makes our happiness to centre, not in the check which the passion receives, but in the passion itself which is checked. Epicurism admits that our passions must be restrained, restrained on account of prudential considerations, or because their overindulgence would entail on us a balance of lasting misery greater than the transient happiness which that over-indulgence had bestowed. Both systems agree in holding that the passions must be held in check and prevented from running into excess. But they differ in this respect in their doctrines concerning happiness. It is in virtue of the check, says the Stoic, that man attains to felicity. The limit is the essential constituent in man's wellbeing. The passion itself is the accidental, the non-essential The limit is the important factor. The passion itself and its indulgence are insignificant. In other words, man's happiness is composed of two elements: a desire or impulse, and a limit or boundary to that impulse. I maintain, says the Stoic, that the limit, and not the impulse, is the primary constituent, is the more important element of the two. On the other hand, the Epicurean argues that the passion, desire, or impulse, and not the limit, is the fundamental and essential constituent. This is the primary element; the check which the impulse receives is accidental, and non-essential to the constitution of our happiness. It is due entirely to prudential considerations, and is not involved, as the Stoics maintain, in the very conception of rational happiness and
