taken up by the Stoics, but they did not follow him in rejecting the amenities of civilization. He
considered that Prometheus was justly punished for bringing to man the arts that have produced
the complication and artificiality of modern life. In this he resembled the Taoists and Rousseau
and Tolstoy, but was more consistent than they were.
His doctrine, though he was a contemporary of Aristotle, belongs in its temper to the Hellenistic
age. Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have,
in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat. The world is bad; let us learn to be independent
of it. External goods are precarious; they are the gift of fortune, not the reward of our own
efforts. Only subjective goods --virtue, or contentment through resignation--are secure, and
these alone, therefore, will be valued by the wise man. Diogenes personally was a man full of
vigour, but his doctrine, like all those of the Hellenistic age, was one to appeal to weary men, in
whom disappointment had destroyed natural zest. And it was certainly not a doctrine calculated
to promote at or science or statesmanship, or any useful activity except one of protest against
powerful evil.
It is interesting to observe what the Cynic teaching became when it was popularized. In the
early part of the third century B.C., the Cynics were the fashion, especially in Alexandria. They
published little sermons pointing out how easy it is to do without material possessions, how
happy one can be on simple food, how warm one can keep in winter without expensive clothes
(which might be true in Egypt!), how silly it is to feel affection for one's native country, or to
mourn when one's children or friends die. "Because my son or my wife is dead," says Teles,
who was one of these popularizing Cynics, "is that any reason for my neglecting myself, who
am still alive, and ceasing to look after my property?" * At this point, it becomes difficult to
feel any sympathy with the simple life, which has grown altogether too simple. One wonders
who enjoyed these sermons. Was it the rich, who wished to think the sufferings of the poor
imaginary? Or was it the new poor, who were trying to despise the successful business man? Or
was it sycophants who persuaded themselves that the charity they accepted was unimportant?
Teles says to a rich man:
* The Hellenistic Age ( Cambridge, 1923), p. 84 ff.