Other habits which I once abandoned have come back to me, but in such a way that I merely substitute moderation for abstinence, which perhaps is a still more difficult task; since there are some things which it is easier for the mind to cut away altogether than to enjoy in moderation.

Attalus used to recommend a hard couch in which the body could not sink; and, even in my old age, I use one of such a kind that it leaves no impress of the sleeper.

I have told you these anecdotes to prove to you what eager impulses our little scholars would have to all that is good, if any one were to exhort them and urge them on.

But the harm springs partly from the fault of preceptors, who teach us how to _argue_, not how to _live_; and partly from the fault of pupils, who bring to their teacher a purpose of training their intellect and not their souls.

Thus it is that philosophy has been degraded into mere philology." In another lively passage, Seneca brings vividly before us a picture of the various scholars assembled in a school of the philosophers.