THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS
_Greek decay--The praises of Lucretius--Canonics--Physics--The proofs
of Lucretius--The atomic soul--Mental pleasures--Natural
pleasures--Lower philosophy and higher_
Philosophy, equally complete, equally perfect in all its parts, had its
final word in Plato and Aristotle; on the great lines of universal
knowledge no further really original structures were destined to be
raised by Greek hands. We have seen a parallelism between Greek
philosophy and Greek politics in their earlier phases (see above, p.
82); the same parallelism continues to the end. Greece broke the bonds
of her intense but narrow civic life and civic thought, and spread
herself out over the world in a universal monarchy and a cosmopolitan
philosophy; but with this widening of the area of her influence
reaction came and disruption and decay; an immense stimulus was given
on the one hand to the political activity, on the other, to the thought
and knowledge of the world as a whole, but at the centre Greece was
'living Greece no more,' her politics sank to the level of a dreary
farce, her philosophy died down to a dull and spiritless scepticism, to
an Epicureanism {211} that 'seasoned the wine-cup with the dust of
death,' or to a Stoicism not undignified yet still sad and narrow and
stern. The hope of the world, alike in politics and in philosophy,
faded as the life of Greece decayed.
[356]
The first phase of the change, _Scepticism_, or Pyrrhonism, as it was
named from its first teacher, need not detain us long. Pyrrho was
priest of Elis; in earlier life he accompanied Alexander the Great as
far as India, and is said to have become acquainted with certain of the
philosophic sects in that country. In his sceptical doctrine he had,
like his predecessors, a school with its succession of teachers; but
the [358] world has remembered little more of him or them than two
phrases 'suspense of judgment'--this for the intellectual side of
philosophy; 'impassibility'--this for the moral. The doctrine is a
negation of doctrine, the idle dream of idle men; even Pyrrho once,
when surprised in some sudden access of fear, confessed that it was
hard for him 'to get rid of the man in himself.' Vigorous men and
growing nations are never agnostic. They decline to rest in mere
suspense; they are extremely the opposite of impassive; they believe
earnestly, they feel strongly.
[365]
A more interesting, because more positive and constructive, personality
was that of Epicurus. This philosopher was born at Samos, in the year
341 B.C., of Athenian parents. He came to Athens in his eighteenth
year. Xenocrates was then teaching at {212} the Academy, Aristotle at
the Lyceum, but Epicurus heard neither the one nor the other. After
some wanderings he returned to Athens and set up on his [366] own
account as a teacher of philosophy. He made it a matter of boasting
that he was a self-taught philosopher; and Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._ i.
26) sarcastically remarks that one could have guessed as much, even if
Epicurus had not stated it himself; as one might of the proprietor of
an ugly house, who should boast that he had employed no architect. The
style of Epicurus was, in fact, plain and unadorned, but he seems all
the same to have been able to say what he meant; and few if any writers
ancient or modern have ever had so splendid a literary tribute, as
Epicurus had from the great Roman poet Lucretius, his follower and
expositor.
"Glory of the Greek race," he says, "who first hadst power to raise
high so bright a light in the midst of darkness so profound, shedding a
beam on all the interests of life, thee do I follow, and in the
markings of thy track do I set my footsteps now. Not that I desire to
rival thee, but rather for love of thee would fain call myself thy
disciple. For how shall the swallow rival the swan, or what speed may
the kid with its tottering limbs attain, compared with the brave might
of the scampering steed? Thou; O father, art the discoverer of nature,
thou suppliest to us a father's teachings, and from thy pages, {213}
illustrious one, even as bees sip all manner of sweets along the
flowery glades, we in like manner devour all thy golden words, golden
and right worthy to live for ever. For soon as thy philosophy, birth
of thy godlike mind, hath begun to declare the origin of things,
straightway the terrors of the soul are scattered, earth's walls are
broken apart, and through all the void I see nature in the working. I
behold the gods in manifestation of their power, I discern their
blissful seats, which never winds assail nor rain-clouds sprinkle with
their showers, nor snow falling white with hoary frost doth buffet, but
cloudless aether ever wraps them round, beaming in broad diffusion of
glorious light. For nature supplies their every want nor aught impairs
their peace of soul. But nowhere do I see any regions of hellish
darkness, nor does the earth impose a barrier to our sight of what is
done in the void beneath our feet. Wherefore a holy ecstasy and thrill
of awe possess me, while thus by thy power the secrets of nature are
disclosed to view" (Lucret. _De Nat. Rer._ iii, 1-30).
[367]
This devotion to the memory of Epicurus on the part of Lucretius was
paralleled by the love felt for him by his contemporaries; he had
crowds of followers who loved him and who were proud to learn his words
by heart. He seems indeed to have been a man of exceptional kindness
and amiability, and the 'garden of Epicurus' became proverbial as {214}
a place of temperate pleasures and wise delights. Personally we may
take it that Epicurus was a man of simple tastes and moderate desires;
and indeed throughout its history Epicureanism as a rule of conduct has
generally been associated with the finer forms of enjoyment, rather
than the more sensual. The 'sensual sty' is a nickname, not a
description.
[369]
Philosophy Epicurus defined as a process of thought and reasoning
tending to the realisation of happiness. Arts or sciences which had no
such practical end he contemned; and, as will be observed in Lucretius'
praises of him above, even physics had but one purpose or interest, to
free the soul from [370] terrors of the unseen. Thus philosophy was
mainly concerned with conduct, _i.e._ with Ethics, but secondarily and
negatively with Physics, to which was appended what Epicurus called
Canonics, or the science of testing, that is, a kind of logic.
[371]
Beginning with _Canonics_, as the first part of philosophy in order of
time, from the point of view of human knowledge, Epicurus laid it down
that the only source of knowledge was the senses, which gave us an
immediate and true perception of that which actually came into contact
with them. Even the visions of madmen or of dreamers he considered
were in themselves true, being produced by a physical cause of some
kind, of which these visions were the direct and immediate report.
Falsity came in with {215} people's interpretations or imaginations
with respect to these sensations.
Sensations leave a trace in the memory, and out of similarities or
analogies among sensations there are developed in the mind general
notions or types, such as 'man,' 'house,' which are also true, because
[373] they are reproductions of sensations. Thirdly, when a sensation
occurs, it is brought into relation in the mind with one or more of
these types or notions; this is _predication_, true also in so far as
its elements are true, but capable of falsehood, as subsequent or
independent sensation may prove. If supported or not contradicted by
sensation, it is or may be true; if contradicted or not supported by
sensation, it is or may be false. The importance of this statement of
the canon of truth or falsehood will be understood when we come to the
physics of Epicurus, at the basis of which is his theory of Atoms,
which by their very nature can never be directly testified to by
sensation.
[374]
This and no more was what Epicurus had to teach on the subject of
logic. He had no theory of definition, or division, or ratiocination,
or refutation, or explication; on all these matters Epicurus was, as
Cicero said, 'naked and unarmed.' Like most self-taught or ill-taught
teachers, Epicurus trusted to his dogmas; he knew nothing and cared
nothing for logical defence.
{216}
[375]
In his _Physics_ Epicurus did little more than reproduce the doctrine
of Democritus. He starts from the fundamental proposition that
'nothing can be produced from nothing, nothing can really perish.' The
veritable existences in nature are the Atoms, which are too minute to
be discernible by the senses, but which nevertheless have a definite
size, and cannot further be divided. They have also a definite weight
and form, but no qualities other than these. There is an infinity of
empty space; this Epicurus proves on abstract grounds, practically
because a limit to space is unthinkable. It follows that there must be
an infinite number of the atoms, otherwise they would disperse
throughout the infinite void and disappear. There is a limit, however,
to the number of varieties among the atoms in respect of form, size,
and weight. The existence of the void space is proved by the fact that
motion takes place, to which he adds the argument that it necessarily
exists also to separate the atoms one from another. So far Epicurus
and Democritus are agreed.
To the Democritean doctrine, however, Epicurus made a curious addition,
to which he himself is said to have attached much importance. The
natural course (he said) for all bodies having weight is downwards in a
straight line. It struck Epicurus that this being so, the atoms would
all travel for ever in parallel lines, and those 'clashings and
interminglings' of {217} atoms out of which he conceived all visible
forms to be produced, could never occur. He therefore laid it down
that the atoms _deviated_ the least little bit from the straight, thus
making a world possible. And Epicurus considered that this supposed
deviation of the atoms not only made a world possible, but human
freedom also. In the deviation, without apparent cause, of the
descending atoms, the law of necessity was broken, and there was room
on the one hand for man's free will, on the other, for prayer to the
gods, and for hope of their interference on our behalf.
It may be worth while summarising the proofs which Lucretius in his
great poem, professedly following in the footsteps of Epicurus, adduces
for these various doctrines.
Epicurus' first dogma is, 'Nothing proceeds from nothing,' that is,
every material object has some matter previously existing exactly equal
in quantity to it, out of which it was made. To prove this Lucretius
appeals to the _order of nature_ as seen in the seasons, in the
phenomena of growth, in the fixed relations which exist between life
and its environment as regards what is helpful or harmful, in the
limitation of size and of faculties in the several species and the
fixity of the characteristics generally in each, in the possibilities
of cultivation and improvement of species within certain limits and
under certain conditions.
{218}
To prove his second position, 'Nothing passes into nothing,' Lucretius
points out to begin with that there is a law even in destruction;
_force_ is required to dissolve or dismember anything; were it
otherwise the world would have disappeared long ago. Moreover, he
points out that it is from the elements set free by decay and death
that new things are built up; there is no waste, no visible lessening
of the resources of nature, whether in the generations of living
things, in the flow of streams and the fulness of ocean, or in the
eternal stars. Were it not so, infinite time past would have exhausted
all the matter in the universe, but Nature is clearly immortal.
Moreover, there is a correspondence between the structure of bodies and
the forces necessary to their destruction. Finally, apparent
violations of the law, when carefully examined, only tend to confirm
it. The rains no doubt disappear, but it is that their particles may
reappear in the juices of the crops and the trees and the beasts which
feed on them.
Nor need we be surprised at the doctrine that the atoms, so
all-powerful in the formation of things, are themselves invisible. The
same is true of the forest-rending blasts, the 'viewless winds' which
lash the waves and overwhelm great fleets. There are odours also that
float unseen upon the air; there are heat, and cold, and voices. There
is the process of evaporation, whereby we know that the water has gone,
{219} yet cannot see its vapour departing. There is the gradual
invisible detrition of rings upon the finger, of stones hollowed out by
dripping water, of the ploughshare in the field, and the flags upon the
streets, and the brazen statues of the gods whose fingers men kiss as
they pass the gates, and the rocks that the salt sea-brine eats into
along the shore.
That there is Empty Space or Void he proves by all the varied motions
on land and sea which we behold; by the porosity even of hardest
things, as we see in dripping caves. There is the food also which
disperses itself throughout the body, in trees and cattle. Voices pass
through closed doors, frost can pierce even to the bones. Things equal
in size vary in weight; a lump of wool has more of void in it than a
lump of lead. So much for Lucretius.
For abstract theories on physics, except as an adjunct and support to
his moral conceptions, Epicurus seems to have had very little
inclination. He thus speaks of the visible universe or Cosmos. [373]
The Cosmos is a sort of skyey enclosure, which holds within it the
stars, the earth, and all visible things. It is cut off from the
infinite by a wall of division which may be either rare or dense, in
motion or at rest, round or three-cornered or any other form. That
there is such a wall of division is quite admissible, for no object of
which we have observation is without its limit. Were this wall of
division to {220} break, everything contained within it would tumble
out. We may conceive that there are an infinite number of such Cosmic
systems, with inter-cosmic intervals throughout the infinity of space.
He is very disinclined to assume that similar phenomena, _e.g._
eclipses of the sun or moon, always have the same cause. The various
accidental implications and interminglings of the atoms may produce the
same effect in various ways. In fact Epicurus has the same impatience
of theoretical physics as of theoretical philosophy. He is a
'practical man.'
[378]
He is getting nearer his object when he comes to the nature of the
soul. The soul, like everything else, is composed of atoms, extremely
delicate and fine. It very much resembles the breath, with a mixture
of heat thrown in, sometimes coming nearer in nature to the first,
sometimes to the second. Owing to the delicacy of its composition it
is extremely subject to variation, as we see in its passions and
liability to emotion, its phases of thought and the varied experiences
without which we cannot live. It is, moreover, the chief cause of
sensation being possible for us. Not that it could of itself have had
sensation, without the enwrapping support of the rest of the structure.
The rest of the structure, in fact, having prepared this chief cause,
gets from it a share of what comes to it, but not a share of all which
the soul has.
The soul being of material composition equally {221} with the other
portions of the bodily structure, dies of course with it, that is, its
particles like the rest are dispersed, to form new bodies. There is
nothing dreadful therefore about death, for there is nothing left to
know or feel anything about it.
As regards the process of sensation, Epicurus, like Democritus,
conceived bodies as having a power of emitting from their surface
extremely delicate images of themselves. These are composed of very
fine atoms, but, in spite of their tenuity, they are able to maintain
for a considerable time their relative form and order, though liable
after a time to distortion. They fly with great celerity through the
void, and find their way through the windows of the senses to the soul,
which by its delicacy of nature is in sympathy with them, and
apprehends their form.
[379]
The gods are indestructible, being composed of the very finest and
subtlest atoms, so as to have not a body, but _as it were_ a body.
Their life is one of perfect blessedness and peace. They are in number
countless; but the conceptions of the vulgar are erroneous respecting
them. They are not subject to the passions of humanity. Anger and joy
are alike alien to their nature; for all such feelings imply a lack of
strength. They dwell apart in the inter-cosmic spaces. As Cicero
jestingly remarks: "Epicurus by way of a joke introduced his gods so
pure that you could see through them, {222} so delicate that the wind
could blow through them, having their dwelling-place outside between
two worlds, for fear of breakage."
[380]
Coming finally to Epicurus' theory of Ethics, we find a general
resemblance to the doctrine of Democritus and Aristippus. The end of
life is pleasure or the absence of pain. He differs, however, from the
Cyrenaics in maintaining that not the pleasure of the moment is the
end, but pleasure throughout the whole of life, and that therefore we
ought in our conduct to have regard to the future. Further he denies
that pleasure exists only in activity, it exists equally in rest and
quiet; in short, he places more emphasis in his definition on the
absence of pain or disturbance, than on the presence of positive
pleasure. And thirdly, while the Cyrenaics maintained that bodily
pleasures and pains were the keenest, Epicurus claimed these
characteristics for the pleasures of the mind, which intensified the
present feeling by anticipations of the future and recollections of the
past. And thus the wise man might be happy, even on the rack. Better
indeed was it to be unlucky and wise, than lucky and foolish. In a
similar temper Epicurus on his death-bed wrote thus to a friend: "In
the enjoyment of blessedness and peace, on this the last day of my life
I write this letter to you. Strangury has supervened, and the
extremest agony of internal {223} pains, yet resisting these has been
my joy of soul, as I recalled the thoughts which I have had in the
past."
[381]
We must note, however, that while mental pleasures counted for much
with the Epicureans, these mental pleasures consisted not in thought
for thought's sake in any form; they had nothing to do with
contemplation. They were essentially connected with bodily
experiences; they were the memory of past, the anticipation of future,
bodily pleasures. For it is to be remembered that thoughts were with
Epicurus only converted sensations, and sensations were bodily
processes. Thus every joy of the mind was conditioned by a bodily
experience preceding it. Or as Metrodorus, Epicurus' disciple, defined
the matter: "A man is happy when his body is in good case, and he has
good hope that it will continue so." Directly or indirectly,
therefore, every happiness came back, in the rough phrase of Epicurus,
to one's belly at last.
[382]
This theory did not, however, reduce morality to bestial
self-indulgence. If profligate pleasures could be had free from mental
apprehensions of another world and of death and pain and disease in
this, and if they brought with them guidance as to their own proper
restriction, there would be no reason whatever to blame a man for
filling himself to the full of pleasures, which brought no pain or
sorrow, that is, {224} no evil, in their train. But (Epicurus argues)
this is far from being the case. Moreover there are many pleasures
keen enough at the time, which are by no means pleasant in the
remembering. And even when we have them they bring no enjoyment to the
highest parts of our nature. What those 'highest parts' are, and by
what standard their relative importance is determined, Epicurus does
not say. He probably meant those parts of our nature which had the
widest range in space and time, our faculties, namely, of memory and
hope, of conception, of sight and hearing.
Moreover there are distinctions among desires; some are both natural
and compulsory, such as thirst; some are natural but not compulsory, as
the desire for dainties; some are neither natural nor compulsory, such
as the desire for crowns or statues. The last of these the wise man
will contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his
freedom. For independence of such things is desirable, not necessarily
that we may reduce our wants to a minimum, but in order that if we
cannot enjoy many things, we may be content with few. "For I am
convinced," Epicurus continues, "that they have the greatest enjoyment
of wealth, who are least dependent upon it for enjoyment."
Thus if Epicurus did not absolutely teach simplicity of living, he
taught his disciples the necessity of being capable of such simplicity,
which they could {225} hardly be without practice. So that in reality
the doctrine of Epicurus came very near that of his opponents. As
Seneca the Stoic observed, "Pleasure with him comes to be something
very thin and pale. In fact that law which we declare for virtue, the
same law he lays down for pleasure."
One of the chief and highest pleasures of life Epicurus found in the
possession of friends, who provided for each other not only help and
protection, but a lifelong joy. For the 'larger friendship' of the
civic community, Epicurus seems to have had only a very neutral regard.
Justice, he says, is a convention of interests, with a view of neither
hurting or being hurt. The wise man will have nothing to do with
politics, if he can help it.
In spite of much that may offend in the doctrines of Epicurus, there is
much at least in the man which is sympathetic and attractive. What one
observes, however, when we compare such a philosophy with that of Plato
or Aristotle, is first, a total loss of constructive imagination. The
parts of the 'philosophy,' if we are so to call it, of Epicurus hang
badly together, and neither the Canonics nor the Physics show any real
faculty of serious thinking at all. The Ethics has a wider scope and a
more real relation to experience if not to reason. But it can never
satisfy the deeper apprehension of mankind.
The truest and most permanently valid revelations {226} of life come
not to the many but to the one or the few, who communicate the truth to
the many, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, always at the cost
of antagonism and ridicule. A philosophy therefore which only
represents in theoretical form the average practice of the average man,
comes into the world still-born. It has nothing to say; its hearers
know it all, and the exact value of it all, already. And in their
heart of hearts, many even of those who have stooped to a lower ideal,
and sold their birthright of hopes beyond the passing hour, for a mess
of pottage in the form of material success and easy enjoyment, have a
lurking contempt for the preachers of what they practise; as many a
slaveholder in America probably had for the clerical defenders of the
'divine institution.'
There is a wasting sense of inadequacy in this 'hand-to-mouth' theory
of living, which compels most of those who follow it to tread softly
and speak moderately. They are generally a little weary if not
cynical; they don't think much of themselves or of their success; but
they prefer to hold on as they have begun, rather than launch out into
new courses, which they feel they have not the moral force to continue.
"May I die," said the Cynic, "rather than lead a life of pleasure."
"May I die," says the Epicurean, "rather than make a fool of myself."
The Idealist is to them, if not {227} a hypocrite, at least a
visionary,--if not a Tartuffe, at least a Don Quixote tilting at
windmills. Yet even for poor Don Quixote, with all his blindness and
his follies, the world retains a sneaking admiration. It can spare a
few or a good many of its worldly-wisdoms, rather than lose altogether
its enthusiasms and its dreams. And the one thing which saves
Epicureanism from utter extinction as a theory, is invariably the
idealism which like a 'purple patch' adorns it here and there. No man
and no theory is wholly self-centred. Pleasure is supplanted by
Utility, and Utility becomes the greatest Happiness of the greatest
Number, and so, as Horace says (_Ep._ I. x. 24)--
Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,
Nature (like Love) thrust out of the door, will come back by the
window; and the Idealism which is not allowed to make pain a pleasure,
is required at last to translate pleasure into pains.
{228}