who every moment of his life, was scoffing at his judges, his country, and all mankind. X. The great application of Democritus, accompanied with his vast and subtil genius, begot such a high opinion of the extent of his learning, that no man was considered as his equal in that respect in the age in which he lived; for at the same time that the philosophers of those days, extended their studies and enquiries, no further than to the contemplation of physics, ethics, and metaphysics; Democritus added to these three faculties, medicine, botany, geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy, poetry, painting, and the knowledge of languages. All which, may be inferred from the catalogues of his works, to be found in Diogenes Laertius. XI. I ask now, whether the circumstances we have enumerated with respect to Democritus, bespeak him to be a ridiculous buffoon? or whether they may not rather be termed descriptive of a grave, serious, contemplative man, of much superior lights to the generality of mankind? XII. I confess, that the laughter of Democritus has been a proverb in the world, which has been commonly used to express laughter to excess; although the proverb took its rise from the accounts some ancient authors have given of this philosopher. But notwithstanding this, I will venture to assert, the laughter of Democritus, which has been so much talked of, did not exceed the bounds, which should circumscribe the gravity of philosophy. XIII. In order to demonstrate this, we should premise, that all the ills to which man is exposed, may be said to spring from three sources, which are those of malice, misfortune, and ignorance, or want of information. These three evils, to those who rationally contemplate them, will appear to excite naturally, three distinct affections. That is to say, malice, to be productive of indignation; misfortune, grief; and ignorance, laughter. According then to whichever of these causes we consider the evil to spring, we should suppose it to excite an affection correspondent to that cause; and from hence, arises the great characteristic difference of affections, which has been remarked to predominate between the two antagonist philosophers, Heraclitus, and Democritus. Heraclitus, is described to have been weeping and sad, and to the same excess, that Democritus is said to have been laughing and cheerful. That is, these tokens of the characters of the two men, were supposed to be produced, in the first by his sensitive feelings, and in the second by his follies. This is the common opinion; but I for myself believe, that the fault of Heraclitus, was rather the offspring of indignation than compassion; and that he did not consider the evils of mankind, to proceed so much from their misfortunes, as from their malice. This is apparent, from his three letters to his friend Hermodorus, which are the only fragments that have been handed down to us of his writings: what he says there, when he is