Vitae philosophorum

All my books to be given to Hermarchus.

And if anything should happen to Hermarchus before the children of Metrodorus grow up, Amynomachus and Timocrates shall give from the funds bequeathed by me, so far as possible, enough for their several needs, as long as they are well ordered. And let them provide for the rest according to my arrangements; that everything may be carried out, so far as it lies in their power. Of my slaves I manumit Mys, Nicias, Lycon, and I also give Phaedrium her liberty.

And when near his end he wrote the following letter to Idomeneus:

On this blissful day, which is also the last of my life, I write this to you. My continual sufferings from strangury and dysentery are so great that nothing could augment them; but over against them all I set gladness of mind at the remembrance of our past conversations. But I would have you, as becomes your life-long attitude to me and to philosophy, watch over the children of Metrodorus.

Such were the terms of his will.

Among his disciples, of whom there were many, the following were eminent: Metrodorus,[*](Metrodorus (330-277 b.c.) was the master’s beloved disciple; but the encomium preserved by Seneca (Ep. 52. 3) is certainly discriminating: Epicurus says: quosdam indigere ope aliena, non ituros si nemo praecesserit, sed bene secuturos: ex his Metrodorum ait esse.) the son of Athenaeus (or of Timocrates) and of Sande, a citizen of Lampsacus, who from his first acquaintance with Epicurus never left him except once for six months spent on a visit to his native place, from which he returned to him again.

His goodness was proved in all ways, as Epicurus testifies in the introductions[*](Epicurus seems to have prefixed dedications or other short notices to the separate books of his larger works. Thus book xxviii. of his great work On Nature was dedicated to Hermarchus, and this has come down to us in Vol. Herc. Coll. Alt. vi. fr. 45 sqq.) to his works and in the third book of the Timocrates. Such he was: he gave his sister Batis to Idomeneus to wife, and himself took Leontion the Athenian courtesan as his concubine. He showed dauntless courage in meeting troubles and death, as Epicurus declares in the first book of his memoir. He died, we learn, seven years before Epicurus in his fiftythird year, and Epicurus himself in his will already cited clearly speaks of him as departed, and enjoins upon his executors to make provision for Metrodorus’s children. The above-mentioned Timocrates[*](This second mention of Timocrates (see § 6) may have been a marginal note, not very suitably placed, intended to distinguish the renegade Timocrates from his namesake, one of Epicurus’ executors (§ 18).)also, the brother of Metrodorus and a giddy fellow, was another of his pupils.

Metrodorus wrote the following works:

and Demetrius,[*](Cf. Sext. Emp. Adv. math. viii. 348 sqq.; Strabo, xiv. 658.) who was called the Laconian; and Diogenes of Tarsus, who compiled the select lectures; and Orion, and others whom the genuine Epicureans call Sophists.

There were three other men who bore the name of Epicurus: one the son of Leonteus and Themista; another a Magnesian by birth; and a third, a drillsergeant.

Epicurus was a most prolific author and eclipsed all before him in the number of his writings: for they amount to about three hundred rolls, and contain not a single citation from other authors; it is Epicurus himself who speaks throughout. Chrysippus tried to outdo him in authorship according to Carneades, who therefore calls him the literary parasite of Epicurus. For every subject treated by Epicurus, Chrysippus in his contentiousness must treat at equal length;

hence he has frequently repeated himself and set down the first thought that occurred to him, and in his haste has left things unrevised, and he has so many citations that they alone fill his books: nor is this unexampled in Zeno and Aristotle. Such, then, in number and character are the writings of Epicurus, the best of which are the following:

I will also set down his Sovran Maxims and any other utterance of his that seems worth citing, that you may be in a position to study the philosopher on all sides and know how to judge him.

The first epistle is addressed to Herodotus and deals with physics; the second to Pythocles and deals with astronomy or meteorology; the third is addressed to Menoeceus and its subject is human life. We must begin with the first after some few preliminary remarks[*](i.e.§§ 29-34, the first of those summaries of doctrine which take up so much of Book X.) upon his division of philosophy.

It is divided into three parts—Canonic, Physics, Ethics.

Canonic forms the introduction to the system and is contained in a single work entitled The Canon. The physical part includes the entire theory of Nature: it is contained in the thirty-seven books Of Nature and, in a summary form, in the letters. The ethical part deals with the facts of choice and aversion: this may be found in the books On Human Life, in the letters, and in his treatise Of the End. The usual arrangement, however, is to conjoin canonic with physics, and the former they call the science which deals with the standard and the first principle, or the elementary part of philosophy, while physics proper, they say, deals with becoming and perishing and with nature; ethics, on the other

They reject dialectic as superfluous; holding that in their inquiries the physicists should be content to employ the ordinary terms for things.[*](An opinion often emphasized: e.g.§§ 37, 73, 82, 152. Cf. Lucr. iii. 931 sqq.)Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth; the Epicureans generally make perceptions of mental presentations[*](Such mental pictures are caused by atoms too fine to affect sense: cf.§ 64infra; Lucr. ii. 740 sqq., iv. 722 sqq.; Cic. N.D. i. 54. On the whole subject consult Usener’s Epicurea, Fr. 242-265, and, more especially, Sext. Emp. Adv. math. vii. 203-216.) to be also standards. His own statements are also to be found in the Summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Sovran Maxims. Every sensation, he says, is devoid of reason and incapable of memory; for neither is it self-caused nor, regarded as having an external cause, can it add anything thereto or take anything therefrom. Nor is there anything which can refute sensations or convict them of error:

one sensation cannot convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid; nor can one sensation refute another which is not kindred but heterogeneous, for the objects which the two senses judge are not the same[*](Cf. inf.§ 146.); nor again can reason refute them, for reason is wholly dependent on sensation; nor can one sense refute another, since we pay equal heed to all. And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees[*](i.e. the trustworthiness of the senses (αἰσθής εων) considered as faculties of sense-perception: cf. Sext. Emp. Adv math. viii. 9 (Usener, Fr. 244).) the truth of our senses. But seeing and hearing are just as real as feeling pain. Hence it is from plain facts that we must start when we draw inferences about the unknown.[*](More precisely ἄδηλον = that which does not come within the range of sense. Compare e.g.§ 38 τὸ προσμέν ον καὶ τὸ ἄδηλον, and the way in which the conception of void is obtained in § 40. In § 62 it is called τὸ προσδοξαζόμενον περὶ τοῦ ἀοράτου.) For all our notions are derived from

By preconception they mean a sort of apprehension or a right opinion or notion, or universal idea stored in the mind; that is, a recollection of an external object often presented, e.g. Such and such a thing is a man: for no sooner is the word man uttered than we think of his shape by an act of preconception, in which the senses take the lead.[*](i.e. in conformity with the sense-data which precede the recognition.) Thus the object primarily denoted by every term is then plain and clear. And we should never have started an investigation, unless we had known what it was that we were in search of. For example: The object standing yonder is a horse or a cow. Before making this judgement, we must at some time or other have known by preconception the shape of a horse or a cow. We should not have given anything a name, if we had not first learnt its form by way of preconception. It follows, then, that preconceptions are clear. The object of a judgement is derived from something previously clear, by reference to which we frame the proposition, e.g. How do we know that this is a man?

Opinion they also call conception or assumption, and declare it to be true and false[*](See § 124, where a true πρόληψις is opposed to a false ὑπόληψις. In Aristotle ὑπόληψις is often a synonym of δόξα· cf. Bonitz, Index Ar., s.v.); for it is true if it is subsequently confirmed or if it is not contradicted by evidence, and false if it is not subsequently confirmed or is contradicted by evidence. Hence the introduction of the phrase, that which awaits confirmation, e.g. to wait and

get close to the tower and then learn what it looks like at close quarters.[*](See §§ 50, 147. The tower which seems round at a distance and square when we get up to it was the typical example in the school of that process of testing beliefs by observation which is here prescribed. Cf. Lucr. iv. 353 sqq., 501 sqq.; Sext. Emp. Adv. math. vii. 208.)

They affirm that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, which arise in every animate being, and that the one is favourable and the other hostile to that being, and by their means choice and avoidance are determined[*](i.e. pleasure and pain are the criteria by which we choose and avoid.); and that there are two kinds of inquiry, the one concerned with things, the other with nothing but words.[*](Cf. inf.§ 37.)So much, then, for his division[*](Division of philosophy is probably meant.) and criterion in their main outline.

But we must return to the letter.[*](The letter to Herodotus is the second and most valuable instalment of Epicurean doctrine. The manuscript seems to have been entrusted to a scribe to copy, just as it was: scholia and marginal notes, even where they interrupt the thread of the argument, have been faithfully reproduced. See §§ 39, 40, 43, 44, 50, 66, 71, 73, 74, 75.)

Epicurus to Herodotus, greeting.

For those who are unable to study carefully all my physical writings or to go into the longer treatises at all, I have myself prepared an epitome[*](This, as the most authentic summary of Epicurean physics which we possess, serves as a groundwork in modern histories, e.g. Zeller’s. The reader may also consult with advantage Giussani, Studi Lucreziani (vol. i. of his Lucretius); Bignone, Epicurea, pp. 71-113; Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, pp. 118-181.) of the whole system, Herodotus, to preserve in the memory enough of the principal doctrines,[*](Only the principal doctrines are contained in this epistle; more, both general and particular, was given in the Larger Compendium.) to the end that on every occasion they may be able to aid themselves on the most important points, so far as they take up the study of Physics. Those who have made some advance in the survey of the entire system ought to fix in their minds under the principal headings an

To the former, then—the main heads—we must continually return, and must memorize them so far as to get a valid conception of the facts, as well as the means of discovering all the details exactly when once the general outlines are rightly understood and remembered; since it is the privilege of the mature student to make a ready use of his conceptions by referring every one of them to elementary facts and simple terms. For it is impossible to gather up the results of continuous diligent study of the entirety of things, unless we can embrace in short formulas and hold in mind all that might have been accurately expressed even to the minutest detail.

Hence, since such a course is of service to all who take up natural science, I, who devote to the subject my continuous energy and reap the calm enjoyment of a life like this, have prepared for you just such an epitome and manual of the doctrines as a whole.

In the first place, Herodotus, you must understand what it is that words denote, in order that by reference to this we may be in a position to test opinions, inquiries, or problems, so that our proofs may not run on untested ad infinitum, nor the terms we use be empty of meaning.

For the primary signification of every term employed must be clearly seen, and ought to need no proving[*](Epicurus explains this more fully in Fr. 258 (Usener, p. 189). For proof and proving Bignone substitutes declaration and declare.); this being necessary, if we are to have something to which the point at issue or the problem or the opinion before us can be referred.

Next, we must by all means stick to our sensations, that is, simply to the present impressions whether of the mind or of any criterion whatever, and similarly to our actual feelings, in order that we may have the means of determining that which needs confirmation and that which is obscure.

When this is clearly understood, it is time to consider generally things which are obscure. To begin with, nothing comes into being out of what is non-existent.[*](This is no innovation of Epicurus but a tenet common to all the pre-Socratics: the One, or Nature as a whole, assumed by the Ionians, is unchangeable in respect of generation and destruction; cf. Aristotle, Met. i. 3. 984 a 31. The pluralists were naturally even more explicit: see the wellknown fragments, Anax. 17 d, Emped. 8 d. Lucretius (i. 180 f.) expands the doctrine.) For in that case anything would have arisen out of anything, standing as it would in no need of its proper germs.[*](Cf.§§ 41, 54. Lucr. i. 125 f. is the best commentary.)

And if that which disappears had been destroyed and become non-existent, everything would have perished, that into which the things were dissolved being non-existent. Moreover, the sum total of things was always such as it is now, and such it will ever remain. For there is nothing into which it can change. For outside the sum of things there is nothing which could enter into it and bring about the change.

Further [this he says also in the Larger Epitome near the beginning and in his First Book On Nature], the whole of being consists of bodies and space.[*](Usener’s insertion of bodies and space comes from § 86;cf.Diels,Dox. Gr. 581. 28.) For the existence of bodies is everywhere attested by sense itself, and it is upon sensation that reason must rely when it attempts to infer the unknown from the known.

And if there were no space (which we call also void and place and intangible nature),[*](Cf. Lucr. i. 426.) bodies would have nothing in which to be and

Again [he repeats this in the First Book and in Books XIV. and XV. of the work On Nature and in the Larger Epitome], of bodies some are composite, others the elements of which these composite bodies are made.