53.
And the great licentiousness, which also in other kinds was used in the city, began at first from this disease.
For that which a man before would dissemble and not acknowledge to be done for voluptuousness, he durst now do freely, seeing before his eyes such quick revolution, of the rich dying and men worth nothing inheriting their estates.
[2]
Insomuch as they justified a speedy fruition of their goods even for their pleasure, as men that thought they held their lives but by the day.
[3]
As for pains, no man was forward in any action of honour to take any because they thought it uncertain whether they should die or not before they achieved it.
But what any man knew to be delightful and to be profitable to pleasure, that was made both profitable and honourable.
[4]
Neither the fear of the gods nor laws of men awed any man, not the former because they concluded it was alike to worship or not worship from seeing that alike they all perished, nor the latter because no man expected that lives would last till he received punishment of his crimes by judgment.
But they thought there was now over their heads some far greater judgment decreed against them before which fell, they thought to enjoy some little part of their lives.
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Thucydides. Thomas Hobbes. translator. London. Bohn. 1843.
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