When Theon had thus spoken, we thought good to
break up our walk to rest us awhile (as we were wont
to do) upon the benches. Nor did we continue any long
space in our silence at what was spoken; for Zeuxippus,
taking his hint from what had been said, spake to us:
Who will make up that of the discourse which is yet behind? For it hath not yet received its due conclusion;
and this gentleman, by mentioning divination and providence, did in my opinion suggest as much to us; for these
people boast that these very things contribute in no small
degree to the providing of their lives with pleasure, serenity, and assurance; so that there must be something said
to these too. Aristodemus subjoined then and said: As to
pleasure, I think there hath been enough said already
[p. 189]
to evince that, supposing their doctrine to be successful
and to attain its own design, it yet doth but ease us of fear
and a certain superstitious persuasion, but helps us not to
any comfort or joy from the Gods at all; nay, while it
brings us to such a state as to be neither disquieted nor
pleased with them, it doth but render us in the same
manner affected towards them as we are towards the
Scythians or Hyrcanians, from whom we expect neither
good nor harm. But if something more must yet be
added to what hath been already spoken, I think I may
very well take it from themselves. And in the first place,
they quarrel extremely with those that would take away
all sorrowing, weeping, and sighing for the death of
friends, and tell them that such unconcernedness as arrives
to an insensibility proceeds from some other worse cause,
to wit, inhumanity, excessive vain-glory, or prodigious
fierceness, and that therefore it would be better to be a
little concerned and affected, yea, and to liquor one's eyes
and be melted, with other pretty things of the like kind,
which they use foppishly to affect and counterfeit, that
they may be thought tender and loving-hearted people.
For just in this manner Epicurus expressed himself upon
the occasion of the death of Hegesianax, when he wrote
to Dositheus the father and to Pyrson the brother of the
deceased person; for I fortuned very lately to run over his
epistles. And I say, in imitation of them, that atheism is
no less an evil than inhumanity and vain-glory, and into
this they would lead us who take away with God's anger
the comfort we might derive from him. For it would be
much better for us to have something of the unsuiting
passion of dauntedness and fear conjoined and intermixed
with our sentiments of a Deity, than while we fly from it,
to leave ourselves neither hope, comfort, nor assurance in
the enjoyment of our good things, nor any recourse to
God in our adversity and misfortunes.
[p. 190]
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