Meditations
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he knew them only from calumny; and we hear of no measures
taken even to secure that they should have a fair hearing.
In this respect Trajan was better than he.
To a thoughtful mind such a religion as that of Rome would
give small satisfaction. Its legends were often childish
or impossible; its teaching had little to do with morality.
The Roman religion was in fact of the nature of a bargain:
men paid certain sacrifices and rites, and the gods
granted their favour, irrespective of right or wrong.
In this case all devout souls were thrown back upon philosophy,
as they had been, though to a less extent, in Greece.
There were under the early empire two rival schools which practically
divided the field between them, Stoicism and Epicureanism.
The ideal set before each was nominally much the same.
The Stoics aspired to the repression of all emotion,
and the Epicureans to freedom from all disturbance; yet in
the upshot the one has become a synonym of stubborn endurance,
the other for unbridled licence. With Epicureanism we have nothing
to do now; but it will be worth while to sketch the history
and tenets of the Stoic sect. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism,
was born in Cyprus at some date unknown, but his life may be said
roughly to be between the years 350 and 250 B.C. Cyprus has
been from time immemorial a meeting-place of the East and West,
and although we cannot grant any importance to a possible
strain of Phoenician blood in him (for the Phoenicians
were no philosophers), yet it is quite likely that through
Asia Minor he may have come in touch with the Far East.
He studied under the cynic Crates, but he did not neglect other
philosophical systems. After many years' study he opened his
own school in a colonnade in Athens called the Painted Porch,
or Stoa, which gave the Stoics their name. Next to Zeno,
the School of the Porch owes most to Chrysippus (280--207 b.c.),
who organised Stoicism into a system. Of him it was said,
'But for Chrysippus, there had been no Porch.'
The Stoics regarded speculation as a means to an end and that
end was, as Zeno put it, to live consistently omologonuenws zhn
or as it was later explained, to live in conformity with nature.
This conforming of the life to nature oralogoumenwz th fusei zhn.
was the Stoic idea of Virtue.
This dictum might easily be taken to mean that virtue consists in yielding
to each natural impulse; but that was very far from the Stoic meaning.
In order to live in accord with nature, it is necessary to know
what nature is; and to this end a threefold division of philosophy
is made--into Physics, dealing with the universe and its laws,
the problems of divine government and teleology; Logic, which trains
the mind to discern true from false; and Ethics, which applies
the knowledge thus gained and tested to practical life. The Stoic
system of physics was materialism with an infusion of pantheism.
In contradiction to Plato's view that the Ideas, or Prototypes,
of phenomena alone really exist, the Stoics held that material objects
alone existed; but immanent in the material universe was a spiritual
force which acted through them, manifesting itself under many forms,
as fire, aether, spirit, soul, reason, the ruling principle.
The universe, then, is God, of whom the popular gods
are manifestations; while legends and myths are allegorical.
The soul of man is thus an emanation from the godhead,
into whom it will eventually be re-absorbed. The divine ruling
principle makes all things work together for good, but for
the good of the whole. The highest good of man is consciously
to work with God for the common good, and this is the sense
in which the Stoic tried to live in accord with nature.
In the individual it is virtue alone which enables him to do this;
as Providence rules the universe, so virtue in the soul
must rule man.
In Logic, the Stoic system is noteworthy for their theory
as to the test of truth, the Criterion. They compared
the new-born soul to a sheet of paper ready for writing.
Upon this the senses write their impressions, fantasias and
by experience of a number of these the soul unconsciously
conceives general notions koinai eunoiai or anticipations.
prolhyeis When the impression was such as to be irresistible
it was called (katalnptikh fantasia) one that holds fast,
or as they explained it, one proceeding from truth.
Ideas and inferences artificially produced by deduction
or the like were tested by this 'holding perception.'
Of the Ethical application I have already spoken.
The highest good was the virtuous life. Virtue alone is Happiness,
and vice is unHappiness.&nbs
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