re exposed, who
indulge themselves in unlawful amours. Music and poetry, which are often
employed as incentives to licentious pleasure are to be cautiously and
sparingly used.

"Gentleness, as opposed to an irrascible temper, greatly contributes
to the tranquillity and happiness of life, by preserving the mind from
perturbation, and arming it against the assaults of calumny and malice.
A wise man, who puts himself under the government of reason, will be
able to receive an injury with calmnese, and to treat the person who
committed it with lenity; for he will rank injuries among the casual
events of life, and will prudently reflect that he can no more stop the
natural current of human passions, than he can curb the stormy winds.
Refractory servants in a family should be chastised, and disorderly
members of a state punished without wrath.

"Moderation, in the pursuit of honors or riches, is the only security
against disappointment and vexation. A wise man, therefore, will prefer
the simplicity of rustic life to the magnificence of courts. Future
events a wise man will consider as uncertain, and will, therefore,
neither suffer himself to be elated with confident expectation, nor to
be depressed by doubt and despair: for both are equally destructive of
tranquillity. It will contribute to the enjoyment of life, to consider
death as the perfect termination of a happy life, which it becomes us to
close like satisfied guests, neither regretting the past, nor anxious for
the future.

"Fortitude, the virtue which enables us to endure pain, and to banish
fear, is of great use in producing tranquillity. Philosophy instructs us
to pay homage to the gods, not through hope or fear, but from veneration
of their superior nature. It moreover enables us to conquer the fear
of death, by teaching us that it is no proper object of terror; since,
whilst we are, death is not, and when death arrives, we are not: so
that it neither concerns the living nor the dead. The only evils to
be apprehended are bodily pain, and distress of mind. Bodily pain it
becomes a wise man to endure with patience and firmness; because, if it
be slight, it may easily be borne; and if it be intense, it cannot
last long. Mental distress commonly arises not from nature, but from
opinion; a wise man will therefore arm himself against this kind of
suffering, by reflecting that the gifts of fortune, the loss of which
he may be inclined to deplore, were never his own, bu