49 
short notes of ninety-five of these conversations. For the use 
of friends and disciples in Rome, he condensed these again into 
a small book, which gives the essence of the teaching of 
Epictetus. This was known in Latin as “ The Manual;” in 
Greek as ‘‘ The Encheiridion.” Both names mean the same 
thing, ‘‘ that which is to be constantly in the hand.” And in 
those dark days it was constantly in the hands of people whose 
lives were insecure from day to day, and it has been constantly 
in the hands of disciples of Epictetus to this day. These books 
were the spiritual food which sustained Rome’s noblest men and 
women, who under Nero and Domitian suffered the worst 
extremes of human fortnne. 
During the Reign of Terror the Stoics suffered heavily. ‘To 
their honour, they protested firmly when duty demanded, against 
public misgovernment and private vice, each with the certainty 
that sooner or later an officer of the Emperor’s guard would wait 
on him at his house with an order for immediate death, or might 
meet him in the street and take him at once to the nearest con- 
venient shambles. The noblest Roman Stoics did not spare 
themselves, nor would the women be prevented from sharing the 
fate of those they loved. When better times came the Stoics 
were rewarded for their unflinching devotion to the cause of public 
and private virtue, by obtaining a wide influence in the state and 
in society, and many then figured as Stoics who had nothing but 
the name to recommend them. ‘ The Manual” was still widely 
read. Marcus Aurelius recalls it as one of the happy events of 
his life that one of his teachers had put it into his hand and had 
encouraged him to study it. The noble Pagan Puritans who 
were the glory of Rome in those dark days were formed and 
strengthened by the words ofa teacher who had himself faced 
and overcome the trials they had to face and overcome. And as 
his teaching was directed to immediate practical needs which his 
auditors brought to his notice, the whole of his discourses, with 
the exception of a few which turn on logical points, are easily 
readable to-day with profit, by any ordinary general reader. 
I shall confine myself in this paper to one aspect of my 
subject—the great rule of life which produced the fine character 
of the Stoic sect. This rule is contained in the formula, ‘ Live 
according to Nature.’’ What, then, did they mean by “ Nature ?’» 
Sometimes they spoke of “ Nature,” sometimes of ‘The 
Universe ;” sometimes they used the language of the everyday 
Roman and spoke of ‘Jupiter,’ sometimes of ‘‘ The Gods,” 
sometimes of “God.” But these names all refer to the same 
thing. They pictured to themselves a subtle fiery «ther, from 
which all things were produced, which pervaded and sustained 
all things, to which all things return, 
