=30.= Judgments so contradictory reveal the fact that ancient divergencies of philosophic sympathies have their counterparts to-day; and perhaps in studying and judging the systems of antiquity a little more is needed of the sympathy and interpretative elasticity which every man unconsciously uses in maintaining the political, philosophic and religious views to which he is attracted by inheritance or personal conviction. Thus to understand Stoicism fully a man must himself become for the time being a Stoic. As such he will no longer bind himself by the letter of the school authorities. In many a phrase they use he will recognise an obsolete habit of thought, an exaggerated opposition, a weak compliance in the face of dominant opinions, or a mistaken reliance upon what once seemed logical conclusions. At other points he will see difficulties felt to which an answer can now easily be supplied. At each step he will ask, not so much what the Stoics thought, but what a Stoic must necessarily think. Whilst constantly referring to the original authorities, he will allow much to be forgotten, and in other cases he will draw out more meaning than the writers themselves set in their words. If he can walk, boldly but not without caution, on this path, he will assuredly find that Stoicism throws light on all the great questions to which men still seek answers, and that to some at least it still holds out a beckoning hand. FOOTNOTES [1] See below, § 441. [2] Diog. L. Prooem. 1. [3] Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, ii p. 161; and below, § 94. [4] ‘principes Chaldaei, qui in patentibus campis colebant, stellarum motus et vias et coetus intuentes, quid ex his efficeretur observaverunt’ Gellius, _N. A._ xiv 1, 8. [5] Sir E. Walter Maunder, in the _Nineteenth Century_ for September 1900. [6] ‘quinque stellarum potestates Chaldaeorum observatio excepit’ Seneca, _N. Q._ ii 32, 6. [7] This is well described by Cicero, translating from a Stoic source: ‘cum fato omnia fiant, si quis mortalis possit esse, qui colligationem causarum omnium perspiciat animo, nihil eum profecto fallat. qui enim teneat causas rerum futurarum, idem necesse est omnia teneat quae futura sint’ _Div._ i 56, 127. It seems reasonable to suppose that this general conception of ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ is deduced from the unchanging movements of the heavenly bodies. [8] ‘videbis quinque sidera diversas agentia vias; ex horum levissimis motibus fortunae populorum dependent’ Sen. _Dial._ vi 18, 3. [9] ‘aiunt quadringenta septuaginta milia annorum in periclitandis experiundisque pueris, quicunque essent nati, Babylonios posuisse’ Cic. _Div._ ii 46, 97. I assume that the original tradition named the smaller number suggested above.