RELIG IONS ' ANCIENT AND MODERN

B EDWARD GLODD au h o The Stor o Crea t o i n . Animism . y , t r of y f P B 'AMES ALLANSON PI CTON au h o f The li ion o the anth eism. y , t or Re g f

Th li fAn en China . B P s G ILES LL . D . P s e Re g ions o ci t y rofes or , rofe sor f h e iv am d o Ch inese in t U n ersit o f C bri ge. B ' E H R R ISO u at Th e l i n f An i n . L Re ig o o c e t reece y AN A N , ect rer

Ne vnha m C ll Camb d a u h o of Prole omm a. t o Stud o Greek v o ege, ri ge, t r g y f Rel igion .

h e R H on. AMBER AL I SYED f h ud l m f His I B t t . o t e ' a C m e o slam. y , ici o itt e ’ s C un l au h o of The S it o slam and E hics o Isla m. Maje ty s Privy o ci , t r pir f I t f

M i and Fe i hism . B Dr. A. C . H ADDON L u o n ag e t s y , ect rer hnolo a Ca m d e n s gt gy t bri g U iver ity . li n B W FL I D ERS PETB IE T n n i . P . M . N h e gio of A c e t Egypt y rofessor , nS F 0 '

ou of Bab l nia. an d B THEOPHI LUS G PiNCB Es Th e Re s ri . . o A sy a y , l h e h use um ate 0 t Britis . B o es R n r s D V IDS D la f uddhism. P A LL . a o Early B y r f sor , te Secret ry i The Ro ya l As atic Society.

H B D . D . NETT . L AR o ft he D a m n o f n P n e d in duism . y r B , ep rt e t Orie tal ri t k and M88 sh Mu um Boo s . , Briti se . l i B WILLI M A C IG IE ' n E f h an n. . o d o t e Scandinavi Re ig o y A RA , i t itor

Oxford E n lish Dict iona ry. C e B f s ANW YL e o f W l h n el tic Relig on. y Pro e sor , Prof ssor e s at U iversity lle e A e w C o b h . g , ryst yt Th e M t h l o n n B i a in and Ir lan B CHAR LES y o gy of A cie t r t e d. y

S U l a E a u h o f The M tholo o t he Brit ish Isla nd s. Q , t or y gy f B ISR AEL ABR AHAMS L e u in Talm ud L e n m 'udaism . y , ct rer ic it rature i Ca b d Un i e au h Of 'ewish Li e in the M A ri ge v rsity, t or f iddle ges. i f n i n m B C Y I L BAILE Y M e l n o . R A. Th Re ig o A c e t Ro e y , . B W Th e n i n li i n . G A T C . hin o e o 'a . S ON . M . G an. S t , A c e t R g of p y , l i n of n n M i P B Law s SPE E M Th e an d u . NC i A. Re g o A cie t ex co er y , ‘ Earl Chris iani . B S . . LAC K P s at MG ill Un e s y t ty y B B , rofe sor iv r it y. Th e Ps ch ol o ical Ori in and Na ur B P e s o v g g t e of Religion. y rof s r

'. li LEU BA.

e i i n f n i n Pal B ST NLE Y A COO K l . Th e R g o o A c e t est ine. y A . B F A . C . ONYB E RE S Manich ee ism. y C . ( hortly ) PHILOSOPHIES W B A. . E au h f Early G reek Phil osop y B NN, t or o The Phil osophy of e Rat iona lism m t Nine teent h C u G reec , ent ry.

ici m . B P o e o ST . G EORG E STOC K au h of Ded uc tive L St o s y r f ss r , t or ogic ,

d o oft h e A olo la to . e it r p gy ofP , etc

P B o s A. T YLO St An P E . A R . d w U n la to . y r fes or , re s iversity, author o f oblem o ond uc The Pr fC t. B Fa h e R IC K ABY S' Sch olasticism . y t r , . H A YLO B P . E . TA R. ob be s . y rofessor L B Pro ALE' ANDER of w n C lle e ock e . y fessor , O e s o g . B T WH IT’I‘ AKER C . au h of The Ne la . omte and Mill . y , t or op ton ists Apollo

the ssa s. n in e of Tya na. a nd o r E y

H e n r B W. H . H UDSON au ho o f An Int rodu erb ert Sp ce . y , t r ct ion t o ' s hi o h Spe ncer P los p y. B T WE m AxE E Sch ope nh auer. y . . B P o fe s CAMPBELL FRAS ER LL D Be rk el ey. y r sor , . .

B r SEW LL . mmed ia te l D . A I Swedenborg . y ( y ) L B EDW D C LODD ucre tius and t h e Atomists. y AR .

L Wo k s. B ANTHONY M. Lunovr x Nie tzsch e ' His ife and r y c . E P I C U R U S

By

A . E . T AY L O R

NEW YO RK

DO DG E PU BLISHING C O MPANY

2 1 4 - 2 2 0 E A ST 2 3 1m ST R EET a nd A . T . FO R EWO R D

HI T S little volume is , as its title proclaims, a brief study of the thought and te mperament of a remarkable f o . man , not the history a scientific school The band Of comrades who gathered round Epicurus in his Garden were held together n ot so much by a common intellectual interest in the pursuit of truth as by the ties of personal affection among themselves and per sonal devotion to a master whom they regarded more as a Redeemer from the ills of life than as a mere thinker . That the feelings of the Epicurea n society of a later date were of the same kind is amply proved

o f by the tone the poem of Lucretius . Atomism as a scientific hypothesis Owes nothing t o Epicurus or to

of d e any his followers he found it alrea y in exist nce, and every innovation which he made upon its existing

o f V form was, from the scientific point iew, a change f for . o the worse As a man science , his place is with

- - fla t t e ne rs. the circle squarers and the earth This , together with the fact that a volume o n ancient Atomism is announced to appear in due time in the Wh I present series , will explain y have said no more about the really scientific Atomism of the fifth century B C . than was absolutely necessary to place the indifference of Epicurus and his followers t o

For I science in the proper light . similar reasons

aoahi e e E P I C U R U S

one have avoided dealing with Lucretius , the man

a of genius in the Epicure n following, except where it has been necessary to cite him as a mere witness t o

T he one the Epicurean tradition . point of interest to the student of the history of physical theories which has, as I hope, been made clearer than is usual in works on ancient Atomism is that the Epicurean Physics are throughout the result of an unhappy

- attempt, which no clear headed thinker would ever

d ln have undertaken , to fuse together the ra ically compatible doctrines Oi Democritus and Aristotle . If the esta blishment of this important point has made my second chapter into something like the exposure

‘ f For difi rent o . e a charlatan , the fault is not mine a ' reason I have said little as to the few facts definitely know n about the illustrious obscurities of the Epi cureau succession . I trust some compensation may be found in the chapter o n the anti - Epicurean polemic d carried on by the Platonic Aca emy . The volume has been throughout written from the original sources with little use of any modern works ’ of U se ne r s on Epicurus , except, course, invaluable

of a collection his ext nt writings and fragments, and

’ Koert e s o M t rus compilation f the fragments o f e rodo . I trust that my treatment in this way may have gained in freshness something of what it has, no

doubt, lost in erudition .

. . OR A E TAYL .

T ND R EWS . 'ul 1 1 9 0. S . A y C O N T E N T S

C HAP .

TH E I o E C 1 . L FE r PI U R US

1 TH E NAT R o r R E ALITY 1 . U E

1 1 V T MAN 1 . TH E SAL A I ON o r

IV EPIC R S A ND I S C R IT I CS . U U H

APPENDI' — SELEC T A PO PHTHEG MS FR O M E PI

C U R US AND MET R ODO RU S

A CH RONOLOG ICAL TAB LE U SEFUL T o THE READE R

o r TH I S BOOK

A SHORT LIST o r Boo xs USEFU L T o THE ENG LI SH STUDENT or EPI C UR US

Vii

E P I C U R U S

C H A P T E R I

THE LIFE or EPICU RU S

WHEN we turn from Plato and Aristotle, the great constructive thinkers of the fourt h century before

C t o of or — hrist, the study the new sects schools , that of Epicurus was , in date of foundation , slightly older

- than the others , which came into being early in the Al third century, under the successors of exander, we feel at first as if we had passed into a new moral atmosphere . Philosophy seems to have dwindled from the magnificent attempt t o arrive at scientific knowledge of God , man , and nature into a mere theory of conduct,

o f and , in the theory conduct itself, the old conception o f the individual man as essentially a member of a community freely banded together to live the ‘ good ’ o f t life, in virtue which Plato and Aristotle could trea

‘ what we call ethics as a mere pa rt of the wider study o f h society, its aims and institutions to ave A l E P I C U R U S given place to a purely individualistic doctrine o f morals which has lost the sense of the inseparable union

So of the civilised man with the civilised society . keenly has this difference of tone be e n felt that writers on philosophy have almost always adopted the death of Aristotle as o ne of those historical land- marks

o ld which indicate the ending of an era, and the

o f R beginning a new , like the English evolution of F R 1 89 1 6 88 or the rench evolution of 7 . The cause of so great a change has been variously sought in the u special conditions of life in the third cent ry . Under

o f the hard pressure the Macedonian dynasts , it has been said, Philosophy naturally became identical with

of the theory conduct, because , in such untoward times, the effort to understand the world had to be abandoned for the task of making life bearable . The theory of statesmanship shrank into a mere doctrine of morals because with the battle of Chaeronea the free life of the independent city - states came once for all to an

. O t o end thers, again , have seen the key the developments o f Philosophy in the third century in

‘ ’ a return of Greek thought from the idealism of

Plato and Aristotle into the materialism , which, as is alleged, was natural to it . There is an element of truth in these views , but they are none the less,

a . as they stand , thoroughly unhistoric l d It is true , to be sure , that under the Mace onian rulers the ordinary man was cut loose from the im mediate participation in public affairs of moment 2 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

which had been characteristic of the life of the — sovereign city state, and that individualism in ethics is the natural counterpart of cosmopolitanism in public life . It is also true that both the Epicurean and the Stoic systems regarded the theory of the chief good for man and the right rule of life as the culminating achievement of Philosophy , and that both tended , in

of their doctrine nature , to revert to views which are curiously reactionary as compared with those of Plato and Aristotle . But it is false to suppose that the death of Aristotle or the appearance of Epicurus as a teacher really marks any solution of historical F continuity . rom the time of Pythagoras at least Philosophy had always been to the Greek mind what

‘ ’ of personal religion is to ourselves , a way life, that

o f is a means to the salvation the soul , and this conception is no less prominent in Plato and Aristotle ,

when they are rightly read , than in Epicurus and

. f on Zeno And , with regard to the alleged ef ects Philosophy of the disa ppearance of the old life o f the

- free city state, it is important to recollect that Aristotle

Politics re ime composed his under the Macedonian g ,

had t o and that the Athens of Pericles ceased exist,

as except a mere shadow of its former past, before

e ublic Plato wrote the R p . If any single date can be

of taken as signalising the end the old order, it should

o f rather be that of the surrender Athens to Lysander,

‘ of or even that the defeat of Nicias before Syracuse ,

than that of the collapse of the anti - Macedonian agita E P I C U R U S tion of Demosthenes and Hypereide s o n the field o f 1 Chaeronea . Similarly the cosmopolitanism and individualism of the Epicurean and Stoic ethics is no new de parture, nor even a reaction to the attitude of the S ’ ophists of the fifth century, but a direct continuance

f ut o traditions which had never died o . Epicurus is directly connected by a series o f discernible though little known predecessors with Democritus, just as

Zeno is with Antisthenes and Diogenes . Nor is it true that the third century w a s a period o f intellectual

t h o f stagnation . It is e age the foundation of the

o f great Museum and Library at Alexandria, the

of development of literary criticism into a craft, the creation of the organised and systematic study of

o f history and chronology , and the compilation full and exact observations of natural history in the widest f o . t o sense the term Above all , it is the time which

of belong the greatest the Greek mathematicians, and astronomers , Eudoxus, Euclid , Eratosthenes , Aris

hus o f f t arc o . Samos , Apollonius Perga, Archimedes The notion that a century so full of original scientific work was one of intellectual sterility is probably due

1 The con ception of Cha eron ea a s p a r excellen ce t he ba d a al l b m h n m P u a h victory , f t to i erty co es in t e e d fro l t rc to ’ w h m w as n a u l a B n B a h u l a s a a . o it t r oeoti oeoti s o r of g ory , t he a n d ll an e in o n das — l n brief bri i t ca reer of Epam , be o ged to t h e u h n u a n d h r l a l im a n a fo rt ce t ry , e po itic port ce ce sed for h t h h a ever wit e a nn ihila tio n of t he sa cred b an d a t C ae ron e . Fo r G reece a t la rge t he Ma cedo n i a n victory ha d m uch less n fi a n sig i c ce . 4 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

For t o a simple historical accident . the most part the

c of writings of the suc essors Plato and Aristotle , as well as those of the early Stoics, happen not to have

n t o been preserved to us . He ce we readily tend forget that the scientific a n d philosophical work of the Academy and Lyceum was vigorously propagated all through the period in which the new schools were S seeking to establish themselves , and that the toics ,

of the most important the new sects , were not merely

‘ ’ keenly interested in Physics , but were also devoted t o F ofw minute researches into ormal Logic , much hich , in the shape in which the Middle Ages have handed

n . it dow to us, has been inherited directly from them Hence we come to look on the indifference to logic and scientific Physics which was characteristic of t he temperament of Epicurus as if it was a universal

‘ ’ Post Arist ot e lian feature of thought, and falsely

ascribe to the age what is really true of the man . Of the age it would be much more true to say that it was one of devotion to the advancement of special sciences rather than to the elaboration of fresh general points f o view in Philosophy . In this respect it is closely parallel with the middle o f our o wn nineteenth

century, when the interest in philosophical speculation which had culminated in the ‘ absolute Philosophy of Hegel gave place to absorption in the empirical study f o Nature and History . Having said so much to guard ourselves against a common misunderstanding we may proceed to consider E P I C U R U S

what is known of the personal life and habits of

Epicurus . Our chief source of information is the so called Life ofEpicurus which forms the last section of the ill- digested scrap - book known as the Lives of the 1 Philoso hers La e rt ius p by Diogenes . (Of additional matter from other sources we have little beyond one or two unimportant letters of Epicurus himself which

a have been preserved , along with much later Epicure n materials, under the lava which overwhelmed the city of of Herculaneum) . In its present form the work Diogenes only dates from the middle of the third u A D cent ry . . , and, indeed , hardly deserves to be called ’ a a work at all, since it can be shown to cont in notes which must have been made by generations of succes sive readers , and seems never to have been subjected

of to the final revision a single editor. Its value, for

on of us , depends the fact that it is largely made up notices drawn from much more ancient authorities who are often quoted by name . This is particularly

Life the case with the of Epicurus which is , in the

a of main , drawn from the st tements Epicurus himself, his intimate friends, and his contemporary opponents ,

1 The view of Gobet followed in my Pla t o in t he presen t ’ ha La e rt ius D n m a n Di n o L a rt series , t t iog e es e s oge es f e e, is m a n The u l n a m a m n an of t he a h n ist ke . do b e e is ere i st ce f s io , curren t a mong t he G reek -speaki n g citi zen s of t he Rom a n Em i h R ma n n t he h n u A . D . in t e pire , t ird ce t ry , of copy g o a a in h h a m an ha d his e nal pr ctice , ccord g to w ic , besides p rso n a m a n m n a n n a m n m n n a n his ns e (pr e o e ) , seco d e ( o e ) i dic ti g ge l l u an e . . G na u Po m e ius T u L us G a u Man or c , g e s p , it s ivi , i s i s , Ma u n n u rc s A to i s . 6 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

re re and may thus be taken as , on the whole , a fair p se nt at ion of what was known or inferred about him ’ or by the Alexandrian writers of Successions , Hand

of books to the history of Philosophy, the earliest whom date from the latter part of the third century f B. C . For a o v this reason , and for the s ke gi ing the reader a specimen of the biographical material avail able in the study of ancient Philosophy in a specially favourable case , I proceed to give a complete rendering of the strictly biographical part of Diogenes ’ account

n r of Epicurus from the text of U se e .

‘ of Ne oeles Chae re s Epicurus, an Athenian , son and

o f o f G ar e t t us o f trata , the township g , and the

of Phila ida e 1 Me t rodorus house the , according to in his

n Bi h ra l E itome o O Good rt . He c eide s work , in the p f

Sotion , and others say that he was brought up in

Samos, where the Athenians had made a plantation , and onl y came to Athens at the age of eighteen when ' enocrat es was conducting his school in the Academy i ri . e and A stotle at Chalcis ( . After the death o f Alexander of Macedon and the expulsion of

Pe rdiccas the Athenians by , he followed his father

(they say) t o Colophon . He spent some while there

and gathered disciples round him, and then returned

For to Athens in the year of Anaxicra t e s. a time he pursued Philosophy in association with others ; after

1 The Phila ida e were a well - k n o wn house of old - esta blish ed n obility with a legen da ry pedigree going bac k to Aja x a n d a u Ae c s . E P I C U R U S wards he established the special sect called by his

o wn name and appeared on his account . He says himself that he first touched Philosophy at the age

of fourteen . But Apollodorus the Epicurean says

i i u . L e o E cur s I . in Bk of his f f p , that he was led to Philosophy by dissatisfaction with his schoolmasters who had failed to explain to him Hesiod ’s lines about C haos . He rmippus says that he had been an ele men t ary schoolmaster himself but afterwards fell in with the books of Democritus and threw himself at

once into Philosophy , and that this is why Timon says of him

From the isla nd of Sam os t he loudest and last Oft he swag gering scientists cam e ’ ’ Twas a dominie s brat whose defects in bon ton h m Might have put t he creation to s a e .

t o o His brothers , , were converted by him and f l . o followed his Phi osophy There were three them ,

Ne oele s Cha ride mus and their names were , , and

Ar Philodemus istobulus, as we are told by the Epi

hers ' . Com end ium o Philoso . cureau in his p f p , Bk

was Another associate a slave of his called Mys, as

Myronianus says in his Summa ry ofHistorica l Parallels.

Diot imus the Stoic, who hated him, has calumniated him savagely by producing fifty lewd letters as the work of Epicurus . So has he who collected under the name of Epicurus the correspondence ascribed to

Po se ido nius Chrysippus . Other calumniators are the

S Sot ion toic, Nicolaus and in the twelve books entitled 8

E P I C U R U S

’ awaiting your delightful and divine advent . In

The mist a another letter to , according to Theodorus in

A ainst E i urus . IV . c Bk of his work g p , he calls her i ’ 1 Queen and huntress chaste and fa r . w He corresponded , they allege, ith a host of

Le ont ion courtesans , particularly with , with whom F Me t rodorus . also fell in love urther, in the work

On the Mora l End ' For a I , he writes my p rt can form no notion of the good if I am t o leave out the pleasures ’ of taste and sex, of hearing and of form . And (they ’ P t hocle s e ‘ For G say) in the letter to y he writ s, od s

' sake, crowd on sail and away from all culture Epictetus calls him a lewd writer and reviles him in

Tim rat e s . oc round terms Nay, worse , , the brother of

Me t rodorus , a disciple who had deserted the School, says in his Paradise of Delights that Epicurus used to

of vomit twice a day in consequence his riotous living, and that he himself escaped by the Skin of his teeth

‘ ’ ‘ ’ from the midnight lore and mystical fellowship .

Fu rther, that Epicurus was grossly ignorant of science and even more ignorant of the art of life that he fell into so pitiable a ha bit of body as not to be able to rise from his litter for years on end ; that he spent a mina

his Le ont ion a day on table, as he writes himself to and

1 l n al M n n ll The t ext here is p ure y co jectur . y re deri g fo ows ’ U se n e r s u n a n h h t he an al n s ggestio , ccordi g to w ic sc d co sisted - ‘ ’ in a l n The m s a n h a id m na l pp yi g to i t a epit et ( p ym, ost virg i ) h h l n l l a a n w ic cou d o y be u sed proper y of m ide goddess , a n d speci ally of Artemis t he virgi n h un tress a n d protect or of m a n ide s .

I O T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

t o the philosophers at Mytilene . That he and Metro

f Mam marion He de ia dorus enjoyed the avours of , , 1 Erot ion Nicidion a . , and other courtes ns That in the thirty - seven books of his treatise on Na ture he is nearly always repeating himself and transcribing the ideas of

Nausi hane s others , especially of p , and says in so many

‘ ’ words, But enough of this ; the fellow s mouth was always in labour with some piece of sophistic braga

of of . doccio , like those so many others the slaves And Epicurus is charged with having said himself of

Nausi hane s ‘ p in his letters , this threw him into such a passion that he started a personal polemic against

’ me , and had the face to call me his scholar . Indeed

‘ ’ ‘ ’ Nausi hane s he used to call p a mollusc, a boor, a

‘ ’ ‘ ’ quack, and a strumpet . The Platonists he called ’ ’ Dionysius lickspittles, and Plato himself that thing ’ of gold . Aristotle , he said , was a rake who ran through his patrimony and then turned mountebank 2

’ a ‘ and druggist . Prot goras was styled the Porter

‘ ’ ’ and Democritus scrivener, and reproached with being ’ Hera l it us . c e a village dominie he called the Muddler,

‘ ’ ‘ ’ u - ocrit us An t idorus — Democritus D mb , Zany dorus, C ‘ ’ ‘ the ynics the national enemy, the dialecticians a ’ ’ ’ 3 general pest, Pyrrho Block and Boor .

1 The form of t he n am es stamps t he la dies in question a s ’ m - m n a n W m h n u an la n Le ont i n de i o d i es . e ig t ve t re on tr s ti g o a n d Nic idion i h lla n V n r Wa Le a n d . F , w t ce , by o ie ictori e o

t he h h n a m Ma imie Chérise t t e a n d Dé i é . ot er t ree es try , , s r e 2 F ll n t he a n u e n e o owi g re di g s ggested by U s r. 3 I ha ve don e my best to reprod uce t he e ffect of these a busive I I E P I C U R U S

w No all this is stark madness . There are abundant witnesses t o his unsurpassed goodwill t o all mankind ' his native city , which honoured him with statues of

t oo bronze his friends , who were numerous to be reckoned by whole cities ; his followers, who were all held spellbound by the charms of his doctrine— except

Me t rodorus St rat onice C of , who deserted to arneades, ’ perhaps because he was depressed by his master s un rivalled merits his school , which has maintained an unbroken existence, though almost all others have had their seasons of eclipse, and has been under a succes

of of t o sion innumerable heads, all them faithful the

t o be neficence persuasion ; his gratitude his parents , t o his brothers , and the humanity to his servants

n n a m a n d ul a h He ra cl e it us a ll distortio s of es v g r epit ets . is c ed ‘ ’ a Mu l a u he h l ha h n ha n n in dd er , bec se e d t t everyt i g is c gi g to m hin l a n d in his o w n h a l on t he l so et g e se , so , p r se , ooks wor d a s a a l a drida m u w a s all Le r c ri u gre t o l po . De ocrit s c ed o t s ‘ ’ a ll h a w h u a e a s k os o . o m a n bec se s id fip , b s S we y re der by um - o c rit u s h h n a n h n o n D b , wit t e i sin u tio t a t word of se se ever a m m his m u h The a l a n ll t he mal c e fro o t . di ectici s wi be for l a n t he M a h l St il o a n d Dio do rus an d ogici s of eg ric sc oo , p h a at l ' n Cit t ium t he un t eir ssoci es, or possib y e o of , fo der of m Stoicis . 1 This sen ten ce g ives a g ood illustra tion of t he w a y in which ‘ ’ D n has n ut h . t he an t he ioge es bee p toget er As words st d , ‘ ’ m a ster deserted by Me t ro dorus of St ra t o n ic e ca n n ot gram m a ic l h h n E u u h h ll t a l a . T a a u y be ot er t pic r s is is istoric y bs rd , sin ce Ca rn ea des belongs to a ti m e a f ull cen t ury la ter tha n E u u m an ha ha h n a h pic r s . It is ifest t t we ve ere i corpor te d wit t he a n o n t he n Me t ro doru s in h h text ote defectio of , w ic ’ m n n wa s m a t he m h mm a m a t t h e e tio de of erits of is i edi te s er, h a t he E e d of picurean school in t he tim e of Ca rn ea des . 1 2 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

w which may be seen from his ill , and from the fact

a that they shared in his Philosophy, the most not ble of them being the aforesaid Mys ; in a word , his universal benevolence . As for his piety towards the gods and his native land , words cannot describe them .

’ Twas from excess of conscientiousness that he would C not so much as touch political life . onsider, too , that though Hellas had then been overtaken by most troublous times , he spent his whole life at home, except that he made o n e or two flying visits to Ionia t o see his friends in that quarter, who, in their turn , flocked t from all par s to share the life in his Garden , as we are

a told p rticularly by Apollodorus , who adds that he payed eighty minae for the site . The life they led

Brie R lation . III. f e there, so says Diocles in Bk of his , f was o the simplest and plainest . They were amply

of t in ordinaire content, so he says , with half a pint their regular drink was water . Epicurus , he says , disapproved of the community of goods sanctioned by

‘ of the saying Pythagoras, what belongs to friends is

’ common . Such a system, he thought, implies distrust, and where there is distrust there can be no true friend

in ship . He says himself his letters that he can be satisfied with water and coarse bread . And again ,

Pray send me part of a pot of cheese , that I may be

’ able to enjoy a varied table when I am in the mind . Such was the character of the man who made Pleasure ’ of the end an article his creed . So Athenaeus cele brates him in the following epigram 1 3 E P I C U R U S

Al a for nou fu e s, we toil ght the wo l s ed ’ Of strife a nd wars is man s insatiate greed T u e a ur in a i a r e rich s h rbo l ttle sp ce, Blind Fancy labours in an endl ess chas e

’ ‘ This truth Ne ocles de ep - considering son ’ n Mu t w on From heave ly se or Pytho s ripod .

we of ro shall see the truth this still better, as we p

ce e d w . , from his own ritings and sayings

t he Among ancients , says Diocles , his preference

for was Anaxagoras, though he controverted him on some points, and for Archelaus the teacher of Socrates . He says further that he trained his followers to learn his compositions by heart . Apollodorus says in his Chronology that he had heard Nausiphane s and Praxi phanes, but he himself denies it in his letter to

Eurylochus , where he says he had no master but him

H rmar hus self . He even declares (and e c agrees w ith him), that there never was any such philosopher as Leucippus 1 whom Apollodorus the Epicurean and others speak of as the teacher of Democritus . Demetrius of Magnesia adds that Epicurus had heard ' enocrates . a His style is pl in and matter of fact, and is cen

o sured by the grammarian Arist phanes as very tame . But he was so lucid that in his Rhe toric he insists on no stylistic quality but lucidity . In correspondence

‘ ‘ he used Fare - well and Live worthily in place of the

of customary formula salutation .

1 On t his a ssertion o n e c a n only rem a rk in t he la n guag e of ’ D . 'ohns n ha I E u u a ha E u u li r o , t t f pic r s s id t t , pic r s ed . I 4 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

Antigonus says in his Life ofEpicurus that he copied

Ca non Tri od ausi hane s his from the p of N p , and that he had heard not only Nausipha n es but Pamphilus the

Platonist in Samos . That he began Philosophy at the

of age twelve , and became head of his school at

- thirty two . According to the Chronology of Apollodorus he was

O o f born in lympiad in the archonship Sosigenes ,

’

7t h o f . on the Gamelion , seven years after Plato s death That he first collected a school in Mytilene and Lam

sa f - for p cus at the age o thirty two . This lasted five

of years, at the end which he migrated, as said, to

Athens . His death fell in Olympiad in the

f - w P t harat us o t o . year of y , at the age seventy He was followed as head of the School by He rmarchus of

son o fA emort us of Mytilene , g . The cause death was

l Hermarchus strangury due to calcu us , as , too, says in his correspondence . The fatal illness lasted a fort

Hermarchus night . further relates that he entered a l brazen bath fi led with hot water, called for some neat

off wine which he took at a draught, enjoined his

t o friends not forget his doctrines, and so came to his end . I have composed the following lines upon him

Fa l m f n s min u of m rewe l, y rie d be df l y lore Thu E u u k —and w as no s pic r s spo e , more ' Hot w as t he a and hot uafie d b th, the bowl he q l l H e f l on a f e - drau h Chi l ad s o lowed the t r g t .

of Such then was the tenour his life, and the manner

1 Sad l—but no t m ha n t he n al doggere ore so t origi . I S E P I C U R U S

f o . r his end His will runs as follows . [The main p o ’ visions are that the ‘ Garden and its appurtenances

t o of u are be held in trust for the successors Epicur s ,

and their associates . A house in the suburb Melit e is to be inhabited by He rmarchus and his disciples for

’ the former s lifetime . Provision is made for the due performance of the ritual for the dead in memory of

of u the parents and brethren Epicurus, for the reg lar

of for ul keeping his birthday, the reg ar festival of the h twentieth of each mont , and for annual commemora

Pol a e nus tion of his brothers and his friend y . The son of Me t rodorus and the son of Polya e nus are to be under the guardianship of the trustees o n condition that they live with He rma rchus and share his Phil

Me t ro dorus osophy . The daughter of is to receive a dowry out of the estate o n condition that she behaves

f r well and marries with the approval o He rma chus. Provision is to be made for an aged and needy member ‘ ’ i f . e o f o . the community . The books Epicurus, pre

sumabl o f y the manuscripts his works , are bequeathed

h s He rm archus t o He rm arc u . If should die before the

of Me t rodorus children come of age , they are to be

under the guardianship of the trustees . Mys and three other slaves are to receive their freedom ] The following lines were written to Idomeneus on

‘ the very point of death ' I write these lines to you and your friends as I bri ng to a close the last happy

o f day my life . I am troubled with strangury and

ca n dysentery in unsurpassable degree, but I confront

I 6

E P I C U R U S

admirable works are ascribed to him . [The list

follows ] He was an able man and died of a palsy .

Item The mist a , Leonteus of Lampsacus and his wife ,

Item the same with whom Epicurus corresponded . ,

Colot e s o f . and Idomeneus, both Lampsacus These

are the most eminent names . We must include Poly

He rmarchus stratus who followed , and was succeeded

Basileide s. by Dionysius , and he by Apollodorus , the ’ ‘ o f despot the Garden, who composed over four

hundred books, is also a man of note . Then there

o f are the two Ptolemies Alexandria, the dark and

the fair ; Zeno of Sidon , a pupil of Apollodorus and

a prolific author ; Demetrius , surnamed the Laconic ;

of o f Selected Essa s Diogenes Tarsus , the author the y ; Orion and some others whom the genuine Epicureans

decry as Sophists . ‘ There were also three other persons of the name

' 1 son The mist a Epicurus ( ) the of Leonteus and , ’ 2 o f 3 ma itre d armes ( ) an Epicurus Magnesia, ( ) a . ’ F Epicurus was a most prolific author . [ ollows a list

t o of his works , and the writer then proceeds give a summary of his doctrine ] The preceding pages have given us a fairly full account of the life and personality of Epicurus as known to the students o f antiquity . I may supplement it with a few remarks intended to make the chronology

e or of cl ar, and to call attention to one two the salient points in the character which it discloses to us .

First as to chronology . Of the authorities used in

1 8 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

Life ve rsifie d the far the best is Apollodorus , whose Chronology embodied the result s of the great Eratos m the es . His data make it clear that Epicurus was

r born on the 7t h of Gamelion (i. e . in ou January)

3 4 2 . 1 B . C . 70 B C . , and died in They also enable us to fix his first appearance as an independent teacher in Mytilene and the neighbourhood, approximately 3 10 in , and his removal to Athens in We may take it also as certain , from other sources as well

o f as from the evidence of Timon , that the place ’ Epicurus birth was the island of Samos , where a colony or planta tion was established by the Athenians

Ne ocle s in the year , the father of Epicurus,

on e of . being, as we learn from Strabo, the settlers When the Athenians were expelled from Samos by the

Perdicca s 3 22 Ne ocle s for regent in , unknown reasons preferred emigrating to the Ionian town of Colophon to returning to Athens , and Epicurus followed him . The assertion of his enemies that he was no true Athenian citizen (this would be their way of explaining ff his lifelong abstention from public a airs) , may have no better foundation than the fact of his birth at a distance from Athens , or, again , may be explained by supposing that Ne ocle s had some special connection with the Ionic cities of the Asiatic coast . In any case the salient points to take note ofare that Epicurus must have received his early education in Samos (itself an Ionian island), and that his philosophical position had been definitely settled before he left Asia Minor 1 9 E P I C U R U S

to establish hi mself at Athens . This will account for the attitude of aloofness steadily maintained by the ’ society of the ‘ Garden towards t he great indigenous

c Athenian philosophi al institutions , and also for the

’ a marked Ionicisms o f Epicurus technic l terminology . It is clear from the narratives preserved by Diogenes that the family of Ne ocle s was in straitened circum

t o t he stances, but there is no more ground take polemical representation of Ne ocle s and his wife as a hedge dominie and village sorceress seriously than there is t o believe the calumnies of Demosthenes on

Ne ocle s the parents of Aeschines . That was an elementary schoolmaster may, however, be true, since

s whO ' belon s it is a serted by the satirist Timon , g to the generation immediately after Epicurus , and the

t Mimes of e schoolmas er, as we see from the Herod s , was not a person of much consideration in the third

t o of century . With regard the date the establishment

o f of Epicurus at Athens one should note, by way

‘ correcting erroneous impressions about Post - Aris

’ t ot elian Philosophy, that when Epicurus made his appearance in the city which was still the centre o f

imme di Greek intellectual activity , Theophrastus, the

o f ate successor of Aristotle, had not completed half ’ his thirty-four years presidency over the Peripatetic ' school , and enocrates, the third head of the Academy,

of and an immediate pupil Plato, had only been dead some eight years . The illusion by which we often think of the older schools as having run their course

20 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

before Epicurus came to the front may be easily dis ’ elled p by the recollection that Epicurus s chief disciples,

Me t rodorus Herma rchus Colot e s , , , all wrote special

a on att cks various Platonic dialogues, and that Hermarchus moreover wrote a polemic against Aris

t ot le and Epicurus himself one against Theophrastus,

while, as we shall see later, we still possess a discourse ’ o f Socrates in which an anonymous member of the Aca demy sharply criticises Epicurus as the author of superficial doctrines which are just coming into vogue

- with the half educated . With regard to the personal character of Epicurus one or two interesting things stand out very clearly from the conflicting accounts of admirers like the original writer of the main narrative which figures in

Diogenes, and again Lucretius, and enemies , like the

a b or detr ctors mentioned y Diogenes, unfriendly critics

like Plutarch and his Academic authorities . We may disregard altogether the representa tion of Epicurus and his associates as sensualists who ruined their con

it i n st ut o s . by debauchery There is abundant testimony,

of not solely from Epicurean sources, for the simplicity

the life led in the Garden , not to say that most of the calumnious stories are discredited by t he fact that the worst of them were told by personal or professional

Tim ocrat e s of enemies like , the Judas the society , and the Stoic philosopher who palmed off a fictitious ‘ lewd correspondence ’ on the world under the flame of

Epicurus . Abuse of this kind was a regular feature

2 1 E P I C U R U S o f controversy, and deserves just as much credit as the accusations of secret abominations which Demos t he ne s t o and Aeschines flung at each other, that is say, none at all . What we do see clearly is that Epicurus was personally a man ofclinging and winning

t o d temperament, quick gain friendship and stea fast in

of W keeping it . There is something a feminine insome ness about his solicitude for the well- being of his

r friends and their child en, and the extravagant grati tude which the high - flow n phrases quoted from his letters show for the minor offices o f friendship . At the same time Epicurus and his ‘ set ’ exhibit the weaknesses natural to a temperament of this kind . Their horror of the anxieties and burdens of family hi life , their exaggerated estimate of the misery w ch is caused in human life by fear of death and the — possibilities of a life to come matters with which we shall find ourselves closely concerned in later chapters , — testify t o a constitutional timidity and a lack o f

. of moral robustness The air the Garden is, to say d the least of it, morally relaxing ; one feels in rea ing the remains of Epicurus and Me t rodorus that one is dealing with moral invalids, and that Nietzsche was not far from the truth when he spoke of Epicurus as

‘ ’ the first good example in hist ory of a decadent .

Partly we may explain the fact by the well- atteste d physical invalidism of the founders of the school .

Epicurus , as we see from Diogenes , though he lived to a decent age, was for years in feeble health , and it 22 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

i Me t rodorus Colot e s is sign ficant that and , two of his chief disciples, died before him at a comparatively early age . We shall probably find the key at once to the Epicurean insistence on the life of simple and homely fare, and to the violence with which , as we

of shall see, he and his friends insisted on the value

‘ ’ o f the pleasures the belly , to the great scandal of their later critics, in the assumption that they were

- life long dyspeptics . (The ancients simply inverted the order of causation when they observed that the bad health of Epicurus and Me t rodorus might be regarded as God ’s judgment on the impiety of their tenets . )

The ugliest feature in the character of Epicurus, as if revealed in his l e and remains, is his inexcusable

t o ingratitude his teachers, and his wholesale abuse of all the thinkers who had gone before him . This tone of systematic detraction was taken up by his ’ friends ; the quotations given in Plutarch s Essay against Colot e s are a perfect mine of scurrilities directed against every eminent thinker of the past or the present who had in any way strayed from the

o f path rigid orthodoxy as understood by Epicurus . There can be no doubt that the object of all this

u abuse was to make Epic rus appear, as he claimed to

’ own one be, no man s pupil but his , the and only revealer o f the way of salvation . And yet it is quite clear, as we shall see , that Epicurus is in every way the least independent of the philosophers of antiquity . 2 3 E P I C U R U S There is no reason to doubt that he had originally been instructed in Samos by a member of the Platonic school , and the bitterness with which the Academy

his afterwards attacked character and doctrines may,

a t o as has been suggested, have been p rtly due the sense that he was , in some sort, an apostate from the

of fold . His treatment the teachers from whom he had learned the Atomism which has come to be thought of as his characteristic doctrine is absolutely without excuse . We shall see in the next chapter that the whole doctrine is a blundering perversion of the really scientific Atomism of a much greater man , Democritus , and that Epicurus had undoubtedly derived his know

o f ausi hane s ledge the doctrine from N p , a philosopher whose importance we are only now beginning to learn from the Herculaneum papyri . Yet both Democritus ’ Na usi hane s on and p are , the showing of Epicurus own admirers, covered by him with the coarsest abuse, and one may even suspect that we have to thank Epicurean anxiety to conceal the dependence of the adored master on his teacher for the fact that until

Nausi han e s Herculaneum began to yield up its secrets , p was no more than an empty name to us . This vulgar self - exalt a tion by abuse of the very persons to whom one is indebted for all one ’s ideas distinguishes Epicurus from all the other Greek thinkers who have made a name for themselves , Plato is almost over

i t o anx ous to mark his debt his Pythagorean teachers , 2 4

E P I C U R U S

This letter cannot possibly be a genuine work o f

Philode mus Epicurus, and we know from that even

B C . in his own time (first century . ) its authenticity was d ubt e d t o . It is pretty cer ainly an excerpt made by some early Epicurean from the voluminous lost work on Physics and thrown into epistolary form in imitation of the two genuine letters . As to the

w Philode mus second document, it was kno n to and

C U se ner icero under its present title, and appears, as

s of hold , to be an early compendium made up verbal extracts of what were considered the most important statements in the works of Epicurus and his leading friends . There are also a large number of moral apophthegms either quoted as Epicurean or demon st rabl C y of Epicurean authorship embedded in icero,

a St oba eus Seneca, Plut rch, Porphyry, the Anthology of

se n r and elsewhere . U e has shown that the chief source of these sayings must have been an epitome of the correspondence between Epicurus and his three chief

Me t rodorus Pol aenus He rmarchus friends , , y , and , the

‘ ’ K a d ué ve or four recognised nyq s doctors of the sect . From later Epicureans we have the grea t poem of Lucretius who can be shown in general to have followed his master very closely, though in what strikes a modern reader as his highest scientific

of t he achievement, his anticipations of the doctrine

of n evolution species, he is probably reproduci g not

wn Epicurus but his o poetical model Empedocles . The

and excavation of Herculaneum , the subsequent deci

2 6 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

he rm e nt p of the papyri found there, has also put us in possession of a great deal of very second- rate stuff

hi de mu from the hand ofP lo s.

of A word as to the subsequent fate the School .

t wo of The chief characteristics the sect, as remarked by the ancients, were the warmth of the friendship subsisting between its members , and their absolute w unity of opinion , hich last, however, had its bad side , since, as the ancients complain , the chief reason of the absence o f controversies is that the Epicureans read nothing but the works of Epicurus and the

Ka er e dve s jy p , and treat them as infallible scriptures, even being expected to learn the Catechism by heart. A third peculiarity was the almost idolatrous adoration paid to the founder who, as we see from

Lucretius, was regarded as all but divine, as the one and only man who had redeemed the race from universal misery by pointing out the path to true happiness . It has been remarked that the Epicurean society in many ways is more like the early Christian Church 1 than it is like a scientific school . Thus ( ) it is not so much a band of thinkers as a group of persons

o f r united by a common rule life . (We must e ‘ i ’ member, however, that this relig ous side to the

‘ ’ association between the members of a school belong 2 equally to Pythagoreanism and Platonism . ) ( ) Like C the hristians, the Epicureans are primarily united by ‘ ’ the love of the brethren , and by a common devotion 2 7 E P I C U R U S t o a personal founder who is regarded rather as a Redeemer from misery than as an intellectual teacher

(though here, too, we must not forget that Pythagoras was equally t o his early disciples a divine or semi R f divine edeemer, with the dif erence that with them it was largely by revealing scientific truth that he was 3 believed t o have effected the redemption) . ( ) Like C ff t o the hurch , the Epicurean society is indi erent f f 4 o t . dif erences nationality , sex, social s atus ( ) As

of Wallace says , the correspondence Epicurus and his friends mixes up high speculative theories with homely

a e of - m tt rs every day life , such as the regulation of diet, in a way which is equally characteristic of the 5 New Testament . ( ) Epicureanism has also its

‘ ’ analogue to the Christian love - feasts in the monthly common meals which are provided for by Epicurus in

o f his will . Similarly his concern for the children Me t rodorus and for the support of needy and aged brethren reminds us of the care of the early C hristians

‘ ’ for the poor saints, the widows, and the orphans . The two societies also correspond on their unfavourable side, in what has always been the great intellectual

Sin of C the hurch, undue readiness to treat its formulae as infallible and exempt from all examina tion . The Epicurean who read nothing but the xa flnyené ve s is the prototype of those modern Christians who read nothing but the Bible and the approved

and commentaries, and regard criticism free inquiry f as the work of the devil . If the Philosophy o the 2 8 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

Garden had ever become a widely diffused and ih

fl ue nt ial o f theory conduct, it must necessarily have plunged the ancient world into t he same conflict between ‘ science and ‘ religion ’ of which we hear too d much to ay . These analogies— though most of them can be to — some extent found in other philosophica l schools make it all the more interesting to note that the Epicureans

a nd C the hristians , though representing diametrically

opposite types of thought , met on common ground as being the only sects who Openly repudiated the estab lishe d religion and scoffed at its apparatus o f public ceremonial . The Sceptic avoided the collision easily enough . Precisely because he held that unreasoning faith is involved in all judgments he felt no call to

of deny the theological belief his fellows . The Platonist and the Stoic stood to a large extent o n common ground with popular religion in their de vot ion to their belief in Providence and the moral government of the world, to which the Platonist added a fervid faith in Theism and immortality ' like Broad C d hurchmen to ay, they could always acquiesce in the details o f popular religion by putting a non - natural interpretation on everything which , in its plain sense, seemed objectionable or absurd . But the Epicurean was cut off from these expedients by the fact that it was one of his cardinal doctrines that ‘ the ’ f gods exercise no influence on human af airs, as the Christian was by his belief that they were ‘ idols ’ or 2 9 E P I C U R U S even devils who could not be worshipped without blasphemy agains t the true G od . Not that the C Epicureans, like the hristians, refused to take part

Philode mus in the public ceremonial of worship . expressly appeals t o the exemplary conduct o f i Epicurus himself on th s point . But they made no secret of their scorn for the popular belief in Provi dence, prayer, and retribution , and hence no amount o f external compliance could clear them from the charge o f atheism with persons for whom religion was

f 1 A D t e a vital af air . Lucian (second century . . ) illustra s the point amusingly in his account of the ritual instituted by the charlatan Alexander of Aboni Teichos who set up an oracle which gain ed great repute and was even once formally consulted by the

n Emperor Marcus . Amo g other things, Alexander started a mystical ceremonial from which he used

t o ‘ infidels C formally exclude all , hristians , and ’ t o Epicureans . In the course of the worship he used ‘ C '’ cry, Away with the hristians the congregation

‘ ’ giving the response , Away with the Epicureans ' the Christians and Epicureans being the two bodies who were persistently infidel from Alexander ’s point

a Al of view . Luci n adds that exander solemnly burned

n the works of the objectio able teacher, and that it was an Epicurean who first exposed the fraudulent

1 Plu a h a t he E u a n m a o h u h t he As t rc s ys , pic re y g t ro g ual l n b ut c an n him n o n a o n he rit of re ig io , it bri g i w rd j y, si ce a a s a n m mumm reg rds it e pty ery . 30 T H E L I F E O F E P I C U R U S

of trickery his oracle, and narrowly escaped being lynched by the devout mob for doing so . 2 B 00 . C . Much earlier, probably about , there appear to have been actual persecutions, and perhaps even

of martyrdoms , Epicureans in various Greek cities, and we know that works were published in the style of the

own religious tracts of our day, relating the judg ments of Heaven on Epicureans and their miraculous conversions . As to the internal history of the sect there is not much to be said, since , as we have seen , they were too indifferent to speculation to make any important

‘ ’ o n of innovations the original teaching the doctors ,

t o t though , as we have yet see , there was at leas some attempt to lay the foundations of an Inductive Method in logic . The School continued to flourish as a distinct sect well down into the third century after Christ . The names of a number of prominent Epicureans of B C the first century . . are well known to us from

C of icero, who had himself attended the lectures two of them, Phaedrus and Zeno of Sidon . (It should be mentioned that before Cicero ’s time the house of Epicurus in Melit e had fallen into ruins and the gardens o f the philosophical sects had been ruined in S the cruel siege of Athens by ulla . ) When Greek philosophy began to make its appear ance in Rome itself the first system to be so trans ferred was the Epicurean . Cicero mentions as the first Latin writers o n Epicureanism Gaius Amafinius 3 1 E P I C U R U S

Tusculan Dis 6 Rabirius Aca de ic utations . m s ( p , iv ) and ( ,

i . and speaks vaguely o f their being followed by

many others . He finds much fault both with the literary style of these writers and with the want of

arrangement in their works, but says that the doctrine made rapid headway owing t o its unscientific character

and apparent simplicity . It is not clear whether these Latin prose works were earlier or later than the great

poem of Lucretius . Lucretius, according to St . Jerome,

4 3 B . 9 5 C . lived from to , wrote his poem in the

on - n intervals of an insanity brought by a love potio , and

ended by his own hand . The poem was polished up ’ C Donat us s Life o Vir il by icero . A comparison with f g ’ out shows that Jerome s dates are a few years , and that the real dates for the poet ’s birth and death — 5 . should probably be 5 B . C The meaning of the remark about Cicero is probably that Cicero edited the poem for circulation after the author ’s C death . Munro has shown that the icero meant is

o f pretty certainly the famous Marcus, and the fact his connection with the work is made all the more likely since the only contemporary allusion to it

a u occurs in a letter from M rcus to his brother Q intus , ’ on C f then serving aesar s staf in Britain and Gaul ,

5 4 E . ad uintum Fratrem written early in the year ( pp Q , ii . The editing cannot have been at all carefully done, as the poem is notoriously in a most disjointed state . According to the manuscripts Cicero tells his brother that it is a work exhibiting both genius and art 3 2

E P I C U R U S

’ t a Plato s Academy , and s eadily kept up until it took Latin dress in the ridicule which Cicero ’s Academic and Stoic characters are made to pour on the School in

his philosophical dialogues . When the Emperor Marcus endowed the chairs of Philosophy at Athens at

of the expense the state, Epicureanism, as well as

r Platonism , A istotelianism and Stoicism figured among

- the state supported doctrines . C C Naturally enough , as the hristian hurch became f more power ul and more dogmatic, it found itself in

violent conflict with the anti - theological ideas of

Lact a nt ius of Epicurus, and such writers as (end third

. f A D . o century ) made him a special object invective, thereby unconsciously contributing to increase our

stock of Epicurean fragments . By the middle o f the fourth century the School had fallen into oblivion , and

3 - 3 3 60 6 A D. n r the Emperor Julian (reigned . ) co g a t u late s himself on the fact that most even of their bo oks

are no longer in circulation . Towards the end of the century St . Augustine declares that even in the pagan schools of rhetoric their opinions had become E 1 1 8 . ist wholly forgotten ( p , ,

34 C H A P T E R I I

T HE NAT URE or REAL ITY

The arts o Philoso h . 1 . p f p y It is specially character ist ic of Epicurus that his conception of the end to be aimed at by Philosophy is narrowly and exclusively practical in fact, his School might be named not inaptly the Pragmatists of Antiquity . As Sextus

o th ad . Ma enuztic Em iricus os . p puts it ( , xi Epicurus used to say that Philosophy is an activity which by means of reasoning and discussion produces a happy ’ life . And we have a saying of Epicurus himself that

‘ we must not make a mere pretence of Philosophy,

s but must be real philosophers , ju t as we need not the

’ ‘ e . pret nce but the reality of health And again , The discourse of philosophers by whom none of our passions are healed is but idle . Just as medicine is useless unless it expels disease from the body, so Philosophy ’ is useless unless it expels passion from the soul . In this conception of the philosopher as t he healer of the sick soul, and of Philosophy as the medicine he

a employs, Epicurus is, of course , s ying no new thing . ’ The thought that the work of Philosophy is to produce l health of sou , and that virtue is to the soul what 3 5 E P I C U R U S

health is to the body, goes back in the last resort to

G rae cia the Pythagorean medical men of Magna , and

is, for the attentive student, the key to the whole

moral doctrine of Plato and Aristotle . Where Epicurus is at variance with Plato and Aristotle is in i t hold ng that mental enligh enment, the understanding

e of things as they truly are, is not itself an int gral

‘ ’ ‘ ’ ’ of or part salvation , the soul s health , but a mere

n means t o it . Hence he sets no store o science except

as a means t o something beyond itself. He despises

on history, mathematics, and literary cultivation the

ground that they do not bear upon conduct . In an

extant fragment of a letter he says , with a heated out ’ of For a burst language, God s s ke, crowd on sail and

' U sene r Fr. flee from all culture ( , and in

‘ on another, I congratulate you having come to

' n file d Philosophy u de by any culture (Fr. Epicurus is constantly attacked by his later critics for

e o n may this cont mpt of p lite educatio , but he , of course, mean no more than that his mission is not only to the

wis e and prudent, but to all who fear and suffer . There is t o be a place in his scheme for the homely and

humble, the babes and sucklings, as well as for the

wise in the wisdom of this world . The only science to which he attaches any value is

’ c vm v ia of Physics ( t y , the general theory the consti

i n f t ut o o the universe), and he values Physics simply

for its moral effect . By giving a purely naturalistic

o f t he theory world , Physics frees us from all belief in 36 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

G od the agency of or the gods, and thus delivers us

’ of from the dread God s judgments , and from anxious striving to win His favour . By proving the mortality of the soul it set s us free from superstitious terror t o about the unknown future . By teaching us dis t inguish between what is necessary to support our health and what is superfluous, it teaches us to limit our desires to things convenient for us, and emancipates us from bondage t o the lust of the eye and the pride of

no life . But for these services, Physics would have

1 of worth . As Epicurus himself puts it in § 0 his

‘ Ca techism If our apprehensions about appearances in the heavens , and about death and its possible couse

ue nces our of q , and also ignorance of the limits pain and desire, gave us no uneasiness, we should have had ’ of no need a science of nature . Similarly Lucretius explains that the whole object of his poem is to show that the world has been produced without divine

o era sine divom agency ( p ), and that there is no pain to be feared after death . Science is , in fact, valuable solely because it banishes God from the world , and proves

of the mortality the soul , and so, as Lucretius puts it, ‘ — religion the vague dread of the unknown - is put

’ under foot and man brought level with heaven .

Hence , along with all speculative science, Epicurus professed t o reject as useless the syllogistic Logic ofthe

r f Academy and A istotle . Of the three divisions o ' Philosophy as fixed by enocrates, Logic, Physics ,

of Ethics, the doctrines discourse, of nature, of conduct, 37 E P I C U R U S

Epicurus dispenses wholly with the first, and retains the second simply as a necessary introduction to the third .

of Still, course, though agreeing with our modern

of empiricists in the rejection formal deductive Logic ,

u of of he req ires some doctrine method , some theory d the way in which true generalisations may be obtaine , and some standard of truth and falsehood . To meet

t o this need , Epicurus and his followers tried lay down rules of what we should call inductive Logic, rules showing how a true inference may be drawn from the

t - h of da a of sense perception . This rudimentary t eory

Canonics induction they called , the doctrine of the K a i/ (inf or rule by which inferences may be drawn from particular observations . Hence, finally , the school C divided Philosophy into three parts, anonics, Physics,

of Ethics, which the two former are only valuable because they are requisite for the last . This is what E ‘ 8 . . 9 Seneca means when he says ( p , the

r of Epicureans hold that there are two pa ts Philosophy, R the Natural and the Moral , but reject the ational

i. e . F . part [ ormal Logic , the doctrine of syllogism] But since they were forced by the nature of things t o u remove ambig ities, and to detect falsities concealed

t oo under an appearance of truth , they introduce a branch of study which they call the doctrine of

dc indieio et re nla = 7re i judgment , and its standard ( g p f il K a i/duo s of o ) , which is the rational part Philosophy under another name . But they regard this as a mere ’ complement of Natural Philosophy . 3 8 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

2 Canonic — t e Rul o Philoso i n i . h i E cu s es f ph s g. The p rean doctrine of the Ka i/ div or rule ofgeneralisation is so crude that one would not naturally expect it t o exhibit signs of having been borrowed from a foreign source . Yet here, as everywhere in Epicurus , we come on signs of indebtedness to others for the views on which he plumed himself . We have already read in the Life by Diogenes that Antigonus of Carystus regarded the whole doctrine of the Canon

Na usi h n t as a plagiarism from p a e s. Now the fac that before Epicurus set up for himself as an independent philosopher he had been a pupil of Nausiphan e s may be regarded as certain , since the statement comes to us on o f the double authority Antigonus and Apollodorus , the latter of whom may fairly be taken as representing

F of Eratosthenes . rom the frequent recurrence it in writers like Cicero and Plutarch we may infer that the later Epicureans were unable to deny it, and the extreme scurrility with which Epicurus himself spoke of Na usiphane s as a person who claimed to have taught him his Philosophy is enough to show that he had at some time stood in a relation of dependence on the former which he wished afterwards to disguise . We have further the warrant of two of Epicurus ’ chief

Me t rodorus for friends, Leonteus and , the positive statement that Epicurus originally called himself a

A ainst Colotes Democritean (Plutarch g , though he afterwards reviled Democritus with his usual coarse ness . When we come to deal with the Epicurean 39 E P I C U R U S

doctrine o f atoms we shall see that these statements must in the main be true ; Epicurean Atomism is unintelligible except as a clumsy attempt on the part of an incoherent thinker to adapt the general physica l doctrine of Democritus t o views which had been made

incom current in Athens by Aristotle , which are really

i ha n . Na us e s patible with it p , of whom we know that he combined the physics of Democritus with the

ethical agnosticism of Pyrrho , thus appears as the indispensable link of connection between Epicurus and

o f t o the early science Ionia, and we may see reason think that there may be a great deal of truth in a statement made by Sextus Empiri ons about the origin ’

of . Epicurus blind hatred of mathematics It was due ,

‘ Nausi hane s Sextus says, to his animosity against p ,

of the disciple of Pyrrho, who had a large following

younger men, and made serious studies of mathematics,

o f had and even more specially rhetoric . Epicurus

been his pupil, but from a desire to be thought a self taught philosopher of original genius did his best to f deny the act . He was anxious to obliterate the

Nausi ha ne s reputation of p , and so volubly denounces the mathematical studies in which the latter enjoyed ’ do Mat i a hema t cos . great renown ( . , i Sextus then goes on to quote the abusive lette r to the philosophers ’ Nausi hane s of Mytilene, in which Epicurus nicknames p ’ the Mollusc, and winds up by saying that he was a worthless fellow and devoted t o pursuits from which i one cannot possibly arr ve at wisdom by which , says 4 0

E P I C U R U S

c b of technical logi al sense , but in the a sence precise

on dates it would be rash to be dogmatic the point . It is equally possible that the word came to both

a i an Aristotle and N us ph e s from the Platonic Academy . For the present we had better confine ourselves to the statement that the Epicurean theory of knowledge probably comes from the same source as the Epicurean

i of borrow ngs from the Physics and Ethics Democritus,

. i han s Naus e . viz , p We shall see, as we go on , that the theory is not that of Democritus , and is really inconsistent with physical Atomism .

Epicurus starts then , just like a modern empiricist, with the unproved assertion that all our knowledge and all our concepts are derived solely from sensation . ’ C Whatever we cognize, so icero expresses the doctrine

‘ ’ De ini i . F bus . 6 4 in , i , has its orig n in the senses

23 of Catechism Epicurus himself says in § the , that unqualified scepticism about the veracity of sensation

‘ - is self destructive . If you attack all sensations you will have no standard left by which to condemn those ’ of them which you pronounce false . Thus, be it noted, he supposes it conceded that some sensations at least are veridical , the very point which the theory of

Democritus had quite consistently denied . Since the atomic theory, which Democritus regards as absolutely true, is obviously at variance with the testimony of the senses , Democritus had drawn the conclusion that it is

or only reflection reasoning, never sensation, which apprehends things as they really are . No thing really 4 2 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

has the character which it seems to our senses to have , and the fundamental proposition o f a true theory of knowledge is that sensation is inherently misleading .

‘ of There are two types cognition, the one genuine, the other basta rd . To the bastard kind belong all t such things as sight, hearing, smell , taste, ouch but ’ Em iricus the genuine is separate from it (Sextus p ,

o Ma th 1 ad . 3 5 , vii . , who explains rightly that the contrast is between sensation and ‘ understanding

S of ome such view is, course, indispensable to any Philosophy which holds that the physical world con sists simply of atoms in motion , and the rejection of it by Epicurus is only a sign of his entire lack of intellectual thoroughness .

All knowledge then begins with , and can be analysed back into , actual sensations . And Epicurus is as confident as Locke that sensation always has a real

not a f external object, and is a mere subjective f ection

of or . our mind our nervous system Unlike Locke, he goes so far as to hold that sensation not only has

but such an object, that it always represents its object

‘ exactly as it really is ' it is a property of sensation

1 D m c u Fr. 1 1 D l The na m t he in e o rit s , ( ie s) . es for two k ds n n a re v c t l m l li I a c xor t . of cog itio y n n ( egiti te) , n ( a ssum e tha t O' k or in here is used meta phorica lly in t he sen se of ‘ ’ ‘ ’ a t a t n un t he a s in he b s rd , begot e der cover of secrecy, t

mm n a h a o xén ov hé os x ri cov h os co o tr gic perip r ses x , p ct éx for ’ ’ n u n . So D l n t he une ht u u co c bi e ie s re ders word by c , sp rio s . I find tha t t he right ren dering ha s also a lre a dy been given by P B n a n rofessor ur et d others . 43 E P I C U R U S

alone t o apprehend the present object which arouses ’

Fr. O it ( r more precisely , to quote Sextus

‘ again, Sensation , because it apprehends the objects

which fall under it without subtraction , addition , or

transposition , since it is irrational , is always completely

’ true, and apprehends existence as it veritably is i o c t . . a ( p . viii Sensations were therefore c lled

’ ‘ ’ e vd a a i py , clear and evident cognitions, and it was mainta ined that even the sensations of dreamers and

a us lunatics are strictly veridical , bec e they are changes ’ in consciousness , and a change must always have a

Fr real cause ( . We see, then, that Epicurus, like

inde finable Locke , holds that there is an something about every actual sensation which distinguishes it

of from any other mode being conscious, such as memory or imagination ; you cannot say what this difference

consists in , but you directly feel it ; every sensation

‘ ’ carries with it the stamp of its own reality . It is interesting to observe the reason given for the view

that sensation always has an external object . The argument is that the sensation is always caused by

n o ne f some thing . Leaving o side the question o fact raised by some modern psychologists as to the existence ’ of ‘ centrally initiated sensations, we see at once that Epicurus is thus attempting t o guarantee the obje c t ivit y of se nseq ualit ie s by appealing to a universa l law o f causation . This is quite inconsistent with his

- empiricist starting point, but the inconsistency is one in which he has inevitably been followed by all later 44 T H E N A T U R E OF R E A L I T Y

empiricists . We see also that he falls into the very common error of confusing the objects perceived by the senses with the physical stimuli which arouse

sensation , (like modern writers who talk of the eye as

- perceiving light waves, forgetting that what we per ceive is not vibrations but colours) . To the question why he holds that sensation not

n only has an exter al existing cause, but always per c e ive s that cause just as it is, Epicurus replies that

axo ev n - a sensation is y , non rational , and therefore

nor neither adds to , takes away from , transposes the

of of parts its object, since all these are operations the reflective understanding . Hence the very non rational character of sensation becomes a guarantee of its fidelity as a record of external fact . Hence

f of Epicurus, thanks to his indif erence to the theory knowledge, cannot like Locke distinguish between the

primary sensations and the secondary , and does not

even appear to see that there is any problem involved , though one would have thought that his adherence t o

Atomism must have forced the question on his notice . For the full explanation of the theory that sensation is always unerring we need for a moment to anticipate t h our account of e Epicurean Physics . The explana tion turns o n a distinction between the immediate

- and the mediate object in sense perception . When a

distant tower which is really square appears round, have we not an illusion of sight ' Epicurus says no ;

there is only a fallacy of inference . The square tower 4 5 E P I C U R U S

ff ri of or i throws o a se es images , atomic sk ns from its

u s s rface . These images are originally square al o, but

being material , like the tower itself, they clash with other bodies as they travel from the tower towards

off. the eye , and thus get their angles rounded What

we actually perceive , the inner or immediate object

‘ ’ one as we might call it, is of these skins, and this has become round before it strikes on the sensory

organ , and is therefore perceived exactly as it is . The error lies simply in the judgment that the mediate

‘ ’ object, the body from which the skin was thrown

off t oo t o , is round , and so the fallacy belongs entirely

reason and not t o sense . This explains also what was meant by saying that the sensations of a dreamer or a

lunatic are veridical . Like all sensations, they have a

cause external to the percipient, and this cause is, as f o . always , a skin composed atoms The dreamer or lunatic apprehends this skin just as it is when it acts

on his sensory system , and his sensation is therefore

‘ ’ true ; his error lies in the inference he makes as t o

‘ ’ the body from which the skin has been projected .

‘ ’ For example, some of the skins may never have

o ff been thrown from any single actual body at all .

c o f t They ' may be a cidental agglomerations a oms f originally coming from dif erent sources, formed in the f i o a e . . process transit through the interven ng sp ce, g

- r f the images of a three headed giant o o a centaur . If

‘ ’ the madman takes these for skins thrown off from

or real bodies of giants centaurs, he commits a fallacy 46 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

t o t o of inference . Hence it is essential the theory distinguish very sharply between actual sensation and its reproduction in memory or imagination , which may be dist orted by such fallacies to any extent . (See

’ Epicurus own words in Fr. Unfortunately Epicurus gives us no rule by which to make the distinction . The next step taken by Epicurus is to explain the

w éh i r - o re notion . nature of what he calls a p mt s, p By this he means the general notion or concept of a class of of things . He takes it, precisely in the fashion

t a ‘ Huxley , to be the same thing as a men l composite ’ o n e photograph , resulting from the blending into memory- image of a number of residues of individual

‘ ’ ‘ Fr. sensations . All our concepts, he says ( have been derived from sensations by contiguity , analogy,

cont ribut similarity, and composition , reasoning also ’

t o . our ing the result His view then, like that of

Associationists, is clearly that perception of concrete things begins with an association in thought of sense F qualities which have been presented together . urther

of association by similarity , whether of relations or qualities, as well as conscious combination in accord with what we should call some category or principle of out of order, supervenes, and so, in the end , a

of f number individual sensations, occurring at dif erent f times and having individual qualitative dif erences, is

or n formed a general typical image , not correspondi g exactly to any one presented object, but representing 4 7 E P I C U R U S the features in which the members of a kindred group of objects are alike . (I seem to trace in this account a psychologically crude reproduction of Aristotle ’s

‘ a ccount of the way in which many memories of the

’ same thing give rise to a single experience . ) This

‘ ’ generic image is what Epicurus calls a r péAmt is or

‘ - or pre notion and defines as a true conception, belief, or general notion stored up in the mind , that is, the recollection of what has frequently been presented

' ' from without ; for as soon as the word man is

' e - o f utter d , we think by a pre notion the generic type ' of our man, sensations being the origin from which ’ Now this is derived (Diogenes, x . Epicurus

’ of - - as demands a correctly formed pre notion , just he

’ ‘ a e va és did of sens tion , that it shall be py , clear and ’ distinct ; and by this he means not that it shall be

well- de ned - logically fi , but that we shall have a clear cut

of picture it before the imagination . Hence, like

n Berkeley, he holds that if words are to have a mea

re re ing, the simple and primary senses of them must p

sent perfectly definite men tal pictures . The primary

‘ ’ meaning of a name is always clear and distinct ; we

never could apply a significant name to anything, if we had not first become acquainted with the type or

‘ ’ - class to which the thing belongs by a pre notion .

’ - Hence pre notions are all clear and distinct . Clearly we have here a theory of the formation of concepts

t o which is virtually that commonly ascribed Locke, except that Epicurus actually believes the processes of 4 8

E P I C U R U S

goes on t o argue that if you have apparently conflict

ing sensations, you must not deny the reality of either . One sensation cannot prove the falsity of another of d the same kin , for both have exactly the same evidence

o f for them, nor can the truthfulness a sensation be

t o f disproved by an appeal those of a dif erent sense, since the objects apprehended by the different senses

di t o e . are sparate . (This seems meant exclude, g. the correction of a visual judgment of form by appeal to experiences of touch . Presumably both experiences ‘ ’ are regarded as equally real , but as concerned with different immediate objects . ) Nor can you be argued out s s n of your sen ations by reasoning, since all rea oni g

n Fr is founded o sensation ( .

‘ ’ of - So in the case the pre notion , its objectivity , like that of the sensations from which it is com pounded , is supposed to be shown by its possessing, like them, an irresistible clearness and distinctness

a - sa it is cle r cut and definite and , as Hume would y, u strikes the mind with a pec liar force and liveliness , and it is this liveliness which guarantees that it is ‘ — i. e . on objectively true based genuine sensation . Similarly with feeling in the modern sense ; ple asures are held to carry in themselves the stamp oftheir own

r reality (see F . Hence the summary statement

‘ of the doxographers that acc ording t o Epicurus the

' ' ’ n - criteria are se sations, pre notions, and feelings (wdflq)

n But now, to come to what is the fu damental point 5 0 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

d of ‘ in the whole theory, what is the stan ard reality ’ ‘ i e ions . o in . ' or truth in p , in beliefs or judgments (It is really only in relation to beliefs that we can rationally ask for such a standard ; there is no sense

a or in calling a sens tion a generic image, as distinct from a belief about it, true or false at all . ) It cannot, of

all course, be maintained that beliefs are true . Some of them are certainly false but is there any means of knowing the false beliefs from the true ' Epicurus says

‘ t o or if a belief is witnessed , at least not witnessed against by our clear and evident perceptions, it is true w if it is witnessed against, or not itnessed to, it is false

Fr 247 O ( . r, in other words, a belief is true when it is confirmed by the evidence of the senses, false when it is contradicted by that evidence ; where there is neither confirmation nor contradiction, the belief may

or . be true may be false This is, to be sure, the view regularly taken by pure empiricists as to the conditions under which a scientific hypothesis may be regarded as established . It is established when its consequences

- are found to be verified by sense experience , confuted when they are found t o be in conflict with sense experience . The point is of special moment for

Epicurus because, with all the sensationalism of his

of theory cognition , his Physics are entirely built on a doctrine about certa in things (the atoms and the empty space in which they move), which admittedly

x cannot be perceived at all . How then can we have any test of its truth ' The Epicurean answer to 5 1 E P I C U R U S this question is quite different from that given by

Democritus . Democritus, as we saw, regarded sense perception as inherently illusory ; consequently he makes no attempt whatever to appeal to the senses in f o . support the atomic theory With him , as with his

predecessor Leucippus, the doctrine is put forward as a metaphysical deduction from the two premisses ( 1) What is 2 is immutable ( ) motion is a fact . The immediate conclusion from these premisses is that what is con sists of absolutely unchanging units moving about, approaching, and receding, in empty space . Epicurus is bound, on the other hand , to achieve the impossible task of showing that Atomism is compatible with the

o ur view that sensations are the criteria of reality .

’ ’ ‘ ‘ our We must draw inferences, he says , from the ’ F perceptible t o the imperceptible ( r. What he f urges is, in ef ect, that the doctrine of atoms is established if it leads to a conception of the world

- conformable to our sense experience, and if the pro perties and motions we suppose in the atoms are analogous with our sense- experience o f those of pe r ‘ iffi ible . r c ept things But here a d culty at once a ises . The atomic hypothesis of the world ’s structure might not be the only one which would yield results con sonant with sense - experience a plurality of different

‘ i t o theories might all be w tnessed , or not witnessed ’

our . against, by senses Why then should we give any one of them a preference over any other ' It is clearly with a view to this difficulty that Epicurus puts 5 2 . T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y forward a theory in which he anticipates both Hobbes — ‘ — and may we not say l our modern Pragmatists . Two inconsistent explanations of the same fact may be

equally true and equally valuable, if either would yield

- results conformable with sense experience . Now the sole utility of the study of Physics was to lie in its power to produce serenity of mind by expelling the fear of a judgment after death and the belief in

Divine control of the course of events . Hence if there are several theories about the ca use of a natural

event which all agree in being purely naturalistic, and if the result would equally occur on any one of

these suppositions, Epicurus teaches that any one of

them is as good as any other, and we have no reason

to decide between them, since the practical con

sequences for life are the same . Thus, while certain

e. . theories are laid down as absolutely true, g the doctrine of Atoms (on the ground that they are

an of requisite for y purely mechanical theory nature), alternative causes are assigned for most of the special ut phenomena . This comes o repeatedly in the epitome

of the work on Physics which forms the so - called

‘ ’ second letter given by Diogenes . We are there told that appearances in the heavens are capa ble of a plurality of different explanations all equally accordant

- with sense perception , and we must not prefer one of

F r these to another . o Philosophy should not proceed in accord with empty dogmas and postulates but only as

For actual appearances demand . what life requires is 5 3 E P I C U R U S

s not unrea on and idle opinion, but a tranquil exist

’

3 s n . s . U e er ence ii ; , p Thus Epicuru not

our merely says what is true enough , that in present st ate of knowledge ascertained facts may often be accounted for o n rival hypotheses he actually forbids the extension of science by the devising of experiments to reduce the number of possible explanations . Any explanation will do, if it only excludes Divine agency .

We may fairly say, then , that what recommends the atomic theory to Epicurus is not its scientific advan

of n of tages, but its utility as a means getti g rid t Theism . And we must further note tha his reason for wishing to banish theistic hypotheses from science is not the legitimate one that as descriptions of how events succeed one another they leave us just where

o ne they found us , but the illegitimate that he personally dislikes the thought of a God whose judgments may possibly have to be reckoned with hereafter . Whether Epicurus de vised for himself the singular combination of two such incompatibles as Democritean Atomism and absolute sensationalism or borrowed it

Nausi han e s from p there appears to be nothing to show ,

of Philodemus unless we may regard the evidence , which proves that Na usiphan es had been interested in the inductive problem of inferring the unperceived

of w . from the perceived , as an indication borro ing Such a problem could hardly have appealed to a disciple of Democritus unless he had entered on the 5 4 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y path of trying to combine his master’s Physics with sensationalism . Hence it may well be that Epicurus is as unoriginal here as he shows himself everywhere else . We may also note that the Epicurean doctrine of

e the criterion , taken as it stands, is quite inconsist nt

ofF with the rejection ormal Logic . Before we can say whethertheresults which ‘ follow from ’ an hypothesis are

‘ ’ - confirmed by sense experience , we must know what

do t o results follow and what do not, and how are we know this without any doctrine of deductive Logic ' How can we tell whether we are reasoning rightly or wrongly from the perceptible to the imperceptible without some doctrine of the conditions un der which generalisation is sound ' Later Epicureans appear to t t h u have tried o fill e gap left at this point by Epicur s . Among the remains of Philodemus we find in particular

f fl r c o . some notes the teaching of Zeno of Sidon ( o .

8 o n . 0 R C . ) this very matter Zeno admits that a few unusual instances of a sequence are insufficient to establish a general rule, while a complete examina tion of all relevant cases is usually impossible . So he holds that in order to make a safe generalisation

t o we require examine a number of instances which , though alike in some one respect, vary among them selves in other respects . By comparison we may then discover what has been the one regular concomitant in

o f all these cases the result we are interested in , and then reason by analogy to the presence of this con

a . comit nt in other cases This is, of course, the same 5 5 E P I C U R U S

method afterwards called by J . S . Mill the Method

of Agreement, and , like that method , is too vague to be of any great value except as a basis for mere

suggestions of possible connections in Nature . As

Wallace says , Zeno (and we may say the same of Mill) evades the difficulty of saying how much resemblance warrants us in regarding a number of facts as formn

‘

o ne or . kind class of cases We may add , I think, a further criticism against the whole conception of

‘ analogy from the perceptible as the only method o f

‘ ’ discovering the latent processes in Nature . Why need the behaviour of ultimate molecular o r atomic bodies (if there are such things) be analogous at all

with the facts of sense - perception ' In fact most theories of Physics ascribe to the simple ultimate elements motions which seem strikingly unlike those ’ - E . which fall under direct sense perception . g. Newton s first law o f Motion or the law o f the Conservation of Energy seems at first sight to be contradict ed by sense

perception . We accept them , not because the pro

like cesses they assume are what we actually see, but d d because we can e uce the results we see from them . — 3 . Ph ic ys s The Structure of the Universe . F l t ado. Co o em 3 rom Plutarch ( , ) we learn that

e a usi ha ne s Epicurus had at one time, like his t acher N p , i been content to call h mself a Democritean , and when we examine his physical theory we shall find that it is,

o f for in fact, merely that Democritus altered the worse and cut away from the anti - sensation al theory 5 6

E P I C U R U S admit that what is can be annihilated by the constant

’ U se ner . of E . i. pressure surrounding bodies ( p , , p

chan e Atoms, again , must be incapable of g , since, if

t o there is be no annihilation of what is, there must be a permanent substratum which persists under all m n . t o cha ge Hence , while we may attribute ato s, as

t o sensible bodies , bulk and shape and weight, we must

not ascribe to them any further sensible qualities . Here we are led into a diflicult y due t o the incon sistency between Atomism and the sensationalistic

of theory knowledge . Democritus had drawn from

the variability of the colours, tastes , etc . , of the bodies we perceive the conclusion of Locke and Descartes , that such sense - qualities are mere subjective effects of

the mechanical properties of bodies on our organism . Hence he had held that judgments about the sensible qualities of bodies have no objective validity ; they

‘ belong to the bastard form o f conviction . Things

or are only sweet bitter, etc . , by convention ; in reality ’ there are only atoms and the void . Epicurus could

S t o t o not follow him here , ince do so would be fatal

Canonic the fundamental doctrine of his , that sensation always represents its immediate external object just as

or . it is, without addition , subtraction modification He seems t o have tried to reconcile the two views in this way . In every composite body there are atoms of ff very, di erent sizes and shapes , and consequently

‘ ’ these varieties are reproduced in the skins ( e idwlt a ) w thro n from bodies, which are the immediate stimuli 5 8 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

f and objects o f sensation . But owing to the dif erences

of in the constitution organisms, only some of these may

- be able t o act on a given sense organ . Hence a thing may appear to different persons to be of different

- ou . colours , red to y , gray to me (if I am colour blind)

‘ ’ ’ The image or ‘ skin itself contains both ato ms suited to evoke the sensation red and other fitted to

‘ ’ evoke gray ; but the one set make their way into

- your sense organs the other into mine . The thing actually is at once red (and thus your sensation is C o . and gray , (and so mine is true als ) olour, therefore, is not a subjective illusion , but a variable

t o quality the word seems be medical, and ’ fit of d to mean a , or sudden seizure , ) the external bo y,

r d‘ a a v e x r . ' as distinguished from its pfl fi j , viz the

erma nent no t p predicates, which do thus vary, but, as

‘ ’ their name implies , always go with the thing, its

ima ‘ r r f. E . . U se ne r . . C p y qualities p i ( , p We must hold that we see and recognise the shapes of things in virtue of the entrance of something from

F r actual bodies . o bodies outside us could not have set the stamp of their colour and shape upon us by

of e ffluen ce s means the air between us and them, or of of any kind proceeding from ourselves to them [this is directed against Aristotle and Plato] , so well as on the hypothesis that certain imprints ente r into us from external . things, preserving their colour and shape, and making their way in accord with the ’ appropriate magnitude into the eye or the mind and 5 9 E P I C U R U S

‘ . 22 F ih. U se ne r ( , p ) urther, the shapes, colours ,

nit udes e of g , and all that is predicat d bodies as an of attribute all bodies , or of all visible bodies, and as

o knowable by b dily perception , must neither be held to

er se t o be realities p (which is inconceivable) , nor be

- x simply non e istent, nor to be incorporeal predicates of t i body , nor par s of it Immed ately on this follows

o v n' fl h t a r‘ a or s the definition of the n p , variable accident

as distinct from the permanent properties of bodies . Of course we may ret ort that this is no solution o f

the difficulty . A mechanical configuration which awakens the perception of red is not the same as a red ’ o n own thing, and moreover, Epicurus showing, if a

and as thing is both red and gray , I only perceive it ’ 1 w . red , I am not apprehending it ithout subtraction I do not know how to account for the inconsequence ofEpicurus in thus making t he doctrine of Democritus

absurd by combining it with sensationalism , except perhaps on the ground that his theory aims at incor porat ing the view of Nature which had been just made t popular by Aris otle . According to Aristotle, who reverte d in this respect to the standpoint o f pre

t dist inc Democri ean natural science, the fundamental

or tions in Nature are not geometrical mechanical, but

qualitative, the distinctions between hot, cold dry,

e o moist ; whit , black, and the other contrary opp sites

- t o of sense perception . The attempt fuse this point

1 The in a n a f L - n u u ii. 95 816 dic tio s f orded by creti s , 7 , poi t to t he n a t n I ha n in he i terpret io ve give t text . 6 0 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y of V iew with the rigidly mechanical theory of Atomism was bound to produce strange results, and we shall see that it is probably responsible for another grave departure from Democritus .

Epicurus next infers, like Democritus, that the f o . number atoms is infinite The All must be infinite, i because whatever is finite has lim ts, and so has some thing outside itself, but there can be nothing outside

of the All . The argument, like most those we have

old hitherto seen produced by him , is an one, as it goes

Melissus of back to the famous Eleatic, Samos . It

t o seems to be, when applied prove the conclusion

Epicurus draws from it, a sophism , since it does not h follow t at because the All has nothing outside it,

num ber the of things it contains must be infinite .

Melissus ( , in fact, used the argument to prove tha t

one t the All must be jus because it is infinit e . ) But

‘ Epicurus adds a further physical reason . The All must be infinite both in respect of the number of

i e bodies, . . atoms) , and in respect of the extent of void .

For if the void were infinite , but the number of bodies

finite, the bodies would never have remained anywhere, but would have been scattered and dissipated through the void , having nothing to support them and fix them in position when they rebound from collision , and if the void were finite it would not contain the infinity

E i. U se n e r . of bodies ( p. , , p I do not see that the

argument, which has all the appearance of coming

from the fifth century Atomists, is conclusive . It is 6 1 E P I C U R U S

true that you cannot find room for an infinity of atoms in a limited space, but the proof that the number of atoms must be infinite if spa ce is unlimited seems un satisfactory . Even on the supposition of an infinite

space with a finite number of atoms in it, why might

ou t not the attractive forces, however y conceive hem, hold the atoms together indefinitely Or even if you grant the consequence proved, why should it be absurd to hold that it really will be the fate of the universe t o be disintegrated into individual atoms each at an infinite d s ' ou i tance from every other To make it absurd, y would need to prove that the world has already ex ist e d so ' t hat for an infinite time, the disruption , if it

were possible , ought to have occurred already . But Epicurus merely assumes the eternity o f the world

without proof . When we come t o the theory of the motion of the atom we get at once a fundamental divergence from

hi as i Democritus w ch , the Academ c critics observed ,

f of shows the in eriority Epicurus as a scientific thinker .

r To judge from the criticism of A istotle, who com plains that Democritus had never explained what is

na tural t i e the movement of a oms ( . . how an atom would move if it were not deflected by collision with other

atoms) , we should suppose that Democritus started with an infinite number of atoms moving in every i d rection , and we know for certain that he held that ff i atoms move with di erent velocities, the bulk er more

rapidly than the less bulky In this way, when they 6 2 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y come to collide the less bulky atoms are squeezed out wards , and form a kind of film round a denser centre . Whether Democritus believed in absolute direction in space we are not told , but we have, I think, the right to infer from the data before us that he made n o

of and use of the antithesis up and down in his theory,

‘ ’ did not regard his atoms as falling . In other words,

a the ancient tr dition , for which we have the express testimony of Theophrastus , is absolutely correct in asserting that Democritus did not regard weight as an inherent property of the atom . According to him the inherent properties of the atom are two , shape and bulk . Weight was added as a third by Epicurus . In

of n this Democritus was , course , right, si ce the weight of a body is purely relative to its surroundings, while

is a its mass (which invariable) would, in the c se of an atom, be strictly proportional to its bulk . Now Epicurus makes both the assumption ( 1) that t all a oms have weight, but irrespective of their weight, move with the same velocity through the void, because it offers no resistance to them ; (2) and that they all

one move, until deflected by collision in and the same

down direction , viz . , the reason why they move down

in wards, rather than any other direction , being their

of weight . Thus we have to think all atoms as w primarily falling in parallel straight lines, ith equal velocities , towards a fixed plane at an infinite distance, in the direction from our heads to our feet . Apparently the assumption of the uniform direction rests on a bad 6 3 E P I C U R U S generalisation ' from our experience o f the falling of bodies to the earth . The blunder made in this as sumption is not, as is often said , that Epicurus believes in an absolute and not merely a relative difference of

ravit directions in space , but that he treats g y as an inherent tendency in material particles to move t o

a wards fixed plane in empty space , whereas it is really a tendency t o move in the direction of other mat erial

not particles . What he does see is that a single par t icle r , alone in infinite space, would not g avitate at all , and that the direction o f gravity at different places is not the same . As to the point about equal velocity, Democritus was clearly thinking in the right scientific spirit when he began with the assumption of atoms

o f moving with every degree velocity, since no valid

’ for reason can be given supposing uniformity . Epicurus apparent ground for asserting the uniformity, viz . , that there can be n o friction between empty space and the atoms, is obviously worthless, since it proves no more than that the velocity o f an atom falling through

o f empty space would, in the absence all other bodies , be constant ; not that for two atoms, let us say at an m immense distance from each other, it must be the sa e . But it is noticeable that he has accidentally stumbled on a truth about graoity which is not suggested by our sensible experience . It is true that in a perfect vacuum particles would fall towards the centre of a large a t tracting mass from equal distances in equal time . But this does not Show that all atoms originally move with 6 4

E P I C U R U S

t o not to an rede must ascribe the doctrine Epicurus, y p

cessor t , and it will be clear tha the only original feature it 1 o f his system is just the most illogical thing in . We come now to the crowning absurdity of the

whole scheme . If the atoms all fall perpendicularly,

' from all eternity , in the same direction and with

uniform velocity, obviously no atom should overtake

another, and no compound bodies should ever be

a o f or of formed . Inste d a world worlds such bodies there ought to be at every moment a downward rain of atoms preserving their original distances from each

other, and the condition of the universe at any moment ought t o be indistinguishable from its condition at any

other . This is obviously not the case, though it is exactly what would happen if the whole motion of each

particle were due solely, as we should say, to gravita

tion . To reconcile his first hypothesis about the motion

of the atom with sensible fact, Epicurus has to make a second assumption which virtually ruins his funda

c mental theory that the course of Nature is mechani al . He assumed that at certain moments which we cannot

n predict, and for no assig able cause , the atom may swerve to a very slight degree out of t he path of per l endicu ar . p descent These incalculable swervings ,

de fl often enough repeated, may lead to a notable e c

1 Ea rl G reek P hil s h - e e Bu n 3 9 39 . I ha S r et , y o op y, 6 7 ve tried to show tha t his theory of Epicu rean ism a s a con flat ion of Democritus with Aristotle is confirm ed by other in consisten cies in Epicurus which are m ost n a turally expla in ed in t he sa m e a w y. 6 6 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

’ tion o fthe atom s path . In this way atoms may come to

t o collide and adhere, and so, in process of time, form a world of perceptible compound bodies . This is the doctrine of the declination clina men) of the 21 . 7 if atom expounded by Lucretius in Book ii . No confirmation of the theory is offered except that given

of - by Lucretius, the existence unmotived free will in

m . O ani als n the theory that the soul , like everything

of u except the void , is made atoms, Lucreti s argues, you

or cannot account for volition, escape fatalism, except by endowing the atoms with the capacity for capricious deviation from their regular paths . Now the Epicu reans were determined to uphold free- will in the sense of absolutely unmotived volition against the Stoic de

. E terminism Epicurus himself had said ( p. iii . , Use ner, p. It would be better to believe the tale about the gods than to be enslaved to the Destiny of the physicists the former leaves a prospect o fchanging the purposes of the gods by propitiating them , the latter

’ sets up a necessity which cannot be propitiated . Thus the source of the doctrine was simply a desire to avoid a practically uncomfortable conclusion . Instead of trying to show that rigid determinism is false, Epicurus

t o merely declines believe in it, though it is a logica l con

of sequence the mechanical view of things, because he

on dislikes the influence of the belief human happiness .

He then uses this appeal to prejudice, to bolster up his

- absurd natural science . (That the free will of Epicurus

really means pure caprice, not, as has been sometimes 6 7 E P I C U R U S

- c. . fancied, rational self determination , is shown g by 9 i . 29 Lucretius ii , where the poet adds to his prev ous mist aken assertion that weight is an internal cause of ’ movement the remark that the ‘ declination of the atom at uncertain times and places shows that there is no internal necessity in the behaviour of the mind . C C arneades, the great sceptic , correctly remarked ( icero, dc Fa to 23 , ) that Epicurus might have defended freedom

of r a é xALO‘ LS‘ without the extravagant fiction p y , if he had simply said that the cause of a voluntary action is

e not ext rnal to the mind . This, however, would have been fatal t o his materialistic theory of the mind as a

of complex atoms . ) The unscientific character of this method of saving one unprovable hypothesis by a second which really contradicts the first formed o ne of the standin g grounds for censure of Epicurus iii antiquity . Cicero sums up

a ‘ the Ac demic criticism when he says , He holds that solid atoms fall downward by their own weight 1 11 straight lines, and that this is the natural movement of all bodies . . Then it occurred to this truly acute thinker that if all things fall downwards in straight

a lines, no atom would ever overt ke another, and so he availed himself of a pure fiction . He said that the atom swerves slightly from its path (a most ridiculous

a re suggestion), and that this leads to combinations , gg

at ions t g , and adhesions of a oms , which, in their turn ,

t o De Na tura B ecra m lead the formation of a world ( , i . 6 8 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

in nite worlds - o f The fi . The Epicurean definition a

‘ ’ or of ‘ world , orderly system atoms , is a region of the

and heavens, containing stars, an earth , all perceptible ff m bodies , cut o from the void and ter inated by a

or boundary which may be in rotation at rest, and

u . may have a round , a triang lar, or any other figure

For n o all figures are possible, since evidence can be

our o wn found to the contrary in world, since its

. U se ner . boundary is not perceptible ii , , p — In this definition the words cut o ff void are known to be a quotation from Leucippus, and what precedes them probably comes from the same source ; the addi tion that such a ‘ world ’ may or may not be moving w as a hole, and may have any shape , is partly at least E original , since it alludes to the peculiar picurean theory of knowledge . Epicurus also borrows from Leucippus and Democritus the doctrine that the universe contains an infinite number of such worlds .

of We see that the number such worlds is infinite, and that such a world may arise either within another

d or worl , in the intermundial spaces , by which we mean

' ’ the intervals of empty space between difl erent worlds .

As we have seen, Epicurus maintained that any number o f divergent explanations of the formation of the d things composing a world might be equally goo , pro vided that they only exclude all divine agency and conform to the general principles of atomism . Of the d movements of the heavenly bodies it is expressly sai ,

‘ To assign one single explanation of these fac ts when 6 9 E P I C U R U S the phenomena suggest several is the action of a

i of lunatic, and a very mproper proceeding those who h ’ i t e e . emulate follies of the astronomers ( . the scientific

of astronomers the Platonic school) . He even scan dalised the scientific by the ridiculous assertion that the heavenly bodies are approximately of their apparent

‘ R of size . elatively to us the size the sun and moon and the other heavenly bodies is just what it appears to be ; absolutely it is either a little larger or a little ’ smaller, or as the case may be . His argument is that a bonfire seen from a distance appears about as big as

o f it really is, and we may conclude to the case the sun and moon by analogy . So generally we find the

‘ ’ second letter full o f alternative explanations of facts in which the results of the latest science and the crudest guesses of the earliest Milesians are treated as much on a par . I do n ot propose to enter here into the details o f l these udicrous theories, but there is one point on h which a word should be said . The Epicureans ave sometimes been unduly belauded as pioneers o f the

‘ of doctrine of evolution . In point fact , the general con ception o f the origin o f species by gradual develop ment is as old as Anaximander of Miletus in the early

of part the sixth century , and had been specially

in . expounded by Empedocles the fifth Hence, as there is, so far as I know, no evidence that Epicurus concerned himself much with the subject, I think it most probable that the remarkable anticipations of 7 0 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

Lamarck which we find in the fifth book of Lucretius come from Empedocles , whom he regarded as his literary model, rather than from Epicurus . The real way to put the matter is that Epicurus, like the

of evolutionists, rejects all teleological explanation

‘ n t natural facts . Eyes and ears have o been given ’ t o to us, as Plato had asserted, in order to lead us

hilo p s0phic reflection and scientific knowledge . We do not have eyes and ears that we may see and hear ; we see and hear merely because we happen to have F eyes and ears . unction does not create organisation , as modern biologists are teaching us ; organs create function .

Ps cholo — of y gy The soul is , course, material and f made o atoms . The only immaterial existent is empty space, but empty space cannot act or be acted

‘ t h n on as e soul ca . Hence those who call the soul immaterial talk nonsense . If it were so, it could neither act nor be acted upon . But in fact it is clear and evident that both these states belong to the soul ’ i E . U se n e r . ( p . , , p More particularly , it is made of the finest and roundest particles, and this accounts for o f a nd its quickness sensibility volition , such particles being more mobile than any others . (This

‘ is merely Democritus repeated . ) We can see by appealing to sensation and feeling, the surest of criteria, that the soul is a subtle body scattered through our whole frame , similar to breath , with an

of admixture warmth , and that in some parts it is 7 1 E P I C U R U S

e on e more like the one, in some lik the other, but in

’ ’ special part [I read érri Sé T o v‘ uépo vs for U sene r s eiri

SE7 08 a , which may be an oversight, ] it far surpasses even breath and heat themselves in fineness, and is consequently all the quicker to be affecte d by the ’ i s ner f o r E . U e o u . condition of the rest frame ( p , ,

1 9 u pp . According to the still more precise acco nt

22 if Placita followed by Lucretius (iii . 7 . ) and the of c 3 ‘ f . t o A tins (iv , the soul is a mix ure four things, o n e o f a fiery nature, another of the nature of air,

o f o f a third the nature breath , and a fourth which has no name . It is this last which is the sensitive

' ' of principle ; the breath is the source motion , the ' o f of e o f air rest, the hot element the sensible h at

r the body, while the nameless p inciple produces sensa

no tion in us, for there is sensibility in any of the ’ elements which have got names . It is this fourth ‘ nameless ’ part which Lucretius

ul a nima reg arly calls the (mind) , as distinct from the a nimus t o or soul as a whole . Thus the other three constituents Epicurus assign s the functions o f respira h t e . tion , motion , and like They constitute the vital principle ; the unnamed fourth part is the principle o f

on sensation , and , since all mental activity is based sensation , of consciousness generally . We have to think o f the soul as not localised in any o ne part

f of of the body but dif used through it, particles the soul - stuff being everywhere mixed up with the grosser

‘ ’ t he flcsh particles which form , as Epicurus prefers 7 2

E P I C U R U S

through air or water to the percipient, Epicurus holds that they are formed of atoms actually detached from the perceived body itself, and propagated through wi empty space th an infinite velocity . The whole

of theory, of course, ignores the fundamental fact which a doctrine of perception has t o take account, the personal individuality o f the perceiving self . Since the soul is formed o f the smallest and most mobile atoms, it would naturally be more quickly dissipated into its constituents than anything else in

Nature, if it were not that it is shielded during life by the integument of grosser atoms which surrounds it .

Thus it is not the soul which holds the body together, but the body which holds the soul together . Hence, at death , when the soul is eliminated from its covering, the body, it is instantly disintegrated , and conscious

‘ ness and personality are finally annihilated . When the whole complex is dissolved , the soul is dispersed and no longer has the same powers , no longer is moved

For nor has perception . that which perceives can no

no longer perceive anything, since it longer belongs to this complex nor has these motions, since the things which envelope and surround it are not such as those ’ in which it n o w exists and possesses these motions

E i U n . . se e r i ( p , , p . The eth cal inference is then drawn that it is folly to fear death , since there is no

‘ t o consciousness after death . Death is nothing us , for when we are, death is not ; and when death is, we ’ are not . 7 4 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y

‘ Accustom thyself to reflect that death is nothing

on to us, since good and bad depend entirely sensation , and death is privation of sensation . Hence the true knowledge that death is nothing to us makes mortal life enjoyable, not by adding endless duration to it, but by taking away the craving for immortality . There is nothing terrible in life for on e who really comprehends that there is nothing terrible in n ot

. not living Hence he who says he fears death , because

our it will be painful when it comes, but because present assurance that it will come is painful , is a fool . It is but an idle pain that comes of anticipating a thing which will give us no uneasiness when it has come .

o f Death , then , that most dreaded ills, is nothing to

For us . while we are, death is not ; and when death has come, we are not . Death , then , is nothing to the f living nor yet to the dead , since it does not af ect the former, and the latter no longer exist . The crowd ,

one to be sure, at time shrink from death as the worst of evils , at another choose it as a refuge from the miseries of life . But the wise man neither declines life nor shrinks from death , since life is not distasteful ’ not to him , nor does he think it an evil to live E . . U se n e r . ( p iii , , p Thus Epicurus uses his borrowed Psychology to achieve the extirpation of the fear of death as a prime disturber o f human 1 happiness .

1 The am u l m ma D a h ann n n us l n f o s di e , e t c ot co cer , for so o g ’ as a re a h is n ot and h n a h is a re n o t m we , de t , w e de t , we , see s 7 5 E P I C U R U S

heolo - i f T gy. The cl max o the Epicurean Physics is

o f to be found in its theory the gods, which , by cutting

them adrift altogether from human life , rids us of all fear of their anger or anxious concern to win their

approval . Epicurus and his followers were often

denounced as Atheists, and the accusation is just if it means that they denied the existe nce o f gods from

or whom we have anything to hope fear, gods who can be objects of our love or can help humanity in its

of o f hour need . They admit the existence gods in the sense of superhuman beings who lead a life of

o n unending blessed calm . They even insist their

e exist nce and anthropomorphic character . Epicurus

himself in his letter to Menoeceus has the words, ‘ Follow and dwell on what I used constantly to

o u declare to y , and believe that these things are the f o . foundation a worthy life Believe , in the first

place, of God that he is an imperishable and blessed

f G od living being , as the universally dif used idea of

t o testifies, and ascribe him nothing inconsistent with

o f his immortality nor unworthy his blessedness . But

’ n o m n a E u u h to be ore origi a l th n t he rest of pic r s p ilosophy . T he pseudo -Pla t on ic di alog u e Axiochus (a polemic a ga in st E picuru s by a con tempora ry Pla ton ist) a sserts tha t t he words

a a n Pro dic u s t he h a n d t he a m n m a were s yi g of sop ist , st te e t y ’ l u n t he a u h a im h ha very possib y be tr e , si ce t or s is to s ow t t E u an m h h he a s t he u fi al a l pic re is , w ic describes s per ci t k of n un m e n m l a u n t he co ceited yo g , is ere y reprod ctio of dis a a n l m U n l t h e a n a ll a m credited ide s of o der ti e . ess s yi g re y c e m Pro dic us h e h a s m a a l a l n n u n fro , de iter ry b u der i p tti g it n his m u h in u n n i to o t s c h a con ectio . 7 6 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y believe everything which can consist with his imm or

For tal blessedness . gods there certainly are, since our cognition ofthem is clear and evident . But gods such as the vulgar believe in there are not . The impious

of man is not he who rejects the gods the vulgar, but he who ascribes to the gods the things which the

’ vulgar believe of them . The Epicurean gods are thus thought of as magnified

- and non natural Epicurean philosophers , enjoying, like the Epicurean sage , a life of perfect tranquillity,

a with the added advantage of being immort l . They are human in figure and there are many of them, so that they can pass their time in pleasant social inter

t o course . Epicurus is said have declared that in

of u their converse they speak the noblest lang ages, a pure and refined Greek . There is an obvious difficulty about their immortality for expositors who take

For Epicurus seriously as a thinker . they are material, like everything except space itself, and Epicurus explicitly declared that their bodies are formed o f the subtlest matter . How then do they escape the general law that all atomic complexes are destructible, and the

finer the atoms , the less permanent the complex ' It

no t o f is partly, doubt, meet this dif iculty that Epicurus provided them with abodes in the interm undial empty spaces, where they would be least subject to collision t with grosser a oms . At least Lucretius gives this reason for the localisation . Now Epicurus held that tranquillity is only possible 7 7 E P I C U R U S

to one who is neither anxious for others nor gives others

anxiety . Hence it is a consequence of the felicity of the gods that they neither influence earthly affairs by

their providential care, nor concern themselves with

the deeds of men . This is laid down in the very first

‘ words of the Ca techism ' The blessed and immortal

of o wn has no anxieties its , and causes none to others . ’ Thus it is constrained neither by favour nor by anger . Lucretius is constantly recurring to the same point with an earnestness which shows that the inherently — anti religious doctrine of Epicurus was , in his case at least, accepted in part from a real religious indignation

against the immoral features of popular theology . Yet one wonders whether the amiable invalids of the garden would not have been seriously perturbed in their ‘ feasts on the 20t h by the apparition of a

aflam disciple e with the zeal of a missionary . I cannot help thinking that Epicurus would have given his

u oi t de zel of V S rtout n e . worshipper the counsel oltaire, p The moral fervour of Lucretius must not blind us to the facts that he stands alone among the Epicureans of whom we know, and that the real issue at stake in the Academic polemic against Epicurus is the momento us one whether or not religion shall continue to be of

for practical significance life . Yet in justice to

Epicurus it may be said that , after all, his rejection of Providence and prayer leads to something not unlike the Neo - Kantian view that while we cannot know

of whether God exists or not, the concept God is none 7 8 T H E N A T U R E O F R E A L I T Y the less valuable as embodying an ethical ideal of f . o a perfection The gods Epicurus are, at le st, an ’ embodiment of the ideal wise man , and thus the con t e mplat ion of them may be of actual use in framing

’ one s own mind to something like their peace and f . o serenity This is, perhaps , why Epicurus speaks the thought of the gods as bringing the greatest benefits to the good .

79 C H A P T E R I I I

THE SALVAT ION OF MAN

WE come now to the central citadel o f Epicurean

doctrine, the part which, as Epicurus holds, gives all

— of the rest its value the theory human conduct,

of Lives of E nds variously styled by him the doctrine , ,

and A voidance of Choice . Here again we shall find the attempt to replace high and difficult ideals by some more homely and apparently more easily compassed

r of end of action . Epicu us wants a principle conduct

which is not for the elect few only , but can be

immediately understood and felt by the common man .

Like many moralists before and after him , he thinks he finds what he wants in the notion of pleasure as t he only good and pain as the only evil . The Plat onic

‘ ’ conception of life as becoming like unto God , the Aristotelian identification of the best life with one in which, by means of science, art, religious contempla

off u tion , we put the b rden of our mortality, may be

t o inspiring the chosen few, but to the plain average

a man these are noble but shadowy ide s . And for d what is sha owy the prosaic Epicurus has no taste .

‘ ’ ’ The consecration and the poet s dream are t o him 80

E P I C U R U S

voluptuary . He taught and enforced by his example the doc trine that the simple life of plain fare and serious contemplation is the true life of pleasure, and

one in the main , with great exception , the practical code ofaction he recommends does not differ much from that of the ordinary decent man . The main objection t o his Hedonism is a theoretical one ; as he regards the

a e feeling of ple sur as the only good , he is bound to deny that virtue or beauty has any moral value except as a necessary means to pleasure , and thus his ethics, while demanding an innocent and harmless life , can afford no inspiration to vigorous pursuit of Truth or

o r t o Beauty, strenuous devotion the social improve ’ of n ment of man s estate . The air the Garde is relax ing ; it is a forest of Arden where nothing more is

‘ ’ required than to fleet the time carelessly . There is a touch of moral invalidism about the personality of a teacher who could declare that the noble, the virtuous, and the like should be prized if they cause plea sure ; F a r. if they do not, they should be left lone ( To

be more precise , in saying that pleasure is the good,

Epicurus is not telling us anything new . Hedonism ’ 18 Prota oras as a moral theory dealt with in Plato s g ,

had been advocated by Democritus, and expressly 1 put forward within the Academy itself by Eudoxus . What does look at first sight more original is the

1 It is usual a t this poin t to bring t he Cyren a ic school i n t o u t he H n i m E a s u u . Th t he story prec rsors of edo s of pic r s is is ,

h a ll n . The a n n no a however , istoric y wro g cie ts do t ppea r to 82 T H E S A L V A T I O N O F M A N way in which Epicurus conceives of the highest pleasure attainable by man . He holds the curious view that, though pleasure is a positive thing not to be con

of founded with mere absence pain , yet the moment pain is entirely expelled from the mind and body we have already attained the maximum degree of pleasure .

- Any further increase in the pleasure giving stimulus, according to Epicurus , can only make pleasure more

‘ variegated , not increase its intensity . The (upper) limit of pleasures in magnitude is the e xpulsion of all pain . Where pleasure is present, and so long as it is present, pain and grief are, singly and con

’ ‘ t - Catechism join ly , non existent ( , Pleasure receives no further augmentation in the flesh after the pain of want has once been expelled ; it admits ’ ih merely of variegation ( . The source of this pessimistic estimate of the possibilities of pleasure ’ P i is patent ; the doctrine comes from Plato s h lebus. Plato had taught that the satisfactions of appetite are ha ve kn own of a Cyren aic doctrin e before t he t im e of t he

un r i t i u a nd in Plu a h Adv. Colot em fi yo ge Ar s pp s ; t rc , , we nd A la u a nd t he C n a fi a ll nt a i h Pla rcesi s yre ics speci c y co r sted w t to , l St il o an d Th h a u a s t he nt m Aristot e , p , eop r st s co e pora ries of m l l m he C olo t e s. Th u a t a m n is , pres b y, ike ost of st te e ts in ’ P n - E a n a a a m luta rch s a t i picure ess ys , goes b ck to u ch e a rlier u l a n a an d Aca demic so rce (very possib y C r e des) , is t herefore The a l n ot likely to be a m isa pprehen sion . e r ier philosophers wh o ha ve i n fluen ced Epicurus in his theory of t he e n d are m u n d E u u demon stra bly De ocrit s a dox s . It w as exa ctly t he s am e blun der in chron ology which lon g le d schola rs t o s uppose ’ tha t t he an t i - Hedon ist polemic of Pla to s Phile bus was a imed a t t he Cyrena ics . 83 E P I C U R U S

never purely pleasurable they are mixed states,

- - half pleasurable, half painful . They depend for their

- f pleasantness upon a pre existing pain ul state of want, and the process of satisfaction only continues so long as

o f e the pain the want is not complet ly assuaged, but still remains in the to tal experience as a stimul us to go o n seeking more and more satisfaction . The true — e . pleasures i. those which do not depend for their attractiveness on the concealed sting of unsatisfied want

— t o belong the mind, not to the body . It is to meet this depreciation of the everyday pleasures of satisfy ing bodily appetite that Epicurus declares the complete expulsion of pain and want t o be already the maximum e attainable degree Of pleasure, and denies the xistence ’ ‘ a lma vo u of the mixed experiences . The l ptas of his school thus comes t o mean a life of permanent bodily

n and mental tranquillity, free from disquieti g sensa — tions and from the anticipation o f them a view which t he has merely taken over from Democri us, who spoke ’ c edo ia f l of n , cheer u ness of temper, as the true end Of t o life . What he has done is simply express the Democritean theory in a terminology specially intended to mark dissent from the Platonic and Aristote lian

‘ ' our doctrine . His own words are The end of all actions is to be free from pain and apprehension .

t o When once this happens us , the tempest in the soul

n becomes a calm , and the organism no longer eeds to

k or t o make progress to anything which it lac s , seek anything f urther to complet e the good for soul and 84 T H E S A L V A T I O N O F M A N

For body . we only need pleasure so long as the

absence Of it causes pain . As soon as we cease t o be

of in pain we have no need further pleasure . This is why we call pleasure the beginning and end of the

i our happy l fe . It is recognised by us as primal and connatural good , and is the original source of all choice

and avoidance , and we revert to it when we make

Eud us . ox feeling the universal standard of good [ . ] Now it is because this is our primal and connatural good that we do not choose to have every pleasure, but sometimes pass by many pleasures when a greater r inconvenience follows from them, and prefe many pains t o pleasures when a greater pleasure follows from endurance of the pain . Every pleasure then is a

of i e good , as it has the specific character the good [ . . a own to attr ct us for its sake] , but not every pleasure

t o not is be chosen ; so also every pain is an evil , but u ’ E 2 . 6 every pain sho ld be always avoided ( p. iii , p . , ff U se ne r) . Hence he di ers from his Cyrenaic contem

orarie s p , who preached a robuster type of Hedonism ,

e f in three points . ( 1) The nd o the individual action

n ot of moment is the pleasure the , but a permanent

o f SO lifelong condition serene happiness . , unlike

of Aristippus , he does not accept the doctrine taking

‘ for no thought the morrow, but says we must

our remember that the future is neither wholly own ,

our nor wholly not own , that we may neither await it

of t o as certain to be, nor despair it as certain not be

E . U s n r 2 e e . ( p . iii , , p ( ) Epicurus insists strongly 85 E P I C U R U S

‘ ’ that pleasures are not all transitions from one con dition to another ; besides the pleasures of transition

’ xa m a a n xa i eo va i of there are mn fi , pleasures repose , a point which had already been made by Plato and ‘ F Aristotle . He says ' reedom from mental dis quietude and from pain are pleasures of repose ; joy

Fr and delight we regard as activities of change ( . Hence he is often wrongly classed among those who

mere regard freedom from pain as the highest good . ( 3 ) He definitely gives the preference t o pleasures of

of ‘ mind over pleasures body, arguing that in bodily pain the flesh is tormented merely by the present, but in mental pain the soul is distressed on account of the present, the past, and the future . Similarly mental ’ Fr pleasures are greater than bodily ( . They are greater, that is, because they include the memory

o f of past and the anticipation future happiness . In deed, Epicurus carried this doctrine to the point Of paradox, saying that a sage would be happy on the rack, since his pleasant recollections of the past would

f n Fr outweigh his bodily suf eri gs ( . Later writers like Seneca are never tired of making merry over the

‘ sa Epicurean sage who must be able to y, even while ‘ ' he is being roasted alive , How delightful this is ’ How ' I am enjoying myself Epicurus, as we have seen , illustrated the doctrine practically by the serenity of his last painful days . But, as the Academic critics

' are careful to remind us , we must recollect that all the mental pleasures of memory and anticipation , to 86 T H E S A L V A T I O N O F M A N

which Epicurus attributes such value, are resoluble into the recollection or anticipation of pleasurable ex perience s which are themselves analysable into sensa ' tions , and therefore corporeal .

of As we should expect, Epicurus is never tired denouncing all ascetic views about the pleasures of

ad na useam bodily appetite . He insists that man has a body as well as a soul , and that the happy life is f impossible if we neglect the claims o the body . He and his friends often put the point in coarse and vigorous language , which scandalised persons of

of Me t rodorus refined turn mind . said in a letter to

‘ Tim ocrat e s of his brother , The doctrine nature is wholly concerned with the belly (Fr. and Epicurus that ‘ the beginning and root o f all good

of is the pleasure the belly, and even wisdom and ’ Fr Me t rod r s r on . o u o culture depend that ( , p

v bably using a formula de ised by his master, asks ‘ what else is the good of the soul but a permanent healthy condition of the flesh, and a confident expecta ’ tion of its continuance ' (Fr. a definition which is a perpetual subject for denunciation by the Academic

of critics . The real meaning sayings like these is more innocent than it looks to be . Epicurus is, after all,

n t only saying in exaggerated la guage, hat even a f philosopher cannot af ord to neglect his digestion . The fact that both he and Met rodorus were confirmed dyspeptics goes far to explain the vehemence of their ’ ‘ s language about the plea ures of the belly . Carlyle 87 E P I C U R U S

might easily have said the same sort of thing, and

Dr . Johnson , who was far from being a voluptuary ,

actually did .

’ More Open to attack was Epicurus trick o f abstract ing from the whole concrete experience of the satis factions of virtuous action , and asserting that the pleasure which accompanies the right act is the end to which the act itself is merely a means . This leads him to the utilitarian view that if you could only escape the painful consequences which attend on u ind lgence in a pleasant vice, the vice would no

‘ longer be bad . If the things which give rise to the pleasures of the pro fligat e could deliver our under t s anding from its fears about celestial portents , and

f t o death , and future suf ering , and could also teach us

o ur limit desires, we should have no reason left to ’ 1 0 t i Ca ech sm . blame them of the ) This is, of

o f i course, a conscious contradiction the famous Platon c

t o bad doctrine, that have a soul is itself the worst

o f . penalty sin Epicurus , however, holds that this separation of vice from its attendant consequences is not actually possible . The pleasures of sin are always

o f attended by the fear detection and punishment, and often by other disagreeable consequences . Also they cannot teach us to limit our desires , and thus

o f escape the torment unsatisfied passion . Nor can

o f they, like science, dispel the fear death or divine

m . judg ent This , and not any inherent badness in

o ur them, is why they must not be admitted into 88

E P I C U R U S

- fi procured . We regard self suf ciency as a great good ,

not that we may live sparingly in all circumstances, but that when we cannot have many good things we may w be content ith the few we have, in the fixed convie tion that those who feel the least need of abundance

o ut E . . get the greatest enjoyment of it ( p iii ,

U se n r e . , p Thus in practice the Epicurean ideal comes to be satisfac tion with the simplest necessa ries o f Catechism life , and Epicurus could say ( , natural riches are limited in extent and easy to pro cure , while those of empty fancy are indefinite in their

’ ‘ compass ; and again (Fr. give me plain water

- w and a loaf of barley bread , and I ill dispute the prize ’ So o f happiness with Zeus himself. enemies of the theories o f the school often praise its practical

‘ o wn how counsels . As Seneca says , my judgment, ever distasteful it may be to the adherents ofour school

i. e of [ . the Stoics] , is that the rules Epicurus are virtuous and right, and , on a clear view, almost austere ; he u reduces pleas re to a small and slender compass, and the very rule we prescribe to virtue he prescribes to ’ ollow a tme of pleasure ; he bids it f N . Even the tortures of disease he holds that they ca nnot disturb true happiness . If severe, they are brief if prolonged , they are inte rrupted by intervals of relief .

not In practice , then , though in theory, Epicurus

t o You refuses separate pleasure and virtue . cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and

ca n o u justly, nor y live wisely and nobly and justly 90 T H E S A L V A T I O N O F MA N

one without living pleasantly . Where any of these conditions is absent pleasurable life is impossible ’

Catechism ( ,

of of his In respect the details scheme of virtues , Epicurus is enough of a true Greek to give the first

‘ c le t o éw m wisdom rea sonab . place t p l s, , life He who says that it is not yet time for Philosophy, or that the time for it has gone by, is like one who should say

or that the season for happiness has not yet come , is over . So Philosophy should be followed by young and old alike ' by the old that in their age they may still be young in good things, through grateful memory of the past ; by the young that they may be old in their youth in their freedom from fear o f the ’ E . U se ner . future ( p. iii , , p When we say that

n o t m pleasure is the end , we do ean the pleasures o f rofli a t e on the p g , nor those which depend sensual

or misre re indulgence, as some ignorant malicious p

a nd senters suppose, but freedom from bodily pain

F r mental unrest . o it is not drinking and continual

of of junketing, nor the enjoyments sex, nor the

of delicacies the table which make life happy, but sober reasoning which searches into the grounds o f all choice and avoidance, and banishes the beliefs which , more than anything else , bring disquiet into the soul . And o f all this the foundation and chiefest good is

wisdom . Wisdom is even more precious than Philo Sophy herself ; and is the mother Of all other intel

E ne r U se . lectual excellences ( p . iii . , , p 9 1 E P I C U R U S

Of all the fruits of Philosophy the chief is the

‘ acquisition of true friendship . Of all that Philosophy furnishes towards the blessedness of our whole life far the greatest thing is the acquisition of friendship

Catechism ( , The solitary life is for Epicurus ,

for as Aristotle, no life for a man who means to be

happy . He would have agreed with some recent writers that the highest good we know is to be found f in personal af ection . We have already seen how

closely analogous the Epicurean organisation, bound together by no tie but the personal affection of its C C members, was to the early hristian hurch , in which also love for the brethren replaces the old Hellenic ’ devotion to the city as the principle of social unity .

not O Hence it is surprising that Epicurus, like ur Lord , is credited with the saying that it is more blessed t o

give than to receive . In his attitude towards the State Epicurus naturally represents a view antithetic

t o of that Plato and Aristotle, who insisted upon ’ common service to the ‘ city as the basis of all

social virtue . Unlike Aristotle , who teaches that man

‘ ’ is by his very constitution a political animal , a being born to find his highest good in t he common life provided by the community into which he comes

old S o at birth , Epicurus revives the ophistic distin

‘ ’ ’ t he ‘ tion between natural and the conventional , taking the purely conventional view as to the origin of political society and the validity of its laws . Societies are merely institutions created by compacts 9 2

E P I C U R U S

o f on laws , since some them are obviously based sound utilitarian considerations , and even the breaking of those that are not is likely to have unpleasant con sequences, Epicurus definitely refuses to say that the wise man will never commit a crime . His words, as

' reported by Plutarch, are Will the wise man ever do what the laws forbid , if he is sure not to be found out It is not easy t o give an unequivocal answer to the

’ e ‘ question . Plutarch int rprets this to mean, He will commit a crime if it brings him pleasure, but I

’ do not like to say so openly . It must be allowed

’ ‘ that o n Epic urus own showing his wise man would have no motive for refraining from a pleasant crime if

‘ ’ he really could be secure of impunity . The sage is not a person whom o ne would care to trust with the ’ ring of Gyges . It was a consequence as much of the age as Of the Epicurean ideal that Epicurus dissuaded his followers from taking part in public life . They were to leave the world to get on by itself, and devote themselves t o the cultivation of their o wn peace of soul by plain

- living and anti religious reasoning. This separation o f personal conduct from service to society is the point on which the Epicureans lay themselves most open to att ack as representing an ethics o f selfishness and indolence . We may plead in pa lliation that their ‘ quietism ’ may be regarded as partly a necessary consequence of the substitution of large monarchies for

- e the old city stat s . In such monarchies, even when 94 T H E S A L V A T I O N O F M A N

their code of public morality does not keep men o f

sensitive conscience out of public life, it is inevitable that the direction of affairs of moment shall be confined

r to a few practised hands . Yet it must also be e

membered that not a few philosophers , Academics , Stoics and others did play a prominent part in the f f public af airs o the age without soiling their garments . It is impossible to acquit Epicurus and his friends altogether o f a pitiable lack of wholesome public

spirit . It was only reasonable that a noble temper like that of Plutarch should be outraged by the insults they heaped on the memory of such a sta tes man and patriot as Epameinondas because he preferred wearing himself out in the service o f his country to

case . taking his at home In practice, however, as the

ri ancient c tics observed, the apparently contradictory maxims of Epicurus and Zeno were not so far apart

‘ ’ as they seem . Epicurus said that the sage should no t engage in politics except for very pressing reasons

Zeno that he should, unless there were special reasons

against doing so . But in actual life an Epicurean with

o r a bent for politics , a Stoic with a taste for retire

ment, could always find that the reason for making the

exception existed in his own case . By following the rules of life thus laid down the

of Epicureans hold that any man , without need special

or good fortune or high station intellectual gifts, may learn to lead a life which is free from serious pain of

u . body or tro ble of mind , and therefore happy The 9 5 E P I C U R U S

‘ sober reasoning ’ which teaches him to limit his

o f G od wants to the necessities life , to banish fear of from his mind , to recognise that death is no evil, and to choose always the course of action which promises to be most fruitful of pleasure and least productive o f pain, will, in general, leave him with very few pains to endure . And if there are inevitable hours Of ff su ering to be gone through , and if death is the

‘ ’ common doom of all, the wise man will fortify himself in his times of suffering and on his deathbed by d welling in memory on the many pleasant moments

t o . which have fallen his share Thus prepared , says

o f Lucretius, he will leave the feast life, when his e time comes to go, like a guest who has eat n his full

w it hout a at a public banquet, and makes way grumble

e Me t rodorus for lat r comers ; adds, that he will not

’ forget to say grace after meat , and thank whatever

Fr gods there be that he has lived so well ( .

E P I C U R U S

Axiochus at t ri side, if we compare the dialogue , falsely buted to Plato, with the tone of the Academic anti

e . Epicurean speakers in Cicero (such as . g Cicero himself in the examination of the Epicurean ethics

n bu II. r C De Fi i s . o given in Bk , Gaius otta in the pole

ofDe Na tura Deorum mic , against their theology) , and with the utterances o f the biting essays in which Plutarch has set himself to demolish the philosophical

lo t e s In reputation of Co . particular the very close C correspondence between icero and Plutarch , Often

- amounting to verbal self sameness, shows that both are following the same Academic source (in all probability

leit o machus C , the pupil who preserved for later genera C tions the penetrating inquiries of arneades, the Hume

Axiochus a of the ancient world) . As the and the ess ys Of Plutarch against Colo t e s are much less widely read

De Finibus De Na tura Deorum of C than the and icero, I shall probably provide the more entertainment for the reader by con fining my concluding remarks chiefly

Ariochus t o the former . The is a singularly interesting

‘ ’ o f - specimen a third century Socratic discourse . There can be no doubt about the date at which it was written, since it expressly alludes to the Epicurean argument that death is no evil, because it is mere unconscious

ness, and neither good nor evil is possible without

‘ consciousness , as the superficial talk which is for the

moment popular with the young, and its language is

o f full of biting sarcasms, the point which lies in turning specially Epicurean dicta against Epicurus 9 8 E P I C U R U S A N D H I S C R I T I C S

himself . Thus the date of the little work cannot be ’ 3 6 B C — of earlier than 0 . . the year Epicurus final settle — ment in Athens and cannot again be much later, since

O t Immisch of as t o , the one recent editor the dialogue

t o a and the first student recognise its re l purpose, has

out c n pointed , there are several indications in the o versation that Epicurus had not yet broken with his Democritean teachers or with the pursuit of rhetoric so completely as he did in later life . The dialogue is thus definitely to be dat ed at about forty years after the death of Plato, but its preservation in Platonic manuscripts means, of course, that it comes from the

i of arch ves the Academy, and is therefore a genuine

t o Academic composition . At the time which we must attribute it the most famous members of the School

Pole mon a C were , the fourth he d of the Academy, rates ,

G o for rant r, and Arcesilaus, afterwards famous his brilliant dialectical criticism of Stoicism . Of its author ship we have no precise indication beyond the fact that

w for the riter must have been an enthusiast astronomy, and writes in a turgid style full ofviolent metaphor and

Immisch it s o . p etical reminiscences , last editor, thinks

Cra nt or on of , whose essay Bereavement, famous in later

Consola tio antiquity, was imitated in the lost addressed C of to himself by icero, on the death his daughter, as well as in the extant Consola tio to Apollonius ascribed

Immisch t o a . Plut rch But the identification , as says, m is the purest guess . Whoever the write r ay have

e of b en , it is interesting to observe that the fashion 99 E P I C U R U S composing discourses of So crates was still current in

’ the Platonic school a century after Socrates death . That the dialogue was not a work of Plato was well known to the ancient critics who included it with a few others in the list of those ‘ universally

’ t e rejec d .

The plan of the little work is transparently simple . Socrates is called in to administer spiritual consolation

Axio chus to his old friend , who has just been attacked

of by what appears t o be a kind epileptic fit, and is in

of had a pitiable condition mental weakness . He formerly been in the habit of deriding the cowardice of he those who shrink from death , but now that is face t o face with the prospect of dissolution his courage has

d of oozed out o f him . He drea s the approaching loss

of of the good things life , and shudders at the thought worms and corruption a nd the ugliness of the fate which awaits his body . Socrates at first ironica lly puts on the mask of an

Epicurean , and, in language which is filled with d Epicurean terminology, a roitly employed in such a way as to insinuate that Epicurus is no more than a charlatan who has dressed up the exploded theories of fift h- century sophistry in a rhetorical garb

of suited to the taste the young generation , consoles

Axio chus by the usual Epicurean commonplaces .

Death is utter unconsciousness, and therefore all

f ‘ t o suf ering ends in death ; it is nothing us, because,

no t and so long as we are , death is , when death has 1 00

E P I C U R U S is no more than a bad echo of the doctrine o f Demo crit us Axiochus , the writer of the lays special emphasis on the assertion that the famous arguments which were to banish the fear of death are mere borrowings

e Prodicus from the suppos d wisdom of . Indeed, he goes further and seems t o insinuate that Epicurus has borrowed these arguments from a professed pessimist without seeing that they are inseparable from a pessi mistic theory of life quit e incompatible with the ’ n Epicurean views as t o the happiness of the wise ma . For Axiochus makes a remark which is obviously very pertinent, but to which the Epicurean theory hardly

o f admits any reply . The familiar argument about the absurdity of thinking that any evil can befall us when we have ceased to be may be valid enough .

of But if death is the end all, we may reasonably shrink from it, not as the beginning of the unknown , but as the end of all the known good things of life . Epicurus has really no answer to this but to revile the greed o f those who make such complaints ; but Socrates is

t o ready with a reply which he professes have got, like the rest of his wisdom, from the discourses of Prodi

n ot cus . It is true that death is the end of the good things of life, because life is actually evil . There is no age of man , and no profession or calling, in which

v a the ine itable p ins are not many and great, while

a the incident l pleasures are few and fleeting . Death u therefore sho ld be doubly welcome, since it not only sets us free from all apprehensions for the future, but

1 02 E P I C U R U S A N D H I S C R I T I C S

delivers us from the miseries of the present . The obvious, and as it seems to me , the correct implication is that in Epicurus we have an illogical combination o f Hedonism with a view of death which is only in plac e in the mouth of a professed pessimist . Equally interesting is another point to which Immisch has rightly called

‘ on attention . In the Platonic discourse of Socrates

hO e O the p of immortality we find, besides the rphic

i o n myth of judgment and Parad se, great stress laid ’ two thoughts . Man s superiority to the rest of the creation and his destination to a life beyond the grave are suggested ( 1) by the record of his rise from bar barism t o civilisation and (2) by his success in reading the secret of the movements of the heavenly bodies .

‘ He can despise the violence of mighty beasts, make his way over the seas, build cities to dwell in , establish governments, look up to the heavens , behold the ’ of circuits of the stars and the course moon and sun ,

‘ etc . All this he could never have done if there were ’ n ot indeed the breath of God in his soul . The first part of this argument is directed against the Epicurean doctrine of human progress as a sort of unintentional by- product of an accumulation of slight advances in

of v the adaptation the organism to its en ironment, each motivated by considerations of immediate utility .

of Epicurus, in fact, thought man as merely an animal among others , endowed with an inexplicable superiority in taking advantage of favourable varia

‘ tions and learning by his past mista kes . We must 1 03 E P I C U R U S suppose that Nature herself learns and is constrained to many things of many kinds in the course of events

themselves , and that reflection afterwards takes over what is thus handed down to it by Nature and puts a ’ on further finish it, and makes further discoveries

E . i U s ner . 26 . e 7 ( p , , p , with which we may compare

of 925 the account human progress in Lucretius , v .

and what follows) . The Platonist argument against ’ Epicurus , which is identical in spirit with T . H . Green s

‘ ’ argument against the naturalism of Spencer and

e Lewes , is that this very t ndency to progress bears

‘ ’ ’ witness to a divine or ‘ spiritual principle in

man . The argument from astronomy (the supreme venera

tion for this science is a genuine Platonic touch , and

Laws E inomis comes from the and p ) is , in a like way , specially aimed at the characteristic Epicurean con ce pt ion of t he part played by Physics in effecting a

happy life . The whole value of Physics for Epicurus lies in the supposed fact that it expels God ’s Pro

vidence and moral government from the universe, just as Nietzsche has said that the great service of Physics

roved - is to have p the non existence of God . The

Platonist rejoinder is that Physics is, indeed, entitled as to the highest honour, but for the very opposite re on, ’ ‘ of that the heavens declare the glory God , and the ability t o read their lessons testifies to the presence of

‘ ’ Immisch the godlike in human nature . Thus, as puts it, we may fairly say that the real issue at stake 1 04

E P I C U R U S

’ venerating Epicurus as a god at the end of one o f his discourses on Physics . Epicurus returned the ’ compliment by ‘ venerating Colot e s and calling him

‘ ’ immortal . This may have been meant as a piece of

- n of Colot e s good natured satire o the extravagance , but the Academic writers prefer to take the per formance more seriously , and make merry over the disappointment of Colot e s at finding himself promoted

’ of ‘ Colot e s only to the rank a hero . wrote a work with the title ‘ That life itself is an impossibility on ’ the principles of the other philosophers , in which he caricatured and abused impartially all philosophies

’ except that of Epicurus . Plutarch s two essays take

of the form an examination and refutation of this work .

‘ ’ Colot e s The essay against , which is largely con ’ cerned with Colo t e s attack on the distinctive tenets

o f . the rival schools, need receive no attention here

a The other ess y, which exhibits the Academic criticism o f Epicurean ethics at its best, bears a title happily

o f Colot e s f parodied from that of the book itsel , That happy life is impossible on the principles of Epicurus the very suggestion which had already been made in

Ax ch the io us. I propose to conclude this short account with a very brief summary of this acute and penetrating attack on secularistic Hedonism . The author be gins by defining the precise position

e he int nds to sustain . All questions about the moral value of the Epicurean life are , for the time , to be set aside ; the case for or against Epicurus is t o be

1 06 E P I C U R U S A N D H I S C R I T I C S

Colot e s argued on strictly Hedonist lines . He and profess to regard pleasure as the good . We will not, in the first instance, ask whether this is or is not a O satisfactory theory . ur question is whether, admit ff ting pleasure to be the good , the Epicurean life a ords the best way to secure the most of it . It is then argued (a) that the doctors of the sect expressly hold that the primary sources of pleasure and pain are bodily . It is on the pleasures and pains of the body that the whole superstructure of the mental happiness f o memory and anticipation is based . As to this we may remark that bodily pleasures are dependent on

of the activity a few specialised organs pain, and that in the most cruel forms , may attack any and every part of the body . Bodily pleasures, again , are brief thrills which come and go like meteors ; bodily pain , set up in one part, may spread itself to others and so come to persist for seasons and even years together. As far as the body is concerned , it must be pronounced that its pleasures are as nothing to the pains to which it is b exposed . But ( ) the Epicureans themselves profess that purely bodily pleasures do not count for much ;

on they rest their case the pleasures of the mind , which, they say, can persist under the direst bodily

o on t rtures . Now this we may remark that if bodily pain is as trifling a thing as Epicurus often declares it to be, and if also , as he asserts, you at Once enjoy the maximum possible pleasure the moment you cease to t h be in pain, e pleasures which reach their highest 1 07 E P I C U R U S intensity as soon as pain is expelled must also be very petty things . But we may meet them with an argument which goes much more deeply int o the f psychology o the School . According to their own

of doctrine, the contents the mind are mere paler

- f a -i after ef ects of actual sens tion . Memory mages are

s e - wa h d out and blunted sensations, and we may liken the pleasure which they awaken , in comparison with the pleasure accompanying actual sensation , to the

- scent left behind in an emptied wine bottle . A wise man ’ who tries to make himself happy by imagina t ively dwelling on the deta ils of past sensual enjoy ments is like a man who tries to banquet on the

’ s stale remains of yesterday s fea t . Epicurus; in fact,

‘ ’ - plays a game Of hanky panky with his disciples . He tells you that the pleasures which are t o outweigh all the pains of life are those ofthe soul but when you ask what are the pleasures ofthe soul they turn out to be onl a y feebler mental survival ofthose ofthe body . Now our bodily frame is so much the sport of circumsta nce and accident that its servility to all the skiey influences ’ is

of a commonplace literature, and this simple fact makes

‘ nonsense o f the identifica tion of the good with an equilibrium of the flesh conjoined with a confident f o . anticipation its continuance The equilibrium is, ff in the first place, di icult of establishment and brief

u t he in d ration , and , in second place , its continuance,

as in a world fraught with such dangers ours, can

s never be counte d on . Thus the ideal of Epicuru and 1 08

E P I C U R U S pondered before we make any assertion on the vexed question how far ancient Greek life was really over

a t o sh dowed, as Epicurus and Lucretius assume it have

o f been, by terrors this kind . His view is that Epicurus has absurdly overrated the extent t o which theological beliefs cause unhappiness . That they do so sometimes he allows , but urges that they give rise to an overwhelmingly greater amount o f happiness . i We may d vide mankind , he says, into three classes . 1 ‘ ’ ( ) There is the small criminal class . Their belief

G o d in and the future must, no doubt, give rise to fear, pure and simple . But it is well that they should

of be thus afraid , not merely on the ground public

’ of safety, but because, so far as their fear God s judgments restrains them from actually committing projected crime, it makes them better men by saving them from guilt . Epicurus would be doing a very bad service even to the habitual criminal himself , if he could persuade him that the ‘ last things ’ are mere

2 a fables . ( ) There is the very l rge class of mostly decent, but philosophically uninstructed persons . With them the thought o f God is tempered with fear (they show this by that scrupulous anxiety to discharge the ceremonial obligations of religion which the Greeks

deisidaimonia called ), but fear is not the dominant

of note . Their belief in God as the giver all good is merely qualified by an undertone of salutary fear . Attendance on t he ceremonies of worship is in the m of t o ain a source pleasure them , because they feel 1 1 0 E P I C U R U S A N D H I S C R I T I C S

themselves in the presence of wise and kindly powers . Even to the day - labourer and the drudge religion is

fe ast da s a boon with its holidays and y . And the

rich , who can fare sumptuously every day , are happiest

all of not of when they celebrate the feasts religion ,

because they are faring better than usual, but because

they feel the presence of God . A man who denies

off Providence cuts himself from all this happiness .

ca n He may share in the ritual , but it give no joy to

o n him , since he looks it all the while as a mummery . (3) Finally there are the few philosophers ’ who have really enlightened views about God and the relation

o f God to man . To them religion is a source of unalloyed delight ; there is no trace o f fear in their

G od feelings towards , since they know Him to be

of perfectly good , and the author nothing but good , ’ ‘ of ‘ the giver all good things (Zeus Epidotes) , the

Me ilichios God of all consolation (Zeus ), the defender ’ of Alexikakos all that put their trust in Him ( ) . ’ of All things are God s, and they are the friends God, ’ ’ and therefore all things are theirs . Epicurus treat

a ment of immort lity receives a similar criticism . The

o fear of hell is positively go d for the criminal class .

for of As the mass decent men, when they think of

’ o f ‘ the life to come , they feel no fear bogies who have often been paraded on the comic stage for their

a amusement . Immort lity is a thought which fills them with happiness ; it offers a satisfaction for the

‘ ’ longing to go on living which is natural to us all ; 1 1 1 E P I C U R U S

e or if the ordinary man is , now and then , disconcert d

’ by the old wives tales, there are cheap and innocent religious rites which will restore his equanimity . What he really does shrink from is the very prospect

out which Epicurus holds as the greatest boon ,

n annihilation . To be always harping o the thought

‘ that we have been bor n as men once ; there is no

t e second birth , and we shall never be again to all e rnity

‘ ’ is t o die many times before our death . As for the

of G od real children , immortality means for them the ’ of bea t ific prize their calling, the beholding of the

t o vision face face, and the reunion with their loved

ones who have gone before . Even descending from this

high strain , we may say that the belief that death is the gateway t o a bett er life adds to the joys of the fortunate and consoles the unfortunate by the thought

that their ill- luck here is no more than a troublesome

accident on a journey which has home for its goal .

O v n the Epicurean iew , death is an evil to fortunate and unfortunate alike it is the end of the good things

o f o f life to the one class , the end all hope of a change

for the be tte r to the other . The wisdom of Epicurus

is thus the merest foolishness . At best it enables a ma n with difficulty to argue himself into a st ate into

which a brute is born . It is better to be a pig tha n hi an Epicurean p losopher, for the pig neither takes thought for the morrow nor fears God nor distresses himself about death and what comes afte r death and ’ ‘ Of as as for the equilibrium the flesh , it is much his ,

1 1 2

EmI O U R U S the summary of Epicurean teaching which Diogenes

Oenoanda of of in Pisidia , a schoolmaster the early

of Imperial time, inscribed on the walls the little town in order that the words which had brought peace and happiness into his own life might remain after his death for the spiritual benefit of his townsmen and of a ny chance visitors whose eyes they might catch .

I I 4 A P P E N D I '

S ELECT APOPHTHEG MS FROM E PICU RU S AND

METRODORU S

P t hocle s n ot If you would make y rich, seek to add to his possessions but to take away from his desires .

'

E i s. Fr currrs U . ( p to Idomeneus, ,

You must be the slave of Philosophy if you would

E Mo 8. f . n attain true reedom . (Seneca , p ,

of If you make nature the rule your life, you will never be poor, if current Opinion , you will never be l b 1 6 rich . ( , .

He who follows nature and not empty opinions is

e cont nt in any estate , for, measured by the standard of what is enough for nature, any property is wealth

o ur but measuring by unlimited appetites, even the

Fr . U s . greatest wealth is poverty ( ,

We have been born once there is no second birth .

For all time to come we shall not be at all . Yet,

ou ou though y have no power over the morrow, y put 1 1 5 E P I C U R U S

ff o i e . the season [ . . for acquiring Philosophy] It is this procrastination that ruins the life of us all thanks

to it each o f us dies without tasting true leisure . F U s r. ( . ,

In all things act as though the eye of Epicurus were

E Mar 25 on . . . . you (Seneca, p

Severe pain soon makes an end of us , protracted

a U s. Fr. p in has no severity . ( ,

Let us give thanks to our lady Nature that she has

f and made things need ul easy to procure, things hard

Ib. Fr to procure needless . ( , .

He who least craves for the morrow will go t o meet F Ib. r it most happily . ( , .

for o f no t Laws are made the sake the wise , to prevent them from inflicting wrong but to save them ff F Ib. r. from su ering it . ( ,

We can provide ourselves with defences against all things but death ; where death is concerned , all man

for i un t fie d . Me t rodorus kind are dwellers in an city ( , F r. 5 1 . . The saying is also ascribed to Epicurus )

We should not esteem a grey - beard ha ppy because

ca he dies in advanced age , but be use he has had his

1 1 6

E P I C U R U S Nothing novel can happen in a universe which has

Fr n . . already existed through i finite time (Epicurus,

’ If God heard men s prayers, mankind would have

a o for perished long g , they are ever invoking cruel

Fr Ib. . curses on one another . ( ,

1 1 8 A CHRONOLO G I CAL TABLE USEFUL TO TH E READER OF THIS B OOK

Pl a nd e e S eusi us ato dies, is succ ded by p pp ,

E u u n in Sam os 7th am i pic r s bor , G el on,

S e usi us u e e ' a p pp s cc ed d by enocr tes,

i ns his S in Ar stotle ope chool Athens , ’ St il o of M a a fl u e p eg r o rish s, Death of Aristotle at Chalcis ; Theophrastus hea d

of L e um the yc ,

E u on of e a e e m Samo xp lsi Ath ni n s ttl rs fro s,

T m n Sill a n i o the ogr pher bor ,

' en a e i P mo a a e ocr t s d es ole he d of Ac d my, Epicurus colle cts disciple s at Mytilene and

L m sa us a p c , Epicurus e stablishe d at Athens

S S o f ' no ofCit t ium toic ch ol ounded by e ,

T e hr u S a of L um h op ast s dies trato he d yce , Met rodorus dies (Arce silaus hea d of Acade my

a ou hi b t t s time),

E ru e picu s di s, ‘ ’ of r u fl u e Antigonus Ca yst s o rish s,

a n a e o n C r e d s b r , ‘ ’ Sot ion of xa n a e Su e o Ale dri writ s his cc ssi ns,

Ch nica of o u fi u e ro Ap llodor s rst p blish d,

n e e e Car ad s di s, 1 1 9 E P I C U R U S

L e ucr tius born, Cicero att e nds the Le ctures of Pha edrus at t he age

of n n e e e i t n,

e P ae u an d ' n of S n at s Cic ro hears h dr s e o ido Athen ,

D a of Lu u e th creti s,

Philode mus at R ome, ’ (D ate of Cicero s attack on Piso)

o r e t he De Finibus Cicer w it s ,

w De Na t u a Deorum Cicero rites r ,

S e his E istula e Mora les eneca writ s p , ‘ ’ P a fl u is e lut rch o r h s, ‘ ’ Lu a fl urish ci n o es,

’ S Em r on fl ur extus pi i s o ishes ,

In r io ofDi e of Oenoand a sc ipt n og nes , or a

1 20

E P I C U R U S

2 O EMUS Rhetorica . u Ed PH IL D . . . ( vols with s pplement ) . hau L zi Te ubn r S Su . e . . d s eip g,

I I A AC E A E ic ea n is L n n W u m . o . LL ILLI M W . S , p r o d , ociety for omo ri an K e P 1880. S e ia r ting Ch sti nowl dge , (A p c lly fascinating introduction to the study of the Epicurean un doctrine and its fort es . )

R D ic a n d i ew 10. St E cu ea n . N Y 19 HICKS . k , . o p r or , ’ i r A u t he en l ro Cha rle s Scr bne s Sons . ( vol me in rec t y p d E chs o P h i e ct e hiloso e ' . j series, po f p y, ed t d by . G n Hibbe . )

’ M R M a E i UYAO 'EAN A IE . La or le d curc. Pa i 1 878. G , p r s,

as a an a o k for r fe And st d rd w r e rence,

E E E The St ics E icu ea ns a n d ce ti s a ' S . ' LL R . T , o , p r p c r ns ’ lated (from t he author s great work Die Philosophie der R L n on ma G riechen O. '. e . n L ns ) by eich l o do , g , Green o T l i i n of t he a a of C . ( he atest ed t o relev nt p rt the man is Phil s h r ii 1 o i i k o ie de Griechen i . . r g nal Ger wor o p , h di n L zi 4t e . tio eip g, f l B f R . H See u e l a in t he o k o . D k also the l r ib iogr phy w r ic s , n i a o me t oned b ve .

P n e d b T and A CONSTABLE Prin e t o His M a e ri t y . . , t rs j sty at t h e Edin burgh Unive rsity Pre ss