

## A Life Worthy Of The Gods

### The Life And Work Of Epicurus

By Cassius Amicus

Published by Cassius Amicus.

This ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.

Smashwords Edition 2011.06.11

ISBN 978-1-4581-2730-3

For more information on the material presented in this book see

www.NewEpicurean.com.

You, father, found the truth; you gave to us

A Father's wisdom, and from every page,

O most illustrious in renown, we take,

As bees do from the flowery banks of summer,

The benefit of all your golden words,

The gold most worthy of eternal life.

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Book III (Humphries Translation)

# Contents

Introduction – by Cassius Amicus

Philosophy For the Millions – by Norman W. DeWitt

The Life of Epicurus – by Diogenes Laertius

Torquatus' Defense of Epicurus – by Cicero

Excerpts from De Rerum Natura – by Lucretius

The "Vatican List" of the Sayings of Epicurus

Excerpts from The Letters of Seneca

# Introduction By Cassius Amicus

The purpose of this volume is to assist the reader in study of the life and work of Epicurus. In other ebooks (primarily Ante Oculos – Epicurus and the Evidence-Based Life) I have focused on analysis and presentation of Epicureanism in an organized form for modern audiences, but the current works is intended to serve as a source book of the main Epicurean texts. I have thus compiled the most important ancient sources and entitled the result A Life Worthy of the Gods – The Life And Work of Epicurus.

This collection is not intended for the reader who has no background in Epicurean philosophy. However, to account for the possibility that it might occasionally be pressed into that service, I have included here an essay written in 1945 by the man I consider the foremost modern authority on Epicurus – Norman W. DeWitt. DeWitt's very useful essay Philosophy For The Millions highlights the significance of Epicureanism and points the way toward the detail he provided in his monumental Epicurus and His Philosophy, which I consider to be the single best resource for those seeking a deeper understanding of Epicurus.

The most important content of this volume is the ancient source material. Foremost in this category is the Life of Epicurus by Diogenes Laertius, the ancient Greek compiler of commentary on the major Greek philosophers who preserved for us the great bulk of what we know of the Epicurean tradition. It is here that we find our original source for Epicurus' Principle Doctrines and much of our information about Epicurus' life.

Next is the Defense of Epicurus, an excerpt from Cicero's work On the Ends of Good and Evil. This extensive presentation of Epicurus' central ideas is one of the most valuable narrative arguments left to us from antiquity.

Lucretius' De Rerum Natura is second in importance only to Diogenes Laertius as a point of reference, and in many cases it exceeds Laertius' biography in detail. To include the entire text, however, would be to overwhelm the remainder of the material collected here, so I have presented here only selections that refer either directly to the person of Epicurus or refer most clearly to his essential ideas. The reader who wishes to understand Epicureanism in detail should certainly refer to the full text of De Rerum Natura to supplement that which is included here.

Following Lucretius is the "Vatican List" of the Sayings of Epicurus. This list includes some statements probably made by Epicurus himself, and others probably made by Metrodorus or other recognized Epicureans. It is disappointing that the context of these quotations has not been left to us, but most either stand alone or are fairly intelligible when viewed in relation to the other surviving Epicurean texts.

To conclude the volume, I have included selections from the Letters of Seneca. Seneca professed Stoicism as his own philosophy, but he quoted frequently from Epicurus, and his letters provide valuable context for those sayings of Epicurus which he preserved for us.

Before ending this introduction, I wish to add a few words of my own about a matter that I believe the reader should understand at an early stage in his study of Epicurus.

In contrast to the common perception that Epicureanism revolves around the pursuit of "pleasure," it is far more accurate to say that the root of Epicureanism is the determination to follow Nature as the proper guide to life, using the faculties and the evidence that Nature has provided as the ultimate standard for determining the direction in which that guide leads. In simplest form, all of Epicureanism can be seen as the derivation of a way of life based only on the evidence that can clearly be established by our eyes and our other Natural faculties. This determination requires the firm rejection of knowledge through faith, divine revelation, universal forms, spirit worlds, or any other source of information which cannot be proved to be true before the tribunal of the faculties which Nature provides.

Due to common misconceptions about Epicurus and his philosophy, modern commentators often focus almost exclusively on two specific applications of which are derivatives, rather than the fundamentals, of the philosophy. These two derivative ideas are: (1) that pleasure should be pursued and pain avoided, and (2) that restraining the desires is an essential technique toward achieving happiness.

Certainly both observations are true and were important teachings of Epicurus. But it is important to see that these are derivative conclusions, valid only because Epicurus first and foremost held to a particular set of observations and conclusions about the universe and man's position in it that justify these conclusions.

Because the pursuit of pleasure and the restraint of desires are derivative applications of principles, rather than principles themselves, their proper application must be guided by the context in which the individual lives. Although these applications are going to apply to some degree to everyone because of our nature as human beings, the exact degree to which they will apply to any given individual will be significantly influenced by the circumstances of the particular society and environment in which a person lives. An individual who lives in a modern industrialized and wealthy society will find simplicity in standard of living to be much different than an individual living in a stone age society. The standard of living and the degree of pleasure a man can aspire to attain, as derivate aspects, will vary greatly between individuals, but the more fundamental aspects of Epicureanism, such as the observation that neither the universe nor men's actions are directed by meddling supernatural beings, and (2) that man's consciousness ends at death (which is why we must live without fear of punishment or illusion of reward after death) apply to everyone regardless of their environment.

Each element of Epicurus' philosophy was derived by tenaciously following the evidence provided by Nature, and the Epicurean technique for evaluating that evidence, and determining from it what is true and what is false, is the central core of Epicureanism.

Epicurus held that Nature equips man with three categories of faculties which provide him evidence about the nature of his surroundings. The ability of each person to gather and evaluate this evidence varies, just as some men are born blind, others are born with perfect eyesight, and all men vary in their ability to understand those things that they perceive. As a rule, Nature equips healthy men with the following three categories of faculties: (1) the five senses – (sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste), (2) the sense of pain and pleasure, and (3) the sense of innate conceptual knowledge which Epicurus called "preconceptions" or "anticipations." These faculties provide evidence from which we may separate the true from the false, but the faculties by themselves do not perform this function. The faculties do not evaluate the information that they receive – it is the individual intellect which reasons and evaluates.

Through use of these three faculties we can observe those things that are directly before our eyes and our other senses. As we gather the evidence of those things which are most clearly before our sight, and we and add those observations additional evidence over time, we begin to see that all things are governed by unchanging laws of Nature which are always consistent and never contradictory. Evaluation of the evidence about things that are directly before us is relatively simple, and if we take those evaluations and apply them to evidence about matters which are more distant, and therefore less clear, we expand our knowledge. As we evalauate matters that are further distant and more unclear, we can never allow our attempts to reason to outrun, or contradict, the truths already established by more direct evidence. False philosophers tempt us to follow what they contend to be reasoning beyond what the evidence supports, and false religions tempt us to follow "faith" to conclusions about life after death, or the nature of the gods, that contradict the truths that are supported by direct evidence. Epicurus held that to give in to such temptations amounts to rebellion against Nature, and to do so guarantees confusion and makes living happily impossible.

An illustration of this process is found in Epicurus' first fundamental physical principle: "Nothing can be created from nothing." As with all other conclusions we deem to be valid, we know this to be true because it is consistent with everything that we have always observed clearly with our own eyes and in our own experience. Never have we seen anything that conflicts with this rule, and always what we do see is consistent with it. If we even for a moment grant the possibility that sometimes — perhaps five thousand years ago according to the Bible, perhaps billions of years ago according to speculative scientists who often have their own agendas – we have rejected our own observation that nothing is ever created from nothing. If we reject our own clearly-established evaluations, the we reject the laws of Nature which sustain not only all valid reasoning, but our very ability to live our lives.

To now greatly condense where this takes us, we next see that if nothing is or has ever been created from nothing, then those things that exist must be composed of some basic material that itself has never been created from nothing. In other words, the evidence before us supports the conclusion that the basic material of the universe, from which all things are composed, is ETERNAL. Because it is eternal, we conclude that this basic material of the universe has never been created from nothing – not by a god, and not by any other cause outside itself. Epicurus observed that in order to be eternal and indestructible this basic material must be indivisible, so he referred to it as "atoms" because it cannot be divided. This fundamental material, whether we think of it today as "atomic" or "subatomic," has always existed, and possesses the same characteristics now that it always has possessed and always will possess, no matter how it moves and combines with other such material over the ages.

It is on this basic and eternal level, at which the atoms have always and will always exist according to their own laws and characteristics, on which Epicurus grounded the laws of Nature. Of these laws, four of the most significant were as follows:

First, the evidence of the Anticipations indicates to us that any "god" worthy of the name must be perfect – without flaw – and that emotions of anger or gratitude are not consistent with perfection. Our anticipations tell us that "Gods" do exist, as does life on other worlds throughout the universe, but all forms of life, including gods, came into being according to the laws of Nature, and are governed by those same laws. The universe functions on Natural laws established at the atomic level, and those Natural laws govern both us and the gods – there are no gods superior to Nature. From this we conclude that it is ourselves — not the gods — who determine our own actions and therefore deserve the credit or the blame for them. Because we have free will, the future is not set, and there is no fate for us but what we make for ourselves.

Second, Nature shows us through all our faculties that consciousness began at birth and ends at death. Because our consciousness ceases to exist at death there is no punishment or reward awaiting us after death. Just as all that happened before our birth has no effect on us while we live, neither does anything effect us after our death. What comes in life is everything to us; death is nothing to us.

Third, Nature has established that consciousness of being alive is itself the highest of pleasures, and it is only pain that detracts from our enjoyment of life. Nature provides that we require only a very few things (food, water, air, shelter), and it is an illusion to believe that more is required for us to live a life of complete happiness. Power, fame, material possessions – and an unlimited lifespan if that were possible – are not required for us to live happily, and in fact those attributes render human happiness very difficult or impossible.

Fourth, Nature has established that pain is neither continuous nor unconquerable, and therefore is not to be feared. Intense pain lasts only briefly, and either departs or brings our life to a quick end – but by either means is equally gone. Pain that is not intense is outweighed by the pleasure which is brought by consciousness itself, and even lesser pains generally departs in due course or becomes manageable over time. In the event that we find extended pain unbearable, it is easily within our power to escape such pain by ending our lives, and should that be necessary we need have no regret, as we know that all men have limited lifespans, and that Nature calls us to measure our success in living not by length, but by happiness.

This introduction only scratches the surface of the wisdom of Epicurus, and much depth of wisdom awaits the reader who will study the works collected here. All who wish to live happy lives, and all who wish to honor Nature rather than follow false religions and false philosophers, should heed the words of Lucretius:

O hearts in darkness!

Under what shadows and among what dangers

Your lives are spent, such as they are. But look -

Your nature snarls, yaps, barks for nothing, really,

Except that pain be absent from the body

And mind enjoy delight, with fear dispelled,

Anxiety gone.

...

Our life is spent

In shadows, and it suffers in the dark.

As children tremble and fear everything

In their dark shadows, we, in the full light,

Fear things that really are not one bit more awful

Than what poor babies shudder at in darkness,

The horrors they imagine to be coming.

Our terrors and our darknesses of mind

Must be dispelled, then, not by sunshine's rays,

Not by those shining arrows of the light,

But by insight into Nature, and a scheme

Of systematic contemplation.

(Humphries translation)

Note: All texts contained in this volume are derived from works which are in the public domain. The text of De Rerum Natura is derived from that of H.A.J.Munro, and most of the others are derived from translations by C.D. Yonge. Any errors are the responsibility of Cassius Amicus. Readers are encouraged to submit corrections for future editions of this ebook.

# Philosophy For The Millions – by Norman W. DeWitt

THE FIRST FUMBLING attempts to reason from manifest effects to hidden causes and to present a picture of the inner nature of things were made on the margin of the Greek world; it is around the rim of a vessel that the blinking beads of ferment are first seen to rise. On that restless Greek frontier was born a succession of pioneers of thought. Of their reasoned guesses the majority now seem absurd, but within two centuries their tentative efforts had arrived at an atomic theory of the constitution of matter. This was far from being absurd; it was the borderland of chemistry.

The greatest name in this succession of first researchers was that of Democritus, who became known as the laughing philosopher. In his ethical teaching great store was set by cheerfulness.

Democritus was still living when the new scientific movement suffered a violent reverse. It was in Athens, a center of conservatism, that the opposition arose and it was brilliantly headed. The leader was no other than Socrates, who despaired of the possibility of scientific knowledge. Even Aristotle, who pioneered in some branches of science, rejected the atomic theory. Between these two great names came that of Plato, who believed the ultimate realities to be not atoms but triangles, cubes, spheres and the like. By a kind of analogy he extended this doctrine to the realm of abstract thought. If, for example, perfect spheres exist, why should not perfect justice exist also? Convinced that such perfect justice did exist, he sought in his own way to find it. The ten books of his Republic record only part of his searchings of the mind. At the core of all this thinking lies the doctrine that the eternal, unchangeable things are forms, shapes, models, patterns, or, what means the same thing in Greek, "ideas." All visible things are but changing copies of unchanging forms.

## The Epicurean Revival

After the great triumvirate of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had passed away the scientific tradition was revived with timely amendments by Epicurus. In his time it was the prevalent teaching that the qualities of compound bodies must be explained by the qualities of the ingredients. If the compound body was cold, then it must contain the cold element air, if moist, water, if dry, earth, and if hot, fire. Even Aristotle sanctioned this belief in the four elements. Epicurus, on the contrary, maintained that colorless atoms could produce a compound of any color according to the circumstances of their combination. This was the first definite recognition of what we now know as chemical change.

## The Stoic Reaction

Epicurus was still a young man when Athenian conservatism bred a second reaction to the new science. This was headed by Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. His followers welcomed a regression more extreme than that of Aristotle in respect to the prime elements. For the source of their physical theories they went back to Heracleitus, who believed that the sole element was fire. This was not a return to the Stone Age but it was a longish way in that direction.

This Heracleitus had been a doleful and eccentric individual and became known, in contrast to the cheerful Democritus, as the weeping philosopher. His gloom was perpetuated in Stoicism, a cheerless creed, of which the founder is described as "the sour and scowling Zeno." Epicurus, on the contrary, urged his disciples to "wear a smile while they practiced their philosophy."

Running parallel to these contrasting attitudes toward life and physical theories was an equally unbroken social divergence. Platonism as a creed was always aristocratic and in favor in royal courts. "I prefer to agree with Plato and be wrong than to agree with those Epicureans and be right," wrote Cicero, and this snobbish attitude was not peculiar to him. Close to Platonism in point of social ranking stood Stoicism, which steadily extolled virtue, logic, and divine providence. This specious front was no less acceptable to hypocrites than to saints. Aptly the poet Horace, describing a pair of high-born hypocrites, mentions "Stoic tracts strewn among the silken cushions." Epicureanism, on the contrary, offered no bait to the silk-cushion trade. It eschewed all social distinction. The advice of the founder was to have only so much regard for public opinion as to avoid unfriendly criticism for either sordidness or luxury. This was no fit creed for the socially or politically ambitious.

## The Schoolteacher's Son

Who, then, was this cheerful and friendly Epicurus, this apostle of the unambitious life? He was the son of an Athenian schoolteacher resident on the island of Samos. These items carry no sting today, but in Athens it was different. That cradle of democracy was democratic only within limits. Its citizens looked down upon both islanders and school teachers: upon islanders as small fry, who needed protection from the stronger; upon schoolteachers because, like their own secluded women, they spent their time with children. A satirist not only twitted Epicurus with being an islander but also coined a comic name for him, Grammadidaskalides, as if we should have a name "Schoolteacherson." Of a certain rival Epicurus himself had the following to record: "This upset him so completely that he fell to abusing me and called me a schoolteacher."

Evidence of the little tempest that swirled for a time about this word is furnished by the fact that from the school of Epicurus it was banned. Not only the head himself but all his assistants were styled "guides" or "leaders."

It is hardly to be expected that a man so discounted by the upper classes in antiquity, to whom ancient writers for the greater part addressed themselves, should enjoy an unspotted record with posterity, and to so express it is a euphemism. Much of what may be read concerning Epicurus even in the most recent handbooks consists of traditional misrepresentation, disparagement or plain falsehood. His life, for example, has been called uneventful. This is certainly untrue of his youth. His boyhood fell in the years when every Greek hamlet must have been ringing with the startling reports of Alexander's victories. The time for performing his required military service coincided with the news of Alexander's tragic end. As a cadet or ephebe he must have witnessed, as it were, the last futile war against Macedon, the reception in Athens of a Macedonian garrison and the suicide of Demosthenes. Even the forced retirement of Aristotle during the same crisis and his death at Chalcis must have been meaningful enough to one already interested in philosophy.

During this same two year interval the paternal home in Samos had been broken up and the family expelled from the island. All the Athenian settlers were evicted by the Macedonian general Perdiccas. Some twelve years later Epicurus himself was destined to be forcibly driven from Mytilene. Even after his final settlement in Athens the city endured a painful siege and the beans doled out to the members of the school had to be counted. Such are a few highlights of a life that biographers call "uneventful."

## The Pragmatic Urgency

His stormy cadetship terminated, Epicurus rejoined his father and family in Asia, where a safe refuge had been found in the ancient city of Colophon. There in the course of the ensuing decade a great illumination came to him and the result was a new philosophy inevitably conditioned by the external events and the intellectual currents of the time. In so far as this new philosophy revived the scientific tradition it was Ionian; in so far as it exalted ethics above physics it was virtually Socratic. Yet this similarity is apt to be obscured by more conspicuous differences. The new doctrine divorced ethics from politics, which was heterodoxy in Athens. It allied itself instead with the Ionian tradition of medicine, which was philanthropic and independent of political preferences. Just as all human beings, men, women and children, slave and free, stand in need of health, so all mankind, according to Epicurus, stands in need of guidance toward the happy life. This view of things tinged his philosophy with the color of a gospel and bestowed upon it a pragmatic urgency which is lacking in Socratic thought. With the leisurely meanderings of dialectic he had no patience. Truth, he believed, must possess immediate relevance to living.

## The New Ecumenical Outlook

The Nature of the new outlook was placed in a bright light by a comparison that suggested itself to Epicurus. In Athens men practiced a weird Corybantic rite of mental healing in which the patient sat solitary upon a throne while the ministrant went dancing around him in riotous music and song. The first reaction to this treatment, should the cure succeed, was bewilderment, the second drowsiness, and the third an ecstatic awakening to joy and health. In this rite Epicurus saw a reversed image of his own program of healing. Instead of a single favored individual surrounded by a ministering multitude, he envisaged the vast multitude of humanity in need of healing while a lone personified Philanthropia offered her ministrations: "Love goes dancing round and round the inhabited earth, crying to all men to awake to the blessedness of the happy life." About the identity of this Love there can be no doubt; it is the Hippocratic love of mankind, which to true members of that craft was inseparable from the love of healing.

In this teaching Epicurus displayed his originality. His new design for living was applicable everywhere, irrespective of country or government. He had emancipated himself from the obsessions of his race, political separatism and the exclusive faith in political action. The whole world was a single parish.

It is mere justice that other original features of the new philosophy should receive recognition. Cicero, a crafty trial lawyer, in his last years employed the tricks of the courts to discredit Epicureanism with his contemporaries and with posterity. Among other false charges he upbraided Epicurus for neglecting methodical partitions of subject matter, classifications, and definitions. Yet the pragmatic partition of knowledge that was standard in Cicero's own day and throughout the greater part of ancient time was the invention of the despised Epicurus. His division was three headed: The Canon, Physics and Ethics. The Stoics, always great borrowers, changed this partition into Physics, Ethics and Logic. Their Logic was taken from Aristotle, nor did it matter that this was substituted for the Canon. Both the Canon and Logic had for their function the test of truth.

## The Canon

The orderliness of Epicurean thought, which Cicero denied, is also exemplified by the Canon. According to this we possess three contacts with the external world: Sensations, Feelings, and Anticipations. In our handbooks two of these three are completely misrepresented. It is usual to declare that Epicurus believed "in the infallibility of sensation." Not even the ancients ventured to go so far as this in misrepresentation. What Epicurus really did believe was that only immediate sensations are true. For example, if the observer sees an ox at a distance of ten feet, he can be sure it is an ox, but if he sees an animal at the distance of a mile, he may be uncertain whether it is an ox or a horse. Moreover, it does not follow that because a sensation is true it is also trustworthy. An oar in the water appears to be bent; the sensation is true but it is false to the facts. Naturally all sensations must be checked by one another and by those of other observers.

The Feelings alone have been rightly reported. By these were meant pleasure and pain. These are instruments of Nature in teaching both brute beasts and human beings the facts of life: honey is sweet, fire hurts.

The third term, Anticipation (Prolepsis), has suffered the worst from misrepresentation. Unlike the Sensations and Feelings, the reference of which is chiefly to physical contacts, the Anticipations have to do with social relations and with abstract ideas, such as that of justice. Epicurus rightly observed that both animals and human beings from the moment of birth not only reach out for food and avoid pain but also exhibit soon a pre disposition to fall into patterns of behavior agreeable to their respective kinds. In the case of human beings he speaks of this predisposition as an idea faintly sketched on the mind at birth. Since it there exists in advance of experience of life and of conscious reflection it is styled by him an Anticipation or Prolepsis.

Moreover, since a certain pattern of behavior is proper to each race of living things, it follows that in the case of the human race, for example, a definition of justice, to be true, must square itself with the innate idea of justice. It is in this sense that the Anticipations serve as tests of truth and find a place in the Canon. Truth must square with Nature.

The error of the handbooks on this point is fundamental. They have confused general concepts, such as that of a horse, with abstract ideas, such as those of justice, piety or friendship.

These three, then, Sensations, Feelings, and Anticipations, constituted the Epicurean tripod of truth. Through the first we come to know the physical world; through the second we learn the pleasures and pains of living; by the third we are guided aright to the recognition of abstract truth.

## The New Physics

The orderliness of Epicurean thought is admirably exemplified also in the Physics. In a textbook entitled the Twelve Abridgements Epicurus furnished his disciples with the only coherent and complete summary of the general principles of physics ever promulgated in the ancient world. A few specimens will suffice for illustration: 1. Matter is indestructible. 2. Matter is uncreatable. 3. The universe consists of atoms and space. 4. The universe is infinite. 5. Bodies are either simple or compound.

The rest of the principles deal with the qualities of atoms, their hardly imaginable speed in space, their vibrations in compounds, their capacity to form compounds possessing qualities not possessed by themselves, such as color or plasticity, and their proneness to form filmy images of things, called idols, which explain the sensation of vision.

Especially important was the doctrine that in the motions of the atoms there existed a sufficient degree of free play to permit the exercise of free will in animals and man. This is known as "the doctrine of the swerve."

## The New Freedom

Epicurus was the first Greek philosopher to expressly sponsor a doctrine of free will. His predecessors had recognized three forces as incompatible with the freedom of the individual. First, certain physicists, Democritus among them, had posited the supremacy of the inviolable laws of Nature. This was known as Necessity. Second, the Greeks in general had thought of man as helpless before the will of the gods. This was called either Fate or Necessity. Third, the Greeks generally conceded to Fortune the ability to make or mar the happiness of men.

Like the modern pragmatist, Epicurus stressed the power of man to control his experience. The Necessity of the physicists he eliminated by his doctrine of a certain freedom of play in the atoms. The Necessity of Fate he expunged by denying any form of divine interference in the affairs of men. Fortune he taught his disciples to defy on the ground that the caprices of chance could be all but completely forestalled by rational planning. These teachings nullified the importance of Greek poets as moral teachers. Homer and the tragic drama went overboard. Epicurus styled their moral teachings a hodge-podge.

This new freedom signified the privilege of being continuously happy. This too was new, because Plato and most other teachers had assumed the existence of peaks of pleasure alternating with intervals void of pleasure. Continuous pleasure Epicurus made conceivable and feasible by defining pleasure as a healthy mind in a healthy body, mens sana in corpore sano. The limit of it was freedom from pain of body and distress. Pleasures, he said, was normal, just as health is normal; pain was abnormal, just as sickness is abnormal. By living the right kind of life and by limiting the desires he declared that continuity of happiness could be achieved. The control of experience was to him a categorical imperative.

## Pleasure Not the Greatest Good

In spite of this teaching it was not the doctrine of Epicurus that pleasure was the greatest good. To his thinking the greatest good was life itself. This was a logical deduction from the denial of immortality. Without the afterlife this present life becomes the concentration of all values. Pleasure, or happiness, has its place as the end, goal, or fulfillment of living.

It was the Stoics and Cicero who concocted and publicized the false report that Epicurus counted pleasure as the greatest good. This is mistakenly asserted in all our handbooks.

## The New Psychology

Just as the belief in immortality leads to the exaltation of the soul and the depreciation of the body, so the belief in mortality presumes a certain parity of importance between soul and body. To Epicurus the soul is of similar structure to the body, differing only in the fineness and mobility of the component atoms. Body and soul work as a team. The soul bestows sensitivity upon the body and the body in turn bestows it upon the soul. This results in "co-sensitivity," as Epicurus calls it. Sensation itself, he claimed, is irrational. Thus the tongue by physical contact receives the stimulus of sweetness, but it is the intelligence, part of the soul, that recognizes this stimulus and issues the pronouncement, "This is honey." This interdependence of soul and body extends to all activities. Responses to stimuli are total, not separate; they are "psychosomatic," to use a term of modern psychiatry. Epicurus scorned all philosophy that failed to regard psychiatry as its function.

## Persecution by the Platonists

At the age of thirty Epicurus migrated from Colophon to Mytilene and began to promulgate these heterodoxies as a public teacher. In that city the Platonists were dominant. Within the space of a few months he seems to have had them about his ears. Within a year their enmity had aroused the authorities and so incited the populace that he was forced to take ship in the winter season and in danger of shipwreck or capture by pirates. Never afterward did he venture like other philosophers to teach in public places.

In Lampsacus on the Hellespont he found a refuge, gained the favor of the authorities, assembled a strong school and obtained financial support. After four years he felt strong enough to carry the war into Africa, as is said in Roman history, and removed to Athens, locating himself on the same street as Plato's Academy and not far from it.

## The New Procedures

Persecution had not changed his doctrines but it did revolutionize his procedures. Public appearances were avoided; instruction was confined to his own house and the garden he had purchased. Outside of the school he instituted a method of disseminating his new doctrine by personal contacts. Each convert was urged to win over the members of his own household, his friends and neighbors, "never slackening in spreading by every means the doctrines of the true philosophy." Prospective converts were plied with books and tracts. Epicurus himself, like John Wesley, became a busy compiler of textbooks, and specific instructions were written for the proper use of them. He made outlines of doctrine for those who were unable to live in residence. The allegiance of disciples living in other cities was retained by epistles painstakingly composed. Thus the new school was transformed into a self-propagating sect.

Within two centuries this self-extending gospel of the tranquil life had spread to most parts of the Graeco-Roman world. "It took Italy by storm," as Cicero reluctantly records. At the same time the forces of opposition were growing in like proportion. The campaigns of the Stoics became so notorious that modern scholars have all but overlooked the original battle with the Platonists, whose acrid criticisms were refurbished by Plutarch under the early Empire. By that time the Christian writers had joined the chorus of opposition and at last, in the stormy fourth century, the friendly sect seems to have been finally silenced. For some centuries afterward all that survived was a trickle of untruth. Men still knew something of epicurism but nothing of Epicureanism.

Yet when the study of natural science was at last reborn, it was the once rejected atomic theory that furnished the starting point for modern chemistry, and when modern thinkers began to see evolutionary processes in human institutions, it was observed that long ago Epicurus had blazed that path of enquiry. Erring with Plato had its pleasure and its profit but also its price, the postponement of scientific progress. Platonic thought had some close affinities with the Stone Age.

Norman W. DeWitt

January 1947.

#  The Life of Epicurus – by Diogenes Laertius

Epicurus was an Athenian, and the son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, of the deme of Gargettus, and of the family of the Philaidae, as Metrodorus tells us in his treatise on Nobility of Birth. Some writers, and among them Heracleides, in his Abridgment of Sotion, say that as the Athenians had colonized Samos, he was brought up there, and came to Athens in his eighteenth year, while Xenocrates was president of the Academy, and Aristotle at Chalcis. But after the death of Alexander the Macedonian, when the Athenians were driven out of Samos by Perdiccas, Epicurus went to Colophon to his father.

And when he had spent some time there, and collected some disciples, he again returned to Athens, in the year of Anaxicrates, and for some time studied philosophy, mingling with the rest of the philosophers; but subsequently, he somehow or other established the school which was called after his name; and he used to say, that he began to study philosophy when he was fourteen years of age; but Apollodorus the Epicurean, in the first book of his account of the life of Epicurus, says, that he came to the study of philosophy, having conceived a great contempt for the grammarians, because they could not explain to him the statements in Hesiodus respecting Chaos.

But Hermippus tells us, that he himself was a teacher of grammar, and that afterwards, having come across the books of Democritus, he applied himself with zeal to philosophy, on which account Timon says of him: –

The last of all the natural philosophers, And the most shameless too, did come from Samos, A grammar teacher, and the most ill-bred And most unmanageable of mankind.

And he had for his companions in his philosophical studies, his three brothers, Neocles, Chaeredemus, and Aristobulus, who were excited by his exhortations, as Philodemus the Epicurean relates in the tenth book of the Classification of Philosophers. He had also a slave, whose name was Inus, as Myronianus tells us in his Similar Historical Chapters.

But Diotimus the Stoic was very hostile to him, and calumniated him in a most bitter manner, publishing fifty obscene letters, and attributing them to Epicurus, and also giving him the credit of the letters, which generally go under the name of Chrysippus. And Poseidonius the Stoic, and Nicolaus, and Sotion, in the twelfth of these books, which are entitled the Refutations of Diocles, of which there are altogether twenty-four volumes, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, have also attacked him with great severity; for they say that he used to accompany his mother when she went about the small cottages, performing purification, and that he used to read the formula, and that he used also to keep a school with his father at very low terms. Also, that he, as well as one of his brothers, was a most profligate man in his morals, and that he used to live with Leontium, the courtesan. Moreover, that he claimed the books of Democritus on Atoms, and that of Aristippus on Pleasure, as his own; and that he was not a legitimate citizen; and this last fact is asserted also by Timocrates, and by Herodotus, in his treatises on the Youth of Epicurus.

They also say that he used to flatter Mithras, the steward of Lysimachus, in a disgraceful manner, calling him in his letters Paean, and King; and also that he flattered Idomeneus, and Herodotus, and Timocrates who had revealed all his secret practices, and that he flattered them on this very account. And in his letter to Leontium, he says, "O lord Paean, my dear Leontium, what transports of joy did I feel when I read your charming letter." And to Themista, the wife of Leonteus, he writes, "I am ready and prepared, if you do not come to me, to roll myself to wherever you and Themista invite me." And he addresses Pythocles, a beautiful youth, thus, "I will sit quiet," says he, "awaiting your longed-for and god-like approach." And at another time, writing to Themista, he says, "That he had determined to make his way with her," as Theodorus tells us in the fourth book of his treatises against Epicurus.

He also wrote to many other courtesans, and especially to Leontium, with whom Metrodorus also was in love. And in his treatise on the Chief Good, he writes thus, "For I do not know what I can consider good, if I put out of sight the pleasures which arise from flavors, and those which are derived from amatory pleasures, and from music and from the contemplation of beauty." And in his letter to Pythocles, he writes, "Set sail, my dear boy, and avoid all sorts of education."

Epictetus also attacks him as a most debauched man, and reproaches him most vehemently, and so does Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, in his treatise entitled the Merry Guests, and this Timocrates had been a disciple in his school, though he afterwards abandoned it; and he says that he used to vomit twice a day, in consequence of his intemperance; and that he himself had great difficulty in escaping from this nocturnal philosophy, and that mystic kind of association.

He also accuses Epicurus of shameful ignorance in his reasoning, and still more especially in all matters relating to the conduct of life. And says that he was in a pitiable state of health, so that he could not for many years rise up from his sofa; and that he used to spend a mina a day on his eating, as he himself states in his letter to Leontium, and in that to the philosophers at Mitylene. He also says that many courtesans used to live with him and Metrodorus; and among them Marmarium, and Hedeia, and Erotium, and Iridium.

And in the thirty-seven books which he wrote about natural philosophy, they say that he says a great many things of the same kind over and over again, and that in them he writes in contradiction of other philosophers, and especially of Nausiphanes, and speaks as follows, word for word: "But let them be gone. For this man had a continual labor, striving to bring forth the sophistical boastfulness of his mouth, like many other slaves."

And Epicurus also speaks of Nausiphanes in his letters, in the following terms: "These things led him on to such arrogance of mind, that he abused me and called me a schoolmaster." He used also to call him Lungs, and Blockhead, and Humbug, and Fornicator. And he used to call Plato's followers Flatterers of Dionysius, but Plato himself he called Golden. Aristotle he called a debauchee and a glutton, saying that he joined the army after he had squandered his patrimony, and sold drugs. He used to call Protagoras a porter, and the secretary of Democritus, and to say that he taught boys their letters in the streets. Heraclitus, he called a disturber; Democritus, he nicknamed Lerocrates; and Antidorus, Samidorus; the Cynics he called the enemies of Greece; and the Dialecticians he charged with being eaten up with envy. Pyrrhon, he said, was ignorant and unlearned.

But these men who say this are all wrong, for there are plenty of witnesses of the unsurpassable kindness of the man to everybody; both his own country which honored him with brazen statues, and his friends who are so numerous that they could not be counted in whole cities; and all his acquaintances who were bound to him by nothing but the charms of his doctrine, none of whom ever deserted him, except Metrodorus, the son of Stratoniceus, who went over to Carneades, probably because he was not able to bear with equanimity the unapproachable excellence of Epicurus. Also, the perpetual succession of his school, which, when every other school decayed, continued without any falling off, and produced a countless number of philosophers, succeeding one another without any interruption. We may also speak here of his gratitude towards his parents, and his kindness to his brothers, and his gentleness to his servants (as is plain from his will, and from the fact too, that they united with him in his philosophical studies, and the most eminent of them was the one whom I have mentioned already, named Inus); and his universal philanthropy towards all men.

His piety towards the gods, and his affection for his country was quite unspeakable; though, from an excess of modesty, he avoided affairs of the state. And though he lived when very difficult times oppressed Greece, he still remained in his own country, only going two or three times across to Ionia to see his friends, who used to throng to him from all quarters, and to live with him in his garden, as we are told by Apollodorus (this garden he bought for eighty minae).

And Diocles, in the third book of his Overview, says that they all lived in the most simple and economical manner; "They were content," says he, "with a small cup of light wine, and all the rest of their drink was water." He also tells us that Epicurus would not allow his followers to throw their property into a common stock, as Pythagoras did, who said that the possessions of friends were held in common. For he said that such a doctrine as that was suited rather for those who distrusted one another; and that those who distrusted one another were not friends. But he himself in his letters, says that he is content with water and plain bread, and adds, "Send me a cup, so that if I wish to have a feast, I may have the means." This was the real character of the man who laid down the doctrine that pleasure was the chief good; who Athenaeus thus mentions in an epigram:

O men, you labor for pernicious ends;

And out of eager avarice, begin

Quarrels and wars. And yet the wealth of Nature

Fixes a narrow limit for desires,

Though empty judgment is insatiable.

This lesson the wise child of Neocles

Had learned by ear, instructed by the Muses,

Or at the sacred shrine of Delphi's God.

And as we advance further, we shall learn this fact from his dogmas, and his maxims. Of all the ancient philosophers he was, as we are told by Diocles, most attached to Anaxagoras (although on some points he argued against him); and to Archelaus, the master of Socrates. And, Diocles adds, he used to accustom his pupils to preserve his writings in their memory. Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, asserts that he was a pupil of Nausiphanes, and Praxiphanes; but he himself does not mention this; but says in his letter to Eurylochus, that he had been his own instructor. He also agreed with Hermarchus in not admitting that Leucippus deserved to be called a philosopher; though some authors, among whom is Apollodorus, speak of him as the master of Democritus. Demetrius the Magnesian says that he was a pupil of Xenocrates also.

He uses plain language in his works with respect to anything he is speaking of, for which Aristophanes, the grammarian, blames him, on the ground of that style being vulgar. But he was such an admirer of perspicuity, that even in his treatise on Rhetoric, he aims at and recommends nothing but clearness of expression.

And in his letters, instead of the usual civil expressions, "Greeting," "Farewell," and so on, he substitutes, "May you act well," "May you live virtuously," and expressions of that sort. Some of his biographers assert that it was he who composed the treatise entitled the Canon, in imitation of the Tripod of Nausiphanes, whose pupil they say that he was, and add that he was also a pupil of Pamphilus, the Platonist at Samos.

They further tell us that he began to study philosophy at twelve years of age, and that he presided over his school thirty-two years. And he was born as we are told by Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, in the third year of the hundred and ninth Olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes, on the seventh day of the month Gamelion, seven years after the death of Plato. And when he was thirty-two years of age, he first set up his school at Mitylene, and after that at Lampsacus; and when he had spent five years in these two cities, he came to Athens; and he died there in the second year of the hundred and twenty-seventh Olympiad, in the archonship of Pytharatus, when he had lived seventy-two years. And Hermarchus, the son of Agemarchus, and a citizen of Mitylene, succeeded him in his school.

He died of the stone, as Hermarchus mentions in his letters, after having been ill a fortnight; and at the end of the fortnight, Hermippus says that he went into a brazen bath, properly tempered with warm water, and asked for a cup of pure wine and drank it; and having recommended his friends to remember his doctrines, he expired. And there is an epigram of ours on him, couched in the following language:

"Now, farewell, remember all my words;"

This was the dying charge of Epicurus.

Then to the bath he went, and drank some wine,

And sank beneath the cold embrace of Hades.

Such was the life of the man, and such was his death.

## The Will of Epicurus

And he made his will in the following terms:

According to this, my will, I give all my possessions to Amynomachus, of Bate, the son of Philocrates, and to Timocrates, of Potamos, the son of Demetrius; according to the deed of gift to each, which is deposited in the Metroum; on condition that they make over my garden and all that is attached to it to Hermarchus, of Mitylene, the son of Agemortus; and to those who study philosophy with him, and to whomsoever Hermarchus leaves as his successors in his school, that they may abide and dwell in it, in the study and practice of philosophy; and I give it also to all those who study philosophy according to my doctrines, that they may, to the best of their ability, maintain my school which exists in my garden, in concert with Amynomachus and Timocrates; and I enjoin their heirs to do the same in the most perfect and secure manner that they can; so that they also may maintain my garden, as those also shall to whom my immediate successors hand it down. As for the house in Melita, that Amynomachus and Timocrates shall allow Hermarchus that he may live in it during his life, together with all his companions in philosophy.

Out of the income which is derived from that property, which is here bequeathed by me to Amynomachus and Timocrates, I will that they, consulting with Hermarchus, shall arrange in the best manner possible the offerings to the names in honor of the memory of my father, and mother, and brothers, and myself, and that my birthday may be kept as it has been in the habit of being kept, on the tenth day of the month Gamelion; and that the reunion of all the philosophers of our school, established in honor of Metrodorus and myself, may take place on the twentieth day of every month. They shall also celebrate, as I have been in the habit of doing myself, the day consecrated to my brothers, in the month Poseideon; and the day consecrated to memory of Polyaenus, in the month Metageitnion.

Amynomachus and Timocrates shall be the guardians of Epicurus, the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polyaenus, as long as they study philosophy under, and live with Hermarchus. In the same way also, they shall be the guardians of the daughter of Metrodorus, and when she is of marriageable age, they shall give her to whomsoever Hermarchus shall select of his companions in philosophy, provided she is well behaved and obedient to Hermarchus. And Amynomachus and Timocrates shall, out of my income, give them such a sum for their support as shall appear sufficient year by year, after due consultation with Hermarchus.

And they shall associate Hermarchus with themselves in the management of my revenues, in order that everything may be done with the approval of that man who has grown old with me in the study of philosophy, and who is now left as the president of all those who have studied philosophy with us. And as for the dowry for the girl when she is come to marriageable age, let Amynomachus and Timocrates arrange that, taking for the purpose such a sum from my property as shall seem to them, in conjunction with Hermarchus, to be reasonable.

And let them also take care of Nicanor, as we ourselves have done; in order that all those who have studied philosophy with us, and who have assisted us with their means, and who have shown great friendship for us, and who have chosen to grow old with us in the study of philosophy, may never be in want of anything as far as our power to prevent it may extend. I further enjoin them to give all my books to Hermarchus; and, if anything should happen to Hermarchus before the children of Metrodorus are grown up, then I desire that Amynomachus and Timocrates, shall take care that, provided they are well behaved, they shall have everything that is necessary for them, as far as the estate which I leave behind me shall allow such things to be furnished to them. And the same men shall also take care of everything else that I have enjoined; so that it may all be fulfilled, as far as the case may permit. Of my slaves, I hereby emancipate Mys, and Nicias, and Lycon: I also give Phaedrium her freedom.

And when he was at the point of death, he wrote the following letter to Idomeneus:

## Letter to Idomeneus

We have written this letter to you on a happy day to us, which is also the last day of our life. For stranguary has attacked me, and also a dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which arises from there collection of all my philosophical contemplation, counterbalances all these afflictions. And I beg you to take care of the children of Metrodorus, in a manner worth of the devotion shown by the youth to me, and to philosophy.

Such then as I have given it, was his will.

He had a great number of pupils, of whom the most eminent included Metrodorus, the son of Athenaeus or Timocrates and Sande, of Lampsacus; who, from the time that he first became acquainted with him, never left him, except one when he went home for six months, after which he returned to him.

And he was a virtuous man in every respect, as Epicurus tells us in his Fundamental Principles. And he also bears witness to his virtue in the third book of his Timocrates. And being a man of this character, he gave his sister Batis in marriage to Idomeneus; and he himself had Leontium, the Attic courtesan, for his concubine. He was very unmoved at all disturbances, and even at death; as Epicurus tells us, in the first book of his Metrodorus. He is said to have died seven years before Epicurus himself, in the fifty-third year of his age. And Epicurus himself, in the will which I have given above, gives many charges about the guardianship of his children, showing by this that he had been dead some time. He also had a brother whom I have mentioned before, of the name of Timocrates, a trifling, silly man.

The writings of Metrodorus are these:

three books addressed to Physicians;

one essay on the Sensations;

one addressed to Timocrates;

one on Magnanimity;

one on the Illness of Epicurus;

one addressed to the Dialecticians;

nine books against the Sophists;

one on the Road to Wisdom;

one on Change;

one on Riches;

one against Democritus;

one on Nobility of Birth.

Likewise Polyaenus, of Lampsacus, the son of Athenodorus, was a man of mild and friendly manners, as Philodemus particularly assures us.

And his successor was Hermarchus, of Mitylene, the son of Agemortus (a poor man), whose favorite pursuit was rhetoric. And the following excellent works of his are extant:

twenty-two books of letters about Empedocles;

an essay on Mathematics;

a treatise against Plato;

another against Aristotle.

And he died of paralysis, being a most eminent man.

There was also Leonteus, of Lampsacus, and his wife Themista, to whom Epicurus wrote.

There were also Colotes and Idomeneus; and these also were natives of Lampsacus. And among the most eminent philosophers of the school of Epicurus, were Polystratus, who succeeded Hermarchus, and Dionysius who succeeded him, and Basileides who succeeded him. Likewise Apollodorus, who was nicknamed the tyrant of the garden, was a very eminent man, and wrote more than four hundred books. And there were the two Ptolemaei of Alexandria, Ptolemaeus the Black, and Ptolemaeus the Fair. And Zenon of Sidon, a pupil of Apollodorus, a very voluminous author; and Demetrius, who was surnamed the Laconian; and Diogenes of Tarsus, who wrote the Select Dialogues; and Orion, and others whom the genuine Epicureans call Sophists.

There were also three other persons of the name of Epicurus; first, the son of Leonteus and Themista; secondly, a native of Magnesia; and lastly, a gladiator.

And Epicurus was a most voluminous author, exceeding all men in the number of his books; for there are more than three hundred volumes of them; and in the whole of them there is not one citation from other sources, but they are filled wholly with the sentiments of Epicurus himself. In the quantity of his writings he was rivaled by Chrysippus, as Carneades asserts, who calls him a parasite of the books of Epicurus; for if ever this latter wrote anything, Chrysippus immediately set his heart on writing a book of equal size; and in this way he often wrote the same thing over again; putting down whatever came into his head; and he published it all without any corrections, by reason of his haste. And he quotes such numbers of testimonies from other authors, that his books are entirely filled with them alone; as one may find also in the works of Aristotle and Zenon.

Such then, so numerous are the works of Epicurus; the chief of which are the following:

    thirty-seven treatises on Natural Philosophy;
    one on Atoms and the Void;
    one on Love;
    an abridgment of the Arguments employed against the Natural Philosophers;
    one against the Doctrines of the Megarians;
    Problems;
    Fundamental Propositions;
    a treatise on Choice and Avoidance;
    another on the Chief Good;
    another on the Criterion, called also the Canon;
    Chaeridemus, a treatise on the Gods;
    one on Piety;
    Hegesianax
    four essays on Lives;
    one on Just Dealing;
    Neocles;
    one essay addressed to Themista;
    the Banquet;
    Eurylochus;
    one essay addressed to Metrodorus;
    one on Seeing;
    one on the Angle in an Atom;
    one on Touch;
    one on Fate;
    Opinions on the Passions;
    one treatise addressed to Timocrates;
    Prognostics;
    Exhortations;
    a treatise on Images;
    one on Perceptions;
    Aristobulus;
    an essay on Music;
    one on Justice and the other Virtues;
    one on Gifts and Gratitude;
    Polymedes;
    Timocrates, a treatise in three books;
    Metrodorus, in five books;
    Antidorus, in two books;
    Opinions about Diseases, addressed to Mithras;
    Callistolas;
    an essay on Kingly Power;
    Anaximenes;
    Letters.

And I will endeavor to give an abridgment of the doctrines contained in these works, as it may be agreeable, quoting three letters of his, in which is the epitome of all his philosophy. I will also give his fundamental and peculiar opinions, and any adages which he uttered which appear worthy of being selected, so that you may be thoroughly acquainted with the man, and may also judge that I understand him.

Now the first letter is one that he wrote to Herodotus, on the subject of Natural Philosophy; the second is one that he wrote to Pythocles, which is about the Heavenly Bodies; the third is addressed to Menoeceus, in which there are discussions about how to live.

We must now begin with the first, after having said a little by way of preface concerning the divisions of philosophy which he adopted.

Now he divides philosophy into three parts. The canonical, the physical, and the ethical. The canonical, which serves as an introduction to knowledge, is contained in the single treatise which is called the Canon. The physical embraces the whole range of speculation on subjects of natural philosophy, and is contained in the thirty-seven books on Nature, and in the letters again it is discussed in an elementary manner. The ethical contains the discussions of Choice and Avoidance; and is comprised in the books about lives, and in some of the Letters, and in the treatise of the Chief Good. Accordingly, most people are in the habit of combining the canonical divisions with the physical; and then they designate the whole under the names of the criterion of the truth, and a discussion of principles, and elements. And they say that the physical division is concerned with production, and destruction, and Nature; and that the ethical division has reference to the objects of choice and avoidance, and lives, and the chief good of mankind.

Dialectics they wholly reject as superfluous. For they say that the correspondence of words with things is sufficient for the natural philosopher to enable him to advance with certainty in the study of Nature.

Now, in the Canon, Epicurus says that the criteria of truth are the senses, and the preconceptions, and the passions. But the Epicureans, in general, add also the perceptive impressions of the intellect. And he says the same thing in his Abridgment, which he addresses to Herodotus, and also in his Fundamental Principles. For, says he, the senses are devoid of reason, nor are they capable of receiving any impressions of memory. For they are not by themselves the cause of any motion, and when they have received any impression from any external cause, then they can add nothing to it, nor can they subtract anything from it. Moreover, they are out of the reach of any control; for one sensation cannot judge of another which resembles itself; for they have all an equal value. Nor can one judge of another which is different from itself; since their objects are not identical. In other words, one sensation cannot control another, since the effects of all of them influence us equally. Again, Reason cannot pronounce on the senses; for we have already said that all reasoning has the senses for its foundation. Reality and the evidence of sensation establish the certainty of the senses; for the impressions of sight and hearing are just as real, just as evident, as pain.

It follows from these considerations that we ought to judge of things which are obscure by their analogy to those which we perceive directly. In fact, every notion proceeds from the senses, either directly, or in consequence of some analogy, or proportion, or combination, reasoning having always a share in these last operations. The visions of insanity and of sleep have a real object for they act upon us; and that which has no reality can produce no action.

By preconception, the Epicureans meant a sort of comprehension as it were, or right opinion, or notion, or general idea which exists in us; or, in other words, the recollection of an external object often perceived beforehand. Such for instance, is the idea: "Man is being of such and such Nature." At the same moment that we utter the word man, we conceive the figure of a man, in virtue of a preconception which we owe to the preceding operations of the senses. Therefore, the first notion which each word awakens in us is a correct one. In fact, we could not seek for anything if we had not previously some notion of it. To enable us to affirm that what we see at a distance is a horse or an ox, we must have some preconception in our minds which makes us acquainted with the form of a horse and an ox. We could not give names to things, if we had not preliminary notion of what the things were.

These preconceptions then furnish us with certainty. And with respect to judgments, their certainty depends on our referring them to some previous notion, of itself certain, in virtue of which we affirm such and such a judgment; for instance, "How do we know whether this thing is a man?"

The Epicureans also refer to 'opinion' as supposition, and say that it is at times true, and at times false. For that which is supported by evidence and not contradicted by evidence is true; but if it is not supported by evidence, and is contradicted by evidence, then it is false. On which account they have introduced the expression of "waiting," as when, before pronouncing that a thing seen is a tower, we must wait till we come near, and learn what it looks like when we are near it.

They say that there are two passions, pleasure and pain, which affect everything alive. And that the one is natural, and the other foreign to our Nature; with reference to which all objects of choice and avoidance are judged of. They say also, that there are two kinds of investigation; the one about facts, the other about mere words. And this is as far as an elementary sketch can go – their doctrine about division, and about the criterion.

Let us now go to his letter:

## Letter to Herodotus

Epicurus to Herodotus, wishing he may do well.

For those, Herodotus, who are not able accurately to comprehend all the things which I have written about Nature, nor able to investigate those larger books which I have composed on the subject, I have made an abridgment of the whole discussion on this question as far as I thought sufficient to enable them to recollect accurately the most fundamental points. I have done this so that on all occasions, they might be able to assist themselves on the most important and undeniable principles to the extent that they devote themselves to studies on natural philosophy. And here it is necessary for those who have made sufficient progress in their overview of the general question, to recall the principles laid down as elements of the entire discussion. For we have a greater need of a correct understanding of the whole than we have of the details. We must therefore give preference to the knowledge we have already acquired, and lay up in our memory those principles on which we may rest, in order that we may arrive at an exact perception and a certain knowledge of things.

Now, one has arrived at the point of certain knowledge when one has thoroughly embraced the concept, and if I may so express myself, the most essential forms, and when one has impressed them adequately on one's senses. For the clear and precise knowledge of the whole, taken together, necessarily facilitates one's perceptions of particulars, when one has brought one's ideas back to the elements and the fundamental terms. In short, a true synthesis, comprising the entire circle of the phenomena of the universe, ought to be able to encompass in itself, and in a few words, all the particular facts which have been previously studied. This method is useful even to those who are already familiarized with the laws of the universe, and I recommend that they make a concise statement or summary of their opinions, while still pursuing without intermission the study of Nature, which contributes more than anything else to the tranquility and happiness of life.

First of all then, Herodotus, one must determine with exactness the concept which is comprehended under each separate word, in order to be able to refer to that concept, as to a certain criterion. To these conceptions, which emanate from ourselves, we refer back as we examine our greatest researches and difficulties; otherwise our judgment has no foundation. One's understanding goes on from demonstration to demonstration ad infinitum; or else one gains nothing beyond mere words. In fact, it is absolutely necessary that we should perceive directly, and without the assistance of any demonstration, the fundamental concept which every word expresses. We must do this, if we wish to have any foundation to which we may refer our researches, our difficulties, and our personal judgments. And we must take care to perceive these concepts clearly using whatever criterion which we employ, whether we take as our standard the particular impressions produced on our senses, or the actual impression as a general concept; or whether we cling to the idea by itself, or whether we employ any other criterion.

We must also note carefully the impressions which we receive when we are in the very presence of objects. We must do this in order that we may identify that point in the examination where we find it necessary to reserve judgment as to the truth of a matter, especially when the question is about things of which we do not have immediately perceptible to us sufficient evidence to form a clear determination on the matter.

When these foundations are once laid, we may pass to the study of those things about which the evidence is not immediately clear to us. [On questions such as this there are a number of fundamental principles of nature which we must keep in mind:]

First of all, we must admit that nothing can come from that which does not exist. Were this fact otherwise, then everything would be produced from everything, and there would be no need of any first beginning, or seed.

Second, if that which disappeared were so absolutely destroyed as to become non-existent, then everything would soon perish, as the things into which they would be dissolved would have no existence.

As a result of these first two principles, we conclude that the universe as a whole has always been such as it now is and always will be such. For there is nothing into which the universe can change, and there is nothing beyond the universal whole which can penetrate into the universal whole and produce any change in it.

Next, we observe that everything that exists in the universe is formed from bodies that have a material existence of some kind. We know this because our senses bear us witness in every case that bodies have a real existence, and the evidence of the senses, as I have said before, ought to be the rule of our reasoning about everything, even that which we are not able to perceive directly. We also consider that that that which we call the void, or space, or intangible Nature, has a real existence, as otherwise there would be nothing on which the bodies could be contained, or across which they could move, as we see that they really do move. As a result of these observations we conclude that one cannot conceive, either through human perception, or through any analogy founded on perception, any general quality of things which is not either an attribute, or an incident of material things or empty space, which we call matter and void.

Now, of material things, some single elements, and others are formed of combinations of elements. The elements are indivisible, and thus are impervious to any kind of transformation; if this were not so everything would eventually dissolve into non-existence. The elements exist by their own nature, even though the combined bodies which they compose change and dissolve, because the elements are absolutely solid, and as such they offer no point through which any destructive force can enter. It follows, therefore, as a matter of absolute necessity, that the fundamental material of the universe must be composed of elements that are themselves indivisible.

The universe is boundless. We know this because that which is bounded has an extreme point, and that which has an extreme point is looked at in relationship to something else. Consequently, that which does not have an extreme point has no boundary. And if it has no boundary, it must be infinite, and not terminated by any limit. The universe then is infinite, both in regard to the quantity of matter from which it is made up, and to the magnitude of the void. For if the void were infinite, and the amount of matter was finite, then the matter would not be able to rest in any place. The elements of the universe would be transported about, scattered across the infinite void, lacking any power to steady itself, or to keep one another in their places by mutual repulsion. If, on the other hand, the void were finite, while the amount of the matter was infinite, then the elements clearly could never be contained in the void.

Again: the atoms within the combined bodies, and these solid elements from which the combined bodies come, and into which they resolve themselves, assume an incalculable variety of forms. This must be so because the numerous differences which the bodies present to us cannot possibly result from an aggregate of the same forms. Each type of form that we observe contains an innumerable number of atoms, but there is not for that reason an infinity of atoms; it is only that their number is beyond all calculation.

The atoms are in a continual state of motion. Among these atoms, some are separated by great distances, but others come very near to one another in the formations of combined bodies, or at times they are enveloped by others which are combining. However, in this latter case, they nevertheless preserve their own peculiar motion, thanks to the Nature of the void which separates the one from the other, and yet offers them no resistance. The solidity which they possess causes them, while knocking against one another, to react one upon the other; till at last the repeated shocks bring on the dissolution of the combined body. For all this there is no external cause, the only cause is the fundamental nature of the atoms and the void.

Further, the number of worlds are also infinite, whether they resemble this one of ours or whether they are different from it. For the atoms are, as to their number, infinite, as I have shown above, and they necessarily move about at immense distances. The infinite multitude of atoms of the universe from which this world is formed, or by which it is produced, could not be entirely absorbed by one single world, nor even by any finite number of worlds, whether we suppose all those worlds to be like our own, or different form it. We see that there is therefore no fact inconsistent with there being an infinity of worlds.

Moreover, we observe that there exist what we call images that resemble, as far as their form goes, the solid bodies which we see, but which differ materially from them in the thinness of their substance. In fact it is not impossible but that there may be in space images that form surfaces without depth, of an extreme thinness. It is also possible that from the solid matter there may emanate some particles which preserve the connection, the disposition, and the motion which they had in the solid body. I give the name of images to these representations; and indeed, their movement through the void takes place without meeting any obstacle or hindrance. These images traverse all imaginable distances in an inconceivable moment of time; for it is the meeting of obstacles, or the absence of obstacles, which produces the rapidity or the slowness of their motion. At any event, a body in motion does not find itself, no matter how fast it is traveling, in two places at the same time, as that is quite inconceivable. From what ever point within the infinite universe it arrives at any appreciable moment, and whatever may be the spot in it its course in which we perceive its motion, it has evidently quitted that spot at the moment of our thought. This is because the motion of the images in space, as we have shown up to this point, encounters no obstacle to its rapidity, and it is wholly in the same condition as it would be if its rapidity had been diminished by the shock of some resistance.

It is useful to retain this principle in our studies, and to know that the images have an incomparable thinness. This fact is in no respect contradicted by the evidence of our senses. From this it also follows that the rapidity of movement of the images is incomparable; for they find everywhere an easy passage, and their minuteness causes them to experience no shock, or at any event only a very slight one, where a multitude of elements would very soon encounter significant resistance.

One must not forget that the production of images is continuous; for from the surface of the bodies images of this kind are continually flowing off in a manner too fast for our senses to apprehend, because they are immediately replaced. They preserve for a long time the same disposition and the same arrangement that the atoms do in the solid body, although their form may be sometimes altered. The direct production of images in space is equally instantaneous, because these images are only light substances that lack any depth.

[As we consider phenomena such as the nature of sight and images], we may consider that there may be [various] other manners in which phenomena of this kind are produced, but we must allow nothing in these other possibilities which at all contradicts the senses, and we must consider in what way the senses are exercised and the relationship that is established between external objects and ourselves. In this inquiry, one must admit that something passes over from external objects to us in order to produce in us sight and the knowledge of forms, for it is difficult to conceive that external objects can affect us through the medium of the air which is between us and them, or by means of emissions that proceed from us to them, and still give us an impression of their form and color. This phenomenon, on the contrary, is perfectly explained if we admit that certain images of the same color, of the same shape, and of a proportionate magnitude pass from these objects to us, and so arrive at us, being seen and comprehended. These images travel at an exceedingly rapid speed, and the vision is continued so long as on the other side, the solid object, which forms a compact mass comprising a vast quantity of atoms, emits always the same quantity of particles. In this way the images produce in us one single perception which preserves always the same relation to the object. Every conception we form, every sensible perception we receive which bears upon the form or the other attributes of these images, is only the same form of the solid object perceived directly, either in virtue of a sort of actual and continued condensation of the image, or in consequence of the traces which it has left in us.

This leads us to observe the possibility of error and false judgments, which always depend upon our supposing that a preconceived idea will be confirmed, or at any event will not be overturned, by additional evidence as we receive it. In those cases where our supposition is not confirmed, we form our judgments in virtue of a sort of initiation of thought which is connected with our perceptions, and with a direct representation from the object that we observe. In these cases of error, however, the connection is with a conception that is peculiar to ourselves, and this is the parent of error. In fact, the representations we receive from images are reflected by our intelligence like a mirror, whether those images are perceived in a dream or through any other conceptions of the mind or the senses. But these representations do not resemble the objects to the extent that we can call them real and true unless the objects that we are examining are perceived directly. Error arises when we do not perceive objects directly because in those situations we receive impressions which our intelligence connects with a direct representation, but which goes beyond a direct observation. These conceptions are connected with direct perception which produced the representation, but they go beyond the actual object in consequence of impressions that are peculiar to the individual making them. This results in error when the mental apprehension our minds reach is not confirmed by, or is contradicted by, additional evidence. When our mental apprehension is confirmed by additional evidence, or when it is not contradicted by additional evidence, then it produces truth.

We must carefully preserve these principles in order that we will not reject the authority of those of our faculties which perceive truth directly. We must also observe these principles so that we will not allow our minds to believe that what is false or what is speculative has been established with equal firmness with what is true, because this results in everything being thrown into confusion.

Moreover, hearing is produced by some sort of flow proceeding from something that speaks, or sounds, or roars, or in any manner causes any sort of audible circumstances. And this flow is diffused into small bodies which resemble one another in their parts, and which, preserve not only some kind of relation between one another, but even a sort of particular identity with the object from which they emanate. This process puts us, very frequently, into a communication of senses with this object, or at least causes us to become aware of the existence of some external circumstance. If these flows did not carry with them some sort of sympathy, then there would be no such perception. We must not therefore think that it is the air which receives a certain form, under the action of the voice or some other sound. For it is not possible that the voice should act in this manner on the air. But the percussion produced in us when we, by the utterance of a voice, cause a disengagement of certain particles, constitutes a flow resembling a light whisper, and prepares an acoustic sensation in us.

We must admit that the case of smelling is the same as that of hearing. There would be no sense of smell if there did not emanate from objects certain particles capable of producing an impression on the sense of smell. One class of smells is ill-suited to ours sense of smell, and consequently producing a disordered response, the other class of smells suited to our senses, and causing it no distress.

One must also allow that the atoms possess none of the qualities of objects perceptible to our senses except form, weight, magnitude, and anything else that is unavoidably inherent in form. Every transient quality is changeable, but the atoms are necessarily unchangeable. This is because there must be in the dissolution of combined bodies something which continues solid and indestructible. Such basic material is of such a kind that it will not change either into what does not exist, or out of what does not exist; but combined bodies result either from a simple rearrangement of parts, or from the addition or subtraction of certain particles. It follows that those basic elements which do not admit of any change in themselves are imperishable, and participate in no respect in the nature of changeable things – In a word, these basic materials have their dimensions and forms immutable determined. And this is proved plainly enough, because even in the transformations which take place under our eyes in consequence of the removal of certain parts, we can still recognize the form of the constituent parts. In contrast, those qualities which are not constituent parts do not remain like the form, but perish in the dissolution of the combination. The attributes which we have indicated are sufficient to explain all the differences of combined bodies, but in the basic materials must inevitably leave something indestructible, lest everything should resolve itself into non-existence.

However, one must not believe that every degree of magnitude exists in atoms, lest we find ourselves contradicted by what we observe. But we must observe that there are atoms of different magnitudes, because we may then more easily explain our impressions and sensations. In any event, I repeat, it is not necessary for the purpose of explaining the different qualities that we observe to attribute to the atoms every kind of magnitude.

We must not suppose either, that an atom can be so large as to become visible to us. First of all, we do not observe that this is the case. In addition, one cannot even conceive how an atom is to become visible; and we must not believe that in a finite body there are particles of every sort, infinite in number. Consequently, one must reject the doctrine of infinite divisibility into material that is smaller and smaller, lest we should be reducing everything to nothing, and find ourselves forced to admit that in a mass composed of a combination of elements, existence can reduce itself to non-existence.

But one cannot even suppose that a finite thing can be susceptible of transformation ad infinitum, or even of transformation into smaller objects that itself. Once one has said that there are in an object particles of every kind, and in infinite number, there is absolutely no means whatever of imagining that this object can have only a finite size. In fact, it is evident that these particles, though innumerable, have some kind of dimension or other. Whatever this dimension may be in other respects, the objects which are composed of them will have an infinite magnitude. As we examine forms which are determined and limits which are perceived by the senses, however, one conceives easily without it being necessary to study the question that objects composed of infinite material would be infinite in size. Consequently, one must come to look at every object composed of a finite number of elemental particles.

One must also admit that the most minute particle perceptible to the senses is neither absolutely like the objects which are susceptible of change nor absolutely different from them. Such an object has some characteristics in common with the object from which it was a part, but it also differs from them, inasmuch as it itself does not allow any distinct parts to be discerned within it. When then, in virtue of these common characteristics and of this resemblance, we wish to form an idea of the smallest particle perceptible by the senses, it is necessary that we should seize on some characteristic common to these different objects for our terms of comparison. In this way, we examine them successively, from the first to the last, not by themselves, but more as composed of parts in juxtaposition, but only in their extent. In other words, we consider the magnitudes by themselves, and in an abstract manner, inasmuch as they measure a greater or smaller extent. This analogy applies to the atom to the extent that we consider it as having the smallest dimensions possible. By evidence of its minuteness it differs from objects which are perceptible, but still this analogy is applicable to it. In a word, we establish by this comparison, that the atom really has some extent, but we exclude all perceptible dimensions for the sake of investing it with only the smallest proportions.

We may proceed further, taking for our guide the reasoning which discloses to us things which are invisible to the senses. We conclude that the most minute magnitudes, those which are not combinations of other magnitudes, are those which from the limit of our senses are the first measure of the other magnitudes, which are only called greater or lesser in their relation to the others. For these relations which they maintain with those particles which are not subject to transformation, we suffice it to give them this characteristic of first measure. But they cannot, like atoms, combine themselves and form compound bodies in virtue of any motion belonging to themselves.

Moreover, when we are speaking of the infinite we must not say that such or such a point is the highest point, or the lowest. For height and lowness must not be attributed to what is infinite. This is because we know that in reality, if we wish to describe a limit to the infinite, and we conceive a point above our head, this point wherever it may be, will never appear to us to have the character of a limit. Otherwise, that which would be situated above the point so conceived as the limit of the infinite would be at the same moment both high and low in relation to the same point, and this is impossible to imagine.

It follows that thought can only conceive one single movement of change, from low to high, ad infinitum; and one single movement from high to low. From low to high, when even the object in motion, going from us to the places situated above our heads, meets ten thousand times with the feet of those who are above us; and from high to low, when in the same way it advances towards the heads of those who are below us. For these two movements, looked at by themselves and in their whole, are conceived as really opposed the one to the other, in their progress towards the infinite.

Moreover, all the atoms are necessarily moving at the same speed when they move across the void, when no obstacle thwarts them. For why should heavy atoms move more rapidly than those which are small and light, since neither encounter any obstacle? Why, on the other hand, should the small atoms have a speed superior to that of the large ones, since both sizes find an easy passage everywhere, with no obstacle intervening to thwart their movements? Whether the movement is from low to high or is horizontal movement to and fro in virtue of the reciprocal collisions of the atoms, or is movement downwards in virtue of weight, the speed of all such movement will be all equal, for in whatever sense the atom moves, it must have a movement as rapid as we can comprehend till the moment when it is repelled by some external cause, or meets resistance due to its own weight or the shock of collision with some other object.

Again, even in compound bodies, one atom does not move more rapidly than another. In fact, if one only looks at the continued movement of an atom which takes place in an indivisible moment of time, which is the briefest possible, they all have a movement that is equally rapid. At the same time, an atom does not continue its movement in the same direction in any period of time we can perceive. Rather the atom moves in a series of oscillating movements, and in the last analysis it is from this that results the continued movement of things that is perceptible to the senses. One would therefore deceive himself if he were to suppose, when reasoning about invisible things, that in the short intervals of time which we can conceive the atoms continue to move in the same direction, for our conception of the oscillating movements of atoms is confirmed by our observation of what we perceive directly.

Let us now return to the study of the passions, and of the sensations; for this will be the best method of proving that the soul is a bodily substance, which we believe is composed of light particles, diffused over all the members of the body. In this way the soul presents an analogy to a sort of spirit, having an mixture of heat, resembling at various time one or thee other of these two principles – spirit and heat. Also within the soul there exists a special part, endowed with extreme mobility and in immediate sympathy with the rest of the body, due to the exceeding slightness of the elements which compose it. That it is which the faculties of the soul sufficiently prove, and the passions, and the mobility of its Nature, and the thoughts, and, in a word, everything, the privation of which is death. We must admit that it is in the soul most especially that the principle of sensation resides. At the same time, it would not possess this power if it were not enveloped by the rest of the body which communicates it to it, and in its turn receives it from it; but only in certain measure; for there are certain affections of the soul of which it is not capable.

It is on that account that, when the soul departs, the body is no longer possessed of sensation; for it has not this power, (namely that of sensation) in itself; but on the other hand, this power can only manifest itself in the soul through the medium of the body. The soul, reflecting the manifestations which are accomplished in the substance which environs it, realizes in itself, in a virtue or power which belongs to it, the sensible affections, and immediately communicates them to the body in virtue of the reciprocal bonds of sympathy which unite it to the body; that is the reason why the destruction of a part of the body does not draw after it a cessation of all feeling in the soul while it resides in the body, provided that the senses still preserve some energy; although, nevertheless, the dissolution of the corporeal covering, or even of any one of its portions, may sometimes bring on with it the destruction of the soul.

The rest of the body, on the other hand, even when it remains, either as a whole, or in any part, loses all feeling by the dispersion of that aggregate of atoms, whatever it may be, that forms the soul. When the entire combination of the body is dissolved, then the soul too is dissolved, and ceases to retain those faculties which were previously inherent in it, and especially the power of motion; so that sensation perishes equally as far as the soul is concerned; for it is impossible to imagine that it still feels, from the moment when it is no longer in the same conditions of existence, and no longer possesses the same movements of existence in reference to the same organic system; from the moment, in short, when the things which cover and surround it are no longer such, that it retains in them the same movements as before. (Epicurus expresses the same ideas in other works, and adds that the soul is composed of atoms of the most perfect roundness and lightness; atoms wholly different from those of fire. He distinguishes in it the irrational part which is diffused over the whole body, from the rational part which has its seat in the chest, as is proved by the emotions of fear and joy. He adds that sleep is produced either when the parts of the soul diffused over the whole of the body concentrate themselves, or when they disperse and escape by the pores of the body; for particles emanate from all bodies.)

It must also be observed that I use the word incorporeal in the usual meaning of the word, to express that which is in itself conceived as such. Now, nothing can be conceived in itself as incorporeal except the void; but the void cannot be either passive or active; it is only the condition and the place of movement. Accordingly, they who pretended that the soul is incorporeal, utter words destitute of sense; for if it had this character, it would not be able either to do or to suffer anything; but, as it is, we see plainly enough that it is liable to both these circumstances.

Let us then apply all these reasonings to the affections and sensations, recollecting the ideas which we laid down at the beginning, and then we shall see clearly that these general principles contain an exact solution of all the particular cases.

As to forms, and hues, and magnitudes, and weight, and the other qualities which one looks upon as attributes, whether it be of every body, or of those bodies only which are visible and perceived by the senses, this is the point of view under which they ought to be considered: they are not particular substances, having a peculiar existence of their own, for that cannot be conceived; nor can one say any more that they have no reality at all. They are not incorporeal substances inherent in the body, nor are they parts of the body. But they constitute by their union, I repeat, the eternal substance of the body. Each of these attributes has ideas and particular perceptions which correspond to it; but they cannot be perceived independently of the whole subject taken entirely. The union of all these perceptions forms the idea of the body. Bodies often possess other attributes which are not eternally inherent in them, but which nevertheless cannot be ranged among the incorporeal and invisible things. Accordingly, it is sufficient to express the general idea of the movement of transference to enable us to conceive in a moment certain distinct qualities, and those combined beings, which, being taken in their totality, receive the name of bodies; and the necessary and eternal attributes without which the body cannot be conceived.

There are certain conceptions corresponding to these attributes; but nevertheless, they cannot be known abstractedly, and independently of some subjects; and further, inasmuch as they are not attributes necessarily inherent in the idea of a body, one can only conceive them in the moment in which they are visible; they are realities nevertheless; and one must not refuse them being an existence merely because they have neither the characteristic of the compound beings to which we give the name of bodies, nor that of the eternal attributes. We should be equally deceived if we were to suppose that they have a separate and independent existence; for that is true neither of them nor of the eternal attributes. They are, as one sees plainly, accidents of the body; accidents which do not of necessity make any part of its Nature; which cannot be considered as independent substances, but still to each of which sensation gives the peculiar character under which it appears to us.

Another important question is that of time. Here we cannot apply any more the method of examination to which we submit other objects, where we study with reference to a give subject; and which we refer to the preconceptions which exist in ourselves. We must seize, by analogy, and going round the whole circle of things comprised under this general denomination for time – we must seize, I say, that essential character which causes us to say that time is long or short. It is not necessary for that purpose to seek for any new forms of expression as preferable to those which are in common use; we may content ourselves with those by which time is usually indicated. Nor need we, as certain philosophers do, affirm any particular attribute of time, for that would be to suppose that its essence is the same as that of this attribute. It is sufficient to seek for the ingredients of which this particular Nature which we call time is composed, and for the means by which it is measured. For this we have no need of demonstration; a simple exposition is sufficient. It is, in fact, evident, that we speak of time as composed of days and nights, and parts of days and nights. Passiveness and impassibility, movement and repose, are equally comprised in time. In short, it is evident that in connection with these different states, we can conceive a particular property to which we give the name of time.

(Epicurus lays down the same principles in the second book of his treatise on Nature, and in his Great Abridgment.)

It is from the infinite that the worlds are derived, and all the finite aggregates which present numerous analogies with the things which we observe under our own eyes. Each of these objects, great and small, has been separated from the infinite by a movement peculiar to itself. On the other hand, all these bodies will be successively destroyed, some more, and others less rapidly; some under the influence of one cause, and others because of the agency of some other. (It is evident, after this, that Epicurus regards the worlds as perishable, since he admits that their parts are capable of transformation. He also says in other places, that the earth rests suspended in the air.)

We must not believe that all worlds necessarily have one identical form. (He says, in fact, in the twelfth book of his treatise on the World, that the worlds differ from one another; some being spherical, other elliptical, and others of other shapes.)

Let us also beware of thinking that animals are derived from the infinite; for there is no one who can prove that the seeds from which animals are born, and plants, and all the other objects which we contemplate, have been brought from the exterior in such a world, and that this same world would not have been able to produce them of itself. This remark applies particularly to the earth.

Again, we must admit that in many and various respects, Nature is both instructed and constrained by circumstances themselves; and that Reason subsequently makes perfect and enriches with additional discoveries the things which it has borrowed from Nature; in some cases rapidly, and in others more slowly. And in some cases according to periods and times greater than those which proceed from the infinite; in other cases according to those which are smaller. So, originally it was only in virtue of express agreements that one gave names to things. But men whose ideas and passion varied according to their respective nations, formed these names of their own accord, uttering diverse sounds produced by each passion, or by each idea, following the differences of the situations and of the peoples. At a later period one established in each nation, in a uniform manner, particular terms intended to render the relations more easy, and language more concise. Educated men introduced the notion of things not discoverable by the senses, and appropriated words to them when they found themselves under the necessity of uttering their thoughts; after this, other men, guided in every point by reason, interpreted these words in the same sense.

As to the heavenly phenomena, such as the motion and course of the stars, the eclipses, their rising and setting, and all other appearances of the same kind, we must beware of thinking that they are produced by any particular being which has regulated, or whose business it is to regulate, for the future, the order of the world, a being immortal and perfectly happy. For the cares and anxieties, the benevolence and the anger, far from being compatible with felicity, are, on the contrary, the consequence of weakness, of fear, and of the want which a thing has of something else. We must not fancy either that these globes of fire, which roll on in space, enjoy a perfect happiness, and give themselves, with reflection and wisdom, the motions which they possess. But we must respect the established notions on this subject, provided, nevertheless, that they do not all contradict the respect due to truth; for nothing is more calculated to trouble the soul than this strife of contradictory notions and principles. We must therefore admit that from the first movement impressed on the heavenly bodies since the organization of the world there is derived a sort of necessity which regulates their course to this day.

Let us be well assured that it is to physiology that it belongs to determine the causes of the most elevated phenomena, and that happiness consists, above all things, in the science of the heavenly things and their Nature, and in the knowledge of analogous phenomena which may aid us in the comprehension of ethics. These heavenly phenomena admit of several explanations; they have no reason of a necessary character, and one may explain them in different manners. In a word, they have no relation – a moment's consideration will prove this by itself – with those imperishable and happy Natures which admit of no division and of no confusion. As for the theoretical knowledge of the rising and setting of the stars, of the movement of the sun between the tropics, of the eclipses, and all other similar phenomena, that is utterly useless, as far as any influence upon happiness that it can have. Moreover, those who, though possessed of this knowledge, are ignorant of Nature, and of the most probable causes of the phenomena, are no more protected from fear than if they were in the most complete ignorance. They even experience the most lively fears, for the trouble with which the knowledge of which they are possessed inspires them can find no issue, and is not dissipated by a clear perception of the reasons of these phenomena.

As to us, we find many explanations of the motions of the sun, of the rising and setting of the stars, of the eclipse and similar phenomena, just as well as of the more particular phenomena. And one must not think that this method of explanation is not sufficient to procure happiness and tranquility. Let us content ourselves with examining how it is that similar phenomena are brought about under our own eyes, and let us apply these observations to the heavenly objects and to everything which is known only indirectly. Let us despise those people who are unable to distinguish facts susceptible of different explanations from others which can only exist and be explained in one single way. Let us disdain those men who do not know, by means of the different images which result from distance, how to give an account of the different appearances of things; who, in a word, are ignorant about what are the objects which can excite any trouble in us. If, then, we know that such a phenomenon can be brought about in the same manner as another given phenomenon of the same character which does not inspire us with any apprehension; and if, on the other hand, we know that it can take place in many different manners, we shall not be more troubled at sight of it than if we know the real cause of it.

We must also recollect that which principally contributes to trouble the spirit of men is the persuasion which they cherish that the stars are beings imperishable and perfectly happy, and that then one's thoughts and actions are in contradiction to the will of these superior beings. They also being deluded by these fables, apprehend an eternity of evils, and they fear the insensibility of death, as if that could affect them. What do I say? It is not even belief, but inconsiderateness and blindness which govern them in every thing, to such a degree that, not calculating these fears, they are just as much troubled as if they really had faith in these vain phantoms.

And the real freedom from this kind of trouble consists in being emancipated from all these things, and in preserving the recollection of all the principles which we have established, especially of the most essential of them. Accordingly, it is well to pay a scrupulous attention to existing phenomena and to the sensations, to the general sensations for general things, and to the particular sensations for particular things. In a word, we must take note of this, the immediate evidence with which each of these judicial faculties furnishes us; for, if we attend to these points, namely, whence confusion and fear arise, we shall divine the causes correctly, and we shall deliver ourselves from those feelings, tracing back the heavenly phenomena to their causes, and also all the other which present themselves at every step, and inspire the common people with extreme terror.

This, Herodotus, is a kind of summary and abridgment of the whole question of natural philosophy. So that, if this reasoning be allowed to be valid, and be preserved carefully in the memory, the man who allows himself to be influenced by it, even though he may not descend to a profound study of its details, will have a great superiority of character over other men. He will personally discover a great number of truths which I have myself set forth in my entire work; and these truths being stored in his memory, will be a constant assistance to him. By means of these principles, those who have descended into the details, and have studied the question sufficiently, will be able, in bringing all their particular knowledge to bear on the general subject, to run over without difficulty almost the entire circle of the natural philosophy; those, on the other hand, who are not yet arrived at perfection, and who have not been able to hear me lecture on these subjects, will be able in their minds to run over the main of the essential notions, and to derive assistance from them for the tranquility and happiness of life.

This then is his letter on physics.

## Letter to Pythocles

About the heavenly bodies he writes thus:

THE LETTER TO PYTHOCLES, about the heavenly bodies

Epicurus to Pythocles, wishing he may do well.

Cleon has brought me your letter, in which you continue to evince towards me an affection worthy of the friendship which I have for you. You devote all your care, you tell me, to engraving in your memory those ideas which contribute to the happiness of life; and you entreat me at the same time to send you a simple abridgment and abstract of my ideas on the heavenly phenomena, in order that you may without difficulty preserve the recollection of them. For, say you, what I have written on this subject in my other works is difficult to recollect, even with continual study.

I willingly yield to your desire, and I have good hope, that in fulfilling what you ask, I shall be useful too to many others, especially to those who are as yet novices in the real knowledge of Nature, and to those to whom the perplexities and the ordinary affairs of life leave but little leisure. Be careful then to seize on those precepts thoroughly, engrave them deeply in your memory, and meditate on them with the abridgment addressed to Herodotus, which I also send you.

Know then, that the only aim of the knowledge of the heavenly phenomena, both those which are spoken of in contact with one another, and of those which have a spontaneous existence, is that freedom from anxiety, and that calmness which is derived from a firm belief; and this is the aim of every other science.

It is not good to desire what is impossible, and to endeavor to enunciate a uniform theory about everything; accordingly, we ought not here to adopt the method, which we have followed in our researches into ethics, or in the solution of problems of natural philosophy. We there said, for instance, that there are no other things except bodies and the void, and that the atoms are the principles of things, and so the rest. In a word, we gave a precise and simple explanation for every fact, conformable to appearances.

We cannot act in the same way with respect to the heavenly phenomena. These productions may depend upon several different causes, and we may give many different explanations on this subject, equally agreeing with the impression of the senses. Besides, it is not here a question about reasoning on new principles, and of laying down, à priori, rules for the interpretation of Nature. The only guides for us to follow are the appearances themselves; for that which we have in view is not a set of systems and vain opinions, but much rather a life exempt from every kind disquietude.

The heavenly phenomena do not inspire those who give different explanations of them, conformable with appearances, instead of explaining them by hypothesis, with any alarm. But if, abandoning hypothesis, one at the same time renounces the attempt to explain them by means of analogies founded on appearances, then one is placing one's self altogether at a distance from the science of Nature, in order to fall into fables.

It is possible that the heavenly phenomena may present some apparent characteristics which appear to assimilate them to those phenomena which we see taking place around ourselves, without there being any real analogy at the bottom. For the heavenly phenomena may depend for their production on many different causes. Nevertheless, we must observe the appearances presented by each, and we must distinguish the different circumstances which attach to them, and which can be explained in different manners by means of analogous phenomena which arise under our eyes.

The world is a collection of things embraced by the heaven, containing the stars, the earth, and all visible objects. This collection, separated from the infinite, is terminated by an extremity, which is either rare, or dense, or revolving, or in a state of repose, or of a round, or triangular, or some shape or other in fact, for it may be any shape the dissolution of which must bring the destruction of everything which they embrace. In fact, it can take place in every sort of way, since there is not one of those things that are seen in this world which proves otherwise, and in which we cannot detect any extremity; and that such worlds are infinite in number is easily seen, and in the metakosmion, as we call the space between the worlds, being a huge space made up of matter and void, but not, as some philosophers pretend, an immensity of space absolutely empty. This production of a world may be explained thus: seeds suitably appropriated to such an end may emanate either from one or from several worlds, or from the space that separates them; they flow towards a particular point where they become collected together and organized; after that, other seeds come to unite them together in such a way as to form a durable whole, a basis, a nucleus to which all successive additions unite themselves.

One must not content one's self in this question with saying, as one of the natural philosophers has done, that there is a reunion of the elements, or a violent motion in the void under the influence of necessity, and that the body which is thus produced increases until it come to crash against some other; for this doctrine is contrary to appearances.

The sun, the moon, and the other stars, were originally formed separately, and were afterwards comprehended in the entire total of the world. All the other objects which our world comprises, for instance, the earth and the sea, were also formed spontaneously, and subsequently gained size, by the addition and violent movement of light substances, composed of elements of fire and air, or even of these two principles at once. This explanation, moreover, is in accordance with the impressions of the senses.

As to the magnitude of the sun and of the other stars, it is, as far as we are concerned, such as it appears to us to be. (This same doctrine is reproduced, and occurs again in the eleventh book of his treatise on Nature; where he says, "if the distance has made it lose is size, a fortiori, it would take away its brilliancy; for color has not, any more than size, the property of traversing distance without alteration.")

But considered by itself, the sun may be a little greater or a little smaller than it appears; or it may be just such as it looks; for that is exactly the case with the fires of common occurrence among men, which are perceived by the senses at distance. Besides, all the difficulties on this subject will be easily explained if one attends to the clear evidence of the perceptions, as I have shown in my books about Nature.

The rising and setting of the sun, of the moon, and of the stars, may depend on the fact of their becoming lighted up, and extinguished alternately, and in the order which we behold. One may also give other reasons for the phenomenon, which are not contradicted by any sensible appearances; accordingly, one might explain them by the passage of the stars above and below the earth, for the impressions of the senses agree also with this supposition.

As to their motion, one may make that depend on the circular movement of the entire heaven. One may also suppose that the stars move, while the heaven itself is immovable; for there is nothing to prevent the idea that originally, before the formation of the world, they may have received, by the appointment of fate, an impulse from east to west, and that now their movement continues in consequence of their heat, as the fire naturally proceeds onwards in order to seek the nourishment which suits it.

The inter-tropical movements of the sun and moon may depend, either on the obliquity impressed by fate on the heaven at certain determined epochs, or on the resistance of the air, or on the fact that these ignited bodies stand in need of being nourished by a matter suitable to their Nature, and that this matter fails them; or finally, they may depend on the fact their having originally received an impulse which compels them to move as they do, describing a sort of spiral figure. The sensible evidence does not in the least contradict these different suppositions, and all those of the same kind which one can form, having always a due regard to what is possible, and can bring back each phenomenon to its analogous appearances in sensible facts, without disquieting one's self about the miserable speculations of the astrologers.

The waning and subsequent replenishing of the moon may depend either on a conversion of this body, or on the different forms which the air when in a fiery state can adopt, or perhaps to the interposition of another body, or lastly, to some one of the causes by which one gives account of the analogous phenomena which pass under our eyes. Provided, however, that one does not obstinately adopt an exclusive mode of explanation; and that, for want of knowing what is possible for a man to explain, and what is inaccessible to his intelligence, one does not throw one's self into interminable speculations.

It may also be possibly the case that the moon has a light of her own, or that she reflects that of the sun. For we see around us many objects which are luminous of themselves, and many other which have only a borrowed light. In a word, one will not be arrested by any of the celestial phenomena, provided that one always recollects that there are many explanations possible; that one examines the principles and reasons which agree with this mode of explanation, and that one does not proceed in accounting for the facts which do not agree with this method, to suffer one's self to be foolishly carried away, and to propose a separate explanation for each phenomenon, sometimes in one way, and sometimes in another.

The appearance of a face in the orb of the moon, may depend either on a displacement of its parts, or on the interposition of some obstacle, or on any other cause capable of accounting for such an appearance. For one must not neglect to apply this same method to all the heavenly phenomena; for, from the moment when one comes to any point of contradiction to the evidence of the senses, it will be impossible to posses perfect tranquility and happiness.

The eclipses of the sun and moon may depend either on the fact that these celestial bodies extinguish themselves, a phenomenon which we often see produced under our eyes, or on the fact of other bodies, the earth, the heaven, or something else of the same kind interposing, between them and us. Besides, we must compare the different modes of explanation appropriate to phenomena, and recollect that it is not impossible that many causes may at one and the same time concur in their production. (He says the same thing in the twelfth book of his treatise on Nature; and adds that the eclipses of the sun arise from the fact that it penetrates into the shade of the moon, to quit it again presently; and the eclipse of the moon from the fact of its entering into the shade of the earth. We also find the same doctrine asserted by Diogenes, the Epicurean, in the first book of his Select Opinions.)

The regular and periodical march of these phenomena has nothing in it that ought to surprise us, if we only attend to the analogous facts which take place under our eyes. Above all things let us beware of making the Deity interpose here, for that being we ought to suppose exempt from all toil and perfectly happy; otherwise we shall be only giving vain explanations of the heavenly phenomena, as has happened already to a crowd of authors. Not being able to recognize what is really possible, they have fallen into vain theories, in supposing that for all phenomena there was but one single mode of production, and in rejecting all other explanations which are founded on probability. They have adopted the most unreasonable opinions for want of placing in the front the study of heavenly phenomena, and of sensible facts, which ought to serve to explain the first.

The differences in the length of nights and days may arise from the fact that the passage of the sun above the earth is more or less rapid; and more or less slow, according to the length of the regions which it as to pass through. Or, again, to the fact certain regions are passed through more rapidly than others, as is seen to be the case by our own eyes, in those things to which we can compare the heavenly phenomena. As to those who on this point admit only one explanation as possible, they put themselves in opposition to facts, and lose sight of the bounds set to human knowledge.

The prognostics which are derived from the stars may, like those which we borrow from animals, arise from a simple coincidence. They may also have other causes, for example, some change in the air; for these two suppositions both harmonize equally with facts; but it is impossible to distinguish in what case one is to attribute them to the one cause or to the other.

The clouds may be formed either by the air condensed under the pressure of the winds, or by the agency of atoms set apart for the end, or by emanations from the earth and waters, or by other causes. For there are a great number which are all equally able to produce this effect. When the clouds clash with one another, or undergo any transformation, they produce showers; and the long rains are caused by the motion of the clouds when moved from places suitable to them through the air, when a more violent inundation than usual takes place, from collections of some masses calculated to produce these effects.

Thunder possibly arises from the movement of the winds revolving in the cavities of the clouds; of which we may see an image in vessels in our own daily use. It may also arise from the noise of fire acted upon by the wind in them, and from the tearings and ruptures of the clouds when they have received a sort of crystalline consistency. In a word, experience drawn from our sense, teaches us that all these phenomena, and that one in particular, may be produced in many different manners.

One may also assign different causes to lightning. Either the shock and collision of the clouds produce a fiery appearance, which is followed by lightning; or the lighting up of the clouds by the winds, produces this luminous appearance; or the mutual pressure of the clouds, or that of the wind against them, disengages the lightning. Or, one might say, that the interception of the light diffused from the stars, arrested for a time in the bosom of the clouds, is driven from them subsequently by their own movements, and by those of the winds, and so escapes from their sides; that the lightning is an extremely subtle light that evaporates from the clouds; that the clouds which carry the thunder are collected masses of fire; that the lightning arises from the motion of the fire, or from the conflagration of the wind, in consequence of the rapidity and continuousness of its motion. One may also attribute the luminous appearance of lightning to the rupture of the clouds under the action of the winds, or to the fall of inflammable atoms. Lastly, one may easily find a number of other explanations, if one applies to sensible facts, in order to search out the analogies which they present to the heavenly phenomena.

Lightning precedes thunder, either because it is produced at the same moment that the wind falls on the cloud, while the noise is only heard at the instant when the wind has penetrated into the bosom of the cloud. Or, perhaps, the two phenomena being simultaneous, the lightning arrives among us more rapidly than the noise of the thunder-bolt, as is in fact remarked in other cases when we see at a instance the clash of two objects.

The thunderbolt may be produced either by a violent condensation of the winds, or by their rapid motion and conflagrations. It may arise from the fact of the winds meeting in places which are too dense, in consequence of the accumulation of clouds, and then a portion of the current detaches itself and proceeds towards the lower situations; or else it may be caused by the fire which is contained in the bosom of the clouds precipitating itself downwards. As one may suppose that an immense quantity of fire being accumulated in the clouds dilates, violently bursting the substance which envelops it, because the resistance of the center hinders it from proceeding further. This effect is especially produced in the neighborhood of high mountains; and, accordingly, they are very frequently struck with the thunderbolts. In short, one may give a number of explanations of the thunderbolt; but we ought, above all things, to be on our guard against fables, and this one will easily be, if one follows faithfully the observable phenomena in the explanation of these things, which are not perceived, except indirectly.

Hurricanes may be caused either by the presence of a cloud, which a violent wind sets in motion and precipitates with a spiral movement towards the lower regions, or by a violent gust which bears a cloud into the neighborhood of some other current, or else by the mere agitation of the wind by itself, when air is brought together from the higher regions and compressed without being able to escape on either side, in consequence of the resistance of the air which surrounds it; when the hurricane descends towards the earth, then there result whirlwinds in proportion to the rapidity of the wind that has produced them; and this phenomenon extends over the sea also.

Earthquakes may arise from the wind penetrating into the interior of the earth, or from the earth itself receiving incessantly the addition of exterior particles, and being in incessant motion as to its constituent atoms, being in consequence disposed to a general vibration. That which permits the wind to penetrate is the fact that falls take place in the interior, or that the air being impressed by the winds insinuates itself into the subterranean caverns. The movement which numberless falls and the reaction of the earth communicates to the ground, when this motion meets bodies of greater resistance and solidity, is sufficient to explain the earthquakes. One might, however, give an account of them in several other ways.

Winds are caused, either by the successive and regular addition of some foreign matter, or else by the reunion of a great quantity of water; and the differences of the winds may arise from the fact that some portions of this same matter fall into the numerous cavities of the earth, and are divided there.

Hail is produced by an energetic condensation acting on the ethereal particles which the cold embraces in every direction; or, in consequence of less violent condensation acting however on aqueous particles, and accompanied by division, in such a manner as to produce, at the same time, the reunion of certain elements and of the collective masses; or by the rupture of some dense and compact mass which would explain at the same time, the numerousness of the particles and their individual hardness. As to the spherical form of the hail, one may easily account for that by admitting that the shocks which it receives in every direction make all the angles disappear, or else that at the moment when the different fragments are formed, each of them is equally embraced on all sides by aqueous or ethereal particles.

Snow may be produced by a light vapor full of moisture which the clouds allow to escape by passage intended for that end, when they are pressed, in a corresponding manner, by other clouds, and set in motion by the wind. Subsequently, these vapors become condensed in their progress under the action of the cold which surrounds the clouds in the lower regions. It may also be the case that this phenomena is produced by clouds of slight density as they become condensed. In this case the snow which escapes from the clouds would be the result of the contact, or approximation of the aqueous particles, which in a still more condensed state produce hail. This effect is most especially produced in the spring. Snow again, may result from the collection of clouds previously condensed and solidified; or from a whole army of other causes.

Dew proceeds from a reunion of particles contained in the air calculated to produce this moist substance. These particles may be also brought from places which are moist or covered with water (for in those places, above all others, it is that dew is abundant). These then reunite, again resume their aqueous form, and fall down. The same phenomena takes place in other cases before our own eyes under many analogies.

Hoarfrost is dew congealed by the influence of the cold air that surrounds it. Ice is formed either by the wearing away of round atoms contained in the water, and the reunion at scalene and acute angles of the atoms which exist in the water, or by an addition from without of these latter particles, which penetrating into the water, solidify it by driving away an equal amount of round atoms.

The rainbow may be produced by the reflection of the solar rays on the moist air; or it may arise from a particular property of light and air, in virtue of which these particular appearances of color are formed, either because the shades which we perceive result directly from this property, or because, on the contrary, it only produces a single shade, which, reflecting itself on the nearest portion of the air, communicates to them the tints which we observe. As to the circular form of the rainbow, that depends either on the fact of the sight perceiving an equal distance in every direction, or the fact of the atoms taking this form when reuniting in the air; or it may be caused by its detaching from the air which moves towards the moon, certain atoms which, being reunited in the clouds, give rise to this circular appearance.

The lunar halo arises from the fact of the air, which moves towards the moon from all quarters, uniformly intercepting the rays emitted by this heavenly object, in such a way as to form around it a sort of circular cloud which partially veils it. It may also arise from the fact of the moon uniformly rejecting from all quarters, the air which surrounds it, in such a manner as to produce this circular and opaque covering. And perhaps this opaqueness may be caused by some particle which some current brings from without; perhaps also, the heat communicates to the moon the property of emitting by the pores in its surface, the particles by which this effect is produced.

Comets arise either from the fact, that in the circumstances already stated, there are partial conflagrations in certain points of the heaven; or, that at certain periods, the heaven has above our heads a particular movement which causes them to appear. It may also be the case, that being themselves endowed with a peculiar movement, they advance at the end of certain periods of time, and in consequence of particular circumstances, towards the places which we inhabit. The opposite reasons explain their disappearance.

Certain stars return to the same point in accomplishing their revolutions; and this arises, not only as has been sometimes believed, from the fact of the pole of the world, around which they move, being immovable, but also from the fact that the gyrations of the air which surrounds them, hinder them from deviations like the wandering stars. Perhaps also, this may be caused by the fact, that except in the route in which they move, and in which we perceive them, they do not find any material suitable to their Nature. One may also explain this phenomenon in many other manners, reasoning according to observable facts; thus, it is possible that certain stars may be wandering because that is the Nature of their movements, and, for the same reason, others may be immovable.

It is also possible, that the same necessity which has originally given them their circular movement, may have compelled some to follow their orbit regularly, and have subjected others to an irregular process; we may also suppose that the uniform character of the center which certain stars traverse favors their regular march, and their return to a certain point; and that in the case of others, on the contrary, the differences of the center produce the changes which we observe. Besides, to assign one single cause to all these phenomena, when the experience of our senses suggests us several, is folly. It is the conduct of ignorant astrologers covetous of a vain knowledge, who assigning imaginary causes to facts, wish to leave wholly to the Deity the care of the government of the universe.

Some stars [the planets] appear to be left behind by others in their progress; this arises either from the fact of their having a slower motion, though traversing the same circle; or, because, though they are drawn on by the same propelling power, they have, nevertheless, a movement proper to themselves in a contrary direction; or it may be caused by the fact that, though all are placed in the same sphere of movement, still some have more space to traverse, and others less. To give one uniform and positive explanation of all these facts, is not consistent with the conduct of any people but those who love to flash prodigies in the eyes of the multitude.

Falling stars may be particles detached from the stars, or fragments resulting from their collision; they may also be produced by the fall of substances which are set on fire by the action of the wind; by the reunion of inflammable atoms which are made to come together so as to produce this effect by a sort of reciprocal attraction; or else by the movement which is produced in consequence of the reunion of atoms in the very place where they meet. It may also happen that the light vapors reunite and become condensed under the form of clouds, that they then take fire in consequence of their rotary motion, and that, bursting the obstacles which surround them, they proceed towards the places whither the force by which they are animated drags them. In short, this phenomenon also may admit a great number of explanations.

The forecasts which are drawn from certain animals arise from a fortuitous concourse of circumstances; for there is no necessary connection between certain animals and winter. They do not produce it; nor is there any divine Nature sitting aloft watching the exits of these animals, and then fulfilling signs of this kind. Nor can such folly as this occur to any being who is even moderately comfortable, much less to one which is possessed of perfect happiness.

Imprint all these precepts in your memory, O Pythocles, and so you will easily escape fables, and it will be easy for you to discover other truths analogous to these. Above all, apply yourself to the study of general principles, of the infinite, and of questions of this kind, and to the investigation of the different criteria and of the passions, and to the study of the chief good, with a view to which we prosecute all our researches. When these questions are once resolved, all particular difficulties will be made plain to you. As to those who will not apply themselves to these principles, they will neither be able to give a good explanation of these same questions, nor to reach that end to which all our researches tend.

Such are his sentiments on the heavenly phenomena, But concerning the rules of life, and how we ought to choose some things, and avoid others, he writes thus. But first of all, let us go through the opinions which he held, and his disciples held, about the wise man.

##  The Wise Man

Injuries are done among men either because of hatred, envy, or contempt, all which the wise man overcomes by reason.

When once a man has attained wisdom he no longer has any contrary tendency to it, nor does he willingly pretend that he has. He will be more deeply moved by feelings than others, but this will not prove to be an obstacle to wisdom.

A man cannot become wise in every kind of physical constitution, or in every nation.

Even if the wise man were to be put to torture, he would still be happy.

The wise man shows gratitude, and constantly speaks well of his friends whether they are present or absent.

The wise man will not groan and howl when he is put to the torture.

The wise man will not have intercourse with any woman whom the laws forbid, as Diogenes says, in his epitome of the Ethical Maxims of Epicurus.

The wise man will not punish his servants, but will rather pity them and forgive any that are deserving.

The Epicureans do not think that the wise man will fall in love, or be anxious about his burial, for they hold that love is not a passion inspired by the gods, as Diogenes says in his twelfth book.

The Epicureans assert that the wise man will not make elegant speeches.

Sexual intercourse, the Epicureans say, has never done a man good, and he is lucky if it has not harmed him.

The wise man will marry and have children, as Epicurus says in treatises On Problems and On Nature, but only in accord with the circumstances of his life.

The wise man will never indulge in drunkenness, says Epicurus, in his Banquet,

The wise man will not entangle himself in affairs of state, as Epicurus says in his first book on Lives.

The wise man will not become a tyrant.

The wise man will not live like a Cynic, as he says in his second book on Lives, nor become a beggar.

Even if the wise man should lose his eyesight, he will not end his whole life, as he says in the same book.

The wise man will not be subject to grief, as Diogenes says, in the fifth book of his Select Opinions.

The wise man will not object to go to the courts of law.

The wise man will leave books and memorials of himself behind him, but he will not be fond of frequenting assemblies.

The wise man will take care of his property, and provide for the future.

The wise man will be fond of the countryside.

The wise man will resist fortune.

The wise man will not mourn the death of his friends.

The wise man will show a regard for his reputation to such an extent as to avoid being despised.

The wise man will find more pleasure than other men in public spectacles.

The wise man will erect statues of others, but he will be indifferent as to raising one for himself.

The wise man is the only person who can converse correctly about music and poetry, but he will not himself compose poems.

One wise man is not wiser than another.

The wise man will also, if he is in need, earn money, but only by his wisdom.

The wise man will appease an absolute ruler when occasion requires.

The wise man will rejoice at another's misfortune, but only for his correction.

The wise man gather together a school, but never so as to become a leader of crowds.

The wise man will give lectures in public, but it will be against his inclination and never unless asked.

The wise man will teach things that are definite, rather than doubtful musings..

The wise man be the same whether asleep or awake.

The wise man will be willing even to die for a friend.

The wise man holds that all faults are not of equal gravity.

The wise man holds that health is a blessing to some, but a matter of indifference to others.

The wise man holds that courage is a quality that does not come by nature, but by a consideration of what is to one's advantage.

The wise man holds that friendship is first brought about due to practical need, just as we sow the earth for crops, but it is formed and maintained by means of a community of life among those who find mutual pleasure in it.

The wise man holds that there are two types of happiness – complete happiness, such as belongs to a god, which admits of no increase, and lesser happiness, which can be increased or decreased.

These are the Epicurean doctrines.

We must now proceed to his letter:

## Letter to Menoeceus

Epicurus to Menoeceus, Greetings.

Let no one delay in the study of philosophy while he is young, and when he is old, let him not become weary of the study. For no man can ever find the time unsuitable or too late to study the health of his soul.

And he who asserts either that it is too soon to study philosophy, or that the hour is passed, is like a man who would say that the time has not yet come to be happy, or that it is too late to be happy.

So both the young and the old must study philosophy – that as one grows old he may be young in the blessings that come from the grateful recollection of those good things that have passed, and that even in youth he may have the wisdom of age, since he will know no fear of what is to come. It is necessary for us, then, to meditate on the things which produce happiness, since if happiness is present we have everything, and when happiness is absent we do everything with a view to possess it.

Now, I will repeat to you those things that I have constantly recommended to you, and I would have you do and practice them, as they are the elements of living well:

First of all, believe that a god is an incorruptible and happy being, just as Nature has commonly engraved on the minds of men. But attach to your theology nothing which is inconsistent with incorruptibility or with happiness, and believe that a god possesses everything which is necessary to preserve its own nature.

Indeed the gods do exist, and Nature gives to us a degree of knowledge of them. But gods are not of the character which most people attribute to them, and the conception of the gods held by most people is far from pure. It is not the man who discards the gods believed in by the many who is impious, but he who applies to the gods the false opinions that most people entertain about them. For the assertions of most people about the gods are not true intuitions given to them by Nature, but false opinions of their own, such as the idea that gods send misfortune to the wicked and blessings to the good. False opinions such as these arise because men think of the gods as if they had human qualities, and men do not understand that the gods have virtues that are different from their own.

Next, accustom yourself to think that death is a matter with which we are not at all concerned. This is because all good and all evil come to us through sensation, and death brings the end of all our sensations. The correct understanding that death is no concern of ours allows us to take pleasure in our mortal lives, not because it adds to life an infinite span of time, but because it relieves us of the longing for immortality as a refuge from the fear of death. For there can be nothing terrible in living for a man who rightly comprehends that there is nothing terrible in ceasing to live.

Seen in this way, it was a silly man who once said that he feared death, not because it would grieve him when it was present, but because it grieved him now to consider it to be coming in the future. But it is absurd that something that does not distress a man when it is present should afflict him when it has not yet arrived. Therefore the most terrifying of fears, death, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist death is not present with us, and when death comes, then we no longer exist. Death, then, is of no concern either to the living or to the dead – to the living, death has no existence, and to the dead, no concerns of any kind are possible.

Many people, however, flee from death as if it were the greatest of evils, while at other times these same people wish for death as a rest from the evils of life. But the wise man embraces life, and he does not fear death, for life affords the opportunity for happiness, and the wise man does not consider the mere absence of life to be an evil. Just as he chooses food not according to what is most abundant, but according to what is best; so too, the wise man does not seek to live the life that is the longest, but the happiest.

And so he who advises a young man to live well, and an old man to die well, is a simpleton, not only because life is desirable for both the young and the old, but also because the wisdom to live well is the same as the wisdom to die well.

Equally wrong was the man who said:

'Tis well not to be born, but when born

Tis well to pass with quickness to the gates of Death.

If this was really his opinion, why then did he not end his own life? For it was easily in his power to do so, if this was really his belief. But if this man was joking, then he was talking foolishly in a case where foolishness ought not be allowed.

As to how we live our lives, we must always remember that the future does not wholly belong to us. But on the other hand, the future does not wholly NOT belong to us either. In this I mean that we can never wait on the future with a feeling of certainty that it will come to pass, but neither can we despair that the future is something that will never arrive.

We must also consider that some of our human desires are given to us by Nature, and some are vain and empty. Of the Natural desires, some are necessary, and some are not. Of the necessary desires, some are necessary to our happiness, and some are necessary if our body is to be free from trouble. Some desires are in fact necessary for living itself. He who has a correct understanding of these things will always decide what to choose and what to avoid by referring to the goal of obtaining a body that is healthy and a soul that is free from turmoil, since this is the aim of living happily. It is for the sake of living happily that we do everything, as we wish to avoid grief and fear. When once we have attained this goal, the storm of the soul is ended, because we neither have the need to go looking for something that we lack, nor to go seeking something else by which the good of our soul or of our body would be improved.

For you see when we lack pleasure and we grieve, we have need of pleasure, because pleasure is not present. But so long as we do not grieve, life affords us no lack of pleasure. On this account we affirm that Nature has provided that Pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily; for we have recognized that Nature has provided that happiness is the first good that is innate within us. To this view of Happiness as our starting point and as our goal we refer every question of what to choose and what to avoid. And to this same goal of happy living we again and again return, because whether a thing brings Happiness is the rule by which we judge every good. But although happiness is the first and a natural good, for this same reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but at many times we pass over certain pleasures when difficulty is likely to ensue from choosing them. Likewise, we think that certain pains are better than some pleasures, when a greater pleasure will follow them, even if we first endure pain for time.

Every Pleasure is therefore by its own Nature a good, but it does not follow that every pleasure is worthy of being chosen, just as every pain is an evil, and yet every pain must not be avoided. Nature requires that we resolve all these matters by measuring and reasoning whether the ultimate result is suitable or unsuitable to bringing about a happy life; for at times we may determine that what appears to be good is in fact an evil, and at other times we may determine that what appears to be evil is in fact a good.

As we pursue happiness we also hold that self-reliance is a great good, not in order that we will always be satisfied with little, but in order that if circumstances do not allow that we have much, we may wisely make use of the little that we have. This is because we are genuinely persuaded that men who are able to do without luxury are the best able to enjoy luxury when it is available.

We also believe that Nature provides that everything which is necessary to life is easily obtained, and that those things which are idle or vain are difficult to possess. Simple flavors give as much pleasure as costly fare when everything that causes pain, and every feeling of want, is removed. Bread and water give the most extreme pleasure when someone in great need eats of them. To accustom oneself, therefore, to simple and inexpensive habits is a great ingredient towards perfecting one's health, and makes one free from hesitation in facing the necessary affairs of life. And when on certain occasions we fall in with more sumptuous fare, this attitude renders us better disposed towards luxuries, as we are then fearless with regard to the possibility that we may thereafter lose them.

When, therefore, we say that pleasure or happiness is the chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of debauched men, or those pleasures which lie in sensual enjoyment, as some allege about us who are ignorant, or who disagree with us, or who perversely misrepresent our opinions. Instead, when we speak of pleasure or happiness as the chief good, we mean the freedom of the body from pain and the freedom of the soul from confusion. For it is not continued drinking and reveling, or the temporary pleasures of sexual relations, or feasts of fish or such other things as a costly table supplies that make life pleasant. Instead, Nature provides that life is made pleasant by sober contemplation, and by close examination of the reasons for all decisions we make as to what we choose and what we avoid. It is by these means that we put to flight the vain opinions from which arise the greater part of the confusion that troubles the soul.

Now, the beginning and the greatest good of all these things is wisdom. Wisdom is something more valuable even than philosophy itself, inasmuch as all the other virtues spring from it. Wisdom teaches us that it is not possible to live happily unless one also lives wisely, and honestly, and justly; and that one cannot live wisely and honestly and justly without also living happily. For these virtues are by nature bound up together with the happy life, and the happy life is inseparable from these virtues.

Considering this, who can you think to be a better man than he who has holy opinions about the gods, who is utterly fearless in facing death, who properly contemplates the goals and limits of life as fixed by Nature, and who understands that Nature has established that the greatest goods are readily experienced and easily obtained, while the greatest evils last but a short period and cause only brief pain?

The wise man laughs at the idea of "Fate", which some set up as the mistress of all things, because the wise man understands that while some things do happen by chance, most things happen due to our own actions. The wise man sees that Fate or Necessity cannot exist if men are truly free, and he also sees that Fortune is not in constant control of the lives of men. But the wise man sees that our actions are free, and because they are free, our actions are our own responsibility, and we deserve either blame or praise for them.

It would therefore be better to believe in the fables that are told about the gods than to be a slave to the idea of Fate or Necessity as put forth by false philosophers. At least the fables which are told about the gods hold out to us the possibility that we may avert the gods' wrath by paying them honor. The false philosophers, on the other hand, present us with no hope of control over our own lives, and no escape from an inexorable Fate.

In the same way, the wise man does not consider Fortune to be a goddess, as some men esteem her to be, for the wise man knows that nothing is done at random by a god. Nor does he consider that such randomness as may exist renders all events of life impossible to predict. Likewise, he does not believe that the gods give chance events to men so as to make them live happily. The wise man understands that while chance may lead to great good, it may also lead to great evil, and he therefore thinks it to be better to be unsuccessful when acting in accord with reason than to be successful by chance when acting as a fool.

Meditate then, on all these things, and on those things which are related to them, both day and night, and both alone and with like-minded companions. For if you will do this, you will never be disturbed while asleep or awake by imagined fears, but you will live like a god among men. For a man who lives among immortal blessings is in no respect like a mortal being.

(In other works, he discards divination; and also in his Little Epitome. And he says divination has no existence; but, if it has any, still we should think that what happens according to it is nothing to us.)

These are his sentiments about the things which concern the life of man, and he has discussed them at greater length elsewhere.

Now, he differs from the Cyrenaics about pleasure. For they do not admit that to pleasure can exist as a state, but place it wholly in motion. He, however, admits both kinds to be pleasure, namely, that of the soul, and that of the body, as he says in his treatise on Choice and Avoidance; and also in his work on the Chief Good; and in the first book of his treatise on Lives, and in his Letter against the Mitylenian Philosophers. And in the same spirit, Diogenes, in the seventeenth book of his Select Discourses, and Metrodorus, in his Timocrates, speak thus. "But when pleasure is understood, I mean both that which exists in motion, and that which is a state...." And Epicurus, in his treatise on Choice, speaks thus: "Now, freedom from disquietude, and freedom from pain, are states of pleasure; but joy and cheerfulness are beheld in motion and energy."

For the Cyrenaics make out the pains of the body to be worse than those of the mind; accordingly, those who do wrong, are punished in the body. But he considers the pains of the soul the worst; for that the flesh is only sensible to present affliction, but the soul feels the past, the present, and the future. Therefore, in the same manner, he contends that the pleasure of the soul are greater than those of the body; and he uses as proof that pleasure is the chief good, the fact that all animals from the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure, and are offended with pain by their natural instinct, and without the employment of Reason. Therefore, too we, of our own inclinations, flee from pain; so that Heracles, when devoured by his poisoned tunic cries out:

Shouting and groaning, and the rocks around

Re-echoed his sad wails, the mountain heights

Of Locrian lands, and sad Euboea's hills.

And we choose the virtues for the sake of pleasure, and not on their own account; just as we seek the skill of the physician for the sake of health, as Diogenes says, in the twentieth book of his Select Discourses, where he also calls out that virtue alone is inseparable from pleasure, but that every thing else may be separated from it as mortal.

Let us, however, now add the finishing stroke, as one may say, to this whole treatise, and to the life of the philosopher; giving some of his fundamental maxims, and closing the whole work with them, taking that for our end which is the beginning of happiness.

## The Principal Doctrines

That which is happy and imperishable, neither has trouble itself, nor does it cause it to anything; so that it is not subject to feelings of either anger or gratitude; for these feelings only exist in what is weak.

Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved is devoid of sensation, and that which is devoid of sensation is nothing to us.

The limit of great pleasures is the removal of everything which can give pain. And where pleasure is, as long as it lasts, that which gives pain, or that which feels pain, or both of them, are absent.

Pain does not abide continuously in the flesh, but in its extremity it is present only a very short time. That pain which only just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh, does not last many days. But long diseases have in them more that is pleasant than painful to the flesh.

It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently, and honorably, and justly; nor to live prudently, and honorably, and justly, without living pleasantly. But to whom it does not happen to live prudently, honorably, and justly cannot possibly live pleasantly.

For the sake of feeling confidence and security with regard to men, anything in Nature is good, if it provides the means to achieve this.

Some men have wished to be eminent and powerful, thinking that so they would secure safety as far as men are concerned. So that if the life of such men is safe, they have attained to the Nature of good; but if it is not safe, then they have failed in obtaining that for the sake of which they originally desired power according to the order of Nature.

No pleasure is intrinsically bad: but the effective causes of some pleasures bring with them a great many perturbations of pleasure.

If every pleasure were condensed, if one may so say, and if each lasted long, and affected the whole body, or the essential parts of it, then there would be no difference between one pleasure and another.

If those things which make the pleasures of debauched men, put an end to the fears of the mind, and to those which arise about the heavenly bodies, and death, and pain; and if they taught us what ought to be the limit of our desires, we should have no pretense for blaming those who wholly devote themselves to pleasure, and who never feel any pain or grief (which is the chief evil) from any quarter.

If apprehensions relating to the heavenly bodies did not disturb us, and if the terrors of death have no concern with us, and if we had the courage to contemplate the boundaries of pain and of the desires, we should have no need of the study of natural science.

It would not be possible for a person to banish all fear about those things which are called most essential, unless he knew what is the Nature of the universe, or if he had any idea that the fables told about it could be true; and therefore a person cannot enjoy unmixed pleasure without physiological knowledge.

It would be no good for a man to secure himself safety as far as men are concerned, while in a state of apprehension as to all the heavenly bodies, and those under the earth, and in short, all those in the infinite.

Irresistible power and great wealth may, up to a certain point, give us security as far as men are concerned; but the security of men in general depends upon the tranquility of their souls, and their freedom from ambition.

The riches of Nature are defined and easily procurable; but vain desires are insatiable.

The wise man is but little favored by fortune; but his reason procures him the greatest and most valuable goods, and these he does enjoy, and will enjoy the whole of his life.

The just man is the freest of all men from disquietude; but the unjust man is a perpetual prey to it.

Pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the pain arising from want is removed; it is only diversified. The most perfect happiness of the soul depends on these reflections, and on opinions of a similar character on all those questions which cause the greatest alarm to the mind.

Infinite and finite time both have equal pleasure, if any one measures its limits by reason.

The flesh sets no limits to pleasure, and therefore it yearns for an eternity of time. But reason, enabling us to conceive the end and dissolution of the body, and liberating us from the fears relative to eternity, procures for us all the happiness of which life is capable, so completely that we have no further occasion to include eternity in our desires. In this disposition of mind, man is happy even when his troubles engage him to quit life; and to die thus, is for him only to interrupt a life of happiness.

He who is acquainted with the limits of life knows that that which removes the pain which arises from want and which makes the whole of life perfect, is easily procurable; so that he has no need of those things which can only be attained with trouble.

But as to the ultimate aim, we ought to consider it with all the clearness and evidence which we refer to whatever we think and believe; otherwise, all things will be full of confusion and uncertainty of judgment.

If you resist all the senses, you will not even have anything left to which you can refer, or by which you may be able to judge of the falsehood of the senses which you condemn.

If you simply discard a sense, and do not distinguish between the different elements of the judgment, so as to know on the one hand, the opinion which goes beyond the actual sensation, or, on the other, the actual and immediate notion, the affections, and all the conceptions of the mind which arise from the observable representation; you will be imputing trouble into the other senses, and destroying in that quarter every species of criterion.

If you allow equal authority to the ideas, which being only an opinion, require to be verified, and to those which bear about them an immediate certainty, you will not escape error; for you will be confounding doubtful opinions with those which are not doubtful, and true judgments with those of a different character.

If, on every occasion, we do not refer every one of our actions to the chief end of Nature, if we turn aside from that to seek or avoid some other object, there will be a want of agreement between our words and our actions.

Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship.

The same opinion encourages man to trust that no evil will be everlasting, or even of long duration; as it sees that, in the space of life allotted to us, the protection of friendship is most sure and trustworthy.

Of the desires, some are natural and necessary, some natural, but not necessary, and some are neither natural nor necessary, but owe their existence to vain opinions. (Epicurus thinks that those are natural and necessary which put an end to pains as drink when one is thirsty; and that those are natural but not necessary which only diversify pleasure, but do not remove pain, such as expensive food; and that these are neither natural nor necessary, which are such as crowns, or the erection of statues.)

All desires that lead to no pain when they remain ungratified are unnecessary, and the longing is easily got rid of, when the thing desired is difficult to procure or when the desires seem likely to produce harm. When those natural desires, which do not lead to pain if they are not satisfied, are violent and insistent, it is a proof that there is an admixture of vain opinion in them; for then energy does not arise from their own Nature, but from the vain opinions of men.

Natural justice is a covenant of what is suitable for leading men to avoid injuring on another, and being injured.

Those animals which are unable to enter into an argument of this Nature, or to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury, have no such thing as justice or injustice. And the case is the same with those nations, the members of which are either unwilling or unable to enter into a covenant to respect their mutual interests.

Justice has no independent existence; it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury.

Injustice is not intrinsically bad; it has this character only because there is joined with it a fear of not escaping those who are appointed to punish actions of this character.

It is not possible for a man who secretly does anything in contravention of the agreement which men have made with one another, to guard against doing, or sustaining mutual injury, to believe that he shall always escape notice, even if he has escaped notice already ten thousand times; for till his death, it is uncertain whether he will not be detected.

In a general point of view, justice is the same thing to every one; for there is something advantageous in mutual society. Nevertheless, the difference of place, and diverse other circumstances, make justice vary.

From the moment that a thing declared just by the law is generally recognized as useful for the mutual relations of men, it becomes really just, whether it is universally regarded as such or not. But if, on the contrary, a thing established by law is not really useful for social relations, then it is not just; and if that which was just, inasmuch as it was useful, loses this character, after having been for some time considered so, it is not less true that during that time it was really just, at least for those who do not perplex themselves about vain words, but who prefer in every case, examining and judging for themselves.

When, without any fresh circumstances arising a thing which has been declared just in practice does not agree with the impressions of reason, that is a proof that the thing was not really just. In the same way, when in consequence of new circumstances, a thing which has been pronounced just does not any longer appear to agree with utility, the thing which was just, inasmuch as it was useful to the social relations and intercourse of mankind, ceases to be just the moment when it ceases to be useful.

He who desires to live tranquilly without having anything to fear from other men, ought to make himself friends; those whom he cannot make friends of, he should, at least avoid rendering enemies; and if that is not in his power, he should, as far as possible, avoid all intercourse with them, and keep them aloof, as far as it is for his interest to do so.

The happiest men are they who have arrived at the point of having nothing to fear from those who surround them. Such men live with one another most agreeably, having the firmest grounds of confidence in one another, enjoying the advantages of friendship in all their fullness, and not lamenting as a pitiable circumstance, the premature death of their friends.

# Torquatus' Defense of Epicurus – By Cicero

An elaborate defense of Epicurus was once delivered to me by Lucius Torquatus, a scholar of consummate knowledge, with Gaius Triarius, a youth of great learning and seriousness of character, assisting at the discussion. Both of these men had called to pay me their respects at my place at Cuma.

....

"I will start then," Torquatus said, "in the manner approved by Epicurus himself, the author of the system — by setting forth the essence of the thing that is the object of our inquiry. Not that I suppose that you do not understand my purpose, but because this is the logical method of procedure. We are inquiring, then, into what is the final and ultimate good. All philosophers agree that the ultimate good is the end we seek to attain, for which all other things are the means we use to gain it, while it is not itself a means through which we seek to attain anything else. Epicurus holds that Nature's ultimate goal for life is pleasure, or happiness, which he holds to be the chief good, with pain, whether physical or mental, being the chief evil.

Epicurus sets out to show this as follows: Every living thing, as soon as it is born, seeks after pleasure, and delights in it as its chief good. It also recoils from pain as its chief evil, and avoids pain so far as is possible. Nature's own unbiased and honest judgment leads every living thing to do this from birth, and it continues to do as long as it remains uncorrupted. Epicurus refuses to admit any need for discussion to prove that pleasure is to be desired and pain is to be avoided, because these facts, he thinks, are perceived by the senses, in the same way that fire is hot, snow is white, and honey is sweet. None of these things need be proved by elaborate argument — it is enough merely to draw attention to them. For there is a difference, he holds, between a formal logical proof of a thing, and a mere notice or reminder. Logical proofs are the method for discovering abstract and difficult truths, but on the other hand a mere notice is all that is required for indicating facts that are obvious and evident.

Observe that if one removes from mankind of all the faculties that Nature has provided, nothing remains. It follows, then, that Nature herself is the judge of that which is in accord with or contrary to Nature. And what does Nature give to perceive or to judge, or to guide actions of choice and of avoidance, except pleasure and pain?

...

I must now explain to you how the mistaken idea arose in some quarters that pleasure should be disparaged and pain should be exalted. To do so, I will give you a complete account of the system, and point out to you the actual teachings of Epicurus, who we consider to be the great explorer of truth, the master-builder of human happiness.

No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure on its own account. Those who reject pleasure do so because men who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally suffer consequences that are extremely painful. Nor does anyone love or pursue or desire to obtain pain on its own account. Those who pursue pain do so because on occasion toil and pain can produce some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with those men who choose to enjoy pleasures that have no annoying consequences, or those who avoid pains that produce no resulting pleasures?

On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of the pleasure of the moment, who are so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to follow. Equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duties because their will is weak, which is the same as saying that they fail because they shrink back from toil and pain. These cases are simple and easy to understand. In a free hour, when our power of choice is unrestrained and when nothing prevents us from doing what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain is to be avoided. But in certain circumstances, such as because of the claims of duty or the obligations of business, it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be put aside and annoyances accepted. The wise man always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects some pleasures in order to secure other and greater pleasures, or else he endures some pains to avoid worse pains.

This being the theory I hold, why should I be afraid of not being able to reconcile it with the case of the Torquati, my ancestors [who were renowned for dealing harshly even with their own family when necessary]? Your references to them previously were historically correct, and showed your kind and friendly feeling towards me. But all the same, I am not to be bribed by your flattery of my family, and you will not find me a less resolute opponent.

Tell me, then, what explanation would you put upon their actions? Do you really believe that they charged an armed enemy, or treated their children, their own flesh and blood, so cruelly, without a thought for their own interest or advantage? Even wild animals do not act in that way — they do not run amok so blindly that we cannot discern any purpose in their movements. Can you suppose then that my heroic ancestors performed their famous deeds without any motive at all?

What their motive was, I will consider in a moment: for the present I will confidently assert, that if they had a motive for those undoubtedly glorious exploits, that motive was not a love of virtue solely for itself.

You say: "He wrestled the necklace from his foe"

I answer: "Yes, and he saved himself from death."

You say: "But he braved great danger"

I answer: "Yes, before the eyes of an army."

You say: "What did he gain by it?"

I answer: "Honor and esteem, the strongest guarantees of security in life."

You say:" He sentenced his own son to death!"

I answer: "If he had no motive, I am sorry to be the descendant of anyone so savage and inhuman. But if his purpose for inflicting pain upon himself was to establish his authority as a commander, and to tighten the reins of discipline during a very serious war by holding over his army the fear of punishment, then his action was aimed at ensuring the safety of his fellow-citizens, upon which he knew his own safety depended."

This is a principle of wide application. Students of your Platonic school, who are such diligent students of history, have found a favorite field for the display of their eloquence in recalling the stories of brave and famous men of old. Your school praises their actions, not on the grounds that those actions were useful, but because of the alleged abstract splendor of "moral worth." But all of this falls to the ground once we recognize the principle that I have just described — the principle that some pleasures are to be foregone for the purpose of getting greater pleasures, and that some pains are to be endured for the sake of escaping greater pains.

But enough has been said at this stage about the glorious exploits of the heroes of the past. The tendency of the virtues to produce pleasure is a topic that I will treat later on. At present I shall proceed to the nature of pleasure itself, and I shall work to remove the misconceptions of ignorance, and show you how serious, how temperate, and how simple is the school that is supposedly sensual, lax and luxurious.

The happiness we pursue does not consist solely of the delightful feelings of physical pleasures. On the contrary, according to Epicurus the greatest pleasure is that which is experienced as a result of the complete removal of all pain, physical and mental. When we are released from pain, the mere sensation of complete emancipation and relief from distress is itself a source of great gratification. But everything that causes gratification is a pleasure, just as everything that causes distress is a pain. Therefore the complete removal of pain has correctly been termed a pleasure. For example, when hunger and thirst are banished by food and drink, the mere fact of getting rid of those distresses brings pleasure as a result. So as a rule, the removal of pain causes pleasure to take its place.

For that reason Epicurus held that there is no such thing as a neutral state of feeling that is somewhere between pleasure and pain. This is because for the living being, the entire absence of pain, a state supposed by some philosophers to be neutral, is not only a state of pleasure, but a pleasure of the highest order.

A man who is living and conscious of his condition at all necessarily feels either pleasure or pain. Epicurus holds that the experience of the complete absence of all pain is the highest point, or the "limit," of pleasure. Beyond this point, pleasure may vary in kind, but it does not vary in intensity or degree.

To illustrate this, my father used to tell me (when he wanted to show his wit at the expense of the Stoics) that there was once in Athens a statue of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. This statue was fashioned with Chrysippus holding out one hand, in a gesture intended to indicate the delight which he used to take in the following little play on words:

Does your hand desire anything, while it is in its present condition?

No, nothing.

But if pleasure were a good, it would want pleasure.

Yes, I suppose it would.

Therefore pleasure is not a good.

This is an argument, my father declared, which not even a dumb statue would employ, if a statue could speak. This is because the argument is cogent enough as an objection to those who pursue sensual pleasures as the only goal of life, but it does not touch Epicurus. For if the only kind of pleasure were that which, so to speak, tickles the senses with a feeling of delight, neither the hand nor any other member of the body could be satisfied with the absence of pain, if it were not accompanied by an active sensation of pleasure. If, however, as Epicurus holds, the highest pleasure is experienced at the removal of all pain, then the man who responded to Chrysippus was wrong to be misled by his questions. This is because the man's first answer, that his hand was in a condition that wanted nothing, was correct. But his second answer, that if pleasure were a good, his hand would want it, was not correct. This was wrong because the hand had no need to desire any additional pleasure, because the state in which it was in – a state without pain – was itself a state of pleasure.

The truth of the view that pleasure or happiness is the ultimate good will readily appear from the following additional illustration:

Let us imagine a man who is living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous vivid pleasures, of both body and of mind, and who is undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain. What possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? A man so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is impregnable against all fear of death or of pain. He will have no fear of death because he will know that death only means complete unconsciousness, and he will have no fear of pain, because he will know that while he is alive, pain that is long is generally light, and pain that is strong is generally short. In other words, he will also know that the intensity of pain is alleviated by the briefness of its duration, and that continuing pain is bearable because it is generally of lesser severity. Let such a man moreover have no fear of any supernatural power; let him never allow the pleasures of the past to fade away, but let him constantly renew their enjoyment in his recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement.

On the other hand, imagine a man who is crushed beneath the heaviest load of mental and bodily anguish which humanity is able to sustain. Grant him no prospect of ultimate relief; let him neither have, nor hope to have, a gleam of pleasure. Can one describe or imagine a more pitiable state? If, then, a life full of pain is the thing most to be avoided, it follows that to live in pain is the highest evil; and it also follows that a life of pleasure and happiness is the ultimate good. The mind possesses nothing within itself on which it can rest as final. Every fear, every sorrow, can be traced back to pain – and there is nothing besides pain which has the capacity to cause either anxiety or distress.

Pleasure and pain therefore supply the motives and the principles of choice and of avoidance, and thus they are the springs of conduct generally. This being so, it clearly follows that actions are right and praiseworthy only to the extent that they are productive of a life of happiness. But something which is not itself a means to obtain anything else, but to which all other things are but the means by which it is to be acquired, is what the Greeks term the highest, or final good. It must therefore be admitted that the chief good of man is to live happily.

Those who place the chief good in "virtue" alone are beguiled by the glamor of a name, and they do not understand the true demands of Nature. If they will but consent to listen to Epicurus, they will be delivered from the grossest error. Your school waxes eloquently on the supposedly transcendent beauty of the "virtues." But were they not productive of pleasure, who would deem the virtues either praiseworthy or desirable?

We value the art of medicine not for its interest as a science, but because it produces health. We commend the art of navigation for its practical, and not its scientific value, because it conveys the rules for sailing a ship with success. So also Wisdom, which must be considered as the art of living, would not be desired if it produced no result. As it is, however, wisdom is desired, because it is the craftsman that produces and procures pleasure. The meaning that I attach to pleasure and happiness must by this time be clear to you, and you must no longer be biased against my argument due to the discreditable associations that others have attached to the terms.

The great disturbing factor in man's life is ignorance of good and evil. Mistaken ideas about these frequently rob us of our greatest pleasures, and torment us with the most cruel pains of mind. Thus we need the aid of Wisdom to rid us of our fears and unnatural desires, to root out all our errors and prejudices, and to serve as our infallible guide to the attainment of happiness.

Wisdom alone can banish sorrow from our hearts and protect us from alarm and apprehension. Become a student of Wisdom, and you may live in peace and quench the glowing flames of vain desires. For the vain desires are incapable of satisfaction — they ruin not only individuals but whole families, and in fact they often shake the very foundations of the state. It is the vain desires that are the source of hatred, quarreling, strife, sedition, and war. Nor do the vain desires flaunt themselves only away from home, and turn their onslaughts solely against other people. For even when they are imprisoned within the heart of the individual man, they quarrel and fall out among themselves, and this can have no result but to render the whole of life embittered.

For this reason it is only the wise man, who prunes away all the rotten growth of vanity and error, who can possibly live untroubled by sorrow and by fear, and who can live contentedly within the bounds that Nature has set.

Nothing could be more instructive and helpful to right living than Epicurus' doctrine as to the different classes of the desires. One kind he classified as both natural and necessary, a second as natural but not necessary, and a third as neither natural nor necessary. The principle of the classification comes from observing that the necessary desires are gratified with little trouble or expense. The natural desires also require little effort, since the quantity of Nature's riches which suffices to bring contentment is both small and easily obtained. In contrast, for the vain and idle desires, no boundary or limit can be discovered.

Therefore we observe that ignorance and error reduce the whole of life to confusion. It is Wisdom alone that is able to protect us from the onslaught of the vain appetites and the menace of fears. Only wisdom is able to teach us to bear the hardships of fortune with moderation, and only wisdom is able to show us the paths that lead to calmness and to peace. Why then should we hesitate to proudly affirm that Wisdom is to be desired, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the happiness it brings? And why therefore should we hesitate to affirm that Folly is to be avoided, again not for its own sake, because of the injuries that follow in its path?

This same principle leads us also to pronounce that Temperance is not desirable for its own sake, but because it bestows peace of mind, and soothes the heart with a calming sense of harmony. For it is temperance that warns us to be guided by reason in what we desire and in what we choose to avoid.

Nor is it enough to judge what it is right to do or leave undone, we must also take action according to our judgment. Most men, however, lack tenacity of purpose. Their resolution weakens and succumbs as soon as the fair form of pleasure meets their gaze, and they surrender themselves prisoner to their passions, failing to foresee the inevitable result. Thus for the sake of small and unnecessary pleasures, which they might have obtained by other means or even denied themselves altogether without pain, they incur serious disease, loss of fortune, or disgrace, and often become liable to the penalties of the law and of the courts of justice.

Other men, however, resolve to enjoy their pleasures so as to avoid all painful consequences, they retain their sense of judgment, and they avoid being seduced by pleasure into courses that they see to be wrong. Such men reap the very highest pleasure by forgoing other pleasures. In a similar way, wise men voluntarily endure certain pains to avoid incurring greater pain by not doing so. This clearly shows us that temperance is not desirable for its own sake. Instead, temperance is desirable, not because it renounces pleasures, but because it produces greater pleasures.

The same lesson will be found to be true of Courage. The performance of labors and the endurance of pains are not attractive in and of themselves. Neither are patience, industry, watchfulness, or that much-praised virtue, perseverance, or even courage itself, worthy of praise apart from that which they produce. Instead, we aim at these virtues in order to live without anxiety and fear and so far as possible, to be free from pain of mind and body.

The fear of death plays havoc with the calm and even tenor of life, and it is a pitiful thing to bow the head to pain and bear it abjectly and feebly. Such weakness has caused many men to betray their parents or their friends; some even betray their own country, and very many utterly fall to ruin themselves. On the other hand, a strong and lofty spirit is entirely free from anxiety and sorrow, and makes light of death, for the dead are only as they were before they were born. It is wise to recall that pains of great severity are ended by death, and slight pains have frequent intervals of respite; while pains of medium intensity lie within our ability to control. If pains are endurable then we can bear them, and if they are unendurable, we may choose ourselves to leave life's theater serenely when the play has ceased to please us.

These considerations prove that timidity and cowardice are not to be condemned, and courage and endurance are not to be praised, in and of themselves. Timidity and cowardice are rejected because they bring pain, and courage and endurance are coveted because they produce pleasure.

It remains to speak of Justice to complete the list of the virtues. But justice admits of practically the same explanation as the others. I have already shown that Wisdom, Temperance and Courage are so closely linked with happiness that they cannot possibly be severed from it. The same must be deemed to be the case with Justice. Not only does Justice never cause anyone harm, but on the contrary it always brings some benefit, partly because of its calming influence on the mind, and partly because of the hope that it provides of never-failing access to the things that one's uncorrupted nature really needs. And just as Rashness, License and Cowardice are always tormenting the mind, always awakening trouble and discord, so Unrighteousness, when firmly rooted in the heart, causes restlessness by the mere fact of its presence. Once unrighteousness has found expression in some deed of wickedness, no matter how secret the act may appear, it can never be free of the fear that it will one day be detected.

The usual consequences of crime are suspicion, gossip, and rumor – after that comes the accuser, then the judge. Many wrongdoers even turn evidence against themselves ..... And even if any transgressors think themselves to be well fortified against detection by their fellow men, they still dread the eye of heaven, and fancy that the pangs of anxiety that night and day gnaw at their hearts are sent by Providence to punish them.

So in what way can wickedness be thought to be worthwhile, in view of its effect in increasing the distresses of life by bringing with it the burden of a guilty conscience, the penalties of the law, and the hatred of one's fellow men?"

Nevertheless, some men indulge without limit their avarice, ambition, love of power, lust, gluttony, and those other desires which ill-gotten gains can never diminish, but rather inflame. Such men are the proper subjects for restraint, rather than for reformation.

Men of sound natures, therefore, are summoned by the voice of true reason to justice, equity, and honesty.

For those without eloquence or resources, dishonesty is not a good policy, since it is difficult for such a man to succeed in his designs, or to make good his success once it is achieved. On the other hand, for those who are rich and intelligent, generous conduct seems more appropriate, for liberality wins them affection and good will, the surest means to a life of peace. This is especially true since we see that there is really no need for anyone to transgress, because the desires that spring from Nature are easily gratified without doing wrong to any man, and those desires that are vain and idle can be resisted by observing that they set their sights on nothing that is really desirable, and that there is more loss inherent in injustice than there is profit in the gains that it may bring for a time.

As with the other virtues, Justice cannot correctly be said to be desirable in and of itself. Here again, Justice is desirable because it is so highly productive of gratification. Esteem and affection are gratifying because they render life safer and happier. Thus we hold that injustice is to be avoided not simply on account of the disadvantages that result from being unjust, but even more, because when injustice dwells in a man's heart, it never allows him to breathe freely or to know a moment's rest.

Thus Epicurus shows us that the alleged glory of "Virtue," on which the Platonic philosophers love to expound so eloquently, has in the final analysis no meaning at all unless it is based on living happily, because happiness is the only thing that is intrinsically attractive and desirable. It therefore cannot be doubted that pleasure is the one supreme and final good, and that a life of happiness is nothing else than a life of pleasure.

Having thus firmly established the doctrine, we turn to several corollaries which I will briefly mention:

First, the natural ends of good and evil, that is, pleasure and pain, are not open to mistake. Where people go wrong is in not knowing what things are in fact productive of pleasure and pain.

Also, we hold that mental pleasures and pains are always connected with bodily matters, and cannot exist without a bodily basis. .... Men do of course experience mental pleasure that is agreeable and mental pain that is annoying, but both of these we assert arise out of and are based upon matters connected with the body.

Even though mental pleasures and pains arise from the body, we maintain that this does not preclude mental pleasures and pains from being much more intense than those of the body. This is because the body can feel only what is present to it at the moment, whereas the mind is also aware of the past and of the future. For example, even granting that pain of body is equally painful, yet our sensation of pain can be enormously increased by the mental apprehension that some evil of unlimited magnitude and duration threatens to befall us hereafter. This same consideration applies to pleasure — a pleasure is greater if it is not accompanied by any apprehension of evil. We therefore see that intense mental pleasure or distress contributes more to our happiness or misery than bodily pleasure or pain of equal duration.

Further, we do not agree with those who allege that when pleasure is withdrawn, anxiety follows at once. That result is true only in those situations where the pleasure happens to be replaced directly by a pain. The truth is, in general, we are glad whenever we lose a pain, even though no active sensation of pleasure comes immediately in its place. This fact serves to show us how life in the absence of pain is so great a pleasure.

Moreover, just as we are elated by the anticipation of good things to come, so we are delighted by the recollection of good things in the past. Fools are tormented by the remembrance of former evils, but to wise men, memory is a pleasure – through it they renew the good things of the past. Within us all resides, if we will it, both the power to obliterate our misfortunes by permanently forgetting them, and the power to summon up pleasant and agreeable memories of our successes. When we concentrate our mental vision closely on the events of the past, then sorrow or gladness follows according to whether these events were evil or good.

Here indeed is the renowned road to happiness – open, simple, and direct! For clearly man can have no greater good than complete freedom from pain and sorrow coupled with the enjoyment of the highest bodily and mental pleasures. Notice then how the theory embraces every possible enhancement of life, every aid to the achievement of that chief good – a life of happiness – which is our object. Epicurus, the man whom you denounce as given to excessive sensuality, cries aloud that no one can live pleasantly without living wisely, honorably and justly, and no one can live wisely, honorably and justly without living pleasantly.

A city torn by faction cannot prosper, nor can a house whose masters are at strife. Much less then can a mind that is divided against itself and filled with inward discord taste any particle of pure and liberal pleasure. One who is perpetually swayed by conflicting and incompatible opinions and desires can know no peace or calm.

If the pleasantness of life is diminished by the serious bodily diseases, how much more must it be diminished by the diseases of the mind! Extravagant and vain desires for riches, fame, power, and other pleasures of license, are nothing but mental diseases. Grief, trouble and sorrow gnaw the heart and consume it with anxiety if men fail to realize that the mind need feel no pain unless it is connected with some pain of body, present or to come. Yet all foolish men are afflicted by at least one of these diseases — and therefore there is no foolish man who is not unhappy.

And always there is death, the stone of Tantalus ever hanging over men's heads, and then there is religion, that poisons and destroys all peace of mind. Fools do not recall their past happiness or enjoy their present blessings – they only look forward to the desires of the future, and as the future is always uncertain, they are consumed with agony and terror. And the climax of their torment is when they perceive, too late, that all their dreams of wealth or station, power or fame, have come to nothing. For fools can never hold the pleasures for which they hoped, and for which they were inspired to undergo all their arduous toils.

Or look again at men who are petty, narrow-minded, confirmed pessimists, or others who are spiteful, envious, ill-tempered, unsociable, abusive, cantankerous. Look at those who are enslaved to the follies of love, or those who are impudent, reckless, wanton, headstrong and yet irresolute, always changing their minds. Such failings render their lives one unbroken round of misery. The result is that no foolish man can be happy, nor any wise man fail to be happy. This is a truth that we establish far more conclusively than do the Platonic philosophers, who maintain that nothing is good save that vague phantom which they entitle "Moral Worth," a title more splendid in sound than it is substantial in reality. Such men are gravely mistaken when, resting on this vague idea of "Moral Worth" they allege that Virtue has no need of pleasure, and that Virtue is sufficient for itself.

At the same time, this view can be stated in a form to which we do not object, and can indeed endorse. For Epicurus tells us that the Wise Man is always happy. The Wise Man's desires are kept within Nature's bounds, and he disregards death. The wise man has a true conception, untainted by fear, of the Divine Nature. If it be expedient to depart from life, the wise man does not hesitate to do so. Thus equipped, the wise man enjoys perpetual pleasure, for there is no moment when the pleasures he experiences do not outbalance his pains, since he remembers the past with delight, he grasps the present with a full realization of its pleasantness, and he does not rely wholly upon the future. The Wise Man looks forward to the future, but finds his true enjoyment in the present. Also, the wise man is entirely free from the vices that I referenced a few moments ago, and he derives considerable pleasure from comparing his own existence with the life of the foolish. Any pains that the Wise Man may encounter are never so severe but that he has more cause for gladness than for sorrow.

It was a central doctrine of Epicurus that "the Wise Man is but little interfered with by fortune. The great concerns of life, the things that matter, are controlled by his own wisdom and reason." Epicurus also taught that "No greater pleasure could be derived from a life of infinite duration, than is actually afforded by this existence, which we know to be finite."

Theoretical logic, on which your Platonic school lays such stress, Epicurus held to be of no assistance either as a guide to conduct or as an aid to thought. In contrast, he deemed Natural Philosophy to be all-important. Natural Philosophy explains to us the meaning of terms, the nature of cause and effect, and the laws of consistency and contradiction. A thorough knowledge of the facts of Nature relieves us of the burden of superstition, frees us from fear of death, and shields us against the disturbing effects of ignorance, which is often in itself a cause of terrifying fears. A knowledge of those things that Nature truly requires improves the moral character as well. It is only by firmly grasping a well-reasoned scientific study of Nature, and observing Epicurus' Canon of truth that has fallen, as it were, from heaven, which affords us a knowledge of the universe. Only by making that Canon the test of all our judgments can we hope always to stand fast in our convictions, undeterred and unshaken by the eloquence of any man.

On the other hand, without a firm understanding of the world of Nature, it is impossible to maintain the validity of the perceptions of our senses. Every mental presentation has its origin in sensation, and no knowledge or perception is possible unless the sensations are reliable, as the theory of Epicurus teaches us that they are. Those who deny the reliability of sensation and say that nothing can be known, having excluded the evidence of the senses, are unable even to make their own argument. By abolishing knowledge and science, they abolish all possibility of rational life and action. Thus Natural Philosophy supplies courage to face the fear of death; and resolution to resist the terrors of religion. Natural Philosophy provides peace of mind by removing all ignorance of the mysteries of Nature, and provides self-control, by explaining the Nature of the desires and allowing us to distinguish their different kinds. In addition, the Canon or Criterion of Knowledge which Epicurus established shows us the method by which we evaluate the evidence of the senses and discern truth from falsehood.

There remains a topic that is supremely relevant to this discussion – the subject of Friendship. Your [Platonic] school maintains that if pleasure is held to be the Chief Good, friendship will cease to exist. In contrast, Epicurus has pronounced in regard to friendship that of all the means to happiness that wisdom has devised, none is greater, none is more fruitful, none is more delightful than friendship. Not only did Epicurus commend the importance of friendship through his words, but far more, through the example of his life and his conduct. How rare and great friendship is can be seen in the mythical stories of antiquity. Review the legends from the remotest of ages, and, many and varied as they are, you will barely find in them three pairs of friends, beginning with Theseus and ending with Orestes. Yet Epicurus in a single house (and a small one at that) maintained a whole company of friends, united by the closest sympathy and affection, and this still goes on today in the Epicurean school.

...

The Epicureans maintain that friendship can no more be separated from pleasure than can the virtues, which we have discussed already. A solitary, friendless life is necessarily beset by secret dangers and alarms. Hence reason itself advises the acquisition of friends. The possession of friends gives confidence and a firmly rooted hope of winning pleasure. And just as hatred, jealousy and contempt are hindrances to pleasure, so friendship is the most trustworthy preserver and also creator of pleasure for both our friends and for ourselves. Friendship affords us enjoyment in the present, and it inspires us with hope for the near and distant future. Thus it is not possible to secure uninterrupted gratification in life without friendship, nor to preserve friendship itself unless we love our friends as much as ourselves.

...

For we rejoice in our friends' joy as much as in our own, and we are equally pained by their sorrows. Therefore the wise man will feel exactly the same towards his friends as he does towards himself, and he will exert himself as much for his friend's pleasure as he would for his own. All that has been said about the essential connection of the virtues with pleasure must be repeated about friendship. Epicurus well said (and I give almost his exact words): "The same creed that has given us courage to overcome all fear of everlasting or long-enduring evil after death has discerned that friendship is our strongest safeguard in this present term of life.

...

All these considerations go to prove not only that the rationale of friendship is not impaired by the identification of the chief good with pleasure, but, in fact, without this, no foundation for friendship whatsoever can be found."

In sum, then, the theory I have set forth is clearer and more luminous than daylight itself. It is derived entirely from Nature's source. My whole discussion relies for confirmation on the unbiased and unimpeachable evidence of the senses. Lisping babies, even dumb animals, prompted by Nature's teaching, can almost find the voice to proclaim to us that in life there is no welfare but pleasure, no hardship but pain – and their judgment in these matters is neither corrupted nor biased. Ought we then not to feel the greatest gratitude to Epicurus, the man who listened to these words from Nature's own voice, and grasped their meaning so firmly and so fully that he was able to guide all sane-minded men into the path of peace and happiness, of calmness and repose?

You amuse yourself by thinking that Epicurus was uneducated. The truth is that Epicurus refused to consider any education to be worthy of the name if it did not teach us the means to live happily. Was Epicurus to spend his time, as you encourage Triarius and me to do, perusing the poets, who give us nothing solid and useful, but only childish amusement? Was Epicurus to occupy himself like Plato, with music and geometry, arithmetic and astronomy, which are at best mere tools, and which, if they start from false premises, can never reveal truth or contribute anything to make our lives happier and therefore better?

Was Epicurus to study the limited arts such as these, and neglect the master art, so difficult but correspondingly so fruitful, the art of living? No! It was not Epicurus who was uninformed. The truly uneducated are those who ask us to go on studying until old age the subjects that we ought to be ashamed not to have learned when we were children!

# Excerpts From De Rerum Natura – by Lucretius

## Book I

VENUS, mother of the Roman nation, beloved of men and gods: Beneath the stars of heaven you fill the ship-carrying sea and the corn-bearing land with your presence! Through you every kind of living thing is conceived, rises up, and beholds the light of the sun, and before you fly the winds and the clouds of heaven. ... For you the earth puts forth sweet-smelling flowers, for you the waves of the sea laugh, and for you the heavens shine with outspread light. Throughout seas, mountains, rivers and plains you strike fond love into the hearts of all living things, and you inspire them with desire to continue their races. Since you alone are the mistress of the Nature of things, and without you nothing rises up into the light, and nothing grows to be glad or lovely, I ask that you help me in writing these verses on the nature of things ....

...As you hear what follows, withdraw from other cares, and with undistracted ear and keen mind employ true reasoning so that you will not abandon with disdain the gifts I set out for you before you understand them. For I am about to explain to you the ultimate system of the universe, and the nature of the gods, and I will explain to you the nature of the elements – those first beginnings out of which nature creates and nourishes all things, and into which all things are dissolved back after their destruction. These first beginnings we call "matter" or the "seeds of things" or the "first beginnings" or "atoms" – because from these elements all things are made.

...

When human life – before the eyes of all – lay foully prostrate upon the earth, crushed down under the weight of religion, which scowled down from heaven upon mortal men with a hideous appearance, one man-– a Greek – first dared to lift up his mortal eyes and stand up face-to-face against religion. This man could not be quashed either by stories of gods or thunderbolts or even by the deafening roar of heaven. Those things only spurred on the eager courage of his soul, filling him with desire to be the first to burst the tight bars placed on Nature's gates. The living force of his soul won the day, and on he passed, far beyond the flaming walls of the world, traveling with his mind and with his spirit the immeasurable universe. And from there he returned to us – like a conqueror – to tell us what can be, and what cannot, and on what principle and deep-set boundary mark Nature has established all things. Through this knowledge, superstition is thrown down and trampled underfoot, and by his victory we are raised equal with the stars.

In this I fear, however: that you may imagine that you are entering onto unholy ground, and treading the path of sin. On the contrary, very often it is religion itself that gives birth to the most sinful and unholy deeds.

Remember the example of the leaders of the Danai, foremost of men, who foully polluted the altar in Aulis with the blood of the king's daughter. Recall how she saw her father standing sorrowful before the altar, while beside him the priests hid the knife, and how she saw her countrymen shed tears at the sight. Speechless in terror, she dropped down on her knees and sank to the ground, and even in that moment it was no help to her that she had been the king's first-borne child. For it was by the hands of the priests themselves that she was lifted up, shivering, to the altar – not to the performance of the bridal rites as suited her age, but to fall a sad victim, sacrificed by her own father, that in this way he might purchase from the gods a happy and prosperous departure for his fleet. So great are the evils to which religion can persuade us!

You yourself at some point, overcome by the terrorizing tales of the priests, may seek to fall away from us. For indeed, how many dreams they imagine for you – enough to upset all the calculations of your life and trouble all your affairs with fear! And they invent these dreams for good reason, because if men were ever to realize that there is a fixed limit to their woes, they would be able to withstand the terrors of religion and the threats of their priests. But as it is men have no means of resisting those threats, since men believe that they must fear everlasting punishment after death. Men fear eternal punishment because they do not understand the nature of their souls, and they do not understand whether their souls were born with their bodies, or whether their souls found their way into their bodies at birth from somewhere else. Neither do they understand whether their souls perish with them when their bodies die, or whether their souls live on to visit the gloom of Hell ....

In order to address these fears we must firmly grasp the principles by which the sun and moon proceed in their courses, and we must grasp the forces which govern how those things we see here on earth occur. But most of all we must search out with our keenest reason the nature of our souls and of our minds. And we must also search out explanations for those visions that we sometimes see when we are awake and under the influence of disease, or when we are buried in sleep, so that we seem to see face to face, and hear speaking to us, those who are long dead and buried.

....

In short, your terrors and darknesses of mind must be dispelled – not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of daylight – but rather by the study of the laws of Nature.

We shall begin with this first principle: nothing ever comes from nothing by divine power. It is true that fear troubles all men, because they see things on earth and in the sky which they cannot explain, and they therefore believe that those things are done by divine power. Once we understand that nothing can be produced from nothing, we shall then understand the explanation for all these mysterious things. We will see that all these mysteries are produced from Nature's elements, and we will see how all these things occur naturally – without the hand of any god.

We know that nothing can be produced from nothing, because if things did come from nothing, any thing might be born from anything, for nothing would require a seed. Men, for example, might instantly rise out of the sea, fish rise out of the earth, and birds out of the sky. Nor would the same fruits always grow from the same trees, but would change over time, and any tree might bear any fruit. For if there were not first-beginning elemental seeds for each, how could things have a fixed and unvarying origin? But in fact we see that all things are produced from fixed seeds, and each thing is born and grows according to the nature of its own seeds. It is for this reason that all things cannot be gotten out of all things, because within each particular thing resides distinct powers and characteristics. Why do we see the rose bloom in the spring, corn in the summer, and vines in the autumn, if not because it is the nature of their own fixed seeds to spring forth at the proper time? But if things could come from nothing, roses and corn and vines would rise up suddenly at uncertain and unsuitable times of the year, inasmuch as there would be no seeds to keep them from bursting forth in an unwelcome season.

Also, if things could grow from nothing no time would be required for them to grow after their seeds had come together. Little babies could in an instant grow into men, and trees could spring out of the ground in a moment. But we see plainly that none of these events ever comes to pass, and we see that all things grow step by step at a fixed rate, as is natural, and this is because all things grow from a fixed seed which follows its own nature. In the same way, without fixed seasons of rain, the earth is unable to put forth its produce, nor can anything sustain its own life if it is unable to obtain its own food. Thus you may hold with conviction that distinct basic elements make up the composition of the many things that we see, in the same way that we see distinct letters of the alphabet composing many different words.

Again, why do we not see Nature producing men of such size and strength as to be able to wade on foot across the sea, or tear apart great mountains with only their hands, or outlive many generations of men? The reason we never see such things is that unchanging first-beginnings have been assigned by Nature for all that exists, and the nature of all those things that can arise from these first-beginnings is fixed.

We must admit therefore that nothing can come from nothing, since all things require seed before they can be born. Just as we see that fields that are tilled surpass those that are untilled, we may infer that there are in the soil first-beginnings which we stimulate to rise by our labor. If these first-beginnings did not exist, you would see all sorts of things arise from the fields spontaneously, and in greater perfection, without the need of our labors!

Next, we observe that over time Nature dissolves everything back into its own elemental bodies, but that Nature does not totally annihilate anything. If things were made up of parts that could be destroyed entirely, we would see things snatched away to destruction in an instant from before our eyes. No force would be needed to disrupt the parts of things and to undo their fastenings. In fact, however, all things consist of imperishable elements, and we see that Nature destroys nothing unless it encounters a force sufficient to dash it to pieces by blows, or by being pierced and broken up from within.

If time utterly destroyed things when they age, and ate up all their elements to nothing, out of what does Venus bring back into the light of life all living things, each after its own kind? If all things could be utterly destroyed, out of what does the earth give nourishment to those things that are brought back to life? Out of what do the earth's fountains and rivers keep full the sea? Out of what does nature feed the stars? For infinite time has gone by already, and the passing of infinite time would necessarily have consumed all things to nothing if they were composed of elements that were mortal and could be completely destroyed. Therefore, if all those things that we see today continue to exist, despite the eternity of time that has gone by, then those things that we see are no doubt composed of immortal elements which cannot return to nothing.

...

Now to proceed with the thread of my design: All nature is composed of two things: (1) material bodies and (2) void, or empty space in which these bodies exist and through which these bodies move about. The existence of material things is established by the senses that all men share, and unless, at the very first, we firmly ground our convictions about those material things that we perceive directly, there will be nothing to which we can appeal to prove anything by the reasoning of the mind, especially in regard to those things that we only perceive indirectly. In the same way, we must acknowledge that if void and empty space do not exist, material bodies would have no place to exist, or to move about in any direction, in the way that we see that they do move.

Moreover there is nothing which you can affirm to exist except matter and void – nothing which would constitute a third kind of nature. For whatever exists as an entity must itself be composed of these two things. If a thing exists at all and can be touched in however slight a way, no matter how large or small it may be, it must be counted as a part of the total sum of material things. But if a thing is intangible and unable to hinder any thing from passing through it on any side, then this is what we call "the void." Whatever exists as an entity will either do something itself or will allow other things that do exist to do things to it. But nothing can do or allow things to be done to it unless it has a material existence, and nothing can furnish room in which material things can act except the void. Thus besides void and material things no third nature can exist, because no third nature can at any time be observed by our senses or conceived by our reasoning minds.

...

[690] To say as one philosopher does that all things are made up of fire, and that nothing really exists except fire, is sheer insanity. For this man takes his stand on the side of the senses at the same time that he fights against the senses. His argument challenges the authority of the senses, on which rest all our convictions, even his own conviction about this "fire" (as he calls it) that is known only to himself. For what he is saying is that he believes that the senses can truly perceive fire, but he does not believe they can perceive all other things, which are not a bit less clear! Now this is as false as it is foolish, for to what shall we appeal to resolve the question? What more certain test can we apply but that of the senses to judge truth and falsehood? Why should anyone choose to abolish all other things that we see and choose to leave only fire? Why not abolish fire, and hold that all nature is composed of all other things besides fire? It would be equal madness to affirm either one or the other of these positions.

...

[921] Now mark and learn what remains to be known and hear it more distinctly. My mind does not fail to perceive how dark and difficult these things are – but the great hope of praise has smitten my heart, and at the same time has struck into my heart sweet love of the muses. Now, inspired by those muses, I travel in thought the pathless fields never yet walked by any man. I approach and drink from untasted springs, and I gather for my head a crown of flowers from places where the muses have never before crowned the brows of men. I do this because I teach great things, I endeavor to release the mind from the bondage of religion, and I do so by means of verses inlaid with the charm of the muses themselves.

And I compose in verse for the same reason that doctors, when dispensing nauseous medicine to children, first smear the rim of their medicine-cup with honey. For doctors do this so that the unknowing child may take the bitter medicine at least as far as his lips, and drink it up, and in this way be fooled, but not betrayed, but brought to health again. In my case, since my doctrine seems somewhat bitter at first, and many shrink back from it, I set it forth in sweet-toned verse, overlaid with the honey of the muses, that in this way I may engage your mind on the truth of these verses until you can come to clearly understand the essential nature of things.

...

If you will follow my path you will come to understand these and many other things with little trouble, for one thing after another will grow clear to you. Nor will the darkness of night hide the path from you, but you shall come to see all the essential truths of nature, as each principle kindles a light that will illuminate the next.

## Book II

It is sweet, when winds trouble the waters on the great sea, to behold from land the distress of others, not because it is a pleasure that any should be afflicted, but because it is sweet to see from what evils you are yourself exempt. It is sweet also to look upon the mighty struggles of armies arrayed in battle without sharing yourself in the danger. But nothing is more welcome than to hold lofty and serene positions that are well fortified by the learning of the wise. From here you may look down upon others and see them wandering, going astray in their search for the correct path of life, and contesting among themselves their intellect, their station in life, and striving night and day with tremendous effort to struggle up to the summit of power and be masters of the world.

O miserable minds of men! O blinded hearts! In what darkness of life and in what great danger you pass this term of life, whatever its duration. How can you choose not to see that Nature craves for herself no more than this: that the body feel no pain, and the mind enjoy pleasure exempt from care and fear?

We see that by nature the body needs but little – only such things as take away pain. Although at times luxuries can provide us many choice delights, Nature for her part does not need them, and she never misses it when there are no golden images of youths throughout the house, holding in their right hands flaming lamps to light the nightly banquet. Nature cares not a bit when the house does not shine with silver or glitter with gold, or when there are no paneled and gilded roofs to echo the sound of harp. Men who lack such things are just as happy when they spread themselves in groups on soft grass beside a stream of water under the limbs of a high tree, and at no great cost pleasantly refresh their bodies, especially when the weather smiles and the seasons sprinkle the green grass with flowers. Nor does fever leave the body any sooner if you toss about under an elegant bedspread amid bright purple linen than if you must lay under a poor man's blanket.

Since treasure is of no avail to the body, any more than is high birth or the glory of kingly power, by this we see that treasure and high birth are not necessary for the mind either. When you see your legions swarm over the battleground, strengthened front and rear by powerful reserves and strong cavalry, well armed and in high spirits, do you find that these scare away the fears of religion, and that fear of the gods flees panic-stricken from your mind? Or do you find that when you see your navy sail forth and spread itself far and wide over the waters, does that drive away the fear of death and leave your heart untroubled and free from care?

We see that this is laughable, because in truth the real fears and cares of men do not run from the clash of arms and weapons. If these same fears trouble kings and caesars, and if their fears are not quieted by the glitter of gold or the brilliance of the purple robe, how can you suspect that these matters can be resolved by reason alone, when the whole of life is a struggle in the dark?

For even as children are terrified and dread all things in the thick darkness, thus we in the daylight fear at times things that are not a bit more to be dreaded than those which children shudder at in the dark and imagine to be true. Therefore this terror and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by a clear view of the law of Nature.

...

[165] But some in opposition to our views, and ignorant of the nature of things, believe that without the providence of gods nature could not vary the seasons of the year and bring forth crops. Such men do not see that those things that are done through the agency of divine pleasure, the guide of life, which leads men to continue their race through the arts of Venus, that mankind may not come to an end. Now when they suppose that the gods designed all things for the sake of men, they seem to me in all respects to have strayed far from true reason. For even if I did not know what atoms are, yet judging by the very arrangements of heaven I would venture to affirm and maintain that this World has by no means been made for us by divine power, so great are the defects with which it stands encumbered.

...

[225] This point too, we should understand: when bodies are carried downward through void by their own weight, at uncertain times and uncertain places they push themselves a little from their course by the slightest of inclinations. If these bodies did not swerve, they would all fall down like drops of rain through the deep void, they would never have collided together, and thus nature would never have produced anything.

But if anyone happens to believe that heavier bodies are carried more quickly through space and fall from above to collide with the lighter bodies, he goes far astray from true reason. For we see that when bodies fall through water or air they quicken their descents in proportion to their weights, because the water and the air cannot retard everything in equal degree, but more readily give way and are overpowered by things that are heavier. On the other hand, empty void cannot offer resistance to anything in any direction at any time, but must, as is its nature, continually give way. For this reason all things are moved and borne along with equal velocity through the unresisting void, though they are of unequal weights. Therefore heavier things will never be able to fall from above on lighter nor of themselves to beget blows sufficient to produce the varied motions by which nature carries on things. Wherefore again and again I say bodies must swerve a little; and yet not more than the least possible; lest we be found to be imagining oblique motions, and this the reality should refute. For this we see to be plain and evident, that weighty things cannot travel obliquely when they fall from above at least so far as can be perceived. But that nothing swerves to any degree case from the straight course, who is there that can perceive?

Again, is all motion forever linked together, and does new motion always spring from another in a fixed order? If first-beginnings do not, by swerving, make some commencement of motion to break through the decrees of fate, so that one cause does not follow another cause from eternity, how have all living creatures here on earth wrested from the fates the power by which we go forward whichever way the will leads, by which we likewise change the direction of our motions neither at a fixed time nor at a fixed place, but when and where the mind itself has prompted? Beyond doubt in these things a man's own will determines each beginning, and from this beginning motions travel through the limbs.

Do you not also see, when the gates are thrown open at a given moment, that the eager powers of the horses cannot start forward so instantaneously as their minds desire? The whole store of matter throughout the body must be sought out in order that, stirred up through all the frame, it may follow with undivided effort the leading of the mind. By this you see that the beginning of motion is born in the heart, and the action first commences in the will of the mind and is next transmitted throughout the body and frame.

Quite different is the case when we move on, propelled by a stroke inflicted by the compulsion of another. In that case, it is quite clear that all the matter of the whole body moves against our inclination, until the will has reined it in throughout the limbs. Do you see then in this case that, though an outward force often pushes men on and compels them frequently to advance against their will, there yet is something in our breast sufficient to struggle against and resist it? And when, too, this something chooses, the matter of the body is compelled to change its course through the limbs and frame, and after it has been forced forward, it is reined in and settles back into its place.

For this reason in first-beginnings too you must admit that besides outside blows and weight there is another cause of motion, from which our power of free action has been begotten within us, since we see that nothing can come from nothing. Weight alone would require that all things were overmastered and caused by blows from outward forces. But the mind itself does not feel an internal necessity in all its actions, and it is not overmastered and compelled to bear and put up with this. Rather, the freedom of the mind is caused by a minute swerving of first beginnings at no fixed place and no fixed time.

Nor was the universe as a whole ever more closely massed nor held apart by larger spaces between; for nothing is either added to its bulk or lost to it. For that reason the bodies of the first-beginnings in times gone by have always moved in the same way in which now they move, and they will ever hereafter be borne along in like manner, and the things which have been begotten will be begotten after the same law and will grow and will wax in strength so far as is given to each by the decrees of Nature. No force can change the sum of things; for there is nothing outside the universe, either into which any matter from the universe can escape, or out of which a new supply of matter can arise and burst into the universe and change the Nature of things and alter their motions.

...

[625] For by nature of the gods must always in themselves of necessity enjoy immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns. This is because a god is exempt from every pain, exempt from all dangers, strong in its own resources, not wanting anything of us, and it neither gains by favors nor is moved by anger.

And if any one thinks proper to call the sea Neptune and corn Ceres and chooses rather to misuse the name of Bacchus than to utter the term that belongs to that liquor, let us allow him to declare that the earth is mother of the gods, if he will in truth forbear from staining his mind with foul religion.

The earth however is at all time without feeling, and because it receives into it the first-beginnings of many things, it brings them forth in many ways into the light of the sun. And so the woolly flocks and the martial breed of horses and horned herds, though often beneath the same sky slaking their thirst from one stream of water, yet have all their life a dissimilar appearance and retain the Nature of their parents and severally imitate their ways each after its kind. So great is the diversity of matter in any kind of herbage, so great in every river! And hence, too, any one you please out of the whole number of living creatures is made up of bones, blood, vein, heat, moisture, flesh, sinews; and these things again differ widely from one another and are composed of first-beginnings of unlike shape.

Furthermore, whatever things are set on fire and burned, have stored up in their bodies, if nothing else, at least those particles out of which they radiate fire and send out light and make sparks fly and scatter embers all about. If you will go over all other things by a like process of reasoning, you will thus find that they conceal in their body the seeds of many things and contain elements of various shapes. Again you see many things to which are given at once both color and taste together with smell; especially those many offerings which are burned on the altars. These must therefore be made up of elements of different shapes; for smell enters in where color does not pass, color is sensed in one way, and taste in another; so that you know they differ in the shapes of their first elements. Therefore different forms unite into one mass, and things are made up of a mixture of seeds.

[689] Moreover, throughout these very verses of ours you see many elements common to many words, though yet you must admit that the verses and words are different and composed of different elements. Only a few letters that are in common run through them, and no two words or verses one with another are made up entirely of the same, and as a rule they do not all resemble one the other. In the same way, although in all things there are many first-beginnings common to many things, yet they can make up together a quite dissimilar whole, so that men and corn and trees may fairly be said to consist of different elements.

And yet we may not suppose that all things can be joined together in all ways. If that were possible, then you would see prodigies produced everywhere, such as forms springing up half-man half-beast, tall branches sprouting from an animal's body, limbs of land-creatures joined with those of sea-animals, and even chimeras which breathe flames from noisy mouths. It is plain to see, however, that nothing of the sort occurs, since we see that all things are produced from fixed seeds, and a fixed mother can preserve the mark of her kind. This you must realize takes place due to a fixed law of nature. For the particles of food suitable for each thing pass into the frame and join together to produce the appropriate motions of the organism. But on the other hand we see Nature throw out on the earth things that are alien, and many things are ejected from the body as if impelled by blows – those I mean which have not been able to join on to any part, nor when inside the body to feel in unison with and adopt the vital motions of that body.

But lest you should happen to suppose that living things alone are bound by these conditions, such a law keeps all things within their limits. For even as all created things are in their whole nature unlike each other, thus each must consist of first-beginnings of unlike shape; not that a small number of things that are of a like form, because as a rule all things do not resemble one the other. Since the seeds differ, there must be between the atoms a difference in the spaces between their passages, their connections, their weights, their collisions, and their motions; all which not only separate living bodies, but hold apart the lands and the sea, and separate the heaven from the earth.

...

[1023] Apply now, I entreat you, your mind to true reason. For a new question struggles earnestly to gain your ears, a new aspect of things to display itself. But there is nothing so easy which is not at first more difficult to believe than afterwards; and nothing so great or so marvelous that all do not gradually lose their wonder at it.

Look up at the bright and unsullied hue of heaven and the stars which it holds within it, wandering all about, and the moon and the sun's light of dazzling brilliancy: if all these things were now for the first time suddenly and unexpectedly presented to mortal men, what could be named that would be more marvelous than these things, or that men beforehand would believe to be possible? Nothing, I think — so wondrous and strange would be the sight.

Yet weary as all are to haven seen these things, how little any one now cares to look up into heaven's glittering quarters. Cease therefore to be dismayed by the novelty which causes you to fearfully reject reason from your mind. Instead, weigh the questions with keen judgment, and if they seem to you to be true, surrender to them, or if they are appear false, gird yourself for battle with them. For since the sum of space is unlimited beyond the walls of this world, the mind seeks to apprehend what there is out there, and the spirit ever yearns to look forward to that toward which the mind's thoughts reach in free and unembarrassed flight

## Book III

It is you – you who were first able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so bright a beacon and shed light on the true interests of life. It is you I follow, glory of the Greek race. And I now plant my footsteps firmly in those you have left, not because I desire to rival you, but because the love I bear for you causes me to yearn to imitate you. For why should a swallow contend with swans, and what likeness is there between the racing of goats with tottering legs and the powerful strength of horses?

You, father, are the discoverer of things, and you furnish us with fatherly precepts. Like bees sipping from flowers, we, O glorious one, in like manner feed from out thy pages on golden maxims – golden I say – that are most worthy of endless life. For as soon as your philosophy, issuing from your godlike intellect, has begun to proclaim the Nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, and the walls of the world fly open. I see things in operation throughout the whole universe – I see the divinity of the gods as well as their tranquil abodes which neither winds shake nor clouds drench with rain nor snow harms with sharp frosts. An ever cloudless sky canopies them, and they laugh a with light shed in all directions. Nature supplies all their wants, and nothing ever impairs their peace of mind.

But on the other hand the regions of Hell are nowhere to be seen, though earth is no bar seeing all things which are in operation underneath our feet throughout the universe. At the sight of all this a kind of godlike delight mixed with awe overcomes me, to think that Nature by your power is laid open to our eyes and unveiled on every side.

So far, I have shown in what way all things have their first beginnings, of such diverse shapes, which fly spontaneously on in everlasting motion, and how all things are produced out of these. Next, my verses must clear up the nature of the mind and soul, and drive the dread of Hell headlong away, since that dread troubles the life of man from its inmost depths, and overspreads all things with the blackness of death, allowing no pleasure to be pure and unalloyed.

For as to those boasts that men often give out, that "disease and a life of shame are more to be feared than Tartarus' place of death," or that "they know the soul to be of blood or wind," according to how their choice happens to direct, or that "they have no need at all of our philosophy" – you may perceive for the following reasons that all these boasts are made for the sake of glory than because those things are really believed. For we see that such men, no matter their boasting that they have no need of philosophy, go on offering sacrifices to the dead, slaughtering black sheep, making libations to the gods, and turning their thoughts to religion ever more earnestly, even when their religion has failed to prevent them from being exiled from their country, banished far from the sight of men, living degraded by foul charges of guilt, and sunk into every kind of misery.

You can best test the man when he is in doubt and danger, and when he is amid adversity learn who he really is. For then, and not until then, are the words of truth are forced out from the bottom of his heart. His mask is torn off, and the reality is left. Avarice and blind lust for honors lead unhappy men to overstep the bounds of right, and as partners and agents of crime to strive night and day with tremendous effort to struggle up to the summit of power. Such sores of life are in no small measure fostered by the dread of death. For foul scorn and gnawing needs are seen to be far removed from a life of pleasure and security, and are thought to be the same as loitering before the gates of death.

And men are driven on by an unreal dread, wishing to escape and keep the gates of death far away. They amass wealth by civil bloodshed and greedily double their riches, piling up murder on murder. Such men cruelly celebrate the sad death of a brother, and hate and fear the tables of their relatives. Often, from the same fear, envy causes them to grieve, and they moan that before their very eyes another person is powerful, famous, and walks arrayed in gorgeous dignity, while they are wallowing in darkness and dirt. Some wear themselves to death for the sake of statues and a famous name. Often men dread death to such a degree that hate of life and the sight of daylight seizes them so that in their sorrow they commit suicide, quite forgetting that this fear of death was the source of their worries. Fear of death prompts some men to forsake all sense of shame, and others to burst asunder the bonds of friendship, overturning duty at its very base. Often men even betray their country and their parents in seeking to escape the realms of Hell. For even as children are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness, thus we in the daylight fear things not a bit more to be dreaded than what children shudder at in the dark and fancy to be real. This terror and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the study of the law of Nature.

...

[94] First I say that the mind, which we often call the understanding, in which dwells the directing and governing principle of life, is no less part of the man than hand and foot and eyes are part of the whole living creature.

.....

[231] We are not however to suppose that the nature of the mind is single. For a certain subtle spirit mixed with heat quits men at death, and then the heat draws air along with it, for there is no heat which does not have air mixed with it, as its nature is rare, and many first beginnings of air must move about through it. Thus the nature of the mind is proved to be threefold; and yet these things all together are not sufficient to produce sensation; since the nature of the case does not allow that any of these can produce sense-giving motions and the thoughts which a man turns over in his mind.

Thus some fourth Nature must be added to these. This fourth nature has no name, and nothing exists more nimble or more fine or of smaller or smoother elements than this. This fourth nature transmits the sense-giving motions through the frame; for it stirs first, as it is made up of small particles. Next the heat and the unseen force of the spirit receive the motions, then the air and all things are set in action, the blood is stirred, and every part of the flesh is filled with sensation. Last of all, whether it be pleasure or pain, the feeling is transmitted to the bones and marrow. No pain can lightly pierce to the bone, nor any sharp malady make its way in, without all things being so thoroughly disordered that no room is left for life, and the parts of the soul fly abroad through all the pores of the body. But in most instances a stop is put to these motions on the surface of the body, and for this reason we are able to retain life.

Now I will try to explain in what way these things are mixed together, by what means they are united, and when they exert their powers. The poverty of my native language deters me against my will, but I will touch upon them in summary fashion to the best of my ability:

The first-beginnings are by their mutual motions interlaced in such a way that none of them can be separated by itself, nor can the function of any first-beginning go on when divided from the rest by any interval – for these functions provide their several powers when of one body. Even so, in any flesh of living creature without exception there is smell and some color and taste, out of all of which is made up one single body. Thus the heat and the air and the unseen power of the spirit mix together to produce a single nature and a nimble force which transmits to the body the origin of motion, and by this means means sense-giving motion first arises through the body. This Nature lurks secreted in the body's innermost depths, and nothing in our body is farther beneath all sight than this, which is the very soul of the soul.

In the same way as the power of the mind and the function of the soul are latent in our limbs and throughout our body, and each part is formed of small bodies, this nameless power made of minute bodies is the very soul of the soul, reigning supreme in the whole body.

...

[320] In many other aspects there must be differences between the varied natures of men and the tempers which follow from these, though at present I am unable to set forth the hidden causes of these or to find names enough for the different shapes of the first-beginnings, from which shapes arise the diversity of things. What I think I may affirm, however, is this: those traces of the different natures which reason is unable to expel from us are so exceedingly slight that there is nothing to hinder us from living lives worthy of gods.

...

[541] So invariably truth wins over false reason and cuts off all retreat from the assailant, and by a two-fold refutation puts falsehood to rout.

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[830] Death is nothing to us, concerning us not at all, since the nature of the mind is mortal. Think how in times gone by we felt no distress when the Carthaginians from all sides came together to do battle, and all things were shaken by war's troubling uproar, shuddering and quaking beneath high heaven, and mortal men were in doubt which of the two peoples it would be whose empire would fall by land and sea. So the same applies when we ourselves shall be no more, when our body and soul are separated, out of the both of which we are formed into a single being. You may be sure that for us, who shall then be no more, nothing whatever can happen to excite sensation, not if earth itself should be overturned to mingle with the sea and the sea with heaven.

And even supposing the nature of the mind and power of the soul do have feeling, after they have been severed from our body, that is still nothing to us, who by the marriage of body and soul are formed into one single being. And even if time should gather up after our death that material from which we are made and put it once more into the position in which it now holds, and give the light of life to us again – even this result even would not concern us at all. This is because the chain of our self-consciousness has been snapped asunder, just as we now have no concern about any life which the material from which we are made might have held before our birth, nor do we feel any distress about that prior life. When you look back on the whole past course of immeasurable time, and think how many are the combinations which the motions of matter take, you may easily believe that the very same seeds from which we are now formed have often before been placed in the same order in which they now are. And yet we can recall no memory of this — a break in our existence has been interposed, and all the materials from which we are made have wandered to and fro, far astray from the sensations they once produced.

For he to whom evil befalls must exist as his own person at the time that evil comes, if the misery and suffering are to happen to him at all. But since death precludes this, and takes away the existence of him on whom evil can be brought, you may be sure that we have nothing to fear after death. He who does not exist cannot become miserable, and once death has taken away his mortal life, it does not matter at all whether he has lived at any other time.

Therefore when you see a man bemoaning his hard life, worrying that after death he shall either rot with his body laid in the grave, or be devoured by flames, or by the jaws of wild beasts, you may be sure that there lurks in his heart a secret fear, though he may declare that he does not believe that any sense will remain to him after death. Such a man does not really hold the conclusion which he professes to hold, nor believe the principle which he professes. For such a man may profess that his body is fully dead, but yet unconsciously imagine something of self to survive, and worry that that birds and beasts will rend his body after death, moaning for his end. Such a man does not separate himself from what remains after he has died, and instead he fancies himself to be those remains, and he stands by and impregnates those remains with his own sensations.

For this reason he makes much of bemoaning that he has been born mortal, and he does not see that after death there will be no other self to remain and lament to itself that he has met death, and to stand and grieve that he is lying there mangled or burnt. For if it is an evil to be pulled about by the devouring jaws of wild beasts after death, I cannot see why it should not be just as cruel a pain to be laid on fires and burn in hot flames, or to be placed in honey and stifled, or to stiffen with cold, stretched on the smooth surface of an icy slab of stone, or to be pressed down and crushed by a load of earth above.

Some men say to themselves:

"No more shall my house admit me with glad welcome, nor a virtuous wife and sweet children run to be the first to snatch kisses and touch my heart with joy. No more may I be prosperous in my doings, a safeguard to my own. One disastrous day has taken from me, luckless man, all the many prizes of life."

But these men do not add:

"And now no longer does any craving for these things beset me either."

For if these men could rightly perceive this in thought, and follow up the thought in words, they would release themselves from great distress and apprehension of mind:

"You, even as you are now, sunk in the sleep of death, shall continue so to be so for all time to come, freed from all distressful pains. But we who remain, with a sorrow that could not be healed, wept for you when close you turned to an ashen heap on your funeral pile, and no length of days shall pluck from our hearts our ever-during grief."

To those who mourn for the dead, this question should be asked:

"What is there in death so extremely bitter, if it comes in the end to sleep and rest, that anyone should pine over the dead in never-ending sorrow?"

This too men often love to say, when they have reclined at table, cup in hand, and shaded their brows with crowns:

"Short is this enjoyment for poor weak men; presently it will have passed and never after may it be called back!"

Such men say this as if, after their death, their chief affliction will be thirst and parching drought, burning them up, luckless wretches, or craving for any thing else. What folly! No one feels the need for himself and life when mind and body are together sunk in sleep. For all we care, this sleep might be everlasting, and no craving whatever for ourselves would move us. And yet those first beginnings throughout our frame wander far away from their sense-producing motions before a man starts up from sleep and collects himself. Death therefore must be thought to concern us much less than sleep, if less there can be than what we see to be nothing during sleep, for a greater dispersion of our first-beginnings follows after death, and no one wakes up once the chill cessation of life has come.

If Nature could suddenly utter a voice and address us in person, she might use words such as these:

"Why do you, O mortal, go on to such length in sickly sorrow? Why do you bemoan and bewail death? For have you had a good life, and do you say that the life you have lost has been welcome to you, and that your blessings have not all been poured as if into a perforated jar, from which they have run through and been lost to no avail? If your life has been so blessed, why not then depart from life like a guest filled with food and drink as if at the end of a party, and with relief that it is over enter upon untroubled rest?"

"But if on the other hand you have had a bad life, and all that you enjoyed has been squandered and lost, and if life is a grievance to you, why seek to continue that life any longer, to be wasted in its turn and utterly lost for nothing? Why not rather make an end of life and its troubles? For there is nothing more which I can contrive for you to give you pleasure. All things are always the same, and even if your body is not yet decayed with age nor worn out and exhausted, yet all things will remain the same, even if you should outlast all men now living – even if you should never die!"

What answer could we give to Nature, but that her case is well-founded and that she pleads it honestly and well?

If, however, a man more advanced in years should complain about his death more than is right, would Nature not with even greater cause raise her voice in words such as these:

"Away with thy tears, rascal; a truce to your complaining. Your death comes after full enjoyment of all the prizes of life. Because you nevertheless yearn for what you do not have, and despise what you do have, life has slipped from your grasp unfinished and unsatisfied. And now, before you expected it, death has taken its stand at your bedside, before you can take your departure satisfied and filled with good things. Give up those things that are unsuited to your age, and with good grace and nobility get up and go: you must."

Nature's charge would be brought with good reason, for old things must give way and be supplanted by the new, and new things must ever be replenished out of old things. No one is delivered over to the pit and black Tartarus to be utterly destroyed – matter is needed for future generations to grow. All of these, too, will follow you when you have finished your term of life, just as all those that have come before and after, no less than you, have and always will come to their own ends. Thus one thing will never cease to rise out of another – life is granted to none to possess forever, to all it is only a loan. Think how the bygone antiquity of everlasting time before our birth was nothing to us. Nature holds those ancient days up to us as a mirror of the time yet to come after our death. Is there anything in this that looks appalling, anything that appears gloomy? Is this not a rest more untroubled than any sleep?

To be sure, those things which are fabled to exist deep in Hell do in fact exist for us in this life:

In truth there is no Tantalus, poor wretch, numbed by groundless terror as the story goes, fearing a huge stone hanging in the air above him. In life, however, a baseless dread of the gods terrifies men, and the falling rock they fear is the bad luck that chance brings to each one.

Nor do birds eat away into the breast of Tityos in Hell nor could they find during eternity enough food to peck from his large breast. However huge the bulk of his body, even if with outspread limbs he took up the space not of nine acres, as the story goes, but of the whole earth – even so he would not be able to endure everlasting pain and supply food from his body forever. But in our own world we know men such as Tityos: those who, groveling in love, or torn by troubled thoughts from any other passion, are eaten up by bitter anguish as if by vultures.

In life, too, we have a Sisyphus before our eyes. Such is the man who is bent on seeking political office, constantly seeking political power, but who always retires defeated and disappointed. To ask for power, empty as it is, but to never find it despite the constant chase for it – this is forcing uphill a stone which, after all one's effort, rolls back again from the summit and in headlong haste finds once again the levels of the plain.

Then there are those men who are always feeding their insatiable desires, who can never to fill full and satisfy it with good things, as do the seasons of the year for us, when they come round and bring their fruits and varied delights. These men are never filled with the enjoyments of life, and so they are like the maidens of legend, who keep pouring water into a perforated vessel which in spite of all their work can never be filled.

In addition, Cerberus and the Furies are idle tales, and Tartarus as well, belching forth hideous fires from his throat. Such things have never existed anywhere, and in truth can never exist. But there is in life a dread of punishment for evil deeds: the prison, the frightful hurling down from the rock, the scourgings, the executioners, the dungeon of the doomed, and the torches. And even when these do not come, yet the conscience-stricken mind torments itself with fear of the fire and the lash, and sees no end to such punishment fearing that those very evils will be enhanced after death.

In these ways, the life of fools at length becomes a hell here on earth.

This too you may sometimes say to yourself, "Even worthy Ancus has seen his eyes close to the light, and he was a far better man than you. And since then many other kings and potentates have been laid low. Even that great king who once paved a way over the sea as a path for his legions to march, and taught them to pass on foot over the roaring of the sea, trampling on it with his horses, had the light taken from him and shed forth his soul from his dying body. Even the son of the Scipios, thunderbolt of war, terror of Carthage, yielded his bones to earth just as if he were the lowest laborer. Think, too, of the inventors of all sciences and arts, think of those such as Homer, who was without a peer, but yet now sleeps the same sleep as the others. Then there was Democritus who, when he found that his memory was failing him in old age, offered up himself to death. Even Epicurus himself, who surpassed in intellect all other men and quenched the light of all rivals, as the sun quenches the stars, passed away when his light of life had run its course.

Will you then hesitate and think it a hardship for you to die? You for whom life is not far from death even while you yet live and see the light of day? You, who spends the greater part of your time in sleep, and snore even when you are wide awake, and never cease seeing visions? You, who have a mind troubled with groundless terrors, and cannot discover what it is that troubles you? You, pitiful man that you are, pressed on all sides with many cares, who constantly stray due to the tumbled wanderings of your mind?

If, just as men feel the weight of the load on their minds which oppresses them, they would understand from what causes this load is produced, and why such a weight lies on their hearts, they would not spend their lives as we see most of them do. Such men never know – any one of them – what they want, and thus always seek a change of place as though they might there lay down their burdens. Men who are sick of being home often issue forth from their mansions, but just as suddenly come back to it, once they find that they are no better off abroad. Such men race to their country-house, driving his horses in headlong haste as if hurrying to bring help to a house on fire. But then the moment he reaches the door of his house he yawns, and sinks heavily into sleep, seeking forgetfulness, or even in haste goes back again to town.

In this way each man flies from himself, but as you may be sure is commonly the case, he cannot escape from himself, which always clings to him against his wishes. Such a man hates himself because he is sick, but does not know not the cause of his sickness. For if he could rightly see into these matters, giving up all other distractions, he would study to learn the Nature of things, since the point at stake is his condition – not for one hour – but for eternity: the state in which all mortals must pass all the time which remains after death.

Once more, what evil lust for life is this which constrains us with such force to be so troubled by doubt and danger? A set term of life is fixed for all mortals, and death cannot be avoided – meet it we must. Moreover, we are always engaged in the same pursuits, and no new pleasure is available by living on. But so long as we crave what we lack, that desire seems to transcend all the rest. When once it is obtained, we then crave something else, and ever does the same thirst for life possess us, as we gape for with open mouth.

It is quite doubtful what fortune the future will bring with it, or what chance will bring us, or what end is at hand. Nor, by prolonging life, do we take one moment from the time we pass in death, nor can we by worrying spend a moment less in the eternity of death. You may live as many generations as you please during your life, but nonetheless everlasting death will await you. For the man who ended his life today will be no less time in nonexistence than the man who died many months or many years ago.

## Book V

WHOSE genius is able to frame a poem worthy of the grandeur of these discoveries? Who is so great a master of words as to be able to compose praises equal to those which he who won such prizes and left them to us deserves? I think no mortal man is up to the task. For if we must speak in terms that the acknowledged grandeur of his discoveries demands, we must consider him a god. For it was he who first discovered that plan of life which is now termed wisdom, and who by trained skill rescued life from such great fog and thick darkness, and who anchored it safely in so perfect a calm and in so brilliant a light. Compare the godlike discoveries of others in ancient times. Ceres is famed for showing mortals the use of corn, and Liber for showing men the vine-born juice of the grape, but life might well have subsisted along without these things, as we are told some nations even now live without them. But a happy life is not possible without a clean heart, and so with greater reason this man is deemed by us to be a god, from whom come those sweet balms of life which even now are distributed over great nations and gently soothe men's minds.

If you shall suppose that the deeds of Hercules surpass these, you will be carried far away from true reason. For how could the great gaping jaws of the Nemean lion harm us now, or even the bristled Arcadian boar? What could the bull of Crete do, or the Hydra of Lerna, with its venomous snakes? How could the triple-breasted might of threefold Geryon that dwelt in the Stymphalian swamps do us injury, or the horses of Thracian Diomede breathing fire from their nostrils? What harm could the serpent which guards the bright golden apples of the Hesperides, fierce and dangerous of aspect, girding the tree with his enormous body beside the Atlantic shore – what harm could it do to us, as we never go there and no barbarian ventures to approach it?

It is the same with all other monsters of this kind which Hercules destroyed – if they had never been vanquished, what harm could they do, I ask, even if they were now alive? None, I think, for the earth even now abounds with wild beasts throughout the mountains and forests, and yet these are places which we have it within our power to shun.

But unless the heart is cleared, what battles and dangers find their way into our lives! What poignant cares inspired by lust tear apart the pitiful man, and what mighty fears and turmoil are caused by pride, lust, and wantonness? What disasters they bring about, and what sloth does luxury bring! He who subdued all these and banished them from the mind by words, not by arms – does he not deserve to be ranked among the gods? All the more so because he delivered many precepts in beautiful and god-like phrases about the immortal gods themselves, and opened up to us by his teachings all of the nature of things.

While walking in his footsteps I follow his reasoning and teach by my verses by what law all things are made, and by what necessity there is for them to continue in that law, and how impotent things are to annul the binding statutes of time. Foremost among these teachings is that the Nature of the mind has been formed and born along with the body, and the mind is unable to endure unscathed through eternity, and that it is mere images which mock the mind in sleep, when we seem to see those who have departed life.

The order of my design has now brought me to the point where I must proceed to show that the world also was formed of mortal bodies which have been born from other things. I will also show in what way the union of matter founded the earth, the heaven, the sea, the stars, the sun, and the ball of the moon. I will also show what living creatures sprang out of the earth, and I will show that others never existed. I will show in what way mankind began to use speech according to the names conferred on things, and in what way the fear of the gods gained an entry into men's hearts which is maintained to this day. Further, I will make clear by what force Nature guides the course of the sun and the moon; so that we will not imagine that these traverse their orbits between heaven and earth of their own free will, or by the will of any gods for the purpose of furthering the increase of crops and living creatures.

Even those who have been taught correctly that the gods lead a life without care may nevertheless wonder by what plan all things are carried on, above all in regard to those things which we see in the sky overhead. Wonderment at such things brings the poor wretches to believe in hard taskmasters whom they believe to be almighty, as they do not know what can be, and what cannot be – in short, by what system each thing has its powers defined and its boundary-mark set.

...

[156] It is sheer folly to say that the gods, for the sake of men, have set in order the glorious Nature of the world, and therefore it is proper to praise their work, and to believe that the world will be eternal and immortal. It is likewise folly to hold that it is unholy to state that those things which are alleged to have been established on everlasting foundations by the forethought of the gods in ancient days will one day be utterly overturned from top to bottom. All figments of the imagination of this kind, Memmius, are sheer folly.

For what advantage could our gratitude bring to immortal and blessed beings in return for which they would take the world in hand to administer it? And what novel incident induced those beings, up to that time so long at rest, to desire to change their former lives? For it seems natural that one who is annoyed by old things should rejoice in a new state of things, but for a being to whom no ill has befallen in eternity gone past, when it passed a pleasant existence, what could have kindled a desire to change? Did life lie groveling in darkness and sorrow until the first dawn of the birth of the universe? What evil would it have been for us never to have been born? Whoever is born wants to continue in life so long as pleasures continue, but for him who has never tasted love, and never been entered on the lists of life, what harm would it have been never to have been born? From where was first implanted in the gods a pattern for creating all things, as well as the preconception of men, so that they knew and saw in their minds what they wanted to create? And in what way was the power of first-beginnings ever determined, and in what way they change their mutual arrangements, unless Nature herself gave the model for making things?

For by Nature the first-beginnings of things, many in number, and in many ways, impelled by collisions from eternity past, and kept in motion by their own weight, have been carried along and united in all manner of ways, thoroughly testing every kind of production possible by their mutual combinations. Thus we should not consider it strange that all things have fallen into their present arrangements, and have come into courses like those out of which the sum of things we now see is carried on by constant renewing.

But even if I did not know what first-beginnings of things are, yet judging by the very arrangement of heaven and by many other facts I would venture to affirm that the Nature of things was by no means made for us by any divine power, so great are the defects with which it is encumbered.

In the first place, of all the space which the vast reach of heaven covers, a portion is occupied by mountains and forests of wild beasts. Rocks and wasteful seas take up and hold wide apart the coasts of different lands. Nearly two thirds of the earth suffers from burning heat and the constant fall of frost. What is left for tillage, nature would overrun with thorns, unless the force of man fought against it, and accustomed himself for the sake of a livelihood to groan beneath the hoe and to cut through the earth by pressing down on the plow. If we did not turn up the clods by laboring on the soil, our plantings would not come up into the clear air. Even then, at times when things earned with great toil put forth their leaves, either the sun bums them up with excessive heat, sudden rain or cold cut them off, or the blasts of the winds waste them by furious hurricane.

If all things were designed for us by the gods, why does Nature give food and increase to the terrible wild beasts that are dangerous to mankind both by sea and land? Why do the seasons of the year bring disease with them? Why does untimely death stalk the earth? Observe that the baby, soon as nature sheds him forth from his mother's womb in to the light, lies naked on the ground, like a sailor cast away by the cruel waves, speechless, wanting everything needed for life. He fills the room with a rueful waling, as well he might, given that his destiny is to go through so many ills in life. But the young of the flocks, the herds, and the wild beasts grow up needing no rattles, and no need to be addressed in the fond broken accents of the fostering nurse. Young animals do not ask for different dresses according to the season, nor do they need weapons or walls to protect themselves.

...

[878] Centaurs never have existed, and never can there exist things of twofold nature, with double body formed into one frame out of alien limbs, because the faculties and powers of the different parts are not sufficiently similar. However dull of understanding you may be, you may learn this from what follows.

First, observe that a horse when three years old is in the prime of his vigor. Far different is a boy, and often even at that age he will call in his sleep for the milk of the breast. Later, when in advanced age the horse's lusty strength and limbs ebb, then and not until then does the flower of age commence for a boy, and clothe his cheeks in soft down. I tell you this that you will not believe that out of the seed of a man and a horse Centaurs can be born, or that Scyllas with bodies half of fish and half of dogs, or any such other similar thing whose limbs we see cannot harmonize together. For these neither come to their flower at the same time, nor reach the fullness of bodily strength, nor lose it in advanced old age, nor burn with similar passions, nor have compatible manners, nor feel the same things as giving pleasure.

Thus we see bearded goats fatten on hemlock which is poison for a man. Since flame will scorch and burn the bodies of lions just as much as any other kind of flesh, how could it be that a single chimera with the body of a lion, a dragon, and a goat could breathe fire from its mouth? This is why he is wrong who imagines that when the earth was first formed such living creatures could have been begotten, resting upon the futile thought that the world was "new." Such men babble out many similar things, saying that rivers ran with gold and that trees blossomed with precious stones, or that men were born with such giant frame that they could wade on foot across seas and whirl heaven about them with their hands. The fact that there were many seeds of things in the earth when it first brought forth living creatures does not prove that the earth could have produced beasts of different kinds mixed together. The limbs of different living things cannot be formed into a single frame, because the kinds of plants and trees which even now spring of the earth are not seen to be produced with the several sorts woven into one, but each thing goes on after its own fashion, and all preserve their distinctive differences according to a fixed law of Nature.

....

[1117] Were a man to order his life by the rule of true reason, a frugal subsistence joined to a contented mind is for him great riches, for never is there any lack of a little. But men desire to be famous and powerful in order that their fortunes might rest on a firm foundation, and that they might be able by their wealth to lead a tranquil life. This is in vain, since their struggle to mount up to the heights of power renders their path full of danger. Even if they reach it, envy, like a thunderbolt, strikes men from the summit and dashes them down with ignominy into the roar of Tartarus. The highest summits, and those elevated above other things, are often blasted by envy as if by a thunderbolt, so it is better it is to obey in peace and quiet than to wish to rule with supreme power and be the master of kingdoms. Therefore let such men wear themselves out to no purpose and sweat drops of blood as they struggle on along the road of ambition, since they gather their knowledge from the mouths of others and follow after hearsay, rather than following the dictates of their own feelings. This course does not prevail now, nor will it prevail in the future any more than it has prevailed in the past.

...

[1161] What cause has spread over great nations the worship of the gods, and filled the towns with altars? What cause has led to the performance of the sacred rites which are now in fashion, and which implant in mortals a shuddering awe to raise new temples to the gods over the whole earth, and to crowd them on festive days?

Even in earliest days the races of mortal men would see glorious forms while awake, and in sleep forms of yet more marvelous size of body. To these they would attribute life, because they seemed to move their limbs and to utter lofty words suitable to their glorious aspect and surpassing powers. And they attribute to them immortality, because their faces would continue to appear before them and their forms abide, and because they would not believe that beings possessed of such powers could be overcome by any force. And men believed them to be preeminent in bliss, because none of them was ever troubled by the fear of death, and because in sleep they would see them perform many miracles, yet feel no fatigue from the effort. And men would see the heaven and seasons of the years come around in regular succession, but could not find out the cause, and so they sought a refuge by handing over all things to the gods, and supposing all things to be guided by their approval. And men placed the abodes of the gods in heaven the sun, the clouds, the rains, the winds, and all things of that sort are seen to wander through the heavens

How unfortunate for men that they charged the gods with control of the universe and coupled with that power bitter wrath! What groanings did they then beget for themselves, what wounds for us, what tears for our children's children! It is no act of piety to be seen with veiled head, turning to a stone and approaching every altar, falling prostrate on the ground, spreading out the palms before the statues of the gods, sprinkling the altars with the blood of beasts, and linking vow on to vow. Rather, true piety is to be able to look on all things with a mind at peace.

When we turn our gaze on the heavens far above the glittering stars, and direct our thoughts to the courses of the sun and moon, into our hearts, burdened as they are with other ills, the fear of the gods enters, we begin to believe that the power of the gods is unlimited, and that they wheel the stars about in their varied motions. This is because the lack of power to solve the question troubles the mind with doubts, and we wonder whether there was ever a birth-time of the world, and whether likewise there is to be any end, and how long the world can endure this strain of restless motion, or whether by the grace of the gods with an everlasting existence the world may glide on through eternity and defy the power of immeasurable ages.

Who is there whose mind does not shrink with fear of the gods, whose limbs do not cower in terror, when the earth rocks with the appalling thunderstroke and the roaring runs through the heavens? Do not peoples and nations quake, and are not proud monarchs smitten with fear of the gods, worrying that for some foul transgression or unrighteous word the time of final reckoning has arrived? When the fury of the wind passes over the sea and sweeps over its waters the commander of a fleet, along with his mighty legions and elephants, does he not vow to seek the mercy of the gods and ask in prayer with fear and trembling for a lull in the gales and for favorable winds? Even so the commander asks in vain, for regardless of his prayers he is often is caught up in the furious hurricane and carried to the shoals of death. Constantly some hidden power seems to trample on human grandeur, and treads under its heel to make sport for itself the renowned rods and cruel axes. And when the whole earth rocks under their feet and towns tumble with the shock, is it any wonder that mortal men abase themselves and ascribe to the gods marvelous powers here on earth that are sufficient to govern all things?

....

## Book VI

In days of legend, the renowned city of Athens first showed suffering men the use of corn-producing crop, and showed them a new model of life based on laws. Athens was also the first to bestow on man the sweetest solaces of existence, by giving birth to a man who showed himself gifted with great genius, who poured forth all knowledge from his truth-telling mouth, and whose glory, on account of his godlike discoveries, is spread abroad among men and reaches high as heaven even now that he is dead.

For this man saw that the things which men's needs demand for life had all been provided, and that life, so far as was possible, was placed on a sure footing. He saw that men were great in riches and honors and glory, and that they swelled with pride in the high reputation of their children. Yet he saw also that all these riches did not quiet men's hearts, and that their troubles plagued their lives with no respite, and that they were constrained to complain of their great distress. Seeing these things, he perceived that the vessel itself caused the corruption, and that by its corruption all the things that were gathered into it, however salutary, were spoiled. He saw that this was partly because the vessel was leaky and full of holes, so that it could never by any means be filled full, and partly because the vessel was befouled, so to speak, with a nauseous flavor that contaminated everything which it took in.

He therefore cleansed men's heart with true precepts, and showed the limit to lust and fear, and he explained the chief good toward which we all strive and the direct course by which we might arrive at it. He showed too what evils Nature allows to exist by chance or force in mortal affairs, and from which gates you must sally out to battle each one. Then he also proved that the melancholy tumbling billows of care that plague the hearts of man for the most part need not arise. For even as children are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness, so we in the daylight fear at times things not a bit more to be dreaded than what children imagine and shudder at in the dark, and fancy to be real. This terror and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the study of the law of Nature. And now the more eagerly I go on in my verses to complete the web of my design.

Since I have shown that the heavens had a birth and are mortal, and since I have unraveled most of all the things which must by nature go on within it, hear further what remains to be told.

Once more I will mount the illustrious chariot of the muses, and ascend to heaven to explain the true law of winds and storms, which men foolishly lay to the charge of the gods. I will tell how, when the winds are angry, they raise fierce tempests, and when there is a lull in their fury, how that anger is appeased, and how the omens presaged their fury have thus been appeased. I will at the same time explain all those other things which mortals observe upon earth and in heaven which abase their souls with fear of the gods. Such things weigh men down and press them to earth because ignorance of their causes constrain men to submit things to the empire of the gods, and to give over to the gods the kingdom of the universe.

For we observe that even those who have been rightly taught that the gods lead a life without care are carried back again into their old religious scruples, if they fear how all things are carried on overhead. Such men, poor wretches, take unto themselves hard taskmasters, whom they believe to be almighty, because they do not understand what can be, and what cannot be, and on what principle each thing has its powers defined and its boundaries marked. And these men are led all the farther astray by blind reasoning.

Unless you drive from your mind with disgust all these things, and banish far from you all belief in things degrading to the gods and inconsistent with their peace, then holy gods, having their majesty lessened by you, will do you harm. This is not because the supreme power of the gods can be outraged and in their wrath will resolve to exact vengeance against you, but because you will fancy to yourself that they do send billows of wrath against you, even though in reality they enjoy full calm and peace. Nor will you be able to approach the altars of the gods with a calm heart, or will you be able to receive with tranquil peace of mind those images of the diving form which are carried from them into the minds of men. And what kind of life follows after this you may easily conceive.

But I write this poem in order that most truthful reason may drive these things far away from us. Though much has already gone forth from me, much still remains and has to be embellished in smooth-polished verses. I must speak of the law and sights of heaven that must be grasped; of storms and bright lightnings, and of what they do and from what cause they are carried along. All this has to be sung that you will not mark out the heaven into quarters and be startled and distracted on seeing from which of them the fires flash, or to which of the two halves those fires take themselves. I must show in what way the heavenly fires gained entrance within walled places, and how, it gets itself out from these. And so, muse Calliope, solace of men and joy of gods, do point out to me the course ahead as I race toward the white boundary-line of the final goal, that under thy guidance I may win the crown with great applause.

.....

END OF POEM

# The "Vatican List" of the Sayings of Epicurus

This list of Epicurean sayings was discovered in 1888 at the Vatican. Its author is unknown, but the manuscript is reputed to date from the Fourteenth Century. Little beyond this is known about its origin. The following translation follows that of Cyril Bailey except where noted.

VS1. A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness. (Principal Doctrine 1)

VS2. Death is nothing to us; for that which has been dissolved into its elements experiences no sensations, and that which has no sensation is nothing to us.

VS3. Continuous bodily pain does not last long; instead, pain, if extreme, is present a very short time, and even that degree of pain which slightly exceeds bodily pleasure does not last for many days at once. Diseases of long duration allow an excess of bodily pleasure over pain.

VS4. All bodily suffering is easy to disregard: for that which causes acute pain has short duration, and that which endures long in the flesh causes but mild pain.

VS5. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life. (Principal Doctrine 5)

VS6. It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for until his death he is never sure that he will not be detected. (see Principal Doctrine 35)

VS7. It is hard for an evil-doer to escape detection, but to be confident that he will continue to escape detection indefinitely is impossible.

VS8. The wealth required by Nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity. (see Principal Doctrine 15)

VS9. Necessity is an evil, but there is no necessity to live under the control of necessity.

VS10. Remember that you are mortal and have a limited time to live and have devoted yourself to discussions on Nature for all time and eternity and have seen "things that are now and are to come and have been."

VS11. For most men rest is stagnation and activity is madness.

VS12. The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance. (See Principal Doctrine 17)

VS13. Among the things held to be just by law, whatever is proved to be of advantage in men's dealings has the stamp of justice, whether or not it be the same for all; but if a man makes a law and it does not prove to be mutually advantageous, then this is no longer just. And if what is mutually advantageous varies and only for a time corresponds to our concept of justice, nevertheless for that time it is just for those who do not trouble themselves about empty words, but look simply at the facts. (see Principal Doctrine 37)

VS14. We are born once and cannot be born twice, but for all time must be no more. But you, who are not master of tomorrow, postpone your happiness. Life is wasted in procrastination and each one of us dies without allowing himself leisure.

VS15. We value our characters as something peculiar to ourselves, whether they are good and we are esteemed by men or not, so ought we value the characters of others, if they are well-disposed to us.

VS16. No one when he sees evil deliberately chooses it, but is enticed by it as being good in comparison with a greater evil and so pursues it.

VS17. It is not the young man who should be thought happy, but the old man who has lived a good life. For the young man at the height of his powers is unstable and is carried this way and that by fortune, like a headlong stream. But the old man has come to anchor in old age as though in port, and the good things for which before he hardly hoped he has brought into safe harbor in his grateful recollections.

VS18. Remove sight, association, and contact, and the passion of love is at an end.

VS19. Forgetting the good that has been, he has become old this very day.

VS20. Of our desires some are natural and necessary, others are natural but not necessary; and others are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to groundless opinion. (see Principal Doctrine 29)

VS21. We must not violate nature, but obey her; and we shall obey her if we fulfill those desires that are necessary, and also those that are natural but bring no harm to us, but we must sternly reject those that are harmful.

VS22. Unlimited time and limited time afford an equal amount of pleasure, if we measure the limits of that pleasure by reason. (see Principal Doctrine 19)

VS23. All friendship is desirable in itself, though it starts from the need of help.

VS24. Dreams have no divine character nor any prophetic force, but they originate from the influx of images.

VS25. Poverty, when measured by the natural purpose of life, is great wealth, but unlimited wealth is great poverty.

VS26. You must understand that whether the discourse be long or short it tends to the same end.

VS27. In all other occupations the fruit comes painfully after completion, but in philosophy pleasure goes hand in hand with knowledge; for enjoyment does not follow comprehension, but comprehension and enjoyment are simultaneous.

VS28. We must not approve either those who are always ready for friendship, or those who hang back, but for friendship's sake we must run risks.

VS29. In investigating nature I would prefer to speak openly and like an oracle to give answers serviceable to all mankind, even though no one should understand me, rather than to conform to popular opinions and so win the praise freely scattered by the mob.

VS30. Some men throughout their lives spend their time gathering together the means of life, for they do not see that the draught swallowed by all of us at birth is a draught of death.

VS31. Against all else it is possible to provide security, but as against death all of us mortals alike dwell in an unfortified city.

VS32. The veneration of the wise man is a great blessing to those who venerate him.

VS33. The flesh cries out to be saved from hunger, thirst, and cold. For if a man possess this safety and hope to possess it, he might rival even Zeus in happiness.

VS34. It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as it is the confidence of their help.

VS35. We should not spoil what we have by desiring what we do not have, but remember that what we have too was the gift of fortune.

VS36. Epicurus' life when compared to other men's in respect of gentleness and self-sufficiency might be thought a mere legend.

VS37. Nature is weak toward evil, not toward good: because it is saved by pleasures, but destroyed by pains.

VS38. He is a little man in all respects who has many good reasons for quitting life.

VS39. He is no friend who is continually asking for help, nor he who never associates help with friendship. For the former barters kindly feeling for a practical return and the latter destroys the hope of good in the future.

VS40. The man who says that all things come to pass by necessity cannot criticize one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity: for he admits that this too happens of necessity.

VS41. We must laugh and philosophize at the same time and do our household duties and employ our other faculties, and never cease proclaiming the sayings of the true philosophy.

VS42. The same span of time embraces both the beginning and the end of the greatest good.

VS43. The love of money, if unjustly gained, is impious, and, if justly gained, is shameful; for it is unseemly to be parsimonious even with justice on one's side.

VS44. The wise man when he has accommodated himself to straits knows better how to give than to receive, so great is the treasure of self-sufficiency which he has discovered.

VS45. The study of nature does not make men productive of boasting or bragging nor apt to display that culture which is the object of rivalry with the many, but high-spirited and self-sufficient, taking pride in the good things of their own minds and not of their circumstances.

VS46. Let us utterly drive from us our bad habits as if they were evil men who have long done us great harm.

VS47. I have anticipated thee, Fortune, and entrenched myself against all thy secret attacks. And I will not give myself up as captive to thee or to any other circumstance; but when it is time for me to go, spitting contempt on life and on those who vainly cling to it, I will leave life crying aloud a glorious triumph-song that I have lived well.

VS48. We must try to make the end of the journey better than the beginning, as long as we are journeying; but when we come to the end, we must be happy and content.

VS49. It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he does not know the Nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of Nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure. (see Principal Doctrine 12)

VS50. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves. (see Principal Doctrine 8)

VS51. You tell me that the stimulus of the flesh makes you too prone to the pleasures of love. Provided that you do not break the laws or good customs and do not distress any of your neighbors or do harm to your body or squander your pittance, you may indulge your inclination as you please. Yet it is impossible not to come up against one or other of these barriers, for the pleasures of love never profited a man and he is lucky if they do him no harm.

VS52. Friendship dances around the world bidding us all to awaken to the recognition of happiness.

VS53. We must envy no one, for the good do not deserve envy and the bad, the more they prosper, the more they injure themselves.

VS54. We must not pretend to study philosophy, but study it in reality, for it is not the appearance of health that we need, but real health.

VS55. We must heal our misfortunes by the grateful recollection of what has been and by the recognition that it is impossible to undo that which has been done.

VS56. The wise man feels no more pain when being tortured himself than when his friend is tortured.

VS57. On occasion a man will die for his friend, for if he betrays his friend, his whole life will be confounded by distrust and completely upset.

VS58. We must free ourselves from the prison of public education and politics.

VS59. It is not the stomach that is insatiable, as is generally said, but the false opinion that the stomach needs an unlimited amount to fill it.

VS60. Every man passes out of life as though he had just been born.

VS61. Most beautiful too is the sight of those near and dear to us, when our original kinship makes us of one mind; for such sight is great incitement to this end.

VS62. Now if parents are justly angry with their children, it is certainly useless to fight against it and not to ask for pardon; but if their anger is unjust and irrational, it is quite ridiculous to add fuel to their irrational passion by nursing one's own indignation, and not to attempt to turn aside their wrath in other ways by gentleness.

VS63. Frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess.

VS64. Praise from others must come unasked, and we must concern ourselves with the healing of our own lives.

VS65. It is vain to ask of the gods what a man is capable of supplying for himself.

VS66. Let us show our feeling for our lost friends not by lamentation but by meditation.

VS67. A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs, yet it possesses all things in unfailing abundance; and if by chance it obtains many possessions, it is easy to distribute them so as to win the gratitude of neighbors.

VS68. Nothing is sufficient for him to whom what is sufficient seems too little.

VS69. The ungrateful greed of the soul makes the creature everlastingly desire varieties of in its lifestyle.

VS70. Let nothing be done in your life which will cause you fear if it becomes known to your neighbor.

VS71. Every desire must be confronted by this question: what will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished and what if it is not?

VS72. There is no advantage to obtaining protection from other men so long as we are alarmed by events above or below the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless universe.

VS73. The occurrence of certain bodily pains assists us in guarding against others like them.)

VS74. In a philosophical discussion he who is defeated gains more, since he learns more.)

VS75. The saying, "look to the end of a long life," shows ungratefulness for past good fortune.

VS76. You are in your old age just such as I urge you to be, and you have seen the difference between studying philosophy for oneself and proclaiming it to Greece at large; I rejoice with you.

VS77. The greatest fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom.

VS78. The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship; of these the one is a mortal good, the other immortal.

VS79. The man who is serene causes no disturbance to himself or to another.

VS80. The first measure of security is to watch over one's youth and to guard against what makes havoc of all by means of maddening desires.

VS81. The disturbance of the soul cannot be ended nor true joy created either by the possession of the greatest wealth or by honor and respect in the eyes of the mob or by anything else that is associated with or caused by unlimited desire.

#  Excerpts From The Letters of Seneca

On the Urgent Need for Philosophy

On the Urgent Need for Action

On Living According to Nature Rather than by the Crowd

On Sharing True Philosophy With Others

On the Proper Attitude Toward Life

On the Proper Attitude Toward Death

On Friendship And the Need of Some for Assistance With Philosophy

## On the Urgent Need for Philosophy

_(Seneca's Letters – Book II Letter_ XLVIII)

In answer to the letter which you wrote me while traveling, – a letter as long as the journey itself, – I shall reply later. I ought to go into retirement, and consider what sort of advice I should give you. For you yourself, who consult me, also reflected for a long time whether to do so; how much more, then, should I myself reflect, since more deliberation is necessary in settling than in propounding a problem! And this is particularly true when one thing is advantageous to you and another to me. Am I speaking again in the guise of an Epicurean? But the fact is, the same thing is advantageous to me which is advantageous to you; for I am not your friend unless whatever is at issue concerning you is my concern also. Friendship produces between us a partnership in all our interests. There is no such thing as good or bad fortune for the individual; we live in common. And no one can live happily who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility; you must live for your neighbor, if you would live for yourself.

This fellowship, maintained with scrupulous care, which makes us mingle as men with our fellow-men and holds that the human race have certain rights in common, is also of great help in cherishing the more intimate fellowship which is based on friendship, concerning which I began to speak above. For he that has much in common with a fellow-man will have all things in common with a friend. And on this point, my excellent Lucilius, I should like to have those subtle dialecticians of yours advise me how I ought to help a friend, or how a fellowman, rather than tell me in how many ways the word "friend" is used, and how many meanings the word "man" possesses. Lo, Wisdom and Folly are taking opposite sides. Which shall I join? Which party would you have me follow? On that side, "man" is the equivalent of "friend"; on the other side, "friend" is not the equivalent of "man." The one wants a friend for his own advantage; the other wants to make himself an advantage to his friend. What you have to offer me is nothing but distortion of words and splitting of syllables. It is clear that unless I can devise some very tricky premises and by false deductions tack on to them a fallacy which springs from the truth, I shall not be able to distinguish between what is desirable and what is to be avoided! I am ashamed! Old men as we are, dealing with a problem so serious, we make play of it!

'Mouse' is a syllable. Now a mouse eats its cheese; therefore, a syllable eats cheese." Suppose now that I cannot solve this problem; see what peril hangs over my head as a result of such ignorance! What a scrape I shall be in! Without doubt I must beware, or some day I shall be catching syllables in a mousetrap, or, if I grow careless, a book may devour my cheese! Unless, perhaps, the following syllogism is shrewder still: "'Mouse' is a syllable. Now a syllable does not eat cheese. Therefore a mouse does not eat cheese." What childish nonsense! Do we knit our brows over this sort of problem? Do we let our beards grow long for this reason? Is this the matter which we teach with sour and pale faces?

Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity? Philosophy offers counsel. Death calls away one man, and poverty chafes another; a third is worried either by his neighbor's wealth or by his own. So-and-so is afraid of bad luck; another desires to get away from his own good fortune. Some are ill-treated by men, others by the gods. Why, then, do you frame for me such games as these? It is no occasion for jest; you are retained as counsel for unhappy men, sick and the needy, and those whose heads are under the poised axe. Whither are you straying? What are you doing? This friend, in whose company you are jesting, is in fear. Help him, and take the noose from about his neck. Men are stretching out imploring hands to you on all sides; lives ruined and in danger of ruin are begging for some assistance; men's hopes, men's resources, depend upon you. They ask that you deliver them from all their restlessness, that you reveal to them, scattered and wandering as they are, the clear light of truth. Tell them what nature has made necessary, and what superfluous; tell them how simple are the laws that she has laid down, how pleasant and unimpeded life is for those who follow these laws, but how bitter and perplexed it is for those who have put their trust in opinion rather than in nature.

I should deem your games of logic to be of some avail in relieving men's burdens, if you could first show me what part of these burdens they will relieve. What among these games of yours banishes lust? Or controls it? Would that I could say that they were merely of no profit! They are positively harmful. I can make it perfectly clear to you whenever you wish, that a noble spirit when involved in such subtleties is impaired and weakened. I am ashamed to say what weapons they supply to men who are destined to go to war with fortune, and how poorly they equip them! Is this the path to the greatest good? Is philosophy to proceed by such claptrap and by quibbles which would be a disgrace and a reproach even for expounders of the law? For what else is it that you men are doing, when you deliberately ensnare the person to whom you are putting questions, than making it appear that the man has lost his case on a technical error? But just as the judge can reinstate those who have lost a suit in this way, so philosophy has reinstated these victims of quibbling to their former condition. Why do you men abandon your mighty promises, and, after having assured me in high-sounding language that you will permit the glitter of gold to dazzle my eyesight no more than the gleam of the sword, and that I shall, with mighty steadfastness, spurn both that which all men crave and that which all men fear, why do you descend to the ABC's of scholastic pedants?

What is your answer? Is this the path to heaven? For that is exactly what philosophy promises to me, that I shall be made equal to God. For this I have been summoned, for this purpose have I come. Philosophy, keep your promise! Therefore, my dear Lucilius, withdraw yourself as far as possible from these exceptions and objections of so-called philosophers. Frankness, and simplicity beseem true goodness. Even if there were many years left to you, you would have had to spend them frugally in order to have enough for the necessary thing; but as it is, when your time is so scant, what madness it is to learn superfluous things! Farewell.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter VIII)

The payment shall not be made from my own property; for I am still conning Epicurus. I read today, in his works, the following sentence: "If you would enjoy real freedom, you must be the slave of Philosophy." The man who submits and surrenders himself to her is not kept waiting; he is emancipated on the spot. For the very service of Philosophy is freedom.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XXII)

Read the letter of Epicurus which appears on this matter; it is addressed to Idomeneus. The writer asks him to hasten as fast as he can, and beat a retreat before some stronger influence comes between and takes from him the liberty to withdraw. But he also adds that one should attempt nothing except at the time when it can be attempted suitably and seasonably. Then, when the long-sought occasion comes, let him be up and doing. Epicurus forbids us to doze when we are meditating escape; he bids us hope for a safe release from even the hardest trials, provided that we are not in too great a hurry before the time, nor too dilatory when the time arrives. ...

(Seneca's Letters – Book II – Letter LXXXI)

Do you maintain, then, that only the wise man knows how to return a favor? Do you maintain that no one else knows how to make restoration to a creditor for a debt? Or, on buying a commodity, to pay full value to the seller? In order not to bring any odium upon myself, let me tell you that Epicurus says the same thing. At any rate, Metrodorus remarks that only the wise man knows how to return a favor.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XXVIII)

"The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation." This saying of Epicurus seems to me to be a noble one. For he who does not know that he has sinned does not desire correction; you must discover yourself in the wrong before you can reform yourself.

## On The Urgent Need for Action

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XXIII)

Now is the time for me to pay my debt. I can give you a saying of your friend Epicurus and thus clear this letter of its obligation. "It is bothersome always to be beginning life." Or another, which will perhaps express the meaning better: "They live ill who are always beginning to live." You are right in asking why; the saying certainly stands in need of a commentary. It is because the life of such persons is always incomplete. But a man cannot stand prepared for the approach of death if he has just begun to live. We must make it our aim already to have lived long enough. No one deems that he has done so, if he is just on the point of planning his life. You need not think that there are few of this kind; practically everyone is of such a stamp. Some men, indeed, only begin to live when it is time for them to leave off living. And if this seems surprising to you, I shall add that which will surprise you still more: Some men have left off living before they have begun.

##  On Living According to Nature Rather Than By The Opinion of the Crowd

(Seneca's Letters, Book I – Letter XXIX)

"I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know, they do not approve, and what they approve, I do not know." "Who said this?" you ask, as if you were ignorant whom I am pressing into service; it is Epicurus.

(Seneca's Letters, Book I – Letter XXV)

But do you yourself, as indeed you are doing, show me that you are stout-hearted; lighten your baggage for the march. None of our possessions is essential. Let us return to the law of nature; for then riches are laid up for us. The things which we actually need are free for all, or else cheap; nature craves only bread and water. No one is poor according to this standard; when a man has limited his desires within these bounds, be can challenge the happiness of Jove himself, as Epicurus says. I must insert in this letter one or two more of his sayings: "Do everything as if Epicurus were watching you." There is no real doubt that it is good for one to have appointed a guardian over oneself, and to have someone whom you may look up to, someone whom you may regard as a witness of your thoughts. It is, indeed, nobler by far to live as you would live under the eyes of some good man, always at your side; but nevertheless I am content if you only act, in whatever you do, as you would act if anyone at all were looking on; because solitude prompts us to all kinds of evil. And when you have progressed so far that you have also respect for yourself, you may send away your attendant; but until then, set as a guard over yourself the authority of some man, whether your choice be the great Cato or Scipio, or Laelius, – or any man in whose presence even abandoned wretches would check their bad impulses. Meantime, you are engaged in making of yourself the sort of person in whose company you would not dare to sin. When this aim has been accomplished and you begin to hold yourself in some esteem, I shall gradually allow you to do what Epicurus, in another passage, suggests: "The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd."

_(Seneca's Letters, Book I – Letter_ XXVII)

But let me pay off my debt and say farewell: "Real wealth is poverty adjusted to the law of Nature." Epicurus has this saying in various ways and contexts; but it can never be repeated too often, since it can never be learned too well.

( _Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter II_)

The thought for today is one which I discovered in Epicurus; for I am wont to cross over even into the enemy's camp – not as a deserter, but as a scout. He says: "Contented poverty is an honorable estate." Indeed, if it be contented, it is not poverty at all. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbor's property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains to come? Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough.

( _Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter IX)_

You desire to know whether Epicurus is right when, in one of his letters, he rebukes those who hold that the wise man is self-sufficient and for that reason does not stand in need of friendships. This is the objection raised by Epicurus against Stilbo and those who believe that the Supreme Good is a soul which is insensible to feeling.

...

But you must not think that our school alone can utter noble words; Epicurus himself, the reviler of Stilbo, spoke similar language; put it down to my credit, though I have already wiped out my debt for the present day. He says: "Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the whole world." Or, if the following seems to you a more suitable phrase – for we must try to render the meaning and not the mere words: "A man may rule the world and still be unhappy, if he does not feel that he is supremely happy." In order, however, that you may know that these sentiments are universal, suggested, of course, by Nature, you will find in one of the comic poets this verse – "Unblest is he who thinks himself unblest."

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XIV)

Now you are stretching forth your hand for the daily gift. Golden indeed will be the gift with which I shall load you; and, inasmuch as we have mentioned gold, let me tell you how its use and enjoyment may bring you greater pleasure. "He who needs riches least, enjoys riches most." "Author's name, please!" You say. Now, to show you how generous I am, it is my intent to praise the dicta of other schools. The phrase belongs to Epicurus, or Metrodorus, or some one of that particular thinking-shop.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XVI)

This also is a saying of Epicurus: "If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich." Nature's wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless. Suppose that the property of many millionaires is heaped up in your possession. Assume that fortune carries you far beyond the limits of a private income, decks you with gold, clothes you in purple, and brings you to such a degree of luxury and wealth that you can bury the earth under your marble floors; that you may not only possess, but tread upon, riches. Add statues, paintings, and whatever any art has devised for the luxury; you will only learn from such things to crave still greater.

Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping point. The false has no limits. When you are traveling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless. Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point. If you find, after having traveled far, that there is a more distant goal always in view, you may be sure that this condition is contrary to nature.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XVII)

I shall borrow from Epicurus: "The acquisition of riches has been for many men, not an end, but a change, of troubles." I do not wonder. For the fault is not in the wealth, but in the mind itself. That which had made poverty a burden to us, has made riches also a burden. Just as it matters little whether you lay a sick man on a wooden or on a golden bed, for whithersoever he be moved he will carry his malady with him; so one need not care whether the diseased mind is bestowed upon riches or upon poverty. His malady goes with the man.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XVIII)

Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe stated intervals, during which he satisfied his hunger in niggardly fashion; he wished to see whether he thereby fell short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount be fell short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort. At any rate, he makes such a statement in the well known letter written to Polyaenus in the archonship of Charinus. Indeed, he boasts that he himself lived on less than a penny, but that Metrodorus, whose progress was not yet so great, needed a whole penny. Do you think that there can be fullness on such fare? Yes, and there is pleasure also, – not that shifty and fleeting Pleasure which needs a fillip now and then, but a pleasure that is steadfast and sure. For though water, barley-meal, and crusts of barley-bread, are not a cheerful diet, yet it is the highest kind of Pleasure to be able to derive pleasure from this sort of food, and to have reduced one's needs to that modicum which no unfairness of Fortune can snatch away. Even prison fare is more generous; and those who have been set apart for capital punishment are not so meanly fed by the man who is to execute them. Therefore, what a noble soul must one have, to descend of one's own free will to a diet which even those who have been sentenced to death have not to fear! This is indeed forestalling the spear thrusts of Fortune.

...

But now I must begin to fold up my letter. "Settle your debts first," you cry. Here is a draft on Epicurus; he will pay down the sum: "Ungoverned anger begets madness." You cannot help knowing the truth of these words, since you have had not only slaves, but also enemies. But indeed this emotion blazes out against all sorts of persons; it springs from love as much as from hate, and shows itself not less in serious matters than in jest and sport. And it makes no difference how important the provocation may be, but into what kind of soul it penetrates. Similarly with fire; it does not matter how great is the flame, but what it falls upon. For solid timbers have repelled a very great fire; conversely, dry and easily inflammable stuff nourishes the slightest spark into a conflagration. So it is with anger, my dear Lucilius; the outcome of a mighty anger is madness, and hence anger should be avoided, not merely that we may escape excess, but that we may have a healthy mind.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XX)

Although you may look askance, Epicurus will once again be glad to settle my indebtedness: "Believe me, your words will be more imposing if you sleep on a cot and wear rags. For in that case you will not be merely saying them; you will be demonstrating their truth." I, at any rate, listen in a different spirit to the utterances of our friend Demetrius, after I have seen him reclining without even a cloak to cover him, and, more than this, without rugs to lie upon. He is not only a teacher of the truth, but a witness to the truth. "May not a man, however, despise wealth when it lies in his very pocket?" Of course; he also is great-souled, who sees riches heaped up round him and, after wondering long and deeply because they have come into his possession, smiles, and hears rather than feels that they are his. It means much not to be spoiled by intimacy with riches; and he is truly great who is poor amidst riches. "Yes, but I do not know," you say, "how the man you speak of will endure poverty, if he falls into it suddenly." Nor do I, Epicurus, know whether the poor man you speak of will despise riches, should he suddenly fall into them; accordingly, in the case of both, it is the mind that must be appraised, and we must investigate whether your man is pleased with his poverty, and whether my man is displeased with his riches. Otherwise, the cot-bed and the rags are slight proof of his good intentions, if it has not been made clear that the person concerned endures these trials not from necessity but from preference. It is the mark, however, of a noble spirit not to precipitate oneself into such things on the ground that they are better, but to practice for them on the ground that they are thus easy to endure. And they are easy to endure, Lucilius; when, however, you come to them after long rehearsal, they are even pleasant; for they contain a sense of freedom from care, – and without this nothing is pleasant. I hold it essential, therefore, to do as I have told you in a letter that great men have often done: to reserve a few days in which we may prepare ourselves for real poverty by means of fancied poverty. There is all the more reason for doing this, because we have been steeped in luxury and regard all duties as hard and onerous. Rather let the soul be roused from its sleep and be prodded, and let it be reminded that nature has prescribed very little for us. No man is born rich. Every man, when he first sees light, is commanded to be content with milk and rags. Such is our beginning, and yet kingdoms are all too small for us!

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XXI)

It is your own studies that will make you shine and will render you eminent. Allow me to mention the case of Epicurus. He was writing to Idomeneus and trying to recall him from a showy existence to sure and steadfast renown. Idomeneus was at that time a minister of state who exercised a rigorous authority and had important affairs in hand. "If," said Epicurus, "you are attracted by fame, my letters will make you more renowned than all the things which you cherish and which make you cherished." Did Epicurus speak falsely? Who would have known of Idomeneus, had not the philosopher thus engraved his name in those letters of his? All the grandees and satraps, even the king himself, who was petitioned for the title which Idomeneus sought, are sunk in deep oblivion. Cicero's letters keep the name of Atticus from perishing. It would have profited Atticus nothing to have an Agrippa for a son-in-law, a Tiberius for the husband of his grand-daughter, and a Drusus Caesar for a great-grandson; amid these mighty names his name would never be spoken, had not Cicero bound him to himself. The deep flood of time will roll over us; some few great men will raise their heads above it, and, though destined at the last to depart into the same realms of silence, will battle against oblivion and maintain their ground for long.

...

In order that Idomeneus may not be introduced free of charge into my letter, he shall make up the indebtedness from his own account. It was to him that Epicurus addressed the well-known saying urging him to make Pythocles rich, but not rich in the vulgar and equivocal way. "If you wish," said he, "to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires." This idea is too clear to need explanation, and too clever to need reinforcement. There is, however, one point on which I would warn you – not to consider that this statement applies only to riches; its value will be the same, no matter how you apply it. "If you wish to make Pythocles honorable, do not add to his honors, but subtract from his desires"; "if you wish Pythocles to have pleasure for ever, do not add to his pleasures, but subtract from his desires"; "if you wish to make Pythocles an old man, filling his life to the full, do not add to his years, but subtract from his desires." There is no reason why you should hold that these words belong to Epicurus alone; they are public property. I think we ought to do in philosophy as they are wont to do in the Senate: when someone has made a motion, of which I approve to a certain extent, I ask him to make his motion in two parts, and I vote for the part which I approve. So I am all the more glad to repeat the distinguished words of Epicurus, in order that I may prove to those who have recourse to him through a bad motive, thinking that they will have in him a screen for their own vices, that they must live honorably, no matter what school they follow. Go to his Garden and read the motto carved there: "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure." The care-taker of that abode, a kindly host, will be ready for you; he will welcome you with barley-meal and serve you water also in abundance, with these words: "Have you not been well entertained?" "This garden," he says, "does not whet your appetite; it quenches it. Nor does it make you more thirsty with every drink; it slakes the thirst by a natural cure, a cure that demands no fee. This is the 'pleasure' in which I have grown old."

(Seneca's Letters – Book II – Letter LXXIX)

There is Epicurus, for example; mark how greatly he is admired, not only by the more cultured, but also by this ignorant rabble. This man, however, was unknown to Athens itself, near which be had hidden himself away. And so, when he had already survived by many years his friend Metrodorus, he added in a letter these last words, proclaiming with thankful appreciation the friendship that had existed between them: "So greatly blest were Metrodorus and I that it has been no harm to us to be unknown, and almost unheard of, in this well-known land of Greece." Is it not true, therefore, that men did not discover him until after he had ceased to be? Has not his renown shone forth, for all that? Metrodorus also admits this fact in one of his letters: that Epicurus and he were not well known to the public; but he declares that after the lifetime of Epicurus and himself any man who might wish to follow in their footsteps would win great and ready-made renown.

##  On Sharing True Philosophy With Others

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter VI)

It was not the classroom of Epicurus, but living together under the same roof, that made great men of Metrodorus, Hermarchus, and Polyaenus. Therefore I summon you, not merely that you may derive benefit, but that you may confer benefit; for we can assist each other greatly.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter VII)

The third saying – and a noteworthy one, too, is by Epicurus written to one of the partners of his studies: "I write this not for the many, but for you; each of us is enough of an audience for the other."

## On the Proper Attitude Toward Life

(Seneca's Letters – Book II – Letter LXVI)

We find mentioned in the works of Epicurus two goods, of which his Supreme Good, or blessedness, is composed, namely, a body free from pain and a soul free from disturbance. These goods, if they are complete, do not increase; for how can that which is complete increase? The body is, let us suppose, free from pain; what increase can there be to this absence of pain? The soul is composed and calm; what increase can there be to this tranquility? Just as fair weather, purified into the purest brilliancy, does not admit of a still greater degree of clearness; so, when a man takes care of his body and of his soul, weaving the texture of his good from both, his condition is perfect, and he has found the consummation of his prayers, if there is no commotion in his soul or pain in his body. Whatever delights fall to his lot over and above these two things do not increase his Supreme Good; they merely season it, so to speak, and add spice to it. For the absolute good of man's nature is satisfied with peace in the body and peace in the soul. I can show you at this moment in the writings of Epicurus a graded list of goods just like that of our own school. For there are some things, he declares, which he prefers should fall to his lot, such as bodily rest free from all inconvenience, and relaxation of the soul as it takes delight in the contemplation of its own goods. And there are other things which, though he would prefer that they did not happen, he nevertheless praises and approves, for example, the kind of resignation, in times of ill-health and serious suffering, to which I alluded a moment ago, and which Epicurus displayed on that last and most blessed day of his life. For he tells us that he had to endure excruciating agony from a diseased bladder and from an ulcerated stomach, so acute that it permitted no increase of pain; "and yet," he says, "that day was none the less happy." And no man can spend such a day in happiness unless he possesses the Supreme Good.

_(Seneca's Letters – Book II – Letter LXXXV_)

Epicurus also decides that one who possesses virtue is happy, but that virtue of itself is not sufficient for the happy life, because the pleasure that results from virtue, and not virtue itself, makes one happy.

(Seneca's Letters – Book II – Letter XCII)

Furthermore, does it not seem just as incredible that any man in the midst of extreme suffering should say, "I am happy"? And yet this utterance was heard in the very factory of pleasure, when Epicurus said: "Today and one other day have been the happiest of all!" Although in the one case he was tortured by strangury, and in the other by the incurable pain of an ulcerated stomach.

##  On The Proper Attitude Toward Death

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XXIV)

Epicurus upbraids those who crave, as much as those who shrink from, death: It is absurd," he says, "to run towards death because you are tired of life, when it is your manner of life that has made you run towards death." And in another passage: "What is so absurd as to seek death, when it is through fear of death that you have robbed your life of peace?" And you may add a third statement, of the same stamp: "Men are so thoughtless, nay, so mad, that some, through fear of death, force themselves to die."

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XII)

But now I ought to close my letter. "What?" you say; "shall it come to me without any little offering? "Be not afraid; it brings something – nay, more than something, a great deal. For what is more noble than the following saying of which I make this letter the bearer: "It is wrong to live under constraint; but no man is constrained to live under constraint." Of course not. On all sides lie many short and simple paths to freedom; and let us thank God that no man can be kept in life. We may spurn the very constraints that hold us. "Epicurus," you reply, "uttered these words; what are you doing with another's property?" Any truth, I maintain, is my own property. And I shall continue to heap quotations from Epicurus upon you, so that all persons who swear by the words of another, and put a value upon the speaker and not upon the thing spoken, may understand that the best ideas are common property.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XXII)

I was just putting the seal upon this letter; but it must be broken again, in order that it may go to you with its customary contribution, bearing with it some noble word. And lo, here is one that occurs to my mind; I do not know whether its truth or its nobility of utterance is the greater. "Spoken by whom?" You ask. By Epicurus; for I am still appropriating other men's belongings. The words are: "Everyone goes out of life just as if he had but lately entered it." Take anyone off his guard, young, old, or middle-aged; you will find that all are equally afraid of death, and equally ignorant of life. No one has anything finished, because we have kept putting off into the future all our undertakings. No thought in the quotation given above pleases me more than that it taunts old men with being infants. "No one," he says, "leaves this world in a different manner from one who has just been born." That is not true; for we are worse when we die than when we were born; but it is our fault, and not that of Nature. Nature should scold us, saying: "What does this mean? I brought you into the world without desires or fears, free from superstition, treachery and the other curses. Go forth as you were when you entered!" A man has caught the message of wisdom, if he can die as free from care as he was at birth; but as it is we are all aflutter at the approach of the dreaded end. Our courage fails us, our cheeks blanch; our tears fall, though they are unavailing. But what is baser than to fret at the very threshold of peace? The reason, however is, that we are stripped of all our goods, we have jettisoned our cargo of life and are in distress; for no part of it has been packed in the hold; it has all been heaved overboard and has drifted away. Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XXVI)

Wait for me but a moment, and I will pay you from my own account. Meanwhile, Epicurus will oblige me with these words: "Think on death," or rather, if you prefer the phrase, on "migration to heaven." The meaning is clear – that it is a wonderful thing to learn thoroughly how to die. You may deem it superfluous to learn a text that can be used only once; but that is just the reason why we ought to think on a thing. When we can never prove whether we really know a thing, we must always be learning it. "Think on death." In saying this, he bids us think on freedom. He who has learned to die has unlearned slavery; he is above any external power, or, at any rate, he is beyond it. What terrors have prisons and bonds and bars for him? His way out is clear. There is only one chain which binds us to life, and that is the love of life. The chain may not be cast off, but it may be rubbed away, so that, when necessity shall demand, nothing may retard or hinder us from being ready to do at once that which at some time we are bound to do.

(Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XXX)

Indeed, he [apparently Aufidius Bassus] often said, in accord with the counsels of Epicurus: "I hope, first of all, that there is no pain at the moment when a man breathes his last; but if there is, one will find an element of comfort in its very shortness. For no great pain lasts long. And at all events, a man will find relief at the very time when soul and body are being torn asunder, even though the process be accompanied by excruciating pain, in the thought that after this pain is over he can feel no more pain. I am sure, however, that an old man's soul is on his very lips, and that only a little force is necessary to disengage it from the body. A fire which has seized upon a substance that sustains it needs water to quench it, or, sometimes, the destruction of the building itself; but the fire which lacks sustaining fuel dies away of its own accord."

##  On Friendship and Assisting Others with Philosophy

( _Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter XIX)_

However that may be, I shall draw on the account of Epicurus. He says: "You must reflect carefully beforehand with whom you are to eat and drink, rather than what you are to eat and drink. For a dinner of meats without the company of a friend is like the life of a lion or a wolf." This privilege will not be yours unless you withdraw from the world; otherwise, you will have as guests only those whom your slave-secretary sorts out from the throng of callers. It is, however, a mistake to select your friend in the reception-hall or to test him at the dinner-table. The most serious misfortune for a busy man who is overwhelmed by his possessions is, that he believes men to be his friends when he himself is not a friend to them, and that he deems his favors to be effective in winning friends, although, in the case of certain men, the more they owe, the more they hate. A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy. "What," you say, "do not kindnesses establish friendships?" They do, if one has had the privilege of choosing those who are to receive them, and if they are placed judiciously, instead of being scattered broadcast. Therefore, while you are beginning to call your mind your own, meantime apply this maxim of the wise – consider that it is more important who receives a thing, than what it is he receives.

( _Seneca's Letters – Book I – Letter LII)_

Epicurus remarks that certain men have worked their way to the truth without anyone's assistance, carving out their own passage. And he gives special praise to these, for their impulse has come from within, and they have forged to the front by themselves. Again, he says, there are others who need outside help, who will not proceed unless someone leads the way, but who will follow faithfully. Of these, he says, Metrodorus was one; this type of man is also excellent, but belongs to the second grade. We ourselves are not of that first class, either; we shall be well treated if we are admitted into the second. Nor need you despise a man who can gain salvation only with the assistance of another; the will to be saved means a great deal, too. You will find still another class of man, – and a class not to be despised – who can be forced and driven into righteousness, who do not need a guide as much as they require someone to encourage and, as it were, to force them along. This is the third variety. If you ask me for a man of this pattern also, Epicurus tells us that Hermarchus was such. And of the two last-named classes, he is more ready to congratulate the one, but he feels more respect for the other; for although both reached the same goal, it is a greater credit to have brought about the same result with the more difficult material upon which to work. Suppose that two buildings have been erected, unlike as to their foundations, but equal in height and in grandeur. One is built on faultless ground, and the process of erection goes right ahead. In the other case, the foundations have exhausted the building materials, for they have been sunk into soft and shifting ground and much labor has been wasted in reaching the solid rock. As one looks at both of them, one sees clearly what progress the former has made but the larger and more difficult part of the latter is hidden. So with men's dispositions; some are pliable and easy to manage, but others have to be laboriously wrought out by hand, so to speak, and are wholly employed in the making of their own foundations. I should accordingly deem more fortunate the man who has never had any trouble with himself; but the other, I feel, has deserved better of himself, who has won a victory over the meanness of his own nature, and has not gently led himself, but has wrestled his way, to wisdom.

 (And Epicurus establishes the same principles at the beginning of the Great Abridgment; and in the first book of his treatise on Nature.)

 (The same principles are laid down in the first, and fourteenth, and fifteenth book of the treatise on Nature; and also in the Great Abridgment.)

 (Epicurus adds, a little lower down, that divisibility, ad infinitum, is impossible; for says he, the only things which change are the qualities; unless, indeed one wishes to proceed from division to division, till one arrives absolutely at infinite smallness.)

 (He says, farther on, that they move with an equal rapidity from all eternity, since the void offers no more resistance to the lightest than it does to the heaviest.)

 (He says, further on, that the atoms have no peculiar quality of their own, except from magnitude and weight. As to color, he says in the twelfth book of his Principia, that it varies according to the position of the atoms. Moreover, he does not attribute to the atoms any kind of dimensions; and accordingly, no atom has ever been perceived by the senses; but this expression, if people only recollect what is here said, will by itself offer to the thoughts a sufficient image of the Nature of things.)

 (In other passages he says that the gods are speculated on by reason, some existing according to number, and others according to some similarity of form, arising from the continual flowing on of similar images, perfected for this very purpose in human form.)

 The text of this doctrine appears to be corrupted, for its meaning is not clear, nor is it clear whether this portion is one or two doctrines. Yonge separates these; we combine them here is an effort to attain greater clarity.

 This is the DeWitt translation from his article "The Summum Bonum Fallacy" in The Classical Weekly, Vol. 44, No. 5 (Dec. 18, 1950), pp. 69-71 The same item is rendered by Epicurus.net as: "The same time produces both the beginning of the greatest good and the dissolution of the evil."

 Items 56 and 57 are unclear in the original. This is an attempt at reconstructing them.

 Items 56 and 57 are unclear in the original. This is an attempt at reconstructing them.
