Note (return) — Chapter XV

During the grand Platonic period human reason made its loftiest flight, it rose aloft and soared towards heaven, but alas! its wings, like those of Icarus, melted in the sun and it fell to earth again. Instead of wax it needed the strong "eagle pinions of faith" which revelation only can supply. The decadence is strongly marked both in the Epicurean and Stoic schools. They both express the feeling of exhaustion, disappointment, and despair. The popular theology had lost its hold upon the public mind. The gods no longer visited the earth. "The mysterious voice which, according to the poetic legend related by Plutarch, was heard out at sea--'Great Pan is dead'--rose up from every heart; the voice of an incredulous age proclaimed the coming end of paganism. The oracles were dumb." There was no vision in the land. All faith in a beneficent overruling Providence was lost, and the hope of immortality was well-nigh gone. The doctrines of a resurrection and a judgment to come, were objects of derisive mockery. 921 Philosophy directed her attention solely to the problem of individual well-being on earth; it became simply a philosophy of life, and not, as with Plato, "a preparation for death." The grosser minds sought refuge in the doctrines of Epicurus. They said, "Pleasure is the chief good, the end of life is to enjoy yourself;" to this end "dismiss the fear of gods, and, above all, the fear of death." The nobler souls found an asylum with the Stoics. They said, "Fata nos ducunt--The Fates lead us! Live conformable to reason. Endure and abstain!" Notwithstanding numerous and serious errors, the ethical system of the Stoics was wonderfully pure. This must be confessed by any one who reads the "Enchiridion" of Epictetus, and the "Meditations" of Aurelius. "The highest end of life is to contemplate truth and to obey the Eternal Reason. God is to be reverenced above all things, and universally submitted to. The noblest office of reason is to subjugate passion and conduct to virtue. Virtue is the supreme good, which is to be pursued for its own sake, and not from fear or hope. That is sufficient for happiness which is seated only in the mind, and therefore independent of external things. The consciousness of well-doing is reward enough without the applause of others. And no fear of loss, or pain, or even death, must be suffered to turn us aside from truth and virtue." 922