the _Discourses_ and the _Manual_.

It is from these two invaluable books, and from a good many isolated fragments, that we are enabled to judge what was the practical morality of Stoicism, as expounded by the holy and upright slave.
The _Manual_ is a kind of abstract of Epictetus's ethical principles, which, with many additional illustrations and with more expansion, are also explained in the _Discourses_.

Both books were so popular that by their means Arrian first came into conspicuous notice, and ultimately attained the highest eminence and rank.

The _Manual_ was to antiquity what the _Imitatio_ of Thomas a Kempis was to later times, and what Woodhead's _Whole Duty of Man_ or Wilberforce's _Practical View of Christianity_ have been to large sections of modern Englishmen.

It was a clear, succinct, and practical statement of common daily duties, and the principles upon which they rest.