{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69466/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69466","id":"gutenberg_69466","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69466","summary":null,"tags":["Athens (Greece) -- Fiction","Biographical fiction","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Epicurus, 341 B.C.-270 B.C. -- Fiction","Greece -- History -- To 146 B.C. -- Fiction","Philosophers -- Fiction"],"text":"A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS;\n                                 BEING\n                            THE TRANSLATION\n                                   OF\n                           A GREEK MANUSCRIPT\n                       DISCOVERED IN HERCULANEUM.\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                            FRANCES WRIGHT,\n\n                               AUTHOR OF\n\n               \u201cVIEWS OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS IN AMERICA.\u201d\n\n\n               \u201c\u2014\u2014joining bliss to virtue, the glad ease\n               Of Epicurus, seldom understood.\u201d\n\n\n                                BOSTON:\n\n                       PUBLISHED BY J. P. MENDUM.\n\n                                 1850.\n\n\n\n\n                                   TO\n\n                            JEREMY BENTHAM,\n\n                             AS A TESTIMONY\n\n                                   OF\n\n             HER ADMIRATION OF HIS ENLIGHTENED SENTIMENTS,\n\n                             USEFUL LABORS,\n\n                        AND ACTIVE PHILANTHROPY,\n\n                                 AND OF\n\n                   HER GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,\n\n                               THIS WORK\n\n                                   IS\n\n                    RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY\n\n                               INSCRIBED\n\n                                                         BY\n\n                                                         FRANCES WRIGHT.\n\n     London,\n _March 12th, 1822_.\n\n\n\n\n                             TO THE READER.\n\n\nThat I may not obtain credit for more learning than I possess, I beg to\nacknowledge the assistance I have received in my version of the curious\nrelict of antiquity now offered to the public from the beautiful Italian\nMSS. of the erudite Professor of Greek in the university of *****. I\nhesitate to designate more clearly the illustrious Hellenist whose\nlabors have brought to light this curious fragment. Since the\nestablishment of the saintly domination of the Vandals throughout the\nterritories of the rebellious and heterodox Italy, and particularly in\nconsequence of the ordinance of his most orthodox, most legitimate, and\nmost Austrian majesty, bearing that his dominions being in want of good\nsubjects, his colleges are forbidden to send forth good scholars,[1] it\nhas become necessary for the gownsmen of the classic peninsula to banish\nall profane learning from their lectures and their libraries, and to\nevince a holy abhorrence of the sciences and arts which they erst\nprofessed. The list of the class books now employed in the transalpine\nschools is exceedingly curious; I regret that I have mislaid the one\nlately supplied to me by an illustrious Italian exile. My memory recalls\nto me only that, in the school of rhetoric, the orations of Cicero are\nsuperseded by those of the Marquis of Londonderry, and the philippics of\nDemosthenes by those of M. de Peyronnet; that the professors of history\nhave banished the decades of Livy for _the Martyrs_ of Mons. de\nChateaubriand; and that the students of Greek, in place of the Odes of\nPindar, and the retreat of the ten thousand from Cunaxa, construe the\nhexameters of the English Laureate, and the advance of Louis the XVIII.\nupon Ghent. In this state of the Italian world of Letters, it is not\nsurprising that the scholar, to whose perseverance, ingenuity, and\nlearning, the public are indebted for the following fragment, should\nobject to lay claim to the honor which is his due.\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  _Je ne veux pas de savans dans mes etats, je veux de bons sujets_, was\n  the dictum of the Austrian Autocrat to an Italian Professor.\n\nThe original MS. fell into the hands of my erudite correspondent in the\nautumn of the year 1817. From that period until the commencement of last\nwinter, all his leisure hours were devoted to the arduous task of\nunrolling the leaves, and decyphering the half defaced characters. The\nimperfect condition of the MS. soon obliged him to forego his first\nintention of transcribing the original Greek; he had recourse,\ntherefore, to an Italian version, supplying the chasms, consisting\nsometimes of a word, sometimes of a line, and occasionally of a phrase,\nwith a careful and laborious study of the context. While this version\nwas printing at Florence, a MS. copy was transmitted to me in Paris,\nwith a request that I would forthwith see it translated into the English\nand French languages. The former version I undertook myself, and can\nassure the reader that it possesses the merit of fidelity. The first\nerudite translator has not conceived it necessary to encumber the volume\nwith marginal notes; nor have I found either the inclination or the\nability to supply them. Those who should wish to refer to the allusions\nscattered through the old classics to the characters and systems here\ntreated of, will find much assistance from the marginal authorities of\nthe eloquent and ingenious Bayle.\n\nI have only to add, that the present volume comprises little more than a\nthird of the original MS.; it will be sufficient, however, to enable the\npublic to form an estimate of the probable value of the whole.\n\n\n\n\n                         A FEW DAYS IN ATHENS.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I.\n\n\n\u201cOh! monstrous,\u201d cried the young Theon, as he came from the portico of\nZeno. \u201cYe Gods! and will ye suffer your names to be thus blasphemed? Why\ndo ye not strike with thunder the actor and teacher of such enormities?\nWhat! will ye suffer our youth, and the youth of after ages, to be\nseduced by this shameless Gargettian? Shall the Stoic portico be\nforsaken for the garden of Epicurus? Minerva, shield thy city! Shut the\nears of thy sons against the voice of this deceiver!\u201d\n\nThus did Theon give vent to the indignation which the words of\nTimocrates had worked up within him. Timocrates had been a disciple of\nthe new school; but, quarrelling with his master, had fled to the\nfollowers of Zeno; and to make the greater merit of his apostacy, and\nbetter to gain the hearts of his new friends, poured forth daily\nexecrations on his former teacher, painting him and his disciples in the\nblackest colors of deformity; revealing, with a countenance distorted as\nwith horror, and a voice hurried and suppressed as from the agonies of\ndreadful recollections, the secrets of those midnight orgies, where, in\nthe midst of his pupils, the philosopher of Gargettium officiated as\nmaster of the accursed ceremonies of riot and impiety.\n\nFull of these nocturnal horrors the young Theon traversed with hasty\nsteps the streets of Athens, and, issuing from the city, without\nperceiving that he did so, took the road to the Pir\u00e6us. The noise of the\nharbor roused him to recollection, and feeling it out of tune with his\nthoughts, he turned up the more peaceful banks of Cephisus, and, seating\nhimself on the stump of a withered olive, his feet almost washed by the\nwater, he fell back again into his reverie. How long he had sat he knew\nnot, when the sound of gently approaching footsteps once more recalled\nhim. He turned his head, and, after a start and gaze of astonishment,\nbent with veneration to the figure before him. It was of the middle\nsize, and robed in white, pure as the vestments of the Pythia. The\nshape, the attitude, the foldings of the garment, were such as the\nchisel of Phidias would have given to the God of Elocution. The head\naccorded with the rest of the figure; it sat upon the shoulders with a\ngrace that a painter would have paused to contemplate\u2014elevated, yet\nsomewhat inclining forward, as if habituated gently to seek and\nbenevolently to yield attention. The face a poet would have gazed upon,\nand thought he beheld in it one of the images of his fancy embodied. The\nfeatures were not cast for the statuary; they were noble but not\nregular. Wisdom beamed mildly from the eye, and candor was on the broad\nforehead: the mouth reposed in a soft, almost imperceptible smile, that\ndid not curl the lips or disturb the cheeks, and was seen only in the\nserene and holy benignity that shone over the whole physiognomy: It was\na gleam of sunshine sleeping on a lucid lake. The first lines of age\nwere traced on the brow and round the chin, but so gently as to mellow\nrather than deepen expression: the hair indeed seemed prematurely\ntouched by time, for it was of a pure silver, thrown back from the\nforehead, and fringing the throat behind with short curls. He received\nbenignly the salutation of the youth, and gently with his hand returning\nit\u2014\u201cLet me not break your meditations; I would rather share than disturb\nthem.\u201d If the stranger\u2019s appearance had enchanted Theon, his voice did\nnow more so: never had a sound so sweet, so musical, struck upon his\near.\n\n\u201cSurely I behold and hear a divinity!\u201d he cried, stepping backwards, and\nhalf stooping his knee with veneration.\n\n\u201cFrom the groves of the academy, I see,\u201d said the sage, advancing and\nlaying his hand on the youth\u2019s shoulder.\n\nTheon looked up with a modest blush, and encouraged by the sweet aspect\nof the sage, replied, \u201cNo; from the Stoic portico.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! I had not thought Zeno could send forth such a dreamer. You are in\na good school,\u201d he continued, observing the youth confused by this\nremark, \u201ca school of real virtue; and, if I read faces well, as I think\nI do, I see a pupil that will not disgrace its doctrines.\u201d\n\nTheon\u2019s spirit returned; the stranger had that look, and voice, and\nmanner, which instantly give security to the timid, and draw love from\nthe feeling heart. \u201cIf you _be_ man, you exert more than human influence\nover the souls of your fellows. I have seen you but one moment, and that\nmoment has laid me at your feet.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot quite so low, I hope,\u201d returned the sage with a smile; \u201cI had\nalways rather be the companion than the master.\u201d\n\n\u201cEither, both,\u201d said the eager youth, and seizing the half-extended hand\nof the sage, pressed it respectfully to his lips.\n\n\u201cYou are an enthusiast, I see. Beware, my young friend! such as you must\nbe the best or the worst of men.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen, had I you for a guide, I should be the best.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! do you a stoic ask a guide?\u201d\n\n\u201cI, a stoic! Oh! would I were! I yet stand but on the threshhold of the\ntemple.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut standing there you have at least looked within and seen the\nglories, and will not that encourage you to advance? Who that hath seen\nvirtue doth not love her, and pant after her possession?\u201d\n\n\u201cTrue, true; I have seen virtue in her noblest form\u2014Alas! so noble, that\nmy eyes have been dazzled by the contemplation. I have looked upon Zeno\nwith admiration and despair.\u201d\n\n\u201cLearn rather to look with love. He who but admires virtue, yields her\nbut half her due. She asks to be approached, to be embraced\u2014not with\nfear, but with confidence\u2014not with awe but with rapture.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet who can gaze on Zeno and ever hope to rival him?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou, my young friend: Why should you not? You have innocence; you have\nsensibility; you have enthusiasm; you have ambition\u2014With what better\npromise could Zeno begin his career? Courage! courage! my son!\u201d\nstopping, for they had insensibly walked towards the city during the\ndialogue, and laying his hand on Theon\u2019s head, \u201cWe want but the will to\nbe as great as Zeno.\u201d\n\nTheon had drawn his breath for a sigh, but his action and the look that\naccompanied it, changed the sigh to a smile. \u201cYou would make me vain.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; but I would make you confident. Without confidence Homer had never\nwritten his Iliad\u2014No; nor would Zeno now be worshipped in his portico.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you then think confidence would make all men Homers and Zenos?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot all; but a good many. I believe thousands to have the seeds of\nexcellence in them, who never discover the possession. But we were not\nspeaking of poetry and philosophy, only of virtue\u2014all men certainly\ncannot be poets or philosophers, but all men may be virtuous.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe,\u201d returned the youth with a modest blush, \u201cif I might walk\nwith you each day on the borders of Cephisus, I should sometimes play\ntruant at the portico.\u201d\n\n\u201cYe gods forbid (exclaimed the sage playfully) that I should steal a\nproselyte! From Zeno too? It might cost me dear.\u2014What are you thinking\nof?\u201d he resumed, after a pause.\n\n\u201cI was thinking,\u201d replied Theon, \u201cwhat a loss for man that you are not\nteacher in the gardens in place of the son of Neocles.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you know the son of Neocles?\u201d asked the sage.\n\n\u201cThe gods forbid that I should know him more than by report! No,\nvenerable stranger; wrong me not so much as to think I have entered the\ngardens of Epicurus. It is not long that I have been in Athens, but I\nhope, if I should henceforth live my life here, I should never be\nseduced by the advocate of vice.\u201d\n\n\u201cFrom my soul I hope the same. But you say you have not long been in\nAthens\u2014You are come here to study philosophy.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes; my father was a scholar of Xenocrates; but when he sent me from\nCorinth, he bade me attend all the schools, and fix with that which\nshould give me the highest views of virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you have found it to be that of Zeno.\u201d\n\n\u201cI think I have: but I was one day nearly gained by a young Pythagorean,\nand have been often in danger of becoming one of the academy.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou need not say _in danger_: For though I think you choose well in\nstanding mainly by Zeno, I would have you attend all the schools, and\nthat with a willing ear. There is some risk in following one particular\nsect, even the most perfect, lest the mind become warped and the heart\ncontracted. Yes, young man! it is possible that this should happen even\nin the portico. No sect without its prejudices and its predilections.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe you say true.\u201d\n\n\u201cI _know_ I say true,\u201d returned the sage in a tone of playfulness he had\nmore than once used; \u201cI _know_ I say true; and had I before needed\nevidence to confirm my opinion, this our present conversation would have\nafforded it.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow so?\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, were I to explain, you would not now credit me: No man can see his\nown prejudices; no, though a philosopher should point at them. But\npatience, patience! Time and opportunity shall right all things. Why,\nyou did not think,\u201d he resumed after a short pause, \u201cyou did not really\nthink you were without prejudices? Eighteen, not more, if I may judge by\ncomplexion, and without prejudices! Why, I should hardly dare to assert\nI was myself without them, and I believe I have fought harder and\nsomewhat longer against them than you can have done.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat would you have me do?\u201d asked the youth, timidly.\n\n\u201cHave you do?\u2014Why, I would have you do a very odd thing\u2014No other than to\ntake a turn or two in Epicurus\u2019s garden.\u201d\n\n\u201cEpicurus\u2019s garden! Oh! Jupiter!\u201d\n\n\u201cVery true, by Juno!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! To hear the laws of virtue confounded and denied?\u2014To hear vice\nexculpated, advocated, panegyrized?\u2014Impiety and atheism professed and\ninculcated?\u2014To witness the nocturnal orgies of vice and debauchery?\u2014Ye\ngods, what horrors has Timocrates revealed!\u201d\n\n\u201cHorrors, in truth, somewhat appalling, my young friend; but I should\napprehend Timocrates to be a little mistaken. That the laws of virtue\nwere ever confounded and denied, or vice advocated and panegyrized, by\nany professed teacher, I incline to doubt. And were I really to hear\nsuch things, I should simply conclude the speaker mad, or otherwise that\nhe was amusing himself by shifting the meaning of words, and that by the\nterm virtue he understood vice, and so by the contrary. As to the\ninculcating of impiety and atheism, this may be exaggerated or\nmisunderstood. Many are called impious, not for having a worse, but a\ndifferent religion from their neighbors; and many atheistical, not for\nthe denying of God, but for thinking somewhat peculiarly concerning him.\nUpon the nocturnal orgies of vice and debauchery I can say nothing; I am\ntoo profoundly ignorant of these matters, either to exculpate or condemn\nthem. Such things may be, and I never hear of them. All things are\npossible. Yes,\u201d turning his benignant face full upon the youth, \u201ceven\nthat Timocrates should lie.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis possibility had indeed not occurred to me.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, my young friend; and shall I tell you why? Because he told you\nabsurdities. Let an impostor keep to probability, and he will hardly\nimpose. By dealing in the marvellous, he tickles the imagination, and\ncarries away the judgment; and judgment once gone, what shall save even\na wise man from folly?\u201d\n\n\u201cI should truly rejoice, to find the Gargettian\u2019s doctrine less\nmonstrous than I have hitherto thought them. I say _less monstrous_, for\nyou would not wish me to think them good.\u201d\n\n\u201cI would wish you to think nothing good, or bad either, upon _my_\ndecision. The first and the last thing I would say to man is, _think for\nyourself_! It is a bad sentence of the Pythagoreans, \u2018The master said\nso.\u2019 If the young disciple you mentioned should ever succeed in your\nconversion, believe in the metempsychosis for some other reason than\nthat Pythagoras \u2018taught it.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, if I may ask, do you think well of Epicurus?\u201d\n\n\u201cI meant not to make an apology for Epicurus, only to give a caution\nagainst Timocrates\u2014but see, we are in the city; and fortunately so, for\nit is pretty nigh dark. I have a party of young friends awaiting me,\nand, but that you may be apprehensive of nocturnal orgies, I would ask\nyou to join us.\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall not fear them where I have such a conductor,\u201d replied the\nyouth, laughing.\n\n\u201cI do not think it quite so impossible, however, as you seem to do,\u201d\nsaid the sage, laughing in his turn, with much humor, and entering a\nhouse as he spoke; then throwing open with one arm a door, and with the\nother gently drawing the youth along with him, \u201cI am Epicurus!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n\n\nThe astonished, the affrighted Theon started from the arm of the sage,\nand, staggering backwards, was saved, probably, from falling, by a\nstatue that stood against the wall on one side of the door: he leaned\nagainst it, pale and almost fainting. He knew not what to do, scarcely\nwhat to feel, and was totally blind to all the objects around him. His\nconductor, who had possibly expected his confusion, did not turn to\nobserve it, but advanced in such a manner as to cover him from the view\nof the company, and, still to give time for recollection, stood\nreceiving and returning salutations.\n\n\u201cWell met, my sons! and I suppose you say well met, also. Are you\nstarving, or am I to be starved? Have you ate up the supper, or only sat\nlonging for it, cursing my delay?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe latter, only the latter,\u201d cried a lively youth, hurrying to meet\nhis master. Another and another advanced, and in a moment he was locked\nin a close circle.\n\n\u201cMercy! mercy!\u201d cried the philosopher, \u201cdrive me a step further and you\nwill overturn a couple of statues.\u201d Then, looking over his shoulder, \u201cI\nhave brought you, if he has not run away, a very pleasant young\nCorinthian, for whom, until he gain his own tongue, I shall demand\nreception.\u201d He held out his hand with a look of bewitching\nencouragement, and the yet faltering Theon advanced. The mist had now\npassed from his eyes, and the singing from his ears, and both room and\ncompany stood revealed before him. Perhaps, had it not been for this\nmotion, and still more this look of the sage, he had just now made a\nretreat instead of an advance. \u201cIn the hall of Epicurus\u2014in that hall\nwhere Timocrates had beheld\u201d\u2014oh! horrid imagination! \u201cAnd he a disciple\nof Zeno, the friend of Cleanthes\u2014the son of a follower of Plato\u2014had he\ncrossed the threshhold of vice, the threshhold of the impious\nGargettian!\u201d Yes; he had certainly fled, but for that extended hand, and\nthat bewitching smile. These however conquered. He advanced, and with an\neffort at composure, met the offered hand. The circle made way, and\nEpicurus presented \u201ca friend.\u201d \u201cHis name you must learn from himself, I\nam only acquainted with his heart, and that, on a knowledge of two\nhours, I pronounce myself in love with.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen he shall be my brother,\u201d cried the lively youth who had before\nspoken, and he ran to the embrace of Theon.\n\n\u201cWhen shall we use our own eyes, ears, and understandings?\u201d said the\nsage, gently stroking his scholar\u2019s head. \u201cSee! our new friend knows not\nhow to meet your premature affection.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe waits,\u201d returned the youth archly, \u201cto receive the same commendation\nof me that I have of him. Let the master say he is in love with my\nheart, and he too will open his arms to a brother.\u201d\n\n\u201cI hope he is not such a fool,\u201d gaily replied the sage. Then with an\naccent more serious, but still sweeter, \u201cI hope he will judge all\nthings, and all people, with his own understanding, and not with that of\nEpicurus, or yet of a wiser man. When may I hope this of Sofron,\u201d\nsmiling and shaking his head, \u201ccan Sofron tell me?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, indeed he cannot,\u201d rejoined the scholar, smiling and shaking his\nhead also, as in mimicry of his master.\n\n\u201cGo, go, you rogue! and show us to our supper: I more than half suspect\nyou have devoured it.\u201d He turned, and familiarly taking Theon by the\nshoulder, walked up the room, or rather gallery, and entered a spacious\nrotunda.\n\nA lamp, suspended from the centre of the ceiling, lighted a table spread\nbeneath it with a simple but elegant repast. Round the walls, in niches\nat equal distances, stood twelve statues, the work of the best masters;\non either hand of these burned a lamp on a small tripod. Beside one of\nthe lamps, a female figure was reclining on a couch, reading with\nearnest study from a book that lay upon her knee. Her head was so much\nbowed forward as to conceal her face, besides that it was shadowed by\nher hand, which, the elbow supported on an arm of the couch, was spread\nabove her brows as a relief from the glare of the light. At her feet was\nseated a young girl, by whose side lay a small cithara, silent, and\nforgotten by its mistress. Crete might have lent those eyes their\nsparkling jet, but all the soul of tenderness that breathed from them\nwas pure Ionian. The full and ruddy lips, half parted, showed two rows\nof pearls which Thetis might have envied. Still a vulgar eye would not\nhave rested on the countenance: the features wanted the Doric harmony,\nand the complexion was tinged as by an Afric sun. Theon, however, saw\nnot this, as his eyes fell on those of the girl, uplifted to the\ncountenance of her studious companion. Never was a book read more\nearnestly than was that face by the fond and gentle eyes which seemed to\nworship as they gazed. The sound of approaching feet caught the ear of\nthe maiden. She rose, blushed, half returned the salute of the master,\nand timidly drew back some paces. The student was still intent upon the\nscroll over which she hung, when the sage advanced towards her, and\nlaying a finger on her shoulder, \u201cWhat read you, my daughter?\u201d She\ndropped her hand, and looked up in his face. What a countenance was then\nrevealed! It was not the beauty of blooming, blushing youth, courting\nlove and desire. It was the self-possessed dignity of ripened womanhood,\nand the noble majesty of mind, that asked respect and promised delight\nand instruction. The features were not those of Venus, but Minerva. The\neye looked deep and steady from beneath two even brows, that sense, not\nyears, had slightly knit in the centre of the forehead, which else was\nuniformly smooth and polished as marble. The nose was rather Roman than\nGrecian, yet perfectly regular, and though not masculine, would have\nbeen severe in expression, but for a mouth where all that was lovely and\ngraceful habited. The chin was elegantly rounded, and turned in the\nGreek manner. The color of the cheeks was of the softest and palest\nrose, so pale, indeed, as scarcely to be discernible until deepened by\nemotion. It was so at this moment: startled by the address of the sage,\na bright flush passed over her face. She rolled up the book, dropped it\non the couch, and rose. Her stature was much above the female standard,\nbut every limb and every motion was symmetry and harmony. \u201cA treatise of\nTheophrastus;\u2014eloquent, ingenious and chimerical. I have a fancy to\nanswer it.\u201d Her voice was full and deep, like the tones of a harp when\nits chords are struck by the hand of a master.\n\n\u201cNo one could do it better,\u201d replied the sage. \u201cBut I should have\nguessed the aged Peripatetic already silenced by the most acute,\nelegant, and subtle pen of Athens.\u201d She bowed to the compliment.\n\n\u201cIs that then the famous Leontium?\u201d muttered Theon. \u201cTimocrates must be\na liar.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know not,\u201d resumed Leontium, \u201cthat I should this evening have so\nfrequently thought Theophrastus wrong, if he had not made me so\ncontinually feel that he thought himself right. Must I seek the cause of\nthis in the writer\u2019s or the reader\u2019s vanity?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps,\u201d said the master, smiling, \u201cyou will find that it lies in\nboth.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe you have it,\u201d returned Leontium. \u201cTheophrastus, in betraying\nhis self-love, hurt mine. He who is about to prove that his own way of\nthinking is right, must bear in mind that he is about also to prove that\nall other ways of thinking are wrong. And if this should make him slow\nto enter on the undertaking, it should make him yet more careful, when\nhe does enter on it, to do it with becoming modesty. We are surely\nimperiously called upon to make a sacrifice of our own vanity, before we\ncall upon others to make a sacrifice of theirs. But I would not\nparticularize Theophrastus for sometimes forgetting this, as I have\nnever known but one who always remembers it. Gentleness and modesty are\nqualities at once the most indispensable to a teacher, and the most\nrarely possessed by him. It was these that won the ears of the Athenian\nyouth to Socrates, and it is these,\u201d inclining to the Master, \u201cthat will\nsecure them to Epicurus.\u201d\n\n\u201cCould I accept your praise, my daughter, I should have no doubt of the\ntruth of your prophecy. For, indeed, the mode of delivering a truth\nmakes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener\nas the truth itself. It is as hard to receive the words of wisdom from\nthe ungentle, as it is to love, or even to recognize virtue in the\naustere.\u201d He drew near the table as he spoke. Often during supper were\nthe eyes of Theon riveted on the face of this female disciple. Such\ngrace! such majesty! More than all, such intellect! And this\u2014this was\nthe Leontium Timocrates had called a prostitute without shame or\nmeasure! And this was the Epicurus he had blasted with names too vile\nand horrible to repeat even in thought! And these\u2014continuing his inward\nsoliloquy as he looked round the board\u2014these were the devoted victims of\nthe vice of an impious master.\n\n\u201cYou arrived most seasonably this evening,\u201d cried Sofron, addressing the\nPhilosopher; \u201cmost seasonably for the lungs of two of your scholars.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd for the ears of a third,\u201d interrupted Leontium. \u201cI was fairly\ndriven into exile.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was the subject?\u201d asked Epicurus.\n\n\u201cWhether the vicious were more justly objects of indignation or of\ncontempt: Metrodorus argued for the first, and I for the latter. Let the\nmaster decide.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe will give his opinion certainly; but that is not decision.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell; and your opinion is that of\u2014\u2014.\u201d\n\n\u201cNeither.\u201d\n\n\u201cNeither! I had no idea the question had more than two sides.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt has yet a third; and I hardly ever heard a question that had not.\nHad I regarded the vicious with indignation, I had never gained one to\nvirtue. Had I viewed them with contempt, I had never sought to gain\none.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow is it,\u201d said Leontium, \u201cthat the scholars are so little familiar\nwith the temper of their master? When did Epicurus look on the vicious\nwith other than compassion?\u201d\n\n\u201cTrue,\u201d said Metrodorus. \u201cI know not how I forgot this, when perhaps it\nis the only point which I have more than once, presumed to argue with\nhim: and upon which I have persisted in retaining a different opinion.\u201d\n\n\u201cTalk not of presumption, my son. Who has not a right to think for\nhimself? Or who is he whose voice is infallible, and worthy to silence\nthose of his fellow-men? And remember, that your remaining unconvinced\nby my arguments on one occasion, can only tend to make your conviction\nmore flattering to me upon others. Yet, on the point in question, were I\nanxious to bring you over to my opinion, I know one, whose argument,\nbetter and more forcible than mine, will ere long most effectually do\nso.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho mean you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo other than old hoary Time,\u201d said the Master, \u201cwho, as he leads us\ngently onwards in the path of life, demonstrates to us many truths that\nwe never heard in the schools, and some that, hearing there, we found\nhard to receive. Our knowledge of human life must be acquired by our\npassage through it; the lessons of the sage are not sufficient to impart\nit. Our knowledge of men must be acquired by our own study of them; the\nreport of others will never convince us. When you, my son, have seen\nmore of life, and studied more men, you will find, or at least, I\n_think_ you will find, that the judgment is not false which makes us\nlenient to the failings\u2014yea! even to the crimes of our fellows. In\nyouth, we act on the impulse of feeling, and we feel without pausing to\njudge. An action, vicious in itself, or that is so merely in our\nestimation, fills us with horror, and we turn from its agent without\nwaiting to listen to the plea which his ignorance could make to our\nmercy. In our ripened years, supposing our judgment to have ripened\nalso, when all the insidious temptations that misguided him, and all the\ndisadvantages that he has labored under, perhaps from his birth, are\napparent to us\u2014it is then, and not till then, that our indignation at\nthe crime is lost in our pity of the man.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am the last,\u201d said Metrodorus, a crimson blush spreading over his\nface, \u201cwho should object to my master his clemency towards the\noffending. But there are vices, different from those he saved me from,\nwhich, if not more unworthy, are perhaps more unpardonable, because\ncommitted with less temptation; and more revolting, as springing less\nfrom thoughtless ignorance than calculating depravity.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre we not prone,\u201d said the sage, \u201cto extenuate our foibles, even while\ncondemning them? And does it not flatter our self-love, to weigh our own\nvices against those of more erring neighbors?\u201d\n\nThe scholar leaned forwards, and stooping his face towards the hand of\nhis master, where it rested on the table, laid the deepening crimson of\nhis cheek upon it. \u201cI mean not to exculpate the early vices of\nMetrodorus. I love to consider them in all their enormity; for the more\nheinous the vices of his youth, the greater is the debt of gratitude his\nmanhood has to repay to thee. But tell me,\u201d he added, and lifted his\neyes to the benignant face of the sage, \u201ctell me, oh! my friend and\nguide! was the soul of Metrodorus, found base or deceitful; or has his\nheart proved false to gratitude and affection?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, my son, no,\u201d said Epicurus, his face beaming with goodness, and a\ntear glistening in his eye. \u201cNo! Vice never choked the warm feelings of\nthy heart, nor clouded the fair ingenuousness of thy soul. But, my son,\na few years later, and who shall say what _might_ have been? Trust me,\nnone can drink of the cup of vice with impunity. But you will say, that\nthere are qualities of so mean or so horrible a nature, as to place the\nman that is governed by them out of the pale of communion with the\nvirtuous. Malice, cruelty, deceit, ingratitude\u2014crimes such as these,\nshould you think, draw down upon those convicted of them no feelings\nmore mild than abhorrence, execration, and scorn. And yet, perhaps,\nthese were not always natural to the heart they now sway. Fatal\nimpressions, vicious example, operating on the plastic frame of\nchildhood, may have perverted all the fair gifts of nature, may have\ndistorted the tender plant from the seedling, and crushed all the\nblossoms of virtue in the germ. Say, shall we not compassionate the\nmoral disease of our brother, and try our skill to restore him to\nhealth? But is the evil beyond cure? Is the mind strained into\nchangeless deformity, and the heart corrupted in the core? Greater then,\nmuch greater, will be our compassion. For is not his wretchedness\ncomplete, when his errors are without hope of correction? Oh! my sons!\nthe wicked may work mischief to others, but they never can inflict a\npang such as they endure themselves. I am satisfied, that of all the\nmiseries that tear the heart of man, none may compare with those it\nfeels beneath the sway of baleful passions.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d cried Theon, turning with a timid blush towards Epicurus, \u201cI have\nlong owned the power of virtue, but surely till this night I never felt\nits persuasion.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see you were not born for a stoic,\u201d said the master smiling, \u201cWhy, my\nson, what made you fall in love with Zeno?\u201d\n\n\u201cHis virtues,\u201d said the youth, proudly.\n\n\u201cHis fine face, and fine talking,\u201d returned the philosopher, with a tone\nof playful irony. \u201cNay! don\u2019t be offended;\u201d and stretched his hand to\nTheon\u2019s shoulder, who reclined on the sofa next him. \u201cI admire your\nmaster very much, and go to hear him very often.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed!\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed? Yes, indeed. Is it so wonderful?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou were not there\u201d\u2014Theon stopped and looked down in confusion.\n\n\u201cTo-day, you mean? Yes, I was; and heard a description of myself that\nmight match in pleasantry with that in \u2018_The Clouds_\u2019[2] of old\nSocrates. Pray don\u2019t you find it very like?\u201d He leaned over the side of\nthe couch, and looked in Theon\u2019s face.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  Alluding to the comedy of Aristophanes, in which Socrates was\n  indecently ridiculed.\n\n\u201cI\u2014I\u2014\u201d The youth stammered and looked down.\n\n\u201cThink it is,\u201d said the sage, as if concluding the sentence for him.\n\n\u201cNo, think it is not; swear it is not;\u201d burst forth the eager youth, and\nlooked as he would have thrown himself at the philosopher\u2019s feet. \u201cOh!\nwhy did you not stand forth and silence the liar?\u201d\n\n\u201cTruly, my son, the liar was too pleasant to be angry with, and too\nabsurd to be answered.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd yet he was believed?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut why then not answer him?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so I do. I answer him in my life. The only way in which a\nphilosopher should ever answer a fool, or, as in this case, a knave.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am really bewildered,\u201d cried Theon, gazing in the philosopher\u2019s, and\nthen in Leontium\u2019s countenance, and then throwing a glance round the\ncircle. \u201cI am really bewildered with astonishment and with shame,\u201d he\ncontinued, casting down his eyes, \u201cthat I should have listened to that\nliar Timocrates! What a fool you must think me!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo more of a fool than Zeno,\u201d said the sage, laughing. \u201cWhat a\nphilosopher listened to, I cannot much blame a scholar for believing.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! that Zeno knew you!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd then he would certainly hate me.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou joke.\u201d\n\n\u201cQuite serious. Don\u2019t you know that who quarrels with your doctrine,\nmust always quarrel with your practice? Nothing is so provoking as that\na man should preach viciously and act virtuously.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you do not preach viciously.\u201d\n\n\u201cI hope not. But those will call it so, aye! and in honest heart think\nit so, who preach a different, it need not be a _better_, doctrine.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut Zeno mistakes your doctrine.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have no doubt he expounds it wrong.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe mistakes it altogether. He believes that you own no other law\u2014no\nother principle of action\u2014than pleasure.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe believes right.\u201d\n\n\u201cRight? Impossible! That you teach men to laugh at virtue, and to riot\nin luxury and vice.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere he believes wrong.\u201d\n\nTheon looked as he felt, curious and uncertain. He gazed first on the\nphilosopher, and, when he did not proceed, timidly round the circle.\nEvery face had a smile on it.\n\n\u201cThe orgies are concluded,\u201d said Epicurus, rising, and turning with\naffected gravity to the young Corinthian. \u201cYou have seen the horrors of\nthe night; if they have left any curiosity for the mysteries of the day,\nseek our garden to-morrow at sunrise, and you shall be initiated.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III.\n\n\nThe steeds of the sun had not mounted the horizon, when Theon took the\nroad to the garden. He found the gate open. The path he entered on was\nbroad and even, and shaded on either side by rows of cork, lime, oak,\nand other the finest trees of the forest: pursuing this for some way, he\nsuddenly opened on a fair and varied lawn, through which the Illissus,\nnow of the whitest silver in the pale twilight, stole with a gentle and\nnoiseless course. Crossing the lawn, he struck into a close thicket: the\norange, the laurel, and the myrtle, hung over his head, whose flowers,\nslowly opening to the breeze and light of morning, dropped dews and\nperfumes. A luxurious indolence crept over his soul; he breathed the\nairs, and felt the bliss of Elysium. With slow and measured steps he\nthreaded the maze, till he entered suddenly on a small open plot of\nverdure in face of a beautiful temple. The place was three parts\nencircled with a wood of flowering shrubs, the rest was girded by the\nwinding Illissus, over which the eye wandered to glades and softly\nswelling hills, whose bosoms now glowed beneath the dyes of Aurora. The\nbuilding was small and circular; Doric, and of the marble of Paros: an\nopen portico, supported by twenty pillars, ran round the edifice: the\nroof rose in a dome. The roseate tints of the east fell on the polished\ncolumns, like the blush of love on the cheek of Diana, when she stood\nbefore her Endymion.\n\nTheon stopped: the scene was heavenly. Long had he gazed in silent and\ncalm delight, when his eye was attracted by the waving of a garment on\none side of the temple.\u2014He advanced, and beheld a figure leaning against\none of the pillars. The sun at that moment shot his first beam above the\nhills: it fell full upon the face of the son of Neocles: it was raised,\nand the eyes were fixed as in deep meditation. The features reposed in\nthe calm of wisdom: the arms were folded, and the drapery fell in masses\nto the feet. Theon flew towards him then suddenly stopped, fearing to\nbreak upon his thoughts. At the sound, the sage turned his head,\n\u201cWelcome, my son,\u201d he said, advancing to meet him, \u201cWelcome to the\ngarden of pleasure, may you find it the abode of peace, of wisdom, and\nof virtue.\u201d\n\nTheon bowed his head upon the hand of the master. \u201cTeach me, guide me,\nmake me what you will\u2014my soul is in your hand.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is yet tender, yet pure,\u201d said the Gargettian; \u201cyears shall\nstrengthen it\u2014Oh! let them not sully it! See that luminary! lovely and\nglorious in the dawn, he gathers strength and beauty to his meridian,\nand passes in peace and grandeur to his rest. So do thou, my son. Open\nyour ears and your eyes; know, and choose what is good; enter the path\nof virtue, and thou shalt follow it, for thou shalt find it sweet.\nThorns are not in it, nor is it difficult or steep: like the garden you\nhave now entered, all there is pleasure and repose.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d cried Theon, \u201chow different is virtue in your mouth and in\nZeno\u2019s.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe doctrine of Zeno,\u201d replied the sage, \u201cis sublime: many great men\nshall come from his school; an amiable world, from mine. Zeno hath his\neye on man, I\u2014mine on men: none but philosophers can be stoics;\nEpicureans all may be.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d asked Theon, \u201cis there more than one virtue?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, but men clothe her differently; some in clouds and thunders; some\nin smiles and pleasures. Doctors, my son, quarrel more about words than\nthings, and more about the means than the end. In the Portico, in the\nLyc\u00e6um, in the Academy, in the school of Pythagoras, in the Tub of\nDiogenes, the teacher points you to virtue; in the Garden he points you\nto happiness. Now open your eyes, my son, and examine the two\nDeities.\u2014Say, are they not the same? virtue, is it not happiness? and is\nnot happiness, virtue?\u201d\n\n\u201cIs this, then, the secret of your doctrine?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo other.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut\u2014but\u2014where then is the dispute? Truly, as you have said, in words\nnot things.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, in a great measure, yet not altogether: We are all the wooers of\nvirtue, but we are wooers of a different character.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd may she not then favor one, more than another?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is a question,\u201d replied the Gargettian playfully, \u201cthat each will\nanswer in his own favor. If you ask me,\u201d he continued with one of his\nsweetest tones and smiles, \u201cI shall say\u2014that I feel myself virtuous,\nbecause my soul is at rest.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf this be your criterion, you should with the stoics deny that pain is\nan evil.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy no means: so much the contrary, I hold it the greatest of all evils,\nand the whole aim of my life, and of my philosophy, is to escape from\nit. To deny that pain is an evil is such another quibble as the Elean\u2019s\ndenial of motion: that must exist to man which exists to his senses; and\nas to existence or non-existence abstracted from them, though it may\nafford an idle argument for an idle hour, it can never enter as a truth,\nfrom which to draw conclusions, in the practical lessons of a master. To\ndeny that pain is an evil, seems more absurd than to deny its existence,\nwhich has also been done, for its existence is only apparent from its\neffect upon our senses; how then shall we admit the existence, and deny\nthe effect, which alone forces that admittance? But we will leave these\nmatters to the dialecticians of the Portico. I feel myself virtuous\nbecause my soul is at rest: With evil passions I should be disturbed and\nuneasy; with uncontrolled appetites I should be disordered in body as\nwell as mind,\u2014for this reason, and for this reason only, I avoid both.\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly!\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly: virtue is pleasure; were it not so, I should not follow it.\u201d\n\nTheon was about to break forth in indignant astonishment: the Sage\nsoftly laid a hand upon his arm; and, with a smile and bend of the head\ndemanding attention, proceeded: \u201cThe masters who would have us to follow\nvirtue for her own sake, independent of any pleasure or advantage that\nwe may find in the pursuit, are sublime visionaries, who build a theory\nwithout examining the ground on which they build it, who advance\ndoctrines without examining principles. Why do I gaze on the Cupid of\nPraxiteles? because it is beautiful; because it gives me pleasurable\nsensations. If it gave me no pleasurable sensations, should I find it\nbeautiful; should I gaze upon it; or would you call me wise if then I\ngave a drachma for its possession? What other means have we of judging\nof things than by the effect they produce upon our senses? Our senses\nthen being the judges of all things, the aim of all men is to gratify\ntheir senses; in other words, their aim is pleasure or happiness: and if\nvirtue were not found to conduce to this, men would do well to shun her,\nas they now do well to shun vice.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou own then no pleasure but virtue, and no misery but vice.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at all: I think virtue only the highest pleasure, and vice, or\nungoverned passions and appetites, the worst misery. Other pleasures are\nrequisite to form a state of perfect ease; which is happiness; and other\nmiseries are capable of troubling, perhaps destroying, the peace of the\nmost virtuous and the wisest man.\u201d\n\n\u201cI begin to see more reason in your doctrine,\u201d said the youth, looking\nup with a timid blush in the face of the Philosopher.\n\n\u201cAnd less monstrous depravity,\u201d replied the Gargettian, laughing. \u201cMy\nyoung friend,\u201d he continued more seriously, \u201clearn henceforth to form\nyour judgments upon knowledge, not report. Credulity is always a\nridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man,\na fool; and of many a good man, a knave. But have you nothing to urge\nagainst me? You say you see more reason in my doctrine, which implies\nthat you think me less wrong, but not right.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am a young disputant,\u201d answered Theon, \u201cand very unfit to engage with\nsuch a master.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat does not follow; a bad logician may have a good understanding; and\na young mind may be an acute one. If my argument have truth in it, less\nthan a philosopher will see it; and if it have not, less than a logician\nmay refute it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI think I could urge some objections,\u201d replied Theon; \u201cbut they are so\nconfused and indistinct, I almost fear to bring them forth.\u201d\n\n\u201cI dare say I could forestall the most of them,\u201d said the Master. \u201cBut I\nhad rather leave your mind to its own exercise. Think over the matter at\nleisure, and you shall start your questions some evening or morning\namong my scholars. Knowledge is better imparted in a dialogue than a\nlecture; and a dialogue is not the worse for having more than two\ninterlocutors. So! our walk has well ended with our subject. Let us see\nwhat friends are here. There are surely voices.\u201d\n\nTheir route had been circular, and had brought them again in front of\nthe temple. \u201cThis is a favorite lodgment of mine,\u201d said the Sage,\nascending the noble flight of steps and entering the open door. The\napartment, spacious, vaulted, and circular, occupied the whole of the\nbuilding. The walls were adorned with fine copies of the best pieces of\nZeuxis and Parrhasius, and some beautiful originals of Appelles. A\nstatue, the only one in the apartment, was raised on a pedestal in the\ncentre. It was a Venus Urania, by the hand of Lysippus, well chosen as\nthe presiding deity in the gardens of virtuous pleasure. The ceiling,\nrising into a noble dome, represented the heavens\u2014a ground of deep blue;\nthe stars, sun, and planets in raised gold. But two living figures soon\nfixed the attention of Theon. In one he recognized Metrodorus, though he\nhad not the evening before much observed his countenance. He stood at a\npainter\u2019s easel. His figure was more graceful than dignified, his face\nmore expressive than handsome. The eyes, dark, piercing and brilliant,\nwere bent in a painter\u2019s earnest gaze on his living study. The forehead\nwas short, raised much at the temples and singularly over the brows. The\nhair of a dark glossy brown, short and curled. The cheeks at the moment\ndeeply flushed with the eagerness and, perhaps, the impatience, of an\nartist. The mouth curled voluptuously, yet not without a mixture of\nsatire; the chin curved upwards, slightly Grecian, assisted this\nexpression. His study was Leontium. She stood, rather than leaned,\nagainst a pilaster of the wall; one arm supported on a slab of marble,\nan unrolled book half lying on the same, and half in her opened hand.\nThe other arm, partly hid in the drapery, dropped loosely by her side.\nHer fine face turned a little over the left shoulder, to meet the eye of\nthe painter. Not a muscle played; the lips seemed not to breathe: so\ncalm, so pale, so motionless\u2014she looked a statue; so noble, so severely\nbeautiful\u2014she looked the Minerva of Phidias.\n\n\u201cI cannot do it!\u201d cried Metrodorus, flinging down his pencil. \u201cI had\nneed be Appelles, to take that face.\u201d He pushed back his easel in\ndisgust.\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d said Leontium, her fine features relaxing into a heavenly smile,\n\u201cand is all my patience to go for nothing?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am a blundering blind B\u0153otian! a savage Spartan!\u201d continued the\ndisappointed artist. \u201cThere!\u201d and seizing a brush, was about to demolish\nhis work.\n\n\u201cFor your life!\u201d cried Leontium; and starting forward, pulled aside his\nhand. \u201cOh! the mad ill-temper of a genius! Why, friend, if my face were\nhalf so fine as that, Juno would be jealous of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd who knows that she is not? A daub! a vile daub!\u201d still muttered the\nimpatient scholar, yet his face gradually relaxing its anger, as in\nspite of itself, till it turned to meet Leontium\u2019s with a smile.\n\n\u201cAnd there stand the Master and the young Corinthian laughing at you,\u201d\nsaid Leontium.\n\nThey approached. \u201cAre you a judge?\u201d asked Metrodorus of Theon.\n\n\u201cI am afraid not, though the confession will mar my compliments.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I am,\u201d said the Gargettian humorously: \u201cAnd though I have all the\ninclination in the world, yet I cannot quarrel with the performance.\nWell outlined and finely colored. The attitude and air hit exactly. The\nfeatures too\u2014perhaps\u2014the only possible perhaps my ill-nature can stumble\non, perhaps the expression is too blooming, and less mental than that of\nthe original.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy there\u2014there it is!\u201d cried the scholar, his face resuming all its\nvexation. \u201cThe look of an idiot instead of a genius.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot quite that either: only of a Hebe instead of a Juno. More like our\nHedeia.\u201d\n\n\u201cLike a monster!\u201d muttered the angry artist.\n\n\u201cOh! Hercules, oh! Hercules!\u201d cried the sage. \u201cWhat it is to rub a sore\nplace! Better break a man\u2019s leg than blow a feather on his razed shin.\nHad I (turning to Theon) told him he had drawn a humpbacked Thersites he\nwould have blessed me, rather than for this pretty compliment of a\nblooming-faced Hebe.\u201d\n\n\u201cI might as well have done one as the other: they were equally like the\noriginal.\u201d\n\n\u201cI must bow to that compliment,\u201d said Leontium, laying her hand on her\nbreast, and inclining with affected gravity to the painter.\n\nHe tried in vain to resist the laugh; then looking to the master\u2014\u201cWhat\nwould you have me turn it to?\u201d\n\n\u201cAs you object to a Hebe, to a philosopher by all means. Silver the head\na little, it may be an admirable Epicurus.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay! don\u2019t make the madman furious,\u201d said Leontium, placing her hand on\nMetrodorus\u2019s shoulder; then, addressing Theon, \u201cPray, young man, if you\nwant to be a philosopher, never find an eye for painting, a finger for\nmusic, or a brain for poetry. Any one of these will keep a man from\nwisdom.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut not a woman, I suppose,\u201d retorted Metrodorus, \u201cas you have all\nthree.\u201d\n\n\u201cReady at compliments this morning: but if you wanted a bow for this,\nyou should have given it with a more gracious face. But come, my poor\nfriend; we will try to put you in good humor\u2014Nothing like a little\nflattery for this. Here, my young Corinthian! (walking to the other side\nof the room to a newly finished picture that stood against the wall, and\nbeckoning Theon towards her) you may without skill perceive the beauty\nof this work, and the excellence of the likeness.\u201d\n\nIt was indeed striking. \u201cAdmirable!\u201d cried Theon after a long gaze of\nadmiration, and then turning to compare it with the original.\n\n\u201cA little flattered, and more than a little, I fear,\u201d said Epicurus with\na smile, as he moved towards them.\n\n\u201cFlattered!\u201d exclaimed Metrodorus; \u201ca Parrhasius could not flatter such\nan original.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou see how my scholars spoil me,\u201d said the Gargettian to Theon.\n\n\u201cBut you think,\u201d continued Metrodorus, \u201cthat I have done it common\njustice.\u201d\n\n\u201cMuch more than common:\u2014It is your master\u2019s self. The dignity of his\nfigure, the grace of his attitude, the nobility of his features, the\ndivine benignity of his expression.\u2014Had we not the original to worship,\nwe might worship your copy.\u201d\n\nThey were interrupted by the entrance of a crowd of disciples, in the\nmidst of whose salutations young Sofron rushed in, breathless with\nrunning and convulsed with laughter.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n\n\n\u201cPrepare yourselves! Prepare yourselves!\u201d cried the panting scholar.\n\u201cOh! Pollux! such a couple! The contrast might convulse a Scythian.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is it? What is the matter?\u201d cried a dozen voices.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll explain directly\u2014Give me breath\u2014and yet I must be quick, for they\nare close on my heels. Gryphus, the cynic\u2014some of you must have seen\nhim. Well, he\u2019s coming side by side with young Lycaon.\u201d\n\n\u201cComing here!\u201d said the master smiling. \u201cWhat can have procured me the\nhonor of such a visit?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! your fame, of course.\u201d\n\n\u201cI suspect you are making a fool of the old cynic,\u201d said Epicurus.\n\n\u201cNay, if he be a fool, he is one without my assistance: Lycaon and I\nwere standing on the steps of the Prytaneum, disputing about something,\nI forget what, when by came Gryphus, and stopping short at bottom of the\nsteps, \u2018Are you disciples of Epicurus, of Gargettium?\u2019 \u2018We are,\u2019\nanswered I, for Lycaon only stood staring in amazement. \u2018You may show me\nthe way to him then.\u2019 \u2018With all my heart,\u2019 I again replying, Lycaon not\nyet finding his tongue. \u2018We are, at present, for the Gardens, and shall\nhold it an honor to be conductors to so extraordinary a personage.\u2019 I\nwanted to put him between us, but Lycaon seemed unambitious of his share\nin this distinction, for, stepping back, he slipped round to my other\nside. Oh! Jupiter! I shall never forget the contrast between my two\ncompanions. The rough, dirty, hairy cynic on my right hand, and the\nfine, smooth, delicate, pretty Aristippian on my left. We brought the\nwhole street at our heels. Lycaon would have slunk away, but I held him\ntight by the sleeve. When we were fairly in the Gardens, I gave them the\nslip at a cross-path, and run on before to give timely notice, as you\nsee. But, lo! Behold!\u201d\n\nThe two figures now appeared at the door. The contrast was not much less\nsingular than the scholar had represented; and there was a sort of faint\nprelude to a universal laugh, which, however, a timely look from the\nMaster instantly quelled. Lycaon, from the lightness of his figure, and\ndelicacy of his features and complexion, might have been mistaken for a\nfemale: his skin had the whiteness of the lily, and the blushing red of\nthe rose: his lips the vermil of coral: his hair soft and flowing; in\ntexture, silk; in color, gold: his dress was chosen with studied nicety,\nand disposed with studied elegance: the tunic of the whitest and finest\nlinen, fastened at the shoulder with a beautiful onyx: the sash of\nexquisite embroidery, and the robe of the richest Tyrian, falling in\nluxuriant folds from the shoulders, and over the right arm, which\ngracefully sustained its length, for the greater convenience in walking:\nthe sandals, purple, with buttons of gold. Gryphus, short, square, and\nmuscular; his tunic of the coarsest and not the cleanest woollen, in\nsome places worn threadbare, and with one open rent of considerable\nmagnitude that proved the skin to be as well engrained as its covering;\nhis girdle, a rope: his cloak, or rather rag, had the appearance of a\nsail taken from the wreck of an old trader: his feet bare, and thickly\npowdered with dust: of his face, little more might be distinguished than\nthe nose; the lower part being obscured by a bushy and wide-spreading\nbeard, and the upper, by a profusion of long, tangled and grisly hair.\nThe wondering disciples opened a passage for this singular intruder,\nwho, without looking to the right or the left, walked on, and stopped\nbefore Epicurus.\n\n\u201cI suppose you are the Master, by the needless trouble I see you take,\nin coming to meet me.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen Gryphus has possibly walked a mile to meet Epicurus, Epicurus may\nwithout much trouble walk a step to meet Gryphus.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn my walk of a mile,\u201d returned the cynic, \u201cthere was no trouble: I\ntook it for my own pleasure.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd my walk of a step I also took for mine.\u201d\n\n\u201cAye, the pleasure of ceremony!\u201d\n\n\u201cI may hope, then, this your visit is from something more than\nceremony\u2014perhaps a feeling of real friendship, or as a mark of your good\nopinion.\u201d\n\n\u201cI hate useless words,\u201d returned the cynic, \u201cand am not come here either\nto make any, or hearken to any. I have heard you much talked of lately.\nOur streets and our porticoes buzz eternally with your name, till now\nall wise men are weary of it. I come to tell you this, and to advise you\nto shut the gates of your gardens forthwith, and to cease the harangues\nof a master; since you only pass for a philosopher among fools, and for\na fool among philosophers.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thank you for your honest advice and information, friend; but as the\nobject of a master is not to teach the wise, but only the unwise, do you\nnot think I may still harangue among fools to some little purpose,\nthough Gryphus, and all sages, will of course justly hold me in\ncontempt?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so that fools may be made wise, the wise are to be plagued with\nfolly?\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, you would surely cease to think that folly which could make a fool\nwise.\u201d\n\n\u201cA fool wise! And who but a fool would think that possible?\u201d\n\n\u201cI grant it were difficult: but may it not also sometimes be difficult\nto discover who is a fool, and who not? Among my scholars there, some\ndoubtless may be fools, and some possibly may not be fools.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d interrupted the cynic; \u201cor they would not be your scholars.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! I being a fool myself. Well reminded! I had forgot that was one of\nour premises. But then, I being a fool, and all my scholars being fools,\nI do not see how much harm can be done, either by my talking folly, or\ntheir hearkening to it.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, if wise men were not forced to hearken also. I tell you that our\nstreets and our porticoes buzz with your name and your nonsense. Keep\nall the fools of Athens in your gardens, and lock the gates, and you may\npreach folly as long and as loud as you please.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have but one objection to this; namely, that my gardens would not\nhold all the fools of Athens. Suppose, therefore, the wise men, being a\nsmaller body, were shut into a garden, and the city and the rest of\nAttica left for the fools?\u201d\n\n\u201cI told you,\u201d cried the cynic, in a voice of anger, \u201cthat I hate useless\nwords.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, friend, why then walk a mile to speak advice to me? No words so\nuseless as those thrown at a fool.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery true, very true;\u201d and so saying, the stranger turned his back, and\nquitted the temple.\n\n\u201cThere,\u201d said the son of Neocles to his smiling disciples, \u201cis a good\nwarning to any, or all of us, who would be philosophers.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, master,\u201d cried Sofron, \u201cdo you think us in danger of following the\npleasant example of this savage? Do you, indeed, expect to see Lycaon\nthere, with beard, head and clothing, after the fashion of Gryphus?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot beard, head and clothing, perhaps,\u201d answered the Gargettian;\n\u201cpride, vanity, and ambition, may take less fearful coverings than\nthese.\u201d\n\n\u201cPride, vanity, and ambition? I should rather suspect Gryphus of the\nwant of all three.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, my son, believe me all those three qualities were concerned in the\ncarving of those three frightful appendages of our cynic\u2019s person. Pride\nneed not always lead a man to cut mount Athos in two, like Xerxes; nor\nambition, to conquer a world, and weep that there is yet not another to\nconquer, like Alexander; nor vanity, to look in a stream at his own face\ntill he fall in love with it, like Narcissus. When we cannot cut an\nAthos, we may leave uncut our beard; when we cannot mount a throne, we\nmay crawl into a tub; and when we have no beauty, we may increase our\nugliness. If a man of small, or even of moderate talents, be smitten\nwith a great desire of distinction, there is nothing too absurd, perhaps\nnothing too mischievous, for him to commit. Our friend, the cynic,\nhappily for himself and his neighbors, seems disposed to rest with the\nabsurd. Erostratus took to the mischievous\u2014to eternize his name\ndestroying that temple, by the building of which Ctesiphon immortalized\nhis. Be it our care to keep equally clear of the one as of the other.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you, then,\u201d asked Theon, \u201cthink a desire of distinction a vicious\ndesire?\u201d\n\n\u201cI think it is often a dangerous desire, and very often an unhappy one.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut surely very often a fortunate one,\u201d said Leontium. \u201cWithout it,\nwould there ever have been a hero?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd perhaps,\u201d returned the sage, with a smile, \u201cthe world might have\nbeen as happy if there had not.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, without arguing for an Achilles, would there have been a Homer?\u201d\n\n\u201cI agree with you,\u201d replied the Master, more seriously. \u201cThe desire of\ndistinction, though often a dangerous, and often an unhappy desire, is\nlikewise often, though I believe here _sometimes_ were a better word, a\nfortunate one. It is dangerous in the head of a fool; unhappy, in that\nof a man of moderate abilities, or unfavorable situation, who can\nconceive a noble aim, but lacks the talent or the means necessary for\nits attainment. It is fortunate only in the head of a genius, the heart\nof a sage, and in a situation convenient for its development and\ngratification. These three things you will allow do not often meet in\none person.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet,\u201d said Theon, \u201chow many great men has Athens produced?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it is not a consequent that they were happy?\u201d\n\n\u201cHappy or not happy, who would refuse their fate?\u201d\n\n\u201cI like that feeling,\u201d replied the Gargettian; \u201cnor do I dissent from\nit. The fate of greatness will always be enviable, even when the darkest\nstorms trouble its course. Well-merited fame has in itself a pleasure so\nmuch above all pleasures, that it may weigh in the balance against all\nthe accumulated evils of mortality. Grant then our great men to have\nbeen fortunate; are they, as you say, so many?\u2014Alas! my son, we may\ncount them on our fingers. A generation, the most brilliant in genius,\nleaves out of its thousands and millions but three or four, or a dozen,\nto the worship, even to the knowledge of futurity.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd these, only these three, four, or a dozen, have a right to the\ndesire of distinction?\u201d\n\n\u201cAs to the right,\u201d replied the sage, playfully, \u201cI mean not to dispute\nthat. The right lies with all men in our democracy to sit in a tub, or\nto walk in a dirty tunic.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you will allow of no end in ambition but an absurd one.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have not expressed myself well, or you have not understood me well,\nif you draw that conclusion. I surely have granted our great men to have\nhad great ends of ambition.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut is it only great men, or men destined to be great, that may have\nsuch ends?\u201d\n\n\u201cI allowed that others might; I only said that they would be unhappy in\nconsequence. The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy,\nis to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our\ncapacities.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen,\u201d cried Metrodorus, \u201cI have substantially proved myself this\nmorning to be no philosopher, when I chose a study beyond the reach of\nmy pencil.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said Leontium, playfully tapping his shoulder, \u201cthe Master will\nmake a distinction between what is beyond the reach of our capacity, and\nwhat beyond the reach of our practice. Erostratus might _never_ have\nplanned the edifice he destroyed; Ctesiphon could not _always_ have\nplanned it.\u201d The smile that accompanied these words, lighted one yet\nmore brilliant in the face of Metrodorus. Theon guessed that he felt\nmore than admiration and more than friendship for this female disciple.\n\n\u201cYour remark was well timed and well pointed,\u201d said the Master, \u201cand has\nsaved me some talking.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not sure of that,\u201d cried Sofron, stepping forwards; \u201cfor though\nLeontium has so nicely worded the distinction between want of capacity\nand want of practice in the general, I should like to be told, how a man\nis to make this distinction between his own in particular? For instance,\nI have a fancy to turn philosopher, and supersede my master; how am I to\ntell, at my first nonplus in logic or invention, whether the defect be\nin my capacity or my practice?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf it be only in the last, I apprehend you will easily perceive it; if\nin the first, not so readily. A man, if he set about the search, will\nquickly discover his talents; he may continue it to his death without\ndiscovering his deficiencies. The reason is plain; the one hurts our\nself-love, the other flatters it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd yet,\u201d interrupted Theon, \u201cI think, in my first interview with the\nPhilosopher of Gargettium, he remarked, that thousands had the seeds of\nexcellence in them who never found them out.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see you have a good memory,\u201d returned the Master, \u201cI did say so, and\nI think it still. Many might have been heroes, and many philosophers,\nhad they had a desire to be either; had accident or ambition made them\nlook into themselves, and inquire into their powers; but though jewels\nbe hid in a sack of oats, they will never be found, unless the oats be\nshaken. Remember, however, we are now speaking of one class of men\nonly\u2014the ambitious: and the ambitious will never have any seeds in them,\nbad or good, that will not generate and produce their proper fruit.\nAmbition is the spur, and the necessary spur, of a great mind to great\naction; when acting upon a weak mind it impels it to absurdity, or sours\nit with discontent.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, then,\u201d said Sofron, \u201c\u2019tis but a dangerous inmate, as minds go; and\nI, for one, had better have none of it, for I doubt I am not born to be\nan Epicurus, and I am certain I have no inclination to be a Gryphus.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the Master, \u201cwe have at least to thank Gryphus for our\nmorning\u2019s dialogue. If any of us wish to prosecute it farther, we may do\nit over our repast\u2014the sun has reached his noon, so let us to the bath.\u201d\n\nThey left the temple, and crossing the gardens in an opposite direction\nfrom that by which Theon had entered, soon reached a gate, which, to his\nsurprise, opened on a court at the back of the Gargettian\u2019s house, the\nsame in which he had supped the preceding evening.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V.\n\n\nThe fervor of the day had declined, when Theon issued to the street from\nthe house of Epicurus: at that instant he met in the face his friend\nCleanthes; he ran to his embrace; but the young stoic, receding with\nmingled astonishment and horror\u2014\u201cYe gods! from the house of Epicurus?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not marvel at your surprise,\u201d returned Theon, \u201cnor, if I recall my\nown feelings of yesterday, at your indignation.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnswer me quickly,\u201d interrupted Cleanthes; \u201cis Theon yet my friend?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd does Cleanthes doubt it?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat may I not doubt, when I see you come from such a mansion?\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, my brother,\u201d said Theon, kindly throwing his arm round the neck of\nhis friend, and drawing him onwards, \u201cI have been in no mansion of vice,\nor of folly.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not understand you,\u201d returned the stoic, but half yielding to his\nkindness; \u201cI do not know what to think, or what to fear.\u201d\n\n\u201cFear nothing; and think only good,\u201d said the Corinthian: \u201cTrue, I come\nfrom the gardens of pleasure, where I have heard very little of\npleasure, and a very great deal of virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see how it is,\u201d returned the other; \u201cyou have lost your principles,\nand I, my friend.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not think I have lost the first, and I am very sure you have not\nlost the last!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo!\u201d exclaimed Cleanthes; \u201cbut I tell you, yes;\u201d and his cheeks\nflushed, and his eyes flashed with indignation: \u201cI _have_ lost my\nfriend, and you have lost yours. Go!\u201d he continued, and drew himself\nfrom the arm of Theon. \u201cGo! Cleanthes hath no fellowship with an\napostate and a libertine.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou wrong me; and you wrong Epicurus,\u201d said his friend, in a tone of\nmore reproach than anger: \u201cBut I cannot blame you; yesterday I had\nmyself been equally unjust. You must see him, you must hear him,\nCleanthes. This alone can undeceive you\u2014can convince you; convince you\nof my innocence, and Epicurus\u2019s virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cEpicurus\u2019s virtue! your innocence?\u2014What is Epicurus to me? What is he,\nor should he be to you? Your innocence? And is this fastened to the\nmantle of Epicurus: see him to be convinced of your innocence?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, and of your own injustice: Oh! Cleanthes, what a fool do I now\nknow myself to have been! To have listened to the lies of Timocrates! To\nhave believed all his absurdities! Come, my friend! come with me and\nbehold the face of the Master he blasphemes!\u201d\n\n\u201cTheon, one master, and but one master, is mine. To me, whether\nTimocrates exaggerate or even lie, it matters nothing.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt does, or it should,\u201d said the Corinthian. \u201cWill a disciple of Zeno\nnot open his eyes to truth? Not see an error and atone for it, by\nacknowledging it? I do not ask you to be the disciple of Epicurus\u2014I only\nask you to be just to him, and that for your own sake, more than mine,\nor even his.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see you are seduced\u2014I see you are lost,\u201d cried the stoic, fixing on\nhim a look in which sorrow struggled with indignation. \u201cI thought myself\na stoic, but I feel the weakness of a woman in my eyes.\u2014Thou wert as my\nbrother, Theon; and thou\u2014thou also art beguiled by the Syren\u2014left virtue\nfor pleasure, Zeno for Epicurus.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have not left Zeno.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou cannot follow both\u2014you cannot be in the day and under the night at\none and the same time.\u201d\n\n\u201cI tell you there is no night in the gardens of Epicurus.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs there no pleasure there,\u201d cried the stoic, his mouth and brows\ncurling with irony.\n\n\u201cYes, there is pleasure there: the pleasure of wisdom and virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! have you learnt the Gargettian subtleties so soon? You have\ndoubtless already worshipped virtue under the form of the courtezan\nLeontium; and wisdom under that of her master and paramour, the son of\nNeocles.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow little you know of either!\u201d returned Theon. \u201cBut I knew as little\nyesterday.\u201d\n\nCleanthes stopped. They were before the stoic portico. \u201cFarewell! Return\nto your gardens. Farewell!\u201d\n\n\u201cWe do not yet part,\u201d said Theon: \u201cZeno is still my master.\u201d He followed\nhis friend up the steps. A crowd of disciples were assembled, waiting\nthe arrival of their master. Some, crowded into groups, listened to the\nharangues of an elder or more able scholar: others walking in parties of\nsix or a dozen, reasoning, debating, and disputing: while innumerable\nsingle figures, undisturbed by the buzz around them, leaned against the\npillars, studying each from a manuscript, or stood upon the steps with\narms folded, and heads dropped on their bosoms, wrapped in silent\nmeditations. At the entrance of Cleanthes, the favored pupil of their\nmaster, the scholars made way, and the loud hum slowly hushed into\nsilence. He advanced to the centre, and the floating crowd gathered and\ncompressed into a wide and deep circle. All eyes bent on the youth in\nexpectant curiosity, for his countenance was disturbed, and his manner\nabrupt.\n\nCleanthes was of the middle size: so slender, that you wondered at the\nerectness of his gait and activity of his motion. His neck was small;\nhis shoulders falling; his head elegantly formed; the hair smooth and\nclose cut; the forehead narrow, and somewhat deeply lined for one so\nyoung: the eyebrows marked and even, save a slight bend upwards, as by a\nfrown, above the nose. The eyes blue; but their gaze was too earnest,\nand their spirit too clear, to leave any of the melting softness so\nusual with that color:\u2014And yet there were moments when this would appear\nin them; and when it did, it went to the soul of him who observed it,\nbut such moments were short and rare. The nose was finely and perhaps\ntoo delicately turned; the mouth\u2014mild and always in repose. The cheeks\nwere thin, and though slightly flushed, the face had a look of paleness\ntill enthusiasm awoke, and deepened all its dyes. The whole expression\nhad more spirituality and variety, and the manner more agitation, than\nyou would have looked for in the first and favorite pupil of Zeno. The\nyouth turned a rapid glance round the circle: he threw out his right\narm; the mantle dropped from his shoulder, and in a varied, piercing,\nand yet melodious voice he began\u2014\n\n\u201cMy friends! My brothers! Disciples of Zeno and of virtue. Give me your\nears, and awake your faculties! How shall I tell the dangers that\nsurround you? How shall I paint the demon that would ensnare you;\nTimocrates hath escaped from his enchantments, and told us that riot and\nrevelling were in his halls, that impiety was in his mouth; vice in his\npractice; deformity in his aspect: and we thought that none but souls\nborn for error, already steeped in infamy, or sunk in effeminacy, could\nbe taken in his toils and seduced by his example. But behold! he hath\nchanged his countenance\u2014he hath changed his tongue:\u2014amid his revels he\nhath put on the garb of decency: in his riot he talks of innocence; in\nhis licentiousness, of virtue. Behold the youth! they run to him with\ngreedy ears\u2014they throng his gardens and his porticoes. Athens, Attica,\nGreece, all are the Gargettian\u2019s. Asia, Italy, the burning Africa and\nthe frozen Scythia\u2014all, all send ready pupils to his feet. Oh! what\nshall we say? Oh! how shall we stem the torrent? Oh! how shall we fence\nour hearts\u2014how our ears from the song of the Syren?\u2014to what mast shall\nwe bind ourselves, to what pilot shall we trust, that we may pass the\nshores in safety without dashing on the rocks?\u2014But why do I speak? Why\ndo I enquire? Why do I exhort? Is not the contagion already among us? In\nthe school of Zeno\u2014in this portico\u2014in this circle are there not\nwaverers\u2014Yea, are there not apostates?\u201d Emotion choked his utterance: he\npaused, and glanced his kindled eyes round upon the audience. Every\nbreath was held in expectation; each looked on the other in doubt,\ndismay, and inquiry. Theon\u2019s heart beat quick and high: he advanced one\nstep, and raised his arm to speak; but Cleanthes, gathering his breath,\nagain in a rapid voice continued:\u2014\n\n\u201cDoes this silence speak conscious guilt, or startled innocence? The\nlast: I will believe the last. Praise be to the gods! praise to our\nguardian, Minerva! praise to our great, our glorious master, there are\nyet some sons left to Athens and to Greece, who shall respect, follow,\nand attain to virtue! Some choice and disciplined souls who shall stand\nforth the light and ornament of their age, and whose names shall be in\nhonor with those yet unborn. Rouse, rouse up your energies! Oh! be firm\nto Zeno, and to virtue! I tell you not\u2014Zeno tells you not, that virtue\nis found in pleasure\u2019s repose. Resistance, energy, watchfulness,\npatience, and endurance\u2014these, these must be your practice, must be your\nhabit, ere you can reach the perfection of your nature. The ascent is\nsteep, is long, is arduous. To-day you must ascend a step, and to-morrow\na step, and to-morrow, and to-morrow\u2014and yet shall you be far from the\nsummit, from rest, and from security. Does this appal you? Does this\ndisgust you? Go then to the Gardens! Go to the man of Gargettium\u2014he who\ncalls himself philosopher, and who loves and teaches folly! Go, go to\nhim, and he shall encourage and soothe you. He shall end your pursuit,\nand give you your ambition! He shall show you virtue robed in pleasures,\nand lolling in ease! He shall teach you wisdom in a song, and happiness\nin impiety!\u2014But I am told, that Timocrates hath lied; that Epicurus is\nnot a libertine; nor Leontium a prostitute; nor the youth of the Garden\nthe ministers to their lusts. Be it so. Timocrates must answer to\nhimself, whether his tale be the outpourings of indignant truth, or the\nsubtle inventions of malevolence: with his own conscience be the secret:\nto us it matters nothing. We, who have nought to do with the doctrines\nof Epicurus, have nought to do with his practice. Let him who would\nvindicate the one, vindicate the other: let him come forth and say, that\nthe master in the Gardens is not only pure in action, but perfect in\ntheory. Let him say, that he worships virtue as virtue, and shuns vice\nas vice. Let him say that he arms the soul with fortitude, ennobles it\nwith magnanimity, chastens it with temperance, enlarges it with\nbeneficence, perfects it with justice;\u2014and let him moreover say, that he\ndoes this, not that the soul so schooled and invigorated may lie in the\nrepose of virtue, but that it may exult in its honor, and be fitted for\nits activity. Fie on that virtue which prudence alone directs! Which\nteaches to be just that the laws may not punish, or our neighbors\nrevenge:\u2014to be enduring\u2014because complainings were useless, and weakness\nwould bring on us insult and contempt:\u2014to be temperate\u2014that our body may\nkeep its vigor, our appetites retain their acuteness, and our\ngratifications and sensualities their zest:\u2014to serve our friends\u2014that\nthey may serve us;\u2014our country\u2014because its defence and well-being\ncomprehends our own. Why all this is well\u2014but is there nothing more? Is\nit our ease alone we shall study, and not our dignity?\u2014Though all my\nfellow-men were swept away, and not a mortal nor immortal eye were left\nto approve or condemn\u2014should I not here\u2014within this breast, have a judge\nto dread, and a friend to conciliate? Prudence and pleasure! Was it from\nsuch principles as these that the virtue of Solon, of Miltiades, of\nAristides, of Socrates, of Plato, of Xenophon, of all our heroes and all\nour sages, had its spring and its nourishment? Was it such virtue as\nthis that in Lycurgus put by the offered crown?\u2014that in Leonidas stood\nat Thermopyl\u00e6?\u2014that in the dying Pericles gloried that he had never\ncaused a citizen to mourn? Was it such virtue as this\u2014that spoke in\nSocrates before his judges?\u2014that sustained him in his prison\u2014and when\nthe door was open, and the sails of the ready ship unfurled, made him\nprefer death to flight; his dignity to his existence?\u201d\n\nAgain the young orator paused, but his indignant soul seemed still to\nspeak from his flashing eyes. His cheeks glowed as fire, and the big\ndrops rolled from his forehead. At this moment the circle behind him\ngave way. Zeno advanced into the midst: he stood by the head and\nshoulders above the crowd: his breast, broad and manly: his limbs, cast\nin strength and symmetry: his gait, erect, calm, and dignified: his\nfeatures, large, grand, and regular, seemed sculptured by the chisel for\na colossal divinity: the forehead, broad and serene, was marked with the\neven lines of wisdom and age; but no harsh wrinkles, nor playing muscles\ndisturbed the repose of his cheeks, nor had sixty years touched with one\nthread of silver his close black hair; the eyes, dark and full, fringed\nwith long straight lashes, looked in severe and steady wisdom from under\ntheir correct and finely arched brows: the nose came from the forehead,\nstraight and even: the mouth and chin, were firm and silent. Wisdom\nundisturbable, fortitude unshakeable, self-respect, self-possession, and\nself-knowledge perfected, were in his face, his carriage, and his tread.\n\nHe stopped before the youth, who had turned at his approach. \u201cMy son,\u201d\nfixing his calm gaze on the working countenance of his pupil, \u201cwhat hath\ndisturbed thy soul?\u201d Cleanthes laid a hand on his laboring breast: he\nmade one violent effort for composure and speech: it failed. The hot\nblood forsook his cheeks: it rushed again: again it fled: he gasped, and\ndropped fainting at the feet of his Master.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI.\n\n\nTheon rushed forward: He knelt; he raised the head of his friend:\nBreathless, agitated, terrified, he called his name with the piercing\ncry of agony and despair. All was commotion and confusion. The scholars\npressed forward tumultuously; but Zeno, raising his arm, and looking\nsteadily round, cried \u201cSilence!\u201d The crowd fell back, and the stillness\nof night succeeded. Then motioning the circle towards the street, to\ngive way and admit the air, he stooped and assisted Theon to support his\nreviving pupil. Cleanthes raised his head, turned his eyes wildly\naround, and then fixed them on his master.\n\n\u201cGently,\u201d said Zeno, as the youth struggled in their arms for\nrecollection, \u201cgently, my son.\u201d But he made the effort: he gained his\nfeet, and throwing out his arm to a pillar near him, turned his head\naside, and for some moments combated with his weakness in silence. His\nlimbs still trembled, and his face had yet the hues of death, when,\npressing his hand with convulsive strength against the pillar, he\nproudly drew up his form, turned his eyes again upon his master, and\nmustering his broken respiration, \u201cBlame me, but do not despise me.\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall do neither, my son: the weakness was in the body, not the\nmind.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere has been want of command in both. I ask not to be excused.\u201d Then\nturning round to his companions, \u201cI may be a warning if not an example.\nThe Spartans expose the drunkenness of their Helots to confirm their\nyouth in sobriety: let the weakness of Cleanthes teach the sons of Zeno\nequanimity; and let them say, If in the portico weakness be found, what\nshall it be in the Gardens? But,\u201d he continued, addressing his master,\n\u201cwill Zeno pardon the scholar who, while enforcing his nervous doctrines\non others, has swerved from them himself?\u201d\n\n\u201cThou judgest thy fault as thou shouldst judge it,\u201d returned Zeno; \u201cbut\ncomfort, my son! He who knows, and knowing can acknowledge his\ndeficiency, though his foot be not on the summit, yet hath he his eye\nthere. But say the cause, and surely it must be a great one, that could\ndisturb the self-possession of my disciple.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe cause was indeed a great one; no less than the apostacy of a\nscholar from Zeno to Epicurus.\u201d\n\nZeno turned his eyes round the circle: there was no additional severity\nin them, and no change in his manner, or in his deep, sonorous voice,\nwhen, addressing them, he said, \u201cIf one or more, or all of my disciples\nbe wearied of virtue, let them depart. Let them not fear upbraidings or\nexhortations; the one were useless to you, the other unworthy of me. He\nwho sighs for pleasure, the voice of wisdom can never reach, nor the\npower of virtue touch. In this Portico truth will never be softened to\nwin a sickly ear; nor the severity of virtue, will it ever be veiled to\nwin a feeble heart. He who obeys in act and not in thought; he who\ndisciplines his body and not his mind; he who hath his foot in the\nPortico, and his heart in the Gardens; he hath no more to do with Zeno,\nthan a wretch sunk in all the effeminacy of a Median, or the gross\ndebauchery of a Scythian. There is no midway in virtue; no halting place\nfor the soul but perfection. You must be all, or you may be nothing. You\nmust determine to proceed to the utmost, or I encourage ye not to begin.\nI say to ye, one and all, give me your ears, your understandings, your\nsouls, and your energies, or _depart_!\u201d Again he looked round upon his\nscholars. A long and deep silence succeeded: when young Theon, breaking\nthrough his awe, and his timidity, advanced into the centre, and craving\nsufferance with his hand, addressed the assembly.\n\n\u201cThough I should forfeit the esteem of Zeno and the love of his\ndisciples, I have no choice but to speak. Honor and justice demand this\nof me: first, to remove suspicion from this assembly; next, to vindicate\nthe character of a sage whom the tongue of a liar hath traduced; and,\nlastly, to conciliate my own esteem, which I value beyond even the\nesteem of the venerated Zeno, and of my beloved Cleanthes.\u201d He paused;\nand turning to Zeno,\u2014\u201cWith permission of the master, I would speak.\u201d\n\n\u201cSpeak, my son: we attend.\u201d Zeno retreated among his disciples; and\nCleanthes, anxious and agitated for his friend, placed himself behind\nthe screen of a pillar. With a varying cheek and a tremulous voice, the\nyouth began:\u2014\n\n\u201cIn addressing an assembly accustomed to the manly elocution of a Zeno,\nand the glowing eloquence of a Cleanthes, I know I shall be forgiven by\nmy companions, and I hope even by my severe master, the blushes and\nhesitations of timidity and inexperience. I open my mouth for the first\ntime in public; and in what a public is it? Let not, therefore, my\nconfusion be thought the confusion of guilt; but, as it truly is, of\nbashful inexperience. First, to remove suspicion from this assembly:\u2014let\nnot the scholars look with doubt on each other; let not the master look\nwith doubt on his scholars. I am he who have communed with the son of\nNeocles;\u2014I am he who have entered the gardens of pleasure;\u2014I am he whom\nCleanthes hath pointed at as the apostate from Zeno to Epicurus.\u201d A\ntumult arose among the scholars. Surprise, indignation, and scorn,\nvariously looked from their faces, and murmured from their tongues.\n\n\u201cSilence!\u201d cried Zeno, casting his severe glance round the circle.\n\u201cYoung man, proceed.\u201d\n\nThis burst of his audience rather invigorated than dashed the youth. He\nfreely threw forth his arm; his eyes lighted with fire, and the ready\nwords flowed from his lips:\u2014\u201cI merit not the hiss of scorn, nor the\nburst of indignation. Desist, my brothers, till my artless tale be\ntold;\u2014till you have heard, not my apology, but my justification.\nYesterday, at this hour, I left the Portico, heated to fury by the\nphilippic of Timocrates against Epicurus and his disciples; indignant at\nthe city that did not drive such a teacher from its walls; against the\ngods who did not strike him with their thunders. Thus venting my\nfeelings in soliloquy, after a long ramble I seated myself on the banks\nof Cephisus, and was awakened from a reverie by the approach of a\nstranger: his aspect had the wisdom of a sage, and the benignity of a\ndivinity. I yielded him the homage of youthful respect and admiration:\nhe condescended to address me. He gave me the precepts of virtue with\nthe gentle and honied tongue of kindness and persuasion. I listened, I\nadmired, and I loved. We did not conclude our walk until sunset: he bade\nme to his supper. I entered his house, and he told me I beheld Epicurus.\nCould I have drawn back? _Should_ I have drawn back? No: my heart\nanswers, no. Your sufferance, my friends! Do not interrupt me! Do not\ncall me an apostate! In the presence of the gods; in the presence of my\nmaster, whom I fear as them; in the presence of my own conscience, which\nI fear more than both, I swear that I am not so! I mean not to explain\nor to justify the philosophy of Epicurus: I know but little of it. I\nonly know\u2014I only affirm, that his tongue has given new warmth to my love\nof virtue, and new vigor to my pursuit of it:\u2014I only affirm, that\npersuasion, simple, ungarnished persuasion, is in his lips; benevolence\nin his aspect; urbanity in his manners: generosity, truth, and candor in\nhis sentiments:\u2014I only affirm, that order, innocence, and content, are\nin his halls and his gardens; peace and brotherly love with his\ndisciples; and that, in the midst of these, he is himself the\nphilosopher, the parent, and the friend. I see the sneer of contempt\nupon your lips, my brothers; alas! even on the unperturbed countenance\nof my master I read displeasure.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, my son,\u201d said Zeno, \u201cthou dost not. Continue thy artless tale. If\nthere be error, it lies with the deceiver, not the deceived. And you, my\nsons and disciples, banish from your faces and your breasts every\nexpression and every thought unworthy of your honest companion, and your\nupright sect. For remember, if to abhor falsehood and vice be noble, to\ndistrust truth and innocence is mean. My son, proceed.\u201d\n\n\u201cThanks for your noble confidence, my master: it makes me proud, for I\ndeserve it. Yes! even should I, as I perceive you apprehend, be\ndeceived, I feel that this open confession of my present perfect\nconviction is honorable both to myself and to Zeno.\u2014It proves that in\nhis school I have learnt candor, though I have yet to learn discernment.\nAnd yet, methinks, however imperfect my youthful discernment, it is not\nnow in error. If ever I saw simple, unadorned goodness; if ever I heard\nsimple, unadorned truth; it is in\u2014it is from Epicurus. Again your\nsufferance, my friends! Again your sufferance, my master! I am not\u2014I\nwish not to be, a disciple of the Gardens: virtue may be in them\u2014excuse\nme, virtue is in them, but there is a virtue in the Portico which I\nshall worship to my latest hour. Here, here I first learned\u2014here I first\nsaw to what a glorious height of greatness a mortal might ascend\u2014how\nindependent he might be of fortune; how triumphant over fate! Young,\ninnocent, and inexperienced, I came to Athens in search of wisdom and\nvirtue. \u2018Attend all the schools, and fix with that which shall give you\nthe noblest aims,\u2019 said my father, when he gave me his parting blessing.\nHe being an academician, I had, of course, somewhat imbibed the\nprinciples of Plato, and conceived a love for his school: On first\nhearing Crates, therefore, I thought myself satisfied. Accident made me\nacquainted with a young Pythagorean: I listened to his simple precepts;\nI loved his virtues, and almost fell into his superstitions. From these\nTheophrastus awakened me; and I was nearly fixed as a Peripatetic, when\nI met the eloquent, enthusiastic Cleanthes. He brought me to the\nPortico, where I found all the virtues of all the schools united, and\ncrowned with perfection. But when I preferred Zeno, I did not despise my\nformer masters. I still sometimes visit the Lyc\u00e6um and the Academy, and\nstill the young Pythagorean is my friend. A pure mind should, I think,\nrespect virtue wherever it be found: and if then in the Lyc\u00e6um and the\nAcademy, why not the Gardens? Zeno, in teaching austerity, does not\nteach intolerance; much less, I am sure, does he teach ingratitude: and\nif I did not feel for the sage of Gargettium both respect and love, I\nwere the most ungrateful soul in Athens; and if feeling both, I feared\nto acknowledge both, I were the meanest. And now, my brothers, ask\nyourselves what would be your indignation at the youth, who for his\nvices being driven from this Portico, should run to the Lyc\u00e6um, and\naccuse, to the sons of Aristotle, our great Zeno of that sensuality and\nwickedness which had here wrought his own disgrace, and his own\nbanishment? Would ye not hate such a wretch? Would ye not loathe him?\nWould ye not curse him? My brothers! this day have I learned such a\nwretch to be Timocrates. Is he here?\u2014I hope he is: I hope he hears me\ndenounce him for a defamer and an ingrate.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Tis false!\u201d cried Timocrates, bursting in fury from the crowd. \u201c\u2019Tis\nfalse! I swear\u201d\u2014\n\n\u201cBeware of perjury!\u201d said a clear, silver voice, from without the\ncircle. \u201cGive way, Athenians! \u2019Tis for me to take up this quarrel.\u201d\n\nThe crowd divided. Every eye turned towards the opening. Theon shouted\nwith triumph, Timocrates stood blank with dismay\u2014for they recognised the\nvoice and the form of the son of Neocles.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII.\n\n\nThe Sage advanced towards Theon: he laid a hand on either of his\nshoulders, and kissed his glowing forehead. \u201cThanks to my generous\ndefender. Your artless tale, my son, if it have not gained the ear of\nZeno, hath fixed the heart of Epicurus. Oh! ever keep this candor and\nthis innocence!\u201d He turned his benign face round the circle: \u201cAthenians!\nI am Epicurus.\u201d This name so despised and execrated, did it not raise a\ntumult in the assembly? No; every tongue was chained, every breath\nsuspended, every eye riveted with wonder and admiration. Theon had said\nthe truth: it was the aspect of a sage and a divinity. The face was a\nserene mirror of a serene mind: its expression spoke like music to the\nsoul. Zeno\u2019s was not more calm and unruffled; but here was no severity,\nno authority, no reserve, no unapproachable majesty, no repelling\nsuperiority: all was benevolence, mildness, openness and soothing\nencouragement. To see, was to love; and to hear, was to trust.\nTimocrates shrunk from the eye of his master: it fell upon him with a\nfixed and deep gaze, that struck more agony into his guilty soul, than\nhad the flash of a Cleanthes, or the glance of a Zeno. The wretch sunk\nbeneath it: he trembled; he crouched; he looked as he would have\nsupplicated mercy; but his tongue cleaved to his palate, and shame\nwithheld him from quite dropping on his knees. \u201cGo! I will spare thee.\nGive way, Athenians!\u201d The scholars opened a passage: again the Sage\nwaved his hand, and the criminal slunk away.\n\n\u201cYour pardon, Zeno,\u201d said the Gargettian, \u201cI know the youth: he is not\nworthy to stand in the Portico.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thank you,\u201d returned the Master, \u201cand my disciples thank you. The\ngods forbid that we should harbor vice, or distrust virtue. I see, and I\nrecant my error: henceforth if I cannot respect the teacher, I shall\nrespect the man.\u201d\n\n\u201cI respect both,\u201d said Epicurus, reclining his head to the stoic. \u201cI\nhave long known and admired Zeno: I have often mixed with the crowd in\nhis Portico, and felt the might of his eloquence. I do not expect a\nsimilar return from him, nor do I wish to allure his scholars to my\nGardens. I know the severity of their master, and the austerity, may I\nsay, the intolerance of his rules. But for one,\u201d and he laid his hand\nupon the head of Theon, \u201cfor this one, I would bespeak clemency. Let not\nthat be imputed to him as a crime, which has been the work of accident\nand of Epicurus: and let me also say for him, as well as for myself\u2014he\nhas lost in the Gardens no virtues, if a few prejudices.\u201d\n\n\u201cSon of Neocles,\u201d said Zeno, \u201cI feared you yesterday, but I fear you\ndoubly to-day. Your doctrines are in themselves enticing, but coming\nfrom such lips, I fear they are irresistible. Methinks I cast a\nprophet\u2019s eye on the map of futurity, and I see the sage of Gargettium\nstanding on the pinnacle of fame, and a world at his feet. The world is\nprepared for this: the Macedonian, when he marched our legions to the\nconquest of Persia, struck the death-blow at Greece. Persian luxury, and\nPersian effeminacy, which before crept, now came with strides upon us.\nOur youth, dandled on the lap of indulgence, shall turn with sickened\nears from the severe moral of Zeno, and greedily suck in the honied\nphilosophy of Epicurus. You will tell me that you too teach virtue. It\nmay be so. I do not see it; but it may be so. I do not conceive how\nthere can be two virtues, nor yet how two roads to the same. This,\nhowever, I shall not argue. I will grant that in your system, as\nelucidated by your practice, there may be something to admire, and much\nto love; but when your practice shall be dead, and your system alone\nshall survive, where then shall be the security of its innocence;\u2014where\nthe antidote of its poison? Think not that men shall take the good and\nnot the evil; soon they shall take the evil and leave the good. They\nshall do more; they shall pervert the very nature of the good, and make\nof the whole, evil unmixed. Soon, in the shelter of your bowers, all\nthat is vicious shall find a refuge. Effeminacy shall steal in under the\nname of ease; sensuality and debauchery in the place of innocence and\nrefinement; the pleasures of the body instead of those of the mind.\nWhatever may be your virtues, they are but the virtues of temperament,\nnot of discipline; and such of your followers as shall be like you in\ntemperament may be like you in practice: but let them have boiling\npassions and urgent appetites, and your doctrines shall set no fence\nagainst the torrent; shall ring no alarm to the offender. Tell us not\nthat that is right which admits of evil construction\u2014that that is virtue\nwhich leaves an open gate to vice. I said that with a prophet\u2019s eye I\nsaw your future fame; but such fame as I foresee can but ill satisfy the\nambition of a sage. Your Gardens shall be crowded, but they shall be\ndisgraced; your name shall be in every mouth, but every mouth shall be\nunworthy that speaks it; nations shall have you in honor, but ere it is\nso they shall be in ruin: our degenerated country shall worship you, and\nexpire at your feet. Zeno, meantime, may be neglected, but he shall\nnever be slandered; the Portico may be forsaken, but shall never be\ndisgraced; its doctrines may be discarded, but shall never be\nmisconstrued. I am not deceived by my present popularity. No school now\nin such repute as mine; but I know this will not last. The iron and the\ngolden ages are run; youth and manhood are departed; and the weakness of\nold age steals upon the world. But, Oh! son of Neocles! in this gloomy\nprospect a proud comfort is mine: I have raised the last bulwark to the\nfainting virtue of man, and the departing glory of nations:\u2014I have done\nmore: when the virtue and glory of nations shall be dead, and when in\ntheir depraved generations some solitary souls, born for better things,\nshall see and mourn the vices around them, here in the abandoned Portico\nshall they find a refuge; here, shutting their eyes upon the world, they\nshall learn to be a world to themselves;\u2014here, steeled in fortitude,\nshall they look down in high, unruffled majesty on the slaves and the\ntyrants of earth. Epicurus! when thou canst say this of the Gardens,\nthen, and not till then, call thyself a sage and a man of virtue.\u201d He\nceased; but his full tones seemed yet to sound in the ears of his\nlistening auditors. There was a long pause, when the Gargettian in\nnotes, like the breathing flutes of Arcadia, began his reply.\n\n\u201cZeno, in his present speech, has rested much of the truth of his system\non its expediency: I therefore shall do the same by mine. The door of my\nGardens is ever open, and my books are in the hands of the public; to\nenter therefore, here, into the detail or the expounding of the\nprinciples of my philosophy were equally out of place and out of season.\n\u2018Tell us not that that is right which admits of evil construction;\u2014that\nthat is virtue which leaves an open gate to vice.\u2019 This is the thrust\nwhich Zeno now makes at Epicurus; and did it hit, I grant it were a\nmortal one. From the flavor, we pronounce of the fruit; from the beauty\nand the fragrance, of the flower; and in a system of morals, or of\nphilosophy, or of whatever else, what tends to produce good we pronounce\nto be good, what to produce evil, we pronounce to be evil. I might\nindeed support the argument, that our opinion with regard to the first\nprinciples of morals has nought to do with our practice;\u2014that whether I\nstand my virtue upon prudence, or propriety, or justice, or benevolence,\nor self-love, that my virtue is still one and the same;\u2014that the dispute\nis not about the end, but the origin; that of all the thousands who have\nyielded homage to virtue, hardly one has thought of inspecting the\npedestal she stands upon; that as the mariner is guided by the tides,\nthough ignorant of their causes, so does a man obey the rules of virtue\nthough ignorant of the principles on which those rules are founded; and\nthat the knowledge of those principles would affect the conduct of the\nman, no more than acquaintance with the causes of the tides would affect\nthe conduct of the mariner. But this I shall not argue; in doing so I\nmight seem but to fight you flying. I shall meet your objection in the\nface. And I say\u2014that allowing the most powerful effects to spring from\nthe first grounds of a moral system;\u2014the worst or the best,\u2014that mine,\nif the best is to be so judged by the good it does and the evil it\nprevents, must be ranked among the best. If, as you say, and I partly\nbelieve, the iron and the golden ages are past, the youth and the\nmanhood of the world, and that the weakness of old age is creeping on\nus,\u2014then, as you also say, our youth, dandled on the lap of indulgence,\nshall turn with sickened ears from the severe moral of Zeno; and then\n_I_ say, that in the Gardens, and in the Gardens only, shall they find a\nfood, innocent, yet adapted to their sickly palates; an armor, not of\niron fortitude, but of silken persuasion, that shall resist the progress\nof their degeneracy, or throw a beauty even over their ruin. But,\nperhaps, though Zeno should allow this last effect of my philosophy to\nbe probable, he will not approve it: his severe eye looks with scorn,\nnot pity, on the follies and vices of the world. He would annihilate\nthem, change them to their opposite virtues, or he would leave them to\ntheir full and natural sweep. \u2018Be perfect, or be as you are. I allow of\nno degrees of virtue, so care not for the degrees of vice. Your ruin, if\nit must be, let it be in all its horrors, in all its vileness: let it\nattract no pity, no sympathy: let it be seen in all its naked deformity,\nand excite the full measure of its merited abhorrence and disgust.\u2019 Thus\nsays the sublime Zeno, who sees only man as he should be. Thus says the\nmild Epicurus, who sees man as he is: With all his weaknesses, all his\nerrors, all his sins, still owning fellowship with him, still rejoicing\nin his welfare and sighing over his misfortunes: I call from my Gardens\nto the thoughtless, the headstrong, and the idle.\u2014\u2018Where do ye wander,\nand what do ye seek?\u2014Is it pleasure? behold it here. Is it ease? enter\nand repose.\u2019 Thus do I court them from the table of drunkenness and the\nbed of licentiousness: I gently awaken their sleeping faculties, and\ndraw the veil from their understandings. \u2018My sons! do you seek pleasure?\nI seek her also. Let us make the search together. You have tried wine,\nyou have tried love; you have sought amusement in revelling, and\nforgetfulness in indolence. You tell me you are disappointed: that your\npassions grew, even while you gratified them; your weariness increased\neven while you slept. Let us try again. Let us quiet our passions, not\nby gratifying, but subduing them; let us conquer our weariness, not by\nrest, but by exertion.\u2019 Thus do I win their ears and their confidence.\nStep by step I lead them on. I lay open the mysteries of science; I\nexpose the beauties of art; I call the graces and the muses to my aid;\nthe song, the lyre, and the dance. Temperance presides at the repast;\ninnocence, at the festival; disgust is changed to satisfaction;\nlistlessness, to curiosity; brutality, to elegance; lust gives place to\nlove; Bacchanalian hilarity to friendship. Tell me not, Zeno, that the\nteacher is vicious who washes depravity from the youthful heart; who\nlays the storm of its passions, and turns all its sensibilities to good.\nI grant that I do not look to make men happy. To teach them that in the\ndischarge of their duties as sons, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens,\nlies their pleasure and their interest;\u2014and when the sublime motives of\nZeno shall cease to affect an enervated generation, the gentle\npersuasions of Epicurus shall still be heard and obeyed. But you warn me\nthat I shall be slandered, my doctrines misinterpreted, and my school\nand my name disgraced. I doubt it not. What teacher is safe from\nmalevolence, what system from misconstruction? And does Zeno really\nthink himself and his doctrines secure? He knows not, then, man\u2019s\nignorance and man\u2019s folly. Some few generations, when the amiable\nvirtues of Epicurus, and the sublime excellence of Zeno shall live no\nlonger in remembrance or tradition, the fierce or ambitious bigots of\nsome new sect may alike calumniate both; proclaim the one for a\nlibertine, and the other for a hypocrite. But I will allow that I am\nmore open to detraction than Zeno: that while your school shall be\nabandoned, mine shall more probably be disgraced. But it will be the\nsame cause that produces the two effects. It will be equally the\ndegeneracy of man that shall cause the discarding of your doctrines, and\nthe perversion of mine. Why then should the prospect of the future\ndisturb Epicurus more than Zeno? The fault will not lie with me any more\nthan you; but with the vices of my followers, and the ignorance of my\njudges. I follow my course, guided by what I believe to be wisdom; with\nthe good of man at my heart, adapting my advice to his situation, his\ndisposition, and his capacities. My efforts may be unsuccessful, my\nintentions may be calumniated; but as I know these to be benevolent, so\nI shall continue these, unterrified and unruffled by reproaches,\nunchilled by occasional ingratitude and frequent disappointment.\u201d He\nceased, and again laying his hand on the shoulder of Theon, led him to\nhis Master. \u201cI ask not Zeno to admire me as a teacher, but let him not\nblame this scholar for loving me as a man.\u201d\n\n\u201cI shall not blame him,\u201d said the Stoic, \u201cbut I wish that I may not soon\ndistrust him. I wish he may not soon forget Zeno, and forsake the\nPortico.\u201d\n\nThe shades of evening now fell on the city, and the assembly divided.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VIII.\n\n\nThe sun was in its fervor, when Theon issued from one of the public\nbaths. He was not disposed for rest, yet the heat of the streets was\ninsufferable. \u201cI will seek the Gardens,\u201d he thought, \u201cand loiter in\ntheir cool shades until the Master join me.\u201d Reaching the house of the\nGargettian, and the entrance to the Gardens being shorter through it\nthan by the public gate, he entered, and sought the passage he had\nbefore traversed. He however took a wrong one, and, after wandering for\nsome time, opened a door, and found himself in a library. Epicurus was\nsitting in deep study, with his tablets before him; his pen in one hand,\nhis forehead supported on the other. Metrodorus, on the opposite side of\nthe room, was engaged in transcribing.\n\nTheon stopped, and, making a short apology, hastily retired. \u201cStay!\u201d\ncried the Master. Theon again entered, but did not advance much within\nthe threshhold.\n\n\u201cWhen I bade you stay, I did not mean to fix you as doorkeeper. Come in,\nand shut the door behind you.\u201d Theon joyfully obeyed, and hurried to\nseize the extended hand of the sage. \u201cSince you have intruded on the\nsanctuary, I shall not drive you out.\u201d He motioned the youth to a place\non his couch. \u201cAnd now, what pretty things am I to say to you for your\nyesterday\u2019s defence of the wicked Gargettian? You should have come home\nwith me last night, when we were both hot from the combat, and then I\ncould have made you an eloquent compliment in full assembly at the\nSymposium, and you would as eloquently have disclaimed it with one of\nyour modest blushes.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen, truly, if the Master had such an intention, I am very glad I did\nnot follow him. But I passed the evening at my own lodgings, with my\nfriend Cleanthes.\u201d\n\n\u201cTrying to talk him into good humor and charity, was it?\u201d\n\n\u201cSomething so.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you succeeded?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, I don\u2019t know; he did not leave me in worse humor than he came.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, then it must have been in better. Explanation always approaches or\nwidens the differences between friends.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, but we also entered into argument.\u201d\n\n\u201cDangerous ground that, to be sure. And your fight, of course, ended in\na drawn battle?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou pay me more than a merited compliment, in concluding that to be a\nthing of course.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, your pardon! I pay you any thing but a compliment. It is not that\nI conclude your rhetoric and your logic equal, but your obstinacy and\nyour vanity.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you know, I don\u2019t think myself either obstinate or vain,\u201d said\nTheon, smiling.\n\n\u201cHad I supposed you did, I might not have seen occasion to give you the\ninformation.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut on what grounds do you think me obstinate and vain?\u201d\n\n\u201cYour years; your years. And do you think there is a man under twenty\nthat is not both?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, I should think an old man, at least, more obstinate than a young\none.\u201d\n\n\u201cI grant you when he _is_ obstinate, which is pretty often, but not\nquite always; and when he is vain, the same. But whilst many old men\nhave vanity and obstinacy in the superlative degree, all young men have\nthose qualities in the positive. I believe your share to be tolerably\nmoderate, but do not suppose that you have no share at all. Well, and\nnow tell me, was it not a drawn battle?\u201d\n\n\u201cI confess it was. At least, we neither of us convinced the other.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy son, it would have added one more to the seven wonders if you had. I\nincline to doubt, if two men, in the course of an olympiad, enter on an\nargument from the honest and single desire of coming at the truth, or\nif, in the course of a century, one man comes from an argument convinced\nby his opponent.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, if you will allow me no credit for not being convinced, you\nmay at least for my not being silenced, I, so young an arguer, and\nCleanthes so practised a one!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou broke the ice beforehand yesterday in the Portico,\u201d said the\nPhilosopher, tapping his shoulder. \u201cAfter that generous instance of\nconfidence, I shall not marvel if you now find a tongue upon all proper\noccasions. And trust me, the breaking of the ice is a very important\nmatter. Many an orator has made but one spring to the land, and his\nlegs, after he had taken courage to make the first stroke. Cleanthes\nhimself found this. You know his history? He first appeared in Athens as\na wrestler, a stranger to philosophy and learning of all kinds. In our\nstreets, however, the buzz of it could not fail to reach him. He ran\nfull speed into the school of Crates. His curiosity, joined to his\ncomplete ignorance, gave him so singular an appearance, and produced\nfrom him so many simple questions, and blundering replies, that he\nreceived from his fellow disciples the nickname of the Ass. But the Ass\npersevered, and soon after, entering the Portico he applied with such\nintense diligence to the unravelling the mysteries of Zeno\u2019s philosophy,\nthat he speedily secured the esteem of his Master, and the respect of\nhis companions. But his timidity was for some time extreme, and probably\nnothing but a sudden excitement could have enabled him to break through\nit. This, however, accidentally occurred, and he is now the ready and\npowerful orator that you know him.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have often heard,\u201d said Theon, \u201cand really not without some\nscepticism, the change that a few years have wrought in Cleanthes;\u2014_a\nbrawny wrestler_! who could believe it? and a dull, ignorant Barbarian!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe world always adds marvel to the marvellous. A _brawny_ wrestler he\nnever was; though certainly something stouter and squarer in person than\nhe is now; and though ignorant, he was not dull. Intense application,\nand some say, the fasting of poverty, as well as temperance, rapidly\nreduced his body, and spiritualized his mind.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe fasting of poverty!\u201d cried Theon, \u201cdo you believe this?\u201d\n\n\u201cI fear it is possible,\u201d returned the Master. \u201cAt least it is asserted\nthat he possessed but four drachmas when he left the school of wrestling\nfor that of philosophy; and it does not well appear that he now follows\nany other trade than that of a scholar; one which certainly brings very\nlittle nourishment to the body, whatever it might do to the mind.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut his Master; do you think Zeno would suffer him to want the\nnecessaries of life?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe actual necessaries, somehow or other, he certainly has; but I can\nbelieve he will make very few serve, and procure those few with some\ndifficulty, rather than be indebted even to his Master.\u201d\n\n\u201cOr his friend!\u201d said Theon.\n\n\u201cNay, remember, you are not a friend of very long standing, and\nsomething his junior in years.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut should that prevent him from giving me his confidence on such an\noccasion?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps not, but allow something to the Stoic pride.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can allow nothing to it here.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, because it touches your own. \u2018_Thus do I tread on the pride of\nPlato_,\u2019 said Diogenes, setting his foot on the robe of the Academic.\n\u2018_Yes, with the greater pride of Diogenes_,\u2019 returned Plato. But I have\nmade you grave, which was not my intention. Metrodorus, how go you on?\u201d\n\n\u201cWriting the last word.\u2014There!\u2014And now,\u201d rising and advancing towards\nTheon, \u201clet me embrace the youth who so nobly took up the vindication of\nmy insulted Master. Perhaps you may not know how peculiarly I am\nindebted to you. Timocrates is the brother of Metrodorus.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow!\u201d\n\n\u201cI blush to own it.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou need not blush, my loved son; you have done more than a brother\u2019s\nduty towards him, and more than a disciple\u2019s duty towards me. I\nsuppose,\u201d turning to Theon, \u201cas you are a Stoic, you have not read the\nable treatises of Metrodorus in support of my doctrines, and defence of\nmy character. In the last, indeed, he has done more than I wished.\u201d\n\n\u201cI own I have not, but I will read them.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! in the face of Zeno?\u201d\n\n\u201cAye, and of the whole Portico.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe need not doubt the young Corinthian\u2019s courage,\u201d said Metrodorus,\n\u201cafter his noble confidence yesterday.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see the Master has not been silent,\u201d returned Theon, \u201cand that he has\ngiven me more praise than is my due.\u201d\n\n\u201cMetrodorus can tell you that is not my custom,\u201d said the Gargettian.\n\u201cBy Pollux! if you continue your visits to the Garden, you must look to\nbe handled very roughly. I aim the blow at every fault I see; and I have\na very acute pair of eyes. I find out the most secret sins,\u2014turn the\nsouls of my scholars inside out; so be warned in time!\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not fear you,\u201d returned the Corinthian.\n\n\u201cNot fear me, you rogue?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I love you too well. But,\u201d continued Theon, \u201clet me now make my\nacknowledgments to the Master for his coming forward so seasonably\nyesterday, and giving me the victory. How you astonished me! I almost\ntook you a second time for a divinity.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will tell you how it happened,\u201d returned Epicurus: \u201cChancing to be\ncalled into the street yesterday, just after you left the house, I saw\nyour meeting with Cleanthes; and guessing from his first address, that\nyou would have to stand a siege, I followed you to the Portico, and took\nmy place, unnoticed, among the crowd, ready, if occasion should require,\nto offer my succor.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you heard then all that passed?\u201d\n\n\u201cI did.\u201d\n\n\u201cI beg your pardon for the digression,\u201d said Theon; \u201cbut I think you\nhave more forbearance and more candor than any man I ever heard of.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf it be so, these useful qualities have not been attained without much\nstudy and discipline; for Zeno is mistaken in thinking all my virtues\nthe children of temperament. I very early perceived candor to be the\nquality the most indispensable in the composition of a philosopher, and\ntherefore very early set my whole efforts to the attaining of it. And\nwhen once I fairly engaged in the work, I did not find it either long or\ndifficult. I had naturally a mild temper, and a sensitive heart, and\nthese gifts were here of inconceivable use to me. Feeling kindly towards\nmy fellow-creatures, I could the easier learn to pity rather than hate\ntheir faults; to smile, rather than frown at their follies.\u2014This was a\ngreat step gained, but the next was more difficult\u2014to be slow in\npronouncing what is a fault, and what is a folly. Our superstition would\nhaunt with the furies the man who should take his sister to wife, while\nthe customs of Egypt would commend him. How has the astronomer been\nlaughed at, who made the earth revolve round the stationary sun; and yet\nwho can say but the age may come, when this shall be established as a\ntruth? Prejudices, when once seen as prejudices, are easily yielded. The\ndifficulty is to come at the knowledge of them. A thousand lectures had\nI read to myself, ere I could calmly say, upon all occasions, It does\nnot follow that the thing is, because I _think it is_; and till I could\nsay this, I never presumed to call myself a philosopher. When I had\nschooled myself into candor, I found I was possessed of forbearance;\nfor, indeed, it is hardly possible to possess the one without the\nother.\u201d\n\n\u201cI cannot understand,\u201d said Theon, \u201chow, with your mildness, your\ncandor, and your good humor, you have so many enemies.\u201d\n\n\u201cAm I not the founder of a new sect?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, but so have been many others.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you think I have more enemies than any? If it be so, perhaps in\nthose peaceable qualities you have enumerated, you may seek the cause.\nRemember the Cynics and Stoics, (and I believe most of my enemies are\neither among them, or of their making,) do you think any of those three\nunpresuming virtues would secure their approbation? They do not love to\nsee a man take the place of a philosopher, without the airs of one, and,\nas you may perceive, I want these most entirely. Then you must remember\nalso my popularity; for of course my mildness, candor, and good humor,\nalong with other agreeable virtues which shall be nameless, help to\nsecure me a thousand friends; and he who has many friends, must have\nmany enemies, for you know he must be the mark of envy, jealousy, and\nspleen.\u201d\n\n\u201cI cannot endure to think that it should be so,\u201d said Theon.\n\n\u201cMuch less can I,\u201d said Metrodorus.\n\n\u201cMy sons, never pity the man who can count more than a friend for every\nenemy, and I do believe that I can do this! Yes, my young Stoic, Zeno\nmay have fewer enemies, and as many disciples, but I doubt if he have so\nmany devoted children as Epicurus.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know he has not,\u201d cried Metrodorus, curling his lip in proud scorn.\n\n\u201cYou need not look so fierce upon your knowledge,\u201d said the Master,\nsmiling.\n\n\u201cYou are too mild, too candid,\u201d returned the scholar, \u201cand that is your\nonly fault.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen I am a most faultless person, and I only wish I could return the\ncompliment to Metrodorus, but his lip curls too much, and his cheeks are\ntoo apt to kindle.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know it, I know it,\u201d said the scholar.\n\n\u201cThen why not mend it?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I am not at all sure, but that it is better unmended. If you\nwould but turn more fiercely upon your enemies, or let me do so for you,\nthey would respect you more, for they would fear you more.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut as I am not a god, nor a king, nor a soldier, I have no claim to\nfear; and as I am a philosopher, I have no wish for it. Then, as to\nrespect, do you really think yourself more worthy of it than your\nMaster?\u201d\n\n\u201cNay,\u201d said Metrodorus, blushing, \u201cthat is too severe a rub.\u201d\n\n\u201cGrant that it was merited. No, no, my son, we will convince all we can,\nwe will silence as few as possible, and we will terrify none.\u201d\n\n\u201cRemember the exit of Timocrates,\u201d said Theon, \u201cwas not that made in\nterror?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes; but it was the work of his conscience, not of my eyes; if the\nfirst had been silent, I imagine he would have stood the last very\nwell.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo not name the wretch,\u201d cried Metrodorus indignantly. \u201cOh! my young\nCorinthian, did you know all the patience and forbearance that his\nMaster had shown towards him, all the pains he took with him, the\ngentleness with which he admonished him, the seriousness with which he\nwarned him, the thousand times that he forgave him; and then at last,\nwhen he dared to insult his Master\u2019s adopted child, the lovely Hedeia,\nand the indignant disciples thrust him from the Gardens, he goes to our\nenemies, the enemies of his Master, and feeds their malice with infernal\nlies. Curses of the furies on the wretch!\u201d\n\n\u201cFie! how darest thou?\u201d said Epicurus, thrusting his scholar\nindignantly from him. \u201cThy anger is unworthy of a man, how much then\nof a brother! Go, and recollect thyself, my son!\u201d softening his voice,\nas he saw a tear in Metrodorus\u2019s eye.\u2014\u201cThe Corinthian will accompany\nyou to the Gardens, I will join you when I have concluded this\ntreatise.\u201d\u2014Metrodorus took the arm of Theon, and they left the\napartment.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IX.\n\n\n\u201cDo not,\u201d said Metrodorus to Theon, \u201ctake me as the best sample of the\npupils of Epicurus. We are not all so hot brained and hot tongued.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay!\u201d returned his companion, \u201cI am too young in philosophy to blame\nyour warmth. In your place, I should have been as hot myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am glad to hear it. I like you the better for the sentiment. But the\nsun scorches dreadfully, let us seek shelter.\u201d\n\nThey turned into a thicket, and proceeding some way, caught on the still\nair the notes of a flute. They advanced and came to a beautiful bank of\nverdure, bordered by the river, and shadowed by a group of thick and\nwide spreading oaks. \u201cIt is Leontium,\u201d said Metrodorus. \u201cNo other in\nAttica can breathe the flute so sweetly.\u201d They turned one of the trunks,\nand found her lying on the turf; her shoulder leaning against a tree,\nand her figure raised on one elbow. Beside her was seated the black eyed\ngirl, whom Theon had before seen; her taper fingers twining into a\nwreath the scented flowers, which were lightly thrown into her lap by\nthe gay Sofron, who stood at some distance among the shrubs.\n\n\u201cEnough! enough!\u201d said the gentle voice of the girl, as the youth shook\ndown in showers the leaves and nectareous odors of the overripe\nblossoms. \u201cEnough! enough! stay thy hand, thou heedless ravager!\u201d\n\n\u201cThank thee for thy words, although they chide me,\u201d said the boy,\nletting go the bough which he had just seized, with a bound, light as\nthat of the shrub when it sprung upward from his hand. \u201cThou hast but\none feeling in thy soul, Boidion; and thy nature belies the sunny clime\nwhich saw its birth. Friendship is all to thee, and that friendship is\nbut for one.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn truth, thou repayest his cares but coldly,\u201d said Leontium, taking\nthe pipe from her mouth, and smiling on the dark haired maiden.\n\n\u201cBut I repay not thine coldly,\u201d said Boidion, kissing the hand of her\nfriend.\n\n\u201cI am well punished for the neglect of my morning\u2019s lecture,\u201d said\nSofron impatiently, as he snatched his book from the ground, and turned\naway.\n\n\u201cPart not in anger, brother!\u201d exclaimed Boidion. But the youth had\nvanished, and in his place, Metrodorus and Theon stood before her.\n\nThe startled girl was about to rise, when Leontium laying her hand on\nher arm, \u201cRest thee, thou timid fawn,\u201d and the maiden resumed her seat.\n\n\u201cI rejoice,\u201d said Theon, as he placed himself with Metrodorus by the\nside of Leontium, and took up the pipe which had fallen from her hand,\n\u201cI rejoice to find this little instrument restored to Athens.\u201d\n\n\u201cSay not restored to Athens,\u201d returned Leontium, \u201conly admitted into the\nGarden. I doubt our vain youth still remember the curse of Alcibiades,\nand looking in their mirror, vow that none but fools would play on it.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis recalls to me,\u201d said Theon, \u201cthat I have heard, among the various\nreports concerning the Garden current in the mouths of the Athenians,\nvery contradictory ones as to the place allowed in it to the sciences\nand liberal arts, and to music in particular.\u201d\n\n\u201cI suppose,\u201d said Metrodorus, \u201cthat you heard our whole employment was\neating, drinking, and rioting in all licentiousness.\u201d\n\n\u201cTrue I did hear so; and I fear I must confess, half believed it. But I\nalso heard your licentiousness described in various ways; sometimes as\ngrossly sensual, enlivened by no elegancies of art; veiled, adorned, if\nI may use the expression, by no refinement. In short, that Epicurus\nlaughed as well at the fine arts as the grave sciences. From others\nagain, I learned that music, dancing, poetry, and painting were pressed\ninto the service of his philosophy; that Leontium strung the lyre,\nMetrodorus the harp, Hedeia moved in the dance, Boidion raised the song\nto Venus; that his halls were covered with voluptuous pictures, the\nwalks of his gardens lined with indecent statues.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you may now perceive the truth,\u201d replied Metrodorus, \u201cwith your own\neyes and ears.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d said Leontium, \u201cthe young Corinthian may be curious to know the\nsentiments of our Master, and his advice regarding the pursuit of the\nsciences and the liberal arts. I can readily perceive,\u201d addressing\nherself to Theon, \u201cthe origin of the two contradictory reports you have\njust mentioned. The first you would hear from the followers of\nAristippus, who, though not acknowledging the name, follow the _tenets_\nof his philosophy, and have long been very numerous in our degenerate\ncity. These, because Epicurus recommends but a moderate culture of those\narts, which by them are too often made the elegant incentives to\nlicentious pleasure, accuse him of neglecting them altogether. The\nCynics, and other austere sects, who condemn all that ministers to the\nluxury, ease, or recreation of man, exaggerate his moderate use of these\narts into a vicious encouragement of voluptuousness and effeminacy. You\nwill perceive, therefore, that between the two reports lies the truth.\nEvery innocent recreation is permitted in the Garden. It is not poetry,\nbut licentious poetry, that Epicurus condemns; not music, but voluptuous\nmusic; not painting, but licentious pictures; not dancing, but loose\ngestures. Yet thus he displeases alike the profligate and the austere,\nfor these he is too moderate, and for those too severe. With regard to\nthe sciences, if it be said, that they are neglected among us, I do not\nsay that our Master, though himself versed in them, as in all other\nbranches of knowledge, greatly recommends them to our study. But that\nthey are not unknown, let Poly\u0153nus be evidence. He, one of the most\namiable men of our school, and one most highly favored by our Master,\nyou must have heard mentioned throughout Greece as a profound\ngeometrician.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d replied Theon; \u201cbut I have also heard, that since entering the\nGarden, he has ceased to respect his science.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not aware of that,\u201d said Leontium, \u201cthough I believe he no longer\ndevotes to it all his time, and all his faculties. Epicurus called him\nfrom his diagrams, to open to him the secrets of physics, and the\nbeauties of ethics; to show him the springs of human action, and lead\nhim to the study of the human mind. He taught him that any single study,\nhowever useful and noble in itself, was yet unworthy the entire employ\nof a curious and powerful intellect: that the man who pursued one line\nof knowledge, to the exclusion of others, though he should follow it up\nto its very head, would never be either learned or wise: that he who\npursues knowledge, should think no branch of it unworthy attention;\nleast of all, should he confine it to those which are unconnected with\nthe business, and add nothing to the pleasures of life: that further not\nour acquaintance with ourselves, nor our fellows; that tend not to\nenlarge the sphere of our affections, to multiply our ideas and\nsensations, nor extend the scope of our inquiries. On this ground, he\nblamed the devotion of Poly\u0153nus to a science that leads to other truths\nthan those of virtue, to other study than that of man.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am obliged to you for the explanation,\u201d said Theon; \u201cnot because I\ncould any longer have given credit to the absurd reports of your\nMaster\u2019s enemies; but because whatever opens to me the character and\nopinions of such a man, interests and improves me.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou will find this,\u201d said Metrodorus, \u201cthe more you consider them. The\nlife of Epicurus is a lesson of wisdom. It is by example, even more than\nprecept, that he guides his disciples. Without issuing commands, he\nrules despotically. His wishes are divined, and obeyed as laws; his\nopinions are repeated as oracles; his doctrines adopted as demonstrated\ntruths. All is unanimity in the Garden. We are a family of brothers, of\nwhich Epicurus is the father. And I say not this in the praise of the\nscholars, but the Master. Many of us have had bad habits, many of us\nevil propensities, many of us violent passions. That our habits are\ncorrected, our propensities changed, our passions restrained, lies all\nwith Epicurus. What I myself owe him, none but myself know. The giddy\nfollower of licentious pleasure, the headstrong victim of my passions,\nhe has made me taste of the sweets of innocence, and brought me into the\ncalm of philosophy. It is thus\u2014thus, by rendering us happy, that he lays\nus at his feet,\u2014thus that he gains, and holds the empire of our\nminds,\u2014thus that by proving himself our friend, he secures our respect,\nour submission, and our love. He cannot but know his power, yet he\nexerts it in no other way, than to mend our lives, or to keep them\ninnocent. In argument, as you may have observed, he always seeks to\nconvince rather than sway. He is as free from arrogance as from\nduplicity; he would neither force an opinion on the mind, nor conceal\nfrom it a truth. Ask his advice, and it is ever ready,\u2014his opinion, and\nhe gives it clearly. Free from prejudice himself, he is tender to that\nof others; yet no fear of censure, or desire of popularity, ever leads\nhim to humor it, either in his lessons, or his writings. Candor, as you\nhave already remarked, is the prominent feature of his mind; it is the\ncrown of his perfect character.\u2014I say this, my young Corinthian, who\nknow him. His soul, indeed, is open to all; but I have approached very\nnear it, and considered its inmost recesses. Yes, I am proud to say it\u2014I\nam one of those he has drawn most closely into his intimacy. With all my\nimperfections and errors, he has adopted me as a son; and, inferior as I\nam in years, wisdom, and virtue, he deigns to call me his friend.\u201d\n\nTears here filled the eyes of the scholar;\u2014he seemed about to resume,\nwhen a slight sound made the party turn their heads, and they saw the\nMaster at their side.\u2014\u201cDo not rise, my children, I will seat myself\namong you.\u201d Theon perceived he had heard the closing sentence of\nMetrodorus, for the water glistened in his eyes as he fixed them\ntenderly upon him. \u201cThanks, my son, for this tribute of thy gratitude; I\nhave heard thy eulogy, and I accept it joyfully. Let all men,\u201d and he\nturned his eye upon Theon, \u201cbe above flattery; but let not a sage be\nabove praise. He that is so is either arrogant or insincere. For myself,\nI own that the commendations of my friends fill me with triumph, as the\nassurance of their affection does with satisfaction. The approbation of\nour familiars, who are with us in our secret hours, hear our private\nconverse, know the habits of our lives, and the bent of our\ndispositions, is, or should be to us, far more pleasing and triumphant\nthan the shouts of a multitude, or the worship of the world.\u201d\n\nThere was a pause of some minutes, when Leontium took up the word. \u201cI\nhave been explaining, though very shortly and imperfectly, your views\nconcerning the studies most proper to be pursued by men. I believe the\nCorinthian has some curiosity on this point.\u201d\n\nTheon assented.\n\n\u201cKnowledge,\u201d said the Master, \u201cis the best riches that man can possess.\nWithout it, he is a brute; with it, he is a god. But like happiness, he\noften pursues it without finding it; or, at best, obtains of it but an\nimperfect glimpse. It is not that the road to it is either dark or\ndifficult, but that he takes a wrong one; or if he enters on the right,\nhe does so unprepared for the journey. Now he thinks knowledge one with\nerudition, and shutting himself up in his closet, he cons all the lore\nof antiquity; he fathoms the sciences, heaps up in his memory all the\nsayings of the dead, and reckoning the value of his acquisitions by the\nmeasure of the time and labor he hath expended on them, he is satisfied\nhe hath reached his end, and from his retirement, looking down upon his\nmore ignorant, because less learned, brethren, he calls them children\nand barbarians. But, alas! learning is not wisdom, nor will books give\nunderstanding. Again, he takes a more inviting road: he rushes into the\ncrowd; he rolls down the stream of pleasure; he courts the breath of\npopularity; he unravels or weaves the riddles of intrigue; he humors the\npassions of his fellows, and rises upon them to name and power. Then,\nlaughing at the credulity, ignorance, and vice, he hath set his throne\nupon, he says, that to know the world is the only knowledge, and to see\nto dupe it, is to be wise. Yet knowledge of the world is not knowledge\nof man, nor to triumph in the passions of others, is not to triumph over\nour own. No, my sons, that only is real, is sterling knowledge, which\ngoes to make us better and happier men, and which fits us to assist the\nvirtue and happiness of others. All learning is useful, all the sciences\nare curious, all the arts are beautiful; but more useful, more curious,\nand more beautiful, is the perfect knowledge and perfect government of\nourselves. Though a man should read the heavens, unravel their laws, and\ntheir revolutions; though he should dive into the mysteries of matter,\nand expound the phenomena of earth and air; though he should be\nconversant with all the writings, and the sayings, and the actions of\nthe dead; though he should hold the pencil of Parrhasius, the chisel of\nPolycletes, or the lyre of Pindar; though he should do one or all of\nthese things, yet know not the secret springs of his own mind, the\nfoundation of his opinions, the motives of his actions; if he hold not\nthe rein over his passions; if he have not cleared the mist of all\nprejudices from his understanding; if he have not rubbed off all\nintolerance from his judgments; if he know not to weigh his own actions,\nand the actions of others, in the balance of justice\u2014that man hath not\nknowledge; nor, though he be a man of science, a man of learning, or an\nartist, he is not a sage. He must yet sit down, patient, at the feet of\nphilosophy. With all his learning, he hath yet to learn, and perhaps a\nharder task, he hath to unlearn.\u201d\n\nThe Master here paused, but the ears of Theon still hung upon his lips.\n\u201cDo not cease,\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cI could listen to you through eternity.\u201d\n\n\u201cI cannot promise to declaim quite so long,\u201d returned the sage, smiling.\n\u201cBut if you wish it, we will follow out the topic when we have joined\nour other friends.\u201d\n\nThey rose, and bent their steps to the public walk.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER X.\n\n\nEpicurus stood in the midst of his expectant scholars. \u201cMy sons,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cwhy do you enter the Garden? Is it to seek happiness, or to seek\nvirtue and knowledge?\u2014Attend, and I will show you that in finding one,\nyou shall find the three. To be happy, we must be virtuous; and when we\nare virtuous, we are wise. Let us then begin: and first, let us for\nawhile hush our passions into slumber, forget our prejudices, and cast\naway our vanity and our pride. Thus patient and modest, let us come to\nthe feet of Philosophy; let us say to her, \u2018Behold us, scholars and\nchildren, gifted by nature with faculties, affections, and\npassions.\u2014Teach us their use, and their guidance. Show us how to turn\nthem to account\u2014how best to make them conduce to our ease, and minister\nto our enjoyment.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Sons of earth,\u2019 says the Deity, \u2018you have spoken wisely; you feel that\nyou are gifted by nature with faculties, affections, and passions; and\nyou perceive that on the right exertion and direction of these depends\nyour well-being. It does so. Your affections both of soul and body may\nbe shortly reduced to two, pleasure and pain; the one troublesome, and\nthe other agreeable. It is natural and befitting, therefore, that you\nshun pain, and desire and follow after pleasure. Set forth then on the\npursuit; but ere you start, be sure that it is in the right road, and\nthat you have your eye on the true object. Perfect pleasure, which is\nhappiness, you will have attained when you have brought your bodies and\nsouls into a state of satisfied tranquillity. To arrive at this, much\nprevious exertion is requisite; yet exertion, not violent, only constant\nand even. And first, the body, with its passions and appetites, demands\ngratification and indulgence. But beware! for here are the hidden rocks\nwhich may shipwreck your bark on its passage, and shut you out forever\nfrom the haven of repose. Provide yourselves then with a skilled pilot,\nwho may steer you through the Scylla and Charybdis of your carnal\naffections, and point the steady helm through the deep waters of your\npassions. Behold her! It is Prudence, the mother of the virtues, and the\nhandmaid of wisdom. Ask, and she will tell you, that gratification will\ngive new edge to the hunger of your appetites, and that the storm of the\npassions shall kindle with indulgence. Ask, and she will tell you, that\nsensual pleasure is pain covered with the mask of happiness. Behold, she\nstrips it from her face, and reveals the features of disease,\ndisquietude, and remorse. Ask, and she will tell you, that happiness is\nnot found in tumult, but tranquillity; and that, not the tranquillity of\nindolence and inaction, but of a healthy contentment of soul and body.\nAsk, and she will tell you, that a _happy life is like neither to a\nroaring torrent, nor a stagnant pool, but to a placid and crystal\nstream, that flows gently and silently along_. And now, Prudence shall\nbring to you the lovely train of the virtues. Temperance, throwing a\nbridle on your desires, shall gradually subdue and annihilate those\nwhose present indulgence would only bring future evil; and others more\nnecessary and more innocent, she shall yet bring down to such becoming\nmoderation, as shall prevent all disquiet to the soul, and injury to the\nbody. Fortitude shall strengthen you to bear those diseases which even\ntemperance may not be efficient to prevent; those afflictions which fate\nmay level at you; those persecutions which the folly or malice of man\nmay invent. It shall fit you to bear all things, to conquer fear, and to\nmeet death. Justice shall give you security among your fellows, and\nsatisfaction in your own breasts. Generosity shall endear you to others,\nand sweeten your own nature to yourselves. Gentleness shall take the\nsting from the malice of your enemies, and make you extract double sweet\nfrom the kindness of friends. Gratitude shall lighten the burden of\nobligation, or render it even pleasant to bear. Friendship shall put the\ncrown on your security and your joy. With these, and yet more virtues,\nshall prudence surround you. And, thus attended, hold on your course in\nconfidence, and moor your barks in the haven of repose.\u2019\n\n\u201cThus says Philosophy, my sons, and says she not wisely? Tell us, ye who\nhave tried the slippery paths of licentiousness, who have given the rein\nto your passions, and sought pleasure in the lap of voluptuousness; tell\nus, did ye find her there? No, ye did not, or ye would not now inquire\nof her from Epicurus. Come, then, Philosophy hath shown ye the way.\nThrow off your old habits, wash impurity from your hearts; take up the\nbridle of your passions; govern your minds, and be happy. And ye, my\nsons, to whom all things are yet new; whose passions, yet in the bud,\nhave never led you to pain and regret; ye who have yet to begin your\ncareer, come ye, also! Philosophy hath shown ye the way. Keep your\nhearts innocent, hold the bridle of your passions, govern your minds,\nand be happy. But, my sons, methinks I hear you say, \u2018You have shown us\nthe virtues rather as modifiers and correctors of evil, than as the\ngivers of actual and perfect good. Happiness, you tell us, consists in\nease of body and mind; yet temperance cannot secure the former from\ndisease, nor can all the virtues united ward affliction from the\nlatter.\u2019 True, my children, Philosophy cannot change the laws of nature;\nbut she may teach us to accommodate to them. She cannot annul pain; but\nshe can arm us to bear it. And though the evils of fate be many, are not\nthe evils of man\u2019s coming more? Nature afflicts us with disease; but for\nonce that it is the infliction of nature, ninety-nine times it is the\nconsequence of our own folly. Nature levels us with death; but how mild\nis the death of nature, with Philosophy to spread the pillow, and\nfriendship to take the last sigh, to the protracted agonies of\ndebauchery, subduing the body by inches, while Philosophy is not there\nto give strength, nor friendship consolation, but while the flames of\nfever are heated by impatience, and the stings of pain envenomed by\nremorse! And tell me, my sons, when the body of the sage is stretched on\nthe couch of pain, hath he not his mind to minister delight to him? Hath\nhe not conscience whispering that his present evil is not chargeable to\nhis own past folly, but to the laws of nature, which no effort or\nforesight of his could have prevented? Hath he not memory to bring to\nhim past pleasures, the pleasures of a well-spent life, on which he may\nfeed even while pain racks his members, and fever consumes his vitals?\nOr, what if agony overpower his frame, and cripple his faculties, is\nthere not death at hand to reach him deliverance? Here, then, is death,\nthat giant of terror, acting as a friend. But does he interrupt our\nenjoyments as well as our sufferings? And is it for this we fear him?\nOught we not rather to rejoice, seeing that the day of life has its\nbright and its clouded hours, that we are laid to sleep while the sun of\njoy yet shines, before the storm of fate has broken our tranquillity, or\nthe evening of age bedimmed our prospect? Death, then, is never our foe.\nWhen not a friend, he cannot be worse than indifferent. _For while we\nare, death is not; and while death is, we are not._ To the wise, then,\ndeath is nothing. Examine the ills of life, are they not of our own\ncreation, or take they not their darkest hues from our passions or our\nignorance? What is poverty, if we have temperance, and can be satisfied\nwith a crust, and a draught from the spring?\u2014if we have modesty, and can\nwear a woollen garment as gladly as a Tyrian robe? What is slander, if\nwe have no vanity that it can wound, and no anger that it can kindle?\nWhat is neglect, if we have no ambition that it can disappoint, and no\npride that it can mortify? What is persecution, if we have our own\nbosoms in which to retire, and a spot of earth to sit down and rest\nupon? What is death, when without superstition to clothe him with\nterrors, we can cover our heads, and go to sleep in his arms? What a\nlist of human calamities are here expunged\u2014Poverty, slander, neglect,\ndisappointment, persecution, death! What yet remains? Disease? That,\ntoo, we have shown temperance can often shun, and Philosophy can always\nalleviate. But there is yet a pain, which the wisest and the best of men\ncannot escape; that all of us, my sons, have felt, or have to feel. Do\nnot your hearts whisper it? Do you not tell me, that in death there is\nyet a sting? That ere he aim at us, he may level the beloved of our\nsoul? The father, whose tender care hath reared our infant minds\u2014the\nbrother, whom the same breast hath nourished, and the same roof\nsheltered, with whom, side by side, we have grown like two plants by a\nriver, sucking life from the same fountain and strength from the same\nsun\u2014the child whose gay prattle delights our ears, or whose opening\nunderstanding fixes our hopes; the friend of our choice, with whom we\nhave exchanged hearts, and shared all our pains and pleasures, whose eye\nhath reflected the tear of sympathy, whose hand hath smoothed the couch\nof sickness. Ah! my sons, here is indeed a pain, a pain that cuts into\nthe soul. There are masters who will tell you otherwise, who will tell\nyou that it is unworthy of a man to mourn even here. But such, my sons,\nspeak not the truth of experience, or Philosophy, but the subtleties of\nsophistry and pride. He who feels not the loss, hath never felt the\npossession. He who knows not the grief, hath never known the joy. See\nthe price of a friend in the duties we render him, and the sacrifices we\nmake to him, and which, in making, we count not sacrifices, but\npleasures! We sorrow for his sorrow; we supply his wants, or if we\ncannot, we share them. We follow him to exile. We close ourselves in his\nprison; we soothe him in sickness; we strengthen him in death: nay, if\nit be possible, we throw down our life for his. Oh! what a treasure is\nthat for which we do so much! And is it forbidden us to mourn its loss?\nIf it be, the power is not with us to obey. Should we, then, to avoid\nthe evil, forego the good? Shall we shut love from our hearts, that we\nmay not feel the pain of his departure? No; happiness forbids it.\nExperience forbids it. Let him who hath laid on the pyre the dearest of\nhis soul, who hath washed the urn with the bitterest tears of grief\u2014let\nhim say if his heart hath ever formed the wish that it had never shrined\nwithin it whom he now deplores. Let him say if the pleasures of the\nsweet communion of his former days doth not still live in his\nremembrance. If he love not to recall the image of the departed, the\ntones of his voice, the words of his discourse, the deeds of his\nkindness, the amiable virtues of his life! If, while he weeps the loss\nof his friend, he smiles not to think that he once possessed him. He who\nknows not friendship, knows not the purest pleasure of earth. Yet if\nfate deprive us of it, though we grieve, we do not sink; Philosophy is\nstill at hand, and she upholds us with fortitude. And think, my sons,\nperhaps in the very evil we dread, there is a good; perhaps the very\nuncertainty of the tenure gives it value in our eyes; perhaps all our\npleasures take their zest from the known possibility of their\ninterruption. What were the glories of the sun, if we knew not the gloom\nof darkness? What the refreshing breezes of morning and evening, if we\nfelt not the fervors of noon? Should we value the lovely flower, if it\nbloomed eternally; or the luscious fruit, if it hung always on the\nbough? Are not the smiles of the heavens more beautiful in contrast with\ntheir frowns, and the delights of the seasons more grateful from their\nvicissitudes? Let us then be slow to blame nature, for perhaps in her\napparent errors there is a hidden wisdom. Let us not quarrel with fate,\nfor perhaps in our evils lie the seeds of our good. Were our body never\nsubject to sickness, we might be insensible to the joy of health. Were\nour life eternal, our tranquillity might sink into inaction. Were our\nfriendship not threatened with interruption, it might want much of its\ntenderness. This, then, my sons, is our duty, for this is our interest\nand our happiness: to seek our pleasures from the hands of the virtues,\nand for the pain which may befall us, to submit to it with patience, or\nbear up against it with fortitude. _To walk, in short, through life\ninnocently and tranquilly: and to look on death as its gentle\ntermination, which it becomes us to meet with ready minds, neither\nregretting the past, nor anxious for the future._\u201d\n\nThe Sage had scarcely ceased, when a scholar advanced from the crowd,\nand bowing his head with reverence, stooped and touched the knees of his\nMaster. \u201cRefuse not my homage,\u201d he said, \u201cnor call the expression of it\npresumptuous.\u201d Epicurus raised him in his arms, \u201cColotes, I am more\nproud of the homage of thy young mind, than I should be of that of the\nassembled crowd of Olympia. May thy master, my son, never lose his power\nover it, as I feel that he will never abuse it.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XI.\n\n\nThe sun had far declined from its meridian, yet no cool breeze tempered\nthe fervors of the heat. The air was chained in oppressive stillness,\nwhen suddenly a bustling wind shook the trees, and a low growling\nreverberated round the horizon. The scholars retired before the\nthreatening storm; but Theon, his ear still filled with the musical\nvoice of the sage, and his heart imbued with his gentle precepts,\nlingered to feed alone upon the thoughts they had awakened in him. \u201cHow\nmad is the folly of man!\u201d he said, as he threw his back against a\ntree.\u2014\u201cProfessing to admire wisdom and love virtue, and yet ever\npersecuting and slandering both.\u2014How vain is it to look for credit by\nteaching truth, or to seek fame by the road of virtue!\u201d\n\n\u201cThy regret is idle, my son,\u201d said a well known voice in his ear.\n\n\u201cOh! my guardian spirit!\u201d cried the startled youth\u2014\u201cIs it you?\u201d\n\n\u201cI linger,\u201d said the Gargettian, \u201cto watch the approach of the storm,\nand I suppose you do the same.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d returned the youth, \u201cI hardly heeded the heavens.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey are singular, however, at this moment.\u201d Theon looked where the\nsage pointed; a dark mass of vapors was piled upon the head of Hymettus,\nfrom which two columns, shooting forth like the branches of some giant\noak, spread themselves over the sky. The opposing sun, fast travelling\nto the horizon, looked red through the heated atmosphere, and flashed a\ndeep glare on their murky sides. Soon half the landscape was blackened\nwith the sinking clouds, that each moment increasing in bulk and\ndensity, seemed to touch the bosom of the earth. The western half glowed\nwith a brilliant light, like molten gold. The distant outline was marked\nwith a pencil of fire, while the gardens and villas that speckled the\nplaid, seemed illuminated in jubilee.\n\n\u201cSee,\u201d said the sage, stretching his hand towards the gilded scene, \u201csee\nthe image of that fame which is not founded in virtue. Thus bright may\nit shine for a moment, but the cloud of oblivion or infamy comes fast to\ncover its glory.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it so?\u201d said Theon. \u201cDo not the vile of the earth fill the tongues\nof men, and are not the noble forgotten? Does not the titled murderer\ninscribe his name on the tablets of eternity, with the sword which is\ndipped in the blood of his fellows?\u2014And does not the man who hath spent\nhis youth, and manhood, and age, in the courts of wisdom\u2014who has planted\npeace at the hearth, and given truth to the rising age, does he not go\ndown to the grave in silence, his bones unhonored, and his name\nforgotten?\u201d\n\n\u201cPossibly his name; but, if he have planted peace at the hearth, and\ngiven truth to the rising age, surely not his better part\u2014his virtues.\nDo not confound noise with fame. The man who is remembered, is not\nalways honored; and reflect, what a man toils for, that probably will he\nwin. The titled murderer, who weaves his fate with that of empires, will\nwith them go down to posterity. The sage, who does his work in the\nsilence of retirement, unobserved in his own generation, will pass into\nthe silence of the grave, unknown to the future.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut suppose he be known? How few worshippers crowd to his shrine, and\nwhat millions to that of the other!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd those few, my son, who are they? The wise of the earth, the\nenlightened patriot, the discerning philosopher. And who are the\nmillions? The ignorant, the prejudiced, and the idle. Nor yet, let us so\nwrong the reason of our species, as to say, that they always give honor\nto the mischievous rather than the useful\u2014gratitude to their oppressors,\nrather than their benefactors. In instances they may be blind, but in\nthe gross they are just. The splendor of action, the daring of\nenterprise, or the glitter of majesty, may seize their imagination, and\nso drown their judgment, but never is it the tyranny of power, the\nwantonness of cruelty, the brutality of vice, which they adore, any more\nthan it is the innocence and usefulness of virtue, which they despise.\nThe united experience of mankind has pronounced virtue to be the great\ngood: nay, so universal is the conviction, that even those who insult\nher in their practice, bow to her in their understanding. Man is for the\nmost part more fool than knave, more weak than depraved in action, more\nignorant than vicious in judgment; and seldom is he so weak and so\nignorant, as not to see his own interest, and value him who promotes it.\nBut say, that he often slanders the virtuous, and persecutes the wise;\nhe does it more in error than from depravity. He is credulous, and on\nthe report of malice, takes virtue for hypocrisy:\u2014he is superstitious,\nand some of the truths of wisdom appear to him profane. Say he does\nhomage to vice;\u2014you will find when he does it, he believes her to be\nvirtue. Hypocrisy has masked her deformity, or talent decked her with\nbeauty. Is here, then, subject for wrath? Rather, surely, for\ncompassion. Is here matter for disgust? Rather, surely, for exertion.\nThe darker the ignorance, the more praise to the sage who dispels\nit;\u2014the deeper the prejudice, more fame to the courage which braves it.\nBut may the courage be vain? May the sage fall the victim of the\nignorance he combats?\u2014He may; he often has. But ere he engage, knows he\nnot the risk?\u2014The risk is to himself; the profit to mankind. To a\nbenevolent soul, the odds is worth the throw; and though it be against\nhim at the present, he may win it in the future. The sage, whose vision\nis cleared from the mists of prejudice, can stretch it over the existing\nage, to the kindling horizon of the succeeding, and see, perhaps, unborn\ngenerations weeping the injustice of their fathers, and worshipping\nthose truths which they condemned. Or is it otherwise? Lives he in the\nold age of the world, and does he see the stream of time flowing through\na soil yet more rank with prejudice and evil? Say, then,\u2014were the praise\nof such a world a fit object of his ambition, or shall he be jealous of\nthe fame which ignorance yields to the unworthy? But any way, my son, it\nis not the voice of fame that we should seek in the practice of virtue,\nbut the peace of self-satisfaction. The object of the sage is to make\nhimself independent of all that he cannot command within himself. Yet,\nwhen I speak of independence, I mean not indifference; while we make\nourselves sufficient for ourselves, we need not forget the crowd about\nus. We are not wise in the contempt of others, but in calm approbation\nof ourselves.\u201d\n\n\u201cStill dost thou drop thy head, my son?\u201d said the gentle philosopher,\nlaying a hand on the shoulder of his young friend.\n\n\u201cYour words sink deep into my soul,\u201d replied Theon; \u201cyet they have not\nchased the melancholy they found there. I have not such a world in\nmyself as to be independent of that about me, nor can I forgive the\noffences of my fellows, merely because they commit them from ignorance.\nNay, is not their very ignorance often a crime, when the voice of truth\nis whispering in their ear?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd if they do not hear her whisper in the one ear, it is because\nprejudice is crying aloud into the other.\u201d\n\n\u201cPrejudice! I hate prejudice,\u201d said Theon.\n\n\u201cAnd so do I,\u201d said the Master.\n\n\u201cYes, but I am provoked with it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI suspect that will not remove the evil.\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing will remove it. It is inherent in men\u2019s nature.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen as we are men, it may be inherent in ours. Trust me, my son, it is\nbetter to correct ourselves, than to find fault with our neighbors.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut is it not allowed to do both? Can we help seeing the errors of the\nworld in which we live, and seeing, can we help being angry at them?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly not the seeing them, but I hope, very possibly, the being\nangry with them. He that loses temper with the folly of others, shows\nthat he has folly himself. In which case they have as much right to\ncomplain of his, as he of theirs. And have I not been trying to show\nyou, that when you are wise you will be independent of all that you\ncannot command within yourself? You say you are not so now. I admit it,\nbut when you are wise you will be so. And _till_ you are wise, you have\nsurely no title to quarrel with another\u2019s ignorance.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can never be independent of my friends,\u201d returned Theon. \u201cI must ever\nfeel the injustice done to them, though I might be regardless of that\nwhich affected merely myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy so? What would enable you to disregard that done to yourself?\u201d\n\n\u201cConscious innocence. Pride, if you will. Contempt of the folly and\nignorance of my judges.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, and are you less conscious of the innocence of your friend? If\nyou are, where is your indignation? And if you are not, have you less\npride for him than for yourself? Do you respect that folly and ignorance\nin his judges that you despise in your own?\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe it will not stand argument,\u201d said Theon. \u201cBut you must\nforgive me if, when I contemplate Epicurus, I feel indignant at the\nslander which dares to breathe upon his purity.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd do you think you were yourself an object of indignation, when you\nspoke of him as a monster of vice!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I feel I was.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut he felt otherwise,\u201d said the Master, \u201cand which, think you, is\nlikely to feel most wisely?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! I hope it is Epicurus,\u201d said the youth, snatching his instructor\u2019s\nhand. Their conversation was here interrupted by the bursting of the\nstorm. The fire flashed round the horizon, the thunder cracked over the\nzenith, and the first big drops fell from the burdened clouds. \u201cWe are\nnear the Temple,\u201d said the sage, \u201clet us seek shelter under its portico.\nWe may watch the storm there, without a wet skin.\u201d They had hardly\ngained it, when the rain poured down in torrents. Ilissus, whom the\nburning sun had of late faded into a feeble rill, soon filled and\noverflowed his bed: wave after wave, in sudden swell, came roaring down,\nas if he now first burst to life from the womb of his parent mountain.\nBut the violence of the storm soon spent its strength. Already the\nthunder broke with longer intervals, and a faint light, like the opening\nof morning, gleamed over the western heavens. At length the sun cleared\nhis barrier of clouds. He stood on the verge of the waves, and shot his\nlevel rays over the blazing Salamis and the glistening earth. The sage\nstood with his young friend in silent admiration, when the eye of the\nlatter was attracted by a horseman, who came full gallop over the plain,\ndirectly towards them. The object of his attention had nearly reached\nthe river, when he perceived the rider to be a female. The swift feet of\nthe steed now touched the opposite brink. \u201cGreat Jove! she will not\nattempt the passage!\u201d exclaimed the youth, as he sprung towards the\nriver. \u201cStop! stop!\u201d he cried. She checked the rein, but too late. The\nanimal, accustomed to the passage, and blinded by speed, plunged into\nthe flood. Theon tore his robe from his shoulders, and was about to make\nthe plunge on his side, when he was grasped by Epicurus.\n\n\u201cBe not rash. The horse is strong, and the rider skilful.\u201d The voice\nthat uttered these words was calm and distinct, but its wonted music was\nchanged into the deep tone of suppressed horror. Even at that moment,\nthe accent struck Theon\u2019s ear.\n\n\u201cDo you know her? Is she your friend? Is she dear to you? If so\u2014,\u201d he\nmade another effort to throw himself forward, but was still restrained\nby Epicurus. He looked into the philosopher\u2019s face. There was no motion\nin it, save a quivering round the mouth, while the eyes were fixed in\naching gaze on the struggling animal. He breasted the water midway, when\nseemingly frightened at the rapidity of the current, he tried to turn.\nThe rider saw the danger, she curbed the rein, she tried with voice and\neffort to urge him to the conflict. Theon looked again at the sage. He\nsaw he had loosened his mantle, and was prepared to try the flood. \u201cI\nconjure you, by the gods!\u201d said the youth, \u201cwhat is my life to yours?\u201d\nHe grasped the sage in his turn. \u201cLet me save her! I will save her\u2014I\nswear it!\u201d They both struggled a moment for the leap. \u201cI swear,\u201d\ncontinued Theon, with furious energy, \u201cthat if you go, I will follow.\u201d\nHe made another effort, and dashed from the hold of Epicurus into the\nriver. Naturally strong, he was doubly so at this moment. He felt not\nfear, he saw not danger. In a moment he was in the centre of the\ncurrent\u2014another stroke, and he had seized the mane of the steed. But the\nterrified animal even then gave way to the stream. The rider still\nstruggled for her seat. But her strength fast failed, she stretched out\nher hand with a feeble cry of despair. Theon shot forward yet swifter\nthan the tide; he drove with a shock against the horse, and caught with\none arm the expiring girl. Then, half yielding to the current, he parted\nwith the other the roaring waters, and with effort almost superhuman\ngrappled with their fury. Panting, choking, bewildered, yet never\nrelaxing, he reached, but he knew not how, the land. When he recovered\nrecollection he found himself lying on a couch, in the arms of Epicurus.\n\u201cWhere am I,\u201d he said, \u201cand where is the lovely girl?\u201d\n\n\u201cSafe, safe, as her generous deliverer. Oh! my son! now indeed my son,\nwhen I owe to thee my Hedeia.\u201d\n\n\u201cWas it your adopted child, then?\u201d cried the youth, with a shout of\ndelirious joy, as he threw himself on the breast of the sage. \u201cBut tell\nme,\u201d he said, rising and looking round on Metrodorus, who, with two\nother scholars, stood beside the couch, \u201chow came I here?\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe,\u201d said Metrodorus, \u201cthe Master swam to your aid\u2014at least, we\nfound him lifting you and Hedeia from the water.\u201d\n\n\u201cI watched your strength, my son, and reserved mine till it should fail;\nwhen I observed it to do so, I came to your assistance. Now, compose\nyourself awhile, and I will go and put myself into a dry tunic.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XII.\n\n\nTheon, rising recruited from the warm bath, and his limbs being well\nrubbed with ointments, joined the party at supper in health and spirits.\nIt consisted of the Master, Leontium, Metrodorus, and two other\nscholars, whose persons were new to him. There was something in the\ngentle manners of one, not unmixed with a little awkwardness, the grave\nrepose of his features, the abstract thought that lined his forehead,\nand fixed his mild eye, that led him to guess it was Poly\u0153nus. The\nother, whose gait had the dignity of manhood, and the polish of art;\nwhose face, without being handsome, had that beauty which refined\nsentiment and a well stored mind always throw more or less into the\nfeatures; whose whole appearance showed at once the fine scholar and the\namiable man, fixed instantly Theon\u2019s attention and curiosity. All\nreceived the youth with congratulations, and Metrodorus, as he held him\nin his embrace, jokingly upbraided him as a greedy and barbarous\ninvader, who was carrying off, in his single person, the whole love and\nhonor of the Garden. \u201cBut yet,\u201d he added, \u201chave a care; for I doubt you\nhave secured the envy also.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe it,\u201d said Theon. \u201cAt least I know I should envy you, or any\nof your fraternity, who had risked his life, aye, or lost it, in the\nservice of your Master, or any your Master loved.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell said, my dear youth,\u201d said the stranger, taking his hand; \u201cand\nwhen you have seen more of the nymph you so gallantly rescued, you will\nperhaps think the man a no less object of envy, who should risk his life\nfor her, or any she loved.\u201d\n\nThey moved to the table, when Leontium whispered Theon, \u201cHermachus of\nMytelene, the bosom friend of Epicurus.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thank you,\u201d replied Theon, \u201cyou have well read my curiosity.\u201d\n\nThe party were about to place themselves, when a sound in the passage\nturned all eyes to the door. \u201cYes, nurse, you may just peaceably let me\ntake my own way. Go, go, I am quite well, quite warm, and quite active.\nI tell you, you have rubbed my skin off\u2014would you rub away my flesh\ntoo?\u201d And in came, with the light foot of a nymph of Dian, the young\nHedeia. A white garment, carelessly adjusted, fell, with inimitable\ngrace, over her airy form; in equal negligence, her long hair, still\nmoist from the recent waves, and dishevelled by the anxious rubbing of\nher careful attendant, hung down her shoulders to her zone. Her face,\nthough pale from late alarm and fatigue, beaming with life and joy. Her\nfull dark eyes sparkling with intelligence, and her lips, though their\ncoral was slightly faded, lovely with smiles. In one hand she held a\ngoblet, in the other a chaplet of myrtle. \u201cWhich is my hero?\u201d she asked,\nin a voice more sweet than the evening zephyr, as she looked round the\nboard. \u201cAm I right?\u201d approaching Theon. The youth, as he gazed on the\nlovely face, forgot to answer. \u201cNay, is it a statue?\u201d leaning forward,\nand gazing in her turn, as if in curious inspection.\n\n\u201cNo, a slave,\u201d said Theon, half smiling, half blushing, as he stooped\nhis knee, while she placed the garland on his head.\n\n\u201cI come to pledge you,\u201d she said, putting the cup to her lips, \u201cand to\nbid you pledge me,\u201d presenting it with bewitching grace to the youth. He\ntook it in speechless ecstasy from her taper fingers, and turning that\nside to his mouth which had received the touch of her\u2019s, quaffed off at\nonce the draught of wine and love.\n\n\u201cBeware,\u201d said a voice in his ear; \u201cit is the cup of Circe.\u201d He turned,\nPoly\u0153nus stood behind him; but when he saw his motionless features, he\ncould hardly believe the whisper had been uttered by him.\n\n\u201cI know,\u201d continued the fair one, pointing to the table, \u201cthere is but\ncold beverage here for a drowned man. My wise father may know to give\ncomfort to the mind, but come to my good nurse, when you want the\ncomfort of the body. She is the most skilful compounder of elixirs,\nphilters, and every palatable medicine that you might haply find in all\nGreece, all Asia, aye, or all the earth. And now make way,\u201d putting back\nthe surrounding company, and leading Theon by the arm to the upper end\nof the table. \u201cBehold the king of the feast.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is, if you are the queen,\u201d said the intoxicated youth.\n\n\u201cOh! certainly,\u201d placing herself by his side, \u201cI never refuse\nconsequence, whenever I can get it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWherever you can take it, you mean,\u201d said the Master laughing.\n\n\u201cAnd is not that every where?\u201d said Hermachus, bowing to the fair girl.\n\n\u201cYes, I believe it is. A pretty face, my friends, may presume much; a\nwillful nature may carry all things. I have both to perfection; have I\nnot?\u201d\n\n\u201cPraise to Venus, and the Graces!\u201d said Leontium; \u201cour sister has\nbrought a heart as gay from the college of Pythagoras, as she took into\nit.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo be sure; and did you expect otherwise? Psha! you philosophers know\nnothing of human nature. I could have told you before this last\nexperiment, that humor lies in contrast, and that a wag will find more\nsubject in a synod of grave sages than a crew of laughing wits. You must\nknow,\u201d turning to Theon, \u201cI have been on a visit to a wise man, a _very_\nwise man, who has followed from his youth up the whim, and all very wise\nmen have whims, of restoring the neglected school of Pythagoras to its\npristine greatness. Accordingly, he has collected and brought up some\ndozen submissive youths to his full satisfaction; for not one of them\ndare know his right hand from his left, but on his master\u2019s authority,\ndoubly backed by that of the great founder. They have, in short, no\npurse of their own, no time of their own, no tongue of their own, no\nwill of their own, and no thought of their own. You cannot conceive a\nmore perfect community. One more virtuously insipid, more scientifically\nabsurd, or more wisely ignorant.\u201d\n\n\u201cFie, fie, you giddy jade,\u201d said the Master, smiling, while he tried to\nfrown.\n\n\u201cGiddy, not at all. I am delivering grave matter of fact story.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd we are all ear,\u201d said Hermachus, \u201cso pray let us have the whole of\nit.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe whole? nay, you have it already. An abode of the blessed; a house\nwith twelve bodies in it, and one brain to serve them all.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy,\u201d replied Hermachus, \u201cI believe you have at home some hundred\nbodies in the same predicament.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo be sure; and so I told the sage Pythagorean, when he looked so\ncomplacently on his twelve pieces of mechanism, and assured him that\nwere it not for me, there would not be a single original in the Garden\nsave the Master. I assure you, father, I gave just as matter of fact a\ndescription of your household, as I now do of the old Pythagorean\u2019s.\nAnd, a most singular coincidence, I remember he cried, \u2018Fie, fie,\u2019 just\nas you did now. Once more, it was a most perfect household; with the\nmen, all peace, method, virtue, learning, and absurdity: with the women,\nall silence, order, ignorance, modesty, and stupidity.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd pray, sister,\u201d said Metrodorus, \u201cwhat made you leave a society that\nafforded such food to your satire?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause, brother, the richest food cloys the fastest. I passed three\ndays to my perfect satisfaction; a fourth would have killed me.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd your friends, too,\u201d said the philosopher, shaking his head.\n\n\u201cKilled them? They never knew they had life, till I found it out for\nthem. No, no, I left sore hearts behind me. The Master indeed,\u2014ah! the\nMaster!\u2014Poor man, shall I confess it? Before I left the house, he caught\none of his pupils looking into a mirror with a candle, heard that\nanother had stirred the fire with a sword, and oh! more dreadful than\nall, that a third had swallowed a bean.[3] If I could have staid three\ndays longer, I might have wound my girdle round the necks of the whole\ndozen, brought them on my back, and laid them at the feet of Epicurus.\u201d\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  Alluding to the whimsical superstitions of Pythagoras, or, perhaps it\n  were more just to say, of his followers.\n\n\u201cAnd what said the Master all this time?\u201d said Leontium.\n\n\u201cSaid he? what said he? umph! I never heard what he said, for I was\nreading what he felt.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what felt he?\u201d asked Hermachus.\n\n\u201cJust what _you_ have felt\u2014and you too,\u201d looking at Poly\u0153nus. \u201cAye, and\nyou also, very sage philosopher;\u201d and turning short round to Theon,\n\u201cwhat you have to feel, if you have to feel, if you have not yet\nfelt\u2014that I was vastly witty, vastly amusing, and vastly beautiful.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd do you think,\u201d said the Gargettian, \u201cwhen we feel all this, we\ncan\u2019t be angry with you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, what do _you_ think? But no, no, I know you all better than you\nknow yourselves. And I think you _cannot_, or if you _can_, \u2019tis as the\npoet, who curses the muse he burns to propitiate. Oh! philosophy!\nphilosophy! thou usest hard maxims and showest a grave face, yet thy\nmaxims are but words, and thy face but a mask. A skilful histrion, who,\nwhen the buskin is off, paint, plaster, and garment thrown aside, stands\nno higher, no fairer, and no more mighty, than the youngest, poorest,\nand simplest of thy gaping worshippers. Ah! friends! laugh and frown;\nbut show me the man, the wisest, the gravest, or the sourest, that a\nbright pair of eyes can\u2019t make a fool of.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! you proud girl,\u201d said Hermachus, \u201ctremble! remember the blue-eyed\nSappho died at last for a Phaon.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, if such be my fate, I must submit. I do not deny, because I have\nbeen wise hitherto, that I may not turn fool with the philosophers,\nbefore I die.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat an excellent school for the rearing of youth,\u201d said the Master,\n\u201cthe old Pythagorean must think mine.\u201d\n\n\u201cJudging from me as a specimen, you mean. And trust me now, father, I am\nthe best. Do I not practise what you preach? What you show the way to,\ndo I not possess? Look at my light foot, look in my laughing eye, read\nmy gay heart, and tell\u2014if pleasure be not mine. Confess then, that I\ntake a shorter cut to the goal than your wiser scholars, aye, than your\nwisest self. You study, you lecture, you argue, you exhort. And what is\nit all for? as if you could not be good without so much learning, and\nhappy without so much talking. Here am I\u2014I think I am very good, and I\nam quite sure I am very happy; yet I never wrote a treatise in my life,\nand can hardly listen to one without a yawn.\u201d\n\n\u201cTheon,\u201d said Epicurus, smiling, \u201cyou see now the priestess of our\nmidnight orgies.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! poor youth, you must have found the Garden but a dull place in my\nabsence. But have patience, it will be better in future.\u201d\n\n\u201cMore dangerous,\u201d said Poly\u0153nus.\n\n\u201cNever mind him,\u201d whispered Hedeia, in the Corinthian\u2019s ear,\u2014\u201che is not\nthe grave man that a bright pair of eyes cannot make a fool of. This is\nvery odd,\u201d she continued, looking round the board. \u201cHere am I, the\nstranger, and one too half drowned, charged with the entertaining of\nthis whole learned society.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, my girl,\u201d said the Master, \u201cthou hadst need to be whole drowned,\nere your friends might secure the happiness of being listened to.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed, I believe it\u2019s true; and considering that the greatest pleasure\nof life is the being listened to, I wonder how any one was found to pick\nme out of the water. The Corinthian, to be sure, did not know what he\nsaved; but that the Master should wet his tunic in my service, is a very\nunaccountable circumstance. Is there any reason for it in philosophy?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am afraid none.\u201d\n\n\u201cOr in mathematics?\u201d turning to Poly\u0153nus. \u201cNow, just see there a proof\nof my argument. Can any man look more like wisdom, or less like\nhappiness? This comes of diagrams and ethics. My young Corinthian, take\nwarning.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish we could fix you to a diagram,\u201d said Leontium.\n\n\u201cThe Graces forfend! and why should you wish it? Think you it would make\nme wiser? Let Poly\u0153nus be judge, if I am not wiser than he. I admire the\ndifferent prescriptions that are given by different doctors. The wife of\nthe good Pythagorean recommended me a distaff.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Hermachus, \u201cthat might do equally.\u201d\n\n\u201cPray, why don\u2019t you take one yourself?\u201d\n\n\u201cI, you see, am busy with philosophy.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so am I, with laughing at it. Ah! my sage brother, every man thinks\n_that_ perfection, that he is himself\u2014_that_ the only knowledge that he\npossesses\u2014and _that_ the only pleasure that he pursues. Trust me, there\nare as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to\nlead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadruped.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou would make a strange world, were you the queen of it,\u201d said\nHermachus, laughing.\n\n\u201cJust as strange, and no stranger than it is at present. For why? I\nshould take it as I found it, and leave it as I found it. \u2019Tis you\nphilosophers, who would rub and twist, and plague and doctor it, and\nfret your souls out, to bring all its heterogeneous parts, fools, wits,\nknaves, simpletons, grave, gay, light, heavy, long faced and short\nfaced, black, white, brown, straight and crooked, tall, short, thin and\nfat, to fit together, and patient reflect each other, like the acorns of\nan oak, or the modest wives and helpless daughters of the good citizens\nof Athens; \u2019tis you, I say, who would make a strange world, were you\nkings of it\u2014you would shorten and lengthen, clip, pull, and carve men\u2019s\nminds to fit your systems, as the tyrant did men\u2019s bodies to fit his\nbed.\u201d\n\n\u201cI grant there\u2019s some truth, my girl, in thy nonsense,\u201d said the Master.\n\n\u201cAnd I grant that there is not a philosopher in Athens, who would have\ngranted as much, save thyself. You will find, my young hero,\u201d turning to\nTheon, \u201cthat my father philosophises more sense, that is, less\nabsurdity, than any man since the seven sages, nay! even than the seven\nsages philosophized themselves. He only lacks to be a perfectly wise\nman\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cTo burn,\u201d said the Master, \u201chis books of philosophy, and to sing a tune\nto thy lyre.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, it shall do to let me sing a tune to it myself.\u201d She bounded from\nthe couch and the room, and returned in a moment, with the instrument in\nher hand. \u201cFear not,\u201d she said, nodding to the sage, as she lightly\nswept the chords, \u201cI shall not woo my own lover, but your mistress.\u201d\n\n                \u201cCome, Goddess! come! not in thy power,\n                  With gait and garb austere,\n                  And threatening brow severe,\n                Like stern Olympus in the judgment hour;\n                But come with looks and heart assuring,\n                Come with smiling eyes alluring,\n                Moving soft to Lydian measures,\n                Girt with graces, loves, and pleasures,\n                Bound with Basilea\u2019s zone.\n                Come, Virtue! come! in joyous tone\n                We bid thee welcome to our hearth,\n                For well we know, that thou alone\n                Canst give the purest bliss of earth.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo thanks, no thanks. I shall take my own reward,\u201d and stealing behind\nEpicurus, she threw her white arms round his neck, and laid her cheek on\nhis lips. Then rising, \u201cGood dreams be with you!\u201d and waving round her\nhand, and throwing a smile on Theon, vanished in an instant. The youth\nsaw and heard no more, but sat as in a dream, until the party divided.\n\n\u201cHave a care,\u201d whispered the Master, as he followed him into the\nvestibule. \u201cCupid is a knavish god, he can pierce the hearts of others,\nand hold a shield before his own.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XIII.\n\n\nNight\u2019s refreshing airs fanned the cheeks of Theon, and rustled the\nmyrtle on his brow; but the subtle fever of love which swept through his\nveins, and throbbed in his heart and temples, was beyond their cooling\ninfluence. The noisy business of life had now given place in the streets\nto noisy merriment. The song and the dance sounded from the open\nportals; and the young votaries of Bacchus, in all the frenzy of the\ngod, rushed from the evening banquet, to the haunts of midnight excess,\nwhile the trembling lover glided past to the stolen interview, shrinking\neven from the light of Day\u2019s pale sister. Theon turned abruptly from the\ncrowd, and sought instinctively a public walk, at this hour always\nprivate, where he had often mused on the mysteries of philosophy, and\ntaxed his immature judgment to hold the balance between the doctrines of\nher contending schools. No thoughts so deep and high now filled his\nyouthful fancy. He wandered on, his senses steeped in delirium not less\npotent than that of wine, until his steps were suddenly arrested by a\nsomewhat rude encounter with a human figure, advancing with a pace more\ndeliberate than his own. He started backwards and his eyes met those of\nCleanthes. The stoic paused a moment, then moved to pass on. But Theon,\nhowever little he might have desired such a companion at such a moment,\nhailed him by name, and placed himself at his side. Again Cleanthes\ngazed on him in silence; when Theon, following the direction of his\nglance, raised a hand to his temples, and removed, with a conscious\nblush, the offending garland. He held it for a moment; then, placing it\nin his bosom\u2014\u201cYou misjudge this innocent token;\u2014a pledge of\nacknowledgment for a life redeemed from the waves.\u201d\n\n\u201cWould that I might receive a pledge of the redemption of thy virtue,\nTheon, from the flood of destruction! For thy sake I have opened the\nvolumes of this smooth deceiver. And shall a few fair words and a fairer\ncountenance shield such doctrines from opprobrium? Shall he who robs\nvirtue of her sublimity, the Gods of their power, man of his\nimmortality, and creation of its providence, pass for a teacher of\ntruth, and expounder of the laws of nature? Where is thy reason, Theon?\nwhere thy moral sense? to see, in doctrines such as these, aught but\nimpiety and crime, or to imagine, that he, who advocates them, can merit\naught but the scorn of the wise, and the opprobrium of the good?\u201d\n\n\u201cI know not such to be the doctrines of Epicurus,\u201d said the youth, \u201cand\nyou will excuse my farther reply, until I shall have examined the\nphilosophy you so bitterly, and apparently so justly condemn.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe philosophy? honor it not with the name.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay,\u201d returned Theon with a smile, \u201cthere are so many absurdities\nhonored with that appellative, in Athens, that the compliment might pass\nunchallenged, although applied to one less worthy than, in my eyes,\nappears the sage of Gargettium. But,\u201d preventing the angry interruption\nof the stoic, \u201cmy slowness to judge and to censure offends your\nenthusiasm. The experience of three days has taught me this caution. My\nacquaintance, as yet, is rather with the philosopher than the\nphilosophy; my prejudices at first were equally strong against both.\nHaving discovered my error with respect to one, ought I not to read,\nlisten, and examine, before I condemn the other? And, the rather, as all\nthat I have heard in the garden has hitherto convinced my reason, and\nawakened my admiration and love.\u201d\n\n\u201cPermit me the question,\u201d said Cleanthes, stopping short, and fixing his\npiercing glance on the countenance of his companion\u2014\u201cHonor ye the Gods,\nand believe ye in a creating cause, and a superintending Providence?\u201d\n\n\u201cSurely I do,\u201d said Theon.\n\n\u201cHow, then, venerate ye the man who proclaims his doubt of both?\u201d\n\n\u201cSo, in my hearing, has never the son of Neocles.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut he has and does in the hearing of the world.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have so heard, and ranked it among the libels of his enemies.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe has so written, and the fact is acknowledged by his friends.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will read his works,\u201d said Theon, \u201cand question the writer. A mind\nmore candid, whatever be its errors, exists not, I am persuaded, than\nthat of Epicurus; I should have said also, a mind more free of errors.\nBut he has taught me to think no mind, however wise, infallible.\u201d\n\n\u201cCall ye such doctrines, errors? I should rather term them crimes.\u201d\n\n\u201cI object not to the word,\u201d said Theon. \u201cI will examine into this. The\nGods have ye in their keeping! Good night.\u201d They entered the city, and\nthe friends divided.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XIV.\n\n\nUneasy thoughts bred unquiet slumbers; and Theon rose from a restless\ncouch, before the first blush of Aurora tinged the forehead of the sky.\nHe trod the paths of the garden, and waited with impatience, for the\nfirst time not unmixed with apprehension, the appearance of the Master.\nThe assertions of Cleanthes were corroborated by the testimony of the\npublic; but that testimony he had learned to despise. They were made\nafter perusal of Epicurus\u2019s writings; with these writings he was still\nunacquainted. Had they been misinterpreted? Cleanthes was no Timocrates.\nIf prejudiced, he was incapable of wilful misrepresentation; and he was\ntoo familiar with the science of philosophy, so grossly to misunderstand\na reasoner, as lucid as appeared to be Epicurus. These musings were soon\ninterrupted. The morning star still glowed in the kindling east, when he\nheard approaching footsteps, and turning from the shades upon a small\nopen lawn where a crystal fountain flowed from the inverted urn of a\nrecumbent naiad, he was greeted by the Sage.\n\n\u201cOh! no,\u201d exclaimed Theon, half audibly, as he gazed on the serene\ncountenance before him, \u201cthis man is not an atheist.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat thoughts are with you, my son, this morning?\u201d said the\nphilosopher, with kind solicitude. \u201cI doubt your plunge in Ilyssus\ndisturbed your dreams. Did the image of a fair nymph, or of a river god\nflit round your couch, and drive sleep from your eyelids?\u201d\n\n\u201cI was in some danger from the first,\u201d said the youth, half smiling,\nhalf blushing, \u201cuntil a visitant of a different character, and one, I\nimagine, more wont to soothe than to disturb the mind, brought to my\nimagination a host of doubts and fears, which your presence alone has\ndispelled.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd who played the part of your incubus?\u201d demanded the Sage.\n\n\u201cEven yourself, most benign and indulgent of men.\u201d\n\n\u201cTruly, I grieve to have acted so ill by thee, my son. It shall be well,\nhowever, if having inflicted the disease, I may be its physician.\u201d\n\n\u201cOn leaving you last night,\u201d said Theon, \u201cI encountered Cleanthes. He\ncame from the perusal of your writings, and brought charges against them\nwhich I was unprepared to answer.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet us hear them, my son; perhaps, until you shall have perused them\nyourself, we may assist your difficulty.\u201d\n\n\u201cFirst, that they deny the existence of the Gods.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see but one other assertion, that could equal that in folly,\u201d said\nEpicurus.\n\n\u201cI knew it!\u201d exclaimed Theon, triumphantly; \u201cI knew it was impossible.\nBut where will not prejudice lead men, when even the upright Cleanthes\nis capable of slander?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is utterly incapable of it,\u201d said the Master; \u201cand the inaccuracy,\nin this case, I rather suspect to rest with you than with him. To _deny_\nthe existence of the Gods would indeed be presumption in a philosopher;\na presumption equalled only by that of him who should _assert_ their\nexistence.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow!\u201d exclaimed the youth, with a countenance in which astonishment\nseemed to suspend every other expression.\n\n\u201cAs I never saw the Gods, my son,\u201d calmly continued the Sage, \u201cI cannot\n_assert_ their existence; and, that I never saw them, is no reason for\nmy _denying_ it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut do we believe nothing except that of which we have ocular\ndemonstration?\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing, at least, for which we have not the evidence of one or more of\nour senses; that is, when we believe on just grounds, which, I grant,\ntaking men collectively, is very seldom.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut where would this spirit lead us? To impiety!\u2014to Atheism!\u2014to all,\nagainst which I felt confidence in defending the character and\nphilosophy of Epicurus!\u201d\n\n\u201cWe will examine presently, my son, into the meaning of the terms you\nhave employed. But as respects your defence of my philosophy, I am sorry\nthat you presumed so much, where you knew so little. Let this serve for\nanother caution against pronouncing before you examine, and asserting\nbefore you enquire. It is my usual custom,\u201d continued the Master, \u201cwith\nthe youth who frequent my School, to defer the discussion of all\nimportant questions, until they are naturally, in the course of events,\nsuggested to their own minds. Their curiosity once excited, it is my\nendeavor, so far as in me lies, to satisfy it. When you first entered\nthe Garden, your mind was unfit for the examination of the subject you\nhave now started: it is no longer so; and we will therefore enter upon\nthe enquiry, and pursue it in order.\u201d\n\n\u201cForgive me if I express\u2014if I acknowledge,\u201d said the youth, slightly\nrecoiling from his instructor, \u201csome reluctance to enter on the\ndiscussion of truths, whose very discussion would seem to argue a\ndoubt,\u2014and\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what then?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat very doubt were a crime.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is there that I wished to lead you; and with the examination of this\npoint we shall rest, until time and circumstances lead you to push the\ninvestigation farther. I have in me little of the spirit of proselytism.\nA mere abstract opinion, supposing it not to affect the conduct or\ndisposition of him who holds it, would be in my eyes of very minor\nimportance. And it is only in so far as I believe that all our opinions,\nhowever apparently removed from any practical consequences, do always\nmore or less affect one or the other\u2014our conduct or our\ndispositions\u2014that I am at the pains to correct in my scholars, those\nwhich appear to me erroneous. I understand you to say, that to enter\nupon the discussion of certain opinions, which you consider as sacred\ntruths, would appear to argue a doubt of those truths, and that a doubt\nwould here constitute a crime. Now as I think such a belief inconsistent\nwith candor and charity\u2014two feelings, indispensable both for the\nenjoyment of happiness ourselves, and for its distribution to others, I\nshall challenge its investigation. If the doubt of any truth shall\nconstitute a crime, then the belief of the same truth should constitute\na virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps a duty would rather express it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen you charge the neglect of any duty as a crime, or account its\nfulfilment a virtue, you suppose the existence of a power to neglect or\nfulfil; and it is the exercise of this power, in the one way or the\nother, which constitutes the merit or demerit. Is it not so?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly.\u201d\n\n\u201cDoes the human mind possess the power to believe or disbelieve, at\npleasure, any truths whatsoever?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not prepared to answer: but I think it does, since it possesses\nalways the power of investigation.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, possibly, not the will to exercise the power. Take care lest I\nbeat you with your own weapons. I thought this very investigation\nappeared to you a crime.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour logic is too subtle,\u201d said the youth, \u201cfor my inexperience.\u201d\n\n\u201cSay rather, my reasoning too close. Did I bear you down with sounding\nwords and weighty authorities, and confound your understanding with\nhair-drawn distinctions, you would be right to retreat from the\nbattery.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have nothing to object to the fairness of your deductions,\u201d said\nTheon. \u201cBut would not the doctrine be dangerous that should establish\nour inability to help our belief; and might we not stretch the\nprinciple, until we asserted our inability to help our actions?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe might and with reason. But we will not now traverse the ethical\n_pons asinorum_ of necessity\u2014the most simple and evident of moral\ntruths, and the most darkened, tortured, and belabored by moral\nteachers. You enquire if the doctrine we have essayed to establish, be\nnot dangerous. I reply\u2014not, if it be true. Nothing is so dangerous as\nerror,\u2014nothing so safe as truth. A dangerous truth would be a\ncontradiction in terms, an anomaly in things.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what is a truth?\u201d said Theon.\n\n\u201cIt is pertinently asked. A truth I consider to be an ascertained fact;\nwhich truth would be changed into an error, the moment the fact, on\nwhich it rested, was disproved.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see, then, no fixed basis for truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt surely has the most fixed of all\u2014the nature of things. And it is\nonly an imperfect insight into that nature, which occasions all our\nerroneous conclusions, whether in physics or morals.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut where, if we discard the gods, and their will, as engraven on our\nhearts, are our guides in the search after truth?\u201d\n\n\u201cOur senses, and our faculties as developed in and by the exercise of\nour senses, are the only guides with which I am acquainted. And I do not\nsee why, even admitting a belief in the gods, and in a superintending\nprovidence, the senses should not be viewed as the guides, provided by\nthem, for our direction and instruction. But here is the evil attendant\non an ungrounded belief, whatever be its nature. The moment we take one\nthing for granted we take other things for granted: we are started in a\nwrong road, and it is seldom we can gain the right one, until we have\ntrodden back our steps to the starting place. I know of but one thing,\nthat a philosopher should take for granted; and that only because he is\nforced to do it by an irresistible impulse of his nature; and because,\nwithout doing so, neither truth nor falsehood could exist for him. He\nmust take for granted the evidence of his senses; in other words, he\nmust believe in the existence of things, as they exist to his senses. I\n_know_ of no other existence, and can therefore _believe_ in no other;\nalthough, reasoning from analogy, I may _imagine_ other existences to\nbe. This, for instance, I do as respects the gods. I see around me in\nthe world I inhabit an infinite variety in the arrangement of matter;\u2014a\nmultitude of sentient beings, possessing different kinds, and varying\ngrades of power and intelligence,\u2014from the worm that crawls in the dust,\nto the eagle that soars to the sun, and man who marks to the sun its\ncourse. It is possible, it is moreover probable, that, in the worlds\nwhich I see not,\u2014in the boundless infinitude and eternal duration of\nmatter, beings may exist, of every countless variety, and varying grades\nof intelligence, inferior and superior to our own, until we descend to a\nminimum, and rise to a maximum, to which the range of our observation\naffords no parallel, and of which our senses are inadequate to the\nconception. Thus far, my young friend, I believe in the gods, or in what\nyou will of existences removed from the sphere of my knowledge. That you\nshould believe, with positiveness, in one unseen existence or another,\nappears to me no crime, although it may appear to me unreasonable: and\nso, my doubt of the same should appear to you no moral offence, although\nyou might account it erroneous. I fear to fatigue your attention, and\nwill, therefore, dismiss, for the present, these abstruse subjects.\n\n\u201cBut we shall both be amply repaid for their discussion, if this truth\nremain with you\u2014that an opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a\nmoral offence, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken;\nit may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth; or it is\nan error: it can never be a crime or a virtue.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XV.\n\n\nTheon remained transfixed to the same spot of earth on which the Sage\nleft him. A confused train of thoughts travelled through his brain,\nwhich his reason sought in vain to arrest, or to analyze. At one moment\nit seemed as if a ray of light had dawned upon his mind, opening to it a\nworld of discovery as interesting as it was novel. Then suddenly he\nstarted as from the brink of a precipice, whose depths were concealed in\ndarkness. \u201cCleanthes then had justly expounded the doctrines of the\ngarden.\u2014But did these doctrines involve the delinquency which he had\nhitherto supposed? Were they inconsistent with reason, and\nirreconcilable with virtue? If so, I shall be able to detect their\nfallacy,\u201d said the youth, pursuing his soliloquy aloud. \u201cIt were a poor\ncompliment to the truths I have hitherto worshipped, did I shrink from\ntheir investigation. And yet, to question the power of the Gods! To\nquestion their very existence! To refuse the knee of homage to that\ngreat first cause of all things, that speaks, and breathes, and shines\nresplendent throughout all animated nature! To dispute I know not\nwhat\u2014of truths, as self-evident as they are sacred; which speak to our\neyes and our ears; to those very senses whose testimony alone is without\nappeal in the garden!\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you object to the testimony, young Corinthian?\u201d said a voice, which\nTheon recognised as that of Metrodorus.\n\n\u201cYou arrive opportunely,\u201d said Theon; \u201cthat is, if you will listen to\nthe questions of my doubting and embarrassed mind.\u201d\n\n\u201cSay rather, if I can answer them.\u201d\n\n\u201cI attribute to you the ability,\u201d said Theon, \u201csince I have heard you\nquoted as an able expounder of the philosophy of the garden.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the absence of our Zeno,\u201d said the scholar with a smile, \u201cI\nsometimes play the part of his Cleanthes. And though you may find me\nless eloquent than my brother of the porch, I will promise equal\nfidelity to the text of my original. But here is one, who can expound\nthe doctrine in the letter and the spirit; and, with such an assistant,\nI should not fear to engage all the scholars and all the masters in\nAthens.\u201d\n\n\u201cNay, boast rather of thy cause than of thy assistant,\u201d said Leontium,\napproaching, and playfully tapping the shoulder of Metrodorus; \u201cnor yet\nbelie thy own talents, my brother. The Corinthian will smile at thy\nfalse modesty, when he shall have studied thy writings, and listened to\nthy logical discourses. I imagine,\u201d she continued, turning her placid\ngaze on the youth, \u201cthat you have hitherto listened to more declamation\nthan reasoning. I might also say, to more sophistry, seeing that you\nhave walked and talked in the Lyceum.\u201d\n\n\u201cSay rather, walked and listened.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn truth and I believe it,\u201d she returned with a smile, \u201cand would that\nyour good sense in this were more common; and that men would rest\ncontent with straining their ears, and forbear from submitting their\nunderstandings, or torturing those of their neighbors.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt might seem strange,\u201d said Metrodorus, \u201cthat the pedantry of\nAristotle should find so many imitators, and his dark sayings so many\nbelievers, in a city, too, now graced and enlightened by the simple\nlanguage, and simple doctrines of an Epicurus.\u2014But the language of truth\nis too simple for inexperienced ears. We start in search of knowledge,\nlike the demi-gods of old in search of adventure, prepared to encounter\ngiants, to scale mountains, to pierce into Tartarean gulfs, and to carry\noff our prize from the gripe of some dark enchanter, invulnerable to all\nsave to charmed weapons and deity-gifted assailants. To find none of all\nthese things, but, in their stead, a smooth road through a pleasant\ncountry, with a familiar guide to direct our curiosity, and point out\nthe beauties of the landscape, disappoints us of all exploit and all\nnotoriety; and our vanity turns but too often from the fair and open\nchampaign, into error\u2019s dark labyrinths, where we mistake mystery for\nwisdom, pedantry for knowledge, and prejudice for virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cI admit the truth of the metaphor,\u201d said Theon. \u201cBut may we not\nsimplify too much as well as too little? May we not push investigation\nbeyond the limits assigned to human reason, and, with a boldness\napproaching to profanity, tear, without removing, the veil which enwraps\nthe mysteries of creation from our scrutiny?\u201d\n\n\u201cWithout challenging the meaning of the terms you have employed,\u201d said\nMetrodorus, \u201cI would observe, that there is little danger of our pushing\ninvestigation too far. Unhappily the limits prescribed to us by our few\nand imperfect senses must ever cramp the sphere of our observation, as\ncompared to the boundless range of things; and that, even when we shall\nhave strained and improved our senses to the uttermost. We trace an\neffect to a cause, and that cause to another cause, and so on, till we\nhold some few links of a chain, whose extent, like the charmed circle,\nis without beginning as without end.\u201d\n\n\u201cI apprehend the difficulties,\u201d observed Leontium, \u201cwhich embraces the\nmind of our young friend. Like most aspirants after knowledge, he has a\nvague and incorrect idea of what he is pursuing, and still more, of what\nmay be attained. In the schools you have hitherto frequented,\u201d she\ncontinued, addressing the youth, \u201ccertain images of virtue, vice, truth,\nknowledge, are presented to the imagination, and these abstract\nqualities, or we may call them, figurative beings, are made at once the\nobjects of speculation and adoration. A law is laid down, and the\nfeelings and opinions of men are predicated upon it; a theory is built,\nand all animate and inanimate nature is made to speak in its support; an\nhypothesis is advanced, and all the mysteries of nature are treated as\nexplained. You have heard of, and studied various systems of philosophy;\nbut real philosophy is opposed to all systems. Her whole business is\nobservation; and the results of that observation constitute all her\nknowledge. She receives no truths, until she has tested them by\nexperience; she advances no opinions, unsupported by the testimony of\nfacts; she acknowledges no virtue, but that involved in beneficial\nactions; no vice, but that involved in actions hurtful to ourselves or\nto others. Above all, she advances no dogmas,\u2014is slow to assert what\nis,\u2014and calls nothing impossible. The science of philosophy is simply a\nscience of observation, both as regards the world without us, and the\nworld within; and, to advance in it, are requisite only sound senses,\nwell developed and exercised faculties, and a mind free of prejudice.\nThe objects she has in view, as regards the external world, are, first,\nto see things as they are, and secondly, to examine their structure, to\nascertain their properties, and to observe their relations one to the\nother.\u2014As respects the world within, or the philosophy of mind, she has\nin view, first, to examine our sensations, or the impressions of\nexternal things on our senses; which operation involves, and is involved\nin, the examination of those external things themselves: secondly, to\ntrace back to our sensations, the first development of all our\nfaculties; and again, from these sensations, and the exercise of our\ndifferent faculties as developed by them, to trace the gradual formation\nof our moral feelings, and of all our emotions: thirdly, to analyze all\nthese our sensations, thoughts, and emotions,\u2014that is, to examine the\nqualities of our own internal, sentient matter, with the same, and yet\nmore, closeness of scrutiny, than we have applied to the examination of\nthe matter that is without us: finally, to investigate the justness of\nour moral feelings, and to weigh the merit and demerit of human actions;\nwhich is, in other words, to judge of their tendency to produce good or\nevil,\u2014to excite pleasurable or painful feelings in ourselves or others.\nYou will observe, therefore, that, both as regards the philosophy of\nphysics, and the philosophy of mind, all is simply a process of\ninvestigation. It is a journey of discovery, in which, in the one case,\nwe commission our senses to examine the qualities of that matter which\nis around us, and in the other, endeavor, by attention to the varieties\nof our consciousness, to gain a knowledge of those qualities of matter,\nwhich constitute our susceptibilities of thought and feeling.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis explanation is new to me,\u201d observed Theon, \u201cand, I will confess,\nstartling to my imagination. It is pure materialism!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou may so call it,\u201d rejoined Leontium, \u201cbut, when you have so called\nit\u2014what then? The question remains: is it true? or is it false?\u201d\n\n\u201cI should be disposed to say\u2014false, since it confounds all my\npreconceived notions of truth and error, of right and wrong.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf truth and error, of right and wrong, in the sense of _correct_ or\n_incorrect_ is, I presume, your meaning,\u201d said Leontium. \u201cYou do not\ninvolve moral rectitude or the contrary, in a matter of opinion?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf the opinion have a moral or immoral tendency I do,\u201d said the youth.\n\n\u201cA simple matter of fact can have no such tendency, or ought not, if we\nare rational creatures.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd would not, if we were always reasoning beings,\u201d said Metrodorus;\n\u201cbut as the ignorance and superstition which surround our infancy and\nyouth, favor the development of the imagination at the expense of the\njudgment, we are ever employed in the coining of chimeras, rather than\nin the discovery of truths; and if ever the poor judgment make an effort\nto dispel these fancies of the brain, she is repulsed, like a\nsacrilegious intruder into religious mysteries.\u201d\n\n\u201cUntil our opinions are made to rest on facts,\u201d said Leontium, \u201cthe\nerror of our young friend\u2014the most dangerous of all errors, being one of\nprinciple and involving many\u2014must ever pervade the world. And it was\nbecause I suspected this leading misconception of the very nature\u2014of the\nvery end and aim of the science he is pursuing, that I attempted an\nexplanation of what should be sought, and of what can alone be attained.\nIn philosophy\u2014that is, in knowledge\u2014enquiry is every thing: theory and\nhypothesis are worse than nothing. Truth is but approved facts. Truth,\nthen, is one with the knowledge of these facts. To shrink from enquiry,\nis to shrink from knowledge. And to prejudge an opinion as true or\nfalse, because it interferes with some preconceived abstraction we call\nvice or virtue, is as if we were to draw the picture of a man we had\nnever seen, and then, upon seeing him, were to dispute his being the man\nin question, because unlike our picture.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut if this opinion interfered with another, of whose truth we imagined\nourselves certain?\u201d\n\n\u201cThen clearly, in one or the other, we are mistaken; and the only way to\nsettle the difficulty, is to examine and compare the evidences of both.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut are there not some truths self-evident?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are a few which we may so call. That is to say, there are some\nfacts, which we admit upon the evidence of a simple sensation; as, for\ninstance, that a whole is greater than its part; that two are more than\none: which we receive immediately upon the testimony of our sense of\nsight or of touch.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut are there no moral truths of the same nature?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not aware of any. Moral truth, resting entirely upon the\nascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation\nand reasoning.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat call you, then, a belief in a presiding providence, and a great\nfirst cause?\u201d\n\n\u201cA belief resting upon testimony; which belief will be true or false,\naccording to the correctness or incorrectness of that testimony.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it not rather a self-evident moral truth?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn my answer, I shall have to divide your question into two. First, it\ncannot be a moral truth, since it is not deduced from the consequences\nof human action. It can be simply a truth, that is, a fact. Secondly, it\nis not a self-evident truth, since it is not evident to all minds, and\nfrequently becomes less and less evident, the more it is examined.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut is not the existence of a first or creating cause demonstrated to\nour senses, by all we see, and hear, and feel?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe existence of all that we see and hear and feel is demonstrated to\nour senses; and the belief we yield to this existence is immediate and\nirresistible, that is, intuitive.\u2014The existence of the creating cause,\nthat you speak of, is not demonstrated to our senses; and therefore the\nbelief in it cannot be immediate and irresistible. I prefer the\nexpression \u2018creating\u2019 to \u2018first\u2019 cause, because it seems to present a\nmore intelligible meaning. When you shall have examined farther into the\nphenomena of nature, you will see, that there can be as little a _first_\nas a _last_ cause.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there must be always a cause, producing an effect?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly; and so your cause,\u2014creating all that we see and hear and\nfeel\u2014must itself have a producing cause, otherwise you are in the same\ndifficulty as before.\u201d\n\n\u201cI suppose it a Being unchangeable and eternal, itself unproduced, and\nproducing all things.\u201d\n\n\u201cUnchangeable it _may_ be,\u2014eternal it _must_ be\u2014since every thing is\neternal.\u201d\n\n\u201cEvery thing eternal?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes; that is, the elements composing all substances are, so far as we\nknow and can reason, eternal, and in their nature unchangeable; and it\nis apparently only the different disposition of these eternal and\nunchangeable atoms that produces all the varieties in the substances\nconstituting the great material whole, of which we form a part. Those\nparticles, whose peculiar agglomeration or arrangement, we call a\nvegetable to-day, pass into, and form part of, an animal to-morrow; and\nthat animal again, by the falling asunder of its constituent atoms, and\nthe different approximation and agglomeration of the same,\u2014or, of the\nsame with other atoms,\u2014is transformed into some other substance\npresenting a new assemblage of qualities. To this simple exposition of\nthe phenomena of nature (which, you will observe, is not _explaining_\ntheir wonders, for that is impossible, but only _observing_ them,) we\nare led by the exercise of our senses. In studying the existences which\nsurround us, it is clearly our business to use our eyes, and not our\nimaginations. To see things as they are, is all we should attempt, and\nis all that is possible to be done. Unfortunately, we can do but little\neven here, as our eyes serve us to see but a very little way. But, were\nour eyes better\u2014were they so good as to enable us to observe all the\narcana of matter, we could never acquire any other knowledge of them,\nthan that they are as they are;\u2014and, in knowing this, that is, in seeing\nevery link in the chain of occurrences, we should know all that even an\nomniscient being _could_ know. One astronomer traces the course of the\nsun round the earth, another imagines that of the earth round the sun.\nSome future improvements in science may enable us to ascertain which\nconjecture is the true one. We shall then have ascertained a fact, which\nfact may lead to the discovery of other facts, and so on. Until this\nplain and simple view of the nature of all science be generally\nreceived, all the advances we may make in it are comparatively as\nnothing. Until we occupy ourselves in examining, observing, and\nascertaining, and not in _explaining_, we are idly and childishly\nemployed.\u2014With every truth we may discover we shall mix a thousand\nerrors; and, for one matter of fact, we shall charge our brain with a\nthousand fancies. To this leading misconception of the real, and only\npossible object of philosophical enquiry, I incline to attribute all the\nmodes and forms of human superstition. The vague idea that some\nmysterious cause not merely _precedes_ but _produces_ the effect we\nbehold, occasions us to wander from the real object in search of an\nimaginary one. We see the sun rise in the east: Instead of confining our\ncuriosity to the discovery of the time and manner of its rising, and of\nits course in the heavens, we ask also\u2014_why_ does it rise? What _makes_\nit move? The more ignorant immediately conceive some Being spurring it\nthrough the heavens, with fiery steeds, and on wheels of gold, while the\nmore learned tell us of laws of motion, decreed by an almighty fiat, and\nsustained by an almighty will. Imagine the truth of both suppositions:\nIn the one case, we should see the application of what we call physical\npower in the driver and the steeds followed by the motion of the sun,\nand in the other, an almighty volition followed by the motion of the\nsun. But, in either case, should we understand _why_ the sun\nmoved?\u2014_why_ or _how_ its motion followed what we call the impulse of\nthe propelling power, or the propelling volition? All that we could\n_then_ know, more than we _now_ know, would be, that the occurrence of\nthe motion of the sun was preceded by another occurrence; and if we\nafterwards frequently observed the same sequence of occurrences, they\nwould become associated in our mind as necessary precedent and\nconsequent\u2014as cause and effect: and we might give to them the\nappellation of law of nature, or any other appellation; but they would\nstill constitute merely a truth\u2014that is, _a fact_, and envelope no other\nmystery, than that involved in every occurrence and every existence.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, according to this doctrine,\u201d said Theon, \u201cthere would be no less\nreason in attributing the beautiful arrangement of the material world to\nthe motion of a horse, than to the volition of an almighty mind.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I saw the motion of a horse followed by the effect you speak of, I\nshould believe in some relation between them; and if I saw it follow the\nvolition of an almighty mind\u2014the same.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the cause would be inadequate to the effect.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt could not be so, if it were the cause. For what constitutes the\nadequacy of which you speak? Clearly only the contact, or immediate\nproximity of the two occurrences. If any sequence could in fact be more\nwonderful than another, it should rather seem to be for the consequent\nto impart grandeur to the precedent\u2014the effect to the cause,\u2014than for\nthe cause to impart grandeur to the effect. But in reality all sequences\nare equally wonderful. That light should follow the appearance of the\nsun, is just as wonderful, and no more so, as if it were to follow the\nappearance of any other body\u2014and did light follow the appearance of a\nblack stone it would excite astonishment simply because we never saw\nlight follow such an appearance before. Accustomed, as we now are, to\nsee light when the sun rises, our wonder would be, if we did not see\nlight when he rose: but were light regularly to attend the appearance of\nany other body, our wonder at such a sequence would, after a time,\ncease; and we should then say, as we now say, there is light, _because_\nsuch a body has risen; and imagine _then_, as we imagine _now_, that we\nunderstand _why_ light is.\n\n\u201cIn like manner all existences are equally wonderful. An African lion is\nin himself nothing more extraordinary than a Grecian horse; although the\nwhole people of Athens will assemble to gaze on the lion, and exclaim,\nhow wonderful! while no man observes the horse.\u201d\n\n\u201cTrue\u2014but this is the wondering of ignorance.\u201d\n\n\u201cI reply\u2014true again, but so is all wondering. If, indeed, we should\nconsider it in this and in all other cases as simply an emotion of\npleasurable surprise, acknowledging the presence of a novel object, the\nfeeling is perfectly rational; but if it imagine any thing more\nintrinsically marvellous in the novel existence than in the familiar\none, it is then clearly the idle\u2014that is, the unreasoned and\nunreflecting marvelling of ignorance. There is but one real wonder to\nthe thinking mind: it is the existence of all things; that is, the\nexistence of matter. And the only rational ground of this one great\nwonder is, that the existence of matter is the last link in the chain of\ncause and effect, at which we can arrive. You imagine yet another\nlink\u2014the existence of a power creating that matter.\u2014My only objections\nto this additional link, or superadded cause, are, that it is\n_imagined_, and that it leaves the wonder as before; unless, indeed, we\nshould say that it has superadded other wonders, since it supposes a\npower, or rather, an existence possessing a power, of which we never saw\nan example.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow so? Does not even man possess a species of creating power? And do\nyou not suppose, in your inert matter, that very property which others\nattribute, with more reason it appears to me, to some superior and\nunknown existence?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy no means. No existence, that we know of, possesses creating power,\nin the sense you suppose. Neither the existence we call a man, nor any\nof the existences, comprised under the generic names of matter, physical\nworld, nature, &c., possesses the power of calling into being its own\nconstituent elements, nor the constituent elements of any other\nsubstance. It can change one substance into another substance, by\naltering the position of its particles, or intermingling them with\nothers: but it cannot call into being, any more than it can annihilate,\nthose particles themselves. The hand of man causes to approach particles\nof earth and of water, and by their approximation, produces clay; to\nwhich clay it gives a regular form, and, by the application of fire,\nproduces the vessel we call a vase. You may say that the hand of man\ncreates the vase; but it does not create the earth, or the water, or the\nfire; neither has the admixture of these substances added to, or\nsubtracted from, the sum of their elementary atoms. Observe, therefore,\nthere is no analogy between the power inherent in matter of changing its\nappearance and qualities, by a simple change in the position of its\nparticles, and that which you attribute to some unseen existence, who,\nby a simple volition, should have called into being matter itself, with\nall its wonderful properties. An existence possessing such a power I\nhave never seen; and though this says nothing against the possibility of\nsuch an existence, it says every thing against _my belief_ in it. And\nfarther, the power which you attribute to this existence\u2014that of willing\nevery thing out of nothing,\u2014being, not only what I have never seen, but\nthat of which I cannot with any distinctness conceive\u2014it must appear to\nme the greatest of all improbabilities.\u201d\n\n\u201cOur young friend,\u201d observed Metrodorus, \u201clately made use of an\nexpression, the error involved in which, seems to be at the root of his\ndifficulty. In speaking of matter,\u201d he continued, turning to Theon, \u201cyou\nemployed the epithet _inert_. What is your meaning? And what matter do\nyou here designate?\u201d\n\n\u201cAll matter surely is, in itself, inert.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll matter surely is, in itself, as it is,\u201d said Metrodorus with a\nsmile; \u201cand that, I should say, is living and active. Again, what is\nmatter?\u201d\n\n\u201cAll that is evident to our senses,\u201d replied Theon, \u201cand which stands\nopposed to mind.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll matter then is inert which is devoid of mind. What, then, do you\nunderstand by mind?\u201d\n\n\u201cI conceive some error in my definition,\u201d said Theon, smiling. \u201cShould I\nsay\u2014_thought_\u2014you would ask if every existence devoid of thought was\ninert, or if every existence, possessing life, possessed thought?\u201d\n\n\u201cI should so have asked. Mind or thought I consider a quality of that\nmatter constituting the existence we call a man, which quality we find\nin a varying degree in other existences; many, perhaps all animals,\npossessing it. Life is another quality, or combination of qualities, of\nmatter, inherent in\u2014we know not how many existences. We find it in\nvegetables; we might perceive it even in stones, could we watch their\nformation, growth, and decay. We may call that active principle,\npervading the elements of all things, which approaches and separates the\ncomponent particles of the ever changing, and yet ever during\nworld\u2014life. Until you discover some substance, which undergoes no\nchange, you cannot speak of inert matter: it can only be so, at least,\nrelatively,\u2014that is, as compared with other substances.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe classing of thought and life among the qualities of matter is new\nto me.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is in a substance cannot be separate from it. And is not all\nmatter a compound of qualities? Hardness, extension, form, color,\nmotion, rest\u2014take away all these, and where is matter? To conceive of\nmind independent of matter, is as if we should conceive of color\nindependent of a substance colored: What is form, if not a body of a\nparticular shape? What is thought, if not something which thinks?\nDestroy the substance, and you destroy its properties; and so\nequally\u2014destroy the properties, and you destroy the substance. To\nsuppose the possibility of retaining the one, without the other, is an\nevident absurdity.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe error of conceiving a quality in the abstract often offended me in\nthe Lyceum,\u201d returned the youth, \u201cbut I never considered the error as\nextending to mind and life, any more than to vice and virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou stopped short with many others,\u201d said Leontium. \u201cIt is indeed\nsurprising how many acute minds will apply a logical train of reasoning\nin one case, and invert the process in another exactly similar.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo return, and, if you will, to conclude our discussion,\u201d said\nMetrodorus, \u201cI will observe that no real advances can be made in the\nphilosophy of mind, without a deep scrutiny into the operations of\nnature, or material existences. Mind being only a quality of matter, the\nstudy we call the philosophy of mind, is necessarily only a branch of\ngeneral physics, or the study of a particular part of the philosophy of\nmatter.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am indebted to your patience,\u201d said the youth, \u201cand would fain\nintrude farther on it. I will confine myself at present, however, to one\nobservation. The general view of things, which you present to my mind,\nthe simplicity of which I will confess to be yet more fascinating than\nits novelty, is evidently unfavorable to religion,\u2014and, if so,\nunfavorable to virtue.\u201d\n\n\u201cAn opportunity will, to-day, be afforded you,\u201d said Leontium, \u201cof\nexamining this important question in detail. At the request of some of\nour youth, the Master will himself give his views on the subject.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am all curiosity,\u201d said Theon. \u201cOther teachers have commanded my\nrespect, inflamed my imagination, and, I believe, often controlled my\nreason. The son of Neocles inspires me with love, and wins me to\nconfidence by encouraging me to exercise my own judgment, in scanning\nhis arguments, and examining the groundwork of his own opinions. With\nsuch a teacher, and in such a school, I feel suspicion to be wholly\nmisplaced; and I shall now start in the road of enquiry, anxious only to\ndiscover truth, and willing to part with every erroneous opinion, the\nmoment it shall be proved to be erroneous.\u201d\n\n  NOTE, BY THE TRANSLATOR. How beautifully have the modern discoveries\n  in chymistry and natural philosophy, and the more accurate analysis of\n  the human mind\u2014sciences unknown to the ancient world\u2014substantiated the\n  leading principles of the Epicurean ethics and physics\u2014the only\n  ancient school of either, really deserving the name!\n\n  To what have all our ingenious inventions and contrivances, for the\n  analysis of material substances, led us, but to the atoms of Epicurus?\n  To what, our accurate observation of the decomposition of substances,\n  and the arresting and weighing of their most subtle and invisible\n  elements, but to the eternal and unchangeable nature of those atoms?\n  We have, in the course of our scrutiny, superadded to the wonderful\n  qualities of matter with which he was acquainted, those which we call\n  attraction, repulsion, electricity, magnetism, &c. How do these\n  discoveries multiply and magnify the living powers inherent in the\n  simple elements of all existences, and point our admiration to the\n  sagacity of that intellect which, 2,000 years ago, started in the true\n  road of enquiry; while, at this day, thousands of teachers and\n  millions of scholars are stumbling in the paths of error!\n\n  If we look to our mental philosophy, to what has our scrutiny led, but\n  to the leading principles of Epicurean ethics? In the\n  pleasure,\u2014utility,\u2014propriety of human action\u2014(whatever word we employ,\n  the meaning is the same)\u2014in the consequences of human actions, that\n  is, in their tendency to promote our good or our evil, we must ever\n  find the only test of their intrinsic merit or demerit.\n\n  It might seem strange that, while the truth of the leading principles\n  of the Epicurean philosophy have been long admitted by all sound\n  reasoners, the abuse of the school and of its founder is continued to\n  this day: this might and would seem strange and incomprehensible, did\n  we not, on every subject, find the same cowardly fear of facing,\n  openly and honestly, the prejudices of men. Teachers, aware of the\n  ignorance of those they teach, develope their doctrines in language\n  intelligible only to the few; or, where they hazard a more distinct\n  exposition of truth, shelter themselves from obloquy, by echoing the\n  vulgar censure against those who have taught the same truth, with more\n  explicitness, before them. The mass, even of what is called the\n  educated world, know nothing of the principles they decry, or of the\n  characters they abuse. It is easy, therefore, by joining in the abuse\n  against the one, to encourage a belief that we cannot be advocating\n  the other. This desire of standing fair with the wise, without\n  incurring the enmity of the ignorant, may suit with the object of\n  those who acquire knowledge only for its display, or for the\n  gratification of mere curiosity. But they, whose nobler aim, and\n  higher gift it is, to advance the human mind in the discovery of\n  truth, must stand proof equally to censure and to praise. That such\n  lips and such pens should employ equivocation, or other artifice, to\n  turn aside the wrath of ignorance, is degrading to themselves and\n  mortifying to their admirers. The late amiable and enlightened\n  teacher, Thomas Brown, of Edinburgh, whose masterly exposition of old\n  and new truths, and exposure of modern as well as ancient errors, has\n  so advanced the science he professed, is yet chargeable with this\n  weakness. After inculcating the leading principles, the whole of his\n  beautiful system, he condescends to soothe the prejudices which all\n  his arguments have tended to uproot, by passing a sweeping censure on\n  the school, whose doctrines he has borrowed and taught. We might\n  say\u2014how unworthy of such a mind! But we will rather say\u2014how is it to\n  be lamented that such a mind bears not within itself the conviction,\n  that _all_ truths are important to _all_ men; and that to employ\n  deception with the ignorant, is to defeat our own purpose; which is,\n  surely, not to open the eyes of those who already see, but to\n  enlighten the blind!\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XVI.\n\n\nA more than usual crowd attended the instructions of the Sage. The gay,\nand the curious, the learned, and the idle, of all ages, and of either\nsex, from the restless population of the city; many citizens of note,\ncollected from various parts of Attica; and no inconsiderable portion of\nstrangers from foreign states and countries.\n\nThey were assembled on the lawn, surrounding the temple already\nfrequently mentioned. The contracting waters of Ilyssus flowed nearly in\ntheir accustomed bed; and earth and air, refreshed by the storm of the\npreceding night, resisted the rays of the uncurtained sun, now climbing\nhigh in the heavens. A crowd of recollections rushed on the young mind\nof Theon, as he entered the beautiful enclosure, and gazed on the stream\nwhich formed one of its boundaries. His thoughts again played truant to\nphilosophy, and his rapid glance sought another and a fairer form than\nany it found there, when the approach of Epicurus divided the throng,\nand hushed the loud murmur of tongues into silence. The Sage passed on,\nand it was not till he ascended the marble steps, and turned to address\nthe assembly, that Theon perceived he had been followed by the beautiful\nbeing who ruled his fancy. The hues of Hebe now dyed her lips and her\ncheeks; but the laughing smiles of the preceding evening were changed\nfor the composure of respectful attention. Her eye caught that of Theon.\nShe gave a blush and a smile of recognition. Then, seating herself at\nthe base of a column to the right of her father, her face resumed its\ncomposure, and her full dark eyes fastened on the countenance of the\nSage, in a gaze of mingled admiration and filial love.\n\n\u201cFellow citizens, and fellow-men! We purpose, this day, to examine a\nquestion of vital importance to human kind: no less a one than the\nrelations we bear to all the existences that surround us; the position\nwe hold in this beautiful material world; the origin, the object, and\nthe end of our being; the source from which we proceed, and the goal to\nwhich we tend.\u2014This question embraces many. It embraces all most\ninteresting to our curiosity, and influential over our happiness. Its\ncorrect or incorrect solution must ever regulate, as it now regulates,\nour rule of conduct, our conceptions of right and wrong; must start us\nin the road of true or false enquiry, and either open our minds to such\na knowledge of the wonders working in and around us, as our senses and\nfaculties can attain, or close them forever with the bands of\nsuperstition, leaving us a prey to fear, the slaves of our ungoverned\nimaginations, wondering and trembling at every occurrence in nature, and\nmaking our own existence and destiny sources of dread and of mystery.\u201d\n\n\u201cEre we come to this important enquiry, it behooves us to see that we\ncome with willing minds; that we say not, \u2018so far will we go and no\nfarther; we will make one step, but not two; we will examine, but only\nso long as the result of our examination shall confirm our preconceived\nopinions.\u2019 In our search after truth, we must equally discard\npresumption and fear. We must come with our eyes and our ears, our\nhearts and our understandings, open; anxious, not to find _ourselves_\nright, but to discover what is right; asserting nothing which we cannot\nprove; believing nothing which we have not examined; and examining all\nthings fearlessly, dispassionately, perseveringly.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn our preceding discourses, and, for such as have not attended these,\nin our writings, we have endeavored to explain the real object of\nphilosophical enquiry; we have directed you to the investigation of\nnature, to all that you see of existences and occurrences around you;\nand we have shown that, in these existences, and occurrences, all that\n_can_ be known, and all that _there is_ to be known, lies hid. We have\nexhorted you to use your eyes, and your judgments, never your\nimagination; to abstain from theory, and rest with facts; and to\nunderstand that in the accumulation of facts, as regards the nature and\nproperties of substances, the order of occurrences, and the consequences\nof actions, lies the whole science of philosophy, physical and moral. We\nhave seen, in the course of our enquiry, that in matter itself, exist\nall causes and effects; that the eternal particles, composing all\nsubstances, from the first and last links in the chain of occurrences,\nor of cause and effect, at which we can arrive; that the qualities,\ninherent in these particles, produce, or are followed by certain\neffects; that the changes, in position, of these particles, produce or\nare followed by certain other qualities and effects; that the sun\nappears, and that light follows his appearance; that we throw a pearl\ninto vinegar, and that the pearl vanishes from our eyes, to assume the\nform or forms of more subtle, but not less real substances; that the\ncomponent particles of a human being fall asunder, and that, instead of\na man, we find a variety of other substances or existences, presenting\nnew appearances, and new properties or powers; that a burning coal\ntouches our hand, that the sensation of pain follows the contact, that\nthe desire to end this sensation is the next effect in succession, and\nthat the muscular motion of withdrawing the hand, following the desire,\nis another. That in all this succession of existences and events, there\nis nothing but what we see, or what we could see, if we had better eyes;\nthat there is no mystery in nature, but that involved in the very\nexistence of all things; and that things being as they are, is no more\nwonderful, than it would be, if they were different. That an analogous\ncourse of events, or chain of causes and effects, takes place in morals\nas in physics: that is to say, in examining those qualities, of the\nmatter composing our own bodies, which we call mind, we can only trace a\ntrain of occurrences, in like manner as we do in the external world;\nthat our sensations, thoughts, and emotions, are simply effects\nfollowing causes, a series of consecutive phenomena, mutually producing\nand produced.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen we have taken this view of things, observe how all abstruse\nquestions disappear; how all science is simplified; all knowledge\nrendered easy and familiar to the mind! Once started in this only true\nroad of enquiry, every step we make is one in advance. To whatever\nscience we apply, that is, to whatever part of matter, or to whichever\nof its qualities, we direct our attention, we shall, in all probability,\nmake important, because true, discoveries. Is it the philosophy of\nnature in general, or any one of those subdivisions of it, which we call\nthe philosophy of Mind, Ethics, Medicine, Astronomy, Geometry, &c., the\nmoment we occupy ourselves in observing and arranging in order the\nfacts, which are discovered in the course of observation, we acquire\npositive knowledge, and may safely undertake to develope it to others.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe ascertaining the nature of existences, the order of occurrences,\nand the consequences of human actions constituting, therefore, the whole\nof knowledge, what is there to prevent each and all of us from extending\nour discoveries to the full limits prescribed by the nature of our\nfaculties and duration of our existence? What noble employment can we\ninvent? what pleasure so pure, so little liable to disappointment? What\nis there to hold us back?\u2014What is there not to spur us forward? Does our\nignorance start from the very simplicity of knowledge? Do we fear to\nopen our eyes lest we should see the light? Does the very truth we seek\nalarm us in its attainment?\u2014How is it that, placed in this world as on a\ntheatre of observation, surrounded by wonders and endowed with faculties\nwherewith to scan these wonders, we know so little of what is, and\nimagine so much of what is not? Other animals, to whom man accounts\nhimself superior, exercise the faculties they possess, trust their\ntestimony, follow the impulses of their nature, and enjoy the happiness\nof which they are capable. Man alone, the most gifted of all known\nexistences, doubts the evidence of his superior senses, perverts the\nnature and uses of his multiplied faculties, controls his most innocent,\nas well as his noblest impulses, and turns to poison all the sources of\nhis happiness. To what are we to trace this fatal error, this cruel\nself-martyrdom, this perversion of things from their natural bent? In\nthe over-development of one faculty and neglect of another, we must seek\nthe cause. In the imagination, that source of our most beautiful\npleasures, when under the control of judgment, we find the source of our\nworst afflictions.\u201d\n\n\u201cFrom an early age I have made the nature and condition of man my study.\nI have found him in many countries of the earth, under the influence of\nall varieties of climate and circumstance; I have found him the savage\nlord of the forest, clothed in the rough skins of animals less rude than\nhimself, sheltered in the crevices of the mountains and caves of the\nearth from the blasts of winter and heats of the summer sun; I have\nfound him the slave of masters debased as himself, crouching to the foot\nthat spurns him, and showing no signs of miscalled civilization but its\nsloth and its sensualities; I have found him the lord over millions,\nclothed in purple and treading courts of marble; the cruel destroyer of\nhis species, marching through blood and rapine, to thrones of extended\ndominion; the iron-hearted tyrant, feasting on the agonies of his\nvictims, and wringing his treasure from the hard earned mite of\nindustry; I have found him the harmless but ignorant tiller of the soil,\neating the simple fruits of his labor, sinking to rest only to rise\nagain to toil, toiling to live and living only to die; I have found him\nthe polished courtier, the accomplished scholar, the gifted artist, the\ncreating genius; the fool and the knave; rich and a beggar; spurning and\nspurned.\n\n\u201cUnder all these forms and varieties of the external and internal man,\nstill, with hardly an exception, I have found him unhappy. With more\ncapacity for enjoyment than any other creature, I have seen him\nsurpassing the rest of existences only in suffering and crime. Why is\nthis and from whence? What master error, for some there must be, leads\nto results so fatal\u2014so opposed to the apparent nature and promise of\nthings? Long have I sought this error\u2014this main-spring of human folly\nand human crime. I have traced, through all their lengthened train of\nconsequents and causes, human practice and human theory; I have threaded\nthe labyrinth to its dark beginning; I have found the first link in the\nchain of evil; I have found it\u2014in all countries\u2014among all tribes and\ntongues and nations; I have found it,\u2014Fellow-men, I have found it\nin\u2014RELIGION!\u201d\n\nA low murmur here rose from one part of the assembly. A deep and\nbreathless silence succeeded. The Sage turned his gaze slowly around,\nand with a countenance, pure and serene as the skies which shone above\nhim, proceeded:\u2014\n\n\u201cWe have named the leading error of the human mind,\u2014the bane of human\nhappiness\u2014the perverter of human virtue! It is Religion\u2014that dark\ncoinage of trembling ignorance! It is Religion\u2014that poisoner of human\nfelicity! It is Religion\u2014that blind guide of human reason! It is\nReligion\u2014that dethroner of human virtue! which lies at the root of all\nthe evil and all the misery that pervade the world!\n\n\u201cNot hastily formed, still less hastily expressed, has been the opinion\nyou hear this day. A long train of reflection led to the discarding of\nreligion as an error, a life of observation to the denouncing it as an\nevil. In considering it as devoid of truth, I am but one of many. Few\nhave looked deeply and steadily into the nature of things, and not\ncalled in question belief in existences unseen and causes unknown. But\nwhile smiling at the credulity of their fellow-beings, philosophers have\nthought reason good only for themselves. They have argued that religion,\nhowever childish a chimera in itself, was useful in its tendencies:\nthat, if it rested upon nothing, it supported all things; that it was\nthe stay of virtue, and the source of happiness. However opposed to\nevery rule in philosophy, physical and moral; however apparently in\ncontradiction to reason and common sense, that a thing untrue could be\nuseful; that a belief in facts disproved or unproved could afford a\nsustaining prop to a just rule of practice; the assertion came supported\nby so universal a testimony of mankind, and by individual names of such\nauthority in practical wisdom and virtue, that I hesitated to call it\nmistaken. And as human happiness appeared to me the great desideratum,\nand its promotion the only object consistent with the views of a teacher\nof men, I forbore from all expression of opinion, until I had fully\nsubstantiated, to my own conviction, both its truth and its tendency.\nThe _truth_ of my opinion is substantiated, as we have seen, by an\nexamination into the nature of things; that is, into the properties of\nmatter, which are alone sufficient to produce all the chances and\nchanges that we behold. Its _tendency_ is discovered by an examination\ninto the moral condition of man.\n\n\u201cThe belief in supernatural existences, and expectation of a future\nlife, are said to be sources of happiness, and stimuli to virtue. How,\nand in what way? Is it proved by experience? Look abroad over the earth:\nevery where the song of praise, the prayer of supplication, the smoke of\nincense, the blow of sacrifice, arise from forest, and lawn, from\ncottage, palace, and temple, to the gods of human idolatry. Religion is\nspread over the earth. If she be the parent of virtue and happiness,\nthey too should cover the earth. Do they so? Read the annals of human\ntradition! Go forth and observe the actions of men! Who shall speak of\nvirtue\u2014who of happiness, that hath eyes to see and ears to hear and\nhearts to feel? No! experience is against the assertion. The world is\nfull of religion, and full of misery and crime.\n\n\u201cCan the assertion be sustained by argument, by any train of reasoning\nwhatsoever? Imagine a Deity under any fashion of existence; how are our\ndreams concerning him in an imaginary heaven to affect our happiness or\nour conduct on a tangible earth? Affect it indeed they may for evil, but\nhow for good? The idea of an unseen Being, ever at work around and about\nus, may afflict the human intellect with idle terrors, but can never\nguide the human practice to what is rational and consistent with our\nnature. Grant that, by any possibility, we could ascertain the existence\nof one god, or of a million of gods: we see them not, we hear them not,\nwe feel them not. Unless they were submitted to our observation, were\nfashioned like unto us, had similar desires, similar faculties, a\nsimilar organization, how could their mode of existence afford a guide\nfor ours? As well should the butterfly take pattern from the lion, or\nthe lion from the eagle, as man from a god. To say nothing of the\ninconsistency of the attributes, with which all gods are decked, it is\nenough that none of them are ours. We are men; they are gods. They\ninhabit other worlds; we inhabit the earth. Let them enjoy their\nfelicity; and let us, my friends, seek ours.\n\n\u201cBut it is not that religion is merely useless, it is mischievous. It is\nmischievous by its idle terrors; it is mischievous by its false\nmorality; it is mischievous by its hypocrisy; by its fanaticism; by its\ndogmatism; by its threats; by its hopes; by its promises. Consider it\nunder its mildest and most amiable form, it is still mischievous as\ninspiring false motives of action, as holding the human mind in bondage,\nand diverting the attention from things useful, to things useless. The\nessence of religion is fear, as its source is ignorance. In a certain\nstage of human knowledge, the human mind must of necessity, in its\nignorance of the properties of matter, and its dark insight into the\nchain of phenomena arising out of those properties\u2014must of necessity\nreason falsely on every occurrence and existence in nature; it must of\nnecessity, in the absence of fact, give the rein to fancy, see a miracle\nin every uncommon event, and imagine unseen agents as producing all that\nit beholds. In proportion as the range of our observation is enlarged,\nand as we learn to connect and arrange the phenomena of nature, we\ncurtail our list of miracles, the number of our supernatural agents. An\neclipse is alarming to the vulgar, as denoting the wrath of offended\ndeities; to the man of science it is a simple occurrence, as easily\ntraced to its cause, as any the most familiar to our observation. The\nknowledge of one generation is the ignorance of the next. Our\nsuperstitions decrease as our attainments multiply; and the fervor of\nour religion declines as we draw nearer to the conclusion which destroys\nit entirely. The conclusion, based upon accumulated facts, as we have\nseen, that matter alone is at once the thing acting, and the thing acted\nupon,\u2014eternal in duration, infinitely various and varying in appearance;\nnever diminishing in quantity, and always changing in form. Without some\nknowledge of what is styled natural philosophy, or physics, no\nindividual can attain this conclusion. And in a _certain_ stage of that\nknowledge, more or less advanced according to the acuteness of the\nintellect, it will be impossible for any individual, not mentally\nobtuse, to shun that conclusion. This truth is one of infinite\nimportance. The moment we consider the hostility directed against what\nis called Atheism, as the natural result of deficient information, the\nmind must be diseased which could resent that hostility. And perhaps a\nsimple statement of the truth would best lead to examination of the\nsubject, and to the conversion of mankind.\n\n\u201cImagine this conversion, my friends! Imagine the creature man in the\nfull exercise of all his faculties; not shrinking from knowledge, but\neager in its pursuit; not bending the knee of adulation to visionary\nbeings armed by fear for his destruction, but standing erect in calm\ncontemplation of the beautiful face of nature; discarding prejudice, and\nadmitting truth without fear of consequences; acknowledging no judge but\nreason, no censor but that in his own breast! Thus considered, he is\ntransformed into the god of his present idolatry, or rather into a far\nnobler being, possessing all the attributes consistent with virtue and\nreason, and none opposed to either. How great a contrast with his actual\nstate! His best faculties dormant; his judgment unawakened within him;\nhis very senses misemployed; all his energies misdirected; trembling\nbefore the coinage of his own idle fancy; seeing over all creation a\nhand of tyranny extended; and instead of following virtue, worshipping\npower! Monstrous creation of ignorance! monstrous degradation of the\nnoblest of known existences! Man, boasting of superior reason, of moral\ndiscrimination, imagines a being at once unjust, cruel, and\ninconsistent; then kissing the dust, calls himself its slave! \u2018This\nworld _is_,\u2019 says the Theist, \u2018therefore it was made\u2019\u2014By whom?\u2014\u2018By a\nbeing more powerful than I.\u2019 Grant this infantine reasoning, what\nfollows as the conclusion? \u2018That we must fear him,\u2019 says the Theist.\u2014And\nwhy? Is his power directed against our happiness? Does your god amuse\nhimself by awakening the terrors of more helpless beings? Fear him then\nindeed we may; and, let our conduct be what it will, fear him we _must_.\n\u2018He is good as well as powerful,\u2019 says the Theist; \u2018therefore the object\nof love.\u2019\u2014How do we ascertain his goodness? I see indeed a beautiful and\ncurious world; but I see it full of moral evils, and presenting many\nphysical imperfections. Is he all-powerful? perfect good or perfect evil\nmight exist. Is he all-powerful _and_ all-good? perfect good _must_\nexist. Of the sentient beings comprised in the infinity of matter I know\nbut those which I behold. I set no limits to the number of those which I\nbehold not; no bounds to their power. One or many, may have given\ndirections to the elementary atoms, and may have fashioned this earth as\nthe potter fashions its clay. Beings possessing such power may exist,\nand may have exercised it. _All_-powerful still they are not, or being\nso, they are wicked: _evil exists_. I know not what _may_ be\u2014but this my\nmoral sense tells me CANNOT be\u2014a fashioner of the world I inhabit, in\nhis nature all-good and all-powerful. I see yet another impossibility; a\nfashioner of this world in his nature all-good and _fore-knowing_.\nGranting the possibility of the attributes, their united existence were\nan impossible supposition in the architect of our earth.\n\n\u2018Let us accord his goodness, the most pleasing and valuable attribute.\nYour god is then the object of our love, and of our pity. Of our love,\nbecause being benevolent in his own nature, he must have intended to\nproduce happiness in forming ours; of our pity, because we see that he\nhas failed in his intention. I cannot conceive a condition more\nunfortunate than that of a deity contemplating this world of his\ncreation. Is he the author of some\u2014say, of much happiness? of what\nuntold misery is he equally the author? I cannot conceive a being more\ndesperately\u2014more hopelessly wretched than that we have now pictured. The\nworst of human miseries shrink into comparative insignificancy before\nthose of their author. How must every sigh drawn from the bosom of man\nrend the heart of his god! How must every violence committed on earth\nconvulse the peace of heaven! unable to alter what he had fashioned, how\nmust he equally curse his power and his impotence! And, in bewailing our\nexistence, how must he burn to annihilate his own!\n\n\u201cWe will now suppose his power without limit; and his knowledge\nextending to the future, as to the past. How monstrous the conception!\nWhat demon drawn from the fevered brain of insanity, ever surpassed this\ndeity in malignity! Able to make perfection, he hath sown through all\nnature the seed of evil. The lion pursues the lamb; the vulture, in his\nrage, tears the dove from her nest. Man, the universal enemy, triumphs\neven in the sufferings of his fellow-beings; in their pain finds his own\njoy; in their loss, his gain; in the frenzy of his violence, working out\nhis own destruction; in the folly of his ignorance cursing his own race,\nand blessing its cruel author! Your deity is the author of evil, and you\ncall him good; the inventor of misery, and you call him happy! What\nvirtuous mind shall yield homage to such a Being? Who shall say, that\nhomage, if rendered, degrades not the worshipper? Or, who shall say,\nthat homage, when rendered, shall pacify the idol? Will abjectness in\nthe slave ensure mercy in the tyrant? Or, if it should, my friends,\nwhich of us would be the abject? Are men found bold to resist earthly\noppression, and shall they bow before injustice, because she speak from\nHeaven? Does the name of Harmodius inspire our songs? Do crowns of\nlaurel bind the temples of Aristogition? Let our courage rise higher\nthan theirs, my friends; and, if worthy of ambition, our fame! Dethrone,\nnot the tyrant of Athens, but the tyrant of the earth!\u2014not the oppressor\nof Athenians, but the oppressor of mankind! Stand forth! Stand erect!\nSay to this god, \u2018if you made us in malice, we will not worship you in\nfear. We will judge of you by your works: and judge your works with our\nreason. If evil pervade them, you are chargeable with it, as their\nauthor. We care not to conciliate your injustice, any more than to\nstrive with your power. We judge of the future from the past. And as you\nhave disposed of us in this world, so, if it please you to continue our\nbeing, must you dispose of us in another. It would be idle to strive\nwith Omnipotence, or to provide against the decrees of Omniscience. We\nwill not torment ourselves by imagining your intentions; nor debase\nourselves by expostulations. Should you punish, in us, the evil you have\nmade, you will punish it as unjustly as you made it maliciously. Should\nyou reward in us the good, you will reward it absurdly, as it was\nequally your work, and not ours.\u2019\n\n\u201cLet us now concede in argument the union of all the enumerated\nattributes. Let us accord the existence of a being perfect in goodness,\nwisdom, and power, who shall have made all things by his volition, and\ndecreed all occurrences in his wisdom. Such a being must command our\nadmiration and approval: he can command no more. As he is good and wise,\nhe is superior to all praise; as he is great and happy, he is\nindependent of all praise. As he is the author of our happiness, he has\nensured our love; but as he is our creator, he may command from us no\nduties. Supposing a god, all duties rest with him. If he has made us, he\nis bound to make us happy; and failing in the duty, he must be an object\nof just abhorrence to all his sentient creation. Kindness received must\nnecessarily inspire affection. This kindness, in a divine creator, as in\nan earthly parent, is a solemn duty,\u2014a sacred obligation,\u2014the\nnon-performance of which were the most atrocious of crimes. When\nperformed, love from the creature, as from the child, is a necessary\nconsequence, and an all-sufficient reward.\n\n\u201cAllowing then to the Theist his god, we stand to him in no relation\nthat can inspire fear, or involve duty. He can give us no happiness that\nhe was not bound to bestow: he can cherish us with no tenderness, that\nhe was not bound to yield. It is for him to gratify all our desires,\u2014or,\nif they be erroneous, to correct them. It is for us to demand every good\nin his power to grant, or in ours to enjoy. Let then, the theologist\nbanish fear and duty from his creed. It is love\u2014love alone that can be\nclaimed by gods or yielded by men.\n\n\u201cHave we said enough! Surely the absurdity of all the doctrines of\nreligion, and the iniquity of many, are sufficiently evident. To fear a\nbeing on account of his power, is degrading; to fear him if he be good,\nridiculous. Prove to us his existence; and prove to us his perfections;\nprove to us his parental care; love springs up in our bosoms, and repays\nhis bounty. If he care not to show us his existence, he desires not the\npayment of our love, and finds in the contemplation of his own works,\ntheir reward.\n\n\u201cBut, says the Theist, his existence is evident\u2014and, not to acknowledge\nit, a crime. It is not so to me, my friends. I see no sufficient\nevidence of his existence; and to reason of its possibility, I hold to\nbe an idle speculation. To doubt that which is evident is not in our\npower. To believe that which is not evident, is equally impossible to\nus. Theist! thou makest of thy god a being more weak, more silly than\nthyself. He punisheth as a crime the doubt of his existence! Why, then,\nlet him declare his existence, and we doubt no more. Should the\nwandering tribes of Scythia doubt the existence of Epicurus, should\nEpicurus be angry? What vanity\u2014what absurdity\u2014what silliness, oh!\nTheist! do ye not suppose in your god! Let him exist, this god, in all\nthe perfection of a poet\u2019s imagery; I lift to him a forehead assured and\nserene. \u2018I see thee, oh! God! in thy power, and admire thee: I see thee\nin thy goodness, and approve thee. Such homage only is worthy of thee to\nreceive, and of me to render.\u2019 And what does he reply? \u2018Thou art right,\ncreature of my fashioning! Thou canst not add nor take away from the sum\nof my felicity. I made thee to enjoy thy own, not to wonder at mine. I\nhave placed thee amid objects of desire, I have given thee means of\nenjoyment. Enjoy, then! Be happy! It was for that I made thee.\u2019\n\n\u201cHarken, then, my children! hearken to your teacher! Let it be a god or\na philosopher who speaks, the injunction is the same: _Enjoy, and be\nhappy!_ Is life short? It is an evil: But render life happy, its\nshortness is the _only_ evil. I call to you, as, if he exist, God must\ncall to you from heaven: _Enjoy, and be happy!_ Do you doubt the way?\nLet Epicurus be your guide. The source of every enjoyment is within\nyourselves. Good and evil lie before you. The good is\u2014all which can\nyield you pleasure: the evil\u2014what must bring you pain. Here is no\nparadox, no dark saying, no moral hid in fables.\n\n\u201cWe have considered the unsound fabric of religion. It remains to\nconsider that, equally unsound, of morals. The virtue of man is false as\nhis faith. What folly invented, knavery supports. Let us arise in our\nstrength, examine, judge, and be free!\u201d\n\nThe teacher here paused. The crowd stood, as if yet listening. \u201cAt a\nconvenient season, my children, we will examine farther into the nature\nof man and the science of life.\u201d\n\n\n                                THE END.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in\n      spelling.\n 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"A few days in Athens: being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":43542}