254 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



could make no difference in the morality of actions, and that no ex- 

 pression could be improper which related to transactions which were 

 proper, 1 it is easy to imagine what extravagances of conduct these 

 philosophical caricaturists may have exhibited, and in what licentious- 

 ness of language they may have indulged. These aliens and obtruders 

 into civilized society, when they treated shame as a factitious senti- 

 ment, and decried modesty and self-respect, showed a systematic 

 perverseness which has provoked the reprehension of Cicero for its 

 profligacy, 2 and the opposition even of the licentious Mandeville, 

 from the ignorance which it implies in the principles of human nature. 



The Stoics. We proceed, however, to a history of the scion school of the 

 Stoics; and we may premise, that the characters of the individuals 

 belonging to it varied so materially from one another, and so materially 

 also influenced the doctrines which they promulgated, that the system 

 of the Stoics, as delivered by Zeno, can scarcely be recognised in the 

 ostentatious pretensions and quibbling paradoxes of Chrysippus; and 

 that it requires something like chemical art to detect any remnant of 

 the same ingredients, when the compound has been filtered by the 

 good sense of Panastius, or sublimed into the gasconade of Seneca. 



After detailing, therefore, a few particulars in the life of Zeno, we 

 shall subjoin a brief summary of the physical and moral doctrines of 

 the Stoics, as they appear to have been expounded by him ; and shall 

 interweave in the narrative of his successors those prominent points 

 in which they extended or deviated from the notions of their founder. 

 Zeno was born at Citium, a town on the coast of Cyprus. His 

 father was a merchant, and in his voyages to Athens, brought home 

 some of the pieces written by the pupils of Socrates. The young 

 Zeno was charmed with the style of these philosophical productions. 

 At the age of thirty-two he visited Athens, and from that time 

 forwards devoted himself exclusively to philosophy. He attached 

 himself at first to the Cynic Crates, and then for ten years placed him- 

 self under the tuition of Stilpo. He afterwards listened to Xenocrates 



The Porch, and to Polemo. After this long course of discipline, he ventured to 

 open his own school, and selected the Portico, a public building, 

 ornamented with the paintings of Polygnotus, Myco, and Pandamus, 

 the brother of Phidias. This place was, it seems, before his time one 

 of general resort, and was, from these paintings and from its statues, 

 denominated the Painted Porch ; but the lectures and discussions of 

 which it became the theatre, soon imparted to it a celebrity sufficient 

 to distinguish it from other buildings of the same nature ; and the 



1 Non audiendi sunt Cynici, aut siqui fuerunt Stoici paene Cynici, qui reprehend- 

 unt et irrident, quod ea, quse turpia re non sint, nominibus ac verbis flagitiosa 

 dicamus: ilia autem, quse turpia sint, nominibus appellemus suis. Latrocinari, 

 fraudare, adulterare, re turpe est; sed dicitur non obsccene : liberis dare operam, 

 re honestum est, nomine obsccenum : pluraque in earn sententiam ab eisdem contra 

 verecundiam disputantur. Off. 1 , 35. 



2 Cynicorum vero ratio tota est ejicienda. Est enim inimica verecundias sine 

 qua 1 nihil rectum esse potest, nihil honestum. Off. 1, 41. 



Zeno. 

 B. c. 362. 



