not to them; and if they fly from blows, wounds, and slaughters,
they fear no more in death than is dismaying to the
Epicurean himself.

Such then are the things they boast to have attained by their
philosophy. Let us now see what those are they deprive themselves
of and chase away from them. For those diffusions of the mind that
arise from the body, and the pleasing condition of the body, if
they be but moderate, appear to have nothing in them that is either
great or considerable; but if they be excessive, besides their
being vain and uncertain, they are also importune and petulant;
nor should a man term them either mental satisfactions or gayeties,
but rather corporeal gratifications, they being at best but the
simperings and effeminacies of the mind. But now such as justly
deserve the names of complacencies and joys are wholly refined from
their contraries, and are immixed with neither vexation, remorse,
nor repentance; and their good is congenial to the mind and truly
mental and genuine, and not superinduced. Nor is it devoid of
reason, but most rational, as springing either from that in the
mind that is contemplative and inquiring, or else from that part of
it that is active and heroic. How many and how great satisfactions
either of these affords us, no one can ever relate. But to hint
briefly at some of them. We have the historians before us, which,
though they find us many and delightful exercises, still leave our
desire after truth insatiate and uncloyed with pleasure, through
which even lies are not without their grace. Yea, tales and poetic
fictions, while they cannot gain upon our belief, have something in
them that is charming to us.

For do but think with yourself, with what a sting we read Plato's