The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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204 THE STOIC CREED
either selfish or unselfish, but merely a fact of the
human constitution, necessary and natural, and so to
be accepted like every other natural fact, and to be
made the most of. There is no dement in being pleased :
pleasure is simply an indication that our organism is
working harmoniously and well. But there is no merit
in being pained pain in itself : is simply an indication
that our system is out of sorts that something has
gone wrong. To hug pain as a virtue is the sign of an
unhealthy and abnormal subject. This was the position
that the Epicurean took up, and in which he occupied
strong psychological ground.
In the next place, the Stoic laid the stress on the
lower pleasures, and, noting the tendency
in man to
exceed in them, set forth pleasure as in itself debasing
and derogatory to man. That there are debasing
pleasures, the Epicurean readily admitted but he did
; his very utmost to counteract them he denied that
man s real happiness resided in these. The greatest
calumny on Epicurus is to identity him with the
sensualist or the epicure. This will best be seen, if we
turn to Epicurus himself. In his letter to Menceceus,
as given in Diogenes Laertius (x. 27),
pleasure in its ethical aspect :
he thus defines
When, then, we say that pleasure is the chief good,
we are not speaking of the pleasures of the profligate
or those that lie in sensual enjoyment (aTroAcnxrei), as
some who are ignorant and not of our way of thinking,
or interpreting us in the worst sense, suppose, but
freedom of the body from pain and of the soul from per
turbation (dAAa TO fJir)T dXyeti/ Kara (rw/xa fjLtjre ra.pa.rr^aBa.1
Kara J/^xW- For it is not continuous drinkings and