We are not surprised to find that the Stoics and Epicureans were violently opposed to each other. They were the New Schools and contesting the same ground for favor. They had the same aim and, with so much in common, their differences were naturally accentuated. In an age which Adam Smith has likened to the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, they sought as rivals to offer as an ideal the individual independent of his surroundings. The Stoic presented one means of attaining this ideal and the Epicurean another. Both tried to substitute a philosophic creed for the old religion. And the crowds that still went to the Academy and Lyceum, and were taught the old dogmatism, must have looked askance at these new dogmatic Schools. Those crowds had become second-rate men. The New Schools had at first fewer numbers, but deeper thinkers. The Greek pupils in the New Schools listened to foreigners teaching strange creeds in strange tongues. But these new rivals made their way. Not only at Athens, but at Corinth, Elis, Colophon, and Heraclea in Pontus the elegant Platonic style was being superseded by the crude aphorisms of Epicurus and the clumsy arguments of Zeno. It will be asked, How far did these doctrines during these eight hundred years permeate the people? Did the New Schools reach the rank and file of the people to the same degree that the Sophistic teachings reached the Greeks? Are we to suppose that Stoicism and Epicureanism were common and popular philosophies? By no means. These philosophies reached the people of the Roman world no farther than Greek culture permeated Roman society. Stoicism was consciously taken up by the large patrician class. The patricians were the cultivated Romans; and Stoicism has so much in it like the Roman _gravitas_ that it formulated for the patricians their attitude in this hopeless time. Epicureanism, on the other hand, in its pure form as Epicurus taught it, or later as Lucretius poetically expressed it, could find less favor in Rome. But Epicureanism was easily perverted, and no doubt the educated voluptuaries of Rome would find in the vitiated doctrine a support and excuse for their excesses. =A Summary of the Agreements and Differences of the Stoics and Epicureans.= _Their Agreements._ 1. Both subordinated theory to practice. 2. Both had the same purpose in their practical philosophy: (a) to gain peace of mind for the individual, (b) to gain independence of the world for the individual. _Their Differences._ _The Stoics._ _The Epicureans._ 1. Universal law is supreme. The individual is supreme. 2. Man is a thinking being. Man is a feeling being. 3. Independence is obtained Independence is obtained by by suppressing the personal idealizing the feelings through feelings. serenity.