Note 22 — Chapter XIX · THE MORAL SCIENCE OF THE EPICUREANS. GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

(2) Reasons for rising superior to the senses. At the same time, the Epicureans, if consistent with their principles, could not deny that bodily pleasure is the earlier form, and likewise the ultimate source, of all pleasure, and neither Epicurus nor his favourite pupil Metrodorus shrank from making this admission; Epicurus declaring that he could form no conception of the good apart from enjoyments22 of the senses; Metrodorus asserting that everything good has reference to the belly.23 For all that the Epicureans did not feel themselves driven to give up the pre-eminence which they claimed for goods of the soul over those of the body. Did even the Stoics, notwithstanding the grossness of their theory of knowledge, ever abate their demand for a knowledge of conceptions; or cease to subordinate the senses to reason, although they built their theory of morals on nature? But all definite character has vanished from these intellectual joys and pains. The only distinctive feature which they possess is the addition either of memory, or of hope, or of fear24 to the present feeling of pleasure or pain; and their greater importance is simply ascribed to the greater force or duration belonging to ideal feelings as compared with the attractions which momentarily impress the senses.25 Incidentally the remembrance of philosophic discourses is mentioned26 as a counterpoise to bodily pain; properly speaking, mental pleasures and pains are not different from other pleasures in kind, but only in degree, by reason of their being stronger and more enduring. Accordingly Epicurus cannot escape the admission that we have no cause for rejecting gross and carnal enjoyments if these can liberate us from the fear of higher powers, of death, and of sufferings;27 and thus the only consolation he can offer in pain is the uncertain one that the most violent pains either do not last long, or else put an end to life; and the less violent ones ought to be endured since they do not exclude a counterbalancing pleasure.28 Hence victory over the impression of the moment must be won, not so much by mental force stemming the tide of feeling, as by a proper estimate of the conditions and actions of the senses.