Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/38

 Honesty, and reckons nothing but Vice a Misfortune. That makes Good and Evil, lye only in the use of the Will, and the Temper of the Mind : who declares Virtue self-sufficient for a happy Life, and that she stands in need of no Foreign Assistance. He that tells you that a perfect Philosopher is impregnable in his Happiness, and proof against the Impressions of Pain: That Virtue is never to be beaten off, 'twill keep a Man Company under all Tryals, mount the Scaffold, and the Wheel, and shine through his Limbs, while he's burning at the Stake. A Man that has such hardy Principles may talk at this rate; for here his Heart, and his Tongue go together, and there's consistency in the Case. But can any one be so void of common Sense, as to believe Epicurus in earnest in such Flights as these? Epicurus, I say, who makes Pleasure the Supreme Good, Pain and Torment, the most formidable Evil. And when he has done, states his Notions of these things in the most scandalous manner imaginable. For he affirms the Body the main Seat of Satisfaction; denies the Mind any independent Entertainment of her own: And maintains that all the Pleasure of Thought, either begins from the Body or Ends in it. And lastly, He is so frank as to confess; Rh