"What are the possessions most eagerly courted among mankind? Which are
the divinities by mortals most assiduously adored? This goodly universe
was intended for the seat of pleasure, unmixed pleasure. But a sportive,
malicious divinity sent among men a gaudy phantom, an empty bubble, and
called the shadow Honour. In pursuit of a fancied distinction and a
sounding name, the children of the earth have deserted all that is bland
and all that is delicious. Labour, naked, deformed, and offensive, they
willingly embrace. They brave hardship and severity. They laugh at
danger. From hence they derive the virtue of resolution, the merit of
self-denial, and the excellence of mortification.
"But heaven did not open wide its hand, and scatter delight through
every corner of the universe, without intending that they should be
enjoyed. Enjoyment, indulgence, and felicity are not crimes. Abstinence,
self-denial and mortification have only a specious mien and a fictitious
merit. Did all mankind obey their fallacious dictates, the unlimited
bounties of nature would become a burden to the earth, and fill it with
pestilence and contagion. The soil would be oppressed with her own
fertility; the herds would overmultitude their lords; and the crouded
air would be darkened with the plumes of its numerous inhabitants.
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