if he recommended to man, as his great object, to pursue continual pleasure, or a ftate of tranquillity: ftill he left the moral virtues in fufficient force, if not to fecure the favour of GOD, and the divine protection and rewards; yet to promote the

peace and welfare of a man's felf, confidered both as an individual, and a member of fociety. For he well knew, that the mind is not to be poffeffed in ferenity, unless a strict felf-government be maintained that for want of it the natural appetites become turbulent, and raise the most violent commotions there that as a city in an infurrection, and a private family in domeftic ftrife; fo the mind, agitated by paffions that are under no control, cannot poffibly enjoy any reft or quiet. And moreover, that fince man, in fociety is intimately connected with man, and their interefts bound up together; the focial obligations cannot be difpensed with, as they are so much adapted to conciliate kindness and favour, to produce an intercourfe of good and friendly offices, and to prevent one man from vexing and interfering with another. It is therefore the maxim of Epicurus that no wife (or prudent) man

a Cic. de Fin. L. I. §. 18. p. 59.

b Cic. de Fin.

can

can fail of obtaining happiness, which eludes the pursuit of all mankind befides. Such were the fentiments of that philofopher, whose whole ftudy it was to exalt the enjoyments of life; to preferve it, unincumbered even with the obligations of religion: and who allowed (not without reluctance) only those restraints to voluptuous indulgence, which experience taught him to be neceffary to fecure, to prolong the gratifi-cation. There is not therefore the authority of Epicurus, and if not of him, of no school of philofophy certainly, to be pleaded in excufe for those, who lead their lives without prudence, without propofing to themselves fome rational end to pursue, and taking pains to fall into the track that leads to it. Wherefore, as far as the argument taken from the common fense, reafon, and experience of all mankind is conclufive (which in queftions of expediency ought to have the first weight) so far is it injudicious, to tread the paths of life at random, to forfake the guidance of prudence; and as herds of cattle, to wander without difcretion, not where a fpot of more tempting herbage invites them, but where fancy im

d

Seneca de Vitâ beatâ.

d Vitâ beatâ.

A 2

pels

pels them, that is to be reduced to no rational principle whatever.

But what is that philofophy, which excludes the fupreme Being, from the care and direction of the univerfe?It breaks the bonds, 'tis true, of piety, fanctity and religion; and renders worship, devotion, and prayer, needlefs and unavailing fervices. But then it roots up at the fame time all the enjoyment of life: destroying the fatisfaction of a profperous ftate, by rendering the poffeffion infecure, and depriving the miferable, of his only refuge and confolation. For a being, inconfiderable, as an individual man, in the universe, defirous above all things, by the law of his nature, to preserve his exiftence; yet obnoxious, in an extreme, to injury and deftruction from every quarter, is a most forlorn and abject creature, without the protection of a governor of the world. On this fuppofition, the state of man is even worse than that of every other fpecies in the animal world. They are all fubject alike to the law of felf prefervation, the first law, the most ruling paffion of their nature and they are all individually weak, and infufficient for that purpose. But the

e Cic. de Nat. Deor.

irrational

irrational fpecies feem neither to be tortured with the recollection of paft evils, nor the apprehenfion of thofe to come: while man's boafted reason, and the faculty of prudence which diftinguishes him, enable him to look forward to the confequences of things. By this forefight he perceives the approach of danger, and views the progrefs of calamities ftill remote; thus anticipating evils, that are brought on him by natural or moral causes, which neither his skill can elude, or his power control. Though the fupreme Being has fo amply furnished every habitable part of the globe with the neceffary accommodations for human life; yet ; yet is every clime, every feafon, and every station obnoxious to its peculiar calamities. In fome countries earthquakes, in others tempefts, in others famine and peftilence defolate populous regions, and sweep off the miserable inhabitants in all, unfruitful feafons, and accidental calamities, at one time, blaft the fortunes of individuals; at another, fpread a general misfortune. When the peasant, at the foot of Vefuvius, beholds the burning torrent descending, or the havock made in the fertile lands of another husbandman: why does he fecurely cultivate his own fields, which the next eruption may render defolate ;

A 3

folate; why not rather flee from this land of terror, and defert his precarious habitation? The confidence that is neceffary to encourage him to perfift in his courfe of induftry; and to induce every man, in this ftate of uncertain tenure, not to defert every office in life that looks beyond the present moment, can only rationally be derived from the perfuafion, that the prefervation of man, a creature formed not fufficient to himself, is, and must be, an object, by no means foreign from the attention of the author of

his nature.

Or, if the evils that fall on man, from natural caufes be not enough; let thofe that fpring from the diforderly paffions of mankind be taken alfo into the account. From man's ungoverned appetites, his luft of power, of wealth, of gratification, wars arise; and tumults, rapine, murder, treafon, violence depopulate regions endowed with the richest gifts of nature. And even abstracting public calamities, and the themes of the tragic mufe; those perplexities, which have furnished fubjects for comic entertainment, are not lefs baneful to the comfort of life: domestic jars, the ill offices of neighbours,

f Harris on Happiness.

mortifi