his arrogance, great as it is, is not bent upon disturbing others, it allows a certain gentle approach and does not wish to mar anybody's good humour—nay, it can even smile. So much antique humanness is exemplified in this ideal. But the most beautiful feature of it is that it is altogether free from the fear of God, that it strictly believes in reason, that it is no preacher of penitence. Epictetus was a slave; his ideal man is without vocation, and may exist in any vocation, but he will first and foremost be found in the lowest social strata as the silent, self-sufficient man in the midst of a general enslavement who practises self-defence against the outside world and is constantly living in a state of supreme fortitude. He differs from the Christian inasmuch as the latter lives in hope, in the promise of “unspeakable glories”; as he allows himself to be presented, expecting and accepting the best things from divine love and grace, and not from himself; while Epictetus neither hopes nor allows his best treasure to be given to him—he possesses it, he bravely upholds it, he disputes it to the whole world if they mean to deprive him thereof. Christianity was made for another class of ancient slaves, for those who have a weak will and reason, hence, for the majority of slaves.
547
The tyrants of the intellect.—In our days the advancement of science is no longer thwarted by the casual fact that man attains an age of about seventy years, as was the
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