corresponding successfully to stimulus, yet the creature in its
inchoate way is exhibiting a dim analogy to duty. The term in
question was first used by Zeno, and was explained by him, in
accordance with its etymology, to mean what it came to one to do, so
that as far as this goes, 'becomingness' would be the most
appropriate translation.

The sphere of propriety was confined to things indifferent, so that
there were proprieties which were common to the sage and the fool. It
had to do with taking the things which were in accordance with nature
and rejecting those that were not. Even the propriety of living or
dying was determined, not by reference to virtue or vice, but to the
preponderance or deficiency of things in accordance with nature. It
might thus be a propriety for the sage in spite of his happiness, to
depart from life of his own accord, and for the fool notwithstanding
his misery, to remain in it. Life, being in itself indifferent, the
whole question was one of opportunism. Wisdom might prompt the
leaving herself should occasion seem to call for it.

We pass on now another instance of accommodation. According to the
high Stoic doctrine, there was no mean between virtue and vice. All
men indeed received from nature the starting-points for virtue, but
until perfection had been attained they rested under the condemnation
of vice. It was, to employ an illustration of the poet-philosopher
Cleanthes, as though Nature had begun an iambic line and left men to
finish it. Until that was done they were to wear the fool's cap. The
Peripatetics, on the other hand, recognized an intermediate state
between virtue and vice, to which they gave the name of progress and
proficience. Yet so entirely had the Stoics, for practical purposes,
to accept this lower level, that the word "proficience" has come to