BOOK that by the laws of Athens it was death without mercy. 1. to speak against the established religion; and we find Apion.l.ii. with what difficulty Anaxagoras escaped. But in

Jos. cont.

C. 37. ed.

Oxon.

Demetrii.

Epicurus's time the government was sunk, and the Macedonian empire was continually growing upon them; and all people took greater liberty to speak their minds, and without any such opposition as the philosophers before him met with, when their laws were observed more strictly; as when Protagoras and Diagoras were forced to abscond for fear of their lives; and Aristotle, upon a suspicion of a profane hymn, to withdraw to Chalcis. But in the time of Epicurus the state of the city was altered, and the government was in the hands of Alexander's successors; for Epicurus lived with his scholars in Athens, when it was so Plut. Vit. closely besieged by Demetrius, as Plutarch informs us, who soon after had the possession of it delivered to him. Now, in busy and disordered times, such as Epicurus might be far more secure than at another time; and yet even then he was afraid of giving any distaste, as to his opinions about religion; and still asserted his owning the anticipation of a Deity, although not consistent with his own grounds of certainty. But where was the victory the meanwhile over religion, which Lucretius boasts of? His defenders say, it was over the ill effects of superstition; but we find nothing like. that effected by him. The world was not made one jot the better, but a great deal the worse, for his principles; for the very name of a philosopher went a great way with persons of bad inclinations: and they do not govern themselves by any reason; but when they can bring an authority of a person of any reputation, they inquire no farther, but go on with greater confidence in their former practices; and then they charge ignorance and superstition on those that contradict them.

1.

I do not deny but some of the defenders of Epicurus in CHAP. our age have been persons of wit and learning, and they have utterly disowned his irreligious principles : but yet the very undertaking to defend the author of so much impiety, hath done unspeakable mischief to the age we live in; and all the discoveries of natural philosophy can never make amends for it. We are now comparing the notions of Epicurus and Anaxagoras as to religion; and that method which Plutarch tells us Anaxagoras took, as to the freeing the mind of Pericles from superstition, was far better than that of Epicurus. For Anaxagoras satisfied him that there were natural causes of thunder and lightning; but these were the effects of a Divine Providence, which ordered the affairs of mankind for the best, as well as the meteors in the air; and therefore there was no reason why any wise and good man should not entertain a comfortable hope of Divine protection: but in the way of Epicurus there is a bare account of natural causes, which, whether true or false, can give no satisfaction to a thinking man. For the utmost comes to this; such and such effects do naturally follow such causes. And what then? Then if such things happen, we cannot help it. And what follows? Nothing more. And is this all the comfort of Epicurus's inquiry into causes? To understand this better, I will put a case, which lately happened in the place where I live at present, to a man working in his garden, near a great river. While he was there busy, a violent shower of rain fell of a sudden; and the man thinking to divert it, the rain beat down a great heap of earth above him, and carried it through his garden, and took away the man with its force into a precipice hard by, and with great violence hurried him down into the river, which made him stupid and senseless: but it pleased God he was taken up, and recovered.

I.

BOOK NOW let us consider what would tend most to the satisfaction of this man's mind, when he was in that deplorable state, if he had been then sensible of his case. What comfort would it have been to him to have been told, that, as things were, the earth above him falling down, and there being such a precipice below him, there was no help for him, and he must be contented to suffer? But would it not be far greater satisfaction to be told, there were those above who saw him fall, and pitied his case, and would be sure to help him out, and give him what was necessary for his relief and remedy? Now this is the case of Necessity and Providence: the one gives only that heavy comfort, things must be so, and we cannot help it; the other still keeps up reasonable hope, and the expectation of something better. So that no one can deny, that, upon mere principles of natural reason, this is the more desirable hypothesis ; and nothing but invincible arguments should remove mankind from it: but neither Democritus nor Epicurus could offer any thing but a very precarious hypothesis against it.

Plato in

From Anaxagoras I now come to Socrates, (for Achelous pursued his principles at Athens, where Socrates was his disciple.) He was a person of great vogue at Athens, for the natural sharpness of his wit, and the freedom he used in conversation with all sorts, without re

gard to his own interest. And for this he appealed to Apol. Socr. his judges, and to the whole city, that he was far from any design to enrich himself, as they all knew. He did not deny but that he had great presents offered him; but he took no more than to keep him from poverty, as in the cases of the king of Macedonia and Alcibiades and none could blame him for being refractory to their laws about religion; for he declared that to be his principle, That God ought to be worshipped

I.

Xenoph.

c. 3.

according to the laws of the city where a man lived. CHAP. And for this, Xenophon saith, he trusted to the Pythian oracle; which was thought of good authority Mem. 1. i. among them: however some in our time have repre- Van Dalen sented it as so gross an imposture, that it is hardly Dissert. de credible any men of common sense could be deceived by it, much less the Athenians; who, for all that we can perceive, had as good an opinion of it as the Bootians themselves.

This was a very hard point at that time among men of better understanding, and who had a true sense of God and Providence, how they should behave themselves with respect to the popular superstitions. There was no difficulty as to such as had no religion at all; for their principle was to keep fair, and to secure themselves; and they looked on such as Protagoras and Diagoras as persons who deserved to be punished for their folly. But for men who truly believed a wise God to govern the world, as Socrates and his two excellent scholars, Plato and Xenophon, did, the case was very difficult for if they did not comply, they were sure to be prosecuted as guilty of impiety; if they did, this seemed to justify all their superstition.

The way which Socrates took was this: He avoided giving any offence as to the contempt of their public worship. Nay, Xenophon saith, he was so far from any impiety that way, that he was rather more remarkable for his diligence therein; and that no man ever heard him say or do any thing that tended to the dishonour of religion; so that from the whole course of his life he might be well concluded to be εὐσεβέστατος, a very devout man. Cicero had a very particular es- Cicero de teem of Socrates, not only propter ejus magnitudinem ingenii, for the greatness of his wit, but for his wisdom and goodness; qui quum omnium sapientissimus

Orat. l. i.

c. 54.

BOOK esset, sanctissimeque vixisset; and from him we learn I. what the grounds were which such men went upon.

Div. l. ii.

c. 72.

They found the world horribly corrupted with superstition, which was to be removed in the best way they could; but there was great danger, lest, under that pretence, all religion should be destroyed. And they Cicero de saw an absolute necessity of keeping up that: Esse præstantem aliquam æternamque naturam, et eam suspiciendam admirandamque hominum generi, pulchritudo mundi, ordoque rerum cœlestium cogit confiteri, since the beauty and order of the world was suf ficient to convince mankind that there was an excellent and eternal Being, which was to be adored and worshipped by mankind. This was their fundamental principle; and they rather chose to comply with the follies of their superstitions, than not keep the solemn worship of the Deity. And, to satisfy themselves, they put such interpretations upon the public rites, as made them serve to some part or other of natural worship, with respect to the benefits God bestows on the world; and thus even the Eleusinian mysteries were understood by them.

But how then came Socrates to be so severely prosecuted at Athens? It is true that his enemies charged him with impiety and atheism, as appears both by Plato and Xenophon. In Plato's Apology we find that Melitus downright accused him, that he thought there were no gods. Socrates, being much surprised at this charge, asked him what ground he had for it? And all the proof he offered was, that he was of Anaxagoras's opinion, that the sun and moon were not gods: which Socrates denied; and said his charge was inconsistent, for he both accused him of bringing in new deities, and asserting that there were none at all. But in the conclusion of his Apology, he fully owned a Divine