country, its
observances, and requirements. Of a far higher grade was Epictetus, at
once a slave and a philosopher, though scarcely to be classed as a true
Stoic. He considers man as a mere spectator of God and his works, and
teaches that every one who can no longer bear the miseries of life is
upon just deliberation, and a conscientious belief that the gods will
not disapprove, free to commit suicide. His maxim is that all have a
part to play, and he has done well who has done his best--that he must
look to conscience as his guide. If Seneca said that time alone is our
absolute and only possession, and that nothing else belongs to man,
Epictetus taught that his thoughts are all that man has any power over,
every thing else being beyond his control. M. Aurelius Antoninus, the
emperor, did not hesitate to acknowledge his thankfulness to Epictetus,
the slave, in his attempt to guide his life according to the principles
of the Stoics. He recommends every man to preserve his daemon free from
sin, and prefers religious devotions to the researches of physics, in
this departing to some extent from the original doctrines of the sect;
but the evil times on which men had fallen led them to seek support in
religious consolations rather than in philosophical inquiries. In
Maximus Tyrius, A.D. 146, we discover a corresponding sentiment,
enveloped, it is true, in an air of Platonism, and countenancing an
impression that image worship and sanctuaries are unnecessary for those
who have a lively remembrance of the view they once enjoyed of the
divine, though excellent for the vulgar, who have forgotten their past.
Alexander of Aphrodisias exhibits the tendency, which was becoming very
prevalent, to combine Plato and Aristotle. He treats upon Providence,
both absolute and contingent; considers its bearings upon religion, and
shows a disposition to cultivate the pious feelings of the age.

[Sidenote: Ancient Physicians.]

Galen, the physician, asserts that experience is the only source of
knowledge; lays great stress on the culture of mathematics and logic,
observing that he himself should have been a Pyrrhonist had it not been
for geometry. In the teleological doctrine of physiology he considers
that the foundations of a true theology must be laid. The physicians of
the times exerted no little influence on the promotion of such views;
for the most part they embraced the Pantheistic doctrine. As one of
them, Sextus Empiricus may be ment