The Pursuit of Knowledge Under Difficulties

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III. Humble Station no Obstacle. Epictetus; Protagoras; Cleanthes; Hatty; Winckelman; Arnigio; Duval.?Affectation of high Birth. Bandinelli; Scaliger.?Men proud of their low Origin. Proto- gones; Baudouin; Gelli.?Obscure Origin. Metastaslo; Haydn; Opie; Parini; Prideaux: Saunders; Linnseus; Lomonosoff; B.Jonson; theMilners; John Hunter.?Application of Examples. The difficulties which Heyne had to encounter in his pursuit of knowledge, commenced with his life itself?his very birth throwing him out of the sphere of those excitements by which even the desire of knowledge is generally kindled. Yet this is a disadvantage which, great as it is, aspiring minds have often overcome. Of the ancient authors, not to mention the well-known case of jEsop, Publius Syrus, and Terence were both originally slaves. Epictetus, the celebrated Stoic philosopher, was born in the same condition, and spent many years of his life in servitude. Having been at last fortunate enough to obtain his freedom, he retired to a small hut; and when he was barely able to procure the necessaries of life, devoted himself to the study of philosophy. A treatise of this writer was one of the works edited by Heyne, while at Dresden; and he used to relate that his fortitude, amid the difficulties that he had to struggle with at the time, was not a little strengthened and upheld by the precepts of severe virtue and determined endurance, which he found in the pages of the old philosopher. Epic- tetus's own conduct was strikingly in conformity with the lessons he taught, at least if we may believe one of the stories which are told of him. It is said, thatbefore he had obtained his liberty, his master, who was a very brutal man, chose one day to amuse himself by twisting the leg of his slave. You will br...