Epictetus did not go into the dreary dialectics of the schools, but, like Socrates, confined himself to practical life,—­to the practice of virtue as the greatest good,—­and valued the joys of true intellectual independence.  To him his mind was his fortune, and he desired no better.  We do not find in the stoicism of the Phrygian slave the devout and lofty spiritualism of Plato,—­thirsting for God and immortality; it may be doubted whether he believed in immortality at all:  but he did recognize what is most noble in human life,—­the subservience of the passions to reason, the power of endurance, patience, charity, and disinterested action.  He did recognize the necessity of divine aid in the struggles of life, the glory of friendship, the tenderness of compassion, the power of sympathy.  His philosophy was human, and it was cheerful; since he did not believe in misfortune, and exalted gentleness and philanthropy.  Above everything, he sought inward approval, not the praises of the world,—­that happiness which lies within one’s self, in the absence of all ignoble fears, in contentment, in that peace of the mind which can face poverty, disease, exile, and death.

Such were the lofty views which, embodied in the discourses of Epictetus, fell into the hands of Marcus Aurelius in the progress of his education, and exercised such a great influence on his whole subsequent life.  The slave became the teacher of the emperor,—­which it is impossible to conceive of unless their souls were in harmony.  As a Stoic, the emperor would not be less on his throne than the slave in his cottage.  The trappings and pomps of imperial state became indifferent to him, since they were external, and were of small moment compared with that high spiritual life which he desired to lead.  If poverty and pain were nothing to Epictetus, so grandeur and power and luxury should be nothing to him,—­both alike being merely outward things, like the clothes which cover a man.  And the fewer the impediments in the march after happiness and truth the better.  Does a really great and preoccupied man care what he wears?  “A shocking bad hat” was perhaps as indifferent to Gladstone as a dirty old cloak was to Socrates.  I suppose if a man is known to be brainless, it is necessary for him to wear a disguise,—­even as instinct prompts a frivolous and empty woman to put on jewels.  But who expects a person recognized as a philosopher to use a mental crutch or wear a moral mask?  Who expects an old man, compelling attention by his wisdom, to dress like a dandy?  It is out of place; it is not even artistic,—­it is ridiculous.  That only is an evil which shackles the soul.  Aurelius aspired to its complete emancipation.  Not for the joys of a future heaven did he long, but for the realities and certitudes of earth,—­the placidity and harmony and peace of his soul, so long as it was doomed to the trials and temptations of the world, and a world, too, which he did not despise, but which he sought to benefit.