now whether I have fully considered the doctrines of
Epicurus which are attributed to me?

I can claim the honor of having done so, but I do not care to claim a
merit I do not possess, and which you will say, ingenuously, does not
belong to me. I labor under a great disadvantage on account of the
numerous spurious treatises which are printed in my name, as though I
were the author of them. Some, though well written, I do not claim,
because they are not of my writing, moreover, among the things I have
written, there are many stupidities. I do not care to take the trouble
of repudiating such things, for the reason that at my age, one hour of
well regulated life, is of more interest and benefit to me than a
mediocre reputation. How difficult it is, you see, to rid one's self
of amour propre! I quit it as an author, and reassume it as a
philosopher, feeling a secret pleasure in manipulating what others are
anxious about.

The word "pleasure" recalls to mind the name of Epicurus, and I
confess, that of all the opinions of the philosophers concerning the
supreme good, there are none which appear to me to be so reasonable as
his.

It would be useless to urge reasons, a hundred times repeated by the
Epicureans, that the love of pleasure and the extinction of pain, are
the first and most natural inclinations remarked in all men; that
riches, power, honor, and virtue, contribute to our happiness, but
that the enjoyment of pleasure, let us say, voluptuousness, to include
everything in a word, is the veritable aim and end whither tend all
human acts. This is very clear to me, in fact, self-evident, and I am
fully persuaded of its truth.

However, I do not know very well in what the pleasure, or
voluptuousness of Epicurus consisted, for I never saw so many
different opinions of any one as those of the morals of this
philosopher. Philosophers, and even his own disciples, have condemned
him as sensual and indolent; magistrates have regarded his doctrines
as pernicious to the public; Cicero, so just and so wise in his
opinions, Plutarch, so much esteemed for his fair judgments, were not
favorable to him, and so far as Christianity is concerned, the Fathers
have represented him to be the greatest and the most dangerous of all
impious men. So much for his enemies; now for his partisans:

Metrodorus, Hermachus, Meneceus, and numerous others, who
philosophize according to his school, have as much veneration as
friendship for him per