CHAP. strict sense, indifferent (αδιάφορον). It includes not only what is really indifferent, but whatever has such a slight negative or positive value that it neither enkindles desire nor aversion. Hence the terms προηγμένον and ἀποπροηγμένον are respectively defined to mean that which has an appreciable positive or negative value. Under things preferential, the Stoics include partly mental qualities and conditions, such as talents and skill, even progress towards virtue, in as far as it is not yet virtue; partly bodily advantages-beauty, strength, health, life itself; partly external goods-riches, honour, noble birth, relations, &c. Under things to be declined, they understand the opposite things to these ; under things indifferent, whatever has no appreciable influence on our choice, such as the question whether ἀπαξίαν ἔχοντα. By ἀξία, the ... ὃν ἐκλεγόμεθα κατὰ προηγούμενον λόγον . . . οὐδὲν δὲ τῶν ἀγαθῶν εἶναι προηγμένον, διὰ τὸ τὴν μετ γίστην ἀξίαν αὐτὰ ἔχειν. τὸ δὲ προηγμένον, τὴν δεύτεραν χώραν καὶ ἀξίαν ἔχον, συνεγγίζειν πως τῇ τῶν ἀγαθῶν φύσει· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐν αὐλῇ τὸν προηγούμενον εἶναι τὸν βασιλέα, ἀλλὰ τὸν μετ' αὐτὸν τεταγμένον. 1 Stob. ii. 142: ἀδιάφορα δ' εἶναι λέγουσι τὰ μεταξὺ τῶν ἀγα θῶν καὶ τῶν κακῶν, διχῶς τὸ ἀδιάφορον νοεῖσθαι φάμενοι, καθ' ένα μὲν τρόπον τὸ μήτε ἀγαθὸν μήτε κακὸν καὶ τὸ μήτε αἱρετὸν μήτε φευκτόν· καθ' ἕτερον δὲ τὸ μήτε ὁρμῆς μήτε ἀφορμῆς κινητικόν. Similarly Diog. vii. 104. Sext. M. xi. 60, distinguishes a third meaning. • Stob. ii. 144. 156; Sert. Ρ. iii. 191; Μ. xi. 62. the number of hairs on one's head is equal or un equal, whether I pick a piece of waste paper up or leave it where it is, whether I use one piece of money or another in payment of a debt.' CHAP. XI. theory. The relative value of things preferential was care- (3) Colfully distinguished from the absolute value of things lision of modified morally good. Only the latter were really admitted and abto be good, because they only, under all circum-stract stances, are useful and necessary. Of things morally indifferent, on the other hand, the best may, under certain circumstances, be bad, and the worst -sickness, poverty, and the like-may, under certain circumstances, be useful. It was, moreover, denied that the independence of the wise man suffered by the recognition of a class of things preferential. The wise man, said Chrysippus,3 uses such things without requiring them. Nevertheless, the admission of classes of things to be preferred and to be declined obviously undermines the doctrine. of the good. Between what is good and what is evil, a third group is introduced, of doubtful character; and since the term adiápopov was applied only in its more extended meaning to this group, it became impossible for them to refuse to apply the term good to things desirable, or to exclude 1 Diog. vii. 106; Stob. ii. 142; Cic. Fin. iii. 15, 51; Sext. 1. c.; Plut. Sto. Rep. 30. The Stoics were not altogether agreed as to whether fame after death belonged to things to be desired. According to Cic. Fin. iii. 17, 57, Chrysippus and Diogenes denied it; whereas the younger Stoics, pressed by the Academician Car- 2 Cic. Fin. iii. 10, 34; 16, 52; 3 Sen. Ep. 9, 14: Sapientem nulla re egere, et tamen multis illi rebus opus esse. 4 Plut. Sto. Rep. 30, 4 év dè τῷ πρώτῳ περὶ ἀγαθῶν τρόπον CHAP. XI. unconditionally from the highest good many of the things which they were in the habit of pronouncing indifferent.1 Nor was this concession merely the yielding of a term, as will appear when particular instances are considered. Not only may Seneca be heard, in Aristotelian manner, defending external possessions as aids to virtue-not only Hecato, and even Diogenes, uttering ambiguous sentences as to permitted and forbidden gains 3—not only Panatius giving expression to much that falls short of Stoic severity1— but even Chrysippus avows, as his opinion, that it is foolish not to desire health, wealth, and freedom from pain," that a statesman may treat honour and wealth as real goods; and he states that the whole. 6 τινὰ συγχωρεῖ καὶ δίδωσι τοῖς Sen. Ep. 95, 5: Antipater But what philosopher would have said they had this ? 2 De Vit. Bea. 21. Cic. Off. iii. 12, 51; 13, 55; 23, 91; 15, 63; 23, 89. Diogenes of Seleucia says that it is permitted to circulate base money knowingly, to conceal defects in a purchase from the purchaser, and such like. Hecato of Rhodes, a pupil of Panatius, thinks that not only will a wise man look after his property by means lawful and right, but he believes that in a famine he will prefer to let his slaves starve, to main-. taining them at too great an expense. According to Cic. Off. ii. 14, 51, he would allow an attorney to ignore truth, provided his assertions were at least probable. 5 Plut. Sto. Rep. 30, 2. • Ibid. 5. Stoic School agrees with him in thinking that it is not unseemly for a wise man to follow a profession which lay under a stigma in the common opinion of Greece. He did not even hesitate openly to assert that it is better to live irrationally than not to live at all. It is impossible to conceal the fact that, in attempting to adapt their system to general opinion and to the conditions of practical life, the Stoics were driven into admissions strongly at variance with their previous theories. It may hence be gathered with certainty that, in laying down those theories, they had overstrained a point. CHAP. XI. and inter duties. By means of the doctrine of things preferential B. Perfect and things to be declined, a further addition was mediate made to the conception of duty. Under duty, or what is proper,3 we have already seen, the Stoics understand rational action in general, which becomes good conduct, or κaтóρowμа, by being done with a According to Plut. Sto. Rep. 20, 3 and 7 and 10; 30, 3, Diog. vii. 188, Stob. ii. 224, the Stoics admit three kinds of earning an honest livelihood-by teaching, by courting the rich, by serving states and princes. The first and the last were no longer condemned in the Alexandrian period, as they had been before, but still they were in bad repute, and the second was particularly so. The course advocated by Chrysippus was still more at variance with Greek customs (in Plut. Sto. Rep. 30): καὶ κυβιστήσειν τρὶς ἐπὶ τούτῳ λαβόντα τάλαντον. Chrysippus himself (in Diog.) enumerates the objections to the modes of life just named, and, in general, 2 Plut. Sto. Rep. 18, 1 and 3. 3какоν, an expression introduced by Zeno, according to Diog. 108. CHAP, right intention. The conception of duty, therefore, contains in itself the conception of virtuous conduct, and is used primarily to express what is good or rational. Now, however, duty has obtained a secondary meaning. It is used to express what is desirable, as well as what is good. If the good were the only permitted object of desire, there would, of course, be but one duty-that of realising the good; and the various actions which contribute to this result would only be distinguished by their being employed on a different material, but not in re\spect of their moral value. But if, besides what is absolutely good, there are things relatively good, things not to be desired absolutely, but only in cases in which they may be pursued without detriment to the absolute good or virtue-if, moreover, besides vice, as the absolute evil, there are also relative evils, which we have reason to avoid in these same cases— the extent of our duties is at once thereby increased: a number of conditional duties are placed by the side of duties unconditional, differing from the latter in that they aim at pursuing things to be preferred, and eschewing things to be declined. From this platform, all that accords with nature is regarded as proper, or a duty, in the more extended sense of the term; and the conception of propriety is extended to include plants and animals. 1 Diog. 107: καθῆκον φασὶν εἶναι ὁ πραχθὲν εὔλογόν τιν ἴσχει ἀπολογισμὸν οἷον τὸ ἀκόλουθον ἐν τῇ ζωῇ, ὅπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ φυτὰ καὶ (τα διατείνει· ὁρᾶσθαι γὰρ κἀπὶ Proper and dutiful τούτων καθήκοντα. Stob. 158: δρίζεται δὲ τὸ καθῆκον τὸ ἀκόλουθον ἐν ζωῇ, ὁ πραχθὲν εὔλογον ἀπολογίαν ἔχει· παρὰ τὸ καθῆκον δὲ ἐναντίως. τοῦτο διατείνει καὶ εἰς τὰ ἄλογα |