The Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics - College of Stoic Philosophers

460 THE EPICUREANS.
Chap
XVII.
do is to be considered our own, unless we are
prepared to despair of moral responsibility alto-
o-etlier, and to resign ourselves to a comfortless and
inexorable necessity.' To make freedom possible,
Epicurus had introduced accident into the motion
of atoms, and for the same reason he denies the
truth of disjunctive propositions which apply to the
future.'^ In the latter respect, he, no doubt, ("uly
attacked the material truth of two clauses, without
impugning the formal accuracy of the disjunction.^
i.e. he did not deny that of twd contradictory cases
either one or the other must happen, nor did he
To-morrow Epicurus will
deny the truth of saying :
either be alive or not alive. But he disi)uted the
truth of each clause taken by itself He denied the
ti-uth of the sentence, Epicurus will be ;ilive: and
equally that of its contradictory, Epicurus will not
be alive ; on the ground that the one or the otiier
statement only becomes true by the actual realisation
(.if an event at present uncertain.' For this he
'
Diof). V.V.'.: rhhi vap ifxas least says, referring to tlie iibove
ahtffvoTov ^ (fol 10 fiffi-irrhp i^al
: (juf.-tion Nisi forte voluiiuiis
T>i havriovirapaKo\ouO>7firi-pviifv. E|iicurooriim opinioiieiii sequi,
^rrei KptlTTi'v ^iv to; irfp'i 6fwv fivdy (lui tales rar KoXoiSelv v) tj; Ti>i/
v
])rop(i.=it i(jncs lu'e veras
iiec falsas esse dicunt, aut cum
ilfiapixfvr] S;v\tvftv. id pudet illud tamen diciiul,
-
(.'ic. N. D. i. 25, 70 : [Epi- quod est inipndeiitius, veras
cMius] pertimuit, ne si conces- esse ex contiariisdisjunctiones,
siini es.set hujasmi)di aliqiiid : sed iiiit vivet eras aut nnii vivet
quie in hi.s euuiitiata csscnt
eoruin neutrum esse veruiii.
Epicurus, alterutrum iieret ne-
cessariuiri ; totum hoc; aut
etiam aut non r.egavit esse necessarium.
Acad. ii. 30, 97 ;
De Fat. 10, 21.
' Steiiihiirt, p. 4fi6.
* Cic. De Kato. U;. 37. at
C'iceio indeed adds: admira-
bilem lii-entiarn et miserabili'rn
ir.scientiam dioendi ! but hi:
has no reason for this exclamation
; for the proposition :
Either A or B must follow is
not identical with the proposi-