THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
virtue, not in pleasure. This was the voice of that nature, that rational ideal of giving sovereignty to God in man, to that precept which will justify conduct before the universal reason, and thus make it by implication obligatory on all.* Thus the Stoics elevated Socrates to a dominating position. Between virtue and moral wrong there are no intermediate steps or gradations. Nor are there any degrees of difference or elevation within the category of virtue or of vice. Virtue, unless it appears in action, is of no value. What men mainly cherish, the boons of health, wealth, honor, power, pleasure, must not be the objects of action, for they are neither good nor bad in themselves, but are intermediate or indifferent (adiaphora) .
Stoics thus took a distinctly spiritual ground, and a vigorous '' contempt for the world " can not be denied to some members of the school. At the same time everything, at bottom, is centered in the subject, and suicide is commended as a termination of trouble or as preservation of freedom. Cato, the opponent of Caesar, and afterward, under the emperors, Partus Thrasea, Seneca (q.v.), Lucan, Cornutus, and his pupil the poet Persius, Helvidius Priscus, and Epictetus were notable adherents of this school, which really made great demands on its followers, and gained from the general body of their various contemporaries a large measure of respect, being by far the most virile form of thought which arose among the ancients. The Antonine emperors, whose creed Stoicism was, did much for the improvement of slavery, but Marcus also directed a persecution of the Christians. See Natuhal Law.
E. G. Sihlek.
Bibliography: Sources are Diogenes Laertius, book vii., Eng. transls. were published, London, 1688, 1696, and in Bohn's Library, 1853; Plutarch, from hia Opera, best ed., ed. T. Doehner and others, 3 vols., Paris, 1846-55, may be named De Stoicorum repugnantiis, De placitis philosophorum; Cicero, De natura deorum, Eng. transl., London, 1896, De finibus, Eng. transl., ib. 1890; Epictetus, Works (Eng. transl.), new ed., Boston, 1891; idem, Discourses, 2 vols., London, 1897 (a fine ed., published by Humphreys), other translations are issued by Dent, London, 1899, and by Bell, ib. 1903; Marcus Aurelius, Golden Book, ed. W. H. D. Rouse, London, 1900 (another transl., 1906); idem, Meditations, Edinburgh, 1904 (a fine edition), London, 1905 (in Standard Library), with title Marcus Aurelius to Himself, transl. and introductions by G. H. Rendall, London and New York, 1901; idem, Thoughts, London, 1890, with introduction by J. L. Spalding, London and New York, 1900; Seneca, Minor Dialogues, London, 1886; idem, Morals, ib. 1888; idem, On Benefits, ib. 1887; idem, Tranquillity of Mind and Providence, New York, 1900.
The subject is discussed in the works on the history of philosophy by H. Ritter, 4 vols., Oxford, 1836-46; J. E. Erdmann, Xew York, 1893; H. Ritter and L. Preller 8th ed., by E. Wellmann, Gotha, 1898. Consult further: W W. Capes, Stoicism, London, 1880; E. Zeller, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, London, 1880; D. Tiedemanni System der stoischen Philosophic 3 vols., Leipsic, 1776; A. Grant, The Ancient Stoics, Oxford, 1858; SI. Arnold! Marcus Aurelius, in his Essays in Criticism, series 1, London, 1865; F. May Holland, Reign of the Stoics, New York, 1S79; G. P Weygoldt, Die Philosophic der Stoa nach ihrem Wescn und ihren Schicksalen, Leipsic, 1883; T. Jordan, Stoic Moralists in the First Two Centuries, Dublin, l.s.84; II. de Stein, Die Psychologic der Stoa, 2 vols., Berlin, 18S6-SS; J. F.ivre, La Morale stoicienne. Pans, 1.SS8; C. H. Herford, The Stoics as Teachers, Cambridge, 1889; F. W. Farrar, Seekers after God, new ed London and New York, 1891; A. C. Pearson, in his Frag-
* oo-a Adyos alpel -noie\v (Diogenes Laertius, vii. 108) is essentially as .sound as Kant's " categorical imperative."
ments of Zeno and Cleanthes, Cambridge, 1891; T. W. Rolleston, The Teaching of Epictetus, London, 1891 ; J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul and Seneca, in his Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, London, 1892; A. Schmekel, Die Philosophie der mittleren Stoa, Berlin, 1892; J. B. Brown, Stoics and Saints, Glasgow, 1893; A. Bonheffer, Epiktetos und die Stoa, Stuttgart, 1890; idem, Die Ethik des Stoikers Epiktet, ib. 1894; A. W. Benn, The Philosophy of Greece, London, 1898; A. Dyroff, Die Ethik der alien Stoa, Berlin, 1898; T. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, 3 vols., London, 1901-05; A. P. Ball, Satirejjf Seneca on the Apotheosis of Claudius: a Study, New York, 1902; C. H. S. Davis, Greek and Roman Stoicism, Boston, 1903; E. Renan, Marcus Aurelius, recent issue, London, 1903; E. A. Abbott, Silanus the Christian, London, 1906 (a historical novel, but valuable) ; L. Alston, Stoic and Christian in the Second Century, London, 1906; W. H. D. Rouse, Words of the Ancient Wise, London, 1906 (selections from Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius) ; W. L. Davidson, The Stoic Creed, Edinburgh, 1907; St. George Stock, Stoicism (in Philosophies, Ancient and Modern), Edinburgh, 1908, New York, 1909; T. Zielinski, Cicero im Wandel der Jahrhunderte, Leipsic, 1908; F. W. Bussell, Marcus Aurelius and the Later Stoics, Edinburgh, 1909; R. D. Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, London and New York, 1910; E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism, London, 1911; and the literature under Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and Seneca.
STOKES, GEORGE THOMAS: Irish ecclesiastical historian; b. at Athlone (70 m. w. of Dublin), Ireland, Dec. 28, 1843; d. in Dublin Mar. 24, 1898. He studied at Galway grammar-school and at Queens College, Galway; was graduated from Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1864; M.A., 1871; B.D., 1881; and D.D., 1886); was vicar of All Saints, Newtown Park, Dublin, 1868-98; became assistant to the regius professor of divinity, 1880, and professor of ecclesiastical history in the University of Dublin, 1883; librarian of St. Patrick's Library, Dublin, 1887; and prebend and canon of St. Andrew, 1893. He published Ireland and the Celtic Church. A History of Ireland from St. Patrick to the English Conquest in 1172 (London, 1886); a commentary on the Acts, 2 vols., in The Expositor's Bible (1888); Ireland and the A nglo-Norman Church. A History of Ireland and Irish Christianity from the Anglo- Norman Conquest to the Dawn of the. Reformation (1889); Dudley Lqftus: A Dublin Antiquary of the seventeenth Century (Dublin, 1890); The Island Monasteries of Wales and Ireland (1891); St. Fechin of F one, and his Monastery (1892); Greek in Gaul and Western Europe down to A.D. 700. The Knowledge of Greek in Ireland between A.D. 500 and 900 (1892); Calendar of the Liber Niger Alani (1893); and, in collaboration with C. H. H. Wright, The Writings of St. Patrick; a Transla-
tion, with Notes (1887).
Bibliography: DNB, Supplement iii. 361-362; Athenwum, Apr. 2, 1898.