Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

196 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMsopher, they would not have given themselves up tosuch courses. As the gardener plucks the weed fromthe field, so the philosopher plucks the bad impulsesof envy, avarice, concupiscence out of the youthful soul,though it must be done sometimes with deep cutswhich leave wounds behind. In other cases he workscautiously, as the pruner trims the vine, in order notto cut out the noble together v^J with the base." lFrom these expressions of Plutarch and from Epic-tetus it is apparent that in their time philosophy hadcompletely assumed that function of forming the inwardlife which we assign to religion. Cicero indeedrecognised it as the guide of life. Seneca is neverweary of extolling it as such. Further also, thephilosopher2 being esteemed not merely as a giver oflessons but as an educator, as one really charged witha cure of souls, necessarily considered it his duty toadvance by every means in his power the moral growthof his scholar outside the ordinary time of instruction.By consequence he assumed a right of supervisionover the whole conduct which was exercised by givingcounsel and exhortation, warning and reproof.We have some remarkable instances of this preservedto us. Thus Seneca described himself in his youth,in the reign of Tiberius, as the first to attend theschool of Attalus, and the last to leave it. Andfurthermore: he followed Attalus with questions inhis walks, where he found him not only ready, butanxious for learners. And he quotes him as sayingthat the teacher and the taught should have the samepurpose before them, the one to impart, the other toreceive, good. He adds that one who frequents a1 Plutarch, De Ednc. Pucr. cap. x. 7 ; DC Vitioso Pudorc, cap. ii2 Friedlaender, iii. 587.