[Footnote 16:  These exhortations to active friendship were not unfruitful.  We know, even by the admission of witnesses adverse to the Epicurean doctrines, that the harmony among the members of the sect, with common veneration for the founder, was more marked and more enduring than that exhibited by any of the other philosophical sects.  Epicurus himself was a man of amiable personal qualities:  his testament, still remaining, shows an affectionate regard, both for his surviving friends, and for the permanent attachment of each, to the others, as well as of all to the school.  Diogenes Laertius tells us—­nearly 200 years after Christ, and 450 years after the death of Epicurus—­that the Epicurean sect still continued its numbers and dignity, having outlasted its contemporaries and rivals.  The harmony among the Epicureans may be explained, not merely from the temper of the master, but partly from the doctrines and plan of life that he recommended.  Ambition and love of power were discouraged:  rivalry among the members for success, either political or rhetorical, was at any rate a rare exception:  all were taught to confine themselves to that privacy of life and love of philosophical communion, which alike required and nourished the mutual sympathies of the brotherhood.]

[Footnote 17:  Consistently with this view of happiness, Epicurus advised, in regard to politics, quiet submission, to established authority, without active meddling beyond what necessity required.]

[Footnote 18:  Locke examines the Innate Principles put forth, by Lord Herbert in his book De Veritate, 1st, There is a supreme governor of the world; 2nd, Worship is due to him; 3rd, Virtue, joined with Piety, is the best Worship; 4th, Men must repent of their sins; 5th, There will be a future life of rewards and punishments.  Locke admits these to be such truths as a rational creature, after due explanation given them, can hardly avoid attending to; but he will not allow them to be innate.  For, First, There are other propositions with, as good a claim as these to be of the number imprinted by nature on the mind.

Secondly, The marks assigned are not found in all the propositions.  Many men, and even whole nations, disbelieve some of them.

Then, as to the third principle,—­virtue, joined with piety, is the best worship of God; he cannot see how it can be innate, seeing that it contains a name, virtue, of the greatest possible uncertainty of meaning.  For, if virtue be taken, as commonly it is, to denote the actions accounted laudable in particular countries, then the proposition will be untrue.  Or, if it is taken to mean accordance with God’s will, it will then be true, but unmeaning; that God will be pleased with what he commands is an identical assertion, of no use to any one.

So the fourth proposition,—­men must repent of their sins,—­is open to the same remark.  It is not possible that God should engrave on men’s minds principles couched on such uncertain words as Virtue and Sin.  Nay more, as a general word is nothing in itself, but only report as to particular facts, the knowledge of rules is a knowledge of a sufficient number of actions to determine the rule. [Innate principles are not compatible with Nominalism.]