Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

438 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDthat fortune, not wisdom, was the ruler of theworld. But it was precisely against the despondencewhich such a conviction would work in themind that the Stoics struggled with their doctrineof apathy, Epicurus with his self-contentment, theSceptics with'their tranquillity of indifference.15These all sought to cure those whom the fablesof the popular religion were insufficient to satisfythose who felt the evils and trials of life and knewnot whither to turn in their need. But the Stoicand the Epicurean cures stood in the strongestcontrast to each other.Zeno1G of Cittium in Cyprus, after listening fortwenty years to the teaching of various Socraticmasters in Athens, founded a school himself, andwished it to be a school of virtuous men ratherthan of speculative philosophers. It was a systemof complete materialism rigorously carried out.He admitted only corporeal causes, and two principles,matter, and a force eternally indwelling init and shaping it. These two principles, matterand force, were in fact to the stoic mind only oneeternal being viewed in a twofold aspect. Matterfor its subsistence needs a principle of unity to formand hold it together : and this, the active element,is inconceivable without matter as the subject inwhich it dwells, works, and moves. Thus thepositive element is matter viewed as being as yet15 Zeller, vol. iii. part 1, p. 12. Dollinger, p. 318.36 Dollinger, pp. 319-321.