Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/405

THE EPICUREAN. 401 

He. What is my Spudceus hunting after, he is so intent upon his book, muttering I know 2iot what to himself? Sp. Hedonius, I was indeed hunting, but that was all, for I can catch nothing. He. What book is that in your bosom 1 Sp. Tully's " Dialogues of the Ends of Good Things." lie. But is it not better to inquire after the beginning of them than the end ? Sp. Mark Tully calls a perfect good the end of good, such as whosoever obtains can desire nothing more. He. It is, indeed, a very eloquent and learned piece ; but have you done any- thing to the purpose as to the attainment of the knowledge of the truth 1 Sp. Indeed I seem to have got this good by it, that I am more in uncertainty as to the ends of good than I was before. It is commonly the case of farmers to be at uncertainty as to the ends of lands. He. I wonder very much that there is so great a disagreement in the opinions of so many great men concerning so great a matter. Sp. No wonder at all, for ei-ror is very fertile, but ti'uth simple ; and they being ignorant of the head and fountain of the whole affair, they all make absurd and doting guesses. But which opinion do you think comes neai-est to the truth?

He. When I meet with M. Tully opposing them, I like none of them ; again, when I find him. defending them, I have not a word to say against it. But to me the Stoics seem to be the least out of the way, and next to them the Peripatetics. I like no sect so well as the Epicureans. Sp. There is no sect amongst them all that is so much condemned by a universal consent. He. Let us set prejudice aside, and let Epicurus be what he willj let us consider the thing in itself. He places the happiness of man in pleasure, and judges that life to be most blessed that has most pleasure and least pain. Sp. He does so. He. What can be more divine than this sentence? Sp. Everybody cries out, this is the saying of a brute, rather than of a man. He. I know they do, but they are mistaken in the names of things. If we will speak the truth none are greater Epicureans than those Christians that live a pious life. Sp. They come nearer to it than the Cynics; for they make their bodies lean with fasting, bewail their own weak- nesses, either are poor or else make themselves so by their liberality to the poor, are oppressed by the powerful, and derided by the populace. And if pleasure be that which makes happy, I think this kind of life is as distant from pleasure as can well be.

He. Will you admit of Plautus for an author? Sp. Yes, if he says that which is right. He. Then I will present you with one sentence of a naughty servant, that has more wisdom in it than all the paradoxes of the Stoics. Sp. Let me hear it. He. Nihil est miserius fjUam animus sibi tnali conscius, nothing can be more wretched than a guilty conscience. Sp. I approve the saying; but what do you infer from it? He. If nothing be more wretched than a guilty conscience, it follows of consequence that nothing is more happy than a clear conscience. Sp. A very good inference; but in what part of the world will you find a conscience that is clear from all that is evil 'I