The central conception of this philosophy of self-control was the
dignity of man. Pride, which looks within, making man seek his own
approbation, as distinguished from vanity, which looks without, and
shapes its conduct according to the opinions of others, was not only
permitted in stoicism, it was its leading moral agent. The sense of
virtue, as I have elsewhere observed, occupies in this system much the
same place as the sense of sin in Christianity. Sin, in the conception
of the ancients, was simply disease, and they deemed it the part of a
wise man to correct it, but not to dwell upon its circumstances. In the
many disquisitions which Epictetus and others have left us concerning
the proper frame of mind in which man should approach death, repentance
for past sin has absolutely no place, nor do the ancients appear to have
ever realised the purifying and spiritualising influence it exercises
upon the character. And while the reality of moral disease was fully
recognised, while an ideal of lofty and indeed unattainable excellence
was continually proposed, no one doubted the essential excellence of
human nature, and very few doubted the possibility of man acquiring by
his own will a high degree of virtue.
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