EPICURUS. 201 



being-alive and not-being-alive ; but, as in choosing food, we prefer, 

 not that which is most in quantity, but that which is most pleasant, 

 so we value time not for its length, but for its agreeableness." 



Having thus taken away the terrors of death by a syllogism, he 

 addresses himself to the kindred subject of bodily pain. 



"Continuous bodily pain is not of long duration: extreme pain Pain of short 

 lasts very short time indeed ; where there is an excess of pain over du lon * 

 pleasure at all, it never continues many days ; and when disorders are 

 of long continuance, pleasurable feeling predominates over painful." 



The Chief Good. 



The chief disturbers of happiness being thus banished, the next step 

 is to determine its positive elements. In what does happiness con- 

 sist ? in other words, what is the chief good ? Pleasure, answers Pleasure the 

 Epicurus. And, according to his canon, he could not have answered cue g 

 otherwise. The sources and tests of all ethical truth are the feelings 

 (TraO/y), and these are two. pleasure and pain. Now all animals from 

 the moment of their birth delight in pleasure and are offended with 

 pain, by their very nature and without reason ; and they are prompted 

 instinctively to seek the one and avoid the other. Since the feelings 

 then are the criteria in all such questions, pleasure is the only good 

 and pain is the only evil, and every action is to be judged by its 

 effect in producing the one or the other. 



But what is pleasure ? Here Epicurus differed from Aristippus, what is 

 who also held that pleasure is the chief good. According to Aris- pleasure? 

 tippus and his school, before there is pleasure, there must be positive 

 delightful sensations amounting to excitement and emotion. They 

 also held that bodily pain was worse than mental. Epicurus, on the 

 contrary, teaches that freedom from disquiet and pain, from cold, it is freedom 

 hunger, and thirst, and from unsatisfied desires, is, of itself, pleasure. 

 Positive excitement may be necessary for joy and delight, but for 

 pleasure tranquillity is enough. He also maintains that the sufferings 

 of the mind are incomparably worse than those of the body ; for flesh 

 suffers only from present pain, but the soul suffers from the past, the 

 present, and the future. 



The tone of Epicurus's moral system is thus quietistic, and, his 

 definition of pleasure being of a negative kind, he is able to arrive at 

 practical precepts, which even his enemies could not find fault with. 

 But we will let him speak for himself. 



" For a correct theory of the desires leads us to settle all questions Ease of 

 as to what we are to choose and what avoid, by a reference to the {^^njjjty 

 health of the body and the tranquillity of the soul ; since this is the of mind are 

 end of the art of living. For whatever we do, we do it for the pur- 

 pose of avoiding pain or perturbation ; and that effected, the tempest, 

 as it were, of the soul is allayed ; the restless cravings of vital instinct 

 no longer urge it abroad in quest of something felt to be necessary to 

 complete the good of body and soul." 



