Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Plenius & Melius Chrysippo & Crantore dicit.27
Christianity forbiddeth common and customary Swearing, whether by Creatures, or by the Deity; and all irreligious Swearing. But no Moral Philosophers ever prohibited Swearing by the Creatures. Socrates ordinarily practis’d it, (doubtless out of Reverence to the Gods,) sometimes Swearing by Animals, a Dog, a Goose, a Goat, and sometimes by Plants, an Oak, or a Plane-Tree. Nor is this the only Defect in their Discipline touching Oaths; for being Separatists from the Popular Pagans, whom they contemn’d at a great Rate, and no great Friends to their Civil Government, they were shy of solemn judicial Oaths, which are of all other the most allowable and needful, but made no scruple of idle criminal Swearing. Clinias the Pythagorean, in a Suit depending before the Judge, might have freed himself from a Fine of three Talents, by taking a true and just Oath: But he chose rather to pay the Mulct, than to take the Oath; so great a respect had these Pythagoreans for their own Philosophical Institution, and so little for Civil Government. For it is well known, that they were not so shy of Swearing by the Master of their Institution, as Religionists Swear by their God: And Hierocles, who hath given many wise Cautions touching the Use of Oaths, with respect to the Honour of the Gods, justifieth their Practice. Touching a solemn judicial Oath Epictetus saith, Refuse it altogether, if it be possible: If not, “as much as may be”; yet himself ordinarily swears in his Dissertations, “I swear to you” (saith he) “by all the Gods.”
The Epicurean Tenets of Morality.
§XII. So much for the Stoicks, who “plac’d Happiness in Virtue only.” The Epicurean Scheme, which makes the whole Man to be only a corporeal Engine, may be dispatch’d (from Bp. Parker) in a few Words.28 For Epicurus, consistently with that Principle, “plac’d all Happiness in the Pleasure of the Body alone,” which Doctrine at once destroys all Obligations to Virtue and Honesty, and to Religion, which he trampled under Foot. Epicurus himself plac’d all Happiness in the Enjoyments of the Palate, and such like. Metrodorus, his favourite Disciple, made the Belly, the only Seat of Happiness. In freedom from Pain, in sensual Enjoyments, and in Reflexions upon them, he plac’d the whole of Happiness. Indolence is the Happiness of Stones, and Sensual Pleasures, of Swine, in as great perfection as Epicurus himself enjoy’d them, forought we know. So that all the boasted Happiness of the Epicureans, without a future State, was equally vain and insecure, which at once effectually overthrows it; shocking us, even in the Enjoyment of what is mean and low, with the Fears of losing even that. And then, to comfort us under all the Miseries of Life, they throw out a parcel of Falshoods and Subtleties. As that Length of Time doth not increase Happiness; as if either Happiness, or Misery, for 2 Hours were not twice as great as Happiness, or Misery, for one Hour. That Pain is short, if great; light, if long, which will afford but very little Relief to a Man under those Chronical Diseases of great Torture, Gout and Stone. That we must lop off the Fear of future Evils, and the Remembrance of those which are past. Easily said! The Difficulty lies in the Application. That we are to resist Pain with all our Power; for, if we fly, we shall be conquer’d, if we stand our Ground, we shall gain the Victory. As if we could either fly from, or resist, Pain, as a Man does his Enemy.
Of a piece with these, are their Consolations against the Fear of Death; against which nothing is a solid Comfort, in the midst of our present Enjoyments, but the well-grounded Hopes of a happy Immortality. How ridiculous an Antidote is it against that which takes away all our Enjoyments, to tell us, That, when that comes, it cannot hurt us, because when that is, we are not? Self-Love and the Fear of Annihilation are Instincts too powerful to be baffled by such a subtlety. Just (as Plutarch well observes) as if you should tell a Man in a Storm at Sea, that your Ship has no Pilot, and that there is no hope of allaying the Tempest; but yet, however, be not afraid, for in a little Time the Ship shall split and sink, and, when you are drown’d, the Storm will trouble you no longer. According to this Scheme, if we have all the Enjoyment in Life we can expect, we lose Happiness in a little Time after we come to know what it is, of which too we are in continual Apprehensions; but the Wretched come into the World, only to lament and leave it; than which how much better would it be, not to have been born. But, say they, we ought to bear with Patience what we cannot avoid. But the Fear of it, upon their Scheme of Annihilation, is as Death it-self is, tho’ the Philosopher should take ever so much Pains to expose it as foolish; whose Rules cannot take away what is Natural, and, consequently, not in our Power. “In the next Place,” say they, “we are already Dead to so much of our Life as is past and gone; so that so much as we live, we die, and that which we call Death, is but our last Death; and, therefore, as we fear not our Death that is past, why should we that which is to come?” But, if we have been dying ever since we were born, that is it which grieves us, that we cannot be doing so for ever. Such was the Reasoning of the Epicurean Old Man, who reconcil’d himself to his approaching Death, because “it is as absurd to fear Death as old Age, which yet all desire, in that as old Age follows Youth, so Death follows old Age.” For old Age is desirable,