Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

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