As regards the Stoics, Plutarch writes against them, but chiefly against dogmas which in his time had become nearly obsolete,—namely, that all acts not in accordance with the absolute right are equally bad; that all virtuous acts are equally good; that there is no intermediate moral condition between that of the wise or perfectly good man and that of the utterly vicious; and that outward circumstances neither enhance nor diminish the happiness of the truly wise man. These extravagances do not appear in the writings of Seneca, nor in Epictetus as reported by Arrian, and Plutarch in reasoning against them is controverting Zeno rather than his later disciples. He is in full sympathy with the Stoics as to their elevated moral standard, though without the sternness and rigidness which had often characterized their professed beliefs and their public teaching, yet of which there remained few vestiges among his contemporaries. With the utmost mildness and gentleness, he manifests everywhere an inflexibility of principle and a settled conviction as to the rightfulness or wrongfulness of specific acts which might satisfy the most rigid Stoic, and in which he plants himself as firmly on the ground of the eternal Right as if his philosophy had been founded on a distinctively Christian basis. Indeed, Plutarch is so often decidedly Christian in spirit, and in many passages of his writings there is such an almost manifest transcript of the thought of the Divine Founder of our religion, that it has been frequently maintained that he drew from Christian sources. This, I must believe, is utterly false in the sense in which it is commonly asserted, yet in a more recondite sense true. If Plutarch had known anything about Christians or the Christian Scriptures, he could not have failed to refer to them; for he is constantly making references to contemporary persons and objects, sects and opinions. We know of no Christian church at Cheroneia in that age, and indeed it is exceedingly improbable that there should have been one in so small a town. The circulation of thought, and consequently the diffusion of a new religion from the great centres of population to outlying districts or villages, was infinitesimally slow. Our word _pagan_ is an enduring witness of this tardiness of transmission. It had its birth (in its present sense) after Christianity had become the legally established religion of the Empire, and had supplanted heathen temples and rites in the cities, while in the _pagi_, or villages, the old gods were still in the ascendant. There were indeed Christian churches in Athens and in Rome; but they would most probably have eluded the curiosity and escaped the knowledge of a temporary resident, especially as most of their chief members were either Jews or slaves. Yet I cannot doubt that an infusion of Christianity had somehow infiltrated itself into Plutarch’s ethical opinions and sentiments, as into those of Seneca,