Stoicism, on the other hand, furnished spiritual and intellectual food to that nobler class of Romans who were at once the support and ornament of a magnificent but decadent civilization. This form of philosophy was peculiarly consonant with early Roman instincts and habits. In its teachings were perfectly reflected that vigor, austerity, and manly self-reliance which had made the Roman race undisputed masters of the world. Many of its precepts were not only moral and ennobling, but deeply religious and sustaining. A striking kinship between them and certain Christian precepts has been frequently pointed out. Justice, fortitude, prudence, and temperance were the four cardinal virtues of Stoicism. Freedom from all passions and complete simplicity of life, resulting in perfect purity of manners, was its chief aim. But the fundamental principles of both Epicureanism and Stoicism were destructive of those spiritual elements which furnish complete and permanent nourishment to the soul. Stoicism was pantheism, and Epicureanism was materialism. The Stoic believed that the human soul was corporeal, but that it was animated and illuminated by the universal soul. The Epicurean taught that the soul was composed of material atoms, which would perish when its component parts separated or dissolved. Epicureanism was materialistic in its tendency, and its inevitable result, in perverted form, was sensualism. Stoicism was pervaded throughout by a melancholy and desolating fatalism. It was peculiarly the philosophy of suicide; or, as a great French writer once described it, "an apprenticeship for death."[152] To take one's life was not only allowable but commendable in certain cases. Zeno, the founder of the sect, taught that incurable disease was a sufficient excuse for suicide. Marcus Aurelius considered it an obligation of nature and of reason to make an end of life when it became an intolerable burden. "Kill thyself and die erect in the consciousness of thy own strength," would have been a suitable inscription over the doorway of every Stoic temple. Seneca furnished to his countrymen this Stoic panacea for all the ills of life: Seest thou yon steep height, that is the descent to freedom. Seest thou yon sea, yon river, yon well; freedom sits there in the depths. Seest thou yon low withered tree; there freedom hangs. Seest thou thy neck, thy throat, thy heart; they are the ways of escape from bondage. And the Roman philosopher was not only conscientious but consistent in his teachings. He was heroic enough to take the medicine himself which he had prescribed for others. Indeed, he took a double dose; for he not only swallowed poison, but also opened his veins, and thus committed suicide, as other Stoics--such as Zeno, Cleanthes and Cato--had done before him. It was not a problem of the Stoic philosophy,