[181] ‘fere itaque imperia penes eos fuere populos, qui mitiore caelo utuntur. in frigora septentrionemque vergentibus immansueta ingenia sunt’ Sen. Dial. iv 15, 5. So too Lucan: ‘omnis in Arctois populus quicunque pruinis | nascitur, indomitus bellis et mortis amator’ Phars. viii 363-6.
[182] ‘agedum illis corporibus illis animis luxum opes ignorantibus da rationem, da disciplinam: ut nihil amplius dicam, necesse erit certe nobis mores Romanos repetere’ Sen. Dial. iii II, 4.
CHAPTER XII.
THE LAW FOR HUMANITY.
The Right Law.
302. The department of Ethics contains two divisions: ethics (in the stricter sense) which is concerned with the action of the individual; and politics, which has to do with the order of the State. It has been maintained that in Stoicism the latter is altogether subordinated, and that the central aim of this philosophy is to erect a shelter for the individual[1]. The truth of this view is more than doubtful. Stoic ethics are not based on the needs of the individual, but on the demands of the supreme Law. ‘If there is a universe, then there is a universal law, bidding us do this and refrain from that.’ ‘If there are gods, there is virtue[2].’ We have already noticed that Zeno’s earliest work was ‘on the State[3],’ and that it is an attempt to show how a state can be ordered by wise laws. The whole theory of the Logos leads up to the same point. The same eternal Wisdom through which the primal stuff took shape is, in another function, the Right Rule (ὀρθὸς λόγος, vera ratio) which commands and forbids[4]. Right Rule and Common Law (κοινὸς νόμος, lex communis) are terms of identical meaning, by which a standard of supreme authority is set up[5]; State law and conventional morality, though always of narrower range, and often of inferior purity, are yet a reflection of universal Law. The moral law must therefore first be studied in its bearings on man as a political and social animal.
The Cosmopolis.
303. The root-principle of the Stoic State is that it is world-wide, a cosmopolis. This title arose from the practice, attributed to Socrates and Diogenes (as well as others), of replying to the current question ‘Of what city are you?’ by the answer ‘Of the universe[6].’ We must therefore regard ourselves as members not of a clan or city, but of a world-wide society[7]. In this society all distinctions of race, caste and class are to be subordinated to the sense of kinship and brotherhood[8]. This principle is equally opposed to the nationalist prejudices which rank Hellene above barbarian, to philosophical theories (such as that of Aristotle) which distinguish intelligent peoples fitted by nature to rule and others only fitted to obey[9], and to ideal states (such as that of Plato) in which a ruling class is to be developed by artifice and schooling. Only the brute animals are excluded from this community, for they are not possessed of reason; they have therefore no rights, but exist for the service of men[10]. All human beings are capable of attaining to virtue, and as such are natural-born citizens of the Cosmopolis[11]. Loyalty to this state, however, in no wise hinders a due loyalty to existing states which may be regarded as partial realizations of it. Socrates submitted to the laws of Athens even when they bade him die; Zeno and Cleanthes declined the citizenship of that famous city, lest they should be thought to hold cheap the places of their birth[12]; and amongst the Romans Seneca frequently insists that every man is born into two communities, the Cosmopolis and his native city[13].
The law of nature.