THE EPICUREANS
Epicurus was born at Samos in 342 B.C. He founded his school a year or
two before Zeno founded the Stoa, so that the two schools from the
first ran parallel in time. The school of Epicurus lasted over six
centuries. Epicurus early became acquainted with the atomism of
Democritus, but his learning in earlier systems of philosophy does not
appear to have been extensive. He was a man of estimable life and
character. He founded his school in 306 B.C. The Epicurean philosophy
was both founded and completed by him. No subsequent Epicurean to any
appreciable extent added to or altered the doctrines laid down by the
founder.
The Epicurean system is even more purely practical in tendency than
the Stoic. In spite of the fact that Stoicism subordinates logic and
physics to ethics, yet the diligence and care which the Stoics
bestowed upon such doctrines as those of the criterion of truth, the
nature of the world, the soul, and so on, afford evidence of a
genuine, if subordinate, interest in these subjects. Epicurus likewise
divided his system into logic (which he called canonic), physics, and
ethics, yet the two former branches of thought are pursued with an
obvious carelessness and absence of interest. It is evident that
learned {355} discussions bored Epicurus. His system is amiable and
shallow. Knowledge for its own sake is not desired. Mathematics, he
said, are useless, because they have no connexion with life. The
logic, or canonic, we may pass over completely, as possessing no
elements of interest, and come at once to the physics.
Physics.
Physics interests Epicurus only from one point of view--its power to
banish superstitious fear from the minds of men. All supernatural
religion, he thought, operates for the most part upon mankind by means
of fear. Men are afraid of the gods, afraid of retribution, afraid of
death because of the stories of what comes after death. This incessant
fear and anxiety is one of the chief causes of the unhappiness of men.
Destroy it, and we have at least got rid of the prime hindrance to
human happiness. We can only do this by means of a suitable doctrine
of physics. What is necessary is to be able to regard the world as a
piece of mechanism, governed solely by natural causes, without any
interference by supernatural beings, in which man is free to find his
happiness how and when he will, without being frightened by the bogeys
of popular religion. For though the world is ruled mechanically, man,
thought Epicurus in opposition to the Stoics, possesses free will, and
the problem of philosophy is to ascertain how he can best use this
gift in a world otherwise mechanically governed. What he required,
therefore, was a purely mechanical philosophy. To invent such a
philosophy for himself was a task not suited to his indolence, and for
which he could not pretend to possess the necessary {356}
qualifications. Therefore he searched the past, and soon found what he
wanted in the atomism of Democritus. This, as an entirely mechanical
philosophy, perfectly suited his ends, and the pragmatic spirit in
which he chose his beliefs, not on any abstract grounds of their
objective truth, but on the basis of his subjective needs and personal
wishes, will be noted. It is a sign of the times. When truth comes to
be regarded as something that men may construct in accordance with
their real or imagined needs, and not in accordance with any objective
standard, we are well advanced upon the downward path of decay.
Epicurus, therefore, adopted the atomism of Democritus _en bloc_, or
with trifling modifications. All things are composed of atoms and the
void. Atoms differ only in shape and weight, not in quality. They fall
eternally through the void. By virtue of free will, they deviate
infinitesimally from the perpendicular in their fall, and so clash
against one another. This, of course, is an invention of Epicurus, and
formed no part of the doctrine of Democritus. It might be expected of
Epicurus that his modifications would not be improvements. In the
present case, the attribution of free will to the atoms adversely
affects the logical consistency of the mechanical theory. From the
collision of atoms arises a whirling movement out of which the world
emerges. Not only the world, but all individual phenomena, are to be
explained mechanically. Teleology is rigorously excluded. In any
particular case, however, Epicurus is not interested to know what
particular causes determine a phenomenon. It is enough for him to be
sure that it is wholly determined by mechanical causes, and that
supernatural agencies are excluded.
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The soul being composed of atoms which are scattered at death, a
future life is not to be thought of. But this is to be regarded as the
greatest blessing. It frees us from the fear of death, and the fear of
a hereafter. Death is not an evil. For if death is, we are not; if we
are, death is not. When death comes we shall not feel it, for is it
not the end of all feeling and consciousness? And there is no reason
to fear now what we know that we shall not feel when it comes.
Having thus disposed of the fear of retribution in a future life,
Epicurus proceeds to dispose of the fear of the interference of the
gods in this life. One might have expected that Epicurus would for
this purpose have embraced atheism. But he does not deny the existence
of the gods. On the contrary, he believed that there are innumerable
gods. They have the form of men, because that is the most beautiful of
all forms. They have distinctions in sex. They eat, drink, and talk
Greek. Their bodies are composed of a substance like light. But though
Epicurus allows them to exist, he is careful to disarm them, and to
rob them of their fears. They live in the interstellar spaces, an
immortal, calm, and blessed existence. They do not intervene in the
affairs of the world, because they are perfectly happy. Why should
they burden themselves with the control of that which nowise concerns
them? Theirs is the beatitude of a wholly untroubled joy.
"Immortal are they, clothed with powers,
Not to be comforted at all,
Lords over all the fruitless hours,
Too great to appease, too high to appal,
Too far to call." [Footnote 17]
[Footnote 17: A. C. Swinburne's _Felise_.]
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Man, therefore, freed from the fear of death and the fear of the gods,
has no duty save to live as happily as he can during his brief space
upon earth. We can quit the realm of physics with a light heart, and
turn to what alone truly matters, ethics, the consideration of how man
ought to conduct his life.
Ethics.
If the Stoics were the intellectual successors of the Cynics, the
Epicureans bear the same relation to the Cyrenaics. Like Aristippus,
they founded morality upon pleasure, but they differ because they
developed a purer and nobler conception of pleasure than the Cyrenaics
had known. Pleasure alone is an end in itself. It is the only good.
Pain is the only evil. Morality, therefore, is an activity which
yields pleasure. Virtue has no value on its own account, but derives
its value from the pleasure which accompanies it.
This is the only foundation which Epicurus could find, or desired to
find, for moral activity. This is his only ethical principle. The rest
of the Epicurean ethics consists in the interpretation of the idea of
pleasure. And, firstly, by pleasure Epicurus did not mean, as the
Cyrenaics did, merely the pleasure of the moment, whether physical or
mental. He meant the pleasure that endures throughout a lifetime, a
happy life. Hence we are not to allow ourselves to be enslaved by any
particular pleasure or desire. We must master our appetites. We must
often forego a pleasure if it leads in the end to greater pain. We
must be ready to undergo pain for the sake of a greater pleasure to
come.
And it was just for this reason, secondly, that the {359} Epicureans
regarded spiritual and mental pleasures as far more important than
those of the body. For the body feels pleasure and pain only while
they last. The body has in itself neither memory nor fore-knowledge.
It is the mind which remembers and foresees. And by far the most
potent pleasures and pains are those of remembrance and anticipation.
A physical pleasure is a pleasure to the body only now. But the
anticipation of a future pain is mental anxiety, the remembrance of a
past joy is a present delight. Hence what is to be aimed at above all
is a calm untroubled mind, for the pleasures of the body are
ephemeral, those of the spirit enduring. The Epicureans, like the
Stoics, preached the necessity of superiority to bodily pains and
external circumstances. So a man must not depend for his happiness
upon externals; he must have his blessedness in his own self. The wise
man can be happy even in bodily torment, for in the inner tranquillity
of his soul he possesses a happiness which far outweighs any bodily
pain. Yet innocent pleasures of sense are neither forbidden, nor to be
despised. The wise man will enjoy whatever he can without harm. Of all
mental pleasures the Epicureans laid, perhaps, most stress upon
friendship. The school was not merely a collection of
fellow-philosophers, but above all a society of friends.
Thirdly, the Epicurean ideal of pleasure tended rather towards a
negative than a positive conception of it. It was not the state of
enjoyment that they aimed at, much less the excitement of the
feelings. Not the feverish pleasures of the world constituted their
ideal. They aimed rather at a negative absence of pain, at
tranquillity, quiet calm, repose of spirit, undisturbed by fears and
{360} anxieties. As so often with men whose ideal is pleasure, their
view of the world was tinged with a gentle and even luxurious
pessimism. Positive happiness is beyond the reach of mortals. All that
man can hope for is to avoid pain, and to live in quiet contentment.
Fourthly, pleasure does not consist in the multiplication of needs and
their subsequent satisfaction. The multiplication of wants only
renders it more difficult to satisfy them. It complicates life without
adding to happiness. We should have as few needs as possible. Epicurus
himself lived a simple life, and advised his followers to do the same.
The wise man, he said, living on bread and water, could vie with Zeus
himself in happiness. Simplicity, cheerfulness, moderation,
temperance, are the best means to happiness. The majority of human
wants, and the example of the thirst for fame is quoted, are entirely
unnecessary and useless.
Lastly, the Epicurean ideal, though containing no possibility of an
exalted nobility, was yet by no means entirely selfish. A kindly,
benevolent temper appeared in these men. It is pleasanter, they said,
to do a kindness than to receive one. There is little of the stern
stuff of heroes, but there is much that is gentle and lovable, in the
amiable moralizings of these butterfly-philosophers.
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