126 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
untenable nature of the positions taken by the idealist who denies 
the existence of matter as an objective reality, and the materialist 
who denies the existence of anything else but matter, holding that 
while the existence of matter as the cause of our subjective states 
is by far the most probable hypothesis we have as yet succeeded in 
framing on the subject, the existence of something which is not 
matter, but capable of acting upon, and being acted on by it — an 
extra physical world, a world of life and mind — is one also possess- 
ing a very high degree of probability, although much lower than 
the former. Neither is capable of apodictic demonstration ; the 
difference in the certainty of the two propositions is one of degree, 
and not of kind. 
THE EPICUREAN AND STOIC. 
BY MR. W. F. COLLIEE, VICE-PRESIDENT. 
(February 8th, 1877.) 
Under rule 44, Mr. W. E. Collier, Yice-President, introduced as a 
subject for discussion " The Epicurean and Stoic — the Modern Man 
of Pleasure and the Puritan.' 1 The following is a summary of his 
argument : — 
Prom the earliest times, when different modes of social life were 
observed and studied, to the present, the two opposite theories 
represented by the Epicurean and the Stoic, and the Modern Man 
of Pleasure and the Puritan, have been subjects of contention and 
dispute, sometimes leading to violent animosities and hatreds. 
Epicurus himself, the founder of the school of Epicureans, must 
not be confounded with his followers, who, like many followers 
and disciples of great leaders, exaggerated, altered, and altogether 
transformed the principles propounded by their chief. Epicurus 
merely held that life ought to be enjoyed, and in practice was 
rather stoical than otherwise, with that end in view. The Stoics 
held that nothing in life was enjoyable except what was purely 
intellectual, and indulged themselves with the idea that a Stoic 
could, when stretched on the rack, revel in the enjoyment of 
intellectual pleasures. Both these social schools have held their 
opposite theories from the time of Epicurus, and probably long 
