sonally. Diogenes Laertes could not have written
his life to better advantage for his reputation. Lucretius adored him.
Seneca, as much of an enemy of the sect as he was, spoke of him in the
highest terms. If some cities held him in horror, others erected
statues in his honor, and if, among the Christians, the Fathers have
condemned him, Gassendi and Bernier approve his principles.

In view of all these contrary authorities, how can the question be
decided? Shall I say that Epicurus was a corruptor of good morals, on
the faith of a jealous philosopher, of a disgruntled disciple, who
would have been delighted, in his resentment, to go to the length of
inflicting a personal injury? Moreover, had Epicurus intended to
destroy the idea of Providence and the immortality of the soul, is it
not reasonable to suppose that the world would have revolted against
so scandalous a doctrine, and that the life of the philosopher would
have been attacked to discredit his opinions more easily?

If, therefore, I find it difficult to believe what his enemies and the
envious have published against him, I should also easily credit what
his partisans have urged in his defence.

I do not believe that Epicurus desired to broach a voluptuousness
harsher than the virtue of the Stoics. Such a jealousy of austerity
would appear to me extraordinary in a voluptuary philosopher, from
whatever point of view that word may be considered. A fine secret
that, to declaim against a virtue which destroys sentiment in a sage,
and establishes one that admits of no operation.

The sage, according to the Stoics, is a man of insensible virtue; that
of the Epicureans, an immovable voluptuary. The former suffers pain
without having any pain; the latter enjoys voluptuousness without
being voluptuous--a pleasure without pleasure. With what object in
view, could a philosopher who denied the immortality of the soul,
mortify the senses? Why divorce the two parties composed of the same
elements, whose sole advantage is in a concert of union for their
mutual pleasure? I pardon our religious devotees, who diet on herbs,
in the hope that they will obtain an eternal felicity, but that a
philosopher, who knows no other good than that to be found in this
world, that a doctor of voluptuousness should diet on bread and water,
to reach sovereign happiness in this life, is something my
intelligence refuses to contemplate.

I am surprised that the voluptuousness of such an Epicu