Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

172 SENECAat the back of them, because he recognises thesomething in every man that either controls orchecks or yields to them, his characters seem to usmodern and natural, and Jonson's, because hecannot do this, mechanical and obsolete. Seneca,with his constant desire to see with his own eyesthings as they are and not as they are reputed to be— to remove the mask from things as well as frompersons— has the same power.^ We never have toplead the opinions of his time as an apology forany opinion he holds. We may agree with himor disagree, but it is a Hving voice we hear— nevera mere echo. For Reason being universal andabsolute, independent of time and place, and of thehumours of mankind, the voice of Reason, no matterfrom what distance of space or time, reaches usas a living voice. We feel our kindred with thespeaker however great an interval may separateus from his physical presence. We recogniseand greet in him our common nature, for this isthe true nature of man, the X0709— the'spiritof the New Testament as 'opposed to the flesh,'the seed, the new birth, the divine spark, the realhumanity.Seneca defines wisdom —as constancy of will'semper idem velle atque idem nolle.' There is nodanger, he adds, lest this constancy should have awrong object, since it is impossible that anythingbut what is right should at all times please us.There must be but one same efficient motive to'^'Ep. 24 Illud ante omnia memento, demere rebus:tumultum, ac videre quid in quaque re sit : scies nihil esse inistis terribile nisiipsum timorem.— Non hominibus tantum, sadet rebus persona demenda est, et rgddenda fades sua.'