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Shaftesbury as Stoic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Esther A. Tiffany
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Extract

A new interest of late has awakened in Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, through the realization that he is the fountain-head of much of the æsthetics and ethics prevalent in the last century and in our own time. While it has been generally recognized that the background of Shaftesbury's thought is classical, as was to be expected of any student and thinker of his period, deriving both from Stoicism and from Platonism and neo-Platonism, attention and interest have chiefly been concentrated upon those aspects of his thought which look toward the coming romantic movement. Also, such classical influences as have been recognized are usually interpreted from the post-renaissance point-of-view, as agreeing in the main with such modifications of Platonic and neo-Platonic thought as are referred to in discussing “Platonism” of Shelley. Thus C. W. Weiser enlarges upon Shaftesbury's indebtedness to the Platonic and neo-Platonic traditions—terms which he uses, as he explains, in a very general sense, as pertaining to the life of the feeling (the Platonic way) in opposition to the life of the reason (the Aristotelian way).

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , September 1923 , pp. 642 - 684
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1923

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References

1 See C. A. Moore, “Shaftesbury and the Ethical Poets in England, 1700-1760,” P.M.L.A., XXXI. 264-325.

2 Benjamin R. Rand, The Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, New York, 1900.

3 E. g. Ernest Albee, in his review of Rand's book, Philosophical Review, XXV, 182, and C. F. Weiser, Shaftesbury and das Deutsche Geistesleben, Berlin, 1916.

4 Rand, Life, Letters, etc., p. 36.

5 See Rand, Introd., p. x.

6 Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, London, 1900, II, 20.

7 Char. II, 174.

8 Char. I, 279.

9 Char. II, 174-75; see also I, 90-92, and II, 268, note 1.

10 Char. II, 125-26.

11 Reg. (Life, Letters, etc.), p. 247.

12 Reg., p. 218.

13 Reg., p. 59.

14 Reg., pp. 179 and 122.

15 Reg., p. 246.

16 Char. I, 45.

17 Char. II, 283, 229.

18 Char. II, 231.

19 Reg., pp. 192 ff.

20 Several Letters written by a Noble Lord to a Young Man at the University, London, 1716, p. 25.

21 Char. I, 198 and 109.

22 The Discourses of Epictetus, tr. by George Long, London, 1916, p. 232.

23 Reg., pp. 26, 118, 242.

24Reg., pp. 131, 132.

25 Reg., p. 503.

26 Char. II, 272, 333-36.

27 Char. II, 244.

28 Second Characters, or The Language of Forms, 1914, p. 6.

29 Ibid., p. 4.

30 Ibid., p. 9.

31 2nd Chars., pp. 9-10.

32 Char. II, 126.

33 Char. II, 131.

34 Char. II, 144.

35 Char. II, 148.

36 Plotinus: The Ethical Treatises. Tr. from the Greek by Stephen Mac Kenna, London, 1917, pp. 79 ff.

37 A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, by Ralph Cudworth, 1731, pp. 177-78 and 181 ff.

38 Preface to the Immortality of the Soul, VIII, in A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings, by Henry More, Ed. 4, London, 1712.

39 Treatise Concerning Morality, p. 160.

40 Char. II, 105.

41 Char. II, 22-23.

42 The Communings with himself of Marcus Aurelius Antonius, Emporor of Rome, tr. by C. R. Haines, London and New York, 1916, pp. 81, 277.

43 2nd Chars., p. 60.

44 Char. II, 267-68; see also p. 270.

45 Char. II, 270.

46 Communings, p. 231.

47 Discourses, pp. 131, 204.

48 Char. I, 260.

49 Char. I, 265.

50 See in order:

Char. I, 258, 265, 252;

Char. II, 68;

Char. I, 256, 257.

51 Char. II, 257.

52 Char. II, 277-78 and note.

53 Discourses, pp. 154-55, 66-70.

54 See above, pp. 665 ff.

55 Char. I, 251. Cf. Epict. Discourses, pp. 3-4, 195, and Marcus Aurelius, Communings, p. 27.

56 Char. I, 136.

57 Char. II, 259.

58 Char. II, 257; see also 2nd Chars. p. 115.

59 2nd Chars., p. 116. See also Char. I, 218.

60 2nd Chars., 144.

61 2nd Chars., p. 61; see also p. 111.

62 Char. I, 228.

63 Char. II, 129-130, (Quoted verbatim from Reg. p. 34).

64 2nd Chars., p. 114; see also Char. I, 208 and 2nd Chars., p. 143.

65 Char. I, 217.

66 Discourses, pp. 42, 140, 158; see also 4, 131.

67 Reg., p. 205.

68Reg., p. 210.

69 Char. II, 265; see also Char. I, 122, 207, II, 278, note.

70 Reg., p. 173.

71 Reg., pp. 235-36; see also p. 220.

72 Char. I, 208.

73 Reg., p. 195; see also pp. 198 and 200.

74 Char. I, 207.

75 Discourses, p. 161.

76 Reg, p. 176.

77 Reg., pp. 156-57.

78 Char. II, 280-81.

79 Reg., pp. 148-49.

80 Reg., p. 164.

81 Char. I, 74.

82 Ibid, 73.

83 Char. I, 315.

84 Char. I, 316; see also p. 293.

85 Char. I, 314.

86 Char. II, 176; cf. Epictetus, Discourses, pp. 54 and 161.

87 Char. I, 275.

88 Char. I, 293; see also p. 294.

89 Char. I, 298.

90 Char. I, 275.

91 Discourses, pp. 69, 168-70.

92 Communings, pp. 239, 241.

93 Char. I, 98.

94 Char. I, 302.

93 Char. II, 178.

96 Char. I, 299-300.

97 Char. I, 301; see also p. 280.

98 Reg. pp. 1-12.

99 Reg. p. 3.

100 Reg. pp. 4-5.

101 Reg. p. 8.

102 Reg. p. 2.

103 Reg. p. 6; cf. Epictetus, Discourses, pp. 205, 338.

104 Reg. pp. 54-55.

105 Reg., I.

106 Char. I, 272.

107 Reg., p. 101.

108 Reg., p. 102.

109 Reg., pp. 115-18; cf. Epictetus, Discourses, pp. 323, 232, 277.

110 Reg., p. 144.

111 Reg., pp. 158-59.

112 Reg., p. 62.

113 Reg., p. 63.