The Five Great Philosophies of Life Part 4

The first paradox is that there are no degrees in vice. In the words of the Stoic, "The man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both equally not in Canopus."

One of the few bits of moral counsel which I remember from the infant cla.s.s in the Sunday-school runs as follows:--

"It is a sin To steal a pin: Much more to steal A greater thing."

This, in spite of its exquisite lyrical expression, the Stoic would flatly deny. The theft of a pin, and the defalcation of a bank cashier for a hundred thousand dollars; a cross word to a dog, and a course of conduct which breaks a woman's heart, are from the Stoic standpoint precisely on a level. For it is not the consequences but the form of our action that is the important thing. It is not how we make other people feel as a result of our act, but how we ourselves think of it, as we propose to do it, or after it is done, that determines its goodness or badness. If I steal a pin, I violate the universal law just as clearly and absolutely as though I stole the hundred thousand dollars. I can no more look with deliberate approval on the cross word to a dog, than on the breaking of a woman's heart. There are things that do not admit of degrees. We must either fire our gun off or not fire it. We cannot fire part of the charge. We want either an absolutely good egg for breakfast, or no egg at all. One that is partially good, or on the line between goodness and badness, we send back as altogether bad. If there is a little round hole in a pane of gla.s.s, cut by a bullet, we reject the whole pane as imperfect, just as though a big jagged hole had been made in it by a brickbat. We get an echo of this paradox in the statement of St. James, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."

This paradox becomes plain, self-evident truth, the moment we admit the Stoic position that not external things, and their appeal to our sensibility, but our internal att.i.tudes toward universal law, are the points on which our virtue hangs. Either we intend to obey the universal law of nature or we do not; and between the intention of obedience and the intention of disobedience there is no middle ground.

Second: The wise man, the Stoic sage, is absolutely perfect, the complete master of himself, and rightfully the ruler of the world. If everything depends on our thought, and our thought is in tune with the universal law, then obviously we are perfect. Beyond such complete inner response to the universal law it is impossible for man to advance.

Curiously enough, the religious doctrine of perfectionism, which often arises in Methodist circles, and in such holiness movements as have taken their rise from the influence of Methodism, shows this same root in the conception of law. Wesley's definition of sin is "the violation of a known law." If that be all there is of sin, then any of us who is ordinarily decent and conscientious, may boast of perfection. You can number perfectionists by tens of thousands on such abstract terms as these. But if sin be not merely deliberate violation of abstract law; if it be failure to fulfil to the highest degree the infinitely delicate personal, domestic, civic, and social relations in which we stand; then the very notion of perfection is preposterous, and the profession of it little less than blasphemy. But like the modern religious perfectionists, the Stoics had little concern for the concrete, individual, personal ties which bind men and women together in families, societies, and states. Perfection was an easy thing, because they had defined it in such abstract terms. Still, though not by any means the whole of virtue as deeper schools have apprehended it, it is something to have our inner motive absolutely right, when measured by the standard of universal law. That at least the Stoic professed to have attained.

Third: The Stoic is a citizen of the whole world. Local, domestic, national ties bind him not. But this is a cheap way of gaining universality,--this skipping the particulars of which the universal is composed. To be as much interested in the politics of Rio Janeiro or Hong Kong as you are in those of the ward of your own city does not mean much until we know how much you are interested in the politics of your own ward. And in the case of the Stoic this interest was very attenuated. As is usually the case, extension of interest to the ends of the earth was purchased at the cost of defective intensity close at home, where charity ought to begin. As a matter of fact the Stoics were very defective in their standards of citizenship. Still, what the law of justice demanded, that they were disposed to render to every man; and thus, though on a very superficial basis, the Stoics laid the broad foundation of an international democracy which knows no limits of colour, race, or stage of development. Though Stoicism falls far short of the warmth and devotion of modern Christian missions, yet the early stage of the missionary movement, in which people were interested, not in the concrete welfare of specific peoples, but in vast aggregates of "souls," represented on maps, and in diagrams, bears a close resemblance to the Stoic cosmopolitanism. We have all seen people who would give and work to save the souls of the heathen, who would never under any circ.u.mstances think of calling on the neighbour on the same street who chanced to be a little below their own social circle. The soul of a heathen is a very abstract conception; the lowly neighbour a very concrete affair. The Stoics are not the only people who have deceived themselves with vast abstractions.

VI

THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF STOICISM

The Stoics had a genuine religion. The Epicureans, too, had their G.o.ds, but they never took them very seriously. In a world made up of atoms accidentally grouped in transient relations, of which countless accidental groupings I happen to be one, there is no room for a real religious relationship. Consequently the Epicurean, though he amused himself with poetic pictures of G.o.ds who led lives of undisturbed serenity, unconcerned about the affairs of men, had no consciousness of a great spiritual whole of which he was a part, or of an Infinite Person to whom he was personally related.

To the Stoic, on the contrary, the round world is part of a single universe, which holds all its parts in the grasp and guidance of one universal law, determining each particular event. By making that law of the universe his own, the individual man at once worships the all-controlling Providence, and achieves his own freedom. For the law to which he yields is at once the law of the whole universe, and the law of his own nature as a part of the universe. "We are born subjects,"

exclaims the Stoic, "but to obey G.o.d is perfect liberty." "Everything,"

says Marcus Aurelius, "harmonises with me which is harmonious to thee, O universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee."

A characteristic prayer and meditation and hymn will show us, far better than description, what this Stoic religion meant to those who devoutly held it. Epictetus gives us this prayer of the dying Cynic: "I stretch out my hands to G.o.d and say: The means which I have received from thee for seeing thy administration of the world and following it I have not neglected: I have not dishonoured thee by my acts: see how I have used my perceptions: have I ever blamed thee? have I been discontented with anything that happens or wished it to be otherwise? Have I wished to transgress the relations of things? That thou hast given me life, I thank thee for what thou hast given: so long as I have used the things which are thine I am content; take them back and place them wherever thou mayest choose; for thine were all things,--thou gavest them to me.

Is it not enough to depart in this state of mind, and what life is better and more becoming than that of a man who is in this state of mind, and what end is more happy?"

He also offers us this meditation on the inevitable losses of life, by which he consoles himself with the thought that all he has is a loan from G.o.d, which these seeming losses but restore to their rightful owner, who had lent them to us for a while.

"Never say about anything, I have lost it; but say, I have restored it.

Is your child dead? It has been restored. Is your wife dead? She has been restored. Has your estate been taken from you? Has not this been also restored? 'But he who has taken it from me is a bad man.' But what is it to you by whose hands the giver demanded it back? So long as he may allow you, take care of it as a thing which belongs to another, as travellers do with their inn."

The grandest expression of the Stoic religion, however, is found in the hymn of Cleanthes. Elsewhere there is too evident a disposition to condescend to use G.o.d's aid in keeping up the Stoic temper; with little of outgoing adoration for the greatness and glory which are in G.o.d himself. But in this grand hymn we have genuine reverence, devotion, worship, praise, self-surrender,--in short, that confession of the glory of the Infinite by the conscious weakness of the finite in which the heart of true religion everywhere consists. Nowhere outside of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures has adoration breathed itself in more exalted and fervent strains. The hymn is addressed to Zeus, as the Stoics freely used the names of the popular G.o.ds to express their own deeper meanings.

HYMN TO ZEUS

"Thee it is lawful for all mortals to address. For we are Thy offspring, and alone of living creatures possess a voice which is the image of reason. Therefore I will forever sing Thee and celebrate Thy power. All this universe rolling round the earth obeys Thee, and follows willingly at Thy command. Such a minister hast Thou in Thy invincible hands, the two-edged, flaming, vivid thunderbolt. O King, most High, nothing is done without Thee, neither in heaven or on earth, nor in the sea, except what the wicked do in their foolishness. Thou makest order out of disorder, and what is worthless becomes precious in Thy sight; for Thou hast fitted together good and evil into one, and hast established one law that exists forever. But the wicked fly from Thy law, unhappy ones, and though they desire to possess what is good, yet they see not, neither do they hear the universal law of G.o.d. If they would follow it with understanding, they might have a good life. But they go astray, each after his own devices,--some vainly striving after reputation, others turning aside after gain excessively, others after riotous living and wantonness. Nay, but, O Zeus, Giver of all things, who dwellest in dark clouds and rulest over the thunder, deliver men from their foolishness. Scatter it from their souls, and grant them to obtain wisdom, for by wisdom Thou dost rightly govern all things; that being honoured we may repay Thee with honour, singing Thy works without ceasing, as it is right for us to do. For there is no greater thing than this, either for mortal men or for the G.o.ds, to sing rightly the universal law."

Modern literature of the n.o.bler sort has many a Stoic note; and we ought to be able to recognise it in its modern as well as in its ancient dress. The very best brief expression of the Stoic creed is found in Henley's Lines to R. T. H. B.:--

"Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever G.o.ds may be For my unconquerable soul.

"In the fell clutch of circ.u.mstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is b.l.o.o.d.y, but unbowed.

"Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find me unafraid.

"It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."

The chief modern type of Stoicism, however, is Matthew Arnold. His great remedy for the ills of which life is so full is stated in the concluding lines of "The Youth of Man":--

"While the locks are yet brown on thy head, While the soul still looks through thine eyes, While the heart still pours The mantling blood to thy cheek, Sink, O youth, in thy soul!

Yearn to the greatness of Nature; Rally the good in the depths of thyself!"

VII

THE PERMANENT VALUE OF STOICISM

If now we know the two fundamental principles of Stoicism, the indifference of external circ.u.mstance as compared with the reaction of our own thought upon it, and the sanctification of our thought by self-surrender to the universal law; and if we have learned to recognise these Stoic notes alike in ancient and modern prose and poetry, we are ready to discriminate between the good in it which we wish to cherish, and the shortcomings of the system which it is well for us to avoid.

We can all reduce enormously our troubles and vexations by bringing to bear upon them the two Stoic formulas. Toward material things, toward impersonal events at least, we may all with profit put on the Stoic armour, or to use the figure of the turtle, which is most expressive of the Stoic att.i.tude, we can all draw the soft sensitive flesh of our feelings inside the hard sh.e.l.l of resolute thoughts. There is a way of looking at our poverty, our plainness of feature, our lack of mental brilliancy, our humble social estate, our unpopularity, our physical ailments, which, instead of making us miserable, will make us modest, contented, cheerful, serene. The mistakes that we make, the foolish words we say, the unfortunate investments into which we get drawn, the failures we experience, all may be transformed by the Stoic formula into spurs to greater effort and stimulus to wiser deeds in days to come.

Simply to shift the emphasis from the dead external fact beyond our control, to the live option which always presents itself within; and to know that the circ.u.mstance that can make us miserable simply does not exist, unless it exists by our consent within our own minds;--this is a lesson well worth spending an hour with the Stoics to learn once for all.

And the other aspect of their doctrine, its quasi-religious side, though not by any means the last word about religion, is a valuable first lesson in the reality of religion. To know that the universal law is everywhere, and that its will may in every circ.u.mstance be done; to measure the petty perturbations of our little lives by the vast orbits of natural forces moving according to beneficent and unchanging law; when we come out of the exciting political meeting, or the roar of the stock-exchange, to look up at the calm stars and the tranquil skies and hear them say to us, "So hot, my little man";--this elevation of our individual lives by the reverent contemplation of the universe and its unswerving laws, is something which we may all learn with profit from the old Stoic masters. Business, house-keeping, school-teaching, professional life, politics, society, would all be more n.o.ble and dignified if we could bring to them every now and then a touch of this Stoic strength and calm.

Criticism, complaint, fault-finding, malicious scandal, unpopularity, and all the shafts of the censorious are impotent to slay or even wound the spirit of the Stoic. If these criticisms are true, they are welcomed as aids in the discovery of faults which are to be frankly faced, and strenuously overcome. If they are false, unfounded, due to the querulousness or jealousy of the critic rather than to any fault of the Stoic, then he feels only contempt for the criticisms and pity for the poor misguided critic. The true Stoic can be the serene husband of a scolding shrew of a wife; the complacent representative of dissatisfied and enraged const.i.tuents; maintain unruffled equanimity when cut by his aristocratic acquaintances and excluded from the most select social circles: for he carries the only valid standard of social measurement under his own hat, and needs not the adoration of his wife, the cheers of his const.i.tuents, the cards and invitations, the nods and smiles of the four hundred to a.s.sure him of his dignity and worth. If he is an author, it does not trouble him that his books are unsold, unread, uncut. If the many could appreciate him, he would have to be one of themselves, and then there would be no use in his trying to instruct them. His book is what the universal law gave him to say, and decreed that it should be; and whether there be many or few to whom the universal law has revealed the same truth, and granted power to appreciate it, is the concern of the universal, not of himself, the individual author. Again, if he is in poor health, weary, exhausted, if each stroke of work must be wrought in agony and pain,--that, too, is decreed for him by those just laws which he or his ancestors have blindly violated; and he will accept even this dictate of the universal law as just and good: he will not suffer these trifling incidental pains and aches to diminish by one jot the output of his hand or brain. When disillusion and disappointment overtake him; when the things his youth had sighed for finally take themselves forever out of his reach; when he sees clearly that only a few more years remain to him, and those must be composed of the same monotonous round of humdrum details, duties that have lost the charm of novelty, functions that have long since been relegated to the unconsciousness of habit, vexations that have been endured a thousand times, petty pleasures that have long since lost their zest: even then the Stoic says that this, too, is part of the universal programme, and must be accepted resignedly. If there is little that nature has left to give him for which he cares, yet he can return to her the tribute of an obedient will and a contented mind: if he can expect little from the world, he can contribute something to it; and so to the last he maintains,--

"One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

When there is hard work to be done, to which there is no pleasure, no honour, no emolument attached; when there are evils to be rebuked which will bring down the wrath and vengeance of the powers that be on him who exposes the wrong; when there are poor relatives to be supported, and slights to be endured, and injustice to be borne, it is well for us all to know this Stoic formula, and fortify our souls behind its impenetrable walls. To consider not what happens to us, but how we react upon it; to measure good in terms not of sensuous pleasure, but of mental att.i.tude; to know that if we are for the universal law, it matters not how many things may be against us; to rest a.s.sured that there can be no circ.u.mstance or condition in which this law cannot be done by us, and therefore no situation of which we cannot be more than master, through implicit obedience to the great law that governs all,--this is the stern consolation of Stoicism; and there are few of us so happily situated in all respects that there do not come to us times when such a conviction is a defence and refuge for our souls. Beyond and above Stoicism we shall try to climb in later chapters. But below Stoicism one may not suffer his life to fall, if he would escape the fearful h.e.l.ls of depression, despair, and melancholia. As we lightly send back across the centuries our thanks to Epicurus for teaching us to prize at their true worth health and the good things of life, so let us reverently bow before the Stoic sages, who taught us the secret of that hardy virtue which bears with fort.i.tude life's inevitable ills.

VIII

THE DEFECTS OF STOICISM

Why we cannot rest in Stoicism as our final guide to life, the mere statement of their doctrine must have made clear to every one; and in calling attention to its limitations I shall only be saying for the reader what he has been saying to himself all through the chapter. It may be well enough to treat things as indifferent, and work them over into such mental combinations as best serve our rational interests. To treat persons in that way, however, to make them mere p.a.w.ns in the game which reason plays, is heartless, monstrous. The affections are as essential to man as his reason. It is a poor subst.i.tute for the warm, sweet, tender ties that bind together husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend,--this freezing of people together through their common relation to the universal law. I suppose that is why, in all the history of Stoicism, though college girls usually have a period of flirting with the Stoic melancholy of Matthew Arnold, no woman was ever known to be a consistent and steadfast Stoic. Indeed a Stoic woman is a contradiction in terms. One might as well talk of a warm iceberg, or soft granite, or sweet vinegar. Stoicism is something of which men, unmarried or badly married men at that, have an absolute monopoly.

Again if its disregard of particulars and individuals is cold and hard, its attempted subst.i.tute of abstract, vague universality is a bit absurd. Sometimes the lighter mood of caricature best brings out the weaknesses that are concealed in grave systems when taken too seriously.

Mr. W. S. Gilbert has put the dash of absurdity there is in the Stoic doctrines so convincingly that his lines may serve the purpose of ill.u.s.trating the inherent weakness of the Stoic position better than more formal criticism. They are addressed

TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE

"Roll on, thou ball, roll on; Through pathless realms of s.p.a.ce Roll on.

What though I'm in a sorry case?

What though I cannot pay my bills?

What though I suffer toothache's ills?

What though I swallow countless pills?

Never you mind!

Roll on.

"Roll on, thou ball, roll on; Through seas of inky air Roll on.

It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bills are due; It's true my prospects all look blue-- But don't let that unsettle you-- Never you mind!

Roll on.

(It rolls on.)"