Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/169

* EPICUREANISM. 145 EPICYCLE. no longer in existence. The insight shown by this remark lias not been sufficiently appreciated. The positive part of Epicurus'a system may be noticed in a few words. He held that pleasure was the chief good, and it is from a misappre- hension of the meaning of this word as used by Epicurus that the term Epicurean came to sig- nify one who indulged his sensual appetites with- out stint or measure. At the same time, it is easy to see that the use of the word 'pleasure' was calculated to produce the mischievous results with which the later Epicureanism was charged. The whole question of ethics, then, comes to a calculation and balancing of pleasure and pains; in other words, the cardinal virtue is prudence. Epicurus rests justice on the same prudential basis as temperance. Denying any abstract and ■eternal right and wrong, he affirms that injustice is an evil, because it exposes the individual to disquietude from other men; justice is a virtue, because it secures him from this disquietude. The duties of friendship and good-fellowship are inculcated on the same grounds of security to the individual. Epicurus is distinguished from bis contemporaries by the fact that be taught the doctrine of the freedom of the will. Among the Romans, the system of Epicurus was adopted by many prominent men. Horace, Atticus, and Pliny the Younger were Epicureans; and the splendid poem of Lucretius must have recommended the system to many. In modern times, Epicureanism was resuscitated in France by Pierre Gassendi, who published an account of Epicurus's life and a defense of his character in 1647. Many eminent Frenchmen have professed nis principles; among others, Moliere, Saint Evremond, the Comte de Grammont, the Due de la Rochefoucauld, Rousseau, Fontenelle, and Vol- taire. Consult Lange, History of Materialism (Eng. trans., Boston, 1886) ; Watson, Hedonis- tic Theories (Glasgow, 1895) ; Wallace, Epi- cureanism (London, 1880); Trezza, Epicure e I'Epioureismo (Florence, 1877); Zeller, Philos- ophy of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics (Eng. trans.. London, 1880) ; Kreibig, Epicurus (Vienna, 1886) ; Goedeckemeyer, Epicurus' Ver- haltnis zu Demokrit in der Naturphilosophie (Strassburg, 1897); Gizycki, Ueber das Leben uiid die Moralphilosophie des Epicurus (Halle, 1879) ; and the histories of philosophy by Schwegler, Ueberweg, Windelband, and others. See Epicirus. EP ICTJ'RTJS (Lat., from Gk. 'Eirtoupoj, Epi- kouros) (c. 342-270 B.C.). An illustrious Greek philosopher. He was born probably in the island of Samos, in December, 342, or January, 541, B.C., six or seven years after the death of Plato. His father, Neocles, is said to have been a schoolmaster, and his mother, Chserestrate, to have practiced arts of magic. In his boyhood he heard Pamphilus and Nausiphanes lecture on philosophy, hut did not claim to be a pupil of either. At the age of eighteen Epicurus repaired to Athens to present himself before the members of his demos and to be duly confirmed as an Athenian citizen. His stay at Athens on this occasion was not long: when he rejoined his father's family, however, it was not at Samos, but at Colophon, whither Neocles had repaired upon being dispossessed of his home at Samos. In his thirtieth year Epicurus was settled at Mitylene, and there he first won recognition as a philosopher; at Ijampsacus two or three y Later he became the head of a school. But Athens was the place where philosophers could expect to gel their best hearing, and thither Epicurus returned about 300 B.C. Eere hi I ght a garden which he used as the seat of his school. From this circumstance his followers were called the 'philosophers of the garden.' Although women as well as men frequented the garden, and although among these women were many of the heteeras (q.v.), it appeared that the life of the brotherhood was conti- nent, popular scandal to the contrary not- withstanding. The calumnies which the Stoics circulated concerning the school are undeserving of notice. The success 'if Epicurus as a teacher was signal; great numbers Hocked to his school from all parts of Greece and from Asia Minor, most of whom became warmly attached to their master as well as to his doctrines, for Epicurus seems to have been characterized not less by amiability and benevolence than by force of intellect. He died 270 B.C., in the 72d year of his age. Epicurus was a most voluminous writer. Ac- cording to Diogenes Laertius he left 300 volu 3. Among others he had written 37 books on natural philosophy; a treatise on atoms and the void; one on love; one on choices and avoidances; another on the chief good; four essays on lives; one on sight; one on touch; another on images; another on justice and the other virtues, etc. Almost all these works are lost; the only writings of Epicurus that have come down to us are three letters, and a number of detached sentences or sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius, in his life of the philosopher. Outside of these the principal sources of our knowledge of the doc- trines of Epicurus are Cicero, Seneca, and, above all, Lucretius, whose great poem, De Rerum lat lira, contains substantially the Epicurean philosophy. To these must be added a large number of papyri found at Hereulaneum about the middle of the eighteenth century. These con- tain fragments from Epicurus and many writings of Epicureans, especially of Philodemus. But unfortunately the manuscripts are in a deplor- able condition. See Epicureanism. EPICY'CLE (Lat. epicyclus, Gk. ?-ikvk}.oc, cpikyklos, epicycle, from iwi, epi, upon + k6k'/os, kyklos, circle). The earlier astronomers assumed that all the motions of heavenly bodies take place in circles, and that all the heavenly bodies move round the earth, which remains at rest in the centre. The observed phenomena of the heavens, however, were soon seen to stand in glar- ing inconsistency with these assumptions. For the sun and moon, which manifestly do not al- ways move with the same velocity, the eccentric circle (q.v.) was imagined. The case of the planets, whose motions were seen to be some- times direct, sometimes retrograde, and some- times altogether arrested, offered still greater difficulties; to get over which, the idea of epi- cycles was hit upon. According to this hypothesis, while a planet was moving in a small circle, the c'litre of that small circle was itself describing a larger circle about the earth. This larger circle was called the deferent (q.v.), and the smaller, which was borne upon it, was called the epicycle. In this way the motions of the planets about the earth were conceived to be something like what