ery that the pathetic
mood may be idealized, and figure as a higher form of sensibility.
Their spirit was still too essentially masculine for pessimism to be
elaborated or lengthily dwelt on in their classic literature. They
would have despised a life set wholly in a minor key, and summoned it
to keep within the proper bounds of lachrymosity. The discovery that
the enduring emphasis, so far as this world goes, may be laid on its
pain and failure, was reserved for races more complex, and (so to
speak) more feminine than the Hellenes had attained to being in the
classic period. But all the same was the outlook of those Hellenes
blackly pessimistic.

Stoic insensibility and Epicurean resignation were the farthest advance
which the Greek mind made in that direction. The Epicurean said: "Seek
not to be happy, but rather to escape unhappiness; strong happiness is
always linked with pain; therefore hug the safe shore, and do not tempt
the deeper raptures. Avoid disappointment by expecting little, and by
aiming low; and above all do not fret." The Stoic said: "The only
genuine good that life can yield a man is the free possession of his
own soul; all other goods are lies." Each of these philosophies is in
its degree a philosophy of despair in nature's boons. Trustful
self-abandonment to the joys that freely offer has entirely departed
from both Epicurean and Stoic; and what each proposes is a way of
rescue from the resultant dust-and-ashes state of mind. The Epicurean
still awaits results from economy of indulgence and damping of desire.
The Stoic hopes for no results, and gives up natural good altogether.
There is dignity in both these forms of resignation. They represent
distinct stages in the sobering process which man's primitive
intoxication with sense-happiness is sure to undergo. In the one the
hot blood has grown cool, in the other it has become quite cold; and
although I have spoken of them in the past tense, as if they were
merely historic, yet Stoicism and Epicureanism will probably be to all
time typical attitudes, marking a certain definite stage accomplished
in the evolution of the world-sick soul.[75] They mark the conclusion
of what we call the once-born period, and represent the highest flights
of what twice-born religion would call the purely natural man
--Epicureanism, which can only by great courtesy be called a religion,
showing his refinement, and Stoicism exhibiting his moral will. They
leave