A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland

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СКАЧАТЬ State of the World is a Festival Solemnity. Death is the Nature of Man, not Punishment; and the serious Calamities of Mankind, “Deaths, Rapines, the slaughtering Men and sacking Cities, are to be contemplated as the scenical Shiftings on the Theatres; the Tears of Mourners as shews of Lamentations, and (the affairs of Life being a Play) as Childrens crying.” They are not troubled for their own Vices, “for who hindreth them from rectifying their own Principles?” Nor are they troubled at the Impieties of others, or angry and offended at their Sins and Injuries. “If any one hath sinn’d” (saith the Stoick) “the hurt is only his own. Wickedness doth not at all hurt the World. Jupiter hath so dispos’d things, that there should be Summer and Winter, Fruitfulness and Barrenness, Virtue and Wickedness, and all such contrarieties, for the good and symphony of the Universe. The worst of Men do but act according to their own Opinion, and are to be rectify’d, not destroy’d. All that offend, it is against their Will. All Men miss of the Truth against their Will. Nothing is hurtful to a part, which is for the good of the whole. What is not hurtful to the City, hurteth not a Citizen. Bad Men are neither affected with Benefits, nor have they any Benefactors, nor are they guilty of neglecting their Benefactors.”

      Their gross Immoralities.

      §XI. The great Imperfection of the Stoical Institution (applicable also to the other Pagan Institutions) appears from the gross Immoralities wherein they liv’d; for they were not well disciplin’d against the foul Vices of Drunkenness, Uncleanness, and irreligious Swearing. Seneca pleadeth for Drunkenness, Zeno liv’d in it, and Chrysippus died by it.¹⁷ The great Hercules, celebrated for a great Drinker, (his Cup also is celebrated,) is a Divine Man in the Style of Epictetus’s Dissertations; and Cato, a Stoical Wise-Man of the first Form, is of the same Character: But No-Body must call his Drunkenness a Crime; “for it is easier” (saith Seneca) “to make it no Crime, than Cato a Criminal.” But, as a Stoick is extravagant in his Supposition, “That he remaineth safe and unhurt in Drink and in Melancholy; that his Body may be in Drink as to all its Senses and Powers, yet his Mind remain unprejudic’d,” (which is the meaning of that Maxim, The Wise-Man is liable to be inebriated, but not drunk;) so it is a wild kind of Virtue, that is consistent with so great a Vice, which is indeed all Vices in one, and the Mother of all Wickedness. But these impure Heathens suppos’d, “That there is a right and prudent use of Drunkenness, which contributeth to Virtue, and that it ought not to be extirpated from a well-govern’d City.” “Plato forbiddeth Children to drink any Wine, before they be 18, and to be drunk before they come to 40. But such he is content to pardon, if they chance to delight themselves with it, and alloweth them somewhat largely, to blend the influence of BACCHUS in their Banquets, that good God who bestoweth cheerfulness upon Men, and Youth unto aged Men, who allayeth and asswageth the Passions of the Mind, (even as Iron is made flexible by the Fire;) and, in his profitable Laws, drinking-Meetings are look’d upon as necessary and commendable, (always provided there be a chief Leader among them, to contain and order them;) Drunkenness being a good and certain Tryal of every Man’s Nature, and therewithal proper to give aged Men the courage to make merry in Dancing and in Musick, things allowable and profitable, and such as they dare not undertake being sober and settled.”¹⁸ Anacharsis was addicted to Drunkenness, as Plutarch informs us; and the Prince of Philosophical Heathen Saints, even Socrates himself, “tho’ he was not forward to drink at Banquets” (as we are inform’d by one of his Scholars,) “when he was compell’d, master’d all; and, which is most to be wondred at, no Man ever saw Socrates drunk.” We are told, that he spent whole Nights in drinking, and that the Greeks praise him exceedingly, that having spent a whole long Night, drinking for Victory with Aristophanes, he was able at Day-break, to delineate and demonstrate a subtil geometrical Problem, thereby shewing, that the Wine had no noxious Effect upon him.¹⁹

      Socrates was a great Lover; and it was in his Time so genteel for Men to be Lovers of Boys, that it was forbidden to Slaves; tho’ at Athens the Laws prohibited the Practice universally, but ineffectually. Socratici Cinaedi were proverbial. Both the Popular and Philosophical Pagans were addicted to this Vice. Such Love of Boys as was at Thebes, Elis, and in Crete, is condemn’d by Plutarch in his Treatise of Education, who alloweth that which was at Lacedaemon and Athens; yet we are assured, that it prevail’d criminally in all parts of Greece, but at Athens most. Euripides, being invited to a Banquet by King Archelaus, became Drunk, and in that Mood kiss’d the Poet Agatho (who sat next him) being then 40 Years old. Whereupon the King ask’d him, if his Paramour were yet delectable? To which Euripides answer’d, That not only the Spring, but the Autumn of the Fair, is delectable. It is certain, That Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Cebes, Cicero, approv’d the Masculine Amours, which among the Philosophers was without Disgrace, or Reprehension.²⁰ It was they which wrote Love-Dialogues and Discourses, which the Coelestial Venus never inspired. Socrates and Cato communicated their Wives to their Friends. “All manner of Incest, Adultery, and Masculine Mixtures, some of the famous antient Philosophers accounted Things indifferent.”²¹ Some of the Stoicks befriended Chastity at an extraordinary Rate, commending chast Eyes, forbidding obscene Speech, advising Men to be Pure, as much as may be, from Things Venereal before Marriage;²² yet most of them agreeing with the Popular Pagans, amongst whom the Harlotry of simple Fornication was accounted no Crime, and which almost all the great Philosophers are known to have liv’d in.²³ But the generality of that Sect are prodigiously Paradoxical in their Unchastities; Teaching the Father to commit Incest with the Daughter, the Son with the Mother, and the Brother with the Sister; Men and Women to wear the same Garments; that no Speeches are obscene, and that every Thing should be call’d by its own Name, themselves not scrupling the most immodest Actions.²⁴ Zeno (as Laertius informs us) was a lover of Boys, made use of both Sexes, and sware by a He-Goat, a lascivious Animal. As for Socrates, he has had the Happiness of eloquent Apologists. As for Plato, he is charg’d with Unchastity by some of his greatest Admirers, who own’d, that the subject Matter of his Convivium is not the Love of Men and Women, but the Love of Men towards Boys, and that not merely as a Platonick Lover. When it was objected to Apuleius, that his Love-Verses were not suitable to a Platonick Philosopher, he justifies himself by Plato’s Practice, who had no Verses extant, but Love-Verses upon the Boys After, Alexis, Phadrus, and Dion: And Ficinus (in Argum. in Charmid.) changeth and omitteth part of the amatorious Things in Plato’s Charmides, as offensive to chast Ears.²⁵ Plato will have young Soldiers that behave themselves Valiantly, gratify’d in their Amours, whether Masculine, or Feminine. Following Lycurgus’s Institution, he will have Women expos’d Naked to the Eyes of Men. Transcending Lycurgus’s Institution, and the Impieties of the Popular Pagans, he abolisheth Marriage, and instituteth the Community of Women; which was likewise the Doctrine of Zeno and Chrysippus, the Founders of Stoicism. Such are the unpopular and irreligious Institutions of the Heathen Philosophers; which are partly to be attributed to the Spirit of Uncleanness, predominant in the Philosophick Pagans, (insomuch that Lais once laughed, to see more of the Philosophers with her, than of any other sort of Men;) and partly to their cross-grain’d unpopular Humour, express’d by Diogenes, who entering into the Theater opposite to the People that were coming out, was ask’d, why he did so. “This,” said he, “I study to do thro’ my whole Life”; as Laertius relates in his Life.²⁶ But, altho’ the Philosophers had a great Affectation, to distinguish themselves from the Popular Pagans, yet they transcend them in the absurdity of their Institutes; and the Popular Pagan Doctors may at least vie with them for sound Morality, whence Horace prefers Homer before them.

      Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,

      Plenius & Melius Chrysippo & Crantore dicit.²⁷

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