CHAPTER I

THE PHILOSOPHIC DIRECTOR

The great change in the motive and character of philosophy—The schools forsook metaphysical speculation, and devoted themselves to the cultivation of character—Why faith in abstract thought declined, and the conduct of life became all important—The effect of the loss of free civic life and the establishment of world-empires—The commonwealth of man—The great _ars vivendi_—Spiritual directors before the imperial times—They are found in every great family—The power of Seneca as a private director of souls—How his career and experience prepared him for the office—He had seen the inner life of the time, its sensuality, degradation, and remorse—He was himself an ascetic, living in a palace which excited Nero’s envy—His experience excited an evangelistic passion—His conception of philosophy as the art of saving souls—His contempt for unpractical speculation—Yet he values Physics for its moral effect in elevating the mind to the region of eternal truth—Curious examples of physical study for moral ends—The pessimism of Seneca—Its causes in the inner secrets of his class—It is a lost world which must be saved by every effort—Stoicism becomes transfigured by moral enthusiasm—Yet can philosophic religion dispense with dogma?—Empirical rules of conduct are not enough—There must be true theory of conduct—Seneca not a rigorous dogmatist—His varying conceptions of God—Often mingles Platonic conceptions with old Stoic doctrine—But all old Stoic doctrine can be found in him—“The kingdom of Heaven is within”—Freedom is found in renunciation, submission to the Universal Reason—Whence comes the force of self-reform?—The problem of freedom and necessity—How man may attain to moral freedom—The struggle to recover a primeval virtue—Modifications of old Stoic theory—The ideal _sapiens_—Instantaneous conversion—Ideas fatal to practical moral reform—For practical purposes, Stoic theory must be modified—The _sapiens_ a mythical figure—There may be various stages of moral progress—Aristotelian ideas—Seneca himself far from the ideal of the Stoic sage—The men for whom Seneca is providing counsel—How their weaknesses have to be dealt with—The “ars vitae” develops into casuistry in the hands of the director—Obstacles in the way to the higher life—Seneca’s skill in dealing with different cases—His precepts for reform—Necessity of confession, self-examination, steadiness of purpose, self-denial—_Vivere militare est_—The real victor—The mind can create its own world, and triumph even over death—Seneca’s not the Cynic ideal of moral isolation—Competing tendencies in Stoicism—Isolated renunciation and social sympathy—A citizen of two cities—The great commonwealth of humanity—The problem of serving God and man variously solved by the Stoics—Seneca’s ideas of social duty—Social instinct innate—Duty of help, forgiveness, and kindness to others—The example of the Infinite Goodness—The brotherhood of man includes the slave—Seneca’s attitude to slavery—His ideal of womanhood—Women may be the equals of men in culture and virtue—The greatness of Seneca as a moral teacher—He belongs to the modern world, and was claimed by the Church—A pagan Thomas à Kempis

Pages 289-333

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