EPICURUS. 191 



desires were understood, we should have no need of physical science 



" It would not be possible to banish fear about the most important 

 things, if we continued ignorant of the nature of the universe, or if 

 any suspicion lurked of there being truth in the myths." 



We learn from Diogenes Laertius that Epicurus divided philosophy Divisions of 

 into three parts, the canonical, the physical, and the ethical. He p a 

 rejected dialectics as superfluous and trifling. Language in itself, and 

 the mere arts of reasoning and disputing, he seems to have despised. 

 In his treatise on rhetoric, the one point he laid stress on was clear- 

 ness, and this was the only thing he attended to in his own writings. 

 To one department of language, indeed, he urges assiduous attention, 

 that of general names ; by observant exercise of the senses we are to 

 form for ourselves clear and determinate notions of the things that 

 correspond to such names, as foundations and tests of all other 

 knowledge. 



The canonical division of Epicurus's philosophy treated of the Sources and 

 primary sources of knowledge, or, as he calls them, the criteria of JJ u t t e 1 " a of 

 truth ; which he held to be, the sensations (cuo-flrjVaf), the ideas 

 (TrpoXjf^ae), and the feelings or passions (naQ-n). The senses were 

 pronounced to be independent of reason, and incapable of memory. 

 Their testimony must be received without question, for there is nothing 

 that can decide upon it. One sense even cannot judge another : and 

 reasoning, instead of establishing the truth of the sensations must be 

 founded upon them. Ideas 1 are defined to be, recollections of external 

 things previously perceived by the senses. When the word man, 

 for instance, is pronounced, a form of him is perceived by the mind, 

 owing to previous operations of the senses. These ideas furnish us 

 with direct and certain truth, no less than the senses do. The passions 

 or feelings are two, pleasure and pain, affecting every living thing. 

 Their testimony also is direct and certain, and by it are to be tried all 

 questions as to what is to be chosen and what is to be avoided. 



In opposition to knowledge derived from these three sources, which Deductive 

 was considered self-evident and certain, was placed the knowledge knowled s e - 

 that is arrived at by inference or reasoning. This must always be 

 founded on self-evident knowledge, and is suggested by seme analogy 

 or resemblance, or results from combination. What is thus arrived at 

 was called judgment or opinion (c)o'a), or supposition (vTroX/^te), 

 and might be either true or false ; true, if supported by testimony (of 

 the criteria) or not contradicted by testimony ; false, if not supported, 

 or if contradicted. 



In accounting for the origin of error, Epicurus seems in some passages Origin or 

 to admit a sort of active initiative on the part of the intellect itself error - 

 something not unlike the spontaneous creative power attributed to it 

 by some modern psychologists. This doubtless breaks in upon the 



1 irpoATjif/ets absurdly rendered by the Latin word anticipatio, or the English 

 preconception. 



