THE SECOND BOOK 325 



mistress and the maid change habits,) to be but as a servant, 

 without which pleasure cannot be served and attended; and 

 the reformed school of the Epicureans, which placed it in 

 serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation ; as if 

 they would have deposed Jupiter again, and restored 

 Saturn and the first age, when there was no summer nor 

 winter, spring nor autumn, but all after one air and season; 

 and Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment of the 

 disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of good and 

 evil, esteeming things according to the clearness of the 

 desires, or the reluctation ; which opinion was revived in 

 the heresy of the Anabaptists, measuring things according 

 to the motions of the spirit, and the constancy or wavering 

 of belief: all which are manifest to tend to private repose 

 and contentment, and not to point of society. 



It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which pre- 

 supposeth that felicity must be placed in those things which 

 are in our power, lest we be liable to fortune and disturb- 

 ance : as if it were not a thing much more happy to fail 

 in good and virtuous ends for the public, than to obtain all 

 that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune ; as 

 Consalvo said to his soldiers, shewing them Naples, and 

 protesting he had rather die one foot forwards than to have 

 his life secured for long by one foot of retreat ; whereunto 

 the wisdom of that heavenly leader hath signed, who hath 

 affirmed that * a good conscience is a continual feast ' : shew- 

 ing plainly that the conscience of good intentions, howsoever 

 succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature than all the 

 provision which can be made for security and repose. 



It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy which 

 grew general about the time of Epictetus, in converting it 

 into an occupation or profession ; as if the purpose had 

 been, not to resist and extinguish perturbations, but to fly 

 and avoid the causes of them, and to shape a particular 

 kind and course of life to that end ; introducing such an 

 health of mind, as was that health of body of which 

 Aristotle speaketh of Herodicus, who did nothing all his 

 life long but intend his health : whereas if men refer them- 

 selves to duties of society, as that health of body is best 



