meddled not with him
above once or twice, and that very gently. Thus, if you compare the
lives of Pliny and Seneca (not their writings,) you shall find Pliny,
with his mortality of the soul, did as far exceed Seneca in honesty of
manners, as Seneca excels him in religious discourse. The Epicureans
observed honesty above others, and in their conversation were usually
found inoffensive and virtuous, and for that reason were often employed
by the Romans when they could persuade them to accept of great employs,
for their fault was not any want of ability or honesty, but their
general desire of leading a private life of ease, and free from trouble,
although inglorious. For when immortality is not owned, there can be no
ambition of posthumous glory.

"The Epicureans, instead of those bloody scenes of gallantry (which
tyrants applaud,) undertook to manage carefully the inheritance of
orphans; bringing up, at their own charge, the children of their
deceased friends, and were counted good men, unless it were in front of
religious worship; for they constantly affirmed that there were no Gods,
or, at least, such as concerned themselves with human affairs, according
to the poets. Neither doth the hope of immortality conduce to fortitude,
as some vainly suggest, for Brutus was not more valiant than Cassius;
and if we will confess the truth, the deeds of Brutus were more cruel
than those of Cassius; for he used the Rhodians, who were his enemies,
far more kindly than Brutus did those amicable cities which he governed.
In a word, though they both, had a hand in Caesar's murder, yet Brutus
was the only parricide. So that the Stoics, which believed a Providence,
lived as if there were none; whereas the Epicureans, who denied it,
lived as if there were.... The next sect to the Epicureans, in point
of incredulity, concerning the soul, 1 conceive to be the Sceptics, who
were by some esteemed, not only the modestest, but the most perspicuous
of all sects. They neither affirmed nor denied anything, but doubted
of all things. They thought all our knowledge seemed rather like truth,
than to be really true, and that for such like reasons as these:--

"1. They denied any knowledge of the Divine Nature, because, they say,
to know adequately is to comprehend, and to comprehend is to contain,
and the thing contained must be less than that which contains it; to
know inadequately is not to know.

"2. From the uncertainty of our senses, as, for inst