firmatur animus et a spe pariendarum voluptatum sejungi non potest.”
The Stoics have a new thought to offer, one that would have been as revolutionary as Christianity itself, if they could but have grasped and taught its full meaning. But that was for them impossible. Their new thought, which gave foundation to their moral ideals, was the thought of the perfect equality of all men in the presence of the universal Reason, to which all alike ought to conform. Everyone, they said, ought to be rational; everyone ought to try to extend the empire of reason. If one’s neighbor is a rational being, one can and must try to realize the rational in him almost as much as in one’s own self. Hence one’s duty to do good to men. This duty, to be sure, commonly did not for the Stoics extend to the point of very great practical self-sacrifice. But at any rate they gave a new foundation for justice. One works not only to conform one’s self to the ideal, but also to realize the ideal here in this world in others as well as in himself. The ideal Reason can be realized in yonder man through my efforts, much as, through my acts, it can be realized in me. All men are in so far brothers, members of one family, children of one Father, and so all alike objects of moral effort for every one of their number.[1]
- ↑ For a collection of the passages illustrative of this doctrine, see the quotations in Zeller’s Philos. d. Griechen, Th. 3, Abth. I. p. 285, sqq. (3d ed.). Marcus Aurelius is prominent in the list. Epictetus is responsible for the deduction of human brotherhood from the common fatherhood of God. Seneca has frequent expressions of similar thoughts. Yet for all that the wise man is to be independent and separate. In his respect for humanity, he is not to lose himself.
