Jefferson copied into his book Bolingbroke’s irreligious observation that while Christ did not offer a complete system of ethics, the ancient world did: “A system thus collected from the writings of ancient heathen moralists, of Tully [Cicero], of Seneca, of Epictetus, and others, would be more full, more entire, more coherent, and more clearly deduced from unquestionable principles of knowledge.”73 Jefferson would come to own some thirteen volumes by Bolingbroke and hail Bolingbroke’s style as of “the highest order.”
