philosophy of Greece and Rome. I replied by quoting the lines of Tennyson:

"For I doubt not through the ages one unceasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns."

We are used to this other thought now, and cannot appreciate the effect of its absence eighteen centuries ago. We do not see how much it implies, that they should not have had any idea of the fact of evolution. To-day this is a grand element of consolation. We do not see the result of our own efforts in our lives or in our own age; but we always think of our work as bearing fruit sometime. We dream of a coming millennium and are sustained by thinking about it, when facing the defeat of our own labours or realizing how little they accomplish. We know, most of us, that the Social Ideal will not be realized to-day, or even in the next century. But no condition of the world, however dark, no overthrow of existing institutions, no inroad of barbarians, no conceivable calamity, save the extinction of human life on earth, would check the faith now existing in the human heart, that somewhere and sometime a better and higher age is coming.

Stoicism was a one-sided religion and a one-sided philosophy. So is every philosophy and every religion. You cannot get all your soul craves from any one source. Each ethical system or each religion may help us in some one special way.

I do not say that every one should read the Stoics. Their thoughts are adapted to one class of persons. Those who are quite at peace within themselves,

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whose lives run smoothly and evenly, requiring no steadying force to nerve them to their task; those who hunger from the mind rather than from the heart or from the will, none of these will care for Stoicism. They had better let it alone. It will be almost meaningless to them. If they read its teachings, they will only be led to cavil at them and wonder why they do not get more. But those who

are more or less at struggle within themselves, travelling over rugged roads in the spirit, the restless and the troubled, to whom life is something of an effort and a burden, those who are groping about for a staff or support because there is no peace or calm within, some of these will get help from the Thoughts of the Stoics, and would do well to read them.

It would be worth the while for some of us to have the volumes of the Stoics on our shelves, - Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. We should mark what is impressive there, whatever is most helpful to us, selecting what strikes us as the noblest and most inspiring. Then we can lay them aside for what is nearer and closer to us. We shall not care for them at all times, because they make life positively too stern and severe. They are one-sided in their excessive enthusiasm for the strong will; concentrating the thought too much on one's self, even if it be the higher self, and weakening the ties of human affection. They do not have enough regard for the heart, for the sentiments, for the joys of human fellowship, for the glory of Universal Brotherhood.

But at moments we need just this spiritual nutri

ment.

We may take them down from our shelves,

turn over the leaves, catch anew the inspiration for our wearied wills, and strengthen ourselves by their strength.

We may go too far and injure the character, by making too much of such teachings. We shall not do this if we appreciate their one-sidedness while recognizing their worth. In the same way we can get assistance at times from reading that old poem:

"My mind to me a kingdom is,"

Or we can receive the same impulse from Matthew Arnold's "Self-Dependence." Yet both these poems have a narrow range and could make us self-centred or self-concentrated, if we did not cultivate another side of our nature with the help of other literature.

We should not study the teachings of Stoicism as we would study philosophy, not search there for abstract wisdom. We should read them just as we would listen to certain kinds of music, and let them play on our moods. It is our moods they cultivate, and not the mind. One class of literature may sweeten the cup of sorrow; another may steady the wavering conscience; still another may help to refine the heart or cultivate our sense for the beauty of nature. Stoicism nerves the wearied will, and that is its value.

VIII

DOES HIGH CONDUCT IN THE LONG RUN BRING THE GREATEST AMOUNT OF HAPPINESS?

HAVE you ever, in a moment of absent-mindedness, lifted your eyes from your work, looked out into vacancy, and caught yourself in a sudden pause of reflection, saying over in your mind with a vague sort of half-troubled wonder, "What is all this for?" The spell will last only for the shortest interval; it is gone as quickly as it came. You drop your eyes again on your task, and resume the thread of your previous occupation. You may scarcely remember the interruption. Nevertheless it came, and it was registered. You will be certain to experience it again.

We want pleasure! We hunger for it as we do for meat and drink. Life appears so bare and void without it; a chill comes in our veins if we look ahead and see no chance of securing it. When we rise in the morning and our thoughts turn on the work of the day, if we can look forward to no joy to illumine the pathway of the hours, then it all looks to us like one dreary treadmill. We appear to need happiness as we do sunshine and the light of day. When it comes, we bask in it and feel our

selves young and strong. When it does not come, we are liable to wither and grow old; existence itself is a burden to us; we do not care to live.

Yet, alas! there is no sphere where an individual can so easily involve himself in illusion as in anticipating what would really give him satisfaction. He may continue for years in the pursuit of something, and then when he gets it discover that it was not actually what he wanted at all.

It is to be assumed that I am addressing people whose lives have not been altogether happy. Those who have the greatest amount of what is ordinarily termed pleasure are the least inclined to analyze it, or would be the least disposed to talk about it. The discussion would jar upon them and interfere with the very satisfaction they are taking in their existence. They would even be reluctant to come in contact with pain or suffering. A really happy person would probably never stop to think about the meaning of happiness. Only when a touch of the opposite gets into their lives, are they ready to study it or give much attention to the subject.

Beyond any doubt, therefore, every person to whom I am speaking has had more or less pain in his life. Those who have had to endure, will be the ones most interested to know what it all means. We are in

clined to look upon happiness as the natural and normal something to which we should all be heirs. Why, then, do we not get it? What is the secret of the fact that it is dispensed with such a seeming lack of discrimination? We look back upon our past lives and keep asking ourselves: Why did we have to go through this, that, or the other trying experience?