From Epicurus to Christ, a study in the principles of personality
talents and meagre technical equipment succeed, where others with greater ability and better preparation fail; why some women with plain features and few accomplishments charm, while others with all the advantages of beauty and cultivation repel, we are wont to conceal our ignorance behind the vague term personality.
Undoubtedly the deeper springs of personality are below the threshold of consciousness, in hereditary traits and early training. Still, some of the higher elements of personality rise above this threshold, are reducible to philosophical principles and are amenable to rational control.
The five centuries from the birth of Socrates to the death of Jesus produced five such principles: the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure, genial but ungenerous; the Stoic law of self-control, strenuous but forbidding; the Platonic plan of subordination, sublime but ascetic; the Aristotelian sense of proportion, practical but uninspiring; and Christian Spirit of love, broadest and deepest of them all.
The purpose of this book is to let the masters of these sane and wholesome principles of personality talk to us in their own words; with just enough comment and interpretation to bring us to their points of view, and make us welcome their friendly assistance in the philosophical guidance of life.
Some contents of the book:
CHAPTER I
THE EPICUREAN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE
THE EPICUREAN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE
PAGE
I. Selections from the Epicurean Scriptures . . I
II. The Epicurean View of Work and Play . . 20
III. The Epicurean Price of Happiness ... 29
IV. The Defects of Epicureanism 3 6
V. An Example of Epicurean Character. 46
VI. The Confessions of an Epicurean Heretic . . 53
CHAPTER II
STOIC SELF-CONTROL BY LAW
STOIC SELF-CONTROL BY LAW
I. The Psychological Law of Apperception . . 66
II. Selections from the Stoic Scriptures . . 7 1
III. The Stoic Reverence for Universal Law . . 82
IV. The Stoic Solution of the Problem of Evil. 87
V. The Stoic Paradoxes . . -9
V. The Stoic Paradoxes . . -9
VI. The Religious Aspect of Stoicism . . 95 v
VII. The Permanent Value of Stoicism . . . 101
VIII. The Defects of Stoicism Io6
VIII. The Defects of Stoicism Io6
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