Page:The religion of Plutarch, a pagan creed of apostolic times; an essay (IA religionofplutar00oakeiala).pdf/69

 By the method of placing in continuous order certain common and well-known indications, we have endeavoured to illustrate the view that the natural development of Greek Philosophy led in the direction of Ethics, and that the natural development of Ethics led in the direction of a popular scheme of conduct, which, fragmentary and incomplete as it might be in a scientific sense, had yet the advantage that it was founded upon the common daily life of the ordinary man, and placed before the ordinary man in his common daily life an ideal of virtue which, by efforts not beyond his strength, he might realize and maintain. This type of character, partly the growth of the circumstances of the time, but strengthened and expanded by the manner in which Epicureanism adapted itself to those circumstances, reacted upon the sterner conception of the Stoic ideal of private virtue, and when we reach the revival of Religion and Philosophy in the Græco-Roman world of the Empire, it is this ideal which is the aim and end of every philosopher from Seneca to Marcus Aurelius, from Plutarch to Apuleius, no matter what the particular label they may attach to their doctrines to indicate their formal adhesion to one of the great classical schools. To take an extreme example

virtues of companionableness, compatibility, friendliness, gentleness, beneficence, and gratitude, and so performed a work whose merit we should be careful not to under-estimate."—: Grundriss. Cf. the Epicurean ideal are also realized in Horace's character, as his writings have left it to us.]*
 * [Footnote: and exclusiveness of ancient manners, and in cultivating the social
 * Sat., I. iv. 135—"dulcis amicis." The other elements of