THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



future life. Hence, while all the world makes the pur- 

 suit of happiness a prime object, there still persists a 

 tendency to look askance at the avowed pleasure- 

 seeker. 



No better illustration of this could be asked than 

 the interpretation that has been put in modern times 

 upon the more candid philosophies of the old Greeks. 

 There lived back at the beginning of the third cen- 

 tury B.C., a wise and pure philosopher named Epicurus, 

 who practised, so far as we can learn, a somewhat 

 ascetic method of life as regards bodily pleasures. He 

 gathered about him in his famous Gardens, a school 

 of disciples, and taught them so wisely and so well 

 that it was claimed throughout antiquity that no man 

 or woman for the school had female votaries that 

 once entered the ranks ever became an apostate. 



One of his maxims was this: "Irresistible power 

 and great wealth may up to a certain point give us' 

 security, so far as men are concerned ; but the security 

 of men in general depends upon the tranquillity of their 

 souls and their freedom from ambition." 



Again he says: "The just man is the freest of all 

 men from disquietude, but the unjust man is a perpetual 

 prey to it." 



Yet again: "Of all the things which wisdom pro- 

 vides for the happiness of a whole life, by far the most 

 important is the acquisition of friendship." 



As the founder of the school was dying of a painful 

 and lingering illness, he sought consolation amidst his 

 sufferings, so it is testified, in musing on the happy 

 hours that he had spent in reasoning on the questions 



