The Desire Of Perfection Became The Ruling

[all] The Manly Virtues Were Oppressed By The Servile And Pusillanimous Reign Of The Monks.

The Virtue Of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Was Of A Severer And More Laborious Kind. It Was The Well-earned Harvest Of Many A Learned Conference, Of Many A Patient Lecture, And Many A Midnight Lucubration. At The Age Of Twelve Years, He Embraced The Rigid System Of The Stoics, Which Taught Him To Submit His Body To His Mind, His Passions To His Reason; To Consider Virtue As The Only Good, Vice As The Only Evil, All Things External As Things Indifferent.

It Was Among The Ruins Of The Capitol That I First Conceived The Idea Of A Work Which Has Amused And Exercised Nearly Twenty Years Of My Life.

The Theologian May Indulge The Pleasing Task Of Describing Religion As She Descended From Heaven, Arrayed In Her Native Purity. A More Melancholy Duty Is Imposed On The Historian. He Must Discover The Inevitable Mixture Of Error And Corruption Which She Contracted In A Long Residence Upon Earth, Among A Weak And Degenerate Race Of Beings.

The Pains And Pleasures Of The Body, Howsoever Important To Ourselves, Are An Indelicate Subject Of Conversation