Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

ii i BIRTH OF STOICISM xxxv
theory could found themselves upon the language and
authority of Socrates.
In affirming that Virtue was Knowledge, Socrates
proceeded to enlarge the scope of Virtue or Excellence
(aperr/) to the full range of general conceptions, and in
the hands of his greatest disciple it rapidly expanded
into a well-proportioned harmony of intellect, emotion,
and will. But the Cynics, accepting the formula, pro-
ceeded in an opposite direction, and instead of enlargiag
their idea of Virtue to co-extension with the range of
thought, they contracted the sphere of Knowledge to the
area of individual activities. Associating knowledge
exclusively with practical action and decision, Antisthenes
tried to exclude from consideration everything
except the problem of personal will effectuating itself
in action. Openly scouting Platonic Idealism, and
denying moral or logical value to general conceptions,
he tried to satisfy the intellectual demand with the
barest Nominalism, and even to restrict logic to mere
identity of predication. In Physics the harshest ma-
terialism, in Ethics the narrowest individualism, were
the natural consequents (or perhaps antecedents) of his
position. The sole concern of the philosopher became
correct adjustment of the individual reason in the
practical conduct of life ;
and even this reduced morality
confined itself within a narrow range of self-regarding
virtues. Inasmuch as virtue was an act of will, within
the individual control, all wants or desires, whether from
within or from without, that lay outside the realisation
of the will, were contradictions of virtue which the wise
man would not tolerate. Here too an act of will was