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 EPICUREANISM

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EPICUREANISM

ishes those doctrines through which mental trouble, for the most part, arises." The wise man will accord- ingly desire "not the longest life, but the most pleas- urable". It is for the sake of this condition of per- manent pleasure, or tranquillity, that the virtues are desirable. "We cannot live pleasurably without liv- ing prudently, gracefully, and justly; and we cannot live prudently, gracefully, and justly, without living pleasurably", in consequence; for "the virtues are by nature united with a pleasurable life; and a pleasur- able life cannot be separated from these." The vir- tues, in short, are to be practised not for their own sake, but solelj' as a means of pleasure, "as medicine is used for the sake of health ". In accordance with this view, he says that " friendship is to be pursued by the wise man only for its utility; but he will begin, as he sows the field in order to reap". "The wise man will not take any part in public affairs"; moreover, "the wise man will not marry and have children". But "the wise man will be humane to his slaves". "He will not think all sinners to be equally bad, nor all philosophers to be equail}' good." That is, appar- ently, he will not have any very exacting standard, and will neither believe very much in human virtue, nor be very much surprised at the discovery of human frailty. In this system, " prudence is the source of all pleasure and of all virtue".

The defects of this theory of life are obvious. In the first place, as to the matter of fact, experience shows that happiness is not best attained by directly seeking it. The selfish are not more happy, but le.ss so, than the unselfish. In the next place, the theory altogether destroys virtue as virtue, and eliminates the idea and sentiment expressed by the words " ought", " duty ", "right", and "wTong". Virtue, indeed, tends to produce the truest and highest pleas- ure; all such pleasure, so far as it depends upon our- selves, depends upon virtue. But he who practises virtue for the sake of the pleasure alone Ls selfish, not virtuous, and he will never enjoy the pleasure, because he has not the virtue. A similar observation may be made upon the Epicurean theory of friendship. Friendship for the sake of advantage is not true friendship in the proper sense of the word. External actions, apart from affection, cannot constitute friendship; that affection no one can feel merely be- cause he judges it would be advantageous and pleas- surable; in fact he cannot know the pleasure until he finst feels the affection. If we consider the Epicurean condemnation of patriotism and of the family life, we must pronounce a still severer censure. Such a view of life is the meanest form of selfishness leading in general to vice. Epicurus, perhaps, was better than his theory; but the theory itself, if it did not originate in coldness of heart and meanness of spirit, was ex- tremely well suited to encourage them. If sincerely embraced and consistently carried out, it undermined all that was chivalrous and heroic, and even all that was ordinarily virtuous. Fortitude and justice, as such, ceased to be objects of admiration, and temper- ance sank into a mere matter of calculation. Even prudence itself, dissociated from all moral quality, became a mere balancing between the pleasures of the present and of the future.

Theology. — Epicurus said that "it was not impiety to deny the gods of the multitude, but it was impiety to think of the gods as the multitude thought"; a sound principle, but one which he wrongly applied, since he got rid of what was true as well as of what was cor- rupt in the vulgar religion. Fear of the gods was an evil to be eradicated, as incompatible with tranquillity. As to their nature, the gods are immortal, but mate- rial, like every other being. He seems to have held that there was one supreme being; but this god was not the creator, scarcely the orderer, of the universe, the gods being only a part of the All. Nor is there a Providence, for an interest in human affairs would be

inconsistent with perfect happiness. In short, the gods are magnified Epicurean philosophers.

Natur.\l PHiLosoPHy. — The physics of Epicurus are in a general sense atomic. He claimed originality for his theory, asserting that it began with his reflections upon a passage in Hesiod. As he read in school that all things came from chaos, he asked. What is chaos? — a question which his teacher could not answer. It is generally held, however, that he really learned his atomism from the Democritean philosophy, modifying it in one important respect; for he supposes that the atoms in falling through empty space collide by virtue of a self-determining power, or rather an indetermina- tion owing to which it is possible for them by chance to swerve a little from the vertical direction.

Biology. — In this Epicurus simply followed the view of Empedocles, that, first, all sorts of living things and animals, well or ill organized, were evolved from the earth and that those survived which were suited to preserve themselves and reproduce their kind.

Anthropology. — The anthropology of Lucretius may be supposed to have been derived, like his phys- ics and biologj', from Epicurus. According to the Lu- cre! ian theory men were originally savage; the primi- tive condition was one of mutual war; in this condition men were like thewild beasts in strength and cunning; civil society was formed under the pressure of the evils of anarchy. The reader recognizes here the ideas indicated by the eighteenth-century phrases "state of nature" and "social contract". The "golden age" is a dream.

Logic. — The Epicurean logic is criterional. The test of truth practically is the pleasant and the painful belief. Theoretically, their criterion is sensation. Sen- sation never is deceptive; the error lies in our judg- ment. Dreams, the ravings of fever or lunacy, the delirium of the drunkard are true in their own way. Besides sensation the human mind has also notions, or anticipations (irpoKi^^eis), as when, seeing an object at a distance, one wonders whether it is a man or a tree. These notions are the results left by previous sensations. The notion does not appear to differ from the internal sense of a brute, such as enables a dog, for example, to welcome strangers belonging to the pro- fession of his master, and to bark furiously at a beggar that he has never seen before. The understanding, then, does not differessentiallyfrom the internal senses.

Psychology. — The human soul is material and mortal, being composed of a finer kind of atoms, re- sembling those of air or fire, but even more subtle. It is the bodily organism that holds together the atoms composing the soul. Yet the human will is free. "Bet- ter were it to accept all the legends of the gods, than to make ourselves slaves to the Fate of the natural phil- osophers." Fatalism, which to minds of a stoical dis- position seemed a source of strength, was to those of an Epicurean temper simply a source of unpleasant- ness and helplessness. The freedom asserted bj' the Epicureans is not rational freedom in the true sense of the word. It does not consist in the power of choosing the right and the noble in preference to the pleasant. It is little better than physical contingency, and may be described as Casualism. The whole philosophy may well be described in a trenchant phrase of Macaulay as " the silliest and meanest of all systems of natural and moral philosophy".

The Volumina Herculanmsia (first series, Naples, 1793-1855: and 2d series. Naples, 1861-1876), I-XI, contain many frag- ments of treatises by Epicurus and several members of the school. Frag:ments of Epiccrus's Phusicf, books 11 and XI, have been published by Orelu, after Rosim (Leipziir. 1818). See also A Descriplive Catalogue of the Oxford Copies of Ike Her- culanean Rolls (Oxford. 1886); Diogenes L*ertios, De Vitis el Dogmalibus Philosophonim, X (from which almost every quo- tation in this article is taken); LucRETina, De Rerum XaturA, especially the edition with notes bv Monro, 2 vols. (Ix>ndon, 1898-1900); Arrun, Diseoursesof Bpictelus, I, xxiii; II, xx; III, %ni; ATHEN.EU9, XII; Plvtkrch. Liber, Quod nesuavilerctiitdem vivi potest secundum Epicuri drcrein: Senec.\, Epist., I. ix; De Beruficiis, IV, ii; (Sceho, Dc Fin.. I. vii; II, vii. xxv, xxx, xxxi;