"
And yet one cannot help looking with a sort of awe (I dare not call it
respect) at that melancholic faithless Hegesias. Doubtless he, like his
compeers, and indeed all Alexandria for three hundred years, cultivated
philosophy with no more real purpose than it was cultivated by the
graceless beaux-esprits of Louis XV.'s court, and with as little
practical effect on morality; but of this Hegesias alone it stands
written, that his teaching actually made men do something; and moreover,
do the most solemn and important thing which any man can do, excepting
always doing right. I must confess, however, that the result of his
teaching took so unexpected a form, that the reigning Ptolemy,
apparently Philadelphus, had to interfere with the sacred right of every
man to talk as much nonsense as he likes, and forbade Hegesias to teach
at Alexandria. For Hegesias, a Cyrenaic like Theodorus, but a rather
more morose pedant than that saucy and happy scoffer, having discovered
that the great end of man was to avoid pain, also discovered (his
digestion being probably in a disordered state) that there was so much
more pain than pleasure in the world, as to make it a thoroughly
disagreeable place, of which man was well rid at any price.
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