Although, if tried by a Christian standard, the Lucretian morality is by no means pure,[489] yet even where he permits laxity he is not insensible to the moral beauty, the happy and holy results of purity and chastity.[490] Nor, notwithstanding the assertions of Cicero,[491] can the charge of immorality or of a selfish love of impure pleasure be made against Lucretius or Epicurus. The distinction which the latter drew between lawful and unlawful pleasures was severe and uncompromising. The former speaks of the hell which the wicked sensualist always carries within his own breast[492]—of the satisfaction of true wisdom,[493] and of a conscience void of offence.[494] Again, Epicurus was a man of almost Christian gentleness. Stoical grossness and contempt of refinement revolted him; the unamiable severity of that sect was alien to his nature. He was thus driven to the opposite extreme; and although he was careful to make pure intellectual pleasure the _summum bonum_, his standard laid him open to objections from his jealous adversaries. The zeal with which many distinguished females devoted themselves to his system, and became his disciples because his doctrines and character especially recommended themselves to the female sex, made it easy for his enemies to stigmatize them as _effeminate_, instead of praising them as _feminine_. With that illiberality which refused to woman freedom of conduct and a liberal education, his adversaries calumniated the characters of his pupils, represented them as unchaste, and their instructor as licentious. Nor did they hesitate even to support these accusations by forgeries.[495]