§ 170. Aristotle's ethics expresses the buoyancy of the ancient world, when the individual does not feel himself oppressed by the eternal reality, but rejoices in it. He is not too conscious of his sufferings to be disinterested in his admiration and wonder. It is this which distinguishes the religion of Plato and Aristotle from that of the Stoics and Spinoza. With both alike, religion consists not in making the world, but in contemplating it; not in coöperating with God, but in worshipping him. Plato and Aristotle, however, do not find any antagonism between the ways of God and the natural interests of men. God does not differ from men save in his exalted perfection. The contemplation and worship of him comes as the final and highest stage of a life which is organic and continuous throughout. The love of God is the natural love when it has found its true object. "For he who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty--and this, Socrates, is that final cause of all our former toils, which in the first place is everlasting--not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; in the next place not fair in one point of view and foul in another, . . . or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, nor existing in any other being; . . . but beauty only, absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things."[347:15] The religion of Spinoza is the religion of one who has renounced the favor of the universe. He was deprived early in life of every benefit of fortune, and set out to find the good which required no special dispensation but only the common lot and the common human endowment. He found that good to consist in the conviction of the necessity, made acceptable through the supremacy of the understanding. The like faith of the Stoics makes of no account the difference of fortune between Marcus the emperor and Epictetus the slave.