The Religion of Nature Delineated by William Wollaston (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

how much the nature of man is superior to that of cattle or any other beasts.” (Cicero, De Officiis.) ↩

Πρὸς τὴν τῶν θηρίων ἀλογίαν ἐκπεσών: “To sink into as little reason as a beast has.” (Johannes Chrysostom, Homily on Genesis 6.) ↩

A thing too often done. Quæ enim libido, quæ avaritia, quod facinus aut suscipitur nisi consilio capto, aut sine⁠ ⁠… ratione perficitur? “For what sensual pleasure, what avaricious thing is undertaken, without first advising about it; or completed⁠ ⁠… without making use of reason?” (Cotta, in Cicero, De Natura Deorum.) ↩

Something like him, who in Chrysostom’s words, διὰ τῶν οἰάκων καταδύει τὸ σκάφος: “made use of the rudder to sink the ship.” (Commentary on the Psalms.) ↩

This makes Cotta say, Satius fuit nullam omnino nobis à diis immortalibus datam esse rationem, quàm tanta cum pernicie datam: “That it had been better that the immortal Gods had never given us any reason at all, than to have given it us in so destructive a manner,” with other bitter things. Though an answer to this may be given in the words which follow afterward: A deo tantùm rationem habemus, si modò habemus: bonam autem rationem, aut non bonam, à nobis: “The reason which we have (the faculty) is given us by God, but whether it be good or bad, that is from ourselves.” (Cicero, De Natura Deorum.) ↩

This certainly excludes all that talk which familiarizes vice, takes off those restraints which men have from nature or a modest education, and is so utterly destructive of virtue that Aristotle banishes it out of the commonwealth. Ὅλως μὲν αἰσχρολογίαν ἐκ τῆς πόλεως, ὥσπερ ἄλλο τι, δεῖ τὸν νομοθέτην ἐξορίζειν· ἐκ τοῦ γὰρ εὐχερῶς λέγειν ὁτιοῦν τῶν ἀισχρῶν καὶ τὸ ποιεῖν σύνεγγυς: “A lawgiver ought above all things entirely to banish all filthy discourse out of a city, for men easily go from saying filthy things to doing them.” (Politics.) ↩

True, manly reason, which is a very different thing from that superstitious preciseness which carries things too far. As e.g. when the Jews, not contented to condemn דבור נבלה, “obscene discourse,” or נבלות הפה, “filthy talk,” and everywhere to express גודל האסור, “the heinousness of the thing forbidden,” go so far as to comprehend under it אפי׳שיחה קלה שאדם סשיח עם אשתו, “that trifling discourse which passes betwixt a man and his wife;” and to add מוציא מלה לבטלה כמוציא זרע עבטלה וכו׳, “that bringing forth an idle word is like bringing forth idle seed.” There are other sayings of this kind to be seen, many of them, among those which Rabbi Elijah ben Moses de Vidas has collected: as that particularly, כז ענין ראות צריך שלא להיציאו לבטלה וכו׳, “that a man should not make an idle use of his eyes.” What Ælian reports of Anaxagoras and others, belongs to this place: that they never laughed (Various Histories), with many other unnecessary austerities which might be added. ↩

אם אין אני לי מי לי: “If I don’t take care of myself, who will take care of me.” (Mishnah, Abot I, 14.) ↩

Προσδεῖται τούτων [τῶν ἐκτὸς ἀγαθῶν] ὁ ἀνθρώπινος βίος· κύριαι δ᾿ εἰσὶν αἱ κατ’ ἀρετὴν ἐνέργειαι τῆς εὐδαιμονίας·: “These [external goods] are necessary to the life of man, but virtuous actions are necessary to his happiness.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.) They, who treated the body and things pertaining to it as merely ἀλλότρια, “things that did not belong to them;” distinguishing between τὰ ἡμέτερα, “such things as are our own,” and τὰ τοῦ σώματος, “such as belong to the body;” making the latter to be οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, “nothing to us,” and leaving the body as it were to itself (ἀυτὸ [σωμάτιον] μεριμνάτω,⁠ ⁠… εἴ τι πάσχει: “to be solicitous for itself,⁠ ⁠… if it suffers anything.” —⁠Marcus Aurelius, Meditations): they, I say, might enjoy their own philosophy, but they would scarce gain many proselytes nowadays, or ever persuade people that the pains they feel are not theirs or anything to them. Nor indeed do I much credit many stories that are told of some old philosophers: as that of Anaxarchus, when he was put to a most cruel death by Nicocreon (viz. pounded in a mortar) οὐ φροντίσαντα τῆς τιμωρίας, ἐιπεῖν⁠ ⁠… Πτίσσε τὸν Ἀναξάρχου θύλακον, Ἀνάξαρχον δὲ οὐ πτίσσεις: “not valuing the punishment, cried out;⁠ ⁠… You may beat the bag of Anaxarchus, but you cannot strike Anaxarchus himself.” (Diogenes Laërtius, Life of Anaxarchus.) See Epictitus, Arrian, Simplicius, Marcus Aurelius, Diogenes Laërtius, and others. ↩

Ne offeramus nos periculis sine causa; quo nihil potest esse stultius.⁠ ⁠… In tranquillo tempestatem adversam optare dementis est: “Nothing can be more foolish than to run ourselves into dangers without any reason.⁠ ⁠… He is a mad man that wishes for a storm when the weather is good.” (Cicero, De Officiis.) ↩

Levius fit patientia, Quicquid corrigere est nefas: “What cannot be quite cured, is made easier by patience.” (Horace, Odes.) ↩

Μελέτη θανάτου: “a meditation upon death,” was a great man’s definition of philosophy. (Plato, Phaedo.) ↩

Ἡ ὀργἠ⁠ ⁠… ὑπνηλὸν ἡμῶν διεγέιρει: “Anger⁠ ⁠… is to excite the drowsy.” (Johannes Chrysostom.) ↩

When the Stoics say that a wise man may relieve one who wants his help, without pitying him, I own indeed he may, but I very much doubt whether he would. If he had not some compassion, and in