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

Labor voluptasque; dissimillima naturâ, societate quadam inter se naturali sunt juncta: “Pain and pleasure, though in the nature of things the most unlike each other, yet are united by some natural bond.” (Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri.) ↩

Sensible of this, Socrates used to say, δεῖν τὰς ἡδονὰς, μὴ παρ᾿ ἄλλων, ἀλλὰ παρ᾿ ἡμῶν θηρᾶσθαι: “We ought to seek pleasures from ourselves, and not from others.” (Joannes Stobaeus, On Education.) ↩

Senex, et levissimis quoque; curis impar: “I am an old man, and unequal to the smallest cares:” as Seneca, of himself, in Tacitus. (Annals.) ↩

Rogus aspiciendus amatæ Conjugis, etc.: “You must see the funeral pile of your beloved Wife.” (Juvenal, Satires.) ↩

Σμίκρα παλαὶα σώματ᾿ ἐυνάζει ῥοπή: “A small matter will push an old man into his grave.” (Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus.) ↩

Πάντες ἐτμὶν ἐν ὁδῷ⁠ ⁠… ἰδες ἐπὶ τῆς ὁδοῦ φυτὸν ἢ πόαν ἢ ὕδωρ ἢ ὅ, τι ἂν τύχῃ τῶν ἀξίων θεάματος· μικρὸν ἐτέρφθης; εἶτα παρέδραμες· πάλιν ἐνέτυχες λίθοις καὶ φάραγξι καὶ κρημνοῖς καὶ σκοπέλοις, ἤ που καὶ θηρίοις, κ.τ.λ.: “We are all upon a road.⁠ ⁠… When you see upon the road plants, and herbs, and water, and whatever else happens to be worth seeing there, are you not a little delighted with it? Then you go on, and meet with stones, and valleys, and precipices, and rocks, and sometimes with wild beasts. Life is very like this.” (Basil, Homilae super Psalmos.) ↩

Non mehercule quisquam accepisset [vitiam], nisi daretur insciis: “Truly nobody would accept of [life], if it was not given them when they did not know it.” (Seneca, De Consolatione ad Marciam.) ↩

Paulisper te crede subduci in montis ardui verticem celsiorem; speculare inde rerum infra te jacentium facies; et oculis in diversa porrectis, fluctuantis munti turbines intuere. Jam seculi et ipse miseraberis, etc.: “Imagine yourself to be removed to the top of some very high mountain, and see how the things that are below you look; and turning your eyes every way, behold the trouble of a stormy world. And then you will take pity on the inhabitants, etc.” (St. Cyprian, Ad Donatum.) ↩

העולם הזה דומה לפרוזדור בפני: “This world is only like a porch to the world to come.” (Mishnah, Abot IV, 21.) ↩

O si possis in illa sublimi specula constitutus oculos tuos inserere secretis, revludere cubiculorum obductas fores, et ad conscientiam luminum penetralia occulta reserare, etc.: “O that, when you are placed upon the top of that high tower, you could cast your eyes into the secret places, and unbar the doors of bedchambers, and lay open their secret recesses to the discovery of the light, etc.” (St. Cyprian, Ad Donatum.) ↩

By any means, proper or improper. (Editor’s note.) ↩

Besides, there being no satiety of knowledge in this life, we may hope for future opportunities when our faculties shall be exalted, etc. Τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ θέας τοῦ ὄντος οὐδεὶς ἐνταῦθα τῶν ἐρώντων ἐνέπλησεν ἑαυτὸν ἱκανῶς, κ.τ.λ.: “They who are desirous of truth, and of seeing things as they really are, can never be fully satisfied here.” (Plutarch, Moralia.) ↩

In Tusculan Disputations. (“Pherecydes the Syrian is the first on record who said that the souls of men were immortal.”) ↩

“Nature silently asserts the truth of the immortality of the soul,” “there is, I know not how, deeply rooted in the minds of men the premonition of a future state,” and “the consent of all nations induces us to believe that our souls survive.” (Editor’s note.) ↩

Methinks those philosophers make but an odd appearance in story, who, looking big and fastuous, at the same time professed that their own souls were not superior to those of gnats, etc. ὁι τὰς ὀφρῦς ἀνεσπακότες μηδὲν κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν διαφέρειν ἀπεφήναντο ἐμπίδος τε καὶ ἐυλῆς, καὶ μύιας,⁠ ⁠… καὶ συὸς ψυΧῆς⁠ ⁠… τὴν σφῶν ἀυτῶν φιλοσοφωτάτων ψυχὴν: “These men, who are so swelled with pride, affirm that, as to the substance, there is no difference betwixt the soul of a philosopher, and that of a gnat, or a worm, or a fly,⁠ ⁠… or the soul of a hog.” (As Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica.) ↩

Alexander, after death, might be in the same state with his muletier (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations), but sure not with his mule. ↩

Brevis est hic fructus homullis: “this is the short-lived pleasure of frail man.” (De Rerum Natura), may be justly said for all Lucretius. ↩

Ὁ κόσμος σκηνὴ, ὁ βιος πάροδός ἦλθες, εἶδες, ἀπῆλθες: “This world is a stage, life is the play; we come on, look about us, and go off again.” (Democritus, Fragments.) ↩

את צנועים חכמה: “Wisdom is in modest men.” (Proverbs 11:2.) ↩

Hic pietatis honos? “Is this reward of piety?” (Virgil, Aeneid.) ↩

Feræ pericula, quæ vident, fugiunt: cum effugere, secura sunt, etc.: “Wild beasts, when they see any dangers, avoid them; and, after they have avoided them, they look no further, etc.” (Seneca, Epistles.) ↩

לא יצטערו בהיוום משערים שסופם למות כאדם וכו׳: “They are not uneasy, as men are, while they are alive, imagining that the end of them is to die.” (Joseph Albo, Sefer ha-Ikkarim.)