At certain moments, the Stoic ideal might seem to be in danger of merging itself in the self-centred isolation of the Cynic, asserting the defiant independence of individual virtue, the nothingness of all external goods, the omnipotence of the solitary will. And undoubtedly, in the last resort, Seneca has pictured the wise man thus driven to bay, and calmly defying the rage of the tyrant, the caprices of fortune, the loss of health and wealth, nay the last extremity of torture and ignominious death. His own perilous position, and the prospect of society in the reign of Nero, might well lead a man of meditative turn so to prepare himself for a fate which was always imminent. But the Stoic doctor could never acquiesce in a mere negative ideal, the self-centred independence of the individual soul. He was too cultivated, he had drunk too deep of the science and philosophy of the past, he had too wide an outlook over the facts of human life and society, to relegate himself to a moral isolation which was apt to become a state of brutal disregard of the claims of social duty, and even of personal self-respect.(1742) Such a position was absolutely impossible to a man like Seneca. Whatever his practice may have been, it is clear that in temperament he was almost too soft and emotional. He was a man with an intense craving for sympathy, and lavish of it to others; he was the last man in the world who could enjoy a solitary paradise of self-satisfied perfection. It is true the Roman world to the eyes of Seneca lay in the shadow of death, crushed under a treacherous despotism, and enervated by gross indulgence. Yet, although he sees men in this lurid light, he does not scorn or hate them. It was not for nothing that Seneca had been for five years the first minister of the Roman Empire. To have stood so near the master of the world, and felt the pulse of humanity from Britain to the Euphrates, to have listened to their complaints and tried to minister to their needs, was a rare education in social sympathy. It had a profound effect on M. Aurelius, and it had left its mark on Seneca.(1743)