54 NOTES 



centuries later ; and there really seems no need to seek for the 

 causes of this dark view of life in the circumstances of the time 

 of Alexander's successors or of the early Emperors of Rome. To 

 the man with an ethical ideal, the world, including himself, will 

 always seem full of evil. 



Note 14 (p. 25). 



I use the well-known phrase, but decline responsibility for the 

 libel upon Epicurus, whose doctrines were far less compatible 

 with existence in a stye than those of the Cynics. If it were 

 steadily borne in mind that the conception of the ' flesh ' as the 

 source of evil, and that the great saying ' Initium est salutis 

 notitia peccati,' are the property of Epicurus, fewer illusions 

 about Epicureanism would pass muster for accepted truth. 



Note 15 (p. 27). 



The Stoics said that man was a wov \oyu<ov TroXiriKov 

 <t>i\d\\Tj\ov, or a rational, a political, and an altruistic, or philan- 

 thropic animal. In their view, his higher nature tended to 

 develope in these three directions as a plant tends to grow up 

 into its typical form. Since, without the introduction of any 

 consideration of pleasure or pain, whatever thwarted the realiza- 

 tion of its type by the plant might be said to be bad, and 

 whatever helped it good ; so virtue, in the Stoical sense, as the 

 conduct which tended to the attainment of the rational, political, 

 and philanthropic ideal, was good in itself, and irrespectively of 

 its emotional concomitants. 



Man is an "animal sociale communi bono genitum." The 

 safety of society depends upon practical recognition of the fact. 

 " Salva autem esse societas nisi custodia et amore partium non 

 possit," says Seneca. (De. Ira. ii. 31.) 



Note 16 (p. 27). 



The importance of the physical doctrine of the Stoics, lies in 

 its clear recognition of the universality of the law of causation, 

 with its corollary, the order of nature : the exact form of that 

 order is an altogether secondary consideration. 



