Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/24

 and Discipline into a Competition, this looks like a very unhandsome, and unreasonable Fancy. For all that, some have been so hardy as to endeavour the Reconciling these Contradictions ; and to make the Matter the more Extraordinary, it has been attempted by some of the Stoicks. Let's see a little how one of them pretends to manage the Paradox.

If you fancy there's any great matter between us, you are mistaken, says Seneca : A little difference indeed, when Virtue is all in all with one Sect, and Pleasure the Idol of the other!

Seneca goes on : Epicurus, says he, puts Pleasure under the same Rules which we do Virtue. But first, under Favour, the Stoicks prescrib'd no Laws to Virtue, but took their Measures from her. Farther, granting their Doctrines the same in some Cases, this little step would never bring them together. All the World allows a great Difference between the Professions of Medicine and Philosophy ; and yet their Prescriptions concerning Diet, and Management are often the same. Let's hear the Advice of that Eminent Physician Hippocrates ; Let Labour, and Meat and Drink, and Sleep and Pleasure be all taken with Moderation. And would not a Stoick, Epicurean, or any other Philosopher have Rh