ascendancy of the reason as altogether to extinguish the affections. The
Peripatetics and many other philosophers, who derived their opinions
chiefly from Plato, endeavoured to soften down the exaggeration of these
principles. They admitted that virtue was an object wholly distinct from
interest, and that it should be the leading motive of life; but they
maintained that happiness was also a good, and a certain regard for it
legitimate. They admitted that virtue consisted in the supremacy of the
reason over the affections, but they allowed the exercise of the latter
within restricted limits. The main distinguishing features, however, of
stoicism, the unselfish ideal and the controlling reason, were
acquiesced in, and each represents an important side of the ancient
conception of excellence which we must now proceed to examine.

In the first we may easily trace the intellectual expression of the high
spirit of self-sacrifice which the patriotic enthusiasm had elicited.
The spirit of patriotism has this peculiar characteristic, that while it
has evoked acts of heroism which are both very numerous and very
sublime, it has done so without presenting any prospect of personal
immortality as a reward. Of all the forms of human heroism, it is
probably the most unselfish. The Spartan and the Roman died for his
country because he loved it. The martyr's ecstasy of hope had no place
in his dying hour. He gave up all he had, he closed his eyes, as he
believed, for ever, and he asked for no reward in this world or in the
next. Even the hope of posthumous fame--the most refined and
supersensual of all that can be called reward--could exist only for the
most conspicuous leaders. It was examples of this nature that formed the
culminations or ideals of ancient systems of virtue, and they naturally
led men to draw a very clear and deep distinction between the notions of
interest and of duty. It may indeed be truly said, that while the
conception of what constituted duty was often very imperfect in