Conversion.
358. The stages of progress are variously expounded by Stoic writers[169]; but on one principle all are agreed. Progress is not a half-way stage between vice and virtue, as the Peripatetics teach[170]; it is a long preparation, to be followed by a change sudden and complete (μεταβολή, conversio)[171]. The final step, by which a foolish man becomes in an instant wise, is different in kind to all that have gone before. This position is a necessary consequence of the doctrine that ‘the good is not constituted by addition[172],’ and is enforced by various illustrations. The probationer is like a man who has long been under water; little by little he rises to the surface, but all in a moment he finds himself able to breathe. He is like a puppy in whom the organ of sight has been for days past developing; all at once he gains the power of vision[173]. Just so when progress reaches the end there dawns upon the eyes of the soul the complete and dazzling vision of the good, of which till now only shadows and reflections have been perceived. For a moment he is wise, but does not even yet realize his own wisdom; then again in a moment he passes on to the complete fruition of happiness[174].
Duty.
359. Thus from the lowlier conception of ‘daily duties’ we have again climbed upwards to the supreme ethical end, to absolute goodness, which is Virtue in her full royalty and the Universal Law (κοινὸς νόμος) as it appeals to the individual man. In this connexion the ideal is familiar in modern times under the name of Duty. The ancient Stoics perhaps never quite reached to any such complete formulation of their ethical theory in a single word; but their general meaning is perfectly expressed by it. Just as the Socratic paradoxes mark the quarrel of philosophy with outworn ideas expressed in conventional language, so its reconciliation with the general opinion is marked by those newly-coined terms such as ‘conscience’ and ‘affection’ which are now familiar household words. We cannot indeed demonstrate that ‘Duty exists,’ any more than we can that deity or providence exists; but we may well say that without it ethical discussion would in our own day be hardly possible. The following stanzas from Wordsworth’s ‘Ode to Duty,’ based upon a Stoic text[175], may be a useful reminder, not only of the dominant position of this conception in modern thought, but also of the continued tendency of the human mind to express its supreme convictions in anthropomorphic language.
‘Stern daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove:
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe: