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EPI truths of sensation free from mixture with the fallible products of the understanding; , general conceptions gained from sense (not, as Cicero absurdly makes them, "innate ideas"), are always true. or, conceptions applied to the non-evident, from the known to the unknown (as we should say, "hypotheses"), are true if confirmed or are not contradicted by sensation; false if contradicted. For example, atoms and vacuum are believed in by a true though they are not sensible; the hypothesis suits the phenomena. The real nature of things is unimportant, we are concerned only with appearances. Definitions are useless; we need only attend to the primary signification of words.

Physics: here, as Cicero observes, "totus est alienus." He follows Democritus. "The universe is material, as sense testifies." Bodies are not infinitely divisible or they would be dissipated, but are infinite in number, and in an infinite space; they are separated by a vacuum. He differs from his master in giving the atoms a slightly diagonal course, in order to account for free-will and chance, of which he is a strenuous supporter. "Better," said he, "follow the myth about gods, than be a slave to the 'fate' of the physicists."—(Ap. D. L. x. 134; Cic. De Natura Deorum; et Laert. ii. 216.) The world, containing earth, sun, and stars, is an extent of space cut off from the infinite, in which are many worlds. The soul is a subtle sort of matter; if the soul were immaterial it would be a vacuum, which cannot do or suffer, but only allows passage to motion. It is composed of four kinds of particles, and is dispersed at death. Perception takes place by "types of the same figure as their originals" (D. L. x. 46.), which he calls "images," which flow from the surface of objects, where they are replaced by new particles. The gods dwell in the interspaces of worlds. They exist; but "he who denies the gods in whom the many believe is not the impious man, but rather he who gives them such attributes as the many do." The gods have bodies, which yet are but quasi-bodies, whence the "images" which give rise to the universal belief in them. They are "careless of mankind;" their nature is— " Semota ab nostris rebus, sejunctaque longe." Having thus—by showing the non-intervention of the gods, and that natural phenomena, being regulated by a sort of mechanical chance, are void of all special significance—removed those superstitious terrors which oppress the mind, he had cleared the way for his highest grade of philosophy—Ethics. "For to this end do we all do all our acts—to be free from pains and free from fears. His views here were almost entirely those of the Cyrenaics, making pleasure and pain the criterion of good and evil; but he differed from them—in aiming not at "a moment of pleasure," but at a "whole life of pleasure;" in teaching a pleasure in quiescence as well as in motion; and in placing mental above bodily pleasures. But if we believe on the testimony of Clemens Alex. (Strom. II. 1. 417), which is confirmed by Diogenes (x. 337), that he said "all pleasure of the soul is from past pleasure of the flesh;" it would seem that his "pleasure of the soul" was merely the anticipation or remembrance of pleasure of the body, from which it would differ only in comprehensiveness of view. It is probably in this sense that he declared that "the wise man even upon the rack is happy," though in his book (quoted by Athenæus, vii. 279 f.) he says, "the pleasures of sight, of touch, &c., being taken away, happiness cannot remain." The necessary pleasures only are indispensable to happiness:—"With barley-bread and water I would rival Zeus in happiness" (ap. Stob. serm. xvii. 30, and compare the inscription over the gate of the garden, as given by Seneca); "death is not terrible, for while we live it is not present, when it is present we no longer exist;" good sense is the best virtue guiding our choice of pleasures, and showing things in their true light—all which considerations lead us to, "a passionless calm," as the highest good. Justice and law are the result of convention and concession. Friendship is the best possession. Public life is to be avoided, . Such was the philosophy of Epicurus, a refined and guarded Cyrenaicism. We can here do no more than allude to its antagonism to the old religion; to its perpetual opposition not only to the severe fatalism of the stoics, but also to the over-subtleties of the academy; to its magnificent exposition by Lucretius; to its resuscitation at the renaissance of philosophy in modern times, and influence upon Hobbes and upon Bentham, The principles of Epicurus might doubtless be enforced as a system with greater consistency than was displayed by their propounder, but the principles themselves, the tendency of thought, will never be superseded as long as human nature remains what it is. As long as the mind of man contemplates both a within and a without, so long must metaphysics oscillate between idealism and sensationalism—so long must ethics be alternately stoical and epicurean.—T. E. H.  EPIMENIDES, was one of the most famous of the mystical sages, who flourished at the opening of the sixth century . He was said to have fallen asleep in a cave when he was a boy, and to have slept for fifty-seven years; and tradition gave him a hundred and fifty or even three hundred years of life. Purification of the guilty or polluted by peculiar sacrifices and observances was the great office of the priestly sages and the Orphici, with whom Epimenides is classed. An incipient or affected science was in them mixed up with religion, and Epimenides was believed to be learned in the virtues of herbs. He comes prominently into history in 596 ., when he was sent for by the Athenians to purify their city from the guilt of the murder of Cylon's followers, and to remove a pestilence which was believed to be caused by that. So successful was he, at least in appeasing their fears, that they wished to give him rich rewards, but he asked only for an alliance between Athens and his adopted home, Cnossus. Even in later times, when soothsayers and purifiers had fallen into disrepute, Plato and Cicero speak of Epimenides as possessed of superhuman powers. He was a poet as well as a priest; and long poems on epic and religious subjects, such as the Argonauts and Oracles, were attributed to him, probably without reason.—G. R. L.  EPINAY,. The date of this lady's birth is not fixed, but it is placed about 1725. She died in 1783. She was the daughter of a brigadier of infantry, who died, as she tells us, in the service of the king. She married at nineteen, was guilty of conjugal infidelities with more than one favoured lover, but in every case her stars and her husband were, she said, to blame. She wrote the history of her life as a romance, giving a description of her many admirers under feigned names. Grimm was one of her heroes, and Rousseau also was the object of an insane passion. She built for him the far-famed "Hermitage." She is attacked in Rousseau's Confessions. When Grimm left Paris, she continued the literary correspondence which he had so long conducted. The romance in which she told the story of her life was abridged by Burnet the librarian, and converted into a memoir, the real names being given by him.—J. A. D.  EPIPHANES. See.  EPIPHANIUS, Bishop of Constantia, was born at a Palestinian village near Eleutheropolis, at the beginning of the fourth century, about 310. From early youth he was instructed by Palestinian, and subsequently Egyptian monks. In Egypt he became acquainted with St. Anthony, and was nearly seduced from orthodoxy by Gnostic women. Returning to his native land about 330, he became a disciple of Hilarius; and established a monastery near his birthplace, over which he was appointed presbyter. In 367 he was made archbishop of Constantia in Cyprus. He was a member of the synod held at Antioch in 376 on the Apollinarian heresy. A few years after, 382, he was called to Rome respecting the Meletian schism. His passionate zeal against Origenism brought him into collision with John, bishop of Jerusalem. After this he became an instrument in the hands of Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, a man equally fierce against the alleged errors of Origen. Epiphanius followed some expelled bishops of Egypt to Constantinople in 402, intending to have them condemned by Chrysostom. But the truehearted patriarch refused. Thus the undertaking failed; and the old zealot died on his return in 403, upwards of ninety years of age. Epiphanius is the model of a monkish saint, ignorant, credulous, passionate for purity of doctrine, and possessed with an insatiable hatred of heresy and heretics. He was a poor judge of theological truth. Doubtless he was upright and pious, yet his piety was sullied by many faults. His principal work is the "," against eighty heresies, in three books, which contains a mass of historical knowledge ill-digested, and not free from mistakes and misrepresentations.—S. D.  EPIPHANIUS, a native of Italy, lived about 510, the friend of Cassiodorus, at whose instigation he translated into Latin the ecclesiastical historians, Socrates, Sozomen, 