The Stoic Philosophy

Philosophy was defined by the Stoics as 'the knowledge of things divine and
human'.

When Socrates declared before his judges that "there is no evil to a good man
either in life or after death, nor are his affairs neglected by the gods", he
sounded the keynote of Stoicism, with its two main doctrines of virtue as the
only good, and the government of the world by Providence. Let us weigh his
words, lest we interpret them by the light of a comfortable modern piety. A
great many things that are commonly called evil may and do happen to a good
man in this life, and therefore presumably misfortunes may also overtake him
in any other life that there may be. The only evil that can never befall him
is vice, because that would be a contradiction in terms. Unless therefore
Socrates was uttering idle words on the most solemn occasion of his life, he
must be taken to have meant that there is no evil but vice, which implies that
there is no good but virtue. Thus we are landed at once in the heart of the
Stoic morality. To the question why, if there be a providence, so many evils
happen to good men, Seneca unflinchingly replies: "No evil can happen to a
good man, contraries do not mix." God has removed from the good all evil:
because he has taken from them crimes and sins, bad thoughts and selfish
designs and blind lust and grasping avarice. He has attended well to
themselves, but he cannot be expected to look after their luggage: they
relieve him of that care by being indifferent about it. This is the only form
in which the doctrine of divine providence can be held consistently with the
facts of life Again, when Socrates on the same occasion expressed his belief
that it was not "permitted by the divine law for a better man to be harmed by
a worse", he was asserting by implication the Stoic position...