right in action. Now, by fully acting up to this perception, we reach what they termed каторowμа, or an actual attainment of what is right as conduct only, altogether independent of result. To this they confined the name of good; everything else was furnished by Nature, i. e. Porvidence, with power of producing pleasure and pain, which were intimations from Him that they were accordingly to be sought or avoided; all that man had, or, in fact, was able to do, was to seek, or avoid. Such a course of conduct was in his own power; his conduct was the means of attaining or avoiding what should be sought or avoided; it is plain, then, that the means of seeking and the end sought are different things. Now, as altogether different, the qualities of external things which are not in our power are classed as adtápopa, i. e. things not necessarily connected with the forming of true conceptions of what is right, and consequent acting up to those conceptions. A man may be rich or poor, healthy or sickly, learned or ignorant; yet, for none of these reasons would be called by any of those who ridicule the Stoics a good or bad man; though he is good or bad according to the way he employs his natural and acquired advantage or not. Now this is all that is meant by the word adiapopa: whether the word is well chosen or not, is another thing; every one who uses a term in general use in a strict and scientific sense appears to arrive at results altogether contradictory to experience. Of this the science of Political Economy is an instance; but to insist on taking the words so restricted and defined in their common meaning is no great triumph of critical sagacity. A Stoic would certainly have called a toothache an indifferent thing; but if he was asked what he meant, he would have said, not that it was not painful, but that a man so suffering was not for that reason either virtuous or vicious; though his conduct with reference to the pain was necessarily either. If he bore it like a martyr, if he tried all the infallible cures, he did right; nay more, if he refused to avail himself of any remedy, he would do wrong; but when he did all and tried all, then the reflection that he had done his best would be his own consolation, and nothing could take it from him; he had besides the conviction that the pain was sent for some good and wise end. We see nothing absurd in this at all; it is both good common sense and sound morality. Besides, their technical language recognised pleasure and pain as parts of their system; whatever possessed, in the eye of cool reflection, the power of giving pleasure, was, προηγμένον; its opposite, αποπροηγμένον. Το reject the former was wrong, to seek the latter was wrong, because the accompanying pleasure and pain were marks set on things by God for the guidance

of man. The Stoic would not have rejected the contrivances of applied science; he would have called inoculation, the safety-lamp, the steamengine, the diving-bell, all #poŋquéva; to reject their aid would be morally wrong; but in the case of the sick man of Lord Macaulay, just as we send for the clergyman as well as the doctor, the Stoic would have endeavoured to "improve the occasion." In short, other moralists have lowered duty to prudence: the Stoics raised prudence to duty; when its resources were exhausted, they pointed out others, unfailing, and our own.

Now if they had stopped here, all that could be said would amount to this, that their morality was pitched in the highest tone. Now it would be no objection to say, it was not in man's power to regulate himself altogether by such lofty considerations. All teachers fix an ideal standard to which all are to aim, but which they are not expected actually to reach. A critic on Miss Edgeworth observes, that as her novels were all written with a moral purpose, they ought to have taken higher ground, and not represented men and women as they really are, but a little better, adding, as an illustration, that a dancing-master by turning out his toes more than enough makes his pupil turn them out just enough; on this ground the high standard of Stoicism might easily be defended: but they did more; they provided for the frailty of man by the recognition of the imperfect virtues, i. e. acts which, tried by their system in its strictness, would be utterly bad, but which, nevertheless, practically determined a man's character. Zeno, no more than Lord Macaulay, expected to see his wise man in flesh and blood; he would have declared, not only that he was not, but that he never would be born. Even what are called the Stoic Paradoxes are necessary consequences of their system, and served as formulæ for indicating the spirit which ought to regulate practice. If this distinction were kept in view, much misapprehension and consequent smartness would have been lost to the world.

Some, however, who have not in all cases borne the distinction in mind, have not expressed their admiration of the practical morality of the Stoics. Hear Dugald Stewart

"It may be assumed as an acknowledged and indisputable fact, that happiness arises chiefly from the mind. The Stoics perhaps expressed this too strongly, when they said, that to a wise man external circumstances are indifferent. Yet it must be confessed, that happiness depends much less on these than is commonly imagined; and that, as there is no situation so prosperous as to exclude the torments of malice, cowardice, and remorse: so there is none

VOL. I.-NO. II.

I

so adverse as to withhold the enjoyment of a benevolent, resolute, and upright heart."

And Sir James Mackintosh

"It ought to be added, in extenuation of a noble error, that the power of habit and character to struggle against outward evils has been proved by experience to be in some instances so prodigious, that no man can presume to fix the utmost limit of its possible increase."

"The influence of men's opinions on the conduct of their lives is checked and modified by so many causes it so much depends on the strength of conviction on its habitual combination with feelings-on the concurrence or resistance of interest, passion, example, and sympathy,--that a wise man is not the most forward in attempting to determine the power of its single operation over human actions. In the case of an individual it becomes altogether uncertain. But when the experiment is made on a large scale—when it is long continued and varied in its circumstances; and especially when great bodies of men are for ages the subject of it,—we cannot reasonably reject the consideration of the inferences to which it appears to lead. The Roman Patriciate, trained in the conquest and government of the civilized world, in spite of the tyrannical vices which sprung from that training, were raised by the greatness of their objects to an elevation of genius and character unmatched by any other aristocracy: at the moment when, after preserving their power by a long course of wise compromise with the people, they were betrayed by the army and the populace into the hands of a single tyrant of their own order the most accomplished of usurpers, and, if humanity and justice could for a moment be silenced, one of the most illustrious of men. There is no scene in history so memorable as that in which Cæsar mastered a nobility, of which Lucullus and Hortensius, Sulpicius and Catulus, Pompey and Cicero, Brutus and Cato, were members. This renowned body had, from the time of Scipio, sought the Greek philosophy as an amusement or an ornament. Some few, in thought more elevate,' caught the love of truth, and were ambitious of discovering a solid foundation for the Rule of Life. The influence of the Grecian systems was tried by their effect on a body of men of the utmost originality, energy, and variety of character, during the five centuries between Carneades and Constantine, in their successive positions of rulers of the world, and of slaves under the best and under the worst of uncontrolled masters. If we had found this influence perfectly uniform, we should have justly suspected our own love of system of having in part bestowed that appearance on it. Had there been no trace of such an influence discoverable in so great an experiment, we must have acquiesced in the paradox, that opinion does not at all affect conduct. The result is the more satisfactory, because it appears to illustrate general tendency without excluding very remarkable exceptions. Though Cassius was an Epicurean, the true representative of that school was the accomplished, prudent, friendly, good-natured time-server, Atticus, the pliant slave of every tyrant, who could kiss the hand of Antony, imbrued as it was in the blood of Cicero. The pure school of Plato sent forth Marcus Brutus, the signal humanity of whose life was both necessary and sufficient to

prove that his daring breach of venerable rules flowed only from that dire necessity which left no other means of upholding the most sacred principles: The Roman orator, though in speculative questions he embraced that mitigated doubt which allowed most ease and freedom to his genius; yet in those moral writings where his heart was most deeply interested followed the severest sect of philosophy, and became almost a Stoic. If any conclusion may be hazarded from this trial of systems, the greatest which history has recorded, we must not refuse our decided, though not undistinguishing, preference to that noble school which preserved great souls untainted at the court of dissolute and ferocious tyrants-which exalted the slave of one of Nero's courtiers to be a moral teacher of after-times-which, for the first, and hitherto for the only time, breathed philosophy and justice into those rules of law which govern the ordinary concerns of every man ;—and which, above all, has contributed, by the example of Marcus Porcius Cato, and of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, to raise the dignity of our species, to keep alive a more ardent love of virtue, and a more awful sense of duty, throughout all generations."

That the Stoics aimed at eradicating the feelings specified by Lord Macaulay is not true; their apathy was a very different thing from the idea we attach to the word. Пla@os, or passion, with them meant the erroneous estimation of external influences: the man who had not attained to a clear perception of what was right-who did not regulate his conduct by the dictates of reason, but set up instead the immediate promptings of mere impulse, and was wholly governed by them, was in their language influenced by wa@os: aπaleia, then, means the due regulation of, and not the extirpation of, human feelings; in fact, it expresses the practical end aimed at (at least, in this world) by all religious and moral systems that deserve the name. The "rants" about the dignity of human nature merely mean, that man has faculties which brutes have not,—a very safe assertion. Again, the "rants" about the "selfsufficiency of virtue" means, obedience to the dictates of conscience is independent of external circumstances: and that from such obedience satisfaction arises, of which we cannot be deprived.

While on the subject of Stoicism, there is a passage in Mackintosh's "Ethical Dissertation," involving a misconception of that system:

"It is remarkable that men so acute did not perceive and acknowledge, that if pain were not an evil, cruelty would not be a vice; and that if patience were of power to render torture indifferent, virtue must expire in the moment of victory. There can be no more triumph when there is no enemy left to conquer."

a This erroneous view of arabia is also held by Butler.

The answer is obvious; they would have said, "Pain is a sign; it is not moral evil; but, if sought, gives rise to evil: the wrong consists in not obeying this direction. When you are cruel, you disregard it; therefore you do wrong." In other words, the occasion which calls forth action is not the action called forth. It is the more surprising that Mackintosh fell into this misconception, as it involves a confusion of his own theory and criterion. He, however, we are proud to say, does not depreciate the Greek Philosophy.

Lord Macaulay's notice of the Epicurean system is not very exact; but it must be sufficient to say, that he takes a section to represent the whole school, and that it was but a portion which referred everything to bodily pleasure and pain.

It would have been easy to make every page bristle with references; but those interested in speculation can, without them, determine how far the views here advocated are just and sound. At the same time, it may be confidently asserted, that the celebrated Essay on Bacon has not drawn off a single votary from Philosophy. It may have furnished the shallow and ignorant with a little extra smartness; but any who regard the science of Mind, both for its own sake and its results of paramount dignity, will, notwithstanding, with faith unshaken, venerate the masters of Greek, and therefore, of all, Philosophy. We may approach, but cannot go beyond them.

G** K.

THE LIVING SECRET.

AN ALLEGORY.

CHAPTER II.

"Keep probability in view,

Lest people think the tale untrue."
DR. WATTS.

WHO has not felt the disagreeable effect of awaking in bad spirits on a wet, clouded morning? Something wrong is about to happen, though, for the first few seconds, we forget what it is. Unpleasant, indeed, is that slow dawning of consciousness. We are unable at first to recall exactly what the coming misfortune is, but we gradually begin to remember all about it. Oh yes; to be sure! we have not been very