Nil igitur mors est, ad nos neque pertinet hilum, Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur: —Ubi non erimus: cum corporis atque animai Discidium fuerit, quibus e sumus uniter apti, Scilicet haud nobis quicquam, qui non erimus tum, Accidere omnino poterit, sensumque movere. [319] Epicurus vero ex animis hominum extraxit radicitus religionem, quum Diis immortalibus et opem et gratiam sustulit. Cic. de Nat. Deor. p. 76 and 77. [320] At etiam liber est Epicuri de sanctitate. Ludimur ab homine non tam faceto, quam ad scribendi licentiam libero. Quæ enim potest esse sanctitas, si Dii humana non curant? Cic. de Nat. Deor. p. 78. [321] The principles of the new academy, that doubting sect, which Cicero had espoused, led so directly to scepticism, that he keeps us in a state of perpetual doubt and uncertainty as to his opinions. Mr. Baxter in his Inquiry into the nature of the Human Soul, vol. 2. p. 70. complaining of Cicero’s inconsistencies and self-contradictions, observes, that—“as philosophers he teaches men to be scepticks, or to maintain _that truth is not to be perceived_.” And afterwards adds—“But it is long since it hath been observed of this _great man_, that his _academical writings are at variance_ with his other works; and that he may be confuted out of himself, and in his own words.” Dr. Warburton expatiates largely upon the great difficulties there are in getting to Cicero’s _real sentiments_. I shall mention only two of them and in his own words. “A fourth difficulty arises from Tully’s purpose in writing his works of philosophy; which was, not to deliver his own opinion on any point of ethicks or metaphysicks; but to explain to his countrymen in the most intelligible manner, whatsoever the Greeks had taught concerning them. In the execution of which design, no sect could so well serve his turn as the _new academy_, whose principle it was, _not to interfere with their own opinions_, &c. But the principal difficulty proceeds from the _several_ and _various_ characters he _sustained_ in his life and writings; which habituated him to feign and dissemble his opinions. Here (though he acted neither a weak nor an unfair part) he becomes perfectly inscrutable. He may be considered as an orator, a statesman, and a philosopher; characters all equally _personated_, and no one more the _real man_ than the other; but each of them taken up and laid down, for the occasion. This appears from the numerous inconsistencies we find in him throughout the course of his sustaining them, &c.” And afterwards, p. 171, the Dr. adds—“We meet with numbers of the like contradictions delivered in his own person, and under his philosophical character,” of which he gives us several instances. In the note upon the word personated, p. 169. the Dr. observes, “that as a philosopher, his end and design in writing was not to deliver his own