CHAPTER II.
HERACLITUS AND SOCRATES.
Greek thought.
31. We have seen already that the great problems of which Stoicism propounds one solution were agitated during the millennium which preceded the Christian era alike in India, Persia and Asia Minor on the one hand, and in Greece, Italy and the Celtic countries on the other. To the beginnings of this movement we are unable to assign a date; but the current of thought appears on the whole to have moved from East to West. But just at the same time the influence of Greek art and literature spreads from West to East; and it is to the crossing and interweaving of these two movements that we owe almost all the light thrown on this part of the history of human thought. The early history of Stoicism has reached us entirely through the Greek language, and is bound up with the history of Greek literature and philosophy[1]. But long before Stoicism came into existence other movements similar in kind had reached Greece; and the whole of early Greek literature, and especially its poetry, is rich in contributions to the discussion of the physical and ethical problems to which Stoicism addressed itself. From the storehouse of this earlier literature the Stoics drew many of their arguments and illustrations; the speculations of Heraclitus and the life of Socrates were especially rich in suggestions to them. The study of Greek literature and philosophy as a whole is therefore indispensable for a full appreciation of Stoicism; and the way has been made easier of late by excellent treatises, happily available in the English language, dealing with the general development of philosophic and religious thought in Greece[2]. Here it is only possible to refer quite shortly to those writers and teachers to whom Stoicism is most directly indebted.
Homer.
32. Although the Homeric poems include representations of gods and men corresponding to the epoch of national gods and to other still earlier stages of human thought, nevertheless they are pervaded by at least the dawning light of the period of the world-religions. Tales of the gods that are bloodthirsty or coarse are kept in the background; and though heroes like Agamemnon, Achilles, and Ajax move in an atmosphere of greed, bloodshed, and revenge, yet all of them are restrained both in word and in act by a strong feeling of self-respect, the αἰδώς or shamefastness which entirely differentiates them from the heroes of folk-lore; in particular, the typical vices of gluttony, drunkenness, and sexual unrestraint are amongst the things of which it is a shame to speak without reserve. The gods are many, and in human shape; yet they are somewhat fairer than men, and something of the heavenly brilliance in which the Persian archangels are wrapped seems to encircle also the heights where the gods dwell on mount Olympus[3]. Gradually too there comes to light amidst the picture of the many gods something resembling a supreme power, sometimes impersonally conceived as Fate (αἶσα, μοῖρα), sometimes more personally as the Fate of Zeus, most commonly of all as Zeus himself, elevated in rank above all other gods[4]. Thus Zeus is not only king, but also father of gods and men[5]; he is the dispenser of happiness to men, ‘to the good and the evil, to each one as he will[6],’ and the distributor of gracious gifts[7], unbounded in power[8] and in knowledge[9]. The gods again, in spite of the many tales of violence attached to their names, exercise a moral governance over the world. ‘They love not froward deeds, but they reverence justice and the righteous acts of men[10]’; ‘in the likeness of strangers from far countries, they put on all manner of shapes, and wander through the cities, beholding the violence and the righteousness of men[11].’
Whilst therefore the philosophers of later times could rightly object to Homer that he told of the gods tales neither true nor worthy of their nature, there was on the other hand much in the Iliad and Odyssey, and particularly in the latter, which was in harmony with philosophical conceptions. It was not without reason that the Stoics themselves made of Ulysses, who in Homer plays but little part in fighting, an example of the man of wisdom and patience, who knows men and cities, and who through self-restraint and singleness of purpose at last wins his way to the goal[12]. From this starting-point the whole of the Odyssey is converted into a ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’; the enchantress Circe represents the temptations of gluttony, which turns men into swine[13]; the chant of the Sirens is an allegory of the enticements of sensual pleasure.
Hesiod.
33. In Hesiod (8th century B.C.) we find the first attempt to construct a history of the universe; his Theogony is the forerunner of the Cosmology which later on is a recognised part of philosophy. Here in the company of the personal gods we find not only the personified lights of heaven, Sun and Moon, but also such figures as those of Earth and Ocean, Night and Day, Heaven and Hell, Fate, Sleep, and Death, all bearing witness to the emergence of the spirit of speculation. In Hesiod again we first find the description of the ‘watchmen of Jove,’ who are no longer the gods themselves as in Homer, but an intermediate class of beings, corresponding to the Persian angels and the δαίμονες of later Greek.