The Chief End of Man | Page 4

discipline of
suffering emerges the noblest character, and over the grave itself play
gleams of hope, faint but celestial.
In Socrates, we see the man who having in himself attained a solid and
noble goodness, addresses all his powers to finding a clear road by
which all men may be led into goodness. He first propounds in
clearness the most important question of humanity,--how shall man by
reason and by will become master of life?

Plato takes up the question after him, and follows it with an intellect
unequaled in its imaginative flight. Plato lighted the fire which has
burned high in the enthusiasts of the spirit,--the mystics, the dreamers,
the idealists.
Aristotle confined himself to the homelier province where
demonstration is possible, and laid the foundation of logic and of
natural science.
Lucretius resolutely puts away from him the whole pageant of fictitious
religion. He scouts its terrors, and scorns to depend on unreal
consolation. He addresses himself to the intellectual problem of the
universe, and decides that all is ruled by material laws.
In Epictetus man reverts from the problem of the universe to the
problem of the soul. The beauty of the Greek world has faded, the stern
Roman world has trained its best spirits to live with resolute
self-mastery. The mythologic gods are no longer worth talking about
for serious men. But here is the great actual business of living,--it can
be met in manly temper, and be made a scene of lofty satisfaction and
serene tranquillity.
Epictetus was the consummate expression of that Stoic philosophy in
which were blended the clearness of Greek thought and the austerity of
the best Roman life. Stoicism reverted from all universe-schemes,
spiritual or materialist, to the conduct of human life which Socrates had
propounded as the essential theme. The Stoic affirmed that all good and
evil reside for man in his own will, and that simply in always choosing
the right rather than the wrong he may find supreme satisfaction.
Epictetus expresses this in the constant tone of heroism and victory. In
the more feminine nature of Marcus Aurelius the same ideas yield a
beautiful fidelity along with a habitual sadness.
Stoicism was the noblest attainment of the Greek-Roman world. It was
a clear and fearless application of reason to human life, with little
attempt to solve the mystery of the universe. It gave an ideal and rule to
thoughtful, robust, and masculine natures. It made small provision for
the ignorant, the weak, or the feminine. Its watchwords were Reason,

Nature, Will.
The distinction of the Hebrew development was that the higher minds
took up the popular mythology, elevated and purified it. The Hebrew
genius was not intellectual but ethical and emotional. The typical
Hebrew guide was not a philosopher but a prophet. Through a
development of many centuries the popular religion from polytheistic
became monotheistic, and from worshiping the sun and fire came to
worship an embodiment of righteousness and of supreme power. An
ideal of character grew up--in close association with religious worship
and ceremonial--in which the central virtues were justice, benevolence,
and chastity. The sentiments of the family, the nation, and the church
were fused in one. Its outward expression was an elaborate ceremonial.
Its heart was a passion which in one direction dashed the little province
against the whole power of Rome; in another channel, preserved a
people intact and separate through twenty centuries of dispersal and
subjection; while, in another aspect, it gave birth to Jesus and to
Christianity.
Jesus was one of the great spiritual geniuses of the race,--so far as we
know, the greatest. The highest ideas of Judaism he sublimated,
intensified, and expressed in universal forms. Indifferent to the
ceremonial of his people, he taught that the essence of religion lay in
spirit and in conduct.
The holy and awful Deity was to him a tender Father. The whole duty
of man to man was love. Chastity of the body was exalted to purity of
the heart. He lived close to the common people; taught, helped, healed
them; caressed their children, pitied their outcasts, laid hands on the
lepers, and calmed the insane. He brooded on the expectation of some
great future which earlier seers had impressed on the popular thought,
and saw as in prophetic vision the near approach of the perfect triumph
of holiness and love. Overshadowed by danger, his hope and faith
menaced as by denying Fate, he rallied from the shock, trusted the
unseen Power, and went serenely to a martyr's death.
Jesus had roused a passion of personal devotion among the poor, the
ignorant, the true-hearted whom he had taught and called. When he was

dead, that devotion flamed out in the assertion, He lives again! We
have seen him! He will speedily return! The Jewish belief in a