A GUIDE TO STOICISM

by St. George Stock

TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. 347

Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius.

FOREWORD

If you strip Stoicism of its paradoxes and its wilful misuse oflanguage, what is left is simply the moral philosophy of Socrates,Plato and Aristotle, dashed with the physics of Heraclitus. Stoicismwas not so much a new doctrine as the form under which the old Greekphilosophy finally presented itself to the world at large. It owedits popularity in some measure to its extravagance. A great dealmight be said about Stoicism as a religion and about the part itplayed in the formation of Christianity but these subjects wereexcluded by the plan of this volume which was to present a sketch ofthe Stoic doctrine based on the original authorities.

ST GEORGE STOCK M A Pemb. Coll. Oxford

A GUIDE TO STOICISM.

ST GEORGE STOCK

PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

Among the Greeks and Romans of the classical age philosophy occupiedthe place taken by religion among ourselves. Their appeal was toreason not to revelation. To what, asks Cicero in his Offices, are weto look for training in virtue, if not to philosophy? Now, if truthis believed to rest upon authority it is natural that it should beimpressed upon the mind from the earliest age, since the essentialthing is that it should be believed, but a truth which makes itsappeal to reason must be content to wait till reason is developed. Weare born into the Eastern, Western or Anglican communion or someother denomination, but it was of his own free choice that theserious minded young Greek or Roman embraced the tenets of one of thegreat sects which divided the world of philosophy. The motive whichled him to do so in the first instance may have been merely theinfluence of a friend or a discourse from some eloquent speaker, butthe choice once made was his own choice, and he adhered to it assuch. Conversions from one sect to another were of quite rareoccurrence. A certain Dionysius of Heraclea, who went over from theStoics to the Cyrenaics, was ever afterward known as "the deserter."It was as difficult to be independent in philosophy as it is with usto be independent in politics. When a young man joined a school, hecommitted himself to all its opinions, not only as to the end oflife, which was the main point of division, but as to all questionson all subjects. The Stoic did not differ merely in his ethics fromthe Epicurean; he differed also in his theology and his physics andhis metaphysics. Aristotle, as Shakespeare knew, thought young men"unfit to hear moral philosophy". And yet it was a question—orrather the question—of moral philosophy, the answer to which decidedthe young man's opinions on all other points. The language whichCicero sometimes uses about the seriousness of the choice made inearly life and how a young man gets entrammelled by a school beforehe is really able to judge, reminds us of what we hear said nowadaysabout the danger of a young man's taking orders before his opinionsare formed. To this it was replied that a young man only exercisedthe right of private judgment in selecting the authority whom heshould follow, and, having once done that, trusted to him for all therest. With the analogue of this contention also we are familiar inmodern times. Cicero allows that th

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