Passage 2
Among the Greeks and Romans of the classical age philosophy occupied the place
taken by religion among ourselves. Their appeal was to reason not to revelation.
To what, asks Cicero in his Offices, are we to look for training in virtue, if not to
philosophy? Now, if truth is believed to rest upon authority it is natural that it should
be impressed upon the mind from the earliest age, since the essential thing is that
it should be believed, but a truth which makes its appeal to reason must be content
to wait till reason is developed. We are born into the Eastern, Western or Anglican
communion or some other denomination, but it was of his own free choice that the
serious minded young Greek or Roman embraced the tenets of one of the great
sects which divided the world of philosophy…Conversions from one sect to another
were of quite rare occurrence…When a young man joined a school, he committed
himself to all its opinions, not only as to the end of life, which was the main point of
division, but as to all questions on all subjects. The Stoic did not differ merely in his
ethics from the Epicurean; he differed also in his theology and his physics and his
metaphysics…The language which Cicero sometimes uses about the seriousness of
the choice made in early life and how a young man gets entrammelled by a school
before he is really able to judge, reminds us of what we hear said nowadays about
the danger of a young man’s taking orders before his opinions are formed. To this
it was replied that a young man only exercised the right of private judgment in
selecting the authority whom he should follow, and, having once done that, trusted
to him for all the rest…
An intense practicality was a mark of the later Greek philosophy. This was common
to Stoicism with its rival Epicureanism. Both regarded philosophy as ‘the art of life,’
though they differed in their conception of what that art should be. Widely as the
two schools were opposed to one another, they had also other features in common.
Both were children of an age in which the free city had given way to monarchies,
and personal had taken the place of corporate life. The question of happiness
is no longer, as with Aristotle, and still more with Plato, one for the state, but for
the individual. In both schools the speculative interest was feeble from the first,
and tended to become feebler as time went on. Both were new departures from
pre-existent schools. Stoicism was bred out of Cynicism, as Epicureanism out of
Cyrenaicism. Both were content to fall back for their physics upon the pre-Socratic
schools, the one adopting the firm philosophy of Heraclitus, the other the atomic
theory of Democritus. Both were in strong reaction against the abstractions of Plato
and Aristotle, and would tolerate nothing but concrete reality. The Stoics were quite
as materialistic in their own way as the Epicureans. With regard indeed to the nature
of the highest god we may, with Senaca represent[ing] the difference between
the two schools as a question of the senses against the intellect, but we shall see
presently that the Stoics regarded the intellect itself as being a kind of body…
It was assumed by the Greeks that the ways of nature were ‘the ways of
pleasantness,’ and that ‘all her paths’ were ‘peace.’ This may seem to us a startling
assumption, but that is because we do not mean by ‘nature’ the same thing as they
did. We connect the term with the origin of a thing, they connected it rather with
the end; by the ‘natural state’ we mean a state of savagery, they meant the highest
civilization; we mean by a thing’s nature what it is or has been, they meant what it
ought to become under the most favourable conditions; not the sour crab, but the
mellow glory of the Hesperides worthy to be guarded by a sleepless dragon, was
to the Greeks the natural apple. Another definition of [the Greeks] puts the matter
still more clearly. ‘What each thing is when its growth has been completed, that we
declare to be the nature of each thing.’
Following…this conception the Stoics identified a life in accordance with nature with
a life in accordance with the highest perfection to which man could attain. Now,
as man was essentially a rational animal, his work as man lay in living the rational
life. And the perfection of reason was virtue. Hence the ways of nature were no
other than the ways of virtue. And so it came about that the Stoic formula might be
expressed in a number of different ways which yet all amounted to the same thing.
The end was to live the virtuous life, or to live consistently, or to live in accordance
with nature, or to live rationally.
Stock, S. G. W. J. (2005). A guide to Stoicism. Project Gutenberg. (Original work
published 1911)
Which of the following adjectives best describes how the passage conceives of
young adulthood, both in the modern era and in the ancient world?
A) Impressionable
B) Illogical
C) Insightful
D) Independent
Correct answer is A
The author of this passage makes several statements about young adulthood and
the subsequent decisions and developments that occur during these periods.
Overall, the most accurate means of describing the author’s perception of young
adulthood from the four listed is impressionable. Impressionable refers to the
characteristic of being easily malleable, and can be used to describe someone who
is easily formed by others through actions, opinions, words, etc. In reference to the
modern era, the author describes his modern contemporaries as “born into” certain
denominations, which implies a lack of personal or individual choice. Instead, the
choices of others are what supposedly determines one’s denominational affiliation.
In reference to the ancient world, the author may at first seem to indicate some
degree of independence by discussing that “of his own free choice…the serious
minded young Greek or Roman embraced the tenets of one of the great sects
which divided the world of philosophy,” however, the author later seems to agree
with Cicero’s opinion that “a young man gets entrammelled by a school before he
is really able to judge.” He also notes that “a young man only exercised the right of
private judgment in selecting the authority whom he should follow, and, having once
done that, trusted to him for all the rest.” For this reason, Answer A is correct, as
young men are described as being ultimately dependent upon others, and willing to
adopt the opinions and practices of others once an initial choice has been made. In
other words, young people are impressionable.
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