Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

Ixxxiv INTRODUCTION SECT. HI 4
but even so '
the health of the world-order, the welfare
and well-being of Zeus,' l was not impaired, nor its movement
contravened ; disaffection was powerless to in-
terrupt or baulk the purposes of providence, and in
opposing it does but become fuel for the flame, 2
feeding
and strengthening what it essays to check and counteract.
By this narrowing of the field, Stoic belief escaped
some of the difficulties which beset the Christian in
accounting for the existence of pain and evil. Partly
by allowing vicarious suffering of the part for the
advantage of the whole, and partly by condoning evil
as an incident and mode of the prevalence of good, it
sought to break the direct impact of the argument,
and to avoid the admission of any ultimate triumph of
evil, or any finaK defeat of the power and wisdom and
beneficence of God. But though the most urgent
difficulties were thus evaded by Stoicism, and deeper
difficulties such, for instance, as those that hinge on
environment, on heredity, or on erroneous belief were
not yet broached, yet it brought men face to face with
'
the inscrutable problems of individual responsibility, and
owned their exigence to an extent that may be measured
by the distance which separates the stalwart bravado
of Diogenes from the acceptant optimism of Epictetus,
or the hard defiance of Cato from the devout resignation
of Marcus Aurelius.
1 v. 8.
2 iv. i ; viii. 32, 35, 57 ; x. 31, 33.