Stoics

(sto'iks.) [Gr. Stoikio.] (Antiq.) Asect of philosophers among the Greeks, whose founder was Zeno. They denied the existence of innate ideas; and consequently held that sensation and reflection were the only foundations of human knowledge. They taught that the true end of man consists in living conformably to nature, and in obedience to his internal monitor, that particle of the divinity which constitutes the soul. They taught that good is what conducts men to felicity, and that all good things are equal; that pa ions arise from false judgments; that duty consists in the investigation of moral truth, and in living agreeably to the obvious destination of our nature. They had also paradoxes peculiar to themselves, a erting that pain is no evil; that a wise man is free from all perturbation of mind; and that it is the duty of man to submit without complaint to the unavoidable nece ity imposed on him by his destiny. [s. 858]