The Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics - College of Stoic Philosophers

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THE EPICUREANS.
Chap. in this important particular, that not sensual and
tlun to I)cmocritus
individual pleasure, but mental repose and the whole
state of the mind is regarded as the ultimate end,
and the highest good in life. It was thus impossible
for him to be content, as the Cyrenaics were, with
feelings only, with individual and personal impressions.
He could not help requiring conviction which
reposed on a real knowledge of things, since only on
such conviction can an
mind depend.
equable and certain tone of
differed from Aris-
(^) Ilcla- Epicurus, therefore, not only
tippus with regard to feelings, by referring all feelings
to impressions from without, of which he considered
them true representations, but he felt himself called
upon to oppose the Cyrenaic contempt for theories of
nature, just as the Stoics had opposed the Cynic
contempt for science. To the physics of Democritus
he looked for a scientific basis for his ethics, just as
they had looked to the system of Heraclitus. But
the closer he clung to Democritus, owing to the
weakness of his own interest in nature, the more it
becomes apparent that his whole study of nature
was subservient to a moral purpose, and hence of a
pui'ely relative value. Accordingly, he had not the
least hesitation in setting consistency at defiance,
by assuming the swerving aside of atoms and the
freedom of the will. It is not only altogether im-
probable that Epicurus was but a second edition of
Democritus— for history knows of no such repetitions
— but as a matter of fact it is false. Closer obser-
vation proves that even when the two philosophers