Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics Part 9

II.--In the PSYCHOLOGY of the Stoics, two questions, are of interest, their theory of Pleasure and Pain, and their views upon the Freedom of the Will.

1. _The theory of Pleasure and Pain_. The Stoics agreed with the Peripatetics (anterior to Epicurus, not specially against _him_) that the first principle of nature is (not pleasure or relief from pain, but) _self-preservation_ or _self-love_; in other words, the natural appet.i.te or tendency of all creatures is, to preserve their existing condition with its inherent capacities, and to keep clear of destruction or disablement. This appet.i.te (they said) manifests itself in little children before any pleasure or pain is felt, and is moreover a fundamental postulate, pre-supposed in all desires of particular pleasures, as well as in all aversions to particular pains. We begin by loving our own vitality; and we come, by a.s.sociation, to love what promotes or strengthens our vitality; we hate destruction or disablement, and come (by secondary a.s.sociation) to hate whatever produces that effect.[8] The doctrine here laid down a.s.sociated, and brought under one view, what was common to man, not merely with the animal, but also with the vegetable world; a plant was declared to have an impulse or tendency to maintain itself, even without feeling pain or pleasure. Aristotle (in the tenth Book of the Ethics) says, that he will not determine whether we love life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life; for he affirms the two to be essentially yoked together and inseparable; pleasure is the consummation of our vital manifestations. The Peripatetics, after him, put pleasure down to a lower level, as derivative and accidental; the Stoics went farther in the same direction--possibly from ant.i.thesis against the growing school of Epicurus.

The primary _officium_ (in a larger sense than our word Duty) of man is (they said) to keep himself in the state of nature; the second or derivative _officium_ is to keep to such things as are _according to nature_, and to avert those that are _contrary to nature_; our gradually increasing experience enabled us to discriminate the two. The youth learns, as he grows up, to value bodily accomplishments, mental cognitions and judgments, good conduct towards those around him,--as powerful aids towards keeping up the state of nature. When his experience is so far enlarged as to make him aware of the order and harmony of nature and human society, and to impress upon him the comprehension of this great _ideal_, his emotions as well as his reason become absorbed by it. He recognizes this as the only true Bonum or Honestum, to which all other desirable things are referable,--as the only thing desirable for itself and in its own nature. He drops or dismisses all those _prima naturae_ that he had begun by desiring. He no longer considers any of them as worthy of being desired in itself, or for its own sake.

While therefore (according to Peripatetics as well as Stoics) the love of self and of preserving one's own vitality and activity, is the primary element, intuitive and connate, to which all rational preference (_officium_) was at first referred,--they thought it not the less true, that in process of time, by experience, a.s.sociation, and reflection, there grows up in the mind a grand acquired sentiment or notion, a new and later light, which extinguishes and puts out of sight the early beginning. It was important to distinguish the feeble and obscure elements from the powerful and brilliant aftergrowth; which indeed was fully realized only in chosen minds, and in them, hardly before old age. This idea, when once formed in the mind, was _The Good_--the only thing worthy of desire for its own sake. The Stoics called it the only Good, being sufficient in itself for happiness; other things being not good, nor necessary to happiness, but simply preferable or advantageous when they could be had: the Peripatetics recognized it as the first and greatest good, but said also that it was not sufficient in itself; there were two other inferior varieties of good, of which something must be had as complementary (what the Stoics called _praeposita_ or _sumenda_). Thus the Stoics said, about the origin of the Idea of Bonum or Honestum, much the same as what Aristotle says about ethical virtue. It is not implanted in us by nature; but we have at birth certain initial tendencies and capacities, which, if aided by a.s.sociation and training, enable us (and that not in all cases) to acquire it.

2. _The Freedom of the Will_. A distinction was taken by Epictetus and other Stoics between things in our power and things not in our power.

The things in our power are our opinions and notions about objects, and all our affections, desires, and aversions; the things not in our power are our bodies, wealth, honour, rank, authority, &c., and their opposites. The practical application is this: wealth and high rank may not be in our power, but we have the power to form an _idea_ of these--namely, that they are unimportant, whence the want of them will not grieve us. A still more pointed application is to death, whose force is entirely in the idea.

With this distinction between things in our power and things not in our power, we may connect the arguments between the Stoics and their opponents as to what is now called the Freedom of the Will. But we must first begin by distinguishing the two questions. By things _in our power_, the Stoics meant, things that we could do or acquire, _if we willed_: by things _not in_ our power, they meant, things that we could not do or acquire if we willed. In both cases, the volition was a.s.sumed as a fact: the question, what determined it--or whether it was non-determined, _i.e._ self-determining--was not raised in the abovementioned ant.i.thesis. But it was raised in other discussions between the Stoic theorist Chrysippus, and various opponents. These opponents denied that volition was determined by motives, and cited the cases of equal conflicting motives (what is known as the a.s.s of Buridan) as proving that the soul includes in itself, and exerts, a special supervenient power of deciding action in one way or the other: a power not determined by any causal antecedent, but self-originating, and belonging to the cla.s.s of agency that Aristotle recognizes under the denomination of automatic, spontaneous (or essentially irregular and unpredictable). Chrysippus replied by denying not only the reality of this supervenient force said to be inherent in the soul, but also the reality of all that Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous agency generally. Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by antecedent motives; that, in cases of equal conflict, the exact equality did not long continue, because some new but slight motive slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on one side or the other.

(See Plutarch De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, c. 23, p. 1045.) Here, we see, the question now known as the Freedom of the Will is discussed: and Chrysippus declares against it, affirming that volition is always determined by motives.

But we also see that, while declaring this opinion, Chrysippus does not employ the terms Necessity or Freedom of the Will: neither did his opponents, so far as we can see: they had a different and less misleading phrase. By Freedom, Chrysippus and the Stoics meant the freedom of doing what a man willed, if he willed it. A man is free, as to the thing that is in his power, when he wills it: he is not free, as to what is not in his power, under the same supposition. The Stoics laid great stress on this distinction. They pointed out how much it is really in a man's power to transform or discipline his own mind: in the way of controlling or suppressing some emotions, generating or encouraging others, forming new intellectual a.s.sociations, &c., how much a man could do in these ways, _if he willed it_, and if he went through the lessons, habits of conduct, meditations, suitable to produce such an effect. The Stoics strove to create in a man's mind the volitions appropriate for such mental discipline, by depicting the beneficial consequences resulting from it, and the misfortune and shame inevitable, if the mind were not so disciplined. Their purpose was to strengthen the governing reason of his mind, and to enthrone it as a fixed habit and character, which would control by counter suggestions the impulse arising at each special moment--particularly all disturbing terrors or allurements. This, in their view, is a _free mind_; not one wherein volition is independent of all motive, but one wherein the susceptibility to different motives is tempered by an ascendant reason, so as to give predominance to the better motive against the worse. One of the strongest motives that they endeavoured to enforce, was the prudence and dignity of bringing our volitions into harmony with the schemes of Providence: which (they said) were always arranged with a view to the happiness of the kosmos on the whole. The bad man, whose volitions conflict with these schemes, is always baulked of his expectations, and brought at last against his will to see things carried by an overruling force, with aggravated pain and humiliation to himself: while the good man, who resigns himself to them from the first, always escapes with less pain, and often without any at all.

_Duc.u.n.t volentem fata, nolentem trahunt_.

We have thus seen that in regard to the doctrine called in modern times the Freedom of the Will (_i.e._, that volitions are self-originating and unpredictable), the Stoic theorists not only denied it, but framed all their Ethics upon the a.s.sumption of the contrary. This same a.s.sumption of the contrary, indeed, was made also by Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus: in short, by all the ethical teachers of antiquity. All of them believed that volitions depended on causes: that under the ordinary conditions of men's minds, the causes that volitions generally depended upon are often misleading and sometimes ruinous: but that by proper stimulation from without and meditation within, the rational causes of volition might be made to overrule the impulsive.

Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, not less than the Stoics, wished to create new fixed habits and a new type of character. They differed, indeed, on the question what the proper type of character was: but each of them aimed at the same general end--a new type of character, regulating the grades of susceptibility to different motives. And the purpose of all and each of these moralists precludes the theory of free-will--_i.e._, the theory that our volitions are self-originating and unpredictable.

III.--We must consider next the Stoical theory of Happiness, or rather of the _Good_, which with them was proclaimed to be the sole, indispensable, and self-sufficing condition of Happiness. They declared that Pleasure was no part of Good, and Pain no part of Evil; therefore, that even relief from pain was not necessary to Good or Happiness.

This, however, if followed out consistently, would dispense with all morality and all human endeavour. Accordingly, the Stoics were obliged to let in some pleasures as an object of pursuit, and some pains as an object of avoidance, though not under the t.i.tle of Good and Evil, but with the inferior name of _Sumenda_ and _Rejicienda_.[9] Substantially, therefore, they held that pains are an evil, but, by a proper discipline, may be triumphed over. They disallowed the direct and ostensible pursuit of pleasure as an end (the point of view of Epicurus), but allured their followers partly by promising them the victory over pain, and partly by certain enjoyments of an elevated cast that grew out of their plan of life.

Pain of every kind, whether from the casualties of existence, or from, the severity of the Stoical virtues, was to be met by a discipline of endurance, a hardening process, which, if persisted in, would succeed in reducing the mind to a state of _Apathy_ or indifference. A great many reflections were suggested in aid of this education. The influence of exercise and repet.i.tion in adapting the system to any new function, was ill.u.s.trated by the Olympian combatants, and by the Lacedaemonian youth, who endured scourging without complaint. Great stress was laid on the instability of pleasure, and the constant liability to accidents; whence we should always be antic.i.p.ating and adapting ourselves to the worst that could happen, so as never to be in a state where anything could ruffle the mind. It was pointed out how much might still be made of the worst circ.u.mstances--poverty, banishment, public odium, sickness, old age--and every consideration was advanced that could 'arm the obdurate breast with stubborn patience, as with triple steel.' It has often been remarked that such a discipline of endurance was peculiarly suited to the unsettled condition of the world at the time, when any man, in addition to the ordinary evils of life, might in a moment be sent into exile, or sold into slavery.

Next to the discipline of endurance, we must rank the complacent sentiment of _Pride_, which the Stoic might justly feel in his conquest of himself, and in his lofty independence and superiority to the casualties of life.[10] The pride of the Cynic, the Stoic's predecessor, was prominent and offensive, showing itself in scurrility and contempt towards everybody else; the Stoical pride was a refinement upon this, but was still a grateful sentiment of superiority, which helped to make up for the surrender of indulgences. It was usual to bestow the most extravagant laudation on the 'Wise Man,' and every Stoic could take this home to the extent that he considered himself as approaching that great ideal.

The last and most elevated form of Stoical happiness was the satisfaction of contemplating the Universe and G.o.d. Epictetus says, that we can accommodate ourselves cheerfully to the providence that rules the world, if we possess two things--the power of seeing all that happens in the proper relation to its own purpose--and a grateful disposition. The work of Antoninus is full of studies of Nature in the devout spirit of 'pa.s.sing from Nature up to Nature's G.o.d;' he is never weary of expressing his thorough contentment with the course of natural events, and his sense of the beauties and fitness of everything. Old age has its grace, and death is the becoming termination. This high strain of exulting contemplation reconciled him to that complete submission to whatever might befall, which was the essential feature of the 'Life according to Nature,' as he conceived it.

IV.--The Stoical theory of Virtue is implicated in the ideas of the Good, now described.

The fountain of all virtue is manifestly the life according to nature; as being the life of subordination of self to more general interests--to family, country, mankind, the whole universe. If a man is prepared to consider himself absolutely nothing in comparison with the universal interest, and to regard it as the sole end of life, he has embraced an ideal of virtue of the loftiest order. Accordingly, the Stoics were the first to preach what is called 'Cosmopolitanism;' for although, in their reference to the good of the whole, they confounded together sentient life and inanimate objects--rocks, plants, &c., solicitude for which was misspent labour--yet they were thus enabled to reach the conception of the universal kindship of mankind, and could not but include in their regards the brute creation. They said: 'There is no difference between the Greeks and Barbarians; the world is our city.' Seneca urges kindness to slaves, for 'are they not men like ourselves, breathing the same air, living and dying like ourselves?'

The Epicureans declined, as much as possible, interference in public affairs, but the Stoic philosophers urged men to the duties of active citizenship. Chrysippus even said that the life of philosophical contemplation (such as Aristotle preferred, and accounted G.o.dlike) was to be placed on the same level with the life of pleasure; though Plutarch observes that neither Chrysippus nor Zeno ever meddled personally with any public duty; both of them pa.s.sed their lives in lecturing and writing. The truth is that both of them were foreigners residing at Athens; and at a time when Athens was dependent on foreign princes. Accordingly, neither Zeno nor Chrysippus had any sphere of political action open to them; they were, in this respect, like Epictetus afterwards--but in a position quite different from Seneca, the preceptor of Nero, who might hope to influence the great imperial power of Rome, and from Marcus Antoninus, who held that imperial power in his own hands.

Marcus Antoninus--not only a powerful Emperor, but also the most gentle and amiable man of his day--talks of active beneficence both as a duty and a satisfaction. But in the creed of the Stoics generally, active Beneficence did not occupy a prominent place. They adopted the four Cardinal Virtues--Wisdom, or the Knowledge of Good and Evil; Justice; Fort.i.tude; Temperance--as part of their plan of the virtuous life, the life according to Nature. Justice, as the social virtue, was placed above all the rest. But the Stoics were not strenuous in requiring more than Justice, for the benefit of others beside the agent. They even reckoned compa.s.sion for the sufferings of others as a weakness, a.n.a.logous to envy for the good fortune of others.

The Stoic recognized the G.o.ds (or Universal Nature, equivalent expressions in his creed) as managing the affairs of the world, with a view to producing as much happiness as was attainable on the whole.

Towards this end the G.o.ds did not want any positive a.s.sistance from him; but it was his duty and his strongest interest, to resign himself to their plans, and to abstain from all conduct tending to frustrate them. Such refractory tendencies were perpetually suggested to him by the unreasonable appet.i.tes, emotions, fears, antipathies, &c., of daily life; all claiming satisfaction at the expense of future mischief to himself and others. To countervail these misleading forces, by means of a fixed rational character built up through meditation and philosophical teaching, was the grand purpose of the Stoic ethical creed. The emotional or appet.i.tive self was to be starved or curbed, and retained only as an appendage to the rational self; an idea proclaimed before in general terms by Plato, but carried out into a system by the Stoics, and to a great extent even by the Epicureans.

The Stoic was taught to reflect how much that _appears_ to be desirable, terror-striking, provocative, &c., is not really so, but is made to appear so by false and curable a.s.sociations. And while he thus discouraged those self-regarding emotions that placed him in hostility with others, he learnt to respect the self of another man as well as his own. Epictetus advises to deal mildly with a man that hurts us either by word or deed; and advises it upon the following very remarkable ground. 'Recollect that in what he says or does, he follows his own sense of propriety, not yours. He must do what appears to him right, not what appears to you; if he judges wrongly, it is he that is hurt, for he is the person deceived. Always repeat to yourself, in such a case: The man has acted on his own opinion.'

The reason here given by Epictetus is an instance, memorable in ethical theory, of respect for individual dissenting conviction, even in an extreme case; and it must be taken in conjunction with his other doctrine, that damage thus done to us unjustly is really little or no damage, except so far as we ourselves give pungency to it by our irrational susceptibilities and a.s.sociations. We see that the Stoic submerges, as much as he can, the pre-eminence of his own individual self, and contemplates himself from the point of view of another, only as one among many. But he does not erect the happiness of others into a direct object of his own positive pursuit, beyond the reciprocities of family, citizenship, and common humanity. The Stoic theorists agreed with Epicurus in inculcating the reciprocities of justice between all fellow-citizens; and they even went farther than he did, by extending the sphere of such duties beyond the limits of city, so as to comprehend all mankind. But as to the reciprocities of individual friendship, Epicurus went beyond the Stoics, by the amount of self-sacrifice and devotion that he enjoined for the benefit of a friend.

There is also in the Stoical system a recognition of duties to G.o.d, and of morality as based on piety. Not only are we all brethren, but also the 'children of one Father.'

The extraordinary strain put upon human nature by the full Stoic _ideal_ of submerging self in the larger interests of being, led to various compromises. The rigid following out of the ideal issued in one of the _paradoxes_, namely.--That all the actions of the wise man are equally perfect, and that, short of the standard of perfection, all faults and vices are equal; that, for example, the man that killed a c.o.c.k, without good reason, was as guilty as he that killed his father.

This has a meaning only when we draw a line between spirituality and morality, and treat the last as worthless in comparison of the first.

The later Stoics, however, in their exhortations to special branches of duty, gave a positive value to practical virtue, irrespective of the _ideal_.

The idea of Duty was of Stoical origin, fostered and developed by the Roman spirit and legislation. The early Stoics had two different words,--one for the 'suitable' [Greek: kathaekon], or incomplete propriety, admitting of degrees, and below the point of rect.i.tude, and another for the 'right' [Greek: katorthoma], or complete rect.i.tude of action, which none could achieve except the wise man. It is a significant circ.u.mstance that the 'suitable' is the lineal ancestor of our word 'duty' (through the Latin _officium_).

It was a great point with the Stoic to be conscious of 'advance' or improvement.[11] By self-examination, he kept himself constantly acquainted with his moral state, and it was both his duty and his satisfaction to be approaching to the ideal of the perfect man.

It is very ill.u.s.trative of the unguarded points and contradictions of Stoicism, that contentment and apathy were not to permit grief even for the loss of friends. Seneca, on one occasion, admits that he was betrayed by human weakness on this point. On strict Stoical principles, we ought to treat the afflictions and the death of others with the same frigid indifference as our own; for why should a man feel for a second person _more_ than he ought to feel for himself, as a mere unit in the infinitude of the Universe? This is the contradiction inseparable from any system that begins by abjuring pleasure, and relief or protection from pain, as the ends of life. Even granting that we regard pleasure and relief from pain as of no importance in our own case, yet if we apply the same measure to others we are bereft of all motives to benevolence; and virtue, instead of being set on a loftier pinnacle, is left without any foundation.

EPICURUS. [311--270 B.C.]

Epicurus was born 341 B.C. in the island of Samos. At the age of eighteen, he repaired to Athens, where he is supposed to have enjoyed the teaching of Xenocrates or Theophrastus. In 306 B.C., he opened a school in a garden in Athens, whence his followers have sometimes been called the 'philosophers of the garden.' His life was simple, chaste, and temperate. Of the 300 works he is said to have written, nothing has come down to us except three letters, giving a summary of his views for the use of his friends, and a number of detached sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius and others. Moreover, some fragments of his work on Nature have been found at Herculaneum. The additional sources of our knowledge of Epicurus are the works of his opponents, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of his follower Lucretius. Our information from Epicurean writers respecting the doctrines of their sect is much less copious than what we possess from Stoic writers in regard to Stoic opinions. We have no Epicurean writer on Philosophy except Inicretius; whereas respecting the Stoical creed under the Roman Empire, the important writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus, afford most valuable evidence.

To Epicurus succeeded, in the leadership of his school, Hermachus, Polystratus, Dionysius, Basilides, and others, ten in number, down to the age of Augustus. Among Roman Epicureans, Lucretius (95--51 B.C.) is the most important, his poem (De Rerum Natura), being the completest account of the system that exists. Other distinguished followers were Horace, Atticus, and Lacian. In modern times, Pierre Ga.s.sendi (1592--1655) revived the doctrines of Epicurus, and in 1647 published his 'Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri,' and a Life of Epicurus. The reputation of Ga.s.sendi, in his life time, rested chiefly upon his physical theories; but his influence was much felt as a Christian upholder of Epicureanism. Ga.s.sendi was at one time in orders as a Roman Catholic, and professor of theology and philosophy. He established an Epicurean school in France, among the disciples of which were, Moliere, Saint Evremond, Count de Grammont, the Duke of Rochefoncalt, Fontenelle, and Voltaire.

The standard of Virtue and Vice is referred by Epicurus to pleasure and pain. Pain is the only evil, Pleasure is the only good. Virtue is no end in itself, to be sought: Vice is no end in itself, to be avoided.

The motive for cultivating Virtue and banishing Vice arises from the consequences of each, as the means of multiplying pleasures and averting or lessening pains. But to the attainment of this purpose, the complete supremacy of Reason is indispensable; in order that we may take a right comparative measure of the varieties of pleasure and pain, and pursue the course that promises the least amount of suffering.[12]

In all ethical theories that make happiness the supreme object of pursuit, the position of virtue depends entirely upon the theory of what const.i.tutes happiness. Now, Epicurus (herein differing from the Stoics, as well as Aristotle), did not recognize Happiness as anything but freedom from pain and enjoyment of pleasure. It is essential, however, to understand, how Epicurus conceived pleasure and pain, and what is the Epicurean scale of pleasures and pains, graduated as objects of reasonable desire or aversion? It is a great error to suppose that, in making pleasure the standard of virtue, Epicurus had in view that elaborate and studied gratification of the sensual appet.i.tes that we a.s.sociate with the word _Epicurean_. Epicurus declares--'When we say that pleasure is the end of life, we do not mean the pleasures of the debauchee or the sensualist, as some from ignorance or from malignity represent, but freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from anxiety. For it is not continuous drinkings and revellings, nor the society of women, nor rare viands, and other luxuries of the table, that const.i.tute a pleasant life, but sober contemplation, such as searches out the grounds of choice and avoidance, and banishes those chimeras that hara.s.s the mind.

Freedom from pain is thus made the primary element of happiness; a one-sided view, respected in the doctrine of Locke, that it is not the idea of future good, but the present greatest uneasiness that most strongly affects the will. A neutral state of feeling is necessarily imperilled by a greedy pursuit of pleasures; hence the _dictum_, to be content with little is a great good; because little is most easily obtained. The regulation of the desires is therefore of high moment.

According to Epicurus, desires fall into three grades. Some are _natural_ and _necessary_, such as desire of drink, food, or life, and are easily gratified. But when the uneasiness of a want is removed, the bodily pleasures admit of no farther increase; anything additional only _varies_ the pleasure. Hence the luxuries which go beyond the relief of our wants are thoroughly superfluous; and the desires arising from them (forming the _second_ grade) though _natural, are not necessary_. A _third_ cla.s.s of desires is neither natural nor necessary, but begotten of vain opinion; such as the thirst for civic honours, or for power over others; those desires are the most difficult to gratify, and even if gratified, entail upon us trouble, anxiety, and peril. [This account of the desires, following up the advice--If you wish to be rich, study not to increase your goods, but to diminish your desires--is to a certain extent wise and even indispensable; yet not adapted to all temperaments. To those that enjoy pleasure very highly, and are not sensitive in an equal degree to pain, such a negative conception of happiness would be imperfect.] Epicurus did not, however, deprecate positive pleasure. If it could be reached without pain, and did not result in pain, it was a pure good; and, even if it could not be had without pain, the question was still open, whether it might not be well worth the price. But in estimating the worth of pleasure, the absence of any accompanying pain should weigh heavily in the balance. At this point, the Epicurean theory connects itself most intimately with the conditions of virtue; for virtue is more concerned with averting mischief and suffering, than with multiplying positive enjoyments.

Bodily feeling, in the Epicurean psychology, is prior in order of time to the mental element; the former was primordial, while the latter was derivative from it by repeated processes of memory and a.s.sociation. But though such was the order of sequence and generation, yet when we compare the two as const.i.tuents of happiness to the formed man, the mental element much outweighed the bodily, both as pain and as pleasure. Bodily pain or pleasure exists only in the present; when not felt, it is nothing. But mental feelings involve memory and hope--embrace the past as well as the future--endure for a long time, and may be recalled or put out of sight, to a great degree, at our discretion.

This last point is one of the most remarkable features of the Epicurean mental discipline. Epicurus deprecated the general habit of mankind in always hankering after some new satisfaction to come; always discontented with the present, and oblivious of past comforts as if they had never been. These past comforts ought to be treasured up by memory and reflection, so that they might become as it were matter for rumination, and might serve, in trying moments, even to counterbalance extreme physical suffering. The health of Epicurus himself was very bad during the closing years of his life. There remains a fragment of his last letter, to an intimate friend and companion, Idomeneus--'I write this to you on the last day of my life, which, in spite of the severest internal bodily pains, is still a happy day, because I set against them in the balance all the mental pleasure felt in the recollection of my past conversations with you. Take care of the children left by Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of your demeanour from boyhood towards me and towards philosophy.' Bodily pain might thus be alleviated, when it occurred; it might be greatly lessened in occurrence, by prudent and moderate habits; lastly, even at the worst, if violent, it never lasted long; if not violent, it might be patiently borne, and was at any rate terminated, or terminable at pleasure, by death.

In the view of Epicurus, the chief miseries of life arose, not from bodily pains, but partly from delusions of hope, and exaggerated aspirations for wealth, honours, power, &c., in all which the objects appeared most seductive from a distance, inciting man to lawless violence and treachery, while in the reality they were always disappointments, and generally something worse; partly, and still more, from the delusions of fear. Of this last sort, were the two greatest torments of human existence--fear of Death, and of eternal suffering after death, as announced by prophets and poets, and Fear of the G.o.ds.

Epicurus, who did not believe in the continued existence of the soul separate from the body, declared that there could never be any rational ground for fearing death, since it was simply a permanent extinction of consciousness.[13] Death was nothing to us (he said); when death comes, we are no more, either to suffer or to enjoy. Yet it was the groundless fear of this nothing that poisoned all the tranquillity of life, and held men imprisoned even when existence was a torment. Whoever had surmounted that fear was armed at once against cruel tyranny and against all the gravest misfortunes. Next, the fear of the G.o.ds was not less delusive, and hardly less tormenting, than the fear of death. It was a capital error (Epicurus declared) to suppose that the G.o.ds employed themselves as agents in working or superintending the march of the Cosmos; or in conferring favour on some men, and administering chastis.e.m.e.nt to others. The vulgar religious tales, which represented them in this character, were untrue and insulting as regards the G.o.ds themselves, and pregnant with perversion and misery as regards the hopes and fears of mankind. Epicurus believed sincerely in the G.o.ds; reverenced them as beings at once perfectly happy, immortal, and unchangeable; and took delight in the public religious festivals and ceremonies. But it was inconsistent with these attributes, and repulsive to his feelings of reverence, to conceive them as agents. The idea of agency is derived from human experience; we, as agents, act with a view to supply some want, to fulfil some obligation, to acquire some pleasure, to accomplish some object desired but not yet attained--in short, to fill up one or other of the many gaps in our imperfect happiness; the G.o.ds already _have_ all that agents strive to get, and more than agents ever do get; their condition is one not of agency, but of tranquil, self-sustaining, fruition. Accordingly, Epicurus thought (as Aristotle[14] had thought before him) that the perfect, eternal, and imperturbable well-being and felicity of the G.o.ds excluded the supposition of their being agents. He looked upon them as types of that unmolested safety and unalloyed satisfaction which was what he understood by pleasure or happiness--as objects of reverential envy, whose sympathy he was likely to obtain by a.s.similating his own temper and condition to theirs, as far as human circ.u.mstances allowed.

These theological views were placed by Epicurus in the foreground of his ethical philosophy, as the only means of dispelling those fears of the G.o.ds that the current fables instilled into every one, and that did so much to destroy human comfort and security. He proclaimed that beings in immortal felicity neither suffered vexation in themselves nor caused vexation to others--neither showed anger nor favour to particular persons. The doctrine that they were the working managers in the affairs of the Cosmos, celestial and terrestrial, human and extra-human, he not only repudiated as incompatible with their attributes, but declared to be impious, considering the disorder, sufferings, and violence, everywhere visible. He disallowed all prophecy, divination, and oracular inspiration, by which the public around him believed that the G.o.ds were perpetually communicating special revelations to individuals, and for which Sokrates had felt so peculiarly thankful.[15]

It is remarkable that Stoics and Epicureans, in spite of their marked opposition in dogma or theory, agreed so far in practical results, that both declared these two modes of uneasiness (fear of the G.o.ds and fear of death) to be the great torments of human existence, and both strove to remove or counterbalance them.

So far, the teaching of Epicurus appears confined to the separate happiness of each individual, as dependent upon his own prudence, sobriety, and correct views of Nature. But this is not the whole of the Epicurean Ethics. The system also considered each man as in companionship with others; The precepts were shaped accordingly, first as to Justice, next as to Friendship. In both these, the foundation whereon Epicurus built was Reciprocity: not pure sacrifice to others, but partnership with others, beneficial to all. He kept the ideas of self and of others inseparably knit together in one complex a.s.sociation: he did not expel or degrade either, in order to give exclusive ascendancy to the other. The dictate of Natural Justice was that no man should hurt another: each was bound to abstain from doing harm to others; each, on this condition, was ent.i.tled to count on security and relief from the fear that others would do harm to him.

Such double aspect, or reciprocity, was essential to social companionship: those that could not, or would not, accept this covenant, were unfit for society. If a man does not behave justly towards others, he cannot expect that they will behave justly towards him; to live a life of injustice, and expect that others will not find it out, is idle. The unjust man cannot enjoy a moment of security.

Epicurus laid it down explicitly, that just and righteous dealing was the indispensable condition to every one's comfort, and was the best means of attaining it.

The reciprocity of Justice was valid towards all the world; the reciprocity of friendship went much farther; it involved indefinite and active beneficence, but could reach only to a select few. Epicurus insisted emphatically on the value of friendship, as a means of happiness to both the persons so united. He declared that a good friend was another self, and that friends ought to be prepared, in case of need, to die for each other. Yet he declined to recommend an established community of goods among the members of his fraternity, as prevailed in the Pythagorean brotherhood: for such an inst.i.tution (he said) implied mistrust. He recommended efforts to please and to serve, and a forwardness to give, for the purpose of gaining and benefiting a friend, and he even declared that there was more pleasure in conferring favours than in receiving them; but he was no less strenuous in inculcating an intelligent grat.i.tude on the receiver. No one except a wise man (he said) knew how to return a favour properly.[16]

Virtue and happiness, in the theory of Epicurus, were thus inseparable.

A man could not be happy until he had surmounted the fear of death and the fear of G.o.ds instilled by the current fables, which disturbed all tranquillity of mind; until he had banished those fact.i.tious desires that pushed him into contention for wealth, power, or celebrity; nor unless he behaved with justice to all, and with active devoted friendship towards a few. Such a mental condition, which he thought it was in every man's power to acquire by appropriate teaching and companionship, const.i.tuted virtue; and was the sure as well as the only precursor of genuine happiness. A mind thus undisturbed and purified was sufficient to itself. The mere satisfaction of the wants of life, and the conversation of friends, became then felt pleasures; if more could be had without preponderant mischief, so much the better; but Nature, disburthened of her corruptions and prejudices, required no more to be happy. This at least was as much as the conditions of humanity admitted: a tranquil, undisturbed, innocuous, non-compet.i.tive fruition, which approached most nearly to the perfect happiness of the G.o.ds.[17]

The Epicurean theory of virtue is the type of all those that make an enlightened self-interest the basis of right and wrong. The four cardinal virtues were explained from the Epicurean point of view.

_Prudence_ was the supreme rule of conduct. It was a calculation and balancing of pleasures and pains. Its object was a judicious selection of pleasures to be sought. It teaches men to forego idle wishes, and to despise idle fears. _Temperance_ is the management of sensual pleasures. It seeks to avoid excess, so as on the whole to extract as much pleasure as our bodily organs are capable of affording.

_Fort.i.tude_ is a virtue, because it overcomes fear and pain. It consists in facing danger or enduring pain, to avoid greater possible evils. _Justice_ is of artificial origin. It consists in a tacit agreement among mankind to abstain from injuring one another. The security that every man has in his person and property, is the great consideration urging to abstinence from injuring others. But is it not possible to commit injustice with safety? The answer was, 'Injustice is not an evil in itself, but becomes so from the fear that haunts the injurer of not being able to escape the appointed avengers of such acts.'

The Physics of Epicurus were borrowed in the main from the atomic theory of Democritus, but were modified by him in a manner subservient and contributory to his ethical scheme. To that scheme it was essential that those celestial, atmospheric, or terrestrial phenomena that the public around him ascribed to the agency and purposes of the G.o.ds, should be understood as being produced by physical causes. An eclipse, an earthquake, a storm, a shipwreck, unusual rain or drought, a good or a bad harvest--and not merely these, but many other occurrences far smaller and more unimportant, as we may see by the eighteenth chapter of the Characters of Theophrastus--were then regarded as visitations of the G.o.ds, requiring to be interpreted by recognized prophets, and to be appeased by ceremonial expiations. When once a man became convinced that all these phenomena proceeded from physical agencies, a host of terrors and anxieties would disappear from the mind; and this Epicurus a.s.serted to be the beneficent effect and real recommendation of physical philosophy. He took little or no thought for scientific curiosity as a motive _per se_, which both Democritus and Aristotle put so much in the foreground.

Epicurus adopted the atomistic scheme of Democritus, but with some important variations. He conceived that the atoms all moved with equal velocity in the downward direction of gravity. But it occurred to him that upon this hypothesis there could never occur any collisions or combinations of the atoms--nothing but continued and unchangeable parallel lines. Accordingly, he modified it by saying that the line of descent was not exactly rectilinear, but that each atom deflected a little from the straight line, and each in its own direction and degree; so that it became possible to a.s.sume collisions, resiliences, adhesions, combinations, among them, as it had been possible under the variety of original movements ascribed to them by Democritus. The opponents of Epicurus derided this auxiliary hypothesis; they affirmed that he invented the individual deflection of each atom, without a.s.signing any cause, and only because he was perplexed by the mystery of man's _free-will_. But Epicurus was not more open to attack on this ground than other physical philosophers. Most of them (except perhaps the most consistent of the Stoic fatalists) believed that some among the phenomena of the universe occurred in regular and predictable sequence, while others were essentially irregular and unpredictable; each philosopher devised his hypothesis, and recognized some fundamental principle, to explain the first cla.s.s of phenomena as well as the second. Plato admitted an invincible Erratic necessity; Aristotle introduced Chance and Spontaneity; Democritus multiplied indefinitely the varieties of atomic movements. The hypothetical deflexion alleged by Epicurus was his way, not more unwarranted than the others, of providing a fundamental principle for the unpredictable phenomena of the universe. Among these are the mental (including the volitional) manifestations of men and animals; but there are many others besides; and there is no ground for believing that the mystery of free-will was peculiarly present to his mind. The movements of a man or animal are not exclusively subject to gravitation and other general laws; they are partly governed by mental impulses and by forces of the organism, intrinsic and peculiar to himself, unseen and unfelt by others. For these, in common with many other untraceable phenomena in the material world, Epicurus provides a principle in the supplementary hypothesis of deflexion. He rejected the fatalism contained in the theories of some of the Stoics, and admitted a limited range of empire to chance, or irregularity. But he maintained that the will, far from being among the phenomena essentially irregular, is under the influence of motives; for no man can insist more strenuously than he does (see the Letter to Menoecens) on the complete power of philosophy,--if the student could be made to feel its necessity and desire the attainment of it, so as to meditate and engrain within himself sound views about the G.o.ds, death, and human life generally,--to mould our volitions and character in a manner conformable to the exigencies of virtue and happiness.

When we read the explanations given by Epicurus and Lucretius of what the Epicurean theory really was, and compare them with the numerous attacks made upon it by opponents, we cannot but remark that the t.i.tle or formula of the theory was ill chosen, and was really a misnomer.

What Epicurus meant by Pleasure was, not what most people meant by it, but something very different--a tranquil and comfortable state of mind and body; much the same as what Democritus had expressed before him by the phrase [Greek: euthymia]. This last phrase would have expressed what Epicurus aimed at, neither more nor less. It would at least have preserved his theory from much misplaced sarcasm and aggressive rhetoric.