Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3 · Plutarch

CONTRADICTIONS OF THE STOICS.

I first lay this down for an axiom, that there ought to be seen in men's lives an agreement with their doctrines. For it is not so necessary that the pleader (as Aeschines has it) and the law speak one and the same thing, as that the life of a philosopher be consonant to his speech. For the speech of a philosopher is a law of his own and voluntarily imposed on himself, unless they esteem philosophy to be a game, or an acuteness in disputing invented for the gaining of applause, and not--what it really is--a thing deserving our greatest study. Since, then, there are in their discourses many things written by Zeno himself, many by Cleanthes, and most of all by Chrysippus, concerning policy, governing, and being governed, concerning judging and pleading, and yet there is not to be found in any of their lives either leading of armies, making of laws, going to parliament, pleading before the judges, fighting for their country, travelling on embassies, or making of public gifts, but they have all, feeding (if I may so say) on rest as on the lotus, led their whole lives, and those not short but very long ones, in foreign countries, amongst disputations, books, and walkings; it is manifest that they have lived rather according to the writings and sayings of others than their own professions, having spent all their days in that repose which Epicurus and Hieronymus so much commend.

Chrysippus indeed himself, in his Fourth Book of Lives, thinks there is no difference between a scholastic life and a voluptuous one. I will set down here his very words: "They who are of opinion that a scholastic life is from the very beginning most suitable to philosophers seem to me to be in an error, thinking that men ought to follow this for the sake of some recreation or some other thing like to it, and in that manner to spin out the whole course of their life; that is, if it may be explained, to live at ease. For this opinion of theirs is not to be concealed, many of them delivering it clearly, and not a few more obscurely." Who therefore did more grow old in this scholastic life than Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, and Antipater, who left their countries not out of any discontent but that they might quietly enjoy their delight, studying, and disputing at their leisure. To verify which, Aristocreon, the disciple and intimate friend of Chrysippus, having erected his statue of brass upon a pillar, engraved on it these verses:-- This brazen statue Aristocreon To's friend Chrysippus newly here has put, Whose sharp-edged wit, like sword of champion, Did Academic knots in sunder cut. Such a one then was Chrysippus, an old man, a philosopher, one who praised the regal and civil life, and thought there was no difference between a scholastic and voluptuous one.

But those others of them who intermeddle in state affairs act yet more contradictorily to their own doctrines. For they govern, judge, consult, make laws, punish, and honor, as if those were indeed cities in the government of which they concern themselves, those truly counsellors and judges who are at any time allotted to such offices, those generals who are chosen by suffrages, and those laws which were made by Clisthenes, Lycurgus, and Solon, whom they affirm to have been vicious men and fools. Thus even over the management of state affairs are they at variance with themselves. Indeed Antipater, in his writings concerning the difference between Cleanthes and Chrysippus, has related that Zeno and Cleanthes would not be made citizens of Athens, lest they might seem to injure their own countries. I shall not much insist upon it, that, if they did well, Chrysippus acted amiss in suffering himself to be enrolled as a member of that city. But this is very contradictory and absurd, that, removing their persons and their lives so far off amongst strangers, they reserved their names for their countries; which is the same thing as if a man, leaving his wife, and cohabiting and bedding with another, and getting children on her, should yet refuse to contract marriage with the second, lest he might seem to wrong the former.

Again, Chrysippus, writing in his treatise of Rhetoric, that a wise man will so plead and so act in the management of a commonwealth, as if riches, glory, and health were really good, confesses that his speeches are inextricable and impolitic, and his doctrines unsuitable for the uses and actions of human life. It is moreover a doctrine of Zeno's, that temples are not to be built to the gods; for that a temple is neither a thing of much value nor holy; since no work of carpenters and handicrafts-men can be of much value. And yet they who praise these things as well and wisely said are initiated in the sacred mysteries, go up to the Citadel (where Minerva's temple stands), adore the shrines, and adorn with garlands the sacraries, being the works of carpenters and mechanical persons. Again, they think that the Epicureans, who sacrifice to the gods and yet deny them to meddle with the government of the world, do thereby refute themselves; whereas they themselves are more contrary to themselves, sacrificing on altars and in temples, which they affirm ought not to stand nor to have been built.

Moreover, Zeno admits (as Plato does) several virtues having various distinctions--to wit, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice--as being indeed inseparable, but yet divers and different from one another. But again, defining every one of them, he says that fortitude is prudence in executing, justice prudence in distributing, as being one and the same virtue, but seeming to differ in its relation to different affairs when it comes to action. Nor does Zeno alone seem to contradict himself in these matters; but Chrysippus also, who blames Ariston for saying that the other virtues are different habits of one and the same virtue, and yet defends Zeno, who in this manner defines every one of the virtues. And Cleanthes, having in his Commentaries concerning Nature said, that vigor is the striking of fire, which, if it is sufficient in the soul to perform the duties presented to it, is called force and strength; subjoins these very words: "Now this force and strength, when it is in things apparent and to be persisted in, is continence; when in things to be endured, it is fortitude; when about worthiness, it is justice; and when about choosing or refusing, it is temperance." Against him, who said, Give not thy judgment till both sides are heard, (In the "Pseudo-Phocylidea," vs. 87 (Bergk).)

Zeno on the contrary made use of such an argument as this: "If he who spake first has plainly proved his cause, the second is not to be heard, for the question is at an end; and if he has not proved it, it is the same case as if being cited he did not appear, or appearing did nothing but wrangle; so that, whether he has proved or not proved his cause, the second is not to be heard." And yet he who made this dilemma has written against Plato's Commonweal, dissolved sophisms, and exhorted his scholars to learn logic, as enabling them to do the same. Now Plato has either proved or not proved those things which he writ in his Commonweal; but in neither case was it necessary to write against him, but wholly superfluous and vain. The same may be said concerning sophisms. Chrysippus is of opinion, that young students should first learn logic, secondly, ethics, and after these, physics, and likewise in this to meddle last of all with the disputes concerning the gods. Now these things having been often said by him, it will suffice to set down what is found in his Fourth Book of Lives, being thus word for word: "First, then, it seems to me, according as it has been rightly said by the ancients, that there are three kinds of philosophical speculations, logical, ethical, and physical, and that of these, the logical ought to be placed first, the ethical second, and the physical third, and that of the physical, the discourse concerning the gods ought to be the last; wherefore also the traditions concerning this have been styled [Greek omitted], or the ENDINGS." But that very discourse concerning the gods, which he says ought to be placed the last, he usually places first and sets before every moral question.

For he is seen not to say anything concerning the ends, or concerning justice, or concerning good and evil, or concerning marriage and the education of children, or concerning the law and the commonwealth; but, as those who propose decrees to states set before them the words To Good Fortune, so he also premises something of Jupiter, Fate, Providence, and of the world's being one and finite and maintained by one power. None of which any one can be persuaded to believe, who has not penetrated deeply into the discourses of natural philosophy. Hear what he says of this in his Third Book of the Gods: "For there is not to be found any other beginning or any other generation of Justice, but what is from Jupiter and common Nature. From thence must every such thing have its beginning, if we will say anything concerning good and evil." And again, in his Natural Positions he says: "For one cannot otherwise or more properly come to the discourse of good and evil, to the virtues, or to felicity, than from common Nature and the administration of the world." And going farther on, he adds: "For to these we must annex the discourse concerning good and evil, there being no other better beginning or relation thereof, and the speculation of Nature being learned for nothing else, but to understand the difference between good and evil." According to Chrysippus, therefore, the natural science is both before and after the moral; or rather, it is an inversion of order altogether absurd, if this must be put after those things none of which can be comprehended without this; and his contradicting himself is manifest, when he asserts the discourse of Nature to be the beginning of that concerning good and evil, and yet commands it to be delivered, not before, but after it.

Now, if any one shall say that Chrysippus in his book concerning the Use of Speech has written, that he who applies himself to logic first needs not absolutely to abstain from the rest, but should take as much of them as shall fall in his way, he will indeed say the truth, but will withal confirm the fault. For he oppugns himself, one while commanding that the science concerning God should be taken last and for a conclusion, as being therefore also called [Greek omitted], and again, another while saying that this is to be learned together with the very first. For order is at an end, if all things must be used at all times. But this is more, that having made the science concerning the gods the beginning of that concerning good and evil, he bids not those who apply themselves to the ethics to begin with that; but learning these, to take of that also as it shall come in their way, and then to go from these to that, without which, he says, there is no beginning or entrance upon these.

Wretch, thy own strength will thee undo, ("Iliad", vi. 407.) as if Chrysippus had given great advantages against himself to those who would disturb and calumniate his doctrines. But of those things which he has written against Custom they are so proud and boastful, that they fear not to affirm, that all the sayings of all the Academics together, if they were collected into one body, are not comparable to what Chrysippus has writ in disparagement of the senses. Which is an evident sign of the ignorance or self-love of the speakers; but this indeed is true, that being afterwards desirous to defend custom and the senses, he was inferior to himself, and the latter treatise was much weaker than the former. So that he contradicts himself; for having always directed the proposing of an adversary's opinions not with approbation, but with a demonstration of their falsity, he has showed himself more acute in opposing than defending his own doctrines; and having admonished others to take heed of contrary arguments, as withdrawing comprehension, he has been more sedulous in framing such proofs as take away comprehension, than such as confirm it.

And yet he plainly shows that he himself feared this, writing thus in his Fourth Book of Lives: "Repugnant arguments and probabilities on the contrary side are not rashly to be proposed, but with caution, lest the hearers distracted by them should let go their conceptions, not being able sufficiently to apprehend the solutions, but so weakly that their comprehensions may easily be shaken. For even those who have, according to custom, preconceived both sensible phenomena and other things depending on the senses quickly forego them, being distracted by Megarian interrogatories and by others more numerous and forcible." I would willingly therefore ask the Stoics, whether they think these Megarian interrogatories to be more forcible than those which Chrysippus has written in six books against custom; or rather this should be asked of Chrysippus himself. For observe what he has written about the Megarian reason, in his book concerning the Use of Speech, thus: "Some such things fell out in the discourse of Stilpo and Menedemus; for, whereas they were renowned for wisdom, their disputing has turned to their reproach, their arguments being part clumsy, and the rest plainly sophistical." And yet, good sir, you fear lest those arguments which you deride and term the disgrace of their proposers, as having a manifest faultiness, should divert some from comprehension.

And did not you yourself, writing so many books against custom, in which you have added whatever you could invent, ambitiously striving to exceed Arcesilaus, expect that you should perplex some of your readers? For neither does he use slender arguments against custom; but as if he were pleading, he with some passion in himself stirs up the affections of others, telling his opponent that he talks foolishly and labors in vain. And that he may leave no room to deny his speaking of contradictions, he has in his Natural Positions written thus: "It may be lawful for those who comprehend a thing to argue on the contrary side, applying to it that kind of defence which the subject itself affords; and sometimes, when they comprehend neither, to discourse what is alleged for either." And having said in his book concerning the Use of Speech, that we ought no more to use the force of reason than of arms for such things as are not fitting, he subjoins this: "For they are to be employed for the finding out of truths and for the alliance of them, and not for the contrary, though many men do it." By "many" perhaps he means those who withhold their assent. But these teachers, understanding neither, dispute on both sides, believing that, if anything is comprehensible, thus only or chiefly does truth afford a comprehension of itself. But you, who accuse them, and do yourself write contrary to those things which you understood concerning custom, and exhort others under your authority to do the same, confess that you wantonly use the faculty of disputing, out of vain ambition, even on useless and hurtful things.

They say, that a good deed is the command, and sin the prohibition of the law; and therefore that the law forbids the wicked many things, but commands them nothing, because they cannot do a good deed. But who is ignorant that he who cannot do a good deed cannot also sin? Therefore they make the law to contradict itself, commanding men those things which they cannot perform, and forbidding them those things from which they cannot abstain. For a man who cannot be temperate cannot but act intemperately; and he who cannot be wise cannot but act foolishly. And they themselves affirm, that those who forbid say one thing, forbid another and command another. For he who says "Thou shalt not steal" at the same time that he says these words, "Thou shalt not steal, forbids also to steal and directs not to steal. The law therefor bids the wicked nothing, unless it also commands them something. And they say, that the physician bids his disciple to cut and cauterize, omitting to add these words, 'seasonably and moderately'; and the musician commands his scholar to play on the harp and sing, omitting 'tunably' and 'keeping time'."

Wherefore also they punish those who do these things unskilfully and faultily; for that they were commanded to do them well, and they have done them ill. If therefore a wise man commands his servant to say or do something, and punishes him for doing it unseasonably or not as he ought, is it not manifest that he commanded him to do a good action and not an indifferent one? But if wise men command wicked ones indifferent things, what hinders but the commands of the law may be also such? Moreover, the impulse (called [Greek omitted]) is, according to him, the reason of a man commanding him to do something, as he has written in his book of the law. Is not therefore also the aversion (called [Greek omitted]) a prohibiting reason, and a disinclination, a disinclination agreeable to reason? Caution therefore is also reason prohibiting a w cautious is proper only to the wise, and not to the wicked. If, then, the reason of a wise man is one thing and the law another, wise men have caution contrary to the law; but if the law is nothing else but the reason of a wise man, the law is found to forbid wise men the doing of those things of which they are cautious.

Chrysippus says, that nothing is profitable to the wicked, that the wicked have neither use nor need of anything. Having said this in his First Book of Good Deeds, he says again, that both commodiousness and grace pertain to mean or indifferent things, none of which according to them, is profitable. In the same place he affirms, that there is nothing proper, nothing convenient for a vicious man, in these words: "On the same principle we declare that there is nothing foreign or strange to the good man, and nothing proper or rightfully belonging to the bad man, since the one is good and the other bad." Why, then, does he break our heads, writing particularly in every one of his books, as well natural as moral, that as soon as we are born we are appropriated to ourselves, our parts, and our offspring? And why in his First Book of Justice does he say that the very brutes, proportionably to the necessity of their young, are appropriated to them, except fishes, whose young are nourished by themselves? For neither have they sense who have nothing sensible, nor they appropriation who have nothing proper; for appropriation seems to be the sense and perception of what is proper.

And this opinion is consequent to their principal ones. It is moreover manifest that Chrysippus, though he has also written many things to the contrary, lays this for a position, that there is not any vice greater or any sin more grievous than another, nor any virtue more excellent or any good deed better than another; so that he says in his Third Book of Nature: "As it well beseems Jupiter to glory in himself and his life, to magnify himself, and (if we may so say) to bear up his head, have an high conceit of himself, and speak big, for that he leads a life worthy of lofty speech; so the same things do not misbeseem all good men, since they are in nothing exceeded by Jupiter." And yet himself, in his Third Book of Justice, says, that they who make pleasure the end destroy justice, but they who say it is only a good do not destroy it. These are his very words: "For perhaps, if we leave this to pleasure, that it is a good but not the end, and that honesty is one of those things which are eligible for themselves, we may preserve justice, making the honest and the just a greater good than pleasure."

But if that only is good which is honest, he who affirms pleasure to be a good is in an error, but he errs less than he who makes it also the end; for the one destroys justice, the other preserves it; and by the one human society is overthrown, but the other leaves a place to goodness and humanity. Now I let pass his saying farther in his book concerning Jupiter, that the virtues increase and go on, lest I may seem to catch at words; though Chrysippus is indeed in this kind very sharp upon Plato and others. But when he forbids the praising of everything that is done according to virtue, he shows that there is some difference between good deeds. Now he says thus in his book concerning Jupiter: "For since each virtue has its own proper effects, there are some of these that are to be praised more highly than others; for he would show himself to be very frigid, that should undertake to praise and extol any man for holding out the finger stoutly, for abstaining continently from an old woman ready to drop into the grave, and patiently hearing it said that three are not exactly four."

What he says in his Third Book of the Gods is not unlike to this: "For I moreover think that the praises of such things as to abstain from an old woman who has one foot in the grave, and to endure the sting of a fly, though proceeding from virtue, would be very impertinent." What other reprehender of his doctrines does this man then expect? For if he who praises such things is frigid, he who asserts every one of them to be a great--nay, a very great good deed--is much more frigid. For if to endure a fly is equal to being valiant, and to abstain from an old woman now at the edge of the grave is equal to being temperate, there is, I think, no difference whether a virtuous man is prized for these or for those. Moreover, in his Second Book of Friendship, teaching that friendships are not for every fault to be dissolved, he has these very expressions: "For it is meet that some faults should be wholly passed by, others lightly reprehended, others more severely, and others deemed worthy a total dissolution of friendship."

And which is more, he says in the same book, that we will converse with some more and some less, so that some shall be more and some less friends; and this diversity extending very far, some are worthy of such an amity, others of a greater; and these will deserve to be so far trusted, those not so far, and the like. For what else has he done in these places, but shown the great diversity there is between these things? Moreover, in his book concerning Honesty, to demonstrate that only to be good which is honest, he uses these words: "What is good is eligible; what is eligible is acceptable; what is acceptable is laudable; and what is laudable is honest." And again: "What is good is joyous; what is joyous is venerable; what is venerable is honest." But these speeches are repugnant to himself; for either all good is commendable, and then the abstaining chastely from an old woman is also commendable; or all good is neither venerable nor joyous, and his reasoning falls to the ground. For how can it possibly be frigid in others to praise any for such things, and not ridiculous for him to rejoice and glory in them?

Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.

Open in the reader →