Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SENECA 165jectively as neither good nor evil in themselves,save through the opinion we form of them, mustbe reckoned in Seneca's philosophy our own ""bodies, in which as in boats we travel so strangely. \from port to port. In these bodies is sown the \>^\2divine seed which develops or decays, according-^to the soil in which it isplanted and the cultivationit receives. If the seed prospers and a reasonablesoul isengendered this is the real man-spiritstill cleaving, like a sun-ray, to its divine origin,and his body but the case in which the jewel lies,indispensable certainly to his appearance in thephysical world, as the instrument is indispensableto the heard melody, but no more the source fromwhich he springs than the violin on which it isplayed is that of a sonata of Beethoven, or theground on which the sun's rays shine is that of light. ^This complete separation in thought of our spiritual ';:selves from the few pounds of matter in which