The Complete Works, vol 3: Essays and Miscellanies | Page 4

our manner is) in
the gymnasium, Zeuxippus began to us: In my opinion, said he, the
debate was managed on our side with more softness and less freedom
than was fitting. I am sure, Heraclides went away disgusted with us, for
handling Epicurus and Aletrodorus more roughly than they deserved.
Yet you may remember, replied Theon, how you told them that Colotes
himself, compared with the rhetoric of those two gentlemen, would
appear the complaisantest man alive; for when they have raked together
the lewdest terms of ignominy the tongue of man ever used, as
buffooneries, trollings, arrogancies, whorings, assassinations, whining
counterfeits, black-guards, and blockheads, they faintly throw them in
the faces of Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Protagoras, Theophrastus,
Heraclides, Hipparchus, and which not, even of the best and most

celebrated authorities. So that, should they pass for very knowing men
upon all other accounts, yet their very calumnies and reviling language
would bespeak them at the greatest distance from philosophy
imaginable. For emulation can never enter that godlike consort, nor
such fretfulness as wants resolution to conceal its own resentments.
Aristodemus then subjoined: Heraclides, you know, is a great
philologist; and that may be the reason why he made Epicurus those
amends for the poetic din (so, that party style poetry) and for the
fooleries of Homer; or else, it may be, it was because Metrodorus had
libelled that poet in so many books. But let us let these gentlemen pass
at present, Zeuxippus, and rather return to what was charged upon the
philosophers in the beginning of our discourse, that it is impossible to
live according to their tenets. And I see not why we two may not
despatch this affair betwixt us, with the good assistance of Theon; for I
find this gentleman (meaning me) is already tired. Then Theon said to
him,
Our fellows have that garland from us won;
therefore, if you please,
Let's fix another goal, and at that run. ("Odyssey," xxii, 6)
We will even prosecute them at the suit of the philosophers, in the
following form: We'll prove, if we can, that it is impossible to live a
pleasurable life according to their tenets. Bless me! said I to him,
smiling, you seem to me to level your foot at the very bellies of the
men, and to design to enter the list with them for their lives, whilst you
go about to rob them thus of their pleasure, and they cry out to you,
"Forbear, we're no good boxers, sir;
no, nor good pleaders, nor good senators, nor good magistrates either;
"Our proper talent is to eat and drink." ("Odyssey," viii, 246, 248)
and to excite such tender and delicate motions in our bodies as may
chafe our imaginations to some jolly delight or gayety." And therefore
you seem to me not so much to take off (as I may say) the pleasurable
part, as to deprive the men of their very lives, while you will not leave
them to live pleasurably. Nay then, said Theon, if you approve so
highly of this subject, why do you not set in hand to it? By all means,
said I, I am for this, and shall not only hear but answer you too, if you
shall insist. But I must leave it to you to take the lead.
Then, after Theon had spoken something to excuse himself,

Aristodemus said: When we had so short and fair a cut to our design,
how have you blocked up the way before us, by preventing us from
joining issue with the faction at the very first upon the single point of
propriety! For you must grant, it can be no easy matter to drive men
already possessed that pleasure is their utmost good yet to believe a life
of pleasure impossible to be attained. But now the truth is, that when
they failed of living becomingly they failed also of living pleasurably;
for to live pleasurably without living becomingly is even by themselves
allowed inconsistent.
Theon then said: We may probably resume the consideration of that in
the process of our discourse; in the interim we will make use of their
concessions. Now they suppose their last good to lie about the belly
and such other conveyances of the body as let in pleasure and not pain;
and are of opinion, that all the brave and ingenious inventions that ever
have been were contrived at first for the pleasure of the belly, or the
good hope of compassing such pleasure,--as the sage Metrodorus
informs us. By which, my good friend, it is very plain, they found their
pleasure in a poor, rotten, and unsure thing, and one that is equally
perforated for pains, by the very passages they receive their pleasures
by; or rather indeed, that admits pleasure but