The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization Part 24

[Sidenote: Doctrines of the Stoics.]

[Sidenote: Influence of the Stoics.]

Philosophy, according to Zeno and other Stoics, was intimately connected with the duties of practical life. The contemplation, recommended by Plato and Aristotle, seemed only a covert recommendation of selfish enjoyment. The wisdom, which it should be the aim of life to attain, is virtue. And virtue is to live harmoniously with nature. To live harmoniously with nature is to exclude all personal ends. Hence pleasure is to be disregarded, and pain is to be despised. And as all moral action must be in harmony with nature, the law of destiny is supreme, and all things move according to immutable fate. With the predominant tendency to the universal which characterized their system, the Stoics taught that the sage ought to regard himself as a citizen of the world rather than of any particular city or state. They made four things to be indispensable to virtue: a knowledge of _good and evil_, which is the province of the reason; _temperance_, a knowledge of the due regulation of the sensual pa.s.sions; _fort.i.tude_, a conviction that it is good to suffer what is necessary; and _justice_, or acquaintance with what ought to be to every individual. They made _perfection_ necessary to virtue, and saw nothing virtuous in the mere advance to it. Hence the severity of their system. The perfect sage, according to them, is raised above all influence of external events; he submits to the law of destiny; he is exempt from desire and fear, joy or sorrow; he is not governed even by what he is exposed to necessarily, like sorrow and pain; he is free from the restraints of pa.s.sion; he is like a G.o.d in his mental placidity. Nor must the sage live only for himself, but for others; he is a member of the whole body of mankind; he ought to marry, and to take part in public affairs, but he will never give way to compa.s.sion or forgiveness, and is to attack error and vice with uncompromising sternness. But with this ideal, the Stoics were forced to admit that virtue, like true knowledge, although attainable, is beyond the reach of man. They were discontented with themselves, and with all around them, and looked upon all inst.i.tutions as corrupt. They had a profound contempt of their age, and of human attainments; but it cannot be denied they practiced a lofty and stern virtue, and were the best people in their degenerate times. Their G.o.d was made subject to Fate, and he was a material G.o.d, synonymous with Nature. Thus their system was pantheistic. But they maintained the dignity of reason, and the ideal in nature, the actualization of which we should strive after, though without the hope of reaching it. "As a reaction against effeminacy, Stoicism may be applauded; as a doctrine, it is one-sided, and ends in apathy and egotism." [Footnote: See Cicero, _De Fin_. and _Tusculan Questions_; Diogenes Laertius on Zeno.

This historian is quite full on this subject, and seems to furnish the basis for Ritter.]

With the Stoics ended all inquiry among the Greeks of a philosophical nature worthy of especial mention, until philosophy was revived in the Christian schools of Alexandria, where faith was united with reason. The Stoics endeavored to establish the cert.i.tude of human knowledge in order that they might establish the truth of moral principles, and the basis of their system was common sense, with which they attacked the G.o.dless skepticism of their times, and raised up a barrier, feeble though it was, to prevailing degeneracy. The struggles of so many great thinkers, from Thales to Aristotle, all ended in doubt and in despair. It was discovered that all of them were wrong, but that their error was without a remedy.

[Sidenote: Bright period of Grecian philosophy.]

The bright and glorious period of Grecian philosophy was from Socrates to Aristotle. Philosophical inquiries began about the origin of things, and ended with an elaborate systematization of the forms of thought, which was the most magnificent triumph that the unaided intellect of man ever achieved. Socrates founds a school, but does not elaborate a system. He reveals most precious truths, and stimulates the youth who listen to his instructions by the doctrine that it is the duty of man to pursue a knowledge of himself, which is to be sought in that divine reason which dwells within him and which also rules the world. He confides in science; he loves truth for its own sake; he loves virtue, which consists in the knowledge of the good.

[Sidenote: Summary.]

Plato seizes his weapons and is imbued with his spirit. He is full of hope for science and humanity. With soaring boldness he directs his inquiries to futurity, dissatisfied with the present, and cheris.h.i.+ng a fond hope of a better existence. He speculates on G.o.d and the soul. He is not much interested in physical phenomena. He does not, like Thales, strive to find out the beginning of all things, but the highest good, by which his immortal soul may be refreshed and prepared for the future life he cannot solve, yet in which he believes. The sensible is an impenetrable empire, but ideas are cert.i.tudes, and upon these he dwells with rapt and mystical enthusiasm,--a great poetical rhapsodist like Xenophanes, severe dialectician as he is, believing in truth and beauty and goodness.

Then Aristotle, following out the method of _his_ teachers, attempts to exhaust experience, and directs his inquiries into the outward world of sense and observation, but all with the view of discovering from phenomena the unconditional truth, in which he, too, believes. But every thing in this world is fleeting and transitory, and, therefore, it is not easy to arrive at truth. A cold doubt creeps into the experimental mind of Aristotle with all his learning and all his logic.

The Epicureans arise. They place their hopes in sensual enjoyment. They despair of truth. But the world will not be abandoned to despair. The Stoics rebuke the impiety which is blended with sensualism, and place their hopes on virtue. But it is unattainable virtue, while their G.o.d is not a moral governor, but subject to necessity.

Thus did those old giants grope about, for they did not know the G.o.d who was revealed unto Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Isaiah. They solved nothing, since they did not _know_, even if they speculated on, the _Great First Cause_. And yet, with all their errors, they were the greatest benefactors of the ancient world. They gave dignity to intellectual inquiries, while they set, by their lives, examples of a pure morality--not the morality of the gospel, but the severest virtue practiced by the old guides of mankind.

[Sidenote: Philosophy among the Romans.]

The Romans added absolutely nothing to the philosophy of the Greeks. Nor were they much interested in any speculative inquiries. It was only the ethical views of the old sages which had attraction or force to them.

They were too material to love pure subjective inquiries. They had conquered the land; they disdained the empire of the air.

[Sidenote: Followers of the Greeks.]

There were, doubtless, students of the Greek philosophy among the Romans, perhaps as early as Cato the Censor. But there were only two persons of note who wrote philosophy, till the time of Cicero, Aurafanius and Rubinus, and these were Epicureans.

[Sidenote: Cicero.]

Cicero was the first to systematize the philosophy which contributed so greatly to his intellectual culture. But even he added nothing. He was only a commentator and expositor. Nor did he seek to found a system or a school, but merely to influence and instruct men of his own rank. He regarded those subjects, which had the greatest attraction for the Grecian schools, to be beyond the power of human cognition, and, therefore, looked upon the practical as the proper domain of human inquiry. Yet he held logic in great esteem, as furnis.h.i.+ng rules for methodical investigation. He adopted the doctrine of Socrates as to the pursuit of moral good. He regarded the duties which grow out of the relations of human society preferable to the obligations of pursuing scientific researches. Although a great admirer of Plato and Aristotle, he regarded patriotic calls of duty as paramount to any study of science or philosophy, which he thought was involved in doubt. He had a great contempt for knowledge which could neither lead to the clear apprehension of cert.i.tude, nor to practical applications. He thought it impossible to arrive at a knowledge of G.o.d, or the nature of the soul, or the origin of the world. And he thus was led to look upon the sensible and the present as of more importance than inconclusive inductions, or deductions from a truth not satisfactorily established.

[Sidenote: His eclecticism.]

Cicero was an Eclectic, seizing on what was true and clear in the ancient systems, and disregarding what was simply a matter of speculation. This is especially seen in his treatise "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum," in which the opinions of all the Grecian schools concerning the supreme good are expounded and compared. Nor does he hesitate to declare that happiness consists in the cognition of nature and science, which is the true source of pleasure both to G.o.ds and men. Yet these are but hopes, in which it does not become us to indulge. It is the actual, the real, the practical, which preeminently claims attention; in other words, the knowledge which will but furnish man with a guide and rule of life. [Footnote: _De Fin._, v. 6.] Indeed, the sum of Philosophy, to the mind of Cicero, is that she is an instructress and a comforter.

He takes an entirely practical view of the end of philosophy, which is to improve the mind, and make a man contented and happy. For philosophy as a science,--a series of inductions and deductions,--he had profound contempt. He also regards the doctrines of philosophy as involved in doubt, and even in the consideration of moral questions he is pursued by the conflict of opinions, although, in this department, he is most at home. The points he is most anxious to establish are the doctrines of G.o.d and the soul. These are most fully treated in his essay, "De Natura Deorum," in which he submits the doctrines of the Epicureans and the Stoics to the objections of the Academy. [Footnote: _De Nat. D._, iii. 10.] He admits that man is unable to form true conceptions of G.o.d, but acknowledges the necessity of a.s.suming one supreme G.o.d as the creator and ruler of all things, moving all things, remote from all mortal mixture, and endued with eternal motion in himself. He seems to believe in a divine providence ordering good to man; in the soul's immortality, in free-will, in the dignity of human nature, in the dominion of reason, in the restraint of the pa.s.sions as necessary to virtue, in a life of public utility, in an immutable morality, in the imitation of the divine.

[Sidenote: His ethics.]

The doctrines of Cicero on ethical subjects, are chiefly drawn from the Stoics and Peripatetics. They are opinions drawn sometimes from one system and sometimes from another. Thus he agrees with the disciples of Aristotle, that health, honors, friends, country, are worthy objects of desire. Then again, he coincides with the Stoics that pa.s.sions and emotions of the soul are vices. But he recedes from their severe tone, which elevated the sage too high above his fellow-men.

[Sidenote: Character of his philosophical writings.]

Thus there is little of original thought in the moral theories of Cicero, and these are the result of observation rather than of any philosophical principle. We might enumerate his various opinions, and show what an enlightened mind he possessed; but this would not be the development of philosophy. His views, interesting as they are, and generally wise and lofty, yet do not indicate any progress of the science; He merely repeats earlier doctrines. These were not without their utility, since they had great influence on the Latin fathers. They were esteemed for their general enlightenment. He softened down the extreme views of the great thinkers before his day, and clearly unfolded what had become obscured. He is a critic of philosophy; an expositor whom we can scarcely spare.

If any body advanced philosophy among the Romans, it was Epictetus, and he even only in the realm of ethics. Qumtius s.e.xtius, in the time of Augustus, had revived the Pythagorean doctrines. Seneca had recommended the severe morality of the Stoics, but they added nothing that was not previously known. The Romans had no talent for philosophy, although they were acquainted with its various systems. Their greatest light was a Phrygian slave.

[Sidenote: Epictetus.]

[Sidenote: His lofty ethical system.]

Epictetus taught in the time of Domitian, and though he did not leave any written treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down by his disciple Arrian, who had for him the reverence that Plato had for Socrates. The loftiness of his recorded views makes us feel that he must have been indebted to Christianity; for no one, before him, has revealed precepts so much in accordance with its spirit. He was a Stoic, but he held in the highest estimation Socrates and Plato. It is not for the solution of metaphysical questions that he was remarkable. He was not a dialectician, but a moralist, and, as such, takes the highest ground of all the old inquirers after truth. With him, philosophy, as it was to Cicero and Seneca, is a wisdom of life. He sets no value on logic, nor much on physics; but he reveals sentiments of great simplicity and grandeur. His great idea is the purification of the soul. He believes in the severest self-denial; he would guard against the syren spells of pleasure; he would make men feel that, in order to be good, they must first feel that they are evil; he condemns suicide, although it had been defended by the Stoics; he would complain of no one, not even of injustice; he would not injure his enemies; he would pardon all offenses; he would feel universal compa.s.sion, since men sin from ignorance; he would not easily blame, since we have none to condemn but ourselves; he would not strive after honor or office, since we put ourselves in subjection to that we seek or prize; he would constantly bear in mind that all things are transitory, and that they are not our own; he would bear evils with patience, even as he would practice self- denial of pleasure; he would, in short, be calm, free, keep in subjection his pa.s.sions, avoid self-indulgence, and practice a broad charity and benevolence. He felt he owed all to G.o.d; that all was his gift, and that we should thus live in accordance with his will; that we should be grateful not only for our bodies, but for our souls, and reason, by which we attain to greatness. And if G.o.d has given us such a priceless gift, we should be contented, and not even seek to alter our external relations, which are doubtless for the best. We should wish, indeed, for only what G.o.d wills and sends, and we should avoid pride and haughtiness, as well as discontent, and seek to fulfill our allotted part. [Footnote: A fine translation of Epictetus has been published by Little and Brown.]

[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius.]

Such were the moral precepts of Epictetus, in which we see the nearest approach to Christianity that had been made in the ancient world. And these sublime truths had a great influence, especially on the mind of the most lofty and pure of all the Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius, who _lived_ the principles he had learned from a slave, and whose "Maxims" are still held in admiration.

[Sidenote: General observations.]

Thus did the speculations about the beginning of things lead to elaborate systems of thought, and end in practical rules of life, until, in spirit, they had, with Epictetus, harmonized with many of the revealed truths which Christ and his Apostles laid down for the regeneration of the world. Who cannot see in the inquiries of the old philosopher, whether into nature, or the operations of mind, or the existence of G.o.d, or the immortality of the soul, or the way to happiness and virtue, a magnificent triumph of human genius, such as has been exhibited in no other department of human science? We regret that our limits preclude a more extended view of the various systems which the old sages propounded--systems full of errors, yet also marked by important truths, but whether false or true, showing a marvelous reach of the human understanding. Modern researches have discarded many opinions which were highly valued in their day, yet philosophy, in its methods of reasoning, is scarcely advanced since the time of Aristotle; while the subjects which agitated the Grecian schools, have been from time to time revived and rediscussed, and are still unsettled. If any science has gone round in perpetual circles, incapable, apparently, of progression or rest, it is that glorious field of inquiry which has tasked more than any other the mightiest intellects of this world, and which, progressive or not, will never be relinquished without the loss of what is most valuable in human culture.

For original authorities in reference to the matter of this chapter, read Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers; the Writings of Plato and Aristotle; Cicero, De Nat., De Or., De Offic., De Div., De Fin., Tusc. Quaest.; Xenophon, Memorabilia; Boethius, De Idea Hist. Phil.; Lucretius.

The great modern authorities are the Germans, and these are very numerous. Among the most famous writers on the history of philosophy, are Bruckner, Hegel, Brandis, I. G. Buhle, Tennemann, Ritter, Plessing, Schwegler, Hermann, Meiners, Stallbaum, and Speugel. The history of Ritter is well translated, and is always learned and suggestive.

Tennemann, translated by Morell, is a good manual, brief, but clear. In connection with the writings of the Germans, the great work of Cousin should be consulted.

The English historians of ancient philosophy are not so numerous as the Germans. The work of Enfield is based on Bruckner, or is rather an abridgment. Archer Butler's Lectures are suggestive and able, but discursive and vague, as is the History of Ancient Philosophy by Maurice. Grote has written learnedly on Socrates and the other great lights. Lewes' Biographical History of Philosophy has the merit of clearness, and is very interesting, but rather superficial. Henry has written a good epitome. See also Stanley's History of Philosophy, and the articles in Smith's Dictionary, on the leading ancient philosophers.

Donaldson's continuation of Muller's History of the Lit. of Greece, is learned, and should be consulted with Thompson's Notes on Archer Butler.

There are also fine articles in the Encyclopedias Britannica and Metropolitana. Schleirmacher, on Socrates, translated by Bishop Thirlwall.

CHAPTER IX.

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE ROMANS.

[Sidenote: Wonders of modern science.]

[Sidenote: Every great age distinguished for something never afterwards equaled.]

It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.

It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of antiquity. In this great department, modern genius s.h.i.+nes with the l.u.s.tre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly attests the advance of society, which makes their advance a most incontestible fact. It is this which has distinguished and elevated the races of Europe more triumphantly than what has resulted from the combined energies of Greeks and Romans in all other departments combined. With the magnificent discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years in almost every department of science,--especially in physics, in the explorations of distant seas and continents, in the a.n.a.lysis of chemical compounds, in the explanation of the phenomena of the heavens, in the wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliance to abridge human labor or destroy human life, in astronomical researches, in the miracles which inventive genius has wrought,--seen in our s.h.i.+ps, our manufactories, our wondrous instruments, our printing-presses, of our observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our houses, to multiply our means of offense and defense, to make weak children do the work of t.i.tans, to measure our time with the accuracy of the orbit of the planets, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the mariner with a.s.surance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy s.h.i.+p against the wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent, under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross; these and other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the most potent of Romans. The achievements of modern science settle forever the question as to the advance of society and the superiority of modern times over those of the most favored nations of antiquity. But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this marked superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of experiment, a.s.sisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of the Teutonic races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe the wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction which genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their minds to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might have made wonderful inventions. But it was so ordered by Providence. Nor was the world in that stage of development when this particular direction of intellect would have been favored. There were some things which the Greeks and Romans exhausted, some fields of labor and thought in which they never have been, and, perhaps, never will be, surpa.s.sed; and some future age may direct its energies into channels which are as unknown to us as clocks and steam-engines were to the Greeks. This is the age of mechanism and of science, and mechanism and science sweep every thing before them, and will probably be carried to their utmost capacity and development. Then the human mind may seek some new department, some new scope for energies, and a new age of wonders may arise,--perhaps after the present dominant races shall have become intoxicated with the greatness of their triumphs and have shared the fate of the old monarchies of the East. But I would not speculate on the destinies of the European nations, whether they are to make indefinite advances, until they occupy and rule the whole world, or are destined to be succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as their fathers were when Rome was in the fullness of material wealth and grandeur. We know nothing of the future. We only know that all nations are in the hands of G.o.d, who setteth up and pulleth down according to his infinite wisdom.

I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the realm of philosophical speculations, the ancients were our schoolmasters, and that among them were some men of most marvelous genius, who have had no superiors among us.

[Sidenote: The ancients deficient in the application of science.]

But we do not see the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at least in its application to practical life. It would be difficult to show any department of science which the ancients carried to any degree of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they made n.o.ble attempts, and in which they showed considerable genius, even if they were unsuccessful in great practical results.

[Sidenote: Labors of the ancients in astronomy.]

Astronomy was one of these. So far as mathematical genius is concerned, so far as astronomy taxed the reasoning powers, such men as Eratosthenes, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights, of whom humanity may be proud; and, had they been a.s.sisted by our modern accidental inventions, they might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed by that of Kepler and Newton. The Ionic philosophers added but little to the realm of true philosophy, but they were pioneers of thought, and giants in their native powers. The old astronomers did as little as they to place science on a true foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some great truths which no succeeding age has repudiated.