The problem of evil was the great problem of the Stoic, as the problem of pleasure was the problem of the Epicurean. To this problem the Stoic gives substantially four answers, with all of which we are already somewhat familiar:—
First: Only that is evil which we choose to regard as such. To quote Marcus Aurelius once more on this fundamental point: "Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay." "Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint: I have been harmed. Take away the complaint: I have been harmed, and the harm is done away."
Second: Since virtue or integrity is the only good, nothing but the loss of that can be a real evil. When this is present, nothing of real value can be lacking. A Stoic then says, "Virtue suffers no vacancy in the place she inhabits; she fills the whole soul, takes away the sensibility of any loss, and is herself sufficient." "As the stars hide their diminished heads before the brightness of the sun, so pains, afflictions, and injuries are all crushed and dissipated by the greatness of virtue; whenever she shines, everything but what borrows its splendour from her disappears, and all manner of annoyances have no more effect upon her than a shower of rain upon the sea." "It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it." "Where a man can live at all, he can live well." "I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must go into exile. Does any man hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?" "Life itself is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil." "It is the edge and temper of the blade that make a good sword, not the richness of the scabbard; and so it is not money and possessions that make a man considerable, but his virtue." "They are amusing fellows who are proud of things which are not in our power. A man says: I am better than you for I possess much land, and you are wasting with hunger. Another says: I am of consular rank; another: I have curly hair. But a horse does not say to a horse: I am superior to you, for I possess much fodder and much barley, and my bits are of gold, and my harness is embroidered; but he says: I am swifter than you. And every animal is better or worse from his own merit or his own badness. Is there then no virtue in man only, and must we look to our hair, and our clothes, and to our ancestors?" "Let our riches consist in coveting nothing, and our peace in fearing nothing."
Third: What seems evil to the individual is good for the whole: and since we are members of the whole is good for us. "Must my leg be lamed?" the Stoic asks. "Wretch, do you then on account of one poor leg find fault with the world? Wilt thou not willingly surrender it for the whole? Know you not how small a part you are compared with the whole?"
"If a good man had foreknowledge of what would happen, he would coöperate toward his own sickness and death and mutilation, since he knows that these things are assigned to him according to the universal arrangement, and that the whole is superior to the part."
Fourth: Trial brings out our best qualities, is "stuff to try the soul's strength on," and "educe the man," as Browning puts it. This interpretation of evil as a means of bringing out the higher moral qualities, though not peculiar to Stoicism, was very congenial to their system, and appears frequently in their writings. "Just as we must understand when it is said that Æsculapius prescribed to this man horse exercise, or bathing in cold water, or going without shoes, so we must understand it when it is said that the nature of the universe prescribed to this man disease, or mutilation, or loss of anything of the kind." "Calamity is the touchstone of a brave mind, that resolves to live and die master of itself. Adversity is the better for us all, for it is God's mercy to show the world their errors, and that the things they fear and covet are neither good nor evil, being the common and promiscuous lot of good men and bad."
V
THE STOIC PARADOXES
A good test of one's appreciation of the Stoic position is whether or not one can see the measure of truth their paradoxes contain.
The first paradox is that there are no degrees in vice. In the words of the Stoic, "The man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both equally not in Canopus."
One of the few bits of moral counsel which I remember from the infant class in the Sunday-school runs as follows:—