paraphrase is designed, as he says, to please “ladies and foreigners,” is quite convinced that such a justification could not possibly have been written by one who was not a Christian.[202] Even Wyttenbach, whom de Maistre attacks for repudiating this view, is willing, with all his scholarly caution, to admit that Plutarch, in this tract, touches the excellences of the Christian faith.[203] The position which Plutarch sets himself to overthrow is that which is expressed most concisely in the famous verses of Ennius:— “Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam cœlitum, Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat humanum genus; Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis, quod nunc abest” —a sentiment in exact harmony with the Epicurean view of the matter.[204] While, however, establishing the providence and goodness of God as against the practical Atheism of the Epicureans, it will be seen that he is equally temperate, and equally consistent with himself, in avoiding the exaggerated zeal of those Stoics who, in their eager desire to do something for the honour of Providence, had subjected the minutest and commonest actions of life to the jealous watching of an arbitrary omniscience, so that, as Wyttenbach puts it, “that most gracious name of Providence was exposed to ridicule and contempt, being alternately regarded as a _fortune-telling old crone_, and as _a dreadful spectre to alarm and terrify mankind_.” Let us see in what way Plutarch establishes the providential benevolence of God without detracting from his majesty.