divine interference. That there are gods Epicurus never dreams
of denying. But these gods have not on their shoulders the
burden of upholding and governing the world. They are themselves
the products of the order of nature—a higher species than
humanity, but not the rulers of man, neither the makers nor the
upholders of the world. Man should worship them, but his
worship is the reverence due to the ideals of perfect blessedness;
it ought not to be inspired either by hope or by fear. To prevent
all reference of the more potent phenomena of nature to divine
action Epicurus rationalizes the processes of the cosmos. He
imagines all possible plans or hypotheses, not actually contradicted
by our experience of familiar events, which will represent
in an intelligible way the processes of astronomy and meteorology.
When two or more modes of accounting for a phenomena are
equally admissible as not directly contradicted by known
phenomena, it seems to Epicurus almost a return to the old
mythological habit of mind when a savant asserts that the real
cause is one and only one. “Thunder,” he says, “may be explained
in many other ways; only let us have no myths of divine
action. To assign only a single cause for these phenomena, when
the facts familiar to us suggest several, is insane, and is just the
absurd conduct to be expected from people who dabble in the
vanities of astronomy.” We need not be too curious to inquire
how these celestial phenomena actually do come about; we can
learn how they might have been produced, and to go further is
to trench on ground beyond the limits of human knowledge.
Thus, if Epicurus objects to the doctrine of mythology, he objects no less to the doctrine of an inevitable fate, a necessary order of things unchangeable and supreme over the human will. The Stoic doctrine of Fatalism seemed to Epicurus no less deadly a foe of man’s true welfare than popular superstition. Even in the movement of the atoms he introduces a sudden change of direction, which is supposed to render their aggregation easier, and to break the even law of destiny. So, in the sphere of human action, Epicurus would allow of no absolutely controlling necessity. In fact, it is only when we assume for man this independence of the gods and of fatality that the Epicurean theory of life becomes possible. It assumes that man can, like the gods, withdraw himself out of reach of all external influences, and thus, as a sage, “live like a god among men, seeing that the man is in no wise like a mortal creature who lives in undying blessedness.” And this present life is the only one. With one consent Epicureanism preaches that the death of the body is the end of everything for man, and hence the other world has lost all its terrors as well as all its hopes.
The attitude of Epicurus in this whole matter is antagonistic to science. The idea of a systematic enchainment of phenomena, in which each is conditioned by every other, and none can be taken in isolation and explained apart from the rest, was foreign to his mind. So little was the scientific conception of the solar system familiar to Epicurus that he could reproach the astronomers, because their account of an eclipse represented things otherwise than as they appear to the senses, and could declare that the sun and stars were just as large as they seemed to us.
Ethics.—The moral philosophy of Epicurus is a qualified hedonism, the heir of the Cyrenaic doctrine that pleasure is the good thing in life. Neither sect, it may be added, advocated sensuality pure and unfeigned—the Epicurean least of all. By pleasure Epicurus meant both more and less than the Cyrenaics. To the Cyrenaics pleasure was of moments; to Epicurus it extended as a habit of mind through life. To the Cyrenaics pleasure was something active and positive; to Epicurus it was rather negative—tranquillity more than vigorous enjoyment. The test of true pleasure, according to Epicurus, is the removal and absorption of all that gives pain; it implies freedom from pain of body and from trouble of mind. The happiness of the Epicurean was, it might almost seem, a grave and solemn pleasure—a quiet unobtrusive ease of heart, but not exuberance and excitement. The sage of Epicureanism is a rational and reflective seeker for happiness, who balances the claims of each pleasure against the evils that may possibly ensue, and treads the path of enjoyment cautiously. Prudence is, therefore, the only real guide to happiness; it is thus the chief excellence, and the foundation of all the virtues. It is, in fact, says Epicurus—in language which contrasts strongly with that of Aristotle on the same topic—“a more precious power than philosophy.” The reason or intellect is introduced to balance possible pleasures and pains, and to construct a scheme in which pleasures are the materials of a happy life. Feeling, which Epicurus declared to be the means of determining what is good, is subordinated to a reason which adjudicates between competing pleasures with the view of securing tranquillity of mind and body. “We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously.” Virtue is at least a means of happiness, though apart from that it is no good in itself, any more than mere sensual enjoyments, which are good only because they may sometimes serve to secure health of body and tranquillity of mind. (See further Ethics.)
The Epicurean School.—Even in the lifetime of Epicurus we hear of the vast numbers of his friends, not merely in Greece, but in Asia and Egypt. The crowds of Epicureans were a standing enigma to the adherents of less popular sects. Cicero pondered over the fact; Arcesilaus explained the secession to the Epicurean camp, compared with the fact that no Epicurean was ever known to have abandoned his school, by saying that, though it was possible for a man to be turned into a eunuch, no eunuch could ever become a man. But the phenomenon was not obscure. The doctrine has many truths, and is attractive to many in virtue of its simplicity and its immediate relation to life. The dogmas of Epicurus became to his followers a creed embodying the truths on which salvation depended; and they passed on from one generation to another with scarcely a change or addition. The immediate disciples of Epicurus have been already mentioned, with the exception of Colotes of Lampsacus, a great favourite of Epicurus, who wrote a work arguing “that it was impossible even to live according to the doctrines of the other philosophers.” In the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C. Apollodorus, nicknamed κηποτύραννος (“Lord of the Garden”), and Zeno of Sidon (who describes Socrates as “the Attic buffoon”: Cic. De nat. deor. i, 21, 33, 34) taught at Athens. About 150 B.C. Epicureanism established itself at Rome. Beginning with C. Amafinius or Amafanius (Cic. Acad. i. 2, Tusc. iv. 3), we find the names of Phaedrus (who became scholarch at Athens c. 70 B.C.) and Philodemus (originally of Gadara in Palestine) as distinguished Epicureans in the time of Cicero. But the greatest of its Roman names was Lucretius, whose De rerum natura embodies the main teaching of Epicurus with great exactness, and with a beauty which the subject seemed scarcely to allow. Lucretius is a proof, if any were needed, that Epicureanism is compatible with nobility of soul. In the 1st century of the Christian era, the nature of the time, with its active political struggles, naturally called Stoicism more into the foreground, yet Seneca, though nominally a Stoic, draws nearly all his suavity and much of his paternal wisdom from the writings of Epicurus. The position of Epicureanism as a recognized school in the 2nd century is best seen in the fact that it was one of the four schools (the others were the Stoic, Platonist, and Peripatetic) which were placed on a footing of equal endowment when Marcus Aurelius founded chairs of philosophy at Athens. The evidence of Diogenes proves that it still subsisted as a school a century later, but its spirit lasted longer than its formal organization as a school. A great deal of the best of the Renaissance was founded on Epicureanism, and in more recent times a great number of prominent thinkers have been Epicureans in a greater or less degree. Among these may be mentioned Pierre Gassendi, who revived and codified the doctrine in the 17th century; Molière, the comte de Gramont, Rousseau, Fontenelle and Voltaire. All those whose ethical theory is in any degree hedonistic are to some extent the intellectual descendants of Epicurus (see Hedonism).
Works.—Epicurus was a voluminous writer (πολυγραφώτατος, Diog. Laërt. x. 26)—the author, it is said, of about 300 works. He had a style and vocabulary of his own. His chief aim in writing was plainness and intelligibility, but his want of order and logical precision thwarted his purpose. He pretended to
