WERE THE STOICS UTILITARIANS? 189 



of liappiness. Here, indeed, they differed from the Epicureans, but 

 they agreed fr.liy with the keen-sighted Peripatetics. The philoso- 

 phers of both tnese schools were wise enough to know that the 

 best w;iy to be happy is to disregard bodily pains and pleasures, 

 and cultivate self-control, kindness of heart, and nobleness of 

 though. It was also characteristic of both Stoics and Peripatetics, 

 though uo>of the Epicureans, to aim iit universal, and not nierel}^ 

 personal happiness, and to believe that virtue should be practised 

 for its own sake, that is simply on account of its conformity with 

 the laws of nature. Ind.eed, the Peripatetics charged the Stoics 

 with stealing all their teachings, merely altering the terms, as 

 thieves do the ear-marks of stolen cattle.''^ 



The position that virtue is snlHjient for happpin'-^ss, however, was 

 confined to the Stoics, who further difFerecj from the Peripatetics 

 as did the Epicureans also, in refusing to accept the jinlgment of 

 tlie wisest as the moral standard, and surpassed all other pliiloso- 

 phers. not onl,y in teaching disinterestedness, but in importing tliat 

 regard for all the interests of their race which has since been called 

 the enthusiasm of humanit}'. 



Stoicism is thus seen to have preferred universal to individual 

 happiness, disregarded bodily pleasures, demurred to accepting even 

 mental ones as motives, believed in following virtue for her own 

 sake, and placed morality on a disinterested basis, scarcely any of 

 which views would be thought compatible with being utilitarian 

 by those who, like Ivir. Lecky, consider that term as a synonyme of 

 selhsh. Even he, however, makes some discrimination in favor of 

 v/hat he calls " the reMned sensmdity " of the i^ililis, Tucker and 

 Austin, while Miss Gobbe distinguishes plainly between the two 

 schools of Private and Public Eudairaonists, as she styles tiiem, in 

 a description much confused by her taking, as the representative of 

 the last named class, Jeremy Bcnthani, who really belongs, with 

 Paley, the French naturalists of the last century, and the Epicu- 

 reans, among what we may call the self-regarding or individualistic 

 Utilitarians, who did not believe in disinterestedness or in caring 

 for others' happiness except as a condition of one's own. No won- 

 der that Stoicism appeared trash to a man who finally discarded 

 the last four words of his own famous formula, '' the greatest hap- 



* See Ac. Quaest. II 5. De Finibus li, 23, 27. IIF, 3. IV, 26, 28. V, 13, 

 16, 17, 25, 26, 29. 



