Stoic School
Stoic School
Founded by Zeno (of Citium, in Cyprus) in the year 308 B.C. in Athens. For Stoicism virtue alone is the only good and the virtuous man is the one who has attained happiness through knowledge, as Socrites had taught. The virtuous man thus finds happiness in himself and is independent of the external world which he has succeeded in overcoming by mastering himself, his passions and emotions. As for the Stoic conception of the universe as a whole, their doctrine is pantheistic. All things and all natural laws follow by a conscious determination from the basic World Reason, and it is this rational order by which, according to Stoicism, the wise man seeks to regulate his life as his highest duty. — M.F.