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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029001952 
 
Epicurean Philosophy And Its 
 Influence on Human Thought 
 
 ««*f«Fe^ 
 
 By 
 Carl Mlcliolas Conrad, PIi. D.S.T. d. 
 
By Carl Nicholas Conrad. 
 
 Erroneous Views of Our Life. (English) 
 
 Epicurean Philosophy and Its Influence on Hu- 
 man Thought. (English) 
 
 Gospel Truths or Short Sermon-Essays on Free 
 Texts. ( English ) 
 
 Conversations with God. Prayer-Book. (Ger- 
 man) 
 
 A Christmas Programme in Three Parts. (Ger- 
 man) 
 
 Christian Narratives From the Kingdom of God. 
 (German) 
 
A little Philosophy inclineth a man's mind to 
 Atheism, but depth of Philosophy bringeth men's 
 minds about to religion." 
 
 — Bacon. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is the intention of the author in presenting 
 this volume to elucidate a false philosophical the- 
 ory which abounds for centuries in the world. 
 Christian virtue, however, is compared and up- 
 help as paramount to Epicurean Philosophy and 
 its speudo-doctrines. 
 
 The author has very aot^irally quoted freely 
 from ancient and modern authorities. 
 
 C. N. C. 
 
 Rochester, N. Y., 
 January, 1917. 
 
"The philosopher is the lover of wisdom and 
 truth; to be a sage, is to avoid the senseless and 
 the depraved." 
 
 PART I. 
 
 "The contemplations of man either penetrate 
 unto God, or are circumferred to nature, or are 
 reflected or reverted upon himself. 
 
 Out of which several inquiries there arise three 
 kinds of knowledge, Divine Philosophy, natural 
 philosophy, and human philosophy, or humanity." 
 
 The object-matter of philosophy may be dis- 
 tinguished as God, or nature, or man. 
 
 It examines the grounds of human certitude, 
 and verifies the trustworthiness of human knowl- 
 edge. It inquires into the causes of all beings, 
 and ascertams the nature of all existences by re- 
 ducing them to unity. It is not peculiar to any 
 
department, but common to all departments of 
 knowledge. Man first examines phenomena, but 
 he is not satisfied till he has reduced them to their 
 causes, and when he has done so he asks to deter- 
 mine the value of the knowledge to which he has 
 attained. This is philosophy properly so called, — 
 "the mother and governing science" — "the science 
 of sciences" — "the science of first principles," or 
 as Peemans correctly states: — "Philosophia est 
 scienta rerum per causas primas, recto rationis 
 usu comparatus." — 
 
 It has been usual to refer the origin of philos- 
 ophy to the genius of the Hellenic race. Owing 
 to the modern tendency to enlarge the scope of 
 inductive inquiry, and to pursue the scientific 
 method of comparison, there has recently been a 
 disposition to include Oriental speculation among 
 the sources of philosophical life and activity. 
 8 i 
 
There can be no doubt that the Hindo mind has 
 always evinced peculiar aptitude for the subtleties 
 of metaphysical thought. Indian religion and In- 
 dian philosophy have been, broadly speaking, iden- 
 tical, (vid. Cousin's Modern Phil. Vol. No.I.) 
 The Vedos and the Vedantas, which constitute 
 the literary treasure of Brahman priests and 
 philosophers, contain in abundance speculation 
 and reflection upon the mystery of Being. The 
 great rival systems of the East, Brahmanism and 
 Buddhism, profoundly as they differ, are alike in 
 this: — they aim offering a speculative and prac- 
 tical solution of the perplexities of human thought 
 and the difficulties of human life. — 
 
 "The Hellenic races were, intellectually and 
 
 aesthetically, the most gifted of antiquity. They 
 
 produced the most perfect forms of architecture 
 
 and of sculpture ; by swift steps they brought the 
 
 9 
 
drama to its highest point; they wrought with a 
 master-hand in every form of literature, both his- 
 torical and imaginative." It is not surprising, 
 then, that in pure thought they should not merely 
 have excelled all nations, but should have fash- 
 ioned the very moulds into which the intellect of 
 all other nations is compelled to run and take 
 shape. 
 
 Zeller has pointed out that the Greek religion 
 was of a peculiarly idealistic character, and was 
 distinguished by the absence both of a professional 
 hierarchy and of theological dogmatism; — and 
 that these characteristics largely contributed to 
 the freedom of Grecian speculation. 
 
 "Socrates brought philosophy down on earth, 
 to man." — To him human nature, human life, 
 human virtues and vices, human thought and 
 knowledge were "the chief concern". 
 
 10 
 
He was a true philosopher, a lover of wisdom ; 
 and a true moralist, who rose, in moral character, 
 above the standard of his day, who both exempli- 
 fied and taught human virtue. And with regard 
 to religion, it is unquestionable that his notions 
 of the Supreme Being were exalted, and that the 
 charge of atheism brought against him was only 
 just in so far as he was confessedly above the 
 popular polytheism, whilst yet he did not yield to 
 the irreligious influence to which so many of his 
 contemporaries succumbed. — 
 
 It is from Socrates, as from a fountain-head, 
 that the living streams of psychology and of 
 ethics have flowed down through the centuries of 
 human history. 
 
 Plato may be regarded as the great idealist of 
 the Greeks. Not content to limit our knowledge 
 to the sensible and changing world, he held that 
 
Reason contemplates eternal truth. His theory of 
 ideas, of reminiscence, of the metaphysical good, 
 are characteristic in a special manner, and can 
 only be understood by patient study of the "Dia- 
 logues". Perhaps Plato was the sublimest, and 
 Aristotle the most comprehensive intellect of an- 
 tiquity. — ^As Plato was scholar to Socrates, so 
 Aristotle was pupil to Plato. The great Stagarite 
 seems to have acquired all knowledge at that time 
 in the possession of men ; he wrote on Physics and 
 metaphysics, on Logic and Rhetoric, on Ethics 
 and Politics ; and indeed was the founder of some 
 of these realms of human knowledge. — We are 
 conscious that the horizon narrows in passing 
 from such noble systems as Plato or Aristotle to 
 the subsequent Philosophy of Greece. Later 
 schools turned away from these vaster and pro- 
 founder studies, and fortunately or unfortunately 
 
directed their attention to the individual life, 
 hence they were really and strikingly more moral 
 than their predecessors. — Zeno, 300 B. C, lec- 
 tured in Athens, on the painted porch from which 
 his sect took their designation 'Stoics'. — 
 
 The Stoics, like the early thinkers, had their 
 system of physics ; it has been called a 'pantheistic 
 Materialism" ; — 'the world is God's body, God 
 the world's soul.' Their system of morals har- 
 monized with their belief that reason, order, and 
 law are present throughout the universe. They 
 extolled virtue; and, though they did not go so 
 far as the Cynics in dispising all pleasure, yet they 
 also conceived thatjman should be independent of 
 circumstances, and should find his well-being in 
 following nature and reason. jThe Stoics were 
 particularly celebrated for their cultivation of 
 Logic. — The rival sect of the Epicureans arose 
 '3 
 
about the same time with the Stoics. The Found- 
 er of the Epicurean, school was Epicurus, born 
 342 B. C, he was the son of an Athenian who 
 had emigrated to Samos. In his thirty-sixth year 
 he opened at Athens a philosophical school, over 
 which he presided till his death (in the year 270 
 B. C). 
 
 Epicurus's moral character has been frequently 
 assailed ; but his life, according to the most cred- 
 ible testimony, was in every respect blameless, and 
 he himself alike amiable and estimable. Schweg- 
 ler in his History of Philosophy correctly states: 
 Much of what is reported about the sensuality of 
 the Epicurean Sty is in general considered to be 
 calumny. (Epicurus denominated philosophy as 
 activity which realizes a happy life through ideas 
 and arguments. It has essentially for him, there- 
 fore, a practical object, and its results, as he de- 
 
 '4 
 
sires, in ethics which are to teach us how to attain 
 to a life of felicity. The Epicureans did, indeed, 
 accept the usual division of philosophy into logic 
 (called canonic by them), physics, and ethics. 
 But logic, limited to the investigation of the cri- 
 teria of truth, was considered by them only as 
 ancillary to physics. Physics, again, existed only 
 for ethics, in order to secure men from those vain 
 terrors of empty fables, and that superstitious 
 fear which might obstruct their happiness. v^No 
 other system troubled itself as little about the 
 sjsterti troubled itself as little about the -founda- 
 tion on which it rested ; none confined itself so 
 exclusively to the utterances of its founder.T 
 
 Such was the dogmatism with which Epicurus 
 
 propounded his precepts, such the conviction he 
 
 entertained of their usefulness, that his pupils 
 
 were required to commit summaries of them to 
 
 IS 
 
memory; and the superstitious devotion for the 
 founder was with his approval carried to such a 
 length, that not the slightest deviation from his 
 tenets was permitted on a single point. \The aim 
 of philosophy was, with them, to promote human 
 happiness^ All science which does not serve this 
 end is superfluous and worthless. 
 I Ethics with Epicurus is defined as happiness. 
 Happiness, according to him, is synonymous with 
 \ pleasure, for this is what every being naturally 
 seeks to acquire. He distinguished between two 
 species of pleasure, viz.: (Stabilitas voluptatis, 
 Cic, De Fin., H. 3), the pleasure of rest, and 
 Voluptas in motu, Cic, ibid.) ; the pleas- 
 
 ure of motion. The former is defined as freedom 
 from trouble and labor, the latter as joy and 
 bheerfulness. In Principle the Epicurean ethics 
 is a system of egoism; for the advantage of thein- 
 i6 
 
dividual, which is treated as identical with the 
 happiness of the individual, is required in all cases 
 to furnish the law of action. 
 
 Even friendship is explained by this Principle, 
 — Friendship, according to Epicurus, is the best 
 means of assuring to man all the enjoyments of 
 life. Epicurus-biHiseli-irthe- author of the aphor- 
 ism (ascribed to him in Plutarch, Non posse 
 suaviter vici sec. Epicurum, 15.4) : "It is more 
 pleasant to do than to receive good." Epicureans 
 ism aided in softening down the asperity and ex-' 
 clusiveness of ancient manners and in cultivating 
 the social virtues of companionableness, compati- 
 bility, friendliness, gentleness, beneficence and 
 gratitude, and so performed a work whose merit, 
 I think, should not be wholly underestirhated.J 
 
 He, however, despised learning and culture, 
 j the researches of the grammarians and the love of 
 '7 
 
the historians, and declared that it was most con- 
 ducive to simplicity of feeling "to be uncontami- 
 nated by learned rubbish." In his letter to Me- 
 noeceus he speaks as follows and thus gives us an 
 /elucidation of his ethics: "Be not slack to seek 
 wisdom when thou art young, nor weary in the 
 search thereof when thou art grown old. For no 
 age is too early or too late for the health of the 
 soul. Exercise thyself, therefore, in the things 
 which bring happiness ; for verily, while it is with 
 thee thou wilt have everything, and when it is 
 not, thou wilt do everything if so thou mayest 
 have it." [^Accustom thyself in the belief that 
 death is nothing to us, for good and evil are only 
 where they are felt, and death is the absence of 
 all feeling.": — therefore, a right understanding 
 that death is nothing to us makes enjoyable the 
 mortality of life, not by adding to years an illimit- 
 18 
 
able time, but by taking away the yearning after 
 immortality. Foolish, therefore, is the man who ,- 
 says that he fears death, not because it will pain 1 
 when it comes, but because it pains in the pros- J 
 pect."J 
 
 He is worthy of commiseration who says: "that 
 it were best not to be born, but when once one is 
 born, to pass with greatest speed the gates of 
 Hades." If he, in truth, believes this, why does 
 he not depart from this life? There is nothing 
 to hinder him, if he has truly come to this conclu- 
 sion." Thou must remember that the future is 
 neither wholly ours, nor wholly not ours, so that 
 neither may we wholly wait for it as if it were 
 sure to come, nor wholly despair as if it were not 
 to come. Thou must keep in mind that of de- 
 sires some are natural, and some are groundless; 
 and that of the natural some are necessary as well 
 '9 
 
as natural, and some are. natural only." 
 
 We call pleasure the Alpha and Omega of a 
 blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred 
 good. By pleasure, we mean the absence of pain 
 in the body and trouble in the soul. It is not an 
 unbroken succession of drinking feasts and of rev- 
 elry, not the pleasure of sexual love, not the en- 
 joyment of the fish and other delicacies of a splen- 
 did table, which produce a splendid life: — it is 
 sober reasoning, searching out the reasons for 
 every choice, and banishing those beliefs through - 
 which greatest tumults take possession of the soul. 
 Of all this, the beginning, and the greatest good, 
 is prudence. Virtue grows into one with a pleas- 
 ant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from it 
 as such. Better were it, indeed, to believe the 
 legend of the gods, than be in bondage to the des- 
 tiny taught by the physical philosophers; for the 
 
theological myth gives a faint hope of deprecat- 
 ing divine wrath by honoring the gods, while the 
 fate of the philosophers is deaf to all supplica- 
 tions." 
 
 The theory on which Epicurus based his expla- 
 nation of the world was a revival of an earlier 
 philosophy. The earlier philosophers, Thales 
 (600 B. C), and his successors, had attempted to 
 explain the variety of material found on the earth 
 by supposing it to be the last in the series of meta- 
 morphoses of some one primitive body. 
 
 Their idea of this original matter was concrete 
 and sensuous. They had at first no conception 
 of matter as something inert and inanimate, but 
 believed it to be cdued with the spirit or person- 
 ality which they felt in themselves; and even 
 when they got rid of this vitality or animism, 
 they supposed that the primeval matter had quali- 
 
tative difEerences inherent and inseparable. It 
 was air, or earth, or water; and the result of this 
 form of investigation was to assume the existence 
 of these various modes of matter from the very 
 first, and to argue that they underwent new 
 phases in the course of time. They were in the 
 line which would have tended in the course of 
 long and tedious investigations towards a doc- 
 trine of the chemical elements ; but it need scarce- 
 ly be said that ages would have elapsed ere ex- 
 periments and analysis, the balance and the blow- 
 pipe could have led to such a result. 
 
 The current of philosophic thought flowed too 
 rapidly to allow such experimental delays. Specu- 
 lation leapt forth to anticipate research. The 
 Atomic school of Leucippus and Democritus (430 
 B. C.) advanced a step in the solution of the 
 question, by suggesting a new conception of mat- 
 
ter or body, which threw off all the old attributes 
 as secondary or occassional, and went down to 
 primal attributes constituting the nature of body 
 as such. The distinction between the attributes, 
 called (by Locke and others) primary, and be- 
 lieved to constitute the abstract and eternal es- 
 sence of matter, and the other attributes, called 
 secondary, and considered to flow from the rela- 
 tions between the primary qualities of body, on 
 the one hand, and the human organism, on the 
 other, — is apparently due to Democritus. The 
 three qualities which are usually said to distin- 
 guish atom from atom are shape, order, and po- 
 sition. (Aristotle. Metaphy., 1.4.) To these 
 should, perhaps, be added differences in size and 
 weight. The last-mentioned, indeed, is a disput- 
 able point. 
 
 There are passages from which it seems that 
 ^3 
 
Democritus regarded weight as not an attribute 
 of the atoms, but only of the aggregations which 
 they compose. (Plutarch, Plac. Phil. 1, 3, 29.) 
 But probably these statements are to be taken in 
 a different sense. They may mean that the atom 
 in all cases, however it may vary in size never 
 reaches a size which is perceptible to physical 
 vision, and, therefore, inasmuch as the weight 
 varies directly with the size in the case of atoms, 
 the atom is never ponderable except when it com- 
 bines with other atoms to form a body. The 
 atom, then, is indivisible ; it never directly comes 
 within the range of our perception. Its differ- 
 ences of size, shape, and position never emerge 
 into the region commanded by the senses. The 
 atom is an intellectual, not a mathematical point. 
 It has magnitude: it is not mere position. But 
 we cannot break it up really into smaller por- 
 
tions (hence its name). Being indivisible, it is 
 also indestructible. 
 
 The atoms are in themselves imperishable; 
 they have always been in existence and always 
 will be. One aggregation of atoms after another 
 will fall into pieces; fabric after fabric in visible 
 world, from the vegetable and animals around 
 us, up to the terrestial mass itself, and the sun 
 and the stars, and inward and unseen structures', 
 like the soil and mind of man — all these will be 
 dissolved ; but the atoms which enter into their 
 composition will remain unchanged, ever new 
 and fresh, ready to form other structures in ages 
 yet to come. 
 
 Such was in its larger outlines the theory of 
 the universe which Epicurus adopted from De- 
 mocritus, and developed for his own ends. An 
 endless expanse and immeasurable depth of space, 
 
an abyss to which there are no bonds, no bottom, 
 no end ; and in the vast reaches of this waste of 
 space, infinitely numerous hosts of solid, imper- 
 ishable molecules, too small singly to meet the 
 edge of human vision, ever in motion, and by 
 means of that motion entering upon combinations 
 more or less lasting, but in no instance everlast- 
 ing, — such is the universe which presented itself 
 to the intelligence of an Epicurean. There are, 
 however, two points to be noticed when we com- 
 pare the atomic theory of Epicurus with that of 
 modern times. In the first place, the ancient 
 atom was mainly a hypothesis, invented to afford 
 a simple explanation of phenomena. It rested, 
 so far as we know, on slight experimental basis. 
 Modern atomism, on the contrary, is supported, 
 by a large amount of experimental evidence ; it is 
 a conclusion forced upon us by exact weighing 
 2b 
 
and measurement. When we ask for the char- 
 acter of the primeval units, the ancient and mod- 
 ern theories part company. Epicurus gives us a 
 picturesque scene in his atomic hosts. Applying 
 his mental telescope, we see accummulations of 
 small bodies, of every variety of shape, catching 
 hold of each other's hooks and corners or re- 
 bounding from their rounded sides. Geometrical 
 solids touching each other in their course and 
 forming geometrical aggregations, this the kind 
 of atomism in vogue with Epicurus. Newton, in 
 the close of his Optics, suggested a somewhat 
 similar conception of the world. It seemed prob- 
 able to him that "God in the beginning formed 
 matter in solid, mossy, hard, impenetrable parti- 
 cles, ... of several sizes and figures and 
 several proportions of space, and perhaps of dif- 
 ferent densities and forces." But in Newton's 
 ^7 
 
idea, we see a new property of the atoms empha- 
 sized, that of force. 
 
 The atom has not merely geometrical aspects; 
 it is treated as dynamical also. In the modern 
 theories of molecules and vortex-rings we have 
 an advance in the equipment of the ultimate ele- 
 ments. No longer do they, almost devoid of 
 properties themselves, generate the complex va- 
 riety of properties in the actual world. The 
 modern molecule is a highly-organized body; it 
 possesses in miniature the powers of spontaneity 
 and movement which are operative in the larger 
 macrocosm, it is perpetually vibrating, with an 
 endless capacity of changing its form. No longer 
 a hard, dead thing, it wmT almost be described as 
 instinct with life. It is, moreover, subjected to 
 measurement. Considerations like these would 
 not have been to the mind of Epicurus: — they 
 28 
 
would have savored of useless curiosity. The 
 real advance of modern atomism, as seen in the 
 speculations of Kant or of Boscovich, is in the 
 sutstitution of forces for hard points. Matter is 
 looked upon as constituted by centres of forces, 
 in a complex set of relations, dependent one upon 
 another, and yet resisting each other's influence. 
 The appearance of extension and solidity is pro- 
 nounced to rest upon the reciprocal attractions 
 and repulsions of these active centres. 
 
 It was something like this that constituted the 
 drift of the monadology of Leibnitz (1646- 
 1711.) The founder of the German Philosophy 
 of the 18th Century, "that real giant of German 
 Philosophy." The pond, he says, wrhich looks a 
 mere mass of water, is really teeming with 
 myriads of live fish ; — every portion of matter is 
 like a garden luxuriant in vegetation. If we 
 
could only see deep enough we should see endless 
 life, and life within life, throughout the universe. 
 The ultimate realities of the world are monads. 
 These are not mere dead matter but endowed 
 with vital forces, even with the beginnings of 
 consciousness. Every monad is complete in it- 
 self, and lets nothing enter from without ; — it has 
 a principle in itself which controls the series of 
 its changes. There is within it, as it were, a 
 spring, which has been wound up in the begin- 
 ning, and now goes on unwinding itself in an end- 
 less chain of phenomena, without interruption 
 from forces external. Each monad is in a way 
 the whole world. But although not in any way 
 dependent upon each other, the monads, are essen- 
 tially parts of a great plan or pre-established Har- 
 mony. In the monadology of Leibnitz we find an 
 attempt, based upon the conception of a divine 
 30 
 
plan, to combine the fullest recognition of the in- 
 dividuality of the elements in the universe with 
 the peculiar universality w^hich they possess as so 
 many little worlds, whose limitations consists, not 
 in the extent of their contents, but in the com- 
 parative disorder and displacement of their re- 
 flective or appreciative power due to what mod- 
 ern science terms the parallax of their position. 
 At a glance we observe the opposite of Epicurean 
 doctrine. I have dwelt at length upon his "atom- 
 ic Theory" and have endeavored to show that 
 Democritus and Epicurus are the great exponents 
 of antiquity concerning atomism and its doctrine, 
 even imaginative and theoretical as it is, yet di- 
 rectly or indirectly throughout the ages of his- 
 tory yea, even modern scholars and thinkers as 
 well, have sought their basis of investigation. 
 Concerning nature or the nature of man, or even 
 3' 
 
the nature of philosophical inquiry of ancient an- 
 tiquity we may exclaim in the well-known ex- 
 pression of Haller: — "In's Innere der Natur 
 dringt Kein erschaff'ner Geist" ! 
 
 Careless opponents have described Epicurus as 
 an atheist. The existence of the Gods is what 
 he never denies: what he, on the contrary, as- 
 serts as a fundamental truth. The question on 
 which he diverges from popular faith is not 
 whether there are Gods, but what is their nature 
 and their relation to man. He assigns them an 
 abode in the vacant spaces between the worlds. 
 It is a place of calm and mists, and wintry snow 
 and frosts never come. Its spiiling landscapes 
 are bathed in .perpetual summerlight. This was 
 the Epicurean heaven; for them there was no 
 hell. The Gods were of human shape ; not globes 
 of rolling matter, nor immaterial forms sharing 
 3^ 
 
in endless motion. They have a body, but it is 
 not as our body; and they have blood in their 
 veins, but it is different from human blood. In 
 God he believes he will find all that is best and 
 highest in himself. jMA order to understand, his 
 philosophy of cosmology a contrast with the cos- 
 mology of Aristotle may be feasible. With Aris- 
 totle the earth, and all othat lies beneath the cir- 
 cle of the moon — the special region of humanity 
 — is an inferior province of the universe. The 
 home of the highest reason is beyond the sublun- 
 ary sphere. The earth lies in the centre of the 
 universe : — there is a limited and rounded totality 
 of things. The order and disposition of the world 
 are eternal: it has had no beginning, and will 
 have no end. There is no empty space in the uni- 
 verse. J^^pbtarry sphere is in immediate contact 
 with the God-head. All the celestial spheres are 
 3S 
 
regarded as beings endowed with life, and capable 
 of intelligent action. 
 
 The ethereal sphere is the home of superior in- 
 telligence. Epicurus differs greatly from Aris- 
 totle. Instead of a central system we have an 
 endless number of cosmical bodies, no one of 
 which is nearer the centre than another. The 
 earth is no longer an absolute middlepoint 
 around which the starry world revolves. The 
 starry sphere itself is made of a matter not of 
 transcendant quality, but of the same constitution 
 as our earth. The world is no longer an intelli- 
 gent and vital being, but a mere product of me- 
 chanical unions, coherent only for a while but 
 destined to disruption. All matter is heavy, all 
 tends downward. 
 
 Epicurus set aside the pictori ally-complete con- 
 ception of Aristotle for a new idea, in which the 
 34 
 
earth and its starry and planetary attendants, as 
 well, as sun and moon, sink into a mere unit in 
 the endless series of the world. The ancients are 
 never tired of expressing their surprise and even 
 contempt of the astronomical doctrines of Epi- 
 cureanism. Epicurus has had many resurrections. 
 His spirit has lived more in his ethics and hedon- 
 ism, than in his other philosophical speculations. 
 
 The powerful influence of his ethical and he- 
 donistic doctrines upon scholars and thinkers and 
 even the lay-masses as such is wonderful and par- 
 ticularly recognizable to the present time. 
 
 The Academy, or Platonists ; the Lyceum, or 
 Peripatetics, followers of Aristotle; the Stoics of 
 the Porch; and the Epicureans of the Garden — 
 continued to hold their position at Athens for sev- 
 eral centuries. All had their adherents, their ad- 
 vocates. One great philosopher was formed in 
 ss 
 
the Epicurean school. Lucretius Carus (95-52 
 B. C. ), author of the didactic poem De Rerum 
 Natura, whose verse is steeped in the doctrines 
 of Democritus and Epicurus. The poem, post- 
 humously edited, did not receive the last touches 
 of its author's hand. It is full of casual or un- 
 skillful junctures, and wanting in continuity; it 
 emphasizes certain sides of the system to the ne- 
 glect of others, and it is too much encumbered by 
 the exigencies of verse to be able to follow freely 
 the subtleties of argument. Yet, as the only ex- 
 position of Epicureanism by a zealous convert to 
 its creed, it claims a unique value amongst the 
 authorities on this subject. In some aspects, how- 
 ever, the standard and primary authority for the 
 system, as well as for the history, which others 
 may supplement and correct, but cannot entirely 
 supersede, is the tenth book of the history of the 
 3(> 
 
lives and opinions of the ancient philosophers, by 
 Diogenes Laertius. This book may be regarded 
 as a paraphrase, an extremely unsatisfactory and 
 tantalizing performance. 
 
 It is a compilation made in the third century 
 A. D. from the contents of a large number of 
 works on the history of the several sects of an- 
 cient philosophy — works which have not come 
 down to us. In the tenth book, which is entirely 
 devoted to Epicurus, faults are not so prominent 
 as in other parts of the work. 
 
 Diogenes has been supposed to be either an ad- 
 herent or admirer of Epicurus. 
 
 Cicero and Seneca both tell us a good deal 
 about Epicureanism, but in a fragmentary way, 
 however. In his "De Finibus," his "De Natura 
 Deorum," and the Tusculan Question," Cicero 
 introduces the Epicurean doctrine, supported and 
 37 
 
expounded by Torquatas and Velleius in the first 
 and second of these works respectively. Cicero 
 seems a fair and honest reporter of what he does 
 undersiand, but his method of composition, con- 
 sisting in free translation and condensation of 
 some of the advocates of the systems he expound- 
 ed, was not favorable either to depth of insight or 
 harmony of exposition. ^h 
 
 There are places in the Tusculan Desputations 
 where he seems to forget himself, and holds a 
 brief for Epicureanism without perceiving the 
 contradiction in which he indulges with previous 
 statements. His information is mainly confined 
 to the ethical portions of Epicureanism, and even 
 there it leaves behind an impression of inactness 
 and want of contact with the original ideas, 
 which he looks at too exclusively through a lit- 
 erary medium. Still, as the contemporary of Lu- 
 
cretius, his estimates of Epicureanism in Rome 
 are full of interest. 
 
 In the year 79 B. C. Cicero spent six months 
 at Athens among the Philosophers, chiefly attend- 
 ing the lectures of Zeno of Sidon on Epicurean- 
 ism. Philedemus, another Epicurean writer of 
 the Ciceronian epoch, has, through the discoveries 
 at Herculaneum, , attained a celebrity which his 
 intrinsic merits would scarcely claim. Like many 
 philosophers of these ages, he was not a Greek, 
 \ but a Syrian, — a native of Gadara, on the skirts 
 of the Anti-Libanus, he is often alluded to by 
 Horace, Cicero, and Diogenes Laertius. In 
 Caesar and Catullus, still more in Virgil and 
 Horace, wej^etect /traces of Epicureanism. One 
 of the Lives of Virgil tells us how he lived for 
 several years in leisurely freedom, after the man- 
 ner and doctrine of Epicurus. And the words of 
 39 
 
the Georgics which praise "the blessedness of him 
 who has learnt the secrets of the world, and has 
 laid beneath his feet all fears, and the doom which 
 no man can escape and the din of Acheron crav- 
 ing its prey," are the genuine spirit of Epicurus 
 and Lucretius. About the year 176 A. D., the 
 Emperor Marcus Aurelius assigned to each of 
 the four schools of ancient philosophy a yearly 
 revenue of 10,000 Drachmae. Whether this 
 sum went to a single professor, or was divided 
 among several, we know not. 
 
 We are told the emperor left the choice of the 
 professor to Herodes Atticus, the patron of Phil- 
 osophy in that period. After his time the ap- 
 pointment seems to have been vested, probably, in 
 the Areopus, who decided after hearing the com- 
 petitors. Of these professors of Epicureanism we 
 hear nothing. Aulus Gellius, who studied philos- 
 
ophy at Athens while Herodes Atticus was there, 
 hardly alludes to Epicureanism, save to quote the 
 bitter words of Hierocles the Stoic: "Pleasure 
 the end, is a harlot's doctrine." Longinus, who 
 visited Athens for a sinailar purpose about 240 
 A. D., though the speaker of the teachers of other 
 schools, does not even mention the Epicureans. 
 Yet, if Epicureanism was not in good odour at 
 the University of Athens, it would be a mistake 
 to infer that it had been reduced to silence, its 
 influence on human thought had become too 
 great. 
 
 Tertullian, an early church-father, occasion- 
 ally expressed his views on Epicureanism. While 
 he contradicts the theological dogmas of the sect, 
 uses languages which is in harmony with its fun- 
 damental principle. Nihil est incorporale nisi 
 quod non est, (Nothing is incorporeal except the 
 4' 
 
non-existent). But, it seems to me, when he 
 boldly declares that the Christian regards the 
 teaching of secular literature as folly in the sight 
 of God, he re-echoes in part the works of Epi- 
 curus. 
 
 f Lactantius, in his "Divine Institutes" (310 A. 
 D.), has given a fine enumeration of the second- 
 ary causes which account for the spread of Epi- 
 cureanism. "It tells the ignorant they need study 
 no literature; it releases the niggardly from the 
 duties of public beneficence; it forbids the loung- 
 er to serve the State, the sluggard to work, and 
 the coward to fight. The godless are told that 
 the Gods are indifferent ^ the selfish and malevo- 
 lent are ordered to give nothing to anyone, be- 
 cause the wise man does everything for his own 
 sake. The recluse hears the praises of solitude, 
 and the miser learns that life can be supported 
 42 
 
on water and polenta. The man who hates his 
 wife is presented with a list of blessings of celi- 
 bacy: — the parent of a worthless offspring hears 
 how good a thing is childlessness: — the children 
 of impious parents are told that there is no na- 
 tural obligation upon them." 
 
 It is in a fairer tone that Gregory Nazianzen 
 speaks of Epicurus as showing, by his temperate 
 life, that the pleasure he preached was not the 
 vulgar delights of license. No doubt this was 
 the current interpretation; and it seems to have 
 been in the mind of Augustine, when in unregen- 
 erate days, he would have given Epicureanism 
 the palm, if only immortality had not turned the 
 scale. There appeared sporadically with the 
 Renaissance a naturalism, often licentious, which 
 sometimes claimed kindred with Epicureanism. 
 
 Partly from a misconception of Christianity, 
 43 
 
but still more from the peculiar conditions of me- 
 diavel existence, there had been a long divorce 
 between the theology of the Church as such, and 
 the life and language of ordinary humanity. The 
 re-awakening of natural affections and instincts 
 into a free and passionate life was one of the as- 
 pects of the Renaissance, in which Epicurean 
 tendencies might be traced. The philosophic ex- 
 pression of this revolt and protest is found in a 
 small dialogue by Lorenzo Valla, on Pleasure 
 and True Good, written between 1430 and 1435. 
 Here we find put into the mouth of a contem- 
 porary poet a glorification of nature and of the 
 natural law of enjoyment. 
 
 The delights given through the senses — beau- 
 tiful forms, musical tones, sweet tastes and smells 
 are the first class of pleasures enumerated. But 
 the advocate of pleasure goes a step further, and 
 
 44- 
 
even defends the relaxation of sexual restraints. 
 The treatise is a crude and hasty generalization, 
 made under a not inexcusable hatred of monach- 
 
 ism and conventionality. It tunes into logical 
 and systematic shape those demands of the heart 
 and passions which can only claim our partial 
 sympathy when presented in the colours of con- 
 crete life. 
 
 The same revival of the heart and the natural 
 instincts is seen in a more mature and tranquil 
 form when we look at Montaigne, Rabelais, or 
 Erasmus. All of them, in their several peculiar 
 ways, contend against conventionality, against the 
 reign of asceticism, — all of them are humanists, 
 in the wider sense of the word. The true Chris- 
 tian, says Erasmus, is the true. Epicurean. Doctor 
 Martin Luther, with Catharine von Bora, the 
 nun, was a defiance to the theological morality 
 45 
 
of the wicked cloister. 
 
 Rabelais substitutes for the conventual institu- 
 tions of the past an Abbey where the restraints of 
 formal rules are abolished, and makes the no- 
 vitiate of young men and maidens the preparation 
 and beginning of a useful, happy, and holy life. 
 Montaigne writes with the mellowed and kindly 
 cynism of the Epicurean sage. 
 
 It was the seventeenth century that Epicurean- 
 ism reappeared as a system. In that age more 
 than one effort was made to rehabilitate the phi- 
 losophic schools of antiquity with the change 
 necessary to accommodate them to Christendom. 
 The most conspicuous of these efforts was the ex- 
 position and adaptation of the Epicurean system 
 by Pierre Gassendi, one of the most eminent 
 French philosophers of the seventeenth century, 
 born of poor, but respectable parentage at 
 
 4b 
 
Champtercier, near Digne, in Provence, on the 
 
 thirty-seco nd daj jof January, 1592. 
 
 He published works on the life, character and 
 doctrine of Epicurus; also a commentary, on the 
 Tenth book of Diogenes Laertius ; likewise a sys- 
 tematic account of the Epicurean Philosophy in 
 general. His ethics, over and above the discus- 
 sion on freedom, which on the whole is indefinite, 
 there is little beyond a milder statement of the 
 Epicurean moral code. The final end of life is 
 happiness, and happiness is harmony of soul and 
 body, tranquillitas anim i et indolentia corporis. 
 
 Probably, Gassendi thinks, perfect happiness is 
 not attainable in this life, but it may be in the 
 life to come. After painting out the divergencies 
 between Epicureanism and Christianity, he pro- 
 ceeded in a new work, the syntagma Philosophi- 
 cum, to sketch a system in which he understood 
 4j 
 
to be the principles of Epicurus were carried out, 
 except in those points, such as the nature and 
 operations of God, and the immortality of the 
 soul, where Epicureanism is un-Christian, and in 
 the logical introduction where he went beyond 
 his guides. It may be admitted that Gassendle's 
 Epicureanism had an important influence on the 
 general thought of the Seventeenth Century ; that 
 it has had any real importance in the history of 
 philosophy my investigations cannot grant. 
 
 Several thinkers, atheists in a measure, revived 
 Epicureanism in the French school of philosophy 
 as Levesque de Ponilly, — Deslandes, — Miraband, 
 — Lamettni, — Heloetius, — La Rochefoucauld, — 
 D'Argeus, — Robinet, — Marechal, — Naigeon and 
 others. 
 
 Their Epicurean and atheistic explanation of 
 the mind worked a somewhat noticeable influence 
 
upon the French people. However, posterity has 
 been unkind to them for their works nearly all 
 have been draped into the ocean of oblivion and 
 forgetfulness. Truly, Epicurean Atheism, or 
 Atheistic Epicureanism is the beginning of the 
 end and can only hurl one eventually into "the 
 very blackness of the darkness of despair!" 
 
 Jeremj' Bentham and Auguste Comte, the posi- 
 tivist, in modern times recall Epicureanism in dif- 
 ferent ways, however. Bentham at his "Hermi- 
 tage," — a "unique, romantic-looking homestead," 
 dark with the shade of ancient trees, conversing 
 simply and gracefully with such friends as Du- 
 mont, Romilly, Brougham and James Mill, — not 
 averse to good fare, and fond of flowers and mu- 
 sic, may serve for a modern Epicurus. 
 
 In the case of Comte, we find enthusiastic dis- 
 ciples contributing towards the support of the 
 49 
 
needy thinker, as in the days of Epicurus. The 
 anti-theological character of Positivism, the hu- 
 manistic religion in which it culminates, and the 
 fete-days in the Positivist calendar, are features 
 which have a certain similarity to Epicureanism. 
 
 5-' 
 
PART II. 
 
 , Epicureanism has had many adherents even at 
 the present time, but these are, for the most part, 
 men of no originality or independence as think- 
 ers or scholars. 
 
 Hedonism — the doctrine which measures the 
 worth of life by its pleasures — refuses, Proteus. > 
 like, to be caught in any definite shape. It ap- 
 pears often in the gross garb of sensuality; and 
 sometimes in the gray abstractions of utilitarian- 
 ism. It declines to recognize its idol in the dust 
 and ashes to which the ethical analyst professes 
 to reduce pleasure. Hedonism is an outcome of 
 ancient Epicureanism. Its influence is atheistic- 
 
ally bad, its deadly work positively sure, and its 
 motto: "Dum vivimus, vivamus," is a true ex- 
 position of its ethics and metaphysics combined! 
 
 "Life for the hedonist is but an empty dream." 
 I cannot accept the saying of the poet: — "The 
 light which led astray was light from heaven." 
 Neither ethically nor metaphysically do I accept 
 Epicureanism or its twin-sister, Hedonism. In- 
 stead, I would supplant Christianity, the Chris- 
 tians' God and the Holy Bible! No light from 
 heaven (but darkness from Hell), ever led man 
 astray. "The wisdom that is from above is first 
 pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be en- 
 treated, full of mercy and good fruits, without 
 partiality, and without hypocrisy." 
 
 Evidently, that is not light which leadeth 
 astray, and whatever light does so, proves itself, 
 by the very fact, to belong to the wisdom which 
 
 b4 
 
is not fronj above, but from beneath, and is as the 
 German expostulates: "^n satanisches Irrlicht." 
 Scripture representations, give scope to every 
 faculty, and holy direction to every power. They 
 impart to the Present all the importance of the 
 future, they stamp every individual w^ith the sig- 
 net of eternity, and they make him, in a great 
 and vital sense, the fashioner of himself, for weal 
 or for woe. 
 
 Goethe is a striking example of a man devoting 
 his life to seeking his own culture with all the 
 energy of commanding genius, — but Goethe was 
 an Hedonist. Great as are the works of his 
 genius, he missed that which is of highest worth, 
 and the light of his intellect reveals more clearly 
 his moral deficiencies. 
 
 Intent on personal culture and enjoyment only, 
 he took little interest in the great political move- 
 6j 
 
ments of his time, which were changing the des- 
 tiny of Europe and America and affecting all the 
 interests of humanity. In Napoleon's invasion he 
 fawned on the Conqueror of his people — unlike 
 Fichte, who, as the enemy approached, dismissed 
 his class with the inspiriting words: "Gentle- 
 men, we shall resume these lectures in a free 
 country." The track of his life was strewn with 
 crushed and cast-off loves, like orange-peels 
 thrown away after he had sucked out all the 
 sweetness. Great and lustrous like an iceberg, 
 floating deep and towering high, moving majestic 
 with the strength and swell of the ocean, efful- 
 gent in the sunshine, a mountain of light, but also 
 a mountain of ice. 
 
 Plainly he never attained the true good. And 
 this estimate of himself, he himself pronounced 
 when in his old age he said : "I have ever been 
 6b 
 
esteemed one of fortune's favorites; nor can I 
 complain of the course my life has taken. Yet, 
 truly, there has been nothing but toil and care; 
 and now in my 75th year I may say that I have 
 never had four weeks of genuine pleasure. The 
 stone was ever to be rolled anew. My annals 
 will testify to the truth of what I now say." 
 (Eckermann Conversations, Jan. 27th, 1824.) 
 These are the words of an Epicurean and Hedon- 
 ist. Contrast this with Paul's review of his life 
 of self-sacrificing love: "I am now ready to be 
 offered and the time of my departure is at hand ; 
 I have fought the good fight; I have finished the 
 course ; I have kept the faith : henceforth there is 
 laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which 
 the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me at 
 that Day." Hedonism, the twin-sister of Epi- 
 cureanism, is the necessary outcome of sensational 
 
theories of knowledge; it is also incompatible 
 with the recognition of Reason as a source of 
 knowledge. It is consistent with Positivism and 
 with every theory which in fact restricts knowl- 
 edge to the phenomena of sense. 
 
 It is practical atheism to insist that the sumun 
 bonum is the aggregate of enjoyment from all 
 sources, measured only by quantity; with no ref- 
 erence to the truth and law of the Absolute, viz. : 
 a loving God. He sees pleasure, enjoyment only 
 in self-sufRciency, self-will, self-seeking, self-in- 
 dulgence, self-serving and self-glorifying. 
 
 In this character and state of mind; if he esti- 
 mates the good only by the quantity of enjoyment, 
 he will be led entirely away from virtue, truth, 
 justice and God. He not only will not choose it, 
 but he will not see it as Good. 
 
 He must make a new supreme choice and form 
 68 
 
a new character in order to appreciate the blessed- 
 ness of a life of self-renouncing faith and love. 
 If our Lord should speak to him, he would say 
 as to Nicodemus: "Except a man be born anew 
 he cannot see the Kingdom of God." The Epi-' 
 cureanism of a Hobbes or the infidelity of a Lord 
 Herbert of Cherburry and their cohorts of specu- 
 lative one-sided thinking as well as their schools 
 generally have never offered the world a code of 
 ethical principles upon which to build to promote 
 actual wisdom, love, generosity, liberty or salva- 
 tion after life, which even metaphysically consid- 
 ered could never elevate our aspirations, expand 
 our souls or even beneficially stimulate our men- 
 tal powers. Man may not be able to pre-arrange 
 circumstances in life, but, by the help of Al- 
 mighty God, "in Whom we live and move, and 
 have our being," he may conquer them, and sub- 
 6g 
 
due them to- good. No two ships have precisely 
 the same path, and are struck, at the same angle, 
 by precisely the same winds, but the helmsman 
 accommodates himself to this ; and makes the most 
 of the winds which the Supreme Ruler is pleased 
 to send. 
 
 Critically speaking: Epicureanism narrows 
 down our life to a very point; stripping it of all 
 that is distinctive and elevating, both in range 
 and duration, and shutting us up within the mis- 
 erable limits of time and sense. 
 
 Firstly, It takes all soul out of Life. — The soul 
 is its enemy, and a regard for its interests would 
 be the very death of such a llfe._ The soul goeth 
 upward, God is its portion and heaven is its home. 
 The Epicurean life is a life which has its strong- 
 hold simply in the flesh, and it goes outward only 
 to those objects which minister to that. This is 
 7" 
 
the radius and limit of its range ; it has no affini- 
 ties beyond this sphere, and so the soul goes prac- 
 tically out of life in two ways : First, by neglect. 
 It receives no nourishment, it gets no attention, 
 but speedily becomes shrivelled and powerless as 
 an unused limb. The whole strength of life is 
 drained off in another and an opposite direction, 
 and the great soul of the man — that which makes 
 him a man — becomes nothing in the world. Sim- 
 ply, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-mor- 
 row we die." And, secondly, through over-indul- 
 gence in things which are opposed to its nature. 
 It is stifled and overlaid by the flesh, the tyranny 
 of sense becomes ifrestible, and absolute, and the 
 whole life of the man is a gratification of those 
 fleshly lusts that war against the soul. 
 
 (Domitian at Rome and Catharine the Second 
 of Russia are pointed out as the example warning 
 7-f 
 
against lawless lusts for pleasures.) 
 
 Secondly. Epicureanism takes the very intel- 
 lect out of our life. — For its own sake, at least, 
 there is no recognition of it. It may be employed 
 as an instrument to devise new forms of pleasure, 
 and new modes of carrying them into effect, but 
 nothing more. It is the minister of sense, the 
 convenient purveyor for its appetites, the demon 
 in the herd of swine, impelling us down the steep 
 of ignominious concession, into the foul sea of 
 sensuality and indulgence. 
 
 Thirdly. It takes all the future out of our 
 life. — In fact, there is no future about it. Life 
 is a thing to be enjoyed and to be done with, to 
 have all the pleasure selected out of it and then 
 painful experiences if possible or avoided tossed 
 aside. We are a curious compound, it says, of 
 nerves, and muscles, and appetites, and we find 
 7' 
 
ourselves in a world which answers them bravely. 
 Let us live while we may, and then get buried out 
 of sight. How much more grand, elevating and 
 sublime the precepts of the Master in his sermon 
 on the mount, what gracious promises revealed in 
 the New Testament, what a beautiful home over 
 there for those who love and believe in Jesus 
 Christ, the Savior of the World. 
 
 Let man go abroad with just Christian princi- 
 ples, and what is he? A mighty power, an ex- 
 haustless fountain in a vast dessert, a glorious 
 sunshining, ever dispelling every vestige of dark- 
 ness. 
 
 There is love animating his heart, sympathy 
 breathing in every tone. Beneath his smiles lurk 
 no degrading passions. Within his breast there 
 slumbers no guile. His just and Christian prin- 
 ciples promote beneficent influences. A good man, 
 73 
 
philosopher, is abroad, and the world knows and 
 feels it. 
 
 Character is the sustaining glory of individual 
 greatness, the Doric and splendid column in the 
 majestic structure of a true and dignified man- 
 hood. To earth belongs his corruptible body, but 
 to another and more enlarged sphere his soul, 
 stamped with divinity. It is not the principle of 
 Bacchanalian revelry. Thespian exercises, or har- 
 lequin buffoonery, that the writer advocates, but 
 the universal diligence of a righteous Dr. Martin 
 Luther, a Jonathan Edwards, a Bishop Butlar, a 
 Bunyan, a benevolent Howard, an enterprising 
 Fulton, a Morse, a Dr. Charles P. Krauth, a Dr. 
 Joseph A. Seiss, a Dr. George F. Krotel, a Lut- 
 hardt and a Walther. But for such as they, 
 many a heart would be cold as death, many a 
 mortal languishing in distress. Man is his own 
 74 
 
star, and that soul that can be honest is the only 
 perfect man. (Philosopher.) His honesty to me 
 is like an anchor, not for calm days, but for 
 storms. The anchor may be decked with flowers 
 at times, and in a harbor may rest at the bow and 
 silently promulgate its idea of usefulness. 
 
 But, when the vessel is out on its path, and 
 there comes a night attended with storm and 
 darkness, not a single star appearing, then it is 
 that the old mass of iron seems to glory in its 
 ruggedness, and leaving its ideal festoons upon the 
 deck, in the gloomy midnight, it drops into the 
 deep, and grasps the solid earth with its gigantic 
 arms. 
 
 Whilst the church performs her labor on earth, 
 
 the roaring gulf of human passion and hatred 
 
 will be calmed by the voice of peace. Activity 
 
 and exertion are the crystal waters that turn the 
 
 75 
 
moral machinery of the universe. "Go ye into 
 all the world, and preach my gospel," — ^was a 
 divine injunction. But heaven's temple on earth 
 must be built by man, that the fire of benevolence 
 may burn on the altars of the human heart more 
 vividly, and that sympathy with her highest bless- 
 ing might turn all the nations of the earth. 
 
 In the solemn ecstacy of a St. Paul, the devout 
 Christian may always say: 
 
 "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the vic- 
 tory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 I. Cor., 15, 57. 
 
 76 
 
"Philosophy seeks the truth, 
 Theology finds it. Religion possesses it." 
 John Picus, Prince of Mirandola. 
 
 77 
 
ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF OUR LIFE. 
 
 Rev. Prof. J. A. Bauman, Ph. D., Librarian 
 Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa. 
 "Please accept the thanks of Muhlenberg Col- 
 lege (your Alma Mater, Class '79), and of my- 
 self personally, for the kind gift of your very in- 
 teresting book to our library. May it do much 
 good." 
 
 Rev. Henry E. Jacobs, D. D., L.L.D., S. T. 
 D., Theological Seminary, Mt. Airy, Philadel- 
 phia, Pa. 
 
 "We highly appreciate your remembrance of 
 the Seminary, and will be glad to have the vol- 
 ume on our shelves." 
 
 Rev. G. F. Krotel, D. D., L.L.D., New York 
 City: "I am greatly obliged to you for sending 
 me the attractive little volume. Certainly your 
 excellent lecture on 'Erroneous Views of Our 
 Life.' . . . May it do much good among 
 the young and old." 
 
Alexander Printing Co. Rochester, N. Y. 
 
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