CHAPTER XVI.

CHARACTER AND DIVISIONS OF THE EPICUREAN TEACHING: THE TEST-SCIENCE OF TRUTH.

The scientific value and capacity for development of Epicureanism are out of all proportion to its extensive diffusion and the length of time during which it continued to flourish. No other system troubled itself so little about the foundation on which it rested; none confined itself so exclusively to the utterances of its founder. Such was the dogmatism with which Epicurus propounded his precepts, such the conviction he entertained of their excellence, that his pupils were required to commit summaries of them to memory; and the superstitious devotion for the founder was with his approval carried to such a length, that on no single point was the slightest deviation from his tenets permitted. Although, even in Cicero’s time, the writings of Epicurus and Metrodorus found hardly a reader outside the School, yet it is asserted that as late as the first and second centuries after Christ the Epicureans clung tenaciously to their master’s teaching. Probably it was easier for an Epicurean than for any other thinker to act thus. Like his master, he was indifferent to the labours of other philosophers, or unable to appreciate their merits. For us this conduct of theirs has one advantage: we can be far more certain that the Epicurean teaching reflects that of the founder than we can that this is so in the case of the Stoics. But this philosophical sterility, this mechanical handing down of unchangeable principles, places the intellectual value of Epicureanism on the lowest level. The servile dependence of the Epicurean School on its founder can neither excuse its mental idleness nor recommend a system so powerless to give an independent training to its supporters.

The want of intellectual taste here displayed appears also in the view taken by Epicurus of the aim and business of philosophy. If among the Stoics the subordination of theory to practice was frequently felt, among the Epicureans this subordination was carried to such an extent as to lead to a depreciation of all science. The aim of philosophy was, with them, to promote human happiness. Indeed, philosophy is nothing else than an activity helping us to happiness by means of speech and thought. Nor is happiness, according to Epicurus, directly promoted by knowledge, but only indirectly in as far as knowledge ministers to practical needs, or clears away hindrances to their attainment. All science which does not serve this end is superfluous and worthless. Epicurus, therefore, despised learning and culture, the researches of grammarians, and the lore of historians, and declared it a piece of good fortune for simplicity of feeling to be uncontaminated by learned rubbish. Nor was his opinion different respecting mathematical science, of which he was wholly ignorant. The calculations of mathematicians, he maintained, are based on false principles; at any rate, they contribute nothing to human happiness, and it is therefore useless and foolish to trouble oneself about them. The theory of music and poetry he likewise found exceedingly irksome, although he took pleasure in music itself and the theatre; and rhetoric, as an artificial guide to eloquence, seemed to him as worthless as the show-speeches which are the only result of the study of it. The power of public speaking is a matter of practice and of momentary feeling, and hence the skilful speaker is far from being a good statesman. The greater part of logical enquiries fared no better in his judgment. Himself no logician, he set little store by logic. Definitions are of no use; the theory of division and proof may be dispensed with; the philosopher does best to confine himself to words, and to leave all the logical ballast alone. Of all the questions which engrossed the attention of Stoic logicians, one only, the theory of knowledge, was studied by Epicurus, and that in a very superficial way.

Far greater, comparatively, was the importance he attached to the study of nature, but even natural science was deemed valuable not so much for its own sake as because of its practical use. The knowledge of natural causes is the only means of liberating the soul from the shackles of superstition; this is the only use of natural science. If it were not for the thought of God and the fear of death, there would be no need of studying nature. The investigation of our instincts is also of use, because it helps us to control them, and to keep them within their natural bounds. Thus the onesided practical view of philosophy which we have already encountered in Stoicism was carried by the Epicureans to an extreme length.

Nor is it otherwise than in harmony herewith that logic did not receive a fuller or more perfect treatment in the further development of their system. Even the study of nature, going far more fully into particulars than logic, was guided entirely by practical considerations, all scientific interest in nature being ignored. Following the usual method, however, the Epicureans divided philosophy into three parts —logic, natural science, and moral science. Limiting the first of these parts to one branch of logic, the part which deals with the characteristics of truth, and which they therefore called neither logic, nor dialectic, but Canonic, they really reduced this part to a mere introductory appendage to the two other parts, and studied Canonic as a part of natural science. Natural science moreover was so entirely subordinated to moral science, that we might almost feel tempted to follow some modern writers in their view of the Epicurean system, by giving to moral science precedence of the two other parts, or at least of natural science. The School, however, followed the usual order, and not without reason; for although the whole tendency of the Epicurean Canonic and natural science can only, like the Stoic, be explained by a reference to moral science, yet moral science with them presupposes the test-science of truth and natural science. We shall, therefore, do well to treat of Canonic in the first place, and subsequently to prove how this branch of study depends on Ethics.

Canonic or the test-science of truth, as has been observed, is occupied with investigating the standard of truth, and with enquiring into the mode of acquiring knowledge. The whole of formal logic, the doctrine of the formation of conceptions and conclusions, is omitted by Epicurus. Even the theory of the acquisition of knowledge assumes with him a very simple form. If the Stoics were fain, notwithstanding their ideal ethics and their pantheistic speculations, ultimately to take their stand on materialism, could Epicurus avoid doing the same? In seeking a speculative basis for a view of life which refers everything to the feeling of pleasure or pain, he appealed far more unreservedly than they had done to sensation. Now, since the senses can alone inform us what is pleasant or unpleasant, and what is desirable or the contrary, our judgment as to truth or falsehood must ultimately depend on the senses. Viewed speculatively, sensation is the standard of truth; viewed practically, the feeling of pleasure or pain. If the senses may not be trusted, still less may knowledge derived from reason be trusted, since reason itself is primarily and entirely derived from the senses. There remains, therefore, no distinctive mark of truth, and no possibility of certain conviction. We are at the mercy of unlimited doubt. If, however, this doubt is contradictory of itself—for how can men declare they know, that they can know nothing?—it is also contradictory of human nature, since it would do away not only with all knowledge but with every possibility of action—in short, with all the conditions on which human life depends. To avoid doubt we must allow that sensation as such is always, and under all circumstances, to be trusted; nor ought the delusions of the senses to shake our belief; the causes of these deceptions do not lie in sensation as such, but in our judgment about sensation. What the senses supply is only that an object produces this or that effect upon us, and that this or that picture has impressed our soul. The facts thus supplied are always true, only it does not follow that the object exactly corresponds with the impression we receive of it, or that it produces on others the same impression that it produces on us. Many different pictures may emanate from one and the same object, and these pictures may be changed on their way to the ear or eye. Pictures, too, may strike our senses with which no real objects correspond. To confound the picture with the thing, the impression made with the object making the impression, is certainly an error, but this error must not be laid to the charge of the senses, but to that of opinion. Indeed, how is it possible, asks Epicurus, to refute the testimony of the senses? Can reason refute it? But reason is itself dependent on the senses, and cannot bear testimony against that on which its own claims to belief depend. Or can one sense convict another of error? But different sensations do not refer to the same object, and similar sensations have equal value. Nothing remains, therefore, but to attach implicit belief to every impression of the senses. Every such impression is directly certain, and is accordingly termed by Epicurus clear evidence (ἐνάργεια). Nay, more, its truth is so paramount that the impressions of madmen, and appearances in dreams, are true because they are caused by something real, and error only becomes possible when we go beyond sensation.

This going beyond sensation becomes, however, a necessity. By a repetition of the same perception a notion (πρόληψις) arises. A notion, therefore, is nothing else than the general picture retained in the mind of what has been perceived. On these notions retained by memory depend all speaking and thinking. They are what commonly go under the name of things; and speech is only a means of recalling definite perceptions to the memory. Notions are presupposed in all scientific knowledge. Together with sensations they form the measure of the truth of our convictions; and it holds true of them as it did of sensations—that they are true in themselves and need no proof. Taken by themselves, notions, like perceptions, are reflections in the soul of things on which the transforming action of the mind, changing external impressions into conceptions, has not as yet been brought to bear.

For this very reason notion are not sufficient. From appearances we must advance to their secret causes; from the known to the unknown. Far too little value was attached by Epicurus to the logical forms of thought, or he would have investigated more accurately the nature of this process of advancing. Thoughts, in his view, result from sensations spontaneously, and although a certain amount of reflection is necessary for the process, yet it requires no scientific guidance. The thoughts arrived at in this way do not stand as a higher genus above perceptions, but they are only opinions (ὑπόληψις, δόξα) without a note of truth in themselves, and depending for their truth upon sensation. That opinion may be considered a true one which is based on the testimony of the senses, or is at least not contrary to the senses, and that a false opinion in which the opposite is the case. Sometimes we suppose that upon certain present impressions other impressions will follow: for instance, that a tower which appears round at a distance will appear round close at hand. In that case, if the real perception corresponds with the assumption, the opinion is true, otherwise it is false. At other times we suppose that certain appearances are due to secret causes: for instance, that empty space is the cause of motion. If all appearances tally with their explanations, we may consider our assumptions correct; if not, our assumptions are incorrect. In the first case the test of the truth of an opinion is that it is supported by experience; in the latter that it is not refuted by experience. Have we not here all the leading features of a theory of knowledge based purely on sensation? The Epicurean’s interest in these questions was, however, far too slight to construct with them a developed theory of materialism.

Little pains seem to have been taken by Epicurus to overcome the difficulties by which this view was beset. If all sensations as such are true, the saying of Protagoras necessarily follows that for each individual that is true which seems to him to be true, that contrary impressions about one and the same object are true, and that deceptions of the senses, so many instances of which are supplied by experience, are really impossible. To avoid these conclusions, Epicurus maintained that for each different impression there is a different object-picture. What immediately affects our senses is not the object itself, but a picture of the object, and these pictures may be innumerable, a different one being the cause of each separate sensation. Moreover, although the pictures emanating from the same object are in general nearly alike, it is possible that they may differ from one another owing to a variety of causes. If, therefore, the same object appears different to different individuals, the cause of these different sensations is not one and the same, but a different one, and different pictures must have affected their senses. If our own sensations deceive us, the blame does not belong to our senses, as though they had depicted to us unreal objects, but to our judgment for drawing unwarranted inferences from pictures as to their causes.

This line of argument, however, only removes the difficulty one step further. Sensation is said always to reproduce faithfully the picture which affects the organs of sense, but the pictures do not always reproduce the object with equal faithfulness. How then can a faithful picture be known from one which is not faithful? To this question the Epicurean system can furnish no real answer. To say that the wise man knows how to distinguish a faithful from an unfaithful picture is to despair of an absolute standard at all, and to make the decision of truth or error depend upon the individual’s judgment. Such a statement reduces all our impressions of the properties of things to a relative level. If sensation does not show us things themselves, but only those impressions of them which happen to affect us, it does not supply us with a knowledge of things as they are, but as they happen to be related to us. It was, therefore, a legitimate inference from this theory of knowledge for Epicurus to deny that colour belongs to bodies in themselves, since some only see colour in the dark, whilst others do not. Like his predecessor, Democritus, he must have been brought to this view by his theory of atoms. Few of the properties belong to atoms which we perceive in things, and hence all other properties must be explained as not belonging to the essence, but only to the appearance of things. The taste for speculation was, however, too weak, and the need of a direct truth of the senses too strong in Epicurus for him to be able to turn his thoughts in this direction for long. Whilst allowing to certain properties of things only a relative value, he had no wish to doubt the reality of objects, nor to disparage the object-pictures which furnish us with sensations.