Note 1420 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)

Pope's complaint, that the directions of the ancient moralists amounted to no more than that "happiness is happiness," arose from his ignorance of their tenets. The stoics and sceptics placed the supreme good in unconditional virtue, and the epicureans taught the precise doctrine of Pope himself, that pleasure is the goal, and virtue the road. The admonition, "take nature's path," which Pope would substitute for the teaching of these sects, was the maxim on which they all insisted.