Page:All the works of Epictetus - which are now extant; consisting of his Discourses, preserved by Arrian, in four books, the Enchiridion, and fragments (IA allworksofepicte00epic).pdf/11



HE Stoic Sect was founded by Zeno, about three hundred Years before the Christian Æra: and flourished in great Reputation, till the Declension of the Roman Empire. A complete History of this Philosophy would be the Work of a large Volume: and nothing further is intended here, than such a summary View of it, as may be of Use to give a clearer Notion of those Passages in Epictetus, a strict Professor of it, which allude to some of its peculiar Doctrines.

§. 2. That the End of Man is to live conformably to Nature, was universally agreed on amongst all the Philosophers: but, in what that Conformity to Nature consists, was the Point in Dispute. The Epicureans maintained, that it consisted in Pleasure; of which they constituted Sense the Judge. The Stoics, on the contrary, placed it in an absolute Per-