But we do not hear of any attempt on Seneca's part to urge
upon Nero the fulfillment of this high duty, and we find him sinking
into the degraded position of an accomplice with young profligates like
Otho, as the confident of a dishonourable love. Such conduct, which
would have done discredit to a mere courtier, was to a Stoic
disgraceful. But the principle which led to it is the very principle to
which we have been pointing,--the principle of moral compromise, the
principle of permitting and encouraging what is evil in the vain hope of
thereby preventing what is worse. It is hardly strange that Seneca
should have erred in this way, for compromise was the character of his
entire life. He appears to have set before himself the wholly impossible
task of being both a genuine philosopher and a statesman under the
Caesars. He prided himself on being not only a philosopher, but also a
man of the world, and the consequence was, that in both capacities he
failed. It was as true in Paganism as it is in Christianity, that a man
_must_ make his choice between duty and interest--between the service of
Mammon and the service of God.
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