mind rather as an object of dread than of affection
or of confidence.

In such a situation the Stoics and Epicureans took
different courses. The Stoic accepted the belief, and
even carried it out to its extreme consequence. The
rolling world, he said, is a living indivisible being, con-
trolling the movements of all its parts and fixing their
relation, so that nothing can take place unforeseen,
because every event is the inevitable consequent of a
chain of causes and a group of conditions which are
all in the grasp and guidance of the universe. And
yet the Stoical sage asserts his superiority to fate by
affirming its decrees as his own. The Epicurean, on
the other hand, rejects the notion of a single all-em-
bracing universe. There are worlds beyond worlds,
but they form no united and rounded system. When
a man looks outside himself he finds only an aggre-
gate of details, a mass of particulars like himself.
There is no order in the universe irrevocably fixing
his place and duty; for the universe is in a ceaseless
process of change, and will not be to-morrow what it
is to-day. A man, therefore, need not be dismayed.
The worlds beyond worlds, which he might see in
thought if he followed his teacher, are even as the
world in which he lives. There is no far-off tyrant or
demogorgon in the recesses of the unseen; only other
worlds, and lucid interspaces between, where tranquil
Gods lead a life of serenity, and meddle not with the
ways of men.

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