However, I do not know very well in what the pleasure, or voluptuousness of Epicurus consisted, for I never saw so many different opinions of any one as those of the morals of this philosopher.  Philosophers, and even his own disciples, have condemned him as sensual and indolent; magistrates have regarded his doctrines as pernicious to the public; Cicero, so just and so wise in his opinions, Plutarch, so much esteemed for his fair judgments, were not favorable to him, and so far as Christianity is concerned, the Fathers have represented him to be the greatest and the most dangerous of all impious men.  So much for his enemies; now for his partisans: 

Metrodorus, Hermachus, Meneceus, and numerous others, who philosophize according to his school, have as much veneration as friendship for him personally.  Diogenes Laertes could not have written his life to better advantage for his reputation.  Lucretius adored him.  Seneca, as much of an enemy of the sect as he was, spoke of him in the highest terms.  If some cities held him in horror, others erected statues in his honor, and if, among the Christians, the Fathers have condemned him, Gassendi and Bernier approve his principles.

In view of all these contrary authorities, how can the question be decided?  Shall I say that Epicurus was a corruptor of good morals, on the faith of a jealous philosopher, of a disgruntled disciple, who would have been delighted, in his resentment, to go to the length of inflicting a personal injury?  Moreover, had Epicurus intended to destroy the idea of Providence and the immortality of the soul, is it not reasonable to suppose that the world would have revolted against so scandalous a doctrine, and that the life of the philosopher would have been attacked to discredit his opinions more easily?

If, therefore, I find it difficult to believe what his enemies and the envious have published against him, I should also easily credit what his partisans have urged in his defence.

I do not believe that Epicurus desired to broach a voluptuousness harsher than the virtue of the Stoics.  Such a jealousy of austerity would appear to me extraordinary in a voluptuary philosopher, from whatever point of view that word may be considered.  A fine secret that, to declaim against a virtue which destroys sentiment in a sage, and establishes one that admits of no operation.

The sage, according to the Stoics, is a man of insensible virtue; that of the Epicureans, an immovable voluptuary.  The former suffers pain without having any pain; the latter enjoys voluptuousness without being voluptuous—­a pleasure without pleasure.  With what object in view, could a philosopher who denied the immortality of the soul, mortify the senses?  Why divorce the two parties composed of the same elements, whose sole advantage is in a concert of union for their mutual pleasure?  I pardon our religious devotees, who diet on herbs, in the hope that they will obtain an eternal felicity, but that a philosopher, who knows no other good than that to be found in this world, that a doctor of voluptuousness should diet on bread and water, to reach sovereign happiness in this life, is something my intelligence refuses to contemplate.