The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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THE EPICUREAN CONTRAST 117
touch. Nor yet, again, the whole of the senses taken
in a body ; for, as each must be trusted equally, there
is no ground for distrusting them collectively. What,
therefore, at any time whatsoever has seemed to them
true, is true (proinde quod in quoquest his uisum tempore,
1
verumst)." Sensation, then, is everything and even
;
the higher intellectual
processes (conception, thought,
etc.) are dependent on it, and their truth must
ultimately be tested by it. They are all, moreover,
simple functions of the atoms, differing in number,
shape, size, and combination.
But this very doctrine of the atoms itself how can
it be testified by sensation, or brought to the touchstone
ot sense-perception, seeing
that atoms are invisible
and, in a sense, imaginary? All opinion or belief,
whether referring to the future or to the invisible, says
Epicurus, is,
if true, verified by sensation either directly
or indirectly. It is verified directly, when we can test
it
by actual experience (I believe, say, that to-morrow
will be fine ;
and this belief is true if,
when to-morrow
comes, the day proves to be fine) ; it is verified indirectly
(in cases where direct verification is out of the question,
as in the hypothesis of the atoms), when senseexperience
has nothing to say against it (17 /u,r)
O.VTL-
But if intellect and sense can thus be explained on
the Atomic theory, so can pleasure and pain.
1
De Rerum Nat. iv. 476-496.
2
The handling- of the Criterion of Truth was designated by the
Epicureans "Canonic," and corresponded in great part
Logic of the Stoics.
to the