William Atkinson - The Complete Works of William Walker Atkinson

Plato reaches the present day through various channels, many of which are now meeting for the first time since their original separation. The twentieth century crucible of thought has many ingredients coming direct from Plato’s brain, though reaching the melting pot from several sources apparently opposed to each other. His pantheism comes to us through one channel; his idealism through another. And lo! meeting in the Western world, in the twentieth century, they assert their original unity by flying toward each other, in complete harmony and unity, just as two separated atoms of an element seek each other’s embrace. It is common among students of idealism and transcendentalism, when considering the origin of a leading thought, to close the discussion by saying: “You will find it all said by Plato;” or “Plato includes all original thought on the subject.” Such is the influence of Plato on modern thought.

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THE THREE great streams of thought flowing from the fount of ancient Greece and now irrigating the fertile mental fields of the twentieth century, are those to which we apply the terms, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Neo-Platonism, respectively. Let us give to each of these a few moments’ consideration.

STOICISM

The great school of the Stoics was founded at Athens, by Zeno, of Cyprus, who lived about 340–265 b.c. The Stoic philosophy was not original, but was quite eclectic in nature, many sources having been drawn upon by it, and additions made from time to time. Starting with the fundamental conception of Heraclitus— the idea of the Universal Spirit of Fire, ever changing and with mind as its essence—it absorbed much from Plato through Aristotle, adding much of the philosophy of the latter at the same time. The Stoic ideas changed from time to time, in minor particulars, but the general and fundamental conceptions remained much the same from first to last.

The Stoics were decidedly pantheistic. As Professor Tufts says: “The Stoics…developed the primitive animistic theory of the Cosmos in such a way as to make their conception capable of being characterized at once as pantheism and as materialism. This was effected through the conception of the Pneuma, which was, on the one hand, the all pervading and animating spirit or life of the universe, and, on the other, was still a material substance, a finer air or fiery breath. In this Pneuma each individual shares. Accordingly, to follow human nature means not only to follow human nature’s highest principle of reason, but to conform to the all-pervading and controlling principle of the world, to the divine Law or Logos which characterizes the Pneuma in its rational aspect.”

The “Pneuma” of the Stoics, and the other Greek thinkers, was not air or breath, as the name might indicate, but that subtle and transcendental principle which is often expressed as “Spirit.” This active and universal principle—this Cosmic Spirit—was sometimes represented by the symbol of fire, owing to its incessant motion and changing manifestations. It was also represented by the general idea of “Spirit,” without any attempt to define that term. This Spirit-Fire was held to be self-conscious—a great World-Soul, or anima mundi . It was the Absolute—Being—God. From it emanated or appeared earth and water, ether and air—the universe of shape, form and separate life. God was Nature—and Nature, God. Nature was therefore rational. Life and mind were immanent and present everywhere. Every individual soul was but an expression, appearance or emanation of the great World-Soul. Every soul was individualized only temporarily, and would be eventually reabsorbed into the World-Soul, at the end of the cycle of manifestation—at the day of the triumph of the universal, all-devouring Fire. Each cycle of differentiation was destined to end, only to be succeeded by a new one—and so on to infinity.

This idea of the World-Soul was not new in Greek thought. The Stoics simply followed the rule of, “Take your own wherever you find it.” Heraclitus and Anaxagoras had conceived the idea, and used it under their own terms. Plato used it, and, as Professor Tufts says, “attempted to embody in it the opposite principles of unity and plurality, of timeless being and changing process, which he usually contrasted so sharply. It was thus a mediating conception.” In the centuries to follow, in European thought, the idea was adopted by Bruno (a.d. 1548–1600); Spinoza (1632–1677), and through the latter, in varying forms, by Herder, Lessing and Goethe. Schelling was largely under its influence; Hegel and Schopenhauer embodied it in their opposing conceptions, the lead of the latter being followed by von Hartmann; Herbert Spencer narrowly escapes it in his “Unknowable;” Emerson recognizes it in his “Over-Soul;” modern Science assumes it partially in its Monism; and it is in evidence in “the present swing to pantheism” which has attracted the attention of the thinking world. The World-Spirit is the essence of pantheism. It is the conception of The All in All; and All in The All-God in nature, and nature in God.

Naturally arising from this fundamental conception, we find the Stoic philosophy of life in connection with which the school is now chiefly known. The Stoic creed was that of resignation— almost apathy. Fate or necessity ruled the universe through Unchanging Law. The soul of man, being divine, should not descend to allowing itself to be affected by the passions and things of sense, nor by the changing things of the objective world. The Stoic when told of some mighty impending calamity, said, “Well, what is that to me?” Self-control was esteemed the highest virtue. The passions were to be subordinated to reason and will. Mental disturbances, grief, worries, sorrow and pain, were but false judgments of mortal mind, and were to be overcome by true wisdom and a positive refusal to be subject to their sway. An authority says:

“The Stoic ethics was the ethics of apathy. The soul should not allow itself to be carried away by the passions aroused in it by external things. A man must be self-controlled. The passions are due to raise judgments and mental disturbances, hence they can be overcome by wisdom, and by a refusal to assent to their dictation. A man is not, indeed, master of his fate, but he can keep his self-control and proud self-complacency through all the vicissitudes of life.”

The Stoic ideal was a simple, natural life—for nature was divine, and to live near to her was to be more divine. Duty was derived from the Laws of Nature. The Stoics held that all men are brothers, because of their common origin and nature— all being manifestations of the one Spirit, or expressions of the one Over-Soul. This being so, it was held that it was their manifest duty to live in brotherly love and in a spirit of mutual helpfulness.

Distinctions of rank were held to be illusions and follies, and did not interfere with the social relations of the members of the school. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor, was a prominent Stoic, and wrote one of its classics; Epictetus, the slave, the author of the immortal “Discourses,” was a Stoic. These two men, representing the two extremes of social rank, are perhaps the most widely known of the Stoics; this fact alone gives the Stoic idea and practice of the equality of spirit.

Prof. William James has said concerning the Stoic ideal:

“Neither threats nor pleadings can move a man unless they touch some one of his potential or actual selves. Only thus can we, as a rule, get a ‘purchase’ on another’s will. The first care of diplomatists and monarchs and all who wish to rule or influence is, accordingly, to find out their victim’s strongest principle of self-regard, so as to make that the fulcrum of all appeals. But if a man has given up those things which are subject to foreign fate, and ceased to regard them as parts of himself at all, we are well-nigh powerless over him. The Stoic recipe for contentment was to dispossess yourself in advance of all that was out of your own power ,—then fortune’s shocks might rain down unfelt. Epictetus exhorts us, by thus narrowing and at the same time solidifying ourself to make it invulnerable: ‘I must die; well, but must I die groaning too? I will speak what appears to be right, and if the despot says, “Then I will put you to death,” I will reply, “When did I ever tell you I was Immortal? You will do your part, and I mine; it is yours to kill, and mine to die intrepid; yours to banish, mine to depart untroubled.” How do we act in a voyage? We choose the pilot, the sailors, the hour. Afterwards comes a storm. What have I to care for? My part is performed. This matter belongs to the pilot. But the ship is sinking; what then have I to do? That which alone I can do—submit to be drowned without fear, without clamor or accusing of God, but as one who knows that what is born must likewise die.’ This Stoic fashion, though efficacious and heroic enough in its place and time, is, it must be confessed, only possible as an habitual mood of the soul to narrow and unsympathetic characters. It proceeds altogether by exclusion. If I am a Stoic, the goods I cannot appropriate cease to be my goods, and the temptation lies very near to deny that they are goods at all. We find this mode of protecting the self by exclusion and denial very common among people who are in other respects not Stoics. All narrow people intrench their Me, they retract it,—from the region of what they cannot securely possess. People who don’t resemble them, or who treat them with indifference, people over whom they gain no influence, are people on whose existence, however meritorious it may intrinsically be, they look with chill negation, if not with positive hate. Who will not be mine I will exclude from existence altogether; that is, as far as I can make it so, such people shall be as if they were not. Thus may a certain absoluteness and definiteness in the outline of my Me console me for the smallness of its content.”