be supposed to say, Indulge the passions, subject to certain limitations. The Stoic, again, who regards the restraint and not the passion as the essential in the practice of virtue, lays the emphasis on the restraint, and may be supposed to say, Restrain the passions, subject to certain indulgences. In the latter case restraint is laid down as the rule and indulgence as the exception; in the former case indulgence is laid down as the rule and restraint as the exception.
37. Taking this view of the fundamental characteristics by which Stoicism and Epicurism are distinguished from each other, we may easily understand how liable either system is to be driven to an extreme. Although the two systems are founded on very different principles, and arise out of estimates of human nature essentially distinct, inasmuch as the one makes man's true nature to centre in the spirit and the reason, and the other in the flesh and the passions, they have, nevertheless, much in common, in so far as their practical instructions are concerned. They both lead to the same result in inculcating, as they both do, the government and subordination of the passions. At the same time, from the explanations given—explanations, you will bear in mind, which turn on the one party regarding as unessential what the other party regards as essential—from these explanations you may, as I have said, readily understand how susceptible either system is of being pushed to an extreme. Let the accidental
