CHAP. II.] FELICITY — TS WHAT TLACED. 277 



As for the question, it began to be debated between So- 

 crates and a Sophist. Socrates asserted that felicity lay in 

 a constant peace and tranquillity of mind, but the Sophist 

 placed it in great appetite and great fruition. From reason- 

 ing they fell to railing, when the Sophist said, the felicity of 

 Socrates was the felicity of a stock or a stone ; Socrates, on 

 the other hand, said, the felicity of the Sophist was the feli- 

 city of one who is always itching and always scratching. 

 And both opinions have their supporters;^ for the school 

 even of Epicurus, which allowed that virtue greatly con- 

 duced to felicity, is on the side of Socrates; and if this be 

 the case, certainly virtue is more useful in appeasing disor- 

 ders than in obtaining desires. The Sophist's opinion is some- 

 what favoured by the assertion above mentioned, viz., that 

 perfective good is superior to conservative good, because 

 every obtaining of a desire seems gradually to perfect nature, 

 wliich though not strictly true, yet a circular motion has 

 some appearance of a progressive one. 



As for the other point, whether human nature is not at 

 the same time capable both of tranquillity and fruition, a 

 just determination of it will render the former question un- 

 necessary. And do we not often see the minds of men so 

 framed and disposed, as to be greatly affected with present 

 pleasures, and yet quietly suffer the loss of them 1 — ^Whence 

 that philosophical progression, " Use not, that you may not 

 wish ; wish not, that you may not fear," seems an indication 

 of a weak, diffident, and timorous mind. And, indeed, most 

 doctrines of the philosophers appear to be too distrustful, 

 and to take more care of mankind than the nature of the 

 thing requires. Thus they increase the fears of death by the 

 remedies they bring against it; for whilst they make the 

 life of man little more than a preparation and discipline for 

 death, it is impossible but the enemy must appear terrible, 

 when there is no end of the defence to be made against him. 

 The poet did better for a heathen, who placed the end of 

 life among the privileges of nature, — 



** Qui spatium vitao extremuin inter munera ponat 

 Naturae."' 



Thus the philosophers, in all cases, endeavour to render 

 the mind too uniform and harmonical, without enuring it tg 

 k Plato, Gorgiae^ i. 492. ^ Juvenal, Sat. x. 860t 



