6 cr HIS REST OF THE PHILOSOPHER.” excite the displeasure of a philosopher, by urging that the philosopher in Rome who began to act upon that maxim must be lib. 1. § vii. displeased all day long. De Irà, Oho. Treatise De 9. Whatever subject Seneca handled is treated in this spirit. Some extracts from his fragment on the Rest of a Philosopher, addressed to Gallio, will illustrate the tone of his mind and of his style. The reader will not fail to observe that the two republics of which Seneca speaks in it explain his idea of the philosopher's own world. It is not the ideal republic of Plato into which he would transport himself, but into the largest conception of this visible universe which he can frame. c. xxviii. and xxxi. Allegation of Coincidence Epicurus. After some general comments on the blessings of retirement as a deliverance from the influence of opinion,-from the distraction of different objects,-from the fluctuations and inconstancy which characterise us even in our vices,-Seneca proceeds to defend himself from a charge which he had perhaps heard from Gallio himself, to which, at all events, he must have known that he was liable from rival professors. "You will say to me, 'Seneca, what do you mean? When you praise idleness in this fashion you are deserting your party. Your friends the Stoics say, 'Even to the very end of our lives we will be acting; we will not cease to work for the common good, to aid individuals, to stretch out a kind hand even to our enemies. We grant freedom from service to no age; as the saying is, we keep the hoary head pressed with the helmet. We are so impatient of rest before death, that, if it were possible, we would not have death itself a rest! Why do you mix the precepts of Epicurus with the principles of Zeno? If you are ashamed of your party, why not desert it rather than betray it.' Seneca answers that he does not hold himself pledged to all of Zeno and the sentiments of Zeno or Chrysippus; that he is a seeker of truth as well as they; that, however, he has not deserted either their principles or their example. or their example. "The two great sects," he says, "of Epicureans and Stoics differ in this matter, but they arrive at my conclusion by different routes. Epicurus says a wise man will not take part in the management of the state unless there is some special reason for doing so; Zeno says he will take part in the state unless there is some special hindrance. One seeks rest of purpose, the other from necessity. But the necessity has a wide scope. If the Republic is so corrupt that it cannot be aided,-if it is completely possessed with evils, the wise man will not spend his strength for nought; he will not devote himself to a task in which he can do no good. As a man would not go to sea in a damaged ship, THE TWO REPUBLICS. CONTEMPLATION. 7 -as he would not enter military service when utterly out of Political health,- -so he will not enter upon a political life which he life. knows to be untenable. No doubt it is demanded of him that he should do good to many men when it is possible,—if not, to a few-if not, to those nearest to him,-if not to them, then to himself. But if a man makes himself worse, he hurts besides himself, all those whom, if he had been made better, he might have benefited. So if any one deserves well of himself, he does thereby good to others, in that he puts himself in a condition to do them good. states. C. xxxi. "Let us present to our mind," Seneca continues, "the two The two different societies,-one, that great republic in which gods and men are contained, in which we do not look at this corner or that, but measure our city by the course of the sun; the other, that in which the condition of our birth hath enrolled us. Some devote themselves at the same time to both societies, the greater and the less; some only to the less; some only to the greater. To this greater republic we may be servants even when we are at rest,-yea, I know not whether we cannot serve it better at rest." for the con He goes on to mention some of the exercises in which a con- Questions templative man may engage. "He may ask, What is virtue ? templative Is there one virtue, or are there many? Is it nature or art that man. makes good men? Is this a great unity which embraces seas and lands, and whatever is in them? or hath God scattered through the Universe many bodies of the same kind? Is the matter from which all things are sprung, full and unbroken? or is it dispersed, and a void intermixed with the things that are solid? Doth God sit still in the contemplation of his own work; or doth he meddle with it? Is He diffused beyond it, outside of it; or doth He inhabit the whole of it? Is the world immortal; or is it to be reckoned among perishable things, -things born for time". . . . . Seneca proceeds, in an eloquent passage, to show what a c. xxxii. multitude of objects Nature forces upon the mind of man; how she stirs him up to acts of contemplation, for which the time allotted to his life is all too short. Therefore he concludes-“I live according to Nature if I have given myself wholly to her,-if I am her admirer and worshipper. But Nature,' you say, 'would have me both act and have leisure Contemplafor contemplation.' I do both, since contemplation implies action. action. 'But,' you say, 'surely it makes a difference whether one comes to this work for the mere sake of pleasure, seeking nothing from contemplation but itself, which, however purposeless, no doubt has its seductions. I answer," he says, "it also makes a great difference with what spirit you tion and Both may be engage in civil life,-whether it is that you may always be in a pursued for bustle, and never have any time left in which you may withends. draw from human things to divine. The mere craving for bad or good action, and doing works for their own sake, is not to be approved, any more than the virtue which is wholly contemplative and never exhibits what it has learnt. With what mind does a wise man withdraw into leisure ?-That he may ascertain with himself what things he is to do by which he may benefit those that come after. "I affirm," he says, "that Zeno and Chrysippus did greater things than if they had led armies, had borne civil honours, had laid down laws for one state, instead of laying them down, as they have done, for the whole human race. He argues that the supporters of pleasure and of action both recognise the necessity of contemplation; he, on his side, does not affirm that it is the ultimate port, but only a place for lying at anchor. "A man, according to Chrysippus, may not only suffer but choose rest. The Stoics lay it down as a general rule that he should concern himself in the affairs of the State, but thev do not admit that he should concern himself with every State. Will you tell me, then, which it shall be? Shall it be the Athenian, in which Socrates was put to death and Aristotle had to fly lest he should be condemned? Shall it be the Carthaginian, in which there were perpetual seditions, the liberty of which was dangerous to every good citizen,-where there was Republics inhumanity towards enemies, hostility to friends? If I chose to go through them one by one, I should not find one which could suffer a wise man, or which a wise man could suffer. But if that state does not exist which we feign for ourselves, Rest begins to be necessary for all; because the one thing that might have been preferred to Rest is nowhere. If I am told that it is an excellent thing to go out to sea, but that I must not for Conclusion. the world sail in a sea in which shipwrecks are wont to happen, which carry the steersman where he would not go, I think I am told plainly enough never to loose my ship from shore, though sailing is so excellent a thing.' too bad to mend. Seneca the Treatise De c. i. c. ii. 10. With the philosophical habits and convictions which this extract discloses, Seneca was called to form the mind of an emperor. His Treatise on Clemency, addressed to his pupil, is probably a fair illustration of the method of his education. The royal youth is reminded how like his position is to that of the gods, how many millions are subject to his nod, how graceful and divine kindness and forgiveness must be. Objections to the value of a quality which presumes transgression are dexterously suggested and dexterously taken off. Nero is congratulated that he is exhibiting in the commencement of his reign, -in the hey-day of his passions,-all the noble qualities which his predecessor, Augustus, only acquired after a series of crimes. How great will be the maturity of excellence of which the first buds are so beautiful! Tacitus, c. 12. effects of 11. It may not be fair for an Englishman, with Bacon's dedi- Crimes of cation of the "Advancement of Learning" before him, to com- Seneca. plain of the pagan parasite; it may not be fair to look upon see the life of him to whom the "Treatise on Clemency" was Dio. Cass. especially addressed, as a commentary upon it and upon the views of the lib. 61. c. 10. writer. But if the tutor is not answerable for the acts of his pupil, what must be said of his own? Though we may admit that the censure of Dio Cassius upon the tenor of his life is malicious and false,-though we may even force ourselves to Ann.lib.xiv. believe that the evidence of his privity to the death of Agrippina is not conclusive,*- -no one has ever doubted that he wrote the apology for the matricide. Which crime was the greater must always remain a question. Forgiveness has been asked for this Not the and other acts of the philosopher, on the plea that he was weakness. exposed to temptations under which we might any of us have fallen. We do not say that the atrocity of the offence is an answer to such an argument; certainly every one would wish to accept it on behalf of a man who has so many claims upon our gratitude as Seneca. But, before it can be admitted, there should be some evidence of weakness, of reluctance, of shame. None such are produced. We have not the least reason to conclude that Seneca felt he was departing from the maxim on which his life was regulated in this instance, any more than when he submitted quietly and manfully to the sentence upon himself. He had tutored himself to endure personal injuries without indulging in anger; he had tutored himself to look upon all moral evil without anger. If the doctrine is sound, and the discipline desirable, we must be content to take the whole result of them. If we will not do that, we must resolve that it is well to hate oppression and wrong, even at the cost of philosophical composure. the seeker of 12. EPICTETUS inherited no gardens, and learned no rhetoric; Epictetus he was the slave of a freedman of that emperor whom Seneca freedom. educated. The difference in their position affects the whole nature He lived till of their philosophy. They were both Stoics; they had both a Hadrian; right to the name; they both redeemed Stoicism from school- but was men and nurses, and gave it a manly, practical character. But Rome as a the reign of driven from philosopher *The words of Tacitus, Ann. lib. xiv. c. 7, only leave it uncertain by Domitian. whether Seneca and Burrhus knew of the first plot of Anicetus; the completion of the crime our philosopher seems to have suggested. 10 HIS MAIN OBJECT AND PRINCIPLE. Epictetus. Seneca inquired after the secret of quietude,-Epictetus after the secret of freedom. The poor Greek slave in the Roman empire applied himself to the study of that problem which the sophists, poets, statesmen of Athens, had been working out in the days of Pericles: what is more, he found a solution of the problem which justified all the aspirations of old Greece, and explained their failure. 13. Viewed in this light, Epictetus becomes one of the most striking figures in the history of philosophy. He has thrown back a glory upon the early Stoicism which does not belong to it; his influence upon men's thoughts in later times has been very considerable; what he has said upon the subject to which his whole mind was devoted, had never been said in language so distinct and brave by any Greek or Roman predeThe philoso-cessor. But the real grandeur of his work consists in this, that pher and the he broke down the barrier which Seneca, and the comfortable man one. men of letters before and since his age, have been always seeking to establish and perpetuate. The man and the philosopher are not different persons with him; the sole business of the philosopher is to ascertain how he can be most a man. It was not a question, how he could acquire a certain amount of wisdom which would set him above his fellows; it was the question, how he could live when all his circumstances seemed to bid him die. "Thou art a slave:" that was the fact presented to altogether him by his outward condition. What makes thee one ?" was practical. the thought awakened in him. "Is it Nero? Is it fate? Is it God ?-None of the three," was the reply which by degrees came to him. "Not Nero, for he is a slave as well as thou; not fate, for thou art not bound to be a slave; not God, for He would not have thee a slave-it is thyself. Thou fanciest that all these things, the accidents which surround thee, over which thou hast no power, are necessary to thee: therein consists thy slavery. When thou ceasest to desire these things, and desirest to be what thou art meant to be, thy freedom begins." His philosophy Book i. chap. 1. What the gods give men power over, and why. 14. Here is his view of the state of man and the divine purpose respecting him :-It will be perceived that he limits the omnipotence of the Gods by a kind of necessity; but that he desires to assert their Righteousness at all events. "The gods have made that which is highest of all, and which is the lord of the rest, alone dependent upon us,—namely, the right use of the objects which are presented to us; but other things not. Is it because they were not willing? I, for my part, think that, if they could, they would have committed even those things to us.. But what saith Jupiter? Oh, Epictetus! if it had been possible, I would have made that |