EP1 



EPI 



der. Essential character : calyx double ; 

 outer six-leaved, small ; inner three-leav- 

 ed, large,- petals six, three outer, between 

 the calycine leaflets; three inner ; drupes 

 three, subglobuiar, mucronate, with three 

 permanent styles; inclosing a kidney- 

 form nut. There is only one species; viz. 

 E. pendulum. 



EPIC, or heroic poem, a poem express- 

 ed in narration, formed upon a story part- 

 ly real and partly feigned. ; representing 1 , 

 in a sublime style, some signal and for- 

 tunate action, distinguished by a variety 

 of great events, to form the morals, and 

 affect the mind with the love of heroic 

 virtue. 



EPJCHIIYSUM, in botany, a genus of 

 the Cryptogumia Fungi class and order. 

 Fungus rounded, concave ; seeds globu- 

 lar; tailless, attached to a branched thre.id 

 creeping within. Tht-re is but one spe- 

 cies; viz. E. argentt'iim. 



EPICURE AN philosophy, the doctrine 

 or system of philosophy maintained by 

 Epicurus and his followers. 



Epicurus, the Athenian, one of the 

 greatest philosophers of his age, was 

 obliged to Uemocritus for almost his 

 whole system, notwithstanding he piqued 

 himself upon deriving every thing from 

 his own fund. He wrote a great number 

 of books, which are made to amount to 

 above 300. Though none of them are 

 come down to us, no ancient philoso- 

 pher's s) stem is better known than his, 

 for which we are mostly indebted to the 

 poet Lucretius, D ogenes, JLaertius, and 

 Tolly. His philosophy consisted of three 

 parts, canonical, physical, and ethereal. 

 The first was about the canons, or rules 

 of judging. The censure which Tully 

 passes upon him, for his despising logic, 

 will hold true only with regard to the 

 logic of the Stoics, which he could not 

 approve of, it being too full of nicety and 

 quirk. Epicurus was not acquainted with 

 the analytical method of division and ar- 

 gumentation, nor was he so curious in 

 modes and formal ion, as the Stoics. 

 Soundness and simplicity of sense, assist- 

 ed with some natural reflections, was all 

 his art. His search after truth proceed- 

 ed only by the senses, to the evidence of 

 which he gave so great a certainty, that 

 he considered them as an infallible rule 

 of truth, and termed them the first natural 

 light of mankind. 



In the second part of his philosophy 

 he laid down atoms, space, and gravity, 

 as the first principles of all things. He 



did not deny the existence of a God, but 

 thought it beneath his majesty to concern 

 himself with hurmn affairs. He held him 

 a blessed immortal being, having no af- 

 fairs of his own to take care of, and above 

 meddling with those of others. See ATO- 

 MIC PHILOSOPHY. 



As to his el hies, he made the supreme 

 good of man to consist in pleasure, and, 

 consequently, supreme evil in pain. Na- 

 ture itself, says he, teaches us this truth, 

 and prompts us from our b'nh to procure 

 what ever gives us pleasure, and avoid 

 what gives us pain. To this end he pro- 

 poses a remedy against the sharpness of 

 pain : this was to divt- rt the mind from it, 

 by turning our whole attention upon the 

 pleasures we have formerly enjoyed. He 

 held ihat the wise man must be iiappVi as 

 long as he is wise ; that pain, not depriv- 

 ing him of his wisdom, cannot deprive 

 him of his happiness. 



EPICYCLE, in the ancient astronomy, 

 a little circle, whose centre is in the cir- 

 cumference of a greater circle ; or it is a 

 small orb or sphere, which, being fixed in 

 the deferent of a planet, is carried along 

 with it ; and yet, by its own peculiar mo- 

 tion, carries the planet fastened to it 

 round its proper centre. 



It was by means of epicycles, that Pto- 

 lemy and his followers solved the various 

 phenomena of the planets, but more espe- 

 cially their stations and retrogradations. 

 The great circle they called the excen- 

 tric or deferent, and along its circumfer- 

 ence the center of the epicycle was con- 

 ceived to move ; carrying with it the 

 planet fixed in its circumference, which 

 in its motion downwards proceeded ac- 

 cording to the order of the signs, but in 

 moving upwards contrary to that order. 

 The highest point of a planet's epicycle 

 they called apogee, and the lowest peri- 

 gee. 



EPICYCLOID, in geometry, a curve 

 generated by the revolution of the peri- 

 phery of a circle, ACE (Plate V Mis- 

 eel, fig. 4 ) along the convex or concave 

 side of the periphery of another circle, 

 1) G B. 



The length of any part of the curve, 

 that any given point in the revolving cir- 

 cle has described, from the time it touch- 

 ed the circle it revolved upon, shall be 

 to double the versed sine of half the arch 

 which all that time touched the circle at 

 rest, as the sum of the diameters of the 

 circles to the semidiameter of the rest- 

 ing circle, if the revolving circle moves 

 upon the convex side of the resting cir 



