already some nascent suspicion of his philosophic programme, in
regard, precisely, to the question of good taste. There was the
taint of a graceless "antinomianism" perceptible in it, a dissidence,
a revolt against accustomed modes, the actual impression of which on
other [7] men might rebound upon himself in some loss of that
personal pride to which it was part of his theory of life to allow so
much. And it was exactly a moral situation such as this that Fronto
appeared to be contemplating. He seemed to have before his mind the
case of one--Cyrenaic or Epicurean, as the courtier tends to be, by
habit and instinct, if not on principle--who yet experiences,
actually, a strong tendency to moral assents, and a desire, with as
little logical inconsistency as may be, to find a place for duty and
righteousness in his house of thought.

And the Stoic professor found the key to this problem in the purely
aesthetic beauty of the old morality, as an element in things,
fascinating to the imagination, to good taste in its most highly
developed form, through association--a system or order, as a matter
of fact, in possession, not only of the larger world, but of the rare
minority of elite intelligences; from which, therefore, least of all
would the sort of Epicurean he had in view endure to become, so to
speak, an outlaw. He supposed his hearer to be, with all sincerity,
in search after some principle of conduct (and it was here that he
seemed to Marius to be speaking straight to him) which might give
unity of motive to an actual rectitude, a cleanness and probity of
life, determined partly by natural affection, partly by enlightened
self-interest or the feeling of honour, due in part even to the mere
fear of penalties; no element of which, [8] however, was
distinctively moral in the agent himself as such, and providing him,
therefore, no common ground with a really moral being like Cornelius,