Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/492

Rh 472 E P I E P I way in which we use them. Nothing is ours besides our will. And the divine law which bids us keep fast what is our own forbids us to make any claim to what is not ours ; and while enjoining us to make use of whatever is given to us, it bids us not long after what has not been given. &quot; Two maxims,&quot; he says, &quot; we must ever bear in mind, that apart from the will there is nothing either good or bad, and that we must not try to anticipate or direct events, but merely accept them with intelligence.&quot; We must, in short, resign ourselves to whatever fate and fortune bring to us, believing, as. the first article of our creed, that there is a god, whose thought directs the universe, and that not merely in our acts, but even in our thoughts and plans, we cannot escape his eye. In the world, according to Epictetus, the true position of man is that of member of a great system, which comprehends God and men. Each human being is thus a citizen of two cities. He is in the first instance a citizen of his own nation or common wealth in a corner of the world ; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city poli tical is only a copy in miniature. All men are the sons of God, and kindred in nature with the divinity. For man though a member in the system of the world is more than a merely subservient or instrumental part ; he has also within him a principle which can guide and understand the movement of all the members ; he can enter into the method of divine administration, and thus can learn and it is the acme of his learning the will of God, which is the will of nature. Man, said the Stoic, is a rational animal; and in virtue of that rationality he is neither less nor worse than the gods, for the magnitude of reason is estimated not by length nor by height, but by its judg ments. Each man has within him a guardian spirit, a god within him, who never sleeps ; so that even in darkness and solitude we are never alone, because God is within, and our guardian spirit. The body which accompanies us is not strictly speaking ours ; it is a poor dead thing, which belongs to the things outside us. But by reason we are the masters of those ideas and appearances which present themselves from without ; we can combine them, and sys tematize, and can set up in ourselves an order of ideas corresponding with the order of nature. The natural instinct of animated life, to which man also is originally subject, is self-preservation and self-interest. But men are so ordered and constituted that the individual cannot secure his own interests unless he contribute to the common welfare. We are bound up by the law of nature with the whole fabric of the world. The aim of the philo sopher therefore is to reach the position of a mind which embraces the whole world in its view, to grow into the mind of God and to make the will of nature our own. Such a sage agrees in his thought with God; he no longer blames either God or man ; he fails of nothing which he purposes and falls in with no misfortune unprepared; he indulges neither in anger nor envy nor jealousy; he is leaving manhood for godhead, and in his dead body his thoughts are concerned about his fellowship with God. The historical models to which Epictetus reverts are Diogenes and Socrates. But he frequently describes an ideal character of a missionary sage, the perfect Stoic or, as he calls him, the Cynic. &quot; The Cynic, &quot; he says, &quot; is a messenger sent from God to men to show them the error of their ways about good and evil, and how they seek good and evil where they cannot be found.&quot; This missionary has neither country nor home nor land nor slave ; his bed is the ground ; he is without wife or child ; his only man sion is the earth and sky and a shabby cloak. It must be that he suffer stripes ; and being beaten, he must love those who beat him as if he were a father or a brother. He must be perfectly unembarrassed in the service of God, not bound by the common ties of life, nor entangled by relationships, which if he transgresses he will lose the character of a man of honour, while if he upholds them he will cease to be the messenger, watchman, and herald of the gods. The perfect man thus described will not be angry with the wrong-doer ; he will only pity his erring brother ; for anger in such a case would only betray that he too thought the wrong-doer gained a substantial bless ing by his wrongful act, instead of being, as he is, utterly ruined. The best edition of the works of Epictetus is that l&amp;gt;y Sclnvoi^- hauser in 6 vols. Svo, 1799-1800. There are at least two English translalions, an old one by Elizabeth Carter, and a recent version by George Long. (W. W.) EPICURUS, the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy, was born in the end of 342 or the beginning of 341 B.C., seven years after the death of Plato, Hi.s father Neocles belonged to Gargettos, one of the small villages of Attica, but had settled in Samos, not later than 352, as one of the colonists sent out by the Athenian state after the conquest of the island by Timotheus in 366. In Samos, and also at Teos, Epicurus passed the early years of his life, probably assisting his father, who was a common schoolmaster, possibly, too, assisting his mother Archestrata in the practice of her witchcraft- if we may believe doubtful tales. At the age of 18 he went to Athens, where the Platonic school was flourishing under the lead of Xenocrates, and which Aristotle had recently quitted for Chalcis to avoid an indictment for impiety. This visit to Athens, however, was a short one, for in the next year (322) Antipater the Macedonian punished the Athenians for their incipient revolt by banishing about 12,000 of the poorer citizens to distant shores. It was in connection with this event that Epicurus joined his father, who was now located at Colophon. It seems possible that before this time he had listened to some lectures from Nausiphanes, a Democritean philosopher perhaps also from others but there is little reason to suppose that he was much better than a petty teacher like his father. The first awakening of the philo sophic spirit was seen, it is said, when he asked his teacher, as they read together in Hesiod how chaos was the first of all things, &quot; What then preceded chaos 1 &quot; Stimulated further by the perusal of some writings of Democritus, Epicurus began to formulate a doctrine of his own ; and at Mitylene and Lampsacus, where he spent several years, he gradually gathered round him several disciples who adopted his views with enthusiasm. In 307, the year in which Demetrius Poliorcetes entered Athens and restored to it an at least nominal freedom, Epicurus returned to that city, which had now for a century and a half been the recognized head-quarters of Greek philosophy. Half his life was past; for the remaining thirty- six years he continued at Athens, with the exception of one or two visits to his friends in Ionia. The scene of his philosophic life and teaching was a garden which he bought at the cost of about 300 (80 minse). There he passed his days as the loved and venerated head of a remarkable society, such as the ancient world had never seen. Amongst the number were Metrodorus, a bosom-friend of more energetic temper ament than Epicurus ; during their acquaintance, which lasted till the death of Metrodorus seven years before his friend, they only parted company for the space of six months. Timocrates, a brother of Metrodorus, was another member ; so were Polyaenus, a fair-minded and studious man, Hermar- chus, a son of poor parents, who succeeded Epicurus as chief of -the school, Leonteus, and others. Nor were women absent from the philosophic coterie. Themista, the wife of Leonteus, was a friend and correspondent of Epicurus: Tdomeneus, another member, had married a