De Stoicorum repugnantiis

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 bestowing 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.

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

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

Moreover, Zeno admits (as Plato does) several virtues with 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 various 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).)

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 Τελεταί/, 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 any thing either 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

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 Τελετή, 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

As for disputing on both sides, he says, that he does not universally reject it, but exhorts us to use it with caution, as is done in pleadings, not with a design really to disprove, but to dissolve their probability. For to those, says he, who endeavor a suspension of assent concerning all things, it is convenient to do this, and it co-operates to what they desire; but as for those who would work and establish in us a certain science according to which we shall professedly live, they ought, on the contrary, to state the first principles, and to direct their novices who are entered from the beginning to the end; and where there is occasion to make mention of contrary discourses, to dissolve their probability, as is done in pleadings. For this he hath said in express words. Now that it is absurd for philosophers to think that they ought to set down the contrary opinion, not with all its reasons, but like pleaders, disabling it, as if they contended not for truth but victory, we have elsewhere spoken against him. But that he himself has, not here and there in his disputations, but frequently, confirmed the discourses which are contrary to his own opinions,—and that stoutly, and with so much earnestness and contention that it was not for every one to understand what he liked,—the Stoics themselves affirm, who admire the man’s acuteness, and think that Carneades said nothing of his own, but that catching hold of those arguments which Chrysippus alleged for the contrary opinion, he assaulted with them his positions, and often cried out,

Wretch, thy own strength will thee undo,[*](Il. VI. 407.)

But of those things which he has written against custom they are so proud and boasting, 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 objects 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

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 commands not to steal. The law therefore forbids 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 ὁρμή) 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 ἀφορμή) a prohibiting reason, and a disinclination a disinclination agreeable to reason? Caution therefore is also reason

Chrysippus says, that nothing is profitable to the wicked, that the wicked have neither use nor need of any thing. 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

Such indeed he frequently is; but in his disputations against others he takes not the least care of speaking things contrary and dissonant to himself. For in his books of Exhorting, reprehending Plato, who said, that to him who has neither learned nor knows how to live it is profitable not to live, he speaks in this manner: For this speech is both repugnant to itself, and not at all persuasive. For first insinuating that it is best for us not to live, and in a sort counselling us to die, he will excite us rather to any thing else than to be philosophers; for neither can he who does not live philosophize, nor he who shall live long wickedly and ignorantly become wise. And going on, he says that it is convenient for the wicked also to continue in life. And afterwards thus, word for word: First, as virtue, barely taken, has nothing towards our living, so neither has vice any thing to oblige us to depart. Nor is it necessary to turn over other books, that we may show Chrysippus’s contradictoriness to himself; but in these same, he sometimes with commendation brings forth this saying of Antisthenes, that either understanding or a halter is to be provided, as also that of Tyrtaeus,

Come nigh the bounds of virtue or of death.

Now what else will this show, but that to wicked men and fools not to live is more profitable than to live? And sometimes correcting Theognis, he says, that the poet should not have written,

From poverty to fly;—

but rather thus,

From wickedness to fly, into the deep

Throw thyself, Cyrnus, or from rocks so steep.

[*](See Theognis, vs. 175.)

What therefore else does he seem to do, but to set down

Moreover, in his books against the same Plato, concerning Justice, he immediately at the very beginning leaps into a discourse touching the Gods, and says, that Cephalus did not rightly avert men from injustice by the fear of the Gods, and that his doctrine is easily misrepresented, and that it affords to the contrary many arguments and probabilities impugning the discourse concerning divine punishments, as nothing differing from the tales of Acco and Alphito (or Raw-Head and Bloody-Bones), with which women are wont to frighten little children from their unlucky pranks. Having thus traduced Plato, he in other places again praises him, and often alleges this saying of Euripides:

Howe’er you may deride it, there’s a Jove,

With other Gods, who sees men’s woes above.

Then Jove from heaven punishments did send,

And plague and famine brought them to their end,

[*](Works and Days, 242.)

Again, in his book of Justice, subjoining, that it is possible for those who make pleasure a good but not the end to preserve also justice, he said in express terms: For perhaps if we leave this to pleasure, that it is a good but

Moreover, Plato having said, that injustice, as being the corruption and sedition of the soul, loses not its power even in those who have it within them, but sets the wicked man against himself, and molests and disturbs him; Chrysippus, blaming this, affirms that it is absurdly said, A man injures himself; for that injustice is to another, and not to one’s self. But forgetting this, he again says, in his demonstrations concerning justice, that the unjust man is injured by himself and injures himself when he injures another, becoming to himself the cause of transgressing, and undeservedly hurting himself. In his books indeed against Plato, contending that we cannot speak of injustice against one’s self, but against another, he has these words: For men cannot be unjust by themselves; injustice requires several on opposite sides, speaking contrary one unto another. But no such thing extends to one alone, except inasmuch as he is affected towards his neighbor. But in his demonstrations he has such discourses as these, concerning the unjust man’s being injurious also to

He says, that the doctrine concerning good and evil which himself introduces and approves is most agreeable to life, and does most of all reach the inbred prenotions; for this he has affirmed in his Third Book of Exhortations. But in his First Book he says, that this doctrine takes a man off from all other things, as being nothing to us, nor co-operating any thing towards felicity. See now, how consonant he is to himself, when he asserts a doctrine which takes us off from life, health, indolence, and integrity of the senses, and says that those things we beg of the Gods are nothing to us, though most agreeable to life and to the common presumptions. But that there may be no denial of his speaking contradictions, in his Third Book of Justice he has said thus: Wherefore also, from the excellence of their greatness and beauty, we seem to speak things like to fictions, and not according to man or human nature. Is it then possible that any one can more plainly confess his speaking things contrary to himself than this man does, who affirms those things which (he says) for their excellency seem to be fictions and to be spoken above man and human nature, to be agreeable to life, and most of all to reach the inbred prenotions?

In every one of his natural and ethical books, he asserts vice to be the very essence of unhappiness; writing and contending that to live viciously is the same thing as to live unhappily. But in his Third Book of Nature, having said that it is profitable for a fool to live rather than to die, though he is never to become wise, he subjoins: For such is the nature of good things among men, that evil things are in some sort preferred before indifferent ones. I let pass therefore, that having elsewhere said that nothing is profitable to fools, he here says that to live foolishly is profitable to them. Now those things being by them called indifferent which are neither bad nor good, when he says that bad things precede them, he says nothing else but that evil things precede those that are not evil, and that to be unhappy is more profitable than not to be unhappy; and if so, he esteems not to be unhappy to be more unprofitable—and if more unprofitable, more hurtful—than to be unhappy. Desiring therefore to mitigate this absurdity, he adds concerning evils: But it is not these evils that are preferred, but reason; with which it is more convenient to live, though we shall be fools. First therefore he says that vice and things participating of vice are evil, and that nothing else is so. Now vice is something reasonable, or rather depraved reason. For those therefore who are fools to live with reason, is nothing else but to live with vice. Thence to live being fools is to live being unhappy. In what then is this preferred to indifferent things? For he surely will not say that with regard to happiness unhappiness is to be preferred. But neither, say they, does Chrysippus altogether think that the remaining in life is to be reckoned amongst good things, or the going out of it amongst bad; but both of them amongst indifferent ones, according to Nature. Wherefore also it sometimes becomes meet for the happy to make themselves away,

Chrysippus confesses that good things are totally different from bad; and it must of necessity be so, if these make them with whom they are present miserable to the very utmost point, and those render their possessors in the highest degree happy. Now he says, that good and evil things are sensible, writing thus in his First Book of the End: That good and evil things are perceptible by sense, we are by these reasons forced to say; for not only the passions, with their species, as sorrow, fear, and such others, are sensible; but we may also have a sense of theft, adultery, and the like, and generally, of folly, cowardice, and other vices not a few; and again, not only of joy, beneficence, and many other dependences on good deeds, but also of prudence, fortitude, and the other virtues. Let us pass by the other absurdities of these things; but that they are repugnant to those things which are delivered by him concerning the wise man that knows nothing of his being so, who does not confess? For good, when present, being sensible and having a great difference from evil, is it not most absurd, that he who is of bad become good should be ignorant of it, and not perceive virtue when present, but think that vice is still within him? For either none who has all virtues can be ignorant and

He has written one volume of lives divided into four books; in the fourth of these he says, that a wise man meddles with no business but his own, and is employed about his own affairs. His words are these: For I am of opinion, that a prudent man shuns affairs, meddles little, and at the same time minds his own occasions; civil persons being both minders of their own affairs and meddlers with little else. He has said almost the same in his book of Things eligible for Themselves, in these very words: For indeed a quiet life seems to have in it a certain security and freedom from danger, though there are not very many who can comprehend it. It is manifest that he does not much dissent from Epicurus, who takes away Providence that he may leave God in repose. But the same Chrysippus in his First Book of Lives says, that a wise man willingly takes upon him a kingdom, making his profit by it; and if he cannot reign himself, will dwell with a king, and go to the wars with such a king as was Hydanthyrsus the Scythian or Leucon the Pontic. But I will here also set down his very discourse, that we may see whether, as from the treble and the base strings there arises a symphony in music, so the life of a man who chooses quietness and meddling with little accords with him who, upon any necessity, rides along with the Scythians and manages the affairs of the tyrants in the Bosphorus: For that a wise man will both go to the wars and live with potentates, we will again consider this hereafter; some indeed upon the like arguments not so much as suspecting this, and we for semblable reasons admitting it. And a little after: Not only with those who

Some there are who blame Callisthenes for sailing to Alexander in hopes to obtain the rebuilding of Olynthus, as Aristotle had procured that of Stagira; and commend Ephorus, Xenocrates, and Menedemus, who rejected Alexander’s invitation. But Chrysippus thrusts his wise man headforwards for the sake of gain, as far as Panticapaeum and the desert of the Scythians. And that he does this for the sake of profit and gain, he has showed before, supposing three ways of gaining most suitable for a wise man,—the first by a kingdom, the second by his friends, and the third, besides these, by teaching of philosophy. And yet he frequently even tires us with his praises of this saying:

What need have men of more than these two things?

And in his books of Nature he says, that a wise man, if he has lost the greatest wealth imaginable, seems to have lost but a single groat. But having there thus elevated and puffed him up, he again here throws him down to mercenariness and sophistry; nay, to asking pay and even to receiving it beforehand, sometimes at the very entrance of his scholar, and otherwhiles after some time past. The latter, he says indeed, is the more civil, but to receive beforehand the more sure; delay being subject to sustain injuries. Now he says thus: All who are well advised do not require their salary in the same manner, but differently; a multitude of them, as opportunity offers, not promising to make their scholars good men, and that within a year, but to do this, as far as in them lies, within a time agreed on. And again going on, he says: But he will know his opportunity, whether he ought to receive his recompense presently at the very entrance (as many