Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/591

 STOICS 567 objects according to nature," TO. Trpwra /cara vcnv, had its origin. Now the slightest acquaintance with Stoic physics shows that reason and nature are at one ; we may there- fore well believe that Zeno himself had explained his harmonious or self -consistent life to mean a life in harmony with nature (Diog. Laer., vii. 87, quoting Zeno, "On the Nature of Man "). At all events that was the orthodox formula adopted and interpreted by Cleanthes and Chry- sippus, the former, as we might have expected from his Heraclitean tendencies, representing it to mean " harmony with the universal nature," the latter emphasizing that not only is it the nature of the universe, but the particular nature of man, that is meant. Cleanthes's interpretation is at once novel and fruitful : reason being the true self or nature of man, and being essentially the same in him with the reason in the All, its procedure in him should corre- spond to and reproduce its procedure in the All. It is reasonable, therefore, for the individual to submit to and co-operate with the indwelling reason, or law of the universe, and in obedience to this universal law (KOU/OS vo/xos) imitate the uniform methodic march of the divine creative fire. Here we note the conception of morality as obedience to an objective law, though, as reason attains to consciousness of itself only in man, it is a law of which he himself, qua rational, is lawgiver. But Chrysippus, in his reading of the formula, had no intention of relaxing the close dependence of ethics upon physics. A new light is thrown upon the study of external nature by the essential unity of reason in the macrocosm and in the microcosm : what we learn of its operations there is pro- fitable for instruction here, and life should be directed in accordance with the experience we have acquired of the course of nature (tfiv KO.T e^Treiptav rwv (f>vo-fi (rv/j./3a.w6v- TCOV, Chrysippus ap. Stob., Ed., ii. 134). Whether man will comply with the commands of the universal law or not, whether therefore the ethical end is realized in him, must depend upon himself. The whole tendency of the physical theory is towards a system of rigid determinism, nay, almost of fatalism; but, so soon as we reach the ethical region, the problem of indetermiuisin is forced upon us in all its perplexity. Instinct. (/3) Having determined the end of rational action, we must now give a glance at the earlier, instinctive activity of beings properly without reason (i.e., of children and the brute creation) ; this too has its importance, since before reason is developed the agent follows the " uncorrupted impulses " of nature. Here we come upon a controversy which still has an interest for the psychologist, for Epicurus had declared pleasure to be the end of all instinctive activity, while the Stoics combated his position and sought to prove that not pleasure but self-preservation is really sought. According to them, the child or the animal would speedily be crushed out of existence if it did not move at all or if its movements were not governed by some plan ; a vague consciousness of itself and a love for its own constitution must be postulated to account for the impulse which, together with sensation, distinguishes animal life f roni the life of the plant. 1 That all motion is excited by pleasure in prospect, or the hope of cessation from pain, is (they argue) contrary to fact. Efforts to move are made perseveringly even where they occasion pain. The whole life of unreasoning infancy and of the brutes can be satisfactorily explained on the assumption 1 TTpUTOV OLKf?OV flftH lra.VT &:$ TT]V O.VTOV CrVfTTCLffLV KO.I TT]V TOVTTJJ a-wfiSrjeriv. The ffvffrairis of an organic being is an outcome of internal forces, a mutual relation of varying elements, in man, a relation of the ruling part of the soul, i.e., the rational soul, to the rest. By oi/ceioxm is meant that nature inspires this self-love, " for it is improbable that nature should estrange the living thing from itself, or that she should leave the creature she had made without either estrangement from, or affection for, its OAVU constitution. " of sense and impulse acting mechanically, somewhat after the fashion indicated rather than worked out in detail in the Peripatetic application of the practical syllogism to the motion of animals. In their theory of pleasure itself Pleasure, the Stoics approximate very decidedly to Aristotle. It is, as he said, a concomitant (eTrtyeW^a), but not of all activities; on the contrary, the highest are without it, and it is invariably of no significance where it is found. Moreover, while Aristotle had asserted that it adds a certain zest or finish to natural activity, the Stoics declared that it never appears at all except as a mark of the decline or relaxation of vital energy, the bloom which is indeed a mark of ripeness but also the certain precursor of decay. (y) To return to impulse, there remains the case of The affeo action against reason under the influence of the passions. tions - Although nature may guide man towards the right objects, she does not control the impetus or velocity of the soul's movement. If this be in excess, the rational soul is hurried into an inflamed disorderly condition, the source of which is an erroneous judgment or false opinion, though its effects are seen in the evident elation or depression, and the stings of excitement, which are the symptoms of mental disorder. Anxious to uphold individual respon- sibility, the Stoics pronounced the false opinion to be voluntary ; that once granted, the subsequent reaction of the mind (i.e., the emotional effects on which Zeno especially dwelt), the compulsion and extravagance which are characteristic of the passions, may be said to follow inevitably, so that under the sway of blind impulses the man is still acting voluntarily. This sets in a striking light the close dependence of ethics upon psychology. The Peripatetics had made the intellectual soul with virtues of its own something altogether distinct from the lower nature, the seat of the emotions and of the moral virtues which consist in their regulation. The Stoic doctrine of the essential unity of soul is a vehement protest against all this : the soul's unity is shown in a unity of activity, whether it be in a healthy or a disordered state. As all virtues are essentially one, though they differ according to the different relations to which the knowledge of good and evil is applied, so, too, emotion is not something antagonistic to reason, but perverted reason. There is no such struggle of vicious inclinations against virtue, a contest waged by two separate powers, as Aristotle had imagined in his account of moral weakness ; the proper simile is a mutiny or revolt in one and the same city, Mansoul now in allegiance to the rightful authority and now in open rebellion. The lower animals and children are incapable of emotion ; it is only found where reason is fully developed. The analysis and classi- fication of these affections start with the false opinion or judgment or imagination, which may relate to the present or the future, to fancied good or fancied ill. Hence there are four types of the affections : all are grouped around pleasure, an impulse towards present fancied good ; desire, an impulse towards future fancied goad ; grief, an impulse to shun fancied evil in the present ; fear, an impulse to shun fancied evil in the future. On the analogy of bodily disease, these disorders of the mind are further divided into (1) chronic ailments (voo-ij/j-ara), such as avarice, where the belief that money is a good is persistent and deep-seated, leading to a habit of feeling and acting, or ambition, a similar erroneous judgment in respect of public honours, and (2) infirmities (appwo-T^/xara), sud- den attacks of error to which the patient momentarily succumbs. This remarkable development of Stoic prin- ciples leads to the demand for the entire suppression of the affections (a-n-dQtia), in contradistinction to that regulation and governance of them for which Plato and