Gardens of happiness Sir William Temple, temperance and China

• Published in: The Seventeenth century Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 307 - 344
• Main Author: Zhuang, Yue
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 04.03.2021
• Subjects: Confucianism; gardens of happiness; Gassendi's Epicureanism; Sir William Temple; temperance
• ISSN: 0268-117X; 2050-4616
• DOI: 10.1080/0268117X.2020.1741021

Sir William Temple, an English statesman and humanist, wrote "Upon the Gardens of Epicurus" in 1685, taking a neo-Epicurean approach to happiness and temperance. In accord with Pierre Gassendi's Epicureanism, "happiness" is characterised as freedom from disturbance and pain in mind and body, whereas "temperance" means following nature (Providence and one's physio-psychological constitution). For Temple, cultivating fruit trees in his garden was analogous to the threefold cultivation of temperance as a virtue in the humoral body (as food), the mind (as freedom from the passions), and the body-economic (as circulating goods) in order to attain happiness. A regimen that was supposed to cure the malaise of the Restoration amidst a crisis of unbridled passions, this threefold cultivation of temperance underlines Temple's reception of China and Confucianism wherein happiness and temperance are highlighted. Thus Temple's "gardens of happiness" represent not only a reinterpretation of classical ideas, but also his dialogue with China.