The fountain of all virtue is manifestly the life according to nature, as being the life of subordination of self to more general interests—to family, country, mankind, the whole universe. If a man is prepared to consider himself absolutely rithing in com the universal interest, and to regard it as the sole end of life, lie has embraced an ideal of virtue of the loftiest order. Accordingly, the Stoics were the first to preach what is called " Cosmopolitanism;" for although, in their reference to the good of the whole, they confounded together sentiment, life, and inanimate objects—rocks, plants, etc., solicitude for which was misspent labor—yet they were thus enabled to reach the conception of the universal brotherhood of mankind, and could not but Include in their regards the brute creation. They said: "There is no difference between Greeks and barbarians; the world is our city." Seneca urges kindness to staves, for "are they not men like ourselves, breathing the same air, living and dying like our selves?" The Epicureans declined, as much as possible, interference in public affairs, but the Stoical philosophers all urged nien to the duties of active citizenship. Athough there had been many good and noble men among the pagans, yet positive beneficence had not been preached as a virtue before the Stoics. They adopted the four cardinal virtues (wisdom, or the knowledge of good and evil; justice; fortitude; temperance) as part of their plait of the virtuous life, the life according to nature. Justice, as the social virtue, was placed above all the rest. But most interesting to us are the indications of the idea of beneficence. Epictetus is earnest in his exhortations to forgiveness of injuries. An toninus often enforces the same virtue, and suggests considerations in aid of the practice of it; he contends as strongly as Butler and Hume for the existence of a principle of pure, that is, unselfish, benevolence in the mind—in other words, that we are made to advance each other's happiness.
There is also in the Stoical system a recognition of duties to God, and of morality as based on piety. Not only are we all brethren, but also the "children of one Father. ' The extraordinary stress put upon human nature by the full Stoic ideal of submerging self in the larger interest; of being, led to various compromises. The rigid following out of the ideal issued in one of the paradoxes, namely, that all the actions of the wise man are equally perfect, and that, short of the standard of perfection, all faults and vices are equal; that, for example, the man that killed a cock without good reason wits as guilty as he that killed his father. This has a meaning only when we draw a line between spirituality and morality, and treat the last as worthless in comparison of the first. The later Stoics, however, iu their exhortations to special branches of duty, gave a positive value to practical virtue, irrespective of the. ideal.
The idea of duty was of Stoical origin, fostered and developed by the Roman spirit and legislation. The early Stoics had two different words for the "suitable" (kothekon) and the "right" (katori•ania); although it is a significant circumstance that the "suitable" is the lineal ancestor of our word "duty" (through the Latin °Siam).
. It was a great point with the Stoic to be conscious of " advance," or improvmcnt. By self-examination, he kept himself constantly acquainted. with his moral state, and it was both his duty and his satisfaction to be approaching to the ideal of the perfect man. When renouncing the position of "wise," he yet claimed to be advancing. This idea, familiar to the modern world, was unknown to the ancients before the Stoics. It is very illustrative of the unguarded points and contradictions of Stoicism, that contentment and apathy were not permit grief even for the loss of friends. Seneca, on one occasion, admits that he was betrayed by 'human weakness on this point. On strict Stoical principles, we ought to treat the afflictions and the death of others with the same frigid indifference as our own; for why should a mail feel for a second person more than he ought to feel for himself, as a mere unit in the infinitude of the universe? This is the contradiction inseparable from any system that begins by abjuring happiness as the end of life. We may be allowed to regard our own happiness as of no importance, but if we apply the seine measure to happiness in general, we are bereft of all motives to benevolence; and virtue, instead of being set on a loftier pinnacle, is left without any foundation.
The Stoical system has largely tinctured modern ages, in spite of its severity. It has always had a charm as an ideal, even when men were conscious of not realizing it. It may be still considered as a grand experiment in the of living, from which valu able lessons have resulted; just as a believer in alchemy, or in the perpetual motion, might make useful experimental discoveries. The limitation of the practice of content ment, the striving after equanimity, the hardening of one's self against the blows of fortune, arc all familiar to the moralist of later ages. A qualified form of the sub ordination of self to the general welfare. belongs to the modern theories of virtue.
The chief ancient authorities on the are the writings of Epictet us, Marcus Antoninus. and Seneca, themselves Stoical philosophers, together with notices occurring in Cicero, Plutarch, Sextus Empirieus, Diogenes Lacrtius, and Stobvens. The completest modern account of the system occurs in Zeller's Philosophie der Griechen, vol. iii. See also an article by sir Alexander Grant in the Orford Essays for 1858.