In my last lecture I spoke of the doctrine of constant advance in virtue which these later moral teachers magnified. Stoicism had come to recognize the facts of human life and in practice had abandoned the older doctrine of the sudden and complete perfection of man by philosophy. Seneca’s honest words I must quote again: “I am not yet wise, nor shall I ever be. Do not ask me to be equal to the best but rather to be better than the base. This is enough for me—to take away daily something from my faults and daily to rebuke my errors. I have not attained complete moral health, nor shall I ever attain it.”[280] It is unnecessary to point out that such teaching as is given in these words was far more tonic than the uncompromising doctrine of an earlier day, for progress in virtue each man could feel was within his power; sudden perfection he knew was beyond the strength of any man. Furthermore the philosophers gave detailed injunctions as to the ways in which one could further his moral progress, as for example when Seneca, following Epicurus, advised Lucilius to select some person of noble character like a Cato, a Scipio, or a Laelius, and to imagine that he was always present, watching and judging the novice’s every act; then when he had advanced to the point where his self-respect was sufficient to keep him from wrong-doing, he could dismiss his guardian.[281] But if Seneca recognized the limitations of human nature, he still kept clearly in view the ultimate goal of man’s effort—that perfection of the individual which according to the Stoic was attained when his reason was harmoniously developed and had become supreme.[282] Then man was to be wholly independent, happy, and serene; his mind would be like that of God.