CHAPTER I

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THE

FIVE GREAT PHILOSOPHIES

OF LIFE

BY

WILLIAM DE WITT HYDE

PRESIDENT OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1924

_All rights reserved_

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

COPYRIGHT, 1904,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1904. Reprinted

January, 1905; January, 1906; January, 1908; June, 1910.

COPYRIGHT, 1911,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1911. Reprinted

May, 1912; May, 1913; May, 1914; July, 1915; January, November,

1917; August, 1919; February, October, 1920; June, November,

1921; September, 1922; June, 1923; September, 1924.

Norwood Press

J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

When asked why some men with moderate talents and meagre technical

equipment succeed, where others with greater ability and better

preparation fail; why some women with plain features and few

accomplishments charm, while others with all the advantages of beauty

and cultivation repel, we are wont to conceal our ignorance behind the

vague term _personality_. Undoubtedly the deeper springs of personality

are below the threshold of consciousness, in hereditary traits and early

training. Still some of the higher elements of personality rise above

this threshold, are reducible to philosophical principles, and amenable

to rational control.

The five centuries from the birth of Socrates to the death of Jesus

produced five such principles: the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure, genial

but ungenerous; the Stoic law of self-control, strenuous but forbidding;

the Platonic plan of subordination, sublime but ascetic; the

Aristotelian sense of proportion, practical but uninspiring; and the

Christian Spirit of Love, broadest and deepest of them all.

The purpose of this book is to let the masters of these sane and

wholesome principles of personality talk to us in their own words; with

just enough of comment and interpretation to bring us to their points of

view, and make us welcome their friendly assistance in the philosophical

guidance of life.

Why a new edition under a new title? Because "From Epicurus to Christ"

had an antiquarian flavor; while the book presents those answers to the

problem of life, which, though offered first by the ancients, are still

so broad, deep, and true that all our modern answers are mere varieties

of these five great types. Because the former title suggested that the

historical aspect was a finality; whereas it is here used merely as the

most effective approach to present-day solutions of the fundamental

problems of life.

"Why rewrite the last chapter?" Because, while the faith of the world

has found in Jesus much more than a philosophy of life, in its quest for

greater things it has almost overlooked that. Yet Jesus' Spirit of Love

is the final philosophy of life.

To the question in its Jewish form, "What is the great commandment?"

Jesus answers, "The first is Love to God; and the second, just like it,

Love to man." Translated into modern, ethical terms his philosophy of

life is a grateful and helpful appreciation; first of the whole system

of relations, physical, mental, social, and spiritual, as Personal like

ourselves, but Infinite, seeking perfection, caring for each lowliest

member as an essential and precious part of the whole; and, second, of

other finite and imperfect persons, whose aims, interests, and

affections are just as real, and therefore to be held just as sacred, as

our own.

To love, to dwell in this grateful and helpful appreciation of the

Father and our brothers,--this is life: and all that falls short of it

is intellectually the illusion of selfishness; spiritually the death

penalty of sin.

From this central point of view every phase of Jesus' teaching, his

democracy, compassion, courage, humility, earnestness, charitableness,

sacrifice, can be shown to flow straight and clear.

Of course such a limitation to his philosophy of life leaves out of

account all supernatural and eschatological considerations. We here

consider only the truth and worth of the teaching; not who the Teacher

is, nor what may happen to us hereafter if we obey or disobey.

Yet even from this limited point of view we may get a glimpse, more real

and convincing than any to be gained by the traditional, dogmatic

approach, of the divine and eternal quality of both Teacher and

teaching--we may see that beyond Love truth cannot go; above Love life

cannot rise; that he who loves is one with God; that out of Love all is

hell, whether here or hereafter; and that in Love lies heaven, both now

and forevermore.

WILLIAM DE WITT HYDE.

BOWDOIN COLLEGE,

BRUNSWICK, MAINE,

July 25, 1911.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE EPICUREAN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE PAGE

I. Selections from the Epicurean Scriptures 1

II. The Epicurean View of Work and Play 20

III. The Epicurean Price of Happiness 29

IV. The Defects of Epicureanism 36

V. An Example of Epicurean Character 46

VI. The Confessions of an Epicurean Heretic 53

CHAPTER II

STOIC SELF-CONTROL BY LAW

I. The Psychological Law of Apperception 66

II. Selections from the Stoic Scriptures 71

III. The Stoic Reverence for Universal Law 82

IV. The Stoic Solution of the Problem of Evil 87

V. The Stoic Paradoxes 90

VI. The Religious Aspect of Stoicism 95

VII. The Permanent Value of Stoicism 101

VIII. The Defects of Stoicism 106

CHAPTER III

THE PLATONIC SUBORDINATION OF LOWER TO HIGHER

I. The Nature of Virtue 110

II. Righteousness writ Large 116

III. The Cardinal Virtues 123

IV. Plato's Scheme of Education 131

V. Righteousness the Comprehensive Virtue 138

VI. The Stages of Degeneration 143

VII. The Intrinsic Superiority of Righteousness 153

VIII. Truth and Error in Platonism 159

CHAPTER IV

THE ARISTOTELIAN SENSE OF PROPORTION

I. Aristotle's Objections to Previous Systems 169

II. The Social Nature of Man 176

III. Right and Wrong determined by the End 179

IV. The Need of Instruments 191

V. The Happy Mean 194

VI. The Aristotelian Virtues and their Acquisition 199

VII. Aristotelian Friendship 209

VIII. Criticism and Summary of Aristotle's Teaching 212

CHAPTER V

THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF LOVE

I. The Teaching of Love 215

II. The Fulfilment of Law through Love 219

III. The Counterfeits of Love 239

IV. The Whole-heartedness of Love 247

V. The Cultivation of Love 257

VI. The Blessedness of Love 264

VII. The Supremacy of Love 277

INDEX 293

THE FIVE GREAT PHILOSOPHIES

OF LIFE

CHAPTER I

THE EPICUREAN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE

I

SELECTIONS FROM THE EPICUREAN SCRIPTURES

Epicureanism is so simple a philosophy of life that it scarcely needs

interpretation. In fact, as the following citations show, it was

originally little more than a set of directions for living "the simple

life," with pleasure as the simplifying principle. The more subtle

teaching of the other philosophies will require to be introduced by

explanatory statement, or else accompanied by a running commentary as it

proceeds. The best way to understand Epicureanism, however, is to let

Epicurus and his disciples speak for themselves. Accordingly, as in

religious services the sermon is preceded by reading of the Scriptures

and singing of hymns, we will open our study of the Epicurean philosophy

of life by selections from their scriptures and hymns. First the master,

though unfortunately he is not so good a master of style as many of his

disciples, shall speak. The gist of Epicurus's teaching is contained in

the following passages.

"The end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear; and when

once we have attained this, all the tempest of the soul is laid, seeing

that the living creature has not to go to find something that is

wanting, or to seek something else by which the good of the soul and of

the body will be fulfilled." "Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and

omega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. From it

is the commencement of every choice and every aversion, and to it we

come back, and make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good

thing." "When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not

mean the pleasures of the prodigal, or the pleasures of sensuality, as

we are understood by some who are either ignorant and prejudiced for

other views, or inclined to misinterpret our statements. By pleasure we

mean the absence of pain in the body and trouble in the soul. It is not

an unbroken succession of drinking feasts and of revelry, not the

enjoyments of the fish and other delicacies of a splendid table, which

produce a pleasant life: it is sober reasoning, searching out the

reasons for every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs

through which great tumults take possession of the soul." "Nothing is so

productive of cheerfulness as to abstain from meddling, and not to

engage in difficult undertakings, nor force yourself to do something

beyond your power. For all this involves your nature in tumults." "The

main part of happiness is the disposition which is under our own

control. Service in the field is hard work, and others hold command.

Public speaking abounds in heart-throbs and in anxiety whether you can

carry conviction. Why then pursue an object like this, which is at the

disposal of others?" "Wealth beyond the requirements of nature is no

more benefit to men than water to a vessel which is full. Both alike

overflow. We can look upon another's goods without perturbation and can

enjoy purer pleasure than they, for we are free from their arduous

struggle."

"Thou must also keep in mind that of desires some are natural, and some

are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as

natural, and some are natural only. And of the necessary desires, some

are necessary if we are to be happy, and some if the body is to remain

unperturbed, and some if we are even to live. By the clear and certain

understanding of these things we learn to make every preference and

aversion, so that the body may have health and the soul tranquillity,

seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life." "Cheerful

poverty is an honourable thing." "Great wealth is but poverty when

matched with the law of nature." "If any one thinks his own not to be

most ample, he may become lord of the whole world, and will yet be

wretched." "Fortune but slightly crosses the wise man's path." "If thou

wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches, but take away from his

desires."

"And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do

not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but oftentimes pass over many

pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And oftentimes we

consider pains superior to pleasures, and submit to the pain for a long

time, when it is attended for us with a greater pleasure. All pleasure,

therefore, because of its kinship with our nature, is a good, but it is

not in all cases our choice, even as every pain is an evil, though pain

is not always, and in every case, to be shunned."

"It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the

conveniences and inconveniences, that all these things must be judged.

Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary,

as a good; and we regard independence of outward goods as a great good,

not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with

little, if we have not much, being thoroughly persuaded that they have

the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that

whatever is natural is easily procured, and only the vain and worthless

hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when

once the pain due to want is removed; and bread and water confer the

highest pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate

self, therefore, to plain and inexpensive diet gives all that is needed

for health, and enables a man to meet the necessary requirements of life

without shrinking, and it places us in a better frame when we approach

at intervals a costly fare, and renders us fearless of fortune."

"Riches according to nature are of limited extent, and can be easily

procured; but the wealth craved after by vain fancies knows neither end

nor limit. He who has understood the limits of life knows how easy it is

to get all that takes away the pain of want, and all that is required to

make our life perfect at every point. In this way he has no need of

anything which involves a contest." "The beginning and the greatest good

is prudence. Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than

philosophy: from it grow all the other virtues, for it teaches that we

cannot lead a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence,

honour, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honour, and justice,

which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into

one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them."

"Of all the things which wisdom procures for the happiness of life as a

whole, by far the greatest is the acquisition of friendship."

"We ought to look round for people to eat and drink with, before we look

for something to eat and drink: to feed without a friend is the life of

a lion and a wolf." "Do everything as if Epicurus had his eye upon you.

Retire into yourself chiefly at that time when you are compelled to be

in a crowd." "We ought to select some good man and keep him ever before

our eyes, so that we may, as it were, live under his eye, and do

everything in his sight." "No one loves another except for his own

interest." "Among the other ills which attend folly is this: it is

always beginning to live." "A foolish life is restless and disagreeable:

it is wholly engrossed with the future." "We are born once: twice we

cannot be born, and for everlasting we must be non-existent. But thou,

who art not master of the morrow, puttest off the right time.

Procrastination is the ruin of life for all; and, therefore, each of us

is hurried and unprepared at death." "Learn betimes to die, or if it

please thee better to pass over to the gods." "He who is least in need

of the morrow will meet the morrow most pleasantly." "Injustice is not

in itself a bad thing: but only in the fear, arising from anxiety on the

part of the wrong-doer, that he will not escape punishment." "A wise man

will not enter political life unless something extraordinary should

occur." "The free man will take his free laugh over those who are fain

to be reckoned in the list with Lycurgus and Solon."

"The first duty of salvation is to preserve our vigour and to guard

against the defiling of our life in consequence of maddening desires."

"Accustom thyself in the belief that death is nothing to us, for good

and evil are only where they are felt, and death is the absence of all

feeling: therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us

makes enjoyable the mortality of life, not by adding to years an

illimitable time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For

in life there can be nothing to fear, to him who has thoroughly

apprehended that there is nothing to cause fear in what time we are not

alive. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not

because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the

prospect. Whatsoever causes no annoyance when it is present causes only

a groundless pain by the expectation thereof. Death, therefore, the most

awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that when we are, death is not

yet, and when death comes, then we are not. It is nothing then, either

to the living or the dead, for it is not found with the living, and the

dead exist no longer."

These words of the master, given with no attempt to reconcile their

apparent inconsistencies, convey very fairly the substance of his

teaching, including both its excellences and its deep defects. The

exalted esteem in which his doctrines were held, leading his disciples

to commit them to memory as sacred and verbally inspired; the personal

reverence for his character; and the extravagant expectations as to what

his philosophy was to do for the world, together with a glimpse into the

Epicurean idea of heaven, are well illustrated by the following

sentences at the opening of the third book of Lucretius, addressed to

Epicurus:--

"Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so

bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of life, thee I

follow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed

in thy imprinted marks, not so much from a desire to rival thee as that

from the love I bear thee I yearn to imitate thee. Thou, father, art

discoverer of things, thou furnishest us with fatherly precepts, and

like as bees sip of all things in the flowery lawns, we, O glorious

being, in like manner, feed from out thy pages upon all the golden

maxims, golden I say, most worthy ever of endless life. For soon as thy

philosophy issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud voice to

proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled,

the walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation

throughout the whole void: the divinity of the gods is revealed, and

their tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake, nor clouds drench

with rains nor snow congealed by sharp frost harms with hoary fall: an

ever cloudless ether o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed

largely round. Nature too supplies all their wants, and nothing ever

impairs their peace of mind."

Horace is so saturated with Epicureanism that it is hard to select any

one of his odes as more expressive of it than another. His ode on the

"Philosophy of Life" perhaps presents it in as short compass as any. He

asks what he shall pray for? Not crops, and ivory, and gold gained by

laborious and risky enterprise; but healthy, solid contentment with the

simple, universal pleasures near at hand.

"Why to Apollo's shrine repair

New hallowed? Why present with prayer

Libation? Not those crops to gain,

Which fill Sardinia's teeming plain,

"Herds from Calabria's sunny fields,

Nor ivory that India yields,

Nor gold, nor tracts where Liris glides

So noiseless down its drowsy sides.

"Blest owners of Calenian vines,

Crop them; ye merchants, drain the wines,

That cargoes brought from Syria buy,

In cups of gold. For ye, who try

"The broad Atlantic thrice a year

And never drown, must sure be dear

To gods in heaven. Me--small my need--

Light mallows, olives, chiccory, feed.

"Give me then health, Apollo; give

Sound mind; on gotten goods to live

Contented; and let song engage

An honoured, not a base, old age."

For a lesson from the new Epicurean testament we cannot do better than

turn to the sensible pages of Herbert Spencer's "Data of Ethics."

"The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by

social conditions is the first requisite to the attainment of the

greatest general happiness. To see this it needs but to contrast one

whose self-regard has maintained bodily well-being with one whose

regardlessness of self has brought its natural results; and then to ask

what must be the contrast between two societies formed of two such kinds

of individuals.

"Bounding out of bed after an unbroken sleep, singing or whistling as he

dresses, coming down with beaming face ready to laugh on the smallest

provocation, the healthy man of high powers, conscious of past successes

and, by his energy, quickness, resource, made confident of the future,

enters on the day's business not with repugnance but with gladness; and

from hour to hour experiencing satisfactions from work effectually done,

comes home with an abundant surplus of energy remaining for hours of

relaxation. Far otherwise is it with one who is enfeebled by great

neglect of self. Already deficient, his energies are made more deficient

by constant endeavours to execute tasks that prove beyond his strength,

and by the resulting discouragement. Hours of leisure which, rightly

passed, bring pleasures that raise the tide of life and renew the powers

of work, cannot be utilized: there is not vigour enough for enjoyments

involving action, and lack of spirits prevents passive enjoyments from

being entered upon with zest. In brief, life becomes a burden. Now if,

as must be admitted, in a community composed of individuals like the

first the happiness will be relatively great, while in one composed of

individuals like the last there will be relatively little happiness, or

rather much misery; it must be admitted that conduct causing the one

result is good and conduct causing the other is bad.

"He who carries self-regard far enough to keep himself in good health

and high spirits, in the first place thereby becomes an immediate source

of happiness to those around, and in the second place maintains the

ability to increase their happiness by altruistic actions. But one whose

bodily vigour and mental health are undermined by self-sacrifice carried

too far, in the first place becomes to those around a cause of

depression, and in the second place renders himself incapable, or less

capable, of actively furthering their welfare.

"Full of vivacity, the one is ever welcome. For his wife he has smiles

and jocose speeches; for his children stores of fun and play; for his

friends pleasant talk interspersed with the sallies of wit that come

from buoyancy. Contrariwise, the other is shunned. The irritability

resulting now from ailments, now from failures caused by feebleness,

his family has daily to bear. Lacking adequate energy for joining in

them, he has at best but a tepid interest in the amusements of his

children; and he is called a wet blanket by his friends. Little account

as our ethical reasonings take note of it, yet is the fact obvious that

since happiness and misery are infectious, such regard for self as

conduces to health and high spirits is a benefaction to others, and such

disregard of self as brings on suffering, bodily or mental, is a

malefaction to others.

"The adequately egoistic individual retains those powers which make

altruistic activities possible. The individual who is inadequately

egoistic loses more or less of his ability to be altruistic. The truth

of the one proposition is self-evident; and the truth of the other is

daily forced on us by examples. Note a few of them. Here is a mother

who, brought up in the insane fashion usual among the cultivated, has a

physique not strong enough for suckling her infant, but who, knowing

that its natural food is the best, and anxious for its welfare,

continues to give milk for a longer time than her system will bear.

Eventually the accumulating reaction tells. There comes exhaustion

running, it may be, into illness caused by depletion; occasionally

ending in death, and often entailing chronic weakness. She becomes,

perhaps for a time, perhaps permanently, incapable of carrying on

household affairs; her other children suffer from the loss of maternal

attention; and where the income is small, payments for nurse and doctor

tell injuriously on the whole family. Instance, again, what not

unfrequently happens with the father. Similarly prompted by a high sense

of obligation, and misled by current moral theories into the notion that

self-denial may rightly be carried to any extent, he daily continues his

office work for long hours regardless of hot head and cold feet; and

debars himself from social pleasures, for which he thinks he can afford

neither time nor money. What comes of this entirely unegoistic course?

Eventually a sudden collapse, sleeplessness, inability to work. That

rest which he would not give himself when his sensations prompted he has

now to take in long measure. The extra earnings laid by for the benefit

of his family are quickly swept away by costly journeys in aid of

recovery and by the many expenses which illness entails. Instead of

increased ability to do his duty by his offspring there comes now

inability. Lifelong evils on them replace hoped-for goods. And so is it,

too, with the social effects of inadequate egoism. All grades furnish

examples of the mischiefs, positive and negative, inflicted on society

by excessive neglect of self. Now the case is that of a labourer who,

conscientiously continuing his work under a broiling sun, spite of

violent protests from his feelings, dies of sunstroke; and leaves his

family a burden to the parish. Now the case is that of a clerk whose

eyes permanently fail from overstraining, or who, daily writing for

hours after his fingers are painfully cramped, is attacked with

'scrivener's palsy,' and, unable to write at all, sinks with aged

parents into poverty which friends are called on to mitigate.

"And now the case is that of a man devoted to public ends who,

shattering his health by ceaseless application, fails to achieve all he

might have achieved by a more reasonable apportionment of his time

between labour on behalf of others, and ministration to his own needs."

After this lengthy prose extract, let us turn to the modern Epicurean

poets.

At once the best and the worst rendering of Epicureanism into verse is

Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam. It is the best because of the

frankness with which it draws out to its logical conclusion, in a

cynical despair of everything nobler than the pleasure of the moment,

the consequences of identifying the self with mere pleasure-seeking. It

is the worst because, instead of presenting Epicureanism mixed with

nobler elements, as Walt Whitman and Stevenson do, it gives us the pure

and undiluted article as a final gospel of life. The fact that it has

proved such a fad during the past few years is striking evidence of the

husky fare on which our modern prodigals can be content to feed.

"Come fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring

Your Winter-garment of repentance fling:

The bird of Time has but a little way

To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness--

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow.

"Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears

_To-day_ of past Regrets and future Fears:

_To-morrow!_--Why, To-morrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

"I sent my soul through the Invisible,

Some letter of that After-life to spell:

And by and by my Soul return'd to me,

And answer'd, "I myself am Heav'n and Hell:

"Heav'n but the vision of fulfill'd Desire,

And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on Fire,

Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,

So late emerged from, shall so soon expire."

From this melancholy attempt to offer us Epicureanism as a complete

account of life, overshadowed as it is by the gloom of the Infinite

which the man who stakes his all on momentary pleasure feels doomed to

forego, it is a relief to turn to men who strike cheerfully and firmly

the Epicurean note; but pass instantly on to blend it with sterner notes

and larger views of life, in which it plays its essential, yet strictly

subordinate part.

Of all the men who thus strike scattered Epicurean notes, without

attempting the impossible task of making a harmonious and satisfactory

tune out of them, our American Pagan, Walt Whitman, is the best example.

"What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,

Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,

Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,

Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,

Scattering it freely forever.

"O the joy of manly self-hood!

To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known

or unknown,

To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,

To look with calm gaze or with flashing eye,

To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,

To confront with your personality all the other personalities of

the earth.

"O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,

To meet life as a powerful conqueror,

No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,

To these proud laws of the air, the water, and the ground, proving

my interior soul impregnable,

And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

"For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating--the joy of death!

The beautiful touch of death, soothing and benumbing a few moments,

for reasons,

Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd

to powder, or buried,

My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,

My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications,

further offices, eternal uses of the earth.

"O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!

To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!

To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,

A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys."

Whitman, with this wild ecstasy, to be sure is an Epicurean and

something more. Indeed, pure Epicureanism, unmixed with better elements,

is rather hard to find in modern literature. One other hymn, by Robert

Louis Stevenson, likewise adds to pure Epicureanism a note of strenuous

intensity in the great task of happiness which was foreign to the more

easy-going form of the ancient doctrine. In Stevenson Epicureanism is

only a flavour to more substantial viands.

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

"If I have faltered more or less

In my great task of happiness;

If I have moved among my race

And shown no glorious morning face;

If beams from happy human eyes

Have moved me not; if morning skies,

Books, and my food, and summer rain

Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:--

Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take

And stab my spirit broad awake!

Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,

Choose thou, before that spirit die,

A piercing pain, a killing sin,

And to my dead heart run them in."

While we are with Stevenson, we may as well conclude our selections from

the Epicurean scriptures in these words from his Christmas Sermon:

"Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality: they are

the perfect duties. If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they

are wrong. I do not say, 'give them up,' for they may be all you have;

but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better

men."

II

THE EPICUREAN VIEW OF WORK AND PLAY

Pleasure is our great task, "the gist of life, the end of ends." To be

happy ourselves and radiating centres of happiness to choice circles of

congenial friends,--this is the Epicurean ideal. The world is a vast

reservoir of potential pleasures. Our problem is to scoop out for

ourselves and our friends full measure of these pleasures as they go

floating by. We did not make the world. It made itself by a fortuitous

concourse of atoms. It would be foolish for us to try to alter it. Our

only concern is to get out of it all the pleasure we can; without

troubling ourselves to put anything valuable back into it. Since it is

accidental, impersonal, we owe it nothing. We simply owe ourselves as

big a share of pleasure as we can grasp and hold.

This, however, is a task in which it is easy to make mistakes. We need

prudence to avoid cheating ourselves with short-lived pleasures that

cost too much; wisdom to choose the simpler pleasures that cost less and

last longer. Such shrewd calculation of the relative cost and worth of

different pleasures is the sum and substance of the Epicurean

philosophy. He who is shrewd to discern and prompt to snatch the most

pleasure at least cost, as it is offered on the bargain counter of

life,--he is the Epicurean sage.

We might work this out into a great variety of applications: but one or

two spheres must suffice. Eating and drinking, as the most elemental

relations of life, are the ones commonly chosen as applications of the

Epicurean principle. These applications, however, the selections from

Epicurus and Horace have already made clear.

The Epicurean will regulate his diet, not by the immediate, trivial,

short-lived pleasures of taste, though these he will by no means

despise, but mainly by their permanent effects upon health. Wholesome

food, and enough of it, daintily prepared and served, he will do his

best to obtain. But elaborate and ostentatious feasting he will avoid,

as involving too much expense and trouble, and too heavy penalties of

disease and discomfort. He will find out by practical experience the

quantity, quality, and variety of simple food that keeps him in perfect

condition; and no enticements of sweetmeats or stimulants will divert

him from the simplicity in which the most permanent pleasure is found.

To eat cake and candy between meals, to sip tea at all hours, no less

than to drink whiskey to the point of intoxication, are sins against

the simplicity of the true Epicurean regimen.

The Epicurean will not lose an hour of needed sleep nor tolerate such an

abomination as an alarm clock in his house. If he permits himself to be

awakened in the morning, it will be as Thomas B. Reed used to when, as a

student at Bowdoin College, he was obliged to be in chapel at six

o'clock. He had the janitor call him at half-past four, in order that he

might have the luxury of feeling that he had another whole hour in which

to sleep, and then call him again at the last moment which would permit

him to dress in time for chapel.

These things, however, we may for the most part take for granted. We do

not require a philosopher to regulate our diet for us; or to put us to

bed at night, and tuck us in, and hear us say our prayers. Those

elementary lessons were doubtless needed in the childhood of the race.

The selection from Spencer on work and play strikes closer to the

problem of the modern man; and it is at this point that we all sorely

need to go to school to Epicurus. Perhaps we are inclined to look down

on Epicurus's ideal as a low one. Well, if it is a low ideal, it is all

the more disgraceful to fall below it. And most of us do fall below it

every day of our tense and restless lives. Let us test ourselves by this

ideal, and answer honestly the questions it puts to us.

How many of us are slaving all day and late into the night to add

artificial superfluities to the simple necessities? How many of us know

how to stop working when it begins to encroach upon our health; and to

cut off anxiety and worry altogether? How many of us measure the amount

and intensity of our toil by our physical strength; doing what we can do

healthfully, cheerfully, joyously, and leaving the rest undone, instead

of straining up to the highest notch of nervous tension during early

manhood and womanhood, only to break down when the life forces begin to

turn against us? Every man in any position of responsibility and

influence has opportunity to do the work of twenty men. How many of us

in such circumstances choose the one thing we can do best, and leave the

other nineteen for other people to do, or else to remain undone? How

many of us have ever seriously stopped to think where the limit of

healthful effort and endurance lies, unless insomnia or dyspepsia or

nervous prostration have laid their heavy hands upon us and compelled us

to pause? Every breakdown from avoidable causes, every stroke of work

we do after the border-land of exhaustion and nervous strain is crossed,

is a crime against the teaching of Epicurus; and these diseases that

beset our modern business life are the penalties with which nature

visits us in vindication of the wisdom of his teachings. Every day that

we work beyond our strength; every hour that we spend in consequent

exhaustion and depression; every minute that we give over to worrying

about things beyond our immediate control, we either fall below, or else

rise above, Epicurus's level.

If we rise above him, to serve higher ideals, conscious of the sacrifice

we make, and clear about the superior ends we gain thereby, then we may

be forgiven. What some of those higher ideals are we shall have occasion

to consider later. But to work ourselves into depression, disease, and

pain, for no better reason than to get high mark in some rank-book or

other, to gratify somebody's false vanity, to get together a little more

gold than we can spend wisely or our children can inherit without

enervation, to live in a bigger house than our neighbour has or we can

afford to take care of--to work for such ends as these beyond the point

where work is healthy and happy, is to commit a sin which neither

Epicurus nor Nature will forgive. With the people who have risen above

Epicurus, and are deliberately sacrificing to some extent the Epicurean

to one of the higher ideals, as I have said, we have no quarrel; for

them we have only hearty commendation. We do not ask the mother whose

child is dangerously sick, the statesman in a political crisis, the

artist when the conception of his great work comes over him, to heed for

the time being the limits of strength and the conditions of completest

health. All we ask of them is that later on, when the child has

recovered, when the crisis is past, when the picture is painted, they

shall reverently and humbly pay to Epicurus, or to Nature whom he

represents, the penalty for their sin, by a corresponding period of

complete rest and relaxation. We must bear strain at times; and Nature

will forgive us if we do not take it too often. But we must not bunch

our strains. We must not pass from one strain to another, and another,

without periods of relaxation between. We must not let the attitude of

strain become chronic, and develop into a moral tetanus, which keeps us

forever on the rack of exertion from sheer restless inability to sit

down and enjoy ourselves.

What we take from excessive work Epicurus would bid us add to needed

play. Play is an arrangement by which we get artificially, in highly

concentrated form, the pleasure which in ordinary life is diffused over

long periods, and attainable only in attenuated form. Play puts the

great fundamental pleasures of the race at the disposal of the

individual.

Foot-ball, for instance, gives the student of to-day the essential joy

in combat of his barbarian ancestors, with the modern field-marshal's

delight in subtle tragedy thrown in. Base-ball gives the intense zest

that comes of speed, accuracy, and cunning exercised in emergencies.

Golf, in milder form, gives us the pleasure that comes of accuracy of

aim and calculation of conditions in good company and in the open air.

Billiards give to the clerk cramped all day over his desk the joy of a

delicate touch which otherwise would be the exclusive property of his

artisan brother. The various games of cards give the mechanic and the

housewife a taste at evening of the eager interests that fill the

banker's and the broker's days. Checkers and chess give to the humblest

in their homes some touch of the pleasures of the general and admiral.

Dancing carries to the limit of orderly expression that delight in the

person and presence of the opposite sex which otherwise would have to be

postponed until youth was able to assume the more serious

responsibilities of permanent relationships. Sailing, tramping, camping

out, hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, are all devices for bringing

into the lives of studious, strenuous, city people the elemental

pleasures which otherwise would be the monopoly of sailors, fishermen,

foresters, and explorers. Swimming, skating, bicycle riding, driving a

horse or an automobile, all give the keen joy that comes of the mastery

of graceful and forceful motion.

The theatre, which embodies so distinctively the peculiar essence of

play that its performances have appropriated the name, takes us in a

couple of hours through the epitomised experience of many persons

extending over many years in circumstances far removed from our

individual lives. Poetry, novels, biographies, histories, painting,

music, and all the forms of art perform for us this same function. They

take us out of our local and temporal situation, and let us live in

other days and other lands, in other customs and costumes; and so

enormously widen the world of experience we imaginatively make our own.

Besides in all the forms of play and art the ends are made artificially

simple, the means are made supernaturally accessible; so that instead of

toiling for years in doubt of results as in actual work, we experience

in play, and witness in artistic representation, the whole process of

selecting materials and moulding them to a successful issue in a few

minutes, or a few hours at most. All this reacts upon our power to

prosecute with confidence the remoter ends, and marshal the more

obdurate means of real work. It expands and limbers our capacity to

subordinate means to ends and find delight in the process as well as in

the outcome. Hence a man who goes a year without a considerable period

given over to play, or a week without at least one or two solid periods

of it, or lets many days go by without any play whatever, is selling his

birthright of personality for a mess of pottage. Psychology and pedagogy

are recognising the important function of play in the development of

personality as never before. Professor Baldwin, in his "Social and

Ethical Interpretations," sums up the functions of play in these words:

"In the education of the individual for his life-work in a network of

social relationships play is a most important form of organic

exercise,--a most important method of realisation of the social

instincts; gives flexibility of mind and body with self-control; gives

constant opportunity for imitative learning and invention, and is the

experimental verification of the benefits and pleasures of united

action."

III

THE EPICUREAN PRICE OF HAPPINESS

Whoever contracts his work and expands his play, on Epicurean

principles, will of course have common sense enough to cut off hurry and

worry altogether. Both are sheer waste and wantonness,--the most foolish

and wicked things in the whole list of forbidden sins. The Epicurean

will live his life in care-tight, worry-proof compartments; working with

all his might while he works; and then cutting it off short; never

letting the cares of work intrude on the precious precincts of

well-earned leisure, or permitting the strain of remembered or

anticipated toil to mar the hours sacred to rest and recreation. Some

things are bound to go wrong in every life. That is our misfortune. But

there is no need of brooding over them in gratuitous grief after they

have gone, or dreading them in gloomy anticipation before they come. If

either in anticipation or in retrospect these evils are permitted to

darken the hours when they are physically absent, that is not our

misfortune; it is our folly and our fault.

We hear a great deal in these days about mind cures, and rest cures, and

faith cures, and cures by hypnotism, and cures by patent medicines. If

anybody needs these cures, of course he is welcome to them; though there

is much to be said for the stalwart conservative who refused proffered

aid of this sort with the remark that he would rather die in the hands

of a skilful physician than be cured by a quack. Strict obedience to the

plain, homely doctrine of Epicurus would prevent ninety-nine one

hundredths of the physical and mental ailments which these various

systems of healing profess to cure. In almost every such case work, or

the square of work which is hurry, or the cube of work which is worry,

carried beyond the sane limits which Epicurus prescribes, is at the root

of trouble. Where it is not work and worry, it is their passive

counterparts, grief nursed long after its occasion has gone by, or fear

harboured long before its appropriate object has arrived. Cut these off

and all the use you will have for either healers or physicians will be

on such comparatively rare occasions as birth, death, contagious

diseases, and unavoidable accident. You will not be the chronic patient

of any doctor regular or irregular; or the consumer of any medicine,

patented or prescribed.

Neither useless regrets for the past nor profitless forebodings for the

future should ever cast their shadows over the present, which taken in

itself is always endurable, and may generally be made positively happy.

Memory should be purged of all its unpleasantness before its pictures

are permitted to appear before the footlights of reflection; and the

searchlight of expectation should always be turned toward the pleasures

that are still in store for us. Past and future are mainly in our power,

so far as the quality of things we remember and anticipate are

concerned. And even the brief and fleeting present is mainly filled by

reminiscence and anticipation, so that it too is largely what we please

to make it.

"The world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

If any one of us is not happy all the time, except at the rare instants

when toothache, or the news of a friend's illness or death, or a bad

turn in our investments takes us by surprise--if happiness is not the

dominant tone of our ordinary life, it is simply because we do not want

it, in that thoughtful, enterprising, insistent way in which the

scholar wants knowledge, or the business man wants money, or the

politician wants votes. Whoever is willing to pay the price in prudent

planning of his daily pleasures, in relentless exclusion of the

enterprises and indulgences that cost more pain than they can return in

pleasure; whoever will cut out remorselessly the things in his past life

on which he cannot dwell with pleasure, and lop off the considerations

which give rise to dread; whoever is willing to pay this Epicurean price

for happiness can have it just as soon and just as often as he pays down

the cash of a faithful and consistent application of these principles.

If any man goes about the world in a chronic unhappiness, it is

ninety-nine per cent the fault, not of his circumstances, but of

himself. There is not a reader of this book whose circumstances are so

black that another person, in those same circumstances, would not find a

way to be supremely and dominantly, if not exclusively and continuously,

happy. There is not a reader of this book so rich, so blessed with

family and friends, so occupied and diverted, but that another person in

those same circumstances would be miserable himself, and a source of

misery to everybody with whom he came in contact. Epicurus is right,

that happiness is up at auction all the time, and sold in lots to suit

the purchaser whenever he bids high enough. And the price is not

exorbitant: prudence to plan for the simple pleasures that can be had

for the asking; resolution to cut off the pleasures that come too high;

determination to amputate our reflections the instant they develop

morbid symptoms, and to take an anti-toxine against fret and worry, the

moment we feel the approach of their contagious atmosphere;

concentration, to live in a self-chosen present from which profitless

regret and unprofitable anxieties, projected from the past or borrowed

from the future, are absolutely banished.

It is high time to treat melancholy, depression, gloom, fretfulness,

unhappiness, not merely as diseases, but as the inexcusable follies, the

intolerable vices, the unpardonable sins which a sane and wholesome

Epicureanism pronounces them to be.

The Epicurean principle, then, forbids us to go whining, whimpering, and

weeping through this glorious and otherwise cheery world, making

ourselves a burden and nuisance to our friends; and tells us frankly

that if we are so much as tempted to such melancholy living, it is

because we are too improvident, too slothful, too stupid to cast out

these devils, which a little plain fare, hard work, outdoor exercise,

vigorous play, and unworried rest would exorcise forever. It bids us put

in place of these banished sighs and groans and tears, the laughter,

song, and shout that "spin the great wheel of earth about." We may sum

it all up in the picture of a worthy Epicurean's day.

After a night of sleep too sound to harbour an unpleasant dream, he

greets the hour of rising with a shout and bound, plunges into the bath,

meets with gusto the shock it gives, and rejoices in the glow of

exhilaration a vigorous rubbing brings; greets the household "with

morning face and morning heart," eager to share with the family the

meal, the news, the outlook on the day, resolved like Pippa to "waste no

wavelet of his twelve-hours' treasure"; then, whether work calls him

forth immediately or not, takes a few minutes of brisk walking and deep

breathing in the open air until he feels the great forces of earth, air,

and sunshine pulsing in his veins; then greets the work of kitchen or

factory, office or field, schoolroom or counter, bench or desk with an

inward cheer, as something to put forth his surplus energy upon; and

through the swift, precious forenoon hours delights in the mastery over

difficulty his stored-up power imparts; takes the noon-day meal gayly

and leisurely with congenial people; through the early afternoon hours

does the lighter portion of the day's work if he must; gets out for an

hour or two in the open air if he may, with horse, or wheel, or

automobile, or boat, or racket, or golf clubs, or skates, or rod, or

gun, or at least a friend and two stout walking shoes; comes to the

evening meal in the family circle widened to include a few welcome

guests, or at the home of some hospitable host, in garments from which

all trace of stain or hint of strain has been removed, to share the best

things market and purse afford, served in such wise as to prolong the

opportunity for the interchange of wit and banter, cursory discussion

and kindly compliment; spends the evening in quiet reading or public

entertainment, games with his children or visiting with friends; and

then returns again to sleep with such a sense of gratitude for the dear

joys of the day as sends an echo of "All's well" down through even the

shadowy substance of his unconscious dreams. Surely there are some

features of this Epicurean day which we, in our bustling, restless,

overelaborated lives, might introduce with great profit to ourselves,

and great advantage to the people with whom we are intimately thrown. A

series of such days, varied by even happier holidays and Sundays, broken

once or twice a year at least by considerable vacations, added together,

will make a life which Epicurus says a man may live with satisfaction,

and after which he may pass away content.

If there be no other life, let us by all means make the most of this.

And if, both here and hereafter, there be a larger life than that

perceivable by sense,--as, on deeper grounds than the Epicurean

psychology recognises, most of us believe there is,--this healthy,

hearty, wholesome determination to live intensely and exclusively in the

present is a much more sincere and effective way to develop it than the

foolish attempt of a false other-worldliness to anticipate or discount

the future, by a half-hearted, far-away affectation of superiority to

the simple homely pleasures of to-day.

IV

THE DEFECTS OF EPICUREANISM

Thus far we have pointed out certain valuable elements of truth which

Epicureanism contains. Only incidentally have we encountered certain

deep defects. Epicurus's "free laugh" at those who attempt to fulfil

their political duties, his quiet ignoring of all interests that lie

outside his little circle, or reach beyond the grave, his naive remark

about the intrinsic harmlessness of wrong-doing, provided only the

wrong-doer could escape the fear of being caught, must have made us

aware that there are heights of nobleness, depths of devotion, lengths

of endurance, breadths of sympathy altogether foreign to this

easy-going, pleasure-seeking view of life. Justice requires us to dwell

more explicitly on these Epicurean shortcomings. Much that has been

charged against the school in the form of swinish sensuality is the

grossest slander. Still there are defects in this view of life which are

both logically deducible from its premises, and practically visible in

the lives of its consistent disciples.

The fundamental defect of Epicureanism is its false definition of

personality. According to Epicurus the person is merely a bundle of

appetites and passions; and the gratification of these is made

synonymous with the satisfaction of himself. But gratifications are

short; while appetites are long. The result is that which Schopenhauer

has so conclusively pointed out. During the long periods when desire

burns unsatisfied, the balance of pleasure is against us. In the

comparatively brief and rare intervals when passions are in process of

gratification, the balance can never be more than even. Therefore our

account with the world at the end of any period, whether a week or a

year or a lifetime, is bound to stand as follows: credit, a few rare,

brief moments--moments, too, which have long since vanished into

nothingness--when appetites and passions were in process of

satisfaction. Debit, the vast majority of moments, amounting in the

aggregate to almost the total period considered, when appetites and

passions were clamouring for a satisfaction that was not forthcoming.

The obvious conclusion from the frequent examination of the Epicurean

account-book is that which Schopenhauer so triumphantly

demonstrates,--pessimism. The sooner we cease doing business on those

terms, the less will be the balance of pain, or unsatisfied desire,

against us. To be entirely frank, the devotees of Omar Khayyam would

have to confess that it is this note of pessimism, despair, and

self-pity, at the sorry contrast of the vast unattainable and the petty

attained, which is the secret of his unquestionably fascinating lines.

Here the blase amusement-seeker finds consolation in the fact that a

host of other people are also yielding to the temptation to bury the

unwelcome consciousness of a self they cannot satisfy in wine, or any

other momentary sensuous titillation that will conceal the sense of

their spiritual failure--a failure, however, which they are glad to be

assured is shared by so many that the sense of it has been dignified by

the name of a philosophy and sung by a poet.

Pleasure cannot be sought directly with success; for pleasure comes

indirectly as the effect of causes far higher and deeper and wider than

any that are recognised in the Epicurean philosophy. Pleasure comes

unsought to those who lose themselves in large intellectual, artistic,

social, and spiritual interests. But such noble losing of self without

thought of gain is explicitly excluded from the consistent Epicurean

creed.

In the picture of the Epicurean life already drawn, while domestic and

political life have been presupposed as a background, nothing has been

said about the sacrifice which one is called upon to make in the support

and defence of a pure home and a free country. That was expressly

excluded by Epicurus. Whatever attractiveness there was in the picture

of the Epicurean life previously presented was largely due to this

background of presupposition that this happy life was lived in a

well-ordered and stable family, and in a free and just municipal and

national life. In fact it is only as a parasite on these great

domestic, social, and political institutions which it does nothing to

create or maintain, and much to weaken and destroy, that Epicureanism is

even a tolerable account of life. If we now paint our picture of the

Epicurean man and woman with this background of domestic and civic life

withdrawn, the ugliness and meanness of this parasitic Epicureanism will

stare us in the face; and while we ought not to forget the valuable

lessons it has to teach us, we shall shrink from the completed picture

as a thing of deformity and degradation.

Who then is the consistent Epicurean man? He is the club man, who lives

in easy luxury and fares sumptuously every day. Everything is done for

him. Servants wait on him. He serves nobody, and is responsible for no

one's welfare. He has a congenial set of cronies, loosely attached to be

sure; and constantly changing, as matrimony, financial reverses,

business engagements, professional responsibilities call one or another

of his circle away to a more strenuous life. He is a good fellow,

genial, free-handed with his set, indifferent to all who are outside. He

generally hires some woman to serve for a few months as the instrument

of his passions; only to cast her off to be hired by another and

another until in due time she dies, he cares not when or how.

As business men these Epicureans are apt to be easy-going, and therefore

failures. As debtors, they are the hardest people in the world from whom

to collect a bill. As creditors or landlords they are the most merciless

in their exactions. Their devotion to the state is generally confined to

betting on the elections; the returns of which they watch with the same

interest as the results of a horse-race. Their religion is confined to

poking fun at the people who are foolish enough to be going to church

while they are at their Sunday morning breakfast.

We all know these Epicureans; we do business with them; we meet them

socially; we treat them decently; but it is to be hoped that underneath

the smooth exterior we all detect their selfish heartlessness. They have

taken a doctrine, which, as applied to the good things which are made to

minister to our appetites is sound and true, and have perverted it into

a moral monstrosity by daring to treat human hearts and social

institutions as mere things, mere instruments of their selfish

pleasures.

Epicurean women, likewise, abound in every wealthy community. They

spend the winter in Florida, New York, or Washington; dividing the rest

of the year between the sea-shore, the mountains, and the lakes, with

occasional visits to what they call their homes. They must have the best

of everything, and assume no responsibility beyond running up bills for

their husbands to pay, or to remain unpaid. Their special paradise is

foreign travel, and no pension or hotel along the beaten highways of

Europe is without its quota of these precious daughters of Epicurus.

They flit hither and thither where least ennui and most diversion

allures. Two or three years of this irresponsible existence is

sufficient to disqualify them for usefulness either in Europe or

America, either here or hereafter. When they return, if they ever do, to

their native town or city, the drudgery of housekeeping has become

intolerable, the responsibilities of social life unendurable, and their

poor husbands are glad enough when the restless fit seizes them again

and they can be packed off to Egypt, or Russia, or whatever remote

corner of the earth remains for their idle hands and restless feet,

their empty minds and hollow hearts, to invade with their unearned gold.

There is no guarantee that the Epicurean will be the chaste husband of

one wife, or a faithful mother, or a good provider for the family, or a

devoted citizen of the republic, or a strenuous servant of art or

science, or a heroic martyr in the cause of progress and reform. If all

men were Epicureans, the world would speedily retrograde into the

barbarism and animalism whence it has slowly and painfully emerged. The

great interests of the family, the state, society, and civilisation are

not accurately reflected in the feelings of the individual; and if the

individual has no guide but feeling, he will prove a traitor to such of

these higher interests as may have the misfortune to be intrusted to his

pleasure-loving, self-indulgent, unheroic hands.

There are hard things to do and to endure; and if we are to meet them

bravely, we shall have to call the Stoic to our aid. There are sordid

and trivial things to put up with, or to rise above, and there we may

need at times the Platonist and the mystic to show us the eternal

reality underneath the temporal appearance. There are problems of

conduct to be solved; conflicting claims to be adjusted; and for this

the Aristotelian sense of proportion must be developed in our souls.

Finally there are other persons to be considered, and one great Personal

Spirit living and working in the world; and for our proper attitude

toward these persons, human and divine, we must look to the Christian

principle. To meet these higher relationships with no better equipment

than Epicureanism offers, would be as foolish as to try to run barefoot

across a continent, or swim naked across the sea. Naked, barefoot

Epicureanism has its place on the sandy beaches and in the sheltered

coves of life; but has no business on the mountain tops or in the depths

of human experience.

It will not make a man an efficient workman, or a thorough scholar, or a

brave soldier, or a public-spirited citizen. It spoils completely every

woman whom it gets hold of, unless at the same time she has firm hold on

something better; unless she has a husband and children whom she loves,

or work in which she delights for its own sake, or friends and interests

dearer than life itself. Epicureanism will not lift either man or woman

far toward heaven, or save them in the hour when the pains of hell get

hold of them. No home can be reared on it. The divorce court is the

logical outcome of every marriage between a man and a woman who are both

Epicureans. For it is the very essence of Epicureanism to treat others

as means; while no marriage is tolerable unless at least one of the two

parties is large and unselfish enough to treat the other as an end. No

Epicurean state or city could endure longer than it would take for the

men who are in politics for their pockets to plunder the people who are

out of politics for the same reason. An Epicurean heaven, a place where

eternally each should get his fill of pleasure at the expense of

everybody else, would be insufferably insipid, incomparably unendurable.

It is fortunate for the fame of Epicurus and the permanence of his

philosophy that he evaded the necessity of thinking out the conditions

of immortal blessedness by his specious dilemma in which he thought to

prove that death ends all. As a temporary parasite upon a political and

moral order already established, Epicureanism might thrive and flourish;

but as a principle on which to rest a decent society here or a hope of

heaven hereafter, Epicureanism is utterly lacking. If there were nothing

better than Epicureanism in store for us through the long eternities, we

all might well pray to be excused, as Epicurus happily believed we

should be. For any ultimate delight in life must be rooted in something

deeper than self-centred pleasure: it must love persons and seek ends

for their own sake; and find its joy, not in the satisfaction of the man

as he is, but in the development of that which his thought and love

enable him to become.

V

AN EXAMPLE OF EPICUREAN CHARACTER

The clearest example of the shortcomings of Epicureanism is the

character of Tito Melema in George Eliot's "Romola." Pleasure and the

avoidance of pain are this young Greek's only principles. He is "of so

easy a conscience that he would make a stepping-stone of his father's

corpse." "He has a lithe sleekness about him that seems marvellously

fitted for slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on." "He had an

unconquerable aversion to any thing unpleasant, even when an object very

much loved and admired was on the other side of it." According to his

thinking "any maxims that required a man to fling away the good that was

needed to make existence sweet, were only the lining of human

selfishness turned outward; they were made by men who wanted others to

sacrifice themselves for their sake." "He would rather that Baldassarre

should not suffer; he liked no one to suffer; but could any philosophy

prove to him that he was bound to care for another's suffering more than

for his own? To do so, he must have loved Baldassarre devotedly, and he

did not love him: was that his own fault? Gratitude! seen closely, it

made no valid claim; his father's life would have been dreary without

him; are we convicted of a debt to men for the pleasure they give

themselves?" "He had simply chosen to make life easy to himself--to

carry his human lot if possible in such a way that it should pinch him

nowhere; but the choice had at various times landed him in unexpected

positions." "Tito could not arrange life at all to his mind without a

considerable sum of money, and that problem of arranging life to his

mind had been the source of all his misdoing." "He would have been equal

to any sacrifice that was not unpleasant." "Of other goods than pleasure

he can form no conception." As Romola says in her reproaches: "You talk

of substantial good, Tito! Are faithfulness, and love, and sweet

grateful memories no good? Is it no good that we should keep our silent

promises on which others build because they believe in our love and

truth? Is it no good that a just life should be justly honoured? Or, is

it good that we should harden our hearts against all the wants and hopes

of those who have depended on us? What good can belong to men who have

such souls? To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couches for

themselves, and live and die with their base selves as their best

companions."

This pleasure-loving Tito Melema, "when he was only seven years old,

Baldassarre had rescued from blows, had taken to a home that seemed like

opened paradise, where there was sweet food and soothing caresses, all

had on Baldassarre's knee; and from that time till the hour they had

parted, Tito had been the one centre of Baldassarre's fatherly cares."

Instead of finding and rescuing this man who, long years ago, had

rescued Tito when a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel

wrong, had reared him tenderly and been to him as a father, Tito sold

the jewels which belonged to his father and would have been sufficient

to ransom him from slavery, and finally, when found by Baldassarre in

Florence, denied him and pronounced him a madman. He betrayed an

innocent, trusting young girl into a mock marriage, at the same time

ruining her and proving false to his lawful wife. He sold the library

which it was Romola's father's dying wish to have kept in Florence as a

distinct memorial to his life and work. He entered into selfish

intrigues in the politics of the city, ready to betray his associates

and friends whenever his own safety required it.

What wonder that Romola came to have "her new scorn of that thing called

pleasure which made men base--that dexterous contrivance for selfish

ease, that shrinking from endurance and strain, when others were bowing

beneath burdens too heavy for them, which now made one image with her

husband." In her own distress she learns from Savonarola that there is a

higher law than individual pleasure. "She felt that the sanctity

attached to all close relations, and therefore preeminently to the

closest, was but the expression in outward law, of that result toward

which all human goodness and nobleness must spontaneously tend; that the

light abandonment of ties, whether inherited or voluntary, because they

had ceased to be pleasant, was the uprooting of social and personal

virtue. What else had Tito's crime toward Baldassarre been but that

abandonment working itself out to the most hideous extreme of falsity

and ingratitude? To her, as to him, there had come one of those moments

in life when the soul must dare to act on its own warrant, not only

without external law to appeal to, but in the face of a law which is not

unarmed with Divine lightnings--lightnings that may yet fall if the

warrant has been false." The whole teaching of the book is summed up in

the Epilogue. In the conversation between Romola and Tito's illegitimate

son Lillo, Lillo says, "I should like to be something that would make

me a great man, and very happy besides--something that would not hinder

me from having a good deal of pleasure."

"That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that

could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We

can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a

great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the

world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so

much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what

we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is

good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no

man can be great--he can hardly keep himself from wickedness--unless he

gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strength to

endure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness that

belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than

falsehood. And there was Fra Girolamo--you know why I keep to-morrow

sacred; he had the greatness which belongs to a life spent in struggling

against powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to the highest deeds

they are capable of. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and

seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men, you must

learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you

because of it. And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and

make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure, and escape from

what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be

calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that

has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say, 'It would have been

better for me if I had never been born.'"

The trouble with Epicureanism is its assumption that the self is a

bundle of natural appetites and passions, and that the end of life is

their gratification. Experience shows, as in the case of Tito, that such

a policy consistently pursued, brings not pleasure but pain--pain first

of all to others, and then pain to the individual through their

contempt, indignation, and vengeance. The truest pleasure must come

through the development within one of generous emotions, kind

sympathies, and large social interests. The man must be made over before

the pleasures of the new man can be rightly sought and successfully

found. This making over of man is no consistent part of the logical

Epicurean programme, and consequently pure Epicureanism is sure to land

one in the narrowness, selfishness, and heartlessness of a Tito Melema,

and to bring upon one essentially the same condemnation and disaster.

Still, not in criticism or unkindness would we take leave of the serene

and genial Epicurus. We may frankly recognise his fundamental

limitations, and yet gratefully accept the good counsel he has to give.

Parasite as it is,--a thing that can only live by sucking its life out

of ideals and principles higher and hardier than itself, it is yet a

graceful and ornamental parasite, which will beautify and shield the

hard outlines of our more strenuous principles. There are dreary wastes

in all our lives, into which we can profitably turn those streams of

simple pleasure he commends. There are points of undue strain and

tension where Epicurean prudence would bid us forego the slight fancied

gain to save the ruinous expense to health and happiness. Let us fill up

these gaps with hearty indulgence of healthy appetite, with vigorous

exercise of dormant powers, with the eager joys of new-learned

recreations. Let us tone down the strain and tension of our anxious,

worried, worn, and weary lives by the rigid elimination of the

superfluous, the strict concentration on the perpetual present, the

resolute banishment from it of all past or future springs of depression

and discouragement. Before we are through we shall see far nobler ideals

than this; but we must not despise the day of small things. Though the

lowest and least of them all, the Epicurean is one of the historical

ideals of life. It has its claims which none of us may with impunity

ignore. To serve him faithfully in the lower spheres of life is a

wholesome preparation for the intelligent and reasonable service of

Stoic, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Christian ideals which rule the

higher realms. He who is false to the humble, homely demands of Epicurus

can never be quite at his best in the grander service of Zeno and Plato,

Aristotle and Jesus.

VI

THE CONFESSIONS OF AN EPICUREAN HERETIC

A heretic is a man who, while professing to hold the tenets of the sect

to which he adheres, and sincerely believing that he is in substantial

agreement with his more orthodox brethren, yet in his desire to be

honest and reasonable, so modifies these tenets as to empty them of all

that is distinctive of the sect in question, and thus unintentionally

gives aid and comfort to its enemies. Every vigorous and vital school of

thought soon or late develops this species of _enfant terrible_. Like

the Christian church, the Epicurean school has been blessed with

numerous progeny of this disturbing sort. The one among them all who

most stoutly professes the fundamental principles of Epicureanism, and

then proceeds to admit pretty much everything its opponents advance

against it, is John Stuart Mill. His "Utilitarianism" is a fort manned

with the most approved idealistic guns, yet with the Epicurean flag

floating bravely over the whole. He "holds that actions are right in

proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to

produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and

the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.

Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends;

and all desirable things are desirable either for the pleasure inherent

in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the

prevention of pain." A more square and uncompromising statement of

Epicureanism than this it would be impossible to make.

Having thus squarely identified himself with the Epicurean school, Mr.

Mill proceeds to add to this doctrine in turn the doctrines of each one

of the four schools which we are to consider later. First he introduces

a distinction in the kind of pleasure, "assigning to the pleasures of

the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral

sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere

sensation." When asked what he means by difference of quality in

pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely

as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, although he tells us

there is but one possible answer, he gives us two or three. First he

appeals to the verdict of competent judges. "Of two pleasures, if there

be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a

decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to

prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by

those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the

other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a

greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity

of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified

in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so

far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small

account."

This appeal to competent judges, or, in other words, to authority,

involves no philosophical principle at all unless we may call the

doctrine of papal infallibility, to which this appeal of Mill is

essentially akin, a principle. If these judges are competent, there must

be a reason for the preference they give. In the next paragraph Mill

tells us what that principle is; but in doing so introduces the

principle of the subordination of lower to higher faculties, which we

shall see later is the distinguishing principle of Plato. On this point

Mill is as clear as Plato himself. "Now it is an unquestionable fact

that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of

appreciating and enjoying both, do give a most marked preference to the

manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human

creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for

a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no

intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person

would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be

selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool,

the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are

with theirs. They would not resign what they possess more than he, for

the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in

common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of

unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their

lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes. A being

of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably

of more acute suffering, and is certainly accessible to it at more

points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities,

he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade

of existence." This appeal to quality rather than quantity of pleasure

puts Mill, in spite of himself, squarely on Platonic ground and abandons

consistent Epicureanism. An illustration will make this clear. A man

professes that money is his supreme end, the only thing he cares for in

the world; he tells us that whatever he does is done for money, and

whenever he refrains from doing anything it is to avoid losing money. So

far he puts his conduct on a consistently mercenary basis. Suppose,

however, that in the next sentence he tells us that he prizes certain

kinds of money. If we ask him what is the basis of the distinction, he

replies that he prizes money honestly earned and despises money

dishonestly acquired. Should we not at once recognise, that in spite of

his original declaration, he is not the consistently mercenary being he

professed himself to be? The fact that he prefers honest to dishonest

money shows that honesty, not money, is his real principle; and, in

spite of his original profession, this distinction lifts him out of the

class of mercenary money lovers into the class of men whose real

principle is not money but honesty. Precisely so Mill's confession that

he cares for the height and dignity of the faculties employed rather

than the quantity of pleasure gained lifts him out of the Epicurean

school to which he professes adherence and makes him an idealist.

When asked for an explanation of his preference of higher to lower, Mill

at once shifts to Stoic ground in the following sentences: "We may give

what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to

pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to

some of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable; we

may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an

appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for

the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of

excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it; but

its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human

beings possess in one form or another, and in some, though by no means

in exact, proportion to their highest faculties, and which is so

essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that

nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an

object of desire to them. Whoever supposes that this preference takes

place at a sacrifice of happiness--that the superior being, in anything

like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior--confounds

the two very different ideas of happiness and content. It is

indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low has

the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed

being will always feel that any happiness which we can look for, as the

world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its

imperfections if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him

envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only

because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied;

better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the

fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only

know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison

knows both sides."

When pressed for a sanction of motive Mill appeals to the Aristotelian

principle that the individual can only realise his conception of himself

through union with his fellows in society: to the social nature of man

and his inability to find himself in any smaller sphere, or through

devotion to any lesser end. "This firm foundation is that of the social

feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our

fellow-creatures, which is already a powerful principle in human nature,

and happily one of those which tend to become stronger, even without

express inculcation, from the influences of advancing civilisation. The

social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to

man, that, except in some unusual circumstances or by an effort of

voluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself otherwise than as a

member of a body; and this association is riveted more and more, as

mankind are farther removed from the state of savage independence. Any

condition, therefore, which is essential to a state of society, becomes

more and more an inseparable part of every person's conception of the

state of things which he is born into, and which is the destiny of a

human being. In this way people grow up unable to conceive as possible

to them a state of total disregard of other people's interests. They are

under a necessity of conceiving themselves as at least abstaining from

all the grosser injuries, and (if only for their own protection) living

in a state of constant protest against them. They are also familiar with

the fact of cooeperating with others, and proposing to themselves a

collective, not an individual, interest, as the aim (at least for the

time being) of their actions. So long as they are cooeperating, their

ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary

feeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only

does all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of

society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in

practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to

identify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an

ever greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as

though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of

course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing

naturally and necessarily to be attended to. This mode of conceiving

ourselves and human life, as civilisation goes on, is felt to be more

and more natural. Every step in political improvement renders it more so

by removing the sources of opposition of interest, and levelling those

inequalities of legal privilege between individuals or classes, owing to

which there are large portions of mankind whose happiness it is still

practicable to disregard. In an improving state of the human mind, the

influences are constantly on the increase, which tend to generate in

each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which feeling, if

perfect, would make him never think of, or desire, any beneficial

condition for himself, in the benefits of which they are not included.

The deeply rooted conception which every individual even now has of

himself as a social being tends to make him feel it one of his natural

wants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and

those of his fellow-creatures. It does not present itself to their minds

as a superstition of education, or a law despotically imposed by the

power of society, but as an attribute which it would not be well for

them to be without."

Lastly Mill introduces the Christian ideal. "As between his own

happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as

strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the

golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the

ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one's

neighbour as one's self, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian

morality." In his attempt to prove the Christian obligation on an

Epicurean basis the inconsistency between his Epicurean principle and

his Christian preaching and practice becomes evident. Master of logic as

Mill was, an author of a standard text-book on the subject, yet so

desperate was the plight in which his attempt to stretch Epicureanism to

Christian dimensions placed him, that he was compelled to resort to the

following fallacy of composition, the fallaciousness of which every

student of logic recognises at a glance. "Happiness is a good; each

person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness,

therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons." As Carlyle has

pointed out, this is equivalent to saying, since each pig wants all the

swill in the trough for itself, a litter of pigs in the aggregate will

desire each member of the litter to have its share of the whole,--a

fallacy which a single experience in feeding pigs will sufficiently

refute. It requires something deeper and higher than Epicurean

principles to lift men to a plane where Christian altruism is the

natural and inevitable conduct which Mill rightly says it ought to be.

These confessions of an Epicurean heretic, wrung from a man who had been

rigidly trained by a stern father in Epicurean principles, yet whose

surpassing candour compelled him to make these admissions, so fatal to

the system, so ennobling to the man and to the doctrine he proclaimed,

serve as an admirable preparation for the succeeding chapters, where

these same principles, which Mill introduces as supplements, and

modifications, and amendments to Epicureanism, will be presented as the

foundation-stones of larger and deeper views of life. Mill starts with a

jack-knife which he publicly proclaims to be in every part of the handle

and in every blade through and through Epicurean; then gets a new handle

from the Stoics; borrows one blade from Plato, and another from

Aristotle; unconsciously steals the biggest blade of all from

Christianity; makes one of the best knives to be found on the moral

market: yet still, in loyalty to early parental training, insists on

calling the finished product by the same name as that with which he

started out. The result is a splendid knife to cut with; but a

difficult one to classify. Our quest for the principles of personality

will not bring us anything much better, for practical purposes, than the

lofty teaching of Mill's "Utilitarianism," and its companion in

inconsistency, Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Ethics." All our five

principles are present in these so-called hedonistic treatises. But it

is a great theoretical advantage, and ultimately carries with it

considerable practical gain, to give credit where credit is due, and to

call things by their right names. Thanks to the candour of these

heretics, though the names we encounter hereafter will be new, we shall

greet most of the principles we discover under these new names as old

friends to whom the Epicurean heretics gave us our first introduction.