B. Epicurus

The Epicurean philosophy, which forms the counterpart to Stoicism, was just as much elaborated as the Stoic, if, indeed, it were not more so. While the latter posited as truth existence for thought—the universal Notion—and held firmly to this principle, Epicurus, the founder of the other system, held a directly opposite view, regarding as the true essence not Being in general, but Being as sensation, that is, consciousness in the form of immediate particularity. As the Stoics did not seek the principle of the Cynics—that man must confine himself to the simplicity of nature—in man’s requirements, but placed it in universal reason, so Epicurus elevated the principle that happiness should be our chief end into the region of thought, by seeking pleasure in a universal which is determined through thought. And though, in so doing, he may have given a higher scientific form to the doctrines of the Cyrenaics. it is yet self-evident that if existence for sensation is to be regarded as the truth, the necessity for the Notion is altogether abrogated, and in the absence of speculative interest things cease to form a united whole, all things being in point of fact lowered to the point of view of the ordinary human understanding. Notwithstanding this proviso, before we take this philosophy into consideration, we must carefully divest ourselves of all the ideas commonly prevalent regarding Epicureanism.

As regards the life of Epicurus, he was born in the Athenian village of Gargettus in Ol. 109, 3 (B.C. 342), and therefore before the death of Aristotle, which took place in Ol. 114, 3. His opponents, especially the Stoics, have raked up against him more accusations than I can tell of, and have invented the most trivial anecdotes respecting his doings. He had poor parents; his father, Neocles, was village schoolmaster, and Chærestrata, his mother, was a sorceress: that is, she earned money, like the women of Thrace and Thessaly, by furnishing spells and incantations, as was quite common in those days. The father, taking Epicurus with him, migrated with an Athenian colony to Samos, but here also he was obliged to give instruction to children, because his plot of land was not sufficient for the maintenance of his family. At the age of about eighteen years, just about the time when Aristotle was living in Chalcis, Epicurus returned to Athens. He had already, in Samos, made the philosophy of Democritus a special subject of study, and now in Athens he devoted himself to it more than ever; in addition to this, he was on intimate terms with several of the philosophers then flourishing, such as Xenocrates, the Platonist, and Theophrastus, a follower of Aristotle. When Epicurus was twelve years old, he read with his teacher Hesiod’s account of Chaos, the source of all things; and this was perhaps not without influence on his philosophic views. Otherwise he professed to be self-taught, in the sense that he produced his philosophy entirely from himself; but we are not to suppose from this that he did not attend the lectures or study the writings of other philosophers. Neither is it to be understood that he was altogether original in his philosophy as far as content was concerned; for, as will be noted later, his physical philosophy especially is that of Leucippus and Democritus. It was at Mitylene in Lesbos that he first came forward as teacher of an original philosophic system, and then again at Lampsacus in Asia Minor; he did not, however, find very many hearers. After having for some years led an unsettled life, he returned in about the six and thirtieth year of his age to Athens, to the very centre of all Philosophy; and there, some time after, he bought for himself a garden, where he lived and taught in the midst of his friends. Though so frail in body that for many years he was unable to rise from his chair, in his manner of living he was most regular and frugal, and he devoted himself entirely to science, to the exclusion of all other interests. Even Cicero, though in other respects he has little to say in his favour, bears testimony to the warmth of his friendships, and adds that no one can deny he was a good, a humane, and a kindly man. Diogenes Laërtius gives special commendation to his reverence towards his parents, his generosity to his brothers, and his benevolence to all. He died of stone in the seventy-first year of his age. Just before his death he had himself placed in a warm bath, drank a cup of wine, and charged his friends to remember what he had taught them.

No other teacher has ever been loved and reverenced by his scholars as much as Epicurus; they lived on such intimate terms of friendship that they determined to make common stock of their possessions with him, and so continue in a permanent association, like a kind of Pythagorean brotherhood. This they were, however, forbidden to do by Epicurus himself, because it would have betrayed a distrust in their readiness to share what they had with one another; but where distrust is possible, there neither friendship, nor unity, nor constancy of attachment can find a place. After his death he was held in honoured remembrance by his disciples: they carried about with them everywhere his likeness, engraved on rings or drinking-cups, and remained so faithful to his teaching that they considered it almost a crime to make any alteration in it (while in the Stoic philosophy development was continually going on), and his school, in respect of his doctrines, resembled a closely-barricaded state to which all entrance was denied. The reason for this lies, as we shall presently see, in his system itself; and the further result, from a scientific point of view, ensued that we can name no celebrated disciples of his who carried on and completed his teaching on their own account. For his disciples could only have gained distinction for themselves by going further than Epicurus did. But to go further would have been to reach the Notion, which would only have confused the system of Epicurus; for what is devoid of thought is thrown into confusion by the introduction of the Notion, and it is this very lack of thought which has been made a principle. Not that it is in itself without thought, but the use made of thought is to hold back thought, and thought thus takes up a negative position in regard to itself; and the philosophic activity of Epicurus is thus directed towards the restoration and maintaining of what is sensuous through the very Notion which renders it confused. Therefore his philosophy has not advanced nor developed, but it must also be said that it has not retrograded; a certain Metrodorus alone is said to have carried it on further in some directions. It is also told to the credit of the Epicurean philosophy that this Metrodorus was the only disciple of Epicurus who went over to Carneades; for the rest, it surpassed all others in its unbroken continuity of doctrine and its long duration; for all of them became degenerate or suffered interruption. When some one called the attention of Arcesilaus to this attachment to Epicurus, by the remark that while so many had gone over from other philosophers to Epicurus, scarcely a single example was known of any one passing over from the Epicurean system to another, Arcesilaus made the witty rejoinder: “Men may become eunuchs, but eunuchs can never again become men.”

Epicurus himself produced in his lifetime an immense number of works, being a much more prolific author than Chrysippus, who vied with him in the number of his writings, if we deduct from the latter his compilations from the works of others or from his own. The number of his writings is said to have amounted to three hundred; it is scarcely to be regretted that they are lost to us. We may rather thank Heaven that they no longer exist; philologists at any rate would have had great trouble with them. The main source of our knowledge of Epicurus is the whole of the tenth book of Diogenes Laërtius, which after all gives us but scanty information, though it deals with the subject at great length. We should, of course, have been better off had we possessed the philosopher’s own writings, but we know enough of him to make us honour the whole. For, besides this, we know a good deal about the philosophy of Epicurus through Cicero, Sextus Empiricus and Seneca; and so accurate are the accounts they give of him, that the fragment of one of Epicurus’s own writings, found some years ago in Herculaneum, and reprinted by Orelli from the Neapolitan edition (Epicuri Fragmenta libri II. et XI. De natura, illustr. Orellius, Lipsiæ 1818), has neither extended nor enriched our knowledge; so that we must in all earnestness deprecate the finding of the remaining writings.

With regard to the Epicurean philosophy, it is by no means to be looked on as setting forth a system of Notions, but, on the contrary, as a system of ordinary conceptions or even of sensuous existence, which, looked at from the ordinary point of view as perceived by the senses, Epicurus has made the very foundation and standard of truth (p. 277). A detailed explanation of how sensation can be such, he has given in his so-called Canonic. As in the case of the Stoics, we have first to speak of the manner which Epicurus adopted of determining the criterion of truth; secondly, of his philosophy of nature; and thirdly and lastly, of his moral teaching.