to be rejected, but some must be sacrificed on account of consequences (Diog. L. x. 141). Even pain is to be endured at times, for the sake of the good to come from it. It is not the happiness of the moment that is to be regarded, but that of the whole existence. In this he differs from the Cyrenaics, who looked only at the present enjoyment. Like Aristotle, too, he makes happiness and virtue to be inseparably connected ;—a life of true pleasure must be a virtuous life (Diog. L. x. 132). Epicurus, moreover, places the highest pleasure, not in corporeal gratifications, but in mental, since the former pass away in the moment of their existence, but the latter endure and are for the past and the future, as well as the present.

This mental pleasure arises from some past corporeal pleasure remembered afterwards, or from some like pleasure anticipated in the future. At least so Cicero represents him (De. Fin. i. 7, 17, ii. 30). But this is doubtful. That the senses are the chief inlet of happiness, he doubtless did teach. The strictest temperance is enjoined, however, in order to the full enjoyment of even the pleasures of the senses. Epicurus lived plainly, dispensed with all luxuries; is averse to costly pleasures as injurious, is content with little; give him barley bread, and water from the spring, and he will rival Jupiter in happiness. He would not limit man to the fewest possible enjoyments, but rather multiply those enjoyments; but he must be able to live upon little, in order to this. Contentedness with a little he regards as a great good, and makes wealth consist, not IN GREAT POSSESSIONS, but in SMALL WANTS.

As to pain: it cannot be dispensed with altogether, and the only alternative is to make as little of it as possible, and to ignore it as far as may be. He regards pleasure as greatly predominant over pain, even in periods of lingering sickness. Everything which is not pain is put to the account of pleasure; and the truest pleasure is the repose of the soul, freedom from agitation and mental disturbance.

When everything else fails, death is at least the end of all misery, and so ought not to be feared. "For while we live death is not, and when death is we are not; when it is we feel it not, for it is the end of all feeling" (Diog. L. x. 124; Lucret. iii. 842, seq.).

It is but a meagre philosophy indeed, that can console us under misfortune, not by the promise of some great gain and future good, but only by holding out the expectation of a final and irremediable loss; not by the hope of immortality, but only of that dreary blank which ends our pains only by ending our pleasures. Still we see in this philosophy only a prevalent form of that scepticism which was the natural growth of the times, and, in some sense, the natural result of preceding systems of doctrine, rather than the peculiar characteristic of this philosopher or of his school. He divides philosophy into Canonics or Logic, Physics, and Ethics (Diog. L. x. 29). Logic merely introductory to Physics (Diog. L. x. 30; Cic. Acad. ii. 30; De Fin. i. 7). With respect to sensation. Every sensation is true, says Epicurus, for it is a motion produced in the mind by something else, to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be taken away. But what the sensible is which produces the sensation is another question; that we do not learn in sensation itself. Sensation is to be carefully distinguished from its exciting cause, and also from the opinions and conclusions of our own minds respecting them. This was the doctrine of Aristotle also-likewise of Reid and the Scotch school, you will say. Precisely, I reply. There is nothing absolutely new under the sun. The newest thing is at least two thousand years old.

By sensations, says Epicurus, we know not things themselves, but only certain accidents of things, certain qualities. Yet the sensations have some resemblance to the external objects (see pp. 161, 167; Diog. L. x. 31. seq.; Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 203; Cic. Acad. ii, 25, 32). Beside sensation,

Epicurus makes conception a criterion of truth, i. e., the recollection of many previous phenomena produced by sensuous impressions from without. Memory takes its place beside sensation, then, even in cognition. All investigation remounts to such conception based on memory; all general thoughts resolve into sensations or the remembrance of them. All conceptions are, like all sensations, true. Error is possible in opinion formed upon sensation, but not in sensation itself, e. g., a distant tower seems round-coming nearer we find it to be square; however, the first sensation was true; i. e., it seems round, but our opinion was wrong, i. e., it is not round in reality, as we thought it to be (Diog. L. x. 33 seq.; Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 211. seq.; Cic. Acad. as above; also De Nat. Deor. i. 16, 17, 20). In all investigation words in their primary significations are the main elements to be regarded. Dialectic, or the art of syllogistic reasoning, he rejects. Cicero complains of his logic as deficient in many respects (De Fin. i. 7, 22). Mathematics also he rejects (Cic. de Fin. vii. 21, 71). In physiology Epicurus adopts the atomic theory of Democritus. The atoms are infinite in number, moving in an infinite vacuum, and from eternity precipitated downward. These atoms, colliding with and repelling each other, produce a rebounding motion. They combine together and form worlds ad libitum. No need of any external ordering and producing power on this theory, No need of gods to do what is done as well without. It is not true, he says, that in physics, every regularly occurring phenomenon is brought about by some law, for the same thing may have at one time one cause, at another, another, and every possible cause may be admitted as a sufficient explanation of any natural event.

The soul is corporeal in a sort, as is indeed, everything except vacuum, a space (Diog. L. x. 67). As it animates the whole body, it must be diffused through the whole, of course (modern Scotch again). It is invisible, but suffers many

changes, consists of round and smooth atoms, which move easily (Diog. x. 63). He compares it to a breath united to a certain degree of warmth. In death these atoms are scattered, and we no longer exist (Diog. L. x. 64; Lucret. iii. 418). The soul has four activities; gives rise to motion, to repose, to warmth, to sensation, each produced by a distinct element in the composition of the soul--motion by breath, repose by air, warmth by fire, etc. Body and soul. are mutally dependent, neither existing without the other. The soul, being composite, admits of decomposition when the body, which is its protection and covering, is dissolved. Sensation is produced by the emanation from all bodies of certain effluxes or corporeal images which enter through the organs of sense, and in that way we get our conceptions. All sensations and perceptions are true, because they correspond to these images. This is also the doctrine of Democritus. The theology of Epicurus is obscure. The Stoics call him an atheist (Cic. Nat. Deor. i. 30-44). He admits the existence of gods of human form, but free from human imperfections and wants, given to supreme repose, troubling not themselves or mortals with any disposition to interfere in human affairs. The world is too imperfect. to be their work-nor it is consistent with their repose and dignity to create such a world (Diog. L. x. 39, 76, 77; Cic. Nat. Deor. i. 9-16). Much of the popular belief in gods he regards as superstition. Such is a brief outline of the philosophy of this somewhat distinguished, and, we must confess, much calumniated sect.

CHAPTER III.

THE STOICS.

THE degeneracy of the times, the general corruption of morals, the softness and effeminacy of Epicureanism, the indifference of scepticism, the fading out of the earlier Greek earnestness of character and energy of soul, the waning national courage and patriotism and spirit—these influences combined cast a deep shadow over the period of Grecian history as connected with Grecian philosophy which is now passing under our review. But these influences, though widely prevalent and almost universal, were not altogether unresisted. There did arise in certain Greek minds a feeling of indignant resentment at the general spirit of the age and irresistible current of events. By the law of opposites, there arose a sect antagonistic to all this, planting itself firmly on the opposite extreme, and battling to the last, on the field of acknowledged defeat, against influences and opinions which were destined to prevail over all opposition.

Such a sect were the Stoics, who considered themselves followers of Socrates. The leader of these, Zeno of Citium, a small city in the island of Cyprus. He was born about 350 B. C. His father was a merchant, and he himself (Diog. L. vii. 1, 2, 5) was early engaged in mercantile pursuits; but in after years, losing his all by shipwreck on a voyage to Athens, he betook himself in that city to philosophy, to which his mind had already received a bias while yet in earlier youth, from the perusal of some writings of the Socratic teachers, especially Xenophon's Memorabilia and Plato's Apology (Diog. L. vii. 3). The life of a Cynic fell in with the circumstances and feelings of a shipwrecked and penniless voyager, and he sought the in