reat end and object of life.

[Sidenote: The Cynical school: a contempt for others and gratification
of self.]

[Sidenote: Antisthenes.]

To these may be added the Cynical school, founded by Antisthenes, whose
system is personal and ferocious: it is a battle of the mind against the
body; it is a pursuit of pleasure of a mental kind, corporeal enjoyment
being utterly unworthy of a man. Its nature is very well shown in the
character of its founder, who abandoned all the conveniences and
comforts of life, voluntarily encountering poverty and exposure to the
inclemency of the seasons. His garments were of the meanest kind, his
beard neglected, his person filthy, his diet bordering on starvation. To
the passers-by this ragged misanthrope indulged in contemptuous
language, and offended them by the indecency of his gestures. Abandoned
at last by every one except Diogenes of Sinope, he expired in extreme
wretchedness. It had been a favourite doctrine with him that friendship
and patriotism are altogether worthless; and in his last agony, Diogenes
asking him whether he needed a friend, "Will a friend release me from
this pain?" he inquired. Diogenes handed him a dagger, saying, "This
will." "I want to be free from pain, but not from life." Into such
degradation had philosophy, as represented by the Cynical school,
fallen, that it may be doubted whether it is right to include a man like
Antisthenes among those who derive their title from their love of
wisdom--a man who condemned the knowledge of reading and writing, who
depreciated the institution of marriage, and professed that he saw no
other advantage in philosophy than that it enabled him to keep company
with himself.

[Sidenote: Diogenes of Sinope.]

[Sidenote: His irreverence.]

The wretched doctrines of Cynicism were carried to their utmost
application by Diogenes of Sinope. In early life he had been accustomed
to luxury and ease; but his father, who was a wealthy banker, having
been convicted of debasing the coinage, Diogenes, who in some manner
shared in the disgrace, was in a very fit state of mind to embrace
doctrines implying a contempt for the goods of the world and for the
opinions of men. He may be considered as the prototype of the hermits of
a later period in his attempts at the subjugation of the natural
appetites by means of starvation. Looking upon the body as a mere clog
to the soul, he mortified it in every possible manner, feeding it on raw
meat and