II. EPICURUS AS A MENTAL HEALER
'Tis to believe what men inspired of old, Faithful, and faithfully informed, unfold.
Cowper.
The suggestions offered in the following pages are not new. Many of them were voiced by Epicurus three hundred years before Christ, and even then were ancient history. Unfortunately Epicurus had his detractors. One, Timocrates, in particular, a renegade from his school, spread malicious and unfounded reports of his doings and sayings, reports too easily credited then, and starting, perhaps, the misconception which to-day prevails regarding the aims of this philosopher.
But when Marcus Aurelius, nearly five centuries later, decided to endow a philosophical professoriate he established the Epicurean as one of the four standard schools. The endorsement of such a one should surely predispose us to believe the authentic commentators of Epicurus, and to discredit the popular notion which makes his cult synonymous with the gratification of the appetites, instead of with the mental tranquility to which he regarded sensual pleasures so detrimental that he practically limited his diet, and that of his disciples, to bread and water.
It is of special encouragement to such of us as painfully realize our meagre equipment for reaching a high plane of self-control, to learn that Epicurus was by nature delicate and sensitive. At seven years of age, we are told, he could not support himself on tiptoe, and called himself the feeblest of boys. It is said that in his boyhood he had to be lifted from his chair, that he could not look on the sun or a fire, and that his skin was so tender as to prevent his wearing any dress beyond a simple tunic. These physical characteristics suggest the makings of a first class "fuss" and inveterate worrier. In this event his emancipation from such tendencies must have been due to the practice of his own philosophy.
As an antidote for the fear of death and the miraculous in the heavens Epicurus urges the study of Nature, showing his appreciation of the fact that one thought can only be driven out by another, as well as of the importance of the open air treatment of depressing fears.
That he recognized the doubting folly and its evils is shown by the following Maxim for the Wise man:
"He shall be steady in his opinion and not wavering and doubtful in everything."
To the hypochondriac he said: