From the Reports of the Plato Club: In Two Parts. Part Two
THE PARMENIDES. (January 16.)
THIS evening Hillbrook read from the Parmenides. Then the Dominie : “ A question I should like to ask is this : How can a man get so excited about such an abstract proposition as that ‘ One is ’ ? Why does it make so many men fanatics, like the Moslem iconoclasts, and why do they take such pleasure and satisfaction in affirming oneness ? Parmenides did not have to refute atheism, for he lived before the days of nihilistic theories and agnostic screeds, yet he must affirm ‘ The One is.' So, too, Spinoza with his pantheism was called ‘ God-intoxicated.’ How are we to account for this enthusiasm ? ”
Red Cap. “ Is it not because nothing is reasonable until we get a single principle ? ”
The Dominie. “ Yes, perhaps so; hut is there not something more ? A man wants to have a ramrod down his back and feel that there is something there. It is a great satisfaction to feel and make an affirmation, and I think Carlyle is right when he says that it makes a man larger to have something fixed to formulate. But then, why in the world do people take so very much pleasure in this particular statement, ‘ Being is ’ ? Is it not perhaps that it gives more pleasure to be a positif, as the French call it, than a negatif, more pleasure to affirm than to deny or to doubt, and the most general affirmation you can make is that being is ? Then, too, it is. Here is another affirmation.”
Hesperus. “ Is not this pleasure of asserting that being is analogous to one’s delight when he discovers a new relation in the world and cries -out ‘ Eureka ’ ?
The Theologian. “ This desire to posit something, to make an assertion, is universal. Even Mr. Huxley fell a victim to it when he invented the word ‘ agnostic.’ Every one else was an ist or an ic or an er, and he wanted a tail, too.”
Red Cap. “ Is there not a moral feeling at the bottom of this pleasure in finding unity ? One’s disquiet in the presence of duality is like the disquiet that some people feel before they have experienced what they call conversion. They are at war with themselves because their will has not yet established unity by a definite act of choice.”
The Pilgrim. “Is not the object of the whole dialogue to show that abstract reasoning and quibbling, if carried too far, leave simply nothing, and does not this dialogue at its conclusion leave us hanging in mid-air? ”
The Parson. “ Is it not a lesson against prolixity and looseness of terms?”
The Dominie. “ But Hegel says that the Parmenides marks the highest point of Plato’s thought. My own idea is that unity is a great thing to have, and that it is rather the mark of a high mind. Think how pleased Newton was, trembling so that he could not make his calculations : a stray idea had been captured. This attempt to unify is also an impulse of sanity. The people who are only sprinkled with facts are neither sane nor interesting. And so it is with the impulse to stand for something and be a positif. This is the impulse of youth, and the converted man, too, gets a unity that he did not have before. But do we confer any greater reality on reality by these attempts to prove it? If it is really real, why not simply recognize its reality ? By trying to prove it, do we not rather loosen the belief ? You can’t prove first principles, and very few of us can prove even fourth or fifth principles.”
THE REPUBLIC, I.-IV. (January 23.)
The Pilgrim read from the first four books of the Republic, and then suggested innumerable questions arising from what he had read.
The Dominie. “ But we can’t choose a fishpole in a forest of saplings, so we shall have to ask you to pick one out for us, and tell us which of all these subjects you prefer to discuss.”
The Pilgrim. “ Well, then, let us have the religious question. Here is Socrates trying to work a religious reformation by bringing forward all the bad parts of the old Homeric tales, until his hearers have to say that these stories won’t do. So nowadays the Jonah story and Elisha’s floating axe are brought forward to confuse old-fashioned orthodox believers. But is this the best way to teach the new truth ? Does it not do a great deal more harm than good, and would it not be much better to leave these stories alone altogether, and teach something that we do believe ? ”
The Prophet. “ I think you are quite right. There is too much flinging of new discoveries into people’s faces. But you can’t use the same methods in all cases. I should not talk to my grandmother as I would to a theological student. The great danger is in going to extremes. Some churches are so afraid of superstition that they throw away every ceremony, even baptism and the communion, though these have a real value, however we understand their significance; while others are so overgrown with it that one can hardly find any truth in them. But the mean is hard to follow.”
Hesperus. “ Plato thought the best religion was the one that produced the best lives. His object was to lift people up. But then his state was an ideal one. He supposed it to be freshly started ; consequently he had no settled beliefs to reckon with, and his problem was not the same as ours.”
The Theologian. “ I have not much to say on this subject; but the one thing I do want to protest against is the use of ridicule. It is a very poor way of converting people to your views, and it often only makes them stubborn.”
Red Cop. “ And yet it is said that in France ridicule is the strongest weapon that can be used. Whether we use it or not, we often do a great deal of good by coming out as Luther did, and saying what we do not believe. If, by showing the weak points of religious beliefs, you can get them revised, I think it is good. As to the Bible, people have been in the habit of taking it as though it were of the same value all through. But why not let them see the difference, so that they will not feel that they need to believe the things in it that are against conscience ? — and there are things in the Old Testament that are against conscience.”
The Pilgrim. “ But is there not a better way of going about the work than simply to knock things down ? Don’t take a child to the window and show it the flaws in the glass instead of the beautiful landscape. We don’t get much good from looking at flaws ; that is a vile way of getting at the beauty of life. But if you people think it a good way, what are you going to do about it ? ”
The Dominie. “ For my part, I am not going to do anything. I don’t see much use in negative propaganda now. however it may have been in the past. If my mother bad told me to believe that the moon was made of green cheese, and that belief had been pricked into me like a tattoo, what right have you to come along and get it out ? There is a sphere for individuality in these matters, and it seems like an offense against the individual to interfere with them. A great many ridiculous things have somehow or other got into our fundamental beliefs, like gnats in the amber; but don’t cut a person to pieces to get them out. The way is to state positive things, and then these theories will drop off of themselves ; hut to take them away before they are ready to drop is like pulling the tail off a tadpole. Feed him and let him grow, and the tail will take care of itself. But this is not all. This picking open of flaws is an assault upon the person. Take the story of Jonah and the whale; I know how difficult it is,—I measured a whale’s throat once, — but I rather bate to have a man attack that story. I don’t know why it is so, but it makes a very unpleasant impression to have somebody annihilate it. But why does Plato want to weed out such stories as that, and yet give us a whole lot of myths a great deal harder to believe ? He wants us to believe that the world went round the other way, and shook up everything when it changed, and then he wants to teach that we all grew out of the earth, which nobody can believe. But take these miracles. I don’t know what to say about them : I don’t believe them, and yet I do believe them, — perhaps the heart believes them, and the head does not, — and I don’t want to force myself to give a verdict about these things. It may be only a matter of taste, but I always feel as though a person did some gross or indecorous thing to attack these beliefs that we have been brought up to regard as sacred.”
The Timekeeper. “ I don’t know about that Jonah story. Somebody tells of a fish in the Mediterranean that did swallow a sailor, and they fired a cannon over it, and the man was thrown out and saved. We ought to know for sure before we say that things are not true.”
The Deacon. “ It is very beautiful for everybody, learned and unlearned, to repeat the same creed, each giving it his own interpretation, and each allowing his neighbor to do the same : but is there not danger of our crying ’Peace, peace,’when there is no peace ? Those of us who do not accept the old stories in their literal sense may still feel the deep spiritual truth which they embody, and when we have grasped the soul of truth we may love to linger on the beautiful form in which it has been clothed. But what is to happen to those who have been brought up to think that they must believe everything just as it is written ? Whether we tell them so or not, they are going to learn sooner or later that some of these things are not what they have been taught to believe that they are; and the question is whether we shall teach them sympathetically, or somebody else shall do it unsympathetically. I have seen many young people who are at sea and have nothing whatever to anchor to, because they have been taught that they must take these things literally, and they can’t.”
Red Cap. “ A whole generation is arising to whom it is said : Here is the Bible ; you must take the whole of it, or none at all. The state of France, at this time, is the result of just tins kind of teaching in the Roman Catholic Church. People were told that they must believe everything, without any discrimination ; so most of them believe nothing. In this country as elsewhere, Christian orthodoxy is forcing upon young men views that can be held no longer. In two years’ experience in a religious association of young men, I have seen enough doubt and torment arising from these teachings to make my blood boil when I hear them. The question is not one of tearing down, but of uncovering the truth for the sake of the young people who are driven away from religion by myths and legends which they cannot accept as revelations of God. Veneration for antique beliefs is no doubt a worthy sentiment, but shall we allow the living to go astray out of respect for the dead ? ”
The Parson. “ Our Saviour set us a good example. He said, I came not to destroy, but to fulfill; yet he was accused of destroying. That there has been a change in our way of dealing with these questions is shown in the different attitude of our missionaries. At first they attacked the religions of their hearers; but now they recognize all that is good in them, and try to build upon it, and they are far more successful. As to the Bible, I have long believed that some parts of it are more interesting than others ; but whether any parts are more important than others, I doubt,—though there is often a question of exegesis.”
REPUBLIC, VIII.-X. (February 13.)
When the Theologian had read from the last three books of the Republic, he said : “ The selections are bristling with points ; but I should like most to ask what is to be done when wealth gets into the possession of the few, and progress and poverty go hand in hand. Should we pass Mosaic laws against the alienation of property ? From the ethical point of view, which is the better way to deal with people, to make them act wisely, as Henry George would do, or to follow Spencer’s advice and let them learn from experience ? Is it good to fence people about, so that they can’t lose anything if they want to ? ”
The Dominie. “ Would not such a scheme make a revolution to start with, and afterwards take all the spring out of life ? Ambition wants the open sea before it.”
The Pilgrim. “The Greeks talked a great deal about presumptuous pride; but was not Plato guilty of a double portion of it, when he attempted to lay down a static system according to which the world should always be governed ? ”
The Deacon. “ It sometimes appeals to me quite uncomfortably, when I see a conflict, which I have not yet found out how to reconcile, between Christianity, or at any rate what passes nowadays for Christianity, and the teachings of science. Take the questions of lunatic asylums and prohibitory laws : Christianity seems to be in favor of them, but if there is anything in the law of the survival of the fittest, the ditch the drunken man falls into is just the place Nature meant him to be in, and we have no right to pick him out and help him to bring up dipsomaniac children. I think I should vote for a prohibitory law ; yet prohibition is loathsome to me. As somebody asks, what right have A and B, who do not want to drink, to pass a law to prevent C drinking, though he can do it in moderation, for the benefit of D, a weakling whom Nature is trying to kill for the benefit of the race ? ”
The Timekeeper. “ But if anybody at all survives, it is because Nature helps him ; why should we not follow her example, and help people, also ? The laws are all against the poor man’s son, and we ought to give him a start, at least.”
The Pilgrim. “I don’t think we should allow people from the lunatic asylums and almshouses to have children, and I think we ought to get rid of prohibition when it won’t fit ; but the talk we hear about personal liberty is all nonsense. The Western judge who would not let witnesses carry their guns into court was accused of infringing on personal liberties. The fact of the matter is that we have a right to interfere with the saloons, liecause the saloons interfere with us. If my son can’t go down town without being tempted to drink, and my wife can’t go out in the evening, or even in broad daylight, without being insulted or offended by the vile language of some drunken fellow, I propose to do all I can to put a stop to it.”
The Dominie. “That is the way I look at the question, too. I believe in prohibition, though it is very rough and barbaric. It is a question of the balance between good and evil, and I think the preponderance of good is on tire side cf prohibition. It is an evil to be chased by a drunken man, as I was the other day, till I recognized the ridiculousness of my position, and turned on him sharply ; and it is another evil not to be able to get brandy for a sick friend without being beckoned into a back room for it, like some common law-breaker ; but mass work is always rough work, whether in legislation or in education. As to saving these poor people, it is a very different question; tor here they have something to do with it themselves. Aristotle treats pity as a disease, and he is right. It is the disease which makes so many women carry around poodle dogs and coddle them as though they were babies. These are the people who go into hysterics when you speak of vivisection. Think of the vast amount of money given to improve the condition of miserable offscourings who have been shown to he very largely responsible for their own state ! Ninetynine people out of every hundred think it a much more pious thing to leave their money to some charitable institution than to a university; and so they help the worst people in the community instead of the best, and shiver with imaginary paupers who can’t keep warm. It is simply a disease ; and it is a commentary on our civilization to see these magnificent institutions for the care of the insane and paupers and criminals. I don’t think they should be treated better than the majority of honest working people. After all, is not money a pretty good anthropometer ? It does not measure morality, by any means, but it does seem to me that the rich man who acquires his own money must be a person of tremendous energy and vital force.”
The Pilgrim. “ The worst thing about the whole situation to-day is this lamentation in the pulpits about the materialcondition of the poor workingman.'”
ARISTOTLE’S ETHICS. (March 6.)
This evening the Theologian read for the second time from the Ethics of Aristotle. He then said: “The remarkable thing about Aristotle’s view of virtue is that it is just the reverse of our modern view, putting reasoning before character. But is there not something in such advocacy of pure reason which leads to sterility in the end ? Can we have an ethical philosophy, and can we keep an interest in the good, without seasoning it with something beyond pure thought? In Aristotle’s estimation of friendship as superior to love we have the doctrine of the mean in every-day life. It reminds us of the Biblical injunction, ‘ Let your moderation be known unto all men.’ ”
The Parson. “ Every attempt to make education purely intellectual has failed, and therefore our books on sermonizing teach us to avoid purely intellectual preaching. The intellect is only a means.”
Red Cap. “ The mean is generally virtuous ; but how are you to find the mean, if not by reason ? Is it not just the province of reason to find it ? Then, evidently, you must place reason in the first place, in the search for virtue.”
The Theologian. “ As a matter of fact, do we do anything just because we have found it out by reasoning? ”
Red Cap. “ Perhaps not. We feel that we have the mean by a sort of moral pleasure.”
The Dominie. “ Then what would you say to the view held by the Herbartians, that the emotions measure the degree of disturbance, and must therefore be eliminated ? ”
The Deacon. “ It seems to me that Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean is just as artificial as his doctrine of the syllogism. Nobody ever uses the syllogism in a real argument, and fallacies are discovered, not by the rules of the syllogism, but by the conflict between one’s conclusions and established facts. In the same way, the doctrine of the mean does not enable us to find what is right; but when we have found out by our own experience or that of the race that a certain trait of character is good, it is very easy to find something bad which we can put on either side of it and call an extreme. In the case of bodily appetites Aristotle s scheme works pretty well, but there are many other cases in which what we consider right is an extreme rather than the mean. The ten commandments speak of total abstinence from certain acts, not of moderation. Aristotle’s own examples are often arbitrary enough. He makes magnificence the mean between meanness and vulgarity. But could we not just as well contrast meanness with carelessness about money, and vulgarity with modesty ? ”
The Dominie. “ And yet, after all, has not Aristotle’s system a good pedagogic value? It: is the best and most complete system I know. The syllogism may be artificial, but does it not sharpen a student’s wits, all the same ? Do you not think that the doctrine of the mean will serve a similar end ? Another doctrine of Aristotle’s worth noting is that exercise makes faculty. F. W. Robertson’s sermons are full of this; and it is supported by the best teachings of the theory of evolution. There is still another point I should like to speak of; and that is the happiness of the contemplative life. Is that a fact, in the first place ? and in the second, if it be so, is there reason to believe that it is natural, that it was intended that we speculate ? Is that the end of life ? I don’t believe it. If a man has great trouble to bear, there is nothing that sustains him like the reading of these great systems. And that is a good thing ; but it seems to me that it is a better thing to be guided by them in your life. That is where Christianity takes a great step in advance.”
The Parson. “ Our church books regard the contemplative life as too introspective.”
The Dominie. “ Do you not suppose that the doctrine of the mean applies to matters of speculation ? Would n’t the Greeks have condemned excess even in this ? And is it not possible that a part of what is usually ascribed to ignorance in Plato may have been due to his temperance ? ‘ The way to be dull is to tell everything.’ Now Plato was a great deal more brilliant than Aristotle, and a great deal more of an artist. May he not have voluntarily restrained himself ? The other day I read a volume of about eighty pages in which the whole universe is explained. It is a very cheap kind of intellect that explains the whole universe ; but doubtless the author of this book would have sneered at Plato, and said that he did not know his own mind.”
The Pilgrim. “ What is the use of discussing such questions as what the mean may be, and what is the harm ? What does not get into a man by reasoning cannot be taken out of him by it. That is what Lincoln meant when he said, ‘ You can’t fool all the people all the time.’ They don’t reason very much, but their great heart is right.”
Red Cop. “ What would be the good of saying to a child that virtue is the mean ? Does he not already have an idea of virtue that is much better ? To call it the mean makes it a kind of mean thing, the average, something low.”
Hesperus. “ Is it possible to find the mean without an experience of deviation from it ? ”
The Dominie. “ That may have been a question in the Garden. Some people are so made that they can accept testimony, but others cannot.”
Hesperus. ” But should we say to a child, ‘ Do not do this ’ ? It is a maxim among teachers not to say, ‘ This is the right spelling, and that is the wrong,’ for this teaches the wrong way quite as much as the right one.”
The Dominie. “ I do not think the two cases are parallel, because in the first place there is a push to do the thing, and in the second place in nine cases out of ten the child knows the right way perfectly well. And now, once more, what is the function of this knowing faculty in making us good? Hegel repeats this idea of knowing, and Schopenhauer makes pure contemplation the only happiness ; but when intellectualism is made the end, it shows its bankrupt nature.
If this whole question about knowledge were only torn away from the question as to whether knowledge is real or not! The question is not whether knowledge is real, but what is its use, how is it made a means of moral improvement ? Is not a man morally infirm who has to do evil in order to know it ? Ought not instinctive knowledge to save us from the experimental ? Perhaps all ethical knowledge is anticipatory experience, — the rude sight which the creature is beginning to develop from its sense of touch, and which saves it from running its head against an object before it knows it is there. Discursive knowledge is a fall ; fine native instinct does not need it, and he who has this instinct still keeps the divinest thing in him ; he is unfallen ; he keeps the mean instinctively, and he has the keenest kind of satisfaction in doing so. But we are fallen creatures, and we must walk by sight, and not by faith.”
THE STOICS. (May 15.)
The Parson has a theory that the whole moral and spiritual life of man is simply a question of weather, and he can quote statistics to prove that profanity varies in quantity and quality with the height of the thermometer and the square of the barometric pressure. However this may be, it is quite certain that even the Plato Club did not escape the influence of these spring days. We no longer rushed headlong to our rendezvous, eager to discover the nature of The Good or of The One, or to adjust the claims of The One and The Many, but we sauntered to the house very slowly, and when some of us met outside, we stopped a little to talk about the grass and the trees, and some one said to the Parson that it was impossible to discuss philosophy by daylight. But the Parson did not answer ; he was picking up a magnolia blossom that the wind had blown on the grass.
When Red Cap read from Epictetus, some of us, at least, felt greatly charmed by the peaceful spirit of the extract, and were therefore a little surprised when he stopped, and began to criticise his author.
“ I must say,” he began, “ that I have been much disappointed with Epictetus. I had always supposed he was a very great man ; but when I read his discourses I found him to be a very narrow man indeed, with only one idea, which he applies to everything. ‘ Is that in your power ? Does this pain concern you ? ’ This is his whole philosophy; and the key to it is found when one knows that he was a slave. ‘ Avoid pain ; avoid suffering.’ This is a philosophy of contempt for life, possible only to a disheartened pessimist or a slave. If our life depends upon feeling, and you take the feeling out, as Epictetus would have you, then you take the life and the growth out also. Contrast this egoistic philosophy, whose whole aim is to escape personal suffering, with the Christian philosophy of love ; the antithesis could not be stronger.”
The Pilgrim. “ The only difference between the Stoics and ourselves is that they spun it out longer. The old patriarchs lived a thousand years or so, and with the Stoics the adolescent storm and stress lasted a whole lifetime.”
The Dominie. “ Red Cap, you object to Epictetus because he tries to overcome pain by philosophy. What else would you have us do when we meet with misfortune, when our will is thwarted and we can do nothing, when we feel ourselves wholly in the hands of fate ? Those are the times that try men’s souls, and those are the times when a man needs philosophy or religion.”
Red Cap. “ But this philosophy is only for the mitigation of pain.”
The Dominie. “ And pain is what kills men. Christianity appealed to the weak and disheartened. It came as a comforter. It was to do just what you say, —to mitigate pain ; because if pain goes too far it is death. There are times when you must look a great calamity right in the face and live it down ; sympathy of others will not help, but only makes it worse. Then it is that you must ‘ glory in death,’ that you must ‘ accept the inevitable with joy.’ And you can’t do that if you have not faith. It may be expressed, or it may not; but if men did not believe that there is a Power that makes for righteousness, how would it be possible ? This Stoic philosophy is a valuable narcotic to carry round with one in case of sudden pain. You say the philosophy of Epictetus is selfish. But it is not possible to draw an immovable line between egoism and altruism. How can we help others unless we live ourselves ? ”
Red Cap. ” Christianity mitigated pain by teaching men to forget themselves for the sake of others. It taught them to give full play to their feelings in order to act vigorously for the sake of all. Epictetus teaches the reverse ; with a very strong will, he learned never to use it.”
The Pilgrim. “ He magnified self until he eliminated personality. It seems to me utterly demoralizing to preach such a doctrine, for we live in connection with the universe, and by such doctrines we throw ourselves out of connection. It is simply, ‘ Grit your teeth and shut your mouth, and don’t say anything.’ That maybe a good enough doctrine to die by, but you can’t live by it. If you’ve got it, hurry up and die, and don’t give it to other people. Stoicism is inaction. If one keeps his attention fixed long enough, death ensues. The spirit of Christianity is, ‘ Absorb your experience ; use it as an aid to a better life ; be made perfect by suffering.’ It means growth.”
The Deacon. “ But stoicism is not a doctrine to die by. It is a doctrine by which we try to keep from dying. To be sure, it contains no Christian hope for a future life, but there are times in most lives when any hope or any belief is impossible ; when we cannot even act, because we cannot tell whether our action will do good or harm. When we are in such a state, it is a great comfort to think that our little joys and sorrows are inevitable, and that they are of no great importance after all. It may be weakness or cowardice or what you will to get into such a state, but that is no reason why we should abuse the only philosophy that makes life tolerable when we are in it.”
The Prophet. “ Is there, after all, such an antithesis between stoicism and Christianity ? Do not the two work together ? Take Job, for example : he has to face the mystery of pain, but he says,
‘ I will stand it, and it will come out right in the end.' Job’s comforters say his pain is the result of personal guilt; Epictetus says it is a blessing in disguise.”
Red Cap. “ But, excuse me, does he say so ? ”
The Parson. “ Epictetus is under a great disadvantage, not being present to explain himself. But when Red Cap was reading, I noticed a great many things that we have in Christianity. Take, for example, what he says about guiding conversation. Every Christian, especially a minister, ought to do that. Then where he says, ’ Don’t speak, but show what you believe :' that is a very important point. And then his distinction between the body and what happens to it and the soul. Then, too, what he says about shedding tears for others. The Bible tells us to weep with those that weep. As a Christian man, I have a pretty good opinion of Epictetus, and I don’t see why we could not admit him into the church.”
Red Cap. “ The Bible does not tell us, as Epictetus does, to guide conversation for fear of having our dignity compromised, and it does not tell us to weep with others, and at the same time be careful not to weep inwardly.”
The Pilgrim had tried to read from Marcus Aurelius earlier in the evening, so that we might talk about the emperor and the slave together, but he had been given no opportunity. Finally, however, he succeeded in getting our attention, read at some length from the ‘ Meditations,’ and continued the attack on the Stoics.
“This philosophy makes man a mere asteroid circling around nature ; and as it regards the soul as the breath, it gives very little hope for immortality. I cannot find a word anywhere about improvement ; but the whole aim of life is tranquillity, to he gained by looking within. ‘ Cease your complaint,’ he says, ‘ and you are not hurt.’ Marcus Aurelius was a subjective idealist. Like a silkworm, he spun it all out of himself. These two men, Aurelius and Epictetus, in a large way make up the typical philosopher. They don’t fuss and worry, but where is their life ? Is it the idea that the philosopher is unmoved by the ordinary affairs of life that makes philosophy so unpopular ? Matthew Arnold, for example, chills the life out of you. The sooner we get rid of this demoralizing idea that there is something in stoicism the better.”
The Dominie. “ Now, gentlemen, what are we going to do ? Are we to submit to the conspiracy of these two gentlemen against the Stoics?”
Red Cap. “ It was not a conspiracy, and I object to the Pilgrim’s putting Marcus Aurelius upon the same level with Epictetus. He strikes me as a vastly superior man in every way.”
The Parson. “ I think we shall have to take him into membership, also.”
The Dominie. “ Here are two people, in troublous times, who cultivated the art of keeping cool. ‘ Above all, keep cool and possess your soul in patience.’ That is a standpoint that I cannot but have the highest respect for, even from no higher point of view than that of psychiatry. The loss of self-possession, of the faculty of keeping cool, is the first step towards every mental disease there is,— epilepsy, hysteria, melancholia, and all the others. But these Stoics were pretty noble men. They were not people whose philosophy changed with the cosmic weather; and I do instinctively admire a man who is not upset when adversity comes. Ataraxia is a pretty good thing to have, and it is a good thing to hand down to one’s children to make a sturdy stock.
SENECA. (May 22.)
We continued the study of the Stoics at the next meeting, when the Parson read from Seneca, and then gave a short account of his life. “ Here was a man,” he said, “ who was worth twelve million dollars, and yet praised poverty, He wrote about virtue, yet was banished for his intrigue with Julia, assisted Nero in the murder of his mother, wrote the letter in which the Emperor tried to excuse himself for the act to the Senate, and was at last ordered to commit suicide for conspiring against the state. Seneca’s writings were studied in the Christian Church up to the beginning of this century, but then something more was found out about him and he was dropped. It is strange that we don’t appreciate a beautiful thought when a bad man utters it.”
Red Cap. “ Is there any way to reconcile the two men that we see in Seneca, the great vices that he was accused of, with his writings?”
The Deacon. “ What about the doctrine of double personality ? Is it not possible for a person, when he gets away from the worry and excitement of life, to sit down in another mood and express thoughts much better than those which control him when he acts ? Was not Rousseau another example of this ? He did the most abominable things, and yet his writings are full of beautiful thoughts.”
The Dominie. “ Rousseau was a sentimentalist. He cannot be compared with Seneca. His writings have a hollow, falsetto tone all through. But Seneca does not make such an impression at all. He writes less in his moods than either Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius. I don’t believe that a man can he a good moralist and live a bad life. The charges of immorality against Seneca were made by a jealous woman, and nobody believes them now. AYe know that he was temperate and that he was honest. In spite of his great wealth, he was not accused of any crookedness in his personal dealings, but, like every man who stands high in office, he was a common target for envious tongues. The most serious charge is that of supporting the government in its policy ; but nobody can read Roman law without seeing that it was a fundamental point that it is right to do wrong if good is going to come of it. In dealing with the state, one has to balance vast goods and vast evils. In getting rid of Nero’s mother, we don’t know what the ends involved were. I should like to see in this country the spectacle of a man with twelve million dollars, who was secretary of state and wrote on philosophy, and then lost his money and was banished, but still wrote on philosophy, and was willing finally to put himself to a painful death at the command of the government. This age does not produce that kind of man. It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, but I think this man has come as near to it as most of them ; perhaps because he lost his riches. The thing that strikes me most about Seneca is that he dares to be rather commonplace ; he is a man strong enough to avoid an extreme when the truth lies unadorned in the middle. In Augustine, every once in a while we come across a strident, artificial note, worked up by an act of will to carry the thing a little too far. We find the same thing in Rousseau, in Byron, in Burr, and in Alexander Hamilton. There is a sort of ungcnuine ring in the bad men who write about goodness, but we find none of this in Seneca.”
Red Cap. “ The same tendency exists in recent French writers. Their ideals are much higher than they can reach, and so they overstate intellectually what they cannot do morally.”
The Dominie. "The letter in which Seneca tries to comfort his mother in his banishment is pretty strong evidence in his favor. A bad man can talk taffy, but he cannot show such genuine sympathy as is found in this letter.” The Parson. “ I have been thinking that we might take him in on probation, but that is about all we can do in his case.”
Herbert Austin Aikins.