Note 1 — Chapter XIV · THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE AND ITS HISTORICAL POSITION.

A. Character of Epicurean system. (1) Its power of self-preservation. The scientific value and capacity for development of Epicureanism are out of all proportion to its extensive diffusion and the length of time during which it continued to flourish. No other system troubled itself so little about the foundation on which it rested; none confined itself so exclusively to the utterances of its founder. Such was the dogmatism with which Epicurus propounded his precepts, such the conviction he entertained of their excellence, that his pupils were required to commit summaries of them to memory;1 and the superstitious devotion for the founder was with his approval2 carried to such a length, that on no single point was the slightest deviation from his tenets permitted. Although, even in Cicero’s time, the writings of Epicurus and Metrodorus found hardly a reader outside the School,3 yet it is asserted that as late as the first and second centuries after Christ the Epicureans clung tenaciously to their master’s teaching.4 Probably it was easier for an Epicurean than for any other thinker to act thus. Like his master,5 he was indifferent to the labours of other philosophers, or unable to appreciate their merits.6 For us this conduct of theirs has one advantage: we can be far more certain that the Epicurean teaching reflects that of the founder than we can that this is so in the case of the Stoics. But this philosophical sterility, this mechanical handing down of unchangeable principles, places the intellectual value of Epicureanism on the lowest level. The servile dependence of the Epicurean School on its founder can neither excuse its mental idleness nor recommend a system so powerless to give an independent training to its supporters.