further, the crumbling political life of Greece, with the consequent 

 loss of national independence and national spirit, provided an 

 opportunity for men to turn their eyes toward the welfare of the 

 individual man. 'So it came about that the world-views advanced 

 by the Epicureans and Stoics were unduly coloured by certain 

 dominating ethical interests. 



Epicurus and his followers taught that it is the business of 

 philosophy to make human life more tranquil and more peaceful. 

 The fear of the gods, implying, as it then did, a veritable maze 

 of superstition and terror, they held to be the chief disturbing 

 element in man's experience. Therefore, they endeavoured to 

 free men from all fear of the supernatural. 1 The gods may exist, 

 yes do exist, consensus of opinion, they taught, is enough to prove 

 that, but, in their far-off home, they enjoy absolute repose 2 and are 

 troubled neither by the miseries nor by the happiness of mankind. 

 There is no intercourse or connection between the supersensible 

 gods and sensible things. The Democritean physics, atoms and 

 the void,- are a sufficient explanation of the world. 



The Stoics, as a class, were nobler men than the Epicureans, 

 and have had a much more abiding influence. Their dominant 

 interest is likewise ethical. Man seeks happiness, happiness con- 

 sists in conformity to Nature 3 , in other words, to the Law of the 

 universe, and here their teaching mainly centres. God, they held, 

 is not pure transcendence, as they understood Aristotle to teach. 

 The universe is a living being and God may be identified with this 

 universe or likened to its soul. The world, then, is the body of God, 

 and, as such, must be a perfect organism; God, as its soul, is the 

 governing intelligence or sovereign law. Ethics, then, is of para- 

 mount importance and a world-theory of value only in so far as it 

 contributes thereto. 



The Epicurean and Stoic systems proved to be unsatisfying to 

 many. There were some, like Pyrrho of Elis and Carneades and 

 Aenesidemus, who threw up their hands in despair, hastily con- 

 cluding, like many another at different eras in the history of thought, 

 that it is impossible to form an adequate world-theory, basing 

 their sceptical inferences mainly upon what they called the rela- 



1 Lucret., De Rer. Nat. I, 62 ff.; Diog. Laert. X, 123 f.; Ibid. X, 143. 



2 Diog. Laert. X, 139. 

 3 Cf. Diog. Laert. VII, 87. 



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