[169] The Stoics, then, assert that good is ‟utility or not other than utility,” meaning by ‟utility” virtue and right action, and by ‟not other than utility” the good man and the friend. For ‟virtue,” as consisting in a certain state of the ruling principle, ¹ and ‟right action,” being an activity in accordance with virtue, are exactly ‟utility;” while the good man and the friend are ‟not other than utility.”

[170] For utility is a part of the good man, being his ruling principle. But the wholes, they say, are not the same as the parts (for the man is not a hand), nor are they other than the parts (for without the parts they do not subsist). Wherefore they assert that the wholes are not other than the parts. Hence, since the good man stands in the relation of a whole to his ruling principle, which they have identified with utility, they declare that he is not other than utility.

[171] Hence also they assert that good has three meanings. In one of its meanings, good, they say, is that by which utility may be gained, this being the most principal good ² and virtue; in another meaning, good is that of which utility is an accidental result, like virtue and virtuous actions; and thirdly, it is that which is capable of being useful; and such is virtue and virtuous action and the good man and the friend, and gods and good daemons; so that the second signification of good is inclusive of the first signification, and the third of both the second and the first.

[172] But some define good as ‟what is to be chosen for its own sake;” ³ and others as ‟that which contributes to happiness or is supplementary thereto;” and happiness, as the Stoics declare, is ‟the smooth current of life.”

These, or such as these, are their statements with reference to the notion of the Good.

[173] But in describing as good what is useful or what is choiceworthy for its own sake or what is contributory to happiness, one is not exhibiting the essence of the good but stating one of its properties. And this is senseless. For the properties aforesaid belong either to the good only or to other things as well. But if they belong to other things as well, they are not, when thus extended, characteristic marks of the good; while if they belong only to the Good, it is not possible for us to derive from them a notion of the good.

[174] For just as the man who has no notion of ‟horse” has no knowledge of what ‟neighing” is and cannot arrive thereby at a notion of ‟horse,” unless he should first meet with a neighing horse, so too one who is seeking the essence of the good, because he has no knowledge of the good, cannot perceive the attribute which is peculiar to it alone in order that he may be enabled thereby to gain a notion of the good itself. For he must first learn the nature of the good itself, and then pass on to apprehend that it is useful, and that it is choiceworthy for its own sake, and that it is productive of happiness.

[175] But that the aforesaid attributes are not sufficient to indicate the concept and the real nature of the good is made plain by the practice of the Dogmatists. All, probably, agree that the good is useful and that it is choiceworthy (so that the good is said to be, as it were, ‟the delightful” ⁴ ) and that it is productive of happiness; but when asked what the thing is to which these properties belong, they plunge into a truceless war, some saying it is virtue, others pleasure, others painlessness, ⁵ and others something else. And yet, if the essence of the good had been proved from the foregoing definitions, they would not have been at feud as though its nature were unknown.

[176] Such, then, is the discord amongst those who are reputed the most eminent of the Dogmatists regarding the notion of the Good; and they have differed likewise regarding Evil, some defining Evil as ‟damage or not other than damage,” ⁶ others as ‟what is to be shunned for its own sake,” others as ‟what is productive of unhappiness.” But since they express by these phrases not the essence of evil but some of its possible attributes they are involved in the logical impasse mentioned above.

[177] The term ‟indifferent,” they say, is used in three senses—in one sense, of that which is an object of neither inclination nor disinclination, as for instance the fact that the stars or the hairs of the head are even in number; in another sense, of that which is an object of inclination or disinclination, but not towards this particular object any more than towards that, as in the case of two indistinguishable tetradrachms, when one has to choose one of them; for there arises an inclination to choose one of them, but not this one more than that one; and a third sense of the term ‟indifferent” is, they say, ‟that which contributes neither to happiness nor to unhappiness,” as health, or wealth; for what a man may use now well, now ill, that, they say, is indifferent, and they claim to discuss it specially in their Ethics.

[178] But what view we ought to take regarding this conception is plain from what we have already said about things good and evil.

Thus, then, it is plain that they have not guided us to a clear conception of the several things above- mentioned; yet, in thus failing with regard to matters that, perhaps, have no real existence, their experience is by no means strange. For there are some who argue on the following grounds that nothing is by nature ⁷ either good or evil or indifferent.