Human Nature
This week's concept is human nature, and specifically what the Stoics believed human nature actually is. The Stoics held that every person is born with the capacity for reason and virtue, but that we arrive at wrongdoing through ignorance, poor upbringing, and the habits we absorb from those around us. Understanding this is the foundation of patience with others: when you see clearly why people do harm, indignation starts to lose its grip. The traditional term for the rational, social nature the Stoics saw in every person is "koinonia" in Greek, or more broadly what they called living "kata phusin," meaning according to nature. You will meet that idea here in plain terms as the week unfolds.
Passage
What, then, is the conclusion of the matter? It was by reason of their ignorance of things that the men of those days were innocent; and it makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin. Justice was unknown to them, unknown prudence, unknown also self-control and bravery; but their rude life possessed certain qualities akin to all these virtues. Virtue is not vouchsafed to a soul unless that soul has been trained and taught, and by unremitting practice brought to perfection. For the attainment of this boon, but not in the possession of it, were we born; and even in the best of men, before you refine them by instruction, there is but the stuff of virtue, not virtue itself. Farewell.
— Seneca, Letters 90.46
Reflection
Seneca draws an important distinction that clarifies the whole week: there is a difference between not wanting to sin and simply not knowing how to sin. Innocence born of ignorance is not the same as virtue. Virtue, he insists, is not given at birth; it requires training, practice, and time. This reframes patience with others completely. When you see someone acting badly, you are often not seeing a corrupted will but an untrained one. And since you yourself are still in training, the gap between you and the person frustrating you is a matter of degree, not of kind. Human nature provides the raw material; what each person does with it depends on what they have been taught and what they have practiced.
Go deeper
Where in your own life can you see a gap between the 'stuff of virtue' you were born with and actual virtue you have had to develop through practice, and how does noticing that gap affect how you judge others?
Practice
Virtue in Progress
Choose one virtue you think of as important to you, perhaps patience, honesty, or self-control. Write a short paragraph describing a specific time when you clearly lacked it, and a specific time when practice or experience helped you do better. Keep it concrete. Then read it back and consider: who in your life might be at the earlier stage you once occupied?