Part I, Section III, Chapter III

On Stoic philosophy.

When we examine why people value the various conditions of life so differently, we find that the excessive preference generally given to some over others is largely unfounded. If one condition recommends itself above another chiefly because it enables us to act with propriety and earn the approval of others, as we have tried to show, that end can be attained in every condition. The noblest propriety of conduct can be maintained in adversity as well as prosperity; indeed, because it is harder in adversity, it is more admirable there. Perils and misfortunes are not merely the proper school of heroism: they are the only theater in which its virtue can be displayed to advantage and win the full applause of the world. A man whose entire life has been an even, unbroken course of prosperity, who has never braved danger, met difficulty, or overcome distress, can inspire only a lesser degree of admiration. When poets and writers of romances devise adventures to cast the brightest light on characters they want us to care about, they choose adventures of another kind: sudden, sweeping reversals of fortune, situations likely to drive those caught in them to frenzy or despair, yet in which their heroes act with such propriety, or at least such spirit and fearless resolve, that they still command our esteem. Is the magnanimity of Cato, Brutus, and Leonidas in defeat any less admirable than that of the victorious Caesar or Alexander? Should a generous mind envy it any less? If successful conquerors seem surrounded by a more dazzling splendor, it is because they unite the advantages of both conditions: the luster of prosperity with the profound admiration won by facing danger and overcoming difficulty with courage and valor.

For this reason, according to Stoic philosophy, all the different conditions of life were equal to a wise person. Nature, the Stoics said, commended some objects to our choice and others to our rejection. Our primary appetites directed us toward health, strength, ease, and excellence in every quality of mind and body, and toward whatever might secure or promote them—wealth, power, authority. The same original principle taught us to avoid their opposites. But Nature also taught us that, in choosing or rejecting, preferring or postponing these primary objects of appetite and aversion, we must observe a certain order, propriety, and grace, infinitely more important to happiness and excellence than the possession of those objects themselves. We were to pursue or avoid the objects of our primary appetites and aversions chiefly because this grace and propriety required it. Directing all our actions by these principles constituted the happiness and glory of human nature; departing from their rules constituted its deepest misery and most complete corruption. The outward appearance of order and propriety was indeed easier to preserve in some circumstances than in others. Yet for a fool, whose passions lacked all proper control, genuine grace and propriety were equally impossible in every situation. The fickle crowd might admire him, and their ignorant praise might sometimes lift his vanity into something resembling self-approval. But whenever he looked within, he was secretly conscious of the absurdity and baseness of his motives; inwardly he blushed and trembled at the thought of the contempt he knew he deserved, and which others would certainly feel if they saw his conduct as he himself was obliged to see it in his heart. For a wise person, by contrast, whose passions were wholly governed by the ruling principles of his nature—reason and the love of propriety—it was equally easy on every occasion to act so as to deserve approval. In prosperity, he thanked Jupiter for giving him circumstances that were easy to master and offered little temptation to wrongdoing. In adversity, he likewise thanked the director of this spectacle of human life for setting a vigorous athlete against him: the contest might be fiercer, but victory would be more glorious and no less certain. What shame can there be in distress brought upon us through no fault of our own, when we bear it with perfect propriety? Such distress can therefore be no evil, but instead the greatest good and advantage. A brave person exults in dangers into which fortune, through no rashness of his own, has led him. They give him occasion to exercise heroic courage, and its exercise brings the exalted pleasure of knowing that his conduct is supremely proper and his admiration deserved. Someone who has mastered all his exercises does not shrink from testing his strength and agility against the strongest. In the same way, someone who has mastered all his passions does not dread whatever circumstances the superintendent of the universe may choose for him. The generosity of that Divine Being has equipped him with virtues that raise him above every situation. If he meets pleasure, he has temperance to restrain himself; if pain, constancy to endure it; if danger or death, magnanimity and fortitude to scorn it. He never complains of providence's decree or imagines the universe disordered when he himself is out of sorts. He does not regard himself, as self-love would have him do, as a separate whole, detached from every other part of nature, to be cared for independently and for his own sake. He sees himself as he imagines the great Genius of humanity and the world sees him. He enters, if I may say so, into that Divine Being's sentiments, and regards himself as an atom, a particle of an immense, infinite system, which must and ought to be arranged for the convenience of the whole. Confident in the wisdom that governs every event of human life, he welcomes whatever lot befalls him, certain that, if he knew all the connections and dependencies between the parts of the universe, this is the very lot he would have chosen for himself. If his lot is life, he is content to live; if death, Nature must no longer need him here, and he willingly goes where he is sent. “I accept,” said a Stoic philosopher, “with equal joy and satisfaction whatever fortune may bring me. Wealth or poverty, pleasure or pain, health or sickness—it is all alike. I would not wish the gods to change my destiny in any respect. If I were to ask them for anything beyond what their generosity has already given, I would ask them to tell me beforehand what they wished done with me, so that I might place myself in that situation of my own accord and show how cheerfully I embrace their allotment.” “If I am going to sail,” says Epictetus, “I choose the best ship and the best pilot, and wait for the fairest weather my circumstances and duty permit. Prudence and propriety, the principles the gods have given me to guide my conduct, require this of me, but nothing more. If a storm nevertheless arises which neither the ship's strength nor the pilot's skill can withstand, I do not trouble myself over the outcome. All I had to do is already done. The guides of my conduct never command me to be miserable, anxious, despondent, or afraid. Whether we drown or reach a harbor is Jupiter's business, not mine. I leave the decision entirely to him, never disturb my sleep by wondering what he will decide, and receive whatever comes with equal composure and assurance.”

Such was Stoic philosophy. It offers the noblest lessons in magnanimity and is the finest school of heroes and patriots. Against most of its precepts there is only one objection, and an honorable one: they teach us to aspire to a perfection utterly beyond human reach. I will not pause to examine that philosophy here. I will only note, in confirmation of what I have said earlier, that the most dreadful calamities are not always the hardest to bear. It is often more humiliating to appear in public after a small mishap than after a great misfortune. The former arouses no sympathy; the latter, although it cannot inspire anything approaching the sufferer's anguish, nevertheless summons lively compassion. In the latter case the spectators' feelings are therefore closer to the sufferer's, and their imperfect fellow-feeling lends him some help in bearing his misery. Before a cheerful gathering, a gentleman would be more humiliated to appear covered in dirt and rags than in blood and wounds. Blood and wounds would engage their pity; dirt and rags would invite their laughter. The judge who orders a criminal into the pillory dishonors him more than if he had sentenced him to the scaffold. A great prince who, some years ago, struck a general with a cane before his army disgraced him beyond repair. The punishment would have been far lighter had he shot him through the body. By the laws of honor, a blow with a cane dishonors a man, while a blow with a sword does not, for an obvious reason. When inflicted on a gentleman, for whom dishonor is the greatest of evils, such seemingly lighter punishments come to be regarded by a humane and generous people as the most dreadful of all. Accordingly, they are universally abandoned for people of that rank; the law, though it takes their lives on many occasions, respects their honor on almost every one. To whip a person of rank or put him in the pillory for any crime whatever is a brutality of which no European government except that of Russia is capable.

A brave man does not become contemptible by being taken to the scaffold, but he does by being put in the pillory. His conduct in the first situation may win universal esteem and admiration; nothing he does in the second can make him appealing. The sympathy of the spectators sustains him in the first case and saves him from shame—from the awareness that he alone feels his misery, the most unbearable feeling of all. In the second case there is no sympathy, or, if any exists, it is not with his pain, which is slight, but with his awareness that no one sympathizes with that pain. It is sympathy with his shame, not his sorrow. Those who pity him blush and lower their heads on his behalf. He too hangs his head and feels irretrievably degraded by the punishment, though not by the crime. By contrast, a man who dies resolutely is naturally regarded with the upright gaze of esteem and approval, and he himself maintains the same fearless bearing. If his crime does not cost him the respect of others, the punishment never will. He has no suspicion that anyone finds his situation contemptible or ridiculous, and can properly assume an air not merely of perfect serenity but of triumph and exaltation.

“Great dangers,” says Cardinal de Retz, “have their charms, because there is some glory to be won even when we fail. But moderate dangers offer nothing but horror, because failure always brings a loss of reputation.” His maxim rests on the same principle we have just observed in regard to punishments.

Human virtue rises above pain, poverty, danger, and death; it need not even summon its utmost strength to despise them. But to have one's misery exposed to insults and ridicule, to be paraded in triumph and made a target for the pointing finger of scorn—this is a situation in which virtue's constancy is far more likely to fail. Beside the contempt of humanity, all other evils are easy to bear.

On Stoic philosophy.

When we look at why people value some conditions of life more than others, we find that their strong preference for certain conditions has little basis. If what makes one condition attractive is the chance to act with propriety and earn other people's approval, every condition offers that chance. People can act with great propriety in hard times as well as good times. It is harder in adversity, and therefore more admirable. Dangers and misfortunes are not just a training ground for heroism. They are the only setting where it can be fully displayed and win the world's applause. A man whose whole life has gone smoothly, who has never faced danger, difficulty, or distress, can win only limited admiration. Poets and writers of romances give their appealing characters a very different series of adventures. Their heroes face sudden reversals that might drive a person mad or reduce him to despair. Yet they act with enough propriety, or at least enough courage and determination, to keep our respect. Are Cato, Brutus, and Leonidas any less admirable in defeat than Cæsar and Alexander are in victory? Shouldn't a generous person envy them just as much? Successful conquerors may seem more dazzling because they have the advantages of both kinds of life: the glory of success and the admiration earned by bravely facing dangers and overcoming difficulties.

This is why, according to Stoic philosophy, all conditions of life were equal for a wise person. Nature, the Stoics said, led us to choose some things and reject others. Our basic desires direct us toward health, strength, comfort, and excellence of mind and body. They also direct us toward wealth, power, and authority as ways to gain or protect those things. The same principle makes us avoid their opposites. But Nature also teaches us to follow an order, propriety, and grace when choosing or rejecting what we naturally desire or dislike. Following that order matters infinitely more to our happiness and excellence than getting the things themselves. We should pursue or avoid those things mainly because doing so is proper. Directing all our actions by these rules is the source of human happiness and glory. Breaking them brings our greatest misery and deepest corruption. It is easier to keep up the appearance of order and propriety in some circumstances than others. But a fool who cannot control his passions cannot act with real grace and propriety in any circumstances. The fickle crowd may admire him. Their uninformed praise may even feed his vanity until it feels like self-approval. Yet when he looks inside himself, he knows how foolish and petty his motives are. He secretly blushes and trembles at the contempt he knows he deserves. He knows others would feel that contempt if they saw his conduct as he must see it himself. A wise person, by contrast, has brought every passion under the control of reason and the love of propriety. He can deserve approval in any situation. In prosperity, he thanks Jupiter for giving him easy circumstances with little temptation to do wrong. In adversity, he also thanks the director of human life's spectacle. He has been given a strong opponent: the contest will be harder, but victory will be more glorious and just as certain. Can there be shame in suffering that is not our fault if we behave perfectly well through it? Such suffering is no evil. It brings great good and advantage. A brave man rejoices in dangers that come through no recklessness of his own. They give him a chance to show heroic courage. Showing it brings the great pleasure of knowing that his conduct is outstanding and his admirers are right to admire him. An athlete who has mastered every exercise does not mind testing his strength and skill against the strongest opponents. Likewise, a person who has mastered his passions does not fear any circumstances in which the ruler of the universe may put him. That divine being has given him virtues that let him rise above any situation. If offered pleasure, he can resist it through self-control. If given pain, he can endure it through steadfastness. If faced with danger or death, he can scorn it through courage and strength of mind. He never complains about providence's plan or declares the universe disordered because his own life is in disorder. Self-love might lead him to think of himself as a complete being, separate from all nature, who should be cared for solely for his own sake. He does not do that. Instead, he tries to see himself as he imagines the great mind governing human nature and the world sees him. He shares, so to speak, that divine being's outlook. He sees himself as one tiny particle of a vast, limitless system that must, and should, be arranged for the good of the whole. He trusts the wisdom guiding every event in human life. Whatever happens to him, he accepts it gladly. He believes that if he knew how every part of the universe was connected to every other, he would have chosen exactly that fate for himself. If his fate is life, he is content to live. If it is death, he willingly goes where he is sent, since Nature no longer needs him here. A Stoic philosopher said, “I accept whatever happens to me with equal joy and satisfaction. Wealth or poverty, pleasure or pain, health or sickness: it is all the same. I would not ask the gods to change my fate in any way. If I were to ask them for anything beyond what they have already given me, I would ask them to tell me in advance what they want done with me. Then I could willingly put myself in that position and show how gladly I accept their decision.” Epictetus says, “If I am going to sail, I choose the best ship and pilot, and wait for the best weather my circumstances and duties allow. Prudence and propriety, the principles the gods have given me to guide my behavior, demand this, but nothing more. If a storm still comes and neither the ship's strength nor the pilot's skill can withstand it, I do not worry about the outcome. I have already done all I can. The principles guiding my conduct never order me to be miserable, anxious, discouraged, or afraid. Whether we drown or reach harbor is Jupiter's business, not mine. I leave the decision entirely to him. I do not lose sleep guessing what he will decide, but accept whatever happens with equal calm and confidence.”

That was Stoic philosophy. It offers the finest lessons in courage and is the best school for heroes and patriots. The only objection to most of its teachings is an honorable one: it asks us to aim at a perfection beyond human reach. I will not examine the philosophy here. I will only point out, in support of what I said earlier, that the worst disasters are not always the hardest to bear. It is often more embarrassing to appear in public after a small mishap than after a great misfortune. Small mishaps draw no sympathy. Great misfortunes bring lively compassion, even if it falls far short of the sufferer's anguish. In the second case, the spectators' feelings are less different from the sufferer's. Their imperfect fellow-feeling helps him endure his misery. A gentleman would be more embarrassed to appear at a cheerful gathering covered in dirt and rags than covered in blood and wounds. Blood and wounds would draw pity; dirt and rags would draw laughter. A judge dishonors a criminal more by putting him in the pillory than by sentencing him to execution. Some years ago, a great prince struck an army general with a cane in front of his troops and ruined his reputation for good. Shooting him would have been a much smaller punishment. Under the code of honor, a blow with a cane is dishonorable, but a blow with a sword is not. The reason is obvious. For a gentleman, dishonor is the worst possible evil. Humane and generous people therefore come to regard these lesser physical punishments as the most terrible of all. They abandon them altogether for people of his rank. The law may take their lives in many circumstances, but it respects their honor in almost all of them. No European government except Russia's would be brutal enough to whip a person of high rank or put him in the pillory, whatever his crime.

Execution does not make a brave man contemptible, but the pillory does. His conduct at an execution may win widespread esteem and admiration. Nothing he does in the pillory can make people like him. The spectators' sympathy supports him in the first case. It spares him the unbearable shame of knowing that he alone feels his misery. There is no sympathy in the second case. If there is any, it is not for his slight pain but for his awareness that no one shares it. People feel his shame, not his sorrow. Those who pity him blush and lower their heads for him. He lowers his head too, and feels permanently degraded by the punishment, though not by the crime. By contrast, people look with esteem and approval at a man who dies bravely, and he holds his own head high. If his crime has not cost him their respect, his punishment will not cost him that respect either. He does not suspect that anyone looks at his position with contempt or ridicule. He can rightly appear not only calm but triumphant and elated.

“Great dangers,” says Cardinal de Retz, “have their attractions, because even failure can bring some glory. But moderate dangers offer only horror, because failure always brings a loss of reputation.” His rule rests on the same point we have just made about punishments.

Human virtue can rise above pain, poverty, danger, and death. It need not even make its greatest effort to despise them. But when a person's misery is held up for insults and ridicule, when he is paraded before others as an object of scorn, his resolve is far more likely to break. Compared with public contempt, every other evil is easy to bear.