From what has been said, it follows that there can be but one universal distinction suited for all mankind, the distinction between the virtuous and the vicious; and that within each of these classes there can be no difference in degree. He who ●possesses virtue must possess it whole and entire; he who lacks virtue must lack it altogether; and whether he is near or far from possessing it is a matter of no moment. He who is only a handbreadth below the surface of the water will be drowned just as surely as one who is five hundred fathoms deep; he who is blind sees equally little The equality of faults is a corollary from the equality of virtues, and also from the consideration that whatever is forbidden at all is equally forbidden. De Fin.: It is said, all faults are equal, quia nec honesto quidquam honestius nec turpi turpius. Seneca (Ep. 66, 5) raises the question, How, notwithstanding the difference between goods, can all be equal in value? and at once replies: Virtue-or, what is the same thing, a rightly-moulded soul-is alone a primary good. Virtue, indeed, admits of various forms, but can neither be increased nor diminished. Decrescere enim summum bonum non potest, nec virtuti ire retro licet. It cannot increase, quando incrementum maximo non est: nihil invenies rectius recto, non magis quam verius vero, quam temperato temperatius. All virtue consists in modo, in certa mensura. Quid accedere perfecto potest? Nihil, aut perfectum non erat, cui accesset: ergo ne virtuti quidem, cui si quid adjici potest, defuit ... ergo virtutes inter se pares sunt et opera virtutis et omnes homines, quibus illæ contigere . . . una inducitur humanis virtutibus regula. Una enim est ratio recta simplexque. Nihil est divino divinius, cœlesti cœlestius. Mortalia minuuntur. . . crescunt, &c.; divinorum una natura est. Ratio autem nihil aliud est, quam in corpus humanum pars divini spiritus mersa. nullum porro inter divina discrimen est: ergo nec inter bona. Ibid. 32: Omnes virtutes rationes sunt: rationes sunt recta: si recta sunt, et pares sunt. Qualis ratio est, tales et actiones sunt: ergo omnes pares sunt: ceterum magna habebunt discrimina variante materia, etc. On the same ground, Seneca, Ep. 71, defended the equality of all goods and of all good actions, in particular in the words: Si rectior ipsa [virtus] non potest fieri, ne quæ ab illa quidem fiunt, alia aliis rectiora sunt. CHAP. X. C. The wise man. (1) Wisdom and folly. CHAP. Χ. whether he will recover his sight to-morrow or never. The whole of mankind are thus divided by the Stoics into two classes-those who are wise and those who are foolish; 2 and these two classes are treated by them as mutually exclusive, each one being complete in itself. Among the wise no folly, among the foolish no wisdom of any kind, is possible. The wise man is absolutely free from faults and mistakes: all that he does is right; in him all virtues centre; he has a right opinion on every subject, and never a wrong one, nor, indeed, ever an opinion at all. The bad man, on the contrary, can do nothing aright: he has about him. every kind of vice; he has no right knowledge, and is altogether rude, violent, cruel, and ungrateful.4 1 Plut. C. Not. 10, 4: ναὶ, φασίν· ἀλλὰ ὥσπερ ὁ πήχυν ἀπέχων ἐν θαλάττῃ τῆς ἐπιφανείας οὐδὲν ἧττον πνίγεται τοῦ καταδεδυκότος ὀργυίας πεντακοσίας, οὕτως οὐδὲ οἱ πελάζοντες ἀρετῇ τῶν μακρὰν ὄντων ἧττόν εἰσιν ἐν κακίᾳ· καὶ καθάπερ οἱ τυφλο! τυφλοί εἰσι κἂν ὀλίγον ὕστερον ἀναβλέπειν μέλλωσιν, οὕτως οἱ προκόπτοντες ἄχρις οὗ τὴν ἀρετὴν ἀναλάβωσιν ἀνόητοι καὶ μοχθηροί διαμένουσιν. Diog. 127. Stob. ii. 236 : πάντων τε τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων ἴσων ὄντων καὶ τῶν κατορθωμάτων καὶ τοὺς ἄφρονας ἐπίσης πάντας ἄφρονας εἶναι τὴν αὐτὴν καὶ ἴσην ἔχοντας διάθεσιν. Cic. Fin. iii. 14, 48 : Consentaneum est his quæ dicta sunt, ratione illorum, qui illum bonorum finem quod appellamus extremum quod ultimum crescere putent posse, iisdem placere, esse alium alio etiam sapientiorem, itemque alium magis alio vel peccare vel recte facere. Quod nobis non licet dicere, qui crescere bonorum finem non putamus. Then follow the same comparisons as in Plutarch. Sen. Ep. 66, 10: As all virtues are equal, so are omnes homines quibus illae contigere. Ep. 79, 8: What is perfect admits of no increase; quicunque fuerint sapientes pares erunt et aequales. • Stob. ii. 198: ἀρέσκει γὰρ τῷ τε Ζήνωνι καὶ τοῖς ἀπ' αὐτοῦ Στωϊκοῖς φιλοσόφοις, δύο γένη τῶν ἀν θρώπων εἶναι, τὸ μὲν τῶν σπουδαί ων τὸ δὲ τῶν φαύλων· καὶ τὸ μὲν τῶν σπουδαίων διὰ παντὸς τοῦ βίου χρῆσθαι ταῖς ἀρεταῖς τὸ δὲ τῶν φαύλων ταῖς κακίαις. * Plut. Aud. Poet. 7 : μήτε τι φαῦλον ἀρετῇ προσεῖναι μήτε κακία χρηστὸν ἀξιοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ πάντως μὲν ἐν πᾶσιν ἁμαρτωλὸν εἶναι τὸν ἀμαθῆ, περὶ πάντα δ ̓ αὖ κατορθοῦν τὸν ἀστεῖον. • Stob. Eel. ii. 116, 120, 196; The Stoics delight in insisting upon the perfection of the wise man, and contrasting with it the absolute faultiness of the foolish man, in a series of paradoxical assertions.' The wise man only is free, because he alone uses his own will and controls himself; 2 alone beautiful, because only virtue is beautiful and attractive; 3 alone rich and happy (EUTUxns), because goods of the soul are the most valuable, and true riches consist in being independent of wants. Nay, more, he is absolutely rich, since he who has a right view of everything has everything in his intellectual treasury, and he who makes the right use of everything bears to everything the relation of owner. The wise only know how to obey, and they also only know how to govern; they only are therefore kings, generals, pilots; they only are orators, poets, and prophets;8 and since their view of the Gods and the worship of the Gods is the only true one, true piety can only be found amongst them-they are the only priests and friends of heaven. All foolish men, on 198; 220; 232; Diog. vii. 117; 125; Cic. Acad. i. 10, 38; ii. 20, 66; Plut. Sto. Rep. 11, 1; Sen. Benef. iv. 26; Sext. Math. vii. 434. Compare the collection of expressions in Baumhauer, Vet. Phil. Doct. De Mort. Volunt. p. 169. 2 Diog. 121; 32; Cic. Acad. ii. 44, 136. Parad. 5: 8тi μóvos & σοφὸς ἐλεύθερος καὶ πᾶς ἄφρων δοῦλος. Plut. C. Not. 28, 1; Cic. Acad. 1. c.; Sext. Math. xi. 170. Cic. Acad. 1. c.; Diog. vii. 125. Plut. Tran. An. 12; Cic. Cic. Parad. 6; Acad. 1. c.; Ps. Plut. Vit. Hom. 143. CHAP. X. CHAP. X. (2) Universal depravity. the contrary, are impious, profane, and enemies of heaven. The wise man only is capable of feeling gratitude, love, and friendship, and he only is capable of receiving a benefit; to the foolish man, nothing is of advantage, nothing is useful. To sum up, the wise man is absolutely perfect, absolutely free from passion and want, absolutely happy; as the Stoics exclusively assert, he in no way falls short of the happiness of Zeus, since time, the only point in which he differs from Zeus, does not augment happiness at all. On the other hand, the foolish man is altogether foolish, unhappy, and perverse; or, in the expressive language of the Stoics, every foolish man is a madman, for he is a madman who has no knowledge of himself, nor of what most closely affects him." This assertion was all the more sweeping, since the Stoics recognised neither virtue nor wisdom 1 Stob. ii. 122 and 216; Diog. 119; Sen. Provid. i. 5. Philodemus, #epl beŵv diaywyŷs (Vol. Hercul. vi. 29), quotes a Stoic saying that the wise are the friends of God, and God of the wise. * Sen. Ep. 81, 11; Stob. ii. 118. Stob. ii. 196; Plut. Stoic. Abs. Chrysippus, in Plut. Sto. supra patientiam. Ep. 73, 11; De Const. 8, 2; Cic. N. D. ii. 61, 153; Epictet. Diss. i. 12, 26; Man. 15; Horat. Ep. i. 1, 106. • Sen. Ep. 53, 11: Non multo te Di antecedent . . . diutius erunt. At mehercule magni artificis est clausisse totum in exiguo. Tantum sapienti sua, quantum Deo omnis ætas patet. 73, 13: Jupiter quo antecedit virum bonum? Diutius bonus est: sapiens nihilo se minoris æstimat, quod virtutes ejus spatio breviore clauduntur. * πᾶς ἄφρων μαίνεται. Cic. Parad. 4; Tuse. iii. 5, 10; Diog. vii. 124; Stob. Eel. ii. 124; Horat. Sat. ii. 3, 43. outside their own system or some system closely related to it, and since they held a most unfavourable opinion of the moral condition of mankind. It was an inevitable feature in their scheme that their opinion of their fellow-men would not be a favourable one. A system which opposes its own moral theory to current notions so sharply as that of the Stoics can only be the offspring of a general disapproval of existing circumstances. At the same time, it brings out that disapproval in a sharper manner. According to the Stoic standard, by far the majority, and almost the whole of mankind, belong to the class of the foolish; and if all foolish. people are equally and altogether bad, mankind must have seemed to them to be a sea of corruption and vice, from which, at best, but a few swimmers emerge at spots widely apart. Mankind pass their lives such had already been the complaint of Cleanthes 2-in wickedness. Only here and there do individuals in the evening of life, after many wanderings, attain to virtue. This was the common opinion among the successors of Cleanthes, witness their constant complaints of the depravity of the foolish, and of the rare occurrence of a wise man.3 The Peripatetic Diogenianus raises the objection (in Eus. Præp. Ev. vi. 8, 10): @s obv οὐδένα φῂς ἄνθρωπον, ὃς οὐχὶ μαίνεσθαί σοι δοκεῖ κατ ̓ ἴσον Ορέστῃ καὶ ̓Αλκμαίωνι, πλὴν τοῦ σόφου; ἕνα δὲ ἢ δύο μόνους φῂς σόφους yeyovéval. Conf. Plut. Sto. Rep. 31, 5. * Sext. Math. ix. 90: Man cannot be the most perfect being, 3 This point will be again con- CHAP. X. |