There will come a day when careful research over a long period will bring to light discoveries that are now hidden. A single lifetime, even one devoted entirely to astronomy, is not enough for the investigation of such great matters. . . . A time will come when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know such obvious facts.20
As he beautifully describes it, earlier thinkers “opened the way” for future discoveries rather than having exhausted the possibilities of human knowledge.21 For Seneca, this applied as much to Stoicism as it did to astronomy and other sciences. Because Stoicism is a philosophy and not a religion, it’s based on arguments, not beliefs. If you find Stoicism’s arguments to be credible, by finding ways to test them, perhaps you’ll find it to be useful as a philosophy of life. But a real Stoic would never ask you to take anything on faith. Maybe that’s one reason why Stoic philosophy appeals to many people today who classify themselves as secular humanists.
Not surprisingly, Seneca, as an independent thinker, was sometimes critical of the earlier Stoics. For example, Seneca pointed out problems in some arguments of Zeno, the school’s founder. He also didn’t hesitate to criticize the logic of Chrysippus (c. 279–c. 206 BC), one of the most influential early Stoics, as being overly abstract and lacking in force.22 For Seneca, being a philosopher means that a person is a critical thinker and not just a believer. While he mostly followed and agreed with the earlier Stoics, he wrote, “I also allow myself to make new discoveries, alterations, and to reject things when needed. I agree with them, but I’m not subservient.”23
While very few people have noticed this, Seneca did extend Stoic thought in significant ways. He carried it forward by combining it with his own profound insights into human psychology and human motivations. Earlier Stoics understood that false beliefs lead to psychological suffering. But Seneca was the first Stoic to explain, in much greater depth, how those false beliefs are assimilated through socialization and social conditioning.
In a very memorable passage, Seneca explains that he will walk in the footsteps of his predecessors while remaining open to new discoveries:
I will indeed use the old road, but if I discover one that is shorter and more smooth to travel, I’ll open up a new path. Those who made these discoveries before us are not our masters but our guides. Truth lies open to all—it has not been monopolized. And there is still much to discover for those who will come after us.24
STOIC PERSISTENCE: “BECOMING INVINCIBLE”
There are a thousand cases of persistence overcoming every obstacle: nothing is difficult when the mind decides to endure.
—Seneca, On Anger 2.12.4
Let’s imagine that you understand yourself and your capabilities. You’ve surveyed the project or career you want to pursue, and everything looks good. It seems to be a perfect fit for your talents and abilities. But then when you press ahead, the project fails.
While the Stoics advocated patience and endurance, I’ve learned there are times when moving on to something else might be the best rational choice. Moving on could be another way to show persistence, another way to turn adversity into something positive, or might be justified by other reasons. Being persistent doesn’t mean you have to be a masochist, pounding your head against the same wall, day after day. Similarly, it doesn’t mean that it’s virtuous or a good idea to keep pursuing something that might not even be in your best long-term interests. Being persistent means that you keep moving forward or “making progress” in general. The specifics will always vary on a case-by-case basis.
Endurance, for the Stoics, was an essential human quality. Seneca wrote that “even after a poor harvest, one should sow seed again; often, what was lost to poor soil due to continued barrenness has been made good by one year’s fertility.” Similarly, “After a shipwreck, sailors try the sea again. . . . If we were forced to give up everything that causes trouble, life itself would stop moving forward.”25
The Stoics believed that nothing external can harm a wise person who possesses virtue, as long as his or her virtue stays intact. Seneca wrote a long work on this, which you can still read. It’s now called On the Constancy of the Wise Person, but it was initially titled On How the Wise Person Receives Neither Injury Nor Insult.26 Being invincible doesn’t mean that a Stoic isn’t vulnerable in a physical sense. As Seneca pointed out, even a Stoic sage can be beaten, lose a limb, or experience extreme physical pain. For a Stoic, those would be unfortunate events but not an injury. The only way to really injure a Stoic would be to damage his virtue, goodness, or character.
To illustrate persistence, Seneca uses the example of someone at the Olympic games who wears out an opponent through sheer patience. (The Latin word patientia means “endurance.”) Similarly, in terms of mental endurance, the wise person, through long training, acquires the patience to wear out, or simply ignore, any attack on his character. Epictetus also uses an analogy from athletic competition. He explains that even if you should falter in an athletic match, no one can prevent you from standing up again and resuming the fight. Even if you should fail at that particular match, you can continue to train and enter the contest again. Then, if you should finally win the victory, it would be as though you had never given up.27 Sometimes, just being able to keep making progress is a huge victory in itself.
Stoics, like everyone else, will experience adversity and misfortune. What make Stoics invincible is that they don’t give up. Stoics will make the best of whatever circumstances are at hand, even amid failure, disaster, or financial difficulties. If knocked to the ground, Stoics will stand up, brush themselves off, keep training, and keep moving forward.
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY
The Romans loved a question that originally came from the Greek philosophical schools. They restated it like this: What is better—a life devoted to serving the Roman government or a life of leisure, devoted to philosophy?
Epicurus had said that a wise person should avoid taking political office if at all possible, since that would threaten a person’s mental tranquility. By contrast, the early Greek Stoics said that a wise person should hold political office unless it was impossible, because politics gives the philosopher a way to contribute to society.28
Of course, for us today the actual situation is far more complex and nuanced than this kind of simple black-and-white dichotomy. During ancient times, one of the surest ways to contribute to society was by following a political career. It could also be a road to wealth. But today, politics is hardly the only way one can engage in public service. In some cases, it might even be one of the worst ways to contribute to the world by wasting your time trying to repair a dysfunctional system. There’s also a big difference between working as a government clerk somewhere today and being a chief adviser to the Roman emperor in Seneca’s time.
Like us today, Seneca rejected the ancient, black-and-white view of how someone could contribute to society. Like us today, he took a far more nuanced view. While Seneca involved himself in politics like a good Stoic, it sometimes feels as though he was continually advising his friends, through his various writings, that they should seek out retirement from their official government positions and study philosophy instead.