requires
and elicits strong efforts of the will, and is therefore the special
sphere of heroic virtues, so the latter belongs naturally to a tranquil
and highly organised civilisation, which is therefore very favourable
to the amiable qualities, and it is probable that as civilisation
advances, the heroic type will, in consequence, become more and more
rare, and a kind of self-indulgent goodness more common. The
circumstances of the ancient societies led them to the former type, of
which the Stoics furnished the extreme expression in their doctrine that
the affections are of the nature of a disease--a doctrine which they
justified by the same kind of arguments as those which are now often
employed by metaphysicians to prove that love, anger and the like, can
only be ascribed by a figure of speech to the Deity. Perturbation, they
contended, is necessarily imperfection, and none of its forms can in
consequence be ascribed to a perfect being. We have a clear intuitive
perception that reason is the highest, and should be the directing power
of an intelligent being; but every act which is performed at the
instigation of the emotions is withdrawn from the empire of reason.
Hence it was inferred that while the will should be educated to act
habitually in the direction of virtue, even the emotions that seem most
fitted to second it should be absolutely proscribed. Thus Seneca has
elaborated at length the distinction between clemency and pity, the
first being one of the highest virtues, and the latter a positive vice.
Clemency, he says, is an habitual disposition to gentleness in the
application of punishments. It is that moderation which remits something
of an incurred penalty; it is the opposite of cruelty, which is an
habitual disposition to rigour. Pity, on the other hand, bears to
clemency the same kind of relation as superstition to religion. It is
the weakness of a feeble mind that flinches at the sight of suffering.
Clemency is an act of judgment, but pity disturbs the judgment. Clemency
adjudicates upon the proportion between suffering and guilt. Pity
contemplates only suffering, and gives no thoughts to its cause.
Clemency, in the midst of its noblest efforts, is perfectly passionless;
pity is unreasoning emotion. Clemency is an essential characteristic of
the sage; pity is only suited for weak women and for diseased minds.
"The sage will console those who weep, but without weeping with them;
he will succour the shipwre