i. e. Methinks I've Three invited to a Feast, } To please them all, what Dishes fhall I chufe? What not? What he prefers, you Two refuse; What you yourself approve, offends their Sight, Will mar their Meal, and pall their Appetite. Such muft naturally be the Anfwer to their Contests and Debates. Some fay, that our Well-being confifts in Virtue, others in Pleafure, others in fubmitting to Nature 3 one in Knowledge, another in being exempt from Pain, another in not fuffering ourselves to be carried away by Appearances; and this Fancy feems to have fome Relation to that of the ancient Pythagoreans. Nil admirari prope res eft una Numici, i. e. Not to admire, Numicus, is almost the Best, If not the only Means to make and keep us Bleft. Which is the Drift of the Pyrrhonian Sect. Ariftotle attri butes the Admiring of nothing to Magnanimity: And Arcefilaus faid, that Conftancy, and a right inflexible State of Judgment, were a real Good; but Confent and Conformity, Vices and Evils:' 'Tis true, that, in thus eftablishing it by a certain Axiom, he quitted Pyrrhonifm'. . nifts. ૧ The Pyrrhonians, when they fay, that the Ataraxy, The Ataraxy which is the Immobility of Judgment, is the of the Pyriho- Sovereign Good, do not defign to speak it affirmatively; but that the fame Motion of the Soul, which makes them avoid Precipices, and take Shelter from the Air, prefents them this Fancy, and makes them refuse another. Character of P Hor. lib. i. C. 33. p. 48. How much do I wifh, that, whilft I live, either fome other, or Juftus Lipfius, the most learned Man now living, of a moft polite and judicious Epist. 6. v. 1, z. 9 Sext. Empir. Pyrr. Hypot. lib. i. ! Idem, ibid. judicious Understanding, and truly refembling my Turnebus, had both the Will, and Health, and Leifure fufficient, fincerely to collect into a Register, according Plan of a to their Divifions and Claffes, as many as are Treatife of the to be found of the Opinions of the ancient different Sects. Philofophers, about the Subject of our Being of Philofophers. and Manners, their Controverfies, the Succeffion and Reputation of the Sects, with the Application of the Lives of the Authors, and their Difciples, to their own Precepts, in memorable Accidents, and upon exemplary Occafions. What a beautiful and useful Work that would be! 3 The Confufion into which Men run, about the Regularity of their Manners. For, if it be from ourselves, that we are to extract the Rules of our Manners, into what a Confufion do we throw ourselves? For that which our Reason advises us to, as the most probable, is generally for every one to obey the Laws of his Country, as it was the Advice of Socrates, infpired, as he pretends himself, by a Divine Counsel. And what does this mean, but that our Duty has no other Rule but what is accidental ? Truth ought to have a like and univerfal Vifage: If Man could know Equity and Juftice, that it had a Body, and a true Being, he would not fetter it to the Conditions of this Country, or that: It would not be from the Whimsies of the Per fians or Indians, that Virtue would receive its Form. There is nothing more fubject to perpetual Agitation than the Laws. Since I was born, I have Laws Jubject known thofe of the English, our Neighbours, to continual " three or four Times changed, not only in Changes. Matters of Civil Regimen, which is the only Thing wherein Conftancy is difpenfed with, but in the most important Subject that can be, namely, Religion: At which I am vexed and ashamed, because it is a Nation, with whom those of my Province have formerly had fo great Fami liarity, that there yet remain, in my Family, fome Footsteps of our ancient Kindred. And here, with us at Home, I have known a Thing, that was Capital, to become lawful; and we that hold others, are likewise, according to the Chance of War, in a Poffibility of being found, 2.4 Book II. found, one Day, guilty of High-Treafon, both against God and Man, fhould the Juftice of our Arms fall into the Power of Injuftice, and, after a few Years Poffeffion, take a quite contrary Being. How could that ancient God' more clearly accuse the Ignorance of human Knowledge concerning the Divine Being, and give Men to understand, that their Religion was but a Thing of their own Contrivance, useful as a Bound to their Society, than by declaring, as he did to those who came to his Tripod for Inftruction, That every one's true Worship was that ' which he found in Use in the Place where he chanced to be?' O God, what infinite Obligation have we to the Bounty of our Sovereign Creator, for having purged our Belief from those wandering and arbitrary Devotions, and for having placed it upon the Eternal Foundation of his Holy Word! But what will then Philosophy fay to us in this Neceffity, that we must follow the Laws of our Country? That is to say, the floating Sea of the Opinions of a Republic, or a Prince, that will paint out Justice for me in as many Colours, and reform it as many Ways as there are Changes of Paffions in themselves. I cannot fuffer my Judgment to be fo flexible: Where is the Goodness of a Thing, which I faw Yefterday in Repute, and To-morrow in none, and which, on the Croffing of a River, fhall become a Crime? What Truth is it that these Mountains inclose, but is a Lye to the World beyond them? But they are pleasant, when, to give some Certainty to the Laws, they say, that there are fome firm, perpetual, and unchangeable,' which they call Natural, that are imprinted in • human Kind by the Condition of their own • Effence;' and those fome reckon three, fome four, fome more, fome lefs; a Sign that it is a Mark as doubtful as the reft. Now, they are fo unfortunate (for what can I call it elfe but Misfortune, when, of so infinite a Number of Laws, there fhould not be found one, at least, that Fortune, and the Temerity of Chance, has suffered to be univerfally received by the Confent of all Nations?) they Natural Laws, whether confant and immutable. are, I fay, fo miferable, that, of these three or four felect Laws, there is not one that is not contradicted and difowned, not only by one Nation, but by many. Now, the only likely Sign by which they can prove any Laws to be Natural, is the Univerfality of Approbation; for we should, without Doubt, all agree to follow that which Nature had truly ordained us; and not only every Nation, but every particular Man would refent the Force and Violence that any one should do him, who would put him upon any Thing contrary to this Law. Let them produce me but one of this Condition. · Protagoras and Arifto gave no other Effence to the Juftice of Laws, than the Authority and Opi- The Founda'nion of the Legislator, and that, thefe laid tion of the Jufafide, the Things honeft and good would tice of Laws. 'lofe their Qualities, and remain empty Names of Things ' indifferent.' Thrafymachus, in Plato, is of Opinion, that ⚫ there is no other Right but the Convenience of the Superior.' There is not any Thing wherein the World is fo various, as in Laws and Customs; fuch a Thing is abominable here, which is elsewhere in Efteem, as in Lacedamonia, the Dexterity of Stealing: Marriages within the Degrees of Confanguinity are capitally interdicted among us; they are elsewhere in Honour. Gentes effe feruntur, In quibus et nato genitrix, et nata Parenti, There are fome Nations in the World, 'tis faid, The Murder of Infants, Murder of Fathers, Communication of Wives, Traffic of Robberies, Licence in all Sorts of Voluptuoufnefs: In fhort, there is nothing fo extreme, that is not allowed by the Custom of fome Nation or other. Ovid. Metam. 1. x. Fab. 9. v. 34. It Thofe of Nature loft among Men. Book II, It is to be believed, that there are Natural Laws, as we fee in other Creatures, but in us they are loft: This fine human Reason, every-where fo infinuating itself to govern and command, as to fhuffle and confound the Face of Things, according to its own Vanity and Inconftancy. Nihil itaque ampliùs noftrum eft; quod noftrum dico, artis eft: Therefore nothing is any more truly ours; what we call ours is the Effect of Art. Subjects have diverfe Luftres, and diverse Confiderations; and from thence the Diversity of Opinions principally proceeds: One Nation confiders a Subject in one Afpect, and ftops there; another takes it in another View. Fathers eaten There is nothing fo horrible to be imagined, as for a Man to eat his Father; yet the People of The Bodies of their deceafed Old, whofe Cuftom it was fo to do, looked upon it as a Testimony of Piety, and good by Jome People, Affection, meaning thereby to give their Proand why. genitors the moft worthy and honourable Sepulture"; lodging in themselves, and, as it were, in their own Marrow, the Bodies and Reliques of their Fathers; and, in fome fort, vivifying and regenerating them, by Tranfmutation, into their living Flesh, by Means of Nourishment and Digeftion. It is easy to confider, what a Cruelty and Abomination it must have appeared to Men poffeffed and tinctured with this Superftition, to throw their Parents Remains to the Corruption of the Earth, and the Nourishment of Beafts and Worms. Lycurgus confidered, in Theft, the Vivacity, Diligence, Theft allowed Boldnefs, and Dexterity of purloining any by Lycurgus, Thing from our Neighbours, and the Utility and why. that redounded to the Public, that every one might look more narrowly to the Prefervation of what was his own; and believed, that, from this double Inftitution of Affaulting and Defending, an Advantage accrued to military Difcipline, (which was the principal Science and Virtue, to which he aimed to inure that Nation) of greater Confideration than the Disorder and Injustice of taking another's Man's Goods. "Sext. Empir. Pyrr, Hypot. lib. iii. c. 24. p. 157. Dionyfius, |