by the weight of Earth and passengers CHAP. XVIII Of Moderation opposed to Avarice NOw comes Moderation or that Disposition of the Mind which makes a man contented with a little and than which he can hardly possesse a greater Good For to be content with little is the highest preferment the greatest wealth in the world as on the other side great riches without moderation are but great poverty Thus to have wherewithall to prevent Hunger Thirst and Cold is a Felicity not much inferior to that of Divintiy and who so possesses so much and desires no more however the world may account him poor he really is the Richest man alive II. And how honest a thing is this Poverty when it is Cheerfull serene and Contented with only what is sufficient i. e. with those riches of Nature which suffice to preserve from Hunger from Thirst from Cold Truly seeing that these riches of Nature are Terminated and easily acquirable but those that are coveted out of vain opinions are difficult in the acquisition and have no measure no end we ought to be highly thankfull to the Wisdom and Bounty of Nature which made those things easily procurable that are Necessary and those Unnecessary that are hard to come by III. Again since it behoves a Wise man to be alwaies Confident that in the whole course of his life he shall never want Necessaries doth not the very easie parability of such few small cheap and common things as are Necessary abundantly cherish that Confidence in him when on the other side the Difficulty of acquiring those many great sumptuous and rare things that belong to superfluity and magnificence cannot but very much stagger and weaken it And this clearly is the Reason why the vulgar though they have great possessions do yet uncessantly toyl and afflict themselves in the acquisition of more as if they feared to outlive their riches and come to want what if they used with Moderation they could never live to spend IV. This considered let us endeavour to Content our selves with what is most simple and most easily procurable remembring that not all the wealth of the world congested into one heap can avail in the least measure to cure the least disease or perturbation of the Mind whereas mean Riches such as Nature offers to us and are most usefull to remove thar indigence which is incommodious to the Body as they are the occasion of no Care or other passion during life so will it not be grievous to us to part with them when we think of Death V. Miserable truly are the Minds of men and their Hearts surrounded with blindness in that they will not see that Nature doth dictate nothing more to them than this that they should supply the wants of the Body and for the rest enjoy a wel pleased mind without care without Fear not that they should spend their daies in scraping together more than Nature knows how to make use of and that with greedinesse as if they meant to outlive Death to prevent want in their graves or never bethought themselves of the uncertainty of life and how deadly a Potion we all drink at our very entrance into the World VI. What though those things which are purely Necessary and in respect whereunto no man can be poor do not afford those Delights which Vulgar minds so much love and court yet Nature doth not want them nor doth she in the mean time cease to afford reall and sincere Pleasures in the fruition of meer Necessaries as we abundantly declared Hereupon the Wise man stands not only so indifferently affected toward those things in relation whereunto money is desired such are Love Ambitition Luxury c. all which require expences to maintain them but so far above them as that he hath no reason either to desire or care for money VII Now as for what we said of the Immensity of such Riches as are coveted upon the suggestion of vain Opinions the Reason of it is this that when Nature is satisfied with Little vain Opinion ushering in Desire alwaies engageth the mind to think of somthing which it doth not possesse and as if it were really needfull converts and fixeth the Desire wholly and entirely upon it Whence it comes that to him who is not satisfied with a little nothing can ever be enough but still the more wealth he possesseth the more he conceives himself to want VIII Wherefore seeing there can never be want of a Little the Wise man doubtlesse while he possesseth that little ought to account it very great Riches because therein is no want whereas other riches though great in esteem are really very small because they want multiplication to infinity Whence it follows that he who thinks not his own Estate how small soever sufficiently ample though he should become Lord of the whole World will ever be miserable For Misery is the companion of Want and the same vain opinion which first perswaded him that his own Estate was not sufficient will continue to perswade him that one World is not sufficient but that he wants more and more to infinity IX Have you then a design to make any one Rich indeed Know that the way is not by adding to his Riches but by Detracting from his desires For when having cut off all vain and superfluous desires from his breast he shall so compose himself to the praescripts of Nature as to covet no more than she needs and requires then at length shall he find himself to be a Rich man in reality because he shall then find that Nothing is wanting to him Hereupon may you also inculcate this maxim to him If you live according to Nature you shall never be poor but if according to Opinion you shall nover be rich Nature desires little Opinion infinite X. Truly this Disposition or if you please Faculty of the mind whereby a man moderating himself cuts off the desire of whatsoever is not Necessary to Nature and contents himself with provisions the most simple and most easily procurable this Disposition we say is that which begets that Security that is perceived in a pleasant Retirement and Avoidance of the Multitude forasmuch as by the benefit thereof when a man converseth with crouds of people he shall want no more than when he lives sequestred XI Finally when a man wants this Faculty of Detracting or Abdicating from his Desires whatever is not purely Necessary how great is the Misery to which he is continually subject his mind being like a vessell full of holes alwaies in filling but never full And certainly that we may not insist upon this that most who have heaped up vast masses of Wealth have therein found only a Change not an End of their misery either because they loaded themselves with new Cares to which they were not subject before or because they gave them occasion to fall into new Vices from the snares whereof they had formerly escaped this alone is a very high misery
for a man to have his Appetite Encreased by the satisfaction of it i. e. the more plentifully he feeds the more to be tormented with hunger CHAP. XIX Of Mediocrity betwixt Hope and Despair of the Future FInally since all Cupldity or Desire whatever is carried to that which is not possessed but proposed as possible to be attained and accompanied with some Hope of obtaining it and that Hope as it were nursing and cherishing that Desire is accompanied with a certain pleasure as the opposite to Hope Desperation creating and fomenting Fear that what is desired may not be obtained is accompanied with a certain Trouble upon these considerations it seems necessary for us to bring up the rear of this File of Virtues with the discourse of Mediocrity which is of very great use as well in respect of objects in the Generall either hoped for or despaired of in the Future as in particular of the Duration or rather perpetuity of life whereof as there is a Desire kindled in the breasts of most men so doth the Despair of it torment them II. In the first place therefore we are to adhaere to this as a Generall Rule that what is to come if it be in the number of simple Contingents is neither absolutely ours nor absolutely Not ours More plainly we are neither so to hope for a thing that is Contingent as if it were certainly to come because it may be prevented or diverted by some crosse accident intervenient Nor so to despair of it as if it were certainly not to come because it may fall out that no Accident may intervene to prevent or divert it For by the observation of this maxime we shall reap the benefit of Moderation so as not being destitute of all Hope we shall not be without some Pleasure and being altogether frustrated of our hopes we shall be affected with no trouble III. For herein consists the Difference betwixt the Wise man and the Fool that the Wise doth indeed expect things Future but not depend upon them and in the mean time enjoyes the Goods that are present by considering how great and pleasant they are and gratefully remembers what are past but the fool fixing all his thoughts and dependance upon the Future makes as we said in the beginning his whole life unpleasant and full of fears IV. And how many may we dayly see who neither remember goods past nor enjoy present They are wholly taken up with Expectation of Future things and those being uncertain they are perpetually afflicted with anguish of mind with fear and at length become most grievously perplexed when they too late perceive that they have in vain addicted themselves to the getting of Riches or Honours or Power or Glory in respect they fail of obtaining those Pleasures with the hopes whereof being enflamed they had undergone many and great Difficulties and Labours That we may not say any thing of that other sort of fools who being abject and narrow-hearted despair of all things and are for the most part Malevolent Envious Morose Shunners of the light Evill-speakers Monsters V. Now the Reason why we say that the wise man doth gratefully remember Goods Past is because we are generally too ungrateful toward the time Praeterite and do not call to mind nor account among Pleasures the Good things we have formerly received forasmuch as no Pleasure is more certain than what cannot now be taken from us For present Goods are not yet Consummate and wholly solid some chance or other may intervene and cut them off in half Future things hang upon the pin of uncertainty what is already Past is only safe and inamissible VI. And among Past Goods we account not only such as we have enjoyed but also our Avoidance of all those Evills that might have fallen upon us and our Liberation or Deliverance from such other Evills as did fall upon us and might have lasted much longer as also the Recordation Reputation Gratulation that we sustained them Constantly and Bravely VII As for the Desire of Prolonging life to Eternity the speciall Evill to be prevented by Mediocrity we have already hinted that a Wise man is to entertain no such desire because thereupon instantly succeeds Desperation wich is alwaies accompanied with Trouble and Anguish And this Cogitation imports thus much that the greater Pleasure cannot be received from an Age of infinite Duration than may be received from this which we know to be finite provided a man measure the Ends of it by Right Reason VIII For seeing that to measure the Ends of Pleasure by right reason is only to conceive that the Supreme pleasure is no other but an Exemption from Pain and Perturbation it is a manifest Consequence that the Supreme Pleasure of man cannot be encreased by the Length nor Diminished by the shortnesse of Time IX The Hopes of a more prolonged Pleasure or of a longer Age we confesse may seem to render the present Pleasure more Intense but it can seem so only to such who measure the Ends of Pleasure not by right Reason but by vain opinion and the Consequent thereof Desire and who look upon themselves so as if when they shall cease to be they should be sensible of some trouble from the privation of Pleasure as they might in case they should survive And hence it comes that perfectly to understand that Death doth nothing concern us makes us fully to enjoy this Mortall Life not by adding thereunto any thing of uncertain Time but by Cutting off all Desires of Immortality X. Wherefore since Nature hath prescribed certain bounds or Ends to the Pleasures of the Body and the Desire of Eternall Duration takes them wholly away necessary it is that the mind or Reason supervene so as by ratiocinating upon those ends and expunging all desires of Sempiternity to make life in all points perfect and consummate and us so fully content therewith as not to want any longer Duration XI And this Reasoning moreover causeth that we shall not be frustrated of Pleasure even then when Death shall take us by the hand and shew us the period of all these mortall things insomuch as we shal therby attain to the perfect and so delectable End of a very Good Life rising from the table of the World as Guests well satisfied with the Good Entertainments of life and having duly performed all those Duties which to perform we received life CHAP. XX. Of Fortitude in Generall HItherto of Temperance and the Chief sorts of it respective to the Chief Objects of our Cupidities We are now come to a new Lesson FORTITUDE which we called the other part of Honesty in respect that the use of it is against Fear and all its Causes and that those who behave themselves in any Difficulty or Dangerous Enterprise as especially in War from which the Vulgar seem to have transferred the word to all Generous actions not timidly and unmanly but Couragiously and valiantly are generally said to behave themselves Honestly
with some torment yet after that 's once past he shall never feel more IX That Philosopher was very ridiculous who admonisheth the young man to live Honestly and the old bodie Honestly because a Good Life and a Good Death are not things to be parted and the Meditation of living honestly and dying honestly is one and the same and this in respect that a young man may die Immaturely and to an old man something of life is remaining and the last act of his life is a part yea and the Crown of his whole life X. And both young and old are to consider this that though man may provide for his Security as to other things yet against Death there is no security the youngest nor strongest cannot promise themselves immunity from it for so much as one hour all men living as it were in a City without Walls without Gates to keep out that common Enemy XI Moreover a young man may die Happy who considers with himself that should he live a thousand years yet he could but see and act over the same things again and an old man may live Unhappy who like a vessell full of holes receives the Goods of life only to let them run through him and so is never full of them nor as a sober Guest of Nature after a plentifull meal of all her best dishes willing to rise and go take his rest XII This considered we are not to account an old man Happy in that he died full of years but in that he dyed full of Goods and sated with the World XIII Finally most of all foolish and ridiculous is he who saith it is good either not to be born at all or to die as soon as born For if he speak this in Earnest why doth he not presently rid himself of life it being very easie for him so to do in case he hath well deliberated upon the matter beforehand And if in jest he is perfectly mad because these are things that admit not of jesting Again in life there is somthing Amiable in it self and therefore he is as much to be reprehended who desires Death as he that is afraid of it For what can be so ridiculous as for a man to desire Death when himself makes his life unquiet by the fear of Death or out of a wearinesse of life to fly to the Sanctuary of Death when his own Imprudence and Irregular course of life is the only cause of that wearinesse XIV Every man therefore ought to make it his care so to live as that life may not be ingrate or taedious to him not to be willing to part with life till either Nature or some intolerable Case call upon him to surrender it And in that respect we are seriously to perpend whether is the more Commodious for us to stay till death come to us or to go and meet it For though it be an Evill indeed to live in Necessity yet is there no Necessity for us to live in Necessity since Nature hath been so Kind as to give us though but one door into the World yet many doors out of it XV. But albeit therebe some Cases so extream as that in respect of them we are to hasten and fly to the Sanctuary of Death lest some power intervene and rob us of that liberty of quitting life yet neverthelesse are we not to attempt any thing in that kind but when it may be attempted conveniently and opportunely and when that time comes then are we to dispatch and leap over the battlements of life bravely For neither is it fit for him who thinks of flight to sleep nor are we to despair of a happy Exit even from the greatest Difficulties in case we neither hasten before our time nor let it slip whâ—n it comes CHAP. XXIII Of Fortitude against Pain of the Body COrporall Pain is that alone which deserves the name of Evill in it self and which indeed would carry the Reason of the Greatest of Evills if so be our own delusive Opinions had not created and pulled upon our heads another sort of pain called the pain of the Mind which many times becoms more grievous and intollerable than any pain of the Body whatever as we have formerly deduced For Discontent of mind conceived upon the losse of Riches Honours Friends Wife Children and the like doth frequently grow to that height that it exceeds the sharpest pains of the body but still that which gives it both being and growth is our own Opinion which if right and sound we should never be moved by any such Losse whatever in regard that all such things are without the circle of our selves and so cannot touch us but by the intervention of Opinion which we coin to our selves And thereupon we may infer that we are not subject to any other reall Evill but only the Pain of the Body and that the mind ought to complain of nothing which is not conjoyned to some pain of the body either present or to come II. The Wise man therefore will be very cautious that he do not wittingly draw upon himself any Corporall pain nor do any action whereupon any such pain may be likely to ensue unlesse it be in order either to the Avoydance of some Greater pain that would otherwise certainly invade him or the Comparation of some Greater Pleasure dependent thereupon as we have formerly inculcated This considered we may very well wonder at Those Philosophers who accounting Health which is a state of Indolency a very great Good as to all other respects do yet as to this respect hold it to be a thing meerly Indifferent as if it were not an indecent playing with words or rather a high piece of Folly to affirm that to be in pain and to be free from pain is one and the same thing III. But in case any Necessity either of his native Constitution in respect whereof his body is infirm and obnoxious to Diseases or of any Externall violence done him which so subject to Casualties and the injuries of others is the condition of frail man he could not prevent or avoid for experience attesteth that a Wise and Innocent person may be wounded by his malicious Enemies or called to the bar impleaded condemned and beaten with rodds or otherwise cruelly tormented by Tyrants we say in case either of these shall have brought pain upon him then is it his part to endure that pain with Constancy and Bravery of mind and patiently to expect either the Solution or Relaxation of it IV. For certainly Pain doth never continue long in the Body but if it be Great and highly intense it ceaseth in a short time because either it is determined of its self and suceeded if not by absolute Indolency yet by very great Mitigation or is determined by Death in which there can be no pain And as for that pain which is Lasting it is not only gentle and remisse in it self but also admits many lucid intervalls so that
EPICVRI EFFIGIES Ex Cimel Cl. Vivi Eviel Putearij EPICVRVS ' s MORALS Collected Partly out of his owne Greek Text in DIOGENES LAERTIVS And Partly out of the Rhapsodies of MARCVS ANTONINVS PLVTARCH CICERO SENECA And faithfully Englished Mea quidem ista sententia est invitis hoc nostris popularibus dicam Epicurum recta praecipere si propiùs accesseris tristia Seneca lib. de vita beata cap. 13. LONDON Printed by W. Wilson for Henry Herringman and are to be sold at his shop at the Anchor in the Lower walke in the New Exchange 1656. AN APOLOGIE FOR EPICVRVS As to the three Capitall Crimes whereof he is accused Written in a Letter to a Person of Honour SIR YOur beloved EPICVRVS having lately learn'd English on purpose to converse more familiarly with you comes now at length to waite upon you and at your vacant houres to entertaine you with grave discourses touching the Happinesse of Man's life and the right meanes of attaining it Wisdome I have no reason to doubt of his welcome kind reception by you considering that he comes not but upon your frequent and I am confident hearty invitations of him your owne ingenious and commendable desire to be intimately acquainted with his Principles and Doctrine of Morality and to heare him speake his owne Thoughts purely and sincerely having beene the only occasion and motive to my assistance of him in his Travells from Greece into this Country and my accommodation of him with such an equipage as might be exactly sutable as well to your wishes as to his owne minde Nay more I have reason to presume that a few dayes conversation will create in you a very great dearenesse towards him as well because I am assur'd you will soone finde him what you expect a sublime Witt a profound Iudgement and a great Master of Temperance Sobriety Continence Fortitude and all other Vertues not a Patron of Impiety Gluttony Drunkennesse Luxury and all kinds of Intemperance as the common people being mis-informed by such learned men as either did not rightly understand or would not rightly represent his opinions generally conceive him to be as because I have perceived him not only to give strong and lively hints to sundry of those sublime speculations wherewith your thoughts are sometimes delightfully imployed but also solidly to assert many of those Tenents which I have often heard you defend with the like Reasons and which indeed nothing but the voluntary and affected Ignorance of Superstition will deny So that if the Rule hold that Similitude of Opinions is an argument of Similitude in Affectons and Similitude of Affections the ground of Love and friendship certainely I am not altogether destitute of support for my conjecture and consequently that you will soone admitt him into your bosome and treat him withall the demonstrations of respect due to so excellent a Companion But as there is no Beauty without some moles no Chrystall without some specks so is not our EPICVRVS without his imperfections and you will discover in him some things which cannot escape your reprehension and yet I expect that your censure of him should be much more moderate and charitable then that of the ignorant and scarce humane Multitude hath been for many ages together And therefore I aske leave to state the Nature of his guilt unto you and afterwards to give you my Iudgement thereupon in the meane time humbly leaving you to the Liberty of your owne more judicious sentiments of both the one and the other For my designe therein is not to possesse your brest with my thoughts concerning the crimes usually charged upon this Philosopher but to dispossesse it of an opinion that I might have the same indignation against him in respect of some unjustifiable positions of his as not only the common people but even the greatest number of Schollers have for many hundred of years entertain'd And what I shall say to that purpose I humbly desire you will be pleas'd to understand to be intended as an Exercitation to take off from his memory the greatest part of that unjust Odium and Infamy which envy and Malice on one hand and Ignorance and Inhumanity on the other have cast upon it to the eclipsing even of all his excellent meritts from the Commonwealth of Philosophy and not as a defence of any unreasonable or dangerous Errour whereof he is found really guilty Which was more perhaps then was needfull for me to advertise you of who wel understand the difference betwixt a Vindication and an Excusation that it is one thing to mitigate a too severe and rash sentence and another to justifie the Offendour And therefore without any further Apologizing for my short Apologie for EPICVRVS I directly addresse to my Province The Opinions which being asserted by him in this Treatise concerning Ethicks have so much incens'd the world against him are principally these three 1 That the Souls of Men are mortall so uncapable of all either happiness or misery after death 2 That Man is not obliged to honour revere and worship God in respect of his beneficence or out of the hope of any Good or feare of any evill at his hands but meerely in respect of the transcendent Excellencies of his Nature Immortality and Beatitude 3 That Selfe-homicide is an Act of Heroick Fortitude in case of intollerable or otherwise inevitable Calamity These I confesse are Positions to be rather wholly condemned and abominated then in the least measure patroniz'd by us Christians whose understandings thanks be to the mercy of the fountaine of Wisdome are illuminated by a brighter light then that of Nature and yet notwithstanding when I remember that our Philosopher was a meere naturalist borne and educated in times of no small Pagan darkenesse and consider that neither of these Tenents will be found upon due Examination so destitute of all support of Reason as rash and unexamining heads have apprehended I professe I cannot but thinke it an argument of much more inhumanity then judicious zeale in any man upon this accompt alone to invade him with the crimination of superlative Impiety Blasphemy and absolute Atheisme For. As to the FIRST viz. That the humane soule doth not survive the funerals of the body but absolutely perish in the instant of death as I need not tell you how uncomfortable an Opinion it is to all Vertuous persons and how manifestly repugnant to Christianisme and indeed to the fundamentall Reason of all Religions beside if I may be admitted to use that improper phrase of the vulgar while I well know that there can be but one Religion truely so called and that all the rest are more properly called Superstitions so I neede not advertise you how highly difficult it is to refute it by satisfactory and convincing Arguments defumable from meer reason For to suspect the light of Nature is scarce strong enough by its own single force to dispell all those thick mists of difficulties that
hinder our discernment of the full nature of the human soul and scarce bright enough clearly to demonstrate the immortality of that noble Essence so as to leave no room for diffidence or contradiction I hope it can be no Heresie in any man because no disparagement to either his Faith or Reason You have Sir I presume attentively perused that so worthily commended discourse of Plato touching the immortality of mans soul and acquainted your selfe moreover with all those mighty Arguments alledged by Saint Thomas Pomponatius who will hardly be out-done in subtlety touching the same Theam by any that comes after him and yet he was forc'd to conclude himselfe a Sceptick and leave the Question to the decision of some other bolder Pen Des Cartes our noble friend Sir Kenelme Digby and divers other great Clerks to prove the Soul of Man to be a substance distinct from and independent upon that of the body and to have eternall existence à parte post and yet if I were not assured that your perswasion of its immortality is founded upon a much more firm basis then that of the most seemingly apodicticall of all their Reasons I might well doubt of the impregnability thereof And this I may say somewhat the more freely and boldly both because I my selfe having with all possible attention and equity of minde examined the validity of most of those Arguments for the immortality of mens souls which their Authors have presented as perfect Demonstrations thereof cannot finde any of them to make good that glorious Title or satisfie expectation to the full and because I have observed many learned men Divines and others who have long laboured their thoughts in the same Disquisition to concurre with me in opinion That to believe the soul of Man to be immortall upon Principles supernaturall is much more easie then to demonstrate the same by Reasons purely Naturall Now if for the most sublime witts even of our times wherein the Metaphysicks have doubtlesse received a very great encrease of clearnesse and mens speculations seem to be highly refined in regard of sundry lively and fruitfull hints that are inspersed upon the leaves of sacred writt concerning as well the Originall and Nature of the Soul as the state of it after death it be so hard a task to erect a firme perswasion of the immortality of the human soul upon a foundation of Naturall Reason alone I appeal to every imprejudicate man with what justice our EPICVRVS is so highly condemned for being ignorant of that unattainable Truth when he could steer the course of his judgment and beliefe by no other Starre but that remote and pale one of the Light of Nature that bright North-Starre of Holy Scripture appearing not at all to the Horizon of Greece till many Ages after his death Again EPICVRVS is not the only man amongst the Antients that is to be accused for entertaining and divulging erroneous conceptions of the nature and condition of the reasonable soul after death it being well known that most of the Grecian Philosophers did indubitate the incorruptibility thereof either implicitely and upon consequence or immediately and in direct terms This perhaps may seem a Parodox to you and therefore I ask leave to make it good The Grecian Scholiarchs may all be divided into two Classes in reference to this subject the first consisting of those who asserted the other of such as expresly denied the Immortality of Man's Soule the former containing the greater the latter the lesser number And among all those that are on the affirmative part you shall not finde one that is not more or lesse tainted with that so common Errour of the Refusion of all mens souls after death into the Anima Mundi or generall Soul of the Universe which is upon consequence That they cease to exist per se or to be what they were before so soon as they are separated from the body For your further satisfaction of this unfrequent Truth be pleased to observe that as they generally conceived the soul of every individuall man to be a certain particle of the Mundan or universall soul immitted into the body at its conception and therein contained during life as a drop of water is contained in a glasse Phiall so did they also conceive that the same soul upon the breaking of the glasse or dissolution of the body doth flow forth and again return and unite it selfe to the universall soul front whence it was at first desumed Thus Plutarch 4 Placit 9. expresly tells us that Pythagoras and Plato maintained that Mans soul having taken its farewell of the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in congeniam sibi animam Mundi concedere doth return to the soul of the world which is of the same substance and nature with it Now by this common soul of the world it is manifest that they sometimes meant God in respect they acknowledged him to be the supream Intelligence or Minde which disposeth and ordereth all parts of the body and sometimes the Heavens because as Heaven is the most pure and noble part of the Vniverse so is the soul the most pure and noble part of Man This considered you have here an opportunity at least if a short and pertinent digression may be opportune of taking notice in what sence we are to understand some remarkable passages in their writings touching the buman soul which are often mentioned but seldome rightly interpreted First we may hence collect what their true meaning was when they said Animam esse divinae aurae Particulam that the Soul is a particle of Divine breath or as Cicero speaks in Cato Major Ex Divina mente universa delibutos animos habemus We have our soules derived from the universall divine minde And again when they affirmed that our Soules were taken from Heaven and to return thither again after their emancipation from the body All which the Prince of Poets elegantly insinuateth in these Verses Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque tractusque maris coelumque profundum Heinc homines armenta viros genus omne ferarum Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas Scilicer huc reddi deinde ae resoluta referri Omnia nec morti esse locum sed viva evolare Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere coelo Secondly we may hence learn the sence of Empedocles as well in that saying quoted by Plutarch de exilio Praesentem vitam esse exilium è quo tandem animus sit in pristinam sedem demigraturus That this present liâ—e is a banishment of the soul from which it is at length to be recall'd to its primitive place as in that mentioned by Clem. Alexandrinus Lib. 4. Stromat 2. hypotypos 24. Animos sapientum Deos fieri That the soules of Wise-men become Gods Thirdly we may hence know how to understand the true sence of Plato's opinion that all learning is only Reminiscence For supposing the Soul of the Vniverse to be omniscient and each
worship the Divine Majesty solely and simply upon the former motive they say that he bears a Filiall respect and affection to God and if only by the latter a meer servile or mercenary Now though the servile or mercenary love of God be not altogether to be disliked in regard it is a kind of gratitude due to him as a Benefactor yet I conceive no man will gainsay but the filiall and free love is much the nobler and more acceptable insomuch as it hath no other then the noblest of Objects God Himselfe And sure I am however that the most Learned most Pious and most Religious of our School Divines have been earnest in their advisoes to us to extract all selfenesse from our love of God and as much as our frailties will admit of to fix all our affections entirely upon Him as he is infinitely Good and Amiable in Himselfe Moreover you may remember Sir that Cicero in his Book touching the nature of the Gods hath these very words Quid est cur Deos ab hominibus colendos dicas cum dii ipsi non modo homines non colant sed omnino nihil curent Et quae porrò Pietas ei debetur à quo nihil acceperis Aut quid omnino cujus nullum meritum fit ei deberi potest By which it is evident that he would exclude all other inducements to Religion besides a meer mercenary and servile respect And yet I dare say that you do not remember that ever you heard him accounted Impious for that opinion Why therefore should EPICVRVS have such hard measure as to be stigmatiz'd with the name of Atheist Impious wretch Secretary of Hell Enemy to all Religion c and all for asserting that man ought to be induc'd to a reverence and veneration of the Divine Majesty only by the Sentiments of a Filiall Piety not supernaturall Piety arising from Grace justifying and by which we are made the Sons of God but a pure Naturall one such as Right Reason had suggested unto him Certainly of the two opinions Epicurus's will appear much more veniall to an Equitable Arbiter Sundry other arguments there are which might be advantagiously-alledged on our Authors behalfe in this case But considering that these few already urged are of importance enough to evince the temerity of his Accusers judgment and that the prolixity of this discourse hath long since given you just occasion to question by what right I call it a Letter I perceive my selfe obliged in good manners no longer to exercise your patience then while I briefly expresse my sentiments of the LAST Article of his Charge Which is His asserting of Selfe-Homicide in case of intolerable and otherwise inevitable Calamity This as a Christian I hold to be a bloody and detestable opinion because expresly repugnant to the Law of God and yet in the person of a meer Philosopher I might without being unreasonably Paradoxicall adventure to dispute whether it be so highly repugnant to the Law of Nature as men have generally conceived For First if all the praecepts of the Law of Nature concenter in this one point Flie Evill pursue Good as those who have most labour'd to conduct our understanding out of that intricate Labyrinth the ambiguous Sence of the word Law of Nature have unanimously determined certainly that man assumes no very easie task who undertakes to prove that in case of insupportable distresse and where all other hopes of evading or ending that misery then which there can be no greater Evill for a man to free himselfe from that extremity of Evill and seek the Good of ease and quiet by taking away his own life which chiefly makes him subject to and only sensible of that misery is an infringment of the Law of Nature Again if we understand Selfe-praeservation which all men allow to be the foundation of Naturall Law in Generall to be no other but an innate Love or Naturall affection to Life as a Good when life ceaseth to be a Good degenerates into an Evill as commonly it doth to men in cruell torments of the body or high discontent of minde the more desperate affliction of the two by much when all the Stars of hope and comfort are set in the West of black desperation why should not the force or obligation of that Law also cease at the same time Or rather why should not self-homicid in such cases be an absolute accomplishment of the Law of Self-praeservation it being manifest that we are by the tenour of that Law obliged to use such means as conduce to our praeservation from the greatest Evill and as manifest that to free ones-selfe from misery which cannot otherwise be avoided but by breaking as under the Ligaments of Life is a pursuance of the only means we can discover to beconducible to our end that is to preservation from more sufferings and to Indolency which in Death we propose to our selves as a Good But lest we seem to give any encouragement to that which God the Church and the Civill Power so highly condemn let us grant that Selfe-murther in whatsoever case is a violation of the Law of Nature and yet we shall have one consideration left that seemes strong enought to refract the violence of their malice who exclaim against EPICVRVS as the grand abettor of selfe-assasination and that is that he was not single nor most vehement in the justification of it For if we look upon the Doctrine of other Philosophers we shall soon perceive that the Stoicks generally not only approved thereof but strictly enjoyned men to embrace death voluntarily and from their own hands That Cicero doth Lib. de Legibus implicitely allow of it in these words Eum damnandum esse censeo qui seipsum interficit si neque ex decreto Civitatis fecerit neque ullo Fortunae casu intolerabili inevitabilique coactus neque obrutus ullâ pauperis miseraeque vitae ignominiâ and expresly confirms it in 2 Tusculan in these Eam in vita servandam Legem quae in Graecorum conviviis obtinet Aut bibat aut abeat quoniam ut oportet aliquis fruatur pariter cum aliis voluptate potandi aut ne sobrius in violentiam vinolentorum incidat ante discedat sic injurias Fortunae quas ferre nequeas defugiendo relinquas And if their Practise we shall assoon finde many of them to have laid violent hands upon themselves and that in cases offar lesse moment then that of insupportable and inevitable Calamity to which only Epicurus's praecept is limited while He leaving others to become examples of that Rule with admirable patience and invincible magnanimity endured the tortures of the Stone in the Bladder and other most excruciating Diseases for mamy years together and awaited till extream old age gently put out the Taper of his life Thus Zeno a man of the most spotlesse fame of any Philosopher among the antients having by a fall bruised one of his fingers against the ground and interpreting that
to be a summons of him to the earth went presently home and hang'd himselfe and was therefore by Diogenes Laertius honour'd with this Elogie Mirâ felicitate vir qui incolumis integer sine morbo è vivis excessit Thus Demosthenes you know to prevent his being beholding to any man but himselfe either for his life or death drank mortall poison out of his own quill which had given him immortality long before Thus also Democles to praevent his pollution by the unnaturall heat of a certain lustfull Greek Tyrant who attempted to force him leaped into a Furnace of boyling Water And thus Cleanthes Chrysippus and Empedocles all brake open the gates of death and forc'd themselves into the other world To these you may please to add the memorable Examples of that Prince of Romane wisdome as Lactanrius calls him Cato who with his own hands and sword opened a flood-gate in his bowells to let his life flow forth having all the night before prepar'd himselfe to fall boldly with the Lecture of Plato's discourse of the Immortality of the Soul and of the famous Cleombrotus who upon no other incitement but Plato's reasons in the same discourse threw himselfe from a precipice as if he went instantly to experiment the truth of what he had newly read and though Aristotle would not admit that he did it upon any other account but that of Pusillanimity and Fear yet Saint Augustine De Civit. Dei Lib. 1. cap. 22. ascribes it altogether unto Greatnesse of minde his words being these When no Calamity urged him no Crime either true or imputed nothing but greatnesse of minde moved him to embrace death and dissolve the sweet bonds of life And Lactantius who was severe enough in his censure both of the Act and the Book that occasion'd it sayes of him Praecipitem se dedit nullam aliam ob causam nisi quod Platoni credidit SIR By this time you are satisfied both of the injuries done to the memory of the Temperate Good and Pious EPICVRVS and of my willingnesse and devoir to redresse them And my dull and unequall Apologie for him being now ended I should begin another for my selfe in that I have rather disturbed then either delighted or informed you But this being much the greater difficulty of the two I think it safer for me to put my selfe upon your mercy for an absolute forgivenesse then to trust to my own wit to make excuses for my failings herein especially since your patience cannot but be already overcome by the Tediousnesse of Your very Humble Servant W. CHARLETON The Contents Chap. 1. INtroduction Fol. 1. Chap. 2. Of Felicity or the Supream Good so far forth as Man is capable thereof Fol. 7. Chap. 3. That pleasure without which there can be no Notion of Felicity is a reall Good in it selfe Fol. 12. Chap. 4. That Felicity doth consist generally in Pleasure Fol. 17. Chap. 5. That the Pleasure wherein Felicity doth consist is the Indolency of the Body and Tranquillity of the Minde Fol. 22. Chap. 6. Of the Means to attain this Felicity Fol. 29. Chap. 7. Of Right Reason and Free Will from whence all the Praise of the Vertues is derived Fol. 33. Chap. 8. Of the Vertues in Generall Fol. 38. Chap. 9. Of Prudence Generall Fol. 44. Chap. 10. Of Prudence Private Fol. 48. Chap. 11. Of Prudence Domestick Fol. 55. Chap. 12. Of Prudence Civill Fol. 60. Chap. 13. Of Temperance in Generall Fol. 66. Chap. 14. Of Sobriety opposed to Gluttony Fol. 71. Chap. 15. Of Continence opposed to Lust. Fol. 79. Chap. 16. Of Lenity opposed to Anger Fol. 86. Chap. 17. Of Modesty opposed to Ambition Fol. 92. Chap. 18. Of Moderation opposed to Avarice Fol. 97. Chap. 19. Of Mediocrity betwixt Hope and Despair of the Future Fol. 104. Chap. 20. Of Fortitude in Generall Fol. 109. Chap. 21. Of Fortitude opposed to the Fear of the Gods Fol. 114. Chap. 22. Of Fortitude opposed to the Fear of Death Fol. 118. Chap. 23. Of Fortitude against Pain of the Body Fol. 128. Chap. 24. Of Fortitude against Discontent of Minde Fol. 133. Chap. 25. Of Iustice in Generall Fol. 139. Chap. 26. Of Right or Iust from whence Iustice is denominated Fol. 143. Chap. 27. Of the Originall of Right and Iustice Fol. 149. Chap. 28. Between whom Iustice is to be exercised Fol. 159. Chap. 29. How rightfully Iustice is to be exercised Fol. 167. Chap. 30. Of Beneficence Gratitude Piety Observance Fol. 172. Chap. 31. Of Friendship Fol. 178. EPICURVS in this Treatise discourseth of the 1. Summum Bonum of mans life which is PLEASVRE consisting in the Indolency of the Body Tranquillity of the Mind 2. Means to attain it viz. Honesty which comprehends all the Virtues namely 1. Prudence or the Dictamen of right Reason and that 1. Generall which teacheth to order all ones Actions and desires to the attainement of Pleasure 2. Particular which divides it selfe into 1. Prudence Private which admonisheth us to elect if it be in our own choyce that course of life which is most agreeable to the inclination of our Genius and such as may make our Condition rather Mean then either High or Lowe 2. Prudence Domestick which concernes a man as a Husband Father Master of Servants Possessor of Goods estate 3. Prudence Civill which concerns a man as he is the Member of a Society which adviseth to Affect privacy and yet not to decline publick imployments in case the present Necessity of the Cōmon Wealth or the Command of Superiors shall call thereunto 2. Temperance 1. General consisting in the Moderation of all Cupidities 2. Particular which is either 1. Sobriety 2 Continence 3. Lenity 4. Modesty 5. Moderation 6. Mediocrity betwixt Hope and despaire of the Future opposed to Gluttony Lust. Anger Ambition Avarice 3. Fortitude 1. General consisting in the prevention of all Fear 2. Particular against The Fear of the Gods The Feare of Death Paines of the Body Discontent of Mind 4. Iustice whereof there are five branches viz. 1. Beneficence to All. 2. Gratitude to Benefactors Piety towards Parents Kinsfolks Country Governours Observance of All Superiors in 1 Nature as the Gods 2 Power as Princes and Magistrates 3 Learning 4 Uirtue 5 Obligations 5. Frendship which extends to the mutuall Participation not Community of Saints and to Death it self EPICVRVS'S MORALS CHAPTER 1. Introduction IF Action be the end of Speculalation and the knowledge of Nature but the way that leads Man to the knowledge of himself and the best of mans knowledge bee that which teacheth him how to order his Mind and regulate his Actions so as that he may assuredly attain to the highest degree of Happinesse of which his Nature is capable during life then certainly must ETHICKS or MORAL PHILOSOPHY be the noblest part of all Human Learning the Crown and perfection of all our studies insomuch as it is that alone which both gives us the infallible Tokens by which we may know what is
to be not onely a Good but also the Essentiall Reason or very Root of Good insomuch as it is that very and onely thing for whose sake or in respect whereof an object is Good or Desirable as on the reverse pain seems to be not only an Evil in it self but also the Formall Reason or very Root of Evill insomuch as it is that alone in respect whereof any thing is Evill or Hatefull For though we somtimes avoid Pleasure yet is it not the pleasure it self which we avoid but some pain that is annexed unto it or impendent on it as likewise if we somtimes court and pursue a pain it is not the pain it self that wee pursue but some pleasure that is conjoyned unto it III. To speak more expressly No man doth neglect hate or decline pleasure as it is pleasure but because usually very great pains follow and overtake such who know not to follow Pleasure with Reason and Moderation nor is there any man that loves desires and pursues Pain simply as it is pain but because he expects some very great pleasure to accrew to him thereupon and such frequently may be the constitution of the time as that he hath no other way that leads him to the pleasure he aims at but what lies in the rough tract of Labour and Pain IV. To instance in very small things who is there among us that undertakes and endures any laborious exercise of the body unlesse to the end that he may thereby acquire some commodity or benefit And who can justly reprehend him who desires and endeavours to enjoy that pleasure upon which nothing of trouble or discommodity doth attend Or him who endeavours to eschew that Paine by which no pleasure can be procured But we may justly accuse and esteem those persons worthy of contempt who being intricated and corrupted with the blandishments of present pleasures do not foresee nor provide against those pains and troubles that must ensue as being inevitably impendent upon all heads that are blinded with cupidities The like blame is due also to those who forsake their stations and desert the duties of their places and offices out of a certain softnesse and weaknesse of Minde i. e. of Fear of Labour and Pains V. Now of these things the Distinction is easie and expedite For in times of freedome when all lies open to the arbitrary disposition of our own choice so that there is no impediment but we may do that which is most pleasing to us in such case it is lawfull for us to pursue and embrace all pleasure and avoid all pain But such frequently may be the constitution of the times as that pleasures are rather to be repudiated and labours and troubles not to be refused VI. So though we esteem all pleasures to be a reall good and all pain to be a reall evill yet we do not therefore affirm that we ought at all times to pursue that and avoid this For it is good for us to sustain some pains that we may afterward enjoy more abundant pleasures and expedient to abstain from some pleasures that we may not by them incurre more grievous pains VII Hence as from a fountain was it that discoursing of the true Criteria or judges of good and evill we deduced severall Canons or Rules for the guidance and regulation of our Affections or Passions accounting Pleasure and Pain for the most certain Criterion of Election and Aversion And this upon very good reason seeing that from the Benefit or Harm that redounds unto us from the fruition of them all the Objects of our Affections or Passions ought to be judged Good or Evill and that we somtimes use Good as Evill and other times Evill as Good VIII From these Considerations therefore that we may inculcate the matter we conclude that no pleasure is of it self Evill but some things there are which albeit they afford some pleasures yet they are such as occasion and induce pains much greater than themselves Whereto by way of Consequence we superadd this if any one pleasure could be so collected into it self or sequestred from all dross as that it should neither comprehend in it nor leave behind it any the least measure of pain assuredly by that Collection and simplicity it would become no less perfect and absolute than are the chiefest Works of Nature and so pleasures could have no Difference either of Qualities or Degrees among themselves but would all be equally desireable IX Further if those very things which are the Efficients of Pleasures to Luxurious men were such as that they could render them superior to the terrors of Meteors Earthquakes Thunder and Lightning Eclipses and other the like accidents caused by bodies superterrestriall and free them from the base fears of pains and Death truly we could find nothing in them to be reprehended insomuch as they would be wholly filled with Pleasures and could not in the least know any thing of Pain of Trouble of Sickness i. e. of Evill CHAP. IV. That Felicity doth consist Generally in Pleasure WE are now come to our main purpose viz That Felicity is rooted in Pleasure and therefore we are first to demonstrate it to be so in the Generall that we may afterward the more securely determine in what Pleasure it doth consist in Speciall II. In the Generall pleasure seems to be as the beginning so also the end of happy life forasmuch as we deprehend it to be the first Good and Congenite to our Nature and to all other Animals whatever and that very and onely thing according to which we direct our selves in the Election and Rejection of any Object whatever and define it to be Good or Evill III. That Pleasure is the First Good and Congeniall or as Philosophers speak the First Aptum and Accommodatum to Nature may be demonstrated from hence that every Animal as soon as born doth affect pursue and delight in Pleasure as its chiefest Good and on the contrary doth hate avoid and to the utmost of its power repel Pain as its Chiefest Evill provided that the sense of the Animal be not depraved but its Nature remain in its primitive perfection so as to enable it to judge truly IV. This considered there is no further need of any Reasoning or Disputation to evince why Pleasure is to be desired and pain to be avoided since the sence alone doth evidently demonstrate it no lesse than it doth that Fire is hot that snow is white that Hony is sweet and sufficient it is for us onely to observe it For if when we have taken away from man all his senses the Remainder must be nothing necessary it is that what is according to Nature what against Nature must be judged by Nature it self and consequently that Pleasure is to be desired for it self and pain to be avoided for it self For what perceives or what judges that it may either pursue or avoid any thing beside pleasure and pain V. That Pleasure is also
the Last or Highest of Goods or the end of all desiderable things may be soon understood even from hence that it is Pleasure alone for which we desire all other things and never desire Pleasure for any thing but it self For other things we may desire to the end we may be affected or delighted with Pleasure but no man did ever require a reason why we would be affected and delighted therewith truly no more than for what Cause or to what End we should desire to be happy Seeing that Pleasure and Felicity ought to be reputed as in the same degree so also for one and the same thing and consequently for the end Extreme or Supreme of Goods to which all other things subordinately conduce and which is it self subordinate or referrible to nothing VI. The same may be Confirmed from hence that as wee have praemonished Felicity cannot be understood unlesse it be conceived to be a certain state wherein a man may live most sweetly most pleasantly i. e. in the greatest Pleasure of which his Nature is capable For but take away from life that sweetnesse that jucundity and pray what Notion of Felicity can remain wee say of Felicity not onely such as we termed Divine but also that which we account Human and which is not otherwise capable of more and lesse or of Intension and Remission than onely as it may admit of more and lesse of Pleasure VII That we may further manifest this Truth by a Comparation of Pleasure with pain let us suppose a man to enjoy many great and lasting pleasures both in mind and body no pain molesting him in the present nor threatning him in the future and then what state can bee imagined more desireable more happy than this For in him who is thus affected there must be a Constancy or firmnesse of Mind fearing neither Death nor Pain because Death is insensible of any pain and in life if pain be long it must be light if great it cannot be long so that the Brevity is a comfort against the violence thereof and the Levity against Diuturnity When a man arrives at such a Condition as that he doth not tremble at the thought of Divinity nor suffer the present pleasures to slip away unenjoyd while his mind is taken up either with the memory of past Goods or expectation of future and doth every day solace himself with the assiduous recordation of them what greater Good is there that can be added to encrease the Happiness of this mans Condition VIII Suppose again on the other side that a man is afflicted with as great anguish of Mind and violent pains of Body as his nature can receive that he hath lost all probability all hopes of any the least Extenuation of his Miseries and that his tempestuous thoughts cannot lay hold of any comfort in the apprehension of any pleasure past present or expected and what can be imagined more wretched more miserable than this man IX If therefore a life surrounded with pains be most chiefly to be avoided seriously the Highest Evill is to live in pain and of necessary consequence The Highest Good is to live in Pleasure Nor indeed hath the mind of Man any other point wherein as in the Centre and Period of all his hopes and desires he may consist but only Pleasure And all Diseases Languors and Distempers are referred to pain nor is there any thing beside pain that can invade Naturein her Throne eject her from it or dissolve her CHAP. V. That Pleasure wherein Felicity doth consist is the Indolency of the Body and Tranquillity of Mind FOrasmuch as there are Two kinds of Pleasures viz. One that may be considered as dependent upon or radicated in Quiet and so is nothing else but a constant placability Calmnesse and Vacuity or Immunity from all perturbation and dolour and Another that may be considered as resident in Motion and so consisteth only in a certain sweet affectation or pleasant titillation of the sense as may be exemplified in joy hilarity eating and drinking when we are hungry and thirsty the pleasure of all which doth arise only from a pleasant motion in the Organs therefore is it necessary for us to determine Whether Felicity doth consist in both these Kinds of Pleasures conjoyned or in one of them alone and in which of the Two II. Accordingly therefore we affirm that the Pleasure wherein Felicity doth consist is only the Former i. e. in the stable kind of pleasure and so can be no other but the Indolency of Body and Tranquillity of the Mind III. And therefore when we say that Pleasure in the Generall is the end of a happy life or the Chiefest Good we are very far from understanding those Pleasures which are so much admired courted and pursued by men wallowing in Luxury or any other pleasures that are placed in the meer motion or action of Fruition wereby the sense is pleasantly tickled as some either out of Ignorance of the right or dissent of opinion or praejudice and Evill will against us have wrongfully expounded our words but onely this the importance of the matter will excuse our repetition of it Not to be pained in Body nor perturbed in Mind IV. For it is not perpetuall Feastings and Drinkings it is not the love of and Familiarity with beautifull boyes and women it is not the Delicacies of rare Fishes sweet meats rich Wines nor any other Dainties of the Table that can make a Happy life But it is Reason with Sobriety and consequently a serene Mind investigating the Causes why this Object is to be Elected and that to be Rejected and chasing away those vain superstitious and deluding opinions which would occasion very great disquiet in the mind V. Now that you may the more clearely understand why we affirme this kind of pleasure alone to be the end of life or chiefest good be pleased to observe that Nature doth not tend to any other pleasure primarily or as to her principal scope but only to what is stable which followes upon the remove of all paine and Molestation For she doth not propose to her self the Moveable pleasure as the end at which she aimes but hath provided it only as the meanes conducible to that end that it might be as it were a Condiment to sweeten that Naturall operation which is necessary to the Eradication of all Pain and Molestation For instance seeing that Hunger and Thirst are things troublesome and incommodious in the present to an Animal the Primary End of Nature is to constitute the Animal in that state in which it may be free from that trouble and offence and because that cannot be effected but by Eating and Drinking therefore hath she wisely provided that the Action of Eating and Drinking should be accompanied with a certain pleasantness and jucundity that so the Animal might be thereby invited the more willingly and readily to performe that necessary Action VI. Most men indeed living praeposterously and being carried away
and Becomingly II. That this Virtue also is to be embraced in order to Pleasure may be inferred from hence that neither the undergoing of great labours nor the suffering of great pains are things inviting and desireable in themselves as likewise is not Patience nor Assiduity nor Watchings nor Industry it self which is so highly commended nay nor Fortitude but the reason why we commend and pursue them is to the End we may live without Care and Fear and so free both body and mind as much as possible from all molestation III. For as by the Fear of Death for example the quiet of life is wholly perturbed and as to yeeld to pains and endure them with a dejected and weak mind is a great misery and by that basenesse and weaknesse of Spirit many have uttterly lost their Parents Friends Country and most themselves so on the other side doth a strong and sublime mind make a man free from all Care and Anguish insomuch as it contemns Death upon this account that all who suffer it are in the same case as before they were in being and is fortified against all Pains as being assured that the greatest pains are soon determined by Death that small pains have many intervalls of quiet that mean pains are not above our patience that if they be tolerable they are to be endured with constancy which much mitigates them and if intolerable he is quietly to depart the world as a Theatre that doth not please him IV. Now from these considerations it is plain that Timidity and unmanlinesse are not to be dispraised nor Fortitude and Patience to be praised for their own sakes but those are Rejected because they induce Pain and these Embraced because they produce Pleasure V. And as for what we said of the Efficacy of Fortitude both against Fear and all things that are wont to cause it the intent of it is that we may understand that they are the very same Evills which torment when they are present and are feared when expected as future and consequently that we learn not to fear those Evills which we either feign to our selves or any waies apprehend as to come and with Constancy and Patience to endure those that are present VI. Now among such Evills as we Imagine to our selves but are not really Future the chiefest are those which we fear either from the Gods as if they were Evill themselves or could be the Authors of any Evill to us or from Death as if that were evill in it self or brought us to some eternall Evill after it and among such Evills as are in possibility and may come and do somtimes come and affect us with pain and trouble they are all such as inferr either Pain upon the Body or Discontent upon the Mind VII Those which produce Pain are Diseases Scourgings Fire Sword c. and those which induce Discontent are External Evills and either Publique of which sort are Tyranny Warrs destruction of ones Country Pestilence Famine and the like or Private of which sort are Servitude Banishment Imprisonment Infamy Losse of Friends Wife Children Estate c. VIII Now the difference betwixt all these things on the one part and pain and discontent on the other is this that Pain and Discontent are absolute evills in themselves the others are evills onely Respectively or as they may be the Causes of pain and discontent nor is there any reason why they should be avoided unlesse in that respect only IX Upon the Chief of these Causes of fear we shall touch and in order as they are here enumerated In the mean time be pleased to observe that Fortitude is a Disposition of the mind not ingenerate by Nature but acquired by long consulting with Reason For Fortitude is very much different from Audacity Ferocity inconsiderate Temerity which is found even in the Bruit Animals and being proper to man and to such men onely as act according to Prudence and the advice of right Reason is not to be measured by the hot Temperament aud strength of the Body but by the firmnesse of the Mind constantly adhaering to an honest intention or purpose CHAP. XXI Of Fortitude opposed to the Fear of the Gods IN the first place it seems convenient that we discusse a certain Twofold Fear much transcending all others forasmuch as if any thing hath produced the Supreme Pleasure and that which is proper to the Mind doubtlesse it hath been the Expunction of all such Opinions as have impressed the greatest Fears upon the Mind For such is the condition of miserable Mortalls that they are generally led not by sound opinions but by some certain Affection void of Reason and so not defining Evill by reality but imagination they render themselves obnoxious to and frequently suffer as high perturbations from such things as they only Imagine to themselves as if they were Reall II. And that which is the Ground of the Greatest Fear and consequently of the Greatest Perturbation to men is this that conceiving there are certain Blissfull and Immortall Natures which they call Gods in the World they do yet think them to have such Wills such Passions such Operations as are plainly repugnant to those Attributes of Beatitude and Immortality such are perpetuall sollicitude Imployments Fits of Anger and Kindnesse and hereupon they infer that Losses and Afflictions are by way of punishment derived to Evill men and Protection and Benefits by way of reward and encouragement derived to Good men from the Gods For Men being nursed up in their own i. e. Human affections imagine and admit Gods in most things like themselves and what they find incorrespondent to their own inclinations and passions the very same they conclude to be incompetent to the Deities III. Hereupon it cannot be exprest how great unhappinesse Mankind hath drawn upon it self by ascribing such attributes to the Gods as resemble those of Human nature and especially those of Anger and Vindictivenesse in respect whereof mens minds being made low and abject as if the Gods perpetually threatned to call them to a severe account for their actions and to inflict punishment upon them you shal scarcely find a man who is not appaled and strook with terror at every clap of Thunder at every Earth-quake at every high wind at every storm at Sea and the like naturall occurrents IV. But so are not Those who being educated in the school of Reason have learned that the Gods live in perptuall security and Tranquillity and that their Blisfull Nature is so far removed from us and our Affairs as that they can neither be Pleased nor Displeased at our actions And unfeignedly if they were touched with Anger at our misdeeds or heard the prayers of men the whole race of man would soon be destroyed there being not an hour wherein Millions of men do not imprecate mischief and destruction each to other V. Be very Cautious therefore that when you have conceived God to be an Immortall and Blissfull Nature or
it to be therefore necessary that betwixt friends there should be a Community of the Goods of Fortune as that Philosopher conceived who was the Author of that saying that among Friends all things are Common And our Reason is that Community of Estates implies mutuall diffidence or distruct of each others Constancy in case of Adversity or Poverty on one part and Distrust is wholly inconsistent with Friendship Then only are friends who can with full Confidence and freedom take and make use of so much of their friends Goods or Estate as the necessity of their present condition doth require and this no otherwise than as if it were absolutely their own though each partly still reserves a propriety in the full of his own Estate V. This we are assured will sound strange in the ears of the Vulgar but what are the Common People to us seeing that no Faith or Constancy is to be found in their Kindness and Friendship For being wholly uncapable of any part of wisdom that might render their Conversation commendable and gratefull and as uncapable of either understanding what is privately what publickly profitable or what 's the difference betwixt Good Manners and Bad it is impossible they should have any Sentiments of the Goods of Amity and Friendship and consequently that they should in any measure fulfill the duties thereof VI. We speak therefore of Wise men only among whom there is as it were a firm Covenant and League not to love their Friends lesse than themselves Reason dictating that it may and should be so and Experience assuring that it frequently hath been so So that it is most evident as well that such a perfect Conjunction you may call it Union may be made betwixt Wise men as that nothing doth more conduce to the Quiet and Pleasure of life than such a Conjunction once made and conserved VII For as it is impossible for us to conserve the sweetnesse and security of our lives firm and lasting without the influence of Friendship so is it equally impossible to conserve Friendship firm and lasting without that Cement of Loving our Friends at the same rate as we do our selves This therefore and Pleasure are the inseparable Adjuncts of Friendship and who so doth not hold so full a sympathy with his Friend as to rejoyce at his joy and condole with him in his sorrow doth but pretend to the noble title of a Friend VIII Considering this the Wise man will be sure to stand equally affected toward himself and his Friend what labours and pains he undergoes for his own Security and Pleasures the same will he undergo for the Security and Pleasures of hls Friend and as he rejoyceth to think that he hath one with whom he may sit and to whom he may administer in his sicknesse whom he may visit and assist in case of imprisonment and whom he may relieve in case of want so will it rejoyce him to be confident that he hath one who will stick close to him in sicknesse imprisonment want and all other Calamities And not only this but his love will be so great to him as to oblige him to suffer the greatest of torments nay if occasion be even Death it self for his Friends sake IX We have known Certainly and from our Fathers in whose memories it was fresh that many of those Wise and Good men who had the happinesse of procuring to themselves full Confidence and Security in the Society of men living in one and the same opinon and the self-same affections with themselves have lived in a most pleasant and mutually comfortable League of Friendship and been conjoyned with so absolute a Neernesse each to other as that they could heartily and without the least of reluctancy wish to suffer death in the place of their friend destined to die CONCLVSION AND this is the sum of all we had to say concerning ETHICKS or MORALS which from the very beginning we asserted to be the Noblest and most Usefull part of Philosophy We now therefore Conclude with this Admonition to you whoever you are that aspire to true Wisdom for our Designe herein was to do a piece of acceptable service to all such that you both meditate upon and earnestly endeavour to put in practise each one of those many Rules and Axioms of Prudence that we have here laid down assuring your self that they are the very Elements or Fundamentals of the art of Living Honestly or Virtuously and upon consequence peaceably and Happily We say to Meditate upon them night and day and as well when you are alone as when you are in company of some faithfull Friend such to whom you may safely and comfortably say We are indeed Alone but so much the better insomuch as we have the greater opportunity of discoursing things sincerely and making the stricter inquisition for Truth I speak not to many but to you alone and and you speak not to many but to me alone and that 's enough since we are an ample Theatre each to other By this time we presume you are fully convinced that he is the only Brave and Happy man who hath his mind possessed with true and correspondent Conceptions of the Nature of the Gods who is at all times prepared to bid death welcom without the least of Fear who hath so reasoned concerning the end of Nature or the highest of Goods as fully to understand that it may be attained with the greatest facility imaginable who stands confirmed that whatever of Evill is to be endured by him must if Vehement be short in duration if not Vehement easie in tolleration who doth not emasculate and soften himself with the Childish apprehension of any such thing as inevitable Necessity or the vulgar belief of Fate but well understands that he hath an absolute Freedom of Will in all his actions and is not subject to the Controll of any influence besides that of his own Reason and knows also that nothing at all or at most very little of Fortune can at any time intervene to crosse his designes defeat his hopes interrupt his Felicity and finally who hath composed all his Desires to the sober modell of Nature and the Rules of Wisdom by us prescribed in this small Treatise And assuredly when you shall come to be such a Man as this you shall never know a Perturbation day nor night waking nor sleeping for a well composed Mind keeps the same constant tenour of Serenity as well in sleep as waking and unquiet Dreams are but the effects of Sollicitude and unquiet thoughts in the day and shall live like some Diety among men For that man hath sublimed himself to a whole Sphear above the common condition of Mortality who spends his daies in the possession of Immortall Goods FINIS Esse illius Philosophi orationem prorsus inanem quae Affectum nullum in Homine curat quia ut Medicinae usus nullus est nisi à Corpore morbos abigat sic nec Philosophiae nisi
Animal as the common Notion concerning God doth suggest you do not destroy that Conception by giving any other Attribute to him which may be either inconsistent with or repugnant to those of his Beatitude and Immortality VI. Gods in truth there are for the Knowledge of them is evident as we have elsewhere declared but they are not such as men commonly conceive and describe them to be For when they have described them to be Immormortall and Blissfull they contradict themselves by affixing other Repugnant Attributes upon them as that they are alwaies taken up with businesse themselves and create business for others that they are affected with pleasure or displeasure at the good or bad Actions of men that they are delighted with human adoration and sacrifices c. all which presuppose great Disquiet Imbecillity Fear and the want of externall assistance VII Nor need you fear that this Tenent should subject you to the censure of being Impious because in truth He is not Impious who denies and casheirs the Vulgar Gods of the multitude but he who ascribes to the Gods the opions of the multitude For those are not Genuine Praenotions but False Opinions which are commonly delivered by men concerning the Gods VIII By the same reason likewise he is not the truly Pious man who bows down upon every stone sacrificeth upon every Altar and besprinkles the doors of every Temple with the blood of victims but He who contemplating all things with a serene and quiet mind frames to himself out of a genuine Praenotions true and correspondent conceptions concerning the Divine Nature and being thereunto induced not by hope or reward but meerly by apprehension of the Majesty and Supreme Excellency of its essence doth love it and worship it with the highest Reverence and Veneration of his mind and admitting no such Cogitations as may suggest any Opinion repugnant to its Attributes and destructive to the Veneration due unto it doth thereby exempt himself from that base fear which others suffer in whose minds that Contrariety of Attributes doth beget the highest and most lasting of all Perturbations CHAP. XXII Of Fortitude opposed to the Fear of Death THE other thing which invades and strikes the Minds of men with extream Fear and Terror is Death and this because of we know not what Everlasting Evills that are expected immediately to ensue thereupon and that 's very strange you 'l say that men should fear to suffer Evill then when they shall be deprived of all sense and utterly cease to be they being ignorant that all those solemn stories that are commonly told of Hell Rhadamanth the Furies c. are the meer Fictions of Poets and that if they contain any thing of truth in them they are but cunning allusions to the miseries which many men suffer during life since those who are uncessantly vexed with vain Fears superfluous Cares insatiable Desires and other violent Passions lead lives so truly miserable as that they may well be said to suffer the torments of Hell II. That you may exempt your self therefore from these Terrors accustom your mind to this thought That Death doth nothing concern us and upon this Argument whatever of Good or Evill we are capable of in life we are capapable thereof onely in respect of our Sense but Death is a Privation of all Sense therefore c. That Death is a Privation of all Sense is consequent from hence that it is a Dissolution and what is once dissolved must henceforth remain without all Sense So that Death seems a thing most easily Contemptible insomuch as it is an ineffectuall Agent and in vain threatens pain where the Patient is destroyed and so ceaseth to be capable of pain III. True it is indeed and too true that men generally abhor Death somtimes because they look upon it as the Greatest of Pains somtimes because they apprehend it as the Cessation of all their Enjoyments or Privation of all things that are Dear to them in life but in both these Respects altogether without Cause since this thing Not-to-live or Not-to-be ought to be no occasion of Terror because when once we come to that we shall have no faculty left whereby to know that Not-to-live hath any thing of Evill in it IV. Hereupon we may conclude that those are great Fooles who abhorre to think that after Death their Bodies should be torne by wild beasts burned in the flame of the funerall pile devoured by wormes c. for they doe not consider that then they shall not be and so not feele nor complaine that they are torne burned devoured by corruption or wormes And that those are Greater Fooles who take it grievously that they shall no longer enjoy the conversation of their Wives Children Friends no longer doe them good offices nor afford them their assistance for these doe not consider that then they shall have no longer Relation to nor Desire of Wife Children Friends or any thing else V. We said that Death accounted the King of Terrors and most horrid of all Evills doth nothing concerne us because while we are Death is not and when Death is we are not so that he who profoundly considers the matter will soone conclude that Death doth concerne neithe Living nor the Dead not the living because it yet toucheth them not not the Dead because they are not VI. And as the assurance of this that Death nothing concernes us doth exempt us from the greatest of Terrors so also doth it make us to enjoy life to the most advantage of pleasure not by adding thereunto any thing of uncertaine Time but by Detracting all desire of Immortality For in life there can be nothing of Evil to him who doth perfectly understand that there can be nothing of Evill in the privation of life VII Againe He cannot be excused of Folly who saith that He feares Death not because of any Trouble or Anguish that it can bring when it comes but because of the perpetuall Griefe and Horror wherewith it afflicts the minde till it comes or while it is expected forasmuch as that which can bring no trouble or anguish with it when it comes ought not to make us sad before it comes Certainely if therebe any thing of Incommodity or Feare in the businesse of Death it is the fault of him that is Dying not of Death it selfe nor is there any trouble in Death more than there is after it and it is no lesse folly to feare Death than to feare old Age since as old Age followes close upon the heeles of youth so doth Death upon the heeles of old Age. VIII Further we are to hope at least that when we come to the point of Death and are even at the last gaspe either we shall feele no pain or such as will be very short for as much as no pain that is Great can be Long and so every man ought to be confident that though the dissolution of his Soul and Body be accompanied