BOOK
X
EPICURUS (341-271 B.C.)
Epicurus, son
of Neocles and Chaerestrate, was as citizen of Athens of the deme
Gargettus, and, as Metrodorus says in his book
On
Noble Birth, of the family of the Philaidae. He is said by
Heraclides
1 in his
Epitome of Sotion, as well as by other authorities, to have been brought up at Samos after the Athenians had sent
settlers there and to have come to Athens at the age of eighteen, at
the time when Xenocrates was lecturing at the Academy and Aristotle
in Chalcis. Upon the death of Alexander of Macedon and the expulsion
of the Athenian settlers from Samos by Perdiccas,
2 Epicurus left Athens to join his father in
Colophon.
[
2]
For some time he stayed there and gathered disciples, but
returned to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates.
3 And for a while, it is said, he prosecuted
his studies in common with the other philosophers, but afterwards
put forward independent views by the foundation of the school
called after him. He says himself that he first came into contact
with philosophy at the age of fourteen. Apollodorus the Epicurean,
in the first book of his
Life of Epicurus,
says
that he turned to philosophy in disgust at
the schoolmasters who could not tell him the meaning of "chaos" in
Hesiod.
4 According to Hermippus, however, he started as a
schoolmaster, but on coming across the works of Democritus turned
eagerly to philosophy.
[
3]
Hence the point of Timon's allusion
5 in the lines :
Again there is the
latest and most shameless of the physicists, the schoolmaster's
son
6 from Samos,
himself the most uneducated of mortals.
At his instigation
his three brothers, Neocles, Chaeredemus, and Aristobulus, joined in
his studies, according to Philodemus the Epicurean in the tenth book
of his comprehensive work
On Philosophers ;
furthermore his slave named Mys, as stated by Myronianus in his
Historical Parallels. Diotimus
7 the Stoic, who is hostile to him, has assailed him
with bitter slanders, adducing fifty scandalous letters as written
by Epicurus ; and so too did the author who ascribed to Epicurus the
epistles commonly attributed to Chrysippus.
[
4]
They are followed by
Posidonius the Stoic and his school, and Nicolaus and Sotion in the
twelfth book of his work entitled
Dioclean
Refutations, consisting of twenty-four books ; also by
Dionysius of Halicarnassus. They allege that he used to go round
with his mother to cottages and read charms, and assist his father
in his school for a pitiful fee
8 ; further, that one of his
brothers was a pander and
lived with Leontion
the courtesan ; that he put forward as his own the doctrines of
Democritus about atoms and of Aristippus about pleasure ; that he
was not a genuine Athenian citizen, a charge brought by Timocrates
and by Herodotus in a book
On the Training of
Epicurus as a Cadet ; that he basely flattered Mithras,
9 the minister of Lysimachus, bestowing on
him in his letters Apollo's titles of Healer and Lord.
[
5]
Furthermore
that he extolled Idomeneus, Herodotus, and Timocrates, who had
published his esoteric doctrines, and flattered them for that very
reason. Also that in his letters he wrote to Leontion, "O Lord
Apollo, my dear little Leontion, with what tumultuous applause we
were inspired as we read your letter." Then again to Themista, the
wife of Leonteus : "I am quite ready, if you do not come to see me,
to spin thrice on my own axis and be propelled to any place that
you, including Themista, agree upon" ; and to the beautiful
Pythocles he writes : "I will sit down and await thy divine advent,
my heart's desire." And, as Theodorus says in the fourth book of his
work,
Against Epicurus, in another letter to
Themista he thinks he preaches to her.
10
[
6]
It is added that he corresponded
with many courtesans, and especially with Leontion, of whom Metrodorus also was enamoured. It is observed too that in his treatise
On the Ethical End he writes in these
terms
11 : "I know not how
to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual
pleasures, the pleasures of sound and the pleasures of beautiful
form." And in his letter to Pythocles : "Hoist all sail, my dear
boy, and steer clear of all culture." Epictetus calls him preacher
of effeminacy and showers abuse on him.
Again there was
Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, who was his disciple and then
left the school. He in the book entitled
Merriment asserts that Epicurus vomited twice a day
from over-indulgence, and goes on to say that he himself had much
ado to escape from those notorious midnight philosophizings and
the confraternity with all its secrets ;
[
7]
further, that Epicurus's
acquaintance with philosophy was small and his acquaintance with
life even smaller ; that his bodily health was pitiful,
12 so
much so that for many years he was unable to rise from his chair ;
and that he spent a whole mina daily on his table, as he himself
says in his letter to Leontion and in that to the philosophers at
Mitylene. Also that among other courtesans who consorted with him
and Metrodorus were Mammarion and Hedia and Erotion and Nikidion. He
alleges too that in his thirtyseven books
On
Nature Epicurus uses much repetition and writes largely in
sheer opposition to others,
especially to
Nausiphanes, and here are his own words : "Nay, let them go hang :
for, when labouring with an idea, he too had the sophist's off-hand
boast-fulness like many another servile soul" ; besides, he himself
in his letters says of Nausiphanes : "This so maddened him that he
abused me and called me pedagogue."
[
8]
Epicurus used to call this
Nausiphanes jelly-fish,
13 an illiterate, a fraud, and a trollop ;
Plato's school he called "the toadies of Dionysius," their master
himself the "golden" Plato,
14
and Aristotle a profligate, who after devouring his patrimony took
to soldiering and selling drugs ; Protagoras a pack-carrier and the
scribe of Democritus and village schoolmaster ; Heraclitus a
muddler
15 ; Democritus Lerocritus (the nonsense-monger) ; and
Antidorus Sannidorus (fawning gift-bearer) ; the Cynics foes of
Greece ; the Dialecticians despoilers ; and Pyrrho an ignorant
boor.
[
9]
But these people are stark mad. For our philosopher
has abundance of witnesses to attest his unsurpassed goodwill to all
men--his native land, which honoured him with statues in bronze ;
his friends, so many in number that they could hardly be counted by
whole cities, and indeed all who knew him, held fast as they were by
the siren-charms of his doctrine, save Metrodorus
16 of Stratonicea, who
went over to Carneades, being perhaps burdened by his
master's excessive goodness ; the School itself which, while nearly
all the others have died out, continues for ever without
interruption through numberless reigns of one scholarch after
another
17 ;
[
10]
his gratitude to his parents, his generosity to his
brothers, his gentleness to his servants, as evidenced by the terms
of his will and by the fact that they were members of the School,
the most eminent of them being the aforesaid Mys ; and in general,
his benevolence to all mankind. His piety towards the gods and his
affection for his country no words can describe. He carried
deference to others to such excess that he did not even enter public
life. He spent all his life in Greece, notwithstanding the
calamities which had befallen her in that age
18 ; when he did once or twice
take a trip to Ionia, it was to visit his friends there.
19 Friends indeed came to him from all parts and lived
with him in his garden. This is stated by Apollodorus,
[
11]
who also says
that he purchased the garden for eighty minae ; and to the same
effect Diocles in the third book of his
Epitome
speaks of them as living a very simple and frugal life ; at all
events they were content with half a pint of thin wine and were, for
the rest, thoroughgoing water-drinkers. He further says that
Epicurus did not think it right that their property should be held
in common, as required by the maxim of
Pythagoras about the goods of friends ; such a practice in his
opinion implied mistrust, and without confidence there is no
friendship. In his correspondence he himself mentions that he was
content with plain bread and water. And again : "Send me a little
pot of cheese, that, when I like, I may fare sumptuously." Such was
the man who laid down that pleasure was the end of life. And here is
the epigram
20 in which Athenaeus eulogizes him :
[
12]
Ye toil, O men,
for paltry things and incessantly begin strife and war for gain ;
but nature's wealth extends to a moderate bound, whereas vain
judgements have a limitless range. This message Neocles' wise son
heard from the Muses or from the sacred tripod at Delphi.
21
And, as we go on, we shall know this better from
his doctrines and his sayings.
Among the early philosophers,
says Diocles, his favourite was Anaxagoras, although he occasionally
disagreed with him, and Archelaus the teacher of Socrates. Diocles
adds that he used to train his friends in committing his treatises
to memory.
22
[
13]
Apollodorus in his
Chronology
tells us that our philosopher was a pupil of Nausiphanes and Praxiphanes
23 ; but in his letter to Eurylochus, Epicurus himself
denies it and says that he was self-taught. Both Epicurus and
Hermarchus deny the very existence of Leucippus the philosopher,
though by some and by Apollodorus the Epicurean he is said to have
been the teacher of Democritus. Demetrius the Magnesian affirms that
Epicurus also attended the lectures of Xenocrates.
The terms he used for things were the ordinary terms, and
Aristophanes the grammarian credits him with a very characteristic
style. He was so lucid a writer that in the work
On
Rhetoric he makes clearness the sole requisite.
[
14]
And in his
correspondence he replaces the usual greeting, "I wish you joy," by
wishes for welfare and right living, "May you do well," and "Live
well."
Ariston
24 says in his
Life of Epicurus that he derived his work entitled
The Canon from the
Tripod
of Nausiphanes, adding that Epicurus had been a pupil of this man as
well as of the Platonist Pamphilus
25 in Samos. Further, that he began
to study philosophy when he was twelve years old, and started his
own school at thirty-two.
He was born, according to
Apollodorus in his
Chronology, in the third
year of the 109th Olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes,
26 on the seventh day of the month Gamelion,
27 in the
seventh year after the death of Plato.
[
15]
When he was thirty-two he
founded a school of philosophy, first in Mitylene and Lampsacus, and
then five years later removed to Athens, where he died in the second
year of the 127th Olympiad,
28 in the
archonship of Pytharatus, at the age of seventy-two ; and Hermarchus
the son of Agemortus, a Mitylenaean, took over the School. Epicurus
died of renal calculus after an illness which lasted a fortnight :
so Hermarchus tells us in his letters. Hermippus relates that he
entered a bronze bath of lukewarm water and asked for unmixed
wine,
[
16]
which he swallowed, and then, having
bidden his friends remember his doctrines, breathed his last.
Here is something of my own about him
29 :
Farewell, my
friends ; the truths I taught hold fast :
Thus Epicurus
spake, and breathed his last.
He sat in a warm bath and neat
wine quaff'd,
And straightway found chill death in that same
draught.
Such was the life of the sage and such his end.
His last will was as follows : "On this wise I give and bequeath
all my property to Amynomachus, son of Philocrates of Bate and
Timocrates, son of Demetrius of Potamus, to each severally according
to the items of the deed of gift laid up in the Metroön,
[
17]
on condition
that they shall place the garden and all that pertains to it at the
disposal of Hermarchus, son of Agemortus, of Mitylene, and the
members of his society, and those whom Hermarchus may leave as his
successors, to live and study in.
30 And I
entrust to my School in perpetuity the task of aiding Amynomachus
and Timocrates and their heirs to preserve to the best of their
power the common life in the garden in whatever way is best, and
that these also (the heirs of the trustees) may help to maintain the
garden in the same way as those to whom our successors in the School
may bequeath it. And let Amynomachus and Timocrates permit
Hermarchus and his fellow-members to live in the house in Melite for
the lifetime of Hermarchus.
[
18]
"And from the revenues made over
by me to Amynomachus and Timocrates let them to the best of their
power in consultation with Hermarchus make separate provision (1)
for the funeral offerings to my
father, mother,
and brothers, and (2) for the customary celebration of my birthday
on the tenth day of Gamelion in each year, and for the meeting of
all my School held every month on the twentieth day to commemorate
Metrodorus and myself according to the rules now in force.
31 Let them also join in celebrating the day in
Poseideon which commemorates my brothers, and likewise the day in
Metageitnion which commemorates Polyaenus, as I have done
hitherto.
[
19]
"And let Amynomachus and Timocrates take care of
Epicurus, the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polyaenus, so
long as they study and live with Hermarchus. Let them likewise
provide for the maintenance of Metrodorus's daughter,
32 so long as she is well-ordered and obedient to Hermarchus;
and, when she comes of age, give her in marriage to a husband
selected by Hermarchus from among the members of the School ; and
out of the revenues accruing to me let Amynomachus and Timocrates in
consultation with Hermarchus give to them as much as they think
proper for their maintenance year by year.
[
20]
"Let them make
Hermarchus trustee of the funds
33
along with themselves, in order that everything may be done in
concert with him, who has grown old with me in philosophy and is
left at the head of the School. And when the girl comes of age, let
Amynomachus and Timocrates pay her dowry, taking from the
property as much as circumstances allow, subject to the
approval of Hermarchus. Let them provide for Nicanor as I have
hitherto done, so that none of those members of the school who have
rendered service to me in private life and have shown me kindness in
every way and have chosen to grow old with me in the School should,
so far as my means go, lack the necessaries of life.
[
21]
"All my
books to be given to Hermarchus.
"And if anything should
happen to Hermarchus before the children of Metrodorus grow up,
Amynomachus and Timocrates shall give from the funds bequeathed by
me, so far as possible, enough for their several needs, as long as
they are well ordered. And let them provide for the rest according
to my arrangements; that everything may be carried out, so far as it
lies in their power. Of my slaves I manumit Mys, Nicias, Lycon, and
I also give Phaedrium her liberty."
[
22]
And when near his end he
wrote the following letter to Idomeneus :
"On this blissful
day, which is also the last of my life, I write this to you. My
continual sufferings from strangury and dysentery are so great that
nothing could augment them ; but over against them all I set
gladness of mind at the remembrance of our past conversations. But I
would have you, as becomes your life-long attitude to me and to
philosophy, watch over the children of Metrodorus."
Such were
the terms of his will.
Among his disciples, of
whom there were many, the following were eminent : Metrodorus,
34 the son of Athenaeus (or of
Timocrates) and of Sande, a citizen of Lampsacus, who from his first
acquaintance with Epicurus never left him except once for six months
spent on a visit to his native place, from which he returned to him
again.
[
23]
His goodness was proved in all ways, as Epicurus testifies in
the introductions
35 to his works and in the third book of
the
Timocrates. Such he was : he gave his
sister Batis to Idomeneus to wife, and himself took Leontion the
Athenian courtesan as his concubine. He showed dauntless courage in
meeting troubles and death, as Epicurus declares in the first book
of his memoir. He died, we learn, seven years before Epicurus in his
fiftythird year, and Epicurus himself in his will already cited
clearly speaks of him as departed, and enjoins upon his executors to
make provision for Metrodorus's children. The above-mentioned
Timocrates
36also, the brother of Metrodorus and
a giddy fellow, was another of his pupils.
[
24]
Metrodorus wrote
the following works :
Against the Physicians, in three
books.
Of Sensations.
Against Timocrates.
Of
Magnanimity.
Of Epicurus's Weak Health.
Against the Dialecticians.
Against the Sophists, in nine
books.
The Way to Wisdom.
Of Change.
Of
Wealth.
In Criticism of Democritus.
Of Noble
Birth.
Next came Polyaenus,
37 son of
Athenodorus, a citizen of Lampsacus, a just and kindly man, as
Philodemus and his pupils affirm. Next came Epicurus's successor
Hermarchus, son of Agemortus, a citizen of Mitylene, the son of a
poor man and at the outset a student of rhetoric.
There are
in circulation the following excellent works by him :
[
25]
Correspondence concerning Empedocles, in twentytwo books.
Of Mathematics.
Against Plato.
Against
Aristotle.
He died of paralysis, but not till he had given
full proof of his ability.
And then there is Leonteus of
Lampsacus and his wife Themista, to whom Epicurus wrote letters ;
further, Colotes
38 and Idomeneus,
who were also natives of Lampsacus. All these were distinguished,
and with them Polystratus, the successor of Hermarchus ; he was
succeeded by Dionysius, and he by Basilides. Apollodorus, known as
the tyrant of the garden, who wrote over four hundred books, is
also famous ; and the two Ptolemaei of Alexandria,
the one black and the other white ; and Zeno
39 of Sidon, the pupil of
Apollodorus, a voluminous author ;
[
26]
and Demetrius,
40 who
was called the Laconian ; and Diogenes of Tarsus, who compiled the
select lectures ; and Orion, and others whom the genuine Epicureans
call Sophists.
There were three other men who bore the name
of Epicurus : one the son of Leonteus and Themista ; another a
Magnesian by birth ; and a third, a drillsergeant.
Epicurus
was a most prolific author and eclipsed all before him in the number
of his writings : for they amount to about three hundred rolls, and
contain not a single citation from other authors ; it is Epicurus
himself who speaks throughout. Chrysippus tried to outdo him in
authorship according to Carneades, who therefore calls him the
literary parasite of Epicurus. "For every subject treated by
Epicurus, Chrysippus in his contentiousness must treat at equal
length ;
[
27]
hence he has frequently repeated himself and set down the
first thought that occurred to him, and in his haste has left things
unrevised, and he has so many citations that they alone fill his
books : nor is this unexampled in Zeno and Aristotle." Such, then,
in number and character are the writings of Epicurus, the best of
which are the following :
Of Nature, thirty-seven books.
Of Atoms and Void.
Of Love.
Epitome of Objections
to the Physicists.
Against the Megarians.
Problems.
Sovran Maxims.
Of Choice and
Avoidance.
Of the End.
Of the Standard, a work
entitled Canon.
Chaeredemus.
Of the Gods.
Of
Piety.
[
28]
Hegesianax.
Of Human Life, four books.
Of Just Dealing.
Neocles : dedicated to Themista.
Symposium.
Eurylochus : dedicated to Metrodorus.
Of
Vision.
Of the Angle in the Atom.
Of Touch.
Of
Fate.
Theories of the Feelings--against Timocrates.
Discovery of the Future.
Introduction to Philosophy.
Of Images.
Of Presentation.
Aristobulus.
Of
Music.
Of Justice and the other Virtues.
Of Benefits
and Gratitude.
Polymedes.
Timocrates, three books.
Metrodorus, five books.
Antidorus, two books.
Theories about Diseases (and Death)--to Mithras.
41
Callistolas.
Of Kingship.
Anaximenes.
Correspondence.
The views expressed in these works I will
try to set forth by quoting three of his epistles, in which he has
given an epitome of his whole system. I
[
29]
will also set down his
Sovran Maxims and any other utterance of his that
seems worth citing, that you may be in a position to study the
philosopher on all sides and know how to judge him.
The first
epistle is addressed to Herodotus and deals with physics ; the
second to Pythocles and deals with astronomy or meteorology ; the
third is addressed to Menoeceus and its subject is human life. We
must begin with the first after some few preliminary remarks
42 upon his
division of philosophy.
It is divided into three
parts--Canonic, Physics, Ethics.
[
30]
Canonic forms the introduction to
the system and is contained in a single work entitled
The Canon. The physical part includes the entire
theory of Nature : it is contained in the thirty-seven books
Of Nature and, in a summary form, in the letters.
The ethical part deals with the facts of choice and aversion : this
may be found in the books
On Human Life, in the
letters, and in his treatise
Of the End. The
usual arrangement, however, is to conjoin canonic with physics, and
the former they call the science which deals with the standard and
the first principle, or the elementary part of philosophy, while
physics proper, they say, deals with becoming and perishing and with
nature ; ethics, on the other
hand, deals with
things to be sought and avoided, with human life and with the
end-in-chief.
[
31]
They reject dialectic as superfluous ; holding
that in their inquiries the physicists should be content to employ
the ordinary terms for things.
43Now in
The Canon
Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our
feelings are the standards of truth ; the Epicureans generally make
perceptions of mental presentations
44 to
be also standards. His own statements are also to be found in the
Summary addressed to Herodotus and in the
Sovran Maxims. Every sensation, he says, is devoid
of reason and incapable of memory ; for neither is it self-caused
nor, regarded as having an external cause, can it add anything
thereto or take anything therefrom. Nor is there anything which can
refute sensations or convict them of error :
[
32]
one sensation cannot
convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid ;
nor can one sensation refute another which is not kindred but
heterogeneous, for the objects which the two senses judge are not
the same
45; nor
again can reason refute them, for reason is wholly dependent on
sensation ; nor can one sense refute another, since we pay equal
heed to all. And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees
46 the
truth of our senses. But seeing and hearing are just as real as
feeling pain. Hence it is from plain facts that we must start when
we draw inferences about the unknown.
47 For all our notions
are derived from
perceptions, either by actual
contact or by analogy, or resemblance, or composition, with some
slight aid from reasoning. And the objects presented to madmen
48 and to people in dreams
are true, for they produce effects--
i.e.
movements in the mind--which that which is unreal never does.
[
33]
By preconception they mean a sort of apprehension or a right
opinion or notion, or universal idea stored in the mind ; that is, a
recollection of an external object often presented,
e.g. Such and such a thing is a man : for no sooner
is the word "man" uttered than we think of his shape by an act of
preconception, in which the senses take the lead.
49 Thus the object primarily denoted by
every term is then plain and clear. And we should never have started
an investigation, unless we had known what it was that we were in
search of. For example : The object standing yonder is a horse or a
cow. Before making this judgement, we must at some time or other
have known by preconception the shape of a horse or a cow. We should
not have given anything a name, if we had not first learnt its form
by way of preconception. It follows, then, that preconceptions are
clear. The object of a judgement is derived from something
previously clear, by reference to which we frame the proposition,
e.g. "How do we know that this is a man?"
[
34]
Opinion they also call conception or assumption, and declare it to
be true and false
50; for it is true if it is
subsequently confirmed or if it is not contradicted by evidence, and
false if it is not subsequently confirmed or is contradicted by
evidence. Hence the introduction of the phrase, "that which awaits"
confirmation,
e.g. to wait and
get close to the tower and then learn what it looks
like at close quarters.
51
They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and
pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is
favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means
choice and avoidance are determined
52; and that there are two kinds of inquiry,
the one concerned with things, the other with nothing but
words.
53So much,
then, for his division
54 and criterion in their main outline.
But we
must return to the letter.
55
"Epicurus to
Herodotus, greeting.
[
35]
"For those who are unable to study
carefully all my physical writings or to go into the longer
treatises at all, I have myself prepared an epitome
56 of the whole system,
Herodotus, to preserve in the memory enough of the principal
doctrines,
57 to the end that on
every occasion they may be able to aid themselves on the most
important points, so far as they take up the study of Physics. Those
who have made some advance in the survey of the entire system
ought to fix in their minds under the principal headings an
elementary outline of the whole treatment of the
subject. For a comprehensive view is often required, the details but
seldom.
[
36]
"To the former, then--the main heads--we must
continually return, and must memorize them so far as to get a valid
conception of the facts, as well as the means of discovering all the
details exactly when once the general outlines are rightly
understood and remembered ; since it is the privilege of the mature
student to make a ready use of his conceptions by referring every
one of them to elementary facts and simple terms. For it is
impossible to gather up the results of continuous diligent study of
the entirety of things, unless we can embrace in short formulas and
hold in mind all that might have been accurately expressed even to
the minutest detail.
[
37]
"Hence, since such a course is of
service to all who take up natural science, I, who devote to the
subject my continuous energy and reap the calm enjoyment of a life
like this, have prepared for you just such an epitome and manual of
the doctrines as a whole.
"In the first place, Herodotus, you
must understand what it is that words denote, in order that by
reference to this we may be in a position to test opinions,
inquiries, or problems, so that our proofs may not run on untested
ad infinitum, nor the terms we use be empty of
meaning.
[
38]
For the primary signification of every term employed must
be clearly seen, and ought to need no proving
58; this being necessary, if we are to have something
to which the point at issue or the problem or the opinion before us
can be referred.
"Next, we must by all means
stick to our sensations, that is, simply to the present impressions
whether of the mind or of any criterion whatever, and similarly to
our actual feelings, in order that we may have the means of
determining that which needs confirmation and that which is
obscure.
"When this is clearly understood, it is time to
consider generally things which are obscure. To begin with, nothing
comes into being out of what is non-existent.
59 For in that case anything would have
arisen out of anything, standing as it would in no need of its
proper germs.
60
[
39]
And if that which disappears
had been destroyed and become non-existent, everything would have
perished, that into which the things were dissolved being
non-existent. Moreover, the sum total of things was always such as
it is now, and such it will ever remain. For there is nothing into
which it can change. For outside the sum of things there is nothing
which could enter into it and bring about the change.
"Further [
this he says also in the Larger Epitome
near the beginning and in his First Book "On Nature"], the
whole of being consists of bodies and space.
61 For the existence of bodies is everywhere attested by
sense itself, and it is upon sensation that reason must rely when it
attempts to infer the unknown from the known.
[
40]
And if there were no
space (which we call also void and place and intangible
nature),
62
bodies would have nothing in which to be and
through which to move, as they are plainly seen to move. Beyond
bodies and space there is nothing which by mental apprehension or on
its analogy we can conceive to exist. When we speak of bodies and
space, both are regarded as wholes or separate things, not as the
properties or accidents of separate things.
"Again [
he repeats this in the First Book and in Books XIV. and
XV. of the work "On Nature" and in the Larger Epitome], of
bodies some are composite, others the elements of which these
composite bodies are made.
[
41]
These elements are indivisible and unchangeable, and necessarily so, if things are not all to be
destroyed and pass into non-existence, but are to be strong enough
to endure when the composite bodies are broken up, because they
possess a solid nature and are incapable of being anywhere or anyhow dissolved.
63 It
follows that the first beginnings must be indivisible, corporeal
entities.
"Again, the sum of things is infinite. For what is
finite has an extremity, and the extremity of anything is discerned
only by comparison with something else. (Now the sum of things is
not discerned by comparison with anything else :
64) hence, since it has no
extremity, it has no limit ; and, since it has no limit, it must be
unlimited or infinite.
"Moreover, the sum of things is
unlimited both by reason of the multitude of the atoms and the
extent of the void.
[
42]
For if the void were infinite and bodies finite,
the bodies would not have stayed anywhere but would have been
dispersed in their course through the infinite void, not having any
supports or counter-
checks to send them back
on their upward rebound. Again, if the void were finite, the
infinity of bodies would not have anywhere to be.
"Furthermore, the atoms, which have no void in them--out of which
composite bodies arise and into which they are dissolved--vary
indefinitely in their shapes ; for so many varieties of things as we
see could never have arisen out of a recurrence of a definite number
of the same shapes. The like atoms of each shape are absolutely
infinite ; but the variety of shapes, though indefinitely large, is
not absolutely infinite.
[
43]
[
For neither does the
divisibility go on "ad infinitum," he says below65;
but he adds, since the qualities change, unless one is prepared to
keep enlarging their magnitudes also simply "ad
infinitum."]
"The atoms are in continual motion through
all eternity. [
Further, he says below,66 that the atoms move with equal speed, since the void
makes way for the lightest and heaviest alike.] Some of them
rebound to a considerable distance from each other, while others
merely oscillate in one place when they chance to have got entangled
or to be enclosed by a mass of other atoms shaped for
entangling.
67
[
44]
"This is because each atom is
separated from the rest by void, which is incapable of offering any
resistance to the rebound ; while it is the solidity of the atom
which makes it rebound after a collision,
however short the distance to which it rebounds, when it finds
itself imprisoned in a mass of entangling atoms. Of all this there
is no beginning, since both atoms and void exist from everlasting.
[
He says below that atoms have no quality at all
except shape, size, and weight. But that colour varies with the
arrangement of the atoms he states in his "Twelve Rudiments" ;
further, that they are not of any and every size ; at any rate no
atom has ever been seen by our sense.]
[
45]
"The repetition
at such length of all that we are now recalling to mind furnishes an
adequate outline for our conception of the nature of things.
"Moreover, there is an infinite number of worlds, some like this
world, others unlike it.
68 For the
atoms being infinite in number, as has just been proved, are borne
ever further in their course. For the atoms out of which a world
might arise, or by which a world might be formed, have not all been
expended on one world or a finite number of worlds, whether like or
unlike this one. Hence there will be nothing to hinder an infinity
of worlds.
[
46]
"Again, there are outlines or films, which are of
the same shape as solid bodies, but of a thinness far exceeding that
of any object that we see. For it is not impossible that there
should be found in the surrounding air combinations of this kind,
materials adapted for expressing the hollowness and thinness of
surfaces, and effluxes preserving the same relative position and
motion which they had in the solid objects from which they come. To
these films we give the name of `images' or `idols.' Further-
more, so long as nothing comes in the way to offer
resistance, motion through the void accomplishes any imaginable
distance in an inconceivably short time. For resistance encountered
is the equivalent of slowness, its absence the equivalent of
speed.
[
47]
"Not that, if we consider the minute times perceptible by reason alone,
69 the moving body
itself arrives at more than one place simultaneously (for this too
is inconceivable), although in time perceptible to sense it does
arrive simultaneously, however different the point of departure
from that conceived by us. For if it changed its direction, that
would be equivalent to its meeting with resistance, even if up to
that point we allow nothing to impede the rate of its flight. This
is an elementary fact which in itself is well worth bearing in mind.
In the next place the exceeding thinness of the images is
contradicted by none of the facts under our observation. Hence also
their velocities are enormous, since they always find a void passage
to fit them. Besides, their incessant effluence meets with no
resistance,
70 or very
little, although many atoms, not to say an unlimited number, do at
once encounter resistance.
[
48]
"Besides this, remember that the
production of the images is as quick as thought. For particles are
continually streaming off from the surface of bodies, though no
diminution of the bodies is observed, because other particles take
their place.
71 And those
given off
for a long time retain the position and arrangement which their
atoms had when they formed part of the solid bodies, although
occasionally they are thrown into confusion. Sometimes such
films
72 are
formed very rapidly in the air, because they need not have any solid
content ; and there are other modes in which they may be formed. For
there is nothing in all this which is contradicted by sensation, if
we in some sort look at the clear evidence of sense, to which we
should also refer the continuity of particles in the objects
external to ourselves.
[
49]
"We must also consider that it is by
the entrance of something coming from external objects that we see
their shapes and think of them.
73 For
external things would not stamp on us their own nature of colour and
form through the medium of the air which is between them and
us,
74 or by means of rays of
light or currents of any sort going from us to them, so well as by
the entrance into our eyes or minds, to whichever their size is
suitable,
of certain films coming from the things themselves, these
films or outlines being of the same colour and shape as the external
things themselves.
[
50]
They move with rapid motion ;
75 and this again explains why they present the appearance
of the single continuous object, and retain the mutual
interconnexion which they had in the object, when they impinge upon
the sense, such impact being due to the oscillation of the atoms in
the interior of the solid object from which they come. And whatever
presentation we derive by direct contact, whether it be with the
mind or with
the sense-organs, be it shape that
is presented or other properties, this shape as presented is the
shape of the solid thing, and it is due either to a close coherence
of the image as a whole or to a mere remnant of its parts.
76
Falsehood and error always depend upon the intrusion of opinion
77 (when a fact awaits) confirmation or the absence of
contradiction, which fact is afterwards frequently not confirmed (or
even contradicted) [
following a certain movement in
ourselves connected with, but distinct from, the mental picture
presented--which is the cause of error.]
[
51]
"For the
presentations which,
e.g., are received in a
picture or arise in dreams, or from any other form of apprehension
by the mind or by the other criteria of truth, would never have
resembled what we call the real and true things, had it not been for
certain actual things of the kind with which we come in contact.
Error would not have occurred, if we had not experienced some
other movement in ourselves, conjoined with, but distinct from,
78 the perception of what
is presented. And from this movement, if it be not confirmed or be
contradicted, falsehood results ; while, if it be confirmed or not
contradicted, truth results.
[
52]
"And to this view we must
closely adhere, if we are not to repudiate the criteria founded on
the clear evidence of sense, nor again to throw all these things
into confusion by maintaining falsehood as if it were truth.
79
"Again, hearing takes place
when a current passes from the object, whether person or thing,
which emits voice or sound or noise, or produces the sensation of
hearing in any way whatever. This current is broken up into
homogeneous particles, which at the same time preserve a certain
mutual connexion and a distinctive unity extending to the object
which emitted them, and thus, for the most part, cause the
perception in that case or, if not, merely indicate the presence of
the external object.
[
53]
For without the transmission from the object of
a certain interconnexion of the parts no such sensation could
arise. Therefore we must not suppose that the air itself is moulded
into shape by the voice emitted or something similar
80 ; for it is very far from being the case that the
air is acted upon by it in this way. The blow which is struck in us
when we utter a sound causes such a displacement of the particles as
serves to produce a current resembling breath, and this displacement
gives rise to the sensation of hearing.
"Again, we must
believe that smelling,
81 like hearing, would produce no sensation,
were there not particles conveyed from the object which are of the
proper sort for exciting the organ of smelling, some of one sort,
some of another, some exciting it confusedly and strangely, others
quietly and agreeably.
[
54]
"Moreover, we must hold that the atoms
in fact possess none of the qualities belonging to things which come
under our observation, except shape, weight, and size, and the
properties necessarily con-
joined with
shape.
82 For
every quality changes, but the atoms do not change, since, when the
composite bodies are dissolved, there must needs be a permanent
something, solid and indissoluble, left behind, which makes change
possible : not changes into or from the non-existent, but often
through differences of arrangement, and sometimes through
additions and subtractions of the atoms.
83 Hence these somethings capable of
being diversely arranged must be indestructible, exempt from
change, but possessed each of its own distinctive mass
84
and configuration. This must remain.
[
55]
"For in the case of
changes of configuration within our experience the figure is
supposed to be inherent when other qualities are stripped off, but
the qualities are not supposed, like the shape which is left behind,
to inhere in the subject of change, but to vanish altogether from
the body. Thus, then, what is left behind is sufficient to account
for the differences in composite bodies, since something at least
must necessarily be left remaining and be immune from
annihilation.
"Again, you should not suppose that the atoms
have any and every size,
85lest you be contradicted by facts ; but
differences of size must be admitted ; for this addition renders the
facts of feeling and sensation easier of explanation.
[
56]
But to
attribute any and
every magnitude to the atoms
does not help to explain the differences of quality in things ;
moreover, in that case atoms large enough to be seen ought to have
reached us, which is never observed to occur ; nor can we conceive
how its occurrence should be possible,
i.e.
that an atom should become visible.
86
"Besides, you must not
suppose that there are parts unlimited in number, be they ever so
small, in any finite body. Hence not only must we reject as impossible subdivision
ad infinitum into smaller
and smaller parts, lest we make all things too weak and, in our
conceptions of the aggregates, be driven to pulverize the things
that exist,
i.e. the atoms, and annihilate
87 them ; but in dealing with
finite things we must also reject as impossible the progression
ad infinitum by less and less increments.
[
57]
"For when once we have said that an infinite number of particles,
however small, are contained in anything, it is not possible to
conceive how it could any longer be limited or finite in size. For
clearly our infinite number of particles must have some size ; and
then, of whatever size they were, the aggregate they made would be
infinite. And, in the next place, since what is finite has an
extremity which is distinguishable, even if it is not by itself
observable, it is not possible to avoid thinking of another such
extremity next to this. Nor can we help thinking that in this way,
by proceeding for-
ward from one to the next in
order, it is possible by such a progression to arrive in thought at
infinity.
88
[
58]
"We must consider the
minimum perceptible by sense as not corresponding to that which is
capable of being traversed,
i.e. is
extended,
89 nor
again as utterly unlike it, but as having something in common with
the things capable of being traversed, though it is without
distinction of parts. But when from the illusion created by this
common property we think we shall distinguish something in the
minimum, one part on one side and another part on the other side, it
must be another minimum equal to the first which catches our eye. In
fact, we see these minima one after another, beginning with the
first, and not as occupying the same space ; nor do we see them
touch one another's parts with their parts, but we see that by
virtue of their own peculiar character (
i.e. as
being unit indivisibles) they afford a means of measuring magnitudes
: there are more of them, if the magnitude measured is greater ;
fewer of them, if the magnitude measured is less.
[
59]
"We must
recognize that this analogy also holds of the minimum in the atom ;
it is only in minuteness that it differs from that which is observed
by sense, but it follows the same analogy. On the analogy of things
within our experience we have declared that the atom has magnitude ;
and this, small as it is, we have merely reproduced on a larger
scale. And further, the least and simplest
90 things must be regarded as extremities of lengths,
furnishing from themselves as units the means of measuring lengths,
whether greater or less, the mental vision being
employed, since direct observation is impossible. For the
community which exists between them and the unchangeable parts (
i.e. the minimal parts of area or surface) is
sufficient to justify the conclusion so far as this goes. But it is
not possible that these minima of the atom should group themselves
together through the possession of motion.
91
[
60]
"Further, we must not assert `up' or `down'
of that which is unlimited, as if there were a zenith or nadir.
92 As to the
space overhead, however, if it be possible to draw
93 a line to infinity from the point where we stand, we
know that never will this space --or, for that matter, the space
below the supposed standpoint if produced to infinity--appear to us
to be at the same time `up' and `down' with reference to the same
point ; for this is inconceivable. Hence it is possible to assume
one direction of motion, which we conceive as extending upwards
ad infinitum, and another downwards, even if it
should happen ten thousand times that what moves from us to the
spaces above our heads reaches the feet of those above us, or that
which moves downwards from us the heads of those below us. None the
less is it true that the whole of the motion in the respective cases
is conceived as extending in opposite directions
ad infinitum.
[
61]
"When they are travelling
through the void and meet with no resistance, the atoms must move
with equal speed. Neither will heavy atoms travel more quickly than
small and light ones, so long as nothing meets them, nor will small
atoms travel more quickly than large ones, provided they always find
a passage suitable to their size, and provided also that they
meet with no obstruction. Nor will their upward or
their lateral motion, which is due to collisions, nor again their
downward motion, due to weight, affect their velocity. As long as
either motion obtains, it must continue, quick as the speed of
thought, provided there is no obstruction, whether due to external
collision or to the atoms' own weight counteracting the force of
the blow.
[
62]
"Moreover, when we come to deal with composite
bodies, one of them will travel faster than another, although their
atoms have equal speed. This is because the atoms in the aggregates
are travelling in one direction
94 during the shortest continuous time, albeit they
move in different directions in times so short as to be appreciable
only by the reason, but frequently collide until the continuity of
their motion is appreciated by sense. For the assumption that beyond
the range of direct observation even the minute times conceivable by
reason will present continuity of motion is not true in the case
before us. Our canon is that direct observation by sense and direct
apprehension by the mind are alone invariably true.
[
63]
"Next,
keeping in view our perceptions and feelings (for so shall we have
the surest grounds for belief), we must recognize generally that the
soul is a corporeal thing, composed of fine particles, dispersed
all over the frame,
95 most nearly resembling wind with an
admixture of heat,
96 in some respects like wind, in others like heat.
But, again, there is the third part which exceeds the other two in
the fineness of
its particles and thereby keeps
in closer touch with the rest of the frame.
97 And this is shown by the mental faculties and
feelings, by the ease with which the mind moves, and by thoughts,
and by all those things the loss of which causes death. Further, we
must keep in mind that soul has the greatest share in causing
sensation.
[
64]
Still, it would not have had sensation, had it not been
somehow confined within the rest of the frame. But the rest of the
frame, though it provides this indispensable condition
98 for the soul, itself also has a
share, derived from the soul, of the said quality ; and yet does not
possess all the qualities of soul. Hence on the departure of the
soul it loses sentience. For it had not this power in itself ; but
something else, congenital with the body, supplied it to body :
which other thing, through the potentiality actualized in it by
means of motion, at once acquired for itself a quality of sentience,
and, in virtue of the neighbourhood and interconnexion between
them, imparted it (as I said) to the body also.
[
65]
"Hence, so
long as the soul is in the body, it never loses sentience through
the removal of some other part. The containing sheath
99 may be
dislocated in whole or in part, and portions of the soul may thereby
be lost ; yet in spite of this the soul, if it manage to survive,
will have sentience. But the rest of the frame, whether the whole of
it survives or only a part, no longer has sensation, when once those
atoms
have departed, which, however few in
number, are required to constitute the nature of soul. Moreover,
when the whole frame is broken up,
100 the soul is scattered
and has no longer the same powers as before, nor the same motions ;
hence it does not possess sentience either.
[
66]
"For we cannot
think of it
101 as sentient,
except it be in this composite whole and moving with these movements
; nor can we so think of it when the sheaths which enclose and
surround it are not the same as those in which the soul is now
located and in which it performs these movements. [
He says elsewhere that the soul is composed of the
smoothest and roundest of atoms, far superior in both respects to
those of fire ; that part of it is irrational, this being scattered
over the rest of the frame, while the rational part resides in the
chest, as is manifest from our fears and our joy ; that sleep occurs
when the parts of the soul which have been scattered all over the
composite organism are held fast in it or dispersed, and
afterwards collide with one another by their impacts. The semen is
derived from the whole of the body.]
[
67]
"There is the
further point to be considered, what the incorporeal can be, if, I
mean, according to current usage the term is applied to what can be
conceived as self-existent.
102 But it is impossible to conceive anything
that is incorporeal as self-existent except empty space. And empty
space cannot itself either act or be acted upon, but simply allows
body to move through it. Hence those who call soul in-
corporeal speak foolishly. For if it were so, it could
neither act nor be acted upon. But, as it is, both these properties,
you see, plainly belong to soul.
[
68]
"If, then, we bring all
these arguments concerning soul to the criterion of our feelings and
perceptions, and if we keep in mind the proposition stated at the
outset, we shall see that the subject has been adequately
comprehended in outline : which will enable us to determine the
details with accuracy and confidence.
"Moreover, shapes and
colours, magnitudes and weights, and in short all those qualities
which are predicated of body, in so far as they are perpetual
properties either of all bodies or of visible bodies, are knowable
by sensation of these very properties : these, I say, must not be
supposed to exist independently by themselves
103(for that is
inconceivable),
[
69]
nor yet to be non-existent, nor to be some other and
incorporeal entities cleaving to body,
104 nor again to be parts
of body. We must consider the whole body in a general way to derive
its permanent nature from all of them, though it is not, as it were,
formed by grouping them together in the same way as when from the
particles themselves a larger aggregate is made up, whether these
particles be primary or any magnitudes whatsoever less than the
particular whole. All these qualities, I repeat, merely give the
body its own permanent nature. They all have their own characteristic modes of being perceived and distinguished, but always
along with the whole body in which they inhere and never in
separation from it ; and it is in virtue of this complete conception
of the body as a whole that it is so designated.
[
70]
"Again,
qualities often attach to bodies without
being
permanent concomitants. They are not to be classed among invisible
entities nor are they incorporeal. Hence, using the term
`accidents'
105 in the commonest
sense, we say plainly that `accidents' have not the nature of the
whole thing to which they belong, and to which, conceiving it as a
whole, we give the name of body, nor that of the permanent
properties without which body cannot be thought of. And in virtue of
certain peculiar modes of apprehension into which the complete
body always enters, each of them can be called an accident.
[
71]
But only
as often as they are seen actually to belong to it, since such
accidents are not perpetual concomitants. There is no need to banish
from reality this clear evidence that the accident has not the
nature of that whole--by us called body--to which it belongs, nor of
the permanent properties which accompany the whole. Nor, on the
other hand, must we suppose the accident to have independent
existence (for this is just as inconceivable in the case of
accidents as in that of the permanent properties) ; but, as is manifest, they should all be regarded as accidents, not as permanent
concomitants, of bodies, nor yet as having the rank of independent
existence. Rather they are seen to be exactly as and what sensation
itself makes them individually claim to be.
[
72]
"There is another
thing which we must consider carefully. We must not investigate time
as we do the other accidents which we investigate in a subject,
namely, by referring them to the preconceptions envisaged in our
minds ; but we must take into account the plain fact itself, in
virtue of which we speak of time as long or short, linking to it in
intimate connexion this attribute of duration.
106We need not
adopt any fresh terms as preferable, but should employ the usual
expressions about it. Nor need we predicate anything else of time,
as if this something else contained the same essence as is
contained in the proper meaning of the word `time' (for this also is
done by some). We must chiefly reflect upon that to which we attach
this peculiar character of time, and by which we measure it.
[
73]
No
further proof is required : we have only to reflect that we attach
the attribute of time to days and nights and their parts, and
likewise to feelings of pleasure and pain and to neutral states, to
states of movement and states of rest, conceiving a peculiar
accident of these to be this very characteristic which we express by
the word `time.' [
He says this both in the second
book "On Nature" and in the Larger Epitome.]
"After the
foregoing we have next to consider that the worlds and every finite
aggregate which bears a strong resemblance to things we commonly see
have arisen out of the infinite.
107 For all these, whether small or great,
have been separated off from special conglomerations of atoms ; and
all things are again dissolved,
108 some faster, some slower, some through the action of one
set of causes, others through the action of another. [
It is clear, then, that he also makes the worlds
perishable, as their parts are subject to change. Elsewhere he says
the earth is supported on the air.]
[
74]
"And further, we
must not suppose that the worlds have necessarily one and the same
shape. [
On the contrary, in the twelfth book "On
Nature" he himself says that the shapes of the worlds differ, some
being spherical, some oval, others again of shapes
different
from these. They
do not, however, admit of every shape. Nor are they living beings
which have been separated from the infinite.] For nobody can
prove that in one sort of world there might not be contained,
whereas in another sort of world there could not possibly be, the
seeds out of which animals and plants arise and all the rest of the
things we see. [
And the same holds good for their
nurture in a world after they have arisen. And so too we must think
it happens upon the earth also.]
[
75]
"Again, we must suppose
that nature
109 too has been taught and
forced to learn many various lessons by the facts themselves, that
reason subsequently develops what it has thus received and makes
fresh discoveries, among some tribes more quickly, among others more
slowly, the progress thus made being at certain times and seasons
greater, at others less.
"Hence even the names of things were
not originally due to convention,
110 but in the
several tribes under the impulse of special feelings and special
presentations of sense primitive man uttered special cries.
111 The air thus emitted was moulded by their
individual feelings or sense-presentations, and differently according to the difference of the regions which the tribes inhabited.
[
76]
Subsequently whole tribes adopted their own special names, in order
that their communications might be less ambiguous to each other
and more briefly expressed. And as for things not visible, so far as
those who were conscious of them tried to introduce any such notion,
they put in circulation certain names for them, either sounds which
they
were instinctively compelled to utter or
which they selected by reason on analogy according to the most
general cause there can be for expressing oneself in such a
way.
112
"Nay more
: we are bound to believe that in the sky revolutions, solstices,
eclipses, risings and settings, and the like, take place without the
ministration or command, either now or in the future, of any being
who at the same time enjoys perfect bliss along with immortality.
[
77]
For troubles and anxieties and feelings of anger and partiality do
not accord with bliss, but always imply weakness and fear and
dependence upon one's neighbours. Nor, again, must we hold that
things which are no more than globular masses of fire, being at the
same time endowed with bliss, assume these motions at will. Nay, in
every term we use we must hold fast to all the majesty which
attaches to such notions as bliss and immortality, lest the terms
should generate opinions inconsistent with this majesty. Otherwise
such inconsistency will of itself suffice to produce the worst
disturbance in our minds. Hence, where we find phenomena invariably recurring, the invariableness of the recurrence must be
ascribed to the original interception and conglomeration of atoms
whereby the world was formed.
[
78]
"Further, we must hold that to
arrive at accurate knowledge of the cause of things of most moment
is the business of natural science, and that happiness depends on
this (viz. on the knowledge of celestial and atmospheric phenomena),
and upon knowing what the heavenly bodies really are, and any
kindred facts contributing to exact knowledge in this respect.
113
"Further, we must recognize
on such points as this no plurality of causes or contingency, but
must hold that nothing suggestive of conflict or disquiet is
compatible with an immortal and blessed nature. And the mind can
grasp the absolute truth of this.
[
79]
"But when we come to
subjects for special inquiry, there is nothing in the knowledge of
risings and settings and solstices and eclipses and all kindred
subjects that contributes to our happiness ; but those who are
well-informed about such matters and yet are ignorant what the
heavenly bodies really are, and what are the most important causes
of phenomena, feel quite as much fear as those who have no such
special information--nay, perhaps even greater fear, when the
curiosity excited by this additional knowledge cannot find a
solution or understand the subordination of these phenomena to the
highest causes.
"Hence, if we discover more than one cause
that may account for solstices, settings and risings, eclipses and
the like, as we did also in particular matters of detail,
[
80]
we must
not suppose that our treatment of these matters fails of accuracy,
so far as it is needful to ensure our tranquillity and happiness.
When, therefore, we investigate the causes of celestial and
atmospheric phenomena, as of all that is unknown, we must take
into account the variety of ways in which analogous occurrences
happen within our experience ; while as for those who do not
recognize the difference between what is or comes about from a
single cause and that which may be the effect of any one of several
causes, overlooking the fact that the objects are only seen at a
distance, and are moreover ignorant of the conditions that render,
or do not render, peace of mind impossible
--all such persons we must treat with contempt. If then we think
that an event could happen in one or other particular way out of
several, we shall be as tranquil when we recognize that it actually
comes about in more ways than one as if we knew that it happens in
this particular way.
[
81]
"There is yet one more point to seize,
namely, that the greatest anxiety of the human mind arises through
the belief that the heavenly bodies are blessed and indestructible,
and that at the same time they have volitions and actions and
causality inconsistent with this belief ; and through expecting or
apprehending some everlasting evil, either because of the myths, or
because we are in dread of the mere insensibility of death, as if it
had to do with us ; and through being reduced to this state not by
conviction but by a certain irrational perversity, so that, if men
do not set bounds to their terror, they endure as much or even more
intense anxiety than the man whose views on these matters are quite
vague.
[
82]
But mental tranquillity means being released from all these
troubles and cherishing a continual remembrance of the highest and
most important truths.
"Hence we must attend to present
feelings and sense perceptions, whether those of mankind in general
or those peculiar to the individual, and also attend to all the
clear evidence available, as given by each of the standards of
truth. For by studying them we shall rightly trace to its cause and
banish the source of disturbance and dread, accounting for celestial
phenomena and for all other things which from time to time befall us
and cause the utmost alarm to the rest of mankind.
"Here then,
Herodotus, you have the chief doctrines
of
Physics in the form of a summary.
[
83]
So that, if this statement be
accurately retained and take effect, a man will, I make no doubt, be
incomparably better equipped than his fellows, even if he should
never go into all the exact details. For he will clear up for
himself many of the points which I have worked out in detail in my
complete exposition ; and the summary itself, if borne in mind, will
be of constant service to him.
"It is of such a sort that
those who are already tolerably, or even perfectly, well acquainted
with the details can, by analysis of what they know into such
elementary perceptions as these, best prosecute their researches in
physical science as a whole ; while those, on the other hand, who
are not altogether entitled to rank as mature students can in silent
fashion and as quick as thought run over the doctrines most
important for their peace of mind."
Such is his epistle on
Physics. Next comes the epistle on Celestial Phenomena.
"Epicurus to Pythocles, greeting.
[
84]
"In your letter to me,
of which Cleon was the bearer, you continue to show me affection
which I have merited by my devotion to you, and you try, not without
success, to recall the considerations which make for a happy life.
To aid your memory you ask me for a clear and concise statement
respecting celestial phenomena ; for what we have written on this
subject elsewhere is, you tell me, hard to remember, although you
have my books constantly with you. I was glad to receive your
request and
am full of pleasant expectations.
[
85]
We will then complete our writing and grant all you ask. Many others
besides you will find these reasonings useful, and especially those
who have but recently made acquaintance with the true story of
nature and those who are attached to pursuits which go deeper than
any part of ordinary education. So you will do well to take and
learn them and get them up quickly along with the short epitome in
my letter to Herodotus.
114
"In the first place, remember that, like
everything else, knowledge of celestial phenomena, whether taken
along with other things or in isolation, has no other end in view
than peace of mind and firm conviction.
115
[
86]
We do not seek to wrest by force what is impossible,
nor to understand all matters equally well, nor make our treatment
always as clear as when we discuss human life or explain the
principles of physics in general--for instance, that the whole of
being consists of bodies and intangible nature, or that the ultimate
elements of things are indivisible, or any other proposition which
admits only one explanation of the phenomena to be possible. But
this is not the case with celestial phenomena : these at any rate
admit of manifold causes for their occurrence and manifold
accounts, none of them contradictory of sensation, of their
nature.
[
87]
"For in the study of nature we must not conform to
empty assumptions and arbitrary laws, but follow the promptings of
the facts ; for our life has no need now of unreason and false
opinion ; our one need is untroubled existence. All things go on
uninterruptedly, if all be explained by the method of
plurality of causes in conformity with the facts, so
soon as we duly understand what may be plausibly alleged respecting
them. But when we pick and choose among them, rejecting one equally
consistent with the phenomena, we clearly fall away from the study
of nature altogether and tumble into myth. Some phenomena within our
experience afford evidence by which we may interpret what goes on
in the heavens. We see how the former really take place, but not how
the celestial phenomena take place, for their occurrence may
possibly be due to a variety of causes.
[
88]
However, we must observe
each fact as presented, and further separate from it all the facts
presented along with it, the occurrence of which from various causes
is not contradicted by facts within our experience.
"A world
is a circumscribed portion of the universe, which contains stars and
earth and all other visible things, cut off from the infinite, and
terminating [
and terminating in a boundary which may
be either thick or thin, a boundary whose dissolution will bring
about the wreck of all within it] in an exterior which may
either revolve or be at rest, and be round or triangular or of any
other shape whatever. All these alternatives are possible : they
are contradicted by none of the facts in this world, in which an
extremity can nowhere be discerned.
[
89]
"That there is an
infinite number of such worlds can be perceived, and that such a
world may arise in a world or in one of the
intermundia (by which term we mean the spaces
between worlds) in a tolerably empty space and not, as some
maintain, in a vast
space perfectly clear and
void.
116 It arises when
certain suitable seeds rush in from a single world or
intermundium, or from several, and undergo gradual
additions or articulations or changes of place, it may be, and
waterings from appropriate sources, until they are matured and
firmly settled in so far as the foundations laid can receive them.
[
90]
For it is not enough that there should be an aggregation or a vortex
in the empty space in which a world may arise, as the necessitarians
hold, and may grow until it collide with another, as one of the
so-called physicists
117 says. For this is in conflict with facts.
[
91]
"The sun and moon and the stars generally were not of independent
origin and later absorbed within our world, [such parts of it at
least as serve at all for its defence] ; but they at once began to
take form and grow [and so too did earth and sea]
118 by the accretions and whirling
motions of certain substances of finest texture, of the nature
either of wind or fire, or of both ; for thus sense itself
suggests.
"The size of the sun and the remaining stars relatively to us is just as great as it appears.
119 [
This he states in the eleventh book "On
Nature." For, says he, if it had diminished in size on account of
the distance, it would much more have diminished its brightness ;
for indeed there is no distance more proportionate to this
diminution of size than is the distance at which the brightness
begins to diminish.] But in itself and actually it may be a
little larger or a little smaller, or
precisely
as great as it is seen to be. For so too fires of which we have
experience are seen by sense when we see them at a distance. And
every objection brought against this part of the theory will
easily be met by anyone who attends to plain facts, as I show in my
work
On Nature.
[
92]
And the rising and setting of
the sun, moon, and stars may be due to kindling and quenching,
120 provided that the
circumstances are such as to produce this result in each of the
two regions, east and west : for no fact testifies against this. Or
the result might be produced by their coming forward above the earth
and again by its intervention to hide them : for no fact testifies
against this either. And their motions
121 may be due to the
rotation of the whole heaven, or the heaven may be at rest and they
alone rotate according to some necessary impulse to rise, implanted
at first when the world was made ...
[
93]
and this through excessive
heat, due to a certain extension of the fire which always encroaches
upon that which is near it.
122
"The turnings of the sun and moon in their
course may be due to the obliquity of the heaven, whereby it is
forced back at these times.
123 Again, they may equally be due to the
contrary pressure of the air or, it may be, to the fact that either
the fuel from time to time necessary has been consumed in the
vicinity or there is a dearth of it. Or even because such a whirling
motion was from the first inherent in these stars so that they move
in a sort
of spiral. For all such explanations
and the like do not conflict with any clear evidence, if only in
such details we hold fast to what is possible, and can bring each of
these explanations into accord with the facts, unmoved by the
servile artifices of the astronomers.
[
94]
"The waning of the moon
and again her waxing
124 might be due to the rotation of the moon's body, and
equally well to configurations which the air assumes ; further, it
may be due to the interposition of certain bodies. In short, it may
happen in any of the ways in which the facts within our experience
suggest such an appearance to be explicable. But one must not be so
much in love with the explanation by a single way as wrongly to
reject all the others from ignorance of what can, and what cannot,
be within human knowledge, and consequent longing to discover the
indiscoverable. Further, the moon may possibly shine by her own
light, just as possibly she may derive her light from the sun ;
[
95]
for
in our own experience we see many things which shine by their own
light and many also which shine by borrowed light. And none of the
celestial phenomena stand in the way, if only we always keep in mind
the method of plural explanation and the several consistent assumptions and causes, instead of dwelling on what is inconsistent and
giving it a false importance so as always to fall back in one way or
another upon the single explanation. The appearance of the face in
the moon may equally well arise from interchange of parts, or from
interposition of something, or in any other of the ways which might
be seen to accord with the facts.
[
96]
For in all the celestial
phenomena
such a line of research is not to be
abandoned ; for, if you fight against clear evidence, you never can
enjoy genuine peace of mind.
"An eclipse of the sun or moon
may be due to the extinction of their light, just as within our own
experience this is observed to happen ; and again by interposition
of something else--whether it be the earth or some other invisible
body like it. And thus we must take in conjunction the explanations
which agree with one another, and remember that the concurrence of
more than one at the same time may not impossibly happen. [
He says the same in Book XII. of his "De Natura," and
further that the sun is eclipsed when the moon throws her shadow
over him, and the moon is eclipsed by the shadow of the earth ; or
again, eclipse may be due to the moon's withdrawal,
[97]
and this is
cited by Diogenes the Epicurean in the first book of his
"Epilecta."]
"And further, let the regularity of their
orbits be explained in the same way as certain ordinary incidents
within our own experience ; the divine nature must not on any
account be adduced to explain this, but must be kept free from the
task and in perfect bliss. Unless this be done, the whole study of
celestial phenomena will be in vain, as indeed it has proved to be
with some who did not lay hold of a possible method, but fell into
the folly of supposing that these events happen in one single way
only and of rejecting all the others which are possible, suffering
themselves to be carried into the realm of the unintelligible, and
being unable to take a comprehensive view of the facts which must
be taken as clues to the rest.
[
98]
"The variations in the length
of nights and days
may be due to the swiftness
and again to the slowness of the sun's motion in the sky, owing to
the variations in the length of spaces traversed and to his
accomplishing some distances more swiftly or more slowly, as happens
sometimes within our own experience ; and with these facts our
explanation of celestial phenomena must agree ; whereas those who
adopt only one explanation are in conflict with the facts and are
utterly mistaken as to the way in which man can attain
knowledge.
"The signs in the sky which betoken the weather
may be due to mere coincidence of the seasons, as is the case with
signs from animals seen on earth, or they may be caused by changes
and alterations in the air. For neither the one explanation nor the
other is in conflict with facts,
[
99]
and it is not easy to see in which
cases the effect is due to one cause or to the other.
"Clouds
may form and gather either because the air is condensed under the
pressure of winds, or because atoms which hold together and are
suitable to produce this result become mutually entangled, or
because currents collect from the earth and the waters ; and there
are several other ways in which it is not impossible for the
aggregations of such bodies into clouds to be brought about. And
that being so, rain may be produced from them sometimes by their
compression, sometimes by their transformation ;
[
100]
or again may be
caused by exhalations of moisture rising
125 from suitable places through the air, while a more
violent inundation is due to certain accumulations suitable for such
discharge. Thunder may be due to the rolling of wind in the hollow
parts of the clouds, as it is sometimes imprisoned in vessels
which we use ; or to the roaring of
fire in
them when blown by a wind,
126 or to the rending and disruption of clouds, or
to the friction and splitting up of clouds when they have become as
firm as ice.
[
101]
As in the whole survey, so in this particular point,
the facts invite us to give a plurality of explanations. Lightnings
too happen in a variety of ways. For when the clouds rub against
each other and collide, that collocation of atoms which is the cause
of fire generates lightning ; or it may be due to the flashing forth
from the clouds, by reason of winds, of particles capable of
producing this brightness ; or else it is squeezed out of the clouds
when they have been condensed either by their own action or by that
of the winds ; or again, the light diffused from the stars may be
enclosed in the clouds, then driven about by their motion and by
that of the winds, and finally make its escape from the clouds ; or
light of the finest texture may be filtered through the clouds
(whereby the clouds may be set on fire and thunder produced), and
the motion of this light may make lightning ; or it may arise from
the combustion of wind brought about by the violence of its motion
and the intensity of its compression ;
[
102]
or, when the clouds are rent
asunder by winds, and the atoms which generate fire are expelled,
these likewise cause lightning to appear. And it may easily be seen
that its occurrence is possible in many other ways, so long as we
hold fast to facts and take a general view of what is analogous to
them. Lightning precedes thunder, when the clouds are constituted as
mentioned above and the configuration which produces lightning is
expelled at the moment when the wind falls upon the cloud, and
the wind being rolled up afterwards produces the
roar of thunder ; or, if both are simultaneous, the lightning moves
with a greater velocity towards us
[
103]
and the thunder lags behind,
exactly as when persons who are striking blows are observed from a
distance.
127 A thunderbolt is caused when winds are
repeatedly collected, imprisoned, and violently ignited ; or when a
part is torn asunder and is more violently expelled downwards, the
rending being due to the fact that the compression of the clouds has
made the neighbouring parts more dense ; or again it may be due like
thunder merely to the expulsion of the imprisoned fire, when this
has accumulated and been more violently inflated with wind and has
torn the cloud, being unable to withdraw to the adjacent parts
because it is continually more and more closely
compressed--[generally by some high mountain where thunderbolts
mostly fall].
[
104]
And there are several other ways in which thunderbolts
may possibly be produced. Exclusion of myth is the sole condition
necessary ; and it will be excluded, if one properly attends to the
facts and hence draws inferences to interpret what is obscure.
"Fiery whirlwinds are due to the descent of a cloud forced
downwards like a pillar by the wind in full force and carried by a
gale round and round, while at the same time the outside wind gives
the cloud a lateral thrust ; or it may be due to a change of the
wind which veers to all points of the compass as a current of air
from above helps to force it to move ; or it may be that a strong
eddy of winds has been
started and is unable to
burst through laterally because the air around is closely condensed.
[
105]
And when they descend upon land, they cause what are called
tornadoes, in accordance with the various ways in which they are
produced through the force of the wind ; and when let down upon the
sea, they cause waterspouts.
"Earthquakes may be due to the
imprisonment of wind underground, and to its being interspersed with
small masses of earth and then set in continuous motion, thus
causing the earth to tremble. And the earth either takes in this
wind from without or from the falling in of foundations, when
undermined, into subterranean caverns, thus raising a wind in the
imprisoned air. Or they may be due to the propagation of movement
arising from the fall of many foundations and to its being again
checked when it encounters the more solid resistance of earth.
[
106]
And
there are many other causes to which these oscillations of the
earth may be due.
"Winds arise from time to time when foreign
matter continually and gradually finds its way into the air ; also
through the gathering of great store of water. The rest of the winds
arise when a few of them fall into the many hollows and they are
thus divided and multiplied.
"Hail is caused by the firmer
congelation and complete transformation, and subsequent distribution
into drops, of certain particles resembling wind : also by the
slighter congelation of certain particles of moisture and the
vicinity of certain particles of wind which at one and the same time
forces them together and makes them burst, so that they become
frozen in parts and in the whole mass.
[
107]
The round
shape of hailstones is not impossibly due to the extremities on
all sides being melted and to the fact that, as explained, particles
either of moisture or of wind surround them evenly on all sides and
in every quarter, when they freeze.
"Snow may be formed when
a fine rain issues from the clouds because the pores are symmetrical
and because of the continuous and violent pressure of the winds upon
clouds which are suitable ; and then this rain has been frozen on
its way because of some violent change to coldness in the regions
below the clouds. Or again, by congelation in clouds which have
uniform density a fall of snow might occur through the clouds which
contain moisture being densely packed in close proximity to each
other ; and these clouds produce a sort of compression and cause
hail, and this happens mostly in spring.
[
108]
And when frozen clouds rub
against each other, this accumulation of snow might be thrown off.
And there are other ways in which snow might be formed.
"Dew
is formed when such particles as are capable of producing this sort
of moisture meet each other from the air : again by their rising
from moist and damp places, the sort of place where dew is chiefly
formed, and their subsequent coalescence, so as to create moisture
and fall downwards, just as in several cases something similar is
observed to take place under our eyes.
[
109]
And the formation of
hoar-frost is not different from that of dew, certain particles of
such a nature becoming in some such way congealed owing to a certain
condition of cold air.
"Ice is formed by the
expulsion from the water of the circular, and the compression of the
scalene and acute-angled atoms contained in it ; further by the
accretion of such atoms from without, which being driven together
cause the water to solidify after the expulsion of a certain number
of round atoms.
"The rainbow arises when the sun shines upon
humid air ; or again by a certain peculiar blending of light with
air, which will cause either all the distinctive qualities of these
colours or else some of them belonging to a single kind, and from
the reflection of this light the air all around will be coloured as
we see it to be, as the sun shines upon its parts.
[
110]
The circular
shape which it assumes is due to the fact that the distance of every
point is perceived by our sight to be equal ; or it may be because,
the atoms in the air or in the clouds and deriving from the sun
having been thus united, the aggregate of them presents a sort of
roundness.
"A halo round the moon arises because the air on
all sides extends to the moon ; or because it equably raises upwards
the currents from the moon so high as to impress a circle upon the
cloudy mass and not to separate it altogether ; or because it raises
the air which immediately surrounds the moon symmetrically from
all sides up to a circumference round her and there forms a thick
ring.
[
111]
And this happens at certain parts either because a current has
forced its way in from without or because the heat has gained
possession of certain passages in order to effect this.
"Comets arise either because fire is nourished in
certain places at certain intervals in the heavens, if
circumstances are favourable ; or because at times the heaven has a
particular motion above us so that such stars appear ; or because
the stars themselves are set in motion under certain conditions and
come to our neighbourhood and show themselves. And their
disappearance is due to the causes which are the opposite of these.
[
112]
Certain stars may revolve without setting not only for the reason
alleged by some, because this is the part of the world round which,
itself unmoved, the rest revolves, but it may also be because a
circular eddy of air surrounds this part, which prevents them from
travelling out of sight like other stars ; or because there is a
dearth of necessary fuel farther on, while there is abundance in
that part where they are seen to be. Moreover there are several
other ways in which this might be brought about, as may be seen by
anyone capable of reasoning in accordance with the facts. The
wanderings of certain stars, if such wandering is their actual
motion, and the regular movement of certain other stars,
[
113]
may be
accounted for by saying that they originally moved in a circle and
were constrained, some of them to be whirled round with the same
uniform rotation and others with a whirling motion which varied ;
but it may also be that according to the diversity of the regions
traversed in some places there are uniform tracts of air, forcing
them forward in one direction and burning uniformly, in others these
tracts present such irregularities as cause the motions observed. To
assign a single cause for these effects when the facts suggest
several causes is madness and a strange inconsistency ; yet it is
done by adherents of rash astronomy, who assign meaning-
less causes for the stars whenever they persist in
saddling the divinity with burdensome tasks.
[
114]
That certain stars are
seen to be left behind by others may be because they travel more
slowly, though they go the same round as the others ; or it may be
that they are drawn back by the same whirling motion and move in the
opposite direction ; or again it may be that some travel over a
larger and others over a smaller space in making the same
revolution. But to lay down as assured a single explanation of these
phenomena is worthy of those who seek to dazzle the multitude with
marvels.
"Falling stars, as they are called, may in some
cases be due to the mutual friction of the stars themselves, in
other cases to the expulsion of certain parts when that mixture of
fire and air takes place which was mentioned when we were discussing
lightning ;
[
115]
or it may be due to the meeting of atoms capable of
generating fire, which accord so well as to produce this result, and
their subsequent motion wherever the impulse which brought them
together at first leads them ; or it may be that wind collects in
certain dense mist-like masses and, since it is imprisoned, ignites
and then bursts forth upon whatever is round about it, and is
carried to that place to which its motion impels it. And there are
other ways in which this can be brought about without recourse to
myths.
"The fact that the weather is sometimes foretold from
the behaviour of certain animals is a mere coincidence in time.
128 For the animals
offer no necessary reason why a storm should be produced ; and no
divine being sits observing when these animals go out and afterwards
fulfilling the signs which they
have given.
[
116]
For
such folly as this would not possess the most ordinary being if ever
so little enlightened, much less one who enjoys perfect
felicity.
"All this, Pythocles, you should keep in mind ; for
then you will escape a long way from myth, and you will be able to
view in their connexion the instances which are similar to these.
But above all give yourself up to the study of first principles
and of infinity and of kindred subjects, and further of the
standards and of the feelings and of the end for which we choose
between them. For to study these subjects together will easily
enable you to understand the causes of the particular phenomena. And
those who have not fully accepted this, in proportion as they have
not done so, will be ill acquainted with these very subjects, nor
have they secured the end for which they ought to be studied."
[
117]
Such
are his views on celestial phenomena.
But as to the conduct
of life, what we ought to avoid and what to choose, he writes as
follows.
129 Before quoting his words, however, let me go into the
views of Epicurus himself and his school concerning the wise
man.
There are three motives to injurious acts among
men--hatred, envy, and contempt ; and these the wise man overcomes
by reason. Moreover, he who has once become wise never more assumes
the opposite habit, not even in semblance, if he can help it. He
will be more susceptible of emotion than other men : that will be no
hindrance to his wisdom. However, not every bodily constitution nor
every nationality would permit a man to become wise.
[
118]
Even on the rack the wise man is happy. He alone will
feel gratitude towards friends, present and absent alike, and show
it by word and deed. When on the rack, however, he will give vent to
cries and groans. As regards women he will submit to the
restrictions imposed by the law, as Diogenes says in his epitome of
Epicurus' ethical doctrines. Nor will he punish his servants ;
rather he will pity them and make allowance on occasion for those
who are of good character. The Epicureans do not suffer the wise man
to fall in love ; nor will he trouble himself about funeral rites;
according to them love does not come by divine inspiration : so
Diogenes in his twelfth book. The wise man will not make fine
speeches. No one was ever the better for sexual indulgence, and it
is well if he be not the worse.
[
119]
Nor, again, will the wise man
marry and rear a family : so Epicurus says in the
Problems and in the
De Natura.
Occasionally he may marry owing to special circumstances in his
life. Some too will turn aside from their purpose. Nor will he
drivel, when drunken : so Epicurus says in the
Symposium. Nor will he take part in politics, as is
stated in the first book
On Life ; nor will he
make himself a tyrant ; nor will he turn Cynic (so the second book
On Life tells us) ; nor will he be a mendicant.
But even when he has lost his sight, he will not withdraw
himself
130 from life : this is stated in the same book. The wise
man will also feel grief, according to Diogenes in the fifth book of
his
Epilecta. And he will take a suit into
court.
[
120]
He will leave written words behind him, but will not compose
panegyric. He will have regard to his property and to the
future.
He will be fond of the country. He will
be armed against fortune and will never give up a friend. He will
pay just so much regard to his reputation as not to be looked down
upon. He will take more delight than other men in state
festivals.
131
132The wise man will set up votive images.
Whether he is well off or not will be matter of indifference to him.
Only the wise man will be able to converse correctly about music and
poetry, without however actually writing poems himself. One wise man
does not move more wisely than another. And he will make money, but
only by his wisdom, if he should be in poverty, and he will pay
court to a king, if need be. He will be grateful to anyone when he
is corrected. He will found a school, but not in such a manner as to
draw the crowd after him ; and will give readings in public, but
only by request. He will be a dogmatist but not a mere sceptic ; and
he will be like himself even when asleep. And he will on occasion
die for a friend.
The school holds that sins are not all
equal ; that health is in some cases a good, in others a thing
indifferent ; that courage is not a natural gift but comes from
calculation of expediency ; and that friendship is prompted by our
needs. One of the friends, however, must make the first advances
(just as we have to cast seed into the earth), but it is maintained
by a partnership in the enjoyment of life's pleasures.
[
121]
Two
sorts of happiness can be conceived, the one the highest possible,
such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented, the other
admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures.
We must now
proceed to his letter.
"Epicurus to Menoeceus,
greeting.
[
122]
"Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young
nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is
too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that
the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is
past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not
yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young ought
to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he
may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been,
and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same
time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.
So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness,
since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be
absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.
[
123]
"Those things which without ceasing I have declared unto thee,
those do, and exercise thyself therein, holding them to be the
elements of right life. First believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by
the common sense of mankind ; and so believing, thou shalt not
affirm of him aught that is foreign to his immortality or that
agrees not with blessedness, but shalt believe about him whatever
may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality. For verily
there are gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest ; but they are
not such as the multitude believe, seeing that men do not
steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the
man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who
affirms of the gods what the multi-
tude
believes about them is truly impious.
[
124]
For the utterances of the
multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false
assumptions ; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the
wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand
of the gods, seeing that they are always favourable to their own
good qualities and take pleasure in men like unto themselves, but
reject as alien whatever is not of their kind.
"Accustom
thyself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil
imply sentience, and death is the privation of all sentience ;
therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes
the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an
illimitable time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality.
[
125]
For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly apprehended that
there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore,
is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain
when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatsoever
causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless
pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of
evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not
come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then,
either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not
and the dead exist no longer.
133 But in the world, at one time men shun death as the
greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite
from the evils in life.
[
126]
The wise man does not deprecate life nor
does he fear the cessation
of life. The thought
of life is no offence to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded
as an evil. And even as men choose of food not merely and simply the
larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the
time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest.
And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a
good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirableness
of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well
and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to
be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through
the gates of Hades.
134
[
127]
For if he
truly believes this, why does he not depart from life ? It were easy
for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks
only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who hear
believe him not.
"We must remember that the future is neither
wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon
it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not
to come.
"We must also reflect that of desires some are
natural, others are groundless ; and that of the natural some are
necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the
necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if
the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live.
[
128]
He
who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will
direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body
and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a
blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain
and fear, and, when once we
have attained all
this, the tempest of the soul is laid ; seeing that the living
creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking,
nor to look for anything else by which the good of the soul and of
the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained because of the
absence of pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of
pleasure. Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a
blessed life.
[
129]
Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the
starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we
come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of
every good thing. And since pleasure is our first and native good,
for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but
ofttimes pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues
from them. And ofttimes we consider pains superior to pleasures when
submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a
greater pleasure. While therefore all pleasure because it is
naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is choiceworthy, just
as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned.
[
130]
It is,
however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the
conveniences and inconveniences, that all these matters must be
judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the
contrary, as a good. Again, we regard independence of outward things
as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to
be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly
persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand
least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured
and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare
gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the
pain of want has been removed,
[
131]
while bread and water confer the
highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To
habituate one's self, therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet
supplies all that is needful for health, and enables a man to meet
the necessary requirements of life without shrinking, and it places
us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare
and renders us fearless of fortune.
"When we say, then, that
pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the
prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do
by some through ignorance, prejudice, or wilful misrepresentation.
By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble
in the soul.
[
132]
It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and
of revelry, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other
delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life ;
it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and
avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest
tumults take possession of the soul. Of all this the beginning and
the greatest good is prudence. Wherefore prudence is a more
precious thing even than philosophy ; from it spring all the other
virtues, for it teaches that we cannot lead a life of pleasure which
is not also a life of prudence, honour, and justice ; nor lead a
life of prudence, honour, and justice, which is not also a life of
pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life,
and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.
[
133]
"Who, then, is
superior in thy judgement to such a man ? He holds a holy belief
concerning the gods,
and is altogether free
from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the end fixed
by nature, and understands how easily the limit of good things can
be reached and attained, and how either the duration or the
intensity of evils is but slight. Destiny, which some introduce as
sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming rather that
some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through
our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility
and that chance or fortune is inconstant ; whereas our own actions
are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach.
[
134]
It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to
bow beneath that yoke of destiny which the natural philosophers have
imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we
honour the gods, while the necessity of the naturalists is deaf to
all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god, as the world in
general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder ; nor to
be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or
evil is dispensed by chance to men so as to make life blessed,
though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil.
He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the
prosperity of the fool.
[
135]
It is better, in short, that what is well
judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of
chance.
"Exercise thyself in these and kindred precepts day
and night, both by thyself and with him who is like unto thee ; then
never, either in waking or in dream, wilt thou be disturbed, but
wilt live as a god among men. For man loses all semblance of
mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings."
Elsewhere he rejects the whole of divination,
135 as
in the short epitome, and says, "No means of predicting the future
really exists, and if it did, we must regard what happens according
to it as nothing to us."
Such are his views on life and
conduct ; and he has discoursed upon them at greater length
elsewhere.
[
136]
He differs from the Cyrenaics
136 with regard to pleasure. They do not include under
the term the pleasure which is a state of rest, but only that which
consists in motion. Epicurus admits both ; also pleasure of mind as
well as of body, as he states in his work
On Choice
and Avoidance and in that
On the Ethical
End, and in the first book of his work
On Human
Life and in the epistle to his philosopher friends in
Mytilene. So also Diogenes in the seventeenth book of his
Epilecta, and Metrodorus in his
Timocrates, whose actual words are : "Thus pleasure
being conceived both as that species which consists in motion and
that which is a state of rest." The words of Epicurus in his work
On Choice are : "Peace of mind and freedom from
pain are pleasures which imply a state of rest ; joy and delight are
seen to consist in motion and activity."
[
137]
He further disagrees
with the Cyrenaics in that they hold that pains of body are worse
than mental pains ; at all events evil-doers are made to suffer
bodily punishment ; whereas Epicurus holds the pains of the mind to
be the worse ; at any rate the flesh endures the storms of the
present alone, the mind those of the past and future as well as the
present. In this way also he holds mental pleasures to be
greater than those of the body. And as proof that
pleasure is the end he adduces the fact that living things, so soon
as they are born, are well content with pleasure and are at enmity
with pain, by the prompting of nature and apart from reason. Left to
our own feelings, then, we shun pain ; as when even Heracles,
devoured by the poisoned robe, cries aloud,
And bites and
yells, and rock to rock resounds,
Headlands of Locris and
Euboean cliffs.
137
[
138]
And we
choose the virtues too on account of pleasure and not for their own
sake, as we take medicine for the sake of health. So too in the
twentieth book of his
Epilecta says Diogenes,
who also calls education
῾ἀγωγἤ
recreation
῾ διαγωγ ἤ. Epicurus
describes virtue as the
sine qua non of
pleasure,
i.e. the one thing without which
pleasure cannot be, everything else, food, for instance, being
separable,
i.e. not indispensable to
pleasure.
Come, then, let me set the seal, so to say, on my
entire work as well as on this philosopher's life by citing his
Sovran Maxims,
138 therewith bringing the whole work to a close and
making the end of it to coincide with the beginning of
happiness.
[
139]
1. A blessed and eternal being has no trouble
himself and brings no trouble upon any other being ; hence he is
exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for every such
movement implies weakness [
Elsewhere he says that
the gods are discernible by reason alone, some being numerically
distinct, while others
result uniformly from the continuous influx of similar
images directed to the same spot and in human form.]
2.
Death is nothing to us ; for the body, when it has been resolved
into its elements, has no feeling, and that which has no feeling is
nothing to us.
3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit
in the removal of all pain. When pleasure is present, so long as it
is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of
both together.
[
140]
4. Continuous pain does not last long in the
flesh ; on the contrary, pain, if extreme, is present a very short
time, and even that degree of pain which barely outweighs pleasure
in the flesh does not last for many days together. Illnesses of long
duration even permit of an excess of pleasure over pain in the
flesh.
5. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without
living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live
wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any
one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to
live wisely, though he lives well and justly, it is impossible for
him to live a pleasant life.
[
141]
6. In order to obtain security
from other men any means whatsoever of procuring this was a natural
good.
139
7. Some men have sought to become famous and renowned, thinking
that thus they would make themselves secure against their
fellow-men. If, then, the life of such persons really was secure,
they attained natural good ; if, however, it was insecure, they have
not attained the end which by nature's own prompting they originally
sought.
8. No pleasure is in itself evil, but
the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many
times greater than the pleasures themselves.
[
142]
9. If all
pleasure had been capable of accumulation,--if this had gone on
not only by recurrence in time, but all over the frame or, at any
rate, over the principal parts of man's nature, there would never
have been any difference between one pleasure and another, as in
fact there is.
10. If the objects which are productive of
pleasures to profligate persons really freed them from fears of the
mind,--the fears, I mean, inspired by celestial and atmospheric
phenomena, the fear of death, the fear of pain ; if, further, they
taught them to limit their desires, we should never have any fault
to find with such persons, for they would then be filled with
pleasures to overflowing on all sides and would be exempt from all
pain, whether of body or mind, that is, from all evil.
11. If
we had never been molested by alarms at celestial and atmospheric
phenomena, nor by the misgiving that death somehow affects us, nor
by neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, we should have
had no need to study natural science.
[
143]
12. It would be
impossible to banish fear on matters of the highest importance, if a
man did not know the nature of the whole universe, but lived in
dread of what the legends tell us. Hence without the study of nature
there was no enjoyment of unmixed pleasures.
13. There would
be no advantage in providing security against our fellow-men, so
long as we were alarmed by occurrences over our heads or beneath the
earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless
universe.
14. When tolerable security against
our fellow-men is attained, then on a basis of power sufficient to
afford support
140and of material
prosperity arises in most genuine form the security of a quiet
private life withdrawn from the multitude.
[
144]
15. Nature's
wealth at once has its bounds and is easy to procure ; but the
wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite distance.
16.
Fortune but seldom interferes with the wise man ; his greatest and
highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason
throughout the course of his life.
17. The just man enjoys
the greatest peace of mind, while the unjust is full of the utmost
disquietude.
18. Pleasure in the flesh admits no increase
when once the pain of want has been removed ; after that it only
admits of variation. The limit of pleasure in the mind, however, is
reached when we reflect on the things themselves and their congeners
which cause the mind the greatest alarms.
[
145]
19. Unlimited time
and limited time afford an equal amount of pleasure, if we measure
the limits of that pleasure by reason.
20. The flesh receives
as unlimited the limits of pleasure ; and to provide it requires
unlimited time. But the mind, grasping in thought what the end and
limit of the flesh is, and banishing the terrors of futurity,
procures a complete and perfect life, and has no longer any need of
unlimited time. Nevertheless it does not shun pleasure, and even
in the
hour of death, when ushered out of
existence by circumstances, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the
best life.
[
146]
21. He who understands the limits of life knows
how easy it is to procure enough to remove the pain of want and make
the whole of life complete and perfect. Hence he has no longer any
need of things which are not to be won save by labour and
conflict.
22. We must take into account as the end all that
really exists and all clear evidence of sense to which we refer our
opinions ; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and
confusion.
23. If you fight against all your sensations, you
will have no standard to which to refer, and thus no means of
judging even those judgements which you pronounce false.
[
147]
24.
If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to
discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between
matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in
sensation or in feelings or in any presentative perception of the
mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations
by your groundless belief and so you will be rejecting the standard
of truth altogether. If in your ideas based upon opinion you
hastily affirm as true all that awaits confirmation as well as that
which does not, you will not escape error, as you will be
maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case of judging
between right and wrong opinion.
[
148]
25. If you do not on every
separate occasion refer each of your actions to the end prescribed
by nature, but instead of this in the act of choice or avoidance
swerve aside to some other end, your acts will not
be consistent with your theories.
26. All such desires as
lead to no pain when they remain ungratified are unnecessary, and
the longing is easily got rid of, when the thing desired is
difficult to procure or when the desires seem likely to produce
harm.
27. Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to
ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most
important is the acquisition of friends.
28. The same
conviction which inspires confidence that nothing we have to fear is
eternal or even of long duration, also enables us to see that even
in our limited conditions of life nothing enhances our security so
much as friendship.
[
29]
29. Of our desires some are natural and
necessary ; others are natural, but not necessary ; others, again,
are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to illusory opinion.
[Epicurus regards as natural and necessary desires which bring
relief from pain, as
e.g. drink when we are
thirsty ; while by natural and not necessary he means those which
merely diversify the pleasure without removing the pain, as
e.g. costly viands ; by the neither natural nor
necessary he means desires for crowns and the erection of statues in
one's honour.--Schol.]
30. Those natural desires which entail
no pain when not gratified, though their objects are vehemently
pursued, are also due to illusory opinion ; and when they are not
got rid of, it is not because of their own nature, but because of
the man's illusory opinion.
[
150]
31. Natural justice is a symbol
or expression of
expediency, to prevent one man
from harming or being harmed by another.
32. Those animals
which are incapable of making covenants with one another, to the end
that they may neither inflict nor suffer harm, are without either
justice or injustice. And those tribes which either could not or
would not form mutual covenants to the same end are in like
case.
33. There never was an absolute justice, but only an
agreement made in reciprocal intercourse in whatever localities
now and again from time to time, providing against the infliction or
suffering of harm.
[
151]
34. Injustice is not in itself an evil,
but only in its consequence, viz. the terror which is excited by
apprehension that those appointed to punish such offences will
discover the injustice.
35. It is impossible for the man who
secretly violates any article of the social compact to feel
confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already
escaped ten thousand times ; for right on to the end of his life he
is never sure he will not be detected.
36. Taken generally,
justice is the same for all, to wit, something found expedient in
mutual intercourse ; but in its application to particular cases of
locality or conditions of whatever kind, it varies under different
circumstances.
[
152]
37. Among the things accounted just by conventional law, whatever in the needs of mutual intercourse is
attested to be expedient, is thereby stamped as just, whether or not
it be the same for all ; and in case any law is made and does not
prove suitable to the expediencies of mutual intercourse, then this
is
no longer just. And should the expediency
which is expressed by the law vary and only for a time correspond
with the prior conception, nevertheless for the time being it was
just, so long as we do not trouble ourselves about empty words, but
look simply at the facts.
[
153]
38. Where without any change in
circumstances the conventional laws, when judged by their consequences, were seen not to correspond with the notion of justice,
such laws were not really just ; but wherever the laws have ceased
to be expedient in consequence of a change in circumstances, in that
case the laws were for the time being just when they were expedient
for the mutual intercourse of the citizens, and subsequently ceased
to be just when they ceased to be expedient.
[
154]
39. He who best
knew how to meet fear of external foes made into one family all the
creatures he could ; and those he could not, he at any rate did not
treat as aliens ; and where he found even this impossible, he
avoided all intercourse, and, so far as was expedient, kept them
at a distance.
40. Those who were best able to provide themselves with the means of security against their neighbours, being
thus in possession of the surest guarantee, passed the most
agreeable life in each other's society ; and their enjoyment of the
fullest intimacy was such that, if one of them died before his time,
the survivors did not lament his death as if it called for
commiseration.