[299] Thus, where Democritos pronounced the sun to be of vast size, Epicurus held it to be no larger than it seemed (Cicero, De Finibus, i, 6)—a view also loosely ascribed to Herakleitos (Diog. Laërt. bk. ix, ch. i, 6, § 7). See, however, Wallace’s Epicureanism (“Ancient Philosophies” series), 1889, pp. 176 sq., 186 sq., 266, as to the scientific merits of the system. [↑]
[300] The Epicurean doctrine on this and other heads is chiefly to be gathered from the great poem of Lucretius. Prof. Wallace’s excellent treatise gives all the clues. See p. 202 as to the Epicurean God-idea. [↑]
[301] Grote, History, i, 395, note; Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi sec. Epicur. [↑]
[302] Compare Wallace, Epicureanism, pp. 64–71, and ch. xi; and Mackintosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, 4th ed. p. 29. [↑]
[303] De rerum natura, i, 62–79. [↑]
[304] Alexander seu Pseudomantis, cc. 25, 38, 47, 61, cited by Wallace, pp. 249–50. [↑]
[305] The repute of the Epicureans for irreligion appears in the fact that when Romanized Athens had consented to admit foreigners to the once strictly Athenian mysteries of Eleusis, the Epicureans were excluded. [↑]
[306] Cicero, De natura Deorum, i, 13; Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata, v, 14; Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Mathematicos, ix, 51, 55. [↑]
[307] Diog. Laërt. bk ii, ch. viii, §§ 7, 11–14 (86, 97–100). He was also nicknamed “the God.” Id. and ch. xii, 5 (§ 116). [↑]