Fragments of the Early Stoics, Volume 3: Chrysippus (Ethics)

OF THE END OF GOODS.

original: "DE FINE BONORUM."

That a good for humans comes from the gods according to those mentioned before that is, according to the Stoics, for whom only the honorable is good is clear from the following. The honorable is within our power. What is in our power, we acquire by ourselves. What we acquire by ourselves is not produced by any other; therefore, the honorable is not produced for us by any other. If by none, then not by the gods either. But indeed, the good and the honorable are the same, according to those for whom only the honorable is the good; therefore, no good is produced for humans by the gods.

33 Philo, That the Worse is Wont to Attack the Better § 7 Vol. I p. 259, 25 Wendl. on Joseph: For philosophizing more toward civic life than toward truth, he brings the three kinds of goods—those external, those concerning the body, and those of the soul—which are separated by whole natures from one another, into the same [category] and weaves them together, deeming it right to declare each one useful to the other and all to all, and that which is composed of the sum total is the perfect and truly good, while those from which this was constructed are parts or elements of goods, but are not themselves perfect goods. For just as neither fire nor earth nor any of the four [elements], from which the All was created, is the world, but rather the gathering and mixture of the elements into the same, in the same way, happiness is not to be examined in external things separately, nor in things concerning the body, nor in things concerning the soul by themselves—for each of the things mentioned holds the status of certain parts and elements—but according to the collection of all. Therefore, he is sent to be re-taught this opinion by men who think only that which is the peculiar property of the soul as soul is the honorable good, having believed that things external and those concerning the body are merely advantages, not truly existing goods.

34 Cicero, On Ends III 28 explaining the arguments of the tenet "that only the honorable is the good". Next, I ask, who could boast either of a miserable life or of one that is not happy? Therefore, [he boasts] only of a happy life. From which it follows that a happy life is worthy of boasting, because it cannot happen except by the right of an honorable life. Thus it happens that an honorable life is a happy life. And since he to whom it happens that he is justly praised possesses some mark toward distinction and glory, so that because of things which are so great, he can justly be called happy, the same will be said most rightly concerning the life of such a man. Thus, if a happy life is discerned by honorableness, that which is honorable must be held as the sole good.

35 Cicero, On Ends III 29. What, indeed? Can it be denied in any way that anyone can be made a person of stable, firm, and great spirit—whom we call a brave man—unless it is established that pain is not an evil? For just as he who places death among evils cannot help but fear it, so no one can in any matter fail to care for and despise that which he has determined to be an evil. With this posited—that assumption is taken, that he who is of a great and brave spirit despises all things that can fall upon a human and considers them for nothing. Since these things are so, it is concluded that nothing is an evil which is not base.

36 Cicero, On Ends III 29. And that high and excellent man, of great spirit, truly brave, regarding all human things as beneath him—he certainly ought to trust...