The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

p. 357

Similarly Arrian (iv. 1. 175): " Ov yap etcrrXvpaxreL tcov eiridvfioviMevoav eXevdepia irapacrKeva^erai, aXXa avaaicevi, T7/5 €iri6vfiia<;." (Non enim explendis desideriis libcrtas comparator, sed tollenda cupiditate.)

The collected quotations in the " Historia Philosophice Groxo-Bomance" of Hitter and Preller may be taken as proofs of what I have said, in the place referred to above, about the ofioXoyovp-eva)^ %VV °^ ^he Stoics. Also the saying of Seneca (Ep. 31, and again Ep. 74): " Perfecta virtus est cegualitas et tenor vitoz per omnia consonans sibi. The following passage of Seneca's indicates the spirit of the Stoa generally (Ep.

92) : " Quid est beata vita ? Securitas et perpetua tranquillitas. Hanc dabit animi magnitudo, dabit constantia bene judicati tenax. A systematical study of the Stoics will convince every one that the end of their ethics, like that of the ethics of Cynicism from which they sprang, is really nothing else than a life as free as possible from pain, and therefore as happy as possible.

Whence it follows that the Stoical morality is only a special form of Eudozmonism. It has not, like the Indian, the Christian, and even the Platonic ethics, a metaphysical tendency, a transcendental end, but a completely immanent end, attainable in this life; the steadfast serenity (arapal-La) and unclouded happiness of the wise man, whom nothing can disturb.

Yet it cannot be denied that the later Stoics, especially Arrian, sometimes lose sight of this end, and show a really ascetic tendency, which is to be attributed to the Christian and Oriental spirit in general which was then already spreading.

If we consider closely and seriously the goal of Stoicism, that arapa^ta, we find in it merely a hardening and insensibility to the blow of fate which a man attains to because he keeps ever present to his mind the shortness of life, the emptiness of pleasure, the instability of happiness, and has also discerned that the difference between happiness and unhappiness is very much less than our anticipation of both is wont to represent. But this is

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yet no state of happiness ; it is only the patient endurance of sufferings which one has foreseen as irremediable. Yet magnanimity and worth consist in this, that one should bear silently and patiently what is irremediable, in melancholy peace, remaining always the same, while others pass from rejoicing to despair and from despair to rejoicing. Accordingly one may also conceive of Stoicism as a spiritual hygiene, in accordance with which, just as one hardens the body against the influences of wind and weather, against fatigue and exertion, one has also to harden one's mind against misfortune, danger, loss, injustice, malice, perfidy, arrogance, and the folly of men. I remark further, that the /cady/coma of the Stoics, which Cicero translates officio,, signify as nearly as possible Obliegenheiten, or that which it befits the occasion to do ; English, incumbencies ; Italian, quel che tocca a me di fare, o di lasciare, thus what it behoves a reasonable man to do. Cf. Diog. Laert, vii. I. 109. Finally, the pantheism of the Stoics, though absolutely inconsistent with many an exhortation of Arrian, is most distinctly expressed by Seneca : " Quid est Deus ? Mens universi. Quid est Deus ? Quod vides totum, et quod non vides totum. Sic demum magnitudo sua Uli redditur, qua nihil majus excogitari potest : si solus est omnia, opus suum et extra et intra tenet." (Quosst. Natur. i,prcefatio 12.)

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CHAPTEE XVII.1

ON man's need of metaphysics.