Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

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.