Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/594

 570 STOICS and obey Him. At the same time the Stoics felt at liberty to defend and uphold the truth in polytheism. Not only is the primitive substance God, the one su- preme being, but divinity must be ascribed to His mani- festations, to the heavenly bodies, which are conceived, like Plato's created gods, as the highest of rational beings, to the forces of nature, even to deified men ; and thus the world was peopled with divine agencies. Moreover, the myths were rationalized and allegorized, which was not in either case an original procedure. The search for a deeper hidden meaning beside the literal one had been begun by Democritus, Euipedocles, the Sophists, and the Cynics. It remained for Zeno to carry this to a much greater extent, and to seek out or invent " natural prin- ciples " (Xdyot ^VO-LKOI) and moral ideas in all the legends and in the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In this sense he was the pattern if not the "father" of all such as allegorize and reconcile. Etymology was pressed into the service, and the wildest conjectures as to the meaning of names did duty as a basis for mythological explanations. The two favourite Stoic heroes were Hercules and Ulysses, and nearly every scene in their adventures was made to Divina- disclose some moral significance. Lastly, the practice of tion. divination and the consultation of oracles afforded a means of communication between God and man, a con- cession to popular beliefs which may be explained when we reflect that to the faithful divination was something as essential as confession and spiritual direction to a devout Catholic now, or the study and interpretation of Scripture texts to a Protestant. Chrysippus did his best to recon- cile the superstition with his own rational doctrine of strict causation. Omens and portents, he explained, are the natural symptoms of certain occurrences. There must be countless indications of the course of Providence, for the most part unobserved, the meaning of only a few having become known to men. His opponents argued, " if all events are foreordained, divination is superfluous"; he replied that both divination and our behaviour under the warnings which it affords are included in the chain of causation. Even here, however, the bent of the system is apparent. They were at pains to insist upon purity of heart and life as an indispensable condition for success in prophesying and to enlist piety in the service of morality. Middle When Chrysippus 'died (01. 143 = 208-204 B.C.) the Stoa. structure of Stoic doctrine was complete. With the Middle Stoa we enter upon a period at first of compara- tive inaction, afterwards of internal reform. Chrysippus's immediate successors were Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes of Seleucia (often called the Babylonian), and Antipater of Tarsus, men of no originality, though not without . ability ; the two last-named, however, had all their ener- gies taxed to sustain the conflict with CARXEADES (q.v.). This was the most formidable assault the school ever encountered ; that it survived was due more to the fore- sight and elaborate precautions of Chrysippus than to any efforts of that " pen-doughty " pamphleteer, Antipater (/caXa/xo/?das), who shrank from opposing himself in per- son to the eloquence of Carneades. The subsequent his- tory testified to the importance of this controversy. The special objects of attack were the Stoic theory of know- ledge, their theology, and their ethics. The physical basis of the system remained unchanged but neglected ; all creative force or even original research in the departments of physics and metaphysics vanished. Yet problems of interest bearing upon psychology and natural theology con- tinued to be discussed. Thus the cycles of the world's existence, and the universal conflagration which terminates each of them, excited some doubt. Diogenes of Seleucia is said to have wavered in his belief at last ; Boethus, one of his pupils, flatly denied it. He regarded the Deity as the guide and upholder of the world, watching over it from the outside, not as the immanent soul within it, for according to him the world was as soulless as a plant. We have here a compromise between Zeuo's and Aristotle's doctrines. But in the end the universal conflagration was handed down without question as an article of belief. It is clear that the activity of these teachers was chiefly directed to ethics : they elaborated fresh definitions of the chief good, designed either to make yet clearer the sense of the formulas of Chrysippus or else to meet the more urgent objections of the New Academy. Carneades had emphasized one striking apparent inconsistency : it had been laid down that to choose what is natural is man's highest good, and yet the things chosen, the " first objects according to nature," had no place amongst goods. Antipater may have met this by distinguishing " the attainment " of primary natural ends from the activity directed to their attainment (Plut., De Comrn. Not., 27, 14, p. 1072 F) ; but, earlier still, Diogenes had put forward his gloss, viz., " The end is to calculate rightly in the selection and rejection of things according to nature." Archedemus, a contemporary of Diogenes, put this in plainer terms still : " The end is to live in the performance of all fitting actions " (TTO.VTO. TO. Ka.Qr)KOVTa eTriTeXoi'VTas /i / ). Now it is highly improbable that the earlier Stoics would have sanctioned such interpretations of their dogmas. The mere performance of relative or imperfect duties, they would have said, is something neither good nor evil ; the essential constituent of human good is ignored. And similar criticism is actually passed by Posidonius : " This is not the end, but only its necessary concomitant ; such a mode of expression may be useful for the refutation of objections put forward by the Sophists " (Carneades and the New Academy ?), " but it contains nothing of morality or wellbeing " (Galen, De Plac. Hipp, ct Plat., p. 470 K). There is every ground, then, for concluding that we have here one concession extorted by the assaults of Carneades. For a similar compromise there is express testimony : "good repute" (d;Sota) had been regarded as a thing wholly indifferent in the school down to and including Diogenes. Antipater was forced to assign to it " positive value," and to give it a place amongst " things preferred " (Cic., De Fin., iii. 57). These modifications were retained by Antipater's successors. Hence come the increased im- portance and fuller treatment which from this time for- ward fall to the lot of the " external duties " (KaOrjKovra). The rigour and consistency of the older system became sen- sibly modified. To this result another important factor contributed. The In all that the older Stoics taught there breathes that sa s e - enthusiasm for righteousness in which has been traced the earnestness of the Semitic spirit ; but nothing presents more forcibly the pitch of their moral idealism than the doctrine of the Wise Man. All mankind fall into two classes, the wise or virtuous, the unwise or wicked, the distinction being absolute. He who possesses virtue possesses it Avhole and entire ; he who lacks it lacks it altogether. To be but a hand's-breadth below the surface of the sea ensures drowning as infallibly as to be five hundred fathoms deep. Now the wise man is drawn as perfect. All he does is right, all his opinions are true ; he alone is free, rich, beautiful, skilled to govern, capable of giving or receiving a benefit. And his happiness, since length of time cannot increase it, falls in nothing short of that of Zeus. In contrast with all this, we have a picture of universal depravity. Now, who could claim to have attained to the sage's wisdom 1 Doubtless, at the first founding of the school Zeno himself and Zeno's pupils were inspired with this hope ; they emulated the Cynics Antisthenes and Diogenes, who never shrank out of