pirations of an impossible perfection." The
_Discourses_ are more illustrative, more argumentative, more diffuse,
more human. In reading them one feels oneself face to face with a human
being, not with the marble statue of the ideal wise man. The style,
indeed, is simple, but its "athletic nudity" is well suited to this
militant morality; its picturesque and incisive character, its vigorous
metaphors, its vulgar expressions, its absence of all conventional
elegance, display a certain "plebeian originality" which gives them an
almost autobiographic charm. With trenchant logic and intrepid
conviction "he wrestles with the passions, questions them, makes them
answer, and confounds them in a few words which are often sublime. This
Socrates without grace does not amuse us by making his adversary fall
into the long entanglement of a captious dialogue, but he rudely seizes
and often finishes him with two blows. It is like the eloquence of
Phocion, which Demosthenes compares to an axe which is lifted
and falls."

[Footnote 66: Moralistes sous l'Empire, p. 200.]

Epictetus, like Seneca, is a preacher; a preacher with less wealth of
genius, less eloquence of expression, less width of culture, but with
far more bravery, clearness, consistency, and grasp of his subject. His
doctrine and his life were singularly homogeneous, and his views admit
of brief expression, for they are not weakened by any fluctuations, or
chequered with any lights and shades. The _Discourses_ differ from the
_Manual_ only in their manner, their frequent anecdotes, their pointed
illustrations, and their vivid interlocutory form. The remark of Pascal,
that Epictetus knew the grandeur of the human heart, but did not know
its weakness, applies to the _Manual_ but can hardly be maintained when
we judge him by some of the answers which he gave to those who came to
seek for his consolation or advice.

The _Discourses_ are not systematic in their character, and, even if
they were, the loss of the last four books would prevent us from working
out their system with any completeness. Our sketch of the _Manual_ will
already have put the reader in possession of the main principles and
ideas of Epictetus; with the mental and physical philosophy of the
schools he did not in any way concern himself; it was his aim to be a
moral preacher, to ennoble the lives of men and touch their hearts. He
neither plagiarised nor invented, but he gave to Stoicism a practical
reality.