St. George Stock (modern guide) · 1850–1922
A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶34 — St. George Stock (modern guide)
From “Ethic”
Original English text (1908)
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶34
We pass on now another instance of accommodation. According to the high Stoic doctrine, there was no mean between virtue and vice. All men indeed received from nature the starting-points for virtue, but until perfection had been attained they rested under the condemnation of vice. It was, to employ an illustration of the poet-philosopher Cleanthes, as though Nature had begun an iambic line and left men to finish it. Until that was done they were to wear the fool's cap. The Peripatetics, on the other hand, recognized an intermediate state between virtue and vice, to which they gave the name of progress and proficience. Yet so entirely had the Stoics, for practical purposes, to accept this lower level, that the word "proficience" has come to be spoken of as though it were of Stoic origin.
Cite this passage
St. George Stock (modern guide), A Guide to Stoicism 4 ¶34 (1908)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/a-guide-to-stoicism/4.34
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 notesStrict Stoic doctrine held that there is no middle ground between virtue and vice, so anyone short of perfection counted as a fool, like a poet who has not yet finished the line nature began. In practice the school came to accept the Aristotelian idea of a stage of moral progress.
Older wording
- “iambic line”
- — a line of verse in a particular rhythm
- “proficience”
- — moral progress toward wisdom
- “Peripatetics”
- — followers of Aristotle
Themes and situations
- Learning and progress
- Virtue and character
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