suitable. As we grow older, further and
higher principles manifest themselves--reason and reflection, a more
and more careful and complete apprehension of that which is honourable
and advantageous, a capacity of choice among goods. Till finally the
surpassing glory of that which is just and honourable shines out so
clear upon us, that any pain or loss is esteemed of no account, if only
we may attain to that. Thus at last, by the very law of our being, we
come to know that nothing is truly and absolutely good but goodness,
nothing absolutely bad but sin. Other things, inasmuch as they have no
character of moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really
good or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things
indifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be
relatively preferable or relatively undesirable. Even pleasure and
pain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being,
are things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil. Yet
have they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them
was so implanted in us at the first that our souls by natural impulse
are drawn to pleasure, while they shrink from pain as from a deadly
enemy. Wherefore reason neither can nor ought to seek wholly to
eradicate these primitive and deep-seated affections of our nature; but
so to exercise a resisting and ordering influence upon them, as to
render them obedient and subservient to herself.

[415]

That which is absolutely good--wisdom, righteousness, courage,
temperance--does good only and never ill to us. All other
things,--life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, reputation,
birth,--and their opposites,--death, disease, pain, deformity,
weakness, poverty, contempt, humility of station,--these are in
themselves neither a benefit nor a curse. They may do us good, they
may do us harm. We may use them for good, we may use them for evil.

[417]

Thus the Stoics worked out on ideal and absolute lines the thought of
righteousness as the chief and {239} only good. Across this ideal
picture were continually being drawn by opponents without or inquirers
within, clouds of difficulty drawn from real experience. 'What,' it
was asked, 'of _progress_ in goodness? Is this a middle state between
good and evil; or if a middle state between good and evil be a
contradiction, in terms, how may we characterise it?' Here the wiser
teachers had to be content to an