PREFACE.

investigation because that would provide me with the means of their condemnation, seeing that the works of Plutarch, Seneca, and Montaigne are read, leafed through, sold, and reprinted every day, whereas the catalog of those by Epicurus Epicurus (341–270 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher; his original writings are mostly lost, known primarily through later summaries. has barely remained for us in the writings of Diogenes Laertius A biographer of the Greek philosophers.. I do not say this, however, to approve of the manner of those who voluntarily strip themselves of the riches of their own minds to beg for those of others, who appear only under the brilliance of a borrowed display, and who cover themselves in the armor of others to the point of not even showing the tips of their fingers. But it must be confessed that I am so disgusted by these long and useless discourses given to us nowadays—which the wise Phocion An Athenian statesman and general known for his brevity and biting wit. could better than ever compare to a forest of Cypress trees, where the trees are beautiful and green, yet nevertheless produce no fruit of value—that I believe those who strike the right balance and hold the middle ground between these two extremes are those who marry their own conceptions with those of the Ancients, whenever the subject matter permits it.