Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/215

 thus accused him of irreligion. So far as concerns the views expounded in the treatise, it appears to us that the alarm of Amyot is justified. But Amyot, who knew his Plutarch well, should have observed that there is a note of rhetoric in this work which is totally different from the teacher's usually quiet and unimpassioned method of argument. There is an emphasis, an exaggeration, of everything that tells against the victim of Superstition, a restraint, a gentleness in minimizing the faults which could have been made into a serious indictment against Atheism. This, as we know, is not Plutarch's favourite method of discussion. In ordinary circumstances an Epicurean would have attacked Superstition, a Stoic would have inveighed against Atheism, and an Academic friend of Plutarch's would have taken the judicial mean. As a matter of fact, however, Plutarch—and he connects his own name with the argument in the most emphatic manner—assumes a position in this tract scarcely discrepant from the peculiarly Epicurean attitude. From this point of view, Wyttenbach's epithet of vere Plutarcheus applied to the tract is incorrect, and even Wyttenbach admits the possibility that Plutarch may have written