A History of Western Philosophy

are inimical to the prosaic every-day virtues of respectable citizens. There seems no use in
thrift, when tomorrow all your savings may be dissipated; no advantage in honesty, when the
man towards whom you practise it is pretty sure to swindle you; no point in steadfast adherence
to a cause, when no cause is important or has a chance of stable victory; no argument in favour
of truthfulness, when only supple tergiversation makes the preservation of life and fortune
possible. The man whose virtue has no source except a purely terrestrial prudence will, in such
a world, become an adventurer if he has the courage, and, if not, will seek obscurity as a timid
time-server.

Menander, who belongs to this age, says:

So many cases I have known Of men who, though not naturally rogues, Became so, through

misfortune, by constraint.

This sums up the moral character of the third century B.C., except for a few exceptional men.
Even among these few, fear took the place of hope; the purpose of life was rather to escape
misfortune than to achieve any positive good. "Metaphysics sink into the background, and
ethics, now individual, become of the first importance. Philosophy is no longer the pillar of fire
going before a few intrepid seekers after truth: it is rather an ambulance following in the wake
of the struggle for existence and picking up the weak and wounded." *

CHAPTER XXVI Cynics and Sceptics

THE relation of intellectually eminent men to contemporary society has been very different in
different ages. In some fortunate epochs they have been on the whole in harmony with their
surroundings--suggesting, no doubt, such reforms as seemed to them necessary, but fairly
confident that their suggestions would

* C. F. Angus in Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. VII, p. 231. The above quotation from

Menander is taken from the same chapter.