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Today, it’s with great pleasure that I present selections from Chapter 2 of “Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty – Collected from the Works of the Learn’d Gassendi by Monsieur Bernier.” CHAP. II. What sort of Pleasure it is that Epicurus Recommends as the End of a Happy Life. That Virtue, (according to Epicurus) is essentially related to pleasure, as it tends to the main end and design of a happy Life. “[…] Virtue designed for no other end, but to live well and happily. So, that a happy Life is desirable for itself; but Virtue is not so much desirable for itself, as for a happy Life. […] It is true, that in order to all the means which are used to render life happy, it is impossible to find any more conducive thereunto than Virtue. […] By this opinion, we offer no wrong to Virtue; for just as much as we value pleasure, felicity, and the chief good, so much do we praise and esteem Virtue, which leads us to, and is the proper means of obtaining them. […]We ought to confess, that to live with delight and pleasure, is the chief good or happiness. They who place it In Virtue alone, and whose understandings are dazzled with the glory of the name, not rightly comprehending what nature requires, may be freed from a gross mistake, if they please to hearken to Epicurus; for to instance in all your laudable and excellent Virtues, and first, of wisdom, Who can believe them to be praise-worthy or desirable, if they procured no pleasure? […]So that the wise man alone having banished all boundless and irregular desires, confines himself, and is satisfied within the limits of nature, and by that means may spend his time without grief, sorrow, or fear. If therefore we see all our life disturbed by error and ignorance, and that it is wisdom only which delivers from the affronts of our vain desires, and groundless fears, and that advises us to bear with patience the injuries of fortune, and teaches the ways that lead to rest and tranquility, ought we not to say, that wisdom is desirable, because of pleasure; and that we are to shun folly, because of the mischief which attends it, by bringing trouble and disturbance to our minds?”
