Now it is impossible that this hundred thousand dollars should get into any man's mind, and become a mental state, without its being mixed with one or other of these mental, emotional, and volitional accompaniments. The mental state, in other words, is a compound, of which the external fact, in this case the hundred thousand dollars, is the least important ingredient. It is so unimportant a factor that the Stoics pronounced it indifferent. The tone and temper in which we accept our riches, the ends to which we devote them, the spirit in which we hold them, the way in which we spend them, are so vastly more important than the mere fact of having them, that by comparison, the fact itself seems indifferent. Like all strong statements, this is doubtless an exaggeration. You cannot have just the same mental state without riches that you can have with them. The external fact is a factor, though a relatively small one, in the composite mental state. The virtues of a rich man are not precisely the same as the virtues of a poor man. Yet the Stoic paradox is very much nearer the truth than the statement of the average man, that external things are the whole, or even the most important part of our mental states.
The same thing is true of health and sickness. Health often makes one careless, insensitive, negligent of duty; while sickness often makes one conscientious, considerate, faithful, and thus more useful and efficient than his healthy brother. Popularity often puffs up with pride; while persecution, by humbling, prepares the heart for truer blessedness. Hence whether an external fact is good or evil, depends on how we take it, what we make of it, the state of mind and heart and will into which it enters as a factor; and that in turn depends, the Stoic tells us, on ourselves, and is under our control Stoicism is fundamentally this psychological doctrine of apperception, carried over and applied in the field of the personal life,—the doctrine, namely, that no external thing alone can affect us for good or evil, until we have woven it into the texture of our mental life, painted it with the colour of our dominant mood and temper, and stamped it with the approval of our will. Thus everything except a slight residuum is through and through mental, our own product, the expression of what we are and desire to be. The only difference between Stoicism and Christian Science at this point is that Stoicism recognises the material element; though it does so only to minimise it, and pronounce it indifferent. Christian Science denies that there is any physical fact, or even the raw material out of which to make one. All is merely mental, says the consistent Christian Scientist with the toothache. There is no matter there to ache. The Stoic, truer to the facts, and in not less but more heroic spirit declares: "There is matter, but it doesn't matter if there is." The toothache can be taken as a spur to greater fortitude and equanimity than the man whose teeth are all sound has had opportunity to practically exemplify; and so the total mental state, toothache-borne-with-fortitude, may be positively good.
This doctrine that external things never in themselves constitute a mental state; that they are consequently indifferent; that the all-important contribution is made by the mind itself; that this contribution from the mind is what gives the tone and determines the worth of the total mental state; and that this contribution is exclusively our own affair and may be brought entirely under our own control;—this is the first and most fundamental Stoic principle. If we have grasped this principle, we are prepared to read intelligently and sympathetically the otherwise startling and paradoxical deliverances of the Stoic masters.
II
SELECTIONS FROM THE STOIC SCRIPTURES
First let us listen to Epictetus, the slave, the Stoic of the cottage as he has been called:—
"Everything has two handles: one by which it may be borne, another by which it cannot. If your brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold on the affair by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be borne; but rather by the opposite, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you, and thus you will lay hold on it as it is to be borne." Here the handle is a homely but effective figure for the mass of mental association into which the external fact of a brother who acts unjustly is introduced before he actually enters our mental state, and determines how we shall feel and act.
"If a person had delivered up your body to some passer-by, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your mind to any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?" The reviling does not become a determining factor in my own mental state unless I choose to let it. If I feel humiliated and stung by it, it is because I am weak and foolish enough to stake my estimate of myself, and my consequent happiness, upon what somebody who does not know me says about me, rather than on what I, who know myself better than anybody else, actually think. A boy at Phillips Andover Academy once drew this distinction very adroitly for another boy. There had been a free fight among the boys causing a great deal of disturbance, and Principal Bancroft had traced the beginning of it to an insulting remark on the part of the boy in question. Dr. Bancroft accused him of beginning the trouble. "No, sir," said the boy, "I did not begin it. The other fellow began it." "Well," said Principal Bancroft, "you tell me precisely what took place, and I will decide who began it." "Oh," replied the boy, "I simply called him a 'darned' fool, and he took offence." Now if the other boy had been a Stoic, he would not have taken offence, and the first boy might have called him a fool with impunity. Imputing Stoicism to that extent to other people, however, is very dangerous business. Stoicism is a doctrine to be strictly applied to ourselves, but never imputed to other people, least of all to the people we wish to abuse and revile.
Epictetus again states his doctrine most explicitly on the subject of terrors. "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of things. Thus death is nothing terrible else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death, that it is terrible. When, therefore, we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never impute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our views."
Again he makes a sharp distinction between what is in our power,—that is, what we think about things; and what are not in our power,—that is external facts. "There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs."
"Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered; but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted, alien. Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to things by nature dependent, and seek for your own that which is really controlled by others, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you take for your own only that which is your own, and view what belongs to others just as it really is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you; you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm."