Note 1 — Chapter XIII

Epicureanism, in its original form, was the expression of a character as unlike as possible to that of Lucretius. It arose in a state of society and under circumstances widely different from the social and political condition of the last phase of the Roman Republic. It was a doctrine suited to the easy social life which succeeded to the great political career, the energetic ambition, and the creative genius which ennobled the great age of Athenian liberty. It was essentially the philosophy of the ῥεῖα ζώοντες, who found in refined and regulated pleasure, in friendliness and sociability, a compensation for the loss of political existence, and of the sacred associations and ideal glories of their ancestral religion. Human life, stripped of its solemn meaning and high practical interest, was supposed to be understood and realised, and brought under the control of a comfortable and intelligible philosophy. Pleasure was the obvious end of existence; the highest aim of knowledge was to ascertain the conditions under which most enjoyment could be secured; the triumph of the will was to conform to these conditions. All violent emotion, all care and anxiety, whatever impaired the capacity of enjoyment or fostered artificial desire, was to be controlled or resisted, as inimical to the tranquillity of the soul. The philosophers of the garden taught and acted on the practical truth, that pleasure depended on the mind more than on external things; that a simple life tended more to happiness than luxury1; that excess of every kind was followed by reaction. They inculcated political quiescence as well as the abnegation of personal ambition. As death was 'the end of all,' life was to be temperately enjoyed while it lasted, and resigned when necessary, with cheerful composure.