Aristotle
maintained that the only original movement common to all atoms was
one and the same--in the direction of gravity straight down, and all
with equal velocity in the infinite void. But it occurred to him
that, upon this hypothesis only, there could never occur any
collisions or combinations of the atoms--nothing but continued and
unchangeable parallel lines. Accordingly he modified it by saying
that the line of descent was not strictly rectilinear, but that each
atom deflected a little from the straight line, each in its own
direction and degree; so that it became possible to assume
collisions, resiliences, adhesions, combinations, among them, as it
had been possible under the variety of original movements ascribed to
them by Demokritus. The opponents of Epikurus derided this auxiliary
hypothesis, affirming that he invented the individual deflection of
each atom without assigning any cause, and only because he was
perplexed by the mystery of man's freewill. But Epikurus was not more
open to attack on this ground than other physical philosophers. Most
of them (except perhaps the most consistent of the Stoic fatalists)
believed that some among the phenomena of the universe occurred in
regular and predictable sequence, while others were essentially
irregular and unpredictable: each philosopher devised his hypothesis,
and recognized some fundamental principle, to explain the latter
class of phenomena as well as the former; thus, Plato admitted an
invincible erratic necessity, Aristotle introduced Chance and
Spontaneity, Demokritus multiplied indefinitely the varieties of
atomic movements. The hypothetical deflection alleged by Epikurus was
his way, not more unwarranted than the others, of providing a
fundamental principle for the unpredictable phenomena of the
universe. Among these are the volitional manifestations of men and
animals; but there are many others besides, and there is no ground
for believing that what is called the mystery of Free-Will (_i. e._,
the question whether volition is governed by motives, acting upon a
given state of the mind and body) was at all peculiarly present to
his mind. Whatever theory may be adopted on this point, it is certain
that the movements of an individual man or animal are not exclusively
determined by the general law of gravitation, or by another cause
extrinsic to himself; but to a great degree by his own separate
volition, which is often imperfectly knowable beforehand and
therefore not predictable. For these and many other phenomena,
Epikurus provided a fundamental principle in his supplementary
hypothesis of atomic deflection; and indeed not for these only, but
also for the questions of opponents, how there could ever be any
coalition between the atoms, if all followed only one single law of
movement--rectilineal descent with equal velocity. Epikurus rejected
the inexorable and all-comprehensive fatalism contained in the
theories of some Stoics, though seemingly not construed in its full
application even by them. He admitted a limited range of empire to
Chance, or phenomena essentially irregular. But he maintained that
the will, far from being among the phenomena essentially irregular,
is under the influence of motives; for no man can insist more
strenuously than he does (see the letter to Menoekeus) on the
complete power of philosophy--if the student could be made to feel
its necessity and desire the attainment of it, so as to meditate and
engrain within himself sound views about the gods, death, and human
life generally--to mould our volitions and character in a manner
conformable to the exigencies of virtue and happiness.
All true belief, according to Epikurus, rested ultimately upon the
impressions of sense, upon our internal feelings, and upon our
correct apprehension of the meaning of terms. He did not suppose the
significance of language to come by convention, but to be an
inspiration of Nature, different among different people. The facts of
sense were in themselves beyond all question. But truth, though
founded upon these evidences, included various inferences, more than
sense could directly testify. Even the two capital points of the
Epikurean physical philosophy--Atoms and Void--were inferences from
sense, and not capable of direct attestation. It was in these
inferences, and in the superstructure built upon sense, that error
was so frequently imposed upon us. We ought to test all affirmations
or dogmas by the evidence of sensible phenomena; looking therein, if
possible, for some positive grounds in support of them, but at any
rate assuring ourselves that there were no grounds in contradiction
of them, or, if there were such, rejecting the dogmas at once. Out of
the particular impressions of sense, when often repeated, remembered,
and compared, there grew certain general notions or anticipations
([Greek: prolê/pseis]), which were applied to interpret or illustrate
any new case when it arose. These general notions were not inborn or
intuitive, but gradually formed (as Aristotle and the Stoics also
conceived them) out of frequent remembrances and association.
Besides those conclusions which could be fully proved by the
evidentiary data just enumerated, Epikurus recognized admissible
hypotheses, which awaited farther evidence confirmative or refutative
([Greek: to\ pro/smenon]), and also other matters occult or as yet
unexplained ([Greek: ta\ a)/dêla]). Along with the intermediate or
half-explained class, he reckoned those in which plurality of causes
was to be invoked. A given effect might result from any one out of
two, three, or more different causes, and there was often no
counter-evidence of sense to exclude either of them in any particular
case. This plural explanation ([Greek: to\ pleonachô=s]) was not so
complete or satisfactory as the singular ([Greek: to\ monachô=s]);
but it was often the best that we could obtain, and was quite
sufficient, by showing a possible physical agency, to rescue the mind
from those terrors of ignorance, which drove men to imagine
visitations of the gods.
Epikurus agreed with Demokritus in believing that external objects
produced their impressions on our senses by projecting thin images,
outlines of their own shapes. He thought that the air was peopled
with such images, which passed through it and still more through the
infinite vacuum beyond it with prodigious velocity. Many of them
became commingled, dissipated, recombined, during the transit, so
that, when they reached us, the impressions produced were not
conformable to any real object; hence the phenomena of dreams,
madness, and the various delusions of waking men.
In setting forth the criterion of truth, Epikurus insisted chiefly
upon the fundamental groundwork--particular facts of sense, as the
data for proving or disproving general affirmations; and he had the
merit of calling attention to refutative data as well as to
probative. But, respecting the process of passing from these
particulars to true generalities and avoiding the untrue, we can make
out no clear idea from his writings that remain: his great work on
Physical Philosophy is lost. It is certain that he disregarded the
logical part of the process--the systematic study of propositions,
and their relations of consistency with one another--which had made
so prodigious a stride during his early years under Aristotle and
Theophrastus. We can, indeed, detect in his remaining sentences one
or two of those terms which Aristotle had stamped as technical in
Logic; but he discouraged as useless all the verbal teaching and
discussion of his day--all grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, beyond
the lowest minimum. He disapproved of the poets as promulgators of
mischievous fables and prejudices, the rhetoricians as furnishing
weapons for the misleading career of political ambition, the
dialecticians as wasting their time in useless puzzles. None of them
were serviceable in promoting either the tranquillity of the mind, or
the happiness of life, or the acquisition of truth. He himself
composed a great number of treatises and epistles, on subjects of
ethics and philosophy; but he is said to have written in haste,
without taking time or trouble to correct his compositions. By the
Alexandrine critic, Aristophanes of Byzantium, his style was censured
as unpolished; yet it is declared to have been simple, unaffected,
and easily understood. This last predicate is hardly applicable to
the three epistles which alone remain from his pen; but those
epistles are intended as brief abstracts of doctrine, on topics which
he had already treated at length in formal works; and it is not easy
to combine clearness with brevity.
VI.
THE STOICS--A FRAGMENT.
The Stoics were one of the four sects of philosophy recognized and
conspicuous at Athens during the three centuries preceding the
Christian era and during the century or more following. Among these
four sects, the most marked antithesis of ethical dogma was between
the Stoics and the Epikureans.
The Stoics agreed with the Peripatetics (anterior to Epikurus, not
specially against _him_) that the first principle of nature is (not
pleasure or relief from pain, but) Self-preservation or Self-love; in
other words, the natural appetite or tendency of all creatures is, to
preserve their existing condition with its inherent capacities, and
to keep clear of destruction or disablement. This appetite (they
said) manifests itself in little children before any pleasure or pain
is felt, and is moreover a fundamental postulate, pre-supposed in all
desires of particular pleasures, as well as in all aversions to
particular pains. We begin by loving our own vitality; and we come,
by association, to love what promotes or strengthens our vitality; we
hate destruction or disablement, and come (by secondary association)
to hate whatever produces that effect.
This doctrine associated, and brought under one view, what was common
to man not merely with the animal, but also with the vegetable world;
a plant was declared to have an impulse or tendency to maintain
itself, without feeling pain or pleasure. Aristotle (in the tenth
Book of the Ethica) says that he will not determine whether we love
life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life; for
he affirms the two to be essentially yoked together and inseparable:
pleasure is the consummation of our vital manifestations. The
Peripatetics, after him, put pleasure down to a lower level, as
derivative and accidental. The Stoics went farther in the same
direction--possibly from antithesis against the growing school of
Epikurus.
The primary _officium_ (in a larger sense than our word duty) of man
is (they said) to keep himself in the State of Nature; the second or
derivative _officium_ is to keep to such things as are according to
nature, and to avert those that are contrary to nature; our gradually
increasing experience enables as to discriminate the two. The youth
learns, as he grows up, to value bodily accomplishments, mental
cognitions and judgments, good conduct towards those around him,--as
powerful aids towards keeping up that state of nature. When his
experience is so far enlarged as to make him aware of the order and
harmony of nature and human society, and to impress upon him the
comprehension of this great _idéal_, his emotions as well as his
reason becomes absorbed by it. He recognizes this as the only true
Bonum or Honestum, to which all other desirable things are referable;
as the only thing desirable for itself and in its own nature. He
drops or dismisses all these _prima naturæ_ that he had begun by
desiring. He no longer considers any of them as worthy of being
desired in itself, or for its own sake.
While, therefore, (according to Peripatetics as well as Stoics) the