Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers
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"<br />
Seneca: His Character <strong>and</strong> Environment<br />
are venial. Yet the fact that IK- at times acknowledges<br />
a kind <strong>of</strong> moral weakness is perhaps the chief reason<br />
why Seneca has been so <strong>of</strong>ten claimed as a Christian,<br />
while no such claim has ever been made for Plutarch<br />
\\lio sees no defects either in himself or bis<br />
doctrine<br />
The chief problem <strong>of</strong> philosophy has at all times<br />
been, how to make the judgment supreme in all mat<br />
ters that present themselves before the mind <strong>and</strong> how<br />
to make the will carry out the decisions <strong>of</strong> the critical<br />
faculty. When the poet says, Video meliora proboque,<br />
Deteriora sequor,"<br />
he is thinking <strong>of</strong> this irre<br />
pressible conflict. Paul himself was not a stranger to<br />
it, for he exclaims in a moment <strong>of</strong> self=abasement when<br />
The good which<br />
writing to Seneca s fellow citizens,<br />
I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not,<br />
that I practice/ He, too, finds within himself a<br />
"law,"<br />
a fact <strong>of</strong> human experience, that the flesh<br />
wars against the spirit; that the appetencies are<br />
hard<br />
to reconcile with the judgment. Seneca s own writ<br />
ings furnish abundant evidence that many who pro<br />
fessed to be philosophers used their intellects solely,<br />
or chiefly, in devising means for gratifying their de<br />
sires. To men <strong>of</strong> his way <strong>of</strong> thinking the Epicureans<br />
were a constant object <strong>of</strong> attack; yet the Epicureans<br />
were generally consistent from their point <strong>of</strong> view<br />
<strong>and</strong> in accordance with the postulates <strong>of</strong> their system.<br />
The allsimportant question with every man who is in<br />
the habit <strong>of</strong> giving an account to himself <strong>of</strong> his life<br />
is how to get the most out <strong>of</strong> it,- how to formulate<br />
a system <strong>of</strong> complete living. If the individual is the<br />
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