Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

STOICISM. 143CHAPTER X.SENECA ASA MORALIST.It has been said with truth that, as an author, Senecashould be regarded rather as a spiritual director thanas a systematic moralist ;his writings are not dogmatictreatises, but moral sermons. But the sameremark applies, in a great measure, to many of thephilosophers of the later Roman world. The earlierHellenic seekers after wisdom, while speculative interestswere strong, indulged their subtletyof witand spent much of their strength in abstract questions,which had often a merely controversial value.The greatest of them kept to the serene heights ofgeneral theory, seldom coming down into the hotpress and conflict of real life, to deal with the detailsof human action.But in the first and second centuries of our era,philosophy became for the most part religious in itstone, and earnestly practical in its appealsto intellectand heart. It aspired not only to furnish strugglingmen with an authoritative standard, but to guideand help and strengthen them in their efforts toattain it. To explain this itchange, would not beenough to point to the practical temper of the Romanas compared with that of the more speculative Greek.