Page:Encheiridion of Epictetus - Rolleston 1881.pdf/34

xxviii isolate us from the living activities around us, in which it is possible to say with real and full assent, 'Whatever harmonises well with thee, O universe, harmonises well with me.' That this feeling can hardly arise except when the love of the individual is embraced in the vaster love of the All, of God, we may readily admit. For the pantheistic faith, giving full place to such a feeling, which was actually held by most of the old Stoics, is but the natural outgrowth of their analysis of our daily experience.

Here we touch upon greater issues than those which concern the mere safe-conduct of our moral life. But, in this place at least, these issues shall be pursued no further. Everywhere in Epictetus his faith in transcendental religion may be discerned, but that religion is never formulated; it exists as in a state of solution; and if it should ever be desirable to crystallise it into a system, a preface to the Encheiridion