Whence it comes to pass that, like to such as have
offended some Divinity, confessing his fault, he says thus
towards the end of his book: ‘Those who have established laws and ordinances and instituted monarchies and
other governments in towns and cities, have placed human
life in great repose and security and delivered it from
many troubles; and if any one should go about to take
this away, we should lead the life of savage beasts, and
should be every one ready to eat up one another as we
meet.’ For these are the very words of Colotes, though
neither justly nor truly spoken. For if any one, taking
away the laws, should leave us nevertheless the doctrines
of Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, and Heraclitus, we should
be far from mutually devouring one another and leading
the life of beasts. For we should fear dishonest things,
and should for honesty alone venerate justice, the Gods,
our superiors, and magistrates, believing that we have
spirits and Daemons who are the guardians and superintendents of human life, esteeming all the gold that is upon
and within the earth not to be equivalent to virtue; and
doing that willingly by reason, as Xenocrates says, which
we now do by force and through fear of the law. When
then will our life become savage, unsocial, and bestial
When, the laws being taken away, there shall be left doctrines inciting men to pleasure; when the world shall be
thought not to be ruled and governed by Divine Providence; when those men shall be esteemed wise who spit
at honesty if it is not joined with pleasure; and when such
[p. 378]
discourses and sentences as these shall be scoffed at and
derided:
For Justice has an eye which all things sees;
and again:
God near us stands, and views whate'er we do;
and once more: ‘God, as antiquity has delivered to us,
holding the beginning, middle, and end of the universe,
makes a direct line, walking according to Nature. After
him follows Justice, a punisher of those who have been
deficient in their duties by transgressing the divine law.’
For they who contemn these things as if they were
fables, and think that the sovereign good of man consists
about the belly, and in those other avenues by which
pleasure is admitted, are such as stand in need of the law,
and fear, and stripes, and some king, prince, or magistrate,
having in his hand the sword of justice; to .the end that
they may not devour their neighbors through their gluttony, rendered confident by their atheistical impiety. For
this is the life of brutes, because brute beasts know nothing
better nor more honest than pleasure, understand not the
justice of the Gods, nor revere the beauty of virtue; but
if Nature has bestowed on them any point of courage,
subtlety, or activity, they make use of it for the satisfaction
of their fleshly pleasure and the accomplishment of their
lusts. And the wise Metrodorus believes that this should
be so, for he says: ‘All the fine, subtle, and ingenious inventions of the soul have been found out for the pleasure
and delight of the flesh, or for the hopes of attaining to it
and enjoying it, and every act which tends not to this end is
vain and unprofitable.’ The laws being by such discourses
and philosophical reasons as these taken away, there wants
nothing to a beast-like life but lions' paws, wolves' teeth,
oxen's paunches, and camels' necks; and these passions
and doctrines do the beasts themselves, for want of speech
[p. 379]
and letters, express by their bellowings, neighings, and brayings, all their voice being for their belly and the pleasure
of their flesh, which they embrace and rejoice in either
present or future; unless it be perhaps some animal which
naturally takes delight in chattering and garrulity.
