Chapter 29

CHAPTER XVI

THE EPICUREANS

Epicurus was born at Samos in 342 B.C. He founded his
school a year or two before Zeno founded the Stoa, so that
the two schools from the first ran parallel in time. The
school of Epicurus lasted over six centuries. Epicurus early
became acquainted with the atomism of Democritus, but
his learning in earlier systems of philosophy does not appear
to have been extensive. He was a man of estimable life and
character. He founded his school in 306 B.C. The Epicurean
philosophy was both founded and completed by him. No
subsequent Epicurean to any appreciable extent added to
or altered the doctrines laid down by the founder.

The Epicurean system is even more purely practical in ten-
dency than the Stoic. In spite of the fact that Stoicism
subordinates logic and physics to ethics, yet the diligence
and care which the Stoics bestowed upon such doctrines as

those of the criterion of truth, the nature of the world, the

soul, and so on, afford evidence of a genuine, if subordi-

nate, interest in these subjects. Epicurus likewise divided

his system into logic (which he called canonic), physics, and

ethics, yet the two former branches of thought are pursued

with an obvious carelessness and absence of interest. It is

evident that learned {355} discussions bored Epicurus. His

system is amiable and shallow. Knowledge for its own sake

is not desired. Mathematics, he said, are useless, because

they have no connexion with life. The logic, or canonic,

we may pass over completely, as possessing no elements of

interest, and come at once to the physics.

Physics.

Physics interests Epicurus only from one point of view—its

power to banish superstitious fear from the minds of men.

All supernatural religion, he thought, operates for the most

part upon mankind by means of fear. Men are afraid of the