Stoicism then was in several ways congenial to the Roman spirit, but in one direction it had an inspiring influence which has been of lasting moment to the world. Up to the time of Panaetius and the Scipionic circle the Roman idea and study of law had been of a crabbed practical character, wanting in breadth of treatment, destitute of any philosophical conception of the moral principles which lie behind all law and government. The Stoic doctrine of universal law ruling the world--a divine law, emanating from the universal Reason--seems to have called up life in these dry bones. It might be held by a Roman Stoic that human law comes into existence when man becomes aware of the divine law, and recognises its claim upon him. Morality is thus identical with law in the widest sense of the word, for both are equally called into being by the Right Reason, which is the universal primary force.[175] It is not possible here to show how this grand and elevating idea of law may have affected Roman jurisprudence, but we will just notice that the first quasi-philosophical treatment of law is found following the age of Panaetius and the Scipionic circle; that the phrase _ius gentium_ then begins to take the meaning of general principles or rules common to all peoples, and founded on "natural reason";[176] and that this led by degrees to the later idea of the Law of Nature, and to the cosmopolitanism of the Roman legal system, which came to embrace all peoples and degrees in its rational and beneficent influence. If the Greek had a genius for beauty, and the Jew for righteousness, the Roman had a genius for law; and the power of Stoicism in ennobling and enriching his native conception of it is probably not to be easily over-estimated. Thus behind the stormy scenes of public life in this period there is a process going on which will be of value not only to the Roman Empire but to modern civilisation. It was carried on more especially by two men of the highest character, Q. Mucius Scaevola, Cicero's adviser in his early days, and often his model in later life; and Servius Sulpicius Rufus, his exact contemporary and lifelong friend. Neither Scaevola nor Sulpicius were, so far as we know, professed disciples of Stoicism; but that they applied perhaps half unconsciously the principles of Stoicism to their own legal studies is almost certain. The combination of legal training and Stoic influence (whether direct or unconscious) seems to have been capable of bringing the Roman aristocratic character to a high pitch of perfection; and it will be pleasant to take this friend of Cicero, whose public career we can clearly trace, and one or two of whose letters we still possess, as our example of a really well spent life in an age when time and talent were constantly abused and wasted.