[282] 252.  It must be added that pleasures enjoyed too often and to excess would be a very great evil.  There are some which Hippocrates compared to the falling sickness, and Scioppius doubtless only made pretence of envying the sparrows in order to be agreeably playful in a learned and far from playful work.  Highly seasoned foods are injurious to health and impair the niceness of a delicate sense; and in general bodily pleasures are a kind of expenditure of the spirit, though they be made good in some better than in others.

253.  As proof, however, that the evil exceeds the good is quoted the instance of M. de la Motte le Vayer (Letter 134), who would not have been willing to return to the world, supposing he had had to play the same part as providence had already assigned to him.  But I have already said that I think one would accept the proposal of him who could re-knot the thread of Fate if a new part were promised to us, even though it should not be better than the first.  Thus from M. de la Motte le Vayer’s saying it does not follow that he would not have wished for the part he had already played, provided it had been new, as M. Bayle seems to take it.

254.  The pleasures of the mind are the purest, and of greatest service in making joy endure.  Cardan, when already an old man, was so content with his state that he protested solemnly that he would not exchange it for the state of the richest of young men who at the same time was ignorant.  M. de la Motte le Vayer quotes the saying himself without criticizing it.  Knowledge has doubtless charms which cannot be conceived by those who have not tasted them.  I do not mean a mere knowledge of facts without that of reasons, but knowledge like that of Cardan, who with all his faults was a great man, and would have been incomparable without those faults.

  Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas!
  Ille metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
  Subjecit pedibus.

It is no small thing to be content with God and with the universe, not to fear what destiny has in store for us, nor to complain of what befalls us.  Acquaintance with true principles gives us this advantage, quite other than that the Stoics and the Epicureans derived from their philosophy.  There is as much difference between true morality and theirs as there is [283] between joy and patience:  for their tranquillity was founded only on necessity, while ours must rest upon the perfection and beauty of things, upon our own happiness.

255.  What, then, shall we say of bodily sufferings?  May they not be sufficiently acute to disturb the sage’s tranquillity?  Aristotle assents; the Stoics were of a different opinion, and even the Epicureans likewise.  M. Descartes revived the doctrine of these philosophers; he says in the letter just quoted:  ’that even amid the worst misfortunes and the most overwhelming sufferings one may always be content, if only one knows how to exercise reason’.