dea they expressed in
the formula, 'Life according to nature.' The wise man is he who seeks
to live in all the circumstances of life in agreement with his rational
nature. The law of nature is to avoid what is hurtful and strive for
what is appropriate. Pleasure, though not the immediate object of man,
arises as an accompaniment of a well-ordered life. Pleasure and pain
are, however, really accidents, to be met by the wise man with
indifference. He alone is free who acknowledges the absolute supremacy
of reason and makes himself independent of earthly desires. This life
of freedom is open to all: since all men are members of one body. The
slave may be as free as the consul, and in every station of life each
may make the world serve him by living in harmony with it.

There is a certain sublimity in the ethics of Stoicism which has always
appealed to noble minds. 'It inspired,' {43} says Mr. Lecky, 'nearly
all the great characters of the early Roman Empire, and nerved every
attempt to maintain the dignity and freedom of the human soul.'[6] But
we cannot close our eyes to its defects. Divine providence, though
frequently dwelt upon, signified little more for the Stoic than destiny
or fate. Harmony with nature was simply a sense of proud
self-sufficiency. Stoicism is the glorification of reason, even to the
extent of suppressing all emotion. Sin is unreason, and salvation lies
in an external control of the passions--in indifference and apathy
begotten of the subordination of desire to reason.

The chief merit of Stoicism is that in an age of moral degeneracy it
insisted upon the necessity of integrity in all the conditions of life.
In its preference for the joys of the inner life and its scorn of the
delights of sense; in its emphasis upon individual responsibility and
duty; above all, in its advocacy of a common humanity and its belief in
the relation of each human soul to God, Roman Stoicism, as revealed in
the writings of a Seneca, an Epictetus, and a Marcus Aurelius, not only
showed how high Paganism at its best could reach, but proved in a
measure a preparation for Christianity, with whose practical truths it
had much in common.

The affinities between Stoicism and Paulinism have been frequently
pointed out, and the similarity in language and thought can scarcely be
accounted for by coincidence. There are, however, elements in Stoicism
which St. Paul would never have dreamt of assimilating. The materia