The doctrine of suicide was the culminating point of Roman stoicism. The
proud, self-reliant, unbending character of the philosopher, could only
be sustained when he felt that he had a sure refuge against the extreme
forms of suffering or of despair. Although virtue is not a mere creature
of interest, no great system has ever yet flourished which did not
present an ideal of happiness as well as an ideal of duty. Stoicism
taught men to hope little, but to fear nothing. It did not array death
in brilliant colours, as the path to positive felicity, but it
endeavoured to divest it, as the end of suffering, of every terror. Life
lost much of its bitterness when men had found a refuge from the storms
of fate, a speedy deliverance from dotage and pain. Death ceased to be
terrible when it was regarded rather as a remedy than as a sentence.
Life and death in the stoical system were attuned to the same key. The
deification of human virtue, the total absence of all sense of sin, the
proud stubborn will that deemed humiliation the worst of stains,
appeared alike in each.
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