o
it, why, then, ought not a man to begin with himself? since no man can be
more bound to look after the good of another than after his own; for
Nature cannot direct us to be good and kind to others, and yet at the
same time to be unmerciful and cruel to ourselves. Thus as they define
virtue to be living according to Nature, so they imagine that Nature
prompts all people on to seek after pleasure as the end of all they do.
They also observe that in order to our supporting the pleasures of life,
Nature inclines us to enter into society; for there is no man so much
raised above the rest of mankind as to be the only favourite of Nature,
who, on the contrary, seems to have placed on a level all those that
belong to the same species. Upon this they infer that no man ought to
seek his own conveniences so eagerly as to prejudice others; and
therefore they think that not only all agreements between private persons
ought to be observed, but likewise that all those laws ought to be kept
which either a good prince has published in due form, or to which a
people that is neither oppressed with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud
has consented, for distributing those conveniences of life which afford
us all our pleasures.

"They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own
advantage as far as the laws allow it, they account it piety to prefer
the public good to one's private concerns, but they think it unjust for a
man to seek for pleasure by snatching another man's pleasures from him;
and, on the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul for
a man to dispense with his own advantage for the good of others, and that
by this means a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with
another; for as he may expect the like from others when he may come to
need it, so, if that should fail him, yet the sense of a good action, and
the reflections that he makes on the love and gratitude of those whom he
has so obliged, gives the mind more pleasure than the body could have
found in that from which it had restrained itself. They are also
persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small pleasures with a
vast and endless joy, of which religion easily convinces a good soul.

"Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all our
actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our chief
end and greatest happiness; and they call every motion or state, either
of body