Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

88 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMin order that other things in continuous successionmay exist."Looking at these four together, Seneca, Musonius,Epictetus, and M. Aurelius, we find them coincide inthe following points. Philosophy as the rule of lifetakes the place of religion, and its office is to restorea sick humanity. It has the means to accomplishthis purpose by enjoining and practising a life accordingto nature, or reason. For the dignity of manconsists in possessing reason, which is an effluence, ora portion, of " the divine." And, therefore, the earth isa city common to gods and men, who are all of them,and they alone, in possession of reason. And in consequenceof this, men possess equal rights, and differfrom each other in moral worth and real value onlyaccording to the degree in which they live in correspondencewith reason. And the universe, beingthis great city of gods and men, which is ruled by aninflexible reason, the absolute submission of the partto the whole, of the individual man to the course ofthe world, is the first duty, encompassing human lifeth a never-ceasing pressure. Moreover, from tjoint possession of reason by men the duty of beneficenceand humanity in its widest extent is deduced:and it is chiefly in the enforcing this duty, in the kindlinessand even tenderness of tone which they assumeherein, that these writers differ so widely both fromtheir own school before them, and all preceding philosophers.While, however, the expansion of their viewin this respect is remarkable, for it is indeed the culminatingpoint of Greek intelligence as to the social1 M. Aurelius, Medit. x. 31 ; v. 13 ; iv. 21 ; xii. 5 ; xii. 21. Otherpassages referring to man's state after death are, ii. 17 ; v. 33 ; viii. 18;ix. 32; x. 7; xi. 3; xii. i, 31, 32.