by Will Durant
Man is a completely natural product. Life probably began by spontaneous generation, and progressed without design through the natural selection of the fittest forms.21 Mind is only another kind of matter. The soul is a delicate material substance diffused throughout the body.22 It can feel or act only by means of the body, and dies with the body’s death. Despite all this we must accept the testimony of our immediate consciousness that the will is free; else we should be meaningless puppets on the stage of life. It is better to be a slave to the gods of the people than to the Fate of the philosophers.23
The real function of philosophy, however, is not to explain the world, since the part can never explain the whole, but to guide us in our quest of happiness. “That which we have in view is not a set of systems and vain opinions, but much rather a life exempt from every kind of disquietude.”24 Over the entrance to the garden of Epicurus was the inviting legend: “Guest, thou shalt be happy here, for here happiness is esteemed the highest good.” Virtue, in this philosophy, is not an end in itself, it is only an indispensable means to a happy life.25 “It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently, honorably, and justly; nor to live prudently, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly.”26 The only certain propositions in philosophy are that pleasure is good, and that pain is bad. Sensual pleasures are in themselves legitimate, and wisdom will find some room for them; since, however, they may have evil effects, they need such discriminating pursuit as only intelligence can give.
When, therefore, we say that pleasure is the chief good we are not speaking of the pleasures of the debauched man, or those that lie in sensual enjoyment. . . but we mean the freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from disturbance. For it is not continued drinkings and revels, or the enjoyment of female society, or feasts of fish or other expensive foods, that make life pleasant, but such sober contemplation as examines the reasons for choice and avoidance, and puts to flight the vain opinions from which arises most of the confusion that troubles the soul.27
In the end, then, understanding is not only the highest virtue, it is also the highest happiness, for it avails more than any other faculty in us to avoid pain and grief. Wisdom is the only liberator: it frees us from bondage to the passions, from fear of the gods, and from dread of death; it teaches us how to bear misfortune, and how to derive a deep and lasting pleasure from the simple goods of life and the quiet pleasures of the mind. Death is not so frightful when we view it intelligently; the suffering it involves may be briefer and slighter than that which we have borne time and again during our lives; it is our foolish fancies of what death may bring that lend to it so much of its terror. And consider how little is needed to a wise contentfresh air, the cheapest foods, a modest shelter, a bed, a few books, and a friend. “Everything natural is easily procured, and only the useless is costly.”28 We should not fret our lives out in realizing every desire that comes into our heads: “Desires may be ignored when our failure to accomplish them will not really cause us pain.”29 Even love, marriage, and parentage are unnecessary; they bring us fitful pleasures, but perennial grief.30 To accustom ourselves to plain living and simple ways is an almost certain road to health.31 The wise man does not burn with ambition or lust for fame; he does not envy the good fortune of his enemies, nor even of his friends; he avoids the fevered competition of the city and the turmoil of political strife; he seeks the calm of the countryside, and finds the surest and deepest happiness in tranquillity of body and mind. Because he controls his appetites, lives without pretense, and puts aside all fears, the natural “sweetness of life” (hedone) rewards him with the greatest of all goods, which is peace.
This is a likably honest creed. It is encouraging to find a philosopher who is not afraid of pleasure, and a logician who has a good word to say for the senses. There is no subtlety here, and no warm passion for understanding; on the contrary Epicureanism, despite its transmission of the atomic theory, marks a reaction from the brave curiosity that had created Greek science and philosophy. The profoundest defect of the system is its negativity: it thinks of pleasure as freedom from pain, and of wisdom as an escape from the hazards and fullness of life; it provides an excellent design for bachelorhood, but hardly for a society. Epicurus respected the state as a necessary evil, under whose protection he might live unmolested in his garden, but he appears to have cared little about national independence; indeed, his school seems to have preferred monarchy to democracy, as less inclined to persecute heresy32—an arresting inversion of modern beliefs. Epicurus was ready to accept any government that offered no hindrance to the unobtrusive pursuit of wisdom and companionship. He dedicated to friendship the devotion that earlier generations had given to the state. “Of all the things that wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is friendship.”33 The friendships of the Epicureans were proverbial for their permanence; and the letters of the master abound in expressions of ardent affection.34 His disciples returned this feeling with Greek intensity. Young Colotes, on first hearing Epicurus speak, fell on his knees, wept, and hailed him as a god.35
For thirty-six years Epicurus taught in his garden, preferring a school to a family. In the year 270 he was brought down with the stone. He bore the pains stoically, and on his deathbed found time to think of his friends. “I write to you on this happy day which is the last of my life. The obstruction of my bladder, and the internal pains, have reached the extreme point, but there is marshaled against them the delight of my mind in thinking over our talks together. Take care of Metrodorus’ children in a way worthy of your lifelong devotion to me and to philosophy.”36 He willed his property to the school, hoping “that all those who study philosophy may never be in want. . . so far as our power to prevent it may extend.”37
He left behind him a long succession of disciples, so loyal to his memory that for centuries they refused to change a word of his teaching. His most famous pupil, Metrodorus of Lampsacus, had already shocked or amused Greece by reducing Epicureanism to the proposition that “all good things have reference to the belly”38—meaning, perhaps, that all pleasure is physiological, and ultimately visceral. Chrysippus countered by calling the Gastrology of Archestratus “the metropolis of the Epicurean philosophy.”39 Popularly misunderstood, Epicureanism was publicly denounced and privately accepted in wide circles throughout Hellas. So many Hellenizing Jews adopted it that Apiköros was used by the rabbis as a synonym for apostate.40 In 173 or 155 two Epicurean philosophers were expelled from Rome on the ground that they were corrupting youth.41 A century later Cicero asked, “Why are there so many followers of Epicurus?”42 and Lucretius composed the fullest and finest extant exposition of the Epicurean system. The school had professed adherents until the reign of Constantine, some of them, by their lives, degrading the name of the master to mean “epicure,” others faithfully teaching the simple maxims into which he had once condensed his philosophy: “The gods are not to be feared; death cannot be felt; the good can be won; all that we dread can be conquered.”43
III. THE STOIC COMPROMISE
Since an increasing number of Epicurus’ followers interpreted him as counseling the pursuit of personal pleasure, the essential problem of ethics—what is the good life?—had reached not a solution but only a new formulation: how can the natural epicureanism of the individual be reconciled with the stoicism necessary to the group and the race?—how can the members of a society be inspired to, or frightened into, the self-control and self-sacrifice indispensable to collective survival? The old religion could no longer fulfill this function; the old city-state no longer lifted men up to self-forgetfulness. Educated Greeks turned from religion to philosophy for an answer; they called in philosophers to advise or console them in the crises of life; they asked from philosophy some world view that would give to human existence a permanent meaning and value in the scheme of things, and that would enable them to look without terror upon the certainty of death. Stoicism is the last effort of classical antiquity to fi
nd a natural ethic. Zeno tried once more to accomplish the task in which Plato had failed.
Zeno was a native of jCitium in Cyprus. The city was partly Phoenician, chiefly Greek; Zeno is frequently called a Phoenician, sometimes an Egyptian; he was almost certainly of mixed Hellenic and Semitic parentage.44 Apollonius of Tyre describes him as thin, tall, and dark; his head was bent to one side, and his legs were weak; Aphrodite, though Hephaestus was no better, would have surrendered him to Athena. Having no distractions, he rapidly amassed wealth as a merchant; when he first came to Athens, we are told, he had over a thousand talents. According to Diogenes Laertius he was shipwrecked on the Attic coast, lost his fortune, and arrived in Athens, about 314, almost destitute.45 Sitting down by a bookseller’s stall he began to read Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and was soon fascinated by the character of Socrates. “Where are such men to be found today?” he asked. At that moment Crates, a Cynic philosopher, passed by. “Follow that man,” the bookseller advised him. Zeno, aged thirty, enrolled in Crates’ school, and rejoiced in having discovered philosophy: “I made a prosperous voyage,” he said, “when I was wrecked.”46 Crates was a Theban who had turned over his fortune of three hundred talents to his fellow citizens and had taken up the ascetic life of a Cynic mendicant. He denounced the sexual looseness of his time, and counseled hunger as a cure for love. His pupil Hipparchia, having plenty to eat, fell in love with him, and threatened to kill herself unless her parents gave her to him. They begged Crates to dissuade her, which he tried to do by laying his beggar’s wallet at her feet, saying: “This is all my fortune; think now what you are doing.” Undiscouraged, she left her rich home, donned the beggar’s garb, and went to live with Crates in free love. Their nuptials, we are informed, were consummated in public, but their lives were models of affection and fidelity47
Zeno was impressed by the stern simplicity of the Cynic life. The followers of Antisthenes had now become the Franciscan monks of antiquity, vowed to poverty and abstinence, sleeping in any natural shelter that they came upon, and living upon the alms of people too industrious to be saints. Zeno took from the Cynics the outlines of his ethic, and did not conceal his debt. In his first book, The Republic, he was so far under their influence that he espoused an anarchist communism in which there should be no money, no property, no marriage, no religion, and no laws.48 Recognizing that this utopia and the Cynic regimen offered no practicable program of life, he left Crates and studied for a time with Xenocrates at the Academy, and with Stilpo of Megara. He must have read Heracleitus receptively, for he incorporated into his own thought several Heracleitean ideas—the Divine Fire as the soul of man and of the cosmos, the eternity of law, and the repeated creation and conflagration of the world. But it was his custom to say that he owed most of all to Socrates, as the fountainhead and ideal of the Stoic philosophy.
After many years of humble tutelage Zeno at last, in 301, set up his own school by discoursing informally as he walked up and down under the colonnades of the Stoa Poecile, or Pointed Porch. He welcomed poor and rich alike, but discouraged the attendance of young men, feeling that only mature manhood could understand philosophy. When a youth talked toe much Zeno informed him that “the reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may hear more and talk less.”49 Antigonus II, when in Athens, attended Zeno’s classes, became his admiring friend, sought his advice, seduced him into momentary luxury, and invited him to come and live as his guest in Pella. Zeno excused himself and sent his pupil Persaeus instead. For forty years* he taught in the Stoa, and lived a life so consistent with his teachings that “more temperate than Zeno” became a proverb in Greece. Despite his intimacy with Antigonus the Athenian Assembly gave him the “keys to the walls,” and voted him a statue and a crown. The decree read:
Whereas Zeno of Citium has passed many years in our city in the study of philosophy, being in all other respects a good man (sic), and also exhorting all the young men who have sought his company to the practice of temperance; making his own life a model of the greatest excellence . . . it has been resolved by the people to honor Zeno . . . to present him with a golden crown . . . and to build him a tomb in the Ceramicus at the public expense.51
“He died,” says Laertius, “in the following manner,” reputedly in his ninetieth year. “When he was going out of his school he tripped and broke a toe. Striking the ground with his hand, he repeated a line from the Niobe: ‘I come; why call me so?’ And immediately he strangled himself.”52
His work at the Stoa was carried on by two Asiatic Greeks—by Cleanthes of Assus and then by Chrysippus of Soli. Cleanthes was a pugilist who came to Athens with four drachmas, worked as a common laborer, refused public relief, studied for nineteen years under Zeno, and lived a life of industry and ascetic poverty. Chrysippus was the most learned and prolific of the school; he gave the Stoic doctrine its historic form by expounding it in 750 books, which Dionysius of Halicarnassus held up as models of learned dullness. After him Stoicism spread throughout Hellas, and found its greatest exponents in Asia: in Panaetius of Rhodes, Zeno of Tarsus, Boethus of Sidon, and Diogenes of Seleucia. Out of the casual fragments that survive from a once voluminous literature we must piece together a composite picture of the most widespread and influential philosophy in the ancient world.
It was probably Chrysippus who divided the Stoic system into logic, natural science, and ethics. Zeno and his successors prided themselves on their contributions to logical theory, but the streams of ink that flowed from them on this subject have left no appreciable residue of enlightenment or use.* The Stoics agreed with the Epicureans that knowledge arises only out of the senses, and placed the final test of truth in such perceptions as compel the assent of the mind by their vividness or their persistence. Experience, however, need not lead to knowledge; for between sensation and reason lies emotion or passion, which may distort experience into error even as it distorts desire into vice. Reason is the supreme achievement of man, a seed from the Logos Spermatikos, or Seminal Reason, that made and rules the world.
The world itself, like man, is at once completely material and inherently divine. Everything that the senses report to us is material, and only material things can cause or receive action. Qualities as well as quantities, virtues as well as passions, soul as well as body, God as well as the stars, are material forms or processes, differing in degrees of fineness, but essentially one.54 On the other hand all matter is dynamic, full of tensions and powers, perpetually engaged in diffusion or concentration, and animated by an internal and eternal energy, heat, or fire. The universe lives through innumerable cycles of expansion and contraction, development and dissolution; periodically it is consumed in a grand conflagration, and slowly it takes form again; then it passes through all its previous history, even in minutest detail;* for the chain of causes and effects is an unbreakable circle, an endless repetition. All events and all acts of will are determined; it is as impossible for anything to happen otherwise than it does as it is for something to come out of nothing; any break in the chain would disrupt the world.
God, in this system, is the beginning, the middle, and the end. The Stoics recognized the necessity of religion as a basis for morality; they looked with a genial tolerance upon the popular faith, even upon its demons and its divination, and found allegorical interpretations to bridge the chasm between superstition and philosophy. They accepted Chaldean astrology as essentially correct, and thought of earthly affairs as in some mystic and continuous correspondence with the movements of the stars55—one phase of that universal sympatheia by which whatever happened to any part affected all the rest. As if preparing not only an ethic but a theology for Christianity, they conceived the world, law, life, the soul, and destiny in terms of God, and defined morality as a willing surrender to the divine will. God, like man, is living matter; the world is his body, the order and law of the world are his mind and will; the universe is a gigantic organism of which God is the soul, the animating breath, the fertilizing reason, the activ
ating fire.56 Sometimes the Stoics conceive God in impersonal terms; more often they picture him as a Providence designing and guiding the cosmos with supreme intelligence, adjusting all its parts to rational purposes, and making everything redound to the use of virtuous men. Cleanthes identifies him with Zeus in a monotheistic hymn worthy of Ikhnaton or Isaiah:
Thou, O Zeus, art praised above all gods: many are thy names and thine is all power for ever.
The beginning of the world was from thee: and with law thou rulest over all things.
Unto thee may all flesh speak: for we are thy offspring.
Therefore will I raise a hymn unto thee: and will ever sing of thy power.
The whole order of the heavens obeyeth thy word: as it moveth around the earth:
With little and great lights mixed together: how great art thou, King above all for ever!
Nor is anything done upon the earth apart from thee: nor in the firmament, nor in the seas:
Save that which the wicked do: by their own folly.
But thine is the skill to set even the crooked straight: what is without fashion is fashioned and the alien akin before thee.
Thus hast thou fitted together all things in one: the good with the evil:
That thy word should be one in all things: abiding for ever.
Let folly be dispersed from our souls: that we may repay thee the honor wherewith thou hast honored us: