[314] It has been remarked; that the disciples of the ancient Greek philosophers have blended so many of their own opinions with the doctrine of their masters, that it is often difficult to distinguish the genuine tenets of the latter, from the spurious ones which have been interpolated by their followers.... Thus Epicurus taught that the summum bonum or supreme good consisted in pleasure. His defenders insist: that he placed it in that refined pleasure which is inseparable from the practice of virtue. His enemies affirm; that he meant the grosser pleasure which arises wholly from the sensual passions.... His friends reply; that this notion was first broached by the dissolute part of his disciples, who most injuriously fathered it upon Epicurus, and then alleged his authority as a plea for their debaucheries; ... they add, that the true Epicureans, who adhered rigidly to the genuine tenets of their master, always treated these spurious disciples as sophists and impostors. But even allowing this to be a true state of the case; yet that the materiality and dissolution of the human soul at death was a genuine tenet of Epicurus, is a truth which the most sanguine of his admirers are not able to deny. As this pernicious tenet therefore was equally held, and publickly taught by both these kinds of Epicureans, a very small knowledge of human nature will enable us to decide, which of the two opposite notions of pleasure was most likely to prevail, and gain the greatest number of proselytes amongst a luxurious and corrupt people.
The dissolute manners of the Romans in the last period of their republick, prove evidently, in my opinion, that the sensual doctrines of the later Epicureans were almost universally received. And if the evidence of Horace in his humourous description of the manners of those philosophers is to be depended upon, they seem to have engrossed the name of the sect wholly to themselves.
Me pinguem et Nitidum, bene curata cute, vises.
Cum ridere voles, Epicuri de Grege porcum.
Hor. Epist. 4. lib. 1.
Omnis, ut est igitur per se natura duabus
Consistit rebus; nam corpora sunt et inane.
Ergo præter inane et corpora tertia per se.
Nulla potest rerum in numero natura relinqui