The passions being, on Zeno's showing, not natural,
but forms of disease, the sage, as being the perfect man, would of
course be wholly free from them. They were so many disturbances of
the even flow in which his bliss lay. The sage therefore would never
be moved by a feeling of favour towards any one; he would never
pardon a fault; he would never feel pity; he would never be prevailed
upon by entreaty; he would never be stirred to anger.
As to the absence of pity in the sage, the Stoics themselves must
have felt some difficulty there since we find Epictetus recommending
his hearers to show grief out of sympathy for another, but to be
careful not to feel it. The inexorability of the sage was a mere
consequence of his calm reasonableness, which would lead him to take
the right view from the first. Lastly, the sage would never be
stirred to anger. For why should it stir his anger to see another in
his ignorance injuring himself?
One more touch has yet to be added to the apathy of the sage.
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