Aristotle
love of self and of preserving one's own vitality and activity is the
primary element, intuitive and connate, to which all rational
preference (_officium_) was at first referred, they thought it not
the less true that in process of time, by experience, association,
and reflection, there grows up in the mind a grand acquired sentiment
or notion, a new and later light, which extinguishes and puts out of
sight the early beginning. It was important to distinguish the feeble
and obscure elements from the powerful and brilliant after-growth;
which indeed was fully realized only in chosen minds, and in them
hardly before old age. This idea, when once formed in the mind, was
The Good--the only thing worthy of desire for its own sake. The
Stoics called it the only good, being sufficient in itself for
happiness; other things being not good, nor necessary to happiness,
but simply preferable or advantageous when they could be had: the
Peripatetics recognized it as the first and greatest good, but said
also that it was not sufficient in itself; there were two other
inferior varieties of good, of which something must be had as
complementary (what the Stoics called _præposita_ or _sumenda_).[1]
Thus the Stoics said about the origin of the Idea of Bonum or
Honestum, much the same as what Aristotle says about ethical Virtue.
It is not implanted in us by nature; but we have at birth certain
initial tendencies and capacities, which, if aided by association and
training, enable us (and that not in all cases) to acquire it.
[Footnote 1: Aristotle and the Peripatetics held that there were
_tria genera bonorum_: (1) Those of the mind (_mens sana_); (2) Those
of the body; and (3) External advantages. The Stoics altered this
theory by saying that only the first of the three was _bonum_; the
others were merely _præposita_ or _sumenda_. The opponents of the
Stoics contended that this was an alteration in words rather than in
substance.
The earlier Stoics laid it down that there were no graduating marks
below the level of wisdom: all shortcomings were on a par. Good was a
point, Evil was a point; there were gradations in the _præposita_ or
_sumenda_ (none of which were good), and in the _rejecta_ or
_rejicienda_ (none of which were evil), but there was no more or less
good.]
A distinction was made by Epictetus and other Stoics between things
in our power and things not in our power. In our power are our
opinions and notions about objects, and all our affections, desires,
and aversions: not in our power are our bodies, wealth, honour, rank,
authority, &c., and their opposites; though, in regard to these last,
it is in our power to _think_ of them as unimportant. With this
distinction we may connect the arguments between the Stoics and their
opponents as to what is now called the Freedom of the Will. But we
must first begin by distinguishing the two questions. By things in
our power, the Stoics meant things that we could do or acquire if we
willed: by things not in our power, they meant things that we could
not do or acquire if we willed. In both cases, the volition was
assumed as a fact: the question what determined it, or whether it was
non-determined, _i. e._, self-determining, was not raised in the
antithesis. But it was raised in other discussions between the Stoic
theorist Chrysippus, and various opponents. These opponents denied
that volition was determined by motives, and cited the cases of equal
conflicting motives (what is known as the Ass of Buridan) as proving
that the soul includes in itself, and exerts, a special supervenient
power of deciding action in one way or the other--a power not
determined by any causal antecedent, but self-originating, and
belonging to the class of agency that Aristotle recognizes under the
denomination of automatic, spontaneous (or essentially irregular and
unpredictable). Chrysippus replied by denying not only the reality of
this supervenient force said to be inherent in the soul, but also the
reality of all that Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous agency
generally. Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by
antecedent motives; that in cases of equal conflict the exact
equality did not long continue, because some new but slight motive
slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on one side or the
other.[2] Here, we see, the question now known as the Freedom of the
Will is discussed, and Chrysippus declares against freedom, affirming
that volition is always determined by motives.
[Footnote 2: See Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, xxiii. p.
1045.]
But we also see that, while declaring this opinion, Chrysippus does
not employ the terms Necessity or Freedom of the Will; neither did
his opponents, so far as we can see: they had a different and less
misleading phrase. By freedom, Chrysippus and the Stoics meant the
freedom of doing what a man willed, if he willed it. A man is free as
to the thing that is in his power, when he wills it: he is not free
as to what is not in his power, under the same supposition. The
Stoics laid great stress on this distinction. They pointed out how
much it is really in a man's power to transform or discipline his own
mind--in the way of controlling or suppressing some emotions,
generating or encouraging others, forming new intellectual
associations, &c.; how much a man could do in these ways, if he
willed it, and if he went through the lessons, habits of conduct, and
**meditations, suitable to produce such an effect. The Stoics
strove to create in a man's mind the volitions appropriate for
such mental discipline, by depicting the beneficial consequences
resulting from it, and the misfortune and shame inevitable, if the
mind were not so disciplined. Their purpose was to strengthen the
governing reason of his mind, and to enthrone it as a fixed habit and
character, which would control by counter suggestions the impulse
arising at each special moment--particularly all disturbing terrors
or allurements. This, in their view, is a free mind; not one wherein
volition is independent of all motive, but one wherein the
susceptibility to different motives is tempered by an ascendant
reason, so as to give predominance to the better motive against the
worse. One of the strongest motives that they endeavoured to enforce,
was the prudence and dignity of bringing our volitions into harmony
with the schemes of Providence; which (they said) were always
arranged with a view to the happiness of the Kosmos on the whole. The
bad man, whose volitions conflict with these schemes, is always
baulked of his expectations, and brought at last against his will to
see things carried by an over-ruling force, with aggravated pain and
humiliation to himself: while the good man, who resigns himself to
them from the first, always escapes with less pain, and often without
any at all. As a portion of their view concerning Providence it may
here be mentioned that the earlier Stoics, Zeno and Chrysippus,
entertained high reverence for the divination, prophecy, and omens
that were generally current in the ancient world. They considered
that these were the methods whereby the gods were graciously pleased
to make known beforehand revelations of their foreordained purposes.
Herein lay one among the marked points of contrast between Stoics and
Epikureans.
We have thus seen that in regard to the doctrine called in modern
times the Freedom of the Will (_i.e._, that volitions are
self-originating and unpredictable), the Stoic theorists not only
denied it, but framed all their Ethics upon the assumption of the
contrary. This same assumption of the contrary, indeed, was made also
by Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epikurus; in short, by all the
ethical teachers of antiquity. All of them believed that volitions
depended on causes; that, under the ordinary conditions of men's
minds, the causes that volitions generally depended upon are often
misleading and sometimes ruinous; but that, by proper stimulation
from without and meditation within, the rational causes of volition
might be made to overrule the impulsive. Plato, Aristotle, Epikurus,
not less than the Stoics, wished to create new fixed habits and a new
type of character. They differed, indeed, on the question what the
proper type of character was; but each of them aimed at the same
general end--a new type of character, regulating the grades of
susceptibility to different motives. And the purpose of all and each
of these moralists precludes the theory of free-will, _i.e._, the
theory that our volitions are self-originating and unpredictable.
While the Epikureans declined, as much as possible, interference in
public affairs, the Stoic philosophers urged men to the duties of
active citizenship.[3] Chrysippus even said that the life of
philosophical contemplation (such as Aristotle preferred and
accounted godlike) was to be placed on the same level with the life
of pleasure; though Plutarch observes that neither Chrysippus nor
Zeno ever meddled personally with any public duty: both of them
passed their lives in lecturing and writing. The truth is that both
of them were foreigners residing at Athens, and at a time when Athens
was dependent on foreign princes. Accordingly, neither Zeno nor
Chrysippus had any sphere of political action open to them: they
were, in this respect, like Epictetus afterwards, but in a position
quite different from Seneca, the preceptor of Nero, who might hope to
influence the great imperial power of Rome, and from Marcus
Antoninus, who held that imperial power in his own hands.
[Footnote 3: Tacitus says of the Stoics (Ann. xiv. 57): 'Stoicorum
secta, quæ turbidos et negotiorum appetentes facit.']
Marcus Antoninus--not only a powerful emperor, but also the most
gentle and amiable man of his day--talks of active beneficence both
as a duty and a satisfaction. But in the creed of the Stoics
generally, active beneficence did not occupy a prominent place. They
adopted the four Cardinal Virtues--Wisdom, or the Knowledge of Good
and Evil, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance--as part of their plan of
the virtuous life, the life according to Nature. Justice, as the
social virtue, was placed above all the rest. But the Stoics were not
strenuous in requiring more than Justice, for the benefit of others
beside the agent. They even reckoned compassion for the sufferings of
others as a weakness, analogous to envy for the good fortune of
others.
The Stoic recognised the gods (or Universal Nature, equivalent
expressions in his creed) as managing the affairs of the world, with
a view to producing as much happiness as was attainable on the whole.
Towards this end the gods did not want any positive assistance from
him; but it was his duty and his strongest interest, to resign
himself to their plans, and to abstain from all conduct tending to
frustrate them. Such refractory tendencies were perpetually suggested
to him by the unreasonable appetites, emotions, fears, antipathies,
&c., of daily life; all claiming satisfaction at the expense of
future mischief to himself and others. To countervail these
misleading forces by means of a fixed rational character built up
through meditation and philosophical teaching, was the grand purpose
of the Stoic ethical creed. The emotional or appetitive self was to
be starved or curbed, and retained only as an appendage to the
rational self; an idea proclaimed before in general terms by Plato,
but carried out into a system by the Stoics, though to a great extent
also by the Epikureans.
The Stoic was taught to reflect how much that appears to be
desirable, terror-striking, provocative, &c., is not really so, but
is made to appear so by false and curable associations. And, while he
thus discouraged those self-regarding emotions that placed him in