Logical solutions.
227. The first argument for the defence is logical, and is pressed by Chrysippus. Good implies its opposite, evil. ‘There could be no justice, unless there were also injustice; no courage, unless there were cowardice; no truth, unless there were falsehood[48].’ Just in the same way we find coarse wit in a comedy, which is objectionable in itself, and yet somehow contributes to the charm of the poem as a whole[49]. The second argument is based upon the doctrine of ‘necessary consequence’ (παρακολούθησις). The general design of the human head required that it should be compacted of small and delicate bones, accompanying which is the inevitable disadvantage that the head may easily be injured by blows[50]. War is an evil, but it turns to good by ridding the world of superfluous population[51].
In many other cases there may be explanations that are beyond our present knowledge, just as there are many kinds of animals of which we do not yet know the use[52].
Moral solutions.
228. More important are those arguments which introduce moral considerations. In the first place the generous intentions of providence are often thwarted by the perverseness of wicked men[53], just as many a son uses his inheritance ill, and yet his father in bequeathing it to him did him a service[54]. The Deity treats good men as a Roman father his children, giving them a stern training, that they may grow in virtue[55]; those that he loves, he hardens[56]. Earthquakes and conflagrations may occur on earth, and perhaps similar catastrophes in the sky, because the world needs to be purified from the wickedness that abounds[57]. The punishment of the wicked, for instance by pestilence and famine, stands for an example to other men, that they may learn to avoid a like disaster[58]. Often, if the wicked have gone unpunished, the penalty descends on their children, their grandchildren, and their descendants[59].
Divine power limited.
229. The very multiplicity of these explanations or excuses betrays the weakness of the case, and the Stoics are in the last resort driven to admit that the Deity is neither all-knowing nor all-powerful, and that the sphere of providence is limited by an all-encircling necessity. Thus Chrysippus explains blunders in divination by saying that ‘the Deity cannot know everything[60],’ and though he ascribes to the Deity all power, yet when hard pressed he admits that he cannot do everything, and that ‘there is a good deal of necessity in the matter[61].’ In this way he is forced back to the position which the shrewder Cleanthes had taken from the first[62]. After we have taken away from fate all that has life or meaning, there remains a residuum, which we can but vaguely assign to some ‘natural necessity[63].’ This point once granted, we realize that it includes many of the detailed explanations previously given. Thus it is by ‘natural necessity’ that good cannot exist without evil; that the past cannot be altered; that the one must suffer for the many[64]; that the good cannot always be separated from the bad[65]; that character grows by the defiance of pain; that the individual is everywhere exposed to disaster from tyranny, war, pestilence, famine, and earthquake.
God and men allied.
230. The recognition of the limitations of divine power creates a new tie between gods and men. Men are no longer the mere instruments of providence, they are its fellow-workers; we may even go further, and boldly call them its fellow-sufferers[66]. God has given man what he could, not what he would[67]; he could not change the stuff on which he had to work[68]; if anything has not been granted to us, it could not have been granted[69]. Under such circumstances a sensible man will not find fault with the gods, who have done their best[70]; nor will he make appeals to them to which they cannot respond[71]. Even less will he quarrel with a destiny that is both blind and deaf[72].
Fortune.