may reveal as conducive to the general good, taking care, by the strict governance of his own passions, to avoid all those excesses by which the social order is violated, and the wellbeing of the state impaired. Should, however, the constitution of society be such that its amendment is hopeless, in that case it is the duty of the wise man to adjust himself as well as he can to the adverse circumstances in which he is placed, to make the best of a bad position, and to acquiesce in the arrangements by which he is environed, not doubting that Providence has some wise end to fulfil in permitting the continuance of a state of things so much at variance with the short-sighted wisdom of man. For this, a resignation to the will of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, a bringing of the human will into subjection to whatever He may have ordained, this conformity with the divine law is what the Stoics inculcate as the highest species of virtue. So that, in laying down a conformity with nature as the rule of life, and as the road to virtue and happiness, the doctrine of the Stoics is, that the wise man first conforms to his own nature, adjusts himself in such a way as not to violate the economy of his own constitution; secondly, he conforms to the law of society, that is to say, he so adjusts himself to the world by which he is surrounded, as not to violate by any passionate excess the fundamental principles by which society is held together, and if he cannot amend or improve this society, he at any rate takes care not to make it worse than it is; and,
