80 ftbe (Barren 



have more or less appearance of being real, 

 according to the dexterousness and skill of him 

 that plays them ; whereas perhaps, if we were 

 capable of knowing truth and nature, these fine 

 schemes would prove like rover shots, some 

 nearer and some farther off, but all at great 

 distance from the mark; it may be, none in 

 sight. 



Yet, in the midst of these and many other 

 such disputes and contentions in their natural 

 philosophy, they seemed to agree much better 

 in their moral ; and, upon their inquiries after 

 the ultimate end of man, which was his happi- 

 ness, their contentions or differences seemed to 

 be rather in words, than in the sense of their 

 opinions, or in the true meaning of their several 

 authors or masters of their sects : all concluded 

 that happiness was the chief good, and ought 

 to be the ultimate end of man ; that, as this was 

 the end of wisdom, so wisdom was the way to 

 happiness. The question then was, in what 

 this happiness consisted. The contention grew 

 warmest between the Stoics and the Epicureans ; 

 the other sects, in this point, siding in a man- 

 ner with one or the other of these in their con- 

 ceptions or expressions. The Stoics would 

 have it to consist in virtue, and the Epicureans 

 in pleasure ; yet the most reasonable of the 

 Stoics made the pleasure of virtue to be the 



