It has been shown in former parts of this work how Greek philosophy, after straining an antithesis to the utmost, was driven by the very law of its being to close or bridge over the chasm by a series of accommodations and transitions. To this rule Stoicism was no exception; and perhaps its extraordinary vitality may have been partly due to the necessity imposed on its professors of continually revising their ethics, with a view to softening down its most repellent features. We proceed to sketch in rapid outline the chief artifices employed for this purpose.CHAPTER III. THE SCEPTICS AND ECLECTICS: GREEK PHILOSOPHY IN ROME.
ONE:Nor was this the only reason why the spiritualists lost touch of their age. If in some respects they were far in advance of early Greek thought, in other respects they were far behind it. Their systems were pervaded by an unphilosophical dualism which tended to undo much that had been achieved by their less prejudiced predecessors. For this we have partly to blame their environment. The opposition of God and the world, heaven and earth, mind and matter, necessity in Nature and free-will in man, was a concessionthough of course an unconscious concessionto the stupid3 bigotry of Athens. Yet at the same time they had failed to solve those psychological problems which had most interest for an Athenian public. Instead of following up the attempt made by the Sophists and Socrates to place morality on a scientific foundation, they busied themselves with the construction of a new machinery for diminishing the efficacy of temptation or for strengthening the efficacy of law. To the question, What is the highest good? Plato gave an answer which nobody could understand, and Aristotle an answer which was almost absolutely useless to anybody but himself. The other great problem, What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? was left in an equally unsatisfactory state. Plato never answered it at all; Aristotle merely pointed out the negative conditions which must be fulfilled by its solution.
ONE:Balmayne groveled helplessly. There were tears in his eyes. The man could plot and intrigue, he could make the weapons for others, but he had no heart for them himself. He was an abject coward without feeling for anyone but himself. He would have left his nearest to starve or die without a prick of conscience, but he was nervous for himself. And he read his sentence in Lalage's eyes.Of these views, the first is taken by Ritter, and adopted with some modifications by M. Vacherot in his Histoire de lcole dAlexandrie. It is also unreservedly accepted by Donaldson in his continuation of Müllers History of Greek Literature, and is probably held at this moment by most Englishmen who take any interest in the subject at all. The second viewaccording to which Neo-Platonism is, at least in342 its main features, a characteristic although degenerate product of Greek thoughtis that maintained by Zeller. As against the Orientalising theory, it seems to us that Zeller has thoroughly proved his case.506 It may be doubted whether there is a single idea in Plotinus which can be shown to have its exact counterpart in any of the Hindoo or other Asiatic systems whence he is supposed to have drawn; and, as our own analysis has abundantly shown, he says nothing that cannot be derived, either directly or by a simple and easy process of evolution, from Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. On the other hand, has not Zeller gone much too far in treating Neo-Platonism as a product of the great religious reaction which unquestionably preceded and accompanied its appearance? Has he not altogether underrated its importance as a purely speculative system, an effort towards the attainment of absolute truth by the simple exercise of human reason? It seems to us that he has, and we shall offer some grounds for venturing to differ from his opinion.
TWO:"It mourns the lost liberty, the happiness, the peace, the brightness of her past prosperity which has vanished for a long season to come, it laments on account of the prisoners of war, the wounded, the dead.... And every morning the155 brilliant sun rises on the scene, the warm rays bathe town and country, both alike cruelly lashed by the frightful scourge.A solid milling cutter must be an accurately finished piece of work, made with more precision than can be expected in the work it is to perform. This accuracy cannot be attained by ordinary processes, because such tools, when tempered, are liable to become distorted in shape, and frequently break. When hardened they must be finished by grinding processes, if intended for any accurate work; in fact, no tools, except gauging implements, involve more expense to prepare, and none are so liable to accident when in use.
TWO:"That is so. Otherwise I should not be here tonight. As pictures go, 100 is not much. But that picture belonged to my mother's family--in fact, she is descended from the J. Halbin who painted it. It was sold some years ago at a time of great distress. We were sorry. Sentimental, you say, but it would be a bad world without sentiment. My sister, she never ceased to mourn over that picture. When the good time comes she try to get him back. But he has disappeared. Picture my delight when I see him in a little time ago in a shop window. I go home for my chequebook--for I am not a poor man, Herr Bruce, now--and I hurry back to the shop. On my way I send a telegram to my sister to say the picture is found. When I reach the shop you have beaten me by ten minutes."
TWO:Slowly, almost in a graveyard glide, so flat was the descent, to hold flying speed and stay as high as they could, their airplane moved along. They listened.
THREE:The inconsistencies of a great philosophical system are best explained by examining its historical antecedents. We have already attempted to disentangle the roots from which Stoicism was nourished, but one of the most important has not yet been taken into account. This was the still continued influence of Parmenides, derived, if not from his original teaching, then from some one or more of the altered shapes through which it had passed. It has been shown how Zeno used the Heracleitean method to break down all the demarcations laboriously built up by Plato and Aristotle. Spirit was identified with matter; ideas with aerial currents; God with the world; rational with sensible evidence; volition with judgment; and emotion with thought. But the idea of a fundamental antithesis, expelled from every other department of enquiry, took hold with all the more energy on what, to Stoicism, was the most vital of all distinctionsthat between right and wrong.57 Once grasp this transformation of a metaphysical into a moral principle, and every paradox of the system will be seen to follow from it with logical necessity. What the supreme Idea had been to Plato and self-thinking thought to Aristotle, that virtue became to the new school, simple, unchangeable, and self-sufficient. It must not only be independent of pleasure and pain, but absolutely 26incommensurable with them; therefore there can be no happiness except what it gives. As an indivisible unity, it must be possessed entirely or not at all; and being eternal, once possessed it can never be lost. Further, since the same action may be either right or wrong, according to the motive of its performance, virtue is nothing external, but a subjective disposition, a state of the will and the affections; or, if these are to be considered as judgments, a state of the reason. Finally, since the universe is organised reason, virtue must be natural, and especially consonant to the nature of man as a rational animal; while, at the same time, its existence in absolute purity being inconsistent with experience, it must remain an unattainable ideal.
THREE:It seems difficult to reconcile views about marriage involving a recognition of the fact that mental and moral qualities are hereditarily transmitted, with the belief in metempsychosis elsewhere professed by Plato. But perhaps his adhesion to the latter doctrine is not to be taken very seriously. In imitation of the objective world, whose essential truth is half hidden and half disclosed by its phenomenal manifestations, he loves to present his speculative teaching under a mythical disguise; and so he may have chosen the old doctrine of transmigration as an apt expression for the unity and continuity of life. And, at worst, he would not be guilty of any greater inconsistency than is chargeable to those modern philosophers who, while they admit that mental qualities are inherited, hold each individual soul to be a separate and independent creation.We had got near the door of the room that stood ajar, and from there came the sound of a couple of girls' voices: "Hail, Mary.... Hail, Mary...."
