IS
EPICUREANISM,
:
W CHIEF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHIES. 'IS
EPICUREANISM. BY
WILLIAM WALLACE, MA. fellow and tutor of merton college, oxford, ll.d. st.
Andrew's.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.
LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. 48, PICCADILLY, W. NEW YORK POTT, YOUNG, * CO. ;
43,
J
:
1880.
!
LONDON
WYMAN AND
SONS, PRINTERS,
GREAT QUEEN STREET,
lincqln's-inn FIELDS, W.C.
|vn.<-
CONTENTS. CHAPTER
I.
Page
Introduction The
four chief schools of ancient philosophy,
I
;
the
and Aristotle succeeded by the Realistic systems of Stoicism and Epicureanism, 8 ; relation of the Cynics and Cyrenaics to the latter sects, II ; distinctive characteristics of the Stoics and Epicureans, 15 J other philosophic schools, 19 ; worth of Idealistic systems of Plato
philosophy in the Greco-Roman world, 20.
CHAPTER
II.
Epicurus and his Age Parentage of Epicurus, Athenians, 23
;
23
;
Samos occupied by
religious societies, 25
;
Epicurus as
26 ; Athens at war with Antipater, 27 ; Epicurus at Colophon, Mitylene, and Lampsacus, 28 ; his teacher Nausiphanes, 29; Pyrrho of Elis, 31 ; settlement of Epicurus at Athens, 32 ; Athens under the Macedonians, 33 ; disturbed condition of Greece, ephebos,
34
;
career of Demetrius Poliorcetes, 36 ; garden of fashionable philosophers of the time, ;
Epicurus, 38
40
;
46.
court, 41 ; siege of Athens by health of Epicurus, 45 ; his death,
freethinkers at
Demetrius, 44
;
;;
EPICUREANISM.
vi
CHAPTER /The
III.
Epicurean Brotherhood. Epicurean
nature, 50
friendship
women
48
life,
;
in
Greece,
54
Page
...
little girl,
orthodoxy of the
support, 62
;
sect,
60
61
;
;
48
view of human ;
;
Leontion, 53 scandals,
and humanity of the Epicureans, 58
of Epicurus to a tic
of
disciples of Epicurus, 50
;
of
position
mode
60
fast-days,
;
;
;
56 letter
dogma-
contributions for mutual
letters of the brethren,
63
testament of
;
Epicurus, 65; his successors, 68 ; Epicurean holidays, 69 ; enthusiasm of his followers, 69.
CHAPTER Documentary Sources...
;
...
...
...
72
Diogenes Laertius, 73 ; Plutarch, his works, style of Epicurus, 78 ; the manuscripts of Herculaneum, 80 Philodemus,
Lucretius, 73 76 ; Cicero, 77
79
IV.
;
;
;
82.
CHAPTER
V.
/
General Aspect of the System
85
Popular estimates of Epicureanism, 85 ; its antagonism to politics, letters, and religion, 86 ; practical aim, 88
;
subdivision into canonic and physiology, 89
principles of evidence, 93.
CHAPTER v
VI.
The Natural World Mechanical explanation of the universe, 95 ; atoms, 97 ; their movements and aggregations, 98 ; pheno-
95
CONTENTS. mena
of sensibility, 101
vii
the soul, 103
;
sense-percep-
;
104 ; explanation of ghosts and mirages, 106 ; our mental vision of the gods, 107 ; denial of divine providence and of immortality, 1 08 ; rejection of the tion,
no;
supernatural,
free-will, fate,
upon the
rise of life
origin of language, 115
earth,
114;
progress of civilization, 116
;
and chance, 118
;
death and the here-
;
after, 121.
CHAPTER
VII.
The Chief Good
125
Letter of Epicurus to
Men ceceus,
126
;
objections to
Epicureanism attempts
the Epicurean doctrine, 132;
why we ought to do right, 134 ; Aristotle's view of pleasure, 136 ; Utilitarianism, 138 ; ambiguity of the term pleasure, 140 ; pleasure and pain, 142 ; to explain
of the desires,
subdivision
Epicurean pleasure, 145
;
145
;
negative aspect of
contrast with Cyrenaicism,
146 ; relation of virtue to pleasure, 155 ; justice, 1 58 ; the social compact, 159; individualism, 160; the right to ignore the State, 163 ; friendship, 1 64 ; Epicurean ideals,
166
;
aphorisms, 167.
CHAPTER
VIII.
y^HE Atomic Theory Democritus,
170
;
170 contrast
with Aristotle,
171
;
atoms and the void, 174; scientific postulates of Epicurus and Democritusj 177 considerations in favour of atomism, 179 ; ancient and modern atomic theories, 181 ; Leibnitz, 184 neglect by Epicurus of the con;
;
ception of force,
187
;
question of attributes, 189
extent of the mechanical explanation of nature, 191,
;
;
EPICUREANISM.
viii
CHAPTER
IX.
Cosmology and Theology
Page 194
Difference between the astronomical conceptions of
Epicurus and of Aristotle, 194 celestial tion,
phenomena
197
;
;
Greek astronomy, 196;
denial of divine interference, 200
the universe, 201
202
;
treated as inaccessible to observa*
;
;
God and
the Epicurean theory of the gods,
criticism of the theory, 207
;
national and per-
sonal religion, 209.
CHAPTER Logic and Psychology Dislike to formal logic,
X 212
...
experience versus 212 reasoning, 215 ; the genesis of knowledge, senses and association, 2i6 ; firolepsis or preconception, 220 ; aversion to abstract ideas and to mathematics, 222 the imaginative impressions of the mind, 224; tests of truth, 226; Epicureanism ignores the " I think/'
230 a
;
Philodemus on inductive
mode
;
logic,
232
;
sensation
of motion, 235.
CHAPTER XL Historical Sketch and Conclusion
2"
Influence of EpicUrus, 239 ; causes of the popularity of his system, 240 \ political corruption of his time,
244
;
persecution of the Epicureans. 245 ; their alleged 24^ ; incident from Lucian, 248 ; Epicurean-
infidelity,
ism at Rome, 250 ; Amafinius and Lucretius, 251 j Cicero in his relations with Epicureanism, 253 ; Phi* lodemus, 255 ; chairs of philosophy at Athens, 257 5 the Christian Fathers on Epicureanism, 2$9 ; Epicureanism in the Middle Ages and at the Renaissance,
260 ; 265
;
Gassendi, 263 modern works on Modern Hedonism, 269. ;
Ebicurtts*
39
EPICUREANISM, CHAPTER
I.
INTRODUCTION.
When
Roman
the
emperor, Marcus Aurelius,
wards the close of the second century of our resolved
give Imperial
to
teaching of the
Roman
ment of a philosophical schools
or
sects
sanction
to
world by the professoriate,
dividing
the
to-
era,
the
higher
state
endow-
he found four
public
favour
and
drawing in their several directions the best thought
These schools were the school of Plato, Academic the school of Aristotle,
of the time.
known known
as
the
;
as the Peripatetic
;
the school of Zeno,
known
and the school of Epicurus, known as the Epicurean. It was not without a cause that the fourth school continued to be known by the name of its founder, which it did not exchange like the others for an epithet drawn from some favourite locality. as the Stoic
To
;
the very close of
its
career the Epicurean sect
clung reverently and lovingly to the person of the master, to
whom, with one
accord, his followers
at-
tributed their escape from the thraldom of superstition
and of unworthy
fears
and
desires.
The member
of
EPICUREANISM.
2
another school might assert towards hiÂŁ teachers a certain impartiality of critical examination.
If Plato
and Socrates were dear to the Platonist, dearer still. But to the Epicurean the
truth was
his characteristic
belief in
doctrines was blended with,
humanized by, attachment
to
the
memory
and
of the
founder of .his creed.
Of
the four schools, two were
the others.
more ancient than
The Academics and
the Peripatetics
preceded the Stoics and Epicureans by more than half a century
3
they continued to exist and flourish
long after the younger sects had died away into
But during the four centuries which witrise and spread of Epicurean and Stoical doctrines, from B.C. 250 to a.d. 150, the two other schools were forced into the background, and abanIn the doned by all but a few professed students. Roman world, the Stoic and Epicurean systems divided between themselves the suffrages of almost all who cared to think at all. Plato and Aristotle were almost unknown, for the two schools which professed to draw their original inspiration from these masters had rapidly drifted away from the desilence.
nessed the
finite
doctrine of their leaders.
The
doctrine both
had been of a kind which, It had in modern times, we should term Idealism. been sustained by an enthusiasm for knowledge, and carried on by a great wave of intellectual energy. Plato and Aristotle gathered the ripe fruit from that Athenian garden where Pericles, Phidias, and Sophocles had visibly signified the spring-time of of Plato and of Aristotle
INTRODUCTION.
3
Strong in the accumulated
blossom and brightness.
and splenupon the world, and tried to discover its plan and meaning as the home of humanity the humanity which they saw They endeaaround them and felt within them. voured to trace the steps in the long ladder of means and ends, which, from the analogy of what they saw in their types of human society, they believed would strength of a century of Athenian power
dour, they raised their eyes fearlessly
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
also be
realization of
a
They looked humanity as the
found in the natural world.
upon everything
and
in nature
in
an idea, as a stage
in the unfolding of
Everything to Plato was the pro-
ruling principle.
duct of an " idea of the
Good "
;
everything to Aristotle
was a step in the development of the ends of an
To
telligent Nature.
exist, for
in-
both of them, meant
to embody or to express an idea, or plan. At the summit of all things, the principle and centre of the phenomena of the human and the natural world, was
a creative plan or
intellect,
always carrying
into activity, everlastingly productive,
surveying and embracing
The
tions.
its
own
itself forth
and consciously
several manifesta-
question as to the materials employed in
order to carry out these plans, was noticed by these thinkers only as
At
realization.
it
served to illustrate the process of
least, this is
the case with Plato to a
large degree, to a less degree with Aristotle.
The most
point
stress,
on which both schools
originally laid
next to their fundamental principle, was
an analysis of the order and concatenation of
exist-
ence as a reasonable and intelligent system.
They
B 2
EPICUREANISM.
4
on the connection
fixed their attention
of
one idea
with another, on the relation between one stage in the complex scheme of actual existence and another.
To
bring together and to divide, to see differences
where they are concealed, and to find sameness between things
to
different,
kinds and classes,
is,
discriminate
and connect
according to Plato, the main
work of
that
which
the true art of the philosopher.
is
discussion or conversation (dialectic)
In other
words, the point towards which his interest as distinct from the
verging,
interest is operative,
is
fields
what a
later
scribe partly as logic, partly as
metaphysic,
in
is
con-
which that
age would de-
metaphysic.
It
is
when the relations and connections under
examination are supposed to be the real underlying relations in the existent objects of the world.
It is
when these relations and connections are regarded as modes of our thought, the means or methods by which we as intelligent beings seek to comprehend and rationalize the objects of nature and logic,
art.
So
far as
Plato
is
concerned,
it is
scarcely pos-
when we are in metaphysic and when we are in logic. The ideas which are the denizens of a logical heaven, which are the patterns embodied in nature, are in his own writings not quite cut off from the ideas which the mind entertains when it sible to say
attains
Metaphysics First
But in Aristotle the distinction he calls it, Analytic) and
knowledge.
between logic
(or, as
Philosophy)
latter, as
as
(or,
he terms
has
been
it,
Theology or the
accomplished.
The
well as the former, he in part inherits from
INTRODUCTION. but
in logic that he
5
most
and
Plato
;
gives
most substantial extension to the philosophic
On
field.
it is
another
is
side, too, Aristotle
course of his own.
The
double attraction
him.
for
original,
carved out a
physical universe
On
one hand
had a pre-
it
him under the aspect of a process of movement, a working-out in time and space of the same eternal principles and relations of being which Under had formed the topic of his metaphysics. this point of view, a somewhat abstract and metasented
itself to
physical
one,
he
treats
existence,
in
those
books
which bear what seems to a modern reader the some-
what misleading there
is
title
of " Physical Lectures."
But
another side to Aristotle's interest in nature.
In psychology, in natural history, and in his political studies, is
he
is
not merely a great metaphysician
a keen observer, and a laborious collector of
He
enumerates, with
all detail,
:
he
facts.
phenomena
the actual
presented by experience, quite apart from the theoretical relations of the
system under which they ought,
from the other point of view, to range themselves. Thus, in Plato and in Aristotle, there were war-
In Plato there
on the one hand, which makes him a moral or educational reformer, and, on the other hand, the logical, or, to keep his own larger word, dialectical interest which impels him to criticise and ring tendencies.
the political
to analyze,
ticism
is
and
is,
practical instinct
and
to say that,
denied
is
1
no
life
" the
for
life
man." 1
Plato, Apologia, 31 a.
to
which
cri-
In Aristotle,
EPICUREANISM.
6 again,
we
see a constant wrestling of spirit between
the ideal and metaphysical bent which abstract forms of being,
and the
is
at
realistic
home
in the
sense which
notices every detail in the operations of the rational
mind and
in the
phenomena of animate
as to assign to all minutiae, even to the
nature, so
most de-
graded animals, 1 their place in the ample collection of instances.
The two Plato
schools which inherited the
and the
Peripatos of Aristotle
The Academic
mantle.
and more
of
did not in
more than a fragment of their sect came more
either case carry off
master's
Academy
to give the reins to the critical, logical ten-
dencies, which, in Plato himself,
had been subordi-
nated to his deep sense of the surpassing value of
and the moral
ethical ideas
demy, as
it
is
life.
With the
New Aca-
termed, the school of Arcesilaus and
Carneades, every dogmatic tinge in the teaching had
paled before the predominance of sceptical and cal
demy, inspired by the influence of
criti-
The New Aca-
polemic against other doctrines. its
contemporary
Pyrrho, the great sceptical philosopher of the ancient world,
became the main
the weapons
of a
arsenal where were forged
destructive criticism.
universal
Such, in a mild form, was the attitude from which, for example, Cicero dealt with the
sophy.
It
was the
which rends in pieces vailed in the
1
spirit its
Academic
Aristotle,
De
dogmas of
philo-
which denies, the reason
own
constructions, that pre-
school.
Partibus Animalinm,
I.
5.
:
INTRODUCTION.
The
case was a
7
different with the Peripatetic
little
immediately succeeded
school which
Aristotle.
If
Academic or Platonist, no more was Aristotle a Peripatetic. His immediate followers, Theophrastus and Strato of Lampsacus, soon left the Plato was not an
The
of their master.
metaphysical idealism
great
principle of a cosmic reason, an intellectual deity at
the head of
all
existence,
was abandoned and neg-
The logical and the physical departments were made the predominant feature in the tradition of lected.
the school, and gradually usurped the place of meta-
The
physical inquiries.
speculative, transcendental
element in Aristotle was eliminated, and nothing left but " positive " science. Aristotelianism was thus like a cask which had
its
lapsed into fragments.
bottom knocked out it colStrato of Lampsacus spoke :
no more of God, but only of nature, and practically which Aristotle had drawn between the reason and the senses. In the next set aside the distinction
generation, Aristotelianism sank into greater stagna-
tion cal
;
it
;
it
became more
positive
and
less philosophi-
passed into scholasticism, and put learning in
the place of wisdom and research.
A
day,
came when both Platonism and new phase. In the
indeed,
Aristotelianism
entered on a
early centuries of
philosophers were
they
were
interpreted,
systematized by centuries,
our era the writings of the two
made
a text for philological study annotated, reconciled,
the commentators of the
from Andronicus to Simplicius.
our immediate purpose
it is
sufficient
to
and
first
six
But
for
remember
:
EPICUREANISM..
8
that in the generation which succeeded Aristotle the
Academic and Peripatetic schools no longer represented the mind of their founders. They became more and more exclusively intellectual, logical, and formal the philosophers degenerated into professors and schoolmen. For the most part they taught something of logic and rhetoric. And the inability of the followers to sustain the idealism of their
led to a growth of sceptical
and
first
critical
chiefs
intellect.
Philosophy ceased to be the serious enterprise which
made it. It was no longer the arbiter and conduct something than which, as Plato says " no greater good came or will come to mortal race by the gift of the gods." It was now only a preliminary training which communicated the art of reasoning and the abstract principles of morals and It had become then indeed, what it has legislation. Socrates had
of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
life
mainly become
at the present day,
a recognised part
of the university curriculum, and nothing more.
The the
great schools of Plato
hands of
and
their successors
Aristotle
had
in
declared themselves
bankrupt.
Idealism had apparently proved a
One by one
the great ideal principles
failure.
had been
sur-
had attacked the transcendentalism of Plato he was himself superseded by a more realistic doctrine and in the period of general scepticism which set in like a flood the only thing that seemed worth cultivating was the little grammatical, philological or physiological knowledge that had been at that period collected. Amid the general rendered.
Aristotle :
;
dissatisfaction
with
the
results
to
which thought,
INTRODUCTION.
9
empyrean and tracing from an ideal
rising into the
standpoint the plan of the world, had led there was in the air a desire for a
moral panacea. the
This time the
If the old schools
realist.
new
new
its
adherents,
doctrine, a
had been
doctrine must be materialistic.
new
must be
doctrine
spiritualistic,
If the old
made thought and ideas all in all, the existence, the new school must admit the
schools had sole true
existence of nothing which was not corporeal.
Instead
new school must base everything on The old schools of Plato and Aristotle
of reason, the sensation.
had gone boldly thought. point,
to work, confident in the strength of
The new
and prove
schools must justify their starting-
their foundation
in the presence of
a strong hostile force of sceptics.
The circumstances
of Greece, too, had changed and Aristotle wrote. A period of of a more or less aristocratic charac-
greatly since Plato
petty republics,
had been succeeded, since the conquest of central and southern Greece by the Macedonians, by a period of fusion and of confusion. The monarchical principle, which had established itself at the summit of the State, had not yet been able to organize itself in the details and connect itself with constitutional life. The city was not, as it had been in Plato's time, its,,
ter,
own
sovereign
some
:
its
affairs
were subject to the
will
foreign king, himself but insecurely seated
of
on
and acting more often as an instigation to hope to those who did well. The. glory and charm of the old Greek political life in the his throne,
evil-doing than as a
service of those
who were
almost personal acquaint-
EPICUREANISM.
10
ances had passed away.
Macedowho had the wishes of their com-
Political life in the
nian epoch was only possible either for those the courage to adopt and foster
patriots to regain their freedom, or for those
who could
dare the mistrust and enmity of their fellow-citizens by acting as the ministers of an alien despot.
course was dangerous, and often unwise
was generally ignoble. All that was nor to to
those
who
But to undertake such a
post might be performed as a duty not,
The
left for
suffer
of municipal government.
must
first
martyrdom as patriots, court princely favours by a knavish submission, take part in the farce, as it had now become,
were neither disposed to
was
The
the second
:
:
it
could not, and
be sought as an honour.
distance between the age of Plato and the
age of Zeno and Epicurus, the founders of the two
new sects which supplanted their predecessors, may be illustrated by the character of the comic plays, which found favour with either. The comedy of Aristophanes has for its scene the main resorts of the public political
of public its
life
men and
foreign relations
of
its
time.
It is
public measures.
and
its
domestic
a caricature
Athens, with politics,
is
the
hundred shapes and drags into its compass even the inmates of the women's chamber and the characters and ideas of the public thinkers. In the new comedy of Menander and Philemon, public life is unknown. It is the family and the social aspects of life which are the perpetual topic which reappears in a
theme.
Instead of generals and statesmen, dema-
gogues and revolutionaries, the new comedy presents
INTRODUCTION.
I
a recurring story of young men's love
I
and old and wily men's tables
affairs,
men's economies, of swaggering captains valets-de-chambre, hangers-on
at
rich
and young women working mischief by their charms. T he whole comedy turns on one aspect of domestic life it is full of embroiling engagements between lovers, and brings the cook and the dinner-table prominently on the stage.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
In such a
set of
circumstances rose the systems of
Stoicism and Epicureanism.
Like
all
systems they
were the products of their age, but not merely a
They summed up and drew
product clusions to
out the con-
which the past had furnished them with
the premises
but by the very act of formulating the
;
and power. which their circumstances were leading them, hesitatingly and result,
they gave
They helped men
greater consistency
it
to see the ideals of
life,
imperfectly, to adopt.
Already in the lifetime of Plato other disciples of Socrates
had learned a
common
teacher.
The
different
lesson from their
self-reliant spirit
of criticism
and the independence of conventionality which marked Socrates had touched them more than his interest in all
knowledge.
that
was Athenian and
his love for
Whilst to Plato and Aristotle the highest
knowledge had been valued solely for its own sake and not as a means to any further end, to the thinkers of
whom we now
speak knowledge seemed worthy to
be prosecuted only so
far as
clear self-centred judgment,
it
and
tended to produce a to give
for the regulation of personal conduct.
some principle Those thinkers
EPICUREANISM.
12
At the head of the one stood came to be called Cynical, and of which the most noted member was Diogenes. At the head of the other stood Aristippus of Cyrene, from whom his followers have been belong to two kinds.
Antisthenes, the founder of a sect which
called Cyrenaics.
The foremost hostility to all realists.
of those
characteristic of these schools
conventions.
their
is
They were outrageous
They disregarded and despised the follies who allowed themselves to be enthralled by
the bands of opinion, of custom, fashion and con-
ventional decorum. world,
He
Aristippus was a
who shrank from
man
of the
the bonds of political
told Socrates that he was,
and meant
stranger everywhere, 1 free as the bird from
burdens and privileges of everywhere tions,
at
enjoying each scene of
life
and no
ties
as
all
it
associa-
came with no
thought of other times, and with butterfly-like ness
flitting
delights.
A
to-morrow to life
other
a
the
making himself
citizenship,
home, bound by no
life.
to be,
scenes
light-
and new
of pleasant and varied excitements,,
untroubled by any checks from fashion, morality or
was the ideal of Aristippus.
religion,
keep the
political life going,
and came
suited to enjoy the fruits of their labours.
He
let
others
in as occasion
Antisthenes
and Diogenes could scarcely be more cynical than Aristippus, but they showed their cynicism in another way.
good.
They, too, claimed independence as the chief
But while Aristippus was a man of substance,
1
Xenophon, Memorabilia,
IT.
I,
13.
INTRODUCTION.
'3
they had no fortune or social position to
living
by teaching
rhetoric.
back
fall
who earned
Antisthenes was a poor man,
upon.
Of Diogenes and
a
his
These men sought indeand asceticism. Let a man learn how little he really needs, they said, and he will soon be master of his own welfare and superior to tub everybody has heard.
pendence
in renunciation
What
the caprices of fortune.
buoyancy and
pleasures, the Cynics
to
a round of
in
sought in self-denial and the
Like Aristippus, they were
practice of endurance. indifferent
Aristippus with his
obtained
versatility
country:
they
professed
themselves
citizens of the world.
During the times of Plato and like these
Aristotle, doctrines
were only in opposition, and even as an
opposition they
made but
They were
a slight figure.
mainly a practical protest against the dominant ten-
dency
to sacrifice the individual to
They had and could have but systematic doctrine. They live history of philosophy
who
in the
in the
way of
pages of the
by the repartees of which the
anecdotes about them are those
the community.
little
full.
As
is
natural with
protest against the exaggeration of a prin-
took up an exaggerated attitude themselves. Very soon the Cyrenaics found that a round of pleasures was likely to contradict its professed aim, and one of them Hegesias, swung round so far as to
ciple, they
declare
happiness impossible,
desirability of death.
never
know where
As
and
to
suggest the
for the Cynics, they
to stop in their asceticism
could :
and
were rightly reminded that so long as they failed to
EPICUREANISM.
14
and imitate the naked sages of be charged with luxurious habits. It was different when Stoicism and Epicureanism What had previously been the protest appeared. throw
off their cloak
India, they might
emphatically acted by a few, had
now by
the force of
circumstances become the general position and
drift
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
be
A
of the world.
country to live and die
for,
to
the scene and the reward of one's highest aspirations
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and best labours, hardly existed for any one. More and more the old separations between cities were breaking down and the old jealousies were fading away. Athens had admitted many aliens within her walls. From Syria and Phoenicia, from Tarsus and
came strangers who soon made themselves The successors of Alexander, by their changing alliances and continual wars, waged largely
Berytus, at
home.
around Greece, the carcass over which these vultures hovered, introduced a kind of loose unity
among
the
peoples on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
The
Hellenistic period began.
In these circumstances Zeno and Epicurus about
founded at Athens two new systems Almost from the beginning they were opposition to each other, and the intensity of their
the year 300
b.c.
of philosophy. in
opposition did not diminish during the five or six centuries while they subsisted side
by
side.
But
in
certain important points in opposition to the doctrine
Both of and struck away whatever influences interposed between the individual man and the ultimate springs of human actions. of Plato and Aristotle they were at one.
them
practically ignored the State,
INTRODUCTION. Both dealt with man can,
but
if
he thinks
who has
an individual, who
solely as
desirable,
it
15
make terms with
To
progress for himself.
the perfection or the hap-
piness of the individual everything was
A
nate.
society,
a prior and natural right to live and
made
subordi-
man's sole duties were, according to
their
view, towards himself.
In pronouncing further result
they carried to
this decision,
that
separation
between
and the
political or public activity
life
the
life
its
of
of studious
search after truth, and that decided depreciation of
and
times suggested and sometimes expressed.
had someBut when
they went further in this direction, and
made
the former which both Plato
search for truth only a fears
and
means
Aristotle
to secure
the
freedom from
marked contrast With the Stoics and Epicuthe end and goal, and an ethic moreover
passions, they presented a
to their predecessors.
reans ethics
is
which looks only to the
To
basis for a reasonable
which a
man was
and work the
of the individual
interests
Plato and Aristotle morality was the elementary
human
embodied
for the
kind.
life,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the
presupposition
011
to raise a superstructure of science,
welfare of his
Such
is
community and of
the conception, for example,
in Plato's " Republic."
But to the
Stoics
and
how each was to own independence
Epicureans the main question was save his
and
own
serenity,
The to the
Stoics
soul, to secure
his
and to live his own life well and happily and Epicureans addressed themselves
human being who, whatever may be
tions, is
still
his associa-
at the root of his nature alone.
They
EPICUREANISM.
t.6
treated
him
as something
which
is
not as a mere fragment of society. they spoke to the its
national
and
human social
soul,
more
They appealed human They spoke to the
generically
interest than Plato or Aristotle.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
man, and not merely to the citizen, man, and not merely to the scholar, man, and not merely to the reason. schools that Lord
itself,
stripped of most of
disguises.
to a wider public, and a
an end in
Like Christianity,
to the
common
to the
whole
It
was of these
Bacon spoke when he
said that the
moral philosophy of the heathen world was a
sort of
They really covered the same ground, at least in part, which is now taken up by religion. Both of them are in the main ethical systems, if by ethics we mean an attempt to discover what is the To chief end of man, and how it can be attained. theology to
it.
that everything else was subordinated. schools, especially in the Stoic, that
we
It first
is
in these
come upon
the division of philosophy, afterwards so general, into three parts, an ethical, logical, and physical theory.
The
physical and the logical are for the sake of the
And
ethical. differ
it is
in these points that they especially
from the Cyrenaic and Cynic schools.
They
proceed more systematically, and lay their foundations
They do not
deeper.
scorn, especially the Stoics, to
take a leaf out of the note-books of Plato and Aristotle.
The Epicureans were
all
for practice,
opponents frequently derided them as
illiterate
and and
The Stoics, on the contrary, were pertinaand somewhat pedantic logicians, to whom the scholastics really owed many of those logical sub-
illogical.
cious
INTRODUCTION. which are commonly by mistake attributed to
tleties
But
Aristotle.
way they sought
in whatever
aim which both Stoic and Epicurean had was
their logic
it,
and reality. The how we can know whether
to reach certainty
question of the criterion, or
our thoughts bring us to real existence or no,
problem
fundamental with this real
is
common
a conviction
seen.
is
a
And combined
to both, that the
—what
is
touched and
^
These three *)their
them.
with
the material, corporeal,
is
the
in view in
points,
— their^individualism in morals
subordination of
^)and their materialistic realism, points most conspicuously
When we
'
?
science to an ethical end,
all
—are perhaps the three
common to the two
schools.
look at their differences, we find that the
Stoics were less
opposed than
their rivals to the general
character of philosophic tradition and to the currents
In
of public opinion.
fact,
between the three schools
of Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno, on the one hand, and
Epicureanism on the other, there was a considerable interval.
The
had more of a scholastic and were more suitable young pupils. The fourth
three former
and philosophical
culture,
instruments for training
school appealed
to
maturer but
less
educated cha-
racters.
The
Stoics,
on the whole, supported the interests of and social order. They held
the existing religious that a
man
ought, save in peculiar circumstances, to
take an active part in public in the
commonwealth.
may admit
of a very
life
The
wide c
and
to
found a family
saving clause, of course, interpretation.
The
I
i8
EPICUREANISM.
majority of the school, too, tried to give a rationalized explanation of the popular mythology, and thus to
accommodated themselves stances
;
They
creed of their country. 1
justify the religious
in these points to circum-
but the perfect Stoic, or as he was
still
called,
the Cynic, the ideal saint of the Stoical writers, rejected
and gave
these modifications,
and
his
whole
life
to preach
Other characteristics of
practise righteousness.
the Stoics lay in the conception of duty and obligation,
which, at least
among
the
Roman
Stoics,
came promi-
nently forward amongst their minor morals
;
in the
doctrine of man's dependence on the general order
of the universe, a
fatalistic
—a doctrine which tended
Quietism, had
encouraged by the
the energetic self-consciousness Stoical doctrine
to inculcate
not been counteracted by
it
from another
side,
—
in
the absolute
between the wise and the foolish as two diametrically opposite categories of man, and, above all, in the reference of all the training and ideals of the Stoic to action, performance of function, distinction set
—
doing the
duties of that
situation in
life
where
providence had placed him.
The Epicureans
stood aloof from practice to a
greater extent than
the
system looked to
and not
their
life,
wisdom was
like the Stoics,
to enjoy
Stoics.
The end
to business
life.
that their wise
:
the end of
They did not
man was
profess,
capable of
doing well any of the innumerable vocations in 1
Pansetius, the
Roman
Stoic,
is
far
of their
life
an example of the "radical"
-wing of the Stoic school, which held a different attitude on these
and other points*
INTRODUCTION.
They claimed
which he might choose to adopt. he would
live like a
mortality
by
his
*9 that
god amongst men and conquer
enjoyment
at every instant of
an im-
While the Stoic represented
mortal blessedness.
man
as the creature and subject of divinity, the Epicurean
taught
him
that
he was
his
own
While the
master.
Stoic rationalized the mythology of their country into
a crude and fragmentary attempt Epicurean rejected
the
at theology,
the legends of the gods
all
denied the deity any part in regulating the
and
affairs
of
Both agreed in founding ethics on a natural opposed to a political basis. But they differed in
men. as
their application of the term nature.
meant the
tenance of our being in duty.
To the Epicurean
of our
own
selves,
conditions of
To
of self-conservation
instinct
its it
entirety,
life
it
main-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; acting up to our
meant having
enjoying to the
human
the Stoic
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the
full
full
possession
all
that the
permit.
These were the main schools of ancient philosophy. But there were other schools, or at least other names of philosophical opinion, current in the early days of the
Roman
lived of all,
Empire.
One
of these, and the longest-
was Pythagoreanism.
Like Epicureanism,
had a semi-religious character; it clung to the name of its founder, and maintained a long tradition. But it was very unlike the latter in the poetical and fan-
it
tastic character
of
its
doctrine, in
its
proneness to
About the first century after Christ it was brought into renewed fame by the alleged miracles and superhuman wisdom of Apollonius of Tyana, and from that time onwards it continued to exert a superstition.
20
EPICUREANISM.
great, if a not very beneficial influence
of ancient philosophy and
gress
there were a few Sceptics, those
sophical world, 1 the
who
disdain
on the pro-
nomads of
all
Lastly,
religion.
the philo-
persistent culture of
and hover round the hosts of dogmatic
soil,
thinkers, seeking to cut off their squadrons in detail
by the manoeuvres of a minute and captious Let
be remembered in
it
ancients philosophy was
no
trifling,
and aiming
not in words, but in deeds.
Its
to the
merely intellectual
" Philosophy," says Seneca, 3 "
pursuit.
for popular acceptance,
criticism.
cases that
all
is
not a theory
at display.
vocation
It is
not to
is
help us to spend time agreeably, or to remove ennui
from our sets
leisure
an order
in
moulds and fashions the mind,
it
:
directs
life,
our actions, points out
what ought to be done and to be left undone it sits at the helm and guides the course when the voyager ;
Without it every none securely hour there occur countless things which call for counsel, and counsel can only be found in philosophy. Some one will say What good can philosophy do me, if fatalism be true ? What good can philosophy do me, if God directs the world ? What does it avail, if chance is in chief command ? For what is fated cannot be changed, and against uncertainties no is
perplexed by dangers on either hand.
none can
live
undauntedly,
:
preparation
my
is
:
'
possible.
Either
God
purposed plan and settled what
1
The phrase
2
Seneca, Epist. Moral.,
is
from Kant, II.
I
has anticipated
am
to do, or
of Pure Reason, 4 (Ep. 16).
Crit.
INTRODUCTION. chance leaves or
all
of
our duty law, or
my
them :
Be each
plan no room.'
together, true,
I
2
reply,
r
of these,
philosophy
is
whether destiny constrains by an inexorable
God
order, or
is judge of the universe and settles its chance irregularly impels and confounds the
affairs
of man, philosophy ought to be our safeguard.
It will
encourage us to obey
fortune without yielding; to put
up with chance."
it
God will
willingly,
to
obey
teach to follow God,
/
22
EPICUREANISM.
CHAPTER
II.
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
The
founders of the Stoic and Epicurean sects were
contemporaries.
Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was
a native of the town of Citium, in Cyprus, and was
born about the year 359
He
B.C.
the ripe age of ninety-two.
died in 267, at
Epicurus was born in
341 B.C., seven years after the death of Plato, and almost twenty years before the death of Aristotle.
He died in 270 B.C., at the age of seventy-one. For more than thirty years Zeno and Epicurus were fellow-citizens
of Athens, during the period of their
manhood and old age. And yet their paths never met, they moved in different orbits. The founder of the Stoic school was a public and popular character.
The King of Macedon looked up
to him as to a master and a conscience, and the people of Athens not merely evidenced their faith in him by putting the keys of their city into his veteran hands, but publicly
decreed
him the honours of a golden crown and a
national
entombment, in consideration of the character of his and teaching. Very different was the lot of
life
Epicurus.
He
and his friends lived, in quiet, unostenThey were barely heard of by the contemporaries. Kings and common-
tatious privacy.
mass of
their
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
23
wealths belonged to another order of things, removed
from
their interests
and sympathies.
Along the cool
sequester'd vale of
They kept
life
the noiseless tenor of their way.
Epicurus was the son of Neocles and Chaerestrata.
The name
of his father, being the same as that of
the father of the great statesman Themistocles, sug-
Menander where he who freed his country
gested a couplet of the poet contrasts the son of Neocles
from
The
slavery, with
him who
freed
it
from foolishness.
where Epicurus was born it with complete certainty to determine.
precise spot
sible
is
impos-
He
an Athenian, and belonged in particular to the village or
demos of
saw the
Gargettos, about seven miles north-
But
east of Athens.
was
little
it is
most probable that he
light in the island
of Samos.
first
In the year
365, twenty-four years before the birth of Epicurus, the Athenian general Timotheus had attacked Samos,
which was then hostile to Athens and acting in the interests of the Persians. island,
After the conquest of the
who belonged
several of the natives
hostile party
to the
were expelled by the general, and their
lands were assigned to Athenian colonists, 1 who, appears, gradually encroached till
upon
it
their neighbours,
there was scarcely one of the original landholders
Among
Athenians who sought to better Samos were the parents of Epicurus. For Athens had lost the commercial and maritime supremacy in the Levant, for which she had struggled
left.
the
their fortune in
1
Diodorus Siculus, xviu.
8, 7
;
Strabo, xiv.
I,
18.
EPICUREANISM.
24
a century before in the Peloponnesian war, and
more
recently in the year 378.
By
still
the middle of the
fourth century, B.C. 355, she was forced to surrender
The
her claims to the mastery of the seas.
Rhodes on the
island of
and the town of Byzantium to the north-east of the ^Egean Sea, became the main seats of commercial activity. There was great depression both in the public and private finances of Athens, and the opportunity of finding relief in a colony was too tempting to be resisted. Neocles, the father of Epicurus, was one of two thousand Athenians who hoped to find an allotment of land in the island of Samos, a beautiful and fertile region of about thirty miles in length and south-east,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
of an average breadth of eight miles.
Neocles rate,
is
said to have
he kept an elementary school,
then, as now, seems to have shifts
By
profession,
been a schoolmaster
of impecuniosity in a
:
at
any
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a business which
been one of the
last
new settlement. The family According
evidently was not in a brilliant position.
to the gossip of a later day, the youthful Epicurus
was
his
father's
assistant in
the school,
and helped But if
to prepare the ink for the use of the pupils.
the function of elementary teacher was attributed to
the
father,
even
less
creditable was
the vocation
assigned by rumour to the mother of Epicurus.
was a minister in the service of foreign
She
superstitions,
by public or Regarded half as a witch or
of a church or chapel unauthorized national establishment. sorceress,
and half as a deaconess in a dubious conand probably superstitious worshippers,
venticle of low
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
25
she was no doubt scarcely a creditable parent in the
And
eyes of the world.
w as
Epicurus
at these rites, too,
present as a boy helping his mother. 1
r
It is
very likely that these stories
classical student
of an Athenian orator
by a
sought to blast his fame
The
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;reminding
the
of the picture drawn of the youth rival
contemporary who
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;are complete fabrications.
Epicurus on the other hand, laid on his descent from the Philaidae, the Both family from which Pericles too had sprung. If one statements may have some truth in them.
some
friends of stress
stops at the right
ancestry
is
hand,
is
it
place in genealogy, a creditable
always obtainable.
And, on the other
not inconceivable that even in boyhood
Epicurus was placed in antagonism to the dominant aristocracy of his time, ciations
than
know enough
in
his
no
less in his
social
religious asso-
We
circumstances.
of Greek history in this period to be
aware that the national gods had formidable a number of foreign
deities,
rivals in
mainly of Oriental
origin.
In the port of Athens, in Rhodes, and other commercial centres, the existence of religious societies revealed to us by the
monumental stones which
is
pre-
serve the record of their constitution, the duties of
members, and scattered incidents in their Very probably these were haunts of superstition but they were also guilds and brotherhoods
their
history. 3 ;
of religion, with a domestic and social, no less than 1
2
Diogenes Laertius, x. 2-4. Foucart, Les Associations
Paris, 1873.
Rcligieuses
chez
les
Grccs.
26
EPICUREANISM.
and by their means the and the poor found compensation for their exclusion from civic ceremonial and festivity in these small chapels and more limited congregations, where they had a temple-worship and a litany of their own. Epicurus from his birth was outside the pale within which national idiosyncrasy and political pride confined their religious and their an
ecclesiastical character,
stranger, the outcast,
moral standards.
In his eighteenth year he went to Athens to take his place
of his
life
amongst his countrymen. At that period every young Athenian presented himself
before the
members of
his
an examination, which
demos or
in
older
and after had been
parish,
days
intended to test the qualifications of the candidate to
the national army, but was form, he was " con-
sustain his post in
probably
now
little
more than a
firmed " as an aspirant citizen.
On
that occasion
he
took what was called the oath of the Ephebi to be true to the service
When
and
interests of his fatherland 1
Epicurus in this way was enrolled as a
ber of the Athenian State-and-Church, it
of
were, as a citizen, initiation,
friend,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;one of
and one almost
his
to
comrades be styled
was the great poet of the
Menander.
In
later
mem-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; confirmed, as in the rite
his college-
New Comedy,
days the period of novitiate
between the eighteenth and the twentieth year was a time
when
the
and submitted
young Ephebi enjoyed the
privileges
to the restraints of a sort of student
1
Pollux, viii. 105.
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
and college
life.
But
it
2?
was probably not as yet
customary to give to the period of opening manhood a training so predominantly intellectual as
it
came
to
be in the early centuries of our era. 1 And, at any In 323 B.C., when the rate, the times were evil. news of Alexander the Great's death was wafted to Greece, the Athenians, in the restless spirit which often had led them to glory, took up arms to recover their own independence and to liberate Greece from Macedonian rule. The troops which Alexander had disbanded on the completion of the conquest of Persia had gathered in great numbers at Taenarum, in the south of the Peloponnesus ; and the money which Harpalus, a runaway viceroy of Alexander's, had brought to Athens, easily enabled the Athenians to equip from these warriors, impatient for employ-
ment, a force sufficient for the Antipater,
who
moment
to paralyze
held Macedonia in the interest of the
" kings," the sons of Alexander the Great. But in no long time Antipater, whom the vigorous outburst of the war had shut up in the town of Lamia, in the south of Thessaly, was able to resume the offensive with his reinforcements; and in the year 322 B.C., the seaport-heights of Munychia and the Piraeus, the harbour-forts of Athens, were garrisoned by Mace-
donian troops.
Nor was
this
The
all.
administrator of the
regent of the Empire and
young
princes,
acting on the ÂŤâ&#x20AC;˘
1
Capes, University Life in Ancient Athens,
Dumont 1876.
(A.),
Lond. 1877;
Essai sur VEphebie Attique, 2 tomes, Paris,
28
EPICUREANISM.
advice of Antipater, determined to break the insur-
The who had
rectionary spirit of the Athenian democracy. civic
franchise
was
restricted
to
those
property to the amount of at least
drachmae
:
and
it
two thousand was openly suggested to the poor
disfranchised Athenians
that
it
might be well
for
them to seek their fortune in the towns lately founded by Macedonian kings on the coast of Thrace. More than half of the existing citizens seem to have been thus exiled. And Athens, restored to only a communal or municipal independence, was left in the control of the propertied and aristocratic classes, who loved peace and so were well content with the supremacy of Macedon. But Perdiccas, the administrator of the young princes, and Antipater went further. They restored Samos from the possession of Athens to its old proprietors, who had been banished from their native island more than forty years and the Athenian settlers were forced to quit the ground they had usurped, and seek a refuge on other shores. 1 Neocles and his family for Epicurus had at least three brothers went from Samos to the neighbouring coast of Asia Minor. They seem to have found some difficulty in fixing on a home. Colophon and Teos are two places mentioned as their abodes 2 the former is said to have been the spot where Epicurus found Colophon not his father on his return from Athens. long before was the home of a lyric poet of some note, :
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
:
1
2
Diodorus Siculus, xviii. 18 ; Plutarch, Phocion, 28. 1, 18 ; Diogenes Laert., x. 1.
Strabo, xiv.
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
29
Hermesianax, who gave to three books of his odes the
name
of Leontion, his lady-love
:
a
name which
afterwards recur in the history of Epicurus.
will
Whether
the lady of Hermesianax was also the lady of Epicurus is
one of those questions which are apparently un-
answerable,
and probably
for that reason excite the
curiosity of a leisured fancy
and
afford
ample ground
Nor do we know how long Epicurus stayed in Colophon or Teos. At any rate, we know that about his thirtieth year he
for the grave disquisitions of philologists.
was temporarily Lesbos.
And
settled at Mitylene,
it
was
at
in the island of
Mitylene that he
first
came
forward as a recognised philosopher.
Of
his apprenticeship to philosophy
scanty hints.
It
was told by
we have but
his friends
that the
had betrayed himself even in his schoolboy days. As he read the Theogony " of Hesiod with his tutor, he stumbled at the line which told how " But what,'' the origin of all things was from chaos. asked the young Epicurus, "was the origin of chaos?' The teacher, who did not profess anything beyond grammar, naturally declined to solve the difficulty, and recommended Epicurus, it is said, to consult the professors of philosophy. 1 His chief teachers in that department are said to have been Nausiphanes, a Democritean, of Teos, and Pamphilus, a Platonist of
future philosopher
ÂŁ
'
Samos. 2
Of Nausiphanes, 1
2
fortunately,
we have some
Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math., X. 19.
Diogenes Laertius, x. 8
(14).
slight
:
EPICUREANISM.
3°
He
record.
seems to have taught
at Teos, a place
which on the collapse of the Ionic revolt (about 494 B.C.) had been brought into very intimate relations with Abdera, the native city of the philosopher the
critus,
founder of
Atomic
the
DemoBut
School.
Nausiphanes, though styled a Democritean, had had
immediate master a
for his
Democritus. 1
man
rather different from
This was Pyrrho of
Elis,
the noted
somewhat misleading to term him a sceptic, in the modern sense of that term. He had seen the revolutions of Greek philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to their followers he had accompanied the army of Alexander the Great to India, and had learned the falsity of much in dogmatic philosophy, and the uncertainty of much that seems fixed in morals. The lesson taught by Pyrrho intellectually was suspension of judgment ; morally, it was imperturbability. " Whoever desires to attain true Sceptic of antiquity.
But
it is
;
happiness, must," said Pyrrho, "find an answer to the
What is the constitution What ought to be our attitude towards them ? And, lastly, What will be the consequence to those who adopt this right attitude ? " The first question we cannot answer, and therefore in the second place we must simply reserve our judgment and three following questions. 2
of things
?
refuse to fix anything absolutely. i
Probably,'
and
'It
seems
so.'
We In
an undisturbed repose of mind.
attain
1
Diogenes Laertius,
2
Eusebius, Prcepar, Evangel^ xiv. 18,
IX.
I I,
can only say this way we Such a scep-
7. 1.
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE. ticism, if
it
checks curious questioning, does not
turb our practical
we
31
life
:
we can continue
to act,
dis-
though
act only according to probabilities.
Pyrrho himself wrote nothing, and those who were curious to know something of the doctrines of one whose fame was widely spread had to seek their inSuch were Timon and formation from his pupils. Nausiphanes and the latter used to relate in later years how Epicurus had again and again questioned :
habits and tenets of the great sceptic. 1 But Epicurus could hardly have been in the ordinary
him about the
sense a pupil of Nausiphanes
been rather older than phanes, however,
much
to the
it
;
he must indeed have
alleged master.
his
seems, claimed
him
Nausi-
as a disciple,
annoyance of Epicurus, who acknow-
ledges that he did occasionally drop into the lecture-
room of the " Mollusc " as he calls him, and found him expounding his doctrines to a few bibulous lads.
And
from
all
that
one can learn about Epicurus,
plain that he could not have been
He
much
it is
of any man's
and that ; That the contemporary philosophy did not influence him, it would be absurd to maintain ; but his acquaintance with it was evidently confined to the main doctrines, in which it was popularly recognised. Where he did read was in the pupil.
was
claims that he was self-taught
in the largest sense true.
now
perished writings of the philosophers anterior to
Plato and Aristotle
simply ignored. 1
Diogenes Laertius,
<ed. Bekker).
;
for these last,
in the main,
From Democritus he ix. 11,
4
(64).
he
directly or in-
Cf. Sext.
Emp.,
p.
599
EPICUREANISM.
3^ directly gained
his
physical theories
;
and a good
authority informs us that his favourite philosophers
were two of these pre-Socratic speculators, Anaxagoras,
and Archelaus, the so-called teacher of Socrates. in them to admire we can only guess probably the physical and mechanical explanation of the universe and of man, in which Anaxagoras seems At Mitylene disciples gathered to have abounded. round him ; and at Lampsacus, a ferry-town on the Dardanelles opposite to the modern town Gallipoli (the city of Callias), where he spent another year or two, he gradually became a recognised head of a philosophic school. He came, says an ancient writer, to look upon Lampsacus almost as his country, 3 1
What he found
:
'
The
best of
its
inhabitants
became
his friends
Idomeneus, and Leonteus with
ticularly
Themista, Polyaenus and Metrodorus ships then
formed lasted through
;
and the
life.
In
par-
:
wife
his
friend-
later
days
he kept up a correspondence with them, as with the philosophers at Mitylene
;
and twice or
thrice crossed
the sea to visit the scenes where disciples lieved in him.
In 307 left
it,
B.C.
his
in 322, its fortunes it
into
Since he
had not been
tranquillity.
the death of Antipater, in 3 1 9,
drawn
bethis
Medina.
Epicurus settled in Athens.
but they had given
first
Athens was the Mecca of
Lampsacus was
prophet,
had
If
it
brilliant,
In the year after
had been
for a while
the whirlpool of Macedonian politics.
1
2
Diogenes Laertius, x. 7 Strabo, XIII.
I,
19.
(12).
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
33
Enticed by the promises of Polysperchon, to enlist the
on
his side,
who hoped
democratic passions of the Greek
Athens rushed from one
The
political
cities
extreme
was not accomOld Phocion and his conservative associates in the Macedonian interest fell a victim to fanatical and patriotic republicans, who doubted the honesty of his cautious policy. He and his friends were executed as traitors. But the hopes then encouraged of a renewal of Athenian another.
to
violent reaction
plished without bloodshed.
sovereignty in Greece were soon disappointed.
318, Athens was at the mercy of Cassander prince,
:
In and that
who not long afterwards made himself unMacedon by the assassination of
disputed master of all
the seed-royal of Alexander, continued to hold the
city tight in his
hands by means of the Macedonian
garrison in the ports. ruler
of Athens
From 318
to 307, the practical
under the Macedonian king was
Demetrius of Phalerum.
Under
his
government the
comand the three hundred and sixty statues which are reported to have been erected throughout Attica in honour of Demetrius himself are a proof that art was not neglected. Demetrius was at once a scholar and a man of the world. 1 In early life it is said he had exhibited the simplicity of a hermit in his fare of island cheese and pickled olives. But prosperity apparently changed him he became city
enjoyed considerable material prosperity
merce
:
flourished,
:
1
Athenaeus, XII. 542 ; Diogenes Laertius, v. 5 Strabo, ix. 398. ;
Siculus, XVIII. 74
D
;
Diodorus
EPICUREANISM.
34
a beau, devoting art and time to elaborating his personal appearance, and did not scruple to give free
Under such a
play to his sensual proclivities. public morality and
The
necessarily
spirit
regime
deteriorated.
fashionable philosopher of the period was a pupil
of Aristotle, Theophrastus, the friend of Cassander
Two
and of Ptolemy.
thousand
disciples,
it is
said,
Even more vehement was the attraction exercised by Stilpon, of Megara, when he visited Athens the very workmen flocked from their workshops and ran to look at him. flocked to hear his lectures. 1
:
Probably, however, with
may have seemed
Athens
all
these disadvantages,
some a more
to
desirable
residence than most of the Greek towns. glories
won
still
for
potentates of Asia
it
and Egypt.
In most of the other
communities of Greece revolution was
Each
party, as
it
old
Its
occasional reverence from the
in
permanence.
gained the supremacy, in
its
turn
massacred the prominent members of the opposition. Tyrants in
name
or in reality
search of power or pleasure
no national
ties
;
mercenary troops with
and no respect
for law,
exiles saturated with the
religion
;
years
these
:
foreign adventurers in
;
and such
throughout Greece
made
like
the
morality, or
gathered hatred of
inflammable materials life
of a peaceful in-
life and and lawlessness spread apace ; and r the young not unfrequently grew up indifferent to their country, sceptical of their religion, bent upon
habitant impossible.
With no
security for
property, poverty
1
Diogenes Laertius,
v. 2, 5 (37).
2
Ibid. n. 11.
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
35
enjoyment, and seasoning sensuality with a dash of literary
and philosophic
cultivation.
Such,
in
its
worst aspects, was Greece in the beginning of the
3rd century
One
B.C.
fact alone
may
of the
tell
Cyrenean adventurer advertised his intention of leading a horde across the deserts against Carthage, which was then staggering under the blows of another adventurer of In the year 308,
misery of the time.
great ability cles,
a
and greater unscrupulousness, Agatho-
Numbers
the despot of Syracuse.
and other Greeks joined the
of Athenians For, says
enterprise.
the historian, the ceaseless wars and rivalry of princes
had brought that
men
all
Greece low and made
fortune, but were influenced
from their present
The
it
feeble,
so
not merely looked to an expected good
ills.
by the prospect of release
1
of Epicurus
arrival
in
Athens
in
307 was
almost simultaneous with a change in the situation of
Athens, by which the city was more openly involved
m
the
wars between the successors of Alexander.
Each of them hoped
to
win Athens to his
side.
The
material support which she could render was indeed
name was a Macedonia had hitherto held her in tutelage by means of Demetrius of Phalerum. In 307, he was forced to abandon the city and flee to Egypt, before the attack of another small, but the intellectual prestige of her
tower of strength for her friends.
Demetrius, Antigonus.
the
Besieger
(Poliorcetes),
the
son
of
Antigonus had made himself one of the
1
Diodorus Siculus, XX. 40.
D
2
EPICUREANISM.
36
most potent of the generals, who, death, gradually dared, in
name
From
empire among themselves.
his
government
in Phrygia
after Alexander's
as in fact,
to divide
his
seat
of
he kept up an incessant and
upon
generally successful system of encroachment
his
neighbours, Ptolemy in Egypt, Seleucus in Babylon,
and Lysimachus in Thrace. His son, Demetrius, is one of the most remarkable characters in the age of In him was combined the intellectual Epicurus. ingenuity of the Greek with the despotic sensuality of an Oriental sultan. He seems to have been possessed by a genuine enthusiasm for Athens.
Athens, restored to nominal liberty by the young Demetrius,
into
fell
an intoxication of
De-
flattery.
metrius and his father were proclaimed kings
were worshipped as the " gods and saviours state
;
"
:
they
of the
a priest for their godheads' service was yearly
appointed
their
;
other gods
images were woven on the great
Parthenon amongst the pictures of the
veil of the ;
two new
tribes
after the liberating kings
;
were formed and named
one of the months (Muny-
name changed
and the But perhaps the best evidence of the worship and fetes which attended Demetrius in Athens is an ode or hymn sung, on one occasion, in his honour. " For chion) had last
its
day of the month was
other gods,"
1
Demetrion
;
Demetrias. 1
says, " are either far away, or
it
have no no mind or care but thee we see before us, no god of
ears to hear, or are not at
of us whatever
to
-styled
:
all,
or have
Plutarch, Demetrius,
c.
10.
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
wood
or stone, but a real god
and
true."
of devotion to their saviour, whilst gradation of religious feeling and national faith, and whilst
it is
37 1
This burst
shows the de-
it
the lapse of the
a bitter accusation against
the rule of the Macedonian, proves also
how completely how hopeless
the old spirit of Athens had sunk, and
was
political regeneration.
its
But the
from Macedonian occupation was
relief
Demetrius was called away by the other
not lasting.
engagements of
and Athens had combat with the King of Mace-
his father's policy,
to sustain, unaided, a
It was, probably,
don.
at this
time that
a curious
incident in the history of philosophical teaching took
The democracy, which was now
place.
in power,
looked with suspicion on the philosophers, who were mostly conservative in their sympathies, and who, the Peripatetics, were attached to the
least
donian
at
Mace-
Accordingly, a law was passed forbid-
rule.
ding any one, under pain of death, from opening a philosophic school without the consent of the supreme council
and people.
Theophrastus, and, probably,
other philosophers, rather than comply with the order, left
the city
:
but Athens was too dependent on her
schools,
or the
head
any
;
at
Macedonian party soon raised its the law was repealed next year, and
rate,
the offended philosophers returned to their schools. 2
At Athens Epicurus purchased a house and garden. former, at least, was in the quarter of the city
The 1
Athenoeus, VI. 253.
2
Diogenes Laertius, v. 3S
ix. 42.
;
Athemeus, xni. 610;
Pollux,
EPICUREANISM.
33
known
as Melite, the elevated
between the Acropolis and the
south-western district
This garden
Piraeus.
was the head-quarters of the friends of Epicurus when they visited Athens, and became the hearth and home If we of the school which gathered round him. could believe one account of the matter derived from
an author 1 who depended too much on compilations his company settled in a town-house with a garden around it, from books, one might fancy Epicurus and
life a sweet odour of the and anticipating the coming of a time when cities would no longer be fortresses, but blossom out into a variegated scene of roofs embowered in leaves. That such a custom came in as the peace of the Roman Empire encompassed a larger sphere is well known ; and if Epicurus did surround his home with a garden, he did what seems to have been done before his time. But one does not feel certain that the house and the garden were contiguous on the con-
introducing into ancient country,
:
trary, the reverse, as
We
we
shall see, is probably, the truth.
are told that the garden cost eighty minae,
about
^320
\
i.e.
but the information scarcely enables us
to fix the size of the property.
For a period of about the
home
of Epicurus.
part in public
life,
thirty-six years
He never during
never solicited those municipal posts
which were open to the ambitious. tatious
and 1
life
A calm,
unosten-
devoted to study of the nature of the world
morality,
Pliny,
Athens was
that time took
and enlivened by the companionship of
Natural
Hist., xix. 51
;
but see Isaeus, v. 11.
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
men and women, and by
like-minded
39
correspondence
with those who, in other places, were aiming at the
same ends, was the
life
of Epicurus.
In thus standing
commonwealth he ran teaching of some earlier philosophers,
aside from the business of the
counter to the
though not, perhaps, to the practice either of Plato
But the altered situation ought to be
or Aristotle.
The Athens
taken into account.
of his time was no
longer a sovereign state, ruling imperially over the islands
Roman
Empire.
afterwards
it
Public
the mere it became under the
nor was
of the Archipelago,
municipality which
ambiguous
such
in
life
The
circumstances was unreal and deceptive.
be found
springs of political force were to
diplomatic
intrigues of
royal
real
the
in
Accordingly
courts.
Epicurus, like Socrates before him, preferred to stand
away out of the giddy whirl of his best efforts to give
politics,
and devoted
a simpler and more natural
tone to the aims and aspirations of individual It scarcely
a season he chose the better part.
was only possible
In this time of
through the
instability, to act beneficially politics,
life.
needs any argument to show that in such
for a
medium
of
king or potentate
possessing the rare desire to ameliorate and humanize his people.
How
But
men
small of
out of power could
human
all that
still
show
hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or
cure.
In religious matters Epicurus was not a dissenter
from the national his
faith.
community and
He
worshipped the gods of
his age,
and took part
in the
EPICUREANISM.
4o
observance
of
religious
services
and of
festival
So, too, he instituted services to
commemorate the names of some of his beloved dead. From neither the dead nor the gods did he expect any reward. But to both he felt an overflowing of a full pageantry.
heart, gladly
showing forth
in act
its
sense of fellow-
and kindred with the august and distant gods and the near and dear departed. We are told with pride, too, by Philodemus, the contemporary of Cicero, that Epicurus was never molested by the comic poets, never banished or put to death as an atheist and infidel. 1 Philodemus was, no doubt, thinking of Socrates ; but he hardly realized how different Athens was in the two periods, and how very great was the contrast between Socrates, freely discussing on the streets and squares, with all comers, on all topics, and Epicurus conversing quietly with his ship
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
friends in his garden.
Thus
tranquilly
The
Athens.
passed these thirty-six years in
position of Epicurus was very unlike
that of his contemporaries in philosophy.
them
like
Some
of
Zeno, the Stoic, and the heads of the Peri-
patetic school, Theophrastus, Strato,
Lyco, and De-
metrius were on terms of friendship and familiarity
with the princes and great
men
rare or surprising event
not a
of the time.
It
was
to see philosophers
acting as the ambassadors of their native state, in
of Eretria,
3
its
pow ers. Thus Menedemus, was entrusted by his fellow-citizens with
transactions with foreign
Philodemus,
De
T
Pietate (ed.
Gomperz), p. 93.
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
4>
the plenipotentiary disposition of their town sent
on embassies
machus,
Ptolemy,
to
foreign
and Demetrius
;
;
he was
such as Lysi-
kings,
and the young
king of Macedonia was proud to subscribe himself as
Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt had been
his pupil.
And
a scholar of Strato of Lampsacus.
Arcesilaus,
the Platonist, though he declined the efforts
made
to
him to meet the King of Macedon, was an intimate friend of the captains or governors who held garrison in the Piraeus, and stood well with Eumenes, get
the son of Philetaerus. 1
Another
on
less
established them-
of philosophers
class
selves in the
favour of the successors of Alexander
equal terms than those claimed by the chiefs
Men like Theoand Crates the Cynic, with
of Platonism and Aristotelianism. dorus, the witty Cyrenaic, his
Cynic
wife,
made themselves regarded
Hipparchia,
as an acquisition at the kingly courts
by
their
powers
of repartee, and the reputation of their bons mots.
Their
jests at the
orthodox beliefs and their unblush-
ing disregard of conventional standards, perhaps in-
creased the piquancy of their company. Stilpo
was asked by Crates
of the
faithful
be asked
were alone.
Thus, when
the worship and offerings
any
gave the gods
only replied by saying
not to
if
satisfaction,
he
the question was one
that
on the highway, but when they
Another of these
scoffers,
Bion
of
Borysthenes, acquired quite a reputation by his religious
indifference,
1
though when sickness
Diogenes Laertius,
II.
17
;
v. 3
;
IV, 6, 39.
visited
EPICUREANISM.
42
him he sought all
use of amulets, and abjured
relief in the
the errors of his
The
tongue.
court of Lysima-
chus, prince of Thrace, seems to have been a favourite resort of
emancipated free-thinkers, both male and
female.
Hipparchia, the Cynic, and Theodorus, the
Cyrenaic and professed
atheist, sometimes met there. Theodorus was the typical representative of the advanced thinkers of the time. He professed open contempt for the popular theology ; he was a thorough cosmopolitan; and morality he regarded as one of
those conventions which the elect spirits of society
might
as
treat
past
and
obsolete, for all but the
and bourgeoisie. Before and people he was equally careless of his Athens was shocked at his open irreligion, language. and Mithras, the chamberlain of King Lysimachus,had to call him to account for his want of respect. 1 While it continued to be the chosen home of Epicurus and his followers, Athens passed through a narrow-minded
Philistines
kings
series
Demetrius Poliorcetes,
of vicissitudes.
liberator
its-
from the Macedonian yoke, had been forced
to withdraw his help,
and
as
soon as he had gone,.
Cassander, the king of Macedon, renewed his efforts to impose his supremacy
hour of to their
their peril the
upon Athens.
But
in the
Athenians cried aloud for help*
former saviour, and in 303
B.C.
Demetrius
re-appeared in the Athenian territory, and succeeded in driving the
Macedonian armies
pass of Thermopylae.
1
to the north of the
In consequence of this
Diogenes Laertius,
11. 8,
16;
VI, 7.
relief.,
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE. the Athenians were reckless
*3
with delight, and their
gratitude found vent in a shameful servility.
The
Parthenon, the temple of the maiden goddess, was in part assigned to the prince as a lodging,
a
and there
for
he kept up a succession of imperial
short time
revelries with
his mistresses
and the
artistes of his
But these hours of intoxication were soon followed by a terrible awakening. In 301 B.C. Demecourt.
trius
and
his father
succumbed under the combined
attack of the other " kings," as the successors of Alex-
ander had
lately
come
battle of Ipsus, in
to style themselves.
which Antigonus
After the
lost his life, Lysi-
machus became master of both sides of the sea of Marmora, and Demetrius found that the Athenians were not disposed to afford him any shelter or aid in Athens, with the general selfishness
his misfortunes.
of the age ? declared rearrange
its
impossible.
itself neutral,
and proceeded to
own affairs. But this was now in reality Where the aims of those who dreamed
of maintaining for Athens an independent existence
and policy clashed with the interests of the adherents of the Macedonian power and of those who supported the plans of other princes, faction was inevitable; and about 297 b.c Athens fell into the hands of a popular chief, called Lachares. This man is described by an ancient writer as of all tyrants known the most savage towards men and the most unscrupulous towards God. 1 Demetrius Poliorcetes now that Cassander was dead, determined again to 5
1
Pausanias,
I.
25
;
Polyoenus,ni. 7
;
Athenreus, ix. 405.
EPICUREANISM.
44 try to get a city
A
the inhabitants.
the consequence fail.
A bushel
of
;
He
Athens.
footing in
by sea and land, and cut
invested
off all provisions
the
from
dreadful famine in the city was the
necessaries of
salt sold for
twenty
life
began to
shillings,
and
for
a peck of wheat people were willing to pay more than
In one house a father and son were
ten pounds. sitting in
moody
from the
roof,
despair suddenly a dead mouse fell and the two wretched creatures sprang up and fought over the tiny prey. Epicurus and his companions managed to subsist on beans, counted out in equal numbers to each member of the household. 1 Even the tyrant suffered in the general distress. At length he fled, not, it is said, without plundering the temple, and the city fell into the power of Demetrius. :
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
The
trembling citizens expected vengeance for their
falling-off trius,
from
who had
his side
some years ago
tent to ignore their insincerity,
against any repetition of
ing the
time
Museum
forts
;
but Deme-
always a softness for Athens, was con-
it
by
rock in the
and
to secure himself
fortifying
city, as
and
garrison-
well as the mari-
of Piraeus and Munychia (295 b.c) years, during which, by one of
For the next seven
those strange vicissitudes so
common
in that period,
Demetrius held the throne of Macedonia, Athens
re-
Macedonian garrisons at her gates. But in 288 B.C., when Demetrius was forced to abandon his Macedonian kingdom, the old Athenian love of independence revived, and young
mained
tranquil under the
1
Plutarch, Demetrius,
c.
34..
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
and old
alike,
under the leadership of Olympiodorus,
rose in rebellion
son when
Museum
and defeated the Macedonian
garri-
attacked them, and captured the fort on
it
hill,
remained.
45
though the garrisons in the
forts stilt
Athens, thus liberated, by the help of
Pyrrhus of Epirus, showed
by
setting
its changed circumstances up honorary decrees as a tribute to the
great orators
who had urged
before to resist the power spirit
the state a generation
of Macedon.
of ancient independence was gone.
foreign kings that Athens
was indebted both
nominal independence and for
The
princes of the
wheat.
its
Crimea made
Foreign patronage
But the was to
It
is
it
for its
very subsistence. frequent
gifts
the evidence given
of
by
the honorary decrees to the kings of the Bosphorus
and of Paeonia, to Lysimachus of Thrace, Pyrrhus of Epirus, and Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt. In the
last years of Epicurus Athens lived at peace, Macedonian garrisons at her gates ; in the Piraeus, in Munychia, and in Salamis. In Macedonia, Antigonus Gonatas, the son of Demetrius, had sue ceeded to his father's kingdom in 2 7 9, and kept up with Zeno and some others of the philosophers a friendly intercourse. With Epicurus, who lived out of the sphere of politics, and with Arcesilaus, who banished politics from the Academy, he had no dealings. Greece, under Macedonia, like Judea under the Romans, was not exactly the place where the king and the philosopher could meet on fair terms. Epicurus had been from infancy of rather feeble health. In his boyhood, it is said, he was so weak
with
1
EPICUREANISM.
46
had
that he
be
to
lifted
down from
and so upon the
his chair,
blear-eyed that he could not bear to look fire. His skin, too, was so tender beyond a mere tunic was unbearable.
sun or dress
that any
Such
is
the account quoted by a lexicographer of the Byzantine
period
1
and the maladies of Epicurus
j
are treated as
an anticipatory judgment of heaven upon him of Jeremy
Bentham
tells
on
far out
2 :
so
weak
he could not support him-
and he spoke of himself
tiptoe,
of feeble boys
go so
how Bentham was
us
at seven years of age that self
for his
Curiously enough, the biographer
alleged impieties.
as the feeblest
but the greatest bigot would hardly
of his way as to suggest that Bentham's
views richly deserved such an organization as his portion. It was also suggested that Epicurus's ill-health was due to his loose and luxurious life. One of his
pupils apparently wrote in refutation of these charges.
In the year 270
B.C.
Epicurus died
at
Athens.
a fortnight before his end he had suffered obstruction last
by stone
moment
For
much from
in the bladder. 3
his intellect
But up to the was unimpaired he dwelt :
both in conversation and his
letters,
on the memories
of philosophic fellowship
When each by turns was guide to each, And fancy light from fancy caught, And
thought leapt out to
Ere thought could wed
1
2
in
Suidas, under the
wed with thought
itself
with speech.
word "Epicurus."
Bentham's works, vol. x., 3 Diogenes Laertius, x. 15; Hermes, v., p. 391.
p. 31. cf.
fragment restored by Gomperz
EPICURUS AND HIS AGE.
His bade
His
4
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
was for his doctrines he remember what he had taught.
last intellectual care
his
last
who had
friends
7
personal care was for the children of a disciple
died before him, and for
whom
he asked his
benevolent friends to continue the attentions and support which they
had hitherto given
to himself.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; EPICUREANISM.
4S
CHAPTER
III.
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD.
"When
the stranger," says Seneca, "
on
gardens 6
Friend, here
pleasure
is
which will
it
words
the
be well
comes
are
to the
inscribed,
for thee to abide
:
here
the highest good,' he will find the keeper
who
of that garden a kindly, hospitable man,
will set
him a dish of barley porridge and water in plenty, and say, Hast thou not been well entertained ? These gardens do not whet hunger, but quench it they do not cause a greater thirst by the very drinks they afford, but soothe it by a remedy which is natural and costs nothing. In pleasure like before
'
:
old.' "
1
this I
have grown
says
another writer, 2 " cried aloud, and said
whom a Give me vie
is
not
a barley-cake and water, and
we have a
first
sight
it
picture of the
I
:
'
To
is
enough.
am
ready to
enough, nothing
In words
even with Zeus in happiness/"
these
At
little
"Epicurus, the Gargettian,"
like
garden of Epicurus.
presents the idea
of a
society of
ascetics rather than of voluptuaries,
and of
dietetic
than philosophers.
"We
ought,"
reformers
rather
Epist. Moral., ^Elian,
Van
II. 9 (21), 10. Hist, IV. 13.
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD. says Epicurus, " to be
on our guard against any dishes
are eagerly desirous of them before-
we
which, though
49
we
hand, yet leave no sense of gratitude behind after
have enjoyed them." 1
which we should probably associate of epicure, we find a meal of plain
dainty dishes
with the
Instead of the revelry and
name
bread and water, with half a pint of of his that
letters,
when
light
wine occa-
"
sionally added.
"
Send me," says Epicurus, in one. send me some cheese of Cythnos, so
I will I
may
fare sumptuously." 2
The
life
of the Epicurean circle attempted to inculcate plain living,
we his
not as a duty, but as a pleasure.
Probably,
believe the stories of the ill-health of Epicurus friends,
dietetic
there
experiment
may have been something of a in this behaviour. The society
was not, indeed, in principle vegetarian trary,
if
and
â&#x20AC;˘
on the con-
they justified the use of animal flesh for food,
much on
the
same metaphysical ground as Spinoza the immense generic dif/.<?., ;
afterwards employed
ference which they believed to separate brute.
But
man from the many
in practice, their diet, like that of so
other philosophers, was mainly vegetarian.
Their
temperate habits seem to have drawn down upon them the jokes of the comic poets. " Your waterdrinking," says a character in one
of their plays, 8
whilst by my potaPhilemon puts the following words into the mouth of one of his charac-
makes you
useless to the state
tions I increase
the
:
revenue."
De
1
Porphyry,
8
Diogenes Laertius, x. 6, 1 1. Bato in Athenseus, iv. 163,
3
Abstinentia,
E
I.
53.
EPICUREANISM.
5° ters
:
—" This
fellow
is
bringing in a
he preaches hunger, and get but a single to
wash
it
roll,
down."
1
new philosophy They :
disciples follow him.
a dried
fig to relish
it,
and water
when Juvenal draws his wants of human nature, he iden-
sketch of the real
So, too,
what is required to free us from cold and thirst and hunger, with the conveniences which Epicurus in tifies
his little
To
garden found
sufficient. 3
place this aspect of Epicureanism in the fore-
ground seems system.
justified
To them
the
by the whole tenor of the of man was a life at once
life
of the body and the soul.
Epicurus declared himself
unable to understand what was meant by a pleasure
where the body and
its
various senses were utterly
The common
entirely ignored.
doctrine of so
and
many
ancient philosophers, that the senses and the instincts must be checked, repressed or ignored, that apathy, or the absence of sense and feeling, is the ideal perwas a doctrine against which he fection of the sage, It was easy for opponents to say always contended. that such a protest opened the door to sensuality, and to hint that she was even asked to come in. But it is easy to see that the point with Epicurus was that philosophy must keep constantly in view the fact, that humanity is embodied in flesh and blood, and
—
—
that
the body,
if
ignored in theory, will
manage to avenge itself in to know the experimental 1
2
Philemon
in
practice.
He
somehow had come
truth of the proposition,.
Clemen. Alexandr. Stromat., n. 493.
Juvenal, Sat, xiv. 319.
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD.
5*
that what we are depends so much on what we cat And the words of Metrodorus his disciple, which gave when he says, that so much offence to delicate ears,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
" the doctrine
which follows nature has
for its
main
object the stomach/' 1 were probably not so heinous in their
meaning
digestion is
A good and dyspepsia This aphorism, paradoxical and
some
as
critics
supposed.
happy
life
the basis of a
is
the root of all
one-sided as
it
evils.
may be,
is
:
not necessarily vicious. Plato
had already partly recognised the truth of the observation ; and one may pardon the emphasis laid on the doctrine, if we assume the speaker to have been somewhat of a valetudinarian. It is one of the tendencies of our day to lay stress, probably an exaggerated stress, on the personal care of health, and to attach enormous importance to a reasonable diet. The moral doctrines of Plato and Aristotle had been a trifle too exacting for humanity they elevated :
virtue, as
Descartes says, to a great height, but they
showed how the height could be scaled. 2 Epicurus comes and begins at the beginning a simple and natural life with simple enjoyments is his ideal. If we remember, too, that according to the Epicurean
scarcely
:
theory pleasure
is
defined as the complete removal
of the painful state, and that,
once achieved,
the
pleasure can never be intensified, but only varied by'
any subsequent
additions,
we can understand how
Epicurus bids his friends to rest content with simple
1
2
Athenoeus, vn. 279. Descartes,
Discow s E
de Ja Methods.
2
/0
â&#x20AC;˘
EPICUREANISM.
52
Costly fare only gives a character of variety
fare.
and
enjoyment which
multiplicity to the
cannot
it
increase.
Who were the members of this society ? the guests who sought the hospitality of the sage ? the friends who permanently remained with him ? The brotherhood was not a
and
fixed
stationary band.
Freely,
they went and came to hear and see their teacher.
Foremost of them
all
was Metrodorus.
It
rus, first
master
in the affections of the
was
at
Lampsacus
that Metrodo-
who must have then been about twenty years only, came into contact with Epicurus. It seems to
have been a case of love the union between
at first sight, as
them became so
it
were,
and
close that the
like an elder and a younger and Metrodorus never was absent from the
two clung to each other brother,
circle save for six
his native town.
months, while he paid a
visit to
Epicurus was never tired of prais-
ing his friend for his goodness and unwearied
He
spirit.
married Leontion, another disciple of the garden,
and died
at the age of fifty-three, seven years before
Epicurus, leaving behind him a son and a daughter to the care of the survivor.
was
for awhile
His brother Timocrates
another of the band, but he ultimately
became a renegade and an opponent.
His
sister
Batis was married to Idomeneus, another disciple, also
belonging to Lampsacus, and of some note as an torian
;
disciple
another brother
is
also mentioned.
A
his-
fourth
from the same place was Polyaenus, who
said to have
been before
mathematician.
From
is
his conversion a notable
Mitylene came the successor
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD. of Epicurus in the headship, Hermarchus. the son of poor parents, and
had begun
53
He life
was by the
study of rhetoric, but afterwards distinguished himself as
a philosopher.
To Lampsacus,
Leonteus and his wife Themista.
named after their teacher. came Colotes, of whom it
is
too,
belonged
Their son was
From Lampsacus also told that when first he
heard Epicurus expounding the natural system, he fell
at
his feet
and did him reverence; whereupon
Epicurus, not to be outdone, worshipped and compli-
mented him
return.
in
would have made, says
It
Plutarch in a scoffing mood, an excellent subject for a picture. 1
There were other members of the society, such as a young man, on whom Epicurus had built high hopes of future excellence. Leontion has been already mentioned. With her and Themista Epicurus kept up a correspondence, as he did with Pythocles,
his other friends.
women whom
Leontion belonged to the class of
the Greeks termed female comrades
the same class to which Aspasia, the morganatic wife
of Pericles, had belonged.
Of
we know almost nothing. some literary and philosophic
her history and cha-
That she possessed may be inferred from the statement that she wrote an essay in criticism of a work by the philosopher Theophrastus. 2 According to the marriage-laws of the old Greek communities, it was impossible for her to form a legitiracter
1
Plutarch, Adv. Colotem,
-
Cicero,
abilities
c. xvii. 3.
Dc NaturA Deorum,
1.
33, 93.
EPICUREANISM.
54
mate union with a citizen. She was excluded from the fashionable and respectable womanhood, and in the demi-monde to which she belonged could only win at the best a dubious rank by her wit, her learning, or her beauty. In the constant wars and revolutions which destroyed the male population of many Greek towns of those times, and threw numbers of women destitute upon the world as slaves or as homeless
aliens,
numerous.
women
of this class must have been
They possessed
or acquired qualifications
and knowledge and enchain men than their more respectable and extremely ignorant sisters, who had never left the seclusion of their homes to mingle with the world, and for whom wedlock meant simply an arrangement for housekeeping. To have married an undowered wife would, to an Athenian, have seemed a monstrous impossibility. The readers of Terence (whose originals in their intelligence, accomplishments,
of the world, which
depict
made them
abler to attract
the contemporaries of Epicurus) are
aware
young lady who had been left penniless had no course open except to become an artist, a singer, a player on the flute, or dancer, if she wished to rise above indigence ; and thus circumstances forced her But to into the demi-monde of the large towns. judge of these hetcercz, or emancipated women, we that a
must look
at
them
in the light
of their historical
surroundings, and not by abstract principles or by considerations
derived
from
modern
European
morality.
Leontion had become, as
far
as she apparently
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD.
55
could, the wife, ÂŁ4, technically or legally, the concu-
mother and
bine of Metrodorus, whose
sister sent
on the occasion of the marriage. 1 But Leontion was not, according to various chroniclers, the only lady to be found among the disciples of Epicurus. Marmarion (or, as she seems more probably named in the manuscripts of Herculaneum, congratulations
Mammarion
or
Mammaron), 2 Hedia
and Nikidion
(Loveling),
(Sweet), Erotion
(Victorine), are the
names
given by one writer; another adds Boidion; and a third erroneously inserts Philaenis, among the " young and
handsome women," who, the garden."
as
it is
phrased, " haunted
Scandal fastened with avidity on these
circumstances.
Partly,
it
seems, through the agency
of a Stoic, called Diotimus,
who bore
the Epicureans
a bitter grudge, there appeared a collection of letters,
Epicurus and his mistresses. victim of these nately
fifty
purporting to be the correspondence between
is
libels,
Leontion was the chief
which human nature unfortu-
inclined to believe
must have something in What LeonBut we do know that
them, once they have been published. tion
was
like
we know
not.
there were two portraits of her
of ancient
art,
known to The
the elder Pliny.
the historian first
not
is
But the other depicted Leontion the attitude of thought. 3 With Mammaron and
specially described. in
1
Plutarch,
Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum,
2
c.
16.
Volum. Herculanens. Collect. Altera, torn. I. p. 149; cf. Oxford Tracings, Papyrus 1005 ; Spengel in Philologus^yx^X., vol. ii.p. 534. 3
Pliny, Nat. Hist.,
xxxv. 99 and
144.
EPICUREANISM.
56
the rest scandal was equally busy, telling
them was the
favourite of
disciples of Epicurus.
opposed
in antiquity a
have no grounds claimer.
how each
To
these scandals the school
unanimous
denial,
for refusing to accept
and we
their
one of the regular consequences
It is
tending a departure from the standard of morality, that failure in one department
to carry with
Nothing
And
is
failure in
it
of
one or another of the chief
is
disat-
social
presumed
any of the rules of
ethics.
too bad to be believed of such a one.
so later gossip- mongers fastened with avidity on
They drew fancy pictures of the loose and depraved manners of the garden, and depicted Leontion as an unblushing daughter of sin, and Epicurus as her special paramour. In one of
the theme. society
the writers,
who wrote
letters
purporting to be the
composition of well-known persons of the past, and
sketched novelettes in correspondence, we find Epicurus represented as a hoary valetudinarian sinner, urging his unwelcome love on the young Leontion,
who has given her Some enemies of attribute
the
heart and person to another lover. 1
the system were even inclined to
ill-health
of
its
early chiefs
to their
licentious lives.
These slanders not unnaturally grew up in the minds of those who combined the fact that women were not excluded from the garden, with the open doctrine of the school, that pleasure was the aim of life, and especially with sayings of Epicurus, in which 1
Alciphron, Epist.,
ii.
2.
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD. he claimed for our animal nature
its
57
right to free de-
But there can hardly be a doubt that they are gross exaggerations, springing from that common failing which accuses an intellectual oppovelopment.
nent of
all
manner of vices and
immoralities.
These
meetings, where, as an old French writer says, 1 " the despising
fair sex,
all
that slander
and jealousy could
say against them, wished to have a share, and grudged
men
good fortune of being the
the
sole disciples
and
hearers of this philosopher," were probably as harm-
other
as
less
gatherings
of
unlicensed religious
where the suspicion of foes has been ready to suppose all unholy excesses of sensuality. Had sects,
enemy instead we should have probably heard a very different story about the lady in whose house he lived, her daughter, and the other women who followed his steps. Yet, at the same time, it would be
the
life
of Plotinus been written by an
of a friend,
a mistake to suppose that the ideas which chivalry
has
made
in the
modern world were present Such sentiments, elevating a religious power, and a symbol of
familiar to the
Epicurean
womanhood
into
fold.
and sweetest humanity, were unknown to the ancient world. The Greek world, in particular, never rose much above the naturalistic and practical
the best
aspects
of conjugal
life.
Esthetic emotions and
were not conceived as any part All that we can safely love of woman.
ethical influences
of the
affirm of
1
the Epicurean
society
is,
Sorbiere, Lcttres et Disconrs (lettre 33).
that licentious-
Paris, 1660.
EPICUREANISM.
53 unproven.
ness
is
the
dignity of
That the purity of womanhood, ladyhood,
existed
in
the
otherwise than in the surrounding world
must not There
is
society
what we
affirm.
another side to the picture, probably
is
equally exaggerated with the
last.
As
that alleged
debauchery, so this presents us with a picture of a
The
hospital or infirmary.
school are in this account
chief philosophers in the all
the victims of
some
malady, due probably to their own misconduct, and
and infidels ought. somewhat milder terms. He tells us what a source of joy and consolation it was to Epicurus to think of three of his friends and disciples, whom he had tended through their sickness, and now fondly recollected when they had departed. 1 His best-loved disciples, Metrodorus, Polysenus, and Pythocles, died before him. Epicurus having tenderly cared, for them, wasted no time in unavailing regrets. A true friendship and a pure they
all
die wretchedly, as atheists
An older writer speaks
in
love are an imperishable inheritance for the soul
lives
it,
the survivor. that
we
It
was one of the sayings of Epicurus,
are ungrateful to the past in not recalling the
blessings
ing them
we have erewhile experienced, and countamong our permanent joys. The three
brothers of
Epicurus,
Neocles,
Chaeredemus, and
Aristobulus, also died before him. Perhaps
1
who
and the memory of such concordant may be a source of strength and great joy to
has enjoyed
Plutarch,
Non posse suaviter
zivi sec\ Efiicu?'.,
no circum-
c.
5
and 22.
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD. stance connected with
disciples
his
is
59
more
note-
worthy than the way in which they clung to him
and
" Great
his doctrine.
was the reverence of
Epicurus," says Plutarch
brothers towards
his
" their
;
and brotherly feeling made them enthusiand even if they were mistaken in the belief, which they had from their very boyhood formed, that there was no one so wise as Epicurus, still, the man who could inspire such a feeling, and
.affection
astic
disciples;
those
who could
But the
feel
real picture
was the prevailing together
its
common
it,
members
life
deserve our admiration." 1
was a pleasing one.
spirit
of the
Friendship
garden, and knit
in every part of the world.
supplemented the
common
A
doctrine.
may be called, were more and companions of the master than auditors of his lectures. It was their fellowship with their leader which made them great men, and not his The
pupils, if pupils they
the associates
instruction merely.
They took a deep
interest in all the concerns of letters
to
one another
affectionate ;
and
their
each other in their temporary absences
which bound together members of the inner circle. One instance may be given. We knew that Epicurus during the second exhibit the tender domestic tie
the
half of his
life
twice or thrice tempted the dangers of
the sea (he was nearly drowned, voyage) to
visit his friends
it
seems, on one
in Asia Minor. 2
the charred manuscripts recovered from
1
Plutarch,
2
Plutarch,
Among
Herculaneum
Dc Fraterno Amorc, c. 1 6. Non posse suav. vivi sec. Epiacr.,
c.
6.
I
66
EPICUREANISM.
there
is
found a mutilated
letter
apparently written
by
Epicurus, and apparently addressed to the daughter
of Metrodorus, the young
girl for
whose welfare he
" We have arrived," anxious on his death-bed. " says the writer, safe and sound at Lampsacus, felt
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and Pythocles and Hermarchus and Ctesippus, and there we found Themista and the rest of our friends I hope that you, too, are well, and safe and sound. mamma, and that in all things you are obedient to her and to Papa and Matro, as you used to be. For remember, my bairn, that we are all of us very fond of you so be obedient to them." 1 On certain days the community seems to have
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
observed a
fast.
In a
letter to Polyaenus, for instance,
Epicurus indulges in playful boast that while Metrodorus has only reduced his expenses to sixpence, he himself has been able to live comfortably on a less sum. 2
The purpose
of such abstinence was not ascetic
to determine
on how
but was possible to be happy. A life led on these maxims can scarcely have produced those "fat sleek swine of Epicurus's herd" 3 to which Horace alludes ; and one is more inclined ;
little it
to say with Seneca that the pleasure of Epicurus is very " sober and dry," 4 and "reduced to small and
slender dimensions."
In
this
aims of 1
life
where
brotherhood,
reasoning
on
the
took the place of a lecture, and simple
Ed. by Gomperz
in
Hermes, v.
p. 388.
3
Seneca, Epist. Mor.,
3
Horace, Epist., 1. 4, 16 ; Cicero in Pisonem, XVI. 37. Seneca, Dialog., VII. 12, and VII. 13.
4
II.
6
(18), 9.
"
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD.
6
I
meals with kindly converse restrained the furies of
Even
controversy, each was his brother's keeper.
those early days
all
were not of one opinion.
and Colotes are alleged
When
have had their
to
in
Leontion
little errors.
the chiefs of the sect saw such divergence,
it
was not, however, their way to correct the offender Rather
directly.
exposing and mistakes of
another member,
wrote to
they
correcting
these
errors as
Leontion saw her mistakes pointed out the master to Colotes. 1
But,
there was a certain liberty
left
supposed
In such a way
correspondent.
their
in a letter of
on the whole, though on secondary points,
the main doctrines of the society were stereotyped.
The
disciples
fundamental
were recommended to get by rote the catechism,
or
articles
doctrine was summarized.
to the Epicureans, " has not learned
chism
?
And
2
in
in
which the
"Which of you," says Cicero
some
points,
by rote
this cate-
therefore,
blind
following of the master's authority was preached in his writings, and those of the two other members of the Epicurean triumvirate, were treated
the school
:
as authoritative, as inspired, as a sort of Bible. in the close of
written " If
Thus,
one of the fragments on Rhetoric
by Philodemus, we find that author saying and Metrodorus and Hermarchus
:
Epicurus
declare that there
is
such an
art (as sophistical rhetoric),
we shall point out in the sequel, then those of our sect who write against their view are not very far from
as
1
2
Volum, Henulan. (Napol.), Coll. Prior, v. Cicero,
De Finibus,
II.
20.
2.
17.
EPICUREANISM.
62
deserving the punishment of a parricide." 1
But
it
was no deterrent from composition that the writer was
bound by his creed. " The Epicureans," says Cicero, " do not refrain from writing on the same topics as and
Epicurus
On
their old chiefs."
When Philodemus
is
the
contrary.
drawing to the close of another
thought occurs to him, that he may be blamed for undertaking a work on economics. " It is enough for me that Metrodorus, as well as Epicurus, enjoins and advises and administers more diligently and down to minor points, and even practises what he teaches." 2 But there are many points, it should be added, in which the same writer indicates his divergence from the leaders and teachers of his sect. It may be asked how was this society maintained ? It was not a class of pupils like those which gathered round other philosophers. As Seneca says,
treatise, the
'
it
was not the school, but the
Epicurus, which
men
of note. 3
that they should throw
mon
fund
on
in
common
with
all
their property into a
com-
but Epicurus rejected the suggestion of
;
communism restraint
life
made Metrodorus and his companions Some of his followers had suggested
and as laying a But though the friends
as savouring of distrust freewill offerings.
did not surrender their goods into a club-property, a
number of them paid a voluntary rate to the
1
2 3
head of the school
:
Volum. fferculcm. Coll. Alter, v. 35 Volum. Herculan. (Oxon.), 1. 104. Seneca, Epist. vi. 6
;
cf.
contribution or
and we have a
xxxin.
4.
;
pap. 1,427.
letter
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD. in
63
which he requests that one of these contributors continue this payment after his death for the
will
orphan children of Metrodorus, in
benefit of the two
whom
he took an
interest,
1
In another
Idomeneus, he says
friend
:
letter to
" Send us
therefore, unto the tending of the sacred body, for
his
first-fruits,
both
myself and the children." 2
And, again, he tells " Bravely and splendidly you
some other friends showed care of us in the matter of procuring the corn, and manifested prodigious tokens of your good:
But the
towards me."
will
thus rendered were
gifts
paralleled by other gifts from
Epicurusâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;when he
sent wheat or a bushel of barley, 3 as
among his needy The scene, in fact,
put,
it is
sarcastically
friends.
presented by the history of the
Epicurean garden reminds us of the generosity and brotherly charity exhibited
by the various congregaChurch and the letters
tions of the infant Christian
:
of Epicurus and his chief followers are not without their
there
analogues in the Epistles of
Paul.
St.
with allusions to humble matters of daily feel in
life.
We
both cases that the members of the sect take
a family
human
each other.
and
In both
the same mixture of discourse on high topics,
is
interest in the minutest
Such
aristocratic ancient
philosopher.
But
critics
in truth
teach the importance 1
seemed
trifles
to
to be
concerns of
the dignified
unworthy of a
Epicurus came partly to
of such
little
things in the
Edited by Gomperz in Hermes, v. 391.
2
Plutarch,
Adv.
3
Plutarch,
Non posse
Coloten.,
c. xviii. 3.
suavitcr vivi,
c.
xv. 7-8.
EPICUREANISM.
64
And
economy of mankind.
his
which,
language,
presented apart from the context, appears often exaggerated and aspect
if
stilted,
we saw
losses, so far as is
would probably
the whole.
offer
another
one of the great
It is
our knowledge of ancient social
life
concerned, that the letters of Epicurus to and from
friends,
which were preserved by
fully as the letters
his school as care-
of the Apostles by the Christian
Church,
have disappeared, leaving hardly
behind.
They were
evidently
second century of our element in the
era,
literature of
in
a
trace
existence in the
and formed an important Epicureanism.
According to Diogenes, the number of the friends of Epicurus was so great that they could not have been counted by whole cities. We have already spoken of Metrodorus and his brother Timocrates. The latter did not continue faithful to the cause he quarrelled with his brother, and the dispute was :
carried into acrimonious pamphlets. to affect a reconciliation
the desired effect,
;
and the
renegade became one
and morality of his Such charges from friends who
of the chief accusers of the former associates. 1
Epicurus tried
but his rebukes had not
life
have become enemies are never very credible, but in they are specially discredited by the common
this case
tendency of the ancient world to adopt the language Mithras the of Billingsgate against an opponent. Syrian, steward of Lysimachus, king of Thrace, was another Epicurean
1
Plutarch,
who seems
to have
Non posse sitaviler vivi,
been a regular
1098 B.
;
1 1
26 C.
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD.
One
contributor.
dedicated difficulties
On some
the
at
for the
was
occasion he
and
Piraeus,
Metrodorus
praises
of Epicurus was
of the essays
him.
to
65
Epicurus
in
loudly
goodly and gallant way in
which he had gone down to the sea to help him. 1 These and other slight deeds are contemptuously contrasted by
with
Plutarch
generals and statesmen.
But
deeds
the it
of
great
not perhaps going
is
too far to say that these and other interchanges of
benevolence between the members of a sect which did not count to the blessing
many
to a disciple in the
The
affairs
affected It
by a
rich or noble, are
awarded
to the
name
found entitled
cup of cold water given
of a disciple.
of the brotherhood were considerably will
which Epicurus
left
behind him. 2
divided his small fortune in two directions
;
for
doctrine,
and
behoof of the orphans of two of
his
and
the general interest of his society
the special friends.
According to the terms of the bequest,
deposited in
the office
of the
State
archives, the
temple of the mother of the gods (Metroon), his whole property was handed over to two trustees for the
lowing purposes.
The garden and
its
fol-
appurtenances,
and the school or lecture-room erected in it, were to for behoof of Hermarchus, the immediate successor of Epicurus, and for all who might in time follow him in that post. The house in Melite was to be used by Hermarchus and his fellow be held
philosophers as a dwelling
during
Non posse snaviter vivi,
1
Plutarch,
2
Diogenes Laertius, x. 10 (17-22).
F
the
life
1097 A.
of the
66
EPICUREANISM.
former.
A sum
of
money was further placed to the who in conjunction with Her-
credit of the trustees,
marchus were to divide it in certain portions. One portion was to go to keep up the fete celebrated in memory of the departed parents and brothers of Another part went to defray the expenses Epicurus. of the social meetings held annually on the anniversary of the birthday of Epicurus (the 10th of the Attic
month Gamelion), and on
the 20th day of every
month, in memory of the conjoint names of Epicurus
and Metrodorus. His brothers and his friend Polyhad also yearly days of remembrance appointed. These provisions for the saints' days of the Epicurean calendar were the general and permanent provisions senus
of the
will.
Its special articles
enjoined the trustees to be the
guardians of a younger Epicurus, son of Metrodorus,
and of the son of Polyaenus of Metrodorus. ported,
and the
;
as also of the daughter
The three children were to be supgirl when she reached marriageable
years was to receive a dowry from the fund,
and
to
be
married to one of the members of the school selected
by Hermarchus.
One
brotherhood who had
of the older left
Epicurus, was especially the trustees.
The books
all
members of the wisdom with
to follow
commended
to the notice of
of the founder were to pass
Finally, three of his bondmen over to Hermarchus. and one bondwoman were granted their freedom. This testament, which maybe compared with others left about the same time by the chiefs of the PeripaIts care tetic school, is in many ways noteworthy.
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD. young orphans
for the
is,
67
decorum,
in its affectionate
the best refutation of the calumnies raised against
Epicurus.
His emancipation of the slaves may be
paralleled
by similar
Theophrastus,
One
heads of the Aristotelian school.
sive
of
testaments
the
in
acts
and Lyco, the three succes-
Strato,
named Mys (Mouse), had been a philosophy with his master. The
of these
slaves,
fellow-worker
in
distinction in
the will between the house in Melite and the garden suggests
some
for those
difficulties
who,
suppose that the garden lay inside the
Pliny,
like
Indeed,
city.
from a remark in Cicero, it would seem indubitable that the garden lay on the N.W. of Athens, a little off the road
which led to the " Academy
In other words,
lay outside the walled city,
it
like the local seats of
was an open garden thus
two
likewise.
" the garden
in the suburbs.
common Plato
who
philosophy. 2
served
as
The garden
a meeting-place
in the next generation after
began to erect small huts muses. 3
While Epicurus
the other sects had
of his friends for purposes of the
pursuit of
similarly
school,
sect,
The will of Theophrastus hands over and the walk, and the houses by the
" to certain
garden
And
and
at least of the other schools
endowed the Epicurean
done
" of Plato. 1
in both
for
his
of his
death
near the abode of their
schools
common
festivals, in
monthly dinners, kept the students There is thus a pleasing family together socially. the shape of
1
2
Cicero,
De Finibtis,
V.
Diogenes Laertius, v.
i.
2,
3.
14.
F 2
3
Diog. Laertius,
I
v. 3, 5.
68
EPICUREANISM.
and home character about these
sects,
which contrasts
with the sterner practice of the Stoics.
Thus we
Indeed,
the State.
endowed long
see that philosophy was
before the emperor attached it
to the patronage of
it
may be
suggested that public
governmental support was the
When
thing Epicurus
last
are mentioned which the Ephebi, or young Athenian collegians, attended, one finds no notice of the schools of the
could expect.
Epicureans to
among
have had
little
the
the
lectures
rest. 1
machinery recognised by the
formed a rivals,
sect apart
along they seem
All
connection with the educational State,
from their
and to have and literary
scientific
and one can hardly argue from the latter to the Young students destined to be future citizens
former.
could learn
little
suitable for public
life,
for the bar,
or for the senate, in the gardens of Epicurus.
The all
directions of Epicurus
seem to have been in by his executors and
points faithfully carried out
An unbroken
successors. seat
:
line of teachers sat in his
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Hermarchus, Polystratus, Dionysius, Basilides
r
and Apollodorus, surnamed " Prince of the Garden/' were his
five
immediate followers in the headship of
How
the school.
succession
headship was
to the
determined we cannot say with absolute certainty, but
it
named
is
highly probable that
as his successor the
in the society
marked out
the departing chief
man whom for
public opinion
the post.
We
hear of
no squabbles about the succession, no attempts of 1
Dumont, Ephebic
Attiqve,
ii.
152.
;
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD.
69
ambitious youths to anticipate their time, and claim a post reserved for mature experience.
of Epicurus continued to be kept
The
birth-day
regularly as
an
and the monthly meetings on the 20th (Eikas) became so prominent a annual
by
festival
followers
his
;
feature of the sect in the eyes of the world, that the
Epicureans came
Men
be nicknamed Eikadistae (or
to
1
Pictures of Epicurus were rooms and bed-chambers of Epicureans, and even on their rings and their plate. 2
of the Twentieth.)
found
in the
The
school clung faithfully to the doctrines of their
master. to
He
himself had composed short synopses
keep the main outlines of the system constant in
the memory.
In
century a.d., a
the
latter
part
of
second
the
Pythagorean philosopher contrasts,
Academy from
with the divergence of the later
the
teaching of Plato and with the variety of opinion
amongst the
Stoics, the unfaltering adherence of the Epicureans to the dogmas of their master. " Innovasays, " is
condemned by them as a crime, or The school of Epicurus resembles commonwealth free from civil war, exhibiting
tion,"
he
rather
an impiety.
a true
;
a single mind, a single opinion." Seneca,
in
the
first
century
3
a.d.,
In similar terms adverts
to
the
deference of the sect to the dicta of the master
1
298 ; cf. Cicero, De Finibas, Philodemus in the Greek Anthologia
Athenoeus, VII.
Some
lines of
11.
(XI.
163.
44)
allude to one of these simple meals.
De Finihis,
2
Cicero,
3
Numenius,
xiv.
v. 3.
quoted
v. 5; Pliny, Nat. Hist,
by
Eusebius,
xxxv.
Prcrpar.
5.
Evangel. ,
7
EPICUREANISM.
o
and a century before story to
his time Cicero has the
same
tell.
The language their master
in
which the Epicureans speak of
quite unlike that of any other philo-
is
sophical school for
its
founder.
When
the Stoic
is
asked to point out an historical type of his ideal wise
man, he confesses the shortcomings even of Zeno. and is unwilling to affirm that either Socrates or Diogenes the Cynic will stand the test and present an incarnate paragon of goodness and wisdom. But even in the lifetime of Epicurus we have seen the almost divine worship of which he was the object.
Colotes
reverence
falls
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;though,
down
it is
at his feet
true,
and does him
Epicurus gently returns
the compliment and chides his extravagant admirer.
Metrodorus speaks of the truly god-revealing sacra-
To
Epicurus. 1
mental
services
Roman
Epicurean poet his master seems a grander
(prgia)
of
the
and more beneficent being than any of the gods whom his countrymen held in reverence his words are golden words, ever most worthy of an endless 3 And the language of the speakers on the life. Epicurean side in Cicero's works is of the same :
tenor
:
Epicurus
is
the one
man who
has seen the
men's minds from the greatest delusions,
truth, freed
and taught all that is needful for a good and happy life he is the discoverer of truth and the architect :
of blessedness
:
conduct has, as
his rule of
1
Plutarch, Adv. Co/ofcm.,
2
Lucretius,
III.
13
;
v. 8.
1117B.
it
were..
1
THE EPICUREAN BROTHERHOOD.
7
descended from heaven to give knowledge to mankind. 1
The devotion
the school
of
quasi-religious observances, in fact,
Cicero,
Dc
Finibus,
I.
32
;
I.
all its
formed a favourite
subject of jesting for the world.
1
and
64
;
1.
14.
EPICUREANISM.
72
CHAPTER
IV.
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES.
The
student of Epicureanism
is
placed at a great
dis-
advantage, as 'compared with the student of the other of ancient philosophy.
schools
The
historians of
Platonism and Aristotelianism have a large collection of the writings both of Plato and Aristotle, on which
In their case the want of
to base their expositions.
authentic documents only makes
attempt
is
made
two systems.
to trace the
There
is
also
itself felt
when an
historical career of the
no doubt a
textual
diffi-
Questions must be answered about
culty to be met.
the several portions of their reputed works
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;as to the
genuineness of particular dialogues of Plato, or treatises of Aristotle, and as to the relations of one part of the
system to another.
In the case of Stoicism and
Epicureanism there
is
The
affairs.
and of
quite
their early disciples
appeared, and
another condition of
writings of the founders of these schools
we
have almost entirely
dis-
on the statements of authors who lived more than two centuries after the organization of the system. But even here Stoicism is
better
Seneca,
off
are dependent
than
large outlines,
Epicureanism.
The works
of
and Marcus Aurelius exhibit in and amid varied surroundings, the main
Epictetus,
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES. dogmas of the
it was and second cen-
ethical creed of the Porch, as
understood and practised in the
We
turies, a.d.
73
first
catch the general spirit of Stoicism
way much more observing a number of
in this
tangibly than can be
done by
isolated aphorisms.
whom
Yet, one writer Epicureanism does possess, in
ample expression, coloured, perhaps, by the Roman utilitarian and didactic spirit, and by the Roman sense of dignity, and stamped with the earnestness of the man. Lucretius, the spirit of the system has found
poem on the nature of things, " De Natura Rerum," has given a Latin representation of the Epicurean creed which must be pronounced to be, on But the poem, the whole, accurate and faithful. in his
posthumously edited, did not receive the of
its
author's hand.
junctures,
It is full
and wanting
in
last
touches
of casual or unskilful
continuity
;
it
emphasizes
certain sides of the system to the neglect of others,
and
it is
too
much encumbered by
the exigencies of
verse to be able to follow freely the subtleties of ar-
gument.
Yet, as the only exposition of Epicureanism
by a zealous convert to its creed, it claims a unique value amongst the authorities on this subject. In some respects, however, the standard and primary authority for the system, as well as for the history, which others may supplement and correct, but cannot entirely supersede, is the tenth book of the history of the lives and opinions of the ancient philoThis book, of which sophers, by Diogenes Laertius.
Thomas
Stanley's 1
" History of Philosophy,"
First edition,
London, 1655.
1
may
EPICUREANISM.
74
practically, for English readers,
phrase,
is
be regarded as a para-
an extremely unsatisfactory and
performance.
a compilation
It is
century a.d. from
made
tantalizing
in the third
the contents of a large
number
on the history of the several sects of anworks which have not come down cient philosophy It mixes up the most irrelevant matters; to us. indulges largely in gossip, scandal, bon-mot, and anecdote ; and is almost blameless of any attempt at of works
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
artistic
or critical arrangement.
ments from
Contradictory state-
different authorities are placed impartially
side by side, and you are left to choose from the heap your materials for a harmonious and intelligible picture. Of course, it is invaluable to have this variety of aspect
;
but in the want of some central
point around which the variations
and
with
our
may be
ignorance of the value of
grouped,
many
these authorities, the task of the critical historian
onerous, and at
many
of is
points hopelessly insuperable.
In the tenth book, which
is
entirely
devoted to Epi-
curus, these faults are not so prominent as in other parts of the
work.
Diogenes (of Laertes, a small
place on the coast of the rocky Cilicia) 1 has been
supposed to be either an adherent or admirer of Epiin
This is, to say the least, doubtful but any case he has largely availed himself of sources
in
which Epicurean sympathies predominated. 2 After
cureanism.
;
1
Strabo, p. 669.
2
Diogenes
is
eclectic
like in his sympathies.
without choice, and rather chameleonSceptical " sect he carries as far
The "
as 220 a.d. or thereabouts (Diog. IX. 12).
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES. some length the
giving at
75
stories told to the discredit
of Epicurus, he begins a contradiction of
emphatic words
:
"
But these men are
them by the
mad
the excellent candour of Epicurus towards
many
there are will
:
for of
all
men
Besides a copy of the
witnesses/'
of Epicurus, his account contains three epistles
purporting to have been written by the philosopher to three of his disciples. to
The
first
of these, addressed
one Herodotus, contains an epitome of the main
principles
by which Epicureanism explained the conand the process of know-
stitution of the universe
ledge
in other words,
;
second
epistle,
that
its
natural philosophy.
to Pythocles,
deals with
The the
employed in accounting for the phenomena of astronomy and meteorology. The third letter to Menoeceus summarizes the moral teaching of the school, and is supplemented by quotation of the
principles
Articles (the Kvptai do^at). 1
How
far these letters,
which as they stand exhibit a somewhat
difficult
and
apparently corrupt text, were really written by Epi-
curus
which, considering the tempta-
a question
is
tion to the forgery
of letters
in
antiquity, has na-
Of the genuineness of the second letter, that to Pythocles, we know that doubts had been raised in the first century b.c. 2 We know also, turally
been
raised.
agreement between it and the and sixth books of Lucretius that it corresponded with the Epicurean doctrine in that age. And the same may be said of the two other letters, of
however, from the fifth
1
2
These seem
to
be given completely.
VolU Hcrculan., Coll. Alt., vol.
I.
p. 152.
EPICUREANISM.
76
which the genuineness has been unreasonably doubted by Buhle and others. They could subserve no purpose, as far as we can see, except to epitomize and
make
accessible to the faithful the fundamental views
seem
of Epicurus.
If not genuine, they
be authentic.
No personal or polemical
into the
and
first
third
;
at least to
motive enters
and the polemic of the
second introduces no names.
Of are
other sources for Epicureanism
naeus.
the
principal
Seneca, Plutarch, Stobaeus, and Athe-
Cicero,
Joannes Stobaeus, a Byzantine writer of the
sixth century a.d., as well as the original compiler of
the treatise conventionally ascribed to Plutarch on the opinions of the philosophers, contain a few, not particularly intelligent, statements as to the Epicurean
views on sundry topics of physics, and quote occasionally
what professes to be Epicurean phraseology.
Plutarch,
besides
incidental
references
scattered
through his genuine writings, has devoted two of his essays to a keen criticism of the Epicurean views, in the course of
which he
refers to
way
the history of the sect, in a
on
that topic
was
Epicurus "
Of
;
many
points in
show that material
The two
in his time abundant.
treatises are entitled
a Pleasant Life, for
to
:
"
On
the Impossibility even of
One who
adopts the Principles of
and " Against Colotes
" (the
course, in accepting his statements,
it
Epicurean).
necessary
is
as far as possible to discount the bias in his point of
view, which tended in the direction of a religious
and mystical Platonism. about a century
As
for Athenaeus,
after Plutarch,
who wrote
towards the close of
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES.
77
the second century a.d., his " Deipnosophists"
much
is
too
of a chroniquc scandaleuse and too prone to
after-dinner
exuberance to have more than a very
subordinate value as an historical document.
Cicero and Seneca both
us a good deal about In his " De
tell
Epicureanism, but in a fragmentary way. Finibus," his "
De Natura Deorum," and the
" Tuscu-
lan Questions," Cicero introduces the Epicurean doctrine,
supported and expounded by Torquatus and
Velleius
in
respectively.
of what
the
and
first
second of these works
Cicero seems a
he does
and honest reporter
fair
understand,
but his
method of
composition, consisting in a free translation and con-
densation of some of the advocates of the systems
he expounded, was not favourable either to depth of insight or in the
harmony of
There are places
exposition.
Tusculan Disputations where he seems to forget
himself,
and holds a
brief for Epicureanism without
perceiving the contradiction with previous statements.
His information
is
mainly confined to the ethical
portions of Epicureanism,
behind an impression
and even there
it
leaves
of inexactness and want of
contact with the original ideas, which he looks at too exclusively through
a
literary
medium.
Nor did
Cicero ever possess any genuine interest in philosophy except as an interesting topic for discussion
;
and a
philosophy which so completely ignored practical and political life
thetic
could hardly find
interpreter.
Still,
as
n him a very sympathe
contemporary
Lucretius, his estimates of Epicureanism in full
of interest.
Rome
of are
EPICUREANISM.
78
Seneca, the Stoical tutor of Nero, frequently quotes sentiments of Epicureanism. In his " Moral
the
Letters" where he poses as a spiritual director to Lucilius,
he closes many of these epistles with a short Epicurus, as a moral lesson for his friend
maxim from
ponder and
to
In others of his writings too
practise.
he shows greater familiarity than
Cicero with the
physical doctrines of the school of Epicurus.
Like
Plutarch he seems to have been intimately acquainted with the letters of Epicurus, and Metrodorus, and the brethren
;
which, apparently arranged according to
chronological order, formed a large part of the Epi-
curean
literature.
1
Epicurus himself was a voluminous author, vying with the Stoic Chrysippus in the
number of
his works,
and surpassing him far, when the fact was taken into account that he did not, like the latter, fill his books with quotations from other authors. Three hundred volumes or rolls is the number at which his literary
Of
labours are roughly estimated by his biographer. 2 his style
samples.
we can simply judge by It
is
and a few
utterly without rhetorical grace, ex-
hibits
little
logical
symmetry.
his
report
variety,
and
He
is
somewhat
deficient
in
has a very decided manner of
own, not moulded upon
classical examples,
but
aiming, not always successfully, at the directest and
most characteristic expression of sole principle of his utterances 1
Seneca, Epp. 18, 21, 79, 98, 99
(Gomperz), pp. 105, 127. 2 Diogenes Laertius, x.
17.
his thoughts.
The
was to be perspicuous, :
cf.
Philodem. de Pietate
;
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES.
—
He
be understood.
to
and does not shrink from
is
often,
79
however, involved,
With
repetitions.
iteration
of phrase he returns again and again to the essential features of his
The
system. 1
individuality of
his
extends even to the formulae of social inter-
style
course, which he endeavoured to restore to significance.
The
ancients noticed that instead of the conventional
wish for "joy" to the recipient of a letter, he subOthers stituted one for " welfare " or for " good life." objected to the occasional exuberance of his
and
to his polysyllabic
Of
words
these three hundred rolls
The
style,
for simple things.
many no doubt were
more important of them given by Diogenes begins with a work on Nature, in thirty-seven books, and ends with his Letters and includes amongst others, essays on the following topics On Atoms and Void ; On Love ; On the Criterion, or Canon On the Gods On Piety On Lives ; Symposium ; On Sight ; On Touch ; On Fate On Music Views about Diseases On Monarchy, &c. And of all these up to the middle of the last century, there was known no more than the pieces quoted by Diogenes and by the other writers mentrifling in extent.
list
of the
;
:
;
;
;
;
\
tioned above.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century various
made on the site of the cities which had been overwhelmed in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 a.-d. About the year 1752 when the exploraexcavations were
1
An
Cyclic,
energetic attack on his style
Theor. Meteor. ,
II. i.,
§§ 91-92.
is
made by Cleomedes,
So
EPICUREANISM.
had already been
tions
for
some time going on
at
the side of the ancient Herculaneum, our knowledge
of Epicureanism
A
received a considerable addition.
peasant proprietor of Resina on sinking a well
through the lava which entombed the old
upon what turned out villa
city
came
be the remains of an ancient of considerable extent and in good preservation. 1 to
had evidently been a man of taste and open spaces contained some fine works In one place of the villa stood the of ancient art. busts of Epicurus, Hermarchus, Zeno of Sidon, and Its inhabitant
wealth, for
its
Demosthenes
;
three heads of the Epicureans, beside
Among the others were two busts which modern research, confronting them with the the great orator.
oration of Cicero against Piso, has suggested to be in all
likelihood the busts of Piso
and Gabinius. 2
But the main discovery was a room containing a number of rolls of papyrus. At first they were Charred and blackened by fire, treated as worthless. large
they seemed like anything but the receptacles of
At length, when the nature of the dawned upon the investigators, it was appahopeless to do anything with them they had
literary treasures.
discovery rently
:
been so
solidified
action of the
them
;
fire,
into a single black
that
it
seemed impossible
The method, 1
2
nell'
to unroll
Humphrey Davy chemistry mend matters. and employed by a monk r
nor did the attempts of Sir
apply the resources of
to
mass by the
first
suggested
See the "
Philo. Trans, of the Royal Society " of that time. Comparetti in " Pompei e la Regione Sotterrata dal Vesuvio-
anno
LXXIX."
Napoli, 1879.
1
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES.
8
open the papyri by attaching manuscript, and then slowly unwinding it by means of screws, is the only method which has proved at all from Northern
gold-beater's
feasible.
Italy, 1 to
skin to the outside-edge of the
By
this
means about 341 of the 1,800
papyri found in the library of the Herculanean villa
have up to the present date been unwound these first
;
and of
195 have been published. When the news spread through Europe that a whole library of
ancient manuscripts had been disinterred, the hopes
of scholars played freely on the possible lost
and other desiderata of ancient ment which awaited the dilapidated rolls
Of
of
them were
the works
to
literature,
were among
philologists.
As one by one
were slowly deciphered, and
their inscriptions copied, all
The
But great was the disappoint-
the treasures expected.
the
issues.
books of Livy or Tacitus, the plays of Menander,
it
treatises of
was found that almost Epicurean philosophy.
which the name of the authors
can be attached, there have been published, up to the present day,
sixty-five.
Of
these, eleven manuscripts
contain works by Epicurus ; but nearly all of them belong to his work " On Nature." 2 These have
been edited,
but except in occasionally
passages, where conjecture
is
they are a mere wreck of fragments. 1
fortunate
easy and almost certain,
A
few others
Father Antonio Piaggi, a Genoese. In the Rivista di Filologia e <V Istruzione Classica for 1879, p. 400, Comparetti argues that a papyrus, published in Voll. Here. C. A., vol. xi., is the work by Epicurus "On Choices 2
and Avoidances."
G
82
EPICUREANISM.
belong to the known names of the Epicurean school, such as Polystratus and Colotes. But the great bulk of these papyri, about forty-five in number, consist of
by Philodemus, the contemporary of Cicero. which contain what seem to be either parts, or modified and corrected versions, of a treatise on rhetoric. Besides these there are amongst his essays, papers treating of essays
Of
these, again, there are thirty rolls
number of
a great
his case the
other topics
subjects,
showing that
Epicurean was not than the
idle,
merely
and
at least in
dealt with
We
ethical.
find
on the virtues and the vices, on the gods, on piety, on anger, on death, on wealth, on economics, on poetry, on music, on inductive logic; betreatises
a
sides
number of compilations
history of the sect,
and a
dealing with
variety of notes
the
which
Philodemus took from the lectures of Zeno, the " Coryphaeus of the Epicureans
99
in the
first
century
B.C.
It is scarcely possible to resist
supplied that the
room containing
the evidence thus these manuscripts
was the library or study of Philodemus rate, it
or
was the receptacle of
unpublished.
There,
all
;
that, at
any
his papers published
a century after his
time,
they were overtaken by the eruption of 79 A.D., and
buried for nearly seventeen centuries. clear
is
Scarcely less
the inference, that the villa in question was
the property of one
Philodemus,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an
who had
a special attachment to
author of whose prose works
not even hear elsewhere.
We know
we do
that Calpurniu^
Piso Caesoninus, the father-in-law of Caesar, afTorded
a
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES.
who rendered him
domicile to Phiiodemus,
side
literary
and thus it seems as if the discovered in Herculaneum had been Piso's searesidence. But whether this be so or not, the
and professional villa
83
services
;
value of the discovery for the history of ancient phi-
losophy is
is
In
not lessened.
this respect, indeed,
The
easy to cherish extravagant hopes.
it
state in
which the papyri were found was most disheartening
and
Scarcely ever
baffling.
plete.
Even when a few that a very
perfect
is
a line absolutely com-
successive lines are so far
little
ingenuity can supply the
defective letters or syllables,
a great gap
occurs and completely blocks the
way
suddenly
to all intelli-
In such circumstances some
gence of the contents.
of the earlier editors gave free play to the constructive imagination,
and made the mystery
comprehensible, but will
—
after all
be some time, and
—only
into something conjectural.
will require great
It
diligence
combined with scholarly ingenuity, before the full best somewhat insipid, of these new documents can be won. Already Theodor Gomperz, of Vienna, and other German scholars, 1 as well as Domenico Comparetti, of Florence, have done much in this work especially the first named. fruits, at
—
The
papyri themselves, so far as they
been destroyed, attempts
Papiri
at
as too often
happened
opening them, exist in the
at Naples.
Under
the
have not
in the first qfficina
auspices
of
dei
the
Neapolitan Government several of them were edited,
1
Biicheler, Bahnsch, Spengel.
G
2
EPICUREANISM.
34
with extensive commentary and dissertation, in about ten volumes
A
new
folio,
between the years 1795 and 1855. Volumina Herculanensia," as
series of these "
they are entitled, was begun in 186 1, and slowly going on.
This collection
is
is
still
a lithographic re-
production from the copies taken on unrolling the manuscripts, and
is
free
from note or comment.
In
England, the Bodleian Library rejoices in the possession of excellent copies of a large
number of the
manuscripts, in the shape of very accurate
pencil
on paper, taken on the spot, and presented Out of to the University of Oxford by George IV. these a selection, dictated at least to some extent by the legibility of the manuscripts, and apparently in no connection with the interest of the contents, was lithographed, and published in the year 1824. 1 tracings
1
Four specimens of the charred manuscripts
may be
seen in the Bodleian Library.
(not yet unrolled)
EPICUREANISM.
CHAPTER
85
V.
GENERAL ASPECT OF THE SYSTEM.
The
popular conception of an Epicurean has varied
at different times,
very
fair
but at no time has
or very favourable.
Roman classical
To
it
been either
the writers of the
period the charges against Epicurean-
ism were drawn from
its
denial of the divine pro-
open proclamation of pleasure as the chief good, its opposition to a merely literary and
vidence,
its
intellectual
culture,
its
withdrawal of
its
followers
and occupations, and the grotesque features in some of its physical and physiological speculations. Its unscientific character, and its studied indifference, and even hostility, to the prevailing literary and logical as well as mathemafrom
interests
political
tical investigations
chief charges
in
of that epoch, were probably the the
count.
During the ages of
theological supremacy which succeeded the downfall
became synonymous with meant a follower of the lusts of the flesh, with whom there was no fear of God to terrify, no ideal aspirations to ennoble, no of the Empire, Epicurean
atheist
and unbeliever;
belief in immortality to
check or cheer.
scepticism,
free-thinking,
divine affairs
it
:
infidelity,
and on the human
Irreligion,
on the side,
side of
a selfish
86
EPICUREANISM.
devotion to one's
own
ease and comfort, with
no care
were the chief ideas connoted
for country or kindred,
we come down to more modern Hume's essays is " the man He refuses to be bound of elegance and pleasure."
by Epicureanism.
If
times, the Epicurean of
by the
which philosophers impose happy by reason and
arbitrary restraints
seeking
in
a
to
make
us
he alternates his hours between the " amiable pleasure " and " the gay, the frolic virtue" ; " forgetful of the past, secure of the future," he
rules of art":
enjoys the present
companions of endearments
;
:
the
sprightly
muses are the and friendly
his cheerful discourses
and, after a day spent
in
"
all
the
pleasures of sense, and all the joys of harmony and friendship," the shades of night bring him " mutual joy and rapture," with the charming Celia, the mistress of his wishes. 1
A cloud hangs, and has hung, over Epicureanism ; and though we can say with confidence that much of the
obloquy
is
undeserved,
always be a good deal in tainty,
its
or even intelligence,
there
will
apparently
teachings on which ceris
unattainable.
The
unbiassed documentary evidence for exposition which
we
possess
is
fragmentary,
obscure, and does
extend to every part of the philosophic
field.
not
On
the other hand, from a variety of causes, misconstruc-
and misrepresentation have made it their victim. enemy and an interloper by the statesman, the priest, and the philosopher.
tion It
has been treated as an
1
Hume's Essays
:
" The Epicurean."
GENERAL ASPECT OF THE SYSTEM. It
has shared the
common
fate of
every system which
attacks either of these great powers, the
Church, and the republic of
87
and
arts
State, the
letters,
does so without relying on the support of one
and
mem-
ber or other of the triumvirate against the others.
and religion, each and by the system of Epicurus. That system came forward as a philosophical system, and yet it turned a hostile front to the customary views of education and of culture, and to the accepted methods and results of the sciences. 1 Science and
all
found
literature, politics
themselves
assailed
Whilst other philosophical doctrines either supported or did not interfere with the claims and projects of the political world, Epicureanism openly preached a
cosmopolitan and humanitarian creed, which taught the citizen to stand aloof from patriotic and national obligations,
amongst
and
to live his
own
life
as a
human
the realm of nature
others, in
being
and not of
As to religion, the case was much the same as it was with the State. The gods, like the government of the State, disappeared at the fiat of statecraft. 2
Epicureanism from their commanding position above nature, to
become
and parcel of the great natural all other things, live and
part
process in which they, like
move and have structures of 1
Cicero,
Be
their being. 3
and
science Fin.,
1.
26
7,
;
Above art,
the intellectual
above the gods of
Plutarch, 1094 E.
Athenreus,
;
xiii. 588. 2
Seneca, Epist, 90, 35 11. 20, 20; in.
Dissertat., 3
Seneca,
De
Beuefic,
;
Plutarch, 1125 C.-1127
7,
I v.
19.
19.
;
Epictetus,
88
EPICUREANISM.
above the laws of
religious faith,
political convention,
rose man, the real individual man, seeking in voluntary association with his fellow-men to live his life
of his capacity and
to the fullest
own
with fullest
satisfaction.
Of Epicureanism, said, that
as of all philosophy,
it
may be
aims at emancipation, liberation, freedom.
it
But scarcely anywhere was the emancipation carried to the
same length
as in
Epicureanism.
substitution of
an ideal
We
sovereignty.
Generally
and means the
speaking, emancipation has meant
for a material or sensuous
are freed from the dominion of
the passions and the flesh by being handed over as subjects to the spirit
and the
We
reason.
are taken
out of the bondage of this world by taking upon our-
frees
from the
earthly,
and the
intellectual
from the
Epicureanism professes to impose no yoke
sensual.
or obligation.
It agrees
with
other philosophies in
distinguishing between the intellect (or
The heavenly
yoke of the other world.
selves the
what
it
calls
and the senses
the flesh), and, even in a way, in
But the man no abstraction a reason struggling in the bonds of an alien flesh, which in Pythagorean, and occasionally in Platonic language, forms Man was not held to be a merely " rational, its prison. animal," as he was defined by the Stoics. The reason subordinating the latter to the former.
of Epicureanism
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
is
or understanding in Epicureanism
is
neither the pri-
soner de facto, nor the lord de jure of the body or flesh.
The
flesh, in
the view of Epicurus,
is
our un-
enlightened, the understanding our enlightened
self..
GENERAL ASPECT OF THE SYSTEM
The reason blindly
and
the light which shows us the complete
is
we
nature which
8(>
.
unwittingly are, and in which
and ignorantly
live
which
\
limits of our existence of
we
tells
us those laws
which the
fleshly nature
unaware, and ignorance whereof breeds vain and
is
Naturally, or in our flesh,
inevitably baffled hopes.
we
are
children
like
night, with
no idea of our
and inclined surrounds
stranded
to fancy
Hence
us. 1
the
in
darkness of
true position in the world,
gloom which need of philosophy;
in the
terrors
arises the
is an activity that by doctrine and reasoning prepares the way for the happy life. 2 The main problems of philosophy are, therefore,,
which, said Epicurus,
two in number
The
first
;
or,
Epicureanism
falls
man and
a theory of
is
into two parts.
of the universe,
explaining his position therein, his constitution,
This
natural powers.
is
The
or philosophy of nature.
of the knowledge
application
regulation
of
This
conduct.
ethical part of the system.
evident
The
and the
and position of man
1
this
the
is
practical
or
the same time
cannot be completely
:
it
is
in
it
its
course
knowledge, not
Scientific investigation is
lays
down
II.
55.
the true place
the world of things.
exclusion of extraneous
Lucretius,
the practical
knowledge, but for the sake of action,
rule of conduct.
permitted only so far as
And
is
acquired to the
so
theoretical examination has
limited by the practical need for the sake of
other
It is at
the two parts
that
separated.
and
the physiology (^vo-toXoym),
2
Sext.
Emp.
considerations
adv. Ethic, 169.
EPICUREANISM.
9o
may be
presented under another aspect.
are any sciences which
than things
rather
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
the
sciences
grammar, and mathematics come
under
description
this
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;then
If there
and ideas
deal with words
of
rhetoric,
ways
in different
application
to
their
They The
study can only be held to be waste of time.
from the one thing needful.
divert attention
human
craves for
it
tain ideas
me
to
may
:
Epicurus, following up cer-
realities.
which Socrates had emphasized, asks of
every science, Does ful
mere words
soul cannot find nourishment in
as a
deal with facts
it
human being?
If
and
?
is it
possibly be the pastime of an idle hour
should never claim the devotion of a
makes a man miss his be forgotten, therefore, of Epicurus
is
the
raison d'&re
is,
that
true good.
It
life,
it
but
it
because
it
;
should never
that the natural philosophy
foundation of his it
use-
does not,
it
ethics
;
its
renders possible a theory of
conduct. Besides these two parts of the system, however, there
is
another, which
may be
styled introductory.
It deals with the general principles
entitled to assert anything.
This
is
on which we are the Canonic, the
doctrine of the canons, or grounds of evidence.
But be said to form an independent part of Epicureanism it goes little beyond a few general and preliminary remarks on the questhe Canonic can
scarcely
:
tion, " is,
What
right
have we to believe or affirm ?"
in short, a protest against the scepticism
declares
that
every
uncertain,
and
and which maintains
that,
statement
science only a probability
;
It
which
is
GENERAL ASPECT OF THE SYSTEM. in these circumstances, the only thing is
keep himself
to
QI
man
left for
and unshackled from all oneThe Canonic is thus the begin-
free
sided adherence.
logic, dealing, not with the grounds for one proposition from another, but with the
ning of a inferring
more
fundamental
grounds
The
question
what
ultimate
?
three parts of Epicureanism are, then, Logic,
Physics^
and
Ethics,
we apply
if
to
Epicureanism the
which had been applied by the
distinction
own
to the doctrines of their
same
On
:
a statement of fact based
is
Stoics
But, at the
school.
time, the terms are infinitely misleading
so applied.
Of logic,
in the sense in
was understood by Aristotle and the
was none
Nor was
in Epicureanism.
Epicureans regarded
when
which the term Stoics,
there
this all.
The
as folly, as unnecessary trifling
it
with useless questions.
less,
Still
again,
is
there a
between the Epicurean physics and ethics as independent or parallel branches of inquiry.
distinction
The
case stands thus
:
The Epicurean
fesses,
in the first instance,
senses
and the
feeling, to
popularly understood.
It
to
school pro-
be founded on the
be based on
reality,
as
appeals to our immediate
perception and feeling, and declares that these must
What we immediately
never be recklessly set aside. feel
and
perceive, that
is
true
;
what we directly find
what we ought to do. Act what thou art is its motto, and sense and feeling tell thee with sufficient distinctness what thou art. But ourselves to be, that
is
the promise thus held out letter.
is
What we supposed
certainly not kept to the to
be our
feelings
and
:
EPICUREANISM.
92
we
sensations turn out to be less trustworthy than
had been, up to this point, led to suppose. The greater number of our beliefs and opinions are due to hasty and erroneous inferences. What seemed to be
We
perception was really reasoning.
back
fore, get
must, there-
We
to our original perceptions.
told originally that
we must
believe
were
nothing for
which we have not the evidence of the senses and
becomes apparent that that evidence far as we had supposed. Our senses and our feelings seem to mislead, and yet, if we reject all sense and feeling, knowledge is made the feeling.
It
does not go so
impracticable.
In other words, all
the world
is
not as
seems
it
our perceptions cannot, without examination or
qualification,
be
relied upon.
This, however,
is
only
because in our perceptions there constantly intrudes
an element which
which
is
truly sense,
is
not sense. 1 is infallible.
The
other element,
All our sensations
are witnesses to reality, only liable to
Above
preted.
all,
there
inaccessible to direct
be misinter-
a great deal which
is
observation altogether.
is
But
unknown, the human mind cannot let it arises the need of a canon of inEverything that ference, which is given as follows is supposed to happen in the sphere beyond knowledge must follow the same laws of operation as what
though alone.
it is
Hence
:
known
is
1
Cicero,
x. 31.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to occur within the range of our experience.
De
Finibus,
I.
7,
22
;
Acad.,
II.
29
;
Diogenes,
;
GENERAL ASPECT OF THE SYSTEM. Whether lies
happen
it
the senses
(i.e.,
in
what
is
93
beneath the range of
in the microscopic world,
and what
beyond the power of the microscope), or beyond
the range of the senses
(i.e.,
in the telescopic world,
and
what lies beyond the reach of the telescope), it is governed by the same laws as regulate the occurrences visible to unaided sense. The canonic thus justifies those inferences which go beyond sense. It is right and just to affirm about the unknown, either what is confirmed and witnessed by the known, or what at least is not witnessed against well to
by the known. 1 But, at the same time, it is note in which sense the reason is here said to
go beyond the sense. tatively
;
it
It
goes beyond simply quanti-
carries us further
and deeper, but there
is
a general likeness between the one case and the The atoms, e.g., which are intellectually perother. have precisely the
ceived,
same
qualities
as
the
when we deduct from the latter all which can be shown to be The the effect of a combination of circumstances. intellect is only a subtler and more far-seeing sense, and the sense is a short-sighted and grosser intellect.
bodies which are sensibly
perceived,
In Epicurean phraseology, in fact, the particles which constitute the one are said to be finer and more ethereal than those which constitute the other
and
for that reason,
and
that reason only, they are
susceptible to minute influences, to which the grosser 1
Diogenes Laertius, x. 24, 51
;
Ibid., 25, 88.
EPICUREANISM.
94
composing
particles
the
senses
are
stolidly
in-
sensible. 1
The Epicurean is
logic, then, if logic
it
in the direction of inductive logic.
the
senses as the
first,
and,
we may
can be called, It lays
say,
down
the
ulti-
mate court of appeal as a criterion of reality. They never can be mistaken, though the mind may be wrong in the inferences it draws from them. This is the first principle ; and the second is, that the unknown is regulated by the same laws as the known :
that
to say, the operations in the world invisible to
is
the senses follow on a larger or less scale the same principles as govern the operations of the visible world.
We
do
not, in the intelligible world, find ourselves
world where new categories and higher
lifted into a
Thirdly, language in the Epi-
conceptions prevail.
curean logic it is
Every word, if must be en rapport and distinct conception, which again be based upon one clear and distinct These are the three main principles of
is
subjected to scrutiny.
to pass muster in argument,
with a clear
must
finally
perception. 2
Canonic
:
that
reality, that
sensation
is
the only guarantee of
language must be able to recall distinct
known and make unknown and mysterious
images, and that reasQning must employ familiar processes to facts explicable.
1
Lucretius, ni. 180.
2
Diogenes Laertius,
x. 24,
38
;
Lucretius, iv. 478.
EPICUREANISM.
CHAPTER
95
VI.
THE NATURAL WORLD. These
principles prepare
logical
the way for
physiology or natural philosophy of Epicurus.
ginning with the senses,
The answer
reveal?
is,
the
Be-
we ask what the senses phenomenon
that the only
is matter in motion. This double groundwork of all Epicurean philosophy, the main effort of which is to reduce everything Matter is the sole to modes of matter and motion. reality movement is the generic form to which all its phenomena may ultimately be reduced. The in-
which they reveal
conception
is the*
:
corporeal
is
the same as the non-existent.
Epicurus
departs from Aristotle, to follow the doctrines taught
by Anaxagoras and Democritus. destruction," said Anaxagoras,
1
e<
Generation and
" are mistaken ideas
For generation, the right term amongst the Greeks. would be composition; and for destruction, separation.'
5
Matter
that which
is
says Lucretius,
is
can be touched.
the sense of body. 2
The
Touch, tangible,
both in the active and the passive application of that term,
is
the corporeal.
Commmt.
1
Simplic.
2
Lucretius,
11.
435.
All the senses are but modi-
m Aristot.
Physic.^
fol.
346.
EPICUREANISM. touch only what we can touch and what Touch, again, is impact can touch us has reality. fications of
:
upon the organ of sense, and is thus only a special more general phenomenon of impact. And Impact is body moving and causing motion.
case of the
we
round to a conception of body acting upon body, so as, generally speaking, to cause motion; in some special cases, however, giving rise to another phenothus
are
brought
we
things in which
menon, latter left
to
find
be called sensation or
little
for the present
be
we know,
as
Epicurus, so far as
out of account.
succeeded in explaining the connection,
between
The
intelligence.
phenomenon may, however,
if
any,
this exceptional, and, so to speak, collateral
and the general phenomena of move-
result of impact,
ment, as any of his predecessors or successors have done.
According to Epicurus, the only
which
facts of
philosophy can take account are material, tangible
Mind,
things.
if real, is
tangible
somehow,
is
a kind
Immaterial mind would be a nonentity.*
of matter.
Obviously, however, everything depends on what
mean by takes
matter.
things
analysis.
It
too
The popular conception concretely,
we
of matter
and with too
little
follows the deliverances of the unin-
structed senses, which present things as qualitatively
We must go to the reason and explain the imperfect information thus given by the senses. We must see behind the distinct
from each other.
to reconcile
differences of colour,
taste,
animal
of
organization,
life
smell,
and
of vegetable and death,
into
the
THE NATURAL WORLD.
97
ultimate something, of which these are only manifes-
due
tations,
What, then,
to transient
and accidental conditions.
the verdict of the reason, as contrasted
is
with the senses
Every body
?
composed of a
is
number of atoms,
greater or smaller
or indivisible particles, in various
What The
degrees of proximity to each other. to
be solid
water, the
v
fruit,
appears
never absolutely
so.
the rock, have
an atomic or mole-
cular constitution.
The
composed
in
are
float
all
tiny particles of
air,
the
which they
an ocean of empty space,
where they are forced into closer or laxer proximity to
I
is
not
How
each other.
They
tell.
small these atoms are
are cognisable by reason
we
can-
and thought,
but they are beneath the power of sense, at least of
Whether further aids to percepthem is a question apparently not suggested to Epicurus. But of such elementary parinto ticles every existing structure has been built up unassisted sense.
tion might reveal
:
such
it
will
sooner or later return.
cess limited to the world
we
existence
at us.
is
the pro-
see around us.
have no reason to suppose there can carry
Nor is
We
a limit set to
the furthest point whither our vision
Away and away beyond
of the senses, the
the horizon
same process of the construction of
worlds out of molecular aggregations
is
endlessly
j
I
:
j
repeated.
It
would be as absurd to suppose only
one world in the field 1
infinite as to
conceive a great corn-
with only a single stalk of grain in
Metrodorus, as quoted by Plutarch,
H
it.
1
De Placit Philosophy
i.
5.
EPICUREANISM.
93
A
question, however, arises about the
The
of the atoms.
movement earth.
is
the
That
fall
fall
movement
only case of apparently uncaused of unsupported bodies to the
takes
place
in
a
straight
line.
Neither the circular movement, which Aristotle holds to be the natural tial
and perfect movement of the upward movement which,
bodies, nor the
opinion, characterizes
fire,
correspond in
celes-
in his
the judg-
ment of Epicurus with the observed facts of terrestrial change. Upward movement is a mistake. As for circular movement, it is explained by subsequent conjunction of two rectilineal move-
science as a
ments acting
at right angles to
not, therefore,
assume an
each other.
initial
We
can-
tendency of atoms
to attract or repel each other, or to revolve round
each other.
But, in apparent conformity with expe-
we may assume that the atoms fall downwards. Of course, an up and a down in a vacant world can only be arbitrarily fixed, 1 and a modern
rience,
would object that every fall presupposed attraction. But Epicurus is content with the phenomenon of fall as experienced in daily life he asks for no cause of :
the
movement
natural
so
denominated, but regards
and primary.
it
as
Thus, in the primeval void,
atoms are perpetually falling. To assume more would be to affix active properties to the atoms ; but
all
such properties the atoms, however
erratic,
as
we
1 An obscure passage in Diogenes Laertius, x. 60, seems toattempt a justification of the distinction. Cf. Lange's History
of Materialism, vol.
1.,
note 21 on chap.
1.
THE NATURAL WORLD. ,
shall see, fall
But
have none.
in parallel
99
these bodies perpetually
if
never overtaking each other,
lines,
because of equal velocity, 1 they
will practically just
remain where they were in equilibrium. is
a picture of atoms
the field of imagination
;
but, for
any result so
except weariness of the continuous
fall
the atoms might as well remain at
rest.
which places
picturable),
it
is
repulsion are obscure their aid towards
as
if
and
To
The out
a theory
evident that attraction and
and occult
To
ideas.
accept
an explanation of movement would the
molecular
It
seems,
would
equilibrium sufficient
cause
atoms in contact.
senses and the feelings, however, suggest a
of the
no
make
size (so as to
remain eternal, in the absence of a to bring the
arising,
into the abyss,
be to surrender the citadels of the system. therefore,
gain
ultimates in atoms which have
its
further qualities than shape
them
we
All
each other across
flitting after
difficulty.
In our
own
way
experience
as
we seem familiar with the fact that not unfrequently we suddenly change the direction of our action; we swerve from the line in which obvious motives were urging us; we form a new
conscious beings
resolution
and break up an old
habit.
We
seem
to
recognise in ourselves a principle of spontaneous and
sudden change, an incalculable spring of deviation, a power of resisting and contradicting the tendency impressed upon us by circumstances and fortune. In this power which we feel ourselves to have the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
1
Diogenes Laertius, x. 61
H
2
;
Lucretius,
II.
240.
EPICUREANISM.
IOO
power of
free-will
spontaneity
or
— of
originating
movement apart from and in divergence from the movement given from without we find a suggestion
—
towards removing the
difficulty.
In the atom, then,
Epicurus assumes the existence of a similar incalcu-
and unpredictable element which, some time not when) and some where (we know not where), either once or oftener (our authorities do not answer the question), impels the atom from its The amount of the divergence previous direction. lable
(we
know
from the perpendicular
is,
like all qualities
connected
with the magnitude of the atoms, an infinitesimally small one.
And
the reason for minimising the deIf
flection is obvious.
we
allow
it
to
become
so
be observable, the phenomenon of motion in an oblique direction thus created would openly contradict the well-known experience that all uncaused motion is naturally perpendicular. By means of this clinamen or 7rap£y/cXi<rtc of the molecules, 1 Epicurus at once tries to retain the spongreat as to
taneity of individual action or the superiority of to circumstances,
and
at
man
the same time, in his ex-
planation of the primeval conditions of contact be-
tween the atoms, shrinks from running too openly counter to the recognised
movement.
experience of
material
Let us assume, then, that his purpose
has been attained.
The
molecules, small and great,
Lucretius, II. 216-293 ; Cicero, De Finibus, t. 19 ; Stobseus (Eclog. I. 346) attriNat. Deor., 1. 25, 69. butes to Epicurus a distinction between motion in a straight line and slanting motion. 1
De
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ;
THE NATURAL WORLD.
IOI
of one shape or another, meet with each other
impact
their
is
followed
Sometimes they are mutually repelled, and other spaces ; sometimes they are locked
cumambient atoms and forced times their peculiar shape,
them
;
and
by various consequences. fly off
by
in
to juxtaposition;
weight,
and
to
cir-
some-
make
size,
and form combinaIn tions of considerable permanence and stability. this way the spaces of infinity are parcelled out into to cohere closely together
innumerable folds
containing large aggregations of
matter in various shapes and structures.
In such an enormous aggregation, which may be called a world, there are several tolerably united bodies, composed
each of a number of molecules in aggregation, but not in any case in absolutely close contact.
where between the molecules there
is
Every-
empty space
soft piece
The densest, heaviest, hardest vacuum within it than a rare, light, or of matter but vacuum is never completely
wanting.
Nothing therefore
absolute vacuum.
body has
it
less
;
ever a complete unity
is
only seems to be continuous and whole
we could look deep enough that
it
is
into
it,
:
really, if
we should
see
only a collection of parts held together by
the fortuitous influences of circumstance.
Such combinations or aggregations however a
exhibit
number of phenomena which were not found
elements from which they sprung. the virtue of aggregation.
The
in the
Great, indeed, original
is
atoms were
extended bodies, too small singly to be perceived by sense,
and
differing
besides figure,
size,
from each other in no points
and weight.
But, as every one
is
102
EPICUREANISM.
aware, a difference of size or weight or shape often lead to differences which quantitative.
So
is it
have already noticed,
In the
here.
may
quite other than first
place, as
we
leads to the explanation of
it
mind and body.
the distinction between
be seen, a
seem
Epicurus
and so far as he goes is in earnest with his materialism. That is to say, he does not merely ignore the mind he expounds it, i.e. the basis of psychical phenomena, to be a finer species of matter composed of rounder and minuter particles. It is true that he introduces a further subtlety by distinguishing between the soul, or principle of life and feeling which pervades the whole body, and the rational mind which inhabits the region of the heart. Sufficient is it to remember for the present that the' soul is a subtler and more is,
as will
materialist,
:
is thus endowed with more and refined perceptions than the bodily
refined materiality which delicate
organs.
In the second place,
life
and
sensibility
are the
characteristics of certain forms of aggregate matter.
Epicurus does not, like a modern,
fictitiously
get
over the difficulty by introducing the term organized,
but honestly enough maintains the general uniformity in the process of aggregation in all parts
as a thing differing in degree, not in kind. asserts
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;what, no doubt,
is
the fact
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;that
of nature
He
simply
certain (or
uncertain) combinations of the primeval molecules
present the
which are
phenomena of
themselves.
How
life
and
consciousness
from the original molecules such a remarkable result can be
entirely absent
THE NATURAL WORLD. produced
103
a question which apparently never oc-
is
curred to him
and he therefore did not
;
need of recurring
to hypotheses
feel
any
by which
like those
modern speculators have endeavoured to exhibit mind or consciousness as the development of latent possibilities in the
be hinted that
unconscious matter. 1
Epicurus,
It
unintentionally
may
also
perhaps,
did service to the psychologist by maintaining that the processes in the
human organism which
are the
physical concomitants or antecedents of thought
sensation
are
distinctly
mechanical
processes
and of
Ignorant, however, of the structure
matter in motion.
of the brain and the laws of nervous action, he could give only a rough-and-ready hypothetical explanation
of the
mode
of transmission of sense-impressions
and
volitions through the organism.
Perhaps, too, doctrine of the
from
we may notice what seems in his mind at once to betray a departure
and a sense of the inAccording to the statements given both by Diogenes Laertius and Lucretius, the soul is a complex of elements from air, fire, and wind, and a fourth unnamed element. 2 his original
adequacy of
The
last,
principles
explanation.
his
which
is
the differentiating constituent of
the mind, suggests that
it is
postulated by the feeling
1 Such as Hartmann's hypothesis of " The Unconscious, and the "Plastic Nature " of Cud worth, but more especially ideas on the nature and powers of so-called matter like those of 5 '
Professor Tyndall. 2
Stobaeus,
Lucretius,
ill.
Eel.,
i.
241-245.
226;
Diogenes Laertius,
5 !
x.
63-64;
io4
EPICUREANISM.
that there
more
is
in
the psychical than
analogies altogether explain.
duction of
air, fire,
supplements the
And
physical
further, the intro-
and wind, suggests that Epicurus atomic theory of Democritus
stricter
by additions derived from the early physicists who identify the soul with air, or fire, or wind ; and from Aristotle, in whose system the combination of the four principles of cold, hot, wet,
main
But, passing
on
dry, played a
to a further point in the results of
combination, we have
now
is
way
to consider the
which Epicurus explained the world
and
part, as explaining the processes of nature.
fact
supposed to possess colour, sound,
smell, softness, &c.
To do
in
that the visible
this is partly the
the Epicurean theory of sense-perception.
taste,
aim of
In every
body of matter, every object of perception, there is, besides the primary particles of which it is composed, a further complement of secondary particles of finer quality, partly maintaining a position over the whole ,
of
its
superficies, partly existing in the interior inter-
between its constituent atoms. These minor molecules, which vary from body to body, are in a continual flux; they are always floating away from stices
the
body
to
lessly hither
which they belong, and wandering aim-
and
thither about
Xhe world.
For a
considerable length of time these filmy membranes,
which bodies are continually throwing
off,
preserve
the shape and arrangement they possessed on the
body; though, of course, in time, if they meet with obstructions, as they are sure to do, they will be broken up, and lose all resemblance to their original
;
THE NATURAL WORLD. Those
present frame-work. off the surface
films
which are sloughed
of bodies find in the
an appropriate medium
;
105
visual organs
they penetrate the eye, and,
preserving the position they had in the object, cause the
mind
their
to see the latter,
even though
direct contact they reveal
By
distant.
the distant objects
which they resemble. Similarly, the throngs of filmy particles from the interior of bodies when they happen
meet a nose, reveal the smell of the body
to
;
when
they meet an ear, produce the perception of sound
and when they touch the tongue, lead to the perThus colours, sounds,
ception of the body's taste. tastes, are
not qualities of primary body; they are only
found where minutest particles from the real bodies
come
into contact with the organs of sense
1
in
an
animal structure.
How
absurd this theory
ourselves optics
to explain.
It
we need hardly
is
trouble
gets rid of mathematical
by a return to rude, primitive fancies of the
barbarian age.
It refuses to be satisfied with any such makeshifts as are afforded by the mathematical
assumption of immaterial rays of
light, and the still more awkward assumption of material pencils of rays.
It certainly recognises the doctrine
by Democritus, and
in
already laid
modern times
down
re-asserted
by
1
Diogenes Laertius, x. 46-53 Lucretius, IV. 42-109. The book of Epicurus De Natura, of which fragments have been recovered in the Herculanean MSS., treats of ;
second
this topic.
It is often alluded to
Quintilian, Inst.
H,
3-
Orat.,
x.
2,
e.g.,
:
15
;
Apuleius, Apology 15
;
Macrobius, Saturn., VII.
)
io6
EPICUREANISM.
Galileo and Locke, of the profound distinction be-
tween the primary
The
latter, as
body
qualities of
and the secondary, such
(figure, size,
&c.
as colour, sound, taste, &c.
points out, only belong to matter in
it
comes into contact with organisms pecuBut all this doctrine of sense-percepliarly sentient. tion is in a way only part of a larger doctrine which has important and direct bearings on the moral so far as
it
I
theory.
In the
first
do the skins shed by
place, not merely
now
the objects around us meet the eye
long after
the
objects
belonged have ceased to float
of the departed
may
They may occur attention
is
exist,
Thus
about the world.
which
to
visit
it
;
they
these
but, even
may have
phantom husks
happens that the forms
us long after their decease.
to us even in daylight,
not engrossed by
when our
terrestrial business,
and
when, in the dead of night, our eyes are closed to the objects around us. nation of ghosts
:
skins, like those
Such
is
the Epicurean expla-
they are disembodied films or loose the insect leaves
upon the bushes
I
after its transition to other forms.
And, secondly, there are probably such gather{(jvgtcmjeiq) sometimes formed in the void which do not owe their origin to any real bodies at all, are not thrown off from any surface, but are fortuitous and casual gatherings accumulated without cause or reason, and assuming the shapes of familiar objects. Such fantastic forms, or mirages, deceive the unwary traveller. Thus what optical science explains by complicated processes of reflection and ings
THE NATURAL WORLD. refraction,
quite in
interpretations of the
and by premature
explains by an
Epicureanism
observer,
agreement with
its
own
compatible with observed multiplying
the
107
causes
facts,
and
hypothesis
doctrines
and
partly
but unnecessarily
supposed
entities
to
underlie phenomena. 1
and here
Thirdly,
theory, there least,
are
Epicurus
is
a main point of the same
perceptions in
affirms— of
our mind
beings
—
so,
brighter
at
and
man. These images visit us when the no longer besieged by the objects of sense. In the night season, and in quiet reflection, we have visions of the gods, as beings beyond the reach of trouble or of death beings endowed with immorWhence can such images tality and supreme felicity. come? There is no place for them in the world, better than
mind
is
—
—
is incessant mutation one thing encroaching upon another, and each impelling the other. They can only come from some place beyond the world,
where
and, as there are innumerable worlds, from the spaces
between the
intervening
worlds
—the
intermundia
In these intervals between world and
(fieTaKOfTjjiia).
world exist the real gods
—
—not such
as popular fancy
them but eternally blessed, beyond the pressure and vicissitudes of the manifold worlds. They are products of the same elements as man and paints
animals, only fabricated of finer
destruction
from
opposing
stuff,
elements;
less
liable to
superior
every way to humanity, but not the lords of 1
Lucretius, iv. 129-142,
and 749-776.
man
in
or
io8
EPICUREANISM. only co-ordinate results of the
of creation;
which
laws
eternal
produced
have
the
same of
rest
things.
This doctrine, which, as
were,
it
the popular religion and theology, striking,
is
explained away
one of the most
but also one of the darkest in the Epicurean
system.
It
admits, and even asseverates, the exist-
ence of the gods, but
it
minimises the importance of
the admission by refusing to the beings thus acknow-
ledged to exist
human
affairs.
all
The
influence fear of
or government
God
is
God
obviously at the price of losing the love of
Man
has no longer a tyrant in the heavens
As
has no longer a friend there.
over
thus removed,
;
also.
but he
for the latter part
of the sentence, indeed, the idea was scarcely likely to occur to
a Greek of the age of Epicurus,
considered the popular mythology only
and
â&#x20AC;˘
who it
is
evident that Lucretius never entertained the thought
The
of such a possibility.
heaven were beings
to
tenants of the heathen
be propitiated,
of
God
as
that
taught by Plato and
minds, according to which
and good creed. tion,
is
entrance
other
of judgment.
and goodness and
offered an
doctrine
popular
the
into
as an avenger
The
idea lofty
the cause of good,
Even Plato himself departs from
and presents Deity
tioner
He
only, the ideal of justice
ever largely find
truth,
entreated r
Nor did such an
dreaded, and not to be loved.
his
concep-
and an execuof
Epicurus
explanation of the wide-spread belief in
Lucretius, v. 1161-1193.
THE NATURAL WORLD.
IOQ
the existence of divine beings, but so emptied that belief of practical
significance
that in popular esti-
though not
mation the Epicureans were naturally, very
fairly,
treated as atheists. 1
this was the question of existence and of future punishment. Whatever may have been the case in earlier ages of Greece, there is no doubt that in the age of Epicurus the doctrine of a judgment to come, and of a hell where
Connected with
after
death,
sinners were punished for their crimes,
The
part of the vulgar creed.
^Eneid, with
outlines
faint
sixth
made
a large
book of Virgil's
of an inferno,
is
still
a great advance in gloom upon the rather neutral
tints
its
of the eleventh book of the Odyssey.
Orphic and
other religious sects had enhanced the terrors of the
world below
whilst they
;
had done very
little
to-
wards the provision of a heaven, except for those
who conformed to their own special rites. This gloomy prospect beyond the grave aggravated and embittered the natural fears of death. fears
body claimed
to
as
its
Against such
the Epicurean doctrine of the relation of soul
cardinal
to supply a safeguard.
dogma
It laid
and body, neither of which continues
to exist after
the connexion has been severed at death. soul leaves the body,
elements
:
when
the
down
the interdependence of soul
it is
When
the
dispersed into unconscious
body
is
left
without soul,
it
ere
long moulders away into other forms of existence. 1
As
in several passages in Lucian.
the heavy
Cicero,
De
yoke imposed by Nat,
ÂŁ>eor. 9
I.
54.-
religion,
For the expression of see
Lucretius,
v.
i
;
no The
EPICUREANISM. dissolved elements of the living being are in-
The Epicureans appa-
sensible to pain or pleasure. 1
was divested of its terrors, when that " dread of something after death," which " puzzles the will," was declared to be groundless. rently believed that death
The removal in this way of the fears of the gods and of the fears of death is the preliminary condition and preparation for the practical lessons of Epicurus. These are the two main results to which the natural philosophy has led up. As such they form the two first aphorisms of the Articles " L :
The of
blessed and incorruptible has no
its
toil
own, and causes none to others.
subject
either
to
anger or favour.
II.
or trouble It
not
is
Death
is
That into which dissolution brings us has no feeling or consciousness, and what has no consciousness is nothing to us." 2 These declarations set human life free, as it were, from all connothing to
trolling
us.
powers
hereafter.
in
heavens,
the
By two tremendous
or
the
in
cut the Gordian knot of destiny, emancipated
from divine control, and bade him himself on the present
dim
Epicurus
strokes,
man
freely concentrate
without any thought of
life
consequences beyond the tomb.
So eager was Epicurus
to exclude all possibility of
divine interference in the world that he
gave with
great detail a series of suggestions for the hypothetical
explanation on non-theological principles of the celestial
and meteorological phenomena. 1
Lucretius, in. passim
2
Diogenes Laertius, X. 139.
;
It is in these
Diogenes, x. Si.
THE NATURAL WORLD.
Ill
occurrences, belonging, as Epicurus thought, to a sphere
where science
impossible, that the mythological ex-
is
planation by direct divine causation
is
most
at
home.
The phenomena of eclipses, for example, have seemed to many barbarous peoples a calamity overtaking their deities, or
an expression of divine anger ; and even
mind
in less rude ages the popular
reluctant to
is
believe that the meteorological changes are
and no
no more
hands of Providence than
less directly in the
the presence or absence of a gold-mine in a particular district.
The letter i>(Pythocles
and the
fifth
exhibit with
cureanism. features
and
much At
fact,
Diogenes Laertius)
curious fulness this aspect of Epi-
first sight, it
is
of a strange system.
amazing doctrine
(in
books of Lucretius's poem
sixth
that, rather
a false explanation
is
one of the strangest
We
than
begin with the slip
let
a palpable
preferable to any view which
leaves deity free to interpose
its
But a second
agency.
more counter
and methods of science. A warning is loudly uttered against any doctrine which states one single and uniform explanation of the celestial and meteorological phenomena ; and there is presented, on the contrary, an embarrassing choice of alternative hypotheses.
principle
A
seems
still
few examples
may be
to the spirit
given of the
way
in
which
Epicurus seeks to keep out the hypothesis of deity as a physical cause.
the sun 1
is
To
Diogenes Laertius, x. 91
in his Cyclic, doctrine.
begin with,
about the same
Thcor,,
II. i.
;
size as
it
we
are told that
appears, 1 which
Lucretius, v. 564-591.
87,
is
Cleomedes,
very severe on this peculiar
112
EPICUREANISM.
once disposes of the astronomical theories of
at
Eudoxus and the Pythagorean the earth
made
school.
Next we find
the centre of our world, and the sun,
moon, and stars, reduced to insignificant attendants upon it. In these statements the apparent fact is taken as the final truth. We now come to the assumptions rendered necessary in consequence of such "
The rising and setting of the sun and may be due to the lighting and the they may also be due to extinction of these bodies Their movements may not impossibly other causes.
premises.
moon and
stars
;
be due to the revolution of the whole heaven, or to
own revolution whilst the heaven remains at The waning and waxing of the moon may be due to the turning of that body they may also be their
rest.
;
due
to certain formations of
of another object, and in terrestrial
phenomena
all
to the intervention
air,
the ways in which the
in our midst suggest an expla-
nation of these changes of form
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;unless
one
is
so
devoted to the single method of explanation (jiovax^Q rpo-noc) that he rejects all others, having failed to perceive that
some
things are accessible to
science and others not, and in that insoluble problems." 1 all
way
human
tries to solve
All the explanations given by
the physical philosophers of antiquity meet in
Epicurus as possible theories so
harmony with
familiar
far
as they are in
phenomena.
Epicurus, however, has another opponent in view
throughout
this letter
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an opponent whom he dreads
Diogenes Laertius, x. 92-94.
US
THE NATURAL WORLD.
That opponent
even more than the mycologists. Fate
The
(eifxapnevr)).
may be bad
;
Epicurus
have neither.
will
dogma of
doctrine
the
of fatalism
He
all
the parts of the
in
which human
machine
a gigantic
worse.
is
up against the
rises
a universal law welding
world into
is
doctrine of divine interference
beings are involved. Unlike Aristotle, 1 who quotes with approval the Homeric line which holds that " many
masters
is
not a good thing
let there
:
be one
ruler/'
he would rather see the several provinces of nature democratically independent of any central despotism.
To him
the recurrent
phenomena of
are not results of a united plan all,
only
:
The
contingencies.
universe
the
they are to him, after
sun
and
rises
sets
regularly only because the combination of elements
and again with an There is no controlling
evolves that particular chance again
approximation to uniformity. design which
the
all
movements of the universe
co-
operate in their several parts to execute and realise.
Each
event, therefore,, has, as
itself
and be explained on
its
it
by But a
were, to stand
own
merits.
science of the events of the meteorological and astronomic sphere has been declared impossible for
man
:
all
that he
need hope
for or care for
is
to get a
plausible explanation conforming to the well-known
canon, that
it
must
either
be confirmed by familiar
experience, or, at least, not be contravened by such experience.
thunder
were
1
So
he
the
shall
not tremble of angry
voice
as
gods,
Aristotle, Mctaphys., XII. 10 (1096, a. 4). I
if
the
or
the
H4
EPICUREANISM. a minister of divine vengeance upon
thunderbolt the wicked.
Throughout the whole of and of the
his
origin of the earth
the inhabitants, Epicurus
arts
explanation of the
and
civilization of
any There was no design, no careful to exclude
is
reference to divine action.
plan determining beforehand the process of evolution,
and adapting one part of the cosmic structure to co-operate with another. The sun was not formed that he might serve the uses of man, vivifying and fertilizing the
teleology
is
earth by his rays.
The
extruded.
In
all
its
phases
very animals which are
found upon the earth have been made what they are by slow processes of selection' and adaptation through the experience of
life.
"
Many
races of animals/'
propagate their
"must have perished and failed to kind. Those which we see at present
owe
continued existence to their superior
says Lucretius,
alive
their
cunning or their bravery or their speed
;
whilst others
have been preserved because they were found useful to
men." 1
According to the same theory, which
is
must often, in the early ages of the world, when complex forms first casually arose, have been seen strange mixtures of unaccordant limbs and diverse natures, which, however, were unable to maintain themselves and so ultra-Darwinian in
its
character, there
passed away.
Of
course, in this there
is
no implication of the
peculiarly Darwinian doctrine of descent, or develop-
Lucretius, v. 855-861.
THE NATURAL WORLD.
115
and
fnent of kind from kind, with structure modified
complicated to meet changing circumstances, selection of
Natural
those species which were favoured by
by circumstances
their qualities or
in the competition
no doubt affirmed by Epicurus, as it had been by Empedocles and others before him. But the point on which he chiefly insists is the naturalness of Plants and animals have the same the organic world. source as rocks and sands. It is from the seeds or for life
is
elements contained in the earth that the animals have in
some strange maternal throes
what
puts
figuratively
season
:
(as Lucretius
been
it)
they have not fallen
evolved
some-
in
their
from heaven. 1
The
same naturalistic explanation is given of the special endowments of human beings. The organs of sense were not given us ready-made in order that we might use them
:
that
which
born in our body, on the
is
contrary, generates for itself a use. 3 for example,
which we
call the
as an organ of vision
curiously inquire how,
structure,
we need not
arose,
it
:
and
The
eye was not given us
was found
too
to
be useful
for the perception of objects in the light.
Whether
this use
it
by degrees created an organ more and more
appropriate for
its
fecting the organ
purpose
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;function,
as
it
were, per-
a point apparently not discussed
by Epicurus. Similar considerations explain
have language. tional
1
symbols
Words :
the
first
how man came
originally
to
were not conven-
words were natural utterances
2
Lucretius, v. 793. I
2
Ibid., iv. 834.
?
â&#x20AC;˘
;
n6 of
EPICUREANISM.
man
corresponding to the cries peculiar to every
species of animal,
and
signified the objects
around him as they happened to his
wants and feelings.
and scenes
gratify or
excite
These utterances naturally
varied in proportion to the variety of national characters
and of individual human beings, and
peculiar images excited. regions, a special
to the
In this way, in different
form arose
in
which the
air
expelled from the lips and the sound formed. ferent nations
made
was Dif-
Within the
different languages.
same nation special utterances came to be recognized by the whole community as expressive of one fixed object or occurrence, and so was avoided the ambiguity which would have supervened if no agreement What was thus begun in reference to were made. visible objects
was extended subsequently so
denote objects not accessible to sense
:
as to
sounds were
appropriated to invisible objects: and the mass of the
people adopted the terms thus introduced, either from
compulsion or by conviction of the reasonableness of the proposal. 1 All the advances of cultivation were due to the intelligent
improvement of what w as offered or sug-
gested to
man by
r
natural
occasions.
Man
raised
himself from a state of primitive rudeness and barbarism, and gradually widened the gulf which separated
him from other
men and women 1
animals.
lived
Diogenes Laertius, x. 75-76;
VitruviuSj
11.
1.
From
on the wild
the stage
fruits
Lucretius,
of the
v.
when wood
1028- 1090
— THE NATURAL .WORLD.
117
and heath, and drank die running stream
— when they
ran about naked and homeless, knowing not the use of
fire,
and
living in constant fear of the claws
fangs of savage beasts
—
communities and obeyed
civic
and
when they formed
to the stage
laws,
and submitted to and friendship
the ameliorating influences of wedlock
—
all has been the work of man utilizing endowments and natural circumstances.
of the blessings of cultivation have
men
his natural
For none
to thank the
Their worship rather has been the cause of
gods.
endless
and has checked or prevented the In fact, the use of money and of celestial powers have been the two main
woes,
course of progress. the fear
baleful influences in civilization. 1
Above perfect,
the world
all,
too
too
is
full
inharmonious and
deemed a divine creation Tanta Not that Epicurus is a pessimist,
of flaws, too im-
ill-adjusted,
be
to
stat prczdita culpa?
or that he believes
the net result of existence to be a preponderance of evil.
If we can apply either term safely to him,
we
should rather say that Epicurus was optimist, or his
whole doctrine of the aim and end of treated as illusory
whatever the chances direction they
may
of
life
are,
preponderate,
power of reasonable men,
if
it
they
things work together for happiness. it is
1
Lucretius,
made 2
essential that
the
first
man
life
He
and misleading.
and is
must be
holds that, in
whatever
always in the
will, to
But
make
to this
all
end
should not have his hands tied
v. 925-1457. The Epicureans seem to have attempt to write the natural history of civilization.
Ibid., v. 199.
nS by
EPICUREANISM. or divine arbitrary
fate
best he can for himself.
are our
own
but be free to do the
will,
To wap
masters, so
least, that
mastering destiny drags us along in
we it
The gods have
will or not.
ciUgitotov
fjfidc
far, at
left
its
train
man
1 :
we
no overwhether
alone.
Is
possible even, asks Lucretius, that any being, how-
ever wise and powerful, can have his eyes on corners of the earth at once
At any
?
the case that the immortals interfere.
hands
free to
scale
the heavens and
rate,
all
the
it is
not
Man
has his
make himself
blessed as the gods.
Has man, It
is,
then, according to Epicurus, a free will ?
perhaps, hazardous, in the scanty supply of evi-
dence, to attempt a categorical answer to the question.
Except a brief reference in Lucretius and Diogenes,,
and a somewhat ambiguous passage recovered fragments of Epicurus
nothing specially fixing another. 2
It
is
true that
principles of his system. ever,
may be
the
in the recently
himself, there
is
problem one way or
we may argue from other Too much reliance, how-
placed on such consistency.
It is per-
fectly conceivable
that a philosopher while binding
Nature
may leave the human
so,
fast in fate
although Epicureanism, in
seems to reduce the
mind
its
to a
mere re-agent upon
various idola, or spectra, which flood in
outward sources, 1
it
will free
;
and
theory of perception, for the it
from
need not follow that he denied
all
Diogenes Laertius, x. 133.
Diogenes Laertius, x. 133 ; Lucretius, IV. 777-817. Gomperz has edited and commented upon some fragments on this question (from papyrus 1056, in Coll. Prior, x. 697). 2
HQ
THE NATURAL WORLD.
Rather, this last question
spontaneity to the mind.
'
he does not appear to have touched. When Lucretius, for example, approaches it in his argument, and asks a man comes to think of one particular object and not some other, he simply alludes, as if it were in need of no explanation, to the circumstance of the
how
mind being
able to attend, to abstract, to concentrate
In other words, he takes for granted a spon-
itself.
taneity
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a power â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which
mination
atoms are not supposed
which he naturally enough,
to possess, but
if
some-
and operate. After all, too, Epicurus was no metaphysician, and in this question of the will he seems rather to be arguing against extreme theories already in vogue than adding to them a new one of his own. The what
.
of initiation, selection, and deterhis primitive
illogically,
assumes to
free-will controversy, if
it
exist
be an
intelligible dispute at
which each side fights not against the other, but against an imaginary enemy
and not rather a
all,
of
its
own
creation,
finitely in his time.
to
battle in
had scarcely formulated
What Epicurus
be on the one hand a popular
other a metaphysical dogma. is
rianism.
doctrine
event
is
dogma
is
and on the illusion
says
According to the from Plato and
the
Stoics,
who
Aristotle,
derived their
every
act
and
regarded as part of a vast pre-ordained order
Seneca,
The
;
that of fatalism, or necessita-
from the bonds of which there "
illusion,
The popular
a belief in the efficacy of chance or fortune
metaphysical
I
itself de-
has in view seems
volentem
ducunt,
is
no escape.
nolente7ii
Fata,
trahunt
willing are led, the unwilling dragged
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
by the
1
EPICUREANISM.
120
But willing or unwilling must
fates."
alike testify to
Our fancied indepensupremacy of destiny. dence is the veil which we draw over our inevitable
the
participation in the great circles of the wheel of pro-
doom.
vidential
It
against
is
this lordship of the
For
universal law that Epicurus raises his protest.
him
there
no law higher than the law
is
each species has transgress
if it
no higher law
appointed
its
is
and
to live
to
limits,
of kind
which is
;
cannot
But there
flourish.
which the species
it
subject
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
is
ex-
cept the law of chance, which presides at the forma-
and of worlds. It makes part of no system.
tion of kinds plan, its
own
To
man.
and
laws
it
is
And
free.
enters into
So long
such
is
no grand
as
it
obeys
the freedom of
recognize the end or limit of his nature,
to gain
freedom by acting
accordance
in constant
with the conditions thus discerned,
is
the part of the
wise man, of the philosopher.
On the
man
other hand,
chances, and least of in
wisdom.
is
Intelligence
not the mere creature of
proportion to his progress
all in
renders
him
superior
to
fortune, or at least diminishes to the lowest point the effects
of chance
limits laid if
he
will,
down by
and circumstance. his
be above
all
curus contemns both
much he
own
Within
specific nature,
external forces. fate
and chance.
the
man may, Thus EpiHowever
formed character the and selfcontained cause, while in an unformed and immature being they are a varying resultant of passions from within and impressions from without, still there is a indicates
that in a
actions flow from self as a
concentrated
THE NATURAL WORLD.
121
residuum of spontaneity which he seems unwilling to
Man,
though unable to explain.
ignore,
atoms, has something incalculable in him in the soul there
was a fourth " unnamed
The anonymous and
the
like the
even as
;
"
essence.
spontaneous lurk at the
bottom of these explanations. Neither in
life
nor in death, therefore, can anything
entail defeat or cause a regret for the wise
man who
has freed himself from the blindness born in his
and learned what humanity
flesh,
"
really requires.
The
reasonable man," says Philodemus, in his treatise on Death, " having learnt that he can acquire all that is
needed
as
it
for
a happy
life,
from that moment, having,
were, prepared himself for burial, walks about
and reaps
profit
from a single day as
if
it
were an
Once for all he dismisses the thought of death from his mind when he has once for all grasped its
age."
1
and the
necessity state
utter
which succeeds
it.
"
The
of the
to us
indifference
man,"
free
says
Spinoza, " thinks of nothing less than of death,
wisdom Convinced
his
other
life
is
not a meditation of death, but of
that
death
is
and
life." 3
an absolute end with no
beyond, his motto
is
not,
as
is
vulgarly
"Eat, drink, for to-morrow we die"; but he argues that, though we may die to-morrow, still the
said,
fear of death should not poison
The
and embitter to-day.
annihilation of the personality by death
an idea
peculiar to the Epicureans
1
it
is
not
appears in
Gomperz, in the Hermes xn. 223. Spinoza, Ethic, iv. 67. ,
2
;
122
EPICUREANISM.
ancient writers
various
in
from solemn en-
tones,
thusiasm to frivolous mockery.
The
of immortality by the
elder
jection
known. " What accursed
been brought retains
its
Pliny
well
is
frenzy, to think that life
And where
be renewed by death.
passionate re-
are those
to
is
who have
into being ever to find rest, if the spirit
consciousness in the world on high, and the
shade in the world below
men
wherewith
Verily this sweet fancy
?
beguile themselves deprives us of the
and doubles on what is to
chief blessing of nature, destroys death,
the pain
be
dying
of
For, even
hereafter.
can find
and
by
reflection if
present
sweet to have lived
it
surer were
it
for
argument that he need
the future
"l
phrases, "
To
easier
.
time that preceded his
birth as an ?
who
sweet,
each to believe himself, and to
his experience of the
take
life is
How much
?
feel
no anxiety
for
In the second and third centuries, the security," "
To
eternal rest," "
To
ever-
lasting sleep " (secntitati, cetemce quieti, ceterno somnd) y
on tombstones.
not unfrequently found
are
The
prospect of an utter end to existence seems to have felt by some, of those times, as no gloomy idea, but as a welcome hope of unbroken and unending
been rest.
In others, the gross sensuality of some aspects
Roman
of
character
was nothing
:
I
eat, drink, play,
am
is
come."
:
and thou who
" All that
and drinks " is the these inscriptions on the tombs. 2
what he
" I
conspicuously displayed.
nothing
eats
is
art
alive,
man's own
refrain of
many
is
of
In Greek epitaphs.
1
Pliny, Nat. Hist., VII. 188-190.
2
See Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms, HI. 616, seqq.
THE NATURAL WORLD. the denial of immortality in all the thought is
past,
;
but that
life
is to come, and them not incoma note of cheerfulness and even of
and seldom with
obvious perhaps
turned backward to the
is
to the life that
the seriousness of the patible
less
is
123
tomb
is
for
mirth.
Ancient philosophy was divided on the question of immortality.
The
school of Aristotle rejected the
doctrine of personal existence after death the Stoics in general approximated
Panaetius,
the most
original
of their
many
herents, departed in this as in so
from the doctrine of his school.
on the contrary, and
and though
;
towards
still
it,
Roman
ad-
other points
With the
Platonists,
especially with those
who com-
bined Platonic with Pythagorean ideas, the immortality
of the soul was a cardinal tenet.
from
philosophic opinion, two facts seem tolerably
certain
which
bear
upon
majority of the Greek and
some
.this
Roman
sort of after-existence
;
point.
But apart
The
great
world believed in
but they differed largely
And, secondly, though the conceptions of the other world in general do not appear to have cast any prevailing gloom over this life, yet, if we can trust Plato, Epicurus, and Lucretius, the general conviction of a judgment to come, where the deeds done in this life would receive their reward and punishment, seems to have been widely felt, and to have been, for priests and prophets, a fruitful soil.
in the minutiae of belief.
Indulgences for
sin,
propitiation of impiety,
sacra-
mental atonement, not to mention magic and baser forms of superstition, flourished alongside of Epicu-
EPICUREANISM.
124 reanism their
through
all
maximum
Christian
era.
its
and probably reached and second centuries of the
career,
in the
first
For
all
such modes
of salvation
Man
Epicurus declared there was no need. could
nor
save
priest.
himself ;
alone
he needed neither redeemer
To know and obey
the law of Nature
was the only and the certain way to happiness and goodness. If help were needed in the work of life, it
could be found in the sympathy of a true friend.
On
earth was the portion of
ness could be either all
accounts.
reward
:
won
man
or lost
:
;
on earth blessedand death closed
Goodness carried with
it
its
present
the prize of virtue was not postponed.
;
EPICUREANISM.
CHAPTER
VII.
THE CHIEF GOOD.
We may
now
pass on
to
what would,
in
ordinary
parlance, be described as the moral theory or ethical
system of Epicurus.
On
from Lucretius, whose
poem
this topic
we
get
help
little
breaks off before
has
it
even completed the theoiy of natural phenomena.
But
in
are a
Diogenes Laertius,
in
Cicero and Seneca, there
number of fragmentary
and even of
statements,
tolerably connected passages, which help us to form in outline at least a conception of the Epicurean Ethics.
But we must not expect too
We
shall
obligation, less
find
no code of
much from
duties,
no abstract standard of morals
any discussion of the moral
this
title.
no principle of ;
and
still
In morals
faculties.
we
are referred as elsewhere to the guid ance of feelin g.
In
feeling, properly interpreted,
and we have only
to use our
we have our
are not led astray from obedience to
its
rule
we Our
see that
intellect to
voice.
feeling unequivocally tells us the general character of
what we should pursue,
viz.,
pleasure.
It
is
the
business of our reason to prevent this object being lost
by injudicious
pursuit,
pleasure for a greater.
or
by mistaking a
Pleasure always
is
the natural aim of every living being, the
less
our aim
;
end or law
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 126
EPICUREANISM.
of nature.
It
needs some care, however, to discrimi-
nate real pleasure from pretended.
We
we
it
inherit a perverse taste
;
and
philosophy to purify our feelings, to
are corrupted,
is
the office of
make our
taste
for pleasure true.
As an in
introduction,
we may take a letter
which he presents a summary of
and conduct
;
it is
given by Diogenes Laertius
" Epicurus "
Be not
of Epicurus
his theory of life
to
1
:
Mengeceus.
when thou
art
young,
nor weary in the search thereof when thou
art
grown
slack to seek wisdom
For no age
old.
health of the soul.
is
too early or too late for the
And he who
for philosophy has not yet
and gone,
is
like
it is
passed
one who should say that the season
for happiness has not yet
away.
says that the season
come, and that
come, or that
it
has passed
Therefore, both old and young ought to seek
wisdom, that so a
man
as
age comes over him
may
be young in good things, because of the grace of what has been, and while he is young may likewise be old, because he has no fear of the things which are
to
come.
Exercise
thyself,
things which bring happiness
*
therefore,
thou
is
when
it
is
therein,
do everything if so thou mayest have it. things which without ceasing I have
wilt
"Those declared
the it
with thee thou wilt have everything, and not,
in
for verily, while
unto thee, those do and exercise thyself holding them to be the elements of right
1
Diogenes Laertius,
x. 122-135.
;
THE CHIEF GOOD. life.
First, believe
that
immortal, according
to
God
is
127
a being blessed and
God com-
the notion of a
monly held amongst men and so shalt not affirm of him aught that ;
believing,
thou
contrary to
is
immortality or that agrees not with blessedness, but shalt believe
about him whatsoever
his blessedness
are gods,
and
may uphold
his immortality.
For
and the knowledge of them
both
verily there
is
manifest
but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that
men do
not uphold steadfastly the notions they
Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of
currently believe.
the gods what the multitude believes about them, truly impious.
about the gods are not true preconceptions, but assumptions
;
is
For the utterances of the multitude according to which the greatest
false evils
happen to the wicked, and the blessings which happen to the good, are held to come from the hand
that
of the gods. familiar
Seeing that, as they are always most
with their
own good
they take
qualities,
pleasure in the sight of qualities like their own, and reject as alien whatever is not of their kind. u Accustom thyself in the belief that death
is nothing to us, for good and evil are only where they
are
felt,
and death
is
the absence of
all
therefore, a right understanding that death
to us makes enjoyable the mortality of
adding to years an
away the yearning
illimitable time,
feeling:
is
nothing
life,
not by
but by taking
after immortality. For in life there can be nothing to fear to him who has thoroughly apprehended that there is nothing to cause fear in
128
EPICUREANISM.
what time we are not
man who
Foolish, therefore,
is
the
says that he fears death, not because
it
will
alive.
when
it comes, but because it pains in the proWhatsoever causes no annoyance when it is present causes only a groundless pain by the expec-
pain
spect.
Death, therefore, the most awful of
tation thereof. evils, is
us, seeing that when we are, death when death comes, then we are not
nothing to
is
not yet, and
It
is
nothing, then, either to the living or the dead,
not found with the
for
it is
no
longer.
But
living,
in the world, at
and the dead
exist
men
seek
one time
to escape death as the greatest of all evils,
another time yearn for
for to live
is
garded as an
of
life
is
no object of
not set in view beside evil.
And
at
as a rest from the evils in
it
The mere absence
life.
and
even as
men
not merely and simply the larger
it,
nor
is
choose of
lot,
fear, re-
it
food,,
but the most
pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time
most pleasant, and not merely that which
which
is
is
longest
And he who admonishes the young men to live well, and the old men to make a good end, speaks foolishly, not
merely because of the desirableness of
life,
but because the same exercise
live
well
says that
one
is
and it
at
once teaches to
worse
is
he
who
were best not to be born, but when once
born, to pass with greatest speed the gates of
Hades.
If he, in truth, believes this,
not depart from this
him,
Much
to die well.
if
he has
truly
life ?
come
There
is
why does he
nothing to hinder
to this conclusion.
If
he
speaks only in mockery, his words are meaningless
among people who
believe in
them not
THE " r
CHILI' GOOD.
Thou must remember
129
that the future
is
neither
wholly ours, nor wholly not ours, so that neither
we wholly wait
for
wholly despair as "
Thou must
as
it
if it
if it
may
were sure to come, nor
were not to come.
in mind that of desires some and some are groundless ; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some are natural only. And of <he necessary desires, some are necessary if we are to be happy, and some if the body is to remain unperturbed, and some if we are even to live. By the clear and cer-
keep
also
are natural,
tain
understanding of these things we learn to make
every preference and aversion, so that the body
have health and the soul is
all
the
sum and end
our actions
is
of a blessed
to
when once we have the soul
life.
For the end of
be free from pain and fear attained this,
all
;
and
the tempest of
seeing that the living creature has
laid,
is
may
tranquillity, seeing that this
not to go to find something that
is
wanting, or to
seek something else by which the good of the soul
and of the body will be sure,
is,
when we
of pleasure
but
;
When we need
fulfilled.
plea-
are grieved because of the absence
when we
feel
no pain, then we no Wherefore we call
longer stand in need of pleasure. pleasure the
alpha and omega of
a
blessed
life*
and kindred good. From it is the commencement of every choice and every aversion, and to it we come back, and make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing. " And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure Pleasure
is
our
first
â&#x20AC;˘
K
;
EPICUREANISM.
130
whatsoever, but ofttimes pass
when a
over
many
ofttimes
we consider
and submit
pains
superior
when
to the pain for a long time,
sure, therefore,
a good, but
because of it
is
as every pain is an
and
And
pleasures,
to
attended for us with a greater pleasure.
is
pleasures
greater annoyance ensues from them.
its
not in
in every case, to
is
kinship with our nature,
all
cases our choice, even
though pain
evil,
it
All plea-
be shunned.
is
It
not always, is,
however,
by measuring one against another, and by looking the conveniences and inconveniences, that
at
these
all
Sometimes we treat the good and the evil, on the contrary, as a good and we regard independence of outward goods as a things must be judged. as an evil,
cases to use
great good, not so as in
all
as to be contented with
little,
being
thoroughly
sweetest
persuaded
if
little,
but so
we have not much, they have
that
enjoyment of luxury who stand
least
the in
need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily -procured, and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as
when once
much
pleasure as a costly diet,
the pain due to want
is
removed; and
bread and water confer the highest pleasure when To habituate they are brought to hungry lips. self,
therefore, to plain
that
is
needed
and inexpensive diet gives all and enables a man to meet
for health,
life
without shrinking,
places us in a better frame
when we approach
the necessary requirements of
and
it
at intervals a costly fare,
and renders us
fearless of
fortune.
"When we
say, then, that pleasure is the
end and
THE CHIEF GOOD. aim,
we do not mean
the pleasures of the prodigal,
we
or the pleasures of sensuality, as
by some who
are either ignorant
other views,
or
for
inclined to misinterpret our state-
(By pleasure,
ments.
body and
in the
are understood
and prejudiced
we mean
the absence of pain
trouble in the soul.)
unbroken succession of drinking
not an
It is
and of
feasts
re-
velry, not the pleasures of sexual love, not the enjoy-
ment of
and other
the fish
delicacies of a splendid
which produce a pleasant
table,
life
is
it
:
sober
reasoning, searching out the reasons for every choice
and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which greatest tumults take possession of the soul.
Of
the beginning, and the greatest good,
all this,
Wherefore, prudence
prudence.
thing even than philosophy
:
is
is
a more precious
from
it
grow
all
the
other virtues, for
it
teaches that
we cannot
of pleasure which
is
not also a
of prudence, honour,
and
justice
;
nor lead a
life
lead a
and For the
of prudence, honour,
life
justice
which
virtues
have grown into one with a pleasant
a pleasant "
is
life is
life
not also a
life
of pleasure.
life,
and
inseparable from them.
Who then is superior, in thy judgment, to such a He holds a holy belief concerning the gods,
man ? and
is
altogether without fears about death
diligently considered the
has understood
can be
how
satisfied
end
less
is
but
he has
and good things either the
slight.
some have introduced
;
nature,
and procured, and how
rejected fate which
no
by
easily the limit of
length or the strength of evils
mistress,
fixed
He
has
as universal
than chance, in respect of what
K
2
EPICUREANISM.
132
due
is
to
destroys stant
human
agency,
responsibility,
naturally ensue.
it
is
to
them
is
sees
that
fortune
that
as for our actions, there
;
over them, and
he
for
and
fate
incon-
is
no lord and master blame and praise
that
Better were
indeed, to believe
it,
the legend of the gods, than be in bondage to the
by the physical philosophers for the myth gives a faint hope of deprecating divine wrath by honouring the gods, while the fate of destiny taught
;
theological
the philosophers
is
deaf to
Nor
supplications.
all
does he hold chance to be a god, as the world general does, for in the acts of order, nor to be a cause, for
so as to
make
there
evil
is
not given by
blessed, though
life
the starting-point of great
the prosperity of the fool. is
well-judged in
it
good and great
believes that the misfortune of the wise
what
no
is
in
dis-
though an uncertain one,
he believes that good or
men
God
is
it
to
supplies
He
evil.
better than
It is better, in short, that
action
should not owe
its
successful issue to the aid of chance.
" Exercise thyself in these and kindred precepts
day and night, both by thyself and with him who is and never, either in waking or in like unto thee ;
dream, wilt thou be disturbed, but wilt live as a god amongst men. For in nothing does he resemble a mortal creature,
the
man who
lives
in
immortal
blessedness."
Thus unequivocally does Epicureanism proclaim pleasure to be the end of nature
common ment
of
to the whole race of
man.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the
first
good,
The announce-
such a doctrine naturally gave
rise
to a
THE CHIEF GOOD. clrorus of reproving it
and protesting
be true that we are
*33
Even
voices.
if
urged towards
irresistibly
pleasure by an impulse of our nature,
it is
our duty,
say the objectors, to guard against the temptations
We
thus arising.
mere
allegiance friends
have nobler aims to
Honour
pleasure.
duty
and
to our country.
make
for
than
demand
our
live
our family and
obligations bind us to
:
but virtue calls us to
A
and
Pleasure
is
of the earth,
ourselves worthy of heaven.
beings the most and the fruits he plucks are but as apples of Sodom and turn into ashes between his teeth. The man of pleasure must
mere pleasure-seeker
miserable
:
inevitably,
his search
it is
is
of
all
hopeless
is
said, cry out,
:
Vanity of vanities
:
all is
Worse than this his pleasures will become more and more sensual, degrading, and animal. As life goes on, his jaded sensibilities require more poignant excitements to ward off the attacks of ennui. A life of pleasure hardens the heart, and the sense of enjoyment comes to find a peculiar delight vanity.
:
Domitian at Rome and Catherine the Second of Russia are pointed out in the sight of others suffering.
as
the examples
warning against
lawless
lust
for
That Epicureanism should inculcate a lesson which bears such fruits seems argument enough
pleasures.
to
condemn In
all
There
is
pleasure
it.
of this the truth
is
marred by exaggeration.
a long interval between the statement that is
the natural law, and the recommendation
to pursue pleasures everywhere
The former can
and above all things. when explained
hardly be disputed,
;
>
C/wt*
EPICUREANISM.
!34 the latter
To do
is
unwise and, possibly, impracticable advice.
justice to the doctrine of Epicurus
never forget that
and
protest of
an opposition.
understood must doctrines
to a large extent
it is
Its statements to
be
be taken in connection with the
which
to
thesis loses half
we should
the reaction
its
they are antagonistic.
meaning, and almost
Every
all its truth,
when completely dissevered from its antithesis. The expression of a dogma in such a case is misleading.
The
author, strong in his sense of a correction to
made, hardly gives
full
be
place to the large and im-
portant body of doctrine which he accepts without
His exposition
correction.
is
fragmentary and un-
balanced, and requires to be interpreted with caution.
Because something not infer that truth, every
is
it
is
passed over in silence,
attempt at
assumes and
tacitly
embodies with
itself
was old. Epicureanism need not be assumed, abolish or
although
it
contradict
virtues
much
that
therefore, to
the old morality altogether,
proposes to put
and denies the
we must
Every revelation of new reform, always and necessarily
denied.
especial
it
upon a new foundation, on which the
principles
were sometimes said to be founded.
In the
moral systems of Plato and Aristotle a very subordinate and undignified place was assigned to pleasure.
When
Aristotle in his " Ethics " attempts to find the
characteristic
mark of
virtue,
he sees
it
in the circum-
stance that the end or aim of the action
1
Arist., Ethics, IV. 2,
I,
&c.
is
to Ka\6v. 1
THE CHIEF GOOD.
The
beautiful
—the
and symmetry which
135
idea of an objective perfection is
to
be maintained
—the
entirely
ideal motive of correspondence with
an existent law
—the desire
moral beauty in
of rectitude,
our individual conduct
to reflect a
— that
the sunlight which
is
elevates acts out of mechanical obedience into con-
scious actualization of an
cosmos.
ethical
The presupposition here,
an order which
world or moral
as in Plato,
exists before us, of
is
that of
an ideal perfection
which we do not make, and can but approximate to. Of the origin and authority of this fundamental idea of his ethical system Aristotle can scarcely be said to What the u beautiful " is, and
render any account.
how from
it
comes
to
his range.
conviction
sway our conduct, is rather removed Nor can Plato be said to carry more
when he
asserts,
what
in
its
way
is
true
enough, that these conceptions are the very ante-natal
dower of the soul
—the
ideas which
it
sense-world in which
we live. The
still
remains
how we
off the confusing
as
mind has been
sank into the darkness of
familiar with before
human
this
interesting question
beings
come
to shake
and learn to very truth. But Plato,
influences of nature,
see the idea of goodness in its though he attacks this question, does not answer it. He discusses an analogous question, viz., how the
equipped
for his duties ; and to and perfected he entrusts the task of telling the ordinary human being what is to be done and what is not to be done. And a like
statesman
is
to be
the statesman thus formed
criticism in view
may be passed on Aristotle. They both had an objective order and system which stood
EPICUREANISM.
136
above the
likes
and
feelings of
men; and
a willing
conformity to this order was the aim which they assigned to the legislator in his normative action in
So long as there was a tolerable agreement
society.
between
order and the actual constitutions
this ideal
under which
men
long their theory might be But when even the blindest eye could no
accepted.
lived, so
longer refuse to see in the existing political forms
only a tissue of vice, injustice, and baseness, then the ideal order,
bereft
of
must collapse or
State,
The
sensuous vicegerent, the
ancient sages before Epicurus had
pleasure,
went so
and opposed
far as
it
to virtue.
A
condemned few of them
carry out the implication, and to
to
assert the absolute virtue.
its
find another support.
incompatibility of pleasure and
had not been so extravagant.
Aristotle
In
pleasure he recognised the sign that the capacity and
tendency to good
produced had
at
which habit and discipline had length
become a second
nature. 1
He
had spoken of pleasure as the accompaniment of such action as combined the fullest expansion of a natural power in the agent with the most satisfactory condition of the objects in which it found room for its
exercise.
when
his action.
made
Pleasure was the concomitant of action
the perfect agent found a perfect
But the character of the
medium active
for
power
a profound difference in the estimate to be
formed of the pleasure.
and there were lower
1
There were higher pleasures, pleasures.
This distinction of
Arist., Ethics, II. 2.
THE CHIEF GOO J).
'37
the worth or worthlessness of different pleasures rests
upon the presumption system of ends in intrinsically
life,
there
that
that
some
a hierarchical or things
arc-
worth more than others, quite apart from
the pleasure which individuals It rests
is
acts
on a
the faith that
belief in ideas
man
is
only a
may
derive from them.
and on
member
ideal
truth
on
:
of a great order,
an everlasting realm of truth and goodness, which receives
him when he comes
into the world,
which connects him with the past and the
and
future, as
well as with his contemporaries in the present.
Such an order Epicureanism ignores. It isolates a his membership of the body politic it cuts him off from anything beyond this life by the For Epicudoctrine of man's absolute mortality.
man from
reanism
and
;
man
is
a sentient being, capable of pleasure
and possessed of an intelligence which enables him to take forethought for both. Around him are other sentient beings similarly circumstanced, with whom it is often necessary, and sometimes convenient, that he should come into contact and relationship. But these connections are lax, accidental, and temporary the unions so formed are transient, and owe their existence and maintenance to the convenience of individuals. They have no subsistence in themselves, no rights as against individuals, no pain,
;
powers to enforce obligations or require duties.
The
and pleasures, is the star t ing-point and the sta ndard. Nothing exists outside him which should thwart and check the individual being, susceptible to pains
claims of his person to enjoyment, nothing of an
EPICUREANISM.
To some extent, however,, bond which is thus taken off is reimposed as the easier and lighter yoke of friendship. Antiquity is almost unanimous in the praises it bestows upon the friendly affection which prevailed in
ideal kind, at any rate.
the
communities of Epicureans. 1
the
hances the charm of
life
and
by fellowship.
to heighten joys
;
it
Friendship en-
helps to lighten sorrows
In
itself,
the fact
of friendship bears witness to something beyond the
mere
individual, perhaps
and
fectly
indistinctly.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;but
speaks only imper-
it
Reflection seems to show
that all friendship has a selfish basis, utility.
In
observer
is
every
and
is
built
upon
union of affection the cynical
able to point to something which
may be
interpreted into the presence of an earthly element,
a self-regarding
consideration.
Nor
is
garding cannot
human divine.
;
be
the cynical
The
observer to be pronounced in error.
absent from
entirely
the absolutely and wholly unselfish But the cynical observer is wrong
phasizing
this fact to
self-re-
anything is
the
in
em-
the exclusion of another side.
/The prophet and the reformer are not to be regarded )as
hypocrites because even in their holiest fervours
and
their purest counsels the
absence of
self is never
and undisputed. Rather were it well to note the different contents and structure of the self which There is a wide is operative in different individuals. interval between the self which excludes all others in antagonism and the self which includes them in love..
perfect
1
Cicero, Acad. Pr., n. 115
;
De
Fin.,
I.
20 65.
THE CHIEF GOOD. '
Yet
as
it
is
utility
is
against
and Harsh
the creator of law
not altogether without
may sound
which
cynicism
an ordinary world, the
for
reminds us that morality
139
more
value.
its
ideal or
more
senti-
mental principles, the assertion of utilitarianism has at
advantage of righting against an un-
the
least
adhering to the past with
reasoning conservatism
Even
blind tenacity.
if utility
be not an adequate
formula to account for the existence of the organization of
human
affords a rations.
mark
society
on
present basis,
its
it
at least
and suggests amelioIn the great words in which Plato profor the reformer,
claimed the rights of reason against authority and tradition, 1 there is not
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Only
and never
will
be
finer phrase
and and bad. But the basis of utilitarianism may be different, as the doctrine itself varies. It may rest on a philanthropic sentiment, a humanitarian feeling. Such a foundation must to Epicurus have seemed vague and uncertain and he builds his creed accordingly on a more solid foundation ; more solid, that is, if we compare sentiment with sentiment. He bases it on the natural feeling of pleasure, and on the general
than
this
:
the useful
is
truly beautiful
noble, only the harmful truly unsightly
â&#x20AC;˘
gravitation of
all
more than other
human kind writers
definition of pleasure.
being pleased ing.
"
The
is
towards pleasure.
To know what
we must go
No
Epicurus able to give a is
meant by
to consciousness, to feel-
state of pleasure," says Professor Bain.,
1
Plato, Republic, V. 457.
'
EPICUREANISM.
140 "
is
The
an ultimate, indefinable experience of the mind. fact itself is known to each person's conscious-
ness
the modes, varieties, degrees, collaterals, and
:
effects of
sense,
what
it,
it is
is
may be
stated in propositions.'' 1
In a
quite true that every one does understand
meant by
Unfortunately, however,
pleasure.
^he word pleasure,
like
all
words of
abstract
this
becomes ambiguous. It denotes not merely the abstract and general relation in virtue of which an act or object is termed pleasant, but also description, easily
the particular objects or acts themselves which give pleasure to some, or perhaps to the majority of
Like other abstract terms,
kind.
it
is
man-
interpreted
and defined by the habits and experience of each individual.
It
and
pleasures,
is
specified
various
into
concrete
identified with certain things
which
Every man has pleasures of his own, and the cases are rare where the same thing
produce pleasure.
;
gives pleasure to everybody.
The what
phrase " pursue pleasure,"
elliptical.
is
Strictly speaking,
cannot pursue pleasure
;
which
is
therefore some-
we do not and
as great
an abstrac-
tion as the pursuit of truth, perhaps even a greater for the latter, at least, is in
-and abiding, whereas pleasure jective.
What we pursue
some degree is
transient
if
we may use such an
one thing nor another 1
:
and sub-
are certain objects of desire,
the attainment of which causes pleasure. itself,
;
objective
what
Pleasure in
expression, it
is
is
neither
depends entirely
" The Emotions and the Will,"
p. 12.
)
THE CHIEF GOOD.
I
4I
on the nature of the person, and the character of the No so-called pleasure has the power of pro-
object.
ducing pleasure, inevitably and
Yet is
for this
reason,
it
may be
in all circumstances.
said what
not a thing, but rather an action.
It is
we
desire
the eating,
and not the food, which gives pleasure to the hungry. There is a controversy, in some respects verbal, It may be said, that the object raised on this point. of a desire is not pleasure, but some special thing or act. "All particular appetites and passions/' says Bishop Butler, 1 " are towards external things themselves, distinct
Action,
from the pleasure arising from them."
which should have
in
view no particular
object but only the general end of pleasure, would
be so indefinite and vague as to be unreal.
human being go
actual appetites of the actual at their specific ends.
pleasure's sake
mere
becomes pleasant
liking for
voluptuary,
or few
only with reflection and
It is
thought that the voluptuary in
The
straight
who pursues
pleasure for
any degree possible.
things
A
does not make a
would escape the name.
To
become a voluptuary, a human being must care for and desire nothing in these pleasant things but the pleasure which
Every concrete
they bring to reality fades
away
his
individual
self.
into nothingness in
his eyes except his own consciousness, and the honey which can be extracted by him from the vast world, for whose intrinsic existence and fortunes he has nointerest whatever.
1
Sermon XI.
To
such a person,
(On the Love
if
he can be
of our Neighbour.
EPICUREANISM.
J42 said
anywhere to
exist in full-fledged reality, the doc-
may
trine that pleasure is the sole object of desires
be applied. No such assertion does Epicurus, however, make. The end of nature, he says, is pleasure. Pleasure, and not pain, is the end towards which all things in the world tend as their natural and normal condition.
But what are pleasure and pain
No
look at them together. that there
is
a third or neutral
pleasure nor pain.
?
It is
doubt state,
There are
it
which
certainly
we should not
of consciousness, which
necessary to
may be is
said
neither
many
states
in ordinary
language describe as either pleasant or painful.
But
whether that gives a ground
for asserting that
states are absolutely without
such quality, are wholly
indifferent,
is
a question which seems
these
difficult to
may, however, be convenient to assume the existence of some such point answer in the affirmative. of transition and
It
indifference
as
a terminus from
which we ordinarily measure the degree of pleasure or of pain, or as an average level of character,
and
liable to
no very definable
divergence on two sides.
According to Plato, however, there are two categories of pleasures ordinarily so called. 1
pleasures which rest, to sion
;
some
they seem pleasant, that
with a background of pain.
nothing positive
:
There are upon an illu-
when
set in contrast
is,
In themselves they are
they are no
or the removal of uneasiness.
1
extent,
more than the absence They presuppose an
Plato, Republic, IX. 584.
THE CHIEF GOOD. antecedent pain
Of
this
:
143
they are the satisfaction of a want.
kind, for example,
is
pleasure derived
the
These pleasures and untrue. On the other hand, there as an instance, Plato gives the pleaare pleasures, which are preceded by no pain. sures of smell, They accompany certain exertions of activity or certain states of susceptibility they come unsought, and Such pleasures leave no sense of want behind them are positive and real. It may be doubted if this distinction rests on wholly satisfactory ground. The sense of want or desire which accompanies certain pleasures as their condition, is probably to be explained by their close connection with our nature and character, whether from eating by the hungry man.
are unreal
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
:
.
original or acquired.
The
pleasures of smell, to take
no previous desires in most cases, because they have little connection with our well-being and the pleasure they do produce may, perhaps, be due directly or indirectly to an association with life-giving and beneficial function. Perhaps, too, the facility with which certain pleasures may be represented by imagination in the objects which habitually cause them, has something to do with the feeling of uneasiness which Plato alludes to. At any rate, all pleasures seem to be, at least in the case of those who feel them most acutely, attended by the Plato's instance, excite
;
sense of want.
But, of course, there
is
a difference
of another origin which has a bearing upon the point.
The pleasures of the sensualist his own power than those of the
are
much
less within
intellectualist.
The
EPICUREANISM.
144 former
is
in a large
degree dependent on the favour
and thus inevitably he must occasionally be deprived of a favourite gratification, must suffer want and pain. The intellect carries of external
its
own
circumstances,
and
resources, at least, to a large extent,
dependent on external help.
less
is
But even in the
case of intellectual delights, the absence of intellectual exercise
would be
man would
put himself to pain and trouble to
cover his mental
ease
felt
as a pain
and
and freedom.
conditions under which pleasure
is
loss,
The
and a re-
various
experienced seem
to point in the direction of the relativity of pleasure
and
Whether
pain.
as the removal of an obstruction,
the conquest of a difficulty, the replenishment of a void, the satisfaction of an uneasiness, the re-establish-
ment of an soned
equilibrium, the enlargement of an impri-
force,
pleasure presupposes something of
its
opposite. It is in this
"
When
sense that Epicurus defines pleasure
been removed, the pleasure
v/
further
fears
in the flesh admits of
augmentation, but only of variation
similarly the
reached,
:
once the pain arising from deficiency has
limit of the pleasure of the
when
:
no
and
mind
is
the causes of our principal mental
have been removed/' 1
The
limit of pleasure,
according to the stock phrase, was the eradication of everything painful. 2 1
When
so
much
has been gained,
Diogenes Laertius, x. 144. 2 From papyrus IIC2, Âť/ izclvtqq tov d'KyovvTog vTrs^aiptaig. p. 10 (Oxford copies), it appears that the texts even then varied in this standard phrase. Some omitted Travrbg, and others read k%aipt<7ic.
THE CHIEF GOOD. no further increase
M5
amount of the pleasure
in the
Subsequently, of course, variety
possible.
is
may be
introduced by more costly appliances, but the net result will
be the same as that gained by simpler
methods.
And
reason
for that
a wise precau-
is
it
tion to find out experimentally the simplest
expensive
mode
and
least
of gratifying our wants, not with any
ascetic intention, but simply to prepare for a state of affairs
when
the
more
costly
means
is
not at our com-
be said that the variety and vicissitude of luxuries also satisfies what is to many a real want,
mand.
If
it
Epicurus replies by instituting a distinction between
Of
our wants.
the desires,
be natural and necessary
some
are
pronounced
to
others to be natural, but
;
not necessary; a third class includes desires which
due merely to
are neither natural nor necessary, but
fancy and fashion.
This division of desires and plea-
sures into the natural
older sources
Cynics. tion to
:
and
like
and the artificial comes from down, for example, by the
laid
is
But it is hedonism
Epicureanism. time,
it
in the application of the distinc-
that the important point lies for
Epicurus, like the Stoics in his
Rousseau and
own
adherents in the
century, tries to find in nature a help against
last
fashion and civilization.
away the artificial
ture,
1
his
vestments of
human
nothing to have cast if
Laertius,
x.
6
;
1.
L
we
still
He
Plutarch,
retain the
Avoid
culture.
was the advice of Epicurus. 1
Diogenes
XIII.
It is
rags of superstition,
is
Non
at
all cul-
war with
posse
suav. y
;
EPICUREANISM.
146 the
artificialities
right,
of
Nature had made
life.
but he had sought out
many
man
up-
An
inventions.
exclusive literary training was leading
men away from
the perception of the truth of
to
days
a
in
hollow
To
with
filled
religious
had
the doctrine that poetry and art
end, the
a useful
spend their
pomps, with
aesthetic vanities, with political anxieties.
life,
world of unreality,
Epicureans
opposed a denial
poetry might be justified on some grounds, but certainly not for
its utility. 1
man, said Epicurus relaxation, let
rough
in
him seek
common
If the hard-worked states-
in his it
jesting,
work on Kingdom, 2
desires
even
in the tales of war, or
but not in aesthetic discus-
on topics of music and poetry let him seek amusement in spectacles and pageants, in the drama and the concert, but not in critical or philolosions,
;
his
gical investigations of the principles of art.
Epicurus
impatient of the nebulous regions which only exist,
is
according to him, for highly sensitive and sentimental souls.
In
this
way Epicureanism seems
to approach to a
point of view at the ^opposite pole of opinion, viz. " Man needs but little here," Cynicism or Stoicism. is its assertion.
" Riches, according to nature, are
of limited extent, and can easily be procured
;
but
the wealth craved after by vain fancies knows neither end nor limit." " He who has understood the limits of
life,
knows how easy 1
2
to get
is all
Sextus Empir., Adv. Musicos, Plutarch,
Non posse
that takes
c.
suav., xin.
27. 1.
away
THE CHIEF GOOD. the pain of want,
our
and
all
that
is
required to
make
In this way he has
perfect at every point.
life
147
no need of anything which implies a contest." Thus Epicurus can scarcely be identified with the ordinary His hedonism is of a sober^ advocates of pleasure. and reflective kind. It rests on the assumption that 1
pleasure
is
the end or natural aim, but,
the business of philosophy limits that it
end
is
is
attainable.
adds, that
it
show within what Thus, if, ori one hand, to
declares against the philosophers that pleasure
the law of nature,
and
that ideal ends ought to
the welfare of humanity,
on the other
declares
it
is
promote
against the multitude that the ordinary pursuit of pleasure,
and the
erroneous. sure
To
endless
is
vistas of
new
common
ideas of
its
possibilities, are
the ordinary vision the search for plea-
one beckons
:
delights
ravished eyes.
All this
after
seem is
another
illimitable
:
to extend before
the
a delusion, says Epicurus.
True pleasure is satisfaction, and not a yearning, which, though momentarily stilled, bursts forth again. It
would almost seem a misnomer to
pleasure.
As
call
this
true politeness, so-called, often differs
widely with what
is
usually understood
by
politeness,
so true pleasure seems far apart from pleasure in
vulgar meaning.
A body
free
released from perturbations, life.
The prominent
is
from pain, and a mind the ideal of Epicurean
point, in short,
is
as
not the doc-
That Epicurus a universal law of animated existence.
trine that pleasure is the natural end.
asserts
its
1
Diogenes Laertius, x. 144, 146.
L 2
^
EPICUREANISM.
148
But what he emphasizes is rather the conditions this end is possible for man. He
under which seems, at
first
of pain.
we
state, as
the absence
would, however, be a grave mistake were
It
to suppose that because this condition
tively described,
The
tion.
an
nega-
is
was a mere abstraction or nega-
it
imperturbability of the Epicurean was not
ascetic or
and and as
pleasure, as Scho-
sight, to describe
penhauer, as a merely negative
an insensate withdrawal from
But
action.
it
all
life
certainly introduced a rational
reflective aspect into the doctrine of
hedonism,
had been practised or taught by Aristippus of
it
The Cyrenaic preached enjoyment of the moment he took pleasure as he found it
Cyrene. present
:
He
scattered all over the earth.
pleasure
the one
is
thing desirable,
of education should be to their heart, to give
did not balance
His theory was, that as
pleasure against pleasure.
them
fit
men
the
main aim
to enjoy with all
that strength of
mind and
body, which enables them to take pleasure in anything.
He
the absolute to attain
it.
Learn to enjoy at each moment good of life is before you, and you ought You need not wait for the lapse of
said,
:
how it has turned out upon the Comparison and reflection are the foe of You must be able to throw yourself wholly
time, so as to see
whole. pleasure.
into
what
this
moment
presents, as
were eternity with no before or
moment comes, you
treat
while you enjoy each in
remain detached from
its
it
its
after.
in like
When
another
manner.
Thus,
turn to the
control,
moment
if this
you are
full, still
you your
THE CHIEF GOOD.
own
M9
master, your action creates no obligation, you
are equally free to enjoy what
To
comes
next.
of this the reply of the Epicurean
all
such a doctrine,
if
practicable at
under exceptional circumstances.
all, is
To
is
that
only possible
carry
it
out im-
and reflection on life as a whole, on its capacities and its needs, on the laws of A nature, and the relations of men to one another. happy tact, a natural taste, may, in peculiarly gifted natures, and in favourable circumstances, enable a man to enjoy, without running upon the shoals and plies a previous training
quicksands which beset the course of the pleasureseeker.
But
in the vast majority of cases,
pleasure
proves a chase
allures only to
deceive.
limits of pleasure to
would be needed
a phantom,
after
away
fears
which
" the flesh takes the
For
be endless, and an endless time
to provide
it
;
but the mind, having
learned the limit and the end of the cast
where no
guide the decision, the search for
aesthetic instincts
flesh,
and having
about the distant future, has
made
and adequate, and we no longer need infinite time. And yet it has not been an exile from pleasure, and when the time comes to depart from life, it closes with no sense of having fallen for us life perfect
short of felicity." 1
In other words, if we really and moment, we can only do so by having taken, some time or other, a view beyond the moment, and having learned to see each moment in the truly enjoy the
light of the
whole 1
life,
of our nature as a whole.
Diogenes, x. 145.
We
EPICUREANISM.
must refer each action to the end and aim of nature, and not throw ourselves blindly into what promises pleasure.
"
No
pleasure
is evil
in
many times
but the objects pro-
itself,
may
ductive of certain pleasures
lead to annoyances
greater than the pleasure."
place of prudence or reflection
in
Hence
the
Epicurean
the
But
system, as the chief of the virtues.
be supposed that the function of
1
it
(ppovrjong
must not is
in Epi-
curus any more than in Aristotle, merely to weigh pleasure against pleasure, so as to choose the heavier.
Prudence, here as there, means the intelligent conception of
and
its
human
powers.
nature, It is
interfering with
as a whole, in
not a
its
limits
and casual agent,
fitful
the natural bent towards pleasure,
and exhorting it to hear reason, but a deep-settled and permanent character the second nature of the Epicurean sage which acts like an instinct to preIf reflection, serve from extravagance and excess. indeed, were employed to choose amongst pleasures with a conscious reasoning at every moment, such a But this is process would certainly be a kill-joy.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
only the case with the learner, correct his natural errors.
who is endeavouring to As he advances in the
path of perfection, the feeling of opposition between the habitual tendency fostered by evil influences and the rational law of nature grows fainter, the character of the ideal sage, gether.
Once
for
all,
1
the wise
it
man
Diogenes, x. 141.
till
at last, in
disappears alto-
has counted the
THE CHIEF GOOD. and
cost,
ments ireal
;
the
learmt
real worth,
of various enjoy-
he has learned to discriminate apparent from
and can turn away without a
pleasures,
sigh of regret
single
from many entertainments which the
world esteems highly. This,
then,
one
is
of contrast
point
between
and With the former it was the pleasure of the moment, of action and excitement life, as a whole, did not enter into the account— it was taken as a series of moments, and each moment deemed an With the latter it was the pleasure of a life, eternity. in which the pleasures of the several moments took their place in a system and modified each other. The pleasure of the Cyrenaics was a keen sensation pleasure,
as
by
understood
the
Cyrenaics
Epicureans.
:
—in motion, it
:
Kivriaig, as
that of the
the technical phrase described
Epicureans was more tranquil and
—an habitual
and permanent rather than a and temporary enjoyment. 1 With the Cyrenaic it was the pleasure of the healthy and
sedate
changeful
vigorous natural
man;
with
philosopher, and, perhaps,
weakly valetudinarian.
the Epicurean, of the
to
some
extent,
Epicureanism
of the
could thus
appeal to the many, whilst Cyrenaic theories could
only find an echo in specially-endowed personalities.
Few in any age can stand for a portrait like that drawn by Cicero, 2 of M. Thorius Balbus. "This man was a citizen of Lanuvium. He lived in such a way 1
2
Diogenes Laertius, x. 136. DeFin., 11. 20, 63.
Cicero,
EPICUREANISM.
152 as to miss
none of the
finest pleasures
for in
;
all
kinds of pleasure he was an amateur, connoisseur/
and
was he from superstition that he of the sacred places and and yet so fearless of religious rites of his country death that he fell on the battle-field fighting for his adept.
treated
So
free
with scorn
many
:
fatherland. fixed
He
limited his desires, not at the point
by Epicurus, but by
his
own
satiety
:
yet never
His exercise was arranged so as to make him come hungry and thirsty to dinner his food was at once calculated to please the palate and promote digestion, and his wine was selected of such quality as to give pleasure and produce no injury. As for the other enjoyments which Epicurus declares to be an essential part of the conception of happiness, he tasted them, too. He did not suffer from pain ; yet when it did come he bore it manfully, trusting perhaps more to a physician than a philosopher. He had a so as to injure his health.
;
splendid colour, sound health, great popularity
word, his
life
;
in a
was brimful of every variety of pleasure."
But people with all these advantages are on the whole and a gospel for their benefit is scarcely needed.
rare,
Epicureanism addressed itself to a frailer and humbler multitude, who neither in circumstances nor in
personal endowments were equal to making the
world comport
demands. It proposed by discipline, to gain all that the others acquired by wealth, position, and innate force. It preached that pleasure was not restricted to the itself to their
to enable them,
rich or to the mighty, but
the poor and the lowly.
was equally attainable by
It levelled
all
ranks
and
THE CHIEF GOOD.
153
it is the variety and and not its essence which imposed upon the powerful and their admirers. Epicurus thus took from Cynicism its representation of the difference between artificial and natural pleasures and desires ; but he employed the distinction for different purposes, and with other presuppositions. He did not, like them, allow the means to become an end. It is sometimes put as another difference between Epicurus and his Cyrenaic predecessors, that while
equalized men, by showing that
superficial
glitter
of pleasure
the latter put the bodily pleasures highest, the former
gave
preference
to
the
pleasures
of
mind.
the
may, of course, be said that as the mind, whether
It
animus or as anima
as
tinction
l ),
is,
(to
adopt a Lucretian
dis-
according to Epicurus, only a species of
body or matter, any distinction between the mental and bodily in such a system can be of little importance. This, however, would be to confuse the explanation of a difference with the difference
To
the Epicureans, as to everybody
else,
itself.
the
dis-
body and mind was an important was accounted for in terms of their But the ground on which the mental
tinction between
one, however
it
especial creed.
put higher than the corporeal in
is
enjoyment or misery siderations, but 1
The animus
or intellect
;
it is
or sentient soul,
its
capacity fo r
not based on abstruse con-
simply on the fact that while the
(Lucret. superior, is
is
III.
136 seq.) or mens
and seated
is
in the breast
:
dispersed throughout the body.
atomic and corporeal.
the reason
anima y Both are
the
EPICUREANISM.
154
simply felt in the moment, and for the moment, mind could be under the combined influence of The flesh, <rapÂŁ, as Epipast, present, and future. flesh
the
curus terms the blind, natural, and unconscious self in us, looks neither before
nor
after
â&#x20AC;˘
it
pines
nothing, and has no prospects of coming joy.
buried in telligent
sures
itself.
self,
and
its
The mind, on
the contrary, the in-
has a larger range, both in
Yet
pains.
it
for It is
its
plea-
might be urged that
this
mind can relieve its pain by the prospect of deliverance, and can damp a joy by the reflection on future or contemporaneous consideration
tells
both ways
:
the
pains.
Yet
it
would be a
foolish mistake to suppose that
when Epicurus thus advocates the primacy for mind, he is doing more than asserting that the pains and pleasures of the intelligent man have an intensity and :
\
vigour exceeding those of the mere boor.
He
has
no idea of pleasures which exclude the body from all share. On this point we have a sentence which his adversaries have quoted and misconstrued to their own delight. " I am unable," he says, " to form any conception of good, from which have been eliminated the pleasures of eating and drinking, the pleasures of sexual love, the pleasures of music and eloquence, and the pleasures of shape and pleasant movements." 1
Of
course this does not
lies in
these things.
from which they have
mean
But it does all
that pleasure merely assert that a pleasure
been excluded as unreal and
Athenaeus, vn. 279; Cicero, DeFin.,
11.
10, 29.
THE CHIEF GOOD. incompatible,
to
it is
an impossible and
to Epicurus
is
conception
ciful
155
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a mere dream of the
be looked
fan-
And
idealist.
at in that light, as a protest against
a school of ethics which regarded bodily pleasure as
something unworthy and degrading, and held that the
and
true is
real pleasure
here that Epicurus
was
of intellectual vision of truth.
human
view of
nature as a mere
But, as
we have
refuses to It
flesh.
their heaven a Such a one-sided
spirit
constantly and
what Epicureanism
seen,
it
or reason
rightly
equally on the other hand
and spirit. In the same way we have
human
nature
as flesh
this
double edge of Epi-
cureanism presented in the statement X)Ossible to live pleasantly
well,
and
and
and
justly,
and
well,
justly,
it
is
that,
"
It is
im-
without living wisely, and impossible to live wisely
without living pleasantly." 1
The
path of virtue and the path of pleasure coincide. " is
is
denies.
acknowledge the supremacy of the mere never flinches from the difficult task of em-
phasizing the complete constitution of
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
It
who made
the idealist philosophers, life
intellectual or mental.
directing his remarks against
is
my
belief,"
fellow-Stoics
of Epicurus
says
may is
Seneca,
" however
It
much my
disagree with me, that the teaching
holy and right
;
pleasure with
him
is
reduced to something small and slender, and the very law which we impose on virtue he lays down for pleasure
:
he bids
shall not say, like
it
obey nature.
many 1
And,
therefore, I
of the Stoics, that the sect of
Diogenes, x. 140.
EPICUREANISM.
156 Epicurus
a guide to vice
is
;
but
this I say,
it
has a
and that undeservedly. Its countenance gives room for such stories, and suggests wrong expectations. It is like a brave man dressed But Epicurus was denied the credit, as a woman." 1 and even the right, of making this identification between true virtue and true happiness. Words of his were quoted to the effect that " we should honour virtue and goodness and the like, if they produce pleasure, but not otherwise or that " he scorned virtue and its foolish admirers when it produced no pleasure." 2 To understand these statements and give them no exaggerated sense, it is well to recollect against whom they are directed. They are no ab-
bad name, an
ill-repute,
stract enunciations,
but polemical remarks directed
against exaggeration
on the opposite
exaggeration
is
And
side.
that
found in certain forms of Stoical and
Cynical doctrine, which
make
virtue an
end
in itself,
not merely irrespective of the amount of pleasure
may
it
bring to the individual on a special occasion,
its utility to mankind These enthusiastic friends of virtue have confounded its accidental divergence from pleasure,
but without any consideration of
at large.
in the
lower sense,
suality,
sense,
when
well-being.
minds us
pleasure
it
takes
its
means the
The whole vividly of
ascetic moralists
1
when
colour from sen-
with a divergence from pleasure in
its
higher
blissful feeling of
character of the dispute re-
Bentham's assaults upon the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;as those who " have gone so
Seneca, Dialog., vn. 12-13.
2
far as
Athen^eus, XII. 546.
1
THE CHIEF GOOD.
I
S7
make it a matter of merit and of duty to court Of course, Epicureanism is a great deal more
to
pain.";1
than utilitarianism.
It is
a theory of
human souls it is as much a
attempt to afford plexities of life Its
:
end
is
practice,
and nature
to explain the
Epicureanism
existence of moral distinctions.
theory.
life
and not a mere hypothesis
as a whole,
a guide
whom
life
is
an
per-
religion as a scientific
and not mere doctrine.
speaks for the benefit of the individual
It
being for
is
amid the
man
as a
pregnant with possibilities of
pain and pleasure, while utilitarianism
is
mainly en-
gaged with a speculative problem. Yet, in some ways the drift of Epicureanism would be
made
clear if
it
were described as an assertion of the " principle of
When Bentham
utility."
said to
says that "
A man may
be a partizan of the principle of
utility
be
/
when j
the approbation or disapprobation he annexes to any action or to any measure
is
portioned to the tendency which he conceives
it
to
have to augment or to diminish the happiness of the community," he at least expresses one side of Epicureanism.
expression aspects.
\
determined by and pro-
/
But he does not afford equally adequate to the personal, practical, and inward
The
ethics of the individual, according to
Epicurus are not merely and wholly determined by the interests of the community.
Man has
a right and
a law of his own, the right to enjoy existence, and the
duty to secure his
1
ch.
own
full
and
free
development.
"Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation," ii.
sec. 6.
^
EPICUREANISM.
158
The
rights of society over the individual, the subor-
dination of the individual to the laws and institutions of the State, are in this theory supplementary
and
derivative. It is
in
virtues that
remarks on justice and the
its
political
Epicureanism comes nearest to the stand" It was not because
point of English utilitarianism.
and dominion were intrinsically good men sought for fame and glory in society, but in
sovereignty that
order to fence themselves round from their fellow-
men."
1
Political life
is
a.
pis
alter,
or at any rate the
and institutions of political life have only a relative and subsidiary value. The school of political philosophy to which Epicurus Hobbes r Hume, and Rousseau in very different ways belong, insists upon an original compact between the indi-
current forms
vidual
members of
establishment.
It is
society
the
as
origin
of
its
probably possible at the present
day to acknowledge the amount of truth contained in doctrine without committing one's self to its
this
absurdities. exists
It is
upon the
no doubt
true that society as
face of the earth
is
largely
due
it
to the
operation of natural causes, with which purpose or deliberation has exceedingly sities
little
of procuring the means
to do.
The
neces-
of subsistence,
the
and the natural force of kindred in the human race, will always and inevitably form societies of differing character and But it is a long way from such animal and extent. exigencies of the sexual
passion,
Diogenes Laertius,
x. 140.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; THE CHIEF GOOD.
159
natural unions to the mature forms of family civic
way
life.
The
of domesticity and political
to explain the rise
The
associations.
influence of the family instinct,
unaided, seldom goes beyond a narrow circle if
and
operations of instinct only go a small
;
if
and,
the world had to depend on that alone, the race of
men would be broken up miniature societies.
into an endless number of But other agencies step in to
complete the work, and to tendencies of selfishness. the reverence for what to maintain
itself,
is,
resist the
On
disintegrating
one hand tradition
the might of the existent
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;prevents change, and keeps up old
Thus even children's children bow to the supremacy of the family chief. And on another hand
unities.
self-defence and the pressure of war check the separatist forces of individualism.
the necessities of
In what sense, then, it may be asked, are the family and the State due to a contract ? Their comparative indissolubility seems to put a great separation between them and other contracts. They are not, as Kant in one instance supposed, 1 mere partial contracts for a special purpose
and tendency to
and a
special function.
are to claim the whole
demand an undivided and
It is
Their
human
will
being,
a perpetual allegiance.
against such a sweeping universal claim that
the theory of contract has a certain relative justification.
It is
thereby declared that the rights of the
individual, though for the time they
abeyance, are not wholly annihilated.
1
" Rechtslehre,"
§ 24.
may be put in The rights of
i6o
EPICUREANISM.
the individual are in a sense paramount over those of the community.
Such, at
the assertion of
least, is
Epicureanism, and such seems to be the direction in which, even in
many modern communistic schemes, is moving. The old Greek
the thought of the world
omnipotent State and
of an
theory
the
Catholic
dogma of indissoluble wedlock are set aside. In their stead modern legislation tends more and more to emancipate the members of the family from the bonds of status
more
to
modern
and
;
more and
tend
politics
found Government on a constitutional com-
pact between the rulers and the subjects. in
many
other places Epicurus
Here
as
practical, realistic,
is
and modern. Undoubtedly, neither side of the relationship can be ignored.
To
vidual bars the
forward
in
sacrifice
way
the interests of the indi-
To
to reform.
a one-sided
way
is
put these interests
banish the very
to
and permanence. And, unquesEpicurus was in harmony with the general
possibility of order
tionably, feeling is
and opinion of
his time.
the only real unit of social ideal
are so far
combined upon with
effort
and
fictitious,
of individual
Man life
the individual,
all
other unities
and are due
They
wills.
certain presuppositions
when
:
;
to the
are entered
should they con-
are no longer At any rate, when the State and the family cease to be mere natural unions, due solely to the instincts of sex and of self-defence, steadied and perpetuated by the influence of imitation and authority, there must be some sort of understanding or compact, tinue,
fulfilled ?
these
presuppositions
THE CHIEF GOOD.
an arbitrary
is
law or
accepted by the members of a com-
right,
munity as binding upon them a compact
common
of a
or formal, in the shape
tacit
customary
iGl
Not
all.
that such
depending entirely on
act,
the will either of the majority or of a natural aristo-
The customary
cracy.
law
is
an attempt
give
to
expression to the principles which are required in
make human
order to
society possible
the expositors will allow,
which must be maintained
and
if
a society
members reap
several
its
its
constitution.
law
;
;
to state, so
on the part of the conditions and relations
bias or prejudice
far as individual
Such
full
is
in
actual
its
to flourish
advantage of
the profession
is
unfortunately, law,
the
made by
shape, repre-
seldom the relations of the community
sents
garded as
re-
an organic whole, but more frequently
upon a community from the by the privileged position or caste of men in the body
the relations imposed
point of view
of
some one
afforded class
politic.
The
point especially emphasized by Epicurus
is,
was made for man, and not man for law. Law has no intrinsic or abstract claim on the obedience
that law
of
men
except in so far as
precepts and
its
sanc-
tions have the welfare of humanity for their aim.
It is
not, in short,
and
it
has been legislatively declared
enacted that a law has obligatory force,
because with
because
its
it is
right
Hume, who
origin
and expedient.
Epicurus
says that, " Public utility
is
is
at
but
one
the sole
of justice, and reflections on the beneficial
consequences of
this virtue are the sole
M
foundation of
v
"
EPICUREANISM.
162
" Natural justice," says the former, 2 "
merit. 1 "
its
:
a contract of expediency, so as to prevent one
doing harm to another.
is
man
Those animals which were
incapable of forming an agreement to the end that
they neither might injure nor be injured are without either justice or injustice.
which
Similarly, those tribes
could not or would not form a covenant to the same
end are
There
in a like predicament.
is
no such
thing as an intrinsic or abstract justice.
So
there
far
different
on the
the
when we hear
a bad thing
:
much practical objecThe case seems
not, perhaps,
is
tion to be taken to
theory.
that, " Injustice is
itself
part of the wrong-doer that he will not always 3
escape punishment."
This
Epicurus, inasmuch as
it
deterrent from
sufficient
mean
that
conscience,
legal enactments,
to
is
a
we
example of some of
it
escaped detection,
probably be misconstruing Epicurus.
he seems to allude
is
If
actions.
any wrong-doing would be
innocent and good, supposing shall
evil
criminal
interpret this doctrine, after the
the ancients, to
according to
anxiety,
never can be annihilated,
but always lingers on in an
we
not in
but only in the fear arising from anxiety
What
rather the case of strictly
where previously to law the action particularly moral or immoral
need not have been where, in
fact,
a rule which
common agreement has established not completely in harmony with " the
the
is
justice of nature." 1
2 3
In short, Epicurus
is
Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Diogenes Laertius, x. 150. Ibid., x. 151
;
Plutarch,
Non posse
sztav.,
protesting
III.
I.
xxv. 33.
THE CHIEF GOOD.
163
against the conception of injustice which
makes
it
and social rules, imposed and enforced by public and authoritative consist in disobedience to political
He
sanctions.
protesting, in other words, against
is
the claim of the State upon the citizens for their
complete obedience
against
;
the
old ideas of the
and majesty of law as law ; against theories like that maintained by contemporaries of Socrates, that there could be no such thing as an divine sanctity
unjust law. 1
The Epicurean
accepts the existence of an orderly
society as a condition of a satisfactory
but he
life,
does not admit that it has a right to demand his " When safety on the side of man has been services. tolerably secured,
it is
by quiet and by withdrawing
from the multitude that the most complete tranquillity Is to
A
"
be found."
political life unless
"The
occur."
free
man
wise
man ought not or
list
not enter upon
man," says Metrodorus,
laugh his free laugh over those
reckoned in the
will
something extraordinary should
who
with Lycurgus and Solon."
make it his aim to save his to win a crown from them for his abilities.
life,
which
who had
to
been impossible
in all ages has
not wealth, and
who were
"will
are fain to 2
be
A
country, Political for those
unwilling to
mix
themselves with vile and impure associates, was not to the this,
mind of Epicurus.
there are
many
If he be
Xenophon, Mcmorab.,
1
Cf. Plato, Crito.
2
Plutarch, Adv. CoIot.> xxxiii. 8.
;
condemned
for
nobler and deeper natures in the
M
2
IV. 4.
, '
EPICUREANISM.
164
who must be condemned on the same account. But it is hard to see why he should be charged with that as a fault which is the common practice of mankind, and which in a period of records of humanity
despotism, of absolute monarchy,
And, above
obvious wisdom.
become a
of a philosopher to
spend
his life
the course of
is
all,
it is
not the duty
political partisan,
and
the atmosphere of avaricious and
in
malignant passions.
For all
politics,
ness of
wisdom procures by
as a whole,
life
acquisition of friendship."
1
the greatest
far
of the friendship of the Epicureans
But here,
and non-mystical utility
Epicurus
too,
:
is
latest
compensation,
The same
2
:
times of
based upon
is
only some one must begin
we must sow
the ground in hopes of a future harvest. it
Or, as
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "The giver should not expect
and should, nevertheless, obtain
realistic
the
true to his realistic
the career of service-rendering, just as
Professor Bain puts
is
a characteristic
:
Friendship
creed.
mutually enjoyed
Of
for the happi-
We have already spoken
which did not disappear down to the the sect.
"
Epicurus substituted friendship.
the things which
tone
is
it."
apparent in Epicurus's views
on sexual love where he rejects altogether what in modern times has received the somewhat misleading :
conventional
name
of Platonic love. 3
remarks, and as Cicero approves,
is
Love, as he
in the strict sense
of the term, not accidentally, but essentially different 1
2 3
Diogenes Laertius, x. 148. The Emotions and the Will, Tuscul. Disp., iv. 70.
p. 299.
THE CHIEF GOOD.
1
The former is The latter is a rational and one human being to another.
from affection or friendship. or instinct. relation of
65
a passion reflective It
is
in
formed and imposing no inalienable no binding impersonal law, that man,
friendship, freely obligation,
according to Epicurus, finds his true home.
The
only duties which he recognises are those voluntarily
accepted on reasonable grounds, and not from natural instincts or
through the compulsion of circumstances.
The
family and the State impose permanent checks
and
obligations which to
him seemed
to diminish the
independence of man, and to make him a slave of Thus, the principle of community, more stable forms, is accepted in its and most flexible shape, where it is maintained by participation in pleasures in common. To
external powers. rejected in laxest
solely
leave
it
to
its
such attraction alone seems to expose the
communion it
of
man and man
too
much
to
chance
:
seems to provide too weak a safeguard against the
inconstancy and inequality so characteristic of most
human
feelings.
Yet, on the other hand, to maintain
an association when
it is
only a form or bond, and
not the genuine birth of a free
dangerous and immoral.
And
spirit,
seems to be
perhaps Epicurus
is
right in holding that the best security of
permanence in attachment is given not by imposing a yoke on unwilling or at least varying tempers, but by so unifying all the nature of man that his choices and appetencies will not change from day to day, but maintain a uniform tenor circumstance.
through
all
varieties
of
EPICUREANISM.
i66
In the ethics of the post-Aristotelian schools the man plays a prominent part. In his full
sage or wise
perfection he
the property of the Stoics, and re-
is
presents their ideal of what the perfect
The
be.
man
ought to
Epicureans, however, seem to have
fol-
lowed their example and drawn up an ideal picture, in which the main features exhibit an intentional contrast to the
demands of the opposite
sect.
The
wise man, they said, cannot arise in any race what-
and must possess a well-ordered constitution, is not enough without certain natural endowments. Once he has attained that rank, he But never loses it once wise, he is wise for ever. there are various degrees of wisdom, and not one hard-and-fast line of distinction between wise and ever,
for
virtue
:
unwise.
The
will
pain,
feel
though pain
is
and he
:
he But not deprive him of
not inaccessible to feelings
him, will
it
will
moan when
When
stance.
in his eyes of like
magnitude
He
vice, as in virtue.
will
in the public eye,
:
up a
pupils
:
it
in public,
school, will
he
will
will
All sins are not
there are degrees in
not be over-anxious to
even in his own special
department as a philosophic teacher. set
and circum-
dependents misbehave, he
his
chastise, yet not as if without pity.
figure
put to torture,
retain his superiority to fate
still
:
cherish compassion.
will
affects
his happiness
but
sage
Though he
not care to draw crowds of
only be by constraint that he will read
and he
will rather leave
what he has to
teach, in his writings, than try to proclaim
of general resort.
He will
it
in places
not be indifferent to secure
— THE CHIEF GOOD.
167
keep commerce, except when in poverty he may be able to earn something by his teaching. The for himself a capital for his subsistence, but will
aloof from
wise
man
love
is
will
never
fall
in love with
He
not heaven-sent.
women,
for
will neither take
such
a wife
nor become the father of a family, except in very special circumstances
;
nor
will
he take part in the
business of the State, nor seek for fame, except to
avoid contempt.
But we need not complete the list of what the sage not do a list which is full of confusion as it stands, and largely unintelligible. Its last words are " He will dogmatize, and not merely raise difficulties. He will be like himself in sleep, and a time may come when he will die for a friend." This incongruous assortment is a specimen of the system and manner with which Diogenes Laertius' tells his
—
will or will
:
—
tale. 1
We may
conclude the remarks on the Ethics of
Epicurus by quoting a few of his sayings, mainly taken from Seneca " If you live by nature, you will never be poor :
by opinion, you
will
never be
:
if
rich.
" Cheerful poverty is an honourable thing. M Great wealth is but poverty when matched with the law of nature. " I said this not to
we
many
persons, but only to you
are a large-enough theatre, "
You must be a bondman
one
to philosophy,
wish to gain true freedom. 1
:
for the other.
Diogenes Laertius, x. 117-121.
if
you
368
EPICUREANISM.
" If any one thinks his
he
may become
be wretched. "We ought
him live
"
own not
to
be most ample,
lord of the whole world,
and
will yet
some good man and keep we may, as it were, under his eye, and do everything in his sight. It is an evil to live in necessity, but there is no to
select
ever before our eyes, so that
'necessity to live in necessity.
" it is
Among
the other
"
He
"
A
which attend
ills
always beginning to
enjoys wealth most
foolish life
is
folly is this
who needs
restless
it
least.
and disagreeable
wholly engrossed with the future. " With many the acquisition of riches
end
:
live.
is
:
it
is
not an
to their miseries, but only a change.
"We
ought to look round
drink with, before drink
we look
for
for
to feed without a friend
:
people to eat and
something to eat and the
is
life
of a lion
and a wolf. "Trust me, your words will sound grander in a common bed and a rough coverlet they will not be :
merely spoken then, they "
Some
entered
people leave
will life
be proved as
if
true.
they had just
it.
troublesome to be always commencing
"It
is
" It
is
life.
absurd to run to death from weariness of
when your style of life has forced you to run to What so absurd as to court death, when you have made your life restless through fear of life,
death.
death "
?
Do
everything as
if
Epicurus had his eye upon
THE CHIEF GOOD. when
Retire into yourself chiefly at that time
you.
you are compelled
be in a crowd.
to
" Learn betimes to die, or
pass over to the gods. " The knowledge of sin
if it like
thee better, to
the beginning of
is
sal-
vation.
" I never wished to please the people
know, the people does not approve people approves, that
We
"
and
who
art
;
1
II,
22, 2
3
is
He who
Seneca,
14
is
the ruin of
life
for
hurried and unpre-
make
is
least in
happy, add not unto
Ep.
16, 7
10; 13, 16; 23, 9 ; 24, 22
2, 5
;
14, ;
Stobaeus, Florilegiiim
Plutarch,
Be
need of the morrow
will
meet
pleasantly." 3
12, ;
man
a
but take away from his desires. 2
morrow most
8;
But
at death.
his riches,
"
born,
:
Procrastination
" If thou wilt
the
not. 1
and, therefore, each of us
pared
:
not master of the morrow, puttest off
the right time. all
for what I and what the
twice we cannot be we must be non-existent.
are born once
for everlasting
thou,
know
I
;
25, :
;
17; 5
Dc
4,
15,
10
;
10;
7,
II
17, II
25, 6 ; 26, 8 ; Parsimon., 28;
Tranquil. Anim., 16.
9,
20
8,
7
;
19,
10; 20, 9;
;
28, 9
;
De
;
;
;
29, 10.
Contiut., 24.
; ;
EPICUREANISM.
CHAPTER
VIII.
THE ATOMIC THEORY. The
theory on which Epicurus based his explanation
of the world was a revival of an earlier philosophy.
As
the
Stoics
Heraclitus,
for
their
theory partly reverted to
so Epicurus to Democritus of Abdera.
They both passed over
Aristotle
and Plato
fresh inspiration in the vigorous thinkers
to seek
who
lived
anterior to, or outside of, the influence of Socrates.
Democritus was, indeed, a contemporary of Socrates, but his work and character placed him quite on a different level
from the Athenian philosopher.
Like
most of the earlier philosophers, his primary interest was the physical universe. He was a traveller and a man of science, who stood aloof from political life while Socrates was as true to Athens as Dr. Johnson was to Fleet Street, and cared for no science which had not some bearing on human life. The main achievement with which the name of Democritus is connected is the atomic theory. The theory and
its consequences were afterwards introduced in a popular form into Athens by Protagoras and the somewhat sceptical applications of it by which that professor made himself notorious were
hardly likely to secure favour to the parent doctrine.
THE ATOMIC THEORY. There
is
apparently no reference to
The
writings of Plato.
however, are
full
it
171 in the authentic
physical writings of Aristotle,
of criticism and
comment on
the
Democritean theory, to which the Stagyrite is in the main antagonistic. The two thinkers belong to radi-
The Athenian
cally different schools. dealt,
as
it
is
and
The former
tried
thoughts; the Abderite with things.
mind ;
to analyze the laws of origin
and
idealist school
often scoffmgly said, with words
the latter to explain the
constitution of the physical
world of external
realities.
Even when
deal with physics, he reduces reality to
conception, and not to
The if
its
world, the
Aristotle does its
logical
mechanical constituents.
scientific principles of Aristotle
were in
spirit,
not in form, in contrast with those of modern
science.
In him the physical view of causality was
subordinated to the logical conception of reason and
The
consequence.
cause,
according to Aristotle,
was the reason why, not the antecedent.
His doc-
predominant in the world, started with a rough popular distinc-
trine of the four elements, long scientific
tion as the basis of a physical system.
In his theory
of motion he failed to separate the cause of motion is moved and he believed that moved must be in mediate or immediate
from the body which the body
contact
with
the
;
body moving.
He
introduced
aesthetic considerations into his physical speculations,
and
inferred that as circular
fect
and simple,
the universe.
He
motion is the most permust be the original movement of In one word, Aristotle was a teleologist. it
held to a unity or plan in nature which deter-
,
EPICUREANISM.
172
mines the relations of the parts of the universe one Thought, that
to another.
a thinker, a reason,
is,
a productive mind, was the fundamental and primary Intelligence
fact.
world
due
;
to
or
the
in
was only
an act of abstraction, which, while
it
guishes, never absolutely
According rialist
presided
unification
isolation or individualization of parts
and
to the opposite or
mechanical and mate-
theory of the universe, thought
phenomenon of
the
distin-
entirely separates.
human
a subjective
is
and
brain,
has no
universal connection or significance in the universe
of things.
As of only human
interest,
ignored in an attempt to understand to
be what they
are.
The
it
how
ought to be things
came
idea of a plan, or design of
must be treated as a piece of and abandoned. Such is the tendency of the philosophy of Democritus ; with an antecedent
idea,
anthropomorphism,
whom
there
came
to the front for the
ception which, after
comes
much
rejection
first
time a con-
and long
neglect,
The
to the front again at the present day.
earlier philosophers,
Thales (600
B.C.),
and
his succes-
had attempted to explain the variety which at is found on the earth by supposing it to be the last in the series of metamorphoses of some one
sors,
present
primitive body.
Their idea of
was concrete and sensuous. conception of matter as animate, but believed
it
to
or personality which they
even when they got rid of
matter
this original
They had
at
first
something inert and
be endued with the felt
in
themselves
this vitality or
;
no in-
spirit
and
animism, they
supposed that the primeval matter had qualitative
THE ATOMIC THEORY. differences inherent earth, or water
tigation
;
and
and the
I
inseparable. result of this
It
was
air,
73 or
form of inves-
was to assume the existence of these various
modes of matter from the very first, and to argue that they underwent new phases in the course of time. They were in the line which would have tended in the course of long and tedious investigations towards
but it need would have elapsed ere the balance and the blow-
a doctrine of the chemical elements
;
scarcely be said that ages
experiments and analysis, pipe, could
The
have led to such a
result.
current of philosophic thought flowed too ra-
pidly to allow such experimental delays. leapt forth to anticipate research.
Speculation
The atomic
school
of Leucippus and Democritus (430 b.c.) advanced a step in the solution of the question, by suggesting a
new conception of matter all
or body, which threw off
the old attributes as secondary or occasional, and
went down to primal attributes constituting the nature of
body
attributes,
as such.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; called
and believed
(by
The
distinction
Locke and
between the
others)
to constitute the abstract
primary,
and
eternal
and the other attributes, called secondary, and considered to flow from the relations between the primary qualities of body, on the one hand, and the human organism, on the other, is apparently due to Democritus. Body in itself, as it exists abstracted from any sentient and percipient beings, has only what may be called mathematical essence of
matter,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
qualities.
Apart from
Body it,
is
what
fills
space:
or wherever there
is
is
the "full."
no such
fulness,
EPICUREANISM.
174 there filled
is
emptiness.
The
full
and the empty
space
:
with something, and empty of something
are the two principles.
"something"
is
which
fills
But
we ask what
if
space,
:
it
such that
not easy for us
is
to guess what answer the Democriteans would have been able to give to this question, which never seems to have occurred to them. Mere extension is hardly enough to distinguish matter from the void, although
the school of Descartes in
more modern times did
put forward extension as the fundamental and distinguishing attribute of corporeal substance, and accordingly denied
made
all
vacuum.
But the ancient atomists
the existence of a void, of absolute emptiness,
as essential a part of their system as the existence of
the " full,"â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the atoms.
The
three qualities which are usually said to dis-
atom from atom are shape, order, and posithese should, perhaps, be added differences The last-mentioned, indeed, is a in size and weight. There are passages from which it disputable point.
tinguish tion. 1
To
seems that Democritus regarded weight as not an attribute of the atoms, but only of the aggregations which they compose. 2 But probably these statements
They may mean
are to be taken in a different sense. that the
atom
in all cases,
however
it
may vary
in size
(and such variations are incalculably great), never reaches a size which can be seen by the bodily eye, and, therefore, inasmuch as the weight varies directly
with the size in the case of atoms, the atom 1
2
Aristotle, Metaph.,
I.
4.
Plutarch, Plac. Phil,
1.
3, 29.
is
never
THE ATOMIC THEORY. ponderable except when
it
'75
combines with other atoms
to form a body.
The atom,
then,
is
invisible
never directly comes
it
;
within the range of our perception.
of
shape, and
size,
region
commanded by
it
up
It
is
:
the senses.
Its differences
emerge into the The atom is an
not a mathematical point.
intellectual,
nitude
position never
it is
not mere position.
really into smaller portions
an utmost
has mag-
(hence
its
name).
of disintegration, a sort of
limit
absolute diamond, so hard that to find any cleavage in
It
But we cannot break
impossible ever
is
it
Solidity, impenetrability,
it.
invincible resistance to any pressure, impact, or inci-
seem
sion,
to
be the essential and primary character
The atom
of the atom.
is
either to
atoms,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
that
being
All that can ever
indestructible.
indivisible,
happen
is
to the
also
atom
be brought into conjunction with other is,
to a proximity so close that appa-
two atoms are united, or to be repelled from some combination in which it was previously rently the
But the atoms are in themselves imperish-
found.
able
;
they have always been and always will be.
aggregation of atoms pieces
;
after
another will
One
fall
into
fabric after fabric in the visible world,
from
the vegetables and animals around us, up to the terrestrial
mass
itself,
and the sun and
stars,
and
inward and unseen structures like the soul and mind of
man
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
these will be dissolved
which enter into
their
composition
changed, ever new and
fresh,
;
but the atoms
will
remain un-
ready to form other
structures in the ages yet to come.
EPICUREANISM.
176
Such was
in
its
larger outlines the theory of the
universe which Epicurus adopted from Democritus,.
and developed
for his
own
An
ends.
endless ex-
panse and immeasurable depth of space, an abyss in
which there are no bounds, no bottom, no end the vast
in
finitely
numerous host of
solid,
and
imperishable mole-
small singly to meet the edge of
cules, too
;
reaches of this waste of space, an in-
human
and by means of that motion entering upon combinations more or less lasting, but such is the universe in no instance everlasting, which presented itself to the intelligence of an vision, ever in motion,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Epicurean.
There are one or two points on which Epicurus to have differed from Democritus. One
said
is is
movement of Democritus assumed that when once
apparently to be found in the primal the atoms.
these atoms were put in motion, they would form vortices it
and
revolve.
He
arrived at this conclusion,
seems, by the consideration that the heavier atom
would overtake the higher, and then, perhaps, was decided by dynamical considerations to assume the rise
as
of circular movements.
we have
the
facts
of
fall
at
any
rate Epicurus,
keep more exactly to
common
circular motion,
by the
But
seen, professed to
experience by rejecting all and generalizing the data afforded
of unsupported
auxiliary principle,
bodies
;
whilst
as an
he had recourse to that spon-
taneous swerving which he believed to be a fact of
common In
experience in the case of our
another
point,
Epicurus,
as
own
selves.
represented
by
THE ATOMIC THEORY. Lucretius,
The atoms
177
Democritus.
seems to go further than
or molecules, though not susceptible of
physical separation or discerption, are
still
composed
of parts which can at least be distinguished from
each other. it differs
The atom
in the
is
logically divisible
shape of each example,
of not less than three parts
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
parts,
it
;
for as
must consist
however, which
are only mathematically distinguishable by their ferent
position
constitute. 1
or
order in
the
total
dif-
which they
Between such ideal constituents of the
no intervening void. They are comone another, and no force can ever succeed in wrenching them apart. And thus,
atom there
is
pletely in contact with
for all the purposes of mechanical cosmogony, the complex molecules, formed by the union of these simple parts, may be treated as themselves simple and elementary.
The
scientific principles or
axioms of Democritus
were also adopted by Epicurus. 3 nihilo nihil fit (out
The maxim ex
of nothing nothing can come)
Creation and annihilation are and for the same reasons impossible. All alteration and change is only combination or severance of parts. There must be as much in the cause as in the effect, the antecedents must contain all that is found in the consequent. On this principle, be it stands
foremost.
equally
observed, the material cause eternity 1
2
and
Lucretius,
is
all-important.
indestructibility of matter II.
is
The
the point
485.
Cf. Lange's History of Materialism, vol.
tion).
N
I,
(English transla-
EPICUREANISM.
i 78
solely emphasized.
For
tively slighted.
The formal cause we look at the
if
compara-
is
matter from
another point of view, and consider not the con-
but the order or plan into which they enter,
stituents,
we may
moment and
rather say that at every
with
every change,
we have an
instance of creation
annihilation.
Every step
in organization, every stage
of growth, shows something
new brought
into exist-
The
ence where previously there was nothing. the
in
rose,
instance,
for
and of
nothing in the chemical elements out of which
ideal side
into nothing.
It is
on
its
aspects only that the dictum of the atomists
The dictum
fully applicable.
expresses an abstraction of truth. its
is
continual emergence from nothing,
is
and disappearance
and
to>
it
The world on
elaborated in the workshop of nature. its
life
can be traced back
material
Its
fairly
is
words
in other
value
in
lies
accentuation of the principle of causality as the
foundation of
all
scientific truth.
Its
limitation lies
in the neglect of the law, that in every effect there is
a something which was not in the cause
thing
the
in
premises
â&#x20AC;˘
conclusion which was
otherwise
not
some-
;
in
the
progress, change, growth
are
impossible.
A is
second principle, not very
and
necessity.
absolute
;
causation
all is
That
to
all
by reason
to say, the reign of law
is
is
interference with the regular chain of
A
excluded.
specially confined to the is
different in meaning,,
by chance, but
that nothing occurs
be possible, so
it
third
principle
Atomic school.
is
is
more
If motion-
declared, there must be
a
;
THE ATOMIC THEORY.
179
void if the universe were literally full, there would be a complete block, and all would be stationary. Change, in short, means locomotion or displacement And, fourthly, everything of the particles of matter. ;
existent else
human
exist is but fancy or opinion,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the
or subjective aspect of things as contradistin-
guished from their truth or reality sions
Everything
nothing but atoms in space.
is
supposed to
due
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to the peculiar perspective
and conscious beings
as percipient
superficial illu-
under which we are
accustomed
to look at the world.
The atomic of
it.
It
theory has had
many hard
things said
has been styled a conception which destroys
and grandeur of the universe, which submere chances for a cosmical plan, and mechanism for organic life ; and, in the face of Lord Bacon's protest, 1 that that school which is most accused of atheism doth most demonstrate religion, atomism has been assumed to find its inevitable issue in atheism. These charges, though far from groundless, are largely due to a misunderstanding they express what is largely a grievance of the sentiments and the higher emotions, and underestimate
the beauty stitutes
the necessities of scientific explanation. in
its
All science
abstract processes of investigation
up a position religious
at
must take
times antagonistic to the poetic and
tendencies
our nature.
of
The
analyst
must break up the unity into its ingredients, split the whole into its fractions. The first condition of 1
Essays, xvi. "
N
OF Atheism."
2
;
EPICUREANISM.
l8o
the possibility of perfect knowledge
time content
accept imperfect
to
Before
acquaintance in special spheres. science,
we must
to be for the and piecemeal
is
we can have
allow the several sciences to enclose
themselves in the limited range of their
The whole must be
ments.
for the
own
the general meaning or drift of existence ignored.
In other words, the sciences they are without God,
of ideals;
depart-
time put aside
must be
know nothing
He
because
neither a part nor to be found in any part, but
and
in
The man
all.
of science, as
He
the place of God.
it
is
is
all
were, steps into
takes the shapeless matter of
the world, and by the might of his intelligence creates various forms,
its
Atomism
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at
least, in
words.
beyond the range of direct observation a condition of things which is suggested by carries
many phenomena
within that range.
apparent continuity of the
the
holds that
It
piece
smallest
of
matter visible to the naked eye, or to the eye armed with optical instruments, continuity
is
is
not
real.
a real discreteness
uninterrupted total
is
;
The apparent
what seemed one
declared to be an aggregation
of minute particles, no two of which are absolutely in
phenomena point
Numerous
contact.
direction.
Every child
is
familiar with
in
this
the illusion
by which the blazing torch swung rapidly round produces a continuous ring of
between the level
plain
fire.
The
particles of the apple.
to
knife penetrates
What
appears a
the naked eye becomes under
microscope a succession of
hills
and
valleys.
scope sometimes resolves the nebula into a
the
The telenumber of
THE ATOMIC THEORY.
l8l
The phenomena of light and heat, as some chemical transformations, tend to suggest Atomic hypothesis as the simplest assumption for
single stars. j
well as
I
the
j
|
their explanation. 1
j
is
in
of our intellect which finds
istic
I
(
The
number.
its
clearest expression
atomist regards every existing
realj
substance as a sum, collective or aggregate of a
cer-j
in
I
In one word, the atomic theory
complete accordance with the same character-
number
tain
in this
way
The differences in the quantity, &c, of these aggregates are reduced mere quantitative differences in the
of units.
value, purpose,
to
number, arrangement, or combination of these units The contrast between a in a given extent of space.
|
and a fluid, or a gas, would be explained in this manner to be a merely gradual distinction. There are, however, two points to be noticed when we compare the atomic theory of Epicurus with that of modern times. In the first place, the ancient atomism was mainly a hypothesis, invented to afford a simple explanation of phenomena. It rested, so far as we know, on slight experimental basis. Modern atomism, on the contrary, is supported by a large amount of experimental evidence it is a conelusion forced upon us by exact weighing and solid
'
i
j
,
;
I
;
I
measurement.
i
But a second difference
When we
striking.
ask
for
the
is
even more
character
of
the
j
primeval units, the ancient and modern theories part
i
:
company.
1
Fechner, Ucber die Physikalische
lehre \
Epicurus gives us a picturesque scene in
;
cf.
Lotze, Metaphysik, p. 364.
tmd Philosophischc Atomen-
182 his
EPICUREANISM. atomic hosts.
Applying
mental telescope, we
his
see accumulations of small bodies, of every variety
of shape, catching hold of each other's hooks and
from
corners, or rebounding
rounded
their
sides.
Geometrical solids touching each other in their course
and forming geometrical aggregations,
this
kind of atomism in vogue with Epicurus.
is
the
Newton,
somewhat similar seemed probable to him the beginning formed matter in solid,
in the close of his. Optics, suggests a
conception of the world. that "
God
in
It
massy, hard, impenetrable particles, sizes
and
figures,
and
...
of several
several proportions to space,
and perhaps of different densities and forces." 1 But in Newton's idea, we see a new property of the atoms emphasized, that of geometrical aspects
The atom
force. ;
it
has not merely
treated as dynamical also.
is
In the modern theories of molecules and vortex-rings
we have an advance elements.
No
equipment of the ultimate
in the
longer do they, almost devoid of pro-
complex variety of
perties themselves, generate the
properties in the actual world. is
a highly-organised body
;
it
the powers of spontaneity and
The modern molecule possesses in miniature
movement which
operative in the larger macrocosm, vibrating,
form.
No
is
it
with an endless capacity of changing longer a hard, dead thing,
almost described as instinct with subjected to measurement.
life.
It
are
perpetually
is,
its
may be
it
moreover,
\
Instead of mere generalij
ties
about the infinitesimal
1
Monro's Lucretius.
size of
atoms,
Notes on Book
I.
we
find the
550.
THE ATOMIC THEORY. speculative physicist examining the thickness of a soap-
bubble, with a view to determine the mass of a gaseous
molecule, telling us, approximately, that two million
molecules of hydrogen in a row would extend for a millimetre (less than
^ of an
inch),
and even
the rate at which such a particle vibrates. tions like these
Epicurus curiosity.
would not have been
they would
:
And
have
to the
savoured
even apart from
this, it
that whatever be their justification
and
fixing
Considera-
mind of
of
useless
may be
said
their use for
mechanical and chemical science, or even, as in the cellular hypothesis, for physiology, they
do
not, for
philosophical importance, rank on a level with the
somewhat crude doctrines of Democritus. As sugmore organic view of the constitution of
gesting a
nature than the old atomists held, they deserve
all
But the praise bestowed upon the old
recognition.
doctrine for the simplicity of
its
elements cannot be
assigned to them.
The
real
advance of modern atomism, as seen in
the speculations of
Kant
substitution of forces
or of Boscovich,
for
hard
points.
is
in the
Matter
is
I
looked upon as constituted by centres of forces, in a
I
complex set of relations, dependent one upon another, and yet resisting each other's influence. The appearance of extension and solidity is pronounced to rest upon the reciprocal attractions and repulsions of these active centres.
But, after
all,
when
forces have
been
substituted for extended atoms, the ultimate difficulty still
remains.
Why
are these forces so located,
these atoms so arranged in the world ?
And
and
the only
EPICUREANISM.
184
possible answer to this question, other than a re-asser-
such
tion that
is
the
given
and
diverse seats of force,
an
to refer to
fact, is
underlying power which divides
energies in these
its
creates the
show of a
series
of molecules in reciprocal relations throughout the universe. It
was something
was the
like this that
of the
drift
Monadology of Leibnitz. The pond, he says, which looks a mere mass of water, is really teeming with myriads of
live fish
;
every portion of matter
garden luxuriant in vegetation.
If
deep enough we should see endless within
realities
matter, but
These are not endowed with vital forces, even Every monad
with the beginnings of consciousness.
complete in
without;
it
itself,
and
is
which controls within
now
goes on unwinding
endless chain of phenomena, without
from forces
external.
dependent upon each tially parts
it
the
itself in
an
interruption
But although not other, the
as
in
monads
any way
in
are essen-
of a great plan or pre-established harmony.
Each of them relations
from
merely
it
is
it,
which has been wound up
spring,
beginning, and
itself
There
changes.
its
nothing enter from
lets
has a principle in
the series of were, a
life
ultimate
of the world are monads.
mere dead is
and
life,
The
throughout the universe.
life,
like a
is
we could only see
is
a meeting-point to which converge
every point
in
the
universe
a self-contained unit and law of
movement, but
also from
its
own
;
its
not
own
special point of
view, a mirror, in which the whole universe
is
ideally
THE ATOMIC THEORY.
185
Each monad is in a picture. way the whole world. 1 Thus in the Monadology of Leibnitz we find an attempt, based upon the conception of a divine plan, to combine the fullest recognition of the individuality c'ontained, reflected as
thus in a
of the elements in the universe with that peculiar
which
universality
worlds,
they
whose limitation
their contents, but
in
possess as
so
many
little
consists, not in the extent
of
the comparative disorder and
displacement of their reflective or appreciative power
due
to
what we may term
Such a theory
position.
is
the
parallax
of their
the very opposite of that
of Epicurus.
According to him there was no creator
who planned
the order of the primary elements, and
overruled from the beginning their whole subsequent career.
The
connections of one atom with another
are wholly external
:
impact and mechanical adhesion
connect bodies which have no congenital
The monads
one to another. materiality ditions of
is
human
The
nature.
weight,
and shape
though incalculable,
1
Leibnitii,
passim.
atoms, on the other
:
they are not indeed
Opera
:
is
ed.
not
if
them
All the difference between size,
and
but the essential qualities of visible matter
are what they would exhibit
of
:
only an appearance due to the con-
hand, are essentially material visible,
affinities
are immaterial
:
we could lies
see them-
in their variety
a variety, however, which infinite.
Erdmann,
p.
715 {Monadologic) and
EPICUREANISM.
i86
With these simple elements Epicurus proceeded
to
give an account of the various provinces of nature. It
would be tedious
to follow
And
explanations.
it is
him
in detail into these
also to a large extent un-
For
necessary, from the circumstances of the case.
the physical system of Epicurus
There
falls
into two parts.
a general or metaphysical
is, first,
and fundamental
taining the principles
general terms of his doctrine are dogmatic
matters
of principle,
observation.
Some
con-
part,
The
articles. :
they are
and not mere statements of
of these have already been re-
ferred to, such as the indestructibility of matter, the
of chance or
absence tific
of teleology
one which
is
maintained by the Stoics no
than by the Epicureans,
festly
which
is
to
from a
be understood
is
nature.
existent are Spirit,
only
mind, or
The
it
is
mani-
less
that existence,— by
activity ancl passivity, the
capacity of acting or being acted upon,
corporeal
scien-
Another, and
explanation of the universe.
—
is
body, of
and the nonthe same thing.
incorporeal
two names
for
soul, if they are
supposed to mean
anything immaterial, are rejected from the world as
understood by the Epicureans.
All that happens
is
only transference of matter from one place to another.
In
its
attempt to carry out these principles Epicu-
reanism naturally found great increased by
difficulties
sciences at the time.
—
difficulties
many
of the
Its theory of perception,
though
the imperfect state of
not without elements of truth, was lamentably marred
from the want of any knowledge of the mechanism of vision, the laws regulating the dispersion of
light,
THE ATOMIC THEORY. and the
structure of the nervous tissues
impression from a luminous body
But these
brain.
have altered
by which the
conveyed to the
is
might
investigations, although they
for the better the details of the explana-
could never have got over
tion,
is 7
its
original defects, as
an attempt to render plain the genesis of life, sensation, and thought. Of course, it is easy on this point to do injustice
No
to Epicurus,
theory whatever can explain the
relation
between what are looked upon as two
species
of substances or phenomena,
distinct
between one
mind and another called matter. We employ a number of phrases to convey some views on this question. We can say that mind and matter are the same substratum exhibiting thing called
can, indeed,
phenomena
that sensation
is
another aspect
of the same fact which in one aspect
is
called motion
different
that thought
so on.
is
:
:
a function of organized matter, and
But, after
all,
such verbal
tricks
throw
little
upon the question. Epicurus is so far on ground when he asserts that whatever acts or
real light
safer
action
suffers
that
it is
one general characteristic, viz., But he fails to give due importance
has
bodily.
His own
to the point implied in this affirmation.
language, even, would lead us to the doctrine that the essential characteristic of body
of energy. ance,
is
of what
Force, be
it
evidently the generic
we
describe as
is
the exhibition
only of impact or of resist-
body
and primary quality
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
as the atom.
As
for
the geometrical qualities (shape, extension, position)
on which the atomic theory of Epicurus
lays
most
i88
EPICUREANISM.
weight, they
only of secondary importance as
are
and
indices or visible representatives of the degree
amount and
relation of the primary factor of force.
This point, though not ignored in the atomic theory of the ancients,
not fully taken into account, or
is
Nor
submitted
to
Epicurus.
Plato similarly emphasizes " form
analysis.
exists
its
fail
is
his
to note that force, function, or energy
is
which
construed as extension.
is
as Aristotle said, activity
presence manifest by
activity
is
As
that only
meaning of existence Body makes (htpyeia).
active, the real
we may accept is
to
" in his
the real significance of what by the senses of sight
and touch is,
peculiar
Geometry, not dynamical physics,
ideal theory.
model. They is
this
is
its activity.
dictum
the
Hence, although Epicurus that
of
all
connected with a corporeal substratum, or
sensibly manifested
(i.e.
eye) as extension
to the
wrong to attribute all importance And to the second aspect, and deny it to the first. this is precisely what Epicureanism does. and
figure, still
it is
And when Epicurus teaches the corporeality of mind and soul, he falls into similar errors. He cannot recognise existence under any other shape save that of extended matter.
which he,
Mind,
like the multitude,
reduced by him to the substance.
They
and more
delicate
level of
are made, particles,
therefore,
believes to
and
soul,
exist,
are
extended and material it
is
true,
of peculiar
a mixture of
special
elements, as Epicurus holds, following a line of argu-
ment which seems more kindred to the speculations In this point, of Empedocles than of Democritus.
:
THE ATOMIC THEORY. then, Democritus
is
with
at variance
of extended substance.
modern
To them mind
even in the materialist school.
an extended substance, but,
I
at the least,
89
ideas, is
not
a function
not a thing, but an act,
It is
some of them might say, a permanent possibility They may believe that thought and conof action. they do not sciousness are a function of the brain
or, as
:
Epicurus here, as
identify the brain with the mind.
elsewhere,
is
on the
level of popular thought,
which
takes the soul to be a " thing "
among
forgetting that even in things the
main point may not
be
other things,
their capacity of filling space.
The
refusal to recognise the existence of anything
beside corporeal substances led
Epicurus to some
puzzling questions about the existence of attributes
:
and eventa of Lucretius. 1 The former permanent the and essential qualities, the " everare lasting concomitants without which body cannot be thought " as they are described by Epicurus himself the latter are the occurrences or phenomena by which bodies manifest their action at special times. Grammatically the conjunda are represented by adjectives ; the eventa by verbs. These, says Epicurus, are dis-
the conjiincta
tinguishable as aspects, but they never exist separately
from the
totality or aggregate
But
though perfectly
this,
obscurity
of
their
between existence It is
which we know as body.
true, scarcely gets
position,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;as
in the full sense
it
over the
were half-way
and non-existence.
only part of the general infirmity which sinks
1
Lucretius,
I.
449-482.
EPICUREANISM.
190
the intelligible to the level of the sensible
about
which
:
an act as the main point
location of
regards the
In regard to time, a similar question
it.
arises.
Space, of course, has been assumed as the condition
of
visibility,
the
under the somewhat condensed form of
vacuum ; but time
Epicurus remarks, ception,
is
still
Upon
left.
Kant, that time
is
clearer to
our preconception, us
by substituting
Time,
definition.
in short,
he
nor can for
by
any phrase or
it
says,
it
be made
it
being an intuition,
only to be understood as a generalization of our
consciousness,
when we
quickly.
the generalization of what
It is
time to pass slowly or
feel
when we distinguish days and power of making such
and
nights,
he makes no attempt to see what
is
that topic
not a con-
and so we cannot get an idea of
examining
is
like
But
implied in the
is
We
distinctions.
we mean
hours. 1
feel
it
:
that
enough.
Here Epicurus
is
at his
weakest
Yet
evidently not his forte.
:
metaphysics was
in his indication of the
subjectivity of time, as part of our
way of looking
things, or as a condition of sensation,
on the
right route.
And
Epicureanism taught in truth.
It
rightly
regulate the
lays
generally, this
down
at
he seems to be
we may
say, that
whole matter a
relative
that the laws which
movement of masses
in the visible sphere
of mechanics are equally operative in the regions subject to physiology.
The
process of vision
may be
explained by the same principles and methods which 1
Diogenes Laertius, x. 72; Sext. Empir., Adv. Math.,
x. 219.
THE ATOMIC THEORY.
IQT
are used in accounting for the phases
planetary
the
of
There
system.
and revolutions no special
are
provinces in nature living under privileged constitu-
and
tions,
exempted from
the
operation
of the
The
uniformities of causation elsewhere prevalent.
realm of physical investigation has no limits in rerum
Mechanical
natura.
molecular hypotheses in dealing with the
theories,
adopting atomic or
necessary, are as competent
if
human
organization as in dealing
But
with the
constitution of a
when
has been admitted, the whole truth has
this
not been put forward. life
are not explained
have been analyzed. their
bounds when
mind
genesis of
when,
like
block of marble.
The phenomena of conscious when their mechanical aspects Scientific
theories
they attempt to
or soul
:
they transgress
Epicureanism,
transgress
explain still
the
more,
they dogmatically assert
the conditions for the annihilation of soul.
In the view of physical science, intelligence or spirit is
eliminated from the universe.
reduced to a life
series of parcels
and consciousness, and regarded
mitting motion from one to another. is
either
combined with
identical with force
:
The world
force,
solely as trans-
Matter, indeed,
or supposed to be
but in either case force
mately reducible to motion.
is
of matter, deprived of
is ulti-
All the various forces in
the universe are exhibited in various complicated and
disguised forms of movement. This doctrine, to which modern science is led by its mathematical methods, is the fundamental proposition of Epicureanism.
EPICUREANISM.
192
And
in movement there seems nothing mystical or beyond the most vulgar apprehension. It is apparently a fact presented again and again in daily expeIf Epicurus had heard of the paradoxes of rience.
Zeno the
Eleatic,
about the
reality or conceivability
of motion, he probably looked upon them as frivolous quibbling about a point for which the evidence of
To
sense was undoubted.
conceive the whole world
an immense commentary
as
illustrating the text that
atoms and void are everywhere, the
imagination.
metaphysical
It
entities,
banishes
and
is
an easy task
occult
for
properties,
fantastic spirits
from the
universe.
Atoms in the void, moving freely about like the motes we see in the sunbeam, are continually waving their mazy dance throughout the endless spaces, and gathering into aggregations of a moderate degree of persistence.
A
variety of worlds, of various shapes,
and contents, arises here and there, separated from each other by spaces of comparative emptiness. But the worlds thus created by the movement of atoms at length disintegrate through similar causes. It seems as if Epicurus, following the lead of the Sicilian philosopher, Empedocles, had supposed that there was an age in which the powers of union were supreme, and an age in which the spirit of discord waxed most powerful. And as these changes take sizes,
place the aspect of things varies in detail, though
general features remain unchanged.
As
so with the particular world of earth, sun, to
which we belong.
It,
too, has its
its
in the whole,
and
stars,
time of genera-
THE ATOMIC THEORY. tion
and
birth
;
it
will, also,
have
its
193
old age, and, as
the matron whose days of child-bearing are over, will yield
its fruit
no more. 1 1
Lucretius, v. 821-836.
O
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; EPICUREANISM.
194
CHAPTER
IX.
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY.
The cosmology if
we
With is
an
moon
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the
The of
and
all
humanity
The home
beyond the sublunary
is
from the
each first,
of
sphere.
A series
earth lies in the centre of the universe.
circles,
light
Aristotle.
that lies beneath the
special region of
inferior province of the universe.
the highest reason
some
receive
cosmology of
the
it
Aristotle the earth,
circle of the
may
of Epicurus
contrast with
perfect than the other, extends
less
or starry heaven, towards the
The heavenly element
earth.
on a
different level
from the ordinary material of the four
terrestrial ele-
Things are
ments.
heavy
;
of aether
is
intrinsically light or intrinsically
some of them tend towards the centre of
sphere, whilst others tend upwards towards the
cumference. verse
:
there
things.
There is
While
is
and rounded
a limited
totality of
the aether on the circumference
endowed with a
elements
move
in straight lines
had no beginning, and no empty space in the
is
circular motion, the other
will
The
up and down.
order and disposition of the world are eternal
in
cir-
only a single world, or uni-
naturally
is
the
have no end.
universe.
The
:
it
has
There
is
starry sphere
immediate contact with the godhead.
Indeed,
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY. all
1
95
the celestial spheres are regarded as beings en-
dowed with
and capable of
life,
But especially
is
intelligent
which,
superior intelligence,
serene
in
blessedness, circles for ever in
action.
home
the ethereal sphere the
ease
own most
its
of
and
perfect
motion.
Nothing can be
in
with these
contrast
greater
Aristotelian ideas than the system of Epicureanism.
Instead of a central system we have an
number
endless
no one of which is nearer The earth is no longer an
of cosmical bodies,
the centre than another.
absolute middle-point, around which the starry world
The
revolves.
starry sphere itself
is
made
of a matter
not of transcendent quality, but of the same constitution as our earth.
and
gent
vital
The world
is
no longer an
intelli-
a mere product of me-
being, but
chanical unions, coherent only for awhile, but destined to disruption.
wards.
And
All matter
is
heavy,
all
tends down-
thus Epicurus set aside the pictorially-
complete conception of Aristotle
which the earth and
a
for
new
idea, in
and planetary attendants, as well as sun and moon, sink into a mere unit in the endless series of worlds. But as he did so, he diminished the grandeur of the sun and stars ; he made them mere dependents and satellites of the earth, and so took up an astronomical theory which is even more fanciful and absurd than that of the Stagirite. For starry
its
when a modern speaks of other worlds than of ours, he thinks in the
first
planets belonging to the solar system further, his imagination is carried
o
2
this earth
instance of the other
and if he goes on to the distant :
EPICUREANISM.
196 stars,
each, perhaps, attended with their planets,
these with their several
satellites.
and
But such an idea
The planets quite unlike that held by Epicurus. and stars are parts of this world in which we live, and not very important or extensive parts of it is
either. 1
The
ancients are never tired of expressing their
and contempt for the astronomical doctrines At first sight, indeed, it excites unmitigated wonder that Epicurus, living in a generation after Eudoxus, and not long preceding the two great astronomers, Aristarchus of Samos, and Hipparchus of Nicsea, should propound the doctrine that the sun and the stars are of the same magnitude as they appear to be, or, at any rate, only differ inapsurprise
of Epicureanism.
preciably
from their apparent
Epicureans
fail
size.
Nor did
the
to argue from the facts of daily obser-
vation in favour of this doctrine, alleging that distance
makes
little
or no difference in the size of terrestrial
flames so long as their light remains at
"
Had
all visible.
the size been diminished to the eye of the
distance,
much more would
the colour have been
nth book of his work of Nature; but the fragments of that book All that restored from Herculaneum help us little. altered."
we can
So says Epicurus
see
is,
that Epicurus, distrusting
argument from various fined
in the
facts,
all
lengthy
supplemented and de-
by the help of mathematics, adheres
solely to
argumentation based on the immediate data of obser1
Aristotle,
Metaph., XII. %\ Physic,
VIII.
9
;
De
Calo,
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY.
The
vation.
197
reasoning by which Aristarchus
at-
book on the magnitudes and distances of the sun and moon, was tempted
to
answer these problems
of a recondite, mathematical speculations
believed
of
in his
character
while the
;
Eudoxus on the same
topic
(he
the diameter of the sun to be nine times
greater than that of the
moon) were complicated by
the introduction of celestial spheres. 1
This indifference to astronomical science in other points.
It
cost
no trouble
is
evident
the Epicu-
to
reans to suggest the idea that the sun and
moon
born afresh every morning and every evening
:
are that
germs of fire which gather in them and again at fixed times are dispersed.
at fixed times the
come
together,
When we it
may be
suppose that they are merely out of sight that they are really out of existence,
and a
new sun perchance is created every morning, and a new moon arises every month to go through its phases accustomed order. Such is one instance of the general method and
in the
principle
of the
Epicurean theory of the
celestial
movements and meteorological phenomena. Both of these Epicurus believed beyond the reach of observa-
We
tion.
can never hope, he
said, to
mechanism of the planetary and
know
astral
the real
phenomena,
We know we have not entered snow, nor can we bind the
or the secret causes of the hail or the dew.
not the ordinances of heaven into the treasures of the
sweet influences of Pleiades. 1
;
These
matters
are
Renouvier, Manuel dc Philosophic Ancienne (Paris, 1844),
tome
II.
EPICUREANISM.
198
beyond the ken of man we cannot attain certainty on such topics, and those who profess to have attained it are charlatans, anxious to impose upon the vulgar. The ordinary terrestrial phenomena where we can trace the connection of causes and effects have, it is true, one fixed and settled reason to be given for them, and no more. But such simplicity cannot be looked for in the heavens, and there we must be content to accept a number of solutions or explanations :
our state of ignorance, equally probable.
as, in
It
would be wrong
curus
from
to suppose
astronomical
regarded
and
this that Epi-
meteorological
phenomena
as merely casual, governed by no laws, His attitude is rather and exhibiting no regularity. that of one who distrusts the capacities of science, and is especially suspicious of results won by the
help of mathematical processes which are inaccessible the
to
The fundamental
multitude.
principles
of
he accepts, but he cannot follow the intricate methods by which science establishes its results. Let us remember that his main end is a scientific inquiry
practical one, to free men's
minds from the
supersti-
tious terrors connected, for example, with eclipses or
For that purpose
with thunder.
which
is
any explanation
in accordance with observed facts,
controverted by accepted laws of nature, Probability all
1
that
we
Butler,
Man "),
is all
his
we can look for here, and it is Each phenomenon is, as it were,
that
need. 1
in
and not
is sufficient.
15th
Sermon ("Upon the Ignorance of
takes up an analogous position.
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY.
1
taken isolated from the others, and considered on
own
obviously several bable,
and
to adopt
the rejection of
all
fiable proceeding,
as
any one of them absolutely, to
the others, would
seem an
unjusti-
an instance of mythologizing, as
Epicurus would say, instead of physiologizing. it
is
its
we maintain this position, explanations may seem equally pro-
So long
account.
99
But
the mistake of Epicurus to stop short at this
point.
It is
only by an act of abstraction that we
have thus dissevered one phenomenon from
its
con-
and cannot strictly be explained without taking them into account. The more circumstances we take into account, the more our room for a variety of hypothetical explanations is narrowed. At last, when the whole of the correlated phenomena are embraced within our view, no more than a single explanation is nections.
Each forms a unity with
others,
possible.
we may
still
have waited
for
Epicurus, therefore, was wrong, but say something in his defence.
To
an exhaustive and connected study of the pheno-
mena
in question
would have been
solution indefinitely.
Even
rent explanation of planetary
movements
day was a mistake, and to assert as the
explanation of the
The worth
even where direct proof
is
it
facts,
of Epicureanism
to postpone the
in astronomy, the curin Epicurus's
as a certain truth,
was presumption.
lies in its
maintenance,
out of reach, of the faith
phenomena of the universe are governed by same laws as have become familiar to us in hum-
that the
the
bler spheres.
We may
not be able actually to assign
EPICUREANISM.
200
a certain and verified reason for a particular phenomenon, but we are at least in no doubt that the causes at work are perfectly natural and commonplace, and, in illustration of this conviction, we can assign various means by which the phenomenon in question might plausibly have been produced. " Only,"
says
of "those thod,
and
" let us have
Epicurus,
explanation."
gical
And
who have adopted an lost
no mytholo-
he speaks disapprovingly impracticable me-
themselves in baseless theories, by
supposing the phenomena to take place in one me-
thod only, and rejecting
all
have been admissible."
"They have
the others which might
entered on a
realm of inconceivables, and have been incapable of noting
key to with
the
the
facts,
visible
celestial
phenomena which mysteries."
and mistake the
limits
give the
"They contend of human know-
ledge." 1 It is obvious, therefore, that
Epicurus has mainly
in view the theories of the heavenly
fices
movements held by
These are " the slavish artiof the astronomers" to which he refers ; they
Aristotle
and Eudoxus.
are " the devotees of a vain astronomy."
It
is
not
the astrology of the sorcerers which he condemns,
but that of the theoretical astronomers, with
and
epicycles,
its
complex machinery
its
cycles
for facilitating
the evolutions of the orbs of heaven,
its
fantastic
ideas of a peculiar virtue in the starry globes,
attachment of divinities to the extreme
1
its
circles of the
Diogenes Laertius, x. 84â&#x20AC;&#x201D;94.
;
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY.
As
cosmos. 1 struction,
201
against this gorgeous hypothetical con-
which extended
itself further
and further
in
order to provide an adequate explanation of every
new phenomenon, Epicureanism that a true theory
must base
itself
raises
upon
only facts obtainable are the familiar
common
and
life,
that there
is
the protest
facts, that
the
phenomena of
no hierarchy
in the
cosmical arrangements by which the stars and planets
should have a movement and laws peculiar to themselves.
A
it
he
hypothesis,
unknown and
says,
must not assume
unfamiliar principles for the
unknown
must be based upon, and accord with, the
Here, as elsewhere, Epicurus in principle
and rather
insists
upon
familiar.
the unity
and methods which pervades the world, any difference in
neglects, as unimportant,
the various grades of organization. It
seems to some extent strange that Epicurus
should
thus
According to
and cognate had found in Plato.
Aristotelianism
attack
theories for the very fault Aristotle
Aristotle, the theory of Plato assigns to
the soul of the world a fate like that of Ixion on the
wheel
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;an
existence without leisure
and reasonable
ease, maintaining without any slumber the forcible
movement of
the sphere. 2
the tranquil and blessed
life
He
contrasts with this
of his heaven, which,
possessing by nature a circular revolution of
needs no violence or
effort
to maintain
its
its
own,
career,
but glides on tranquilly like an immortal god, free 1
Whewell, History of
the Inductive Sciences, vol.
sec. 9. 2
Aristotle,
De
Ccelo, II. 1
;
Plato, Timceus.
I.,
p. 170,
202
EPICUREANISM.
from care and labour.
In such a conception of the
God seems he enjoys perfect blessedness and re-
heaven, indeed, the introduction of a superfluous
:
no work or care
pose, has
creates nor acts
:
his life
to trouble him. is
He
neither
pure self-consciousness.
Himself unmoved, he moves the world, not by
exert-
ing any activity, but by the attractive power in him,
by which the
inferior is constantly
sway of the supremely ticular
movement we God,
cause.
He
is
in
perfect.
drawn under the
Thus, for each par-
are obliged to discover a special
scheme, because
the Aristotelian
the cause of everything in general,
cause of nothing in particular.
is
His dwelling
is
the
on
the very limits of the world, beyond the sphere of
our dull earth.
In
all
this
we
are already far
theology of Epicurus.
on the way
to the
Careless opponents have de-
But the existence of what he never denies what he, on the contrary, asserts as a fundamental truth. The question on which he diverges from popular faith is not scribed Epicurus as an Atheist.
the
Gods
is
:
whether there are Gods, but what their relation to
man.
is
their nature
His special tenet
is
and
of the creative and providential functions of deity.
The Gods
away from the turmoil and trouble of Going a step beyond Aristotle, he assigns them an abode in the vacant spaces between the worlds. It is a place of calm, where gusty winds, and dank clouds and mists, and wintry snow and frost never come. Its smiling landscapes are bathed in perpetual summer-light. There the bounties of nature the world.
are
J
a denial)
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY.
know no end, and no the mind. 1
mar
troubles
203
the serenity of
Such was the Epicurean heaven
was no Epicurean
The Gods
there
:
hell.
human shape
themselves were of
;
not
globes of rolling matter, nor immaterial forms sharing
For what higher form can human human form ? Surely,
in endless motion.
imagination conceive than the
of a higher beauty than the shapes of brutes
this is
or of mathematical figures.
It is
form that in our experience
is
therefore
unknown, of
like
And
Gods.
and
life
upon
we
if
are to argue from the
unto
so in
men must be
we argue
But according
Gods.
human
known
;
and
to the
the shape of the
from the highest form
all respects,
which we are acquainted
intelligence with
earth,
only with the
reason conjoined
to the higher nature of the to
Epicurean theory, disem-
body and soul are and their separation means for both death. Hence the Gods have a body, but it is not as our body and they have blood
bodied
spirit is
an impossibility
:
in the living being indissolubly united,
;
in their veins, but
In
all
late of
this, if
it is
different
we remember
from human blood. 3
the fundamental postu-
Epicureanism, forbidding us to regard the soul
more independent of the body than the body is of the soul, we see a process common in some degree to as
all
to
A God out of man would be for man
theology.
he believes he
1
2
all
relation or similarity
unintelligible.
will find all that is best
Lucretius, in. 18-24. Cicero,
De
Nat, Deor.
I.
In
God
and highest
18 (46).
in
EPICUREANISM.
204
body as an imperfection, on the spirituality of Godhead. If, like Epicurus, he hold the body no less sacred than the spirit, he will imagine his God endowed with an ethereal body. He may, like some at least of the followers of Epicurus, go a step further. Regarding the Greek as pre-eminent in culture over all barbarian If he regards his
himself.
he
will naturally dwell
races,
he
will
believe that his
Gods
in their quiet
dwellings and unclouded sky, as they eat their angelic
food and quaff their purer liquids, converse with each other in the tongue of Plato and Demosthenes. 1
But
it
only with the eye of reason that these
is
and
blessed abodes
cerned. Their nature
organs of the sense
escape the
tests
;
their is
far
inhabitants can be
dis-
not gross enough to affect the
away and
delicately fine, they
of the eye and the touch
;
they are
barely apprehended by the intelligence of the soul. It is the rational
soul,
not the senses, by which
The
are brought into relation with them. ticles
of the reasonable
suited
nature
to :
the
like
are in
some degree
structure of the
meets and apprehends
cially in visions of the
upon men,
spirit
impalpable
night,
we
finer par-
divine
It is espe-
like.
when deep
sleep
falls
by the impres-
that the soul unsolicited
sions of the senses, responds sensitively to the images
of divine beings ever permeating the worlds. in the existence of the
Gods
arose, says
because in their waking hours, but 1
still
Voll. Hcrculan., Coll. Pr., VI. 73-77 from Philodemus, in pap. 152, Oxon. ;
Sensionibus, in the
same
vol., Col. x. pp.
more
(Coll. cf.
A belief
Lucretius,
13
in sleep,
and
14),
Metrodorus de
19-21 and 35.
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY.
205
meri saw forms of excellent beauty, which seemed
without burden to themselves to move, and speak,
and act, and were of grander aspect than humanity. 1 These forms were one kind of idola or spectra? According to the Epicurean theory of perception, vision is
From
a species of tactile sensation.
all
the solid
bodies around us there are constantly streaming in uninterrupted flow images, consisting of minute par-
which repeat exactly the shape of the body
ticles,
But from the divine bodies
from which they spring.
which, as of finer texture, are located in a region
beyond the spheres of grosser worlds
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; there
are
delicate constitution,
able soul. to
men
materiality
also streaming
effluxes
known as of more
which appeal only to the reason-
These images
as they pass
from the Gods
are not distinguished one from another, like
the solid objects which
we number and
separate from
Endless in their numbers, and indis-
one another. tinguishable
in
their
mind does not number of One does not stand solid and
outlines, the
gather from them any idea of a definite individualized beings.
impenetrable to the others pass
on the contrary, they
;
indistinguishably into each other in virtue of
their general
similarity.
Accordingly, the
Gods we
perceive are not distinct individual figures, like the deities
Less substantial and
of the old Olympus.
sculpturesque in their outlines, they have a generic character of deity about them.
1
2
But the main
Lucretius, v. 1161-1194.
Cicero, Epist,
ad
Earn. xv. 16.
result
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 206
EPICUREANISM.
of this character of our perceptions of the divine,
Gods
is
material objects,
want the individuality of solid gain in exchange permanence and
everlastingness.
Their forms never cease, and we do
that the
as they
not distinguish individual from individual. 1
Hence,
in the ceaseless succession of images of this subli-
mated matter, alike and interchangeable, there grows up an idea that they are eternal. If there be, according to Epicureanism, a balance between the two halves
of nature,
so that
a preponderance of the
be compensated by a preponderance of the immortal there, then we may infer
transient here should
from
this equality
of distribution here and there that
Gods must be immortal.
the
doubtful
if
But
it
is
extremely
any such idea of compensation by excess
here for defect there was an accepted
Epicurean school.
It
is
sufficient
dogma
of the
to say that the
Gods was the natural conclusion drawn from the character of the images by means of which their existence was made known to the intelligence of man.
immortality of the
Of the conception
of the godhead, then, deathless-
ness, a superiority to the general characteristic.
It
would be easy
law of nature, was a to ask, with
Tenny-
son " If
all be atoms, how then should the gods, Being atomic, not be dissoluble,
Nor 1
Cicero,
x. 139 ; cf. Theologia).
De
follow the great
Nat. Deor.,
Schomann,
I.
law?"
49, 105-109;
Diogenes Laertius, 336 (De Epicuri
Oj>uscula, vol. IV., p.
;
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY. But
it
is less
easy to answer the question.
say, indeed, that the matter
much
207
One may
concerns not the Gods so
Gods
as our notions of the
and
;
that this,
by
the circumstances of the transmission, forces us to re-
gard them as eternal.
Not
less
does our idea of deity
These two attriand of perfect
involve the blessedness of God. butes, indeed
happiness
—
—of
are,
eternal existence
according
to
•fundamental elements which, in constitute the true idea of is
as widespread as the
But
if
Epicurus, ages
all
godhead
human
two
the
and
nations,
—an idea which
race.
these two attributes are maintained as the
anticipation or preconception of
God, then much that
commonly attributed to the Gods must be rejected. The godhead, indeed, is still worthy of all worship its excellence and glory are properly met by the reveis
rence and joyous regard of mankind.
and vows
He
is
offers,
man.
But prayers
are out of place towards such a being.
weak enough to be biased by human he malicious enough to seek to injure stands aloof from the world, from the
neither
nor
is
He
denser play of matters
affecting
the
senses.
The
Gods live for themselves, and have no care for man. Man, on the other hand, need have no fear of the Gods. They are powerless equally for hurt or help. Any worship rendered to them is inspired neither by hopes nor spirit
fears,
but simply by the outgoing of the
towards auguster beings enjoying superhuman
blessedness.
The argument
for the existence of the
though not a strong one,
is
in
Gods,
al-
agreement with the
;
208
EPICUREANISM.
We
of the system.
spirit
have, as Epicurus alleges,
and manifest images presented to the mind of such beings as, though like man, are superior to the infirmities of human nature; and we have also an
clear
In
idea of deity.
inference
this
phenomenon of consciousness
from an alleged
to the existence of
its
cause, Epicurus follows the analogy of the senses
and from the
peculiarity attending the reception of
the spectral images, he argues to a peculiarity in the
which they originate. But, in the would be extremely difficult to establish
structures from first
place,
it
the alleged fact of consciousness as an original state
Should we, irrespective of
of mind. liefs
and
irrespective of the
traditional be-
dreams which restore the
dead to our intimacy, ever be visited by such phantoms of the everlasting Gods? No doubt as the years roll on, the images of departed ancestors
recur with
a glory and grandeur such
round the distant lish
the
past,
recollections
as
may
gathers
and a divine halo may embelBut this
of our forefathers.
alone will hardly explain deity, or justify the proce-
dure of Epicurus in arguing from these imperfect premises.
In the second place, the inference seems to be guilty of the
same
fault
existence of the soul. first
as that
The Gods
leading up to the or deity are, in the
instance, concluded to be extended
and material
substances, which are visible to the finer sensibility
of the intellect. tion ality
is ;
In one respect, indeed, their posi-
no distinctive individuby which they are made known
peculiar; they have
the images
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY. a family likeness,
present
Olympian
heaven
has
and the
209
variety of
whatever be the case in this matter, the fact mains, that the
Gods
the analogy of the is
the
But
disappeared.
totally
re-
are conceived as existing after
human
The godhead
animal.
a thing, and to keen perceptions
should be a
visible thing.
The whole finds that
Like the sceptical
doctrine amazes.
astronomer, Epicurus, looking
all
ness of godhead does existence of
God
not
altogether.
through the world,
And
he can see no God.
yet a conscious-
him to deny the Hence his attempt to
allow
explain the fact so as not to interfere with his general
But the belief
theory.
says Petronius.
in
such Gods
Primus
ence of analogy.
in orbe
is
a mere
infer-
deos fecit timor,
" It was fear which
first
made gods
and it is to abolish that fear that Epicurus is most anxious. The natural tendency of the untutored mind, which sees a life like its own in every object which surrounds it, its tendency when it finds its efforts thwarted, or seconded, by no apparent causes, and in utter disproportion to the energy expended, is to refer the check or assistance to some unseen being of like nature with its own. But in this reference to divine power two cases may be distinguished. When the individual feels himself one
in the world,"
with his tribe or nation, his in
its
unity
national
life
;
and
who
is
God the
strength,
is
the national spirit
embodiment of the
thus regarded as the favouring
and protecting genius who works
for every
of the nation that walks according to p
its
member The
laws.
a;
2
JO
EPICUREANISM.
individual, firm in the sense of national unity, sees in his
God
a principle and a power which
his side, ready to fight his battles.
deed, this his people
God may turn away his face in anger, and may be defeated or punished by plague
and famine. tical life,
always on
is
Temporarily, in-
But
most part
for the
the religion of the State
is
in healthy poli-
not essentially a
religion of fear, but of joy, in the Lord.
wise with the individual. self alone,
In
all
It is other-
that concerns him-
he meets with many influences which The powers unseen are more
thwart his endeavours. naturally their
regarded as adverse than as propitious
interference with
human
pable than their coincidence. of tribal solidarity national State,
more
is
pal-
the feeling
broken by the collapse of the
is
the
wishes
And when
spirits
of
men
naturally
quail
before the powers of the unseen world, and a period
of superstition succeeds the period of national gion.
The
reli-
single believer, deprived of the strength
he acquired by being a member of a great union, sees himself confronted
threatened sciousness acts,
in
various
by the His own con-
directions
opposition of his God.
emphasizes more acutely his individual
than in times of
tribal feeling.
to witness against him.
His
sins rise
up
Thus, with the growth of indi-
vidual self-consciousness, and the collapse of national and collective feeling, that thought of a presence which is always with.us, a totality which determines our career and envelopes our being on every hand, power whose ways are not as our ways, and whose comes before the thoughts are not as our thoughts,
—
—
—
COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY.
mind
211
rather as an object of dread than of affection
or of confidence.
In such a situation the Stoics and Epicureans took
The
different courses.
even carried
it
rolling world, trolling the
out to
he
Stoic accepted the belief,
and
extreme consequence.
The
its
said, is a living indivisible being,
movements of all
relation, so that
its
parts
and
con-
fixing their
nothing can take place unforeseen,
because every event
is
the inevitable consequent of a
chain of causes and a group of conditions which are all in
the grasp and guidance of the universe.
And
yet the Stoical sage asserts his superiority to fate
affirming
its
decrees as his own.
The
by
Epicurean, on
the other hand, rejects the notion of a single all-em-
There are worlds beyond worlds,
bracing universe.
but they form no united and rounded system. a
man
gate of details, a is
no order
his place
and duty
There
When
looks outside himself he finds only an aggre-
mass of
particulars like
himself.
in the universe irrevocably fixing ;
for the universe
is
a ceaseless
in
process of change, and will not be to-morrow what
A
man,
it
need not be dismayed. The worlds beyond worlds, which he might see in thought if he followed his teacher, are even as the world in which he lives. There is no far-off tyrant or is
to-day.
therefore,
demogorgon in the recesses of the unseen only other worlds, and lucid interspaces between, where tranquil Gods lead a life of serenity, and meddle not with the ;
ways of men.
p 2
212
EPICUREANISM.
CHAPTER LOGIC
Formal
AND PSYCHOLOGY.
been
logic has
X.
in all ages the bete noire of
Bacon and Locke, no
the empirical schools.
less
than Epicurus, express their contempt for the frivolous discussions of deductive logic,
the cobwebs by
for
which reasoning attempts to master
Formal
facts.
reasoning, says Bacon, constrains the assent, but not
the
You may
realities.
syllogism that black
The
otherwise.
is
but he
who keeps
despise their
that
prove
demonstrative the while
all
nets of logic entrap the intellect,
in the
open
air
of experience can
" Epicurus,
the
despiser
logic," says Cicero, 1 " will
not admit
Hermarchus
will either
such an expression as
to-morrow or not
alive
by
white, but the fact
sophistries.
and mocker of all be
is
'
'
true,
is
though the
logi-
cians hold that every disjunctive proposition of this
shape, either yes or no, sary."
not merely true but neces-
is
" Epicurus," he says, in another place, 2 "
afraid that if
he admits
this
that whatever
happens
due
is
he must further admit
To
Epicurus,
indeed, the two things were probably not
far apart.
1
Acad.
2
De Fato,
i.
i,
is
to fate."
97.
21
;
De
Nat. Deor.,
to agree with Epicurus
on
1.
this point:
69.
Prof.
Jevons seems
LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY.
Both
fall
213
under the charge of unduly accentuating the
ideal element, of taking the relation of our ideas for
a matter of
fact.
They
are both forms of the a priori ;
they claim to anticipate and regulate experimental
And
fact.
the a priori, or necessary truth, which
from given experiences deduces by rational formula certain conclusions prior to experience of their occurrence,
is
unwelcome
Alike in mathe-
to Epicurus.
matics and in deductive logic he disapproved of
He
who
resembles the moderns,
chain of necessary law which science in
march seems
to
the free-will of
its
onward
be drawing tighter and tighter round
man and
we
Epicurus,
it.
shrink from the iron
the providence of God.
are told, rejected logic.
But
this is
only by comparison with the technical elaborations of the theory of proposition
and
No
Aristotle.
logic, unless
he ceases
creed he holds.
and syllogism by the Stoics
philosopher can altogether avoid
But
in
render a reason for the
to
a system which professedly
disclaimed a scholastic character, which stood aloof
from declamation and neglected
rhetoric, the ordinary
deductive logic of Aristotle, with discussion
gency
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and other questions â&#x20AC;&#x201D;would have been of
reality fact,
its
disproportionate
of the questions of necessity and contin-
of form
little use.
more than of As a matter of
the ancient logic, especially in the hypothetical
syllogism,
which was the great
field
of Stoic ingenuity,
behind a memory redolent of sophistical and captious arguments rather than of real interest in has
left
the metaphysical questions underlying these logical disputes.
And
Epicureanism, whatever
its
faults,
EPICUREANISM.
214
always tried to steer clear of logomachies, or verbal arguing. Still,
there
are questions which
cline to answer, if cially in
it
no system can de-
claim to be philosophical, espe-
an age when a sceptical or
has sapped the
foundations of
critical
inquiry
In the
belief.
first
period of Greek philosophy, from Thales to Anaxa-
had gone boldly on to inferphenomena of observation, the power of reason to penetrate
goras, scientific inquiry
ences, transcending the
with a free faith in ,
mysteries in the universe.
all
method by a multitude of
And
it.
The
contradictory re-
obtained in the independent prosecution of
sults
in the
second
this
inquirers rather discredited
from
stage of philosophy,
Socrates to Aristotle, the analysis of ideas, of their
connections and relations,
had
formed the
The mind sought
of investigation.
topics
main-
win
to
clearness in the intellectual world with a conviction that
when
that
was accomplished there was
of contradiction in the external objects. that if the order of ideas
the
order
was
of things would
fear
little
It
fancied
sufficiently discovered,
follow
of
itself.
This
assumption was shaken by the destructive criticism of the immediate successors of Plato and Aristotle, and
by Pyrrho. Accordingly, when we come to the Stoic and Epicurean schools, the common question that is raised
is,
How
can we know when our ideas are true
and represent objective found It
fact ?
Where
is
reality to
be
?
is
the same question which at a
was asked
in
Germany
much
later
age
as the reign of the idealists
AND PSYCHOLOGY.
LOGIC
from Kant to Hegel drew to
its
These
close.
philo-
was urged, have " construed " God and the universe in thought but can they give us a reality ? Can they construe the book which I hold in my hand ?
sophers,
it
:
They construe
the idea of
God
:
but what we want
is,
not an idea of God, but a real living and true God.
We
want something positive
:
instead of being always
led about (in the phrase of Plato)
And
ideas through ideas.
The one way
go back to which
is
find not
is
to set
certain to give
aside reasoning,
and
our intuitive sense of the divine,
feeling, to
the presupposition and should be the sub-
mere argument on the topic. This was way of Schleiermacher. The other method was of
stitute
the
much more
but in two ways
reality.
from ideas to
God we
arguments and processes of logical evolu-
in dialectic tion,
that real
1
all
to listen to the
words of authentic witnesses who told
the story of the Divine
life,
and so come
directly into
contact with the record of God's action
;
as in the
we were brought close to the general God. This was the way of Hengstenberg.
former way spirit
of
Unfortunately,
it
instated.
We
soon appeared that in the one way
rejected reason had to be remust believe with the understanding
as in the other
the
as well as with the heart.
Something
like this
took place in antiquity
when
Epicurus and Zeno attempted to find the principle of reality
which was missed by Plato and
Reality, they declared,
Aristotle.
must be body, and the evidence
Republ.y p. 511.
2l6
EPICUREANISM.
must be found in the senses. The sensible and the material such in more or less etherealized, more or less gross forms is the universe. The only for reality
—
witness which, reality
is
But
What our that,
for,
all feelings
The
istic.
Epicurus,
to
sensation or feeling
instance.
vouches
—
according
senses
—
at
according to him,
and
and
real.
to be must be
if it is
reality,
distinct, palpable, tangible,
Epicurus in laying
true
voice of sensation or feeling,
and unmistake-
we may interpret the language of modern philosophy as more
Translating
able.
is
or sensations have not this character-
accepted as a witness to truth and clear
of
what our feeling
us,
tell
we have
least in the first
liberally,
down immediate consciousness
court of appeal.
as the final
Clear and distinct consciousness
not an unfair equivalent for his krdpyeia
is
rfjg tuadritjtwg
(perspicuitas) or evidentness of perception. 1
In dealing with the Epicurean and Stoical theory of
—
—
knowledge their philosophy of cognition we cannot but be reminded of an important epoch in the philosophy of our country.
The problems, and
the
answers to these problems, are to a large extent the
Locke and Hume. Sensation and in the same comparative position and esteem in the ancient as in the modern empirical Neither Locke nor Epicurus fail to acknowschool. But ledge in general terms the spontaneity of mind. they do not, as Kant did, carry this superficial ad-
same
as those of
reflection are
1
seq.
much
Diog. Laert., x. 31 ;
Sext.
;
Cic, Acad.,
II.
Emp., Adv. Math., 63-66.
79; Lucret.,
IV. 480,
LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY. mission any further character
admitted
or it
they do not ask for the special
:
of
origin
in
217
spontaneity
that
having
:
a general way, they feel themselves
absolved from the trouble of detecting
place in
its
Hence, sensation has the main burden
particulars.
thrown upon
it
in the account given
genesis of knowledge.
by Epicurus of the
Sense gives the real nucleus of
knowledge
:
false
our inference about sensation which con-
it is
:
tains the
all
else
germs of
Sensation
formal.
is
error.
Even a dream
or the fancy
Being
of an insane person bears witness to reality.
an
effect,
it
must have a cause.
illusions are only illusions to the
tower
e.g.
at a distance is
never
is
So-called optical
The
mind.
seen as round
square
but what
:
we
actually see,
off
from the tower, has been really rounded in through
progress strictly
the
viz.,
the spectral husk which
speaking, spoke the truth.
mind
removed when we have
is
its
sense,
Error arose because
forgot to take account of
which the image or idolon
thrown
The
bodies. 1
intervening
is
the friction to
exposed.
Error
is
learnt to allow for this effect
of distance.
Undoubtedly Epicurus the senses against those treated
is
right in standing
them with scanty
add
that he scarcely notices
the cause of error by hasty is
also the only
how
But
it
means of reaching the 208; Lucret.,
the
as well
intellect, if
and ungrounded
Sext. Empir., Adv. Math., VII.
is
for
who
Without
courtesy.
senses the intellect would starve. to
up
ancient philosophers
it is
inference, truth.
IV. 361.
It
2l8
EPICUREANISM.
alone can heal the wounds which
it
Epicurus, on
Kant
the contrary, affirms in the language of
A
sensation
its
isolation
experience, are empty and unreal.
it is
;
its
infirmity lies in
a source of error, in consequence of
bility to
combination and interpretation.
be accepted
;
it
that
sensations, ideas severed from
conceptions without
ultimate fact
That
inflicts.
was the lesson which Plato had taught.
cannot be disputed
Epicurus, every sensation
is
:
in
its
an and
is :
suscepti-
But it must the words of
unreasonable
:
we
feel
and no argument can ever make it not be. Nor can one be used to invalidate another. 1 These sensations, however, do not remain unconnected or it,
isolated points in the
They
mind.
naturally form
unions, just as the primary atoms do in the outward
world sensations combine in various ways and build up the world of our ideas. Our conceptions gradually amalgamate and combine in obedience to such cir:
cumstances as conjuncture of occurrence, similarity of nature, similarity of relations, and the far
Epicurus and the Stoics agree
doctrine
of the
genesis of
our
:
like. 2
So and the same
conceptions from
the agglutination, assimilation, and combination of
simpler elements
awake
in
is
Long
psychology.
common ground before
any individual
in all experiential
reasoning and reflection
form conscious and
to
deliberate associations between the successive states
of mind, the psychical or physical machinery has
been 1
silently
forming
its
Diogenes Laertius, x. 31.
complex structure from the 2
Ibid., x.
32
;
VII. 52.
LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY. rudiments furnished by the senses.
It
not,
is
for
by a conscious act of comparison that the perceptions of colour, taste, shape, size, in an orange instance,
have been fused into a single conception, called by
one name.
It is
sensation of this result of
not by voluntary reflection that the
moment
past sensations
up the accumulated
calls
complete
to
phenomenon, which has been
The
itself.
styled apperception,
is
an important factor in the explanation of mental In virtue of this process the
processes.
present
up and moulded into a shape determined by some familiar habit of the mind.
sensation
is
Every mind
taken
is in
a peculiar state of susceptibility to
certain impressions.
may have been
Whatever
mind of each conscious
being, as
gives a definite reaction,
sensation retina
is
in
the
mind
original
in the beginnings of organic
we know
life,
it,
the
always
or interprets the data of
a special way.
Every image
not passively accepted, but
is
bent or train of thought on which are not pure or neutral observers
:
on the
fused with the
it
the
enters.
We
mind throws
out on the incoming perception a motion of
and the combined movement
is
its own, what we fancy our-
selves to perceive.
But apart from the unconsciously operative machinery of associations, Epicurus admits the presence of reasoning in these combinations which form ideas.
What
at
an early period of
life is
always done without
conscious effort comes in later years to be occasionally
done with voluntary agency and after reflection. Even after certain ideas have been formed by pro-
EPICUREANISM.
220
cesses which underlie consciousness,
new
the formation of
Of course,
one another.
we can go on
to
syntheses of sensations with
how
be asked
if it
reasoning
explained by the Atomic theory, the answer does
is
not come motion an
To
readily.
intelligible
give in terms of matter
account of what
stood by logical synthesis
But apart from
task.
phraseology the
How much
st is
its
atement
is
is
to
a somewhat unpromising
translation into Epicurean is
one generally accepted.
required to constitute a sensation
effective or perspicuous
more than we can
is
what we cannot
state in general
tell,
The problem
answered tinct
subjectively.
when
it
is
felt
is
in the
A
sensation
to be such
witness to external reality. certainty
is
subjective
The
last
:
any
language what
qualities in a perception " constrained assent Stoics.
and
be under-
is
and
*'
for the
to
be
palpably
dis-
resort
it
then a
is
ultimate criterion of
consciousness
:
it
cannot be
stated in abstract or general rules applicable to
all
cases equally.
is
The point which Epicurus discusses after sensation what he called by the technical term of 7rpo\rj\pig,
anticipation or preconception.
It
is
explained as a
general idea stored up, a right opinion, a conception, or the
memory
of what has been
presented to us from without. 1
more than once
When we
apply a
an object we can only do so by means of a and previous conception corresponding to the name
name
to
:
1
Diog. Laert., x. 33 ; Cicero, Emp., Adv. Math., I. 57.
Sext.
De
Nat. Deor.,
I.
43~44
;
LOGIC
AND PSYCHOLOGY.
22
1
is ultimately an image derived from Epicurus, in explaining these " anticipa-
that conception
the senses. tions," says
In the case of every term of speech
i( :
the primary ideas
it
conveys must be seen (by the
mental eye) and not stand in need of demonstration otherwise
we
shall
have nothing to which to
:
refer the
point in question."
These preconceptions are not
They
innate.
value
lies in
are products
being
of
common
and so affording a
any true sense
in
Their
observation.
mass of mankind,
to the
In the case
basis of argument.
of any dispute, in which general terms are employed, the
first
we
question
attach to
define
itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; can
for another ?
is
it?
:
What
And
I substitute
But can
tellectual vision
Berkeley, reduces
and
one
general for
can
of general terms
set
it
ideas
them
like
the
to in
my
before
Epicurus,
in-
Bishop
individual
the imagination.
wants us to realize our ideas in a concrete case as
the true test of our having them. is
distinct idea
does not mean, can I
I really put
distinctly?
images which do duty
He
clear
this
And here, perhaps,
a fundamental fallacy of Epicureanism.
that truth tinctly
thought.
is
identical with
conceived.
It
what
is
substitutes
It
holds
and
dis-
imagination
for
clearly
Unlike Spinoza, who contrasts the imper-
conception of the imagination with the adequate knowledge of understanding, Epicurus abides by what is easily and satisfactorily presented to the mind under a pictorial or semi-sensuous aspect. Now, fect
phenomena The ultimate
imagination most easily reproduces the familiar to
us of bodies in motion.
EPICUREANISM,
22 2 significance of
the fact
motion being neglected, we
we have seen
so often, and
stick to
the processes
all
that occur in nature are presented under the single
aspect of movement.
than Lord ambiguous
Epicurus, however, goes farther even
Bacon
in his dislike to meaningless
The
language.
or
chancellor proposed in certain in-
remedy the fault by definition of the term. But Epicurus would have nothing to do with definiHe tion, i.e. with generalities and terms upon terms. wanted a solid ground on which to stand. He would not, like the Stoics, allow the existence and quasistances to
independence of a middle region of words between thoughts (or mental images) and things. existed as the symbol of a mental image fore
it
must present
firolepsis,
i.e.
its
A word only :
and
there-
credentials in the shape of a
a clear and distinct image, convey able,
not in the general terms of a definition, but in the precise
and
it
?
If
a safe and satisfactory basis of argument
is
must be dismissed. curious example of this dislike
cannot,
A
Can
particular language of a description.
the conception be realized as an image
it :
if it
it
definitions
and
divisions,
is
to generalities, to
seen in the contest which
the Epicureans carried on against mathematics.
we
can,
If
believe Cicero, Epicurus declared the whole of
geometry to be
false
:
and he couples the remark with
an expression of surprise as to whether Polyaenus, who had a considerable mathematical reputation, had put the whole science aside after he
Epicurus.
We may
became a
disciple of
be sure he did not; and the
;
AND PSYCHOLOGY.
LOGIC
223
very conjunction of the two statements suggests that
Epicureanism rather expressed a view of the nature
and method of geometrical its
What
scientific value.
objected
like
we
to,
definitions
further,
involved in
points
which had not been
explicitly
Now, the
minary principles.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the axioms,
though others of them,
:
Zeno the Sidonian, went
there were
than a doubt as to
were the principles
infer,
and
postulates,
truth,
the Epicureans principally
and urged that
the demonstrations
accepted in the
preli-
geometry
definitions of
have the defect that they cannot be represented in
No man
any distinct image. of a geometrical
line,
can conceive an image
or point, or surface
the only
;
image which can be raised to meet these terms is that of a physical line or surface, which is evidently quite unsatisfactory for the purposes of mathematics.
Even
we go
if
general
a step further,
conception of a
we can
say that the
circle or a triangle
sponding to the definitions of Euclid
is
corre-
such as can
only be realized in special and individual instances of these figures.
We
need not
particularly care for
the abuse which, according to an ancient tician,
mathema-
they lavished on the proof of the 20th propo-
sition of the
1 st
Book
of Euclid, as demonstrating
what was palpable even to a donkey. 1 The main ground of their attack on the mathematical sciences was, that
if
they started from false premises
accordance with
in
1
lein.
Proclus.,
facts),
(i.e.
not
they could not be true
Comment, in Euclid. Element.^. 322,
ed. Fried-
— EPICUREANISM.
224
and
added a second and more sweeping
to this they
one, that even
if
they were true, the exact sciences con-
tributed nothing to the welfare
and pleasure of human
Here, again, we are reminded of Comte and
life.
J. S.
and probably Epicurus, whom Cicero accused of overthrowing geometry, went no further than Mr. Mill, Mill
;
when he
says that " the suppositions (from which the
conclusions of geometry are deduced) are so
far
being necessary, that they are not even true
:
from they
purposely depart more or less widely from the truth/' 1
on which Epicurean and distinctly felt, and words capable of being referred to clear and disIn the moral sphere the feelings or emotinct ideas. tions play the same part as sensations in the theoretical. We need only say a word about another criterion of reality which was added by some Epicureans and is not excluded by Epicurus himself. These, then, are the two
science reposes
\
pillars
sensations clearly
These were the imaginative impressions of the intel2 and in these we have a method of arriving at lect, The precise meaning truth additional to sensation. of this source of ideas, however, has long been a According to one view, they subject of dispute. animi j actus liber represent the free cast of the mind of Lucretius, 3 which leaps out to meet the sensation, and transforms it into an intelligent perception. That ;
—
Epicurus recognises spontaneity on the part of the System of Logic,
ill. s.
I.
2
(pavTaoTiKai £7ri/3oXat tiiq diavoiaQ.
3
Lucretius, v. 1047.
Cf. on this topic, Tohte, Epikurs Kriterien der Wahrheit (Ckusthal, 1874).
AND PSYCHOLOGY.
LOGIC
mind
is
quite true
;
but he notices
that this participation of the
mind
of error and delusion.
he
It
is,
it
225
mainly to show
is
often a source
because there
says,
a gap in the connection between the
is
movement
which originates from within and that which comes from without, that our opinions sometimes are
false. 1
meaning would be out of place here. The on the intellect " are contrasted with the sensations in such a way as to render it more probable that we should understand by them the images which present themselves to the intellect But
this
" imaginative impressions
(in
the Epicurean description of
senses.
it),
and not
to the
In other words, they represent the impres-
sions derived from the spectra or idola, delicate to affect the senses, but
which are too
can act upon the
mind.
Such
idola,
however, are of various character, and
are of very different value as witnesses to real objec-
Some of those which are incapable of moving the senses are due to accidental agglomerations of phantom husks floating about the air. For example, in such a way the image of a unicorn may But as the idola come from no rise before the mind. real object, no solid body (aTepefivLov, as Epicurus calls it), they are not evidence to more than themselves we have the idola presented to the mind but it is
tive existence.
:
;
only in sleep, or madness, or ecstasy, that these images correspond to any reality.
awake and
in
health
'
we soon
recognise that
Diogenes Laertius, x. 51.
Q
we
believe
When we are we have
EPICUREANISM.
226
been the victims of idola,
which
and not bodies
to the senses
They,
Gods.
There
illusion.
however,
are,
these, appeal to the intellect only,
like
:
and these are the
idola of the
from single solid
too, are not derived
but in contradistinction to the others just
;
mentioned they have a
real object
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or what,
at least,
maintained to be such in the Epicurean theology.
is
At the same time one can see why Epicurus does not distinctly
enumerate these imaginative
among
intellectual
and reality. They are not always to be depended upon they are, indeed, generally to be distrusted, and trust rested solely on the deliverances of the senses. Yet, Epiimpressions
the criteria of truth
:
curus, unwilling to surrender his belief in the Gods,
seems to have recognised
on
account
of
this
avenue of ideas
theological
its
minutely discussing or weighing
Two
cases
seem
to exist in
its
solely
without
bearings,
evidential worth.
which doubt may
arise
as to the reality or truth-bearing quality of impres-
There
sions.
the case already noticed, of the im-
is
pressions that solely affect the intellect senses. said,
And on
this point
and not the
nothing further need be
except that, where the imaginative forms are not
by the comparison with what presents itself and in our sober moods, then they must be supposed to have some reality behind them. The dispelled
in daylight
other case arises in dealing with strictly sensible impressions.
An
instance
of optical illusions. it
touches the water
verge as they
retire.
:
may be taken from the field The oar seems bent where
two parallel
lines
seem
In these phenomena
it
to con-
would
LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY.
227
seem as if the senses were leagued to deceive us. But it is really an error due to the addition made by the mind to the information given by sense. The mind has transcended the merely perceived, and has given it a meaning. Imagination has been playing its game with us. In such a case we compare the interpretation given by the mind with others which have been already more securely ascertained. If the known
phenomenon gives its evidence in favour of the assumed but uncertain phenomenon, or does not contradict real
may be taken as on the other hand the familiar
the assumed perception
it,
and
true.
phenomenon
If,
controverts
either
the
interpretation
adopted by the mind, or does not witness in
its
must be rejected as false. But here there are two cases. There is the case where we can by observation or experiment test our
favour, the interpretation
provisional hypothesis, either
of the object
itself
Thus, when we approach closer to the
stances.
tower and find that are
led
by a future examination
or of others in similar circum-
to
no longer appears round, we
it
modify our statement about
But in our attempts to get causes of the
phenomena of
at the real
its
shape.
and
secret
nature, such direct con-
firmation or confutation cannot always be looked
may
In such cases, an explanation ance
if
causes
none of the
we
familiar
phenomena with whose
are better acquainted contradict
inconsistent with
its
truth.
is
to
be found
in the
Q
2
it,
or are
Thus, the theory that
the real substratum of the world, external ternal,
for.
claim our accept-
and
in-
atoms and the void,
EPICUREANISM.
228
cannot be proved by direct evidence from sensation.
The atoms
are too small to be singly perceived
;
and
the void, because
it
perceived either.
Hence, the existence of atoms
the non-existent, cannot be
is
is
when we have shown that any other explanation of the phenomena is at variance with observed facts and, secondly, when we have shown that all the phenomena of the universe only to be established,
first,
;
are consistent with the hypothesis of atoms,
and
that
movement of the atoms laws which we have found
the laws which regulate the are in agreement with the
to prevail throughout the range of familiar facts.
The atomic
theory of Epicurus,
hypothesis, basing
harmony which
it
its
therefore,
is
a
claim for acceptance on the
introduces into our conception of
He
began, as we saw, by declaring and subjective certainty of sensation is the basis and starting-point of any attempt to But, reach reality or truth and objective certainty. the universe.
that the individual
though the is
starting-point,
perception,
there
is
i.e.,
is
quota to the
far
we
from being
desire.
result.
that
:
the object perceived,
But the tendency thus exhibited
of impression from the object
subject
all
in every
perceiving, severally contribute their
a source of error, as well as of truth.
fusion, so also
For
in every interpretation of sensation,
a meeting of elements
and the subject is
it
needful to secure the end
may
perceiving.
may
The
currnet
lead us into con-
the current which starts from the
In
these
circumstances
it
is
necessary to compare our perceptions with those of others
in
the
same phenomena, and
to
compare
LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY.
229
times.
phenomena with one another at different In this way we gain a tolerable working cer-
tainty,
sufficient
similar
for
ordinary
all
purposes.
What
others perceive no less than ourselves, and what
is
perceived identically at different times and places,
may
safely
So
be looked upon as
region of scientific certainty. ceiving the
and
real
true.
however, we are not yet in the
far as this goes,
movement of
All
men
agree in per-
the sun across the sky,
its
and the phenomenon is repeated at different places and times without any variation. The perception, therefore, that the earth is at rest, and the sun revolves around it, was established as an objective certainty for common use. But the Copernican doctrine is a scientific truth which entitles us to set the ordinary perception and its certainty aside. How is the step from the one degree of certainty to be made to the other? By the same process which, rise
and
when
setting
;
carried to a certain extent, gave the average
certainty of daily
life
;
by a
repetition
and extension
of the method of comparison and correction which
was applied this
way
it
to the perceptions of the individual.
may
elements in the accepted perception which are
The aim
subjective in their origin. to discover
in
all
datum.
In
turn out that there are constituent
an objective
perceptions,
is
certainty,
something which,
out to
be a permanent
turns
It is the elimination
subjective which led
strictly
of the process
of
all
which
is
merely
Democritus and Epicurus to
They held that all the phenomena of perception could be satisfactorily exassert the theory of atoms.
EPICUREANISM.
23°
plained, and, in some instances, explained away, by means of their doctrine. They believed that they had found in the atoms a fundamental truth by which
the process of sensation itself could be understood,
and things and thought in the world.
in
A
alike receive their fair place molecular constitution of the world,
which the molecules were homogeneous, and only
varied in size and shape, and that within infinite-
(compared with ordinary visible and in which these molecules, though
simal limits ferences),
dif-
in-
numerous, were always separated from one another by an interspace of larger or smaller ex-
finitely
seemed to them to get rid of numerous which any other theories involved, and to produce a conception of the universe which was harmonious and accordant with every fact of
panse
:
this
difficulties
perception.
Epicureanism, therefore,
is
far
from denying the
operation of intellectual or rational factors in the process of knowledge.
What
it
does affirm
is,
that in
the earliest stages of experience a great deal goes on
by spontaneous aggregation of the materials furnished by sensation, quite apart from the influence of reasoning and reflection.
Kant
in
his
Its point is rather like
Critique of
the
Reason.
that of
Thought,
it has materials from sensation to work upon, is only engaged in building houses upon But in the the sand for the tide to sweep away. elaboration of that material, in a criticism and sifting of the ideas which have grown up by nature thought has its proper function, and obviously a
except so far as
1
LOGIC
AND PSYCHOLOGY.
highly important one.
It
may be
23
said, indeed,
How
can Epicurus, regarding the soul as atoms in combination, .attach
indeed,
is
any meaning
to
against Epicureanism, but against
it
all
attempts to render
atoms as thinking than to
to regard a concourse of
them and as
regard
as active in
hard,
easy, for
many
any way whatever.
an atom to move as
atom or group of atoms Like
This,
mechanism and operation of mind. And is not one whit more difficult for Epicurus
patent the further,
thought?
its
a weighty objection, not, however, only
It is as
it is
for
an
to think.
who
other philosophers,
in their syste-
matic exposition ignore thought and mind, Epicurus starts
in
from the assumption of consciousness or mind
activity.
The
very existence of philosophizing
presupposes the exercise of thought.
But
this initial
adoption of the mental point of view does not, in his case,
lead
on to any further examination of the
nature of consciousness, and the consequences which flow from the recognition of not,
like
powers.
its
Descartes, proceed from
He
am," and from our being to the being of an
God, the upholder of
all
things
does
" I think" to
and
"I
infinite
ourselves.
does not, like Kant, proceed specially to ask,
He What
by which do they necessarily
are the precise features of this consciousness I survey the world,
and how
far
mould and form our conceptions of nature?
He
does not even ask, like Plato and Aristotle, what are the relations of this thinking to the data of sense,
and how the grades and modes of our conceptions of and classified. The pro-
things are to be arranged
EPICUREANISM.
232
blem of
classification, involving the questions as to
the nature of genera and their species, and their rela-
no interest for Epiand the Stoics, with its
tion to individual existence, has
The
curus.
analysis
logic of Aristotle
of the processes of classificatory (dividing
and defining) thought, is wholly removed in his eyes from any practical value. One part of logic only is of interest either to him or to his school. And that part is the theory of induction and analogy, and, in general, of the process by which we are entitled to extend what we have observed in one case to cases lying beyond the range of direct observation. It was long supposed, indeed, that because the Epicureans rejected the scholastic logic of the Stoics they had given no attention to general logical ques-
The manuscripts
tions.
enabled us to correct the
of
this view,
Herculaneum have and taught us that
Epicureans were interested in those questions
which
lie
treatise
at the
root of
matization
is,
The inductive logic. Symptoms and Sympto-
all
of Philodemus on
it, an essay on main a defence of
as its editor entitles
inductive reasoning. 1
It is in the
known
the analogical argument from a
case to the
existence of certain properties in an unobserved case
of generally similar character.
whom
the essay
is
The
Stoics,
directed, were assailants
against
who
re-
fused to admit anything but purely deductive reasoning. 1
"How
can we,"
it
is
asked, " pass from
Gomperz, Herkulanische Studien,
I.
the
(Leipzig, 1865), with
Commentary by Fr, Bahnsch (Lyck 1879) cf. Gomperz in Zeitschrift fur Oesterreichische Gym?tasien (1872), pp. 24-32.
the
;
;
LOGIC
AND PSYCHOLOGY.
known and apparent first
of
to the
or certain only amongst ;
and
them
Philodemus to
To do
?
as for the latter"
Must we
?
the former
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; (here the papyrus
But the context shows that
leaves us in the lurch.
may
unapparent
embrace the whole range of appearances,
all,
impossible
233
how far we commonly reached,
quoting an argument as to
is
argue, from the length of
life
abnormal instances, and enumerating the circum-
stances which "
we know
As
to
make a
difference in the
air, and and physiological constitution, so there may be cases due to other differences. Are we therefore either to argue from the cases which exhibit no variety of nature or force, or from those which pre-
length).
there are variations due to
food,
sent dissimilar features identical case
is
whilst to argue
To
?
start
of no value as a
from a completely
symptom
from a dissimilar case
fails
or sign
in proving
anything just on account of the dissimilarity." To " It is not, this the reply of the Epicurean Zeno was :
on the one hand, necessary
to
examine the whole
on the other hand, are We must examine several instances which, though exhibiting variations, still belong to the same kind or class of things, so that from what happens in their case, and from the range of familiar
facts,
any casual instances
facts
nor,
sufficient.
recorded about them, we
may
discover the in-
separable concomitants of each several case, and then carry
on the inference
though
it
to other cases."
Such a
rule,
has a slight resemblance to Mill's method
of agreement,
is
The Epicureans
too indefinite to be of evidently
felt
much
value.
that there were certain
EPICUREANISM.
234
uniformities which might claim the
title
of natural
and others which were mere empirical statements; but they cannot state in a distinct formula what makes the difference between the two cases. They give no sign of feeling the difficulty which lies under the statement, that the cases examined are to ; belong to the same " kind " they do not, that is, inlaws,
quire
how
"Jkinds "
Of
or in nature.
come
course,
to be framed either in logic
things were
if
arranged
all
under genera, induction and analogy are easy, and perhaps
trifling processes.
Thus,
if
we
give
them the
merit as against their Stoic and Peripatetic rivals of
emphasizing the place of the so-called "imperfect induction" in the process of science, and of even asserting particular experience as the foundation of all
certainty,
that, so far as
we cannot go
further
nothing towards establishing a truly induction.
;
and must add
our information goes, they did
They seem
here, as
little
or
scientific logic
of
elsewhere, only to
expound and defend the doctrines of their master, natural, modifying and developing There is while they only professed to apologize. little evidence in favour of any influence of Epicureanism on the sciences. It no doubt affirmed the perhaps, as was
law of causation, but almost solely against divine
inter-
Asclepiades, a physician and scholar of the
ference.
time of Cicero,
is
sometimes said to have introduced
Epicureanism into medicine
;
but apparently only on
very general grounds. 1
1
Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math., x. 318.
LOGIC
As
AND PSYCHOLOGY.
2 35
the Epicureans in general rejected logic, so they
also rejected
any metaphysical investigation of the
conditions and nature of thought.
Except as a means
of scientific investigation and of practical guidance,
thought had no interest for them.
They,
at
least,
could scarcely be accused of introspection, of turning the mind back upon itself, of " thinking about think-
They ignored
ing."
with
it
at
all,
treated
of similar character
the self or ego, and
if
they dealt
among other things and agency. They saw them-
it
as a thing
selves only as part of the natural universe,
and not as
occupying a special pedestal and possessing a power
which might be said to be the basis and creator of
They found themselves exposed
things.
ail
to in;
on every hand, and making part of an endseries of accidents, of action and reaction going
fluences less
on incessantly. This common action, they argued, was only possible on the ground of a community of And they were right. nature. But they were wrong in supposing that the similarity of nature freed them from the task of investiLike some modern "I think" and "I will"
gating fundamental differences. systems, just because the
accompanies
all
our perceptions, they
entitled to suppress the ego.
act
as a cause of error,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
of natural forces.
Truth
opinion
and
of
is
subjective
mind seemed
falsehood.
And
to
themselves
felt
They saw
it
impersonal, objective
is
personal.
be only a signal
much
:
The
intervention
for
mistake and
the popular conceptions of
are not so clear as to cause
mainly
interfering with the play
mind
trouble to such a
EPICUREANISM.
236
One can
course.
and
find indistinctness
flaws in the
semi-materialized images which in ordinary minds are that
all
God,
can be found to represent the terms of
and the
freedom,
will,
The
like.
spirit,
products
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
its votaries and those are mankind cannot long stand the strokes of criticism. They are soon shown to contain incompatible elements, to be self-contradictory. Ask
which imagination gives
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the great bulk of
any one what he understands by the " constantly speaks
and
\
if
5
I
of which he
'
he proceeds,
like Alcibi-
ades, in one of the doubtful dialogues accredited
the to
title
of Platonic, to the soul,
show him
will
it
that he cannot attach any clear figura-
tion to what Aristotle defined as the " actuality of
organic
body,
implicitly possessed
energy of [thought
is
the aspect of motion.
an
The
life."
:
The
ideal
movement.
of visibles in
of
by Epicurus always reduced to sensation is envisaged under
a phase of imagination
world
by
not be hard
w orld becomes a r
In the world as thus
described, there is, to quote the words of Professor Tyndall, 1 " nothing which necessarily eludes the con-
ceptive or imagining power of the intellect, the
same
in kind as our
human mind. own, would,
if
An only
expanded, be able to follow the whole
sufficiently
process from beginning to end.
It
would see every
by the specific attractions and repulsions exerted between it and other molecules the whole process and its consummation molecule placed in
its
position
;
being an instance of the play of molecular force. " 1
Fragments of Science,
vol. II. p. 83.
Of
LOGIC AND PSYCHOLOGY. course, for " the attractions
237
and repulsions
alluded
"
by Professor Tyndall, we should substitute the impacts of atom upon atom in the Epicurean theory a difference which would not render the process less to
;
But when we come
imaginable.
and the
" Granted,"
otherwise.
is
to
consciousness
relation to the physics of the brain, the case
the
says
"that a definite thought and a
same
writer, 1
definite
molecular
action in the brain occur simultaneously,
we do not
possess
the intellectual
organ,
nor apparently any
rudiment of the organ, which would enable us by a process of reasoning from the one
to pass to
the
other."
If
we have
rightly
understood Epicurus, he has
simply ignored the ego and consciousness, and turned
He has adopted the attitude of and not the attitude of philosophy. He has enough employed the ordinary conceptions of
solely to externality.
science, fairly
matter to explain the processes of growth, nutrition, If not an adequate
sensation.
these processes,
it
has, at
mode
of conceiving
most minds, the
least for
merit of affording an easy and simple rationale of
But
them. further.
"
What
as a philosopher
he should have gone
His only answer, however, to the question, are
we?"
is,
we
that
are what
our vision were expanded might
an
object of sensitive
other
that each
fact,
And by
a subject
1
is
and is
a
see.
we see, and Each of us
intellectual vision subject,
:
if is
of the
he says nothing.
not meant merely that each of us
Fragments of Science,
vol.
II.
p. 87.
EPICUREANISM.
238 is
For that matter, the
active as well as passive.
same may be
said of every piece of corporeal sub-
stance in the universe
:
activity
and
passivity are the
very characteristics of existence in
But in each of us there consciousness, ledge.
sentiment,
Of this Epicurus
to say that
it
is
is
its
very shape.
the further element of
feeling,
will,
and know-
has no other explanation than
nothing separable from certain com-
binations of molecules,
and may even be treated
a mere aggregation of ethereal atoms.
as
EPICUREANISM.
239
CHAPTER XL HISTORICAL SKETCH AND CONCLUSION.
Even
in the life-time of Epicurus his disciples
His
adherents were numerous.
seems
to
have acted as a charm.
mind was one
and
personal influence
Yet probably
his
neither fitted for abstruse speculation
nor susceptible of deep feeling and lofty sentiment.
Everything seems to show that he was as indifferent to the vocations of the scholar
and the
artist as
he
confessedly was to the business and intrigues of political life. The magic of his power lay in the bright and sweet humanity of his person and character. Possessed of a calm and happy temper, which passion and lust did not easily excite, and of a perspicuous eye which saw through the hollowness of mere wordwisdom and the dishonesty of many social conventions,
he blended the underlying cynicism of his nature with so
much
to be
found of the sourness of the disappointed
geniality
and urbanity
that
no trace
is
prophet or of the sternness of the moral reformer.
Though he the recluse
lived out of the world, he
or of the
had nothing of
ascetic about him.
Unlike
other teachers, he was not for ever claiming to be called " Rabbi, Master." He lived among his followers like an elder brother
;
not as a professor
among
EPICUREANISM.
240 pupils.
His was a pre-eminently
ing
friendly
in
which
life lost
among call
communion
his friends
him a
ladies'
very
Women
savour.
its
social
the
nature, find-
and without going so
;
without
salt
were conspicuous far
as to
man, one may say that he exhibited
a decided taste for feminine society
of deeper rela-
;
no indication and it seems improbable that he should have felt a grand passion. His nature was too calm and his tions to the fair sex, however, there
affections
too generically
for that very reason
human
â&#x20AC;˘
is
Perhaps
for that.
he was the better
fitted to
become
the focus of an admiring and affectionate fraternity.
With no
wife or children of his own, he was more become the correspondent of other women,
likely to
and
to have a
warm
heart for the children of others.
Self-centred without selfishness, kindly without intenor
sity
passion,
wise without
pedantry,
Epicurus
had many friends and adherents. The aim and character of his doctrine were also In such as to awaken interest and win popularity. name, at least, he proposed pleasure as the end of and even if the pleasure he meant was not what life vulgar sensualists understood by the word, the name was one that did not repel that numerous class who
naturally
;
cannot understand why unhappiness should be treated as intrinsically meritorious.
A dogma of
perhaps especially appropriate
to the
this
kind
is
sunny south
and to the bright-souled and simple-tasted Greek. Without wholly breaking away from the traditions of the national faith, he nullified the power of the priest, the
confessional,
and the
indulgence-monger,
by
;
HISTORICAL SKETCH. denying to deity both the
human
will
and the power
He
beings for their conduct.
to dispel the terrors of death
senting
it
to
a
dreamless sleep.
and the
weary world
He
as
To
if life
to punish
attempted even
by
repre-
endless
and
grave,
an
did not disdain to deal even
with precepts of diet and hygiene,
importance
241
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
as
matters of
was to be made as happy as
it
might.
and man, he gave no extraordinary acumen,
explain the origin of the world
a theory which called for
no preliminary study of mathematics, no scientific was level to the comprehension of ordinary minds. Professing to build upon the irrefutable
training, but
testimony of sensation, he dismissed logical intricacies as superfluous.
Above
all,
he gave an unhesitating
dogmatic answer to the doubts and anxieties which
men then as they do now, as man comes and whither he goes. Instead perplexed
to
whence
of criticism
and argument, he propounded what claimed to be an aim for action, and a complete theory of existence. At last, he said, after the world has for ages groped for a way amid the darkness of superstition, and after one philosophic system after another has tossed men to-and-fro on a sea of groundless opinions, at last the true light has been revealed. Henceforth the way seemed to be made clear erring wanderers had only to learn and practise the precepts of the Gargettian sage, and thereafter their lives would be happy and their souls at rest. It need cause no surprise, therefore, when Cicero declares that, not merely Greece and Italy, but the barbarian world lying round soon felt the influence R
infallible
EPICUREANISM.
242
To minds
burnt up by the unand harassed by a succession of wars and rumours of wars, a creed which released man from the bondage of political life could of Epicureanism. 1
availing strife of politics,
not but be welcome.
After the conquest of Persia
and the tightening of the ties between Asia and Greece, as well as Egypt, which followed that event, the Greek world was forced to surrender its burghal exclusiveness, its petty jealousies between town and town, its antiquated distinctions of class, its contempt for the foreigner and the "barbarian." The old civic constitutions fell in pieces, fortune and power changed hands, the old seats of supremacy had to be yielded to young and untried aspirants, in the shape
now came
of those erewhile secondary states which
People of alien race and
to the front.
got
mixed up
And
together.
of the Macedonian conquests, influence of the advance of
ing like results.
became a
From
fact as well as
if this still
sensibilities
was the
greater
Roman power
effect
was the
in produc-
that time cosmopolitanism
an
idea, for the
brought under the dominion of Rome.
many races To such a
cosmopolitan society, the great majority in which had, and could have, no interest in war and politics,
came as a message of good pronounced openly the thought which
the gospel of Epicurus tidings.
He
everybody was in secret cherishing.
He
spoke to
the poor and the unlearned, as well as to the rich
To
and educated. 1
science and
Cicero,
Be
Fin.,
IT.
art, to
49.
culture
and
HISTORICAL SKETCH. Epicureanism was' almost
learning,
243 hostile,
so long ?
at least, as
men from and
saw
in
them
according
humanity
The
science.
A
the one thing needful.
not, :
mere
to
than
Stoic philosopher
mere
literary
scientific training
adequate
Epicurus,
greater
is
which withdrew
attractions
aesthetic as well as a
were
man
it
had
either
for
art
to tread a
or
mazy
path of dialectic before -he could reach the higher
wisdom of
life,
and
to
some minds the
fascinations
of difficulty were so strong that they forgot the great
end of
and spent their lives in intellectual But on the Epicurean there was not im-
all logic,
warfare.
posed the necessity of maintaining a lengthy argu-
ment in defence of his faith. His duty w%as to apprehend and remember the precepts and principles enunciated by the founder of his sect. These principles were simple, and the precepts seemed easy to follow. The question was often asked Why are :
No
doubt many were
there so
many Epicureans ?
attracted
by the promising name of
pleasure.
To
such might apply the sarcasm of Arcesilaus, who,
when asked why
there were so
many
deserters to
Epicureanism from other schools, while no Epicurean ever [became
a renegade,
replied
:
"
A man may
become a eunuch, but a eunuch can never become a man." 1 The theology of Epicureanism, too, had its charm.
There
is
an unmistakeable earnestness
the tone of Lucretius,
when he speaks of
in
the awful
load of religion under which the world of his time lay
1
Diogenes Laertius,
iv. 6, 43.
EPICUREANISM.
244
And
crushed.
strange as
it
may
sound, the very
idea of a divine Providence watching over the ways
and fates of men meant only the uneasy and gruesome sense of a ghostlike presence always hovering around. 1
The
historical circumstances of the age of
can scarcely be dissevered from
Epicurus
The
his doctrines.
wars of the Diadochi, or successors of Alexander, the
chaos of Grecian
politics,
and the career of Agathocles,
the despot of Syracuse, seem a practical and trative
illus-
commentary on the morals and theology of
The
Epicureanism.
and Demetrius Diodorus, which
reader of the lives of Plutarch,
in
Eumenes
and of the books of
trace the vicissitudes of Sicilian his-
tory from 317 to 289 b.c,
almost
feels that
he has
looked upon a world from which the merciful and righteous
Gods have
departed.
A story told of Danae, may illustrate
the daughter of Epicurus's Leontion,
the
This lady was the friend and companion
impression.
of Laodice, the widow (and murderess) of Antiochus
She had
the Second.
had decided
learnt that her royal mistress
to put treacherously to death an officer
named Sophron, and once been her
lover,
she gave the
latter,
who had
an intimation of the doom
Sophron made
his
escape
Laodice, in her indignation, ordered
Danae
tended
him.
for
thrown down
a precipice.
had disdained
to say a
The unhappy
Cicero,
to
girl,
be
who
word in the presence of her was led to her execution,
destroyer, broke out, as she
1
in-
and
:
Be Nat.
Dcor.,
1.
54.
HISTORICAL SKETCH. in these
words
Gods.
This
my
saving
:
is
"
The world does
245
right to despise the
the reward I receive from
God
for
husband, while Laodice, who has killed
Few epochs
invested with honour." 1
hers,
is
tory
have been so disastrous
in
their
in his-
immediate
effects
upon the happiness and the morality of man-
kind.
But, like the wars of the First Napoleon, the
contests of the tyrants
and usurpers of the age of the
Diadochi perhaps helped to prepare the world for a larger
Of
measure of freedom and federation. the actual spread of Epicureanism during the
two centuries
after the
death of Epicurus we are only
But that
vaguely informed.
it
did spread and that
a succession of teachers carried on the tradition of the school are certain.
It is
probably to the close of
we must
the third century B.C. that
refer
two incidents
which are handed down on the authority of the lexico-
His statement
grapher Suidas.
is
that
some Epicu-
reans took up their abode in the town of Lyctos or
A
Lyttos in Crete.
decree was at once promulgated
graceful
banished from the town " those womanish and ignoble and disphilosophy, and who were enemies of the
Gods."
If,
for their expulsion.
who had invented
It
a
however, the
offenders
should
return,
(the decree continued) a worse penalty awaited them.
They were
to
be
set fast in the
stocks,
twenty days to the stings
naked, their
and honey, and left of the wasp and gadfly.
skin besmeared with milk
for
If
they survived this horrible ordeal, they were next to
1
Athenseus, xin. 64.
EPICUREANISM.
246
be dressed
like
top of a rock.
women, and dashed to death from the At Messene, in the Peloponnesus,
The
Suidas locates another case of like fanaticism.
Epicureans were outlawed as
defilers
of the temples
and as a disgrace to philosophy, through their atheism and indifference they were ordered to be beyond the borders of Messene before sunset, and the magistrates were directed to purify the city and shrines from :
all
traces of the heretics. 1
we read
that
we
We
can almost fancy as
are dealing with a persecution of the
Christians in the second century of the Empire, or
with the rough methods sometimes employed to check
Roman
Catholicism.
know more
One would have been
glad to
of the circumstances, and of the special
characters of the Epicureans
absence of such
details,
in question.
we may
In the
infer that the acts in
question had something to do with the bitterness and intensity of political enmities
due to the contests of
the Achaean and iEtolian Leagues, of Macedonia and Sparta, during the years from
250 to 150
B.C.
The
offence of the " Epicureans " so-called was doubtless political
dissidence,
though the attack
of
latter
made
Lyttos,
rather
than
religious
heresy,
charge might be used to justify an
on the former ground. we have the
really
particularly,
In the case facts
of the
and the complete and treacherous destruction of the city by the rival town of Cnossos about the year 200 B.C. 2 The pious and bigoted Aelian, who lived towards coalition of the other Cretan states against
1
Under the word
' '
Epicurus."
2
it,
Polybius, iv. 53-54.
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
247
the close of the second century a.d. wrote a work on
Providence, in which the Epicureans largely figured. 1
From
fragments which
the
editors
patched
have
together out of the references in dictionaries, that
was
it
full
we
One
and of miraculous conversions.
believers,
learn
of tales of divine judgments on unof
the unconsecrated ministrants in the mysteries, he
an adherent of the effeminate and impious
tells us,
Epicurus, pushed
creed of
holy place,
and would thus have
enter,
forward into the most
where none save the high-priest might practically evinced his
disbelief in the interference of the
Suddenly he was seen disease
fell
who was
upon him.
to
shudder,
Gods with man. and a wasting
In another story, an Epicurean,
from
was taken into the and while there was told in a dream by one of the priests that his only remedy was to burn the books of Epicurus he possessed, and apply the ashes kneaded up with wax as a poultice. His subsequent restoration to health is said and not unnaturally to have made a deep impression on his Another Epicurean, again, who fellow free-thinkers. was heard scoffing at the vows and prayers made by the worshippers at the altar of Castor and Pollux, was attacked by an offended believer, who seized the sword of one of the Twins and smote the re viler, hurling at the same time a blast of defiance against Epicurus and his dogmas. Whatever we may think of the truth of these stories, suffering
temple of ^sculapius
pleurisy,
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
1
Aelian,
Fragmenta
(ed. Hercher),
from Suidas.
EPICUREANISM.
248
meaning
their general
first
public
objec-
on two grounds. The abstinence from political duty their womanish. Even in modern times the
their
is
philosophy
The
tolerably clear.
is
tions to the Epicureans
rest
:
is
mind has regarded with
distrust those sects
which, like the Quakers or the Unitarians of Tran-
have refused some of the recognised obliga-
sylvania,
Much more would an
tions of the citizen. city,
constantly
obliged
defend
to
ancient against
itself
enemies without and within, abhor and punish the advocates of political indifferentism. in
political life
Greece had been
And apparently much quickened
The reforms attempted by Agis and Cleomenes, and the extension of the Achaean league, were the closing exhibitions of
after the
time of Epicurus.
in Sparta
the old spirit of Hellenic
life,
before
Rome
reduced
to silence.
all
The second
charge against the Epicureans was
that of atheism
the
avowed
deception.
and
irreligion.
enemies
Though,
of like
In general they were
superstition
and
not ostentatiously dissent from the national religion, 1 they
mysteries,
were suspicious of
and the
priestly
Epicurus himself, they did
like.
all
rites
of
secret worships,
This position, curiously
enough, seems on one occasion to have made them the allies of the Christians. a.d.
In the second century
Paphlagonia was ringing with the fame of a new
prophet, Alexander
by name, who had
set
up an
oracle at Abonutichos, which was the object of pious
1
Cicero,
Be
Nat. Dcor.,
I.
85.
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
According to the
pilgrimages from far and near.
who
essayist Lucian,
249
and progress
describes the rise
of this charlatan, the Epicureans,
who were numerous
on the Euxine, detected by which Alexander managed
in the provinces bordering
and published the to impose upon
tricks
his
admirers.
The
false
prophet
immediately appealed to the fanaticism of the province to destroy his opponents,
well
Epicureans.
as
who included
He waged
a
Christians as
merciless
war
man who had studied the and who alone knew the truth that To the inhabitants of Amastris,
against Epicurus "the
nature of things,
was in them."
which was the head-quarters of the Epicurean opposition,
he denied
At
sanctuary. service
all
approach to the privileges of
was preceded by the herald's proclaiming
(after the
manner of a
similar proclamation
the Eleusinian Mysteries) or Epicurean, has
him
his
solemn religious ceremonial, the
his
depart."
come
And
:
"If any
to spy the sacred
The catechism
at
rites,
let
Away with " Away with the
as the herald called,
the Christians," the people responded,
Epicureans."
made
atheist, Christian
"
or articles of Epicurus,
even, the prophet caused to be burnt on the public square,
"
and
He knew
its
ashes to be thrown into the Euxine.
not," says Lucian in a passage of unusual
earnestness, " what blessings that
book brings to those and freedom it works within them, setting them free from terrors and spectres and portents, from vain hopes and superfluous desires, putting within them truth and understanding, and truly purifying their souls,
who come
to
it,
what peace and
tranquillity
EPICUREANISM.
250 not by torch and
squills,
and such and
but by right understanding,
Of
mindedness."
idle ceremonials,
truth
and open-
'Epicurus he speaks as
"a man
and prophetic in nature, who alone knew and taught the good and true, and was the liberator of those who companied with him." 1 Erelong a third charge was added to the list of impeachments. The name Epicurean was identified with sensualist an Epicure was another name for a gourmand. And this view of Epicureanism, which apparently came latest, was also perhaps in later times the most widely spread.
truly sacred
:
It is impossible to say precisely
appeared
when Epicureanism
When the ambassadors Rome in 155 b.c to plead
Rome.
at
Athens arrived
at
of the
cause of their city in the question of Oropus, they
included no representatives of Epicureanism.
Car-
neades of the Academy, Critolaus the Peripatetic, and
Diogenes the
Stoic,
carried off the honours of the its way About the middle of
Yet Epicureanism had quietly found
day.
to the capital of the world.
the second century, an obscure statement
tells us,
two
Epicureans, Alcius and Philiscus, were expelled from
Rome on young. 2
the ground of immoral influence on the It
is
certain that
about that period the
Roman government made some
ineffectual attempts
manners and the decline which accompanied the conquest of the
to check the corruption of
of
faith,
1
Lucian, Alexander s. Pseudomantis, 25, 38, 47, 61.
2
Athenasus, xn. 68.
HISTORICAL SKETCH. transmarine
251
The decree
provinces.
against
the
Bacchanalia in 186 and the general order given to 161
the executive in
b.c.
to
keep a sharp eye on
philosophers and rhetoricians, betray uneasiness in the governing circles at
Rome. 1
The earliest expositor of Epicureanism in Latin was a person called Amafinius and the publication :
of his work was the signal for large accessions to the
The attractive power did not lie which the new doctrine was conveyed.
sect of Epicurus. 2 in the style in
The
writings of Amafinius,
of Epicurus
like those
himself and those of later Epicureans, were written in a vulgar language,
and even of
ments, critic
and
logical
rhetorical embellish-
The
order.
scholarly
of the period remarked that they were said to
be in Latin
:
but he regarded them as
Cicero
in their contents.
himself
he had not read them.
for their
own
from
far
and beneath the dignity of science
classical in form,
that
common
dealt with very
They were devoid of
things.
sect,
and not
is
They
to boast
fain
he
wrote,
for the literary
world
says, :
and
as they neglect the graces of style, the public passes
them
by.
It is
the
same argument
as
a classical
author two centuries later might have used to set aside
the letters of
writers
the
St.
Paul or of early Christian
on the ground of defective
style.
case of the Christian Scriptures,
Yet, as in
these
badly-
arranged and poorly-written words of the Epicureans 1
Aulus
2
Cicero, Acad. Post.,
De
Fin.,
Gellius, XV. 11.
III.
40.
I.
5;
Tusc. Disp., IV. 6
;
ib.
II.
7;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; EPICUREANISM.
252
had the power alone.
A
to convert
Nor was Amafmius
men.
host of writers sprang up in his train, and,
words of Cicero, took possession of all Italy. But the only names recorded in literature are those The latter of Rabirius. and Catius the Insubrian. died before 45 B.C., and is mentioned by Cicero only casually a later critic speaks of him as a not unpleasant writer. 1 Even the great poet who wedded Epicureanism to immortal verse, Lucretius Cams, is mentioned by Cicero only to say that he agrees with in the
:
his brother
dicate
skill
poem on
Quintus in considering the poem to
more than
in-
The De Naiura Rerum
brilliancy
the Nature of Things
or
power.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;was
published in 54 B.C., and its author had apparently died the year previously in the forty-fourth year of his age.
Poetry can scarcely be regarded as
an adequate exponent of philosophical doctrine. if
we except
constituent atoms its
But
the abstract exposition of the theory of
and of
vision,
Epicureanism with
freedom from logic and metaphysics,
appeal to the ordinary mind, the pathos of
its
its
direct ethical
and the humanistic character of its historical more congenial to poetry than any of its contemporary systems. The perennial charm of Lucretius is due partly to his dignity and apostolic tone,
philosophy, seems
earnestness, partly to his fresh eye for the
phenomena
of nature and humanity.
There are other indications of the progress of Epicureanism
at this epoch.
Quintilian, x.
A I,
professor of Greek,
124.
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
2
S3
Pompilius Andronicus, by birth a Syrian, who must have been contemporary with Lucretius, spoiled his chances as a teacher of literature by his devotion to Epicureanism.
make him
was supposed
It
maintain discipline
:
and
would
so the poor
man saw
him-
competition by inferior men.
in the
self distanced
He
that his creed
indolent in his teaching and less able to
withdrew to Cumae, and there living frugally and
working hard he produced a valuable
which he was glad to
stands
perhaps
:
Verrius,
join
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;more
Atticus, a wealthy,
sect.
and kindly man, who steered clear of pofirst in the list and with him one may
cultured, litics,
in order to
the circle of Cicero's
many Epicureans
than members of any other
critical treatise,
anonymously
Amongst
gain a livelihood. 1 friends there were
sell
Papirius
Saufeius,
Paetus,
Trebatius
Pansa, and Cassius, one of the assassins of Caesar.
Cicero himself drew his
first
draughts of philosophy Phaedrus, an
from the wells of the Epicureans.
member
trious
Sidon,
its
head
for the time,
Rome, and about his
first
illus-
of the sect, contemporary with Zeno of
had found
his
way
to
the year 90 B.C. gave young Cicero
philosophical lessons.
The
friendship thus
begun was terminated only by the death of Phaedrus.
The
orator always speaks of his early teacher with
kindly respect. tion,
Phaedrus,
interest,
was
Originally esteemed for his instruc-
when
still
and urbanity. 1
his philosophy
had ceased
to
dear to him for his probity, virtue,
In the year 79 Suetonius,
De
B.C.
Cicero spent six
Grammaticis,
8.
EPICUREANISM.
254
months
at
Athens among the philosophers,
chiefly
attending the lectures of Zeno of Sidon on Epicu-
Not long before Athens had suffered
reanism.
terribly
from the arms of Rome. In the war between Mithridates of Pontus and the Romans, Athens took the Aristion, or Athenion, a philo-
side of the Oriental.
sophical professor, sometimes spoken of as a Peripatetic
and sometimes
as
an Epicurean, induced the
turbulent spirits of Athens to join in the crusade
Throwing he got
against the great despotism of the West.
himself at the head of 2,000 rid of all
who were
men
into the city
too rich or too indifferent to risk
a desperate struggle for freedom, and absolute dictator.
Sulla, after
made
himself
a tedious blockade, in
which the groves of the philosophers were cut down to furnish materiel of war, took the city by storm j and the last frantic effort for Greek independence was
quenched
in seas of blood. 1
Cicero subsequently paid a B.C.,
when he was on
vernment of
Cilicia.
way Even at his
visit to
Athens
in 51
to the provincial gothis date the displace-
ment of the old site of Athens had begun and in the general movement of habitation to the northward the :
quarters of the city nearest the harbour were falling into decay.
a
Roman
The house
cretius dedicated his
of the
1
1.
Memmius
to
:
whom
and Lu-
poem, had got the authorisation
Areopagus to employ
Appian, MithridaU^ 28
20.
of Epicurus was a ruin
noble, the very
;
it
as a
building-site.
Athenseus, v. 48-53
;
Pausanias,
a
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
Whether the proposed Epicurus
we know
not
was a memorial to
edifice at
:
255
any
rate,
the Epicureans
were alarmed at the suggestion to desecrate their holy
who was now
Patro,
places.
wrote to Cicero, question,
whom
and asked him
to interfere
mentary
right,
test raised
and maintain
"honour, duty,
sake of the society,
for the
the head of the sect,
Phsedrus had interested in the
testa-
the injunction of Epicurus, the pro-
by Phaedrus, the abode, the dwelling, the men." As Atticus supported
footprints of illustrious
the request, Cicero promised to write to
who had
Memmius,
already abandoned his architectural designs,
but was on bad terms with Patro. intervention
is
Philodemus,
The
issue of the
unknown. 1 Epicurean
another
writer
of
the
through the discoveries at
Ciceronian epoch, has,
Herculaneum, attained a celebrity which his intrinsic Like many philosophers
merits would scarcely claim.
of those ages, he was not a Greek, but a Syrian,
—
native of Gadara, on the skirts of the Anti-Libanus.
In classical history he
is
known
as the author of a
few erotic stanzas in the Greek Anthology, and
is
alluded to by Horace, Cicero, and Diogenes Laertius. In his attack upon Piso Caesoninus, however, Cicero,
without naming Philodemus, describes him rolls
of
Herculaneum form a comment on
In the speech
—a long
;
and the
his words.
fierce tirade against Piso
and
Gabinius, during whose consulship Cicero had been exiled from
Rome
Cicero, EpisU
—there
is
a graphic picture of the
ad Fam., xni.
l
;
ad Attic,
v. 19.
EPICUREANISM.
256
grim, haggard, earnest face of Piso,
curled head of Gabinius. the assault.
He is
an Epicurus moulded
pigsty,
"With him," says I know to be
out of potter's clay and mud.
whom
Cicero, "lives a certain Greek
a person of refinement.
He
young
his constant
the pupil
and become
fails
his friend
has attached himself to
and guide.
But drawn by
comrade.
to appreciate the distinctions
This Greek, unlike other pro-
fessors of Epicureanism,
poems
gi:
described as a barbarous Epicurus,
an Epicurus from the
Piso,
and the
Piso bears the brunt of
is
at
home
display inimitable grace,
His and humour.
in literature.
felicity,
Unfortunately, his artistic powers are often put at the
The Epicurean
disposal of his pupil." 1
whose position as the thus
Cicero treatises
client
deplores, was
philosopher,
of the powerful Piso
the
Philodemus whose
have been unearthed from the Herculanean
villa.
We
need not attempt
to give a
complete
Epicurean names under the Empire. independent opinion was
less
list
of the
Just because
esteemed than
in other
we may expect to find fewer distinguished adherents. Nor can we always pronounce those to be Epicureans who remind us of its characteristic doctrines. In Caesar and Catullus, still more in Virgil and Horace, we detect features of Epicureanism. One of the Lives of Virgil tells us how he lived for several years in leisurely freedom, after the manner schools,
and doctrine of Epicurus. 1
Cicero,
And
the words of the
In Pisonem,
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
2
57
Georgics which praise " the blessedness of him who has learned the secrets of the world, and has laid
beneath his feet
all fears,
and the doom which no man
can escape and the din of Acheron craving are in the genuine spirit of Epicurus
its
prey,"
and Lucretius.
In the early Empire we find frequent allusion to
Epicurean
characteristic
sense-perception
and
tenets,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to
theory of
its
dogmas.
anti-providential
its
Both Seneca and Juvenal speak of Epicureanism
in
Quintilian seems to have been no inimical terms. chiefly struck by its hostility to liberal culture. 1 Its schools at Athens were still frequented. Apollonius of Tyana, who went the round of the sects, heard a "for even it he did not course on Epicureanism :
Two
disdain to study." 2 in the
symposium of
above alluded
Epicureans are mentioned
Plutarch.
The
treatise of Lucian.
an Epicu-
to (p. 249) is addressed to
rean
named Celsus, who
He
has been identified by Origen and subsequent
lived in the time of Hadrian.
writers with the author of the "
True Discourse," the
earliest
polemic against Christianity which remains
to us;
but almost certainly this identification
is
a
mistake.
About the year 176 Aurelius assigned to ancient
philosophy
drachmae. 8 1
Quintil.,
a
Whether II. 7,
a.d.,
the
Emperor Marcus
each of the four schools of yearly
revenue
sum went
this
of
10,000
to a single pro-
16; xii. 2, 24. Tyan., 6.
2
Philostratus, Apoll.
3
Lucian, Eunuch., 3 lxxi. 31.
;
Philostr., Pit, Soph.,
sius,
S
11.
3
;
Dio Cas-
EPICUREANISM.
258
was divided among
fessor, or
We
several,
we know
not.
are told that the emperor left the choice of the
Herodes
professor to
sophy in that period.
Atticus, the patron of philo-
After his time the appointment
seems to have been vested, probably,
who decided
pagus,
Of these
after hearing
professors of Epicureanism
in the Areo-
the competitors.
we hear
Aulus Gellius, who studied philosophy
nothing.
at
Athens
while Herodes Atticus was there, hardly alludes to
Epicureanism,
save
Hierocles the Stoic doctrine trine."
:
1
quote the bitter words of
to
" Pleasure the end,
:
no providence,
who
Longinus,
purpose about 240
is
visited
a.d.,
is
a harlot's
not even a harlot's doc-
Athens
for a similar
though he speaks of the
teachers of other schools, does not even mention the
Epicureans. 2
odour
at
Yet
if
it would be a had been reduced to silence. Cleomedes, who cannot be placed
mistake to infer that
The
physicist
earlier
Epicureanism was not in good
the University of Athens, it
than the second century, attacks the doctrines
of Epicurus in language so
vehement
had considerable Diogenes Laertius seems also to
believe they
still
tinued existence in his day.
that
one must
popularity. testify to its
And con-
Yet, in the latter half of
the fourth century Epicureanism had no longer a
fol-
and even its literature had begun to disappear. " Praised be the Gods/' exclaims the Emperor Julian, " for having annihilated Epicurean doctrine so com-
lowing,
1
2
Aulus
Gellius, VIII. 5, 8.
Porphyrins,
De
vita Plotini, 20.
HISTORICAL SKETCH. pletely that
its
259
books even are grown scarce." 1
Natu-
rally, in the closing struggle between paganism
The
place.
and
Epicureanism was out of
Christianity, a system like
only philosophy in which dying poly-
theism could hope to find comfort was the
spiritualist
doctrine of Neo-Platonism.
The
fathers of the early
Church have occasionally
expressed their views on Epicureanism.
Tertullian,
dogmas of the uses language occasionally which is in harmony
while he contradicts the theological sect,
with nisi
its
fundamental principle.
quod non
generis?~
existent
est: and,
(Nothing
is
incorporeal
Everything which
:
And when
Nihil
Omne quod a
is, is
est incorporate
est,
corpus est sui
except the non-
body of its
kind.)
he boldly declares that the Christian
re-
gards the teaching of secular literature as folly in the sight of God,
he seems to re-echo in part the words of
Epicurus. 3
" Lactantius, in his " Divine Institutes
(310 a.d.), has given a fine enumeration of the secondary causes which may account for the spread " It tells the ignorant they need of Epicureanism. 4 study no literature
:
it
releases the niggardly
duties of public beneficence to serve the
coward
State,
are indifferent
:
any one,
does everything for his
1
3
Julian,
De
godless are told that the gods
the selfish and malevolent
to give nothing to
own
Fragm. Epist., 301,
Spectaculis,
c.
from the
forbids the lounger
it
the sluggard to work, and the
The
to fight.
:
18.
is
ordered
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;because the wise man
sake.
c.
The
recluse hears
2
De Came
4
Divin. Institute in. 17.
Christi, c. 11,
EPICUREANISM.
260
the praises of solitude
and the miser
;
learns that
who
hates his wife
ings of celibacy
how good
hears
is
presented with a
of the bless-
list
the parent of a worthless offspring
:
a thing
is
childlessness
of impious parents are told that there obligation
life
The man
can be supported on water and polenta.
The weak and
upon them.
reminded that pain
the children
:
is
no natural
luxurious are
all evils ; and the happy even in tortures. Those who are ambitious are bidden to court the sovereign ; and those who shrink from worry are is
the worst of
brave man, that the sage
is
directed to avoid the palace."
It is in
a fairer tone
that Gregory Nazianzen speaks of Epicurus as showing,
by
his
temperate
life,
that
the pleasure he
preached was not the vulgar delights of licence. 1
doubt
was the current interpretation
this last
;
No
and
seems to have been in the mind of Augustine, when
it
in
unregenerate days he would have given Epicureanism the palm,
From
s
if
only immortality had not turned the scale. 2
the third to the seventeenth century, Epi-
cureanism was dormant as a system. ^however,
still
survived as a stigma.
Rabbinical writers, the
word
is
Hebrew
The name, Amongst the
transliteration of the
used to denote a free-thinker, loose
transgressor of the Mosaic law.
liver,
and
Korah, who headed
movement against Moses, and the serpent who tempted Eve, are both described by the Hebrew commentators as Epicureans. 8 Similar was the use the
1
Carm. Iamb., xvii.
3
Selden, Opp.,
erbuch,
I.
143.
I.
1555-6
2
;
cf.
August., Confess., VI. 1 6. Levy, Neuhebrdisches Wort-
HISTORICAL SKETCH. in the
Middle Ages and
at the
261
Renaissance.
Thus,
Villani declares that the troubles of Florence (1115-1 1
" not without cause 17) were
and judgment of God,
because the city was in those times exceedingly corrupted by heresy, and
among
the others the heresy of
the Epicureans pervitio di lussuria et di gola, whereby the people of the city were so divided they defended the
armed hand." 1 And,
said heresy with
of Manfred, Villani says
not believing in delight."
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; " His
God or the
saints,
The same usage
John of Salisbury
attached to
it.
The
again, speaking
was Epicurean,
but only in corporeal
and meaning
occurs in Boccaccio
writers like
some of
life
illustrate the
;
great Epicurean of the time, in
its bad senses, was the and free-living emperor Frederick II., of Gregory IX. wrote to the Archbishop of Canter-
its
good, as well as
free-thinking
whom
bury, that he held
it
wrong
for a
man
to believe any-
thing which he could not prove by the force and
reason of nature (vi
et ratione
natures)?
With the Renaissance there appeared sporadically' a naturalism, often licentious, which sometimes claimed kindred with Epicureanism.,
peculiar
Partly from a
more from the conditions of mediaeval existence, there had
misconception of Christianity, but
still
been a long divorce between the theology of the
Church and the nity.
and language of ordinary huma-* of natural affections and mand passionate life was one of the
life
The re-awakening
stincts into
a free
aspects of the Renaissance, in which Epicurean ten-
1
Villani, iv. 29
;
VI. 47.
2
Labbe, Concilia, xi. 348.
EPICUREANISM.
262
The
dencies might be traced.
of this revolt and protest
logue by Lorenzo Valla,
On
philosophic expression
found in a small dia-
is
Pleasure and True Goody
Here we find put mouth of a contemporary poet a glorification of nature and of the natural law of enjoyment. The
written between 1430 and 1435. into the
delights given through the senses
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;beautiful forms, â&#x20AC;&#x201D;are the
musical tones, sweet tastes and smells class of pleasures
first
But the advocate of
enumerated.
pleasure goes a step further, and defends the relaxation of sexual restraints.
and hasty
generalization,
The treatise is a crude made under a not inex-
cusable hatred of monachism and conventionality.
It
and systematic shape those demands of the heart and passions which can only claim our partial sympathy when presented in the
turns into logical
colours of concrete
The same
life.
stincts is seen in a
when we look Montaigne.
and the natural inmore mature and tranquil form Erasmus, Luther, Rabelais, and
revival of the heart
at
All of them, in their several ways, con-
tend against the stagnation of conventionality, against the reign of asceticism,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
of
them
are humanists,
The true Christian, Epicurean. The marriage of
in the wider sense of the word.
says Erasmus,
is
the true
Luther, the monk, with Catharine Bora, the nun, was a defiance to the theological morality of the cloister.
Rabelais substitutes for the conventual institutions of the past an abbey where the restraints of formal rules are abolished,
men and maidens
and makes the
novitiate of
young
the preparation and beginning of
HISTORICAL SKETCH. a useful, happy, and holy
life.
263
Montaigne writes
with the mellowed and kindly cynicism of an Epicu-
rean sage.
But it was not
till
the seventeenth century that Epicu-
reanism reappeared as a system. than one
effort
In that age more
was made to rehabilitate the philo-
sophic schools of antiquity with the changes necessary to
accommodate them
The
to Christendom.
most conspicuous of these efforts was the exposition and adaptation of the Epicurean system by Pierre GasGassendi published three works on
sendi (1592-1655). this topic
:
the
first,
on the
character,
life,
and doctrine
of Epicurus; the second, a commentary on the 10th
book of Diogenes Laertius
;
and the
third, a system-
account of the Epicurean philosophy.
In these
works much was done by comparison, by
critical in-
atic
genuity,
and by sympathetic
reanism from the
under which
it
Epicu-
interest, to clear
and
obloquy
was buried.
misunderstanding
After pointing out the
divergencies between Epicureanism and Christianity,
he proceeded
in a
new work,
the
Syntagma
Philoso-
which what he understood to be the principles of Epicurus were carried out, except in those points, such as the nature and
fihicum, to sketch a system in
operations of God, and the immortality of the
human
and
in the
soul,
where Epicureanism
logical introduction,
The second
is
unchristian,
where he went beyond
his guides.
half of the seventeenth century was a
period of philosophical excitement in France
;
and
Gassendi had his partisans, though neither so numerous nor so well
known
as those of Descartes.
Samuel
EPICUREANISM.
264
de Sorbiere, the translator of Sextus Empiricus,
warm
pressed
approval
of
Gassendi's
ex-
enterprise.
Francois Bernier (1620-1688) a physician and
traveller,
defended and epitomized the doctrines of Gassendi, to whom personally he had shown a really filial affection.
dellus),
Another Frenchman, Jacques Rondeau (Ronsometime Professor of Eloquence at Sedan,
published in 1679, a tiny book on the
life
of Epicurus,
which was translated both into Latin and English It is an enthusiastic defence of Epicurus, (17 1 2). written with
more
establish for
The
zeal than
knowledge, attempting to
hero the possession of every
its
virtue.
and easy-going morality of Epicureanism found a skilful advocate in St. Evremond, whose letters to the modern Leontion, as he calls Ninon de l'Enclos, give what we may style the Frenchnovel version of the liaison between Epicurus and his lighter graces
He
lady disciple.
and an
sensual
person
:
finds nothing incompatible in a
intellectual
friendship to the
though one may demur to
its
special application.
In more modern times the two ferent
same
which as a general truth need not be denied,
ways most
recall
and Auguste Comte.
men who
in dif-
Epicurus are Jeremy Bentham
Both of them were founders of
systems of thought which have been the objects of virulent attack; circle of
devoted
both of them attached to them a disciples,
and have been gradually
Bentham at his extending their range of influence. u Hermitage," a " unique, romantic-looking home-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
stead/' dark with the shade of ancient trees,
versing simply
and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;con-
gracefully with such friends
as
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
James j
265
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Brougham, Romilly, and Dumont, not fare, and fond of flowers and music,
Mill,
averse to good
may
modern Epicurus.
serve for a
aimed
at
founding morality on an ,
Like Epicurus, he intelligible basis
of
every tincture of asceticism, and espe-
fact, rejecting j
dally insisting on the relativity of
legislation to
all
j
human
happiness.
Like Epicurus, he offends some-
which he de-
times by the blunt, hard language
in
stroys cherished prejudices, without
seeming to care
may
he
for the injury
for the
time cause to tender
consciences and deep-rooted sentiments. of Comte,
we
In the case
find enthusiastic disciples contributing
towards the support of the needy thinker, as in the days of Epicurus.
The
anti-theological character of
Positivism, the humanistic religion in which nates,
and the
features
ism.
which have a certain
But
it
it
culmi-
fete-days in the Positivist calendar, are
may be added
similarity to Epicurean-
that the sentimental ten-
dencies of Positivism set a wide barrier between
and the older system
we
take into account
;
which its
is
it
when
strengthened
merits as a philosophy of
the sciences.
Guyau's work,
La Morale
d*Epicure (Paris,
as well as those of Trezza,
(Firenze, 1877)
Epicuro
e
1878)
V Epicureismo
and of Conte and Rossi, Esame
della
Eilo sofia Epicui'ea nelle sue fontienella storia (Firenze,
1879) show the interest taken in the subject at the present
Not
time. 1
M.
Guyau
treats
Epicureanism
Mr. Courtney's interesting essay on Epicurus (London, 1880) ; and a creditable degree-exercise by P. V. Gizycki (Halle, 1879). 1
to forget
in Hellenica
EPICUREANISM.
266 mainly
forerunner
ancient
the
as
of
utilitarian
Signor Trezza gives a and hedonistic theories. somewhat idealized picture of it, as the ancient gospel of a full and free humanity, living in the perception of the great law of nature and of love, and anticipating by two thousand years the advent of In. the joint work of Signori Conti true philosophy. and Rossi the chief merit is a clear and moderate
statement of the actual doctrines of the school, so far as
they can be elicited from ancient documents,
with a succinct,
somewhat unsympathetic, exami-
if
nation of Lucretius.
In the paucity of material, an estimate of the value of Epicureanism can scarcely
points
may
fidence.
to
be influenced by
critic.
Yet one or two
fail
the views or sentiments of the
perhaps be stated with moderate con-
Its
scientific in
atomic theory, however crude and un-
some
has the merit of clearly
details,
setting forward certain principles
Even
sciences are guided by.
Hegel, that " Epicurus natural science "
still
nearer to stating the general Aristotle.
He
is
the
foe
arguing with abstract terms. scientific field to
what he
which the physical
we do not
admit that he comes
method of science than of a priori methods, of
His restriction of the body " is equally in Nothing is gained, and
calls "
own sphere an advance. much confusion is caused, by mixing up with the material. The reduction of its
phenomena
to
say with
the inventor of empirical
is
we may
if
the spiritual all
physical
modes of motion, together with a more
strictly " scientific "
conception of what motion
is,
all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; CONCLUSION.
267
proceed in the same line of thought.
His banish-
ment of consciousness from the scene
procedure of the sciences in
accordance with the
If science
their stricter phase.
equally in
is
the atomic theory, which, setting
an
is
life
then
analysis,
and conscious-
ness aside, sees in the world an agglomeration of
mere lengths and breadths and depths without any whatever to characterize them, must be regarded as the ne plus ultra of science. Yet in the qualities
actual
world
thought,
life,
there
is
action
a principle
are
of unification
aspects of the world Epicureanism
They
are accounted but temporary
on the great expanse of
incidents
Of
synthetic.
all
is
almost
:
these silent.
and unimportant eternal silence
the wilderness of atoms.
In
its
theological doctrines, Epicureanism
may be
allowed the merit of a vigorous protest against superstition
and the more degraded aspects of so-called Its arguments have weight against the
religion.
sacrificial
that
God
rites is
of polytheism.
nor even as the orbs of heaven identified with the affirms that
It distinctly
shows
not such as one of His terrestrial creatures,
we
:
that
He
is
not to be
world or any part thereof.
are to conceive of
God
It
as having in
Himself all that is best and noblest in man, and remove from our idea of Him all that is evil and miserable. It no less declares that this world has other purposes than to serve for the well-being of
man, and
asserts for the various provinces of exist-
ence a right to their own independent development. But,
on the other hand,
it
puts
God
outside the
268
EPICUREANISM.
and reduces deity
world,
to the
of what
level
only a brighter and more ethereal humanity.
As
is
for
the grounds on which the existence of these Epicurean
Gods
is
The
proved, they seem utterly inadequate. psychological basis of Epicureanism
and apparently rest all truth and
tinct
to
theory of the world
is
reality
for
things
and not
:
it is
reason,
sensation,
It is reason,
which pronounces
man as
upon
is
indis-
claims
it
own
its
confessedly at variance with the
verdict of sensation.
a
While
contradictory.
and not
feeling,
atomic constitution of
the
which enlightens and pleasure. The
feeling,
to the limitations of
life
seems to be, that by feeling or sensation Epicurus meant two things, which he did not distinguish on the one hand, the principle or power of immediate and intuitive certainty, of clear and distinct consciousness; and on the other, the power of sense-perception, or feeling in its more concrete shapes. What is only fact
:
true of the former, he transferred to the latter.
on
this point
its
distrust of
Epicureanism
mere
Still
may be commended
ratiocination,
"and
its
for
evident
endeavour to get close into contact with individual reality.
It is quite right in
on individual perceptions
;
founding
only,
and
all
this
explicitly state, these perceptions are the
factors
as
it
which are
The forms
tual.
it
does not
product of
and
intellec-
treats as neglectfully
did the synthetic aspects of existence.
The moral by
essentially universal
of thought
knowledge it
its
doctrine of Epicureanism sins mainly
indefiniteness as to pleasure.
terpretation of what
is
It leaves the in-
pleasure open to the pleasure
CONCLUSION.
No
or will of each individual.
269
doubt
it
assigns to
prudence or wisdom the task of selecting and regulating pleasures
;
that
it
will
wisdom has no
but, unfortunately,
idea or ideal to guide
in the task.
it
may be
It
said,
be determined in the choice by the consi-
best for the development and Such an ideal of self-realization, however, cannot be formed out of the individual
deration of what
is
welfare of man.
consciousness alone
implies the recognition of the
it
:
and unity of man with man, as a body in which none lives unto himself, and where we are all members one of another. That unity had been detected by Aristotle and Plato in the Greek State. Epicurus saw that the merely political bond was often a hindsolidarity
rance to development
and he
;
cast
aside as only
it
Yet particular duties
an accident.
all
presuppose
the general conception of duty as the obligation of the
towards something more than his Hence Epicureanism, which ignores any
individual
natural
self.
such obligation, must, motives, lead to a all
life
if
save intimate friends
sensuality
and mere
may be brought
unchecked by other
tacit
of quietism, of indifference to :
and,
selfishness.
against
all
the
at
worst,
to
But similar charges
systems which emphasize
exclusively one side of the truth.
Modern hedonism the worth of like, to
life
by
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the its
doctrine which measures
pleasures
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
refuses, Proteus-
Sometimes
be caught in any definite shape.
appears in the bright hues of
artistic culture;
times in the gross garb of sensuality the gray abstractions of utilitarianism.
;
it
some-
sometimes
in
It declines to
— EPICUREANISM.
270 recognise
its
idol in the dust
ethical analyst
whatever
it
professes to
may
be,
and ashes
to
which the
reduce pleasure.
modern hedonism
is
But unlike
Epicureanism, whose grave simplicity contrasts with the refinements of aesthetic emotion,
humanity puts
selfish pleasure to
— whose sober —and whose
shame,
plainness of speech dispenses with the ratiocination
of utilitarian systems.
What Epicureanism
taught was
and harmony of human nature ; and its aim make life complete in itself and independent
the unity
was to of
all
external powers.
Cheerfully, though gravely,
the Epicurean took this present world as his in
it
he hoped by reason
Many its
to
things were ignored
make
all,
and
for himself a heaven.
by Epicureanism.
frank acceptance of the realities of our
—
But
human
in
life,
and of the laws of universal nature, in its emphasis on friendly love as the great help in moral progress, and in its rejection of the asceticism which mistakes penance for discipline, Epicureanism proclaimed elements of truth which the world cannot afford to lose.
;
INDEX. Academic
sect,
6
Cyrenaics, 12-13,
Aelian, 246 Agathocles, 35, 244 Alexander of Abonutichos, 248 Amafinius, 251 Andronicus (Pompilius), 253 Andronicus of Rhodes, 7 Antipater, 27 Arcesilaus, 6, 41, 243 Aristippus, 12, 148 Aristotle, system, 2-6 ; ethics, 134 ; on pleasure, 136 ; scientific principles, logy, 194, 201
171
;
Athenaeus, 77 Athens, 23, 27, 33, 42-45,254 Atoms, 97, 101, 174-176, 179183 Augustine (St.), 260 Aurelius (Marcus), I, 257 157,
264
Bodleian Library, 84 Butler
(Bishop)
quoted,
198
151
Darwinism, 114 Demetrius Phalereus, 33 Demetrius Poliorcetes, 35 Democritus, 170, 173 Diogenes the Cynic, 12
Diogenes Laertius, 73-74 Disjunctive Syllogism, 212 Dreams, 106
cosmo- Empedocles, 192 Ephebi, 26, 68
Asclepiades, 334
Bentham,
I 4^,
Danae, 244
141,
Epicurus, parentage, 23 ; at Mitylene, 29 ; at Lampsacus, 32 ; at Athens, 37 ; death, 46 ; character, 239 ; garden,
38 ; religion, 39, 202 ; manner of life, 49 ; brothers, 58 letter to a child, 60 ; sustentation fund, 62 ; testament, 65 ; devotion of adherents, 61, 69 ; letters in Diog., 75 ; works, 79 Eudoxus, 196
Canonic, 90-94, 226
Fate,
Celsus, 257 Cicero, 77, 251
Force, 187 Frederick II., 261 Free-will, 118, 132 Friendship, 59, 138, 164
Cleomedes, 258 Clinamen, 100 Colophon, 28 Colotes, 53, 70
Comedy, 10 Comte, 265 Cynics, 12-13, 153
113, 119
Gassendi, 263 Gods (theory of the), 107-108, 127, 203-209 Gregory Nazianzen, 260
EPICUREANISM.
272 Hellenistic
period, 14, 242
Plutarch, 76 Polyaenus, 52, 60
Herculaneum, 80-84 Hermarchus, 53, 65, 68 Hierocles, 258 Hume, 86, 216
220 Prudence, 150 Pyrrho, 30 Pythagoreanism, 19
Prolepsis,
Idola, 104, 205,
225 Idomeneus, 52, 63 Immortality of the soul denied, 109-110, 121-123, I2 7 Individualism, 137, 160 Inductive logic, 232 Intellect, 93, 225, 231
159, 183, 190,
230
Evremond, 264
Samos, 23, 28 Scientific
principles,
186,
177,
229
Stilpo, 34, 41 Stobaeus, 76 Stoicism, 14-18,91,^119,211.
Lactantius, 259 (origin of), 115
Leibnitz, 184 Leonteus, 53 Leontion, 52-56, 29
213 Strabo,
Sun
Locke, 173, 216 Lucian, 249 Lucretius, 73, 252 Lysimachus, 42 Lyttos in Crete, 245
7,
67
(size of),
1
11,
196
Terence, 54 Tertullian, 259
Thales, 172
Theodorus, 41 Theophrastus, 7, 34, 37, 40, 67 Thorius Balbus, 151 Timocrates, 64 Tyndall (Prof.), quoted, 236
Messene, 246 Metrodorus, 52 Monadology, 185
Nausiphanes, 29-31 Newton, quoted, 182
Utilitarianism,
Phaedrus, 253
Valla
Philodemus, 61, 81-82,232, 255 Piso, 80, 82, 255 Plato, 2-6, 67, 134; on plea-
Villani, 261
sure,
WYMAN AND
Zeno
SONS, PRINTERS,
139, 157
(Lorenzo), 262
the Stoic, 22
Zeno of Sidon,
142
;
Soul, 103, 153, 188, 236 Spinoza, 50, 121
Lachares, 43 Language
Rondeau, 264 St.
Seneca, quoted, 20, 48, 167 on Epicureanism, 78, 155 Sensation, 104, 216
Julian (Emperor), 258
Kant,
Renaissance, 261
80,
253
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