Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Seneca: His Character and Environment
to cite but a single name, Seneca was a very un
worthy exponent of practical philosophy. The former
took philosophy seriously, so seriously that he not
only wanted to live for it but was willing to die for it.
He kept aloof from politics because he felt that a
public career would interfere with a duty he owed to
a higher power. He, too, believed in a Providence,
but with him this belief amounted to a conviction.
All his reported words and deeds testify to this, while
Seneca acts and writes as if trying to convince him
self quite as much as others. Socrates had an abiding
faith in a personal God who not only watched over
his life, but cared for him in death. Duty was to him
a thing of such supreme importance that he never
hesitated to perform it, no matter what the conse
quences to himself might be. Socrates taught nothing
he did not himself practice; Seneca, much. Socrates
feared neither God nor man; Seneca was afraid of
both. Socrates expected nothing of others that he did
not exact of himself; Seneca sets up a higher stand
ard of morals than he, under all circumstances, at
tained. His precepts are better than his practice.
His fatal mistake lay in trying to do two things that
have always been found incompatible: to be a suc
cessful politician and an upright man. There were
others besides Socrates, before the days of Seneca, in
whose life and character philosophy had had more
consistent exponents and faithful devotees than in
him. But when they found that philosophy and a
career in the service of the state were incompatible