Skepticism amd Stoicism
Table of Contents
I joined the company sitting in CLEANTHES’s library.
DEMEA gave compliments to CLEANTHES on:
- the great care which he took of my education
- his unwearied perseverance and constancy in all his friendships.
He said that the father of PAMPHILUS was your intimate friend. The son is your pupil which can even be regarded as your adopted son.
You are no more wanting, I am persuaded, in prudence, than in industry.
I shall therefore tell you a maxim which I have observed with my own children so that I may learn how far it agrees with your practice.
I follow an ancient method in their education: “Students of philosophy shold first learn logics, then ethics, next physics, last of all the nature of the gods.” [Chrysippus apud Plut: de repug: Stoicorum]
This science of natural theology is the most profound and abstruse. It requires the maturest judgement in its students.
Only a mind enriched with all the other sciences can safely be entrusted with it.
Why so late in teaching your children the principles of religion?
My chief care is to season their minds with early piety.
By continual precept, instruction, and example, I hope to imprint deeply on their tender minds a reverence for the principles of religion.
While they pass through every other science, I still remark the:
- uncertainty of the disputes of men
- obscurity of all philosophy
- strange, ridiculous conclusions, which some of the greatest geniuses have derived from the principles of mere human reason.
The vulgar are unacquainted with science and profound inquiry. They observe the endless disputes of the learned. And so they have commonly a contempt for philosophy.
Those who enter a little into study and inquiry find many appearances of evidence in the newest and most extraordinary doctrines.
But CLEANTHES will, I hope, agree with me, that, after we have abandoned ignorance, the surest remedy, there is still one expedient left to prevent this profane liberty.
Let DEMEA’s principles be improved and cultivated. Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of human reason.
You propose then, PHILO, to erect religious faith on philosophical scepticism.
You think that if evidence were expelled from every other subject of inquiry, it will all retire to these theological doctrines which would thenacquire a superior force and authority.
If the Sceptics are earnest, they will not trouble the world with their doubts, cavils, and disputes.
After intense reflection on the many contradictions of human reason, a man might renounce all belief and opinion.
But it is impossible for him to persevere in this total scepticism for a few hours.
This is because external objects press in on him.
And so the principles of the ancient PYRRHONIANS are most ridiculous.
They resemble the STOICS even if they are perpetual antagonists.
Both of them are based on this erroneous maxim that what a man can perform sometimes, and in some dispositions, he can perform always, and in every disposition.
Through Stoical reflections, they can elevate their minds into a sublime enthusiasm of virtue.
This allows them to smile and exult in the midst of tortures.
But how shall he support this enthusiasm itself?
In Stoicism, the mind cannot support the highest flights of philosophy.
Yet, even when it sinks lower, it still retains its former disposition.
The ancient schools, particularly that of ZENO, produced examples of virtue and constancy which seem astonishing to present times.
Vain Wisdom all and false Philosophy. Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm Pain, for a while, or anguish; and excite Fallacious Hope, or arm the obdurate breast With stubborn Patience, as with triple steel.
Similarly, if a man is frequently sceptical on the uncertainty and narrow limits of reason, he will not entirely forget them when reflects on other subjects.
But in his philosophical principles, he will be the same as those who either:
- never formed any opinions in the case, or
- favour human reason.
To whatever length any one may push his speculative principles of scepticism, he must act, I own, and live, and converse, like other men;
For this conduct, he is not obliged to give any other reason, than the absolute necessity he lies under of so doing. If he ever carries his speculations further than this necessity constrains him, and philosophises either on natural or moral subjects, he is allured by a certain pleasure and satisfaction which he finds in employing himself after that manner.
He considers besides, that every one, even in common life, is constrained to have more or less of this philosophy; that from our earliest infancy we make continual advances in forming more general principles of conduct and reasoning; that the larger experience we acquire, and the stronger reason we are endued with, we always render our principles the more general and comprehensive; and that what we call philosophy is nothing but a more regular and methodical operation of the same kind. To philosophise on such subjects, is nothing essentially different from reasoning on common life; and we may only expect greater stability, if not greater truth, from our philosophy, on account of its exacter and more scrupulous method of proceeding.
But when we look beyond human affairs and the properties of the surrounding bodies: when we carry our speculations into the two eternities, before and after the present state of things; into the creation and formation of the universe; the existence and properties of spirits; the powers and operations of one universal Spirit existing without beginning and without end; omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, infinite, and incomprehensible: We must be far removed from the smallest tendency to scepticism not to be apprehensive, that we have here got quite beyond the reach of our faculties.
So long as we confine our speculations to trade, or morals, or politics, or criticism, we make appeals, every moment, to common sense and experience, which strengthen our philosophical conclusions, and remove, at least in part, the suspicion which we so justly entertain with regard to every reasoning that is very subtle and refined.
But, in theological reasonings, we have not this advantage; while, at the same time, we are employed upon objects, which, we must be sensible, are too large for our grasp, and of all others, require most to be familiarised to our apprehension.
We are like foreigners in a strange country, to whom every thing must seem suspicious, and who are in danger every moment of transgressing against the laws and customs of the people with whom they live and converse. We know not how far we ought to trust our vulgar methods of reasoning in such a subject; since, even in common life, and in that province which is peculiarly appropriated to them, we cannot account for them, and are entirely guided by a kind of instinct or necessity in employing them.
All sceptics pretend that:
- abstract reason furnishes invincible arguments against itself
- we could never retain any conviction or assurance, on any subject, were not the sceptical reasonings so refined and subtle, that they are not able to counterpoise the more solid and more natural arguments derived from the senses and experience.
But whenever our arguments lose this advantage, and run wide of common life, that the most refined scepticism comes to be upon a footing with them, and is able to oppose and counterbalance them. The one has no more weight than the other.
The mind must remain in suspense between them; and it is that very suspense or balance, which is the triumph of scepticism.