In giving such explanations as those above, Epicurus professed to be most liberal, fair and tolerant, saying that all the different conceptions which occur to us in relation to sensuous objects—at our pleasure, we may say,—can be referred to that which we cannot ourselves directly observe; we should not assert any one way to be the right one, for many ways may be so. In so saying, Epicurus is talking idly; his words fall on the ear and the fancy, but looked on more narrowly they disappear. So, for instance, we see the moon shine, without being able to have any nearer experience of it. On this subject Epicurus says: “The moon may have its own light, or a light borrowed from the sun; for even on earth we see things which shine of themselves, and many which are illuminated by others. Nothing hinders us from observing heavenly things in the light of various previous experiences, and from adopting hypotheses and explanations in accordance with these. The waxing and waning of the moon may also be caused by the revolution of this body, or through changes in the air” (according as vapour is modified in one way or another), “or also by means of adding and taking away somewhat: in short, in all the ways whereby that which has a certain appearance to us is caused to show such appearance.” Thus there are to be found in Epicurus all these trivialities of friction, concussion, &c., as when he gives his opinion of lightning on the analogy of how we see fire of other kinds kindled: “Lightning is explained by quite a large number of possible conceptions; for instance, that through the friction and collision of clouds the figuration of fire is emitted, and lightning is produced.” In precisely the same way modern physicists transfer the production of an electric spark, when glass and silk are rubbed against each other, to the clouds. For, as we see a spark both in lightning and electricity, we conclude from this circumstance common to both that the two are analogical; therefore, we come to the conclusion that lightning also is an electric phenomenon. But clouds are not hard bodies, and by moisture electricity is more likely to be dispersed; therefore, such talk has just as little truth in it as the fancy of Epicurus. He goes on to say: “Or lightning may also be produced by being expelled from the clouds by means of the airy bodies which form lightning—by being struck out when the clouds are pressed together either by each other or by the wind,” &c. With the Stoics things are not much better. Application of sensuous conceptions according to analogy is often termed comprehension or explanation, but in reality there is in such a process not the faintest approach to thought or comprehension. “One man,” adds Epicurus, “may select; one of these modes, and reject the others, not considering what is possible for man to know, and what is impossible, and therefore striving to attain to a knowledge of the unknowable.”[158]

This application of sensuous images to what has a certain similarity to them, is pronounced to be the basis and the knowledge of the cause, because, in his opinion, a transference such as this cannot be corroborated by the testimony of mere immediate sensation; thus the Stoic method of seeking a basis in thought is excluded, and in this respect the mode of explanation adopted by Epicurus is directly opposed to that of the Stoics. One circumstance which strikes us at once in Epicurus is the lack of observation and experience with regard to the mutual relations of bodies: but the kernel of the matter, the principle, is nothing else than the principle of modern physics. This method of Epicurus has been attacked and derided, but on this score no one need be ashamed of or fight shy of it, if he is a physicist; for what Epicurus says is not a whit worse than what the moderns assert. Indeed, in the case of Epicurus the satisfactory assurance is likewise always present of his emphasizing the fact most strongly that just because the evidence of the senses is found to be lacking, we must not take our stand on any one analogy. Elsewhere he in the same way makes light of analogy, and when one person accepts this possibility and another that other possibility, he admires the cleverness of the second and troubles himself little about the explanation given by the first; it may be so, or it may not be so.[159] This is a method devoid of reason, which reaches no further than to general conceptions. Nevertheless, if Physical Science is considered to relate to immediate experience on the one hand, and, on the other hand—in respect of that which cannot be immediately experienced—to relate to the application of the above according to a resemblance existing between it and that which is not matter of experience, in that case Epicurus may well be looked on as the chief promoter, if not the originator of this method, and also as having asserted that it is identical with knowledge. Of the Epicurean method in philosophy we may say this, that it likewise has a side on which it possesses value, and we may in some measure assent when we hear, as we frequently do, the Epicurean physics favourably spoken of. Aristotle and the earlier philosophers took their start in natural philosophy from universal thought a priori, and from this developed the Notion; this is the one side. The other side, which is just as necessary, demands that experience should be worked up into universality, that laws should be found out; that is to say, that the result which follows from the abstract Idea should coincide with the general conception to which experience and observation have led up. The a priori is with Aristotle, for instance, most excellent but not sufficient, because to it there is lacking connection with and relation to experience and observation. This leading up of the particular to the universal is the finding out of laws, natural forces, and so on. It may thus be said that Epicurus is the inventor of empiric Natural Science, of empiric Psychology. In contrast to the Stoic ends, conceptions of the understanding, experience is the present as it appears to the senses: there we have abstract limited understanding, without truth in itself, and therefore without the present in time and the reality of Nature; here we have this sense of Nature, which is more true than these other hypotheses.

The same effect which followed the rise of a knowledge of natural laws, &c., in the modern world was produced by the Epicurean philosophy in its own sphere, that is to say, in so far as it is directed against the arbitrary invention of causes. The more, in later times, men made acquaintance with the laws of Nature, the more superstition, miracles, astrology, &c. disappeared; all this fades away owing to the contradiction offered to it by the knowledge of natural laws. The method of Epicurus was directed more especially against the senseless superstition of astrology, &c., in whose methods there is neither reason nor thought, for it is quite a thing of the imagination, downright fabrication being resorted to, or what we may even term lying. In contrast with this, the way in which Epicurus works, when the conceptions and not thought are concerned, accords with truth. For it does not go beyond what is perceived by the sight, and hearing, and the other senses, but keeps to what is present and not alien to the mind, not speaking of certain things as if they could be seen and heard, when that is quite impossible, seeing that the things are pure inventions. The effect of the Epicurean philosophy in its own time was therefore this, that it set itself against the superstition of the Greeks and Romans, and elevated men above it.[160] All the nonsense about birds flying to right or to left, or a hare running across the path, or men deciding how they are to act according to the entrails of animals, or according as chickens are lively or dull—all that kind of superstition the Epicurean philosophy made short work of, by permitting that only to be accepted as truth which is counted as true by sense perception through the instrumentality of anticipations; and from it more than anything those conceptions which have altogether denied the supersensuous have proceeded. The physics of Epicurus were therefore famous for the reason that they introduced more enlightened views in regard to what is physical, and banished the fear of the gods. Superstition passes straightway from immediate appearances to God, angels, demons; or it expects from finite things other effects than the conditions admit of, phenomena of a higher kind. To this the Epicurean natural philosophy is utterly opposed, because in the sphere of the finite it refuses to go beyond the finite, and admits finite causes alone; for the so-called enlightenment is the fact of remaining in the sphere of the finite. There connection is sought for in other finite things, in conditions which are themselves conditioned; superstition, on the contrary, rightly or wrongly, passes at once to what is above us. However correct the Epicurean method may be in the sphere of the conditioned, it is not so in other spheres. Thus if I say that electricity comes from God, I am right and yet wrong. For if I ask for a cause in this same sphere of the conditioned, and give God as answer, I say too much; though this answer fits all questions, since God is the cause of everything, what I would know here is the particular connection of the phenomenon. On the other hand, in this sphere even the Notion is already something higher; but this loftier way of looking at things which we met with in the earlier philosophers, was quite put an end to by Epicurus, since with superstition there also passed away self-dependent connection and the world of the Ideal.

To the natural philosophy of Epicurus there also belongs his conception of the soul, which he looks on as having the nature of a thing, just as the theories of our own day regard it as nerve-filaments, cords in tension, or rows of minute balls (p. 294). His description of the soul has therefore but little meaning, since here also he draws his conclusion by analogy, and connects therewith the metaphysical theory of atoms: “The soul consists of the finest and roundest atoms, which are something quite different from fire, being a fine spirit which is distributed through the whole aggregate of the body, and partakes of its warmth.” Epicurus has consequently established a quantitative difference only, since these finest atoms are surrounded by a mass of coarser atoms and dispersed through this larger aggregate. “The part which is devoid of reason is dispersed in the body” as the principle of life, “but the self-conscious part (τὸ λογικόν) is in the breast, as may be perceived from joy and sadness. The soul is capable of much change in itself, owing to the fineness of its parts, which can move very rapidly: it sympathizes with the rest of the aggregate, as we see by the thoughts, emotions and so on; but when it is taken away from us we die. But the soul, on its part, has also the greatest sympathy with sensuous perception; yet it would have nothing in common with it, were it not in a certain measure covered by the rest of the aggregate” (the body)—an utterly illogical conception. “The rest of this aggregate, which this principle provides for the soul, is thereby also partaker, on its part, of a like condition” (sensuous perception), “yet not of all that the former possesses; therefore, when the soul escapes, sensuous perception exists no more for it. The aggregate spoken of above has not this power in itself, but derives it from the other which is brought into union with it, and the sentient movement comes to pass through the flow of sympathy which they have in common.”[161] Of such conceptions it is impossible to make anything. The above-mentioned (p. 287) interruption of the streaming together of images of external things with our organs, as the ground of error, is now explained by the theory that the soul consists of peculiar atoms, and the atoms are separated from one another by vacuum. With such empty words and meaningless conceptions we shall no longer detain ourselves; we can have no respect for the philosophic thoughts of Epicurus, or rather he has no thoughts for us to respect.

[4. Ethics.]

Besides this description of the soul the philosophy of mind contains the ethics of Epicurus, which of all his doctrines are the most decried, and therefore the most interesting; they may, however, also be said to constitute the best part of that philosophy. The practical philosophy of Epicurus depends on the individuality of self-consciousness, just as much as does that of the Stoics; and the end of his ethics is in a measure the same, the unshaken tranquillity of the soul, and more particularly an undisturbed pure enjoyment of itself. Of course, if we regard the abstract principle involved in the ethics of Epicurus, our verdict cannot be other than exceedingly unfavourable. For if sensation, the feeling of pain and pleasure, is the criterion for the right, good, true, for that which man should make his aim in life, morality is really abrogated, or the moral principle is in fact not moral; at least we hold that the way is thereby opened up to all manner of arbitrariness in action. If it is now alleged that feeling is the ground of action, and that because I find a certain impulse in myself it is for that reason right—this is Epicurean reasoning. Everyone may have different feelings, and the same person, may feel differently at different times; in the same way with Epicurus it may be left to the subjectivity of the individual to determine the course of action. But it is of importance to notice this, that when Epicurus sets tip pleasure as the end, he concedes this only so far as its enjoyment is the result of philosophy. We have before now remarked (vol. i., p. 470) that even with the Cyrenaics, while on the one hand sensation was certainly made the principle, on the other hand it was essential that thought should be in intimate connection with it. Similarly it is the case with Epicurus that while he designated pleasure as the criterion of the good, he demanded a highly cultured consciousness, a power of reflection, which weighs pleasure to see if it is not combined with a greater degree of pain, and in this way forms a correct estimate of what it is. Diogenes Laërtius (X. 144) quotes from him with regard to this point of view: “The wise man owes but little to chance; Reason attains what is of the greatest consequence, and both directs it and will direct it his whole life long.” The particular pleasure is therefore regarded only with reference to the whole, and sensuous perception is not the one and only principle of the Epicureans; but while they made pleasure the principle, they made a principle at the same time of that happiness which is attained, and only attainable by reason; so that this happiness is to be sought in such a way that it may be free and independent of external contingencies, the contingencies of sensation. The true Epicureans were therefore, just as much as the Stoics, raised above all particular ties, for Epicurus, too, made his aim the undisturbed tranquillity of the wise man. In order to be free from superstition Epicurus specially requires physical science, as it sets men free from all the opinions which most disturb their rest—opinions regarding the gods, and their punishments, and more particularly from the thought of death.[162] Freed from all this fear, and from the imaginings of the men who make any particular object their end and aim, the wise man seeks pleasure only as something universal, and holds this alone to be positive. Here the universal and the particular meet; or the particular, regarded only in its bearings to the whole, is raised into the form of universality. Thus it happens that, while materially, or as to content, Epicurus makes individuality a principle, on the other hand he requires the universality of thinking, and his philosophy is thus in accordance with that of the Stoics.

Seneca, who is known as a thorough-going and uncompromising Stoic, when in his treatise De Vita Beata (c. 12, 13) he happens to speak of the Epicureans, gives testimony which is above suspicion to the ethical system of Epicurus: “My verdict is, however—and in thus speaking I go, to some extent, against many of my own countrymen—that the moral precepts of Epicurus prescribe a way of life that is holy and just, and, when closely considered, even sorrowful. For every pleasure of Epicurus turns on something very paltry and poor, and we scarcely know how restricted it is, and how insipid. The self-same law which we lay down for virtue he prescribes for pleasure; he requires that Nature be obeyed; but very little in the way of luxury is required to satisfy Nature. What have we then here? He who calls a lazy, self-indulgent, and dissolute life happiness merely seeks a good authority for a thing that is evil, and while, drawn on by a dazzling name, he turns in the direction where he hears the praise of pleasure sounding, he does not follow the pleasures to which he is invited by Epicurus, but those which he himself brings with him. Men who thus abandon themselves to crime seek only to hide their wickedness under the mantle of philosophy, and to furnish for their excesses a pretext and an excuse. Thus it is by no means permitted that youth should hold up its head again for the reason that to the laxity of its morality an honourable title has been affixed.” By the employment of our reflective powers, which keep guard over pleasure and consider whether there can be any enjoyment in that which is fraught with dangers, fear, anxiety and other troubles, the possibility of our obtaining pleasure pure and unalloyed is reduced to a minimum. The principle of Epicurus is to live in freedom and ease, and with the mind at rest, and to this end it is needful to renounce much of that which men allow to sway them, and in which they find their pleasure. The life of a Stoic is therefore but little different from that of an Epicurean who keeps well before his eyes what Epicurus enjoins.

It might perhaps occur to us that the Cyrenaics had the same moral principle as the Epicureans, but Diogenes Laërtius (X. 139, 136, 137) shows us the difference that there was between them. The Cyrenaics rather made pleasure as a particular thing their end, while Epicurus, on the contrary, regarded it as a means, since he asserted painlessness to be pleasure, and allowed of no intermediate state. “Neither do the Cyrenaics recognize pleasure in rest (καταστηματικήν), but only in the determination of motion,” or as something affirmative, that consists in the enjoyment of the pleasant; “Epicurus, on the contrary, admits both—the pleasure of the body as well as that of the soul.” He meant by this that pleasure in rest is negative, as the absence of the unpleasant, and also an inward contentment, whereby rest is maintained within the mind. Epicurus explained these two kinds of pleasure more clearly as follows: “Freedom from fear and desire (ἀταραξία) and from pain and trouble (ἀπονία) are the passive pleasures (καταστηματικὶα ἡδοναί),”—the setting of our affections on nothing which we may run the risk of losing; pleasures of the senses, on the other hand, like “joy and mirth (χαρὰ δὲ καὶ εὐφροσύνη), are pleasures involving movement (κατὰ κίνησιν ἐνεργείᾳ βλέπονται.9)” The former pleasures Epicurus held to be the truest and highest. “Besides this, pain of the body was held by the Cyrenaics to be worse than sorrow of the soul, while with the Epicureans this is reversed.”

The main teaching of Epicurus in respect of morals is contained in a letter to Men\nceus, which Diogenes Laërtius has preserved, and in which Epicurus expresses himself as follows: “The youth must neither be slow to study philosophy, nor must the old man feel it a burden, for no one is either too young or too old to study the health of his soul. We must therefore endeavour to find out wherein the happy life consists; the following are its elements: First, we must hold that God is a living Being, incorruptible and happy, as the general belief supposes Him to be; and that nothing is lacking to His incorruptibility nor to His happiness. But though the existence of the gods is known to be a fact, yet they are not such as the multitude suppose them to be. He is therefore not impious who discards his faith in the gods of the multitude, but he who applies to them the opinions entertained of them by the mass.” By these gods of Epicurus we can understand nothing else than the Holy, the Universal, in concrete form. The Stoics held more to the ordinary conception, without indeed giving much thought to the Being of God; with the Epicureans, on the other hand, the gods express an immediate Idea of the system. Epicurus says: “That which is holy and incorruptible has itself no trouble nor causes it to others; therefore it is unstirred by either anger or show of favour, for it is in weakness only that such find a place. The gods may be known by means of Reason; they consist partly in Number; others are the perfected type of man, which, owing to the similarity of the images, arises from the continuous confluence of like images on one and the same subject.”[163] The gods are thus the altogether general images which we receive into ourselves; and Cicero says (De Natura Deorum, 18, 38) that they come singly upon us in sleep. This general image, which is at the same time an anthropomorphic conception, is the same to which we give the name of Ideal, only that here the source assigned to it is the reiterated occurrence of images. The gods thus seem to Epicurus to be Ideals of the holy life; they are also existent things, consisting of the finest atoms; they are, however, pure souls, unmixed with any grosser element, and therefore exempt from toil and trouble and pain. Their self-enjoyment is wholly passive, as it must be if consistent, for action has always in it something alien, the opposition of itself and reality, and the toil and trouble which are involved in it really represent the aspect of consciousness of opposition rather than that of realization. The gods lead an existence of pure and passive self enjoyment, and trouble themselves not with the affairs of the world and of men. Epicurus goes on to say: “Men must pay reverence to the gods on account of the perfection of their nature and their surpassing holiness, not in order to gain from them some special good, or for the sake of this or that advantage,”[164] The manner in which Epicurus represents the gods as corporeal Beings in human likeness has been much derided; thus Cicero, for instance, in the passage quoted (c. 18) laughs at Epicurus for alleging that the gods have only quasi bodies, flesh and blood. But from this there follows only that they are, as it were, the implicit, as we see it stated of the soul and things palpable to the senses, that they have behind them what is implicit. Our talk of qualities is no better; for if justice, goodness, and so on, are to be taken in sensu eminentiori, and not as they are with men, we have in God a Being in the same way possessed of only something resembling justice and the other qualities. With this there is closely connected the theory of Epicurus that the gods dwell in vacant space, in the intermediate spaces of the world, where they are exposed neither to rain or wind or snow or the like.[165] For the intermediate spaces are the vacuum, wherein, as the principle of movement, are the atoms in themselves. Worlds, as phenomena, are complete continuous concretions of such atoms, but concretions which are only external relations. Between them, as in vacuum, there are thus these Beings also, which themselves are certainly concretions of atoms, but concretions which remain implicit. Yet this leads only to confusion, if a closer definition is given, for concretion constitutes what is for the senses, but the gods, even if they were concretions, would not be realities exactly such as these. In illogical fashion the general, the implicit, is taken out of reality and set above it, not as atoms, but just as before, as a combination of these atoms; in this way this combination is not itself the sensuous. This seems ridiculous, but it is connected with the interruptions spoken of, and with the relation of the vacuum to the plenum, the atom. So far, therefore, the gods belong to the category of negativity as against sensuality, and as this negative is thought, in that sense what Epicurus said of the gods may still to some extent be said. To this determination of God a larger measure of objectivity of course belongs, but it is a perfectly correct assertion that God, as Thought, is a holy Being, to whom reverence is due for His own sake alone. The first element in a happy life is therefore reverence for the gods, uninfluenced by fear or hope.

Further, a second point with Epicurus is the contemplation of death, the negative of existence, of self-consciousness in man; he requires us to have a true conception of death, because otherwise it disturbs our tranquillity. He accordingly says: “Accustom thyself then to the thought that death concerns us not; for all good and evil is a matter of sensation, but death is a deprivation (στέρησις) of sensation. Therefore the true reflection that death is no concern of ours, makes our mortal life one of enjoyment, since this thought does not add an endless length of days, but does away with the longing after immortality. For nothing in life has terrors for him who has once truly recognized the fact that not to live is not a matter of dread. Thus it is a vain thing to fear death, not because its presence but because the anticipation of it brings us pain. For how can the anticipation of a thing pain us when its reality does not? There is therefore in death nothing to trouble us. For when we are in life, death is not there, and when death is there, we are not. Therefore death does not concern either the living or the dead.” This is quite correct, if we look at the immediate; it is a thought full of meaning, and drives away fear. Mere privation, which death is, is not to be confounded with the feeling of being alive, which is positive; and there is no reason for worrying oneself about it. “But the future in general is neither ours, nor is it not ours; hence we must not count upon it as something that will come to pass, nor yet despair of it, as if it would not come to pass.”[166] It is no concern of ours either that it is or that it is not; and it need not therefore cause us uneasiness. This the right way in which to regard the future also.