IV. There is an instance of this, in the subject we are treating of. It is true, that Hippobotus, and Diodorus of Ephesus, give the account we have mentioned of the death of Empedocles; but there are three other writers, whom I look upon to be of equal authority, and who are more ancient; to wit, Timeus, Neanthes of Cyzicus, and Demetrius Trezenius, who all give other, and different accounts of the manner in which he died, that are beyond comparison more probable than those given by the first two. Why then should not these be believed before those other two, the improbability of whose relations stares you full in the face? Consider Empedocles on the margin of the volcano, with that ocean of fire presenting itself to his sight, and a horrible death to his imagination. Is it credible, that in such a situation, he, for an ideal felicity, which could not be termed more than imaginary; I say, is it credible, that a reasonable entity, who well knew that after his death he could not be sensible of any enjoyment to be derived from a mistaken notion of mankind, should, for such a chimera, precipitate himself into that abyss of sulphur and flame? I will venture to pronounce that he could not. V. But let us proceed. Admitting that any man could be absurd enough to suppose such a thing probable, who was a witness of the fact? Why, nobody; for this must be taken for granted; and they say, is to be inferred from the circumstances of his disappearance, for that with the most diligent search that could be made, they could never find his body: others contradict this relation; and Timeus, so far from admitting that he died in Sicily, or in the neighbourhood of Mount Ætna, says, that he passed over to Peloponnesus, and died there. But allowing, that he died in Sicily, and taking for granted, the circumstance of their being unable to find his dead body, could not this have disappeared, without being plunged into the gulph of Mount Ætna? Terenius says, that being grown very old, as he was walking along a cliff on the sea coast, as it was customary for him to do, his foot slipped, and he fell into the water, and was drowned; and that his body was never found afterwards; which is a much more probable account of its disappearance than the other.