St. George Stock (modern guide) · 1850–1922
A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶15–16 — St. George Stock (modern guide)
From “Ethic”
Original English text (1908)
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶15–16
Good was defined as that which benefits. To confer benefit was no less essential to good than to impart warmth was to heat. If one asked in what 'to benefit' lay one received the reply that it lay in producing an act or state in accordance with virtue, and similarly it was laid down that 'to hurt' lay in producing an act or state in accordance with vice. The indifference of things other than virtue and vice was apparent from the definition of good which made it essentially beneficial. Such things as health and wealth might be beneficial or not according to circumstances; they were therefore no more good than bad. Again, nothing could be really good of which the good or ill depended on the use made of it, but this was the case with things like health and wealth.
Cite this passage
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶15–16 (1908)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/a-guide-to-stoicism/4.15
St. George Stock, Stoicism (1908), text of the Haldeman-Julius reprint “A Guide to Stoicism”. Text: Project Gutenberg #7514. Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesGood means what truly benefits, and what benefits is acting and living in line with virtue. Health and wealth can help or harm depending on how they are used, so they are not real goods, just as nothing whose value depends on how you use it can be.
Older wording
- “vice”
- — moral badness or bad character
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- Wealth and poverty
- Illness and the body
- Losing money
- Illness or diagnosis
- Money, status and wanting more
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