from beyond the seas with the freedom of his native city." And so this treatise on the Ends of Life—a grave question even to the most careless thinker—is, from the nature of the case, both dramatic and rhetorical. Representatives of the two great schools of philosophy—the Stoics and Epicureans—plead and counterplead in his pages, each in their turn; and their arguments are based on principles broad and universal enough to be valid even now. For now, as then, men are inevitably separated into two classes—amiable men of ease, who guide their conduct by the rudder-strings of pleasure—who for the most part "leave the world" (as has been finely said) "in the world's debt, having consumed much and produced nothing;"[1] or, on the other hand, zealous men of duty,—
and act according to the dictates of their honour or their conscience. In practice, if not in theory, a man must be either Stoic or Epicurean.
Each school, in this dialogue, is allowed to plead its own cause. "Listen" (says the Epicurean) "to the voice of nature that bids you pursue pleasure, and do not be misled by that vulgar conception of pleasure as mere sensual enjoyment; our opponents misrepresent us when they say that we advocate this as the highest good; we hold, on the contrary, that men often obtain the greatest pleasure by neglecting this baser kind. Your highest instances of martyrdom—of Decii devoting themselves for their country, of consuls
- ↑ Lord Derby.
