A Little Book of Stoicism | Page 9

accordance with nature. The negative form of this principle or the
avoidance of things as being contrary to nature, we shall call repulsion.
Notwithstanding the sublime heights to which Stoic morality rose. It
was professedly based on self-love, wherein the Stoics were at one with
the other schools of thought in the ancient world.
The earliest impulse that appeared in a newly born animal was to
protect itself and its own constitution which were conciliated to it by
nature. What tended to its survival, it sought; what tended to its
destruction, it shunned. Thus self-preservation was the first law of life.
While man was still in the merely animal stage, and before reason was
developed in him, the things that were in accordance with his nature
were such as health, strength, good bodily condition, soundness of all

the senses, beauty, swiftness--in short all the qualities that went to
make up richness of physical life and that contributed to the vital
harmony. These were called the first things in accordance with nature.
Their opposites were all contrary to nature, such as sickness, weakness,
mutilation. Under the first things in accordance with nature came also
congenial advantages of soul such as quickness of intelligence, natural
ability, industry, application, memory, and the like. It was a question
whether pleasure was to be included among the number. Some
members of the school evidently though that it might be, but the
orthodox opinion was that pleasure was a sort of aftergrowth and that
the direct pursuit of it was deleterious to the organism. The after
growths of virtue were joy, cheerfulness, and the like. These were the
gambolings of the spirit like the frolicsomeness of an animal in the full
flush of its vitality or like the blooming of a plant. For one and the
same power manifested itself in all ranks of nature, only at each stage
on a higher level. To the vegetative powers of the plant the animal
added sense and Impulse. It was in accordance therefore with the nature
of an animal to obey the Impulses of sense, but to sense and Impulse
man superadded reason so that when he became conscious of himself as
a rational being, it was in accordance with his nature to let all his
Impulses be shaped by this new and master hand. Virtue was therefore
pre-eminently in accordance with nature. What then we must now ask
is the relation of reason to impulse as conceived by the Stoics? Is
reason simply the guiding, and impulse the motive power? Seneca
protests against this view, when impulse is identified with passion. One
of his grounds for doing so is that reason would be put on a level with
passion, if the two were equally necessary for action. But the question
is begged by the use of the word 'passion,' which was defined by the
Stoics as 'an excessive impulse.' Is it possible then, even on Stoic
principles, for reason to work without something different from itself to
help it? Or must we say that reason is itself a principle of action? Here
Plutarch comes to our aid, who tells us on the authority of Chrysippus
in his work on Law that impulse is 'the reason of man commanding him
to act,' and similarly that repulsion is 'prohibitive reason.' This renders
the Stoic position unmistakable, and we must accomodate our minds to
it in spite of its difficulties. Just as we have seen already that reason is
not something radically different from sense, so now it appears that

reason is not different from impulse, but itself the perfected form of
impulse. Whenever impulse is not identical with reason--at least in a
rational being--it is not truly impulse, but passion.
The Stoics, it will be observed, were Evolutionists in their psychology.
But, like many Evolutionists at the present day, they did not believe in
the origin of mind out of matter. In all living things there existed
already what they called 'seminal reasons,' which accounted for the
intelligence displayed by plants as well as by animals. As there were
four cardinal virtues, so there were four primary passions. These were
delight, grief, desire and fear. All of them were excited by the presence
or the prospect of fancied good or ill. What prompted desire by its
prospect caused delight by its presence, and what prompted fear by its
prospect caused grief by its presence. Thus two of the primary passions
had to do with good and two with evil. All were furies which infested
the life of fools, rendering it bitter and grievous to them; and it was the
business of philosophy to fight against them. Nor was this strife a
hopeless one, since the passions were not grounded in nature, but were
due to false opinion. They originated in voluntary