ference of the gods in this life. One might have expected
that Epicurus would for this purpose have embraced athe-
ism. But he does not deny the existence of the gods. On
the contrary, he believed that there are innumerable gods.
They have the form of men, because that is the most beau-
tiful of all forms. They have distinctions in sex. They eat,
drink, and talk Greek. Their bodies are composed of a sub-
stance like light. But though Epicurus allows them to exist,
he is careful to disarm them, and to rob them of their fears.
They live in the interstellar spaces, an immortal, calm, and
blessed existence. They do not intervene in the affairs of
the world, because they are perfectly happy. Why should
they burden themselves with the control of that which no-
wise concerns them? Theirs is the beatitude of a wholly
untroubled joy.
“Immortal are they, clothed with powers,
Not to be comforted at all,
Lords over all the fruitless hours,
Too great to appease, too high to appal,
Too far to call.” [Footnote 17]
[Footnote 17: A. C. Swinburne’sFelise.]
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Man, therefore, freed from the fear of death and the fear
of the gods, has no duty save to live as happily as he can
during his brief space upon earth. We can quit the realm
of physics with a light heart, and turn to what alone truly
matters, ethics, the consideration of how man ought to con-
duct his life.Ethics.If the Stoics were the intellectual successors of the Cynics,
the Epicureans bear the same relation to the Cyrenaics.
Like Aristippus, they founded morality upon pleasure, but
they differ because they developed a purer and nobler con-
ception of pleasure than the Cyrenaics had known. Plea-
sure alone is an end in itself. It is the only good. Pain
is the only evil. Morality, therefore, is an activity which
yields pleasure. Virtue has no value on its own account,
but derives its value from the pleasure which accompanies
it.This is the only foundation which Epicurus could find, or
desired to find, for moral activity. This is his only ethical
principle. The rest of the Epicurean ethics consists in the
interpretation of the idea of pleasure. And, firstly, by plea-
sure Epicurus did not mean, as the Cyrenaics did, merely
the pleasure of the moment, whether physical or mental.
He meant the pleasure that endures throughout a lifetime,
a happy life. Hence we are not to allow ourselves to be
enslaved by any particular pleasure or desire. We must
master our appetites. We must often forego a pleasure if
it leads in the end to greater pain. We must be ready to
undergo pain for the sake of a greater pleasure to come.And it was just for this reason, secondly, that the {359}
Epicureans regarded spiritual and mental pleasures as far
more important than those of the body. For the body feels
pleasure and pain only while they last. The body has in