EPICURUS AND LUCRETIUS.
I.
Among the systems of ancient philosophy, Epicureanism is remarkable
for the completeness with which its doctrines were worked out by their
first author, and for the fidelity with which they were handed down to
the latest generation of his disciples. For a period of more than five
hundred years, nothing was added to, and nothing was taken away from,
the original teaching of Epicurus. In this, as in other respects, it
offers a striking contrast to the system which we last reviewed. In our
sketch of the Stoic philosophy, we had to notice the continual process
of development through which it passed, from its commencement to its
close. There is a marked difference between the earlier and the later
heads of the school at Athens—between these, as a class, and the Stoics
of the Roman empire—and, finally, even between two Stoics who stood so
near to one another as Epictêtus and Marcus Aurelius. This contrast
cannot be due to external circumstances, for the two systems were
exactly coeval, and were exposed, during their whole lifetime, to the
action of precisely the same environment. The cause must be sought for
in the character of the philosophies themselves, and of the minds which
were naturally most amenable to their respective influence. Stoicism
retained enough of the Socratic spirit to foster a love of enquiry for
its own sake, and an indisposition to accept any authority without
a searching examination of its claims to obedience or respect. The
learner was submitted to a thorough training in dialectics; while the
ideal of life set before him was not a state of rest, but of intense
and unremitting toil. Whatever particular conclusions he might carry
away with him from the class-room were insignificant in comparison
with the principle that he must be prepared to demonstrate them for
himself with that self-assurance happily likened by Zeno to the feeling
experienced when the clenched fist is held within the grasp of the
other hand. Epicurus, on the contrary, did not encourage independent
thought among his disciples; nor, with one exception hereafter to be
noticed, did his teaching ever attract any very original or powerful
intellect. From the first a standard of orthodoxy was erected; and,
to facilitate their retention, the leading tenets of the school were
drawn up in a series of articles which its adherents were advised to
learn by heart. Hence, as Mr. Wallace observes,[108] while the other
chief sects among which philosophy was divided—the Academicians, the
Peripatetics, and the Stoics—drew their appellation, not from their
first founder, but from the locality where his lectures had been
delivered, the Epicureans alone continued to bear the name of a master
whom they regarded with religious veneration. Hence, also, we must
add with Zeller,[109] and notwithstanding the doubt expressed by Mr.
Wallace,[110] on the subject, that our acquaintance with the system
so faithfully adhered to may be regarded as exceptionally full and
accurate. The excerpts from Epicurus himself, preserved by Diogenes
Laertius, the poem of Lucretius, the criticisms of Cicero, Plutarch,
and others, and the fragments of Epicurean literature recovered from
the Herculanean papyri, agree so well where they cover the same
ground, that they may be fairly trusted to supplement each other’s
deficiencies; and a further confirmation, if any was needed, is
obtained by consulting the older sources, whence Epicurus borrowed most
of his philosophy.
It may safely be assumed that the prejudices once entertained against
Epicureanism are now extinct. Whatever may have been the speculative
opinions of its founder, he had as good a right to them as the Apostles
had to theirs; nor did he stand further aloof from the popular religion
of any age than Aristotle, who has generally been in high favour with
theologians. His practical teaching was directed towards the constant
inculcation of virtue; nor was it belied by the conduct either of
himself or of his disciples, even judged by the standard of the schools
to which they were most opposed. And some of his physical theories,
once rejected as self-evidently absurd, are now proved to be in harmony
with the sober conclusions of modern science. At any rate, it is not
in this quarter, as our readers will doubtless have already perceived,
that the old prejudices, if they still exist, are likely to find an
echo. Just now, indeed, the danger is not that Epicurus should be
depreciated, but that his merits should obtain far more than their
proper meed of recognition. It seems to be forgotten that what was best
in his physics he borrowed from others, and that what he added was of
less than no value; that he was ignorant or careless of demonstrated
truths; that his avowed principles of belief were inconsistent with
any truth rising above the level of vulgar apprehension; and finally,
that in his system scientific interests were utterly subordinated to
practical interests.
In the face of such facts, to say, as Mr. Froude does, that
Epicureanism was ‘the creed of the men of science’ in the time of
Julius Caesar[111]—an assertion directly contradicted by Lange[112]—is
perhaps only of a piece with Mr. Froude’s usual inaccuracy when writing
about ancient history; but such declarations as that of Mr. Frederic
Pollock, that the Epicurean system ‘was a genuine attempt at a
scientific explanation of the world; and was in its day the solitary
protest against the contempt of physics which prevailed in the other
post-Aristotelian schools;’[113] of Prof. Trezza, that the Epicurean
school ‘summed up in itself the most scientific elements of Greek
antiquity;’[114] of Dr. Woltjer, that ‘with respect to the laws and
principles of science, the Epicureans came nearest of all the ancients
to the science of our own time;’[115] and finally, of M. Ernest Renan,
that Epicureanism was ‘the great scientific school of antiquity,’[116]
are absolutely amazing. The eminent French critic just quoted has
elsewhere observed, with perfect justice, that the scientific spirit
is the negation of the supernatural; and perhaps he argues that the
negation of the supernatural must, reciprocally, be the scientific
spirit. But this is only true when such a negation is arrived at
inductively, after a disinterested survey of the facts. Epicurus
started with the denial of supernatural interference as a practical
postulate, and then hunted about for whatever explanations of natural
phenomena would suit his foregone conclusion. Moreover, an enquirer
really animated by the scientific spirit studies the facts for their
own sake; he studies them as they actually are, not resting content
with alternative explanations; and he studies them to the fullest
extent of which his powers are capable. Epicurus, on the contrary,
declares that physics would not be worth attending to if the mind could
be set free from religious terrors in any other manner;[117] he will
not let himself be tied down to any one theory if there are others
equally inconsistent with divine agency to be had;[118] and when his
demands in this respect are satisfied, that is, when the appearances
vulgarly ascribed to supernatural causation have been provided with
natural causes, he leaves off.
To get rid of superstitious beliefs was, no doubt, a highly meritorious
achievement, but it had been far more effectually performed by the
great pre-Socratic thinkers, Heracleitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and
Democritus. These men or their followers had, besides, got hold of a
most important principle—the vital principle of all science—which was
the reign of law, the universality and indefeasibility of physical
causation. Now, Epicurus expressly refused to accept such a doctrine,
declaring that it was even worse than believing in the gods, since
they could be propitiated, whereas fate could not.[119] Again, Greek
physical philosophy, under the guidance of Plato, had been tending
more and more to seek for its foundation in mathematics. Mathematical
reasoning was seen to be the type of all demonstration; and the best
hopes of progress were staked on the extension of mathematical methods
to every field of enquiry in turn. How much might be done by following
up this clue was quickly seen not only in the triumphs of geometry, but
in the brilliant astronomical discoveries by which the shape of the
earth, the phases of the moon, and the cause of eclipses were finally
cleared up and placed altogether outside the sphere of conjecture.
Nor was a knowledge of these truths confined to specialists: they
were familiar alike to the older Academy, to the Peripatetic, and to
the Stoic schools; so that, with the exception of those who doubted
every proposition, we may assume them to have been then, as now, the
common property of all educated men. Epicurus, on the other hand,
seems to have known nothing of mathematics, or only enough to dispute
their validity, for we are told that his disciple Polyaenus, who had
previously been eminent in that department, was persuaded, on joining
the school, to reject the whole of geometry as untrue;[120] while,
in astronomy, he pronounced the heavenly bodies to be no larger than
they appear to our senses, denied the existence of Antipodes, and put
the crudest guesses of early philosophy on the same footing with the
best-authenticated results of later observation. It is no wonder, then,
that during the whole continuance of his school no man of science ever
accepted its teaching, with the single exception of Asclepiades, who
was perhaps a Democritean rather than a disciple of the Garden, and
who, at any rate, as a physiologist, would not be brought into contact
with its more flagrant absurdities.
In order to understand how so vigorous an intellect could go so wildly
astray, we must glance at his personal history, and at the manner in
which his system seems to have been gradually built up.
II.
Epicurus was born 341 B.C., about the same time as Zeno the Stoic.
Unlike all the other philosophers of his age, he was of Athenian
parentage; that is to say, he belonged to a race of exclusively
practical tendencies, and marked by a singular inaptitude or distaste
for physical enquiries. His father, a poor colonist in Samos, was,
apparently, not able to give him a very regular education. At eighteen
he was sent to Athens, but was shortly afterwards obliged to rejoin
his family, who were driven from Samos in 322, along with the other
Athenian settlers, by a political revolution, and had taken refuge in
Colophon, on the Asiatic coast. In the course of his wanderings, the
future philosopher came across some public lecturers, who seem to have
instructed him in the physics of Democritus, and perhaps also in the
scepticism of Pyrrho; but of such a steady discipline as Plato passed
through during his ten years’ intercourse with Socrates, Aristotle
during his twenty years’ studies under Plato, and Zeno during his
similarly protracted attendance at the various schools of Athens,
there is no trace whatever. Epicurus always described himself as
self-taught, meaning that his knowledge had been acquired by reading
instead of by listening; and we find in him the advantages as well
as the defects common to self-taught men in all ages—considerable
freshness and freedom from scholastic prejudices, along with a certain
narrowness of sympathies, incompleteness of information, inaptitude
for abstract reasoning, and last, but not least, an enormous opinion
of his own abilities, joined to an overweening contempt for those
with whose opinions he did not agree. After teaching for some time
in Mitylênê, Epicurus established himself as the head of a school in
Athens, where he bought a house and garden. In the latter he lectured
and gathered round him a band of devoted friends, among whom women
were included, and who were wont to assemble for purposes of social
recreation not less than of philosophic discipline. Just before his
death, which occurred in the year 270, he declared in a letter to
his friend and destined successor Hermarchus, that the recollection
of his philosophical achievements had been such a source of pleasure
as to overcome the agonies of disease, and to make the last day the
happiest of his life.[121] For the rest, Epicurus secluded himself, on
principle, from the world, and few echoes of his teaching seem to have
passed beyond the circle of his immediate adherents. Thus, whatever
opportunities might otherwise have offered themselves of profiting by
adverse criticism were completely lost.[122]
Epicureanism was essentially a practical philosophy. The physical,
theological, and logical portions of the system were reasoned out
with exclusive reference to its ethical end, and their absolute
subordination to it was never allowed to be forgotten. It is therefore
with the moral theory of Epicurus that we must begin.
From the time of Socrates on, the majority of Greeks, had they been
asked what was the ultimate object of endeavour, or what made life
worth living, would have answered, pleasure. But among professional
philosophers such a definition of the supreme good met with little
favour. Seeing very clearly that the standard of conduct must be
social, and convinced that it must at the same time include the
highest good of the individual, they found it impossible to believe
that the two could be reconciled by encouraging each citizen in the
unrestricted pursuit of his own private gratifications. Nor had such
an idea as the greatest happiness of the greatest number ever risen
above their horizon; although, from the necessities of life itself,
they unconsciously assumed it in all their political discussions. The
desire for pleasure was, however, too powerful a motive to be safely
disregarded. Accordingly we find Socrates frequently appealing to it
when no other argument was likely to be equally efficacious, Plato
striving to make the private satisfaction of his citizens coincide
with the demands of public duty, and Aristotle maintaining that this
coincidence must spontaneously result from the consolidation of moral
habits; the true test of a virtuous disposition being, in his opinion,
the pleasure which accompanies its exercise. One of the companions of
Socrates, Aristippus the Cyrenaean, a man who had cut himself loose
from every political and domestic obligation, and who was remarkable
for the versatility with which he adapted himself to the most varying
circumstances, went still further. He boldly declared that pleasure
was the sole end worth seeking, and on the strength of this doctrine
came forward as the founder of a new philosophical school. According to
his system, the _summum bonum_ was not the total amount of enjoyment
secured in a lifetime, but the greatest single enjoyment that could
be secured at any moment; and this principle was associated with an
idealistic theory of perception, apparently suggested by Protagoras,
but carrying his views much further. Our knowledge, said Aristippus,
is strictly limited to phenomena; we are conscious of nothing beyond
our own feelings; and we have no right to assume the existence of any
objects by which they are caused. The study of natural science is
therefore waste of time; our whole energies should be devoted to the
interests of practical life.[123] Thus Greek humanism seemed to have
found its appropriate sequel in hedonism, which, as an ethical theory,
might quote in its favour both the dictates of immediate feeling and
the sanction of public opinion.
The Cyrenaic school ended, curiously enough, in pessimism. The doctrine
that pleasure is the only good, and the doctrine that life yields a
preponderance of painful over pleasurable feelings, are severally
compatible with a preference of existence to non-existence; when
united, as they were by Hêgêsias, a Cyrenaic professor, they logically
lead to suicide; and we are told that the public authorities of
Alexandria were obliged to order the discontinuance of his lectures, so
great was their effect in promoting self-destruction.[124]
Meanwhile, hedonism had been temporarily taken up by Plato, and
developed into the earliest known form of utilitarianism. In his
_Protagoras_, he endeavours to show that every virtue has for its
object either to secure a greater pleasure by the sacrifice of a lesser
pleasure, or to avoid a greater pain by the endurance of a lesser pain;
nothing being taken into account but the interests of the individual
agent concerned. Plato afterwards discarded the theory sketched in
the _Protagoras_ for a higher and more generous, if less distinctly
formulated morality; but while ceasing to be a hedonist he remained a
utilitarian; that is to say, he insisted on judging actions by their
tendency to promote the general welfare, not by the sentiments which
they excite in the mind of a conventional spectator.
The idea of virtue as a hedonistic calculus, abandoned by its first
originator, and apparently neglected by his immediate successors,
was taken up by Epicurus; for that the latter borrowed it from Plato
seems to be proved by the exact resemblance of their language;[125]
and M. Guyau is quite mistaken when he represents his hero as the
founder of utilitarian morality.[126] It was not enough, however, to
appropriate the cast-off ideas of Plato; it was necessary to meet the
arguments by which Plato had been led to think that pleasure was not
the supreme good, and to doubt whether it was, as such, a good at all.
The most natural course would have been to begin by exhibiting the
hedonistic ideal in a more favourable light. Sensual gratifications,
from their remarkable intensity, had long been the accepted types of
pleasurable feeling, and from their animal character, as well as from
other obvious reasons, had frequently been used to excite a prejudice
against it. On the other hand, Plato himself, and Aristotle still more,
had brought into prominence the superiority, simply as pleasures,
of those intellectual activities which they considered to be, even
apart from all pleasure, the highest good. But Epicurus refused to
avail himself of this opportunity for effecting a compromise with
the opposite school, boldly declaring that he for his part could not
conceive any pleasures apart from those received through the five
senses, among which he, characteristically enough, included aesthetic
enjoyments. The obvious significance of his words has been explained
away, and they have been asserted to contain only the very harmless
proposition that our animal nature is the basis, the condition, of
our spiritual nature.[127] But, if this were the true explanation, it
would be possible to point out what other pleasures were recognised by
Epicurus. These, if they existed at all, must have belonged to the mind
as such. Now, we have it on Cicero’s authority that, while admitting
the existence of mental feelings, both pleasurable and painful, he
reduced them to an extension and reflection of bodily feelings,
mental happiness properly consisting in the assurance of prolonged
and painless sensual gratification. This is something very different
from saying that the highest spiritual enjoyments are conditioned by
the healthy activity of the bodily organs, or that they cannot be
appreciated if the animal appetites are starved. It amounts to saying
that there are no specific and positive pleasures apart from the five
senses as exercised either in reality or in imagination.[128] And even
without the evidence of Cicero, we can see that some such conclusion
necessarily followed from the principles elsewhere laid down by
Epicurus. To a Greek, the mental pleasures, _par excellence_, were
those derived from friendship and from intellectual activity. But our
philosopher, while warmly panegyrising friendship, recommends it not
for the direct pleasure which it affords, but for the pain and danger
which it prevents;[129] while his restriction of scientific studies
to the office of dispelling superstitious fears seems meant for a
direct protest against Aristotle’s opinion, that the highest pleasure
is derived from those studies. Equally significant is his outspoken
contempt for literary culture.[130] In this respect, he offers a marked
contrast to Aristippus, who, when asked by some one what good his son
would get by education, answered, ‘This much, at least, that when he
is at the play he will not sit like a stone upon a stone,’[131] the
customary attitude, it would seem, of an ordinary Athenian auditor.
It appears, then, that the popular identification of an Epicurean with
a sensualist has something to say in its favour. Nevertheless, we have
no reason to think that Epicurus was anything but perfectly sincere
when he repudiated the charge of being a mere sensualist.[132] But
the impulse which lifted him above sensualism was not derived from
his own original philosophy. It was due to the inspiration of Plato;
and nothing testifies more to Plato’s moral greatness than that the
doctrine most opposed to his own idealism should have been raised from
the dust by the example of its flight. We proceed to show how the
peculiar form assumed by Epicureanism was determined by the pressure
brought to bear on its original germ two generations before.
It had been urged against hedonism that pleasure is a process, a
movement; whereas the supreme good must be a completed product—an end
in which we can rest. Against sensual enjoyments in particular, it
had been urged that they are caused by the satisfaction of appetite,
and, as such, must result in a mere negative condition, marking the
zero point of pleasurable sentiency. Finally, much stress had been
laid on the anti-social and suicidal consequences of that selfish
grasping at power to which habits of unlimited self-indulgence must
infallibly lead. The form given to hedonism by Epicurus is a reaction
against these criticisms, a modification imposed on it for the purpose
of evading their force. He seems to admit that bodily satisfaction
is rather the removal of a want, and consequently of a pain, than a
source of positive pleasure. But the resulting condition of liberation
from uneasiness is, according to him, all that we can desire; and by
extending the same principle to every other good, he indirectly brings
back the mental felicity which at first sight his system threatened
either to exclude or to reduce to a mere shadow of sensual enjoyment.
For, in calculating the elements of unhappiness, we have to deal, not
only with present discomfort, but also, and to a far greater extent,
with the apprehension of future evil. We dread the loss of worldly
goods, of friends, of reputation, of life itself. We are continually
exposed to pain, both from violence and from disease. We are haunted
by visions of divine vengeance, both here and hereafter. To get rid of
all such terrors, to possess our souls in peace, is the highest good—a
permanent, as distinguished from a transient state of consciousness—and
the proper business of philosophy is to show us how that consummation
may be attained. Thus we are brought back to that blissful
self-contemplation of mind which Aristotle had already declared to be
the goal of all endeavour and the sole happiness of God.
But Epicurus could only borrow the leading principle of his opponents
at the expense of an enormous inconsistency. It was long ago pointed
out by the Academicians—and the objection has never been answered—that
pleasure and mere painlessness cannot both be the highest good,
although the one may be an indispensable condition of the other. To
confound the means with the end was, indeed, a common fault of Greek
philosophy; and the Stoics also were guilty of it when they defined
self-preservation to be the natural object of every creature, and yet
attached a higher value to the instruments than to the aims of that
activity. In Epicureanism, however, the change of front was more open,
and was attempted under the eyes of acute and vigilant enemies. If the
total absence of pain involves a pleasurable state of consciousness,
we have a right to ask for a definition or description of it, and
this, so far as can be made out, our philosopher never pretended
to supply. Of course, a modern psychologist can point out that the
functions of respiration, circulation, secretion, and absorption are
constantly going on, and that, in their normal activity, they give
rise to a vast sum of pleasurable consciousness, which far more than
makes up in volume for what it wants in acuteness. But, whatever his
recent interpreters may say,[133] Epicurus nowhere alludes to this
diffused feeling of vitality; had he recognised it, his enumeration of
the positive sensations, apart from which the good is inconceivable,
would have seemed as incomplete to him as it does to us. If, on the
other hand, the complete removal of pain introduces us to a state of
consciousness, which, without being positively pleasurable, has a
positive value of some kind, we ought to be told wherein it differs
from the ideals of the spiritualist school; while, if it has no
positive value at all, we ought equally to be told wherein it differs
from the unconsciousness of sleep or of death.
III.
We have now to see how, granting Epicurus his conception of
painlessness as the supreme good, he proceeds to evolve from it a
whole ethical, theological, and physical system. For reasons already
mentioned, the ethical development must be studied first. We shall
therefore begin with an analysis of the particular virtues. Temperance,
as the great self-regarding duty, obviously takes precedence of the
others. In dealing with this branch of his subject, there was nothing
to prevent Epicurus from profiting by the labours of his predecessors,
and more especially of the naturalistic school from Prodicus down.
So far as moderation is concerned, there need be little difference
between a theory of conduct based exclusively on the interests of
the individual, and a theory which regards him chiefly as a portion
of some larger whole. Accordingly, we find that our philosopher, in
his praises of frugality, closely approximated to the Cynic and Stoic
standards—so much so, indeed, that his expressions on the subject are
repeatedly quoted by Seneca as the best that could be found. Perhaps
the Roman moralist valued them less for their own sake than as being,
to some extent, the admissions of an opponent. But, in truth, he was
only reclaiming what the principles of his own sect had originally
inspired. To be content with the barest necessaries was a part of that
Nature-worship against which Greek humanism, with its hedonistic and
idealistic offshoots, had begun by vigorously protesting. Hence many
passages in Lucretius express exactly the same sentiments as those
which are most characteristic of Latin literature at a time when it is
completely dominated by Stoic influences.
It is another Cynic trait in Epicurus that he should address himself
to a much wider audience than the Sophists, or even than Socrates
and his spiritualistic successors. This circumstance suggested a new
argument in favour of temperance. His philosophy being intended for the
use of all mankind without exception, was bound to show that happiness
is within the reach of the poor as well as of the rich; and this could
not be did it depend, to any appreciable extent, on indulgences which
wealth alone can purchase. And even the rich will not enjoy complete
tranquillity unless they are taught that the loss of fortune is not to
be feared, since their appetites can be easily satisfied without it.
Thus the pains arising from excess, though doubtless not forgotten,
seem to have been the least important motive to restraint in his
teaching. The precepts of Epicurus are only too faithfully followed
in the southern countries for whose benefit they were first framed.
It is a matter of common observation, that the extreme frugality of
the Italians, by leaving them satisfied with the barest sufficiency,
deprives them of a most valuable spur to exertion, and allows a vast
fund of possible energy to moulder away in listless apathy, or to
consume itself more rapidly in sordid vice. Moreover, as economists
have long since pointed out, where the standard of comfort is high,
there will be a large available margin to fall back upon in periods
of distress; while where it is low, the limit of subsistence will be
always dangerously near.
The enemies of hedonism had taken a malicious satisfaction in
identifying it with voluptuous indulgence, and had scornfully asked if
that could be the supreme good and proper object of virtuous endeavour,
the enjoyment of which was habitually associated with secresy and
shame. It was, perhaps, to screen his system from such reproaches that
Epicurus went a long way towards the extreme limit of asceticism, and
hinted at the advisability of complete abstinence from that which,
although natural, is not necessary to self-preservation, and involves
a serious drain on the vital energies.[134] In this respect, he was
not followed by Lucretius, who has no objection to the satisfaction
of animal instinct, so long as it is not accompanied by personal
passion.[135] Neither the Greek moralist nor the Roman poet could
foresee what a great part in the history of civilisation chivalrous
devotion to a beloved object was destined to play, although the uses of
idealised desire had already revealed themselves to Plato’s penetrating
gaze.
With regard to those more refined aspects of temperance, in which it
appears as a restraint exercised by reason over anger, pity, and grief,
Epicurus and his followers refused to go all lengths with the Stoics in
their effort to extirpate emotion altogether. But here they seem not
to have proceeded on any fixed principle, except that of contradicting
the opposite school. That the sage will feel pity, and sometimes shed
tears,[136] is a sentiment from which few are now likely to dissent;
yet the absolute impassivity at which Stoicism aimed seems still more
consistent with a philosophy whose ideal was complete exemption from
pain; while in practice it would be rather easier to attain than the
power of feeling quite happy on the rack, which the accomplished
Epicurean was expected to possess.[137]
Next to Temperance comes Fortitude; and with it the difficulties of
reconciling Epicureanism with the ordinary morality are considerably
increased. The old conception of this virtue was willingness to
face pain and death on behalf of a noble cause,[138] which would be
generally understood to mean the salvation of family, friends, and
fatherland; and the ultimate sanction of such self-devotion was found
in the pressure of public opinion. Idealistic philosophy, taking still
higher ground, not only refused to balance the fear of pain and death
against the fear of infamy or the hope of applause, but added public
opinion to the considerations which a good man in the discharge of his
duty would, if necessary, despise. Epicurus also inculcated disregard
for reputation, except when it might lead to inconveniences of a
tangible description;[139] but he had nothing beyond the calculations
of self-interest to put in its place. A modern utilitarian is bound
to undergo loss and suffering in his own person for the prevention
of greater loss and suffering elsewhere; an egoistic hedonist cannot
consistently be brave, except for the sake of his own future security.
The method by which Epicurus reconciled interest with courage was
to minimise the importance of whatever injuries could be inflicted
by external circumstances; just as in his theory of Temperance he
had minimised the importance of bodily pleasures. How he disposed of
death will best be seen in connexion with his physical philosophy.
Pain he encountered by emphasising, or rather immensely exaggerating,
the mind’s power of annulling external sensation by concentrating its
whole attention on remembered or anticipated pleasures, or else on the
certainty that present suffering must come to an end, and to a more
speedy end in proportion to its greater severity. We are to hold a
fire in our hand, partly by thinking of the frosty Caucasus, partly by
the comforting reflection that the pain of a burn, being intense, will
not be of long duration; while, at worst, like the Stoics, we have the
resource of suicide as a last refuge from intolerable suffering.[140]
With the Epicurean theory of Justice, the distortion, already
sufficiently obvious, is carried still further; although we must
frankly admit that it includes some _aperçus_ strikingly in advance of
all that had hitherto been written on the subject. Justice, according
to our philosopher, is neither an internal balance of the soul’s
faculties, nor a rule imposed by the will of the stronger, but a
mutual agreement to abstain from aggressions, varying from time to
time with the varying interests of society, and always determined by
considerations of general utility.[141] This is excellent: we miss,
indeed, the Stoic idea of a common humanity, embracing, underlying, and
transcending all particular contracts; but we have, in exchange, the
idea of a general interest equivalent to the sum of private interests,
together with the means necessary for their joint preservation; and
we have also the form under which the notion of justice originates,
though not the measure of its ultimate expansion, which is regard for
the general interest, even when we are not bound by any contract to
observe it. But when we go on to ask why contracts should be adhered
to, Epicurus has no reason to offer beyond dread of punishment. His
words, as translated by Mr. Wallace, are:—‘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 always escape punishment.’[142] This
was evidently meant for a direct contradiction of Plato’s assertion,
that, apart from its penal consequences, injustice is a disease of the
soul, involving more mischief to the perpetrator than to the victim.
Mr. Wallace, however, takes a different view of his author’s meaning.
According to him,
If we interpret this doctrine, after the example of some of the
ancients, to mean that any wrong-doing would be innocent and good,
supposing it escaped detection, we shall probably be misconstruing
Epicurus. What he seems to allude to is rather the case of strictly
legal enactments, where, previously to law, the action need not
have been particularly moral or immoral; where, in fact, the common
agreement has established a rule which is not completely in harmony
with the ‘justice of nature.’ In short, Epicurus is protesting against
the conception of injustice, which makes it consist in disobedience
to political and social rules, imposed and enforced by public and
authoritative sanctions. He is protesting, in other words, against the
claims of the State upon the citizens for their complete obedience;
against the old ideas of the divine sanctity and majesty of law as
law; against theories like that maintained by contemporaries of
Socrates, that there could be no such thing as an unjust law.[143]
Epicurus was assuredly not a master of language, but had he meant all
that is here put into his mouth, he would hardly have been at a loss
for words to say it. Remembering that the Κύριαι δόξαι constituted a
sort of creed drawn up by the master himself for his disciples to learn
by heart,[144] and that the incriminated passage is one of the articles
in that creed, we need only look at the context to make certain that
it has been entirely misread by his apologist.[145] In the three
preceding articles, we are told that justice is by nature a contract
for the prevention of aggressions, that it does not exist among animals
which are unable, nor among tribes of men which are either unable
or unwilling to enter into such an agreement, and—with reiterated
emphasis—that, apart from contracts, it has no original existence (oὐκ
ἦν τὶ καθ’ ἑαυτὸ δικαιοσύνη). There is nothing at all about a true
as distinguished from a false justice; there is no allusion whatever
to the theories of any ‘contemporaries of Socrates;’ the polemic
reference, if any, is to Plato, and to Plato alone. Then comes the
declaration quoted above, to the effect that injustice is not an evil
in itself, but only an evil through the dread of punishment which it
produces. Now, by injustice, Epicurus must simply mean the opposite
of what he defined justice to be in the preceding paragraph—that
is, a breach of the agreement not to hurt one another (μὴ βλάπτειν
ἀλλήλους). The authority of the State is evidently conceived, not as
superseding, but as enforcing agreements. The succeeding article still
further confirms the view rejected by Mr. Wallace. Epicurus tells us
that no man who stealthily evades the contract to abstain from mutual
aggressions can be sure of escaping detection. This is evidently added
to show that, apart from any mystical sanctions, fear of punishment
is quite enough to deter a prudent man from committing crimes. And we
can see that no other deterrent was recognised by Lucretius, when,
in evident reference to his master’s words, he mentions the fears of
those who offend—not against mere conventional rules, but against human
rights in general—as the great safeguard of justice.[146]
We may, indeed, fairly ask what guarantee against wrong-doing of any
kind could be supplied by a system which made the supreme good of each
individual consist in his immunity from pain and fear, except that very
pain or fear which he was above all things to avoid? The wise man might
reasonably give his assent to enactments intended for the common good
of all men, including himself among the number; but when his concrete
interest as a private citizen came into collision with his abstract
interests as a social unit, one does not see how the quarrel was to be
decided on Epicurean principles, except by striking a balance between
the pains respectively resulting from justice and injustice. Here,
Epicurus, in his anxiety to show that hedonism, rightly understood, led
to the same results as the accepted systems of morality, over-estimated
the policy of honesty. There are cases in which the wrong-doer
may count on immunity from danger with more confidence than when
entering on such ordinary enterprises as a sea-voyage or a commercial
speculation; there are even cases where a single crime might free him
from what else would be a lifelong dread. And, at worst, he can fall
back on the Epicurean arguments proving that neither physical pain nor
death is to be feared, while the threats of divine vengeance are a
baseless dream.[147]
The radical selfishness of Epicureanism comes out still more
distinctly in its attitude towards political activity. Not only does
it systematically discourage mere personal ambition—the desire of
possessing political power for the furtherance of one’s own ends—but
it passes a like condemnation on disinterested efforts to improve the
condition of the people by legislation; while the general rule laid
down for the wise man in his capacity of citizen is passive obedience
to the established authorities, to be departed from only when the
exigencies of self-defence require it. On this Mr. Wallace observes
that ‘political life, which in all ages has been impossible for those
who had not wealth, and who were unwilling to mix themselves with
vile and impure associates, was not to the mind of Epicurus.’[148]
No authority is quoted to prove that the abstention recommended by
Epicurus was dictated by purist sentiments of any kind; nor can we
readily admit that it is impossible to record a vote, to canvass at an
election, or even to address a public meeting, without fulfilling one
or other of the conditions specified by Mr. Wallace; and we know by the
example of Littré that it is possible for a poor man to take a rather
prominent part in public life, without the slightest sacrifice of
personal dignity.[149] It must also be remembered that Epicurus was not
speaking for himself alone; he was giving practical advice to all whom
it might concern—advice of which he thought, _aeque pauperibus prodest,
locupletibus aeque_; so that when Mr. Wallace adds that, ‘above all, it
is not the business of a philosopher to become a political partisan,
and spend his life in an atmosphere of avaricious and malignant
passions,’[150] we must observe that Epicureanism was not designed to
make philosophers, but perfect men. The real question is whether it
would serve the public interest were all who endeavour to shape their
lives by the precepts of philosophy to withdraw themselves entirely
from participation in the affairs of their country. And, having regard
to the general character of the system now under consideration, we
may not uncharitably surmise that the motive for abstention which it
supplied was selfish love of ease far more than unwillingness to be
mixed up with the dirty work of politics.
Epicureanism allotted a far larger place to friendship than to all
the other social virtues put together; and the disciple was taught to
look to it not only for the satisfaction of his altruistic impulses,
but for the crowning happiness of his life. The egoistic basis of the
system was, indeed, made sufficiently prominent even here; utility
and pleasure, which Aristotle had excluded from the notion of true
friendship, being declared its proper ends. All the conditions of a
disinterested attachment were, however, brought back by a circuitous
process. It was argued that the full value of friendship could not
be reaped except by those whose affection for each other went to
the extent of complete self-devotion; but the Epicureans were less
successful in showing how this happy condition could be realised
consistently with the study of his own interest by each individual.
As a matter of fact, it was realised; and the members of this school
became remarkable, above all others, for the tenderness and fidelity
of their personal attachments. But we may suspect that formal precepts
had little to do with the result. Estrangement from the popular creed,
when still uncommon, has always a tendency to draw the dissidents
together;[151] and where other ties, whether religious, domestic,
or patriotic, are neglected, the ordinary instincts of human nature
are likely to show themselves with all the more energy in the only
remaining form of union. Moreover, the cheerful, contented, abstemious,
unambitious characters who would be the most readily attracted to the
Epicurean brotherhood supplied the very materials that most readily
unite in placid and enduring attachments. A tolerably strict standard
of orthodoxy provided against theoretical dissensions: nor were the
new converts likely to possess either daring or originality enough to
excite controversies where they did not already exist.
IV.
After eliminating all the sources of misery due to folly and vice,
Epicurus had still to deal with what, in his opinion, were the most
formidable obstacles to human happiness, dread of the divine anger
and dread of death, either in itself, or as the entrance on another
life. To meet these, he compiled, for we can hardly say constructed,
an elaborate system of physical philosophy, having for its object to
show that Nature is entirely governed by mechanical causes, and that
the soul perishes with the body. We have already mentioned that for
science as such and apart from its ethical applications he neither
cared nor pretended to care in the least. It seems, therefore, rather
surprising that he could not manage, like the Sceptics before him,
to get rid of supernaturalism by a somewhat more expeditious method.
The explanation seems to be that to give some account of natural
phenomena had become, in his time, a necessity for every one aspiring
to found a philosophical system. A brilliant example had been set
by Plato and Aristotle, of whom the former, too, had apparently
yielded to the popular demand rather than followed the bent of his
own genius, in turning aside from ethics to physics; and Zeno had
similarly included the whole of knowledge in his teaching. The old
Greek curiosity respecting the causes of things was still alive; and a
similar curiosity was doubtless awakening among those populations to
whom Greek civilisation had been carried by colonisation, commerce,
and conquest. Now, those scientific speculations are always the most
popular which can be shown to have some bearing on religious belief,
either in the way of confirmation or of opposition, according as
faith or doubt happens to be most in the ascendent. Fifty years ago,
among ourselves, no work on natural philosophy could hope for a large
circulation unless it was filled with teleological applications. At
present, liberal opinions are gaining ground; and those treatises are
most eagerly studied which tend to prove that everything in Nature
can be best explained through the agency of mechanical causation. At
neither period is it the facts themselves which have excited most
attention, but their possible bearing on our own interests. Among the
contemporaries of Epicurus, the two currents of thought that in more
recent times have enjoyed an alternate triumph, seem to have co-existed
as forces of about equal strength. The old superstitions were rejected
by all thinking men; and the only question was by what new faith they
should be replaced. Poets and philosophers had alike laboured to bring
about a religious reformation by exhibiting the popular mythology in
its grotesque deformity, and by constructing systems in which pure
monotheism was more or less distinctly proclaimed. But it suited the
purpose, perhaps it gratified the vanity of Epicurus to talk as if the
work of deliverance still remained to be done, as if men were still
groaning under the incubus of superstitions which he alone could teach
them to shake off. He seems, indeed, to have confounded the old and
the new faiths under a common opprobrium, and to have assumed that the
popular religion was mainly supported by Stoic arguments, or that the
Stoic optimism was not less productive of superstitious terrors than
the gloomy polytheism which it was designed to supersede.[152]
Again, while attacking the belief in human immortality, Epicurus
seems to direct his blows against the metaphysical reasonings of
Plato,[153] as well as against the indistinct forebodings of primitive
imagination. The consequences of this two-edged polemic are very
remarkable. In reading Lucretius, we are surprised at the total absence
of criticisms like those brought to bear on Greek mythology with such
formidable effect, first by Plato and, long afterwards, by Lucian.
There is a much more modern tone about his invectives, and they seem
aimed at an enemy familiar to ourselves. One would suppose that the
advent of Catholicism had been revealed in a prophetic vision to
the poet, and that this, rather than the religion of his own times,
was the object of his wrath and dread; or else that some child of
the Renaissance was seeking for a freer utterance of his own revolt
against all theology, under the disguise of a dead language and of
a warfare with long-discredited gods. For this reason, Christians
have always regarded him, with perfect justice, as a dangerous enemy;
while rationalists of the fiercer type have accepted his splendid
denunciations as the appropriate expression of their own most cherished
feelings.
The explanation of this anomaly is, we believe, to be found in the
fact that Catholicism did, to a great extent, actually spring from
a continuation of those widely different tendencies which Epicurus
confounded in a common assault. It had an intellectual basis in the
Platonic and Stoic philosophies, and a popular basis in the revival
of those manifold superstitions which, underlying the brilliant
civilisations of Greece and Rome, were always ready to break out with
renewed violence when their restraining pressure was removed. The
revival of which we speak was powerfully aided from without. The same
movement that was carrying Hellenic culture into Asia was bringing
Oriental delusions by a sort of back current into the Western world.
Nor was this all. The relaxation of all political bonds, together with
the indifference of the educated classes, besides allowing a rank
undergrowth of popular beliefs to spring up unchecked, surrendered the
regulation of those beliefs into the hands of a profession which it
had hitherto been the policy of every ancient republic to keep under
rigid restraint—the accredited or informal ministers of religion.[154]
Now, the chief characteristic of a priestly order has always and
everywhere been insatiable avarice. When forbidden to acquire
wealth in their individual capacity, they grasp at it all the more
eagerly in their corporate capacity. And, as the Epicureans probably
perceived, there is no engine which they can use so effectually for
the gratification of this passion as the belief in a future life. What
they have to tell about this is often described by themselves and their
supporters as a message of joy to the weary and afflicted. But under
their treatment it is very far from being a consolatory belief. Dark
shades and lurid lights predominate considerably in their pictures of
the world beyond the grave; and here, as we shall presently show, they
are aided by an irresistible instinct of human nature. On this subject,
also, they can speak with unlimited confidence; for, while their other
statements about the supernatural are liable to be contradicted by
experience, the abode of souls is a bourne from which no traveller
returns to disprove the accuracy of their statements.
That such a tendency was at work some time before the age of Epicurus
is shown by the following passage from Plato’s _Republic_:—
Mendicant prophets go to rich men’s doors and persuade them that they
have a power committed to them of making atonement for their sins or
those of their fathers by sacrifices or charms.... And they produce a
host of books ... according to which they perform their ritual, and
persuade not only individuals but whole cities, that expiations and
atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill
a vacant hour,[155] and are equally at the service of the living and
the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they redeem us from
the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows what awaits
us.[156]
Let us now pass over fourteen centuries and see to what results the
doctrine taught by Plato himself led when it had entered into an
alliance with the superstitions which he denounced. Our illustration
shall be taken from a sainted hero of the Catholic Church. In a sermon
preached before Pope Nicholas II. at Arezzo, the famous Hildebrand,
afterwards Gregory VII., relates the following story:—
In one of the provinces of Germany there died, about ten years
ago, a certain count, who had been rich and powerful, and, what is
astonishing for one of that class, he was, according to the judgment
of man, pure in faith and innocent in his life. Some time after his
death, a holy man descended in spirit to hell, and beheld the count
standing on the topmost rung of a ladder. He tells us that this ladder
stood unconsumed amid the crackling flames around; and that it had
been placed there to receive the family of the aforesaid count. There
was, moreover, the black and frightful abyss out of which rose the
fatal ladder. It was so ordered that the last comer took his stand at
the top of the ladder, and when the rest of the family arrived he went
down one step, and all below him did likewise.
As the last of the same family who died came and took his place,
age after age, on this ladder, it followed inevitably that they all
successively reached the depth of hell. The holy man who beheld this
thing, asked the reason of this terrible damnation, and especially how
it was that the seigneur whom he had known and who had lived a life of
justice and well-doing should be thus punished. And he heard a voice
saying, ‘It is because of certain lands belonging to the church of
Metz, which were taken from the blessed Stephen by one of this man’s
ancestors, from whom he was the tenth in descent, and for this cause
all these men have sinned by the same avarice and are subjected to the
same punishment in eternal fire.’[157]
In view of such facts as these, we cannot blame the Epicureans if
they regarded the doctrine of future retribution as anything but a
consolatory or ennobling belief, and if they deemed that to extirpate
it was to cut out a mischievous delusion by the roots:—
Et merito: nam si certain finem esse viderent
Aerumnarum homines aliqua ratione valerent
Relligionibus, atque minis obsistere vatum:
Nunc ratio nulla ‘st restandi, nulla facultas,
Aeternas quoniam poenas in morte timendum.’[158]
And it is no wonder that the words of their great poet should read like
a prophetic exposure of the terrors with which the religious revival,
based on a coalition of philosophy and superstition, was shortly to
overspread the whole horizon of human life.
So strong, however, was the theological reaction against Greek
rationalism that Epicurus himself came under its influence. Instead of
denying the existence of the gods altogether, or leaving it uncertain
like Protagoras, he asserted it in the most emphatic manner. Their
interference with Nature was all that he cared to dispute. The egoistic
character of his whole system comes out once more in his conception
of them as beings too much absorbed in their own placid enjoyments to
be troubled with the work of creation and providence. He was, indeed,
only repeating aloud what had long been whispered in the free-thinking
circles of Athenian society. That the gods were indifferent to human
interests was a heresy indignantly denounced by Aeschylus,[159]
maintained by Aristodêmus, the friend of Socrates, and singled out
as a fit subject for punishment by Plato. Nor was the theology of
Aristotle’s _Metaphysics_ practically distinguishable from such a
doctrine. Although essential to the continued existence of the cosmos,
considered as a system of movements, the Prime Mover communicates the
required impulse by the mere fact of his existence, and apparently
without any consciousness of the effect he is producing. Active
beneficence had, in truth, even less to do with the ideal of Aristotle
than with the ideal of Epicurus, and each philosopher constructed a god
after his own image; the one absorbed in perpetual thought, the other,
or more properly the others, in perpetual enjoyment; for the Epicurean
deities were necessarily conceived as a plurality, that they might not
be without the pleasure of friendly conversation. Nevertheless, the
part assigned by Aristotle to his god permitted him to offer a much
stronger proof of the divine existence and attributes than was possible
to Epicurus, who had nothing better to adduce than the universal belief
of mankind,—an argument obviously proving too much, since it told,
if anything, more powerfully for the interference than for the bare
reality of supernatural agents.
Our philosopher appears to more advantage as a critic than as a
religious dogmatist. He meets the Stoic belief in Providence by
pointing out the undeniable prevalence of evils which omnipotent
benevolence could not be supposed to tolerate; the Stoic optimism, with
its doctrine, still a popular one, that all things were created for
the good of man, by a reference to the glaring defects which, on that
hypothesis, would vitiate the arrangements of Nature; the Stoic appeal
to omens and prophecies by showing the purely accidental character
of their fulfilment.[160] But he trusts most of all to a radically
different explanation of the world, an explanation which everywhere
substitutes mechanical causation for design. Only one among the older
systems—the atomism of Democritus—had consistently carried out such a
conception of Nature, and this, accordingly, Epicurus adopts in its
main outlines.
V.
It is generally assumed by the German critics that the atomic theory
was peculiarly fitted to serve as a basis for the individualistic
ethics of Epicureanism. To this we can hardly agree. The insignificance
and powerlessness of the atoms, except when aggregated together in
enormous numbers, would seem to be naturally more favourable to a
system where the community went for everything and the individual
for nothing; nor does the general acceptance of atomism by modern
science seem to be accompanied by any relaxation of the social
sentiment in its professors. Had the Stoics followed Democritus and
Epicurus Heracleitus—at least a conceivable hypothesis—some equally
cogent reason would doubtless have been forthcoming to indicate the
appropriateness of their choice.[161] As it is, we have no evidence
that Epicurus saw anything more in the atomic theory than a convenient
explanation of the world on purely mechanical principles.
The division of matter into minute and indestructible particles served
admirably to account for the gradual formation and disappearance of
bodies without necessitating the help of a creator. But the infinities
assumed as a condition of atomism were of even greater importance.
Where time and space are unlimited, the quantity of matter must be
equally unlimited, otherwise, being composed of loose particles, it
would long since have been dissipated and lost in the surrounding
void. Now, given infinite time and space, and infinite atoms
capable of combining with one another in various ways, all possible
combinations must already have been tried, not once or twice, but
infinitely often. Of such combinations, that which best fulfils the
conditions of mechanical stability will last the longest, and, without
being designed, will present all the characters of design. And this,
according to Epicurus, is how the actual frame of things comes to be
what it is. Nor was it only the world as a whole that he explained by
the theory of a single happy accident occurring after a multitude of
fortuitous experiments. The same process repeats itself on a smaller
scale in the production of particular compounds. All sorts of living
bodies were originally throw up from the earth’s bosom, but many
of them instantly perished, not being provided with the means of
nutrition, propagation, or self-defence. In like manner we are enabled
to recall a particular thought at pleasure, because innumerable images
are continually passing through the mind, none of which comes into the
foreground of consciousness until attention is fixed on it; though how
we come to distinguish it from the rest is not explained. So also, only
those societies survived and became civilised where contracts were
faithfully observed. All kinds of wild beasts have at different times
been employed in war, just as horses and elephants are now, but on
trial were found unmanageable and given up.[162]
It will be seen that what has been singled out as an anticipation of
the Darwinian theory was only one application of a very comprehensive
method for eliminating design from the universe. But of what is most
original and essential in Darwinism, that is, the modifiability of
specific forms by the summing up of spontaneous variations in a given
direction, the Epicureans had not the slightest suspicion. And wherever
they or their master have, in other respects, made some approach to
the truths of modern science, it may fairly be explained on their own
principle as a single lucky guess out of many false guesses.
The modern doctrine of evolution, while relying largely on the
fertility of multiplied chances, is not obliged to assume such
an enormous number of simultaneous coincidences as Epicurus. The
ascription of certain definite attractions and repulsions to the
ultimate particles of matter would alone restrict their possible modes
of aggregation within comparatively narrow limits. Then, again, the
world seems to have been built up by successive stages, at each of
which some new force or combination of forces came into play, a firm
basis having been already secured for whatever variations they were
capable of producing. Thus the solar system is a state of equilibrium
resulting from the action of two very simple forces, gravitation and
heat. On the surface of the earth, cohesion and chemical affinity have
been superadded. When a fresh equilibrium had resulted from their
joint energy, the more complex conditions of life found free scope for
their exercise. The transformations of living species were similarly
effected by variation on variation. And, finally, in one species, the
satisfaction of its animal wants set free those more refined impulses
by which, after many experiments, civilisation has been built up.
Obviously the total sum of adaptations necessary to constitute our
actual world will have the probabilities of its occurrence enormously
increased if we suppose the more general conditions to be established
prior to, and in complete independence of, the less general, instead of
limiting ourselves, like the ancient atomists, to one vast simultaneous
shuffle of all the material and dynamical elements involved.