To Epicurus the sorrow in man’s heart and the evil in his practices are mainly due to religion. The chief source of the wretchedness of the world is to be found in the crushing fears of religious belief. Epicurus has in mind the exaggerated ceremonies and mystical beliefs of the Orient, where his mother had been a priestess. From this memory he was reacting. Religion pollutes men’s fancies, clouds the future with superstitious fears, and puts repose and happiness beyond our reach.In the first place, religion carries with it the fear of death. In modern times the idea of life after death is an added consolation. In the time of Epicurus death meant the giving up of the present life for a dim, sunless region of flitting shades bordering on the edge of Tartarus. No philosophical mind can be happy, according to Epicurus, if it contains the religious conception of death and the future life. Again, religion conceives the world of nature as created and operated by the gods. It is forever explaining nature-phenomena as miraculous and supernatural. The tranquil mind must believe in a nature world that is separated from miraculous intervention, and freed from oversight. The world must be a dependable world. Lastly, religion conceives of the gods as always busying themselves with the affairs of men. Men must secure their favor and avert their wrath by constant offerings. The religious man wastes his time and consumes his peace in the fear that the gods are not propitiated. The Epicurean seeks to build up the life of the individual. He seeks a tranquillity that is independent of everything. Religious belief with its interfering gods would thwart his ideal. Hence the chief concern of the Epicurean was to banish from life every conception of divine government. The gods exist, but they live quite apart from men. Their dwelling is in inter-stellar space amid the numberless worlds. They have nothing to do with the events of this world, but are only glorified actualizations of the philosophic ideal of soul-satisfying peace. The more the teleological conception of nature became the common ground of the Academy, the Lyceum, and the Porch, the more did the Epicureans isolate themselves by opposing the conception.
The other obstacle to the imperturbability of the soulis culture. The Stoics subordinated theory to practice but Epicurus went so far as to deprecate all culture. It was the philosophical protest of an Oriental against all for which Greece had stood. All knowledge is superfluous which does not promote happiness. Knowledge may indirectly promote happiness, and that is the best you can say of it. Epicurus therefore despised the researches of the grammarians, the lore of history, the science of mathematics, the theory of music, poetry, rhetoric, oratory, logic. Although he set greater store by the intellectual than the physical pleasures, he placed as little value on knowledge for its own sake as upon virtue for its own sake. This teaching of Epicurus in Athens betrays the change that had come over Athenian society. Plato, who had been the impersonation of Athenian culture, had been dead not more than thirty years.
Epicurus’ Conception of the Physical World.—Qualified Atomism. To the cursory reader the science of physics seems to occupy a large place in the philosophy of Epicurus, and its presence appears inconsistent with his polemic against culture. Upon further reading one finds that physics, too, should be merely a servant of the happiness of the individual. We need knowledge of physics because the knowledge of natural causes will free us from the fears attending religion. Physics has no independent importance.
Epicurus undertook to support his doctrine of individualism by the scientific theory of Democritus. The materialistic theory of the great Abderite seems to loom large in the exposition of Epicurus. But Epicurus was not interested in the science of physics—not even in the physics of Democritus. He did not build his theory on the teaching of Democritus, but on the contraryhe used the Democritan doctrine to support his theory of moral conduct. Epicurus needed a well-authenticated theory. On account of the influence of Lucretius’ poem, Epicurus has been called in modern times the scientist of antiquity. But his only contribution to science was that, finding the atomism of Democritus ready at hand although unpopular, he made it popular by adjusting it to his own purposes.
The Democritan conception that Being is matter consisting of innumerable uncreated and indestructible atoms furnished Epicurus this support for his moral atomism. He followed Democritus in his analysis of psychological, physiological, and astronomical phenomena—all are atoms in combinations. But he lacked scientific insight and the Democritan doctrine was emasculated in his hands. The central and fundamental principle of Democritus’ theory was the universal reign of law. This the Stoics adopted and this Epicurus neglected. Epicurus was impressed by the changes of the atoms in the Democritan theory; the Stoics by the law of such change.
This appears in the teaching of Epicurus in two ways. The first example is in his explanation of the origin of the cosmos. Democritus had conceived that irregular motion was an inherent quality of the atoms and that the universe was produced by their combinations in a purely mechanical way. Epicurus conceived that the original movement of the atoms was in a straight line from above downwards. This he called the “rain of atoms.” To explain their intermingling he conceived them to be endowed with volition by which they arbitrarily deviated from the direct fall. Secondly, this physical theory of Epicurus would be unimportantexcept that it afforded him a basis for his theory of the individual as possessing free will. The doctrine of freedom of the will had been since Aristotle a presupposition indispensable to the doctrine of moral accountability among the Greeks. The Stoic doctrine of fate is an exception. But determinism was opposed to Epicurus’ conception of the Wise Man as an independent individual. The human will is self-determined, and Epicurus even said that he preferred the illusions of religion to a belief in our slavery to fate. He classed freedom and chance together as uncaused occurrence, and out of the combination built his conception of freedom. The uncaused functioning of the will in man is the same as the causeless deviation of the atoms. Freedom is the choice between different possibilities and is determined by no cause. The Stoics alone among the philosophers of this time are the forerunners of the study of physics.
Epicurus introduced the conception of volition of the atoms to account for the origin of the cosmos. From that point he conceived the world to develop in a mechanical way. Teleology in the nature world was repugnant to him. By modifying the Democritan physics, he thus succeeded in establishing the independence of the individual in the social world and, on the other hand, removing the gods from interfering in the physical world. This seemed to Epicurus to afford an absolute deliverance from superstition. The important points of the physical theory of Epicurus are these: (1) the freedom of the atoms in motion; (2) and yet their mechanical development; (3) the atomic character of the gods; (4) the scattering of the atoms of the soul at death, which frees us from the fear of Hades.
CHAPTER XI
STOICISM
The Position of Stoicism in Antiquity. The Stoic School had a long history, and for five hundred years it was well-nigh the dominating system of thought. Its importance is shown in the attacks on all sides by which it was honored. It was subjected to a continued critical testing by the Peripatetics, Epicureans, Skeptics, and the Academy. It was without doubt the most comprehensive School of the Hellenic-Roman Period, and numbered as its adherents the most brilliant personalities of the time. In its importance to history its only rival was neo-Platonism, which came after it. Stoicism accomplished much toward solving the problem of life, for it is one of the great inner, spiritual movements of humanity. It was a system of philosophy raised upon the ruins of polytheism—a religion for the educated classes, who tried to harmonize the old religion with the new philosophic needs. In the early Christian centuries it led the moral reform by reviving the classic ideals. It became a retreat into the invisible order, a solace amid unrest. Particularly at that time the Stoic felt the emptiness of human life, for his possession of eternity made earthly existence seem as nothing. Yet it was a movement of subjective reflection and individual motive; but as such it could not prove itself adequate when the structure of Roman society broke down.