Rufus was unseasonable, as the result proved: but the attempt of Rufus was the act of a good man.
Rufus did not value Dialectic or Logic so highly as the old Stoics; but he did not undervalue it, and he taught that a man should learn how to deal with sophistical arguments, as we learn from Epictetus (I. c. 7 at the end).
In his teaching about the Gods he follows the general Stoic practice of maintaining the popular religion. He taught that nothing was unknown to the Gods: as Socrates (Xenophon, Mem. i. c. 1) taught that the Gods knew everything, what was said, what was done, and what men thought. He considered the souls of men to be akin to the Gods; but as they were mingled with the body, the soul must partake of the impurities of the body. The intelligent principle (διάνοια) is free from all necessity (compulsion) and self sufficient (αὐτεξούσιος). We can only conjecture that Rufus did not busy himself about either Dialectic or Physic; for he said that philosophizing was nothing else than an inquiry about what is becoming and conformable to duty; an inquiry which is conducted by reason, and the result is exhibited in practice.
The old Stoics considered virtue to be the property only of the wise man; and they even doubted whether such a man could be found. But Rufus said that it was not impossible for such a man to exist, for we cannot conceive such virtues as a wise man possesses otherwise than from the examples of human nature itself and by meeting with men such as those who are named divine and godlike. The Stoical doctrine that man should live according to nature is not pressed so hard by Rufus as by some Stoics, and he looks on a life which is conformable to nature as not very difficult; but he admits that those who attempt philosophy have been trained from youth in great corruption and filled with wickedness, and so when they seek after virtue they require more discipline or practice. Ac-
