[How a Neoplatonist interprets a Stoic. Wonderful!]
All things whatsoever may be divide into two sorts; those that are, and those that are not, within our own power: of the former sort are our opinions and notions of things; our affections, our desires, and our aversions. And in short, all our actions of every kind are in our own power. . . .
Comment:
He calls those things in our own power, which we ourselves are master of, and which depend purely upon our own disposal and choice; as we commonly say, anything is a man’s own, which he is not beholden to anybody else for, so as that it should fall within the compass of a second person, to grant or deny it, to permit or debar, or anyway hinder him in the enjoyment of it.
Now such are the motions and operations of the soul; they are born and bred within us, and owing solely to our own judgment, and our own choice; for indeed, it is not possible for anything without us to determine our choice. The object of our choice, it is confessed, is very often something without us; but the act of it, and the motions toward it, are entirely our own, and within us.
Such, for instance, are the particular opinions we entertain, and the judgments we make of things; as that riches, or death, or the like, are things in their own nature, good, or evil, or indifferent. And, though we are often induced to take up this or that particular opinion upon trust, and from the credit we give, to what we hear other people say of it; yet is not their authority, or their persuasion, of such absolute efficacy, as that the opinion should not still be our own.
For at this rate, we should make ourselves as senseless creatures as parrots, who when they call for a cup of sack, know not what they say. If we be allowed then to think at all, the opinion must be our own act and deed; occasioned, it is true, sometimes by things without us, and recommended and conveyed to us by the instructions and arguments of others; but not infused so mechanically, as that we should be purely passive in the case.
Thus again; the object, which moves our affection, is without us, but the affection itself is excited, and arises, within us. For there is a great difference observable, between the internal motion of the mind, and the external motive or inducement to it. This motion is not like that of men thrust forward by another, forcibly and against their wills; but such a one, as when we move our own bodies, by our own strength, and of our own accord.
The case is the same with our desires; by which the soul does (as it were) put her self forward, and go in pursuit of the thing desired; and so likewise with our aversions too, which are but a kind of turning aside, or running away, to avoid the object that provokes them.
Now it is sufficiently manifest, that of all these, the first in order of nature must be opinion; by which I understand such a knowledge or judgment of things, as is grounded upon reason, and worthy the character of a man. When this opinion relates to any real or seeming good or evil, which we apprehend ourselves to be concerned in, then it presently excites either desire or aversion; and, pursuant to either of these, the proper affections or motions of the soul.
For the good must needs be desired, before the soul be affected with it, or move towards it; and the evil must be disapproved, before she flee from it. Though indeed the Stoics have advanced a contrary method, and represented the affections, by which the soul is carried to or from its object, as if they were antecedent to desire and aversion; thus considering these affections, as the beginnings and immediate causes of those desires and aversions in the soul.
But after all, the brutish inclinations, such particularly as anger and sensual appetite, are so much of a piece with the body, so closely and manifestly interwoven with the blood and animal spirits, that they seem to grow from the particular complexions and constitutions of men. So that these must of necessity derive their motion from an external cause in great measure, and cannot be perfectly at their own disposal, nor under the absolute mastery of the persons thus desiring, though they are begun too, and proceed originally from within.
Not only so, but the rational soul itself, when subdued by the body, and the brutish impulses of sense, does in a great degree degenerate into machine, is violently agitated, drawn and managed at pleasure, and loses much of its native liberty and power.
But when it acts in agreement with nature and reason, it maintains an absolute freedom, and moves only by an internal principle of its own. In a mind thus regularly disposed, it is very easy to discern, how much we have in our own power; though in the former instance of a disorderly mind, the case be somewhat intricate and perplexed.
But however, in order to a more exact understanding of the whole matter, both what this liberty and power is, and what objects it extends to; as also, to show, that all the happiness and misery of a man’s life depends upon the use or the abuse of this liberty; I will trace the thing up to its first cause, and examine the whole matter particularly.
The source and original of all things is good. For indeed, that must needs be both the cause, and beginning, and the end and consummate perfection of all, in which all desires center, and to which all things naturally tend. Now this good forms and produces all things out of its own fullness, both the most excellent, the middle sort, and the last and lowest rank of beings. The first and most excellent, bear the closest affinity to itself, are of a piece with it, (as it were) and express images of it.
Thus one good being produces many good beings; one simple and uncompounded being, independent and supreme, produces many other simple beings like itself; one principle produces many principles: and this one, this simple being, this principle, and this good, are but so many several names for God, who is before all things, and the cause of all things.
Now whatever is first, must of necessity be the purest and most simple being. For all compounded things and numbers are after the simple and unit, in order of nature, and inferior to them in dignity. And all compounds, and things not good, do desire the good, as something above, and better than themselves. And whatever is not self-existent must have received its being from something else.
So that the first principle and original cause must have all absolute and infinite power; the excellence of which consists, and its exuberance is seen, in the production of all things from itself, and in giving to those that resemble its own perfections, the precedence before others that bear no such resemblance to it. And hence it is, that one common principle produces many principles, many simple beings, many goodnesses, immediately from itself, and its own fullness.
Thus all beings, which are distinguished from one another, by their own peculiar differences, and multiplied into several species, according to the particular forms and circumstances in which they differ, are yet each of them reducible to one principle more properly their own. All things beautiful and lovely (for instance) of whatever kind that loveliness and beauty be, or whatever object they belong to, whether bodies or souls, are yet derived from one common source of beauty and gracefulness.
The case is the same with all manner of congruities, and all truths, and all principles; for these, so far as they are principles and originals to other things, do exactly agree, and are of the same nature with that primary goodness, and original truth, and first principle of all; allowing only for some abatements, and taking that agreement in such proportions, as the capacity of these derived and secondary causes will admit.
For the same relation, which that first universal principle bears to all beings in general, the same does each of these subordinate principles bear to the several species, and individuals, contained under it, and partaking of the property peculiar to it. For every species, which is distinguished from the rest by a peculiar difference of its own, must needs have a tendency to, and terminate in, its proper principle; from whence one and the same form is reflected down upon all the particular kinds and creatures comprehended under it.
Thus a unit is the foundation of all numbers, and a single cause is the original of all properties, in this vast variety of beings. So that all partial and subordinate causes do really subsist, and are contained in the first and universal one; and this, not locally or numerically, but essentially and virtually; as the parts in the whole, as generals in a singular, and as numbers in a unit. For this indeed is itself all, above and before all; and out of one principle many principles grow, and in one common good many goodnesses subsist and dwell.
Nor is this principle a limited or particular one (as for instance, a principle of beauty, or gracefulness, or goodness, or truth) as each of the rest are; but simply and universally a principle or cause; a principle, not only of species and beings, but even of all other principles too. For the property of a principle cannot take its rise from particulars, and from many, but must center at last in a unit, and that one is the great original of all, the first beginning and cause of causes.
Now the first and immediate productions of this first original good, are of the same kind and nature with itself. They retain their native goodness, and, like that from whence they spring, are fixed and unchangeable, rooted and confirmed in the same happiness; they stand in need of no additional good from abroad, but are themselves naturally and essentially good and happy.
Now all other beings, whose descent from that one original good is more remote, and who derive themselves from that first and these secondary causes in conjunction, lose that perfection of being essentially good, and enjoy what they have by participation only. Fixed indeed they are in God’s essential goodness, and therefore he continually communicates it to them.
But the last and lowest sort; which have no power of acting or moving themselves, (as bodies for example) as their existence and motion, is something from without, and what themselves are purely passive in; so likewise is all their good owing to something without them too. And, that their motion and existence is from without, is plain, because they have no discerning or governing faculty; they are subject to perpetual change and division, and consequently cannot be present to themselves in every part, so as to be all in all, or produce themselves entire at once; nor have they any power of moving themselves, as being in their own nature, void of spirit and life.
Yet still, there is a middle state between these extremes, a sort of beings, inferior to that fixed immutable nature which is always consistent with itself, and yet superior to the lowest and mechanical sort. And these are moved, not in the same manner with bodies, by a motion impressed upon them from something else, but by one internal and purely theirs. And in this capacity are souls, masters of their own motion, and of that of the body to which they are united. For which reason, we call all bodies, set into motion by a principle from within, animate; and those that have none, but what proceeds from something without, inanimate bodies.
So then the soul gives motion, both to itself, and to the Body. For if it received its own motion from something without, and afterwards put the body into motion, this motion of the body could not, with any propriety of speech, be imputed to the soul, but would be wholly owing to that, which first moved the soul. Now this free being is beneath the fixed and unchangeable Goodness, and enjoys its good by participation only, and so is carried towards it; yet this is done by no foreign force, but by its own spontaneous act, its own inclinations and desires. For inclinations, and desires, and affections and choice, are motions proper to souls, and entirely their own.
Now of these, the first and best, being the immediate production of things essentially and in their own nature good, (though with this abatement, that they are not so themselves, but only are desirous of good) do bear so near a relation to them, that they desire it with a natural and unchangeable affection; their choice is ever uniform and consistent; determined to the good part, and never perverted to the worse. And if by choice we mean the preferring of one thing before another; they can scarce by allowed to have any, unless you will call it so, because they ever take the chiefest and most perfect good.
But the souls of men are so contrived, as to link together, into one person, a heavenly and an earthly nature; and consequently, must be capable of inclining to both sides, of soaring upwards, or of sinking downwards. When they make the former their constant care; their desires and their determinations are uniform, and free, and above contradiction; but when they lose this power, all is inverted and out of course, because they employ themselves wholly upon pursuing mean ends, and only affect low actions: notwithstanding nature has qualified them for the animating and moving of bodies inanimate and purely passive; and for governing those things, which are incapable of procuring or partaking of any good by their own act; and has given them a power, not only of acting as they please themselves, but of putting other things into action at pleasure too, which otherwise are not capable of any such thing.
Now when the soul has conversed too familiarly with, and addicted herself too much to temporal and corruptible things, such as have but a perishing and transitory good in them; her choice is no longer above contradiction, but attended with many struggles and strong oppositions; it is directed still indeed to objects eligible and good; but then this is sometimes a real good, and sometimes a treacherous and deceitful one, which, upon the account of some pleasure attending it, prevails upon us.
And because this is most certain, that true good is always attended with true pleasure; hence it is, that, wherever the soul discovers the least shadow of this, she catches at it greedily, without staying to consider of what kind the pleasure is; whether it be real and agreeable to that good which is truly so; or whether it be false, and only carries a counterfeit face of good; never recollecting that it is necessarily attended with many troubles and great uneasinesses, and would not be pleasure without these to introduce and recommend it to us.
For he that takes pleasure in eating, would have none if he had not first been hungry; nor would drinking give a man any, but for the thirst, that afflicted him before. Thus uneasiness and pain are the constant attendants of pleasure, and ever mingled with it: so that if you suppose any pleasure in drinking, you shall find, that it comes from some remains of thirst; for the pleasure last no longer, than while the pain continues with it.
So long as we are hungry, or dry, or cold, or the like, the meat, and drink, and fire, that allay these uneasinesses, are agreeable to us; but when once the sense of those pains ceases, we quickly grow weary, and have too much of them. And what before gave satisfaction and relief, soon becomes our loathing and aversion, and is itself a pain to us. Thus also the men, who suffer themselves to be carried away into inordinate and extravagant enjoyments, and make pleasure the only end and business of their lives, generally undergo a great deal of trouble and uneasiness along with it.
Now the choice of this pleasant treacherous good is the cause of all our faults; as on the contrary, the choice of true substantial good is the foundation of all our virtue. And indeed all the good and evil of our whole lives, the happiness and misery of them, depend upon this freedom of will, and power of choice in us. For when the will is disengaged, when it proceeds from a free principle, and its determinations are properly the acts of that rational soul, of which our very essence and nature consists; then it is directed to objects truly eligible and good.
And for this reason, virtue, which is its proper happiness and perfection is called in Greek, aretê. A name which has great affinity to a word that signifies eligible, not only because virtue is properly the object, but also, because it is the effect of our own choice. But when the will acts in compliance with the brutish appetites and inclinations, and proposes their enjoyments to itself as its own happiness; then it makes an ill choice, and fixes upon counterfeit good instead of true: so that all this freedom and choice is in our own disposal. For the opinions and affections of the soul, its inclinations and aversions, are but so many steps towards choice; and all terminate in that at last: and these are properly the motions of the mind, arising from within, and not from any violent impulses from without us. So that we ourselves are masters of all these things.
This is the very reason, why the laws of God and man, and the judgment of all wise men, make our own freedom and choice the standard, to measure our actions by. They look upon the intention, as a thing absolutely in our own power; and they pronounce of our vices and our virtues, according to this, and not according to the quality of our actions themselves. For these are not absolutely ours; but are specified and distinguished, become formally good or evil, by our own will, and our own choice.
The action of killing is always the same, considered strictly in itself; but when this action is involuntary, it is excused and pardoned, because in such cases it is not properly ours, nor in our own power: nay, when done in a just cause, or in a legal way, it is not only excused, but applauded and highly commendable. So that the formal good, or evil, of our actions does not depend upon the actions themselves, but upon the intention, the choice, the freedom and power which we have in them, and which give them their moral qualities accordingly. . . .
—All posts in this series are taken from George Stanhope, Epictetus His Morals, with Simplicius His Comment, Made English from the Greek (1721)
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