the stoic philosophy

8/13/2019 the stoic philosophy

1/72

CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURE:crLT):-D:~D.LT)-cor^ia

THE STOICHILOSOPHY

DELIVERED AT SOUTH PLACE INSTITUTE ONMARCH 16, 1915

BYProfessor GILBERT MURRAY

,

WATTS CO.,SOX S COURT, FLEKT STREET, E.U.523 RGK ALLEN LNWIN, LTD.,\ HOUSE, MUSEUM STREET, W.C.


2/72


3/72


4/72


5/72

THE STOICPHILOSOPHY


6/72

UNIFORM WITH THIS LECTURE.Each in boards, 6d. net (by post y^d.) ;

in cloth, gd. net (by post ud.).

THE TASK OF RATIONALISM. By JOHN RUSSELL, M.A.PEACE AND WAR IN THE BALANCE.

By HENRY W. NEVINSON.ART AND THE COMMONWEAL. By WILLIAM ARCHER.WAR AND THE ESSENTIAL REALITIES.

By NORMAN ANGELL.THE LIFE PILGRIMAGE OF MONCURE DANIELCONWAY. By J. M. ROBERTSON, M. P.


7/72


8/72


9/72

CHAIRMAN S INTRODUCTORYADDRESS

IN the far-off, almost fabulous, Golden Agebefore the War, I once attended a lecture byour speaker of to-night, Professor GilbertMurray. It was a most entertaining andinstructive lecture ; but what I chieflylearned on that occasion was a lesson Ihope never to forget as to the duties of aChairman. Nothing would tempt me toreveal who the Chairman was : I will onlysay that I don t think he has ever figured, orever will figure, on this platform. His speechwas a conspicuous and masterly example ofhow not to do it. He began by confessingthat he knew nothing of Professor Murray ssubject, but went on to explain that he hadread it up for the occasion in an Encyclopaedia ; and thereupon he retailed at great

5


10/72

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESSlength, and in a most lugubrious fashion,the information he had gleaned from thatwork of reference. There happened to betwo or three anecdotes, manifestly the plumsof the subject ; and the Chairman must needsput in his thumb and pull out those plums,and spoil them for the lecturer by servingthem up with consummate insipidity. WhatProfessor Murray must have suffered inhaving his subject thus broken on the wheel,I shudder even now to think. His conductwas certainly a noble example of Stoicism.Had I been in his place, I should infalliblyhave risen up and slain that Chairman, andclaimed from a jury of my countrymen averdict of quot; Served him right quot;The lesson of that occasion was burnt into

my soul ; so Professor Murray need not fearthat I am going to pour out to you the storesof my erudition on the subject of the Stoics.No doubt, half an hour with the EncyclopaediaBritannica would have supplied me with somecapital anecdotes of Zeno, and Epictetus, and


11/72

^INTRODUCTORY ADDKESS

Marcus Aurelius ; but I have sternly avertedmy face from temptation. The ideal Chairman, as I conceive him, ought to emulate asnearly as possible the ideal child, who isquot; seen but not heard. quot; If I fall away fromthat ideal, it is only to express my belief thatthere is no man in England whom MoncureConway, were he alive, would more warmlywelcome to this platform than our speakerof to-night. His presence here is a proofthat that large-minded humanism for whichConway stood and strove is making extraordinary progress even in our apparentlyslow-moving England. For Professor Murray,as you all know, is not a biologist, not aphysicist, not a chemist. He has not pursuedany of those studies of cause and effect whichwere supposed, in the Victorian era, to leadto perilous enlightenment and did, in fact,lead to enlightenment, whether perilous ornot. He is not even a mathematician,hardened in the audacious heresy that twoand two make four. No, his life-work has


12/72

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESSlain among those literae humaniores whichhave so often been associated, in the past,with violent Toryism in politics and denseobscurantism in thought. He does notcome to us from godless London University, nor even from Cambridge with itsmildly Whiggish proclivities. He is a son,and a very loyal son, of Oxford ; but he hasknown how to absorb the best of her cultureif I may use a somewhat discredited wordwithout drinking in either her prejudices orher snobbishnesses or her cowardices. I suppose we may take Matthew Arnold as a typeof Oxford enlightenment in the last generation, and I am far from undervaluing his workor his influence ; but imagine Matthew Arnoldcoming down to address us here to-night Or think of Pater Think of the vague andvaporous aesthetic paganism which was allthat Pater could extract from the spiritualsustenance offered him by Oxford ProfessorMurray, as we know, occupies one of thegreatest positions in English scholarship ;


13/72

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESSbut while he is eminently a scholar amongscholars, he is pre-eminently a man amongmen. His imagination and insight, workingupon a solid basis of knowledge, give him anextraordinary power as no doubt he willshow you to-night of re-vivifying Greekthought and experience, and making it humanand real to us. Ancient Greece is not, to him,a picturesque phenomenon to be contemplatedunder a glass case, but an absorbing chapterin the story of humanity, full of vital meanings for the present and for the future. Whathas specially attracted him to Euripides, we

, may be sure, is, in the last analysis, neitherhTs lyric splendour nor his dramatic subtlety,but his daring rationalism and his passionateresentment of the stupidities and crueltieswhich are summed up in the phrase quot; man sinhumanity to man. quot; These cruelties, thesestupidities, are always with us, more or less,and are, as we know to our cost, liable tofrightful recrudescences. No one is moreresolute in combating them than Professor


14/72

io INTRODUCTORV ADDRESSMurray. He is one of our foremost champions of reason and humanity. I am surethat Moncure Conway would warmly haveappreciated the consistency, the sincerity, andthe courage of his intellectual attitude, andwould especially have welcomed it as a product of modern Oxford.

For Professor Murray does not stand alone.He is one of a group of scholars, his contemporaries and his juniors, who are convertingOxford from a home of lost causes into aGreat Headquarters for causes yet to be won.Is it not a most encouraging sign of the timesthat that admirable series, the Home University Library, should be edited by two NewCollege dons, Professor Murray and Mr.Herbert Fisher, now Vice-Chancellor ofSheffield University? What would MoncureConway have said if anyone had predictedthat, within seven years of his death, such abook as Professor Bury s History of Freedomof Thought would be written by the RegiusProfessor of History at Cambridge, and


15/72

INTRODUCTOR Y ADDRESS 1 1published under the editorship of the RegiusProfessor of Greek at Oxford? I think hewould have said, quot; No, no ; the world doesnot move so quickly as that quot; But it doesmove ; it has moved ; and I am optimistenough to hope that the present outburst ofcolossal unreason, alleged to be under thepatronage of God, may in the end promotethe cause of reason, or at any rate may notinvolve any intellectual set-back. With thathope in view, let us not cease to fight thegood fight of spiritual illumination.

I now call upon Professor Murray.


16/72


17/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYI FEEL a peculiar pleasure in being askedto give this address in commemoration ofMoncure D. Conway. I knew Mr. Conwaybut slightly. But when I was a boy andstruggling with religious difficulties hisbooks were among those which brought meboth comfort and liberation. And all thosewho in our generation are stirred either bytheir doubts or their convictions to a consciousness of duties not yet stamped by theapproval of their community, may wellrecognize him as one of their guidingbeacons. His character is written large inthe history of his life. Few men of ourtime have been put so clearly to the testand so unhesitatingly sacrificed their worldly

13


18/72

14 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYinterests to their consciences. This strainof heroic quality, which lay beneath Mr.Conway s unpretentious kindliness and easyhumour, makes, I think, the subject of myaddress this evening not inappropriate tohis memory.

I wish in this lecture to give in roughoutline some account of the greatest systemof organized thought which the mind of manhad built up for itself in the Graeco-Romanworld before the coming of Christianity withits inspired book and its authoritative revelation. Stoicism may be called either aphilosophy or a religion. It was a religionin its exalted passion ; it was a philosophyinasmuch as it made no pretence to magicalpowers or supernatural knowledge. I donot suggest that it is a perfect system, withno errors of fact and no inconsistencies oftheory. It is certainly not that ; and I do


19/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 15not know of any system that is. But Ibelieve that it represents a way of looking atthe world and the practical problems of lifewhich possesses still a permanent interestfor the human race, and a permanent powerof inspiration. I shall approach it, therefore,rather as a psychologist than as a philosopheror historian. I shall not attempt to trace thegrowth or variation of Stoic doctrine underits various professors, nor yet to scrutinizethe logical validity of its arguments. I shallmerely try as best I can to make intelligibleits great central principles and the almostirresistible appeal which they made to so manyof the best minds of antiquity.From this point of view I will begin by a

very rough general suggestion viz., thatthe religions known to history fall into twobroad classes, religions which are suited fortimes of good government and religionswhich are suited for times of bad government ;


20/72

16 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYreligions for prosperity or for adversity,religions which accept the world or whichdefy the world, which place their hopes inthe betterment of human life on this earth orwhich look away from it as from a vale oftears. By quot;the world quot; in this connectionI mean the ordinary concrete world, the well-known companion of the flesh and the Devil ;not the universe. For some of the religionswhich think most meanly of the world theyknow have a profound admiration for all, ornearly all, those parts of the universe wherethey have not been.Now, to be really successful in the struggle

for existence, a religion must suit both setsof circumstances. A religion which fails inadversity, which deserts you just when theworld deserts you, would be a very pooraffair ; on the other hand, it is almost equallyfatal for a religion to collapse as soon as it issuccessful. Stoicism, like Christianity, was


21/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYprimarily a religion for the oppressed, areligion of defence and defiance ; but, likeChristianity, it had the requisite power ofadaptation. Consistently or inconsistently,it opened its wings to embrace the needs bothof success and of failure. To illustrate whatI mean- contrast for a moment the life ofan active, practical, philanthropic, modernBishop with that of an anchorite like St.Simeon Stylites, living in idleness and filthon the top of a large column ; or, again,contrast the Bishop s ideals with those of theauthor of the Apocalypse, abandoning himselfto visions of a gorgeous reversal of the orderof this evil world and the bloody revengesof the blessed. All three are devout Christians ; but the Bishop is working with theworld of men, seeking its welfare and helping its practical needs ; the other two arerejecting or cursing it. In somewhat thesame way we shall find that our two chiefc


22/72

i8 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYpreachers of Stoicism are, the one a lameand penniless slave to whom worldly successis as nothing, the other an Emperor of Rome,keenly interested in good administration.The founder of the Stoic school, Zeno,

came from Cilicia to Athens about the year320 B.C. His place of birth is, perhaps, significant. He was a Semite, and came from theEast. The Semite was apt in his religion tobe fierier and more uncompromizing than theGreek. The time of his coming is certainlysignificant. It was a time when landmarkshad collapsed, and human life was left, as itseemed, without a guide. The average manin Greece of the fifth century B.C. had twomain guides and sanctions for his conduct oflife : the welfare of his City and the laws andtraditions of his ancestors. First the City,and next the traditional religion ; and in thefourth century both of these had fallen. Letus see how.


23/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 19Devotion to the City or Community

produced a religion of public service. TheCity represented a high ideal, and it represented supreme power. By 320 B.C. thesupreme power had been overthrown.Athens, and all independent Greek cities,had fallen before the overwhelming force ofthe great military monarchies of Alexanderand his generals. The high ideal at thesame time was seen to be narrow. Thecommunity to which a man should devotehimself, if he should devote himself at all,must surely be something larger than oneof these walled cities set upon their separatehills. Thus the City, as a guide of life, hadproved wanting. Now when the Jews losttheir Holy City they had still, or believedthat they had still, a guide left. quot;Zion istaken from us, quot; says the Book of Esdras ;quot;

nothing is left save the Holy One and HisLaw. quot; But Greece had no such Law. The


24/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYGreek religious tradition had long sincebeen riddled with criticism. It would notbear thinking out, and the Greeks liked tothink things out. The traditional religionfell not because the people were degenerate.Quite the contrary ; it fell, as it has sometimes fallen elsewhere, because the people wereprogressive. The people had advanced, andthe traditional religion had not kept pace withthem. And we may add another consideration. If the Gods of tradition had provedthemselves capable of protecting theirworshippers, doubtless their many moral andintellectual deficiencies might have beenoverlooked. But they had not. They hadproved no match for Alexander and theMacedonian phalanx.Thus the work that lay before the genera

tion of 320 B.C. was twofold. They had torebuild a new public spirit, devoted not tothe City, but to something greater ; and they


25/72

\xTHE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 21

had to rebuild a religion or philosophy whichshould be a safe guide in the threateningchaos. We will see how Zeno girded himself to this task.Two questions lay before him how to liveand what_to believe. His real interest was

in the first, but it could not be answeredwithout first facing the second. For if we donot in the least know what is true or untrue,real or unreal, we cannot form any reliablerules about conduct or anything else. And,as it happened, the Sceptical school of philosophy, largely helped by Plato, had latelybeen active in denying the possibility ofhuman knowledge and throwing doubt on thevery existence of reality. Their argumentswere extraordinarily good, and many of themhave not been answered yet ; they affect boththe credibility of the senses and the supposedlaws of reasoning. The Sceptics showed howthe senses are notoriously fallible and con-


26/72

22 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYtradictory, and how the laws of reasoninglead by equally correct processes to oppositeconclusions. Many modern philosophers,from Kant to Dr. Schiller and Mr. BertrandRussell, have followed respectfully in theirfootsteps. But Zeno had no patience with thissort of thing. He wanted to get to business.Also he was a born fighter. His dealings

with opponents who argued against himalways remind me of a story told of theDuke of Wellington when his word wasdoubted by a subaltern. The Duke, whenhe was very old and incredibly distinguished,was telling how once, at mess in the Peninsula, his servant had opened a bottle of port,and inside found a rat. quot;It must have beena very large bottle, quot; remarked the subaltern.The Duke fixed him with his eye. quot; It wasa damned small bottle. quot; quot;Oh, quot; said thesubaltern, abashed ; quot; then no doubt it wasa very small rat. quot; quot; It was a damned large


27/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 23rat, quot; said the Duke. And there the matterhas rested ever since.Zeno began by asserting the existence ot

the real world. quot; What do you mean byreal ?

quot; asked the Sceptic. quot; I mean solid andmaterial. I mean that this table is solidmatter. quot; quot; And God, quot; said the Sceptic, quot; andthe soul? Are they solid matter? quot; quot; Perfectly solid, quot; says Zeno ; quot;more solid, if anything, than the table. quot; quot;And virtue or justiceor the Rule of Three; also solid matter? quot;quot; Of course, quot; said Zeno ; quot; quite solid. quot; Thisis what may be called quot;high doctrine, quot; andZeno s successors eventually explained thattheir master did not really mean that justicewas solid matter, but that it was a sort ofquot; tension, quot;or mutual relation, among materialobjects. This amendment saves the wholesituation. But it is well to remember theuncompromising materialism from which theStoic system started.


28/72

24 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY

Now we can get a step further. If theworld is real, how do we know about it ?By the evidence of our senses ; for the sense-impression (here Stoics and Epicureans bothfollowed the fifth-century physicists) is simplythe imprint of the real thing upon our mind-stuff. As such it must be true. In the fewexceptional cases where we say that quot;oursenses deceive us quot; we speak incorrectly.The sense-impression was all right ; it is wewho have interpreted it wrongly, or receivedit in some incomplete way. What we needin each case is a quot; comprehensive sense-impression. quot; The meaning of this phrase isnot quite clear. I think it means a sense-impression which quot;grasps quot; its object ; but itmay be one which quot; grasps quot; us, or whichwe quot;grasp, quot; so that we cannot doubt it. Inany case, when we get the real imprint of theobject upon our senses, then this imprint isof necessity true. When the Sceptics talk


29/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 25about a conjurer making quot;our senses deceiveus, quot; or when they object that a straight stickput half under water looks as if it were bentin the middle, they are talking inexactly. Insuch cases the impression is perfectly true ;it is the interrjretation that may gQ.jwrong.-.Similarly, when they argue that reasoningis fallacious because men habitually makemistakes in it, they are confusing the laws ofreasoning with the inexact use which peoplemake of them. You might just as well saythat twice two is not four, or that 7 x 7 isnot 49, because people often make mistakesin doing arithmetic.Thus we obtain a world which is in the first

place real and in the second knowable. Nowwe can get to work on our real philosophy,our doctrine of ethics and conduct. And webuild it upon a very simple principle, laiddown first by Zeno s master, Crates, thefounder of the Cynic School : the principle


30/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYthat Nothing but Goodness is Good. Thatseems plain enough, and harmless enough ;and so does its corollary : quot; Nothing but badness is bad. quot; In the case of any concreteobject which you call quot;good, quot; it seems quiteclear that it is only good because of somegoodness in it. We, perhaps, should notexpress the matter in quite this way, but weshould scarcely think it worth while to objectif Zeno chooses to phrase it so, especially asthe statement itself seems little better than atruism.Now, to an ancient Greek the form of the

phrase was quite familiar. He was accustomed to asking quot; What is the good ? quot; It wasto him the central problem of conduct. Itmeant : quot; What is the object of life, or theelement in things which makes them worthhaving? quot; Thus the principle will mean:quot; Nothing is worth living for except goodness. quot; The only good for man is to be good.


31/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 27And, as we might expect, when Zeno says ,quot;good quot; he means good in an ultimate Day-of-Judgment sense, and will take no half-measures. The principle turns out to be notnearly so harmless as it looked. It begins bymaking a clean sweep of the ordinary conventions. You remember the eighteenth-centurylady s epitaph which ends: quot;Bland, passionate,and deeply religious, she was second cousinto the Earl of Leitrim, and of such are thekingdom of heaven. quot; One doubts whether,when the critical moment came, her relationships would really prove as important as herexecutors hoped ; and it is the same with all theconventional goods of the world when broughtbefore the bar of Zeno. Rank, riches, socialdistinction, health, pleasure, barriers of raceor nation what will those things matter before;the tribunal of ultimate truth ? Not a jot. |Nothing but goodness is good. It is whatyou are that matters what you yourself are ;


32/72

28 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYand all these things are not you. They areexternal ; they depend not on you alone, buton other people. The thing that reallymatters depends on you, and on none but you.From this there flows a very important andsurprising conclusion. You possess already,if you only knew it, all that is worth desiring.The good is yours if you but will it. Youneed fear nothing. You are safe, inviolable,utterly free. A wicked man or an accidentcan cause you pain, break your leg, makeyou ill ; but no earthly power can make yougood or bad except yourself, and to be goodor bad is the only thing that matters.At this point common sense rebels. The

plain man says to Zeno : quot;This is all verywell ; but we know as a matter of fact thatsuch things as health, pleasure, long life,fame, etc., are good ; we all like them. Thereverse are bad ; we hate and avoid them.All sane, healthy people agree in judging so. quot;


33/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 29Zeno s answer is interesting. In the firstplace, he says : quot; Yes ; that is what mostpeople say. But the judges who give thatjudgment are bribed. Pleasure, though notreally good, has just that particular power ofbribing the judges, and making them on eachoccasion say or believe that she is good. TheAssyrian king Sardanapalus thinks it goodto stay in his harem, feasting and merrymaking, rather than suffer hardship in governing his kingdom. He swears his pleasure isgood ; but what will any unbribed third personsay? Consider the judgments of history. Doyou ever find that history praises a manbecause he was healthy, or long-lived, orbecause ho enjoyed himself a great deal ?History never thinks of such things ; theyare valueless and disappear from the world smemory. The thing that lives is a man sgoodness, his great deeds, his virtue, or hisheroism. quot;


34/72


35/72


36/72

.32 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYexpressed the answer in its own characteristicway. Let us see in practice what we meanby quot;good. quot; Take a good bootmaker, a goodfather, a good musician, a good horse, a goodchisel ; you will find that each one of themhas some function to perform, some specialwork to do ; and a good one does the workwell. Goodness is performing your functionwell. But when we say quot;well quot; we are stillusing the idea of goodness. What do wemean by doing it quot;well quot;? Here the Greekfalls back on a scientific conception which hadgreat influence in the fifth century B.C., and,somewhat transformed and differently named,has regained it in our own days. We call itquot;Evolution. quot; The Greeks called it Phusis^a word which we translate by quot;Nature, quot; butwhich seems to mean more exactly quot;growth, quot;orquot; the process of growth. quot;* It is Phusis which

* See a paper by Professor J. L. Myres, quot; The Background of Greek Science, quot; University of CaliforniaChronicle^ xvi, 4.


37/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 33gradually shapes or tries to shape every livingthing into a more perfect form. It shapes theseed, by infinite and exact gradations, intothe oak ; the blind puppy into the good hunting dog ; the savage tribe into the civilizedcity. If you analyze this process, you findthat Phusis is shaping each thing towardsthe fulfilment of its own function that is,towards the good. Of course Phusis sometimes fails ; some of the blind puppies die ;some of the seeds never take root. Again,when the proper development has beenreached, it is generally followed by decay ;that, too, seems like a failure in the work ofPhusis. I will not consider these objectionsnow ; they would take us too far afield, andwe shall need a word about them later. Letus in the meantime accept this conception ofa force very like that which most of usassume when we speak of evolution ; especially,perhaps, it is like what Bergson calls La Vie


38/72


39/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 35is the soul of the world. Now, it so happenedthat in Zeno s time the natural sciences hadmade a great advance, especially. Astronomy,Botany, and Natural History. This fact hadmade people familiar with the notion of naturallaw. Law was a principle which ran throughall the movements of what they called theKosmos, or quot; ordered world. quot; Thus Phusis,the life of the world, is, from another pointof view, the Law of Nature ; it is the greatchain of causation by which all events occur ;for the Phusis which shapes things towardstheir end acts always by the laws of causation.Phusis is not a sort of arbitrary personalgoddess, upsetting the natural order ; Phusisis the natural order, and nothing happenswithout a cause.A natural law, yet a natural law which is

alive, which is itself life. It becomes indistinguishable from a purpose, the purpose ofthe great world-process. It is like a fore-


40/72

36 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYseeing, fore-thinking power Pronoia ; ourcommon word quot; Providence quot; is the Latintranslation of this Pronoia, though of courseits meaning has been rubbed down andcheapened in the process of the ages. As aprinciple of providence or forethought it comesto be regarded as God, the nearest approachto a definite personal God which is admittedby the austere logic of Stoicism. And, sinceit must be in some sense material, it is madeof the finest material there is ; it is made offire, not ordinary fire, but what they calledintellectual fire. A fire which is present in awarm, live man, and not in a cold, dead man ;a fire which has consciousness and life, and isnot subject to decay. This fire, Phusis, God,is in all creation.We are led to a very definite and complete

Pantheism. The Sceptic begins to make hisusual objections. quot; God in worms? quot; he asks.quot; God in fleas and dung beetles? quot; And, as


41/72


42/72

38 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYpathy of the Whole ; a grand conception, thetruth of which is illustrated in the ethical worldby the feelings of good men, and in the worldof natural science We moderns may beexcused for feeling a little surprise by thefact that the stars twinkle. It is because theyare so so rry for us : as well they may be Thus Goodness is acting, according to

Phusis, in harmony with the will of God.But here comes an obvious objection. IfGod is all, how can any one do otherwise?God is the omnipresent Law ; God is allNature ; no one can help being in harmonywith him. The answer is that God is in allexcept in the doings of bad men. For manis free How do we know that? Why, bya katalcptike phantasia, a comprehensivesense impression which it is impossible toresist. Why it should be so we cannot tell.quot; God might have preferred chained slavesfor his fellow-workers ; but, as a matter of


43/72


44/72

40 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY^God ; thus everything that befalls him is afulfilment of his own will and good. A typeclosely akin to the early Christian ascetic orthe Indian saint.And in the second place we have the man

who, while accepting the doctrine that onlygoodness is good, lays stress upon the definition of goodness. It is acting according toPhusis, in the spirit of that purpose or forethought which, though sometimes failing, isworking always unrestingly for the good ofthe world, and which needs its fellow workers.God is helping the whole world ; you canonly help a limited fraction of the world.But you can try to work in the same spirit.There were certain old Greek myths whichtold how Heracles and other heroes had passedlaborious lives serving and helping humanity,and in the end became gods. The Stoics usedsuch myths as allegories. That was the wayto heaven ; that was how a man may at the end


45/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 4 1of his life become not a dead body, but a star.In the magnificent phrase which Pliny translates from a Greek Stoic, God is that, andnothing but that ; man s true God is the helpingof man ; Deus est mortali iuvare mortalem.No wonder such a religion appealed to

kings and statesmen and Roman governors.Nearly all the successors of Alexander wemay say all the principal kings in existencein the generations following Zeno professedthemselves Stoics. And the most famous ofall Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, found his religionnot only in meditation and religious exercises,but in working some sixteen hours a day forthe good practical government of the RomanEmpire.

Is there any real contradiction or inconsistency between the two types of Stoic virtue?On the surface certainly there seems to be ; andthe school felt it, and tried in a very interestingway to meet it. The difficulty is this : what


46/72

42 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYis the good of working for the welfare ofhumanity if such welfare is really worthless?Suppose, by great labour and skill, you sifc-ceed in reducing the death-rate of a plague-stricken area ; suppose you make a starvingcountry-side prosperous ; what is the good ofit all if health and riches are in themselvesworthless, and not a whit better than diseaseand poverty ?The answer is clear and uncompromising.A good bootmaker is one who makes good

boots ; a good shepherd is one who keeps hissheep well ; and even though good boots are,in the Day-of-Judgment sense, entirely worthless, and fat sheep no whit better than starvedsheep, yet the good bootmaker or good shepherd must do his work well or he will cease tobe good. To be good he must perform hisfunction ; and in performing that functionthere are certain things that he must quot;prefer quot;to others, even though they are not really


47/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 43quot;

good. quot; He must prefer a healthy sheep ora well-made boot to their opposites. It is thusthat Nature, or Phusis, herself works whenshe shapes the seed into the tree, or the blindpuppy into the good hound. The perfectionof the tree or hound is in itself indifferent, athing of no ultimate value. Yet the goodnessof Nature lies in working for that perfection.

Life becomes, as the Stoics more than oncetell us, like a play which is acted or a gameplayed with counters. Viewed from outside,the counters are valueless ; but to those 7engaged in the game their importance isparamount. What really and ultimately \matters is that the game shall be played as itshould be played. God, the eternal dramatist,has cast you for some part in his drama, andhands you the role. It may turn out that youare cast for a triumphant king ; it may be fora slave who dies of torture. What does thatmatter to the good actor ? He can play either

?nceame,M.


48/72

44 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYpart ; his only business is to accept the rolegiven him, and to perform it well. Similarly,life is a game of counters. Your business isto play it in the right way. He who set theboard may have given you many counters ;he may have given you few. He may havearranged that, at a particular point in thegame, most of your men shall be sweptaccidentally off the board. You will lose thegame; but why should you mind that? Itis your play that matters, not the score thatyou happen to make. He is not a fool tojudge you by your mere success or failure.Success or failure is a thing He can determinewithout stirring a hand. It hardly interestsHim. What interests Him is the one thingwhich he cannot determine the action ofyour free and conscious will.

This view is so sublime and so stirring thatat times it almost deadens one s power of


49/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 45criticism. Let us see how it works in a particular case. Suppose your friend is in sorrowor pain, what are you to do ? In the first place,you may sympathize since sympathy runsall through the universe, and if the starssympathize surely you yourself may. Andof course you must help. That is part ofyour function. Yet, all the time, while youare helping and sympathizing, are you notbound to remember that your friend s pain orsorrow does not really matter at all ? He isquite mistaken in imagining that it does.Similarly, if a village in your district isthreatened by a band of robbers, you will rushoff with soldiers to save it ; you will makeevery effort, you will give your life if necessary. But suppose, after all, you arrive toolate, and find the inhabitants with their throatscut and the village in ruins why should youmind ? You know it does not matter a strawwhether the villagers throats are cut or not


50/72


51/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 47embarrassment bravely.

quot; You will suffer in .your friend s suffering, quot; says Epictetus. quot; Of jcourse you will suffer. I do not say that youmust not even groan aloud. Yet in the centreof your being do not groan quot;E amp;lt;rw0v /ilvrot /xr)amp;lt;n-vape. quot; It is very like the Christian doctrine of resignation. Man cannot but sufferfor his fellow man ; yet a Christian is told toaccept the will of God and believe that ultimately, in some way which he does not see,the Judge of the World has done right.

Finally, what is to be the end after thislife of Stoic virtue? Many religions, afterbasing their whole theory of conduct onstern duty and self-sacrifice and contemptfor pleasure, lapse into confessing the unreality of their professions by promising thefaithful as a reward that they shall be uncommonly happy in the next world. It was notthat they really disdained pleasure ; it was


52/72


53/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 49no pleasure, no disturbance. It may be amoment of agony, but what does agonymatter? It will be ecstasy and triumph, thesoul reaching its fiery union with God.The doctrine, fine as it is, seems always to

have been regarded as partly fanciful, andnot accepted as an integral part of the Stoiccreed. Indeed, many Stoics considered that ;if this Absorption in Fire should occur, itcould not be final. For the essence oness is to do something, to labour, to achievesome end ; and if Goodness is to exist theworld process must begin again. God, so tospeak, cannot be good unless he is striving Iand helping. Phusis must be movingupward, or else it is not Phusis.

Thus Stoicism, whatever its weaknesses,fulfilled the two main demands that manmakes upon his religion : it gave him armourwhen the world was predominantly evil, andE


54/72

50 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYit encouraged him forward when the world waspredominantly good. It afforded guidanceboth for the saint and the public servant.And in developing this twofold character Ithink it was not influenced by mere inconstancy. It was trying to meet the actualtruth of the situation. For in most systemsit seems to be recognized that in the GoodLife there is both an element of outwardstriving and an element of inward peace.There are things which we must try to attain,yet it is not really the attainment that matters ;it is the seeking. And, consequently, in somesense, the real victory is with him who foughtbest, not with the man who happened to win.For beyond all the accidents of war, beyondthe noise of armies and groans of the dying,there is the presence of some eternal friend.It is our relation to Him that matters.A Friend behind phenomena, I owe the

phrase to Mr. Bevan. It is the assump-


55/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 51tion which all religions make, and sooneror later all philosophies. The main criticism which I should be inclined to passon Stoicism would lie here. Starting out,with every intention of facing the problem ofthe world by hard thought and observation,resolutely excluding all appeal to traditionand mere mythology, it ends by making thistremendous assumption, that there is a beneficent purpose in the world and that the forcewhich moves nature is akin to ourselves. Ifwe once grant that postulate, the details of thesystem fall easily into place. There may besome overstatement about the worthlessnessof pleasure and worldly goods ; though, afterall, if there is a single great purpose in theuniverse, and that purpose good, I think wemust admit that, in comparison with it, thehappiness of any individual at this momentdwindles into utter insignificance. The good,and not any pleasure or happiness, is what


56/72

52 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYmatters. If there is no such purpose, well,then the problem must all be stated afreshfrom the beginning quot;.A second criticism, which is passed bymodern psychologists on the Stoic system, ismore searching but not so dangerous. Thelanguage of Stoicism, as of all ancient philosophy, was based on a rather crude psycho-ly- ^ was over-intellectualized. It paidtoo much attention to fully conscious andrational processes, and too little attention tothe enormously larger part of human conductwhich is below the level of consciousness. Itsaw life too much as a series of separatemental acts, and not sufficiently as a continuous, ever-changing stream. Yet a verylittle correction of statement is all that itneeds. Stoicism does not really make reasoninto a motive force. It explains that anquot; impulse, quot; or o^/i//, of physical or biologicalorigin rises in .the mind prompting to some


57/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 53action, and then Reason gives or withholdsits assent ((rvyKaraOtaig). There is nothingseriously wrong here.Other criticisms, based on the unreality of

the ideal Wise Man, who acts without desireand makes no errors, seem to me of smallerimportance. They depend chiefly on certainidioms or habits of language, which, thoughnot really exact, convey a fairly correct meaning to those accustomed to them.But the assumption of the Eternal Purpose

stands in a different category. Howevermuch refined away, it remains a vast assumption. We may discard what Professor WilliamJames used to call quot; Monarchical Deism quot; orour own claim to personal immortality. Wemay base ourselves on Evolution, whether ofthe Darwinian or the Bergsonian sort. Butwe do seem to find, not only in all religions,but in practically all philosophies, some beliefthat man is not quite alone in the universe,


58/72

54 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYbut is met in his endeavours towards the goodby some external help or sympathy. Wefind it everywhere in the unsophisticated man.We find it in the unguarded self-revelationsof the most severe and conscientious Atheists.Now, the Stoics, like many other schools ofthought, drew an argument from this consensus of all mankind. It was not an absoluteproof of the existence of the Gods or Providence, but it was a strong indication. Theexistence of a common instinctive belief inthe mind of man gives at least a presumptionthat there must be a good cause for thatbelief.This is a reasonable position. There must

be some such cause. But it does not followthat the only valid cause is the truth of thecontent of the belief. I cannot help suspecting that this is precisely one of those pointson which Stoicism, in company with almostall philosophy up to the present time, has


59/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 55gone astray through not sufficiently realizingits dependence on the human mind as anatural biological product. For it is veryimportant in this matter to realize that theso-called belief is not really an intellectualjudgment so much as a craving of the wholenature.

It is only of very late years that psychologists have begun to realize the enormousdominion of those forces in man of which heis normally unconscious. We cannot escapeas easily as these brave men dreamed fromthe grip of the blind powers beneath thethreshold. Indeed, as I see philosophy afterphilosophy falling into this unproven beliefin the Friend behind phenomena, as I findthat I myself cannot, except for a momentand by an effort, refrain from making thesame assumption, it seems to me that perhapshere too we are under the spell of a very oldineradicable instinct. We are gregarious


60/72

56 THE STOIC PHILOSOPHYanimals ; our ancestors have been such forcountless ages. We cannot help looking outon the world as gregarious animals do ; wesee it in terms of humanity and of fellowship.Students of animals under domestication haveshown us how the habits of a gregariouscreature, taken away from his kind, are shapedin a thousand details by reference to the lostpack which is no longer there the packwhich a dog tries to smell his way back toall the time he is out walking, the pack hecalls to for help when danger threatens. Itis a strange and touching thing, this eternalhunger of the gregarious animal for the herdof friends who are not there. And it may be,it may very possibly be, that, in the matterof this Friend behind phenomena, our ownyearning and our own almost ineradicableinstinctive conviction, since they are certainlynot founded on either reason or observation,are in origin the groping of a lonely-souled


61/72

THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY 57gregarious animal to find its herd or its herd- ,leader in the great spaces between the stars.At any rate, it is a belief very difficult to

get rid of.

NOTE. Without attempting a bibliography ofStoicism, I may mention the following books aslikely to be useful to a student : (i) Original StoicLiterature. Epictetus, Discourses* etc. ; translated by P. E. Matheson, Oxford, 1915. MarcusAurelius, To Himself; translated by J. Jackson,Oxford, 1906. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta,collected by Von Arnim, 1903-1905. (2) ModernLiterature. Roman Stoicism (Cambridge, 1911),by E. V. Arnold ; a very thorough and useful pieceof work. Stoics and Sceptics, by Edwyn Bevan(Oxford, 1913) ; slighter, but illuminating. Thedoctrine of the things which are quot; preferred quot;(7rpo?7yp:Va), though not quot;good, quot; was, I think,first correctly explained by H. Gomperz, Lebens-auffassung der Griechischen Philosophie, 1904.Professor Arnold s book contains a large bibliography.


62/72


63/72

APPENDICES


64/72


65/72

APPENDIX A

BIOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICALNOTES CONCERNING MONCUREDANIEL CONWAY1832. Born in Virginia.1850. Free Schools in Virginia.1851. Enters Methodist Ministry.1854. Enters Unitarian Ministry.1858. Marries.1863. Comes to England.1864. Preaches at South Place Chapel.1865. Appointed permanent Minister.1869. Abandonment of prayer, followed by

gradual abandonment of Theism.1870. The Earthward Pilgrimage.1874. The Sacred Anthology.1877. Idols and Ideals.1883. Lessons for the Day (2 vols.). (Revised

edition, 1907.)1884. Temporarily retires from South Place.61


66/72

62 A PPENDICES1892. Returns to South Place.

Life of Thomas Paine.1897. Death of Mrs. Conway.

Final retirement from South Place.1904. Autobiography (2 vols.).1906. My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East.1907. Dies in Paris.1909. Moncure D. Con-way. Addresses and Re

prints. (A Memorial volume containinga complete Bibliography.)

1910. First Memorial Lecture.1911. Second Memorial Lecture.1912. Third Memorial Lecture.1913. Fourth Memorial Lecture.1914. Fifth Memorial Lecture.1915. Sixth Memorial Lecture.

APPENDIX B

THE CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURESHIPAT a general meeting of the South Place EthicalSociety, held on October 22, 1908, it was resolved,after full discussion, that an effort should be madeto establish a series of lectures, to be printed and


67/72

APPENDICES 63widely circulated, as a permanent Memorial toDr. Conway.Moncure Conway s untiring- zeal for the emanci

pation of the human mind from the thraldom ofobsolete or waning beliefs, his pleadings forsympathy with the oppressed and for a wider andprofoimder conception of human fraternity thanthe world has yet reached, claim, it is urged, anoffering of gratitude more permanent than theeloquent obituary or reverential service ofmourning.The range of the lectures (of which the sixthis published herewith) must be regulated by thefinancial support accorded to the scheme ; but itis hoped that sufficient funds will be forthcomingfor the endowment of periodical lectures by distinguished public men, to further the cause ofsocial, political, and religious freedom, withwhich Dr. Conway s name must ever be associated.The Committee, although not yet in possessionof the necessary capital for the permanent endow

ment of the Lectureship, thought it better toinaugurate the work rather than to wait forfurther contributions. The funds in hand,together with those which may reasonably beexpected in the immediate future, will ensure the


68/72

64 APPENDICESdelivery of an annual lecture for some years atleast.The Committee earnestly appeal either for

donations or subscriptions from year to yearuntil the Memorial is permanently established.Contributions may be forwarded to the Hon.Treasurer.On behalf of the Executive Committee :W. C. COUPLAND, M.A., Chairman.(Mrs.) C. FLETCHER SMITH and E. J. FAIRHALL,

Hon. Secretaries.(Mrs.) F. M. COCKBURN, Hon. Treasurer, quot;Pera-

deniya, quot; Ashburton Road, Croydon.


69/72


70/72


71/72

Murray, G. B528The stoic philosophy ,M8


72/72

the stoic philosophy

Documents