Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE RIGOUR OF ITS ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES. 43This, then, was their view of Nature, ruled in allits parts by universal reason, which enters into theplay of elemental forces, and ordains the preestablishedharmony of the blind machinery whichit sets in motion, while it attains to consciousness inman,—and, strange to say, leaves room if not for hispersonal freedom as commonly conceived,at leastfor his responsibility of choice, as well as for devotionalfeeling towards the God of which he ishimself a part.It is man's privilege, they said, that he alone ofearthly beings has the gift of reason, can see thewisdom of the Providence which rules the world, and bein sympathy with its creative thought. He has, indeed,animal impulses and appetites like the lower creatureswhich surround him, which are left by Nature to suchguidance, but man should surely respecthis betterself and be ruled by the noblest faculty within him.By virtue of this he may claim relationshipwith theEternal Reason, and this identity will be the closerthe more he gives free play and scope to thedivine element of intellect within him. This must,indeed, one day, at the end of the world's course,be resolved into the universal substance into whichall things will then return, when all individual existencewill be lost ; but, meantime, men may last onafter death as separatesouls, be cleansed even as ina state of purgatory from the stains and pollutionsof the life on earth, and mount heavenward throughthe lower air tillthey reach a purer atmospherecongenial to their own ethereal nature, while the