180 wiscoxsi^r academy scien'ces, arts, aj^td letters. 



that " Stoicism find Epicureanism are both included in its compass.'" 

 (Moral Science, Am. Ed., p. 16.) Mr. Bain, however, gives no evi- 

 dence for this statement, and takes little pains to show the proper 

 place of the Stoics among the happiness moralists. 



These differences of opinion make it necessary to examine care- 

 fully the statements of Stoicism, male by its principil to ichers, 

 Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, as well as the accounts of 

 the opinions of still earlier authors by Dl;)genes L lertius and Cicero. 

 Such an examination v/ill show that the Stoics never were led 

 by their belief, that every soul is a part of the >-Uj)remo and All- 

 pervading Intelligence, to suppose themselves thus emlowed with 

 an infallible moral guide, and raised above the necessity of learning 

 Vv'hat is right and wrong by observation and experience. 



Seneca, hi his 120th letter, says: '" Nature couKl not teach us the 

 first ideas of goodness and virtue. She gave us the germs of 

 knowledge, but not knowledge itself. Our philosophy holds ijhat 

 these ideas come by observation and comparison of our daily deeds, 

 and that goodness and virtue are known by analogy."' 



Epictetus devotes the eleventh chai)ter of the second book of his 

 Discourses to proying that we are n )t so well provided with innate 

 ideas of good and evil, as to be able to distinguish right from 

 wrong without some rule, balance or standard, sucli as philosophy 

 alone can give, the knowledge of which inability he calls "the be- 

 ginning of wisdom." (See pages 121-, 5, 6 of Higginson's spirited 

 translation." 



He complains not only that '"the governing faculty of a bad 

 man is faithless," but that pecple not instructed in philosophy are 

 ignorant of '" the essence of good and evil, and act rashly and by 

 guess;" '"that contradiction among the generality of mankind, by 

 which they differ concerning good and evil,'.' showing that moral 

 knowledge can be acquired only by tuition, as was also the opinion 

 of the earliest Stoics.* 



The fundamental distinction, however, between the intuitional- 

 ists and their rivals, is that the former believe the m jral sentiment 

 to be innate, inlependent and incapable of analysis, while the lat- 

 ter are satisfied that it can be analyzed into simpler elements, and 

 therefore claim the title of derivative moralists, a name which the 



* Sde Iligi^itison's Epiutetus, pp. 48. 62, 65, 74, 76, 83, 101-2, 14-0-53. 17-7-6, 

 185-6, 208, 224, 245-7, 299, 315, 335. S45, 3U. Diogenes Laertius, Zeno LIV, p. 

 292, Bohn. 



