that a Stoic will like horses and hunting, that he will go to parties, that he will fall in love with beautiful
young men; and 'what adornment', the Stoics asked, 'can a household enjoy to compare with the
companionship of a man and his wife?' A Stoic is not debarred from the pleasures of life: he may enjoy
them all - provided that he does so virtuously.
Nor is the Stoic maxim that 'virtue alone is good' a confession of moral severity. Its force is best shown by
reference to the Stoic account of 'indifferents' or things neither good nor bad. 'Of indifferents they say that
some are promoted, some demoted, some neither promoted nor demoted'. Things are said to be promoted
'not because they contribute and work towards welfare but because we should choose them rather than
what is demoted'. Health is thus promoted, for plainly we should prefer it to illness; but health is not good
- for 'what can be used both well and badly is neither good nor bad, and all foolish men use wealth and
health and bodily strength badly'. Health is not good in itself; but health well used is good: health - and
everything else - is advantageous only when it 'participates in virtue' or is wisely used. That is the sense in
which virtue is the sole good.
There are differences, both theoretical and practical, between Epicurean and Stoic ethics. But the popular
picture of a sybaritic Epicurean confronting a puritanical Stoic is a caricature: to an external observer
there would in truth be little difference between members of the two sects.
Physics
Physics is subordinate to ethics. According to Chrysippus, 'the study of nature is to be undertaken for no
other end than the discrimination of good things and bad'. Epicurus asserted that 'you must first realize
that knowledge of celestial matters, like other branches of study, has no other goal but tranquillity and
firm conviction'; and 'if we were not at all disturbed by our apprehensions concerning celestial phenomena
and death. .. and by our failure to understand the limits of pains and of desires, we should have no further
need of natural science'.
The first theorem of Epicurean physics maintains that 'the nature of things consists of bodies and void.'
Epicurus commends the theorem by urging that 'perception in itself universally testifies that there are
bodies ... and if place, which we call void or space or intangible substance, did not exist, then bodies
would have nowhere to be and nothing through which to move'. Bodies are either composite or simple.
The simple bodies are atoms: indivisible, changeless, microscopic; infinite in number and roaming in
infinite space; possessing size, shape, weight, mobility, but devoid of colour, taste, smell, and the like.
The moving atoms sometimes collide. As the hooks of one atom chance to catch the eyes of another,
macroscopic bodies are formed: the furnishings of the world-sheep, horses, chariots, and the souls of men
- are congeries of atoms, their sensible forms and qualities determined by their corpuscular structures.
Atomism is thoroughly mechanistic. Everything is explained by the laws of atomic motion. Lucretius
instructs us to 'avoid the error of thinking that the bright orbs of the eyes were made in order that we
might be able to see', or that any natural phenomena are amenable to teleological explanation in terms of
goals or purposes.
Atomism has two profound implications. First, the heavenly bodies are not divine intelligences: according