ditions they leave
us not one, who cry out that man's sovereign good lies in his belly, and
that they would not purchase all the virtues together at the expense of
a cracked farthing, if pleasure were totally and on every side removed
from them. And in their discourses concerning the soul and the gods,
they hold that the soul perishes when it is separated from the body, and
that the gods concern not themselves in our affairs. Thus the Epicureans
reproach the other philosophers, that by their wisdom they bereave man
of his life; whilst the others on the contrary accuse them of teaching
men to live degenerately and like beasts.

Now these things are scattered here and there in the writings of
Epicurus, and dispersed through all his philosophy. But this Colotes, by
having extracted from them certain pieces and fragments of discourses,
destitute of any arguments whatever to render them credible and
intelligible, has composed his book, being like a shop or cabinet of
monsters and prodigies; as you better know than any one else, because
you have always in your hands the works of the ancients. But he seems to
me, like the Lydian, to open not only one gate against himself, but
to involve Epicurus also in many and those the greatest doubts and
difficulties. For he begins with Democritus, who receives of him an
excellent and worthy reward for his instruction; it being certain that
Epicurus for a long time called himself a Democritean, which as well
others affirm, as Leonteus, a principal disciple of Epicurus, who in
a letter which he writ to Lycophron says, that Epicurus honored
Democritus, because he first attained, though a little at a distance,
the right and sound understanding of the truth, and that in general all
the treatise concerning natural things was called Democritean, because
Democritus was the first who happened upon the principles and met with
the primitive foundations of Nature. And Metrodorus says openly of
philosophy, If Democritus had not gone before and taught the way,
Epicurus had never attained to wisdom. Now if it be true, as Colotes
holds, that to live according to the opinions of Democritus is not to
live, Epicurus was then a fool in following Democritus, who led him to a
doctrine which taught him not to live.

Now the first thing he lays to his charge is, that, by supposing
everything to be no more individual than another, he wholly confounds
human life. But Democritus was so far from having been of this