Sir Alexander Grant, the Aristotelian scholar, whocomplains that the analysis has not been carried farenough to give the rule a definite and scientific value.The objection may be stated best in his own language:—" Into the difficulties of the question Butlerhas not entered. For instance, while he is perfectlysuccessful in establishing against the Hobbists thereality of the moral element in man's nature, he doesnot tell us whether or not he would agree with theStoics in ultimately giving the entire supremacy to aman's reason and conscience, so as to supplant theother instincts, or at what point he would stop. . .Is the life of the saints and martyrs to be called a lifeaccording to nature ? If not, is it better or worse ?and if better, is not man to aim at the better ? Thereisone mode of representation which describes life as aprogress, a conflict, a good fight another which;makesit the following of nature. On the one hand, there isthe spirit of aspiration and effort, the tendency to'Chap. 22.

250 STOICISM.asceticism, the victory of the will ;on the other hand,there are the genial, kindly, human feelings ;thereis the wise passivity of mind ;there is the breadth ofsympathy which counterbalances an over-concentratedintensity of aim. To make the formula, " Live accordingto nature," of any value we require to havethese conflicting tendencies harmonized with eachother." 1To this train of reasoning a recent writer has givenwhat he thinks to be not only the Socratic, but theChristian answer, and with this we may be content,perhaps, to leave the subject." 'The spirit of aspirationand effort ' is not opposed to ' the genial,'the breadth ofkindly, human feelings,' nor tosympathy ' 'of which he speaks. The progress, theconflict, the 'good fight is an effort not by an externalpower to drive Nature from her course, or evento control her activity, but by Nature herself,as revealedto us internally and externally, to vindicateher supremacy over the denaturalizing influences,over the rebellious subjects within her own realm,which oppose her free development and harmoniousaction. When the conflict is peculiarly hard, whenthe external principle of disorder has succeeded inranging the animal and sensual against the rationaland spiritualpropensities, and when Nature herself,as a whole, is in danger of being degraded from ahuman nature into something worse than a brutenature, she calls— and in the case of saints andmartyrs calls not in vain — for aid from above.' " Oxford Essays," p. 90.

THE STOIC CREED AND TEMPER. 25 1"But it is for aid; not for her destruction, but for herpreservation and support ; it is that she may becomenot less herself, but more herself, in this her hour oftrial— and that, in her triumph, she may save, not thehigher principles alone from degradation, but very'often, also, the lower propensities, the law in themembers,' from self-destruction by excess of presentgratification.''The whole effort of the will, when directed to therealization of the higher life, is an effort not againstNature, but in favour of Nature, in every sense thatcan be attached to that word, except the single, andeven if true, surely very narrow sense of it, in whichit is taken to mean the tendency to the unbridled indulgenceof one or more of our irrational appetites.''Man,' says Kant, isunholy enough, but thehumanity inhabiting his person (his proper person)^must be holy."'Professor Lorimer's " Instimtes of Law," p. 158.

( 253 )INDEX.Agrippina, 136Antipater, 72Antisthenes, 14Antoninus, M. Aurelius, 87,108, 200, 229Pius, 113, 200Apollonius of Colchis, 1 13of Tyana, 90Areopagus, 33Ariston, 144, 235Aristotle, 29, 235, 237Arius, 89Arria, 99, 103, 122Arrian, 181Athenodorus, 71, 89Attains, 133Augustus, 89Avidius Cassius, 87, 205Aulus Gellius, 109, 125Barea Soranus, 91Boethius, 244Brutus, 76Burrus, 136, 166, 1 71Butler, Bishop, 246Caligula, 134Cameades, 69Cassius, 76Cato, senior, 65junior, 53, 71, 73, 159Chrysippus, 29, 35, 212, 236Cicero, 71Claudius, 134Cleanthes, 29, 33, 41Clemens Alexandrinus, 233Cornutus, 96, 107Crates, 28, 32Demetrius the Cynic, 97, 103,120, 150Phalereus, 23Poliorcetes, 23Demonax, 126Demosthenes, 22Diderot, 135Diogenes Laertius, 34of Sinope, 14, 19, 69, 189Dion Cassius, 89, 104, 130, 135Chrysostom, ni, 144Domitian, 92, 181

254 STOICISM.Egnatius Celer, 91Epaphroditus, 180Epictetus, 125, 163, 180-199Epicurus, 30, 45, 68, 148Euclides, 109Fannia, 122Favorinus, iioFriars, The Begging, 20Fronto, 81, 202Galen, 205Gallio, 166, 171Garat, 160Gibbon, 244Gracchi, The, 70Grant, Sir Alex., 247Guyon, Madame, 94Helvia, 13sHelvidius Priscus, 91, 103, 104Heraclitus, 39, 236Hermotimus, 82Herodes Atticus, 125Horace, 78Jehuda-ha-Nasi, 226Jerome, St., 167Johnson, Dr., 247Junius Rusticus, 105, 108, 201,225Justin, 225, 233Juvenal, 22Kant, 251Lactantius, 230Lightfoot, Bishop, 1 69, 231Lipsius Justus, 135, 245Locke, 235Lucan, 140Lucian, 19, 81, I13, 126Lucilius, 146Lucretius, 71Macaulay, 118, 128, 161, 163Menander, 27Messalina, 121, 134Michelet, 246Mommsen, 75Mucianus, 91, 104Musonius Rufus, 99, II9, 123,181Nero, 90, 136New Academy, The, 64, 68Origen, 63PANiETius, 70, 72Pantheism, 39Papirius Fabianus, 133Paul, St., 166-179Paulina, 154Persius, 79, 94, 107Philo, 244Phocion, 22Plato, 18, 29Pliny, 105Plutarch, 23, 71, 106Polybius, 135Polycarp, 226Polygnotus, 30Poppsea, 102Posidonius, 72, 145Pythagoras, 131

INDEX. 255QuiETiSTS, The, 93Quintilian, 130, 150Reid, 235Rousseau, 246Rubellius Plautus, 140Rusticus, Junius, 105, 108, 201,225SCIPIO, 66, 70Seneca, 90, 136-179, 238Sextius, Q., 130junior, 131Socrates, 5-13, 31Sophists, The, 7Sotion, 131Stilbon, 152Suetonius, 104Tacitus, 88, 105, in, 122,130, 136, 140, 172Taurus, 109Tertullian, 223Theophrastus, 30Thrasea Paetus, 91, 99-104Tigellinus, 91, 139Trajan, 227Trimalchio, 112TuUius, Marcellinus, 175Varro, 78Vespasian, 91, 97Vindex, 164Zenon, 28, 30, 32, 34, 127THE END.WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON.

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