Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/156

 146 movement of human thought, which has affected the world profoundly. One line of its influence is seen in Aristotle, who, in spite of all his differences, was strongly influenced by the doctrine of real essences. Another line of Socrates's influence is seen in Stoicism.

Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, was a native of Cyprus, perhaps a merchant, who was shipwrecked on a certain voyage, and as a result of this apparent misfortune turned to philosophy. Men who wanted to be philosophers were likely to come to Athens in those days, two or three generations after Socrates, Zeno, being at Athens, one day sat down, so the story goes, by a bookseller's stall, where the bookseller was reading aloud from a book of Xenophon, the "Memorabilia," which described the conversations of Socrates. Greatly interested, Zeno inquired of the bookseller where such men as Socrates lived. Just at that moment Crates, a good man, a poor man, who formed his life on the life of Socrates, was passing by. The bookseller pointed to him, saying: "Follow this man." Zeno rose up and followed Crates; and the result was that Socrates's belief in the supremacy of reason and in the human soul and in the value of human life and freedom profoundly affected the teaching of Zeno. We may not search out now the other influences felt in Stoicism. The scientific, religious, and logical doctrines of this school are very important, and their development is interesting. But certainly the Socratic thought is strongly felt in this famous school.

Four or five centuries later, Epictetus, a slave (afterward a freedman), and Marcus Aurelius, an emperor of Rome, in their meditations or conversations on human life show the living flame of thought which was kindled in Socrates, and handed down from him for many generations. We are apt to think of Stoics as men who crushed all their feelings, and went about the world with solemn faces and sad hearts, bearing trouble as they might. But the best Stoics of all times cared much for human nature and human freedom. They