palliate his sentiments, but
virtue and honour will make themselves felt at last. Stoicism soon
appeared as the antagonist of Epicureanism, and Epicurus found in Zeno
of Citium a rival. The passage from Epicurus to Zeno is the passage from
sensual gratification to self-control.

The biography of Zeno may be dismissed in a few words. Born about B.C.
300, he spent the early part of his life in the vocation of his father,
who was a merchant, but, by a fortunate shipwreck, happily losing his
goods during a voyage he was making to Athens, he turned to philosophy
for consolation. Though he had heretofore been somewhat acquainted with
the doctrines of Socrates, he became a disciple of the Cynics,
subsequently studying in the Megaric school, and then making himself
acquainted with Platonism. After twenty years of preparation, he opened
a school in the stoa or porch in Athens, from which his doctrine and
disciples have received their name. He presided over his school for
fifty-eight years, numbering many eminent men among his disciples. When
nearly a hundred years old he chanced to fall and break his finger, and,
receiving this as an admonition that his time was accomplished, he
forthwith strangled himself. The Athenians erected to his memory a
statue of brass. His doctrines long survived him, and, in times when
there was no other consolation for man, offered a support in their hour
of trial, and an unwavering guide in the vicissitudes of life, not only
to many illustrious Greeks, but also to some of the great philosophers,
statesmen, generals, and emperors of Rome.

[Sidenote: Intention of Stoicism.]

It was the intention of Zeno to substitute for the visionary
speculations of Platonism a system directed to the daily practices of
life, and hence dealing chiefly with morals. To make men virtuous was
his aim. But this is essentially connected with knowledge, for Zeno was
persuaded that if we only know what is good we shall be certain to
practise it. He therefore rejected Plato's fancies of Ideas and
Reminiscences, leaning to the common-sense doctrines of Aristotle, to
whom he approached in many details. With him Sense furnishes the data of
knowledge, and Reason combines them: the soul being modified by external
things, and modifying them in return, he believed that the mind is at
first, as it were, a blank tablet, on which sensation writes marks, and
that the distinctness of sensuous impressions is the criterion of their
truth