his own defence. Suicide is also contrary to the duties a man owes to society. It is a mistake to imagine that any man is absolutely "sui juris" at his own disposal. He is not only under the dominion of God the supreme Lord, to whom he is accountable, but as a member of society, bears a relation to his king, his country, his family; and is not at liberty to dispose of his life as he himself pleases. If this were the natural right of one man, it would be so of another and so every man would have a right to put an end to his own life, whenever he thinks proper, and of this he himself is to be the judge. And if he has a right to kill himself when any great evil befalls him, or when he is under the apprehension of it, why might he not have an equal right to kill another who he apprehends has brought evil upon him, or who he fears will do it? And what confusion this would produce in society, I need not take pains to show. To all which it may be added, that for a man to kill himself, because he is under the apprehension or pressure of some grievous calamity, is, whatsoever may be pretended to the contrary, inconsistent with true fortitude. It is an argument of a pusillanimous soul, that takes unwarrantable methods to flee from a calamity; whereas he ought nobly and patiently to bear it, which is true magnanimity and fortitude. The poet says well: “It "is an easy thing to contemn life in adversity: he acts a cou66 rageous part, who can bear to be miserable." "Rebus in adversis facile est contemnere vitam: Upon the whole, the practice we have been considering, and which was justified, and in several cases even prescribed, by many of the philosophers, especially by the Stoics, the most eminent teachers of morality among the ancients, is a practice deservedly rendered infamous by our laws, as being a murder committed by a man upon his own person, in oppo sition to the most sacred obligations of religion, and to the rights of the community to which he belongs, and to the strongest instincts of the human nature, wisely implanted in us by the author of our beings, as a bar to such inhuman practices. The observations which have been made are sufficient to show that the Stoics are not to be absolutely depended upon in matters of morality. This will further appear from a distinct examination of the main principles on which their moral system is founded, and on the account of which they have been thought to be the most strenuous advocates for the cause of virtue, and to have carried their notion of it to the noblest height. VOL. II. The Stoics professed to lead men to perfect happiness in this present life, abstracting from all consideration of a future state. Their scheme of the absolute sufficien cy of virtue to happiness, and the indifferency of all external things considered. They were sometimes obliged to make concessions which were not very consistent with their system. Their philosophy in its rigour not reducible to practice, and had little influence either on the people or on themselves. They did not give a clear idea of the nature of that virtue which they so highly extolled. doctrine of many of the Stoics, as well as other philosophers, with regard to truth and lying. The loose THE professed design of the whole Stoical scheme of morality, was to raise men to a state of complete felicity. This, indeed, was what all the philosophers pretended to; and Cicero represents this as the principal thing which induced men to spend so much time and pains in the study of it.* But none of them made such glorious pretences this way as the Stoics, nor spoke of virtue in such high terms as they did. They maintained, that virtue alone, without any outward advantages, is sufficient to a life of perfect happiness in this present state. And to support this scheme they asserted, that all outward things are indifferent, and nothing at all to us: ἐδὲν πρὸς ἡμάς. Indifferent things, τὰ ἀδιάφορα, as Laërtius represents the sense of the Stoics,+ neither profit nor hurt us; of this kind are life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, riches, honour, nobility; and their contraries, such as death, sickness, pain, deformity, poverty, dishonour, &c. And again, that those things are indifferent, which are neither good nor evil, neither to be desired nor shunned, conducing neither to happiness nor unhappiness. In this sense, all things are indifferent which are between virtue and vice. No philosopher ever carried the Stoic notion in this matter farther than Epictetus. It is a principle which runs through his whole * Cic. de Finib. lib. iii. cap. 3. Et Tuscul. Disput. lib. v. cap. 1. † Laërt. lib. vii, segm. 105, 106. system, and most of his magnificent precepts are built upon it, that nothing is good or evil but what is in the power of our own wills: that none of the things without us are either profitable or hurtful: that neither life nor death, health nor sickness, bodily pain nor pleasure, neither affluence nor poverty, honour nor ignominy, neither the having wife, children, friends, possessions, nor the want or loss of them, are to be the objects of our desires of aversions, they are nothing to us, nor of the least moment to our happiness. Agreeable to this is the idea the Stoics give of him whom they call a wise man that he has all his goods within himself, wants nothing, never fails of obtaining what he desires, is never subject to any disappointment; because he never has a desire or aversion to any thing but what is in his own power; nor can any outward calamity touch him, whether of a public or private nature. And what is especially to be observed, they assert, that he is perfectly happy even in the extremity of torments and sufferings. This is the principle upon which they chiefly valued themselves, and were admired by others. Cicero represents their opinion thus, concerning the wise or virtuous man "That suppose him to be blind, infirm, la"bouring under the most grievous distemper, banished from "his country, bereaved of his children or friends, in indi"gence, tortured upon the rack, he is, in that instant, and "in those circumstances, not only happy, but happy in the "highest degree."* And this happiness they supposed to be wholly in a man's own power, and entirely owing to virtue itself: that it is sufficient merely by its own intrinsic force and excellence to produce and secure an independent felicity without any foreign support, and abstracting from all consideration of a future state or recompence. This was in reality making an idol of their own virtue, and erecting it into a kind of divinity. And accordingly their scheme, as was be * "Sit idem [sapiens] cæcus, debilis, morbo gravissimo adfectus, exsul, orbus, egens, torqueatur eculeo: quem hunc adpellat Zeno? Beatum, inquit, etiam "beatissimum." De Finib. lib. v. cap. 28. p. 427. edit. Davis. 66 fore observed, sometimes betrayed them into a way of talking which bordered upon profaneness; as if their wise man was equal in virtue and happiness with God himself. The Peripatetics agreed with the Stoics in affirming, that virtue is the greatest good, and that a wise and good man is happy under the severest bodily torments. But they would not allow, that in that case he was most happy, or happy in the highest degree. Thus it is that Cicero represents their sense,‹ in the fifth book of his Tusculan Disputations, where he argues pretty largely against those who supposed that a wise and good man is "happy" in such circumstances, but not "most happy:""beatum esse, at non beatissimum."* He thinks, that he who wants any thing that is requisite to a happy life, cannot with any propriety be said to be happy at all: “Si est "quod desit, ne beatus quidem est:" that happiness, includes the full possession and enjoyment of all good things, without any evil joined to it or mixed with it: and that if any thing relating to the body or outward circumstances were good, a wise man could never be sure of being happy, because these outward things are not in his own power. In this the Stoics seem to have had the advantage of the Peripatetics. They both agreed that wise and good men are happy in this present state: for in their disquisitions on this subject, a future state of happiness was never brought into the account. They also agreed, that this happiness was in every wise and good man's own power. But the Stoics plainly saw, that it was not in any man's power to obtain external advantages when he pleased, or to attain to a perfect freedom from all outward pains and troubles. And, therefore, they would not allow, that external things are either good or evil, or have the least concernment with the happiness of human life. This, though contrary to nature and experience, yet was a consistent scheme, which that of the Peripatetics was not. Cato, in arguing * See particularly Tuscul. Disput. lib. v. cap 8. et cap. 14. et seq. + Ibid. cap. 10. p. 365. edit. Davis. |