WERE THE STOICS UTILITARIANS? 187 



(Moral Science, p. I'^O.) Bishop Curaberland, one of the earliest 

 modern advocates of the greatest happiness principle, attacks Epi- 

 curus and his followers vigorousl3^ and two of the best known 

 among the ancient expounders of that principle, Aristotle and 

 Theophrastns, take similar ground, the former denying that pleasure 

 is the chief good or synonyme of happiness and warning his disci- 

 ples against snares, (Ethics II, 9, and X, 3,) while the latter speaks so 

 strongly of the peculiar guilt of sins committed with pleasure, that 

 his language is quoted with hearty approval by Marcus Aurelius 

 (11, 10.) We should not therefore infer that the Stoics were not 

 Utilitarians, because they opposed Epicureanism, which system in- 

 deed had become, before any exposition of their views now extant 

 was written, little else than a cloak for indolence, servility, profli- 

 gacy, and indifference to the claims of patriotism and philanthropy, 

 as indeed the lives and writings of the best known of the successors of 

 Epicurus prove only too plainly. 



Marcus Aurelius, Epictetusand Seneca saw these facts so clearly, 

 and loved practical morality so faithfully, as often to speak of pleasure 

 with unqualified aversion. Seneca, however, frequently distmguish- 

 es the voluptas which is brevis, tenuis, corporalis, vana, nimia, 

 poenitenda ac in contrarium abitura, from that which is vera, sta- 

 bilis, naturalis, necessaria, in animo, etc., (De Vita Beata iv, 2; vi, 

 1; Ep. 18, 10: 21, 11; 78, 23;) and Epictetus uses hedone with sim- 

 ilar caution (Disc, iii, 7.) These two terms are also employed in 

 some remarkable passages which may be regarded as foreshadowing 

 the discovery, now the bulwark of utilitarianism, that pains are 

 the correlatives of actions injurious to the organism, while pleasures 

 are the correlatives of actions conducive to its welfare. ''Pleasures 

 are the incentives to life-supporting acts, and pains the deterrents 

 from life-destroying acts. (Herbert Spencer's Psychology, Ed. of 

 1872, Vol. i, p. 279-281.) With these statements should be care- 

 fully compared the following: 



" Nature has mingled pleasure with necessary actions, not in or- 

 der to have us seek after it, but that what we cannot live without 

 may with this addition, become more attractive." (Seneca Ep. 116 

 3.) Pleasure is the companion, though not the leader, of a virtu- 

 ous will. When virtue leads, pleasure follows like a shadow." (do, 

 de Vita Beata, viii, 1 and xiii, 5.) '" Our nature is to be free, noble 

 and modest. And pleasure should be subjected to these virtues, as 



