possessed; but this would not be the
development of philosophy. His views, interesting as they are, and
generally wise and lofty, do not indicate any progress of the science.
He merely repeats earlier doctrines. These were not without their
utility, since they had great influence on the Latin fathers of the
Christian Church. He was esteemed for his general enlightenment. He
softened down the extreme views of the great thinkers before his day,
and clearly unfolded what had become obscured. He was a critic of
philosophy, an expositor whom we can scarcely spare.

If anybody advanced philosophy among the Romans it was Epictetus, and
even he only in the realm of ethics. Quintius Sextius, in the time of
Augustus, had revived the Pythagorean doctrines. Seneca had recommended
the severe morality of the Stoics, but added nothing that was not
previously known.

The greatest light among the Romans was the Phrygian slave Epictetus,
who was born about fifty years after the birth of Jesus Christ, and
taught in the time of the Emperor Domitian. Though he did not leave any
written treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down by his
disciple Arrian, who had for him the reverence that Plato had for
Socrates. The loftiness of his recorded views has made some to think
that he must have been indebted to Christianity, for no one before him
revealed precepts so much in accordance with its spirit. He was a Stoic,
but he held in the highest estimation Socrates and Plato. It is not for
the solution of metaphysical questions that he was remarkable. He was
not a dialectician, but a moralist, and as such takes the highest ground
of all the old inquirers after truth. With him, as to Cicero and Seneca,
philosophy is the wisdom of life. He sets no value on logic, nor much on
physics; but he reveals sentiments of great simplicity and grandeur. His
great idea is the purification of the soul. He believes in the severest
self-denial; he would guard against the siren spells of pleasure; he
would make men feel that in order to be good they must first feel that
they are evil. He condemns suicide, although it had been defended by the
Stoics. He would complain of no one, not even as to injustice; he would
not injure his enemies; he would pardon all offences; he would feel
universal compassion, since men sin from ignorance; he would not easily
blame, since we have none to condemn but ourselves. He would not strive
after honor or office, since we pu