of a truth which will subsequently be illustrated from Plutarch, Seneca, who is a Stoic of the Stoics, is full of praise for the noble and humane simplicity of the Epicurean ideal of life, and in those inspiring letters through which he directs the conscience of his friend Lucilius into the pure and pleasant ways of truth and virtue, it is an exceptional occurrence for him to conclude one of his moral lessons without quoting in its support the authority of the Master of the Garden. The absorbing interest of Plutarch as a moral philosopher lies mainly in the fact that though, as a polemical writer, he is an opponent, and not always a fair or judicious opponent, both of the Porch and the Garden,[1] he collects from any quarter any kind of
- [Footnote: various schools was, doubtless, largely due to the increasing importance
which they universally attached to Ethics. The fact, at any rate, is indisputable. Every history of Greek philosophy, from the Third Century onward, is freely scattered with such phrases as these from Ueberweg:—"The new Academy returned to Dogmatism. It commenced with Philo of Larissa, founder of the Fourth School. . . . His pupil, Antiochus of Ascalon, founded a Fifth School, by combining the doctrines of Plato with certain Aristotelian, and more particularly with certain Stoic theses, thus preparing the way for the transition to Neo-Platonism."—"In many of the Peripatetics of this late period we find an approximation to Stoicism."]
- ↑ As regards Epicureanism, see the Adversus Coloten, the De latenter vivendo, and the Non posse suaviter viri secundum Epicurum. Plutarch's polemic against Stoicism is specially developed in the three tracts, Stoicos absurdiora Poetis dicere, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, and De communibus Notitiis. Plutarch's attitude is purely critical: he is by no means constructive. His criticism has been severely dealt with by H. Bazin in his dissertation, De Plutarcho Stoicorum Adversario. It is worthy of note that Plutarch deals entirely with the founders of the two schools, not with the later developments of their teachings.
