Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

CAIUS MAECENAS 203smaller or larger as they are nearer or more distant,The functionso do pleasures and pains in time.of wisdom is to estimate their real magnitude,and to correct by reason the errors induced bythe fallacious aspect which they offer to thepassions.The accessories of pleasure and painrather than the things themselves excite our hopesand fears ; by philosophy these accessories willbe made to vanish, and the two objects— whichalone have a real existence— will be regarded intheir own naked proportions. Providence is a;mythinfinite time has formed man, is fortuitous ;the combination of atoms, which inthere is a continual passage of elements intothings and of things into elements the world;and all that therein is are things, and thereforemortal ;nothing endures but the atoms of whichthe number of shapes is limited, while in eachshape the number of atoms is infinite.Though the contradictions and poverties involvedin this system were ably exposed by Ciceroin his book De Finibus, yet the tenets continuedto spread, and deeply affected the Roman characterand history. Liberty now seemed an unsubstantialnotion, an empty name, for which it wasthe height of absurdity to suffer. Alone amongphilosophers the Epicurean lecturers never alludedin their discourses to the ancient heroes of Greeceand Rome. Atticus is a good specimen of thebest class of men who at this time adopted Epicureanism.Living in accordance with his principlesin retirement at Athens, where his amiabilitymade him the idol of the people, he remained