ding to the dictates of their honour or their conscience. In
practice, if not in theory, a man must be either Stoic or Epicurean.

[Footnote 1: Lord Derby.]

Each school, in this dialogue, is allowed to plead its own cause. "Listen"
(says the Epicurean) "to the voice of nature that bids you pursue
pleasure, and do not be misled by that vulgar conception of pleasure as
mere sensual enjoyment; our opponents misrepresent us when they say that
we advocate this as the highest good; we hold, on the contrary, that men
often obtain the greatest pleasure by neglecting this baser kind. Your
highest instances of martyrdom--of Decii devoting themselves for
their country, of consuls putting their sons to death to preserve
discipline--are not disinterested acts of sacrifice, but the choice of a
present pain in order to procure a future pleasure. Vice is but ignorance
of real enjoyment. Temperance alone can bring peace of mind; and the
wicked, even if they escape public censure, 'are racked night and day by
the anxieties sent upon them by the immortal gods'. We do not, in this,
contradict your Stoic; we, too, affirm that only the wise man is really
happy. Happiness is as impossible for a mind distracted by passions, as
for a city divided by contending factions. The terrors of death haunt the
guilty wretch, 'who finds out too late that he has devoted himself to
money or power or glory to no purpose'. But the wise man's life is
unalloyed happiness. Rejoicing in a clear conscience, 'he remembers the
past with gratitude, enjoys the blessings of the present, and disregards
the future'. Thus the moral to be drawn is that which Horace (himself, as
he expresses it, 'one of the litter of Epicurus') impresses on his fair
friend Leuconoee:

'Strain your wine, and prove your wisdom; life is short;
should hope be more?
In the moment of our talking envious time has slipped away.
Seize the present, trust to-morrow e'en as little as you may'".

Passing on to the second book of the treatise, we hear the advocate of
the counter-doctrine. Why, exclaims the Stoic, introduce Pleasure to the
councils of Virtue? Why uphold a theory so dangerous in practice? Your
Epicurean soon turns Epicure, and a class of men start up who have never
seen the sun rise or set, who squander fortunes on cooks and perfumers, on
costly plate and gorgeous rooms, and ransack sea and land for delicacies
to supply their feasts. Epicurus gives his disciples a dangerous
di