, tortured, cut to pieces,
"How little I regard it!" Shall this be said by one who defines all evil
as pain, and measures every good by pleasure; who could ridicule whatever
we call either honourable or base, and could declare of us that we were
employed about words, and uttering mere empty sounds; and that nothing is
to be regarded by us, but as it is perceived to be smooth or rough by the
body? What, shall such a man as this, as I said, whose understanding is
little superior to the beasts, be at liberty to forget himself; and not
only to despise fortune, when the whole of his good and evil is in the
power of fortune, but to say, that he is happy in the most racking
torture, when he had actually declared pain to be not only the greatest
evil, but the only one? Nor did he take any trouble to provide himself
with those remedies which might have enabled him to bear pain; such as
firmness of mind, a shame of doing anything base, exercise, and the habit
of patience, precepts of courage, and a manly hardiness: but he says that
he supports himself on the single recollection of past pleasures, as if
any one, when the weather was so hot as that he was scarcely able to bear
it, should comfort himself by recollecting that he was once in my country
Arpinum, where he was surrounded on every side by cooling streams: for I
do not apprehend how past pleasures can allay present evils. But when he
says that a wise man is always happy, who would have no right to say so if
he were consistent with himself, what may they not do, who allow nothing
to be desirable, nothing to be looked on as good but what is honourable?
Let, then, the Peripatetics and old Academics follow my example, and at
length leave off muttering to themselves; and openly and with a clear
voice let them be bold to say, that a happy life may not be inconsistent
with the agonies of Phalaris's bull.

XXVII. But to dismiss the subtleties of the Stoics, which I am sensible I
have employed more than was necessary, let us admit of three kinds of
goods: and let them really be kinds of goods, provided no regard is had to
the body, and to external circumstances, as entitled to the appellation of
good in any other sense than because we are obliged to use them: but let
those other divine goods spread themselves far in every direction, and
reach the very heavens. Why, then, may I not call him happy, nay, the
happiest of men, who has attained them? Shall a wise man be afraid of
pain? wh