BOOK X.

LIFE OF EPICURUS.

I. Epicurus was an Athenian, and the son of Neocles and Chærestrate, of

the burgh of Gargettus, and of the family of the Philaidæ, as Metrodorus

tells us in his treatise on Nobility of Birth. Some writers, and among

them Heraclides, in his Abridgment of Sotion, say, that as the Athenians

had colonised Samos, he was brought up there, and came to Athens in his

eighteenth year, while Xenocrates was president of the Academy, and

Aristotle at Chalcis. But after the death of Alexander, the Macedonian,

when the Athenians were driven out of Samos by Perdiccas, Epicurus went

to Colophon to his father.

II. And when he had spent some time there, and collected some disciples,

he again returned to Athens, in the time of Anaxicrates, and for some

time studied philosophy, mingling with the rest of the philosophers;

but subsequently, he some how or other established the school which

was called after his name; and he used to say, that he began to study

philosophy, when he was fourteen years of age; but Apollodorus, the

Epicurean, in the first book of his account of the life of Epicurus,

says, that he came to the study of philosophy, having conceived a great

contempt for the grammarians, because they could not explain to him the

statements in Hesiod respecting Chaos.

But Hermippus tells us, that he himself was a teacher of grammar, and

that afterwards, having met with the books of Democritus, he applied

himself with zeal to philosophy, on which account Timon says of him:—

The last of all the natural philosophers,

And the most shameless too, did come from Samos,

A grammar teacher, and the most ill-bred

And most unmanageable of mankind.

And he had for his companions in his philosophical studies, his three

brothers, Neocles, Chæredemus, and Aristobulus, who were excited by his

exhortations, as Philodemus, the Epicurean, relates in the tenth book of

the Classification of Philosophers. He had also a slave, whose name was

Mus, as Myronianus tells us in his Similar Historical Chapters.

III. But Diotimus, the Stoic, was very hostile to him, and calumniated

him in a most bitter manner, publishing fifty obscene letters, and

attributing them to Epicurus, and also giving him the credit of the

letters, which generally go under the name of Chrysippus. And Posidonius,

the Stoic, and Nicolaus, and Sotion, in the twelfth of these books, which

are entitled the Refutations of Diocles, of which there are altogether

twenty-four volumes, and Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, have also attacked

him with great severity; for they say that he used to accompany his

mother when she went about the small cottages, performing purifications,

and that he used to read the formula, and that he used also to keep a

school with his father at very low terms. Also, that he, as well as one

of his brothers, was a most profligate man in his morals, and that he

used to live with Leontium, the courtesan. Moreover, that he claimed the

books of Democritus on Atoms, and that of Aristippus on Pleasure, as his

own; and that he was not a legitimate citizen; and this last fact is

asserted also by Timocrates, and by Herodotus, in his treatise on the

Youth of Epicurus.

They also say that he used to flatter Mithras, the steward of Lysimachus,

in a disgraceful manner, calling him in his letters Pæan, and King; and

also that he flattered Idomeneus, and Herodotus, and Timocrates who had

revealed all his secret practices, and that he flattered them on this

very account. And in his letters to Leontium, he says, “O king Apollo,

my dear Leontium, what transports of joy did I feel when I read your

charming letter.” And to Themista, the wife of Leonteus, he writes, “I am

ready and prepared, if you do not come to me, to roll myself to wherever

you and Themista invite me.” And he addresses Pythocles, a beautiful

youth, thus, “I will sit quiet,” says he, “awaiting your longed for and

god-like approach.” And at another time, writing to Themista, he says,

“That he had determined to make his way with her,” as Theodorus tells us

in the fourth book of his treatises against Epicurus.

He also wrote to many other courtesans, and especially to Leontium,

with whom Metrodorus also was in love. And in his treatise on the Chief

Good, he writes thus, “For I do not know what I can consider good, if

I put out of sight the pleasures which arise from favours, and those

which are derived from amatory pleasures, and from music, and from the

contemplation of beauty.” And in his letter to Pythocles, he writes,

“And, my dear boy, avoid all sorts of education.”

Epictetus also attacks him as a most debauched man, and reproaches him

most vehemently, and so does Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, in

his treatise entitled the Merry Guests, and this Timocrates had been a

disciple in his school, though he afterwards abandoned it; and he says

that he used to vomit twice a day, in consequence of his intemperance;

and that he himself had great difficulty in escaping from this nocturnal

philosophy, and that mystic kind of re-union. He also accuses Epicurus

of shameful ignorance in his reasoning, and still more especially in

all matters relating to the conduct of life. And says that he was in a

pitiable state of health, so that he could not for many years rise up

from his sofa; and that he used to spend a minæ a day on his eating,

as he himself states in his letter to Leontium, and in that to the

philosophers at Mitylene. He also says that many courtesans used to

live with him and Metrodorus; and among them Marmarium, and Hedea, and

Erotium, and Nicidium.

IV. And in the thirty-seven books which he wrote about natural

philosophy, they say that he says a great many things of the same kind

over and over again, and that in them he writes in contradiction of other

philosophers, and especially of Nausiphanes, and speaks as follows, word

for word: “But if any one else ever was afflicted in such a manner,

then certainly this man had a continual labour, striving to bring forth

the sophistical boastfulness of his mouth, like many other slaves.” And

Epicurus also speaks of Nausiphanes in his letters, in the following

terms: “These things led him on to such arrogance of mind, that he

abused me and called me a schoolmaster.” He used also to call him Lungs,

and Blockhead, and Humbug, and Fornicator. And he used to call Plato’s

followers Flatterers of Dionysius, but Plato himself he called Golden.

Aristotle he called a debauchee and a glutton, saying that he joined the

army after he had squandered his patrimony, and sold drugs. He used

also to call Protagoras a porter, and the secretary of Democritus, and

to say that he taught boys their letters in the streets. Heraclitus,

he called a disturber; Democritus, he nicknamed Lerocritus;[138] and

Antidorus, Sænidorus;[139] the Cynics he called enemies of Greece; and

the Dialecticians he charged with being eaten up with envy. Pyrrho, he

said, was ignorant and unlearned.

V. But these men who say this are all wrong, for there are plenty of

witnesses of the unsurpassable kindness of the man to every body; both

his own country which honoured him with brazen statues, and his friends

who were so numerous that they could not be contained in whole cities;

and all his acquaintances who were bound to him by nothing but the charms

of his doctrine, none of whom ever deserted him, except Metrodorus, the

son of Stratoniceus, who went over to Carneades, probably because he

was not able to bear with equanimity the unapproachable excellence of

Epicurus. Also, the perpetual succession of his school, which, when every

other school decayed, continued without any falling off, and produced

a countless number of philosophers, succeeding one another without

any interruption. We may also speak here of his gratitude towards his

parents, and his beneficence to his brothers, and his gentleness to his

servants (as is plain from his will, and from the fact too, that they

united with him in his philosophical studies, and the most eminent of

them was the one whom I have mentioned already, named Mus); and his

universal philanthropy towards all men.

His piety towards the Gods, and his affection for his country was quite

unspeakable; though, from an excess of modesty, he avoided affairs of

state. And though he lived when very difficult times oppressed Greece, he

still remained in his own country, only going two or three times across

to Ionia to see his friends, who used to throng to him from all quarters,

and to live with him in his garden, as we are told by Apollodorus. (This

garden he bought for eighty minæ.)

VI. And Diocles, in the third book of his Excursion, says that they all

lived in the most simple and economical manner; “They were content,” says

he, “with a small cup of light wine, and all the rest of their drink was

water.” He also tells us that Epicurus would not allow his followers to

throw their property into a common stock, as Pythagoras did, who said

that the possessions of friends were held in common. For he said that

such a doctrine as that was suited rather for those who distrusted one

another; and that those who distrusted one another were not friends. But

he himself in his letters, says that he is content with water and plain

bread, and adds, “Send me some Cytherean cheese, that if I wish to have a

feast, I may have the means.” This was the real character of the man who

laid down the doctrine that pleasure was the chief good; whom Athenæus

thus mentions in an epigram:—

O men, you labour for pernicious ends;

And out of eager avarice, begin

Quarrels and wars. And yet the wealth of nature

Fixes a narrow limit for desires,

Though empty judgment is insatiable.

This lesson the wise child of Neocles

Had learnt by heart, instructed by the Muses,

Or at the sacred shrine of Delphi’s God.

And as we advance further, we shall learn this fact from his dogmas, and

his apophthegms.

VII. Of all the ancient philosophers he was, as we are told by Diocles,

most attached to Anaxagoras (although in some points he argued against

him); and to Archelaus, the master of Socrates. And he used, Diocles

adds, to accustom his pupils to preserve his writings in their memory.

Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, asserts that he was a pupil of

Nausiphanes, and Praxiphanes; but he himself does not mention this; but

says in his letter to Euridicus, that he had been his own instructor. He

also agreed with Hermarchus in not admitting that Leucippus deserved to

be called a philosopher; though some authors, among whom is Apollodorus,

speak of him as the master of Democritus. Demetrius, the Magnesian, says

that he was a pupil of Xenocrates also.

VIII. He uses in his works plain language with respect to anything he

is speaking of, for which Aristophanes, the grammarian, blames him,

on the ground of that style being vulgar. But he was such an admirer

of perspicuity, that even in his treatise on Rhetoric, he aims at and

recommends nothing but clearness of expression. And in his letters,

instead of the usual civil expressions, “Greeting,” “Farewell,” and so

on, he substitutes, “May you act well,” “May you live virtuously,” and

expressions of that sort. Some of his biographers assert that it was he

who composed the treatise entitled the Canon, in imitation of the Tripod

of Nausiphanes, whose pupil they say that he was, and add that he was

also a pupil of Pamphilus, the Platonist, at Samos.

IX. They further tell us that he began to study philosophy at twelve

years of age, and that he presided over his school thirty-two years.

And he was born as we are told by Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, in

the third year of the hundred and ninth olympiad, in the archonship of

Sosigenes, on the seventh day of the month Gamelion, seven years after

the death of Plato. And when he was thirty-two years of age, he first

set up his school at Mitylene, and after that at Lampsacus; and when he

had spent five years in these two cities, he came to Athens; and he died

there in the second year of the hundred and twenty-seventh olympiad, in

the archonship of Pytharatus, when he had lived seventy-two years. And

Hermarchus, the son of Agemarchus, and a citizen of Mitylene, succeeded

him in his school.

He died of the stone, as Hermarchus mentions in his letters, after having

been ill a fortnight; and at the end of the fortnight, Hermippus says

that he went into a brazen bath, properly tempered with warm water, and

asked for a cup of pure wine and drank it; and having recommended his

friends to remember his doctrines, he expired. And there is an epigram of

ours on him, couched in the following language:—

Now, fare-ye-well, remember all my words;

This was the dying charge of Epicurus:

Then to the bath he went, and drank some wine,

And sank beneath the cold embrace of Pluto.

Such was the life of the man, and such was his death.

X. And he made his will in the following terms:—

“According to this my will, I give all my possessions to Amynomachus, of

Bate, the son of Philocrates, and to Timocrates, of Potamos, the son of

Demetrius; according to the deed of gift to each, which is deposited

in the temple of Cybele; on condition that they make over my garden

and all that is attached to it to Hermarchus, of Mitylene, the son of

Agemarchus; and to those who study philosophy with him, and to whomsoever

Hermarchus leaves as his successors in his school, that they may abide

and dwell in it, in the study and practice of philosophy; and I give it

also to all those who philosophize according to my doctrines, that they

may, to the best of their ability, maintain my school which exists in my

garden, in concert with Amynomachus and Timocrates; and I enjoin their

heirs to do the same in the most perfect and secure manner that they can;

so that they also may maintain my garden, as those also shall to whom

my immediate successors hand it down. As for the house in Melita, that

Amynomachus and Timocrates shall allow Hermarchus that he may live in it

during his life, together with all his companions in philosophy.

“Out of the income which is derived from that property, which is here

bequeathed by me to Amynomachus and Timocrates, I will that they,

consulting with Hermarchus, shall arrange in the best manner possible

the offerings to the manes in honour of the memory of my father, and

mother, and brothers, and myself, and that my birth-day may be kept as

it has been in the habit of being kept, on the tenth day of the month

Gamelion; and that the re-union of all the philosophers of our school,

established in honour of Metrodorus and myself, may take place on the

twentieth day of every month. They shall also celebrate, as I have been

in the habit of doing myself, the day consecrated to my brothers, in the

month Poseideon; and the day consecrated to the memory of Polyænus, in

the month Metageitnion.

“Amynomachus and Timocrates, shall be the guardians of Epicurus, the

son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polyænus, as long as they study

philosophy under, and live with, Hermarchus. In the same way also, they

shall be the guardians of the daughter of Metrodorus, and when she is

of marriageable age, they shall give her to whomsoever Hermarchus shall

select of his companions in philosophy, provided she is well behaved

and obedient to Hermarchus. And Amynomachus and Timocrates shall, out

of my income, give them such a sum for their support as shall appear

sufficient year by year, after due consultation with Hermarchus. And

they shall associate Hermarchus with themselves in the management of my

revenues, in order that everything may be done with the approval of that

man who has grown old with me in the study of philosophy, and who is

now left as the president of all those who have studied philosophy with

us. And as for the dowry for the girl when she is come to marriageable

age, let Amynomachus and Timocrates arrange that, taking for the purpose

such a sum from my property as shall seem to them, in conjunction with

Hermarchus, to be reasonable. And let them also take care of Nicanor,

as we ourselves have done; in order that all those who have studied

philosophy with us, and who have assisted us with their means, and who

have shown great friendship for us, and who have chosen to grow old with

us in the study of philosophy, may never be in want of anything as far as

our power to prevent it may extend.

“I further enjoin them to give all my books to Hermarchus; and, if

anything should happen to Hermarchus before the children of Metrodorus

are grown up, then I desire that Amynomachus and Timocrates, shall take

care that, provided they are well behaved, they shall have everything

that is necessary for them, as far as the estate which I leave behind me

shall allow such things to be furnished to them. And the same men shall

also take care of everything else that I have enjoined; so that it may

all be fulfilled, as far as the case may permit.

“Of my slaves, I hereby emancipate Mus, and Nicias, and Lycon: I also

give Phædrium her freedom.”

And when he was at the point of death, he wrote the following letter to

Idomeneus:—

“We have written this letter to you on a happy day to us, which is

also the last day of our life. For strangury has attacked me, and also

a dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of

my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which arises from the

recollection of all my philosophical contemplations, counterbalances

all these afflictions. And I beg you to take care of the children of

Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of the devotion shown by the youth to me,

and to philosophy.”

Such then as I have given it, was his will.

XI. He had a great number of pupils, of whom the most eminent were

Metrodorus, the Athenian, and Timocrates, and Sandes, of Lampsacus; who,

from the time that he first became acquainted with him, never left him,

except once when he went home for six months; after which he returned to

him. And he was a virtuous man in every respect, as Epicurus tells us

in his Fundamental Principles. And he also bears witness to his virtue

in the third book of his Timocrates. And being a man of this character,

he gave his sister Batis in marriage to Idomeneus; and he himself had

Leontium, the Attic courtesan, for his concubine. He was very unmoved

at all disturbances, and even at death; as Epicurus tells us, in the

first book of his Metrodorus. He is said to have died seven years before

Epicurus himself, in the fifty-third year of his age. And Epicurus

himself, in the will which I have given above, gives many charges about

the guardianship of his children, showing by this that he had been dead

some time. He also had a brother whom I have mentioned before, of the

name of Timocrates, a trifling, silly man.

The writings of Metrodorus are these. Three books addressed to the

Physicians; one essay on the Sensations; one addressed to Timocrates;

one on Magnanimity; one on the Illness of Epicurus; one addressed to the

Dialecticians; one against the Nine Sophists; one on the Road to Wisdom;

one on Change; one on Riches; one against Democritus; one on Nobility of

Birth.

XII. Likewise Polyænus, of Lampsacus, the son of Athenodorus, was a man

of mild and friendly manners, as Philodemus particularly assures us.

XIII. And his successor was Hermarchus, of Mitylene, the son of

Agemarchus, a poor man; and his favourite pursuit was rhetoric. And the

following excellent works of his are extant. Twenty-two books of letters

about Empedocles; an essay on Mathematics; A treatise against Plato;

another against Aristotle. And he died of paralysis, being a most eminent

man.

XIV. There was also Leonteus, of Lampsacus, and his wife Themista, to

whom Epicurus wrote.

XV. There were also Colotes and Idomeneus; and these also were natives

of Lampsacus. And among the most eminent philosophers of the school of

Epicurus, were Polystratus, who succeeded Hermarchus, and Dionysius who

succeeded him, and Basilides who succeeded him. Likewise Apollodorus,

who was nicknamed the tyrant of the gardens (κηποτύραννος), was a very

eminent man, and wrote more than four hundred books. And there were the

two Ptolemies of Alexandria, Ptolemy the Black, and Ptolemy the Fair. And

Zeno, of Sidon, a pupil of Apollodorus, a very voluminous author; and

Demetrius, who was surnamed the Lacedæmonian; and Diogenes, of Tarsus,

who wrote the Select Dialogues; and Orion, and others whom the genuine

Epicureans call Sophists.

XVI. There were also three other persons of the name of Epicurus; first,

the son of Leonteus and Themista; secondly, a native of Magnesia; and

lastly, a Gladiator.

XVII. And Epicurus was a most voluminous author, exceeding all men in

the number of his books; for there are more than three hundred volumes

of them; and in the whole of them there is not one citation from other

sources, but they are filled wholly with the sentiments of Epicurus

himself. In the quantity of his writings he was rivalled by Chrysippus,

as Carneades asserts, who calls him a parasite of the books of Epicurus;

for if ever this latter wrote anything, Chrysippus immediately set his

heart on writing a book of equal size; and in this way he often wrote

the same thing over again; putting down whatever came into his head; and

he published it all without any corrections, by reason of his haste. And

he quotes such numbers of testimonies from other authors, that his books

are entirely filled with them alone; as one may find also in the works of

Aristotle and Zeno.

Such then, and so numerous are the works of Epicurus; the chief of which

are the following. Thirty-seven treatises on Natural Philosophy; one

on Atoms, and the Vacuum; one on Love; an abridgment of the Arguments

employed against the Natural Philosophers; Doubts in Contradiction of

the Doctrines of the Megarians; Fundamental Propositions; a treatise

on Choice and Avoidance; another on the Chief Good; another on the

Criterion, called also the Canon; the Chæredemus, a treatise on the

Gods; one on Piety; the Hegesianax; four essays on Lives; one on Just

Dealing; the Neocles; one essay addressed to Themista; the Banquet; the

Eurylochus; one essay addressed to Metrodorus; one on Seeing; one on the

Angle in an Atom; one on Touch; one on Fate; Opinions on the Passions;

one treatise addressed to Timocrates; Prognostics; Exhortations; a

treatise on Spectres; one on Perceptions; the Aristobulus; an essay on

Music; one on Justice and the other Virtues; one on Gifts and Gratitude;

the Polymedes; the Timocrates, a treatise in three books; the Metrodorus,

in five books; the Antidorus, in two books; Opinions about the South

Winds; a treatise addressed to Mithras; the Callistolas; an essay on

Kingly Power; the Anaximenes; Letters.

XVIII. And I will endeavour to give an abridgment of the doctrines

contained in these works, as it may be agreeable, quoting three letters

of his, in which he has made a sort of epitome of all his philosophy. I

will also give his fundamental and peculiar opinions, and any apophthegms

which he uttered which appear worthy of being selected. So that you

may be thoroughly acquainted with the man, and may also judge that I

understand him.

Now the first letter is one that he wrote to Herodotus, on the subject of

Natural Philosophy; the second is one that he wrote to Pythocles, which

is about the Heavenly Bodies; the third is addressed to Menœceus, and in

that there are contained the discussions about lives.

We must now begin with the first, after having said a little by way of

preface concerning the divisions of philosophy which he adopted.

XIX. Now he divides philosophy into three parts. The canonical, the

physical, and the ethical. The canonical, which serves as an introduction

to science, is contained in the single treatise which is called the

Canon. The physical embraces the whole range of speculation on subjects

of natural philosophy, and is contained in the thirty-seven books on

nature, and in the letters again it is discussed in an elementary manner.

The ethical contains the discussions on Choice and Avoidance; and is

comprised in the books about lives, and in some of the Letters, and in

the treatise on the Chief Good. Accordingly, most people are in the habit

of combining the canonical division with the physical; and then they

designate the whole under the names of the criterion of the truth, and a

discussion on principles, and elements. And they say that the physical

division is conversant about production, and destruction, and nature;

and that the ethical division has reference to the objects of choice and

avoidance, and lives, and the chief good of mankind.

XX. Dialectics they wholly reject as superfluous. For they say that

the correspondence of words with things is sufficient for the natural

philosopher, so as to enable him to advance with certainty in the study

of nature.

Now, in the Canon, Epicurus says that the criteria of truth are the

senses, and the preconceptions, and the passions. But the Epicureans, in

general, add also the perceptive impressions of the intellect. And he

says the same thing in his Abridgment, which he addresses to Herodotus,

and also in his Fundamental Principles. For, says he, the senses are

devoid of reason, nor are they capable of receiving any impressions of

memory. For they are not by themselves the cause of any motion, and when

they have received any impression from any external cause, then they can

add nothing to it, nor can they subtract anything from it. Moreover, they

are out of the reach of any control; for one sensation cannot judge of

another which resembles itself; for they have all an equal value. Nor can

one judge of another which is different from itself; since their objects

are not identical. In a word, one sensation cannot control another, since

the effects of all of them influence us equally. Again, the reason cannot

pronounce on the senses; for we have already said that all reasoning has

the senses for its foundation. Reality and the evidence of sensation

establish the certainty of the senses; for the impressions of sight and

hearing are just as real, just as evident, as pain.

It follows from these considerations that we ought to judge of things

which are obscure by their analogy to those which we perceive directly.

In fact, every notion proceeds from the senses, either directly, or in

consequence of some analogy, or proportion, or combination. Reasoning

having always a share in these last operations. The visions of insanity

and of sleep have a real object, for they act upon us; and that which has

no reality can produce no action.

XXI. By preconception, the Epicureans mean a sort of comprehension as

it were, or right opinion, or notion, or general idea which exists in

us; or, in other words, the recollection of an external object often

perceived anteriorly. Such for instance, is this idea: “Man is a being

of such and such a nature.” At the same moment that we utter the word

man, we conceive the figure of a man, in virtue of a preconception which

we owe to the preceding operations of the senses. Therefore, the first

notion which each word awakens in us is a correct one; in fact, we could

not seek for anything if we had not previously some notion of it. To

enable us to affirm that what we see at a distance is a horse or an ox,

we must have some preconception in our minds which makes us acquainted

with the form of a horse and an ox. We could not give names to things, if

we had not a preliminary notion of what the things were.

XXII. These preconceptions then furnish us with certainty. And with

respect to judgments, their certainty depends on our referring them to

some previous notion, of itself certain, in virtue of which we affirm

such and such a judgment; for instance, “How do we know whether this

thing is a man?”

The Epicureans call opinion (δόξα) also supposition (ὑπόληψις). And

say that it is at times true, and at times false; for that, if it is

supported by testimony, and not contradicted by testimony, then it is

true; but if it is not supported by testimony, and is contradicted by

testimony, then it is false. On which account they have introduced the

expression of “waiting,” as if, before pronouncing that a thing seen is a

tower, we must wait till we come near, and learn what it looks like when

we are near it.

XXIII. They say that there are two passions, pleasure and pain, which

affect everything alive. And that the one is natural, and the other

foreign to our nature; with reference to which all objects of choice

and avoidance are judged of. They say also, that there are two kinds of

investigation; the one about facts, the other about mere words. And this

is as far as an elementary sketch can go—their doctrine about division,

and about the criterion.

XXIV. Let us now go to the letter:—

EPICURUS TO HERODOTUS, WISHING HE MAY DO WELL.

“For those, O Herodotus, who are not able accurately to comprehend

all the things which I have written about nature, nor to investigate

those larger books which I have composed on the subject, I have made an

abridgment of the whole discussion on this question, as far as I thought

sufficient to enable them to recollect accurately the most fundamental

points; that so, on all grave occasions, they might be able to assist

themselves on the most important and undeniable principles; in proportion

as they devoted themselves to speculations on natural philosophy. And

here it is necessary for those who have made sufficient progress in

their view of the general question, to recollect the principles laid

down as elements of the whole discussion; for we have still greater

need of a correct notion of the whole, than we have even of an accurate

understanding of the details. We must, therefore, give preference to the

former knowledge, and lay up in our memory those principles on which we

may rest, in order to arrive at an exact perception of things, and at a

certain knowledge of particular objects.

“Now one has arrived at that point when one has thoroughly embraced the

conceptions, and, if I may so express myself, the most essential forms,

and when one has impressed them adequately on one’s senses. For this

clear and precise knowledge of the whole, taken together, necessarily

facilitates one’s particular perceptions, when one has brought one’s

ideas back to the elements and simple terms. In short, a veritable

synthesis, comprising the entire circle of the phænomena of the universe,

ought to be able to resume in itself, and in a few words, all the

particular facts which have been previously studied. This method being

useful even to those who are already familiarised with the laws of the

universe, I recommend them, while still pursuing without intermission

the study of nature, which contributes more than anything else to the

tranquillity and happiness of life, to make a concise statement or

summary of their opinions.

“First of all, then, Herodotus, one must determine with exactness the

notion comprehended under each separate word, in order to be able to

refer to it, as to a certain criterion, the conceptions which emanate

from ourselves, the ulterior researches and the difficulties; otherwise

the judgment has no foundation. One goes on from demonstration to

demonstration _ad infinitum_; or else one gains nothing beyond mere

words. In fact, it is absolutely necessary that in every word we should

perceive directly, and without the assistance of any demonstration, the

fundamental notion which it expresses, if we wish to have any foundation

to which we may refer our researches, our difficulties, and our personal

judgments, whatever in other respects may be the criterion which we

adopt, whether we take as our standard the impressions produced on our

senses, or the actual impression in general; or whether we cling to the

idea by itself, or to any other criterion.

“We must also note carefully the impressions which we receive in the

presence of objects, in order to bring ourselves back to that point in

the circumstances in which it is necessary to suspend the judgment, or

even when the question is about things, the evidence of which is not

immediately perceived.

“When these foundations are once laid we may pass to the study of those

things, the evidence of which is not immediate. And, first of all, we

must admit that nothing can come of that which does not exist; for, were

the fact otherwise, then every thing would be produced from everything,

and there would be no need of any seed. And if that which disappeared

were so absolutely destroyed as to become non-existent, then every thing

would soon perish, as the things with which they would be dissolved would

have no existence. But, in truth, the universal whole always was such as

it now is, and always will be such. For there is nothing into which it

can change; for there is nothing beyond this universal whole which can

penetrate into it, and produce any change in it.”

(And Epicurus establishes the same principles at the beginning of the

great Abridgment; and in the first book of his treatise on Nature.)[140]

“Now the universal whole is a body; for our senses bear us witness in

every case that bodies have a real existence; and the evidence of the

senses, as I have said before, ought to be the rule of our reasonings

about everything which is not directly perceived. Otherwise, if that

which we call the vacuum, or space, or intangible nature, had not a real

existence, there would be nothing on which the bodies could be contained,

or across which they could move, as we see that they really do move. Let

us add to this reflection that one cannot conceive, either in virtue of

perception, or of any analogy founded on perception, any general quality

peculiar to all beings which is not either an attribute, or an accident

of the body, or of the vacuum.”

(The same principles are laid down in the first, and fourteenth,

and fifteenth book of the treatise on Nature; and also in the Great

Abridgment.)

“Now, of bodies, some are combinations, and some the elements out of

which these combinations are formed. These last are indivisible, and

protected from every kind of transformation; otherwise everything would

be resolved into non-existence. They exist by their own force, in the

midst of the dissolution of the combined bodies, being absolutely

full, and as such offering no handle for destruction to take hold of.

It follows, therefore, as a matter of absolute necessity, that the

principles of things must be corporeal, indivisible elements.

“The universe is infinite. For that which is finite has an extreme, and

that which has an extreme is looked at in relation to something else.

Consequently, that which has not an extreme, has no boundary; and if it

has no boundary, it must be infinite, and not terminated by any limit.

The universe then is infinite, both with reference to the quantity of

bodies of which it is made up, and to the magnitude of the vacuum; for

if the vacuum were infinite, the bodies being finite, then, the bodies

would not be able to rest in any place; they would be transported about,

scattered across the infinite vacuum for want of any power to steady

themselves, or to keep one another in their places by mutual repulsion.

If, on the other hand, the vacuum were finite, the bodies being infinite,

then the bodies clearly could never be contained in the vacuum.

“Again: the atoms which form the bodies, these full elements from which

the combined bodies come, and into which they resolve themselves, assume

an incalculable variety of forms, for the numerous differences which

the bodies present cannot possibly result from an aggregate of the same

forms. Each variety of forms contains an infinity of atoms, but there is

not for that reason an infinity of atoms; it is only the number of them

which is beyond all calculation.”

(Epicurus adds, a little lower down, that divisibility, _ad infinitum_,

is impossible; for, says he, the only things which change are the

qualities; unless, indeed, one wishes to proceed from division to

division, till one arrives absolutely at infinite littleness.)

“The atoms are in a continual state of motion.”

(He says, farther on, that they move with an equal rapidity from all

eternity, since the vacuum offers no more resistance to the lightest than

it does to the heaviest.)

“Among the atoms, some are separated by great distances, others come very

near to one another in the formation of combined bodies, or at times are

enveloped by others which are combining; but in this latter case they,

nevertheless, preserve their own peculiar motion, thanks to the nature

of the vacuum, which separates the one from the other, and yet offers

them no resistance. The solidity which they possess causes them, while

knocking against one another, to re-act the one upon the other; till at

last the repeated shocks bring on the dissolution of the combined body;

and for all this there is no external cause, the atoms and the vacuum

being the only causes.”

(He says, further on, that the atoms have no peculiar quality of their

own, except from magnitude and weight. As to colour, he says in the

twelfth book of his Principia, that it varies according to the position

of the atoms. Moreover, he does not attribute to the atoms any kind of

dimensions; and, accordingly, no atom has ever been perceived by the

senses; but this expression, if people only recollect what is here said,

will by itself offer to the thoughts a sufficient image of the nature of

things.)

“But, again, the worlds also are infinite, whether they resemble this one

of ours or whether they are different from it. For, as the atoms are,

as to their number, infinite, as I have proved above, they necessarily

move about at immense distances; for besides, this infinite multitude of

atoms, of which the world is formed, or by which it is produced, could

not be entirely absorbed by one single world, nor even by any worlds,

the number of which was limited, whether we suppose them like this world

of ours, or different from it. There is, therefore, no fact inconsistent

with an infinity of worlds.

“Moreover, there are images resembling, as far as their form goes, the

solid bodies which we see, but which differ materially from them in

the thinness of their substance. In fact it is not impossible but that

there may be in space some secretions of this kind, and an aptitude to

form surfaces without depth, and of an extreme thinness; or else that

from the solids there may emanate some particles which preserve the

connection, the disposition, and the motion which they had in the body.

I give the name of images to these representations; and, indeed, their

movement through the vacuum taking place, without meeting any obstacle or

hindrance, perfects all imaginable extent in an inconceivable moment of

time; for it is the meeting of obstacles, or the absence of obstacles,

which produces the rapidity or the slowness of their motion. At all

events, a body in motion does not find itself, at any moment imaginable,

in two places at the same time; that is quite inconceivable. From

whatever point of infinity it arrives at some appreciable moment, and

whatever may be the spot in its course in which we perceive its motion,

it has evidently quitted that spot at the moment of our thought; for

this motion which, as we have admitted up to this point, encounters no

obstacle to its rapidity, is wholly in the same condition as that the

rapidity of which is diminished by the shock of some resistance.

“It is useful, also, to retain this principle, and to know that the

images have an incomparable thinness; which fact indeed is in no respect

contradicted by sensible appearances. From which it follows that their

rapidity also is incomparable; for they find everywhere an easy passage,

and besides, their infinite smallness causes them to experience no shock,

or at all events to experience but a very slight one, while an infinite

multitude of elements very soon encounter some resistance.

“One must not forget that the production of images is simultaneous with

the thought; for from the surface of the bodies images of this kind are

continually flowing off in an insensible manner indeed, because they are

immediately replaced. They preserve for a long time the same disposition,

and the same arrangement that the atoms do in the solid body, although,

notwithstanding, their form may be sometimes altered. The direct

production of images in space is equally instantaneous, because these

images are only light substances destitute of depth.

“But there are other manners in which natures of this kind are produced;

for there is nothing in all this which at all contradicts the senses, if

one only considers in what way the senses are exercised, and if one is

inclined to explain the relation which is established between external

objects and ourselves. Also, one must admit that something passes

from external objects into us in order to produce in us sight and the

knowledge of forms; for it is difficult to conceive that external objects

can affect us through the medium of the air which is between us and them,

or by means of rays, whatever emissions proceed from us to them, so as

to give us an impression of their form and colour. This phenomenon, on

the contrary, is perfectly explained, if we admit that certain images of

the same colour, of the same shape, and of a proportionate magnitude pass

from these objects to us, and so arrive at being seen and comprehended.

These images are animated by an exceeding rapidity, and, as on the other

side, the solid object forming a compact mass, and comprising a vast

quantity of atoms, emits always the same quantity of particles, the

vision is continued, and only produces in us one single perception which

preserves always the same relation to the object. Every conception, every

sensible perception which bears upon the form or the other attributes

of these images, is only the same form of the solid perceived directly,

either in virtue of a sort of actual and continued condensation of the

image, or in consequence of the traces which it has left in us.

“Error and false judgments always depend upon the supposition that

a preconceived idea will be confirmed, or at all events will not be

overturned, by evidence. Then, when it is not confirmed, we form our

judgment in virtue of a sort of initiation of the thoughts connected,

it is true with the perception, and with a direct representation; but

still connected also with a conception peculiar to ourselves, which is

the parent of error. In fact the representations which intelligence

reflects like a mirror, whether one perceives them in a dream, or by any

other conceptions of the intellect, or of any other of the criteria, can

never resemble the objects that one calls real and true, unless there

were objects of this kind perceived directly. And, on the other side,

error could not be possible if we did not receive some other motion

also, a sort of initiative of intelligence connected; it is true with

direct representation, but going beyond that representative. These

conceptions being connected with the direct perception which produces the

representation, but going beyond it, in consequence of a motion peculiar

to the individual thought, produces error when it is not confirmed

by evidence, or when it is contradicted by evidence; but when it is

confirmed, or when it is not contradicted by evidence, then it produces

truth.

“We must carefully preserve these principles in order not to reject the

authority of the faculties which perceive truth directly; and not, on the

other hand, to allow what is false to be established with equal firmness,

so as to throw everything into confusion.

“Moreover, hearing is produced by some sort of current proceeding from

something that speaks, or sounds, or roars, or in any manner causes

any sort of audible circumstance. And this current is diffused into

small bodies resembling one another in their parts; which, preserving

not only some kind of relation between one another, but even a sort

of particular identity with the object from which they emanate, puts

us, very frequently, into a communication of sentiments with this

object, or at least causes us to become aware of the existence of some

external circumstance. If these currents did not carry with them some

sort of sympathy, then there would be no such perception. We must not

therefore think that it is the air which receives a certain form, under

the action of the voice or of some other sound. For it is utterly

impossible that the voice should act in this manner on the air. But the

percussion produced in us when we, by the utterance of a voice, cause a

disengagement of certain particles, constitutes a current resembling a

light whisper, and prepares an acoustic feeling for us.

“We must admit that the case of smelling is the same as that of hearing.

There would be no sense of smell if there did not emanate from most

objects certain particles capable of producing an impression on the

smell. One class being ill-suited to the organ, and consequently

producing a disordered state of it, the other being suited to it, and

causing it no distress.

“One must also allow, that the atoms possess no one of the qualities of

sensible objects, except form, weight, magnitude and anything else is

unavoidably inherent in form; in fact, every quality is changeable, but

the atoms are necessarily unchangeable; for it is impossible but that

in the dissolution of combined bodies, there must be something which

continues solid and indestructible, of such a kind, that it will not

change either into what does not exist, or out of what does not exist;

but that it results either from a simple displacement of parts, which

is the most usual case, or from the addition or subtraction of certain

particles. It follows from that, that that which does not admit of any

change in itself, is imperishable, participates in no respect in the

nature of changeable things, and in a word, has its dimensions and forms

immutably determined. And this is proved plainly enough, because even in

the transformations which take place under our eyes, in consequence of

the retrenchment of certain parts, we can still recognise the form of

these constituent parts; while those qualities, which are not constituent

parts, do not remain like the form, but perish in the dissolution of the

combination. The attributes which we have indicated, suffice to explain

all the differences of combined bodies; for we must inevitably leave

something indestructible, lest everything should resolve itself into

non-existence.

“However, one must not believe that every kind of magnitude exists in

atoms, lest we find ourselves contradicted by phænomena. But we must

admit that there are atoms of different magnitude, because, as that is

the case, it is then more easy to explain the impressions and sensations;

at all events, I repeat, it is not necessary for the purpose of

explaining the differences of the qualities, to attribute to atoms every

kind of magnitude.

“We must not suppose either, that an atom can become visible to us;

for, first of all, one does not see that that is the case, and besides,

one cannot even conceive, how an atom is to become visible; besides, we

must not believe, that in a finite body there are particles of every

sort, infinite in number; consequently, one must not only reject the

doctrine of infinite divisibility in parcels smaller and smaller, lest

we should be reducing everything to nothing, and find ourselves forced

to admit, that in a mass composed of a crowd of elements, existence can

reduce itself to non-existence. But one cannot even suppose that a finite

object can be susceptible of transformations _ad infinitum_, or even of

transformation into smaller objects than itself; for when once one has

said that there are in an object particles of every kind, infinite in

number, there is absolutely no means whatever of imagining that this

object can have only a finite magnitude; in fact, it is evident that

these particles, infinite in number, have some kind of dimension or

other, and whatever this dimension may be in other respects, the objects

which are composed of it will have an infinite magnitude; in presenting

forms which are determined, and limits which are perceived by the senses,

one conceives, easily, without its being necessary to study this last

question directly, that this would be the consequence of the contrary

supposition, and that consequently, one must come to look at every object

as infinite.

“One must also admit, that the most minute particle perceptible to the

sense, is neither absolutely like the objects which are susceptible

of transformation, nor absolutely different from them. It has some

characteristics in common with the object which admit of transformation,

but it also differs from them, inasmuch as it does not allow any distinct

parts to be discerned in it. When then, in virtue of these common

characteristics, and of this resemblance, we wish to form an idea of the

smallest particle perceptible by the senses, in taking the objects which

change for our terms of comparison, it is necessary that we should seize

on some characteristic common to these different objects. In this way, we

examine them successively, from the first to the last, not by themselves,

nor as composed of parts in juxtaposition, but only in their extent; in

other words, we consider the magnitudes by themselves, and in an abstract

manner, inasmuch as they measure, the greater a greater extent, and the

smaller a smaller extent. This analogy applies to the atom, as far as we

consider it as having the smallest dimensions possible. Evidently by its

minuteness, it differs from all sensible objects, still this analogy is

applicable to it; in a word, we establish by this comparison, that the

atom really has some extent, but we exclude all considerable dimensions,

for the sake of only investing it with the smallest proportions.[141]

“We must also admit, in taking for our guide, the reasoning which

discourses to us things which are invisible to the senses, that the most

minute magnitudes, those which are not compound magnitudes, and which

from the limit of sensible extent, are the first measure of the other

magnitudes which are only called greater or less in their relation to the

others. For these relations which they maintain with these particles,

which are not subject to transformation, suffice to give them this

characteristic of first measure. But they cannot, like atoms, combine

themselves, and form compound bodies in virtue of any motion belonging to

themselves.

“Moreover, we must not say (while speaking of the infinite), that such

or such a point is the highest point of it, or the lowest. For height

and lowness must not be predicated of the infinite. We know, in reality,

that if, wishing to determine the infinite, we conceive a point above our

head, this point, whatever it may be, will never appear to us to have the

character in question: otherwise, that which would be situated above the

point so conceived as the limit of the infinite, would be at the same

moment, and by virtue of its relation to the same point, both high and

low; and this is impossible to imagine.

“It follows that thought can only conceive that one single movement of

transference, from low to high, _ad infinitum_; and one single movement

from high to low. From low to high, when even the object in motion, going

from us to the places situated above our heads, meets ten thousand times

with the feet of those who are above us; and from high to low, when in

the same way it advances towards the heads of those who are below us.

For these two movements, looked at by themselves and in their whole,

are conceived as really opposed the one to the other, in their progress

towards the infinite.

“Moreover, all the atoms are necessarily animated by the same rapidity,

when they move across the vacuum, or when no obstacle thwarts them. For

why should heavy atoms have a more rapid movement than those which are

small and light, since in no quarter do they encounter any obstacle? Why,

on the other hand, should the small atoms have a rapidity superior to

that of the large ones, since both the one and the other find everywhere

an easy passage, from the very moment that no obstacle intervenes to

thwart their movements? Movement from low to high, horizontal movement to

and fro, in virtue of the reciprocal percussion of the atoms, movement

downwards, in virtue of their weight, will be all equal, for in whatever

sense the atom moves, it must have a movement as rapid as the thought,

till the moment when it is repelled, in virtue of some external cause, or

of its own proper weight, by the shock of some object which resists it.

“Again, even in the compound bodies, one atom does not move more rapidly

than another. In fact, if one only looks at the continued movement of an

atom which takes place in an indivisible moment of time, the briefest

possible, they all have a movement equally rapid. At the same time, an

atom has not, in any moment perceptible to the intelligence, a continued

movement in the same direction; but rather a series of oscillating

movements from which there results, in the last analysis, a continued

movement perceptible to the senses. If then, one were to suppose, in

virtue of a reasoning on things invisible, that, in the intervals of time

accessible to thought, the atoms have a continued movement one would

deceive one’s self, for that which is conceived by the thought is true as

well as that which is directly perceived.

“Let us now return to the study of the affections, and of the sensations;

for this will be the best method of proving that the soul is a bodily

substance composed of slight particles, diffused over all the members

of the body, and presenting a great analogy to a sort of spirit, having

an admixture of heat, resembling at one time one, and at another time

the other of those two principles. There exists in it a special part,

endowed with an extreme mobility, in consequence of the exceeding

slightness of the elements which compose it, and also in reference to

its more immediate sympathy with the rest of the body. That it is which

the faculties of the soul sufficiently prove, and the passions, and the

mobility of its nature, and the thoughts, and, in a word, everything, the

privation of which is death. We must admit that it is in the soul most

especially that the principle of sensation resides. At the same time, it

would not possess this power if it were not enveloped by the rest of the

body which communicates it to it, and in its turn receives it from it,

but only in a certain measure; for there are certain affections of the

soul of which it is not capable.

“It is on that account that, when the soul departs, the body is no longer

possessed of sensation; for it has not this power, (that of sensation

namely) in itself; but, on the other hand, this power can only manifest

itself in the soul through the medium of the body. The soul, reflecting

the manifestations which are accomplished in the substance which environs

it, realises in itself, in a virtue or power which belongs to it, the

sensible affections, and immediately communicates them to the body in

virtue of the reciprocal bonds of sympathy which unite it to the body;

that is the reason why the destruction of a part of the body does not

draw after it a cessation of all feeling in the soul while it resides in

the body, provided that the senses still preserve some energy; although,

nevertheless, the dissolution of the corporeal covering, or even of any

one of its portions, may sometimes bring on with it the destruction of

the soul.

“The rest of the body, on the other hand, even when it remains, either

as a whole, or in any part, loses all feeling by the dispersion of

that aggregate of atoms, whatever it may be, that forms the soul. When

the entire combination of the body is dissolved, then the soul too is

dissolved, and ceases to retain those faculties which were previously

inherent in it, and especially the power of motion; so that sensation

perishes equally as far as the soul is concerned; for it is impossible to

imagine that it still feels, from the moment when it is no longer in the

same conditions of existence, and no longer possesses the same movements

of existence in reference to the same organic system; from the moment, in

short, when the things which cover and surround it are no longer such,

that it retains in them the same movements as before.

(Epicurus expresses the same ideas in other works, and adds that the

soul is composed of atoms of the most perfect lightness and roundness;

atoms wholly different from those of fire. He distinguishes in it the

irrational part which is diffused over the whole body, from the rational

part which has its seat in the chest, as is proved by the emotions of

fear and joy. He adds that sleep is produced when the parts of the soul

diffused over the whole of the body concentre themselves, or when they

disperse and escape by the pores of the body; for particles emanate from

all bodies.)

“It must also be observed, that I use the word incorporeal (ἀσώματος) in

the usual acceptation of the word, to express that which is in itself

conceived as such. Now, nothing can be conceived in itself as incorporeal

except the vacuum; but the vacuum cannot be either passive or active; it

is only the condition and the place of movement. Accordingly, they who

pretend that the soul is incorporeal, utter words destitute of sense;

for, if it had this character, it would not be able either to do or to

suffer anything; but, as it is, we see plainly enough that it is liable

to both these circumstances.

“Let us then apply all these reasonings to the affections and sensations,

recollecting the ideas which we laid down at the beginning, and then we

shall see clearly that these general principles contain an exact solution

of all the particular cases.

“As to forms, and hues, and magnitudes, and weight, and the other

qualities which one looks upon as attributes, whether it be of every

body, or of those bodies only which are visible and perceived by

the senses, this is the point of view under which they ought to be

considered: they are not particular substances, having a peculiar

existence of their own, for that cannot be conceived; nor can one say

any more that they have no reality at all. They are not incorporeal

substances inherent in the body, nor are they parts of the body. But

they constitute by their union the eternal substance and the essence

of the entire body. We must not fancy, however, that the body is

composed of them, as an aggregate is formed of particles of the smallest

dimensions of atoms or magnitudes, whatever they may be, smaller than

the compound body itself; they only constitute by their union, I repeat,

the eternal substance of the body. Each of these attributes has ideas

and particular perceptions which correspond to it; but they cannot be

perceived independently of the whole subject taken entirely; the union of

all these perceptions forms the idea of the body. Bodies often possess

other attributes which are not eternally inherent in them, but which,

nevertheless, cannot be ranged among the incorporeal and invisible

things. Accordingly, it is sufficient to express the general idea of the

movement of transference to enable us to conceive in a moment certain

distinct qualities, and those combined beings, which, being taken in

their totality, receive the name of bodies; and the necessary and eternal

attributes without which the body cannot be conceived.

“There are certain conceptions corresponding to these attributes; but,

nevertheless, they cannot be known abstractedly, and independently

of some subjects; and further, inasmuch as they are not attributes

necessarily inherent in the idea of a body, one can only conceive them in

the moment in which they are visible; they are realities nevertheless;

and one must not refuse them being an existence merely because they

have neither the characteristic of the compound beings to which we give

the name of bodies, nor that of the eternal attributes. We should be

equally deceived if we were to suppose that they have a separate and

independent existence; for that is true neither of them nor of the

eternal attributes. They are, as one sees plainly, accidents of the body;

accidents which do not of necessity make any part of its nature; which

cannot be considered as independent substances, but still to each of

which sensation gives the peculiar character under which it appears to us.

“Another important question is that of time. Here we cannot apply any

more the method of examination to which we submit other objects, which

we study with reference to a given subject; and which we refer to the

preconceptions which exist in ourselves. We must seize, by analogy, and

going round the whole circle of things comprised under this general

denomination of time—we must seize, I say—that essential character which

causes us to say that a time is long or short. It is not necessary for

that purpose to seek for any new forms of expression as preferable to

those which are in common use; we may content ourselves with those by

which time is usually indicated. Nor need we, as certain philosophers do,

affirm any particular attribute of time, for that would be to suppose

that its essence is the same as that of this attribute. It is sufficient

too seek for the ingredients of which this particular nature which we

call time is composed, and for the means by which it is measured. For

this we have no need of demonstration; a simple exposition is sufficient.

It is, in fact, evident, that we speak of time as composed of days and

nights, and parts of days and nights; passiveness and impassibility,

movement and repose, are equally comprised in time. In short, it is

evident that in connection with these different states, we conceive a

particular property to which we give the name of time.

(Epicurus lays down the same principles in the second book of his

treatise on Nature, and in his great Abridgment.)

“It is from the infinite that the worlds are derived, and all the finite

aggregates which present numerous analogies with the things which we

observe under our own eyes. Each of these objects, great and small, has

been separated from the infinite by a movement peculiar to itself. On

the other hand, all these bodies will be successively destroyed, some

more, and others less rapidly; some under the influence of one cause, and

others because of the agency of some other.

(It is evident, after this, that Epicurus regards the worlds

as perishable, since he admits that their parts are capable of

transformation. He also says in other places, that the earth rests

suspended in the air.)

“We must not believe that the worlds have of necessity all one identical

form.

(He says, in fact, in the twelfth book of his treatise on the World,

that the worlds differ from one another; some being spherical, other

elliptical, and others of other shapes.)

“Nevertheless, there are not worlds of every possible form and shape.

“Let us also beware of thinking that animals are derived from the

infinite; for there is no one who can prove that the germs from which

animals are born, and plants, and all the other objects which we

contemplate, have been brought from the exterior in such a world, and

that this same world would not have been able to produce them of itself.

This remark applies particularly to the earth.

“Again, we must admit that in many and various respects, nature is both

instructed and constrained by circumstances themselves; and that reason

subsequently makes perfect and enriches with additional discoveries

the things which it has borrowed from nature; in some cases rapidly,

and in others more slowly. And in some cases according to periods and

times greater than those which proceed from the infinite; in other

cases according to those which are smaller. So, originally it was only

in virtue of express agreements that one gave names to things. But men

whose ideas and passions varied according to their respective nations,

formed these names of their own accord, uttering divers sounds produced

by each passion, or by each idea, following the differences of the

situations and of the peoples. At a later period one established in each

nation, in a uniform manner, particular terms intended to render the

relations more easy, and language more concise. Educated men introduced

the notion of things not discoverable by the senses, and appropriated

words to them when they found themselves under the necessity of uttering

their thoughts; after this, other men, guided in every point by reason,

interpreted these words in the same sense.

“As to the heavenly phænomena, such as the motion and course of the

stars, the eclipses, their rising and setting, and all other appearances

of the same kind, we must beware of thinking that they are produced by

any particular being which has regulated, or whose business it is to

regulate, for the future, the order of the world, a being immortal and

perfectly happy; for the cares and anxieties, the benevolence and the

anger, far from being compatible with felicity, are, on the contrary,

the consequence of weakness, of fear, and of the want which a thing has

of something else. We must not fancy either that these globes of fire,

which roll on in space, enjoy a perfect happiness, and give themselves,

with reflection and wisdom, the motions which they possess. But we must

respect the established notions on this subject, provided, nevertheless,

that they do not all contradict the respect due to truth; for nothing is

more calculated to trouble the soul than this strife of contradictory

notions and principles. We must therefore admit that from the first

movement impressed on the heavenly bodies since the organization of the

world there is derived a sort of necessity which regulates their course

to this day.

“Let us be well assured that it is to physiology that it belongs to

determine the causes of the most elevated phænomena, and that happiness

consists, above all things, in the science of the heavenly things and

their nature, and in the knowledge of analogous phænomena which may aid

us in the comprehension of the ethics. These heavenly phænomena admit

of several explanations; they have no reason of a necessary character,

and one may explain them in different manners. In a word, they have no

relation—a moment’s consideration will prove this by itself—with those

imperishable and happy natures which admit of no division and of no

confusion. As for the theoretical knowledge of the rising and setting

of the stars, of the movement of the sun between the tropics, of the

eclipses, and all other similar phænomena, that is utterly useless, as

far as any influence upon happiness that it can have. Moreover, those

who, though possessed of this knowledge, are ignorant of nature, and

of the most probable causes of the phænomena, are no more protected

from fear than if they were in the most complete ignorance; they even

experience the most lively fears, for the trouble, with which the

knowledge of which they are possessed inspires them, can find no issue,

and is not dissipated by a clear perception of the reasons of these

phænomena.

“As to us, we find many explanations of the motions of the sun, of the

rising and setting of the stars, of the eclipses and similar phænomena,

just as well as of the more particular phænomena. And one must not think

that this method of explanation is not sufficient to procure happiness

and tranquillity. Let us content ourselves with examining how it is that

similar phænomena are brought about under our own eyes, and let us apply

these observations to the heavenly objects and to everything which is

not known but indirectly. Let us despise those people who are unable

to distinguish facts susceptible of different explanations from others

which can only exist and be explained in one single way. Let us disdain

those men who do not know, by means of the different images which result

from distance, how to give an account of the different appearances of

things; who, in a word, are ignorant what are the objects which can

excite any trouble in us. If, then, we know that such a phænomenon can be

brought about in the same manner as another given phænomenon of the same

character which does not inspire us with any apprehension; and if, on the

other hand, we know that it can take place in many different manners, we

shall not be more troubled at the sight of it than if we knew the real

cause of it.

“We must also recollect that that which principally contributes to

trouble the spirit of men is the persuasion which they cherish that the

stars are beings imperishable and perfectly happy, and that then one’s

thoughts and actions are in contradiction to the will of these superior

beings; they also, being deluded by these fables, apprehend an eternity

of evils, they fear the insensibility of death, as that could affect

them. What do I say? It is not even belief, but inconsiderateness and

blindness which govern them in every thing, to such a degree that, not

calculating these fears, they are just as much troubled as if they had

really faith in these vain phantoms. And the real freedom from this

kind of trouble consists in being emancipated from all these things,

and in preserving the recollection of all the principles which we have

established, especially of the most essential of them. Accordingly, it

is well to pay a scrupulous attention to existing phænomena and to the

sensations, to the general sensations for general things, and to the

particular sensations for particular things. In a word, we must take

note of this, the immediate evidence with which each of these judicial

faculties furnishes us; for, if we attend to these points, namely,

whence confusion and fear arise, we shall divine the causes correctly,

and we shall deliver ourselves from those feelings, tracing back the

heavenly phænomena to their causes, and also all the others which present

themselves at every step, and inspire the common people with extreme

terror.

“This, Herodotus, is a kind of summary and abridgment of the whole

question of natural philosophy. So that, if this reasoning be allowed to

be valid, and be preserved carefully in the memory, the man who allows

himself to be influenced by it, even though he may not descend to a

profound study of its details, will have a great superiority of character

over other men. He will personally discover a great number of truths

which I have myself set forth in my entire work; and these truths being

stored in his memory, will be a constant assistance to him. By means of

these principles, those who have descended into the details, and have

studied the question sufficiently, will be able, in bringing in all

their particular knowledge to bear on the general subject, to run over

without difficulty almost the entire circle of the natural philosophy;

those, on the other hand, who are not yet arrived at perfection, and who

have not been able to hear me lecture on these subjects, will be able in

their minds to run over the main of the essential notions, and to derive

assistance from them for the tranquillity and happiness of life.”

This then is his letter on physics.

XXV. About the heavenly bodies he writes thus:—

EPICURUS TO PYTHOCLES, WISHING HE MAY DO WELL.

“Cleon has brought me your letter, in which you continue to evince

towards me an affection worthy of the friendship which I have for you.

You devote all your care, you tell me, to engraving in your memory those

ideas which contribute to the happiness of life; and you entreat me at

the same time to send you a simple abridgment and abstract of my ideas on

the heavenly phænomena, in order that you may without difficulty preserve

the recollection of them. For, say you, what I have written on this

subject in my other works is difficult to recollect, even with continual

study.

“I willingly yield to your desire, and I have good hope, that in

fulfilling what you ask, I shall be useful too to many others, especially

to those who are as yet novices in the real knowledge of nature, and to

those to whom the perplexities and the ordinary affairs of life leave but

little leisure. Be careful then to seize on those precepts thoroughly,

engrave them deeply in your memory, and meditate on them with the

abridgment addressed to Herodotus, which I also send you.

“Know then, that it is with the knowledge of the heavenly phænomena, both

with those which are spoken of in contact with one another, and of those

which have a spontaneous existence, as with every other science; it has

no other aim but that freedom from anxiety, and that calmness which is

derived from a firm belief.

“It is not good to desire what is impossible, and to endeavour to

enunciate a uniform theory about everything; accordingly, we ought not

here to adopt the method, which we have followed in our researches into

Ethics, or in the solution of problems of natural philosophy. We there

said, for instance, that there are no other things, except bodies and

the vacuum, that the atoms are the principles of things, and so of the

rest. In a word, we gave a precise and simple explanation of every fact,

conformable to appearances.

“We cannot act in the same way with respect to the heavenly phænomena:

these productions may depend upon several different causes, and we may

give many different explanations on this subject, equally agreeing with

the impressions of the senses. Besides, it is not here a question about

reasoning on new principles, and of laying down, _à priori_, rules for

the interpretation of nature; the only guides for us to follow are the

appearances themselves; for that which we have in view is not a set of

systems and vain opinions, but much rather a life exempt from every kind

of disquietude.

“The heavenly phænomena do not inspire those who give different

explanations of them, conformable with appearances, instead of explaining

them by hypothesis, with any alarm. But if, abandoning hypothesis, one at

the same time renounces the attempt to explain them by means of analogies

founded on appearances, then one is placing one’s self altogether at a

distance from the science of nature, in order to fall into fables.

“It is possible that the heavenly phænomena may present some apparent

characters which appear to assimilate them to those phænomena which we

see taking place around ourselves, without there being any real analogy

at the bottom. For the heavenly phænomena may depend for their production

on many different causes; nevertheless, we must observe the appearances

presented by each, and we must distinguish the different circumstances

which attach to them, and which can be explained in different manners by

means of analogous phænomena which arise under our eyes.

“The world is a collection of things embraced by the heaven, containing

the stars, the earth, and all visible objects. This collection, separated

from the infinite, is terminated by an extremity, which is either rare,

or dense, or revolving, or in a state of repose, or of a round, or

triangular, or of some shape or other in fact, for it may be of any

shape, the dissolution of which must bring the destruction of everything

which they embrace. In fact, it can take place in every sort of way,

since there is not one of those things which are seen which testifies

against this world in which we cannot detect any extremity; and that

such worlds are infinite in number is easily seen, and also that such

a world can exist both in the world and in the μετακόσμιον, as we call

the space between the worlds, being a huge space made up of plenum and

vacuum, but not, as some philosophers pretend, an immensity of space

absolutely empty. This production of a world may be explained thus: seeds

suitably appropriated to such an end may emanate either from one or from

several worlds, or from the space that separates them; they flow towards

a particular point where they become collected together and organized;

after that, other germs come to unite them together in such a way as

to form a durable whole, a basis, a nucleus to which all successive

additions unite themselves.

“One must not content one’s self in this question with saying, as one

of the natural philosophers has done, that there is a re-union of the

elements, or a violent motion in the vacuum under the influence of

necessity, and that the body which is thus produced increases until it

comes to crash against some other; for this doctrine is contrary to

appearances.

“The sun, the moon, and the other stars, were originally formed

separately, and were afterwards comprehended in the entire total of the

world. All the other objects which our world comprises, for instance,

the earth and the sea, were also formed spontaneously, and subsequently

gained size by the addition and violent movement of light substances,

composed of elements of fire and air, or even of these two principles at

once. This explanation, moreover, is in accordance with the impressions

of the senses.

“As to the magnitude of the sun and of the other stars, it is as far as

we are concerned, such as it appears to us to be.”

(This same doctrine is reproduced, and occurs again in the eleventh book

of his treatise on Nature; where he says, “If the distance has made it

lose its size, _à fortiori_, it would take away its brilliancy; for

colour has not, any more than size, the property of traversing distance

without alteration.”)

“But, considered by itself, the sun may be a little greater or a little

smaller than it appears; or it may be just such as it looks; for that is

exactly the case with the fires of common occurrence among men, which

are perceived by the senses at a distance. Besides, all the difficulties

on this subject will be easily explained if one attends to the clear

evidence of the perceptions, as I have shown in my books about Nature.

“The rising and setting of the sun, of the moon, and of the stars,

may depend on the fact of their becoming lighted up, and extinguished

alternately, and in the order which we behold. One may also give other

reasons for this phænomenon, which are not contradicted by any sensible

appearances; accordingly, one might explain them by the passage of the

stars above and below the earth, for the impressions of the senses agree

also with this supposition.

“As to their motion, one may make that depend on the circular movement

of the entire heaven. One may also suppose that the stars move, while

the heaven itself is immoveable; for there is nothing to prevent the

idea that originally, before the formation of the world, they may have

received, by the appointment of fate, an impulse from east to west, and

that now their movement continues in consequence of their heat, as the

fire naturally proceeds onwards in order to seek the aliment which suits

it.

“The intertropical movements of the sun and moon may depend, either on

the obliquity impressed by fate on the heaven at certain determined

epochs, or on the resistance of the air, or on the fact that these

ignited bodies stand in need of being nourished by a matter suitable

to their nature, and that this matter fails them; or finally, they

may depend on the fact of their having originally received an impulse

which compels them to move as they do describing a sort of spiral

figure. The sensible evidence does not in the least contradict these

different suppositions, and all those of the same kind which one can

form, having always a due regard to what is possible, and bringing

back each phænomenon to its analogous appearances in sensible facts,

without disquieting one’s self about the miserable speculations of the

astronomers.

“The evacuations and subsequent replenishings of the moon may depend

either on a conversion of this body, or on the different forms which the

air when in a fiery state can adopt, or perhaps to the interposition of

another body, or lastly, to some one of the causes by which one gives

account of the analogous phænomena which pass under our eyes. Provided,

however, that one does not obstinately adopt an exclusive mode of

explanation; and that, for want of knowing what is possible for a man to

explain, and what is inaccessible to his intelligence; one does not throw

one’s self into interminable speculations.

“It may also be possibly the case that the moon has a light of her own,

or that she reflects that of the sun. For we see around us many objects

which are luminous of themselves, and many others which have only a

borrowed light. In a word, one will not be arrested by any of the

celestial phænomena, provided that one always recollects that there are

many explanations possible; that one examines the principles and reasons

which agree with this mode of explanation, and that one does not proceed

in accounting for the facts which do not agree with this method, to

suffer one’s self to be foolishly carried away, and to propose a separate

explanation for each phænomenon, sometimes in one way, and sometimes in

another.

“The appearance of a face in the orb of the moon, may depend either on a

displacement of its parts, or on the interposition of some obstacle, or

on any other cause capable of accounting for such an appearance. For one

must not neglect to apply this same method to all the heavenly phænomena;

for, from the moment when one comes to any point of contradiction to

the evidence of the senses, it will be impossible to possess perfect

tranquillity and happiness.

“The eclipses of the sun and moon may depend either on the fact that

these stars extinguish themselves, a phænomenon which we often see

produced under our eyes, or on the fact of other bodies, the earth, the

heaven, or something else of the same kind interposing, between them

and us. Besides, we must compare the different modes of explanation

appropriate to phænomena, and recollect that it is not impossible that

many causes may at one and the same time concur in their production.

(He says the same thing in the twelfth book of his treatise on Nature;

and adds that the eclipses of the sun arise from the fact that it

penetrates into the shade of the moon, to quit it again presently; and

the eclipses of the moon from the fact of its entering into the shade

of the earth. We also find the same doctrine asserted by Diogenes, the

Epicurean, in the first book of his Select Opinions.)

“The regular and periodical march of these phænomena has nothing in it

that ought to surprise us, if we only attend to the analogous facts which

take place under our eyes. Above all things let us beware of making the

Deity interpose here, for that being we ought to suppose exempt from all

occupation and perfectly happy; otherwise we shall be only giving vain

explanations of the heavenly phænomena, as has happened already to a

crowd of authors. Not being able to recognize what is really possible,

they have fallen into vain theories, in supposing that for all phænomena

there was but one single mode of production, and in rejecting all other

explanations which are founded on probability; they have adopted the most

unreasonable opinions, for want of placing in the front the study of

the heavenly phænomena, and of sensible facts, which ought to serve to

explain the first.

“The differences in the length of nights and days may arise from the fact

that the passage of the sun above the earth is more or less rapid; and

more or less slow, according to the length of the regions which it has

to pass through. Or, again, to the fact that certain regions are passed

through more rapidly than others, as is seen to be the case by our own

eyes, in those things to which we can compare the heavenly phænomena. As

to those who on this point admit only one explanation as possible, they

put themselves in opposition to facts, and lose sight of the bounds set

to human knowledge.

“The prognostics which are derived from the stars may, like those which

we borrow from animals, arise from a simple coincidence. They may also

have other causes, for example, some change in the air; for these two

suppositions both harmonize equally with facts; but it is impossible to

distinguish in what case one is to attribute them to the one cause or to

the other.

“The clouds may be formed either by the air condensed under the pressure

of the winds, or by the agency of atoms set apart for that end, or by

emanations from the earth and waters, or by other causes. For there are

a great number which are all equally able to produce this effect. When

the clouds clash with one another, or undergo any transformation, they

produce showers; and the long rains are caused by the motion of the

clouds when moved from places suitable to them through the air, when a

more violent inundation than usual takes place, from collections of some

masses calculated to produce these effects.

“Thunder possibly arises from the movement of the winds revolving in the

cavities of the clouds; of which we may see an image in vessels in our

own daily use. It may also arise from the noise of fire acted upon by the

wind in them, and from the tearings and ruptures of the clouds when they

have received a sort of crystaline consistency. In a word, experience

drawn from our senses, teaches us that all these phænomena, and that one

in particular, may be produced in many different manners.

“One may also assign different causes to the lightning; either the shock

and collision of the clouds produce a fiery appearance, which is followed

by lightning; or the lighting up of the clouds by the winds, produces

this luminous appearance; or the mutual pressure of the clouds, or that

of the wind against them, disengages the lightning. Or, one might say,

that the interception of the light diffused from the stars, arrested for

a time in the bosom of the clouds, is driven from them subsequently by

their own movements, and by those of the winds, and so escapes from their

sides; that the lightning is an extremely subtile light that evaporates

from the clouds; that the clouds which carry the thunder are collected

masses of fire; that the lightning arises from the motion of the fire,

or from the conflagration of the wind, in consequence of the rapidity

and continuousness of its motion. One may also attribute the luminous

appearance of lightning to the rupture of the clouds under the action of

the winds, or to the fall of inflammable atoms. Lastly, one may easily

find a number of other explanations, if one applies to sensible facts,

in order to search out the analogies which they present to the heavenly

phænomena.

“Lightning precedes thunder, either because it is produced at the same

moment that the wind falls on the cloud, while the noise is only heard

at the instant when the wind has penetrated into the bosom of the cloud;

or, perhaps, the two phænomena being simultaneous, the lightning arrives

among us more rapidly than the noise of the thunder-bolt, as is in fact

remarked in other cases when we see at a distance the clash of two

objects.

“The thunderbolt may be produced either by a violent condensation of

the winds, or by their rapid motion and conflagration. It may arise

from the fact of the winds meeting in places which are too dense, in

consequence of the accumulation of clouds, and then a portion of the

current detaches itself and proceeds towards the lower situations; or

else it may be caused by the fire which is contained in the bosom of the

clouds precipitating itself downwards. As one may suppose that an immense

quantity of fire being accumulated in the clouds dilates, violently

bursting the substance which envelops it, because the resistance of the

centre hinders it from proceeding further. This effect is especially

produced in the neighbourhood of high mountains; and, accordingly, they

are very frequently struck with the thunderbolts. In short, one may give

a number of explanations of the thunderbolt; but we ought, above all

things, to be on our guard against fables, and this one will easily be,

if one follows faithfully the sensible phænomena in the explanation of

these things, which are not perceived, except indirectly.

“Hurricanes (πρηστῆρες) may be caused either by the presence of a

cloud, which a violent wind sets in motion and precipitates with a

spiral movement towards the lower regions, or by a violent gust which

bears a cloud into the neighbourhood of some other current, or else by

the mere agitation of the wind by itself, when air is brought together

from the higher regions and compressed without being able to escape on

either side, in consequence of the resistance of the air which surrounds

it; when the hurricane descends towards the earth, then there result

whirlwinds in proportion to the rapidity of the wind that has produced

them; and this phænomenon extends over the sea also.

“Earthquakes may arise from the wind penetrating into the interior of the

earth, or from the earth itself receiving incessantly the addition of

exterior particles, and being in incessant motion as to its constituent

atoms, being in consequence disposed to a general vibration. That which

permits the wind to penetrate is the fact that falls take place in the

interior, or that the air being impressed by the winds insinuates itself

into the subterraneous caverns. The movement which numberless falls and

the re-action of the earth communicate to the earth, when this motion

meets bodies of greater resistance and solidity, is sufficient to explain

the earthquakes. One might, however, give an account of them in several

other ways.

“Winds are caused, either by the successive and regular addition of some

foreign matter, or else by the re-union of a great quantity of water; and

the differences of the winds may arise from the fact that some portions

of this same matter fall into the numerous cavities of the earth, and are

divided there.

“Hail is produced by an energetic condensation acting on the ethereal

particles which the cold embraces in every direction; or, in consequence

of a less violent condensation acting however on aqueous particles, and

accompanied by division, in such a manner as to produce, at the same

time, the re-union of certain elements and of the collective masses; or

by the rupture of some dense and compact mass which would explain at

the same time, the numerousness of the particles and their individual

hardness. As to the spherical form of the hail, one may easily account

for that by admitting that the shocks which it receives in every

direction make all the angles disappear, or else that at the moment when

the different fragments are formed, each of them is equally embraced on

all sides by aqueous or ethereal particles.

“Snow may be produced by a light vapour full of moisture which the clouds

allow to escape by passages intended for that end, when they are pressed,

in a corresponding manner, by other clouds, and set in motion by the

wind. Subsequently, these vapours become condensed in their progress

under the action of the cold which surrounds the clouds in the lower

regions. It may also be the case that this phænomenon is produced by

clouds of a slight density as they become condensed. In this case the

snow which escapes from the clouds would be the result of the contact, or

approximation of the aqueous particles, which in a still more condensed

state produce hail. This effect is most especially produced in the

air. Snow, again, may result from the collection of clouds previously

condensed and solidified; or from a whole army of other causes.

“Dew proceeds from a re-union of particles contained in the air

calculated to produce this moist substance. These particles may be

also brought from places which are moist or covered with water (for

in those places, above all others, it is that dew is abundant). These

then re-unite, again resume their aqueous form, and fall down. The same

phænomenon takes place in other cases before our own eyes under many

analogies.

“Hoar-frost is dew congealed by the influence of the cold air that

surrounds it.

“Ice is formed either by the detrition of round atoms contained in the

water, and the re-union at scalene and acute angles of the atoms which

exist in the water, or by an addition from without of these latter

particles, which penetrating into the water, solidify it by driving away

an equal amount of round atoms.

“The rainbow may be produced by the reflection of the solar rays on the

moist air; or it may arise from a particular property of light and air,

in virtue of which these particular appearances of colour are formed,

either because the shades which we perceive result directly from this

property, or because, on the contrary, it only produces one single shade,

which, reflecting itself on the nearest portions of the air, communicates

to them the tints which we observe. As to the circular form of the

rainbow, that depends either on the fact of the sight perceiving an equal

distance in every direction, or the fact of the atoms taking this form

when re-uniting in the air; or it may be caused by its detaching from the

air which moves towards the moon, certain atoms which, being re-united in

the clouds, give rise to this circular appearance.

“The lunar halo arises from the fact of the air, which moves towards the

moon from all quarters, uniformly intercepting the rays emitted by this

star, in such a way as to form around it a sort of circular cloud which

partially veils it. It may also arise from the fact of the moon uniformly

rejecting from all quarters, the air which surrounds it, in such a

manner as to produce this circular and opaque covering. And perhaps this

opaqueness may be caused by some particles which some current brings from

without; perhaps also, the heat communicates to the moon the property of

emitting by the pores in its surface, the particles by which this effect

is produced.

“Comets arise either from the fact, that in the circumstances already

stated, there are partial conflagrations in certain points of the heaven;

or, that at certain periods, the heaven has above our heads a particular

movement which causes them to appear. It may also be the case, that being

themselves endowed with a peculiar movement, they advance at the end of

certain periods of time, and in consequence of particular circumstances,

towards the places which we inhabit. The opposite reasons explain their

disappearance.

“Certain stars return to the same point in accomplishing their

revolutions; and this arises, not only as has been sometimes believed,

from the fact of the pole of the world, around which they move, being

immoveable, but also from the fact that the gyrations of the air which

surrounds them, hinder them from deviations like the wandering stars.

Perhaps also, this may be caused by the fact, that except in the route

in which they move, and in which we perceive them, they do not find any

material suitable to their nature. One may also explain this phænomenon

in many other manners, reasoning according to sensible facts; thus, it is

possible that certain stars may be wandering because that is the nature

of their movements, and, for the same reason, others may be immoveable.

It is also possible, that the same necessity which has originally given

them their circular movement, may have compelled some to follow their

orbit regularly, and have subjected others to an irregular progress; we

may also suppose that the uniform character of the centre which certain

stars traverse favour their regular march, and their return to a certain;

and that in the case of others, on the contrary, the differences of the

centre produce the changes which we observe. Besides, to assign one

single cause to all these phænomena, when the experience of our senses

suggests us several, is folly. It is the conduct of ignorant astronomers

covetous of a vain knowledge, who, assigning imaginary causes to facts,

wish to leave wholly to the Deity the care of the government of the

universe.

“Some stars appear to be left behind by others in their progress; this

arises either from the fact of their having a slower motion, though

traversing the same circle; or, because, though they are drawn on by the

same propelling power, they have, nevertheless, a movement proper to

themselves in a contrary direction; or it may be caused by the fact that,

though all are placed in the same sphere of movement, still some have

more space to traverse, and others less. To give one uniform and positive

explanation of all these facts, is not consistent with the conduct of any

people but those who love to flash prodigies in the eyes of the multitude.

“Falling stars may be particles detached from the stars, or fragments

resulting from their collision; they may also be produced by the fall

of substances which are set on fire by the action of the wind; by the

re-union of inflammable atoms which are made to come together so as to

produce this effect by a sort of reciprocal attraction; or else by the

movement which is produced in consequence of the re-union of atoms in the

very place where they meet. It may also happen that the light vapours

re-unite and become condensed under the form of clouds, that they then

take fire in consequence of their rotatory motion, and that, bursting

the obstacles which surround them, they proceed towards the places

whither the force by which they are animated drags them. In short, this

phænomenon also may admit of a great number of explanations.

“The presages which are drawn from certain animals arise from a

fortuitous concourse of circumstances; for there is no necessary

connection between certain animals and winter. They do not produce it;

nor is there any divine nature sitting aloft watching the exits of these

animals, and then accomplishing signs of this kind. Nor can such folly as

this occur to any being who is even moderately comfortable, much less to

one which is possessed of perfect happiness.

“Imprint all these precepts in your memory, O Pythocles, and so you will

easily escape fables, and it will be easy for you to discover other

truths analogous to these. Above all, apply yourself to the study of

general principles, of the infinite, and of questions of this kind, and

to the investigation of the different criteria and of the passions, and

to the study of the chief good, with a view to which we prosecute all

our researches. When these questions are once resolved, all particular

difficulties will be made plain to you. As to those who will not apply

themselves to these principles, they will neither be able to give a good

explanation of these same questions, nor to reach that end to which all

our researches tend.”

XXVI. Such are his sentiments on the heavenly phænomena. But concerning

the rules of life, and how we ought to choose some things, and avoid

others, he writes thus. But first of all, let us go through the opinions

which he held, and his disciples held about the wise man.

He said that injuries existed among men, either in consequence of hatred,

or of envy, or of contempt, all which the wise man overcomes by reason.

Also, that a man who has once been wise can never receive the contrary

disposition, nor can he of his own accord invent such a state of things

as that he should be subjected to the dominion of the passions; nor can

he hinder himself in his progress towards wisdom. That the wise man,

however, cannot exist in every state of body, nor in every nation. That

even if the wise man were to be put to the torture, he would still be

happy. That the wise man will only feel gratitude to his friends, but

to them equally whether they are present or absent. Nor will he groan

and howl when he is put to the torture. Nor will he marry a wife whom

the laws forbid, as Diogenes says, in his epitome of the Ethical Maxims

of Epicurus. He will punish his servants, but also pity them, and show

indulgence to any that are virtuous. They do not think that the wise

man will ever be in love, nor that he will be anxious about his burial,

nor that love is a passion inspired by the Gods, as Diogenes says in

his twelfth book. They also assert that he will be indifferent to the

study of oratory. Marriage, say they, is never any good to a man, and we

must be quite content if it does no harm; and the wise man will never

marry or beget children, as Epicurus himself lays it down, in his Doubts

and in his treatises on Nature. Still, under certain circumstances of

life, he will forsake these rules and marry. Nor will he ever indulge in

drunkenness, says Epicurus, in his Banquet, nor will he entangle himself

in affairs of state (as he says in his first book on Lives). Nor will he

become a tyrant. Nor will he become a Cynic (as he says in his second

book about Lives). Nor a beggar. And even, though he should lose his

eyes, he will still partake of life (as he says in the same book).

The wise man will be subject to grief, as Diogenes says, in the fifth

book of his Select Opinions; he will also not object to go to law. He

will leave books and memorials of himself behind him, but he will not be

fond of frequenting assemblies. He will take care of his property, and

provide for the future. He will like being in the country, he will resist

fortune, and will grieve none of his friends. He will show a regard for a

fair reputation to such an extent as to avoid being despised; and he will

find more pleasure than other men in speculations.

All faults are not equal. Health is good for some people, but a matter

of indifference to others. Courage is a quality which does not exist by

nature, but which is engendered by a consideration of what is suitable.

Friendship is caused by one’s wants; but it must be begun on our side.

For we sow the earth; and friendship arises from a community of, and

participation in, pleasures. Happiness must be understood in two senses;

the highest happiness, such as is that of God, which admits of no

increase; and another kind, which admits of the addition or abstraction

of pleasures. The wise man may raise statues if it suits his inclination,

if it does not it does not signify. The wise man is the only person who

can converse correctly about music and poetry; and he can realise poems,

but not become a poet.

It is possible for one wise man to be wiser than another. The wise man

will also, if he is in need, earn money, but only by his wisdom; he will

propitiate an absolute ruler when occasion requires, and will humour him

for the sake of correcting his habits; he will have a school, but not

on such a system as to draw a crowd about him; he will also recite in a

multitude, but that will be against his inclination; he will pronounce

dogmas, and will express no doubts; he will be the same man asleep and

awake; and he will be willing even to die for a friend.

These are the Epicurean doctrines.

XXVII. We must now proceed to his letter:—

EPICURUS TO MENŒCEUS, GREETING

“Let no one delay to study philosophy while he is young, and when he is

old let him not become weary of the study; for no man can ever find the

time unsuitable or too late to study the health of his soul. And he who

asserts either that it is not yet time to philosophize, or that the hour

is passed, is like a man who should say that the time is not yet come

to be happy, or that it is too late. So that both young and old should

study philosophy, the one in order that, when he is old, he may be young

in good things through the pleasing recollection of the past, and the

other in order that he may be at the same time both young and old, in

consequence of his absence of fear for the future.

“It is right then for a man to consider the things which produce

happiness, since, if happiness is present, we have everything, and when

it is absent, we do everything with a view to possess it. Now, what I

have constantly recommended to you, these things I would have you do and

practise, considering them to be the elements of living well. First of

all, believe that God is a being incorruptible and happy, as the common

opinion of the world about God dictates; and attach to your idea of him

nothing which is inconsistent with incorruptibility or with happiness;

and think that he is invested with everything which is able to preserve

to him this happiness, in conjunction with incorruptibility. For there

are Gods; for our knowledge of them is indistinct. But they are not of

the character which people in general attribute to them; for they do not

pay a respect to them which accords with the ideas that they entertain

of them. And that man is not impious who discards the Gods believed in

by the many, but he who applies to the Gods the opinions entertained

of them by the many. For the assertions of the many about the Gods are

not anticipations (προλήψεις), but false opinions (ὑπολήψεις). And in

consequence of these, the greatest evils which befall wicked men, and

the benefits which are conferred on the good, are all attributed to the

Gods; for they connect all their ideas of them with a comparison of human

virtues, and everything which is different from human qualities, they

regard as incompatible with the divine nature.

“Accustom yourself also to think death a matter with which we are not

at all concerned, since all good and all evil is in sensation, and

since death is only the privation of sensation. On which account, the

correct knowledge of the fact that death is no concern of ours, makes

the mortality of life pleasant to us, inasmuch as it sets forth no

illimitable time, but relieves us for the longing for immortality. For

there is nothing terrible in living to a man who rightly comprehends that

there is nothing terrible in ceasing to live; so that he was a silly man

who said that he feared death, not because it would grieve him when it

was present, but because it did grieve him while it was future. For it is

very absurd that that which does not distress a man when it is present,

should afflict him when only expected. Therefore, the most formidable of

all evils, death, is nothing to us, since, when we exist, death is not

present to us; and when death is present, then we have no existence. It

is no concern then either of the living or of the dead; since to the one

it has no existence, and the other class has no existence itself. But

people in general, at times flee from death as the greatest of evils,

and at times wish for it as a rest from the evils in life. Nor is the

not living a thing feared, since living is not connected with it: nor

does the wise man think not living an evil; but, just as he chooses food,

not preferring that which is most abundant, but that which is nicest; so

too, he enjoys time, not measuring it as to whether it is of the greatest

length, but as to whether it is most agreeable. And he who enjoins a

young man to live well, and an old man to die well, is a simpleton,

not only because of the constantly delightful nature of life, but also

because the care to live well is identical with the care to die well. And

he was still more wrong who said:—

“’Tis well to taste of life, and then when born

To pass with quickness to the shades below.[142]

“For if this really was his opinion why did he not quit life? for it was

easily in his power to do so, if it really was his belief. But if he was

joking, then he was talking foolishly in a case where it ought not to be

allowed; and, we must recollect, that the future is not our own, nor, on

the other hand, is it wholly not our own, I mean so that we can never

altogether await it with a feeling of certainty that it will be, nor

altogether despair of it as what will never be. And we must consider that

some of the passions are natural, and some empty; and of the natural ones

some are necessary, and some merely natural. And of the necessary ones

some are necessary to happiness, and others, with regard to the exemption

of the body, from trouble; and others with respect to living itself; for

a correct theory, with regard to these things, can refer all choice and

avoidance to the health of the body and the freedom from disquietude of

the soul. Since this is the end of living happily; for it is for the sake

of this that we do everything, wishing to avoid grief and fear; and when

once this is the case, with respect to us, then the storm of the soul is,

as I may say, put an end to; since the animal is unable to go as if to

something deficient, and to seek something different from that by which

the good of the soul and body will be perfected.

“For then we have need of pleasure when we grieve, because pleasure is

not present; but when we do not grieve, then we have no need of pleasure;

and on this account, we affirm, that pleasure is the beginning and end

of living happily; for we have recognized this as the first good, being

connate with us; and with reference to it, it is that we begin every

choice and avoidance; and to this we come as if we judged of all good by

passion as the standard; and, since this is the first good and connate

with us, on this account we do not choose every pleasure, but at times

we pass over many pleasures when any difficulty is likely to ensue from

them; and we think many pains better than pleasures, when a greater

pleasure follows them, if we endure the pain for a time.

“Every pleasure is therefore a good on account of its own nature, but

it does not follow that every pleasure is worthy of being chosen; just

as every pain is an evil, and yet every pain must not be avoided. But

it is right to estimate all these things by the measurement and view of

what is suitable and unsuitable; for at times we may feel the good as an

evil, and at times, on the contrary, we may feel the evil as good. And,

we think, contentment a great good, not in order that we may never have

but a little, but in order that, if we have not much, we may make use

of a little, being genuinely persuaded that those men enjoy luxury most

completely who are the best able to do without it; and that everything

which is natural is easily provided, and what is useless is not easily

procured. And simple flavours give as much pleasure as costly fare, when

everything that can give pain, and every feeling of want, is removed;

and corn and water give the most extreme pleasure when any one in need

eats them. To accustom one’s self, therefore, to simple and inexpensive

habits is a great ingredient in the perfecting of health, and makes a

man free from hesitation with respect to the necessary uses of life.

And when we, on certain occasions, fall in with more sumptuous fare, it

makes us in a better disposition towards it, and renders us fearless

with respect to fortune. When, therefore, we say that pleasure is a

chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of the debauched man,

or those which lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think who are ignorant,

and who do not entertain our opinions, or else interpret them perversely;

but we mean the freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from

confusion. For it is not continued drinkings and revels, or the enjoyment

of female society, or feasts of fish and other such things, as a costly

table supplies, that make life pleasant, but sober contemplation, which

examines into the reasons for all choice and avoidance, and which puts

to flight the vain opinions from which the greater part of the confusion

arises which troubles the soul.

“Now, the beginning and the greatest good of all these things is

prudence, on which account prudence is something more valuable than

even philosophy, inasmuch as all the other virtues spring from it,

teaching us that it is not possible to live pleasantly unless one also

lives prudently, and honourably, and justly; and that one cannot live

prudently, and honestly, and justly, without living pleasantly; for

the virtues are connate with living agreeably, and living agreeably

is inseparable from the virtues. Since, who can you think better than

that man who has holy opinions respecting the Gods, and who is utterly

fearless with respect to death, and who has properly contemplated the end

of nature, and who comprehends that the chief good is easily perfected

and easily provided; and the greatest evil lasts but a short period, and

causes but brief pain. And who has no belief in necessity, which is set

up by some as the mistress of all things, but he refers some things to

fortune, some to ourselves, because necessity is an irresponsible power,

and because he sees that fortune is unstable, while our own will is

free; and this freedom constitutes, in our case, a responsibility which

makes us encounter blame and praise. Since it would be better to follow

the fables about the Gods than to be a slave to the fate of the natural

philosopher; for the fables which are told give us a sketch, as if we

could avert the wrath of God by paying him honour; but the other presents

us with necessity who is inexorable.

“And he, not thinking fortune a goddess, as the generality esteem her

(for nothing is done at random by a God), nor a cause which no man can

rely on, for he thinks that good or evil is not given by her to men so

as to make them live happily, but that the principles of great goods or

great evils are supplied by her; thinking it better to be unfortunate in

accordance with reason, than to be fortunate irrationally; for that those

actions which are judged to be the best, are rightly done in consequence

of reason.

“Do you then study these precepts, and those which are akin to them, by

all means day and night, pondering on them by yourself, and discussing

them with any one like yourself, and then you will never be disturbed by

either sleeping or waking fancies, but you will live like a God among

men; for a man living amid immortal Gods, is in no respect like a mortal

being.”

In other works, he discards divination; and also in his Little Epitome.

And he says divination has no existence; but, if it has any, still we

should think that what happens according to it is nothing to us.

These are his sentiments about the things which concern the life of man,

and he has discussed them at greater length elsewhere.

XXVIII. Now, he differs with the Cyrenaics about pleasure. For they do

not admit that to be pleasure which exists as a condition, but place it

wholly in motion. He, however, admits both kinds to be pleasure, namely,

that of the soul, and that of the body, as he says in his treatise on

Choice and Avoidance; and also in his work on the Chief Good; and in

the first book of his treatise on Lives, and in his Letter against

the Mitylenian Philosophers. And in the same spirit, Diogenes, in the

seventeenth book of his Select Discourses, and Metrodorus, in his

Timocrates, speak thus. “But when pleasure is understood, I mean both

that which exists in motion, and that which is a state.…” And Epicurus,

in his treatise on Choice, speaks thus: “Now, freedom from disquietude,

and freedom from pain, are states of pleasure; but joy and cheerfulness

are beheld in motion and energy.”

XXIX. For they make out the pains of the body to be worse than those of

the mind; accordingly, those who do wrong, are punished in the body.

But he considers the pains of the soul the worst; for that the flesh is

only sensible to present affliction, but the soul feels the past, the

present, and the future. Therefore, in the same manner, he contends that

the pleasures of the soul are greater than those of the body; and he uses

as a proof that pleasure is the chief good, the fact that all animals

from the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure, and are

offended with pain by their natural instinct, and without the employment

of reason. Therefore, too, we, of our own inclination, flee from pain; so

that Hercules, when devoured by his poisoned tunic, cries out:—

Shouting and groaning, and the rocks around

Re-echoed his sad wails, the mountain heights

Of Locrian lands, and sad Eubœa’s hills.[143]

XXX. And we choose the virtues for the sake of pleasure, and not on

their own account; just as we seek the skill of the physician for the

sake of health, as Diogenes says, in the twentieth book of his Select

Discourses, where he also calls virtue a way of passing one’s life

(διαγωγή). But Epicurus says, that virtue alone is inseparable from

pleasure, but that every thing else may be separated from it as mortal.

XXXI. Let us, however, now add the finishing stroke, as one may say, to

this whole treatise, and to the life of the philosopher; giving some of

his fundamental maxims, and closing the whole work with them, taking that

for our end which is the beginning of happiness.

1. “That which is happy and imperishable, neither has trouble itself, nor

does it cause it to anything; so that it is not subject to the feelings

of either anger or gratitude; for these feelings only exist in what is

weak.

(In other passages he says that the Gods are speculated on by reason,

some existing according to number, and others according to some

similarity of form, arising from the continual flowing on of similar

images, perfected for this very purpose in human form.)

2. “Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved is devoid of

sensation, and that which is devoid of sensation is nothing to us.

3. “The limit of the greatness of the pleasures is the removal of

everything which can give pain. And where pleasure is, as long as it

lasts, that which gives pain, or that which feels pain, or both of them,

are absent.

4. “Pain does not abide continuously in the flesh, but in its extremity

it is present only a very short time. That pain which only just exceeds

the pleasure in the flesh, does not last many days. But long diseases

have in them more that is pleasant than painful to the flesh.

5. “It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently,

and honourably, and justly; nor to live prudently, and honourably, and

justly, without living pleasantly. But he to whom it does not happen to

live prudently, honourably, and justly, cannot possibly live pleasantly.

6. “For the sake of feeling confidence and security with regard to men,

and not with reference to the nature of government and kingly power being

a good, some men have wished to be eminent and powerful, in order that

others might attain this feeling by their means; thinking that so they

would secure safety as far as men are concerned. So that, if the life of

such men is safe, they have attained to the nature of good; but if it is

not safe, then they have failed in obtaining that for the sake of which

they originally desired power according to the order of nature.[144]

7. “No pleasure is intrinsically bad: but the efficient causes of some

pleasures bring with them a great many perturbations of pleasure.

8. “If every pleasure were condensed, if one may so say, and if each

lasted long, and affected the whole body, or the essential parts of it,

then there would be no difference between one pleasure and another.

9. “If those things which make the pleasures of debauched men, put an end

to the fears of the mind, and to those which arise about the heavenly

bodies, and death, and pain; and if they taught us what ought to be the

limit of our desires, we should have no pretence for blaming those who

wholly devote themselves to pleasure, and who never feel any pain or

grief (which is the chief evil) from any quarter.

10. “If apprehensions relating to the heavenly bodies did not disturb

us, and if the terrors of death have no concern with us, and if we had

the courage to contemplate the boundaries of pain and of the desires, we

should have no need of physiological studies.

11. “It would not be possible for a person to banish all fear about those

things which are called most essential, unless he knew what is the nature

of the universe, or if he had any idea that the fables told about it

could be true; and therefore, it is, that a person cannot enjoy unmixed

pleasure without physiological knowledge.

12. “It would be no good for a man to secure himself safety as far as men

are concerned, while in a state of apprehension as to all the heavenly

bodies, and those under the earth, and in short, all those in the

infinite.

13. “Irresistible power and great wealth may, up to a certain point,

give us security as far as men are concerned; but the security of men in

general depends upon the tranquillity of their souls, and their freedom

from ambition.

14. “The riches of nature are defined and easily procurable; but vain

desires are insatiable.

15. “The wise man is but little favoured by fortune; but his reason

procures him the greatest and most valuable goods, and these he does

enjoy, and will enjoy the whole of his life.

16. “The just man is the freest of all men from disquietude; but the

unjust man is a perpetual prey to it.

17. “Pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the pain arising

from want is removed; it is only diversified.

18. “The most perfect happiness of the soul depends on these reflections,

and on opinions of a similar character on all those questions which cause

the greatest alarm to the mind.

19. “Infinite and finite time both have equal pleasure, if any one

measures its limits by reason.

20. “If the flesh could experience boundless pleasure, it would want to

dispose of eternity.[145]

21. “But reason, enabling us to conceive the end and dissolution of the

body, and liberating us from the fears relative to eternity, procures

for us all the happiness of which life is capable, so completely that

we have no further occasion to include eternity in our desires. In this

disposition of mind, man is happy even when his troubles engage him

to quit life; and to die thus, is for him only to interrupt a life of

happiness.

22. “He who is acquainted with the limits of life knows, that that which

removes the pain which arises from want, and which makes the whole of

life perfect, is easily procurable; so that he has no need of those

things which can only be attained with trouble.

23. “But as to the subsisting end, we ought to consider it with all the

clearness and evidence which we refer to whatever we think and believe;

otherwise, all things will be full of confusion and uncertainty of

judgment.

24. “If you resist all the senses, you will not even have anything left

to which you can refer, or by which you may be able to judge of the

falsehood of the senses which you condemn.

25. “If you simply discard one sense, and do not distinguish between the

different elements of the judgment, so as to know on the one hand, the

induction which goes beyond the actual sensation, or, on the other, the

actual and immediate notion; the affections, and all the conceptions of

the mind which lean directly on the sensible representation, you will be

imputing trouble into the other sense, and destroying in that quarter

every species of criterion.

26. “If you allow equal authority to the ideas, which, being only

inductive, require to be verified, and to those which bear about them

an immediate certainty, you will not escape error; for you will be

confounding doubtful opinions with those which are not doubtful, and true

judgments with those of a different character.

27. “If, on every occasion, we do not refer every one of our actions to

the chief end of nature, if we turn aside from that to seek or avoid some

other object, there will be a want of agreement between our words and our

actions.

28. “Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the

whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship.

29. “The same opinion encourages man to trust that no evil will be

everlasting, or even of long duration; as it sees that, in the space

of life allotted to us, the protection of friendship is most sure and

trustworthy.

30. “Of the desires, some are natural and necessary, some natural, but

not necessary, and some are neither natural nor necessary, but owe their

existence to vain opinions.”

(Epicurus thinks that those are natural and necessary which put an end to

pains, as drink when one is thirsty; and that those are natural but not

necessary which only diversify pleasure, but do not remove pain, such as

expensive food; and that these are neither natural nor necessary, which

are such as crowns, or the erection of statues.)

31. “Those desires which do not lead to pain, if they are not satisfied,

are not necessary. It is easy to impose silence on them when they appear

difficult to gratify, or likely to produce injury.

32. “When the natural desires, the failing to satisfy which is,

nevertheless, not painful, are violent and obstinate, it is a proof that

there is an admixture of vain opinion in them; for then energy does not

arise from their own nature, but from the vain opinions of men.

33. “Natural justice is a covenant of what is suitable, leading men to

avoid injuring one another, and being injured.

34. “Those animals which are unable to enter into an argument of this

nature, or to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury, have no

such thing as justice or injustice. And the case is the same with those

nations, the members of which are either unwilling or unable to enter

into a covenant to respect their mutual interests.

35. “Justice has no independent existence; it results from mutual

contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement

to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury.

36. “Injustice is not intrinsically bad; it has this character only

because there is joined with it a fear of not escaping those who are

appointed to punish actions marked with that character.

37. “It is not possible for a man who secretly does anything in

contravention of the agreement which men have made with one another, to

guard against doing, or sustaining mutual injury, to believe that he

shall always escape notice, even if he have escaped notice already ten

thousand times; for, till his death, it is uncertain whether he will not

be detected.

38. “In a general point of view, justice is the same thing to every one;

for there is something advantageous in mutual society. Nevertheless, the

difference of place, and divers other circumstances, make justice vary.

39. “From the moment that a thing declared just by the law is generally

recognized as useful for the mutual relations of men, it becomes really

just, whether it is universally regarded as such or not.

40. “But if, on the contrary, a thing established by law is not really

useful for the social relations, then it is not just; and if that which

was just, inasmuch as it was useful, loses this character, after having

been for some time considered so, it is not less true that, during

that time, it was really just, at least for those who do not perplex

themselves about vain words, but who prefer, in every case, examining and

judging for themselves.

41. “When, without any fresh circumstances arising, a thing which has

been declared just in practice does not agree with the impressions of

reason, that is a proof that the thing was not really just. In the same

way, when in consequence of new circumstances, a thing which has been

pronounced just does not any longer appear to agree with utility, the

thing which was just, inasmuch as it was useful to the social relations

and intercourse of mankind, ceases to be just the moment when it ceases

to be useful.

42. “He who desires to live tranquilly without having any thing to fear

from other men, ought to make himself friends; those whom he cannot make

friends of, he should, at least, avoid rendering enemies; and if that is

not in his power, he should, as far as possible, avoid all intercourse

with them, and keep them aloof, as far as it is for his interest to do so.

43. “The happiest men are they who have arrived at the point of having

nothing to fear from those who surround them. Such men live with one

another most agreeably, having the firmest grounds of confidence in one

another, enjoying the advantages of friendship in all their fulness, and

not lamenting, as a pitiable circumstance, the premature death of their

friends.”

FOOTNOTES

[1] “The religion of the ancient Persians was the worship of fire or

of the elements, in which fire was symbolical of the Deity. At a later

period, in the time of the Greeks, the ancient worship was changed into

the adoration of the stars (Sabæism), especially of the sun and of the

morning star. This religion was distinguished by a simple and majestic

character. Its priests were called Magi.”—_Tenneman’s Manual of the

History of Philosophy, Introd._ § 70.

[2] “The Chaldæans were devoted to the worship of the stars and to

astrology; the nature of their climate and country disposing them to it.

The worship of the stars was revived by them and widely disseminated even

subsequently to the Christian era.”—_Ibid._ § 71.

[3] “Cicero speaks of those who in India are accounted philosophers,

living naked and enduring the greatest severity of winter without

betraying any feeling of pain, and displaying the same insensibility when

exposed to the flames.”—_Tusc. Quæst._ v. 27.

[4] “The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts

of their government, and the Druids who were their priests, possessed

great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and

directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of

youth; they possessed both the civil and criminal jurisdiction, they

decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons,

and whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most

severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced against

him; he was forbidden access to the sacrifices of public worship; he was

debarred all intercourse with his fellow citizens even in the common

affairs of life: his company was universally shunned as profane and

dangerous, he was refused the protection of law, and death itself became

an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed.

Thus the bonds of government, which were naturally loose among that rude

and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the terrors of their

superstition.

“No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the

Druids; besides the several penalties which it was in the power of the

ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal

transmigration of souls, and thereby extended their authority as far

as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in

dark groves or other secret recesses, and in order to throw a greater

mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to

the initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing,

lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane

and vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them; the spoils of

war were often devoted to their divinities, and they punished with the

severest tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the consecrated

offering. These treasures they kept secreted in woods and forests,

secured by no other guard than the terrors of their religion; and their

steady conquest over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than

their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts.

No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind

as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons. And the Romans after their

conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile those nations to the laws

and institutions of their masters while it maintained its authority,

were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes, a violence which

had never in any other instance been resorted to by those tolerating

conquerors.”—_Hume’s History of England_, chap. 1. § 1.

[5] “Zamolxis, or Zalmoxis, so called from the bear-skin (ζάλμος) in

which he was wrapped as soon as he was born, was a Getan, and a slave of

Pythagoras at Samos; having been emancipated by his master, he travelled

into Egypt; and on his return to his own country he introduced the ideas

which he had acquired in his travels on the subject of civilisation,

religion, and the immortality of the soul. He was made priest of the

chief deity among the Getæ, and was afterwards himself worshipped as a

divine person. He was said to have lived in a subterraneous cavern for

three years, and after that to have re-appeared among his countrymen.”

Herodotus, however, who records these stories (iv. 95), expresses his

disbelief of them, placing him before the time of Pythagoras by many

years, and seems to incline to the belief that he was an indigenous Getan

deity.

[6] The real time of Zoroaster is, as may be supposed, very uncertain,

but he is said by some eminent writers to have lived in the time of

Darius Hystaspes; though others, apparently on better grounds, place

him at a very far earlier date. He is not mentioned by Herodotus at

all. His native country too is very uncertain. Some writers, among whom

are Ctesias and Ammian, call him a Bactrian, while Porphyry speaks

of him as a Chaldæan, and Pliny as a native of Proconnesus;—Niebuhr

considers him a purely mythical personage. The great and fundamental

article of the system (of the Persian theology) was the celebrated

doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of Eastern

philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil with

the attributes of a beneficent Creator and governor of the world. The

first and original being, in whom, or by whom the universe exists, is

denominated, in the writings of Zoroaster, _Time without bounds_.… From

either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time,

which bears but too near an affinity to the Chaos of the Greeks, the two

secondary but active principles of the universe were from all eternity

produced; Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of

creation, but each disposed by his invariable nature to exercise them

with different designs; the principle of good is eternally absorbed

in light, the principle of evil is eternally buried in darkness. The

wise benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly

provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his

vigilant providence the motion of the planets, the order of the seasons,

and the temperate mixture of the elements are preserved. But the maker

of Ahriman has long since pierced _Ormusd’s Egg_, or in other words,

has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal irruption, the

most minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and

agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up among the most salutary

plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the conflict

of nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by vice

and misfortune. While the rest of mankind are led away captives in the

chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his

religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights

under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the

last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive period, the

enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of Ormusd superior

to the furious malice of his rival; Ahriman and his followers, disarmed

and subdued, will sink into their native darkness, and virtue will

maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.… As a legislator,

Zoroaster “discovered a liberal concern for the public and private

happiness seldom to be found among the visionary schemes of superstition.

Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine favour,

he condemns with abhorrence, as a criminal rejection of the best gifts of

Providence.”—_Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, c. viii.

[7] This is the account given by Virgil—

Spretæ Ciconum quo munere matres

Inter sacra Deûm nocturnique orgia Bacchi,

Discerptum latos juvenem sparsere per agros.—GEORG. iv. 520.

Which Dryden translates—

The Thracian matrons who the youth accus’d,

Of love disdain’d and marriage rites refus’d;

With furies and nocturnal orgies fir’d,

At length against his sacred life conspir’d;

Whom ev’n the savage beasts had spar’d they kill’d,

And strew’d his mangled limbs about the field.

[8] This was the temple of the national deity of the Ionians, Neptune

Heliconius, on Mount Mycale.—Vide _Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq._

[9] Vide Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, ii. p. 34.

[10] One of the Sporades.

[11] An island near Crete.

[12] Hom. Il. 2. 671. Dryden’s Version.

[13] Vide Herod. lib. 1. c. 30-33.

[14] A drachma was something less than ten pence.

[15] “Ἔνη καὶ νέα the last day of the month: elsewhere τριανιὰς. So

called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar; now the moon’s

monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month

began with the sun and moon together at sunrise, at the month’s end it

would be sunset; and the second month would begin at sunset. To prevent

this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the first

month; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one belonging

to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar month fell

into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still called Ἔνη καὶ

νέα.”—_L. & S. Greek Lexicon_, in v. ἔνος.

[16] Herodotus mentions the case of Periander’s children, iii. 50, and

the death of his wife, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian

women, v. 92.

[17] Some propose to read καρπὸν, _fruit_, instead of καπνὸν, _smoke_,

here; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided

houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the

low cottage, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which would make more

smoke.

[18] This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became

regent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on

against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the head;

and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he compelled the

Athenians to abolish the democracy, and to admit a garrison into Munychia.

[19] Φρύγανα, sticks or faggots.

[20] After the battle of Arginusæ.

[21] “This is not quite correct. Socrates believed that the dæmon which

attended him, limited his warnings to his own conduct; preventing him

from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to do right.”—_See

Grote’s admirable chapter on Socrates. Hist. of Greece_, vol. v.

[22] Grote gives good reasons for disbelieving this.

[23] The Greek is, ἐν τῷ πρὸς Ξενοφῶντα ἀποστασίου—“ἀποστασίου δίκη,

an action against a freedman for having forsaken or slighted his

προστάτης.”—_L. & S._

[24] This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:—

Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;

Tentantem majora, fere præsentibus æequum.—

_Ep._ i. 23, 24.

[25] Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to

Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.

[26] The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is

meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:—

The _lying_ one is this:—Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies.

If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he

a liar?

The _concealed_ one:—Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do

not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.

The _veiled_ one is much the same as the preceding.

The _electra_ is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones:

Electra sees Orestes: she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not

know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does

not know, her brother at the same time.

The _Sorites_ is universally known.

The _bald_ one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man’s head

will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in

his head is pulled out.

The _horned_ one:—You have what you have not lost. You have not lost

horns, therefore you have horns.

[27] From ἐλέγχω, to confute.

[28] Κρόνος, take away Κ. ρ., leaves ὄνος, an ass.

[29] The quibble here is that θεὸς is properly only masculine, though it

is sometimes used as feminine.

[30] The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus.

Hom. Od. ii. 581, 592. See also, Dryden’s Version, B. ii. 719.

[31] The Greek is τοῦ μιμογράφου. “A _mime_ was a kind of prose drama,

intended as a familiar representation of life and character, without any

distinct plot. It was divided into μῖμιοι ἀνδρεῖοι and γυναικεῖοι, also

into μῖμοι σπουδαίων and γελοίων.”—_L. &. S. in voc._ μῖμος.

[32] The Greek is, ὡς ἀνέπλαττε Πλάτων πεπλασμένα θαύματα εἰδώς.

[33] This figure was like a barbed arrow, according to Zevort.

[34] Herophilus was one of the most celebrated physicians of antiquity,

who founded the Medical School at Alexandria, in the time of the first

Ptolemy.

[35] Hom. Od. x. 387. Pope’s Version, 450.

[36] Perhaps there is a pun here; ἀστράγαλος means not only a knout

composed of small bones strung together, but also a die.

[37] This is a quotation from some lost play of Euripides, slightly

altered, the line, as printed in the Variorum Edition, vol. vii., Mc.

Trag. cxxx. is—

ἀκόλαστα πάντα γίνεται, δούλων τέκνα.

[38] There is a pun here which is untranslateable. The Greek is πλὴν ὅταν

τόκος παρῇ, meaning usury, and also offspring or delivery.

[39] Hom. Od. x. 335. Pope’s Version, 387.

[40] Hom. Il. vi. 211. Pope’s Version, 254.

[41] This is a quotation from the Hippolytus of Euripides, v. 424.

[42] I doubt if the wit of these parodies will be appreciated by the

modern reader. The lines of Homer, which they are intended to parody,

are:—

Ὦ μάκαρ Ατρεΐδη, μοιρηγενὲς, ὀλβιοδαίμων.—_Il._ 3, 182.

ἠέ συ Πηλεΐδη, πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ’ ἀνδρῶν.—_Il._ v. 146.

The first of which is translated by Pope:—

Oh, blest Atrides, born of prosperous fate,

Successful monarch of a mighty state!

The Greek parody in the text is:—

Ὦ πέπον Ἀρχύτα, ψαλληγενὲς, ὀλβιότυφε

Τῆς ὑπάτης ἔριδος πάντων ἐμπειρότατ’ ἀνδρῶν.

[43] From λύω, _solvo_, to relax or weaken the limbs.

[44] From περιπατέω, “to walk about.”

[45] Il. 18, 95.

[46] This very spirited version I owe to the kindness of my brother, the

Rev. J. E. Yonge, of Eton College.

[47] “ἐντελέχεια, the actuality of a thing, as opposed to simple

capability or potentiality (δύναμις); a philosophic word invented by

Aristotle.— … quite distinct from ἐνδελέχεια, though Cicero (Tusc. i.

10,) confounded them.”—_L. & S. in voc._

[48] From θεῖος divine, and φράσις diction.

[49] This was a temple of the Muses which he had built for a school.

[50] So as to make it appear connected with γλυκὺς, sweet.

[51] στάμνος, means an earthenware jar for wine.

[52] The foregoing account hardly does justice to Demetrius, who was a

man of real ability, and of a very different class to the generality

of those whom the ancients dignified with the title of philosophers.

He was called Phalereus, to distinguish him from his contemporary

Demetrius Poliorcetes. His administration of the affairs of Athens was

so successful, that Cicero gives him the praise of having re-established

the sinking and almost prostrate power of the republic. (Cic. de Rep. ii.

1.) As an orator, he is spoken of by the same great authority with the

highest admiration. Cicero calls him “a subtle disputer, not vehement,

but very sweet, as a pupil of Theophrastus might be expected to be.”

(de Off. i. 3.) In another place he praises him as possessed of great

learning, and as one who “rather delighted than inflamed the Athenians.”

(de Clav. Orat. § 37.) And says, “that he was the first person who

endeavoured to soften eloquence, and who made it tender and gentle;

preferring to appear sweet, as indeed he was, rather than vehement.”

(Ibid. § 38.) In another place he says, “Demetrius Phalereus the most

polished of all those orators” (he has been mentioning Demosthenes,

Hyperides, Lycurgus, Æschines, and Dinarchus) “in my opinion.” (de

Orat. ii. 23.) And he praises him for not confining his learning to the

schools, but for bringing it into daily use, and employing it as one

of his ordinary weapons. (de Leg. iii. 14.) And asks who can be found

besides him who excelled in both ways, so as to be pre-eminent at the

same time as a scholar, and a governor of a state. (Ibid.) He mentions

his death in the oration for Rabirius Postumus, § 9. He appears to have

died about B.C. 282.

[53] From πομπὴ, a procession.

[54] There is a play on the similarity of the two sounds, κοινὴ, common,

and ποίνη, punishment.

[55] The Greek is, ἐς κόρακας, which was a proverb for utter destruction.

[56] The passage is not free from difficulty; but the thing which misled

Diogenes appears to have been that νόμισμα, the word here used, meant

both “a coin, or coinage,” and “a custom.”

[57] This line is from Euripides, Medea, 411.

[58] The saperda was the coracinus (a kind of fish) when salted.

[59] This is probably an allusion to a prosecution instituted by

Demosthenes against Midias, which was afterwards compromised by Midias

paying Demosthenes thirty minæ, or three thousand drachmæ. See Dem. Or.

cont. Midias.

[60] This is a pun upon the similarity of Athlias’s name to the Greek

adjective ἄθλιος, which signifies miserable.

[61] The ἱερομνήμονες were the sacred secretaries or recorders sent by

each Amphictyonic state to the council along with their πυλαγόρας, (the

actual deputy or minister). _L. & S._ Gr. & Eng. Lex., _in voc._

[62] There is a pun here. Χείρων is the word used for worse. Chiron was

also the most celebrated of the Centaurs, the tutor of Achilles.

[63] There is a pun intended here; as Diogenes proposed Didymus a fate

somewhat similar to that of the beaver.

Cupiens evadere damno

Testiculorum.

[64] This is taken from Homer, Il. κ. 387. Pope’s Version, 455.

[65] This is also from Homer, Il. θ. 95. Pope’s Version, 120.

[66] This is a parody on Homer, Il. ξ. 95, where the line ends οἷ’

ἀγορεύεις—“if such is your language,” which Diogenes here changes to οἷ’

ἀγοράζεις, if you buy such things.

[67] This is a line of the Phœnissæ of Euripides, v. 40.

[68] The pun here is on the similarity of the noun ἐλάαν, an olive, to

the verb ἐλαᾶν, to drive; the words μάστιξεν δ’ ἐλαᾶν are of frequent

occurrence in Homer.

[69] This line occurs, Hom. Il. ε. 83.

[70] The Samothracian Gods were Gods of the sea, and it was customary for

those who had been saved from shipwreck to make them an offering of some

part of what they had saved; and of their hair, if they had saved nothing

but their lives.

[71] Eurytion was another of the Centaurs, who was killed by Hercules.

[72] This is a pun on the similarity of the sound, Tegea, to τέγος, a

brothel.

[73] The Greek is ἔρανον αἰτούμενος πρὸς τὸν ἐρανάρχην ἔφη,—ἔρανος was

not only a subscription or contribution for the support of the poor, but

also a club or society of subscribers to a common fund for any purpose,

social, commercial, or charitable, or especially political.… On the

various ἔρανοι, v. Böckh, P. E. i. 328. Att. Process. p. 540, s. 99. _L.

& S. in voc._ ἔρανος.

[74] Hom. Il. Γ. 65.

[75] There is a pun here; κόρη means both “a girl” and “the pupil of the

eye.” And φθείρω, “to destroy,” is also especially used for “to seduce.”

[76] This is a parody on Homer. Il. 591. Pope’s Version, 760.

[77] Hom. Il. Σ. 395. Pope’s version, 460.

[78] This line is from the Bacchæ of Euripides, v. 1228.

[79] From this last paragraph it is inferred by some critics, that

originally the preceding memoirs of Crates, Metrocles, and Hipparchia

formed only one chapter or book.

[80] This a parody on two lines in the Antiope of Euripides:

Γνώμῃ γὰρ ἀνδρὸς εὖ μὲν οἰκοῦνται πόλεις,

Εὖ δ’ οἶκος εἴς τ’ αὖ πόλεμον ἰσχύει μέγα.

Which may be translated:—

Wisdom it is which regulates both cities,

And private citizens, and makes their lot

Secure and happy; nor is her influence

Of less account in war.

[81] A sort of guitar or violin.

[82] The Greek is, ἐν τῷ θερίζοντι λόγῳ, a species of argument so called,

because he who used it mowed or knocked down his adversaries.—Aldob.

[83] The Greek in the text is:—

Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται,

Ἐσθλὸς δ’ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ.

The lines in Hesiod are:—

Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ

Ἐσθλὸς δ’ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται.—Op. E. Di. 293.

That man is best, whose unassisted wit

Perceives at once what in each case is fit.

And next to him, he surely is most wise,

Who willingly submits to good advice.

[84] Huerner thinks (as indeed is evident) that something is lost here;

and proposes to read the sentence thus:—Τῶν δὲ κατηγορημάτων τὰ μέν ἐστι

συμβάματα ὡς τὸ πλεῖν, οἷον Σωκράτης πλεῖ, τὰ δὲ παρασυμβάματα ὡς τὸ

διὰ πέτρας πλεῖν. With reference to which passage, Liddell and Scott,

Gr. Eng. Lex. _voc._ σύμβαμα, thus speak: “σύμβαμα … as a philosophical

term of the Stoics = κατηγόρημα, a complete predicament such as is an

intransitive verb: _e.g._ Σωκράτης περιπατεῖ; while an imperfect verb was

regarded as an incomplete predicament; _e.g._ Σωκράτει μέλει, and called

παρασύμβαμα, or παρακατηγόρημα.”

[85] This line is from the Inachus of Sophocles (one of his lost plays).

[86] Homer, Iliad II. 484.

[87] This line is from the Citharista of Menander.

[88] It would appear that there is a considerable hiatus here; for

the instance following is a sorites, and not a specimen of the veiled

argument. And there is no instance given of the concealed, or of the

horned one. Still, the mere fact of the text being unintelligible,

is far from proving that we have not got it as Diogenes wrote it; as

though in the language of the writer in Smith’s Biographical Dictionary,

vol. i. pp. 1022, 1023, “the work contains a rich store of living

features, which serve to illustrate the private life of the Greeks,” it

is equally clear that the author “was unequal to writing a history of

Greek philosophy. His work in reality is nothing but a compilation of

the most heterogeneous and often contradictory accounts.… The traces

of carelessness and mistakes are very numerous; much in the work is

confused, and there is also much that is quite absurd. And as far

as philosophy itself is concerned, Diogenes very frequently did not

know what he was talking about when he abridged the theories of the

philosophers.”

[89] The third point of view is wanting; and those that are given appear

to be ill selected. The French translator, following the hint of Huebner,

gives the following passage from Sextus Empiricus (a physician of the

Sceptic school, about B.C. 250), in his work against the Philosophers,

which he says may serve to rectify and complete the statement of

Diogenes Laërtius. “Good is said in one sense of that which produces

the useful, or from which the useful results; that is, the good _par

excellence_, virtue. For virtue is as it were the source from which all

utility naturally flows. In another sense it is said of that which is

accidentally the cause of utility; under this point of view we call good

not only virtue, but also those actions which are conformable to virtue,

for they are accidentally useful. In the third and last place, we call

good everything that possibly can be useful, comprehending under this

definition virtue, virtuous actions, friends, good men, the Gods, &c.,

&c.”

[90] Hom. Il. I. 81. Pope’s Version, l. 105.

[91] It is hardly necessary to remark that Ἀθηνᾶ is the name of Minerva,

not of Jupiter; Ἥρα, of Juno; Ἥφαιστος, of Vulcan; Ποσειδῶν, of Neptune,

and Δημήτηρ, of Ceres. Ἥφαιστος is properly derived from φαίνω, to

shine; Ποσειδῶν has some affinity with πόω, to drink. Δημήτηρ is only a

dialectic variation of Τῆ μητὴρ.

[92] There is a hiatus in the text here. Casaubon supplies the meaning by

a reference to Plutarch’s Treatise on the opinions of the Philosophers,

iii. 7, “that the winds are a flowing of the air, and that they have

various names with reference to the countries from which they flow.”

[93] Something is evidently wanting here; probably some mention of an

earthquake.

[94] This is similar to Virgil’s description.

Quinque tenent cœlum zonæ, quarum una corusco

Semper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni:

Quam circum extremæ dextrà lævàque trahuntur.

Cœruleâ glacie concretæ atque imbribus atris.

Has inter mediamque duæ mortalibus ægris

Munere concessæ Divûm, et via secta per ambas,

Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.—GEORG. I. 233.

There is no part of Dryden’s translation superior to that of this passage.

Five girdles bind the skies; the torrid zone

Glows with the passing and repassing sun;

Far on the right and left, th’ extremes of heaven,

To frosts, and snows, and bitter blasts are given;

Betwixt the midst. And there the Gods assigned

Four habitable seats for human kind,

And, cross their limits cut a sloping way,

Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway. l. 322.

[95] “Ὑποτελὶς, a name given by Herillus in Diogenes Laërtius to a man’s

natural talents, &c., which ought all to be subordinate to the attainment

of the chief good.”—L. & S. _in voc._

[96] From φρέαρ, a well, and ἀντλέω to draw water.

[97] The Greek used is ἀποφορὰ; which was a term especially applied to

the money which slaves let out to hire paid to their master.

[98] This is a parody on Hom. Il. iii. 196. Pope’s version, i. 260. The

word ὅλμος means the mouth piece of a flute.

[99] Taken from the Orestes of Euripides, i. 140.

[100] This is parodied from Hom. Od. iv. 611. Pope’s version, l. 831.

[101] This is referring to the Stoic doctrine ridiculed by Horace:

Si dives qui sapiens est,

Et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et est Rex

Cur optas quod habes?—Hor. Sat. i. 130.

Which may be translated:—

If every man is rich who’s wise,

A cobbler too beyond all price;

A handsome man, and eke a king;

Why thus your vows at random fling?

[102] From κρύπτω, to hide, and ἵππος, a horse.

[103] These lines are from the Erestes of Euripides, v. 247.

[104] This is a quotation from Homer, Od. x. 495. Pope’s Version, 586.

The Greek here is, οἷος πέπνυται. The line in Homer stands:

οἵῳ πέπνυσθαι,—sc: πόρε περσεφόνεια.

[105] The argument by progression is the sorites. “The arrest” is the

method of encountering the sorites, by taking some particular point at

which to stop the admissions required by the sorites.

[106] The remainder of the life of Chrysippus is lost.

[107] See Herod. iv. 93.

[108] This resembles the account which Ovid puts into the mouth of

Pythagoras, in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where he makes him

say:—

Morte carent animæ, semperque priore relicta

Sede, novis domibus habitant vivuntque receptæ;

Ipse ego, nam memini, Trojani tempora belli,

Panthorides Euphorbus eram, cui pectore quondam

Hæsit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atridæ:

Agnovi Clypeum lævæ gestamina nostræ

Nuper Abanteïs templo Junonis in Argis.

Which may be translated:—

Death has no pow’r th’ immortal soul to slay;

That, when its present body turns to clay,

Seeks a fresh home, and with unminish’d might

Inspires another frame with life and light.

So I myself, (well I the past recall)

When the fierce Greeks begirt Troy’s holy wall,

Was brave Euphorbus; and in conflict drear,

Poured forth my blood beneath Atrides’ spear:

The shield this arm did bear I lately saw

In Juno’s shrine, a trophy of that war.

[109] This passage has been interpreted in more ways than one. Casaubon

thinks with great probability that there is a hiatus in the text. I have

endeavoured to extract a meaning out of what remains. Compare Samuel ii.

16, 23. “And the counsel of Ahitophel, which he counselled in those days,

was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God; so was all the counsel

of Ahitophel both with David and with Absalom.”

[110] Zaleucus was the celebrated lawgiver of the Epizephyrian Locrians,

and is said to have been originally a slave employed by a shepherd, and

to have been set free and appointed lawgiver by the direction of an

oracle, in consequence of his announcing some excellent laws, which he

represented Minerva as having communicated to him in a dream. Diogenes,

is wrong however, in calling him a disciple of Pythagoras (see Bentley on

Phalaris), as he lived about a hundred years before his time; his true

date being 660 B.C. The code of Zaleucus is stated to have been the first

collection of written laws that the Greeks possessed. Their character

was that of great severity. They have not come down to us. His death is

said to have occurred thus. Among his laws was one forbidding any citizen

to enter the senate house in arms, under the penalty of death. But in

a sudden emergency, Zaleucus himself, in a moment of forgetfulness,

transgressed his own law: on which he slew himself, declaring that he

would vindicate his law. (Eustath. ad. Il. i. p. 60). Diodorus, however,

tells the same story of Charondas.

[111] Charondas was a lawgiver of Catana, who legislated for his own city

and the other towns of Chalcidian origin in Magna Grecia, such as Zancle,

Naxos, Leontini, Eubœa, Mylæ, Himera, Callipolis, and Rhegium. His laws

have not been preserved to us, with the exception of a few judgments.

They were probably in verse, for Athenæus says that they were sung in

Athens at banquets. Aristotle tells us that they were adapted to an

aristocracy. It is much doubted whether it is really true that he was a

disciple of Pythagoras, though we are not sure of his exact time, so that

we cannot pronounce it as impossible as in the preceding case. He must

have lived before the time of Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who reigned

from B.C. 494 to B.C. 476, because he abolished the laws of Charondas,

which had previously been in force in that city. Diodorus gives a code of

laws which he states that Charondas gave to the city of Thurii, which was

not founded till B.C. 443, when he must certainly have been dead a long

time. There is one law of his preserved by Stobæus, which is probably

authentic, since it is found in a fragment of Theophrastus; enacting that

all buying and selling shall be transacted by ready money only.

[112] This doctrine is alluded to doubtfully by Virgil, Georg. i. 247.

Illic, ut perhibent, aut intempesta silet nox

Semper, et obductâ densantur nocte tenebræ;

Aut redit a nobis Aurora, diemque reducit;

Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis,

Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.

Thus translated by Dryden, l. 338:—

There, as they say, perpetual night is found,

In silence brooding o’er th’ unhappy ground.

Or when Aurora leaves our northern sphere,

She lights the downward heav’n and rises there;

And when on us she breathes the living light

Red Vesper kindles there the tapers of the night.

[113] νοῦς appears, in a division like this, to be the deliberative part

of the mind; φρὴν, the rational part of the intellect: θυμὸς, that part

with which the passions are concerned.

[114] There is a great variety of suggestions as to the proper reading

here. There is evidently some corruption in the text.

[115] From παύω, to cause to cease, ἀνία, sorrow.

[116] It is impossible to give the force of this epigram in any other

language. It is a pun on Ἄκρων, Ἀκράγας and ἄκρος. The last word meaning

not only _high_, _lofty_, but also _eminent_, _very skilful_. The plain

English would be:—“The lofty height of a most eminent country conceals

Acron, a skilful physician of Acragas, the son of a skilful father.” The

variation would be:—“A high tomb on a very high summit, conceals,” &c.

[117] This story is mentioned by Horace:—

Siculique poetæ,

Narrabo interitum; deus immortalis haberi,

Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem frigidus Ætnam,

Insiluit. A. P. 466.

[118] This is slightly parodied from Homer. Od. xi. 278. Pope’s Version,

337.

[119] There were three festivals of Bacchus at Athens at which dramatic

contests took place, the Διονύσια κατ’ ἄγρους, or, “in the fields;” the

Ληναῖα or τὰ ἐν Λίμναις, or “the marshes,” a part of the city near the

Acropolis, in which was situated the Λήναιον, an enclosure dedicated to

Bacchus; and the τὰ ἐν ἄστει, “in the city,” or τὰ μέγαλα Διονύσια. The

comic contests usually took place at the second or Lenæan festivals.

Sometimes also at the Great Dionysia.

[120] ἔνδοξος, glorious.

[121] According to Strabo, the descendants of Androclus, the founder of

Ephesus (of which family Heraclitus came), bore the title of king, and

had certain prerogatives and privileges attached to the title.

[122] There is probably some corruption in the text here.

[123] There is great obscurity and uncertainty of the text here. The

reading translated is that of Huebner, πεφωρᾶσθαι. Some read πεπρᾶσθαι,

_he_ seems to have abandoned the Pythagoreans. Others propose πεπρᾶχθαι.

The French translator renders,—He had for enemies the Pythagoreans.

[124] See the account of Zeno the Cittiæan.

[125] See the life of Parmenides.

[126] There is evidently a considerable gap in the text here.

[127] As there is no such passage in Herodotus, Valckenær conjectures

that we ought here to read Metrodorus.

[128] The Thesmophoria was a festival in honour of Ceres, celebrated

in various parts of Greece; and only by married women; though girls

might perform some of the ceremonies. Herodotus says, that it was

introduced into Greece from Egypt, by the daughters of Danaus. The Attic

Thesmophoria lasted probably three days, and began on the eleventh day of

the month Pyanession; the first day was called ἄνοδος, or κάθοδος, from

the women going in procession to Eleusis; the second νηστεία, or fasting;

the third was called καλλιγένεια, as on that day Ceres was invoked under

that name, and it was the day of merriment of the festival.

[129] Namely, reasoning well, expressing one’s self well, and acting well.

[130] This is thus embodied by Lucretius:—

Nam nihil e nihilo, in nihilum nîl posse reverti.

[131] Hom. Il. v. 340. Pope’s version, 422.

[132] Il. vi. 146.

[133] Il. xxi. 106. Pope’s version, 115.

[134] Homer, Il. xx. 248. Pope’s version, 294.

[135] There is too remarkable a similarity in this to Campbell’s lines:—

’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,

And robes the mountains in their azure hue:

to allow one to pass it over without pointing it out.

[136] “Diogenes here appears (though, he gives no intimation of his doing

so,) to be transcribing the reasonings of some one of the Sceptics.”

_French Transl._

[137] That is to say, the harmony between intellect and the senses will

not last long. Attagas and Numenius were two notorious brigands.

[138] That is, “trifler,” from κρίνω, to judge; and λῆρος, nonsensical

talk.

[139] That is, flattering for gifts; from σαίνω, to wag the tail as a

dog, to caress; and δῶρον, a gift.

[140] This sentence is a remark of Diogenes himself. There are several

more of his observations in parentheses as we proceed.

[141] This is the argument in its completed form: “We can only form an

idea of an atom by analogy, and analogy demonstrates to us that it is

not of infinite littleness. In fact, let us compare it to the smallest

particles recognisable by sense, and then let us endeavour to form an

idea of these last. To do this we must take a term of comparison in

complex objects, which are composed of various parts. Abstracting from

these all other characteristics but that of extent, we see that these

objects have dimensions, some greater and some less, measuring an extent

which is greater or less as the case may be. The smallest sensible

particle will then have its dimensions; it will measure the smallest

possible sensible extent, that is to say, it will not be infinitely

small. Applying this analogy to an atom, one comes to conceive it as

measuring the smallest extent possible, but not as having no extent at

all, which was what Epicurus wished to prove.”—_French Translator._

[142] This is a quotation from Theognis.

[143] From the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, 1784.

[144] There is some hopeless corruption in the text here. Nor has any one

succeeded in making it intelligible. The French translator divides it

into two maxims.

[145] There in some great corruption here again. The French translator

takes 19, 20, and 21 all as one.

INDEX.

⁂ The Roman numerals refer to the sections, the Arabic figures to the

pages.

ÆSCHINES, a rhetorician, vii. 80.

calumniated, iii. 79.

lectured at Athens, iv. 80.

son of a sausage seller, i. 79.

ALCMÆON, Crotona, his view of the soul, 371.

ANACHARSIS, inventions of, ii. 48.

letter to Crœsus, 49.

received by Solon, iii. 47.

return to Scythia, iv. 47.

sayings of, v. 47.

one of the wise, 46.

ANAXAGORAS, called MIND, i. 59.

epigrams on, x. 62.

first prose writer, viii. 61.

opinions of, iii. 59.

prosecuted for impiety, ix. 61.

ANAXARCHUS, called HAPPY, iii. 401.

intimate with Alexander, 400.

Nicocreon, his enemy, 401.

ANAXIMANDER, the astronomer, 57.

ANAXIMENES, letters to Pythagoras, 58.

Annicereans, their opinions, x. 92.

ANTISTHENES, doctrines of, v. 220.

founds a manly Stoic school, viii. 221.

love of life, x. 223.

pupil of Gorgias, ii. 217.

sayings of, iv. 218.

writings of, ix. 222.

ARCESILAUS, a favourite of Eumenes and Hierocles, xiv. 168.

an admirer of Plato, viii. 165.

a poet, iv. 164.

axiomatic and free-spoken, x. 165.

death from excess, x. 170.

disliked talkativeness, 166.

founder of the Middle Academy, ii. 163.

goes to Crantor, iii. 163.

letter to Thaumasias, xix. 170.

liberal with money, xiii. 167.

vices of, xvi. 168.

ARCHELAUS, 62.

a natural philosopher, ii. 62.

opinions on heat and cold, &c. iii. 63.

—— production of animals, iii. 63.

ARCHYTAS, general at Tarentum, 369.

letter to Plato and reply, iv. 369.

mathematician, vii. 370.

ARISTIPPUS, a favourite of Dionysius, iii. 81.

opinions of, on pain and pleasure, 90.

retorts, iv. 82.

school of philosophy, viii. 89.

sycophancy, iv. 82.

teaches for money, ii. 81.

wealth, iv. 82.

writings, vi. 88.

ARISTON, the bald, called SIREN, i. 318.

an eloquent philosopher, vi. 319.

his writings, vii. 319.

ARISTOTLE, apophthegms, xi. 187.

death from poison, vii. 182.

hymn to Hermias, 183.

leaves Plato, iv. 181.

lived in Philip’s court, vi. 182.

opinions, criterion of truth, 192.

—— friendship, 192.

—— God, 193.

—— philosophy, 191.

Plato’s most eminent pupil, ii. 181.

peripatetic, why so called, iv. 181.

scheme for early waking, x. 186.

school at Athens, vii. 182.

will of, ix. 185.

writings, many, xii. 189.

BIAS, the wise, 38.

declines the tripod, i. 38.

death of, in court, iv. 39.

eloquent and just as a lawyer, iii. 39.

a poet, v. 39.

sayings of, v. 39.

stratagem to save Priene, his native city, ii. 39.

BION, apophthegms of, iii. 172.

change of schools, iv. 173.

fear of death, x. 175.

fond of theatre, v. 174.

poverty of, i. 171.

selfishness of, ix. 174.

CARNEADES, his letters, viii. 178.

well read in Stoic lore, ii. 177.

industry of, iii. 178.

his fear of death, vii. 178.

CEBES, the Theban, 105.

CHARONDAS, account of, _note_, 345.

CHILO, the wise one of, 32.

brief in speech, v. 34.

death of, through joy, v. 34.

letter to Periander, v. 34.

opinion as to Cythera, iv. 33.

saying about suretyship, v. 34.

sayings of, ii. 33.

CHRYSIPPUS, his abilities, ii. 327.

his books, xii. 331.

his industry, iii. 328.

his questions, xi. 330.

a pupil of Cleanthes, i. 327.

his self-esteem, iv. 329.

said to be an indecent writer, xii. 331.

CLEANTHES, a boxer, 322.

books of, ii. 325.

called an ass, iv. 323.

poor and industrious, ii. 322.

slow of intellect, iii. 323.

starved himself, vii. 326.

wrote on oyster shells, &c. for want of paper, iv. 323.

CLEOBULUS, one of the wise men, 41.

apophthegms of, iv. 42.

letter to Solon, vi. 43.

CLITOMACHUS, disciple and successor of Carneades, 179.

CRANTOR, a poet, vi. 162.

a pupil of Polemo, iii. 161.

retires to temple of Æsculapius, iv. 161.

CRATES, a pupil of Polemo, 160.

lived with Crantor, iii. 160.

writings of, and disciples, iv. 161.

CRATES, a Theban cynic, 249.

his disposal of property, iv. 250.

his jesting with death, x. 252.

his indifference to public opinion, viii. 252.

his sayings, ix. 282.

CRITO, the Athenian, 103.

Cynics, doctrines of, iii. 257.

discard liberal studies, 257.

prefer ethics to logic, 257.

simplicity in living, 258.

virtue, the chief good, 258.

—— may be taught, 258.

Cyrenaics, a sect of the school of Aristippus, viii. 89.

DEMETRIUS, governor of Athens, ii. 209.

honoured and envied, viii. 209.

his reported blindness and restoration of sight, vii. 209.

statues erected to him, ii. 209.

sayings of, x. 211.

writings of, ix. 210.

DEMOCRITUS, pupil of the magi, 390.

death, xi. 390.

disregard of glory, v. 391.

—— of wealth, vii. 392.

doctrines of, xii. 394.

lowly life, vii. 392.

Plato’s dislike of him, viii. 393.

sagacity, stories of, x. 394.

writings of, xiii. 395.

Dialectics, the Stoics’ doctrine of, xxxv. 275.

DIOGENES, accounts of his death, xi. 246.

anecdotes of him, vi. 228.

cynical sayings, 226.

lived in a cask, 225.

money changer, 224.

—— corrupted by him, i. 224.

neglect of music, vii. 245.

persuader, a skilful, x. 245.

poverty of, reconciled to, iii. 224.

pride and haughtiness of, iv. 225.

pupil of Antisthenes, ii. 224.

sold as a slave, ix. 245.

writings of, xii. 247.

DIOGENES of Apollonia, 400.

his chief doctrines, ii. 400.

DIONYSIUS, a pupil of Zeno, 321.

writings of, v. 321.

Druids, account of, _note_ 3.

Egyptian philosophy, vii. 9.

EMPEDOCLES, accused of pride, xi. 366.

doctrines of, xii. 368.

inventor of rhetoric, iii. 361.

liberality of, ix. 363.

pacifies the Agrigentines, xi. 366.

political career, ix. 363.

retires to Peloponnesus, x. 364.

story of his wonder working, xi. 365.

why called, wind-forbidder, v. 362.

EPICHARMUS, inscription on his statue, 368.

EPICURUS, an Athenian, 424.

his character, v. 427.

criteria of truth, 435.

said to be debauched, iii. 426.

rejected dialectics, 435.

Diotimus, a Stoic, opposes him, iii. 425.

doctrines, his, on affections, 447.

—— atoms, 439.

—— clouds, thunder, &c. 460.

—— comets, 464.

—— faults among men, 467.

—— forms and attributes, 449.

—— grief, 467.

—— heaven’s phenomena, 452, 458.

—— injuries among men, 466.

—— meteorological, 461.

—— opinion and supposition, 436.

—— passions, pleasure, and pain, 436.

—— pleasure, 471, 473.

—— production of things, 441.

—— self-production, 451.

—— stars, 464.

—— study of philosophy, 468.

—— universe, 439.

flattered Mithras, iii. 425.

fundamental maxims of, xxxi. 474.

letter of, to Herodotus, xxiv. 436.

—— Menœceus, xxvii. 468.

—— Pythocles, xxv. 455.

manner of his death, ix. 429.

plain language, his, viii. 428.

pupils, his, xi. 431.

virtue, why to be chosen, xxx. 473.

voluminous writings, xvii. 483.

will, his last, x. 429.

writings on natural philosophy, iv. 426.

youthful student, a, ix. 429.

EPIMENIDES, one of the wise men, 50.

built a temple at Athens, vi. 52.

honoured as a deity, xi. 53.

letter to Solon, ix. 52.

long life, his, story of, iv. 51.

long sleep, his, story of, ii. 50.

poems, and other writings, v. 51.

stays the plague at Athens, iii. 51.

Ethical philosophy, what, xiii. 12.

subdivisions, xiii. 12.

EUCLIDES, his followers, iv. 97.

opinions, ii. 97.

protector of Socrates, i. 97.

EUDOXUS, astronomer, geometrician, and lawgiver, 373.

inventor of theory of crooked lines, vi. 374.

writings of, iii. 373.

Fate, Stoics’ view of, lxxiv. 318.

Gymnosophistæ, what and who, i. 3.

GOD, Stoics’ view of, lxxii. 312.

Hegesiaci, a sect of the school of Aristippus, their opinions, ix. 91.

HERACLIDES, a Peripatetic, Pythagorean, and Platonist, by turns, ii. 213.

remarkable attempt to deceive at his death, ii. 215.

surnamed Pompicus from his dress and size, iii. 213.

writings of, iv. 213.

HERACLITUS, book on nature, v. 377.

epigrams on him, xii. 381.

esteemed by Darius Hystaspes, letters between them, ix. 380.

lofty and arrogant, 376.

misanthropic, iii. 376.

HIPPARCHIA, a female philosopher, in love with Crates the Cynic, 254.

Her contest with Theodorus, iii. 255.

HIPPASUS, a disciple of Pythagoras, 371.

Ionian school of philosophy, x. 10.

Italian school of philosophy, x. 10.

“Know thyself,” the apophthegm, xiii. 21.

LACYDES, founder of the New Academy, i. 176.

his death from excess, vi. 177.

his industry, ii. 176.

LEUCIPPUS, his chief doctrines, ii. 388.

pupil of Zeno the Eleatic, 388.

LYCON, an eloquent instructor of youth, i. 205.

delicacy in dress, iii. 206.

favourite of Eumenes and Attalus, iv. 206.

his will, ix. 206.

Magi, what and who, _note_, 3.

MELISSUS, his doctrine of universe, 386.

MENEDEMUS, his banquets, xv. 110.

his character, vi. 107.

his death, xviii. 112.

despised Plato, &c., xi. 109.

disciple of Phædo, 105.

endangered by his free speech, iv. 107.

friend of Antigonus, xvii. 111.

invention and readiness, xii. 109.

regardlessness of appearances, v. 107.

severe and rigid, iii. 106.

sent to Megara, but deserts, ii. 105.

thought highly of by his countrymen, xvi. 111.

MENEDEMUS, a superstitious Cynic, 267.

MENIPPUS, a Cynic, 253.

hangs himself, iii. 256.

writer of low ridicule, ii. 256.

writings, vi. 256.

METROCLES, pupil of Crates the Cynic, 253.

destroys himself, 254.

Mind, Stoics, doctrine of, lxxiii. 299.

MONIMUS, feigned madness, i. 248.

a pupil of Diogenes, 248.

MYSON, one of the wise men, 49.

Natural philosophy, what so called, xiii. 11.

Stoics’ account of, lxvii. 307.

ORPHEUS, not a philosopher, iv. 7.

ONESICRITUS, a pupil of Diogenes, 249.

PARMENIDES, first to speak of the earth as a sphere, ii. 384.

philosophized in poems, iii. 385.

PERIANDER, one of the wise men, his domestic crimes, 43.

his letter to Procles, viii. 46.

—— to the wise men, vii. 45.

—— from Thrasybulus, ix. 46.

sayings of, v. 45.

wish to conceal his grave, iii. 44.

PHÆDO, founder of the Eliac school, 96.

PHERECYDES, one of the wise men, 53.

epigrams on, vii. 55.

first writer on natural philosophy, ii. 54.

grave of, at Ephesus, iv. 54.

letter to Thales, viii. 56.

makes a sun-dial, vi. 55.

PHILOLAUS, a pupil of Pythagoras, 372.

aims at regal power, ii. 372.

book, his one, iv. 372.

first to describe the earth’s movement in a circle, iii. 372.

Philosophers, names of their sects, xii. 11.

who did not write, xi. 11.

Philosophy, arose among Greeks, iii. 6.

divisions of, xiii. 11.

earliest study of, i. 3.

two schools of, x. 10.

various kinds of, xi. 11.

PISISTRATUS, his letter to Solon, vi. 20.

PITTACUS, one of the wise men, 35.

advice about marrying, viii. 37.

death of, vi. 36.

forbearance of, iii. 35.

a general and soldier, i. 35.

honoured by his country, ii. 35.

lameness of, ix. 38.

letter to Crœsus, x. 38.

a poet, v. 36.

sayings of, iv. 36.

PLATO, academy, his, ix. 115.

account of his opinions, by Alcimus, 117.

aided by Epicharmus, a comic poet, xii. 116.

attachments, xxiii. 123.

—— to writings of Sophron, 119.

birth and early abode, ii. 113.

danger from Dionysius, xv. 120.

defends Chabrias, xviii. 121.

descent of, i. 113.

dialogues of, xxxv. 133.

disciples of, xxxi. 129.

disliked Aristippus, 126.

disliked by Xenophon, xxiv. 125.

education, his, v. 114.

epigrams on his tomb, 128.

epistles, his, xxxvi. 134.

marks in his books, xxxix. 136.

method of his argument, xxxii. 129.

opinions on arts, beauty, 144.

beneficence, 146.

contraries, 149.

discourse, 143.

entities divisible and undivisible, 150.

—— independent and relative, 150.

end of affairs, 146.

friendships, 141.

God and matter, 137.

good and evil, 140.

good counsel, 150.

good laws and lawlessness, 148.

the good, 148.

good things, 149.

happiness, 147.

justice, 142.

knowledge, 142.

law, 143.

medical science, 143.

music, 143.

noble birth, 144.

philanthropy, 147.

political constitutions, 141.

power, 147.

rhetoric, 145.

rule, 145.

the soul, 144.

things existing, 148.

virtue perfect, 144.

voice, 150.

opinions on his writings, xxv. 126.

refuses appointments from Arcadia and Thebes, xvii. 121.

ridiculed, xxii. 121.

Socrates’ dream of him, vii. 114.

system, his, made difficult on purpose, xxxviii. 135.

theory of ideas, 118.

valiant soldier, a, x. 115.

visits Sicily, volcanoes, xiv. 119.

what he taught, xix. 122.

where he first taught, viii. 114.

will, his last, xxx. 127.

POLEMO, his calmness, iv. 158.

epigram, viii. 160.

fond, of Sophocles, vii. 159.

imitated Xenocrates, vi. 159.

intemperate and profligate, 158.

much honoured, iv. 158.

rigorous system of morals, iv. 158.

POTAMO and his school, xiv. 13.

Potter’s wheel, invented by Anacharsis, viii. 48.

PROTAGORAS, method of arguing, his, iii. 397.

taught at a fixed price, 398.

works, his, v. 398.

wrecked in his way to Sicily, vii. 399.

PYRRHO, originally a painter, 402.

account of him, by Antigonus, 402.

arguing, ten modes of, ix. 409.

arguing, five others added by Agrippa, x. 412.

attached to Anaxarchus, ii. 402.

certainty not attainable, 414.

disciples, vii. 405.

—— called Sceptics from their doubting every thing, viii. 405.

eloquent, 403.

fortitude and economy, vi. 404.

good, natural, or natural evil, none, 417.

honoured by his country, 403.

impassiveness, vi. 404.

learning, no such thing, 417.

left no writings, 418.

motion, none, 417.

production, none, 417.

signs, invisible of visible things, 416.

signs, visible of visible things, none, 415.

system learned from his disciples, 418.

travelled to India, 402.

PYTHAGORAS, accounted a son of Mercury, iv. 339.

his works, v. 340.

community of property with friends, viii. 342.

division of life, vii. 342.

doctrine of monads, xix. 348.

founder of Italian philosophy, i. 338.

geometrician, xi. 342.

greatly admired, xv. 342.

initiated into mysteries, iii. 338.

introduced weights and measures to Greece, xiii. 344.

letter to Anaximenes, xxvi. 358.

manner of his death, xxi. 354.

opinions on nature, xix. 349.

practised divination, xviii. 346.

precepts, vi. 341.

—— as to worship, xix. 347.

prohibition as to food, xviii. 346.

ridiculed by Timon, xv. 353.

symbols, his, xvii. 345.

wife and son, xxii. 355.

worship of Apollo, xii. 343.

Schools of philosophy, xiii. 12.

Seven wise men, the, xiv. 21.

SIMIAS, the Theban, 105.

SIMON, the Athenian leather cutter, 104.

SOCRATES, an artificer, 64.

character, his, viii. 66.

contests, his, xxv. 74.

counsels and sayings, xvi. 69.

dæmon warnings, xvi. 69.

executed for opinions, the first philosopher who was, v. 64.

lamented by the Athenians, xxiii. 73.

persuasive power, xii. 68.

ransoms Phædo and teaches him philosophy, xiv. 68.

school, his, xxvi. 74.

saves Xenophon’s life, vii. 65.

serves in Xenophon’s army, vii. 65.

slaves, would not have, xiii. 68.

wives, his, xvii. 70.

SOLON, the wise, life of, 23.

apophthegms, his, xvi. 30.

counsels, his, xii. 29.

death of, xv. 29.

escapes from Athens, iv. 25.

excites Athens against Salamis, ii. 23.

inscription on his statue, xv. 29.

laws as to debts, i. 23.

laws, vii. 26.

letter to Crœsus, xx. 52.

—— Epimenides, xviii. 30.

—— Periander, xvii. 30.

—— Pisistratus, xix. 31.

means of preventing injustice, x. 28.

opposes Pisistratus, iii. 24.

poems, his, xiii. 29.

taught time by moon, xi. 28.

SPEUSIPPUS, a basket-maker, vi. 152.

commentaries, his, xi. 153.

passionate and voluptuous, 152.

Plato’s successor, 152.

puts an end to his life, ix. 153.

SPHÆRUS, at Alexandria, 326.

his books, iii. 327.

Stars, Stoics, doctrine of, lxxi. 311.

STILPO, his acuteness, ii. 100.

his dialogues, viii. 102.

his end, x. 103.

opinions on statues, v. 101.

politician, a, iii. 100.

rejects theory of species, vii. 102.

his simplicity, vi. 101.

visits Ptolemy Soter, iv. 101.

Stoics, doctrines of, xxxiii. 274.

STRATO, the natural philosopher, ii. 202.

Ptolemy Philadelphus, his pupil, iii. 202.

successor of Theophrastus, 202.

will, his last, vii. 203.

writings, his, iv. 203.

THALES, the wise, astronomical science studied and taught by him, ii. 14.

death of, xii. 20.

letter to Pherecydes, xv. 22.

—— Solon, xvi. 22.

sayings of, ix. 18.

star-gazing and falling into the ditch, viii. 18.

tripod awarded to him, vii. 16.

views of the soul, his, iii. 15.

Theodoreans, their opinions, xi. 93.

THEODORUS, a disciple of Aristippus, xv. 94.

banished for his opinions, xvi. 95.

THEOPHRASTUS, Aristotle’s pupil and friend, 194.

character of, iv. 194.

name, symbolic, vi. 195.

will, his last, xiv. 200.

writings, his, xiii. 196.

Thesmophoria, what, _note_, 394.

TIMON, of Phliasis, 420.

acuteness of, ii. 422.

delighted in a garden, v. 422.

fond of drinking, ii. 421.

a jester, vi. 422.

his pupils, vii. 423.

Virtue and vice, Stoics’ doctrine of, lxv. 304.

Water, the principle of all things, vi. 15.

Wise man, the Stoics’, lxiv. 301.

Wise men, the, who, ix. 10.

XENOCRATES, accidental death, xii. 157.

a grave and solemn man, iii. 154.

habit of meditation, viii. 156.

kind to a sparrow, vi. 156.

pupil of Plato, 154.

self-denial of, v. 155.

sold for his taxes, x. 157.

writings, his, ix. 156.

XENOPHANES, banished, 382.

buried his sons with his own hands, iv. 384.

doctrines, his, iii. 383.

wrote poems, iii. 383.

XENOPHON, banished by the Athenians, vii. 76.

called the Attic muse, xiv. 78.

conduct on death of his son, x. 77.

escape to Corinth, ix. 77.

first writer of memorabilia, iii. 75.

follower of Socrates, ii. 75.

friend of Cyrus, v. 75.

love of Clinias, iv. 75.

writings, his, xiii. 78.

ZALEUCUS, account of, _note_, 345.

ZENO, the Stoic, his abstinence, &c. xxiii. 269.

admires Diodorus, xx. 266.

anecdotes of him, xix. 266.

Antigonus respects him, viii. 261.

Athenians crown him, ix. 263.

disciples and works, xxxi. 273.

doctrines, xxxii. 273.

kills himself, xxvi. 270.

lectures in the Stoa or porch, vii. 261.

manner of reproving, xix. 265.

personal appearance, ii. 259.

pupil of Crates, iii. 259.

retiring disposition, xv. 264.

republic, his, xxviii. 271.

turn for investigation, xvii. 264.

his vices, xiii. 263.

writes about duty, xxi. 269.

writings, iv. 260.

ZENO, the Eleatic, adopted son of Parmenides, 386.

arrested for treason against Nearches, v. 387.

chief doctrines, viii. 388.

invented dialectics, iv. 387.

pounded to death in a mortar, v. 387.

ZOROASTER, his philosophy, _note_, 5.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, DUKE STREET,

STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.

Transcriber’s Note

The original of this text was not edited as carefully as it could have

been. As a result, for this e-text quite a number of changes have been

made. These are based on comparison with other editions of the same work

and with the original Greek text.

List of changes made:

Table of Contents, swapped positions of “Preface” and “Introduction”

Table of Contents, “Zenophon” changed to “Xenophon”

Page 7, “apophthegmns” changed to “apophthegms” (apophthegms in

enigmatical language)

Page 12, “Pyhrronean” changed to “Pyrrhonean” (the Pyrrhonean is

repudiated by many writers)

Page 14, “Focus” changed to “Phocus” (Phocus the Samian)

Page 16, “Bathydes” changed to “Bathycles” twice (of the name of

Bathycles / the son of Bathycles)

Page 31, “ursurping” changed to “usurping” (from usurping the tyranny)

Page 35, “his” changed to “her” (Pamphila says, in the second book of her

Commentaries)

Page 37, “Favorinus” changed to “Phavorinus” (as Phavorinus tells us)

Page 46, “Anacharis” changed to “Anacharsis” (Anacharsis the Scythian was

the son of Gnurus)

Page 51, “Ctesilius” changed to “Ctesibius” (Cratinus and Ctesibius)

Page 51, “Rhodamanthus” changed to “Rhadamanthus” (on Minos and

Rhadamanthus)

Page 53, “Sosilius” changed to “Sosibius” (as Sosibius the Lacedæmonian

says)

Page 55, “wiih” changed to “with” (Adorned with valour while alive)

Page 57, plus in 22 other places throughout the book, “Pharorinus”

changed to “Phavorinus”

Page 57, missing words “Ionic dialect.” added (and wrote in the Ionic

dialect.)

Page 60, “Phalerius” changed to “Phalereus” (as Demetrius Phalereus tells

us)

Page 61, “Metro” changed to “Metrodorus” (and Metrodorus, of Lampsacus)

Page 61, “Medison” changed to “Medism” (but also for Medism)

Page 63, “becaused” changed to “because” (because he enlarged his

principles)

Page 63, “Meætetus” changed to “Theætetus” (as Plato records in his

Theætetus)

Page 63, “Moresimachus” changed to “Mnesimachus” (to which idea,

Mnesimachus speaks)

Page 65, “Delian” changed to “Delium” (saved Xenophon in the battle of

Delium)

Page 66, “Crononian” changed to “Cranonian” (Scopas the Cranonian)

Page 67, repeated word “and” removed (and all such kind of follies)

Page 68, “Glauson” changed to “Glaucon” (he wrought upon Glaucon)

Page 68, “Glauernides” changed to “Glauconides” (and Glauconides said,

that)

Page 69, repeated word “it” removed (that it was not absurd to learn)

Page 69, “Augur” changed to “Auge” (Euripides, in his Auge)

Page 71 and following pages, “Melitus” changed to “Meletus” 7 times

Page 72, “Pittea” changed to “Pithus” (the son of Meletus, of Pithus)

Page 73, “Iystæus” changed to “Tyrtæus” (they said that Tyrtæus was out

of his wits)

Page 74, “Cereops” changed to “Cercops” (in his lifetime with Cercops)

Page 74, “Aphimenes” changed to “Amphimenes” (Amphimenes of Cos)

Page 74, “Salamis” changed to “Salarus” (Salarus of Priene)

Page 74, “Cellæus” changed to “Alcæus” (Alcæus and Anaxagoras)

Page 74, “Sosibrius” changed to “Sosibius” (Anaxagoras with Sosibius)

Page 74, “Timocrea” changed to “Timocreon” (Simonides with Timocreon)

Page 80, “Jelanges” changed to “Telauges” (the Telauges, and the Rhino)

Page 80, “Caramis” changed to “Carcinus” (Carcinus, the tragedian)

Page 82, “prefering” changed to “preferring” (by preferring one beauty to

the rest)

Page 84, “Aretes” changed to “Arete” (his daughter Arete)

Page 84, repeated word “a” removed (whether one takes a house)

Page 85, “reproched” changed to “reproached” (when some one reproached

him)

Page 89, “Annicerci” changed to “Annicerei” (some Annicerei, others

Theodorei)

Page 89, “Pyræbates” changed to “Paræbates” (the master of Paræbates)

Page 89, “Parætius” changed to “Panætius” (as Panætius also tells us)

Page 93, “Theodereans” changed to “Theodoreans” (The Theodoreans, as they

are called)

Page 95, “so” changed to “to” (Metrocles the Cynic, who was washing

leeks, said to him)

Page 95, “Rhœus” changed to “Rhœcus” (a Samian, the son of Rhœcus)

Page 95, “Musicial” changed to “Musical” (a treatise on Musical Composers)

Page 96, “Athenæas” changed to “Athenæus” (a physician, a pupil of

Athenæus)

Page 96, “Phistamus” changed to “Plistanus” (his successor was Plistanus

of Elis)

Page 96, “Philias” changed to “Phlius” (Asclepiades of Phlius)

Page 97, “may” changed to “many” (a great many arguments)

Page 98, “preplexing” changed to “perplexing” (Asking his horned

quibbles, and perplexing)

Page 98, “C” changed to “R” (unable to pronounce the R)

Page 100, “Therium” changed to “Thurii” (Clinomachus of Thurii)

Page 100, “Dippilus” changed to “Diphilus” (Diphilus of the Bosphorus)

Page 100, “Venites” changed to “Venetes” (Myrmex of the Venetes)

Page 102, “Syphon” changed to “Typhon” (where Typhon’s voice resounds)

Page 102, “Cnistippus” changed to “Aristippus” (the Aristippus or Callias)

Page 103, “Sophibus” changed to “Sophilus” (Sophilus the comic poet)

Page 103, “dicourse” changed to “discourse” (the whole discourse of this

Charinus)

Page 103, “Polititical” changed to “Political” (on Political Science)

Page 104, “Minexenus” changed to “Menexenus” (the Cephalus; the

Anaxiphemus; the Menexenus)

Page 105, “Simeas” changed to “Simias” (Simias was a Theban)

Page 105, “Theoprobidæ” changed to “Theopropidæ” (one of those who are

called Theopropidæ)

Page 106, “Cassandra” changed to “Cassandrea” (Eurylochus, of Cassandrea)

Page 107, “Nicorreon” changed to “Nicocreon” (at the court of Nicocreon)

Page 110, “Hyporicus” changed to “Hipponicus” (Hipponicus the Macedonian)

Page 110, “Hipporicus” changed to “Hipponicus” (Hipponicus gave Menedemus

two thousand drachmas)

Page 113, “Petone” changed to “Potone” (the son of Ariston and Perictione

or Potone)

Page 113, “Diopidas” changed to “Dropidas” (had a brother named Dropidas)

Page 114, “Conservations” changed to “Conversations” (the eighth book of

his Philosophical Conversations)

Page 114, “Petone” changed to “Potone” (a sister called Potone)

Page 116, “Alcinus” changed to “Alcimus” (as Alcimus says in his essays)

Page 117, “Alcinus” changed to “Alcimus” (And Alcimus speaks as follows)

Page 119, “Alcinus” changed to “Alcimus” (compared by Alcimus through

four books)

Page 120, “Deni” changed to “Dion” twice (being appeased by Dion / it was

Dion who sent the money)

Page 120, “Aristimenes” changed to “Aristomenes” (being appeased by Dion

and Aristomenes)

Page 120, “Helia” changed to “Helice” (drowned in Helice)

Page 121, “Thetas” changed to “Theotas” (suspected of exciting Dion and

Theotas)

Page 123, “Mesopis” changed to “Meropis” (Alexis says in his Meropis)

Page 123, “Analion” changed to “Ancylion” (And in his Ancylion, he says)

Page 123, “Pseudripobolimæus” changed to “Pseudypobolimæus” (Cratinas in

his Pseudypobolimæus, says)

Page 126, “Sothon” changed to “Sathon” (which he entitled Sathon)

Page 127, “Mysonianus” changed to “Myronianus” (But Myronianus, in his

Resemblances)

Page 128, “Cephiciades” changed to “Cephisiades” (the temple of the

Cephisiades)

Page 128, “Phreanian” changed to “Phrearrian” (Archestratus the

Phrearrian)

Page 128, “Challidian” changed to “Chollidian” (Philip the Chollidian)

Page 128, “Ademantus” changed to “Adimantus” (shall belong to my son

Adimantus)

Page 128, “Sychon” changed to “Tychon” (My slaves Tychon, Bictas)

Page 128, “Tozthenes” changed to “Sosthenes” (My executors shall be

Sosthenes)

Page 130, “Alexander” changed to “Alexamenus” (Alexamenus, a native of

Styra)

Page 130, “at” changed to “as” (the other is as it were tentative)

Page 131, “Clitiphon” changed to “Clitophon” (the Menexenus, the

Clitophon, the Epistles)

Page 131, “Hippiastro” changed to “Hippias too” (and Protagoras, Hippias

too)

Page 134, “Meætetus” changed to “Theætetus” (The Theætetus, or Knowledge)

Page 135, “Aristodemns” changed to “Aristodemus” (one letter to

Aristodemus)

Page 135, “Chilidon” changed to “Chelidon” (the Demodorus; the Chelidon;

the Seventh;)

Page 139, “lives” changed to “live” (those which live in the water)

Page 142, “Lacædemon” changed to “Lacedæmon” (in Lacedæmon and Macedonia)

Page 152, “aud” changed to “and” (paralysis, and sent to)

Page 153, “Amartynus” changed to “Amartyrus” (an Essay addressed to

Amartyrus)

Page 155, “Myornianus” changed to “Myronianus” (as Myronianus tells us in

his Similitudes)

Page 156, “Archidemus” changed to “Archedemus” (the Archedemus, or an

essay on Justice)

Page 157, “Spuesippus” changed to “Speusippus” (He succeeded Speusippus)

Page 162, “Meætetus” changed to “Theætetus the poet wrote thus about him”

(Theætetus the poet wrote thus about him)

Page 167, “Aleximes” changed to “Alexinus” (a certain dialectician, a

pupil of Alexinus)

Page 167, “Callecrates” changed to “Callicrates” (that of Archecrates and

Callicrates)

Page 168, “Aristi” changed to “Aristo” (Aristo, the Chian)

Page 168, “Mydea” changed to “Myrlea” (Cleochares of Myrlea)

Page 169, “Alcymeus” changed to “Alcyoneus” (the birthday of Alcyoneus)

Page 174, “Eretosthenes” changed to “Eratosthenes” (they relate that

Eratosthenes said)

Page 176, “Proconnesas” changed to “Proconnesus” (he was a native of

Proconnesus)

Page 179, “logoædical” changed to “logaœdical” (lines in logaœdical

Archebulian metre)

Page 183, “Demophelus” changed to “Demophilus” (his prosecutor was

Demophilus)

Page 184, “Calumia” changed to “Calauria” (Demosthenes died in Calauria)

Page 184, “Calisthenes” changed to “Callisthenes” (the conspiracy of

Callisthenes against Alexander)

Page 186, “Aubracis” changed to “Ambracis” (Ambracis shall have her

liberty)

Page 186, “where-ever” changed to “wherever” (wherever else they think

fit)

Page 188, “is” changed to “his” (and his answer was)

Page 193, “incoporeal” changed to “incorporeal” (something which has an

incorporeal species)

Page 194, “his” changed to “her” (as Pamphila asserts in the

thirty-second book of her Commentaries)

Page 194, “Menandar” changed to “Menander” (he was the tutor of Menander)

Page 195, “Tyrtanius” changed to “Tyrtamus” (His name had originally been

Tyrtamus)

Page 196, “Phalerius” changed to “Phalereus” (by the assistance of

Demetrius Phalereus)

Page 199, repeated word “Natural” removed (Problems in Natural History)

Page 199, “Astyceron” changed to “Astycreon” (Letters to Astycreon,

Phanias, and Nicanor)

Page 200, “Callenus” changed to “Callinus” (Neleus, Strato, Callinus,

Demotimus)

Page 201, “Donar” changed to “Donax” (and Donax to Neleus)

Page 201, “Eulius” changed to “Eubius” (I order Eubius to be sold)

Page 202, “Thrasos” changed to “Thasos” (Lysistratus of Thasos)

Page 202, “dilligence” changed to “diligence” (in the diligence with

which he applied himself)

Page 204, “Innesigenes” changed to “Mnesigenes” (Aristides, Mnesigenes,

Hippocrates)

Page 204, “Olympicus” changed to “Olympichus” (let Iræus calculate with

Olympichus)

Page 204, “Ausinias” changed to “Aminias” (with Olympichus and Aminias)

Page 204, “Philoreatos” changed to “Philocrates” (Philocrates, the son of

Tisamenus)

Page 205, “saying” changed to “sayings” (Another of his sayings was)

Page 206, repeated word “in” removed (all that I have in the city)

Page 207, “Amplicon” changed to “Amphion” (and Ariston, and Amphion, and

Lycon)

Page 208, “Micras” changed to “Micrus” twice (Micrus I hereby present

with his freedom / I also hereby emancipate the mother of Micrus)

Page 208, “Menedora” changed to “Menodora” (four minæ, and Menodora)

Page 208, “to” changed to “too” (in this respect too he deserves)

Page 211, “Antiphones” changed to “Antiphanes” (on Antiphanes, one;)

Page 212, “Colatia” changed to “Calatia” (the sixth was a native of

Calatia)

Page 212, “Euthyræ” changed to “Erythræ” (the twelfth was a grammarian of

Erythræ)

Page 212, “Bythinian” changed to “Bithynian” (the thirteenth was a

Bithynian)

Page 212, “Pamotus” changed to “Panætius” (Panætius of Rhodes)

Page 212, “unsubtantial” changed to “unsubstantial” (Fought o’er a tomb

and unsubstantial shade)

Page 215, “Aretodorus” changed to “Autodorus” (Autodorus the Epicurean

reproaches him)

Page 215, “Spentharus” changed to “Spintharus” (as some say Spintharus)

Page 216, “Panculus” changed to “Pancalus” (they formed the name of

Pancalus)

Page 216, “Nisius” changed to “Hicesius” (a physician, a pupil of

Hicesius)

Page 219, “Philosphers” changed to “Philosophers” (his treatise on the

Philosophers)

Page 223, missing word “an” added (an essay on Telemachus)

Page 224, “Tresius” changed to “Hicesius” (the son of Hicesius, a

money-changer)

Page 224, “Perdalus” changed to “Pordalus” (he himself, in his Pordalus)

Page 225, “Polymeter” changed to “Polyeuctus” (Polyeuctus, the orator)

Page 225, “Æschorion” changed to “Æschrion” (Lysanias, the son of

Æschrion)

Page 231, “Ægesilaus” changed to “Agesilaus” (if Agesilaus and

Epaminondas are)

Page 233, “Calisthenes” changed to “Callisthenes” (the happiness of

Callisthenes)

Page 239, “Thelian” changed to “Melian” (Diagoras the Melian)

Page 244, “belong” changed to “belongs” (everything belongs to the wise)

Page 245, “Philistus” changed to “Philiscus” (not rather the work of

Philiscus)

Page 245, “Circe” changed to “crier” (when the crier asked him)

Page 247, missing word “art” added (Since you alone did teach to men the

art)

Page 247, “Œdippus” changed to “Œdipus” (the Chrysippus, and the Œdipus)

Page 247, “Solmæus” changed to “Tolmæus” (the Beggar; the Tolmæus; the

Leopard)

Page 248, “Sicymian” changed to “Sicyonian” (The second was a Sicyonian)

Page 249, “Osnesicritus” changed to “Onesicritus” (Onesicritus is called

by some authors)

Page 249, “Clocus” changed to “Clœus” (Hegesæus of Sinope, who was

nicknamed Clœus)

Page 254, “Theomentus” changed to “Theombrotus” (His pupils were

Theombrotus and Cleomenes)

Page 257, “Celotes” changed to “Colotes” (a disciple of Colotes of

Lampsacus)

Page 259, “Innaseas” changed to “Mnaseas” (Zeno was the son of Mnaseas)

Page 260, “Priscanactium” changed to “Peisianactium” (colonnade which is

called the Peisianactium)

Page 262, “Innaseas” changed to “Mnaseas” (Since Zeno the son of Mnaseas)

Page 263, “Innaseas” changed to “Mnaseas” (Zeno, the son of Mnaseas, the

Cittiæan)

Page 263, “Acharnæs” changed to “Acharnæ” (Medon of Acharnæ)

Page 263, “Mecythus of Sypalyttas” changed to “Micythus of Sypalettus”

(Micythus of Sypalettus, and Dion)

Page 264, “simdapsus” changed to “skindapsus” (Likewise her mind was less

than a skindapsus.)

Page 265, “coni” changed to “coin” (well-formed like the coin)

Page 265, “tessedrachmas” changed to “tetradrachmas” (he likened to the

Attic tetradrachmas)

Page 268, “perssn” changed to “person” (why he was the only person)

Page 269, “entertaiments” changed to “entertainments” (in entertainments

of that kind)

Page 270, “sumits” changed to “summits” (The summits of Olympus)

Page 271, “Innaseas” changed to “Mnaseas” (his father Mnaseas often came

to Athens)

Page 272, “Hesophila” changed to “Herophila” (the sixth was a physician

of Herophila), although it is possible “a Herophilean physician”, i.e. a

follower of Herophilus, is intended here.

Page 273, “Halcymeus” changed to “Halcyoneus” (to whose son, Halcyoneus,

he also acted)

Page 273, “Theles” changed to “Thebes” (Philonides, of Thebes)

Page 274, “Posidorus” changed to “Posidonius” (Diogenes, the Babylonian;

and Posidonius)

Page 274, “Archidemus” changed to “Archedemus” (Chrysippus, and

Archedemus, and Eudromus)

Page 275, “coversant” changed to “conversant” (which is conversant with

rules and tests)

Page 279, “Boethius” changed to “Boethus” (For Boethus leaves a great

many criteria)

Page 279, “Archidemus” changed to “Archedemus” (so it is laid down by

Archedemus)

Page 282, “deificiences” changed to “deficiencies” (of attributes and

deficiencies)

Page 291, “Archidemus” changed to “Archedemus” (And Archedemus defines it)

Page 297, “exite” changed to “excite” (do not excite any inclination)

Page 306, “Chrysyppus” changed to “Chrysippus” (Another doctrine of

Chrysippus)

Page 306, “Thrasmides” changed to “Thrasonides” (Accordingly, that

Thrasonides)

Page 316, “sone” changed to “some” (some of them are shakings)

Page 318, “Scion” changed to “Siren” (surnamed the Siren)

Page 320, “Scayon” changed to “Scazon” (a jesting epigram on him in

Scazon iambics)

Page 326, “Innesistratus” changed to “Mnesistratus” (Once, when

Mnesistratus accused him)

Page 328, “Dioles” changed to “Diocles” (as Diocles reports)

Page 328, “Cryxippus” changed to “Crypsippus” (Carneades called him

Crypsippus)

Page 330, “Aristocrea” changed to “Aristocreon” (the sons of his sister,

Aristocreon and Philocrates)

Page 330, “heirophant” changed to “hierophant” (the hierophant reveals

them)

Page 331, repeated word “a” removed (there is then a head that you have

not got)

Page 333, “Sosigines” changed to “Sosigenes” (addressed to Sosigenes and

Alexander)

Page 333, “Panthorides” changed to “Panthoides” (Ambiguous Expressions,

by Panthoides)

Page 333, “Agatha” changed to “Agathon” (an essay to Agathon)

Page 334, “Meliager” changed to “Meleager” twice (addressed to Meleager /

addressed also to Meleager)

Page 334, “hyopthethical” changed to “hypothetical” (of hypothetical

reasoning to serve as an Introduction)

Page 334, missing word “to” added (an introduction to Fallacy, addressed

to Aristocreon)

Page 335, “Oretis” changed to “Outis” (an essay on the Argument Outis)

Page 340, “maner” changed to “manner” (writes in the following manner)

Page 341, “Scopeadæ” changed to “Scopiadæ” (the poem called the Scopiadæ)

Page 343, “then” changed to “them” (allowed his disciples to eat them)

Page 353, “Innesimachus” changed to “Mnesimachus” (And Mnesimachus says

in his Alcmæon)

Page 353, “Austophon” changed to “Aristophon” (Aristophon says in his

Pythagorean)

Page 354, “Cortona” changed to “Crotona” (at the house of Milo, of

Crotona)

Page 356, “Sarapian” changed to “Sarapion” (Heraclides, the son of

Sarapion)

Page 356, “Phythagoras” changed to “Pythagoras” (Should you Pythagoras’

doctrine wish to know)

Page 357, “Echurates” changed to “Echecrates” (and Echecrates, and Diodes)

Page 359, “Jelanges” changed to “Telauges” (Now Telauges and Theano we

have mentioned)

Page 360, “Jelanges” changed to “Telauges” twice (But Telauges, the son

of Pythagoras / the letter of Telauges)

Page 362, missing section number “VI.” added in what seemed to be the

appropriate place for it (VI. The case of the dead woman)

Page 364, “κοουφῆς” changed to “κορυφῆς” (Ἀκροτάτης κορυφῆς τύμβος ἄκρος

κατέχει.)

Page 369, “Innesagoras” changed to “Mnesagoras” (the son of Mnesagoras)

Page 369, “Orellus” changed to “Ocellus” (the descendants of Ocellus)

Page 373, “Octacteris” changed to “Octaeteris” (the treatise called the

Octaeteris)

Page 373, “Mansolus” changed to “Mausolus” (he also went to the court of

Mausolus)

Page 373, “Nichomachus” changed to “Nicomachus” (Nicomachus, the son of

Aristotle)

Page 374, “Sicilist” changed to “Siciliot” (the third, a Siciliot, a son

of Agathocles)

Page 376, “Heraceon” changed to “Heracion” (the son of Blyson, or, as

some say, of Heracion)

Page 381, “Phaleruus” changed to “Phalereus” (Demetrius Phalereus also

mentions him)

Page 381, “Scythenus” changed to “Scythinus” (Scythinus, an iambic poet)

Page 382, “Zande” changed to “Zancle” (lived at Zancle, in Sicily)

Page 383, “Anaxemander” changed to “Anaximander” (a contemporary of

Anaximander)

Page 384, “Diochartes” changed to “Diochaetes” (and Diochaetes the

Pythagorean)

Page 386, “Ithageses” changed to “Ithagenes” (a Samian, and the son of

Ithagenes)

Page 386, “Telentagoras” changed to “Teleutagoras” (he was by nature the

son of Teleutagoras)

Page 396, “Artmography” changed to “Actinography” (Actinography, or a

discussion on Rays of Light)

Page 389, “resistence” changed to “resistance” (according to the

resistance of the centre)

Page 396, “Rythm” changed to “Rhythm” (A treatise on Rhythm and Harmony)

Page 397, “Prodicas” changed to “Prodicus” twice (He, and Prodicus of

Ceos / Prodicus had a very powerful voice)

Page 398, “Allidomas” changed to “Alcidamas” (but Alcidamas says that)

Page 405, “Memenius” changed to “Numenius” (Numenius is the only writer

who asserts)

Page 405, “Epianus” changed to “Epicurus” (was the master of Epicurus)

Page 407, “antethetical” changed to “antithetical” (antithetical force of

words)

Page 409, “Phyrrho” changed to “Pyrrho” (Pyrrho lays down in the

following manner)

Page 414, “iotellect” changed to “intellect” (either sense or intellect)

Page 414, “dawn” changed to “down” (those opinions which are laid down

previously)

Page 422, “Cercipes” changed to “Cercopes” (through the forum of the

Cercopes)

Page 423, “Nilolochus” changed to “Nicolochus” (Nicolochus of Rhodes)

Page 423, “Pracylus” changed to “Praylus” (Praylus of the Troas)

Page 423, “Xeuxippus” changed to “Zeuxippus” (Zeuxippus Polites)

Page 423, “Gonicpus” changed to “Goniopus” (Zeuxis Goniopus)

Page 423, “Theodos” changed to “Theodas” (Theodas, of Laodicea)

Page 424, “had Colonis and” changed to “had colonised” (as the Athenians

had colonised Samos)

Page 425, “Inus” changed to “Mus” (a slave, whose name was Mus)

Page 425, repeated word “as” removed (well as one of his brothers)

Page 425, “Leontius” changed to “Leonteus” (Themista, the wife of

Leonteus)

Page 426, “Marmaricem” changed to “Marmarium” (and among them Marmarium)

Page 427, “nicnamed Lerocrates” changed to “nicknamed Lerocritus”

(Democritus, he nicknamed Lerocritus)

Page 427, “friend” changed to “friends” (his friends who were so numerous)

Page 427, “Inus” changed to “Mus” (the one whom I have mentioned already,

named Mus)

Page 428, “his” changed to “is” (among whom is Apollodorus)

Page 430, “sucessors” changed to “successors” (my immediate successors

hand it down)

Page 431, “Inus” changed to “Mus” (Of my slaves, I hereby emancipate Mus)

Page 432, “Bates” changed to “Batis” (he gave his sister Batis in

marriage)

Page 432, “Leontius” changed to “Leonteus” (There was also Leonteus, of

Lampsacus)

Page 433, “Chæridemus” changed to “Chæredemus” (the Chæredemus, a

treatise on the Gods)

Page 433, “Hegesiana” changed to “Hegesianax” (the Hegesianax; four

essays on Lives)

Footnote 8, “diety” changed to “deity” (the national deity of the Ionians)

Footnote 31, “μιμογράφον” changed to “μιμογράφου” (The Greek is τοῦ

μιμογράφου.)

Footnote 31, “μῖμιοι” changed to “μῖμοι” (μῖμοι σπουδαίων)

Footnote 80, “Euripid” changed to “Euripides” (the Antiope of Euripides)

Footnote 82, “adversariese” changed to “adversaries” (knocked down his

adversaries)

Footnote 108, missing word “of” added (which Ovid puts into the mouth of

Pythagoras); “Jononis” changed to “Junonis” (templo Junonis in Argis)

Footnote 111, “Challidian” changed to “Chalcidian” (towns of Chalcidian

origin)

Footnote 119, “Linæan” changed to “Lenæan” (the second or Lenæan

festivals)

Footnote 127, “Valchenær” changed to “Valckenær” (Valckenær conjectures)

Footnote 143, “Trachinæ” changed to “Trachiniæ” (the Trachiniæ of

Sophocles)

Index entry, “Alemæon” changed to “Alcmæon”

Index entry under Ariston, “Scion” changed to “Siren”

Index entry, “Arnicereans” changed to “Annicereans” and moved to the

correct alphabetical position

Index entry under Bias, “Priam” changed to “Priene”

Index entry, “Clido” changed to “Chilo”

Index entry, “Endoxus” changed to “Eudoxus”

Index entry, “Gynosophistæ” changed to “Gymnosophistæ”

Index entry under Plato, “Alcinus” changed to “Alcimus”

Index entry, “Thesmopheria” changed to “Thesmophoria”

Index entry, “Zaleneus” changed to “Zaleucus”

Greek ς, when not at the end of a word, has been normalised to σ.

Punctuation and accents have been amended without note as have æ/œ

ligature substitutions. Where there was any doubt the text is left as

printed; any remaining errors are as they appeared in the original.