2793" on Epicurus. 27g 
- But in a manner ultimately inscrutable to the wis- 
dom of man, though discoverable every where, ts 
faint but beautiful traces of the glorious system”. 
Having said thus, he paused, and I, though full of 
admiration and respect, was able in broken accents 
thus to addrefs the venerable man. . 
~ O excellent and injured Epicurus! Thou hast 
now amply discovered that virtue did not deceive 
thee upon earth, but is the never failing triend of 
man. 
- I also desire to be fully persuaded that all rational 
beings were formed for each other and that bearing 
with them is a branch of justice and a source of hap- 
pinefs ; that mistakes are involuntary, and the ulti« 
mate affections of the heart almost always unknown: 
that health of body and peace of mind, which consti- 
tute supreme happinefs, can consist only in virtue 
producing in the body absence from pain and irrita~ 
tion by temperance, and in the mind tranquillity, by 
the love of order and by confidence in the perfectron of 
the Supreme Being and of the universe. Ah why 
fhould i suffer the little affair of glory to disturb me 
when I reflect how all the things that I admire {hall 
be involved in oblivion and in the vast immensity of 
eternal duration. \ 
How empty the noisy echo of applauses ; how 
_ fickle and injudicious the applauders ; how narrow 
the bounds within which our praise is coofined ; and 
that the earth itself, nay all that the finest glafses can © 
descry in the firmament, 1s but as a point im the infi- 
pity of nature! 
