We shall perhaps be right in saying, to begin with, that the doctrine of the Generative Reason, the Spermaticos Logos, is not carried far enough. The immense practical need, which the Stoic felt, of fortifying himself against the world, is not unintelligible, but it led him into error. He employed his doctrine of the Spermaticos Logos to give grandeur and sufficiency to the individual, and then, for practical purposes, cut him off from the world. He manned and provisioned the fortress, and then shut it off from supplies and from relief. It was a necessary thing to assert the value and dignity of the mere individual man against the despotisms, but to isolate the man from mankind and from the world of nature was a fatal mistake. Of course, the Stoic did not do this in theory, for he insisted on the polity of gods and men, the "one city,"[115] and the duty of the "citizen of the universe" (_kosmios_)--a man is not an independent object; like the foot in the body he is essentially {65} a "part."[116] In practice, too, Stoics were human. Seneca tells us to show clemency but not to feel pity, but we may be sure that the human heart in him was far from observing the distinction--he "talked more boldly than he lived," he says--he was "among those whom grief conquered,"[117] and, though he goes on to show why he failed in this way, he is endeared to us by his failure to be his own ideal Stoic. Yet it remains that the chapters, with which his book on Clemency ends, are a Stoic protest against pity, and they can be re-inforced by a good deal in Epictetus. If your friend is unhappy, "remember that his unhappiness is his own fault, for God has made all men to be happy, to be free from perturbations."[118] Your friend has the remedy in his own hands; let him "purify his dogmata."[119] Epictetus would try to heal a friend's sorrow "but not by every means, for that would be to fight against God (_theomachein_)," and would involve daily and nightly punishment to himself[120]--and "no one is nearer me than myself."[121] In the _Manual_ the same thought is accentuated. "Say to yourself 'It is the opinion about this thing that afflicts the man.' So far as words go, do not hesitate to show sympathy, and even, if it so happen, to lament with him. Take care, though, that you do not lament internally also (_me kai esothen stenaxes_)."[122] We have seen what he has to say of a lost child. In spite of all his fine words, the Stoic really knows of nothing between the individual and the cosmos, for his practical teaching deadens, if it does not kill, friendship and family love.